This year marked the first time I played an episodic game that wasn't yet complete. Two, in fact. I didn't start either when they first released, but still got to experience the wait for about half of the episodes to release. Telltale's Game of Thrones left me wanting to never do that again ever.

I understood going into this that it would take time to complete this game. That was fine. From the titles I had already completed, I knew they were relatively quick games anyways so was okay with a bit of fun spread out through the year as a taste of a different style of game inbetween all the others I play. But man, Telltale's inability to maintaint a consistent release schedule compared to, say, Dontnod, was really aggravating. Especially with just how short the Game of Thrones episodes felt when isolated. Unless it's a title I'm really interested in, I'll probably just wait for seasons to complete in the future.

Which puts me in a bit of a predicament. This past year I finally really got into A Song of Ice and Fire. I'm caught up on the show and have read the first few books. So this side story game seemed perfect given how much I was enjoying the other content. It also means I'll probably ineveitibly still get Game of Thrones season 2, as I want to finish what I started. As this game left nothing finished.

No choices mattered here. That's the impressiong many share and I will strongly echo. No matter who you are playing as (character diversity here was a nice thing I'll admit), you all fail. Miserably. Some might try to argue that "that's just how Game of Thrones is," but I disagree. Even if it's not who you're rooting for, some character does succeed. And with how many we got to control here - plus just it being a game, not a book or a television show - the fact that not one makes it out with their head held high is a little unbelievable and simply not much fun.

I suppose Gared didn't really fail, but the loss of his friends along the way sucked. Plus given what you see with Rodrick/Asher, he's too late anyway. Even if his enthralled forces can remove the Whitehills in the next season, you're not saving much. The Wall and the north are my favorite parts about the series, so I did like playing Gared the most. I just felt disappointed by the end because of everything happening he doesn't know about.

Asher or Rodrick... I played them very differently so that was nice while it lasted, to see and live these very different lives. Asher is the surviving heir in my game for what it's worth.

Ugh, then Mira... I thought it'd be cool to see some politics at first, but ultimately no matter how you played the game, Telltale decided in the end that nope, she was actually horrible at it all along and the rest of her life is either going to be horrible or... she's... dead?? Wow. Huh. So basically she won't be a playable character next season or they'll kill her somehow anyway to make the storytelling easier. Because there's no real choices, everything gets funneled to the same ending with just minor events along the way changed.

That's how this game felt. Like nothing mattered. You were leading to... nothing. Literally! As the season didn't tell a full story. That's my biggest gripe here. At least with The Walking Dead, each season so far felt like it did a good job telling a whole story while still leaving an open road for the future. Here, too much was left unresolved

Oh and the art... Plus the game engine... Ugh. They wanted this game to look like an oil painting. I do not feel like they succeeded. The backgrounds early on (before I learned what their intent was) had me thinking the game was just being glitchy and not rendering things properly as everything has this blur to it that's incredibly distracting. I also finally felt Telltale's engine woes where critical scenes would load slowly or stutter, making me miss quick time events.

Game of Thrones is the first game that I'm not going to recommend. Not unless you're a diehard fan of the franchise and are interested in side stories at all. It was frustrating seeing your machinations not matter and annoying to realize going into the final episode that there would be no resolve just so they could push a second season. By the end, I just wasn't enjoying it as much and only going through the motions.

~|ET|~