Editor’s Note: Before reading this review, we highly recommend checking out our review for Episode One: The Order of the Stone , Episode 2: Assembly Required , Episode 3: The Last Place You Look and Episode 4: A Block and a Hard Place as there are spoilers ahead.
The game begins with the newly formed Order of the Stone infiltrating a dungeon that Ivor tipped them off to. They manage to find a treasure room that contains what appears to be an enchanted flint and steel. After escaping the booby trapped dungeon, they come across the former Ocelots and their leader Aiden. They don't seem too happy with the fact that you reached the dungeon before they did, Aiden mostly, and they begin to spew hurtful comments to the new team. Ambushed by the former Ocelots, now known as the Blaze Rods, Jessie and his friends explore an entirely new area only known as Sky City where resources are plentiful but nothing exists below the world. the world is conceived using what is only knows as the Eversource, a material that has the power to create all materials. Aiden convinces the city's ruler that the Order is up to no good so that they can be punished and he could take the Eversource for himself. While this episode may be jam-packed with story and new characters, be warned; this will not be the last we see of Minecraft: Story Mode.
At this point I thank them for the interview and ask if they can send me some of the screenshots they showed me so I can put them in the write up which based on the above screenshot they obviously agreed to. I have played Minecraft, and while I can appreciate what it does and see why it has the popularity it has, I was never able to get into it. Dragon Quest Builders, on the other hand, was much more enjoyable, at least in my opinion. Perhaps it is because I am a long time Dragon Quest fan and enjoy the story component but regardless of the reason I did enjoy the time I spent with the demo. From the limited exposure I did get it seems like this really is an adventure/RPG that uses the building block mechanic and not a simple Minecraft clone dressed up like Dragon Quest. As a result of my time playing the demo and this discussion, I am looking forward to getting my hands on the final version and testing out my bonfire prison idea. Dragon Quest games have always had the same game designer, character designer, and composer, who are respectively Yuji Horii, Akira Toriyama, and Koichi Sugiyaman. These three have worked on the franchise for its thirty year existence and are all on board with Dragon Quest Builders.
From the same people that brought us Game of Thrones and Tales From the Borderlands comes their newest decision based game, Minecraft: Story Mode. Telltale Games is notorious for their rigorous storytelling and memorable characters and this time is no different. You play as Jesse, regardless of which gender you choose at the beginning, who is on a mission to create the greatest build at EnderCon, (Enderman Convention if you didn't catch on). The winner gets to meet the great Gabriel of the Order of the Stone, a group of people who slayed the Ender Dragon years ago but have disbanded since. Of course, the episode would be nothing without some kind of story of revenge that spirals the characters into an adventure that they would have never seen themselves in. Someone sets out to create a Wither, a huge monster that sets out to consume everything, leaving you and your friends to seek out the Order of the Stone. You are accompanied by your friends Olivia, confidant and trusty, Axel, large and loyal, and Reuben, a pig. Telltale hit the nail on the head this time with a different, family-friendly take on one of their main installments. No prior knowledge of the original building game is needed, but it would help if you had some basic terminology.
(Image: https://www.freepixels.com/class=)Finally, the construction element is there. Minecraft ’s blocky aesthetic has constantly been compared to that of LEGO’s, and really that’s true. In fact, it’s likely that it was intended to be that way. As kids, many of us were fascinated with LEGO’s. Building castles and cars using fundamentally simple components was appealing. Even better, it breathed experimentation. It encouraged trying something new. It fed that feeling of individual creative freedom by allowing us to build something that we wanted. That idea is omnipresent in Minecraft ; it’s the crux of the construction element in the game. Simple cubes of dirt, rock or sand can be used to build everything from houses to skyscrapers to sculptures. With a little hard work, you can make your “castle of dreams.” The Creative Mode, with its free movement and ample resources, is the pinnacle of this mentality; you can create what you want. And gamers have. There are hundreds of Minecraft crafting Guide videos online of people building enormous, monolithic structures with the game’s basic building pieces. Minecraft has proven that this idea can be made into something massive; gamers are guaranteed to create something when given the tools to do so.