Telltale's Guardians Of The Galaxy Episode 4 Is A Drax-tic Improvement

After yet another delay caused by a technical issue from Telltale, the developer’s fourth episode of Guardians of the Galaxy is now available to download and play on PS4, Xbox One, PC, Android and iOS devices. As backstory continues to dominate the series, episode 4 also sees the writing gel better than it has before.

One of the primary stories of Guardians of the Galaxy episode 4 revolves around Drax and memories of his family. Thanks to Mantis and her emotional abilities, Peter Quill can peer right into Drax’s mind and see one of the last memories he shared with his daughter. This sequence not only provided a rare glimpse into Drax’s past, it helped humanize the character and provided context for why he acts like he does now.

Unlike the past few chapters, episode 4 did a good job to introduce the flashbacks and also quickly moved on from them. This time, much more of the game was spent in the present, moving the story forward.

Ironically, as the story advanced, the gang finds themselves stuck in a cave and then in the belly of a worm, Star Wars-style. Like the previous episodes, moments like this provides tension and the perfect opportunity for everyone to get mad at each other. But this continues my biggest problem with Telltale’s Guardians of the Galaxy as a whole – everyone is touchy and nobody knows how to compromise at all. Either you do everything one person wants, or you’ve horribly offended them and everything they stand for. There’s little room for a middle ground.

The end of the chapter also introduces a major decision that may have interesting implications. While it may seem like a hard choice to make regarding the fate of one member of the Guardians, picking what seems like a safe choice ends up harming someone else instead. It’s moments like these that make you remember Telltale games will bring players to an endpoint and will pull off fancy workarounds to make sure the same story is told (with one or two details changed), regardless of decisions made.

Episode 4 also solidifies that the role of comedic relief isn’t actually played by Rocket in the Telltale games. Rocket always seems to either cause way too much drama by constantly running his mouth and insulting everyone, or try to get pity by swinging around his personal issues. This puts him in an awkward spot of not being likeable enough for players to feel sympathy towards him, but with a history that almost sort of justifies his behavior.

Thankfully, Drax has surprisingly stepped up to provide the laughs during sad or tense moments. While the big meathead may always be serious, his stone face is even funnier when he says something ridiculous or completely fails to pick up on idioms and slang terms.

Unfortunately, episode 4 brought back some technical issues we haven’t seen in a Telltale game for some time. Lines of dialogue were cut off for no reason and animations glitched a handful of times. In one instance, the game failed to play a dialogue choice. While these bugs don’t completely ruin the experience, they do make playing just a little less enjoyable.

Another glaring issue the Guardians episodes have compared to other Telltale games, like Batman, is the cliffhanger. In Batman, just about every episode (especially the season two episodes so far) ends on a twist or shocking revelation that makes players want to skip time to see what happens next as soon as possible. But this episode of Guardians continues the series’ tradition of ending on a somewhat down note – I was happy to see the credits once again.

That said, this is the second to last episode of the season. The series has gone through some big, strange stories already, with Thanos dying, the Eternity Forge’s fate sealed and more backstory than you could think of. It’ll be curious to see how Telltale plans to wrap everything up and if episode five will set itself up for a second season.

So what do you think? Have you been playing Telltale’s Guardians of the Galaxy? How do you think season one will come to an end? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.