When I think of Multiversus, the only word that comes to mind is ‘pathetic.’ And I say this as someone who had previously been excited for it back when it was first announced. I’m just baffled as to how this game could’ve turned out like this. You have a year-long “open beta”, disappear for another year, then come out with a full release that’s somehow worse than the giant pile of mid the beta was? What feedback did they take into account? Were people complaining about the game being too fun? Did the devs receive angry emails demanding the game be slower and shittier?

The worst of both worlds. A crossover that just makes both franchises involved worse. Mortal Kombat vs DC’s biggest flaw is that it bears a T rating rather than MK’s usual M. This makes sense as a move to retain DC’s all-ages target audience, which is also why Mortal Kombat is the worst fighting game for DC to crossover with. The dirty little secret with Mortal Kombat is that, as a fighting game, it’s always been a tier or two below its mainstream competitors, and the only thing it really has going for it is its gore. A Mortal Kombat game without gore is essentially worthless, so Mortal Kombat vs DC being given a T rating meant the whole project was doomed from the start. When you’re faced with an MK game that’s only marginally more violent than Street Fighter or Tekken, all you’re left with is stiff, clunky combat and a story and lore that is complete nonsense garbage even by fighting game standards.

The problem with most ‘Soulslike’ games is that they feel less like a product of genuine inspiration and more like an attempt to hitch a ride on From Software’s coattails. They tend to just copy everything Dark Souls does without bothering to interrogate why Dark Souls does what it does, the intentions behind its mechanics, world design, and encounters, what about it works/doesn’t work and why/why not. This is something that happens in all genres to an extent. The two-weapon limit became the standard in shooters for seemingly no reason other than “Halo did it.” But Soulslike for the most part seem particularly keen on aiming no higher than providing TV dinner versions of games you’ve already played. Lords of the Fallen, arguably the first and the most brazenly creatively bankrupt of the Soulslikes, is the perfect example of this.

As someone who thinks Dark Souls isn’t even all that good to begin with, playing Lords of the Fallen made me appreciate just how much Dark Souls does right, or at least does better than its clones. It took me only around 10 minutes of playing it to realize Lords of the Fallen was a total crock of shit, but I persevered for 2 hours before I decided I’d had enough. Bandai Namco publishing this and Dark Souls II in the same year is like a restaurant offering two versions of the same dish except one had been left in a hot dumpster for a week. I know I should stop comparing it to Dark Souls so heavily and talk about its own merits, but the problem is it has no merits. The game is flat, lifeless, and uninspired. There’s nothing here for it to stand on.

It’s mind boggling how anyone thought this game had enough name recognition to reboot it