izigame.me

I’m not sure that adding yet another positive review to this pile of Overwhelmingly Positive Reviews is especially helpful but The Wolf Among Us is a game that I have trouble getting out of my head at times, and I have finished replaying it (again), so why not after all. This was created when Telltale were at the peak of their creative powers, just off from their excellent, literally genre-redefining first season of The Walking Dead, and on their way to the highly entertaining Tales from the Borderlands.
TWAU presents itself as a detective story, but it’s mostly the story of a man (who may or may not be human), and like in the other games I mentioned above, I find that the true joy is not in the clue-piecing or the QTEs, as fun as they might be (and some of the fights are just terrific), but in shaping the personality of the protagonist and thus his relationships and the opinions other characters have of him. Will you be unrepentantly violent and rude, stay professional in all circumstances or actively try to redeem yourself in the eyes of a community who (bar a few exceptions) mistrusts, hates and fears you? All of those are valid and bring their own thrills (although playing Bigby as Tired and Done™️ but with good intentions at heart is my personal favourite way to go about it).
The setting (fable characters living in exile in 80s New York) is original and fascinating, and during my first playthrough, I remember being extremely excited to see what The Little Mermaid, Bluebeard, Beauty and Beast and many others would look like in this game, and how their original story would be woven in the narrative. I think Wolf (unlike the terribly-written comics it is loosely based on) actually manages to emulate a solid noir atmosphere without being overbearing or just up straight up gratuitous in terms of violence (although I could have done with less decapitation I suppose).
Perhaps most importantly than those considerations: my god is this game pretty. I just can’t praise it enough, really. The neon lighting, the delightful colour schemes, the 2D comic book look of the characters, the detailed urban scenery… You can just lose yourself, take 40 screenshots a minute and look at the hubs for an embarrassing amount of time, and believe me, I’m speaking from experience. The game also wouldn’t work without its superb, evocative soundtrack by Jared Emerson-Johnson: it’s melancholic, suspenseful and downright exhilarating at some key moments. It’s what keep this game alive in my heart and mind after all these years. Aesthetics-wise, The Wolf Among Us is Telltale’s best game hands-down, and probably one of the most distinctive-looking games ever.
Even almost 10 years (!!!) after its original release date, the graphics hold on very well. On Mac, I’ve noticed that some cutscenes can be a bit laggy and a couple voice lines are now missing or cut (which is a shame, because Adam Harrington and Erin Yvette absolutely killed it as Bigby and Snow White), but those are very few and far between. And the new Telltale are still doing maintenance on the Windows version as far as I know, so that shouldn’t be a problem if you want to play it.
There is a lot of talk about games being atmospheric, but this game *is* its atmosphere: it makes you *feel* the claustrophobic spaces and lack of intimacy, the summer heat, the dereliction and poverty even, in way not a lot of other games can. I’m not persuaded that a sequel to TWAU truly is necessary in the first place, but I also totally understand why people want more of it: it has a very distinct charm and originality that makes it one of a kind.