So, I literally just beat the game, so this review is going to be pretty messy. But, all my reviews are messy, so whatever
Let's start with the story, first, since that's on my mind right now. SPOILERS, obviously.
Story
The story as a whole is actually a little better than I thought it'd be, though it definitely has some flaws. I liked that they centered a lot of the story around the theme of past traumas and how they can affect people for the entire lives - this is explored through the characters of Martin Li and Otto Octavius. This is a pretty smart, albeit obvious, theme for a Spider-Man game, since the webslinger himself has the most famously tragic backstory ever this side of Batman, basically. The story explores how past traumas deeply affect the psyche of these three men, leading to a desire for revenge and "justice" in Li and Octavius, while Peter Parker derives his responsibility and his desire to do the right thing from his traumatic past. It's fairly well done, and allows the story to be centered around a single idea and a single person, really, since it's Norman Osborn who Li and Octavius seek vengeance against. This keeps the story fairly clean, despite juggling so many characters (and so many antagonists, especially), which could've gone off-the-rails otherwise. The relationship between Octavius and Osborn is crucial, and it's from there that most of the conflict ultimately arises.
There are flaws, though. Martin Li, despite taking center stage for the first half of the game or so, is simply knocked aside by Octavius in one of the climactic cutscenes. It's disappointing that his character didn't get more of a satisfactory ending, especially since he's one of the more interesting characters in the entire game. By the point that Octavius clearly becomes the main boss, it would've been nice if Li had more of an opportunity for redemption, though that's simply wishful thinking on my part. The same goes for the Doc Ock, too, though that might be my deep love for Raimi's Spider-Man 2 coloring my opinions.
The story, at several points, suffers from what I like to call "narrative blue-balls" - the writers clearly set up what could be a serious confrontation between Spider-Man and one of his villains, but Spider-Man is conveniently incapacitated or somehow distracted, and the villain is allowed to escape to set up their real confrontation, later on. I can understand why they do this, as it's a sort of short-cut to setting up tension in the plot and between our favorite webslinger and his villains, but it always feels deeply contrived and annoying.
It's also clear that there are plenty of characters who are introduced but pulled away before they can actually do anything terribly interesting, like Silver Sable (who just, like, leaves the city to go do some soul-searching, which is kinda funny), Black Cat (who, to be fair, only appears in her own side quests), and Miles Morales (the ultimate sequel bait). I'm being a bit unfair, though, since Morales is sorta important to the story, but it's clear they're mostly just setting him up for future games. Anyone who's seen any MCU movies will understand my frustration over this, though, since so many of those movies seem to exist only to set up future movies, which exist only to set up movies even further down the line.
I kind of like the exploration of the relationship between MJ and Peter, and them learning to work as partners and Peter especially learning to trust her more and see her as more of an equal. Though the ending they get at the diner, where they kiss, feels a little jarring, it's still a cute moment.
Oh, and the Sinister Six is there, sort of, but they feel a bit like the writers threw them in to include some fan favorites and to pad out the length of the story. They're fun to see, but also not terribly important. Taking down Wilson Fisk to start the whole game off is a nice bit of excitement, too, but his importance to the plot is his absence, leaving a power vacuum in the city for Martin Li to take advantage of.
AGAIN, SERIOUS SPOILERS AHEAD
I was so surprised by how emotional I got over Aunt May's death, too. Afflicted by the Oscorp-designed bioweapon, she was on death's door during Spider-Man's climactic fight with Doc Ock. Not only is that tragic in and of itself, but Spider-Man had with him the antidote that would've saved her - but if he used it on her, it couldn't be used on the thousands of others who would've needed it. The reveal that she knew all along that her own nephew was Spider-Man was really powerful, too. Yeah, I cried.
Okay, phew. On to gameplay and stuff now.
Gameplay
The webslinging rules. Basically everyone has said something about this by now, but yeah, it's fucking great. Don't really want to spend too much time on this. It just works.
The combat is a lot of fun, too. I was a bit wary of it at first, since it seemed a bit too derivative of the Arkham Batman style. As I got more comfortable with it, and as I unlocked more moves and gadgets and suit powers, the more I enjoyed it. Once you get past the superficial similarities to the Arkham games, it becomes clear that this style of combat is pretty unique to Spider-Man - you fight with speed and agility and the ability to launch your opponents into the air and chain off aerial combos to your heart's desire. Throw in all of the different webshooter gadgets and suit powers and you can do some pretty crazy things in battle. You have a huge list of moves to pull from, and chaining them together in unique ways is a lot of fun.
It's not all good, though. You know me, I always have to nitpick stuff. The stealth sections where you're playing as MJ or Morales are just awful. You're just crouched down behind waist-high cover, hoping people don't see you. You get some gadgets for them to use as you progress through the game, but they only help so much. These missions are always such a jarring shift from the exciting, balls-to-the-wall action of the usual Spider-Man missions that it's always such a disappointment when you realize you have to play through them.
The side quest design also leaves a lot to be desired, since you're doing stuff that you do in basically every single open world game, like activating towers to see the map, clearing bases, and doing other dumb errands. I didn't really mind, though, since the pure thrill of webslinging and combat is just so much fun, but I'm sure some were more bothered by them than I was.
The boss fights also aren't terribly exciting. They're not that hard, for one, and each boss has a fairly simple weakness for you to exploit over and over again until you win. You get a hang of their attack patterns fairly quickly, too, so they don't really provide too much of a challenge. I did play it on the standard "Amazing" difficulty, though, so that might be affecting my opinion.
The game looks fantastic, too, and New York is lovingly rendered down to its puddles and piles of trash. Travelling and taking pictures of famous landmarks is a lot of fun, and is probably the best bit of virtual tourism this generation besides Watch Dogs 2. Swinging between the beautifully-rendered, distinctly New York-ian buildings is a truly wonderful and unique experience.
Anyway, this is a good game. It's super fucking fun, the story is solid, and it looks amazing. What more could you want, besides all of the flaws and nitpicks I pointed out getting fixed? Exactly.
Also, Yuri Watanabe is the only character of all time. Don't @ me
