Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order (2019)

I recently finished playing through Ultimate Alliance 3 and I had a lot of fun. It's a really simple game in every way. It's not even close to being a masterpiece, but it's still a fun time if you wanna turn off your brain and just mash buttons for a bit.

Let's start with the gameplay: You mash X, you wait for your energy to fill up and then press LB + any button, and if you're feeling a bit spicy you can press the Y button for a different attack that barely works half the time. But let's be real, what else did you expect from Koei Tecmo? This is literally a Musou game with an overhead view.

I feel like the best way to judge the gameplay on a Musou is by judging the ways it tries to spice up the gameplay, and the way this game tries to do that is with the character roster. It's pretty big, full of many iconic characters, and I like it. Some of them can feel pretty unique, like Groot and Rocket Raccoon sharing a character slot and being controller simultaneously, or Wanda who shoots homing spells while staying far away from the enemies. The problem is that this is the minority, and there's a lot more characters that feel the same between them.

When the thing you do the most in this game is mashing one button... there's not much you can do to differenciate the characters from each other. Sure, every character has 4 unique abilities each, but in the end they all boil down to Deal damage in front of you or Deal damage away from you. There's a few more interesting abilities, like the one Doctor Strange has where he stuns everybody depending on their stun gauge, but there's not enough of them to truly make the characters feel unique.

Actually, the game's super complex under the hood. There's a lot of different damage types, and different stats that affect them, and every special ability has a few attributes and they all synergize and combine with each other, causing different attack patterns and effects... and yet this is barely explained to you in the game. It feels like the game doesn't want you to know how complex it is, so in the end you just end up mashing the buttons that deal the most damage. What a shame.

I'll say that the enemy design is actually quite varied. The bosses all feel different from each other, and even the elite enemies all have a few attributes that make them feel unique. Good job on that part team!

Story-wise, I think it was quite nice. Starlord accidentally made all 6 infinity stones land on Earth while trying to keep them away from Thanos, so now it's up to your favorite Marvel heroes to grab all 6 of them before half of humanity dies. It's yet another retelling of infinity gauntlet, but it's distinct enough to make it enjoyable.

The game doesn't take itself too seriously, and I don't know how to feel about that. On one hand, the game is unapologetically cringe, and I like that. There's a lot of dumb humor all throughout the game, and while some people may find that annoying, I feel like it's the perfect fit for a Musou kind of game, you just gotta turn off your brain and enjoy it. On the other hand, there's a lot of serious moments that never get elaborated on, so they feel extremely out of place in a game as comedic as this. Out of nowhere a character will mention Thanos is doing this for Death, and then goes back to telling jokes and it's never brought up again. It's feels weird.

I will say, however, that I really liked the world-building the game does. There's a lot of characters that show up throughout the story, but that you don't really interact with or get to use. Like, Ant-man will show up to fight Ultimo in the background of a level, or Jessica Jones will call to give you a tip on the stones' whereabouts. Even if you don't get to play as those characters, I feel like their mere existence adds a lot to the world of the game, and I really liked that.

I thought the presentation of the game was good enough. I liked that the graphics were stylized, and while I know that's probably due to hardware limitations, it does add some charm to the game. The frame-rate will drop at times though, especially during big attack combos. I also really liked the voice acting for the game, but honestly that's probably just cause Iron Man was voiced by the same guy who made the Earth's Mightiest Heroes' dub and I'm biased, so whatever.

In conclusion: This game is fun, but not necessarily what i'd call good. I think the best way to think about it is as dumb fun. It does a lot of stuff right, and a lot of stuff wrong, and yet at the end of the day this isn't the kind of game where you'd care about that. Just sit down, forget about the game's artistic value, and have some fun.

7/10

I love marvel, I don’t love marvel games there’s a lot of misses when it comes them. UA3 somewhat fits in that category for me. The game is good, I’ve played the game with my brother, and friend throughout the whole campaign and it was extremely fun. But that’s it… it was mindless fun. Nothing to write home about. The graphics was ok, the story was ok, I didn’t like a lot of the characters to play with so I stuck with my 2 sometimes 3.

Overall, it’s an ok game, but extremely fun with friends. I’m not sure if the game will hit the same if you play alone, it I wouldn’t. So yea… lol

This is like the definition of a dumb fun game. Sometimes I played while watching Neon Genesis Evangelion. And by "played", I mean I went to Infinity mode, went to a challenge I could crush and just clicked X repeatedly until I beat it just to grind out some experience.

I'm not done with the game yet, but there is no way this game shifts away from a 3/5. It is too dumb (fun) to truly love. If you gave this game to a dog, given enough time, the dog would beat this game. Twitch could beat this game. That's how dumb it is.

I have a love/hate relationship with games where the joy comes from watching the numbers just go up. Hate because you know you are a pavlovian dog. You know you're in a Skinner box. But love because as aware of the psychological tricks as I am, it still feels good. It feels good to see Nightcrawler go from level 28 to level 29. It feels good for Ms. Marvel to get a new move that is identical to the previous one in usefulness. It feels good to get money in the Marvel bank even though you will almost always have a surplus.

I like watching the number in my personal bank account go up even though this is equally stupid. Whatever freedom I sense from an extra hundred in my checking account at the end of the month is likely imagined, and I'll feel as trapped as always even if I do pay off a loan. I'm only paying off my student loans so I can save up money for a mortgage. I'm paying off debt to inherit new debt. Why? So I can will a house to my children that'll become a burden once I pass away. Equally stupid number grinding with equally empty rewards.

I'm getting a little philosophical but bear with me. The reason MUA3 gives us joy beyond the Skinner box is the same reason life gives us joy beyond the Skinner box of paychecks: The friends. I had some buddies over to play this the other night and it was a great time for two hours. Joking about Professor X in the Spirit Realm (lol, what's that?), planning out our extreme moves (or whatever they're called), and just chatting about life. I guess you could say friends are the best part of every multiplayer game, but MUA3 fosters those conversations. It is empty enough that the players can chat about whatever, but engaging enough that you keep wanting to play. That you keep wanting to chill with your best pals. We had such a good time that before everyone left, we scheduled another time for us to get together and play again.

That is why I must give MUA3 (and human corporeal life) a 3 out of 5.