The Walking Dead: Michonne Chapter 1 review - Dead in the water?

Following Telltale's recent - extremely accomplished - run of its signature 'choose your own adventure'-style adaptations, you'd be forgiven for striding optimistically into the first episode of The Walking Dead: Michonne. Unfortunately, this first taste of the three-part miniseries gets nowhere near the astronomical precedent set by Telltale's previous TWD seasons and the brilliant Tales From the Borderlands. 

TWD: Michonne is held back by its source material. Because it's around half the size of a normal season, you'd expect this first episode to be dense, tight, full of things to say, and to leave you in suspense. It achieves none of those things. Instead, it just feels rushed and, despite its pace, it doesn't really say anything at all.

Things start well, with an action-packed opening introducing you to a Michonne who's desperate, haunted, and alone. The story explores a short period where Michonne left life with Rick and the group behind. Her demons manifest during a prolonged fight sequence that switches between hallucination and reality - katana and machete - with Michonne lopping off rotten limbs and caving in mushy skulls. 

In her head she's protecting her family in a business suit while wielding the sword, but in reality she's in rags, fighting for her life in the woods, hacking at zombie flesh with a jungle knife. It sets up the premise and introduces the main character skilfully, and the scene is flashily bookended by a musical title sequence seemingly inspired by the wonderful openings found in the seminal Tales from the Borderlands. 

Michonne is easily the most capable and dangerous Telltale protagonist we've ever inhabited. Her proficiency for violence and her unwavering expression in the face of danger - coupled with the fact that you know she can't really suffer any real consequence - makes her feel superhuman. 

If it wasn't for Michonne's constant flashbacks and delusions reminding you how anguished she is, you would swear she had been bitten and was about to turn. Again, it's a case of the source material acting as a shackle, stripping out much of the humanity and relatability that's usually so synonymous with the studio's output.

Following that opening, you're hastily introduced to a small new group aboard a boat, but you barely talk to each before you're off rowing to the next section - another cinematic fight sequence where you press buttons in time to prompts. That's another problem with TWD: Michonne - it lacks confidence in human drama and too often resorts to these zombie-slaying quick-time events during its short 90-minute runtime. 

Interaction is limited to a handful of room-sized sections where you can walk freely within their tight confines, and one 'puzzle' that asks you to tune in a radio. There is so much time spent smashing zombies into a meaty pulp that it even throws a curveball at one point and asks you for a three-button combination - presumably to check you're still awake.

Of course, none of this would matter if the story and characters were any good, but even its attempt at a cliffhanger ending falls flat. We've seen it all before, and we've seen it done much better. It's Telltale by the numbers. 

Of course, the last two episodes could redeem the miniseries, but it's not off to a great start. Telltale's Game of Thrones similarly started weak and progressively got better, but that had more episodes and therefore more chance to hook you in. And besides, even the opening episode of Game of Thrones was superior to what Telltale has delivered here. 

We already know that Telltale adventure games offer the illusion of choice rather than massively deviating pathways, but even here TWD: Michonne falls apart more than usual under replays. Here, one character reacted the exact same way to Michonne spitting in his face as he did for her saying something banal. Only one choice in the entire episode has the potential to change anything, and it comes right at the end so we won't even know its impact until the next episode.

It's not entirely Telltale's fault. As much as this is a miniseries spinoff for Telltale's TWD series, this is also a spinoff chapter in the life of Michonne. It's inconsequential. Nothing that happens here can impact this established character in any meaningful way, so Telltale has to work from a template. 

Not only that, but we also have to be introduced to a new batch of characters whose battles play out before we've had time to warm to them. It's ironic that Telltale's biggest success with TWD: Michonne is in how it perfectly projects Michonne's detached mindset onto the player, albeit unintentionally. Just as Michonne is hardened and unsympathetic, you'll meet lots of new characters and learn of their troubles and motivations, but you probably won't care.

Release date: February 23

Available on: Steam (tested), PS4, Xbox One (Android and iOS arriving February 25)

Developer: Telltale Games