Marvels Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series

I'll cut the usual preamble short and just say if you're familiar with the Telltale formula you already have an opinion on Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy The Telltale Series. In a general sense, at least. What I will get into is where the game stands in relation to established framework, other Telltale titles and should you bother.

Following the Guardians of the Galaxy, as lead by Peter Quill aka. Star-Lord to, well, whoever bothers to remember his moniker, we start with a rather peculiar premise - Guardians defeat Thanos the Mad Titan. Yes, THAT purple raisin guy. Just before they kill him our big bad seems to have had a stroke of luck by finding the Eternity Forge, some sort of artifact the gang then takes since it seemed to be so important to a galactic-level threat. After the Guardians are done celebrating their victory and deciding who they're going to sell Thanos' body to, to pay off their bar tab, true power of the Eternity Forge is revealed for it can bring dead people back to life. Bad news? Well, it's a double whammy as Peter dies before being resurrected, emotionally damaging his already unstable team in the process and Hala the Accuser waylays the group determined to take the artifact and restore Kree empire. In the background of all this Peter is getting weird visions of his deceased mother that don't exactly match his memories of her...

It's possible marginally more cohesiveness went into writing this game as compared to most of Telltale's efforts which they penned on episode-by-episode basis, and usually to the detriment of the story. That's not to say all five episodes were created equal. Far from it, actually. Game left a negative impression on me until it was salvaged by the last two episodes. Ironically, it was not the humor Guardians of the Galaxy is known for or soundtrack choices which largely fell flat, but instead some genuinely touching scenes that ended up selling the game to me. I'm not sure what that says about your project when it mostly comes across as knock-off Tales from the Borderlands which preceded it.

Looking at characters themselves they don't exactly go beyond their already established personalities you may be familiar with from the movies, but I like how you can actually talk to them. Gives your crew more room to breathe even if some like Drax can quickly wear out their novelty given time to do so, for example. Seeing some of their memories as you progress through the episodes and revealing their true selves behind posturing and bravado was the highlight of the game for me. It would've been nice to see more of that rather than how many quips a minute writers can cram in. I guess that comes with the property and refusal to upset the status quo, though.

Gameplay-wise? I'd have to refer you to the opening paragraph. Appropriately enough, QTE-driven action scenes take the form of all Guardians of the Galaxy fighting as a team rather than you controlling Star-Lord and others getting relegated to the background. What little else you'll be doing is holding forward/occasional lazy input and making sure to pick those correct dialog options because "the story is tailored by how you play" although we can debate all day long how true that actually is. I did notice some potential major forks later on, but given A) this is a licensed property and B) Telltale scripts don't REALLY do such major departures, I would guess they all converge sooner rather than later.

So Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy The Telltale Series still gets a recommendation after all that? I changed my mind as I played and not even the incredibly naive finale managed to sour it. At the end of the day this is a high adventure in space with a band of misfits who have to learn to live together while risking their lives guarding said galaxy. Not necessarily the best use of the license, but if Telltale games are already your drug of choice go for it.

I absolutely loved this game, and I plan on playing it again!
although this game was taken down, alongside other telltale games in the past, im very thankful to have owned it and played it, the guardians of the galaxy is the only marvel series I liked, anything else I never have had much enjoyment with
one thing I do remember about the game was the title screen, & the song "livin thing" it was so catchy and it was amazing!

Gameplay is very mid even for a telltale game however story, voice acting and some choices are quite good. If you like Marvel and Telltale games this is the one for you.

Went in expecting Guardians humor and chaos, got a whole lot of that... and also a surprising amount of feels. The game does a great job balancing the laugh-out-loud moments with some unexpectedly emotional scenes that had me questioning my life choices. It's like watching a movie, but you get to mess up their lives in the process.

I really enjoyed this story, if you like Telltale games this is highly recommended!

If like GoTG I think you'll enjoy this game.
Lasted about 10.5 hours, similar to other telltale games. Thought the humor was pretty on point for GoTG dialogue and liked the story that they had.

Was in tears at the animal scene....
Was mad about characters not looking anything like in the movies.
Game is a 6/10