Strong Badia the Free opens up with Strong Bad doing his thing, checking some emails. While reading, he's interrupted by the king of town. You see, the king has put a new law into effect. This law demands that anyone who sends or receives emails will be taxed for one creamy ding snack cake. Without a creamy ding snack cake to his name, Strong Bad is placed under house arrest.

Now, a bit of worry washed over me here. I wondered if being locked in Strong Bad's house was going to yield the same results as the first episode, where all of the interaction would be repeated. That's just not the case, as certain things have been changed in Strong Bad's home. On top of that, you can even go into Strong Sad's room this time around. Telltale probably wouldn't have made the house the same regardless, but some part of me still feared that. Good thing it just isn't the case.

Interacting with the environment is incredibly simple. You merely place your cursor on something and hit a button. Easy as that, so those that signed up for the first episode will be able to jump right in without any learning curve. Even for those that haven't tried the game until this episode, the learning curve is extremely short.

There are some problems that I had with Strong Badia the Free. For one, no Teen Girl Squad comics this time around. Strong Bad conveniently used his last piece of paper to make a scientific drawing of the king of town. So fans of TGS won't get their fix this time around. Also, this episode felt a lot shorter than the first.

What about the included minigame in the episode? Well, this time we get Math Kickers: Featuring the AlgeBros. It's a sort of Double Dragon clone, and despite its initial charm (boss fights with math equations is pretty funny), ends up being as shallow as Snake Boxer. It's fun for a few minutes, but loses its luster fairly fast.

Strong Badia the Free is every bit as strong a game as Homestar Ruiner was. It's a great adventure game, has tons of fan service for those that love Strong Bad and co. and is a breeze to play. But, again, the genre isn't for everyone and some might feel there's a lack of gameplay here. For those people, I'd recommend playing this anyway.

Oh, and before you ask, yes, the Trogdor arcade cabinet still has a broken joystick.

Final score: 8.5/10

Update: Reader J points out that you can access Teen Girl Squad comics in this episode. You just have to poke around. Thanks for the correction!

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