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Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 3 - The Black Order
Nintendo Switch
A Superheroic Roster Can't Make Up for the Grind
3/5 stars
Because all the other Ultimate Alliance games were released on consoles I never owned, I was really interested to experience the series that I was led to believe was like Diablo but with Marvel heroes. Alas, Ultimate Alliance while having all he grind of Diablo, has none of the loot and thus you'll hack and slash your way to slightly better stats and while there are certainly a lot of heroes to choose from, it's not enough to combat the wonky camera and highly repetitive gameplay.
Looks and Stuff: At least the game looks reasonably good - the heroes are based mostly on their comic book counterparts as opposed to the more recent MCU films. The levels run a nice gamut from the Hand ninjas of the Defenders to the X-Men mansion to the Strange realm of the Dark Dimension. Likewise the enemies you face are nicely interwoven with some giants (literally, there are some GIANT boss fights) and familiar faces with the main plot revolving around Thanos, the Infinity Stones and the Black Order (hence the title - duh) though quite a far call, once again, from the films. Both the level design, characters and enemies are done well enough - even when things get repetitive, it was still fun to look at.
On the audio front, the game is fully voiced (thought most of the stuff is quips likes Iron Man's oft repeated "Power's Out") but because I'm guessing the actual MCU actors would have cost way too much - you get a bunch of talented voice actors either trying (and mostly failing) to recreate the characters or basing them on the most generic super voices they can muster. Some aren't too bad - both Deadpool and Rocket Raccoon sound pretty good. But others, like Fury and Gamora are just... bad. With so many characters, you're bound to run the gamut and it tries, really tries, but doesn't often pull things off.
Story: As stated, Thanos wants those Infinity Stones and his badass crew is on the scene to get them for him. Of course some of the stones are already in the hands of the heroes - or other villains - across the MCU - so the fanservice is off the charts. And I'm okay with that - who hasn't wanted to step into the shoes of Wolverine or Iron Man or Captain Marvel - there are a lot of heroes to choose form (even more if you get all the DLC) and there are even a lot of costumes to unlock. Some characters are more useful than others, but if you want to unlock everything, I hope you like grinding and grinding and grinding because often times only specific heroes can unlock things and they often have to be leveled up to do so. Thus if you are a true fan - you will level up Captain America and Hulk and Iron Man and Captain Marvel and Spider-Man and Scarlet Witch and Star Lord and on and on and on - until you have everything at max level. But if you're sane, you'll just pick out a character you like well enough and finish the game once and call it good.
Gameplay: I was wanting Diablo with super heroes, instead I got a generic beat 'em up with vaguely RPG-ish elements. Most of the game consists of running around, beating up hordes of enemies, leveling up a few powers, beating up slightly stronger enemies, facing a big boss at the end... and rinse and repeat for the entirety of the game. You have various heavy/light attacks with some character-specific super moves (Thor's hammer, Iron Man's missiles etc). Some characters can fly, some have great range, others are melee based. Some are strong and slow, others agile and weak as wet paper. No matter how much you love some characters, you might find you won't be able to go far unless you really like the grind (the Spider-verse characters in particular fly fast but get killed way too easy). And the camera ugh! It's is particularly awful - following the wrong character, painting you into a corner where you can't see enemies, going off on a tangent at exactly the wrong times - it made me more than once want to strangle whoever designed this aspect of the game. Also, the regular Switch Joy-cons are horrendous and this game absolutely requires a pro-style controller to work.
Final Verdict: Hardcore nerds will rejoice. But for those who don't like hundreds of hours of grinding to make your favorite super hero a god, well, casual is hardly worth the effort.
Presentation: 3.5/5
Story: 3/5
Gameplay: 3/5
Overall (not an average): 3/5
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