One thing we all want from a detective genre filled with twists and turns are answers. There’s nothing better than relief from the ‘Who done it’? theme and episode 4 of The Wolf Among us tips the players ever so close to the truth. In fact, knowing that this is the penultimate episode from Tell Tale’s Fables themed thriller, with hints of action, I felt pretty satisfied with some of the minor questions being answered as opposed to the overall big one. And if the big one was answered before the end we wouldn’t be as interested for episode 5. So why did ‘In Sheep’s Clothing’ rub me up the right way?
The length of this episode felt by far the longest yet. And I’m a fan of length but only if it’s long and fun. Nobody wants to play with something that’s boring, which The Wolf Among Us has never been, and so long you just want it to end if it’s kept your attention thus far. Coming towards the end of the whole experience we now have to see everything begin to be summed up in a satisfactory bow and feel our actions over the previous episodes have repercussions. With this in mind having an episode that was approximately 20 minutes longer to complete compared to the others felt necessary and builds up to a beautiful climax that doesn’t disappoint. The climax was so good I chose to have a smoke afterwards. An in-game smoke that is.
Players that have completed episode 3 may continue to read on, anyone that hasn’t should please go ahead and play it. The quest of repairing the enchanted mirror and tracking down Bloody Mary leads Bigby Wolf down some really dark rabbit holes as we have just discovered there’s someone else running the show. With an opening scene that physically made me cringe to the point of turning away, I don’t do blood and broken limbs, you’re thrown into an episode with a lot more moralistic choices regarding Fabletown’s unglamoured inhabitants, giving you options to send them away or be passive towards them which will go against the rules.
For the rest of the episode you’ll come across Snow and many other familiar characters who’ll try and aid you along the way, just some of the you might need to ‘persuade’ a little more. In some of these lengthier scenes you’ll find yourself caught between pushing characters a little harder than some others to get a led and some answers before apologising to them for your hands on method of questioning. Well I felt I had to apologise as I did some terrible things to them. Beauty and Beast play an even bigger role in this episode as we finally discover what exactly is going on between their domestic problems that thankfully ties into your main objective. Through my playstyle I found myself promising that I’d fix everyone’s issues, being the helpful guy that I am, but I somehow couldn’t bring myself to telling them all that murdering this mysterious Crooked Man is the solution even though it seems everyone will be better off with him dead.
Just like in the previous episodes you’re given the choice to visit a couple of places, one before the other, which I don’t think this time round gets affected to which you visit first. Both leads are so plot driven and lead to the same outcome, perhaps being the penultimate episode and loose ends needing to be resolved, the Butcher shop and the Pawn shop serve two very important purposes. Is this a bad thing not having a real choice affected to where you travel first? Still, the way you resolve situations at both locations can leave you with some harrowing guilt which more than makes up for any doubts about this.
This has to be my favourite episode thus far. My passive orthodox method of approaching situations has well and truly been tarnished as I felt the pressure to getting answers. I’m glad I’ve been swayed into stepping up my tactics and all for a good cause, hopefully. And with this episode’s final scene with possibly the biggest cliff-hanger from all 4 episodes I don’t know honestly what to expect from the next instalment. I’m worried, scared and excited and can’t wait to see the outcome from my choices.
