Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series Episode 5 Don't Stop Believin Xbox One Review

The finale of season 1 of Telltale's Guardians of the Galaxy hits a lot of strong notes by providing both emotional scenes full of uneasy moments and cooperative action. While the ending is predictable and the character animations can glitch out to appear as stoic avatars the strong dialogue and difficult decisions make up for the shortcoming. Don't Stop Believin ends the first season of Guardians of the Galaxy on such as high that I cannot wait to see what happens in season 2.

After the falling out in episode 4 the Guardians have become fractured. Hala has taken the Enternity Forge and started committing mass genocide against anyone she deems inferior to resurrect her army and no one can stop her. Surprisingly a solution does appear but it requires Peter Quill to reunite the Guardians after a demoralizing hiatus. 

Much of episode 5 deals with speaking to the Guardians and restoring their will to fight. Many of the decisions you've made will resurface here, with characters fighting or supporting Peter in his suicidal mission against Hala. In my 2 separate playthroughs, I was given radically different questions and responses based on my decisions. In one situation Drax was much more broken after I support his wish in episode 4 than in my playthrough where I went against it.

Thanks to strong performances and excellent writing the entire episode came together excellently. Best of all there were no tedious puzzles, instead, the episode focuses entirely on the past decisions and your current responses to how the Guardians now see themselves and you. However, the character animations were problematic throughout. During both of my playthroughs, characters would have completely unmoving faces or bodies that would stop mid-movement while speaking. While nothing game breaking occurred these strange character movements were hard to not notice.

The action is broken up into quick-time events and while it doesn't excel to the same degree as episode 1 it's servable. Hala is still an unstoppable Brute that rivals Thaos in combat and his followers fall pretty quickly. What made this action scene spectacular was that it showcased each of the Guardians special talents such as Rocket's resourcefulness and Drax's courage. 

The ending is predictable but nevertheless difficult. Despite knowing exactly what the final decisions were going to be it was painful to choose. Each choice felt like I was betraying one Guardian for another.  

Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series Episode 5 Don't Stop Believin is a fantastic ending to this season. The animations were distracting but the removal of tiresome puzzles for more narrative and action made episode 5 the best one of the entire season. Each scene served an intense emotional purpose where the Guardians successfully restored not only their bonds but complemented their relationship with precise actions that saved the entire Galaxy. Episode 5 Don't Stop Believin provides an excellent conclusion to this season of Guardians of the Galaxy and I cannot wait to see what happens next.

Adam Siddiqui, NoobFeed
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