YMMV / Minecraft: Story Mode

• Accidental Aesop: Sometimes, it's best not to meet your idols. The first four episodes revolve around the gang travelling far and wide to bring together The Order of The Stone, their heroes, to take down the Witherstorm. Magnus ended up being a jerk, Ellegaard was narcissistic and awful to Olivia, Soren deserted his allies when the final battle came, and all members turned out to be frauds.
• Adorkable:
  • Jesse. Slightly more noticeable with a male Jesse as female Jesse is generally more calm and confident, but applies regardless.
  • Ivor, who shows a more excitable and giddy personality in episode 5's exploration.
  • Radar, who's so enthusiastic to be working with the Order and to be mentored by Jesse. Even applies In-Universe, as Olivia finds his excitement adorable in the first scene.
• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • The Reveal that the Order killing the Ender Dragon was a fraud puts Ivor in this light: did he try to humiliate Gabriel and prove that the Order were frauds to be the hero himself as revenge for being dropped from the legends or to give Gabriel and/or himself a chance to kill a real monster and become genuine heroes?
  • If you let Lukas go look for the Ocelots in Episode 4, they'll all return and distract the Wither Storm to let Jesse make a way up to it. Despite this, they don't get any recognition in the final cutscene. This adds a layer of sympathy, complicated by the lack of a canon path, to Aiden's initial jealousy in Episode 5, as Jesse and friends got full credit for something he also had a hand in.
  • Tying into the Fridge Brilliance with Ivor's lack of a role in Soren's Ender Dragon story: Soren doesn't mention Ellegaard directly in his dialogue that we hear, but she is still shown to us to have taken part, using arrow dispensers to destroy one of the crystals. In the final scene of the flashback, when everyone is cheering for the Order, Ellegaard doesn't have the proud smile that Gabriel and Magnus do (neither do Ivor and Soren, but they at least have excuses to not be smiling). In fact, her expression looks fairly neutral. Perhaps she had similar misgivings, but only enough that she just asked for her role to be toned down rather than removed.
  • Just how evil is PAMA? Some regard it as nothing more than just a power-hungry computer using its desire for "usefulness" as an excuse to enslave people. But, as Harper can tell you when you first arrive in her lab, PAMA may just be slightly confused. It's a machine who was programmed to increase productivity in every way possible, and part of it may not realize how horrific it is to turn people into robots and make them lose all sense of free will. When Jesse is about to murder it, PAMA will beg them to stop and admit it's made some mistakes, and that they're ready to turn a new leaf. But this turns out to be lie, and PAMA will have Lukas/Petra maliciously smile and immediately kill Jesse if they fall for PAMA's trick.
  • In "Jailhouse Block", Radar's decision to become more aggressive as "Prison Radar" can be interpreted multiple ways. Was it due to others saying he was too weak for the job back in "Giant Consequences" and now feeling the need to change himself? Or is it just meant to be played as a joke?
• And You Thought It Would Fail: When this game’s release was announced, many Minecraft fans thought adding a story into the game wouldn’t work, and the game would fail. Turns out, Minecraft: Story Mode was the first game since The Walking Dead to make Telltale Games profit.
• Angst? What Angst?: While they do occasionally freak out about it, for the most part, everyone in the White Pumpkin's mansion is much less disturbed than one would expect considering people around them are being brutally murdered one by one, and they could be next. Whenever someone dies, they act mildly upset at best. This is especially notable for the Youtubers themselves, as they've known each other for years and, while currently being in a quarrel, are overall still friends.

• Awesome Art: The character designs fit their personalities well, and the background builds are just beautiful.
• Awesome Music:
  • Antimo and Welles’ and Anadel’s soundtrack for the game manages to mix the original game's ambient, fairly minimalist music with rock quite well.
  • The Wither Storm's leitmotif properly encapsulates how dangerous the creature itself is, with a droning pattern, until finally becoming frantic and discordant.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Axel. Some people like him for what appears to be White-and-Grey Morality, the fact that he genuinely cares about his friends, his (very) mild Cloudcuckoolander tendencies, and some of his Crosses the Line Twice comedy. Others hate him for 3/4 of those reasons, as well as him enjoying animal cruelty (towards chickens), liking scaring his friends, getting disappointed with Jesse if s/he disagrees with him, and being rather mean to Lukas.
  • Olivia. Some like her for generally being a nice girl and a bit of a Woobie, while others are annoyed with her tendency to Wangst and occasionally talk down to Jesse.
  • Stella. Some like her being a Heroic Wannabe and an Attention Whore with Hidden Depths ^note Caring for Lluna even though the llama hates her, and being genuinely devastated after Champion City is blown up (thinking it comes across as Adorkable), and feel genuinely feel sorry for the crap she goes through later. The other part of the fanbase hate her Rich Bitch attitude and generally don't feel sorry for potentially leaving her trapped in an ice crystal.
  • Radar. Some like him for being one of the purest characters in the game, his Adorkable personality, his... unique Character Development, and that if you left him behind at the end of Episode 4, he is the one who comes and saves everyone, without Romeo having to sacrifice himself. Others think he's the most annoying character in the game, hate his voice and really want him to shut up, and think his Character Development is pathetic.
• Broken Base:
  • There has been some hot debate over whether or not you should save Petra or Gabriel in Episode 1. Whoever you save will become extremely sick and whoever you fail to save will gain amnesia. The choice changes the nature of a few cutscenes and Dialogue Trees but doesn't have much of an impact on gameplay... which may or may not be why it is so fiercely debated.
  • Then it was announced that it would be released for the Wii U... which doesn't even have Minecraft itself available for it. Wii U fans took this to be a slap in the face, but there was some hope that this would mean that Minecraft will eventually release on the Wii U... the announcement of which came later.
  • Whether or not this series is just a cash grab by Telltale has been a big matter of discussion among fans since day one.
  • Also one over whether the Let's Players of Episode 6 are terrible voice actors, directed poorly or if they actually do decently and are just not as good compared to the professional voice actors for the characters they interact with, resulting in them sticking out more. The general consensus is that they do end up averting Realistic Diction Is Unrealistic, for better or for worse.
    • Stampylonghead's voice acting in particular is quite divisive as some felt his hammy and overtly child-friendly demeanor felt very out of place in a chapter revolving around someone slowly killing the inhabitants of a mansion. Others felt it was awesome to just hear his voice in the game.
  • Whether or not the streak of color in female Jesse's hair is supposed to be a hair clip, or one strand of dyed hair. Fanarts portray it about fifty/fifty, and people have gotten into debates about what was the original intention.
• Captain Obvious Reveal:
  • In episode 6, it's easy to tell who the murderer is, so long as you recognize Ashly Burch as playing Cassie Rose, making her the only "Let's Player" to not be As Herself, barring TorqueDawg, and thus easily setting her up as an important character. Even more so if you're into the Minecraft community and you recognize everyone except her.
  • It is blatantly obvious in episode eight that Tim is not real. He is the only person to ever win the Games, and has remarkable physical qualities such as being three blocks tall, yet no one seems to have ever actually met the guy. It's all just legends and stories. When Otto comes into town and visits Jesse, he feels the need to stress that Jesse might be a real Tim.
• Crazy Is Cool: Soren is certainly loopy, but he also loves the concept of Rule of Cool and based his ENTIRE fortress around it.
• Critic-Proof: In spite of this game's mixed reception and unusual place within Telltale's library, it was also the studio's only post-Walking Dead game that turned a profit.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • Reuben's death? Tragic. Him immediately dropping a pork chop? Hilarious.
  • In Season 2 Episode 5, when Jesse is trying to pose as the Admin: Eating a porkchop that used to be someone's prized pet pig? Horrible. Telltale immediately calling you out for it with a signature popup?^note You ate the porkchop. Wow. Hilarious.
• Cry for the Devil:
  • Ivor netted some sympathy points after it was revealed that he was a member of the Order but was removed from the legend.
  • Cassie Rose, once she's outed as the White Pumpkin, talks about how she's been trapped in this strange world, away from everyone and everything she knew and loved, for years with no way out. While it doesn't excuse all of her murders (a fact that you can actually point out), it's hard not to feel sorry for her after what she's gone through.
  • The Admin won sympathy points after some of his backstory was uncovered and humanized him without excusing his behavior. It was especially his implied regret over Fred's death that helped make people think there was still some hope for him left.
• Designated Hero: Jesse can be this, if the player decides to play them as a self-centered and rude Jerkass. In that scenario, the game doesn't punish Jesse at all. They are destined to be the hero that saves the day at the end, even getting Undying Loyalty from their friends (friends who they frequently badmouth or ridicule).
• Designated Villain:
  • Lukas for the opening half of Episode 3. Despite him having done nothing wrong and asking to use the Amulet to get it to work, the game forces the player to go against any of his suggestions and try to yank the amulet away from him (Y'know, despite the fact that we're supposed to make the choices in this game?), and doesn't even give them an option to support him while the other characters seem rather against him in his suggestions to help. Add in the fact that the game seems to love treating him badly during the first half of the episode (Axel constantly crashing on top of the poor guy in the first half doesn't help) and even gives the player to make fun of his fear of Endermen, and it just seems like the world loves taking the chance to crap on him.
  • Xara is another example depending on the dialogue choices the player picks. Other than leaving one of Jesse's friends trapped in her cell, which she literally had to do, Xara doesn't do anything particularly wrong, yet several dialogue options have Jesse call her a crazy and cruel manic on par with the Admin. Thankfully, unlike Lukas, this time the game never forces Jesse to treat Xara this way.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Gabriel is the most popular member of the Order due to being voiced by Dave Fennoy, who voices the main character of The Walking Dead, Lee Everett. The fact that he looks vaguely similar to Lee probably helps as well.
  • Absent-minded architect Soren also received positive feedback for providing levity and goofiness in what is otherwise a very tense and plot-heavy episode.
  • Out of the five kids Action Girl Petra appears to be the most popular. Notable since she arguably gets the least screen-time out of all the kids, especially if you choose Gabriel over her near the end of episode 1.
    • Subverted in "Order Up!" onwards, when she has the most amount of screentime out of all the kids, especially in Season 2; yet still retains her popularity.
  • Out of the Arc Villains, PAMA of Episode 7 seems to be the most popular of them, presumably due to their Faux Affably Evil nature and premise.
  • The Admin is a popular villain due to his powers, personality and hidden depths. Redeemed Romeo has very little screentime but has also received quite a bit of love for being genuinely repentant, for having a good redemption quest and for the heroic sacrifice he may pull if certain decisions were not made.
  • While Ivor himself has to much screentime to qualify as a Darkhorse, Ninja Ivor is only around for parts of Episodes 4 and 5 of Season 2, and the fanbase pretty much fell in love with him.
• Enjoy the Story, Skip the Game: If someone is a fan of this game, it's usually solely because they like the story and characters. The actual gameplay is generally considered adequately enjoyable at best and lackluster at worst, plus most of the dialogue options and decisions don't really have a major effect on the plot.
• Epileptic Trees: Some fans believe that Mojang is trying to wipe the game out of existence so that they can use the same plot for a Minecraft Movie.
• Even Better Sequel: Many fans believe that season two is better than season one, citing that season two has a more original and creative story along with a more cohesive narrative.
• Fanfic Fuel:
  • How did Soren initially find the command block?
  • The backstories of the minor/supporting characters in the series, e.g. the YouTubers' pre-Mansion lives and the Games competitors' lives before the Games.
  • We see a day in the life of Jesse running Beacontown, but only some vague dialog from Olivia and Axel about what they do all the time in Redstonia and Boom Town, respectively, even though they're implied to be just as busy as Jesse.
  • What were Harper and Ivor doing for most of Season 2?
  • Season 2 Episode 1 contains several references to Stampy's Lovely World (e.g. the miniature recreations of his House and the Love Garden), with Stampy himself interpreting that the reason for this was because his character was homesick. However, Word of God also officially confirms that Stampy of the MCSM universe permanently settled in Beacontown by the time Season 2 rolled around, which begs the question of how much of the Lovely World is canon, what happened to it, and why he moved to Beacontown in the first place. And similarly to that, why did Stacy move to Beacontown as well?^note In-universe, Stampy claims it's for "the thrill of adventure", but it's unknown how much of that is truth or lie since "the thrill of adventure" likely wouldn't have stopped Stampy from returning to the MCSM equivalent of his Lovely World (i.e. home), and Stampy's character has had a history of lying, albeit badly and out of self-preservation.
  • Near the end of Season 2 Episode 5, Romeo threatens to bedrock over Jesse's world and make a new world on top of it. He's stopped in time, but what if he wasn't? What would the new world be like? And how would life in Jesse's world change? Could travel between the two be possible like it was between Jesse's world and the Underneath (assuming the Sunshine Institute was in "Jesse's" Nether)? If so, what kinds of interactions would they have?
  • When the Fred hologram is briefing you on the Gold Gauntlet, he says it has the power to make Romeo normal again. This implies that Romeo, Fred, and Xara weren't born with their powers but acquired them somehow. How?
  • Due to the nature of the ending of Season 2, there are many fanfics that try to give insight to Jesse's life afterwards, especially with Telltale going defunct and killing the possibility of Season 3 ever seeing the light of day.
    • If Jesse went with Petra at the end of Season 2, what kind of adventures are they are going on now? The pair may even be accompanied by Lluna, the treasure-sniffing llama, opening up more opportunities for big adventures to continue.
    • If Jesse stayed at Beacontown, they will get a letter from Aiden, who wishes to apologizes for what he's done, and a mysterious letter from a person named 'WP', warning them to 'Look out'.
• Fan-Preferred Couple:
  • Jesse and Petra followed by Jesse and Lukas in second place in the popularity polls. Telltale seems to have acknowledged both ships as being popular in the behind-the-scenes short for Season 2.
  • Magnus and Ellegaard for some people who think that their continuous snark at each other is the result of a past romance gone sour. After one of them dies the other will reminisce about them in a way that pretty clearly says that they didn't actually hate each other.
• Fanon:
  • As sort of a compromise to the fact that Jesse can be either male or female, they are often headcanoned as genderfluid or non-binary.
  • Many people headcanon Petra with freckles in their fan-arts.
• Genius Bonus: Many characters, such and Jesse's gang and the Order of the Stone, have names of Swedish origin, a reference to how Minecraft was created by a Swedish company.
• Growing the Beard:
  • Season 1 Episode 3 marks the point the story becomes more serious (albeit without losing its humor), with the characters becoming more nuanced than previous episodes and the protagonists getting closer to accomplishing their goals.
  • Some fans believe season 2 had a better and more original story than both Witherstorm Arc and Portal Arc of season one.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Ellegaard building a Command Block in Episode 2 is this upon The Reveal that the Order effectively cheesed the Ender Dragon with one, especially since there's no way she didn't see it in the flashback even if Soren had hidden it from her until then.
  • Season 2's General themes of friends falling out with each other and the Order of the Stone dissolving give can act as a rather sad meta-commentary/reference to Telltale Game's eventual fall and dissolution. Season 2 Episode 5 especially has a prevalent feeling of a finale that is heightened as the Netflix version of Minecraft Story Mode is the last item that Telltale Games worked on.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Petra's complaints about a gold sword being "Too heavy, and too soft" in Season 1 Episode 1 become amusing from Season 1 Episode 5 onward, as not only does she wield an enchanted gold sword as her primary weapon, but in Season 2 we learn that she's fond of it enough to give it a name — "Miss Butter" — and go through all sorts of ridiculous tasks to get it back from the leader of a neighboring city after the latter swindled it from her.
  • In "Access Denied", after learning she's an Old Builder, Ivor asks Harper if she can't just clap her hands and make PAMA disappear. As the Old Builders are just brilliant inventors, Harper says she can't. Come Season 2, however, the gang meets someone who not only can make things disappear by clapping his hands but also loves to do so.
  • Season 1 Episode 6 showcases an item collection system that shows items floating on water and subsequently being sucked up glass tubes (the latter was also shown in Episode 3, and maybe 2 if you chose to go to Redstonia). This was Artistic License with normal Minecraft physics as items in Minecraft proper sink in water. Or at least they used to until early Minecraft 1.14 snapshots revamped the water physics so that items do indeed float, making such systems viable to build in Vanilla Minecraft, about a year and a half after Episode 6 was released.
  • Season 2 Episode 3 features the Warden, the former warden of the Admin's Sunshine Institute, located deep underground. Minecraft 1.19 introduces a new mob also called the Warden, who also resides underground in deep dark biomes.
  • Both Seasons featured various characters wearing elaborately-designed armor not obtainable in the main game. Although not as elaborate, Minecraft 1.20 added the ability to decorate iron, gold, diamond, and netherite armor with trims using a Smithing Templates.
  • In Season 2 Episode 4, Jesse and his friends explore the Underneath, a vast, post-apocalyptic world located below the bedrock layer of the their world, which was thought to be impossible. Starting from the 1.18 Minecraft update, old worlds created in 1.17 or earlier had their bedrock layer converted into deepslate and additional caves were generated below y=0, with a new bedrock layer at y=-64. In the 1.19 update, these bottom most layers are also were deep dark biomes and ancient cities are found. This makes the concept of a previously undiscovered, ruined world beneath the bedrock at least somewhat true.
• I Knew It!: Several correctly guessed that the ninja in Season 2 was Ivor.
• Indecisive Parody: Perhaps the biggest criticism of the game is that it can't decide whether it wants to be a parody of Telltale Games' traditional formula, playing up the absurdity of trying to apply their brand of storytelling to a game as freeform and story-light as Minecraft, or if it actually does want to try and tell a serious story, taking inspiration from the kinds of stories and meta-narratives the game's playerbase loves to create.
• It Was His Sled: Reuben dies.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • He may be a griefer, but it's pretty hard not to feel bad for Magnus when his kingdom gets swept away by the Wither Storm.
  • Stella in Episode 5. Best summed up by Petra:
    Petra: (Voice shaking a bit.) Stella sucks even when she's on our side, but... nobody deserves that. Ever. Her whole city... gone. In an instant.
• Les Yay: Throughout the series, Jesse and Petra both have a bit of Ship Tease moments, especially in Season 2, where Jesse is the one helping Petra through her character arc. But this applies whether or not Jesse is male or female. It gets taken up to eleven in Season 2 where Petra can admit to (a female) Jesse that she was the most important person in her life and that she didn't want to separate with her. The seal on the deal is when (a female) Jesse is able to chose to go with Petra on her her adventures, with the endgame quote saying that 'You decided to stay with Petra no matter what'.
  Petra: I wanna go with Jesse. I feel like that's where I belong.
• Like You Would Really Do It:
  • Lukas falling off Sky City. Most assumed he would be fine even before Jesse was pushed off as well.
  • Most people's immediate reaction to seeing Petra/Ivor and Lukas being crushed to death in episode eight was that it had to have been staged or an illusion or something. No way did two main characters die just like that.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Episode 1 gave a few.
    • Nobody will remember that.
    • Freakin' Beacon.
    • "We could have saved the build?!" ^note The options read "Come on, help me find Reuben" and, "Stay here, save the machine!" The options have fooled many a gamer into thinking that they'd be abandoning the pig if they pick the machine, when really you're just telling Axel and Olivia to either stay behind and keep the build safe or come with you and find Reuben. Many a gamer has raged upon finding this out.
    • "That's a shit build!" or otherwise lampshading how bad the starting trio's enderman/creeper/zombie statue looks in episode 1. ^note Said by many members of the Minecraft building community, and those connected to it.
  • The opening of Season 2 Episode 1 also gives us "Treehouse", which escalated on the YouTube fandom, by substituting basically every other word with 'treehouse'.
  • "I'm a ninja!" A line uttered by Ivor in Episode 4 as a response to somehow finding Jesse, despite the latter being in another dimension and in a hidden area to boot. Many have used that as a response to other Ass Pull moments, others have turned it into the equivalent of "Because, I'm Batman" and/or "Pickle Rick".
  • "Fred Fact: [[Insert random disturbing information about Fred here]]". A plot point in Episode 4 is to collect information about a guy named Fred, who was one of the Admins before he was murdered. Considering that the canon "Fred Facts" are somewhat nonsensical, many have exaggerated this for humorous effect.
  • Following the Colbert Bump of Among Us, it became popular to compare the plot of Episode 6 to the game, or to call it "the Youtuber Among Us episode".
• Mis-blamed: Minecraft: Story Mode is occasionally blamed as the reason Telltale Games shut down, but the problem that caused the shutdown was actually management issues that occurred after the success of The Walking Dead: Season 1. In fact, Minecraft: Story Mode was the only game after The Walking Dead to turn a profit.
• Moment of Awesome: Now has its own page.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Aiden and the Blaze Rods act pretty heinously in Episode 5, stealing Jesse's enchanted flint and steel and lying to Isa about Jesse and their companions being bad people. But Aiden truly crosses this when he kicks Isa and Jesse off the edge of Sky City (the former even after gaining her trust and the latter with the intent to kill them), gets Maya and Gill to spawn monsters to destroy the village and terrorise the townsfolk (which they seem to enjoy doing), and takes over as the new Founder.^note Lukas, Aiden's old friend, will also be kicked off if Jesse doesn't help him fight Aiden. They doesn't seem to have any motive for doing these things other than being driven by their jealousy towards Jesse and his friends for being heroes. After Jesse returns and forces Aiden into begging for mercy, they are given the chance to send him over the edge like he did to Jesse and Isa (or Reginald can do it instead).
  • PAMA crossed it by taking control of everyone in Crown Mesa in order to make them "useful." Then, it took control of either Petra or Lukas and tried to use him/her to kill Jesse, all while taunting him/her.
  • Hadrian and Mevia crossed it by forcing the competitors of the Builder Games to fight each other for their own amusement, sending the losers to the mines as their slaves.
  • If the Admin hadn't crossed it before, he most certainly crossed it when he blows up Champion City just as a warning to Axel and Olivia.
• Most Wonderful Sound: If you're playing as female Jesse, the eager little "Mine!" when she goes to grab all of the Elder Guardian loot in Season 2 Episode 1 is just adorable.
• Narm:
  • Axel's rather disinterested "Ahhhhhh!" whenever he falls or is scared. The fact that they keep re-using it so frequently doesn't help.
  • Reuben's death scene actually manages to hurt quite a bit after having had him with you through the whole game, especially with his sacrifice being to help save the world. What's less painful though is the way he finally keels over and turns into a porkchop. It's enough to completely ruin the drama of the scene, though it is funny at least. Despite this, many people were still moved by his death.
  • In Episode 3, when Radar is tortured to force Jesse into submission, he gives an elongated, spoken "Gulp!", which ruins this otherwise decent dramatic scene.
• Nightmare Fuel: Has its own page.
• Pandering to the Base:
  • Episode 5-8 have shades of this, given that Axel and Olivia are both Put on a Bus (although they appear again in the final episode), and the characters that work with Jesse in the episodes are Petra, Lukas, and Ivor, three of the most popular characters in the game.
  • The vaguely romantic subplot in Season 2 can be seen as pandering to fans of the popular Jetra pairing.
• Portmanteau Couple Name:
  • Jesse/Petra = Jetra
  • Lukas/Jesse = Lukesse
  • Lukas/Petra = Luktra
• Salvaged Story:
  • Not in-game, but rather with the marketing. Telltale got some heat for featuring only male Jesse in the marketing for the game, which implies the male character is the true mc/pc and that the female option was some nonofficial, bonus thing. This was fixed in later advertisements, which featured female Jesse much more.
  • One can argue that the character deaths in episodes 3 and 4 was one for the accusations that the game was too soft compared to other Telltale games.
  • After complaints about "Hell" being thrown around in Season 1, Season 2 features a location called "Heckmouth" as a clear response.
• The Scrappy: In terms of villains, Hadrian and Mevia from Episode 8 are disliked for being bland Bread and Circuses villains who lack the menace or Hidden Depths that made the previous villains interesting.
• Ship Mates:
  • There are some people who split Jesse into a female and a male version to ship them with Petra and Lukas, ending the Ship-to-Ship Combat. Though, the order of who is paired with who depends on preferences.
  • All of Jetra, Jesskas/Lukesse and Lukesstra generally get along well with the Beta Couple Axel/Olivia, as well as Magnus/Ellegaard, Ivor/Harper and Jack/Nurm.
• So Bad, It's Good: The writing is amateurish at times, the gameplay is wonky and the professional animation looks worse than what most hobby animators do for free. Some people play the game for exactly those reasons, since it's a blast to snark at it.
• So Okay, It's Average: In comparison to Telltale's other 2015 releases (including Tales from the Borderlands, considered by many to be their best game.) the game has garnered mediocre reviews, and many seasoned Telltale players felt that the episodes were too short and had little engagement.
• Special Effects Failure: Depending on your dialogue choices, the transitions between the unique response to your choices and the next part of the scene can be less than seamless.
• Spoiled by the Format: Episode 3 supposedly finally kills the Wither Storm, but there are a few more minutes in the episode and the Wither Storm is shown prominently in Episode 4's title card, indicating that they won't stay down.
• Stoic Woobie:
  • Petra gets hit by this after her Wither Sickness sets in. It doesn't help that Jesse is the only person she's comfortable with confiding in.
  • The same goes for Gabriel, who will be the one with the illness if you chose to save him instead of Petra. In the second episode, he reunites with the build crew and then two of his closest friends, all while knowing that he won't get to be around them for much longer.
• Take That, Scrappy!:
  • Shortly before you can set Stella's Heel–Face Turn in motion, Lluna finally has enough and spits on her.
  • In Above and Beyond if you didn't offer to free Stella from the Sunshine Institute and if you left Nurm in Prisoner X's cell then Lluna will spit in Stella's face at the end of the episode.
• Tainted by the Preview: When the trailer for Minecraft: Story Mode was released, the fanbase was... less than thrilled. While there were some people excited for it, others didn't like what they saw in the trailer. Among the complaints would be that the animation used was subpar compared to some of the more prominent Minecraft animation creators, the look of the mouths as characters were talking, the bland script and the fact that some people don't want Minecraft to be dramatic.
• Tear Jerker: Now has its own page.
• That One Achievement: "That's Some Pig", due to a heavy case of Guide Dang It!. In Chapter 3, when you're in the room with the Enderman suit, you have to talk to Reuben repeatedly, even after you and him stop saying anything (which can fool the uninformed into thinking there's nothing more there and move on), until one more conversation is exchanged and you get the achievement.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • The game received quite a lot of flack when it was revealed that the player character was not going to be the iconic Steve, but instead an entirely new character named Jesse.
  • Season 2 removed the ability to rewind just to certain parts of an episode. Want to redo a choice at the end of an episode? Sorry, you'll have to go through the whole episode again to redo that choice. Eric Stirpe explained that this is because it was too expensive to keep the feature in, and barely anybody even knew it existed anyway.
  • There's nothing wrong with Natasha Loring's performance as Olivia in and of itself, but it's noticeably different from Martha Plimpton's voice for her, which is jarring for anyone who played Season 1 beforehand.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Xara. A former Admin whose friend was murdered by Romeo, and was then imprisoned underground for centuries, if not longer. Once she helps Jesse escape, the game hypes up a massive confrontation with the Admin throughout Episode 4, as Xara repairs a portal to the Overworld and guides them through the Underneath. But despite this, Xara disappears for most of Episode 5. Her only appearance is if the player fails to show her the good things left in the world, and that's a minute-long confrontation with Romeo in which she gets force choked to death. If the player makes good choices with her, she doesn't appear at all, as the lead writer Eric Stirpe feared that an actual confrontation would take away narrative focus from Jesse. [1]
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: It would have been interesting if whether or not you helped the whole town in Episode 1 determined their behavior in Episode 5 under Admin-As-Jesse's rule; for instance, they could have been more suspicious if you'd helped everyone since the Admin's behavior is so unlike what they know Jesse as. Instead, beyond some background details when you return from the Sea Temple, helping everyone in town does nothing for the story but get Petra upset that Jesse was late for their adventure as a result.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley:
  • Reuben's human-like facial expressions, and the fact that he doesn't look like a regular Minecraft pig can be this for some people.
  • The way the characters' faces are animated can also be unnerving - their lip movements are blocky, but their eyes and eyebrows move much more fluently. Then there's the fact that nearly everyone possesses a Slasher Smile...
  • Lluna provides a good demonstration as to why llamas in Minecraft proper don't have moving mouths.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Ivor, mainly due to getting little to no punishment for the events of the first half of Season 1, and yet still being lumped in with the protagonists after that.
• Unintentional Period Piece: During Story Mode's development, Telltale worked closely with Mojang in order to keep up with new updates and gameplay features added to the main game and incorporate them into the story. After the series concluded with the release of the last episode in December of 2017 (around the time Java Edition 1.12.2 and Bedrock Edition 1.2.8 were released), it became inevitable that world of Story Mode would become outdated as the main game continues to receive updates even to this day.
  • Both Seasons were released before the Texture Update, hence the textures in the game are based off of the old "Programmer Art" or "Classic Textures" pack.
  • Season 1 Episode 3 was released before the Combat Update, so the End doesn't have features such as Chorus Plants and End Cities. However, it does have multiple islands separate from the main island, another feature that was added in Combat Update. Shulkers would eventually be featured in Season 2 Episode 2.
  • A major plot point of Season 1 Episode 4 is the gang traveling to the Far Lands. While the area itself is depicted accurately (minus the glitches) and the Far Lands are perhaps well known enough in the Minecraft community for most players to be familiar, the Far Lands themselves have been patched out of the main game.
  • Season 1 Episode 6 has become this in regards to the Let's Players appearing in it. At the time, all of them were massively popular on YouTube, with Captain Sparklez being the biggest out of the bunch. Over time, most of them have faded considerably in popularity, with DanTDM and LDShadowLady being the only two who have been able to remain consistently popular in the years since the release of the game, though Dan has mostly moved on to other games.
  • Episode 6 also featured Tipped Arrows. Most of the characters aren't familiar with them and note that they are still a relatively new thing, which was true at the time.
  • The ocean biome surrounding the Sea Temple in Season 2 Episode 1 was uniquely made for to this game, aside from the coral blocks which were adapted from a mod of the main game. At the time, Minecraft only had a few ocean variants and, aside from the occasional ruin, monument (which the Sea Temple itself is based on), or shipwreck, they weren't very interesting visually. After the Update Aquatic completely overhauled Minecraft's oceans, the Sea Temple biome in Story Mode seems out of place in comparison.
• The Woobie:
  • Lukas. Poor, poor Lukas. His team permanently let him out, you can choose to be rude to him, yet he's just helping out. Even later on, he gets accused of murder (which most of the mansion's guests actually believe until the real one is revealed), gets chipped by PAMA, dies in Spleef early on regardless of player choices, all just in Season 1. In Season 2, not ONLY is he put down for being "not up for the task", but later on He believes Romeo in disguise IS the real Jesse, only becoming corrupt after going mad with power, leading him to form the New Ocelots from those Romeo locked away in the tower, wanting to remind Jesse of who they really were. And then he learns that the whole thing was a lie and the real Jesse had only just returned to Beacontown.
  • Petra, possibly even more so than Lukas. (Poor, poor, POOR Petra.) In the first half of Season 1, she either gets Wither sickness, which almost kills her or almost dies from the Witherstorm, but survives with amnesia. In Episode 7, she gets chipped, and depending on the player's actions, she can remain chipped the entire episode. In Episode 8, she either gets crushed to death or stabbed by a gladiator (but thankfully respawns). It's unknown what happened between the 5-7 years between Season 1 and Season 2, but it's highly possible that she was abandoned without a purpose in life for almost this long. In Episode 10, if you sent her to get the clock, she will become the Admin's champion; otherwise, she will get sent to the Sunshine Institute with everyone else. On top of all that, she thinks her friends don't care about her anymore and has an existential crisis — not knowing what her "thing" is until the cabin scene in Season 2 Episode 4.
  • Radar could also qualify as this. In the first episode of Season 2, nothing bad really happens, with him having a more minor role as Jesse's intern. And then comes the rest of the episodes. In the second episode, he's put down by The Admin SEVERAL times for not being anywhere near as strong as the others or to fight at all, as if Stella saying the same thing beforehand wasn't enough. And he's CLEARLY upset by it. Then comes Episode 3. Very early on, he's outright tortured by the Warden through suffocation JUST to convince Jesse to become an Associate. Gets worse if you refuse as the Warden will trip him up, causing him to break his glasses and gain a black eye. Not long even after, he decides he's now "Prison Radar" because he apparently has to "really step it up" because we'll, it's prison. Although it is clear that that's REALLY not his true self, and can come across as him trying to change who he is due to the previous episode. Episodes 4 and 5 seem to tone this down a bit, but still aren't particularly nice to him either, especially with him being chased by the Giant Enderman for quite a lot of the 4th episode.

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