Game of Thrones – Episode 3: “The Sword in the Darkness” Review

 

Game of Thrones – Episode 3: The Sword in the Darkness takes place during season four of the television series, so if you’re not caught up with the show, then you’ll be hit with a mid season spoiler. There are a few more characters that you see in this episode that make their first appearance in the Telltale adaptation of Game of Thrones, as well as more characters that appeared in earlier episodes. Tyrion and Cersei Lannister both make appearances. Fan favorite Jon Snow appears frequently in this episode, reminding Garred Tuttle to think about his loyalties to the Night’s Watch as he’s met with a choice to either honor his oath or to remember his promise to the struggling Forrester family. Asher in Essos is continuing to try to amass an army after running into a massive problem in an abandoned cave, while Rodrik is doing everything he can to keep his house from getting crushed by his enemies.

Aside from a couple of fight sequences at certain parts of the story, the gameplay is exactly more of the same: pointing and clicking, walking around and gathering information. But the main focus of a Telltale game is always the story, and here it’s no different.

There were more issues with the audio than ever before when I played this on the PlayStation 3. The dialogue stuttering was far more apparent than ever before, with entire sentences being repeated after having been said once. At one point a character said the same exact thing three times in a row. The graphics didn’t stutter or tear, but there wasn’t much of an improvement over the last episode. What bugged me the most, however, was that in the preview for the next episode, it seemed like none the choices I made factored into the upcoming story. This is unlike previous episodes which gave you an idea of what comes next based on the choices you made in the episode you just played. I’m concerned because there have been cases where people have played Telltale games and the data from past episodes fail to load in the new episodes.  If that’s the case, I’ll have to replay the episode once Episode 4 is released.

 

While the technical aspects aren’t the greatest in Episode 3,  the story of House Forrester in Game of Thrones still keeps things interesting enough to warrant a buy if you haven’t already purchased the season pass. I’d still have to give it a demerit for the nagging technical issues, but it is likely that the game performs better on a high end PC or on one of the current generation consoles. Nevertheless, Game of Thrones – Episode 3: A Sword in the Darkness is well worth a play through.