14 DAY TRIAL // 
Game of Thrones - The Ice Dragon tells a story that veers between gritty realism and high fantasy as Telltale Games attempts to deliver satisfying conclusions for the story threads that gamers have been exploring while showing that the saga of the Forresters still has surprises to offer in future episodes.
There are moments when the writing, the limited gameplay, and the acting combine to create great moments that explore themes ranging from loyalty to love to duty and more, equaling anything else the A Song of Ice and Fire universe has to offer.
But the game also features some weird tonal choices and action interludes that feel unnecessary, which seem also designed to frustrate some fans of the franchise.
I love the Game of Thrones universe and eagerly consume everything related to it, from the associated video games to the fan theories and the board and card games linked to it, and while I hope Telltale Games creates a second season, I also hope that they find ways to make it feel more special and unique in its approach.
The Ice Dragon is offered on the PC, the Xbox One, the PlayStation 4, older home consoles as well as mobile devices.
The rest of the review, as well as the images and the video attached to it, will contain some spoilers about the series and this final chapter.
Story
Game of Thrones - The Ice Dragon is a story about how mostly decent people with good intentions are unable to stop the torrent of evil that seems to be descending upon the world and about how their best efforts tend to backfire and hurt the ones they love.
The Whitehills are attacking, the North Groove is not what it seems to be, and King's Landing is quickly becoming a trap for the Forrester children and their associates, forcing them to try and find quick solutions to problems that have been evolving for the past five episodes.
The major choice at the end of season five is well handled, allowing players to experience some interesting emotions as either Rodrik or Asher and to try and find a way to stop the armies of their enemies from taking Ironrath.
Mira is in difficulty in King's Landing, but her final villain reveal feels unearned, and her story does not have a direct connection to the rest of the family.
The North Groove remains a mystery and the game only alludes to its power, which seems a little too mystical for the Game of Thrones universe, and Garred gets his difficult choice, although its impact is somewhat muted.
The Ice Dragon has a lot of brutal moments, some interesting emotional exchanges and some evil men doing their best not to cackle as they move closer to getting what they want.
“But the real strength of the episode lies in how it brings together all the choices the player has made over the course of the season, very well illustrated by the narration at the end, which features some familiar voices and some nice recap work.”
After six episodes, the biggest problem with the take Telltale Games delivers on Game of Thrones is that it stays too close to R.R. Martin and the HBO show.
The Forresters are analogs of the Starks, and the developers have worked hard to create situations where gamers need to deal with the same major dilemmas and have to feel the disappointment and the rage of losing even when conditions seemed ideal to deliver a win.
I liked meeting familiar faces from the show and dealing with the big events that shaped its story, but Telltale Games needs to focus more on the characters it has created in the future and give them space to evolve in unique ways.
Gameplay
Game of Thrones - The Ice Dragon does not do anything innovative when it comes to the core mechanics of the series, which in turn are not too different from those that Telltale Games uses for all its core episodic series.
The fact that this is the conclusion of the season means that there are more major choices to make and the Quick Time Events are more numerous because of the fighting that some of the characters need to engage in to make progress.
Players will mostly survey a scene from the perspective of one of the protagonists, trying to use both words and expressions to decide what the other players in the power game are trying to do and how they might profit from a situation.
The timing of the choices for both lines and actions is very fair, giving gamers a chance to think about the way they want to move forward while also making sure that sometimes the selection is mostly driven by instinct rather than pure rationality.
The Game of Thrones sometimes feels like it is barely a video game, moving towards the interactive fiction space with every new episode, but the limited mechanics will not bother those who have become accustomed to Telltale's style.
The biggest problem with Ice Dragon, as with the rest of the first season, is that even if it's clear that Telltale Games wants gamers to replay it and try different ideas, it fails to make it easy for them to do so.
The fact that there's no way to make dialogue move faster and the cutscenes are impossible to skip means that it's frustrating to start over knowing that there's no way to speed things along and explore more possibilities without the same time investment.
Graphics and audio
Game of Thrones - The Ice Dragon does not introduce any major changes to the presentation of the series, and for those who experience all the episodes created by Telltale Games, the graphics can quickly become a problem rather than an asset.
The development team uses a stylized take on the style of the television series, moving away from reality to emphasize the fantasy elements and the emotions that the characters experience.
The approach means that players are free to focus on the story and the choices that they are making but also has some clear limitations.
The faces and the movement of those characters that are also major players on the HBO show, like Jon Snow, Tyrion, and Margaery, occupy a weird space somewhere near the uncanny valley and often break the immersion that Telltale Games is trying so hard to create.
The protagonists of the story do look better, mainly because gamers do not already associate their presence with an actor or with an image created based on the book, and sometimes the locations also capture the grandeur of the universe.
The story is engaging enough to stop graphical quality from being a big problem for The Ice Dragon and the overall first season for Game of Thrones, but the team needs to step its efforts for the inevitable second one.
The quality is much better when it comes to the sound design, mainly because the voice actors had enough time to understand their characters and find the tone that's appropriate for their lines, although they can sometimes be a little too dramatic.
The environment and the soundtrack also manage to complement the overall themes of Game of Thrones and do a lot to enhance the atmosphere as the player explores the narrative.
The Good
- Conclusion of the Ironrath story
- Some great moral choices
- Solid voice work
The Bad
- Forrester story is too close to that of the Starks
- Limited gameplay
- Some presentation issues
Conclusion
Telltale Games is also creating plenty of narrative space that it can exploit when it creates a full second season, probably after the HBO airs its series of new episodes in the spring of next year.
For long-term fans of Game of Thrones, the experience of the video game can be a little disappointing from a narrative standpoint, but they should play it because it does offer some tense moments that perfectly align with the themes of the books.
For those who have not interacted with the fantasy universe created by R.R. Martin so far, it's a better idea to first watch the HBO-produced series or to read the books and only then to see what Telltale Games has done with the setting.
