Project Title:
#51 - Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2
Initial Start Date:
05/21/2023
Project Closure:
05/07/2024
Platform:
PS4
Personal Difficulty:
★★✩✩✩
Enjoyment:
★✩✩✩✩
Project Conclusion:
Impossible to Recommend
Man. Hopefully this will be the only time that I'm this negative about a game, because I really don't have much to say. Let's get the good out of the way. I'll state now that I like the original game a lot, but my favorite entry in this series is Marvel UItimate Alliance 3: The Black Order on the Switch. This was my first time playing MUA2 -- and if I had known how abysmal I would have found the game, I wouldn't have started it; UR plat be damned.
Don't worry! This won't take long.
If you're really into Marvel, this game probably is really enticing. In particular, this game's story line is based on the Civil War story form the comics. Even though it has fewer playable characters compared to the original Marvel Ultimate Alliance. Though the game has long been delisted and was only available digitally on PS4, the online mode is perfectly operational and works well, unlike the first game. Like the original MUA, this game is like a top-down Beat-'Em-Up just like the original. I've heard that this series has some soft similarities to Diablo if that were to interest anyone. Oh right, the good parts about the game...
Roster of Marvel heroes
Co-op is fully operational
Great, that's out of the way.
Usually, I'm a "Less is more" sort of person. I find that a lot of games or media could do with reducing content and instead refine what's there. Given this game is comically short compared to the original game, less is indeed less here. You're working about 5 IIRC fewer characters than the original title, with half of the game's duration. Annoyingly, the collectibles in this game are heinous and pretty boring. Between Marvel trivia, optional dialogue, and these "Boosts" items that you need to collect, the monotony builds up fast. If anyone caught the initial start date, I WAS planning on platting this game when I started it; but it was so boring, that the idea of powering on my PS5 for a game that I was NOT enjoying disgusted me enough to partake in other games/other hobbies. I told myself "I'll finish this game after TW101" just so I could justify putting it off.
Anyway, sorry. I'm pretty good at complaining; complete with hyperbole and sensationalism, even if I don't like to. I'll try to refrain from that as much as I can and explain what I disliked about the game.
The moment-to-moment gameplay isn't that different from the original game. The game introduces a new element called "Fusions" where you're able to do powerful attacks. These are put into three categories:
Guided
Targeted
Clearing
Guided is where you're able to control the attack for a duration. Targeted, it's a powerful attack against a singular target (pretty good for boss fights). Clearing is like a large AoE attack to destroy mobs. On the surface, even with this new gameplay element, weaker roster and shorter duration, this doesn't mean it's a bad game compared to the original, necessarily. It's just a diluted experience compared to the original game. If someone were to crave more MUA, then I guess on the PlayStation side, this is the best you can do, given that MUA3 is unlikely to leave Nintendo platforms. However, with a duller game, and a more monotonous plat, my feelings toward it are pretty sour.
With these Fusions, you need to do each one with every possible pairing of the base-game heroes. I saved this for last as it takes a couple of hours, even with the fastest possible method -- but it's hard to believe that anyone got this trophy organically. More annoying than that, are the Boosts I had mentioned earlier. They can vary from collectibles on the level, leveling up characters/unlocking costumes, as well optional dialogue throughout the game. You need to collect 200 of these things, so it's a high volume of bullshit.
Bouncing back and forth in level select to not involve myself in combat, the best part of the game, despite being weaker than the original, was sort of agonizing. It's a good thing that MS Excel is one of my favorite programs, because seeing the visual progress to keep track of everything helped reduce the mental terrorism that this game inflicted (sorry, needed to sneak that in there).
Even the level design compared to the original is really dull. In the original game, it really capitalized how varied Marvel can be -- from going to Atlantis (and being able to breathe underwater, somehow), being on a space-ship, doing weird shit in Canada -- what the game lacked in technical gameplay, really made up for it with the variety of everything else. I'll save more of my thoughts for the eventual write-up on that game, but please know that for me liking two entries out a trilogy, is pretty good, in my opinion.
In short, if a diluted version of the original game is enticing somehow, look into acquiring this somehow, I guess. But the platinum is not organic to how most people would play this game. Maybe that's true for a majority of trophy lists, but it hurts more when the game is inadequate.