I can honestly say I’ve been clapping for some time now since completing the final episode of The Wolf Among Us ‘Cry Wolf’. I rarely feel compelled to clapping after films and video games. I must be thoroughly entertained, brought to some kind of tears and/or left wanting more in whatever type of ending I’m left with. I’ll put my hands up now and admit that Episode 5 did this and gave me the same closure to the story, content with my decisions throughout and the emotional rollercoaster ride that their previous game The Walking Dead ended on too. Anyone that has read my previous reviews for these episodes will remember that every episode has got progressively better. More detective elements balanced with Bigby’s quick time events in the wolf action sequences has made each episode progressively better. And to top it off, Cry Wolf takes everything that worked well and ends on an incredible climax.
For anyone that still hasn’t played through the game I’d recommend you to overt your eyes and pick up the season pass as soon as possible. For everyone else that has you’ll be glad to know that Bigby’s tale of uncovering the mysteries behind the deaths in Fabletown and the corruption behind the key characters actually ties together nicely and all questions answered, unlike in the TV show Lost. In the final scene from the previous episode Bigby finally comes across the infamous Crooked Man, instigator behind everything that went wrong and is the sole reason behind this investigation. What cleverly flips these accusations against said man is the reasoning behind such manipulation and exploiting throwing the player into their biggest morality trip ever. If someone instructs the murder of someone then are they innocent or just as bad as the killer themselves?
From the opening scenes you’ll find yourself playing this season’s most heavily quick time event driven episode so far. Fighting for your life and chasing down the truth players will find the first half of Cry Wolf pretty much an extended action sequence. With less than a handful of choices deciding where you’d like to pursue first and very little differences in the outcome of the choices we discover who actually killed Faith and Lily before facing off with Bloody Mary, finally. With a lot more back story to hear from Georgie the pimp, his girl Vivian and their club Pudding N’ Pie we learn some disturbing truths and finally understand what exactly the magical neck ribbons actually do. And there’s me thinking it was just a magical fashion statement.
The second half of episode 5 is by far one of the best bits of writing I’ve experienced in a game. To set the scene, the Fabletown members including Snow and Bigby have an informal trial regarding The Crooked Man’s crimes. Getting to hear what he has to say countered by what you could possibly choose to say sways the ‘jury’ to who’s making the better point to defend their actions. You have The Crooked Man on one side explaining that this manipulations and exploiting characters such as Beauty and Beast was for a good cause to keep a roof over their heads. On the other side you have Bigby defending his own actions for hurting or killing characters, if that’s how you played, and with Snow over watching our choices does this make her just as bad as The Crooked Man for not being involved in the killings and just over watching it too? All the moral choices are played out in this amazing trial and depending which people you please there’s always going to have others that are upset with either your kindness or brutal decisions. I certainly learned a lot about myself as a human being during this scene. I’m diplomatic, allow everyone to have equal say to defend themselves and if there’s no evidence to clearly prosecute someone then I won’t treat them as bad, or I could have just cut off the heads of everyone that opposes me. The choice is really up to you.
Everything from this trial onwards teases the fact that there could be more to come from detective Bigby Wolf. Not so much a cliffhanger but more to the point that Fabletown is a town that needs work to be cleansed still. We’ve learned that none of the characters are perfect, every choice has impacted characters such as Toad and his son not being able to live peacefully among the Mundies and sometimes you got to put the squeeze on someone to get an answer. But most importantly Cry Wolf questions at the end if we’ll go out of our way to help someone if there’s not an emotional reason to get involved. My mind was blown. Thank you Tell Tale.
