| Title | The Walking Dead: Michonne (via Definitive Edition all-in-one disc) |
| Platform: | PlayStation 4 |
| Genre: | zombies, telltale, story driven, adventure, point and click |
| Date completed: | September 2021 |
Summary review: A spin-off adventure that is probably canon to the comic book. Unlike Clementine’s story, players may or may not be lost when starting this. There’s a lot of history and backstory with Michonne in the comics.
Graphics: I think this is the season 3 engine so it’s about on par with that.
Music: So far the music has been a departure from the Clementine series but it’s still effective and I think I like it.
Controls: About on par with season 3 of the TWD games: interactive enough and good enough to get through the story. I didn’t have any complaints.
Replayability: This story isn’t that memorable and the story forks didn’t seem that compelling. I don’t think I can see myself playing this again.
Total score: 70 / 100 – It’s not that there’s nothing good about the story, it’s not that memorable. I can see extremely big fans of the comic series wanting to get even more into Michonne’s head because she’s an interesting character but as a standalone game goes I’m not sure how much I can recommend it.
Introduction
Reviews for the rest of the games on this disc. This story is unrelated to Clementine’s story. I’m just trying to complete here.
- Game Review: The Walking Dead DE: Season 1 + 400 days – PS4
- Game Review: The Walking Dead DE: Season 2 – PS4
- Game Review: The Walking Dead DE: Season 3 – PS4
- Game Review: The Walking Dead DE: Season 4 – PS4
Note: This review will not contain spoilers for the story, just some commentary on the story without going into details and some information on the play mechanics.
In the comics, there was a time jump of several years (it doesn’t directly specify). When the story picks up Michonne – a main character of the comics – is no longer around and it takes a while before there is an explanation. At least in the parts I read Michonne never really describes where she was or what happened in that time.
This game is that story during the missing time period.
And perhaps I should say Michonne is possibly the absolutely best character of the comic book. She has some emotional trauma in her past that can affect her at times. This game is exploring that past trauma how she tries to deal with what it’s doing to her psyche.
Since “mini series” is in the title it should come as no surprise how short it is: only three episodes about an hour each.
The plot involves Michonne as a member of a crew of a small boat. They’re trying to figure out what happened to an otherwise very active bay that’s mysteriously silent now. Right about the time of that mystery a voice comes over the radio asking for help.
As is expected this leads to interrogations, lies, betrayals, shaky hands on triggers and a gun fight.
But really that’s just a backdrop. The game is about Michonne trying to come to grips with her past and move on in some form. I’d like to say the house at the end is some kind of metaphor but…I’m not smart enough to make that call.
Actually I thought at least one of the two antagonists was actually quite a complex character. And made some points about who the real bad guy was. The other protagonist really should have been knee-capped. But that wasn’t an option.
It’s not so much a bad story as a forgettable one. It’s not really enough time to get to know Michonne or appreciate her trauma and it’s hard to tell how over her trauma she really is at the end. I don’t know if they had planned a follow up story to this mini-series or not but either way I can’t see the point of a character’s “he will remember that” five minutes before the end credits. So what if he remembers it? The story is over. Maybe that’s just how the game editor works.
Now some negatives…
I had some issues with registering my button pushes at the prompts. Or my reflexes aren’t great. One of those two.
Other than that it’s a fine short story that I think is exactly the right length.
Also, what happened to the original story thread? The missing friends of the one character? Seems like that thread kind of got dropped. Guess it’s implied what happened to them.
Conclusion
If you really love Michonne from the comics and want to know where she went during that time jump I can’t think of why you wouldn’t want to play it and find out. Or if you just have a spare three hours to kill. I think the worst I can about it is that it’s “mediocre”.
Metadata
| Method of control used | Regular PS4 gamepad |
| Controllable via both one analog stick or digital four-way (“HAT”) | n/a |
| Hardware requirements: | n/a |
| Supports 21:9 aspect ratio screens? | n/a |
| Device(s) tried on | PS4 (non-pro) |
| TV | 2020-era 55″ 4k TV with HDR specialness |
| Initial setup required | Turned on subtitles |
| Sound setup | 5.1 surround system/receiver |
| Total time to completion | ~3 hours (the game and PS4 don’t track time elapsed so best guess) |
| difficulty level | “Normal” difficulty, turned on some visual click points to be less frustrating. |
Tildes on the side 