Marvel Ultimate Alliance fans have been begging for a new entry in the series for over a decade. Those fans will finally get their hands on Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order. However, the game industry has grown a whole lot in the last 10 years, which leaves a few questions to us. Will The Black Order scratch that inch fans have had for ages? Does the Marvel Ultimate Alliance formula want to evolve? Can it do both?
We’re prepared to answer many of those questions. During our recent cover story trip to Nintendo&rsquoheadquarters, we spent a few hours with the game. Subsequently Game Informer editors Matt Miller and Ben Reeves sat down to talk about their impressions.
Reeves: To begin, maybe I need to share my enthusiasm for the series. I’ve been a comic-book reader for for almost as long as I’ve been a gamer, so I had been in the bag for all these games the moment. I’ve been a fan of this series since the first X-Men Legends games; I played them all, and loved collecting my friends around the couch for all-night superhero battles. I know you’re a big comic guy too, and I think you have a similar affection for this series, so what was your general impression walking in and playing The Black Order for the first time?
Miller: I share your enthusiasm for the series, Ben, as well as that affair with the comics. My history after these characters goes pretty far back, so I come to the table with some preexisting enthusiasm. When the first X-Men Legends and Ultimate Alliance games introduced, it felt like such a clear idea for a game — to bring these heroes into an RPG frame and provide quick-playing superhero throwdowns — and if anything, that formulation feels even more relevant now, due to the popularity of the Marvel brand.
So, to answer your question, when I first started playing with MUA 3, it felt like a return to form. From a gameplay standpoint, this has a great deal of what made those earlier games so appealing: a huge number of characters, and arcadey activity that’s fun to hop in and out of friends. The first gameplay is pretty straightforward and button-mashy (in a good way), but after a few hours you may sense that higher difficulties and afterwards enemies require a bit more care, particularly in the use of hero abilities and how you update each character. I think that Team Ninja has attracted its own eye for high-octane action, so the gameplay moves quickly and features some interesting opportunities for cooperation.
Right away is that the insanity that this game unleashes on the monitor. There’s a learning curve to recognizing where your character is on the screen (Hint: follow their colored circle under their feet) and keeping track of the action. It’s a lot to take in. From our conversations with the devs in Team Ninja, I know it’s rsquo; re looking at closely at these last months of development & something that they. It’s catchy. If they tone down the action too much, it’s going to lose that mad superhero vibe of flying shields, missile explosions, and magic blasts. But when the camera and activity is too chaotic, it’s hard to feel invested in the unfolding gameplay. I’m excited to see the equilibrium they reach when the game releases in July.
What was your sense of the sense of this action? Did it fit with your memory of the first games?
Reeves: Overall, it felt pretty near my memory of playing with . You’re right about it being chaotic, which could be a issue, and I hope. However is a delight in seeing Groot, Spider-Man, Thor, and Deadpool all fighting one another. Team Ninja feel of the game and has done a fine job with the overall controls. I spent a lot of time with Spider-Man (both Miles and Peter) as well as Spider-Gwen. I like the Spider-family. Did you have any memorable characters?
Miller: One of my favourite things about the hours we got to play together was trying out all the different characters. I think one of those hard decisions for people will be whether they constantly flip around among characters, or focus on just a few early on in their playtime, so as to immediately start powering them up to their optimal potential.
While the core light and heavy attacks, dodge, and block are all relatively similar, they still have unique animations and effects based on the character, their size, and their choice of weapon/attack. It’s the use of powers that makes each character stand out. As an example, Wolverine’s inherent healing factor makes him a clear choice early on for frontline scrapper, so he pairs very well with another character who backs him up with ranged attacks and enemy debuffs. While it doesn’t unlock for a good while, Scarlet Witch’s healing field appears enormously strong, and something that has a lot of utility for teams.
In terms of personal favorites, it’s pretty hard to beat the pure raging insanity of the Hulk. That timeless Thunder Clap power is in full effect, and I really like the way he can just leap right into the thick of a big fight. I also really like Rocket & Groot, who perform together as a single character. They certainly have some abilities, but it’s just the animation work of watching them work together that’s super fun.
Reeves: You touched on the powers a bit there. I think that’another area where I had been hoping for a bit more. The old games streamlined the leveling process, but I still yearn such as Diablo III. It doesn’t feel like this series has evolved with the times. I was a bit disappointed that each hero only has four abilities, and while it’s possible to swap out which button is assigned to each power, there isn’t much customization beyond that. Of course, you can power up all these motions, but by the end of the game, I don’t think my Thor will be much different from the Thor. (I guess there’s only one God)
Having said that, I liked the powers I used. Spider-Miles includes a lot of electrified net attacks that set him apart from Peter, and Gwen has a fun movement that allows her to swing a giant wrecking ball of webbing at enemies. Cap still has his shield throw movement, which bounces off enemies and the environment, but I don’t think you can control it like you can in the first MUA.
What did you think of that leveling procedure?
Miller: That route to improvement is among those other things that really excites me in the sport. With this many characters, I feel like you could invest a lot of time leveling all the character in your account. There are numerous ways that gamers progress their alliance and their heroes.
I go into greater detail about it in our magazine cover story, but here we’re speaking specifically about real moment-to-moment hands-on impressions. So on that topic, it’s enough to say that there are ways that you’re leveling your whole alliance to be better with a specific attribute, which might impact a general playstyle for your team. As an example, if you like a group of players really like to spam power use, then maybe early on you invest in greater energy to fuel more powers, but at the expense of other capabilities. It had been hard to get a complete picture of that in just a few hours of play, but I like the idea .
You’re also gaining various currencies that allow you to beef up the characters you’ve been playing the most, enhancing their abilities (which unlock naturally as you level) as well as tweaking the way they play by equipping ISO-8 pieces, which may dramatically change the way you play a given character. One piece might add a jolt attribute while some other changes the way HP orbs drop. There’s room for a lot of tweaking. To your point about creating one Thor distinct from another, I think that will be among the big places that you may be able to differentiate your characters from one another.
A lot of leveling happens during a natural playthrough of this campaign, but the game also includes this entire other play mode named Infinity Trials, which is where I suspect a lot of players will invest time if they want to really enhance their team. Do you want to talk with that system a bit about your experience?
Reeves: Sure, you spend a lot of time on the Infinity Trials in the cover story, so people should go check that out if they want more details, but in short: It feels like a good way for some players to get more content from the game. It’s also a great place to farm for experience and items, I think. These Infinity Trials are different missions that were disconnected from the main story, but they usually happen in an area you’ve already explored during the narrative. So that you don & rsquo; t feel like you & rsquo; re just replaying old 29, But they add a new wrinkle. For example, among the Infinity Trials we played us trying to defeat a certain number of enemies under a time limit, and we gained more time with each enemy that is defeated.
Miller: Yeah, the Trials can be pretty challenging. You know, the thing I’m is to get a action/RPG that I can sit down and play with a bunch of buddies hanging out. It’s easy to forget how few cooperative games allow for this, and I think it’s going to be really fun to just blow a bunch of things up with my friends. The game may inspire me to get a second or pro controller for my Switch.
Reeves: I love having choices in almost any game. I could definitely see playing with a bunch of friends online. I might play as Spider-Man here in Minneapolis, while Daredevil joins in from Denver, Venom from Dallas, and Iron Man from Seattle. That’s not an issue. At the end of the spectrum, I’m sure I’ll play with a lot of this game while looking at the Switch’s portable screen. Technically, you can play four-player on the Switch’s tiny display, but given the onscreen chaos, it’s really hard keep track of all the action, so I don’t recommend that.
Regardless of how you perform, at the end of the day, I think fans know what they can expect from this game. It’s not a giant leap forward for the series, but it is more Marvel Ultimate Alliance, which many comic fans are excited to play for quite a long time.
Miller: My takeaway is that The Black Order does feel uniquely suited to the strengths of the Switch as a games console, and I think it’s going to allow a lot gamers live out some superhero fantasies that may be swimming around since the current movies. You’re that playing with four players all together on a single display is pretty challenging to track, if that & rsquo, but it gets credit for allowing for that choice;s what you want. The game also includes a bright and inviting color palette and art style, which I enjoy, and I think it will be attractive to players. I’m excited have a game we could enjoy, and to share the game with my young nephews and nieces.
To be honest, I haven’t played enough to know whether the development methods provide the meaningful long-term involvement that the game will need, but I am hopeful. There’s a great deal of strategies to tweak and enhance your characters, and the availability of multiple difficulty settings and Infinity Trials should provide a lot of replay.
If the developers at Team Ninja can nail the equilibrium between bombastic action and address the need for “readable” activity on the monitor, I’m convinced that this is a game that can offer something quite like what the first games in the series supplied — great arcade-style activity, fun character leveling, and a chance to beat up some colorful bad guys with friends.
Reeves: ‘Nuff said.
Return throughout the month, because we’ll have exclusive features, such as features and character profiles, on Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order. Click on the banner below to visit our hub, which you can bookmark and return to during.
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