This game was not on my radar whatsoever, as someone who played XCOM 2 for a few hours and wasn't grabbed by it. I'm a big Marvel fan and the fact that this had Blade, Ghost Rider, Wolverine and other favorites of mine was definitely exciting though. Still, I didn't think I'd ever play this.
I felt intrigued to watch some gameplay eventually when Dave from PlayStation Access had lots of good things to say about it, and suddenly felt very interested by it. I never do this, especially when a game is on sale for only a little less than full price, but I bought it. I barely even buy games I really want to play when they're on sale for half off! I don't know what compelled me to do this, but it was one of the best chance purchases I've done in a long time.
Simply put, I love this game. You get engaging, tactical strategy battles with various ways to take out enemies and make your heroes work together. You get a fun story with rewarding character engagement, great voice acting (IMO) and lots of Marvel references and lore. You get a cool little open world area (keyword: little) and a cozy main hub to explore, find collectibles, resources, and cosmetics. It's all wrapped up in this addicting package that I was hooked to for weeks. I seriously had to pull myself away from this to do chores, get work done, and go to bed. It has a day and night cycle so it has this "one more day", "one more battle" feel. There's always more abilities to upgrade, more missions to do, more hangouts with your heroes to engage in.
The customization for players here is immense, you can choose what abilities, attacks and skills work for you and disregard what you don't like. You can alter hero costumes and what they wear around the main hub area. You can change your difficulty to go harder, or scale back if you're getting your ass kicked; you get higher difficulties as you progress, and it's very risk versus reward. It's a game full of menus, systems and choices that feels daunting, but is introduced in a way that you'll never not understand what you're doing and how you'll navigate it.
The main player character, The Hunter, is a pretty by-the-numbers "chosen one", and both their appearance and their attitude/personality is chosen by the player. There is a standard light/dark path that can be followed, allowing for different abilities, perks and costumes to be unlocked for both. I went light, because I'm not choosing the asshole replies to my hero pals, although to get the Platinum Trophy I started a New Game + file and went full dark. Took me a few hours, I just blasted through story missions, using a ton of dark abilities and of course choose dark for all dialogue options, which I hated! At one point I was a total dick to Captain Marvel and she said "Ouch, Hunter..." with an upset face. My dark Hunter was a prick and I hated that asshole!
I think I'll definitely get the DLC at some point so I can revisit this great game with some new heroes (Storm and Venom I am definitely super interested in).
My unfortunate downsides with this were some glitches; both heroes and enemies fell through the floor a few times, unable to be used or attacked. Also some visual glitches, after using a big screen-filling hero combo sometimes the color of the screen would change to a bright yellow. It would go away eventually, but it was still annoying. The game doesn't look incredible graphically, you'll see people clipping through the environment, walls, and each other, and sometimes there will be a delay or hiccup from characters in battle. I thought the graphics kind of fit with the fun superhero comic-book style of the game though, it didn't have to look super realistic.
All in all, this was a HUGE surprise for me, and I couldn't wait to get back to this game every time I stopped playing. The battles were both fun and challenging, the characters were great to spend time with, and exploring the grounds unlocking items and side quests during a day/night cycle was a nice added touch. It felt very Persona 5 to me (another game I love).
I felt intrigued to watch some gameplay eventually when Dave from PlayStation Access had lots of good things to say about it, and suddenly felt very interested by it. I never do this, especially when a game is on sale for only a little less than full price, but I bought it. I barely even buy games I really want to play when they're on sale for half off! I don't know what compelled me to do this, but it was one of the best chance purchases I've done in a long time.
Simply put, I love this game. You get engaging, tactical strategy battles with various ways to take out enemies and make your heroes work together. You get a fun story with rewarding character engagement, great voice acting (IMO) and lots of Marvel references and lore. You get a cool little open world area (keyword: little) and a cozy main hub to explore, find collectibles, resources, and cosmetics. It's all wrapped up in this addicting package that I was hooked to for weeks. I seriously had to pull myself away from this to do chores, get work done, and go to bed. It has a day and night cycle so it has this "one more day", "one more battle" feel. There's always more abilities to upgrade, more missions to do, more hangouts with your heroes to engage in.
The customization for players here is immense, you can choose what abilities, attacks and skills work for you and disregard what you don't like. You can alter hero costumes and what they wear around the main hub area. You can change your difficulty to go harder, or scale back if you're getting your ass kicked; you get higher difficulties as you progress, and it's very risk versus reward. It's a game full of menus, systems and choices that feels daunting, but is introduced in a way that you'll never not understand what you're doing and how you'll navigate it.
The main player character, The Hunter, is a pretty by-the-numbers "chosen one", and both their appearance and their attitude/personality is chosen by the player. There is a standard light/dark path that can be followed, allowing for different abilities, perks and costumes to be unlocked for both. I went light, because I'm not choosing the asshole replies to my hero pals, although to get the Platinum Trophy I started a New Game + file and went full dark. Took me a few hours, I just blasted through story missions, using a ton of dark abilities and of course choose dark for all dialogue options, which I hated! At one point I was a total dick to Captain Marvel and she said "Ouch, Hunter..." with an upset face. My dark Hunter was a prick and I hated that asshole!
I think I'll definitely get the DLC at some point so I can revisit this great game with some new heroes (Storm and Venom I am definitely super interested in).
My unfortunate downsides with this were some glitches; both heroes and enemies fell through the floor a few times, unable to be used or attacked. Also some visual glitches, after using a big screen-filling hero combo sometimes the color of the screen would change to a bright yellow. It would go away eventually, but it was still annoying. The game doesn't look incredible graphically, you'll see people clipping through the environment, walls, and each other, and sometimes there will be a delay or hiccup from characters in battle. I thought the graphics kind of fit with the fun superhero comic-book style of the game though, it didn't have to look super realistic.
All in all, this was a HUGE surprise for me, and I couldn't wait to get back to this game every time I stopped playing. The battles were both fun and challenging, the characters were great to spend time with, and exploring the grounds unlocking items and side quests during a day/night cycle was a nice added touch. It felt very Persona 5 to me (another game I love).
Reviewed on Jan 26, 2023