Back to the Future: The Game - Episode 4: Double Visions

Well, it would seem that Telltale has managed to do something interesting with the episode. I am still a little disappointed with certain areas, but I have at least noticed a change in story progression. After a month-long wait for this episode, it's like getting a mixed bag more than anything.

The story for the episode is as follows. Marty McFly wakes up in a room in the dystopian Hill Valley where he is to be prepped for Citizen Plus treatment. He manages to escape, thus avoiding becoming a mindless drone, and needs to work with Doc Brown in order to stop 1931 Emmett from falling in love with Edna Strickland and see Frankenstein instead. At the same time, the DeLorean's time circuits have been malfunctioning, so Marty needs to also find a way to get it fixed so he can return to 1986 when he fixes the timeline.

I still liked the fantastic writing of this episode. However, that's really all this episode has going for it. There is no change in the graphics, save for a slightly limited animation pool leading to a point where Edna is in a conversation with an invisible Doc Brown, and the music is still great to listen to. The voice acting is still excellent, although there was one time where the sound dropped out for some reason, always on the same line of dialogue. But the puzzles are still too easy and serves to only make the game more noticably linear. Overall though, I was more engaged by the 2-hour chunk of story this time around, so I guess the episode did its job.

Continuing players will definitely need to check the episode out, as it continues the story for them. I would still like to have non-players take a purchase of the season into consideration or wait until opinions of the 5th and final episode have been put up. Telltale knows how to craft a story, but it disappoints me that that is the only thing keeping the episode engaging. I would like them to do something new with the final episode, but I'm not going to get my hopes up. It would be cool, however, if they decided to go the extra mile for the ending and play Back In Time from the movies. Small thing, I know, but at least the episode would go out with a bang.