Spoiler Mode
Minecraft: Story Mode
Episode 2
“Previously on Minecraft Story Mode… The Minecraft world is being destroyed
by a Wither Storm created by a man named Ivor. Later revealed to be a former
member of The Order, a group of 5 legendary heroes, Ivor’s Wither Storm is out
of his control and has obliterated our main character Jessie’s home town. As Jessie
escapes with his friends, the Wither Storm absorbs another member of The Order
named Gabriel along with Jessie’s friend Petra. Faced with a choice to
either enlist the help of Magnus the Rouge or Ellegaard the Redstone Engineer, Jessie must choose wisely or face oblivion….”
Well that was fast. Not 30 minutes
after posting the last Minecraft: Story Mode article, I heard news that episode
two was dropping the next day. So here we are again, just a little sooner than
I figured. Telltale usually spaces their episodic series installments out by a
few months, but episode two released within two weeks of the first one. Color
me surprised. Oh well, never complain about unexpected games. Let’s get down to
the brick and mortar now!
As much as Magnus’s explosive
questline sounded pretty badass, generally in games like this I stick to what I
consider the “Brains over Brawn” route. In this case I considered the engineer
to be the smarter choice, much to Jessie’s friend Axel’s annoyance. So Jessie
and Olivia are whisked away on an underground Minecart to Ellegaard’s
mechanical wonderland.
Upon arriving, Jessie and Olivia
find themselves in the midst of a group of builders trying to make their best
inventions to impress Ellegaard, who’s a sort of deity to these people. The
highlight of these inventions are a cow launcher, and a cow “Disco Party
Machine” complete with a curtain of lava. After helping out these builders (or sabotaging
them if you’re a jerk), Jessie gets all the pieces to open the door to
Ellegaard’s workshop. I was kind of taken back by Ellegaard’s personality at
first though. She’s pretty passive aggressive and nasty, but covers it with a
sweet voice and tone. After reluctantly helping her out on a project, the
Wither Storm unexpectedly attacks Ellegaard’s palace, which our heroes barely
escape.
Arriving to the HQ of The Order,
where you left the rest of your friends in the first episode, the group is
surprised to find that Axel went off on his own and brought Magnus back with
him. Also a surprise visitor, Petra has returned after escaping the Wither
Storm in the first chapter. Immediately Magnus and Ellegaard begin arguing,
which quickly got on my nerves. But eventually they craft a plan to go get some
super duper dynamite from Soren the Architect, the missing leader of The Order.
Petra later reveals she has a zombie like virus, contacted from the Wither,
with no idea of what the side effects will be going forward. Deep inside Soren’s
mountain lair, the heroes find and confront Ivor again. After a lengthy battle,
he hits the group with a potion that slows them down to a crawl and walks right
past them and out the door. With a maniacal cackle from Ivor, the episode ends.
Overall I thought this episode was
much weaker than the first one. It seemed rushed and had a short run time, only
around an hour. I’m hoping the next installment has more to it and gets more in
depth with the side characters. Jessie and Petra are fleshed out, but everyone
else seems thin at the moment. What I’m really hoping is everyone has at least
a chapter alone with Jessie so we can really dig into who they are. As usual I’ll
make a post when episode 3 drops, although it better not be next week because all
of my time will be committed to another world that has already faced it's destruction, Fallout 4. See you guys in the Wasteland!
-Rory
