Some fans of Telltale Games and their episodic adventures believe that the second episode in any series is always the weakest; it may still be quite fun to those who believe this, but not as fun as the others. I don’t normally put much stock in this opinion, but Back to the Future Episode 2: Get Tannen certainly fits the description. It tells a reasonably interesting story and has some good ideas, but also makes some significant mistakes. It is on the whole a decent addition to the series, so fans need not worry too much.
Picking up where the first episode ended, Get Tannen requires Marty to set some of his life in order before proceeding to the real heart of the story, with all the usual unintended consequences and detours that one expects from time travel in Back to the Future. Without getting too heavy into spoilers, Marty eventually finds that he will be spending more time in Prohibition-era Hill Valley and tending to various matters, which is both a good and bad thing for players. It’s good because there was a lot more story to tell here than the first episode got around to, yet a disappointment because very few new locations were added.
Some new characters are also introduced, and they’re easily the highlight of this episode in that they’re up to some pretty interesting things and very well voice-acted. Most players should feel reasonably engaged by these newcomers, which is a very good thing since most of the puzzles revolve around working with them in some way. The returning cast continue to be competently portrayed as well, and the chemistry between Doc and Marty is still both convincing and enjoyable. Truth be told, it is these factors along with a generally competent story that make Get Tannen worth playing.
Sadly, nearly everything else is a significant step back from the first episode. There are several animation/modeling errors (the most significant being two different characters ’clipping’ half-way through a curtain), a few outright missing lines (thankfully not vital to solving puzzles, and subtitles cover what you would have missed), and puzzles that are even easier than the first episode’s were. Many of them will have blatantly obvious solutions and be completed within seconds, while others require repeating a minor variation on the same action far too many times. The worst offense is that one puzzle solution from the first episode is re-used here, twice. Said solution was already wearing thin in the previous episode, and doing it again isn’t going to be very endearing to the player.
Despite these problems, the tale of this episode is interesting enough to be worth your time. It sets up what could be fascinating plot-twists for the next episode, has some great characters and situations to watch, and is on the whole a decent addition to the series. The worst that can be said against it are that a few quality control mistakes happened, and that the puzzles are far too easy... but it’s better for an adventure game to fail on these points while still telling a good story, and Get Tannen has its priorities straight in this regard.
