Marvel Galaxy Guardians Review: You see, it's good to be down-to-earth as a single player

What kind of thing did Marvel Avengers turn into? I don't have to look forward to this Marvel Galaxy Guardians anymore.

If your expectations for this new Square Enix Marvel series are like this, then the actual performance of the game should surprise you.

Marvel Galaxy Guardians was not developed by Crystal Dynamics like Marvel Avengers, but by Eidos Montreal, who has developed the Tomb Raider Shadows and The Siege series. It has no online multiplayer gameplay, no open world, no equipment driven design, and even no side quests. It is purely a narrative oriented single player game.

It is probably what many players initially imagined Marvel Avengers should look like: without considering any online matching issues or equipment matching, simply immersing players in the ups and downs of superhero adventure stories.

*This review is a media pre evaluation based on PS5 version (version number 1.002-000). Due to confidentiality agreement requirements, there is no discussion on the core plot. The activation code for this game is provided by Bandai Namco Taiwan. The descriptions and opinions included in the review only represent the subjective opinions of the reviewer, and the actual game experience varies from person to person.

This plot is much more interesting than the movie version

When it comes to Marvel's superheroes, most people are still more familiar with the versions of the Marvel Movie Universe (MCU) series. It is a reasonable strategy for Marvel Avengers to design character images based on MCU versions, and I thought Marvel Galaxy Guardians would also follow suit.

But this time, Eidos Montreal received approval from Marvel, redesigned the characters' images, and created an original story. On the other hand, this work is more faithful to the original manga in terms of character and background settings than the MCU version. According to the official statement, this game can make fans feel both familiar and fresh.

Compared to the Avengers, X-Men, and other teams, the Galactic Guard led by Star Lord is quite young. Although its members appeared in comics as early as the 1960s and 1970s, Marvel did not begin developing these characters until the major event Annihilation in 2006, and only launched a dedicated team publication in 2008.

Left: "Annihilation" Right: The first issue of the exclusive magazine of Galaxy Guard

The short history of the team means that there is a lot of room for derivative works to be created. The MCU version has undergone significant adaptations, and the character development is limited by the length of the movie. MCU's "Galactic Guardians" and its sequels are my personal least favorite among the 23 works up until the third stage.

But I really like the story and narrative of Marvel Galaxy Guardians. This work is based on the great event of the original manga "Annihilation", set in the background after the end of the Star Wars. At this time, Starlord, Destroyer, Rocket, Grute, and Camorra have teamed up to form a mercenary team, but the members are all rebellious and in the stage of adaptation, so work often falls apart.

How about calling the "Galaxy Flip Team"

At the beginning of the story, Xingjue and others decided to take a risk and enter the space restricted area under the jurisdiction of the New Star Legion to seek opportunities for wealth, but were arrested by the Legion. And in order to pay the fine, everyone made another mess along the way, one after another, which was overwhelming. In the process of sharing hardships, team members gradually open up and see their true feelings, becoming partners of mutual understanding, while also saving the universe.

Thanks to the sufficient available space, this game has much better character portrayal than the MCU version, such as Starry Lord's childhood, Camorra's complex, and the deep brotherhood between Rocket Tree people.

Rocket publicly confesses to Tree People

What impressed me the most was Drax the Destroyer, who was portrayed by MCU as a clumsy, weak, responsible and humorous character. However, this work not only restores his powerful power in the manga, but also penetrates his surface filled with hatred, revealing the iron man's tenderness inside. From the plot and optional dialogue, it can be seen that Drax is a wise and intellectual father image beneath the appearance of a fierce man, and even knows how to knit a sweater.

Of course, Marvel Galaxy Guardians is still inevitably influenced by the MCU version.

One of the selling points of this work is having a rich library of 80s gold songs. You can chat with members in a joyful Don't Worry, Be Happy atmosphere, or engage in battles with passionate Holding Out for a Hero background music.

Player on spacecraft

Even if you haven't heard of it all, at least the recently popular Never Gonna Give You Up should have heard of it.

How is ? Do you remember it?

In addition, this work also adopts the comedy style narrative tone of the MCU version, which is very suitable for this highly talkative team and fills this adventure with a joyful atmosphere.

Interstellar noisy adventure

Xingjue: Ah, is my jacket okay?!
Rocket: At least you still have a jacket! Some of us are already soaked through!
Kamara: You should complain less and focus on walking!
Rocket: Hello, Luo Tangjue! Are we really going to walk through the wind and rain?!
Grute: I am Grute!
Drax: Don't complain, difficulties can make your will stronger.
Rocket: Difficulties are almost becoming my mom, thank you for your guidance!

Whether in the spaceship, on the way, or even in intense battles, you will always hear them chattering and joking incessantly, either Starlord and Rocket fighting, or Camorra and Drax fighting, with almost no quiet moments.

When there are differences of opinion among members, players will act as team leaders and make some choices. Most of these choices will not affect the overall direction of the story, but they will to some extent influence the details of the story's development.

Xingjue often needs to express their opinions to the team

The changes in the plot under different choices can be considered as adding a little value to the game's repeated gameplay, but it's best not to have too high expectations.

Accompanied by a noisy atmosphere, we will follow the stargazers on multiple planets or artificial celestial bodies with different styles, sometimes jumping between huge canopy platforms on Skarnav 9 amidst storms and falling thunder; Occasionally visit the "barren land" of the spaceport city built inside the head of the Death God race, and experience local bars and divination; At times, they also head to the ice covered planet Makru IV, dodging the constantly falling stone shaped asteroids and searching for the legendary giant beasts.

Marklu IV star

This journey is full of difficulties and obstacles, and as a leader, Xingjue needs to make good use of the strengths of every team member, including himself, to solve problems. The exploration part is a key aspect of the gameplay in this game, belonging to the common mild puzzle solving gameplay in modern action adventure games. When unable to move forward, carefully observe the interactive elements in the scene and always find suitable people in the team to solve the problem.

Xingjue's own elemental twin guns can fire four types of attribute bullets, solving various problems with one solution. For example, ice bullets can freeze water into a platform that can rest on, while electric bullets can charge various devices that shut down due to lack of power.

Freezing Platform with Ice Bombs

The team members also have unique skills: Grute can grow vines on the ground to build bridges, or support platforms to rise; Engineering expert rockets can solve most hacking and electronic engineering problems, and their petite physique can also allow them to penetrate narrow spaces; The nimble card demon holds a sharp blade and can jump to high places to cut through suspended objects. It can also be inserted into walls as a springboard for Star Lord; When it is necessary to use violence to open up avenues, find the extremely powerful Drax.

Environmental interactive elements in the exploration of

The environmental puzzles in the game are regular, and the design itself is not particularly excellent, but the players will constantly hear the team members' roast or jokes in the process of thinking, which is still very pleasant to promote.

In addition, the Galactic Guardians travel around on spacecraft, so this game also includes a small amount of flying shooting elements. However, it only appears in a few specific scenes in the plot, and the control and difficulty are also designed to be friendly. Players who are not used to playing flying shooting do not need to worry.

Don't worry, the flying shooting part in the game is very light

Non shooting, non action, immediate strategy

Besides exploration, another focus of gameplay in this game is naturally on combat. The combat gameplay of Marvel Galaxy Guardians is not so much about action or shooting, but rather a more action oriented real-time strategy gameplay.

The game encourages players to use as many fancy skill combinations as possible to defeat enemies, which is reflected in these three systems of the game:

• Hard Straight: Each enemy has a "hard straight" slot below their health bar, which accumulates when attacked by specific skills or attributes. When fully charged, the enemy will receive higher damage
• Damage multiplier: Some skills will expose the enemy's weaknesses. After the skill hits, a coefficient symbol will be added to the enemy's health bar, and each escort team member can stack it once
• Momentum: Equivalent to a battle evaluation gauge, the more diverse and effective the player's moves, the faster the gauge rises. Repeating the same move will lower the gauge

Therefore, the core logic of the combat gameplay in this game is to combine the skills of different escort team members based on the weaknesses of different enemies, stack them with damage multipliers and hard shots, and once again perform explosive output.

The members of the escort team each have three basic skills and one ultimate skill. Pressing the L1/LB key during battle will enter the "escort team mode", and players can command their teammates to activate skills through menu commands. It's a bit like Final Fantasy 15, but it can't switch to teammates.

Press L1/LB to call up the menu

For example, using a rocket's gravitational grenade to concentrate scattered enemies, then using Drax's charge to stack the enemy's hard stance, constantly taking time to break the enemy's corresponding attribute shield with Star Lord's attribute bullets, then using Camorra's shadow to strike and sweep the miscellaneous soldiers, finally using Grute's mammoth to capture and wrap around the elite enemies with a lot of health, filling up the elite's hard stance, and then using the finishing technique for harvesting.

In addition, there are often some environmental elements in the battlefield that can be used to harm enemies, such as heavy objects hanging from the head that can make Kamara jump up and cut ropes, and biogas vents on the ground that can detonate rockets. These elements can be used in combos to increase evaluation.

If Kamara had interacted with the hanging object on his head at that time, this group of enemies would have been solved

There is also a system called "Tuan Tuan" in the game, which is essentially a buff system. In combat, using skills can fill the measurement table. After being filled and activated, it can obtain damage gains, resurrect fallen team members, and reset the cooldown of all team members' skills, making it very powerful. After the combination of moves as shown in the previous example is completed, each person's skills will enter cooldown. At this point, launching the group will allow for another round of skill output to directly harvest the enemy.

After the group is launched, it will enter an animated performance, where members of the escort team will gather in front of Star Lord to discuss the current battle. Players need to choose to speak based on what the team members say, encouraging discouraged team members and calming restless team members. When the battle was intense, the pace suddenly slowed down, which felt a bit strange.

"Group"

This work does not have traditional experience and upgrade elements, nor does it have any obvious numerical development system. After the battle, only skill points can be obtained, and the resources collected through exploration can only be used to unlock the passive abilities of Star Lord. In addition, the shooting part has a locking mechanism, so the combat gameplay of the game tests the player's ability to analyze the situation and whether the arrangement of team member skills is reasonable enough.

It is worth mentioning that in addition to providing traditional difficulty levels, Marvel Galaxy Guardians also offers a variety of difficulty customization items. From the deceleration level and skill cooldown time in Guardians mode, players can freely adjust their damage/damage coefficient, elemental ammunition consumption coefficient, etc., with a very high degree of freedom in setting.

To be honest, I think the gameplay depth of Marvel Galaxy Guardians is a bit too shallow. It is said to encourage flashy skill combinations, but after all, each character only has those four skills, which cannot be spent much. However, to be fair, the strategy gameplay of this game is complete and solid, and although it is not outstanding enough, as a part of the game, it does not hinder the entire work.

Some issues with the evaluation version

The overall gameplay experience of this game is quite good, but the evaluation version is indeed an incomplete version. For example, the UI still needs to be adjusted, and there are often situations where subtitles exceed the interface; The tactile feedback of the DualSense controller will not be added until the Day 1 patch; The ray tracing mode in the video options has not been implemented yet.

From my experience, the existing performance mode can stabilize at 60 frames, but the decrease in image quality is more significant. On the contrary, the frame rate performance of the quality mode is still good under the premise of better image quality. I personally feel that the frame rate requirements for this game's battles are not high, so why not consider playing in quality mode.

It must be noted that there are slightly more bugs in the evaluation version, such as difficulty setting resetting itself in specific situations, and some bugs that can make the game unable to continue advancing. It is necessary to read the previous checkpoint to restore normal operation.

I hope the above issues can be resolved before or during the initial release.

During the gameplay, I often think: how great it would be if Marvel Avengers could be made like this.

Marvel Galaxy Guardians may not be outstanding in terms of gameplay, but it tells a very interesting story well, allowing me to immerse myself in a thrilling superhero adventure. It didn't have the ambition to challenge the annual game, but it did a solid job of creating a complete work.

Having experienced the reputation and commercial double blow of Marvel Avengers, I believe Square Enix will win back one game (at least in terms of reputation) with Marvel Galaxy Guardians. These won't be their only two Marvel themed works, so will their next work be a narrative oriented single player game or a multiplayer online service game? It depends on the results of the players voting with money.