I think any fan of Marvel, side scrollers, or the Data East game this is roughly based on will find something to love here. The attention to detail is astounding, and it’s obvious the creator is a huge fan of the source material. I also love little touches like the petty graffiti and boss profiles.
One thing a new player should be aware of, game mechanics are based on comic world balance (to a degree) rather than game balance. There’s no “strong but slow” or “quick but weak” trope in play here. As a result, some characters are simply better than others by design. It takes some getting used to coming from games built around parity but allows the characters to fight more like their comic counterparts. There's a huge selection to choose from, so whatever your tastes are, you should be able to find a favorite.
The main objective complaint I have is that combat can seem disconnected at times. When you beat on someone, they don’t really react in rhythm to your attacks. They just sort of stay stuck in a static stun animation and then fall. It can make hits feel less impactful, even with the exaggerated effects and knockback distances. Some of the grapples have a similar issue. This is partially due to the limited animation available and a stylistic choice, but I still feel like some tweaking would help. The story is also lacking. One day Hydra attacks and that’s pretty much it. The Avengers then go on a rampage until there’s nobody left... because reasons? At this point the story might as well be “One day Steve was out for a walk, saw Avengers Suck on a wall and it was on!” The usual response is story doesn’t matter – but considering both the source material and attention paid to individual characters, it very much does.
Any other issues are subjective. I think the boss music is a very odd choice. It lacks any sort of drama or epic battle flavor. Some of the move selections are also questionable. As an example, Hawkeye’s Ultimate Avenger power is an explosive arrow. There’s nothing special about that at all because it’s no different than any of his other trick arrows. I think something like firing a barrage upward that rains down on all enemies or moving off screen and taking a single devastating shot from first person perspective would suit better, but again these are subjective and don’t hurt the game’s quality. Finally, there are a lot of small grammatical errors here and there from the translation, but not enough to harm the experience.
Top notch offering overall. I’m looking forward to future updates and other games from the creator.
