The Big Bad Wolf | The Wolf Among Us Episode 5: Cry Wolf Review

No one can deny that the Wolf Among Us series has had its ups and down.  The strong first episode declared that Telltale was not a one-hit wonder and could do more than just The Walking Deadseries. There were exciting episodes and there were also somewhat boring episodes. Well, it was all heading towards this final episode of the season. After all the anticipation building I couldn’t wait to experience the last episode, but I was also nervous it wouldn’t hold up to my expectations. Cry Wolf is not perfect, and it may not be as great as it could have been. What I can say is I walked away from the experience happy and am looking forward to the second season.

Cry Wolf starts out immediately after the fourth episode. Seeing how the last episode didn’t exactly progress the story and only mulled around killing time for the final episode. I couldn’t be more excited to finally get to some action, and see the story wrap up. The action does indeed start immediately and never stops until the credits roll. You never walk around and investigate anything meaningful, and any section where you actually get to walk around last for a couple of minutes at most. A majority of the game is quick time events, decision-making, and watching events unfold. This is not a bad thing by any means due to how engaging all the content is.

From the very beginning you are faced with tough decisions like stating who you think committed the crime and how will you talk your way out of a room surrounded by thugs. You can always fight your way out if you think that’s wise. Then there’s a chase scene that didn’t really get my blood pumping but it is important you don’t mess up. Doing so could cause you to miss some very important conversation that can clear up a lot of what was going on. Not only does that help you understand the story, you will have more to use as evidence later on.

There is one fight scene that I suppose you could call the ‘boss fight’ of the series, but I don’t think calling something a boss fight is accurate for this type of game. I was expecting another simple button masher. It certainly was that, but at the same time, it was so well done I didn’t care. I was enthralled in the fight. It was the first time since the Lumberjack fight in the beginning of episode one that I felt this season gave me a solid fight scene. The enemy was terrifying, it felt like life-and-death, and the way the fight dramatically builds is wonderful. For a button mashing fight filled with quick-time events, it was one of the better one’s I have seen in a Telltalegame.

I liked everything about Cry Wolf up until after that fight scene. The game doesn’t plummet downward into a pit of groans erupting from your mouth, but it doesn’t perform as well as it could have. There are multiple questionable elements that arise making you curious as to why this direction was taken.

You bring the criminal to a “trial” and I put that in quotes because it is just a group of people standing in a basement. The group of people is made up of everyone from the game you previously met and had an encounter with. Clearly, you can see where this is going. Then Bigby and the criminal tell their story and try to win over the crowd. You need to convince everyone that the criminal is guilty, and not let him win the crowd’s favor. Another scenario is killing the criminal before you even get to the “trial” but then you have to defend your actions.

It’s easy to see what Telltale was trying to do here. They wanted all your past decisions to come to light. They wanted that little decision you made back in episode one to come back and bite you. That can certainly happen, and it was a little nerve-racking trying to make sure the crowd was on my side. It felt rewarding when a character stuck up for me because of something nice I did for them. Then there were others that would call for my head because I may have cracked them across the face in a previous episode.

I cannot deny how interesting and downright cool it is to see all your past decisions being brought up at one moment. The problem is how poorly the scene makes sense to the rest of the story. Why does a butcher and a bartender have a say in how a person should be dealt with when the government representative has all the say? Not to mention the crowd flips back and forth constantly. I felt like any development the characters had throughout the story was discarded as their beliefs became whimsical notions to sway to whichever side would cause more tension for me. A character would exclaim an accusation then immediately back off saying they weren’t actually sure.

Besides how out-of-place that scene feels, it still was engaging. So even though I had my problems with it, I still enjoyed it. I like how all your moments come back to haunt you, I simply wish it was done a little bit better than an angry mob. Of course they leave the decision ultimately up to you, which doesn’t make sense when many of them were saying how they don’t like you. It didn’t flow well enough and felt like the scene was trying a little too hard to make your decisions matter.

There are still technical issues that hold the game down, and it even froze my system at one point. During the really important fight the game stuttered for so long that when it finally caught up I was supposed to be mashing the X button. I still managed to fill the meter in time, but this could arguably be the episode with the worst performance so far. Cry Wolf is also only about an hour long, so those looking for a long conclusion won’t find it here. This is more the short but sweet type of conclusion.

I enjoyed this episode. It may not have been long or innovative, but it wrapped up the story enough where I was content. I was interested from the beginning to the end, which is more than I can say for the some of the episodes this season. I had my problems with the episode, but I still thoroughly enjoyed it. I would have like to see the climactic discussion at the end presented in a little more fitting of a way than people standing in a circle, in a basement, switching sides every couple of seconds. Nevertheless, when it comes right down to it, this was a good episode to end a very good first season. Faults and all, I thoroughly enjoyed The Wolf Among Us, maybe even more than The Walking Dead, and I could not be more excited for the second season.

This review is based off a retail copy of the Playstation 3 version of The Wolf Among Us developed by Telltale games and distributed by Telltale Games.