Over in another thread about games you're playing/looking forward to, I posted this:
Not gonna be long now until I get to Spider-Man. I have a lot of reservations about it, like a lot of character redesigns that are unrecognizable or bad, and a couple of boss fights that aren't exactly the pinnacle of any action games, a shame in a game with supervillains like it was back in Arkham Asylum. I think the arkham combat system is just bad man, it's too specific a system that only works for crowds of mooks, and crowds of mooks don't need a system made only for them. It's not a problem that needs solving, it just makes it look more "cinematic" and it means every boss fight becomes some gimmicked scripted thing 'cause it's not a combat system made for duels with single targets. I don't think this game adding stage interactables like it's Injustice is gonna solve that issue.
But at the end of the day, it's a great-looking Spider-Man game made by a competent developer that at least looks like it got the swinging right. It seems very polished and thought out, I'm more worried about their design decisions and a lack of depth than I am about it being directly bad. As a big Spider-Man fan I gotta get in on this and see for myself how good it is. The swinging looks really nice. If it's a good game I might actually get myself a competent Spider-Man game franchise.
So let me expand on that. My fear with this combat system is that it's going to be way too much like Arkham's. Sneak around and do stealth kills, and when discovered, engage in a game of ping-ponging around enemies with one-button mashy combos until I have to counter or press a finishing move to knock out an enemy, only broken up with some gadgets and environmental stuff. That system in itself is way too shallow and automatic for me, it just gets boring, but the real problem is when we get to the boss fights. Y'all remember that one fight Arkham Asylum used like five times? Where a big dude runs back and forth, and you beat him by throwing a batarang at him and jumping away, at which point he runs into a wall and you can do a contextual attack on him? That's what I'm afraid they're gonna do with Rhino in this game. They've shown Shocker, who's a side mission boss. And his whole fight is just dodging(very easily) his shockwaves until you can stun him with a piece of a pillar he attacked and then do a combo on him.
If that's the level of boss fights this game has to offer, then we're in for some bummer fights, and I wish it wasn't so. It's the biggest weakness the Arkham games had, and it's now a decade later. Please be better. You've got the most iconic supervillains of all time, save for Batman's, to work with here.
As for character redesigns, I'm just not very hot on the ones they've shown. The one who looks most like himself is Miles, 'cause both his original character design and this is the most generic black dude. As for the rest, Osborn and aunt May just look like old white people and don't really have any similarities beyond that to their original looks. Mary Jane has reddish hair, but that's about where the resemblance stops, and she seems to have taken on Peter's photography gig for some reason? Every villain shown so far besides Mr. Negative is covered in robot armor, and while that might be justified with a tech upgrade from someone(Octopus? Smythe? Osborn?), it leads to all of them having that Neatherrealm Injustice look. Even characters who really don't need it, like Rhino. Peter himself has a face I just think looks bad, and his new costume looks plain bad to me but can easily by swapped out so whatever. It's just weird man, I don't get the point of adapting something The Right Way for the first time with a big budget and then instantly going for character designs that don't just not look like the old characters, but are actively more generic and uncool.
I think making their own universe is the right idea, but I don't think, from their promotional material, that I'm on board with all of their ideas for it. Miles is my personal biggest red flag - I know the dude's a popular character, but if they go for a team of multiple Spider-Men at some point, me and the devs just fundamentally disagree about what's cool about Spider-Man. The extended Spider-Family is just of no interest to me, and Miles in particular had a hell of a dull comic. If they bring out Silk or Scarlet Spider or something it's not exactly gonna light my enthusiasm on fire.
Anyway, that's my one serious worry and my one fanboy nitpick worry. I don't wanna be Mr Negative myself, and I am looking forward to this game a lot. I'm just a big fan of Spider-Man and can be a bit anal about it if it looks like the devs are Doing It Wrong. Besides those two complaints I do think this game looks awesome from what they've shown, the work on display is just way more impressive than any Spider-Man game I've seen in the past. The city looks great. The webswinging in particular looks fantastic, doing stuff with Peter Parker's private life is pretty fresh, and basing a bunch of characters around more modern(read: Last ten years) of Dan Slott-written comics does invigorate the setting of Spider-Man a little. Mr Negative might be a decade old but that's practically new in comic book character terms.
Hope other characters and plotlines from his run get some screentime at some point, like Carlie Cooper or Anna Maria Marconi. His take on the Hobgoblins was very enjoyable too. It might be too much for a first game, but I'd love if a sequel based itself around the Superior Spider-Man arc. I like the gadgets they've shown, the science aspect of Peter Parker doesn't get very much play usually. I'm gonna blame than on the Dan Slott influence, too.
I'm almost certain it's gonna be a decent game, it seems way too lavishly made not to be. I just hope it's secretly great, too. Gonna purchase it day one and see for myself, just hope I'm not disappointed.
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