The Wolf Among Us: Episode 3 – A Crooked Mile [Review]

I’ve always felt like I was picking away at strands of something bigger as I worked my way through The Wolf Among Us games, and my suspicions bore fruit in The Wolf Among Us: Episode 3 – A Crooked Mile. It kind of had to, really, or else there wouldn’t be any reason to have a five episode arc, but whatever. The point is that this is when the story really felt like it kicked in and that all of the players were finally in place. Probably. This is also the first time when I didn’t think to myself that Bigby could handle the issues at hand with brute force if he needed to. For all my efforts to keep Bigby calm and even-handed, I knew I could count on him to eff someone up if I needed him to. At the end of this episode, I’m not so sure, something that’s granted the series a bit more urgency than it had before.

Part of this has come from Telltale’s refusal to let Bigby undergo a transformation into his other self in the games so far. They’ve hinted at what the Big Bad Wolf can do, but only just that. Bigby half-changes throughout the last two chapters, and in that hairy, yellow-eyed guy mode, he’s been able to pound on pretty much anything the series has had to offer. Trolls, mad woodsmen, overweight twins – none of them have stood in the protagonist’s way, and this wasn’t even his final form (Ugh, sorry about that). Not only did I get my behind handed to me in this chapter, but I also had it done in such a way that I slapped myself in the head for not thinking of it before.

This was interesting, because there were many, many hostile situations in this chapter that I found myself counting on my strength to get through. No matter how bad things would start to look, I never really approached my decisions in a way that reflected the danger I was probably in. There was always this thought in the back of my mind that Bigby could handle whatever damage was getting tossed around and still come out on top. When goons showed up with guns, I didn’t even bat an eye, figuring I could still beat them without effort after taking a few shells. God help them if they tried to take me on hand to hand. While bad things were happening outside of my area of influence, any time a villain was nearby, I wasn’t scared one bit. I could just brute force my way through to the happy ending.

That doesn’t work after one pivotal moment in the chapter, and it surprised me. I hadn’t even picked up on how much I’d been basing my decision around falling back on being able to kick the crap out of everyone before that point. I’d just done it. With this one moment, I finally learned that there were forces out there that were stronger than the protagonist, and that I would have to play a little smarter during the final two episodes.

This chapter had the usual spat of solid, difficult decisions yet again, and featured many of the same issues I’ve had with them before. Some sentences still come across in tones that I didn’t anticipate, changing how my character is relayed in ways I didn’t intend. There were just as many points where I didn’t know what to say, too, often resulting in me saying the wrong thing or nothing at all. Those were my own fault, though, brought about by Telltale Games’ ability to stick me with a hard decision to make in almost no time.

What was different was that I was presented with a few decisions that I knew would upset my allies, but they still seemed like the correct route to me. I’m usually all about keeping my allies happy, but some of them were acting in unreasonable ways and I felt like I needed to step in. The characters felt like they were giving in to their emotions in these sequences, reflecting some of the bad stuff that’s been going on in the game, and I felt like it humanized them quite well. It was nice to see these people crack a bit, I guess I’m saying.

Telltale also continues to do a good job of leaving me wondering if I screwed up when the game gets to certain points. There was one part where I had three choices on where to go and a deadline to meet, and of course I picked the wrong order and was late to the final act. The story is on rails with all diversions likely leading to the same place and I know this, but in the heat of a chapter I tended to forget it, thinking that I’d screwed up the investigation. Making me forget that I know better is still a trick that Telltale never messes up, and I’m still surprised every time they pull it off.

Beyond that, the game continues to introduce new characters or to put new spins on old ones. I enjoyed members of the new cast, and find that the series is doing a great job of building up a huge stable of characters gradually without overwhelming me. Having this many characters should be distracting and hard to keep track of, but the gradual trickle has made it easy to remember everyone.

The Wolf Among Us: Episode 3 – A Crooked Mile is another great entry in the series, keeping the story moving along at a brisk pace while adding new elements to the characters within it. The story continues to get more interesting, and now I feel like we’re really getting to the truth behind what’s been happening. Finally having my feeling of invincibility kicked out from under me was good, as now I can approach the story with a sense of vulnerability that had been lacking before. I know that I can’t just beat everyone up if I mess up, now. After all, what’s a detective story without a protagonist who can, and quite likely will, be killed?