After an underwhelming start, Minecraft: Story Mode’s third episode, The Last Place You Look, fixes issues which plagued the first two episodes and is easily the best episode yet. Improved combat sections, genuinely funny interactions and compelling character developments reignite the potential for this series as we pass the halfway point.
Starting off right after last episode’s soft cliffhanger, Jesse and his crew aim to find Soren in order to find his bomb that could destroy the wither monster for good. At the beginning of the episode, the group is beaten up and unsure if they can accomplish their mission. Telltale uses this darker tone to do some great character development, especially for Lukas who wants to be the leader, yet finds it hard to cope with his decisions.
It isn’t all depressing and gloomy, though. The Last Place You Look has a lot of great gags that feel more rewarding rather than forced. It’s a tricky balance, but it’s handled well in this episode. After a moment where the group seems defeated, a new character named Soren is introduced, and he immediately steals the spotlight. Soren is presented as a genius, but his recluse nature provides some great dialogue that’s unexpected and helps change the group’s formula up.
Excellent pacing really drives the plot this time around, and the story progresses much more meaningfully than in the previous two episodes. Almost every sequence felt necessary and it never seemed like Telltale was wasting our time with secondary plots or useless dialogue.
The static combat from the first two episodes barely makes an appearance in the third episode. Instead, we’re given more quick-time events that fit in with the action much more smoothly. These QTEs traverse through some really cool environments, like Soren’s monster grinder at the beginning of the episode.
There’s a lot more suspense this time around, especially with Telltale’s Endermen. Whenever the appear (and they do a lot in this episode) they’re creepy and unnerving. There’s some great events that take place with an Endermen suit that Jesse uses, and it explores some interesting ideas within Telltale’s Minecraft lore.
Olivia and Axel continue to be mostly useless to the story overall, with the former only being made important by, well, just being there. There’s some interaction with Axel that seems interesting, as my story sees their friendship deteriorating a bit, but it still hasn’t been explored enough to make me care for Axel. Three episodes in, Olivia still feels underused. Besides some dialogue she shouts during fights or when you approach her, she doesn’t fit into the plot much at all. And at this point, I’d almost rather Telltale focus on the developed characters than start this late in the season. It’s just a shame that one of the supposed main characters has less character depth than Jesse’s pet pit, Reuben.
Minecraft: Story Mode – Episode 3: The Last Place You Look is a much needed step in the right direction for the series. Almost every facet of the game feels improved, and the story focuses on interesting plot points rather than irrelevant distractions that harmed the previous two episodes. Minecraft: Story Mode isn’t Telltale’s finest work, but (hopefully) this is an indication that the best is still yet to come.
This review is based on a review copy of the PC version of Minecraft: Story Mode – Episode 3: The Last Place You Look, provided by Telltale Games.
- Great character building
- Best Episode Yet
- None