It’s been a slow adoption for me. Part One of The Walking Dead: Michonne seemed a little slow and snoozy up until the conflict of Monroe. Part Two was more exciting, especially given the cliffhanger of the first installment. Part Three, however, really dug in on what we expect from the franchise’s bigger moments.
Now, full disclosure, I am one of the people who chose to bash in Randall’s scumbag skull. From that, I decided to follow a little more badass path for Michonne and it was a lot of fun to release that frame of mind in the digital realm. You might have guessed, by now, that when given the choice of “put Norma out of her misery” or “let her suffer” I responded with a “fuck no” and hit the suffer button hard.
That’s one of the interesting things about these games. You have a chance to really embrace your dark side and see how it plays. Combined with a story of a compelling character struggle for Michonne, the series concluded with a nice satisfaction of vicarious living. I’m actually somewhat interested in going back and playing it to both extremes, with a more peaceful Michonne and then a completely belligerent version, just to see how that works out.
Writing for something like this is certainly an exercise in cleverness and creativity that I had not considered until completing the story. For example, one needs to generate a story that ultimately hits the same beats while giving the player a lot of choice in the matters at hand or they will not feel engaged. Take the bash-or-not-to-bash moment with Randall. Either way, he still ends up part of a hostage exchange. Pretty clever routing of the journey, but also necessary in this format.
No matter which bobs and weaves you pull off in your choices for Michonne, you conclude the tale with a harrowing escape from a burning house, amid more visions of her daughters and some huge insight into her background, with regard to family and relationships. That payoff makes this game well worth it for fans who are eager to understand where their favorite characters come from, and through this medium, we get to do it while being in our protagonist’s head.
If you’ve made it this far without trying this game out, give it a shot. You’ll be glad you did.