It’s time to reunite the once-famous Avengers to save the world from an evil corporation — the byproduct of what happened during Avengers Day, or A-Day. From the turmoils and perils that people have faced during the beta, did Crystal Dynamics finally fixed the glaring issues that plagued Marvel’s Avengers? Will it be worth the buck? Let’s find out.
Marvel’s Avengers, as much as we want to call it your super-hero brawler game, is actually a Games as a Service (GaaS) title from Square Enix. The game offers end-game content after the player blasts through the entire single-player aspect (that can and cannot be played with others).
The game starts you off as Kamala Khan. A young fan of the Avengers who got invited to Avengers Day for having written a fanfiction that impressed the Avengers. Kamala also gets to meet the members of the Avengers one by one. I can feel her excitement as she gets acquainted with each one of them. Not believing that she’s actually talking to each Avenger.
After the joyful, enthusiastic premise, you are then able to play as one of the Avengers, switching from Thor to Iron to the Hulk, and so on. This basically serves as the tutorial aspect as it gives you an idea of how each hero plays in a short period of time. Then when you get to progress through by completing story missions, the abilities of each of those heroes slowly expand by leveling them up.
The controls have definitely been improved from when I played the beta. There were significant improvements in things like Kamala’s swing. The prompt is now easier to get so she doesn’t end up dying by falling off a cliff. The flight mechanics did also get some polish. It now feels good to fly around like Iron Man and Thor when you fly across the area. Hovering, however, still needs to have a second look. It’s difficult to maneuver when you hover in mid-air, making combat tricky.
There are two different types of attacks: light and heavy. Each of them can be further developed with skill points when you upgrade them. You’ll get to do more damage, perform different combos. And each character has a dedicated skill tree where you can improve their unique set of abilities. What I like about the game’s combat mechanic is that each hero doesn’t feel the same. With all of the unique abilities, I can be as creative as I want to be. For example, I switch from Iron Man’s iconic repulsor to lasers so when I pull off an amazing combo it’ll have an area of damage (AoE).
Different heroes, different abilities, the same statement can’t be said for the enemies you encounter in Marvel’s Avengers. At first, you’ll see there are different types of enemies from AIM — the mega-corporation that took over Stark Industries’ assets and made mindless robots — makes you think, huh, there’s a lot of variety. But you immediately notice after a couple of hours that you’ll face the same kinds of tin cans over and over again. In the most general of senses, there are only basic grunts, big dudes with shields, and annoying blast bots from afar.
Each character also has their own chain missions that you can complete to net rare items and gears for that specific character. On top of that, they have individual challenge cards where cosmetic items and rare materials are rewarded by earning points from daily and weekly challenges.
The progression of the main campaign is actually quite good. The pacing’s just right enough that progression doesn’t feel cumbersome. It’s not one of those games that beat around the bush. It takes you right into the action and there is a clear response to the actions that you do. It’s not just some fetch quest where you’d have to do three missions to finally get the item. There was this one main quest though that I felt was forced and this was the collect items to craft everyone’s stark tech suit. It seemed to have cut the momentum to a screeching halt and just felt out of place. They could have made it better by having one mission that’s dedicated to getting those materials but they made it into a random fetch quest.
Other than the gear and materials that you can collect, you can also find comics that are scattered throughout each area. Collecting these comics will provide you with bonuses that will be applied to any character. Depending on how many comics you have collected for a set, it will significantly give you more bonuses per complete a whole set you possess.
Marvel’s Avengers gives you a healthy portion of its maps to explore but there are limitations. While each area is pretty big and you can explore a whole lot of it even when doing your missions. I was kind of disappointed that you can’t really fly up higher into the atmosphere but I guess that is expected since they won’t be able to breathe in space anyway.
There is a part of the game thought that lets you explore a space station and I wish there was more of it. It is actually pretty cool that you can fly around in the game as Thor or Iron Man. That freedom of just flying all around the map is really exciting and I feel like the game did a good job of doing so.
The story is more cohesive than I thought it would be. When I played the beta, there were so many gaps and holes in the plot that I didn’t really know what was going on. But playing Marvel’s Avengers now, it made a lot of sense. I like Kamala, and she’s one of the most grounded and relatable characters out of all the roster of characters. She’s just a person who is a big fan of the Avengers and was really sad when the Avengers disbanded. But having to fight alongside them, she earned her place in the Avengers. Kamala is the person inside all of us who wishes to fight with the Avengers. Who wishes to be that superhero that kept the team together. If it weren’t for Kamala then the Avengers would not have reassembled.
Marvel’s Avengers main focus is on multiplayer content and the grind for gear. I’m not sure what the game has in store for us in the nearby future but I do hope that they will keep adding great content. Would I say this game was worth $60? Not really. If we, however, get some free DLC story content down the line, then I could make an argument for it.
Playing the multiplayer content, I was thankful that they were finally able to solve the bug that keeps players from joining each other. The only thing I didn’t like about it was that once you’re done with a multiplayer mission if you are playing the main campaign it forces you to disband the team so you can continue with the story. I guess it was never intended to have people joining you in your main campaign missions. But I feel like it would have been fun if you could walk around in the Chimera with your friends.
Overall, I really enjoyed Marvel’s Avengers. The story, the action-packed battles. The freedom of flying as Thor or Iron Man. I believe these parts of the game make it very enjoyable. Especially for Marvel fans out there. There are a few technical glitches here and there where I experienced some frame drops when there’s just too much happening in the screen but it’s nothing that a future patch can’t fix. I’m excited to see where this game leads and I would recommend it if you are looking for that superhero fix.
