Telltale Games really though everyone for a loop dropping the second episode for Minecraft Story Mode only a few weeks after a first and while it was nice that it happened to come through so soon after the first, there is a real reason why, it is short.

The story picks up with Jesse and whomever you backed heading to their respective friends’ choice of hero, for myself the choice was with Ellegaard, so the game opens up with Olivia, Ruben and Jesse making their way through the nether to make their way to Redstonia, the home of Ellegaard and the inventors of the world. As they made their way through they are attacked by a Ghast and your first choice comes into play, how to attack it is that choice and when you defeat it, you are back on your way.

Upon arriving at Redstonia, Ellegaard proclaims that she is going into isolation while she works on her latest invention and her assistant locks the door behind her. So the goal first and foremost is to find a way into the citadel and get Ellegaard to listen, doing this requires you to talk to a range of people out in the town who are all hoping that their invention is going to impress Ellegaard the most, as whoever does will become her protégé, something that Olivia would love more than anything. Perhaps the best part of exploring the town was coming upon the cow launcher a very large device designed to launch cows into the air, for no apparent reason, well apart from the obvious one, but even that is dwarfed by the giant mech.

The gameplay is even more straight forward than that of the first episode, with no crafting to be found in the path that I chose, only a small amount of combat and what felt like even less talking. There was a sequence where I had to attempt to craft something, but all that it needed me to do was to mash one key over and over again. I feel like I need to play through the first episode and select to play through it all again so I can choose the option to go and get Magnus with Axel as from their descriptions it sounds a lot more fun that what I had.

From a visual standpoint, the game continues the aesthetic that the first episode laid out, with characters interacting with the world in a pretty believable way should you know how Minecraft. The music is again a standout as the composers return again, but the voice acting is also slightly better this time around than the first episode, even if there are a few lines that repeat a few too many times.

Assembly Required is a strange episode, it does very little to provide more depth to the characters we met in the first episode, but the new ones we get, we learn more about them in the brief time they are on screen than we do the rest.  Anyone who has the season pass will get the game regardless, but for those going on the wait and see approach, this is very much a wait moment.

Thanks to Telltale Games for supplying the game to review