SPOILER-FREE REVIEW
An unoriginal story, incessant stat management and missed opportunities mean that Ultimate Alliance 3 is little more than light fun and fails to live up to its predecessors.
It’s hard to remember a time when the MCU wasn’t around. Its effects on modern pop culture have been wide-ranging, and nowhere is that clearer than with Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3. While its predecessors were released in a time when far fewer people gave a damn about what happened to Iron Man, this is a game that can’t separate itself from what’s going on, especially on our cinema screens. This otherwise fun beat-em-up never carves out its own distinct identity and it feels far too familiar for its own good. It’s proof that, like the rest of us, Marvel can’t get away from the MCU.
After the Guardians of the Galaxy accidentally stumble across the Black Order, the six Infinity Stones, objects of immense cosmic power, wind up scattered across the Earth. With Thanos and his Black Order coming for the stones, our heroes must unite and recover them all before the mad Titan can use them to conquer the universe.
Does that sound like a version of the Infinity Saga? Because it’s how things pan out in Ultimate Alliance 3. This whole Infinity War with added characters yarn is far less entertaining than it sounds. It boils down to a whistle-stop tour of greatest hits with extra characters and locations awkwardly shoehorned in. I love the game’s new visual style, which has a very real comic book vibe to it, but the game’s environments are a mix: some are well-designed stages; others are uninspired and drab. Next to the wonderfully atmospheric Defenders-inspired Shadowland stage are stages like Attilan, home of the Inhumans, which feel like rushed afterthoughts. Where the first game was a comic-book fan’s crossover dream, this is just another less entertaining, by-the-numbers version of the Infinity Stone collect-a-thon. To say that this is well-trodden ground would be a monumental understatement.
But any excuse to partner up your favourite characters works, to some degree. The voice-acting is mostly decent, and there are neat little interactions and fun moments between particular groups of characters. Spider-Man even has the benefit of Yuri Lowenthal, who voiced the character in Marvel’s Spider-Man, voicing him here. Still, the fact that it’s not MCU actors doing the voices can make some characters feel off-brand, especially since the game is so clearly inspired by the MCU. Some characters are blatant attempts at carbon copying their live-action counterparts, and you can forget character development too.
If you can ignore some cringeworthy dialogue, the character roster gives you plenty to choose from. You can skirt around these issues by picking characters with better voice-acting or characters who don’t yet have live-action counterparts. Each has light and heavy attacks, block and dodge, and four special unique abilities. These unique abilities are fun and feel unique to each character, and that’s great even if there is some overlap; Miles Morales shares an ability with Spider-Gwen for example. Using these abilities is Ultimate Alliance 3 at its best. While normal combat involves dodging when appropriate, mashing the light attack button and using abilities until your enemies keel over, you can synergise different heroes’ abilities for combo attacks. All of this builds a meter for your hero’s unique and devastating Extreme attack. These can be chained, so your whole team can wreak havoc at once. It becomes impossible to actually see what your team is doing, but the spectacle kills scores of enemies, and your framerate, at the same time.
Combat isn’t without its problems. You’ll fight ninjas of the Hand and Kree soldiers using the exact same tactics, and the game makes you fight dozens of them at once so it’s not always easy to see what’s going on, whether you’re in handheld or TV mode. Heavy enemies and bosses have a stagger meter, which has to be whittled down before your team can do serious damage. This changes things up a little, but boss battles aren’t too varied: either you have to throw something at them to weaken them first, or you can punch away immediately while dodging their area-of-effect attacks.
The AI is surprisingly competent, and you can play solo just fine. The game has a fantastic system that displays a visual indicator when you can synergise an attack with the AI, and lets you perform combos with a simple intuitive button press. Co-op is actually harder since it’s difficult to actually synergise your attacks with another human being compared to an AI
that already knows what you’re up to.
The game fills out your roster as you play, and it’s tempting to try out new characters as they’re introduced so your roster might become a revolving door. Sometimes, new characters don’t play to your liking. So, you’ll want to swap favourites back in, except each character gains experience individually, so they might be under-levelled by the time you decide to swap. It’s easier just to stick with one team, and this robs co-op of some of its fun; playing as the Avengers is fine until a friend wants to swap out Captain America for Captain
Marvel, who’s now drastically under-levelled in comparison.
The game also has Infinity Trials, challenge versions of story encounters with added modifiers. These add replay value and allow you to earn rewards, including XP cubes to shunt under-levelled characters up a few notches. They aren’t particularly compelling diversions however. Even though you have the option to use these to grind, you won’t really want to. The camera is also wonky, which is par for the course when it comes to games like
this, so co-op may not always be the best option.
Stats rule this game and bog down the player. This game introduces ISO-8 from the comics, and you can equip these crystals on your characters for various effects. One might boost damage while increasing damage taken, while another creates a buffer that stops an attack from being fatal. And others boost character stats. So, Vitality sounds like it might be about character health, but how is that different to Durability? The only way to actually tell what each stat does is to delve into the tips menu and look it up. ISO-8 can also be upgraded, just in case you haven’t had enough. You can also level up your characters’ abilities using ability points and ability orbs, but none of these upgrades actually seem to make a major difference, which is disappointing. The game also has an Alliance Enhancement system, a massive skill web where you spend currency and enhancement points (yes, another type of points) to boost your Alliance’s global stats. Again, this doesn’t seem to have much of an effect, nor does it alleviate the under-levelling problem.
You can still assemble teams like the Avengers for passive buffs. Ultimate Alliance 3 gives staged buffs, which is a welcome change. I didn’t need to use all four Spider-people to get one. Instead, I could use Spider-Man with Miles Morales for part of the Web Warriors boost, then partner them up with Captain Marvel and Ms. Marvel, who get part of the Women of Marvel boost. That line-up then receives the full buff for Generations. It’s fun to play around, even if the stats are a pain to tweak. Unfortunately, the game’s Outfits, is a serious missed opportunity for customisation. Being able to use a white version of Black Widow’s costume is a step down from being able to switch out Jessica Drew for Mayday Parker or turn Iceman into his original snowman appearance, as in the very first game.
The Infinity Stone Hunt™ and complex stat management really drag this down. Given that the superhero film market is perpetually close to saturation point, it’s a disappointment that this game rehashes a storyline just because of its popularity, rather than making the effort to adapt something new. Sure, it’s fun to play but only because combat is a blast once you push past the technical issues and stat management, and for once the AI actually makes for good company. There’s still some fun to be had, even if this isn’t quite Marvel’s ultimate alliance.
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