Guardians of the Galaxy Episode 4 Review

The crew that makes up the Guardians of the Galaxy are an exceptionally oddball pairing, but they’ve managed to get along despite having little in common. While their differences often leads to humorous exchanges, they’ve been slowly creating a rift in Telltale Games’ Guardians of the Galaxy. All of these issues come to a head in episode four, and there’s even more in-fighting than before.

Despite characters being at odds over what the player decided to do with the Eternity Forge (I decided to destroy it), they quickly come back together after being faced with a life and death situation. The first half of Who Needs You is familiar in nature, as the team is being forced to work together to get out of a sticky situation. The issues are momentarily paused, but they never truly fade to the background as perceptive players will notice how they boil up to the surface in small areas.

It’s during these moments of relative unity that players get to explore several different environments (with one that’s decidedly more gross than the other), and do some good old fashioned adventure game puzzle solving. It’s all pretty simple for the most part, as players just have to interact with items and occasionally move an object, but it’s a good break from the West Wing-style walk and talk sequences.

Choose Wisely

During these exploration bits, players also have the ability to call up their teammates to chat. It’s completely optional, as players that want to move on with the game can opt to pass them by, but I felt obligated to call my buddies and see how they were doing since the whole crew is pretty stressed out from the events of the season. These optional conversations stood out, as it helped me get a better feel for why each character was frustrated (well, except for Groot. I still have no clue what he’s saying.), and it was up to me to make sure that we stayed united as a team.

My whole goal this season has been to keep the Guardians as a cohesive team, and that has bled into a lot of my decision making. I occasionally let people’s personal wants and needs persuade me (as I did try to help Rocket out when he pleaded to visit his past love), but ultimately I always went with what I felt was best for the team at large (such as destroying the Eternity Forge). It was here that I realized that this thinking was ultimately flawed.

Too often I found myself trying to find an even ground that met everyone halfway. The problem here is that when you try to find a compromise, nobody ends up actually happy with the result. By trying to help everyone, I was ultimately helping nobody fulfill their goals.

Who Needs You

I learned this lesson a bit too late in episode four. After things had settled down from the chaos that happened earlier in the episode, my team was more divided than ever before. Several members of the team would up leaving my group, and I had failed as a leader. I had one goal, and my actions made it an impossibility.

It’ll be interesting to see how the rest of the season plays out, as I’m left hoping to mend many fences. I haven’t been able to predict the many twists and turns of Telltale Games’ Guardians of the Galaxy so far, but I’ve been thoroughly enjoying it so far. I think Who Needs You will server as a wake-up point for not just Peter Quill in-game, but also myself as a player.

By the end of episode four, I was starting to have regrets about every choice I had made in Guardians of the Galaxy. By often thinking about putting the team first, rather than how my teammates felt, I hadn’t been a very good friend. Juggling those responsibilities as a leader was difficult, and I just hope that future episodes will allow me to right my wrongs.

Guardians of the Galaxy Episode 4 review code purchased by reviewer. Reviewed on PlayStation 4 Pro. For more information on scoring, please read our Review Policy here.