Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series is an episodic game split into five parts. It features an original story, however, upon starting it up, you can instantly tell that his version of the Guardians is heavily inspired by the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) versions. Not only is the team up the exact same as the MCU, but their appearances, voices, mannerisms and personalities are similar too. The icing on the cake is how some of the side characters are also similar, lending the game to feel a bit too familiar as a result.
Being a Telltale game, it is less of a game and more of an interactive movie. The main gameplay elements are dialogue choices, walking around a small area, point and click investigation segments, and quick time events. At times, it does feel overkill when some sections require pointless button presses in order to pick up a call or grab an item. These moments can feel superficial as it pauses the gameplay and can ruin the flow of the scene.
The various dialogue choices are more than just for show. Depending on what you pick, these can affect how characters react towards you and affect later scenes. However, the story will still go towards the same general direction. A lot of the harder choices are when the game forces you to side with one character or the other, but you don't want to offend either as you're a team. A neat touch that continues on from previous games is how after you finish an episode, it shows you the choices you made and compares it against what other players picked. It's really interesting to see whether you were in the majority or not.
New to this game is how Star-Lord has his jet-boots. This allows him to go between various heights. That being said, the janky animations, especially the awkward walking, are still here and break the immersion when compared to the cutscenes. There are occasional stuttering and temporary freezes during scene transitions, which is disappointing. The graphics are decent and the art style goes a long way in masking the lack of detail in some environments. The aesthetics may not suit everyone though. The quirky silly humor, as well as the 80s references (and the awesome music) works well.
The first episode is titled Tangled Up in Blue. Like other first episodes, it starts off with a bang. The opening cinematic is exciting and seemingly sets the tone for the game. It ups its stake to what seems like the climax and then pacing dramatically decreases and focuses on relationship building instead. The Guardians, comprised of Star-Lord (Peter Quill), Gamora, Drax, Rocket and Groot, are up against Thanos. They accept the task to stop Thanos from retrieving a relic. The episode takes only 1.5 hours to complete. You would think it would end on a cliffhanger and while it does, it is not the one you expected. However, the first episode doesn't quite have that hook just yet.
The second episode is Under Pressure and this one has limited action. Instead, it focuses on the characters and the relationship that each of the Guardians have with Peter. Rocket is the main focus, but Gamora gets her fair share of screentime. Drax is either likable or extremely annoying here, depending on whether you like his personality and type of humor. Unfortunately, despite being only 1.5 hours long, it feels much longer. The pacing is really slow and to be honest, the backstory of several characters are not engaging enough to keep your interest. While we have the main objective of the relic ,the Guardians take an approach that is more akin to two steps forward one step back, and it can feel draining. It's not horrible by any means but there are certain scenes where it felt like padding. One of the highlights of the episode is the great music used which really suited the tone of the game.
The third episode is More than a Feeling and feels faster paced than the previous episode. It ends up being more interesting as a result. Focusing on Gamora's past now, this episode introduces another familiar character that you can't help but compare to the MCU's version. There are some tough choices to make which really makes you pause and think what you really want to do. Unfortunately, the episode is hampered by a slow ending where you are forced to slowly walk around doing an investigation (it doesn't help that the controls are so blocky and the camera is fixed). That part felt like padding. The episode clocks in at around 1.5 hours long.
The fourth episode is Who Needs You and this is a Drax episode... for some of it. This episode feels pretty much like a filler, with very little happening after the beginning. The ending was surprising and leaves a big impact but everything in between felt pointless and padding at best. The Guardians are stuck somewhere for the episode and need to find away out. In the grand scheme of things, this does not feel like it adds anything at all. Again, the episode is around 1.5 hours long and makes you wonder how the last episode is going to be like.
The fifth and final episode is Don't Stop Believin'. It beings with the usual padding and filler content, requiring the player to do some tedious task to progress the story. However, the climax was pretty good and almost worth all the time to get here. This is because we get to see the Guardians working as a team, and they work together extremely well. While the plot never got that complicated, being more of a straightforward affair with some good music and funny one-liners thrown in, you do feel like as if you've achieved something.
Overall, Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series is not one of Telltale's best stories, but is still quite enjoyable. There are some serious pacing issues and filler content to pad out the game (which takes around 7-8 hours to finish) which drags it down.
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