Minecraft: Story Mode Episode 7 - 'Access Denied' Review

Jesse and his friends have come far, starting off as fans looking up to great heroes for inspiration and now becoming the heroes that others look up to. In Minecraft: Episode 7 - ‘Access Denied’ we rejoin our heroes in their attempts to return home, only to face a brand new challenge in another world. Expect new characters and a brand new story full of unique dangers that continue to bring this once mediocre tale into extraordinary adventure. It may have a foundation set oncliche science-fiction but great performances and excellent dialogue continue Minecraft: Story Mode's strong momentum as one of Telltale's best games.

 Minecraft: Episode 7 starts off with Jesse and his friends traveling to a brand new world. After a minor arguement with Petra Jesse and his friends chase after her into a mysterious portal only to find a brand new danger lurking in the seemingly baron world. A computer has taken over the everything in the world using mind-controlling chips and now Jesse must now find a way to free the people of this world, stop the machine, and find a way home.

PAMA takes the stage as the new central antagonist for this episode. A cliché robot that has misunderstood its programming to make everything useful and efficient by robbing people of their free will. The manic machine enslaved every living creature in the world and now seeks to do the same to other worlds. On the outside PAMA seems one-dimensional as it attempts to constantly convince everyone who isn't chipped that its doing what's best but thanks to strong writing and excellent voice-acting the dangerous machine sells its part. It speaks to Jesse in a happy gleeful digital voice but proceeds to try to integrate Jesse into its mainframe.

As you can tell the theme of this adventure is science-fiction, and Telltale has done an excellent job of creating not only a kid friendly adventure but write dialogue that tailors to more mature fans. Throughout the episode I was impressed to see characters demonstrate feelings of regret, anxiety, and desire hidden beneath the kid friendly tone. For example Jesse uses the past to bolster morale, focusing on all they’ve accomplished since episode 1. However this is used against him later on, with PAMA emphasizing everything he lost, his failures, and what he risk losing. What faced with this Jesse’s upbeat confident face instantly shifts, with him lamenting on everything he’s done and lost. 

Telltale has a record of having issues within their games but never anything game breaking or vexing. In Episode 7 I noticed more graphical errors, specially in the background, than any other Telltale game I’ve played. At times the sky would continue to flash black during every day section during the episode. 

Another issue was the lack of paramount decisions. There are a couple of story shifting choices along the adventure but nothing monumental. By the end of the episode I didn’t feel like I alter any relationships, instead giving another fresh start.

Minecraft: Episode 7 - ‘Access Denied’ is another excellent episode in Minecraft: Episode 7 - ‘Access Denied’ Minecraft: Story Mode. It ends with another major cliffhanger that simply has me eager to play the last episode. The journey itself did feel like a cliché of Terminator but due to strong writing and excellent performances I was glad to take this trip through this portal. Hopefully Telltale can end this series with a bang, because its been a blast playing it so far.

Adam Siddiqui, NoobFeed
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