This review contains minor spoilers for both the game and show

I recently watched the show for the first time and I when I remembered that this existed I was eager to play it to carry on my interest in the franchise. Unfortunately what you get is a mixed bag of bland characters, crammed in cameo's and predictable plot points.

The story itself is inserted into the shows canon between the end of series 3 and series 4. It starts at the red wedding and if I were to guess finishes just before the end of season 4. Due to this you get to see a few major plot points take place from an outsider perspective. Which is something that I am a fan of, I like when movies, shows or games have key plot points going on at the same time that you can see from different people's perspectives. In total you play as 5 different members of House Forrester who are an original creation of this game. Each character is located in different parts of the land so that they could add in as many characters from the show as possible. Rodrik and Ethan are placed in the north during the aftermath of the red wedding, Asher is in Essos during Daenerys attacks against the slavers, Mira is in Kings Landing at the time of Joffrey and Margaery's wedding and Gared is sent to the wall when Jon is leading the march against the members of the night's watch who turned traitor. Multiple characters from the show are present across the game, most notably Jon Snow, Tyrion and Cersei Lannister, Ramsey Snow, Margaery Tyrell and Daenerys Targaryen. Most of these feel like they are only here for the sake of it with the exception of Margaery and Ramsey who both play important parts in the story. It is cool that they got all the actors to play their characters but most just felt unnecessary to me.

The actual story is a bit underwhelming as it is just a basic house rivalry with infrequent cameo's from familiar characters. Most of the playable characters aren't the most interesting but none are really bad by any means, just bland. Same goes for side characters, some are decent but nothing compared to TellTale's other work. Personally I think that the first three episodes drag hard as the same thing keeps happening over and over again. Thankfully it picks up during the last three. When it comes to the different character's sections I was a fan of Gared's story at the wall and I enjoyed Mira's story at Kings landing, I liked the main part in the north with Rodrik but I wasn't a fan of the stuff in Essos with Asher. My biggest complaint when it comes to the story is the traitor plot as neither of the characters who can be the traitor make any sense when you see how they act throughout the game.

Choice wise its the same as most telltale games where none of your choices really matter. However I found that in this game as compared to other TellTale ones that I played, your actions from earlier episodes are mentioned more frequently where as they are normally just forgotten.

Visually this hasn't aged great, Im a big fan of the painted backdrops I think they look great but I experienced a lot of visual glitches regarding character models and the background of walking segments. Score wise however it incorporates a lot of music from the show which is great.

Now I think this games biggest downfall is the fact that it ended clearly setting up a second season, which was originally meant to be released but was cancelled in 2017 shortly before TellTale closed down. The game ends rather inconclusively with multiple characters where abouts unknown or in dangerous situations and it is looking almost certain that there will not be a follow up due to the show being long since concluded and the sour note it ended on. Due to this I am not letting the way it ended lower my score any as it is of no fault of this game that it never got a sequel. Overall, If you are a fan of the show and can be bothered to hunt down a physical copy due to this being erased from digital stores then it is worth a play but compared to TellTale's other work at the time it is definitely on the lower end of the scale.

this game really doesn't know if it wants to wrap in 1 season or flow into another and with telltale's state being messy it's very unfinished

but good story telling and use of the ip

improves a bit technologically compared to twd and twau

One of my least favourite Telltale games I've played, beating out only Minecraft: Story Mode.

To preface, I was never much a fan of Game of Thrones - you'd think I would be, because I love the general dark fantasy setting and the complex world-building, but every time I attempted to watch the show I was just bored out of my mind and didn't click with any of the characters. That said, Telltale has pulled me in with IPs I didn't like before, so I gave it a shot.

I do like it better than the show, so there's that, but it's just so shallow and dragged-out. Really wasn't a fan of the visual style they went with in this one, and although I'd usually advocate for Telltale to give their games more than 5 episodes, the fact that this is the one that got 6 is annoying because by the end of it I was wishing it would hurry up and be over already. I absolutely dread replaying it for that reason.

I enjoyed Asher and Beskha, Gared and his Night Watch brothers' dynamic was fun (particularly Gared and Cotter), and I liked the Ethan twist at the end of Episode 1. That's pretty much it. Everything else was a borderline chore to wade through.

(Sidenote I include with all Telltale reviews, though it's less apt for this one as The Enemy Within has plenty of more obvious changes: Telltale's games often get a bad rap for having your choices not influence the story, but to me this misses the point of what they do. Variant endings are a nice bonus in games, and I enjoy them when they do pop up in Telltale's stories, but for the most part your choices aren't here to change where you go. They're there to change how you get there, who you are when you get there, and often who you get there with. They influence and change your relationships with the characters around you. The joy of replaying these games is to experience the different dialogue, the different reactions to you, the different routes you can take on the way, the different bonds you can evolve with people - not to have a wildly different ending. I think this aspect is overhated and sadly misunderstood by a lot of players, so if huge, game-changing differences are what you're looking for, I'd temper your expectations.)

Favourite Male Character: Asher
Favourite Female Character: Beskha
First Character I Liked: Ramsay
Favourite Character Design: Gwyn
Favourite Moment: Asher and Beskha's escape from the Legion(? can't for the life of me remember their name) at the start of their first appearance was fun
Least Favourite Character: Ludd and Gryff

On paper this game has a lot of neat ideas showing a smaller family in the universe of the series, and on paper it seems like these choices will matter but they really won’t minus roleplaying how you see your characters and one or two major things

I will say it doing the different perspectives that the show and book use is a really cool way of translating it into a game

I enjoyed my time but doesn’t compare to other telltale games, if you need more of a game of thrones fix, there’s plenty of better games to play

Or read the books

Felt like this one started strong but had a very weak ending. I understand they were slightly handcuffed by the show/books and could only do so much, but rather than try to tell a story that involved so many mainline characters who we knew were safe/died at a later time, why not pick something more interesting, or tell a side story. I'm not a dev and have no idea the amount of time/effort goes into a collaboration like this so I can't really talk, but it just felt like they couldn't back themselves out of the corners they painted in the earlier episodes to create a satisfying conclusion.

That's it, I've had it with Telltale's games. Most of your choices don't have any effect on the story, contrary to what the game tells you (I let this one pass on The Wolf Among Us because that was partly the point of the narrative, but not on this one). The plot is good, there are great characters, but that's just not enough for a game of this type. The game just makes a fool of you - It doesn't matter what you do, the ending of the game will spit in your face and tell you that you are a piece of shit for trying.

Any fan of Game of Thrones will love and quite possibly have the same hate for the series in that you love it, but hate how characters you love die and it seems there is no way out. You need to be smart with your choices and weight the consequences in your hands like any smart person in that universe for when you play the game of thrones you either win or you die and that is something hammered in well in this series.

I'm glad the characters I loved survived, however we'll see what happens in the future as there have been confirmed rumours for a sequel and I'd love to see what happens in the end.