They're much closer to the Visual Novel genre then the Adventure Games formula. But even than, most really good VNs that come out of Japan have branching stories. It's dependency on Anime Harem tropes and fanservice notwithstanding, many of the stories (Steins;Gate, Fate/Stay Night comes to mind) branch significantly and well beyond the "600 dead end bad endings and 1 good ending". They're well written and (again, once you get past the fact that you have to rummage through a sex scene you're totally not interested in ever seeing to get to a particular ending) engaging.
Telltale had a chance to take the Visual Novel, clean it up some for more Western sensibilities, and really create a market here for the genre.
Instead you just got a badly rendered machina. It was unfortunate.
That said, I've heard great things about the writing for Minecraft Story from adults. So, you know. If your expectations are appropriate, there's room to be impressed.
Visual Novel is an apt description, though I'll disagree with you on one thing: most Japanese visual novels back when I last checked them, which was in the 90s/early 00s, were terrible. And I mean, really, embarrassingly terrible, and not just for their random and bizarre sex scenes, but overall badly written and cliched. Some of it could be chalked up to poor English translations, but most of it was mind-numbing cliches and nonsensical situations you'd laugh at if found in a book or movie, and which you had to repetitively click through.
That said, yes, I think The Walking Dead Season could accurately be described as a Visual Novel with very little branching, more than a full-fledged point-and-click adventure. I think it succeeds at this; Lee's story is certainly more interesting than whatever happens with Rick & crew in the tremendously repetitive TV show. I can see how Telltale's formula gets repetitive for subsequent games, since it's essentially a one trick pony, but still... I was entertained for one season :)
Fate Stay Night doesn't really branch. It just makes you play it 3 times for 3 different versions of the story. There's very little interactivity, it's more like an author wrote 3 drafts of the same novel where different things happen in each draft than a work of interactive fiction.
Telltale had a chance to take the Visual Novel, clean it up some for more Western sensibilities, and really create a market here for the genre.
Instead you just got a badly rendered machina. It was unfortunate.
That said, I've heard great things about the writing for Minecraft Story from adults. So, you know. If your expectations are appropriate, there's room to be impressed.