It's not a game -- that's the bottom line. "Minecraft: Story Mode" is a mildly interactive animated movie, which is interesting in the world of animation -- the "choose your own adventure" storytelling "game" trend -- but isn't really something you *play*. There are choices to make, most of which don't impact the direction of the story at all (what to say, what to name things, etc), and all of which need to lead back to roughly the same place for the story to maintain its continuity. There is crafting, but at set places with set materials and no real decision-making involved. There is building, but only by repeatedly pushing a single button to make the game do what it's pre-programmed to do, when it tells you to do it. You can die, but you simply begin again where you died and try until you get it right (which is never actually hard). I bought this for my kids (ages seven and eight), and they weren't disappointed (in other than the length -- about an hour per episode so far**), so I can't rate it too low. But there is unfulfilled potential here -- some as an interactive movie and a lot as a game -- and unlike Minecraft, which appeals to a wide range of ages, this one is mostly just for the kids. There's nothing wrong with games for kids, but still, with the Minecraft name attached and all that implies, for these reasons I also can't rate it very high. ** My kids think the two episodes currently released, had they been released together, would have made a decent single episode length, for whatever it's worth. *I* think episode two in particular looked mostly like space filler.
There was a time in which I thought gaming meant, by definition, being a first person shooter or battle strategy enthusiast (which I am not). By chance I found Samorost/Samorost 2, and from there Machinarium, and from there the entire spectrum of indie/adventure/puzzle games which both piqued my interest and expanded my definition. I mention this to point out that a lot of the flaws other reviewers found in this game -- short length, pixel hunting, repetitive actions, progress-slowing animations -- brought me back to that first time I played Samorost, inspiring more happy nostalgia than frustration. I can not overstate how much I loved playing this game. The art is gorgeous, reminiscent of both film animation and fine children's books. The gameplay mostly exists to support/further the art, but if you're into the atmosphere that can be surprisingly ok. Why, then, the low star rating? It's all about the ending. There's so little to this style of game that their storylines alone can make or break them. Realistically they are interactive stories more they are proper puzzles. Until the very end, Lilly Looking Through was a simply told story with a low-key undercurrent of suspense. And then ... nothing. No conclusion, no closure, no explanations, no return home, no nothing. The problem is not that the game is short -- wonderful stories can be short -- it's that it's either incomplete or a poorly told tale. It would have taken very little to give Lilly a reasonably satisfying conclusion while still leaving it open to sequels, if the creators so desired. Shortening it by a chapter would have nearly accomplished this by itself. Having chosen instead so ambiguous and abrupt an ending is confusing, frustrating, and was, in the end, destructive to the quality of the game itself.
