Review: Telltale’s Game of Thrones Episode 2- Lost Lords

Warning: This review assumes two things: that you are familiar with the Game of Thrones franchise and that you are familiar with Telltale’s episodic narrative and choice-driven structure. For a more detailed review of the actual gameplay, you can see the review of Episode 1.

It’s time for some more Game of Thrones! BAH dah bah dah BAH dah bah dah BAH dah bah dah BAH day….

That’s the theme song…in case…in case you didn’t get that. Ahem.

At any rate, at long last Episode 2 of Telltale’s adaptation, titled Lost Lords is now released and after the cliffhanger of Episode 1 I have to say it couldn’t have come a moment later. Speaking of which! If you have not played Episode 1 yet, please do so before reading this review. Because I will be discussing spoilers from it…many…many spoilers.

So you should go. NOW!

Angry Cersei DEMANDS IT!

Well, now that they’re gone, where were we? Oh that’s right. When last we left Ironwrath and House Forrester (also known as House Not Stark), Ramsey Snow was stabbing poor Ethan Forrester through the throat (or something else depending on what ending you went with). The house is now in upheaval with enemy soliders camped out within the walls and basically doing whatever the hell they please. Amazingly, Rodrik Forrester, the elder son who had been thought dead in the first episode of the game, returns very much alive but very much the worse for wear by way of a corpse wagon (insert your “I’m not dead yet” jokes here). He must now struggle to not only regain his health but also his house and authority.

With his face full of boo boos

Meanwhile, over in Yunkai we meet Asher, the exiled Forrester turned mercenary who is now being summoned to return home and help the family out. He is joined by a tough female sidekick who I only really know as Not Brienne. Then there’s Garred Tuttle, the knight who managed to get himself exiled to the Wall to join the Night’s Watch. There he manages to meet and bond with John Snow. Hi John Snow! And finally there’s Mira over at King’s Landing, palace of intrigue and garden walks. She must choose between being loyal to Margery or helping out her family no matter what the cost (and that cost includes making deals with the extremely shady Tyrion).

Dooon’t worry. We’ll make you evil yet!

If that seems like a lot, that’s because it is. Much like an actual episode of Game of Thrones, there are constantly new characters and plots being introduced and keeping track of them is much like trying to make sense of a football game.

With just over two hours of gameplay split over four storylines, there was only so much time that could be spent with each character. As a result, I felt I didn’t get to know poor Asher enough. I knew that he was an exile, I knew he was a smarmy cad (thanks to my awesome dialogue choices), I knew that he missed home despite his awesome new life as a mercenary. But I still felt oddly detached from his storyline. Being a new character amongst already established characters is tough, but perhaps this could have been avoided had his off screen presence been more established in Episode 1.

Which dialogue choices resulted in the permasmirk? Those are the ones I picked

The most engaging (and most challenging) of the storylines for myself has to be that of Mira over in King’s Landing. Where the villains in the north are clearly identifiable, the villains in King’s Landing are far less so. Yes, I’m even talking about Tyrion Lannister. He’s a favourite character in both the book and show for me, but suddenly I was painfully reminded that he does have his own agenda and that it might not be mine. Allying myself with him became a far more difficult decision.

The one thing I find myself unable to do though is to become devious and that’s where the game interestingly might differ from the show. I am all too aware of what happens to those who are too noble headed (heh…puns), but when actually presented with a dilemma I found myself simply too guilt ridden to go the more morally questionable route. Part of that is of course my naturally cowardly tendencies. But the other part is that I’m also aware of what happens to characters who get caught in their stupid decisions on Game of Thrones. I’d be interested to see what happens when those other decisions are made.

I’ll admit…it was weird seeing Jon Snow being Not Whiny

In the end, after the high climax of Episode 1, Episode 2 is very much moving the pieces to where they need to be. The scattered feel of the episode though is brought together at the end by a moving montage of each character. Seriously…that end soundtrack really was impressive. It may not be shocking like Episode 1, but it certainly got me excited for the release of Episode 3. If only I didn’t have to wait a month…

And if you are interested, we are continuing our Let’s Play of the series!