Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series: Episode 4 - Who Needs You
Score: 85% Publisher: Telltale Games Developer: Telltale Games Media: Download/1 Players: 1; 2 - 12 (Crowd Play) Genre: Adventure
Previously On Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy: Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series: Episode 4 - Who Needs You starts off just after Peter decides what to do about the Eternity Forge. Did you have him destroy it, or power it up? Were you focused on keeping it out of the hands of Hala or was the temptation to bring back lost loved ones too much to resist? What about the relationship between Gamora and Nebula? In Episode 3 - More Than a Feeling, Peter was given a chance to either help bring the sisters back together or to shun Nebula and send her packing. These two decisions shape a lot of how Episode 3 ended. Regardless of those choices, Hala and her Kree warriors storm into the chamber where Peter decides what to do with the Eternity Forge. If you destroyed it, Hala becomes immensely pissed, but it seems the fractured artifact still bestows some power to her. If you powered it up, then the Eternity Forge ends up in Hala's hands complete and fully restored. Your decisions regarding Nebula put the cyborg assassin either on the side of the Guardians or accompanying Hala in the fight, but each have their own consequences, and at least one possible outcome leaves Nebula severely injured. Unfortunately, Who Needs You doesn't do much to advance the overall plot, at least with regards to the Guardians facing off against Hala and whatever power she has over the Forge. Instead, the aftermath of the fight leaves all of the Guardians falling down a massive cavern into the depths of the planet that housed the temple and it isn't until the final scenes of this episode that the Guardians emerge from the place and have to figure out what to do about Hala. That's not to say nothing of significance happens in Episode 4, it just feels like the developers realized they had a lot more to do and the overall plot was drawing to a close faster than they had intended.
Spelunkers of the Galaxy: Once Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series: Episode 4 - Who Needs You really gets started, it will find Peter and his friends deep underground and stranded, looking for a way out and off of the planet. When the group encounters a rock-like worm that seems to easily burrow through the surrounding cavern, they follow the creature in the hopes of finding a way out, and while not everyone agrees with this plan, in the face of no other options, they all have to trail behind the little guy. When the Guardians inevitably encounter a nest of the creatures that are far more hostile than the first one they encountered, the team has to yet again fight for their survival. When the dust settles though, many of the issues that have been troubling the various team members start to bubble up and the group divides at a fork in the path. As you might expect, Peter is forced to choose which path to go down and as a result either chase after Rocket or Gamora, further frustrating the Guardian that you didn't follow. As in the past episodes of Guardians of the Galaxy, Peter gets insight into one of his friends. When Peter and Drax become entangled and Mantis, the team's newest member, tries to help, Peter plunges into one of Drax's memories, that of a training session with his daughter and one of the last moments he spent time with her. While sharing this memory with Drax helps him and Peter grow closer as friends, this particular flashback feels more perfunctory than the others. In past memories, the player, and Peter, gained a greater understanding of Rocket and Gamora and the flashbacks were a major focus of the episode. In Who Needs You though, the situation feels forced and shoehorned into the story mainly because everyone is expecting a flashback for Drax, but given his character's fairly simple motivations, there doesn't really appear to be much more to learn about the big man's past.
This Is No Cave: As Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series: Episode 4 - Who Needs You continues, the team finally finds their ship, the Milano. Unfortunately in their attempt to flee, they wake up a huge version of one of the rock worms and end up eaten, much like the Millennium Falcon in Empire Strikes Back. Settled uncomfortably in the stomach of the giant monster, Peter must explore their surroundings looking for anything he can salvage off of the other ships that have found their last stop in the acid-filled area. While Peter moves from platform to platform, the rest of the crew have to lighten the ship's load as much as possible if they have any hope of getting out of the creature and out-racing it to the surface. Of course, Peter will have to make similar sacrifices and the player will have to dig through many of his belongings and decide what should stay and what should go. Exactly what and how much you decide to throw out can change how the rest of the crew feels about losing their possessions, but it's hard to tell if this particular piece of the story will have any lasting effects outside of how the Milano is decorated in future episodes.
Next Time On Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy: I have mixed feelings about Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series: Episode 4 - Who Needs You. On the one hand, there is a lot of character development going on, and many of the choices you make in earlier episodes will affect the state of the team by the time Peter and his crew get back to Knowhere, but the fact that the entire episode feels more like a side-note to the overall game makes this episode the weakest so far. No matter how you play things, the team is a mess and Hala is out in space doing who knows what with her powers. There is only one episode left for everything to wrap up, and I have no idea how Episode 5 - Don't Stop Believin' will both fix the broken relationship between Peter and his friends and stop Hala on her mission to resurrect the Kree Empire. It could be that a lot of the next episode will be a setup for a follow-up season, but if so, Episode 5 still has a lot of ground to cover if it is going to have even a somewhat satisfying season finale.
-J.R. Nip, GameVortex Communications AKA Chris Meyer
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