“I’ll make Ramsay Snow pay.”
“I doubt it. Men like that don’t get what they deserve.” – Jon Snow
Game of Thrones: The Lost Lords, the second episode in Telltale’s episodic adaptation of the television series, moves swiftly through it’s 105 minutes of playtime. A diverse set of new environments are introduced as we follow Gared Tuttle’s perilous journey through the Wall (Where I got to actually say “Winter is coming” to Jon Snow.) and Asher’s journey through the deserted city of Yunkai, protected by a legion of soldiers. Existing places are brought back, such as following House Forrester’s struggle at Ironrath, and Mira Forrester at King’s Landing. It’s eventful alright, but very straightforward.
Asher Forrester is introduced as a cocky man, who isn’t afraid to use his sword. His scenes are mainly pure humour with his sidekick Beskha, and is therefore really given no massive, difficult decisions other than choosing whether or not to kill people that tried to kill him. There’s nothing really to him in Episode Two, and I do hope we can get more information from him in Episode Three.
A surprisingly likeable character is introduced into House Forrester, and we get to see the family struggle through grief and, with their house now protected by Whitehill soldiers, their house slowly falling apart and crumbling to it’s knees. In Episode One, I picked Ser Royland to be my chief advisor, however it’s uncovered that this really meant nothing, so again, I am hoping to see a bit more discretion in his dialogue as when he did speak, which wasn’t often, it wasn’t really all important to the storyline.
My personal favourite character in The Lost Lords is Gared Tuttle, and his journey through the wall. It’s incredibly thrilling – you take part in crossbow training, sword training and strength training. However, this training is mostly made up of dull quick-time events, and the real interesting thing about Tuttle’s story is the complexity. You meet a character at the wall who you will very quickly learn to hate, and also meet another very likeable character – Jon Snow. “Why do you want to become a ranger?” “Because winter is coming.”
The hardest decision by far was in Mira Forrester’s story in The Lost Lords –Â Â choosing whether to betray Lady Margaery’s trust was an incredibly difficult decision. Although it doesn’t match up to the first episode’s tension with Queen Cersei, who in fact is not seen in this episode, there is still some tough decisions in Mira’s storyline. However, what I did notice in Mira’s part of Episode Two is that most choices have no timer, so you can sit there and ponder your decisions. It’s times like this that Telltale really manage to hit the nail on the head with Game of Thrones’ moral lows.
Game of Thrones Episode Two, unlike Episode 1, suffers from an extremely low pace leading up to a pretty unsatisfying ending, apart from a beautiful song sang by Lady Talia at the end of the episode. There’s a clear murder plot going on, yet the momentum for it has yet to build up. The mentioned North Grove in Episode 1 still does not seem to make an appearance, and we’re still waiting to learn the secret of it. After the shocking events of Episode One, Episode Two is a small disappointment, and I was hoping for just that bit more from Telltale.
7/10
Details:
Released for: Xbox One [reviewed], PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC, Steam, iOS & Android.
Released on:
- 3rd February: PS3, PS4, PC/Mac, Steam
- 4th February: Xbox 360, Xbox One
- 5th February: Android, IOS
Price: £3.99/$5.00/€5.00
Developer: Telltale Games
Publisher: Telltale Games
Pros:
- Extremely likeable characters
- Jon Snow
- Diverse set of new environments
- Affordable price tag for an ok episode.
- Thrilling difficult choices in Mira’s story.
Cons:
- Bland choices in every story apart from Mira’s
- Less exciting than Episode 1.
- Choices from Episode 1 didn’t really seem to mean much.
- Not enough revealed to make the episode exciting
