Available on: PSP
Price I paid: £6.49
I played on: PSP
Notes: There is a version of this game on the PS2 era consoles, read my review for that here.
I’m starting this review right after finishing the campaign and although I know this game sucks I’m not sure if it’s better or worse than the console counterpart. This version avoids some of the larger problems found in its console form but then trips up and fails in new and exciting ways so it’s hard to judge.
The campaign here is a series of 18 characters each with 10 fights to get through making for a total of 180 battles which took me 6 hours to finish. I have to confess it felt like much longer and that’s due to a few reasons. Firstly there are only really 2 stories here, the Marvel Hero story and the Imperfect story. Each of these is only ever told with a wall of text before each fight. Due to this restrictive method of convening its plot, it ends up feeling even more thin and hollow than the console version which itself was pretty bad. The other issue here is that after a short period there is nothing keeping you playing and that’s when it quickly becomes a chore to play. Secondly, all the characters feel almost the same with them being split into ranged and non-ranged so once you have played one of each you have seen pretty much everything. Thirdly it never feels like any of your attacks make contact with your opponent so the fights feel more like random flailing until someone falls over. The sad truth is I didn’t want to play this game and if it wasn’t for this review I would not have finished it at all.
If you do play it for some insane reason then you will only have a single attack button which can be combined with the right shoulder button to get a superpower attack. These are much more powerful and sometimes even long range but they use power energy which will run out fast and takes a while to recharge. Most ranged characters, however, can finish a weaker enemy off with one power bar if all attacks land meaning I was able to finish two rounds with certain characters in 20 seconds or under. The balancing is really terrible with ranged characters having such a stupid advantage the other combatant might as well only have one leg. Cards which act as power-ups can be equipped before a fight and when used with the directional buttons will offer a boost to attack damage, power meter or your rage bar. These make the game even easier as the AI will never use them.
To talk about something good though, I loved the art style and graphics as they are much brighter than the main console game. The environments still feel detailed and interactive with most objects being able to be picked up and used in combat. The superpowers look great even if they feel awful. This game does feel quite impressive on the little PSP. The soundtrack is still as enjoyable as it was on the console and the performance only stuttered once or twice. The presentation was top notch and only hindered by slow load times which is a product of most PSP games so is not unexpected here.
I like how this game looks and sounds which after the dark, boring and moody console version is very welcome but it’s not enough to save it from some of the worst gameplay I have played in a fighter. When it doesn’t even feel like your attacks are hitting your opponent you have a bad fighting game which even the inclusion of Captain America and Doctor Doom can’t fix. After writing all of this and quickly playing each version I have to say this is worse because the combat which is the centre point of everything is broken at its core. At least on the PS2 you have the versus mode which is fun but here you have nothing, avoid this game.
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