Marvel Rivals First Impressions

When I saw the first images and gameplay for this game, I was both unamused and worried that Marvel Rivals was going to be another mobile game, a poor Overwatch clone that only wanted your money and gave you nothing in return. After playing the beta and now getting to play the game in full, I am genuinely surprised by the level of polish this game has to offer. Marvel Rivals is a refreshing hero shooter that takes what others have done before and takes the best elements to provide an amazing experience for Marvel fans and fans of the hero shooter in general. 

This game is an Overwatch clone but in the best sense, what I mean for people that may not know. Overwatch when it came out all the way back in 2016 had a unique style and fun gameplay loop that hooked everyone including myself. Marvel Rivals borrows a lot of elements from Overwatch but the game does what Overwatch did, but better. Starting with the gameplay, we get to pick from 32 familiar Marvel characters like Spider-Man, Moonkight, Iron Man, Groot and along with newer faces like Luna Snow and Jeff the Land Shark in a 3rd person perspective hero shooter. If you played Overwatch or any other hero shooter in the last few years, then you will feel right at home here in Marvel Rivals and maybe be even surprised by how it differentiates itself from the others. 

Marvel Rivals has a standard layout with their heroes, players have their pick from either; Vanguards (Tank type characters like Magneto, Hulk, Doctor strange etc.), Dualists, (DPS types like Black Widow, Iron Fist, Punisher, Spider-Man etc.) and Strategists (Support types like Cloak and Dagger, Jeff the Shark, Adam Warlock etc.). What sets Marvel Rivals from other similar hero shooter games is the types of abilities that every hero has, they are fun, unique and fit well for each of the Marvel Heroes. You can swing around the map as Spider-Man, open portals as Doctor Strange, heal people with a jet of water and eat your opponents as Jeff the cute land shark. The level of not just creativity but the amount of fun to be had playing around with the Marvel Heroes is extremely refreshing. What struck me the most was how many abilities are available to the player when they choose their heroes, at first it's overwhelming because you have a lot of options like with spider-man for example. He can swing around, do an uppercut move and shoot his webs, but the use of these abilities are nor just limited to just the basic use. By damaging an opponent with Spider-man’s Webs, you can open an option for him to zip up close and take your opponents by surprise with a well timed combo of webs and fits. Spider-Man’s kit allows for a crazy hit and run play style, and that's just one hero out of the 33 they have. 

The maps are big and destructible, this is a game changer as it allows for new strategies to form in the heat of battle. For example, I was playing Iron man on the Hall of Djalia Convergence map and we were stuck at a choke point right before the second capture point. The route to the second capture point curves around a building with a large dome. I noticed that inside the building there was a staircase that had an open hole that exposed the enemy's team backlines. I used Iron Man’s Ultimate, Invincible Pulse Cannon to take out some of their healer’s and a DPS to give the rest of my team some room to make a push. This gameplay feature is amazing because it can change how a player can strategize with their team to take on the opposing team. But, the destruction doesn't last long, every building or wall that can be destroyed will reform after a short while. 

The next aspect of the game I have to talk about is the amazing art direction and I am blown away by the level of style and creativity that is in Marvel Rivals. It's hard to describe the level of style here through words but every hero has an amazing level of stylization with some amazing re-imaginings of the heroes we know and love. But the amazing work doesn't just end with the amazing art direction, but the cosmetics as well. With the launch of the game, you can find a plethora of costumes not only from the MCU movies but comics and even original designs for each of the 33 playable heroes, not only that but each costume has an insane level of polish as well. For example, if you like Iron Man’s Mark LXXXV (Mark 85) from Avengers Endgame. Then you’ll be surprised when you look at the Iron Man suit in the hero selection screen, there is a video of Iron Man flying around a battlefield before he slams into a meteoroid before he files out and lands in the hero select screen, that's just when you hover over just to look at the skin itself. Along with that, the background changes from the simple white background the base skin has, it changes to the new battleground that is tied to the skin. 

This is one example of the many skins that are featured in the game, not every skin has a video that plays in the background but all of the skins come with bundles that have popping M.V.P highlights that show off the skin when you score the top position in a match. Now, while I have a lot of praise for this game, there are still a few aspects of Marvel Rivals that do have some thoughts on that I am worried about how Netness will handle in the future. 

Starting with the gameplay itself, while it's fun to play in a team of 6 other players, there has been discussions of adding some type of role que. I have played many matches where there were 4 duelists, a vanguard and one lone healer or 5 vanguards and one healer or oppies, all duelists! Right now it's not a big issue, everyone is still getting a feel for the game and how each hero works, but once the honeymoon is over. I foresee people who stick with Marvel Rivals will quickly get tired and maybe even toxic with people insta-locking 4 damage dualsits for 10 matches. Now, I do not want there to be a role lock similar to how Overwatch did it to combat the same problem, but it is going to be interesting to see how NetEase will handle the issue with roles in the game.

But something else I have noticed is that many characters have stun abilities that interrupt the flow of the game. You get frozen by Luna Snow, then you get slept by Mantis, and then you get wrecked by everyone else because you are unable to fight back or even get away. I hate to bring up Overwatch so much but a lot of what I see here in Marvel Rivals I have seen happen in Overwatch first. Many Overwatch heroes used to have stun abilities that made it hard to play and enjoy the game. (If you need an example, study what happened to Overwatch when G.O.A.Ts was the main meta after Brigitte was added to the game) Now to be fair, the heroes that have a stun ability is small and some have a fun gimmick that can change the flow of the game. For example, Wolverine has an ability called Feral Leap where he can launch into a hero and lift them up before slamming them to the ground. I have used the ability and it's fun to use, I don’t know yet if the player I grabbed is stunned or if another player can shoot me off their teammate, but it's abilities like that might make the game unfun to play in the future.

While the stuns in the game are there, I wonder if they will be removed or will stay because they aren’t as bad as how Overwatch was. Yet we are still in the early stages of the game where people are still learning how each hero works, so it’s not bad at the moment. But could it be an issue later down the line will be interesting to see. But we just have to wait and see how Netesss handles stun abilities in the game's future. 

Another area I worry about is the monetization of the game. Now it's no surprise that a free to play game has to make its money back, but the price point for some of the skins they have for the marvel heroes feel more expensive than they should be. Some purple epic level skins are gonna cost around 20 dollars and if you want the cooler skins, they are even more money 26 dollars for their legendary skins. However, with that said, the level of quality of the skins you buy is actually surprising, each skin comes in a bundle with their own skin MVP highlight, a emote, nameplate and a spray. Standard things to be found in a game like this for sure, but what sets Marvel Rivals skins to other hero shooters that allow people to buy skins is some skins have animations for selecting the skin itself. What I mean by this is, when you select the skin in the hero menu, you get a video of the skin in action with an epic display. 

The level of quality is amazing for their more luxurious skins, but I am still not sure about the price point as the prices are similar to that of Fortnite and other similar games. However, it's nice to see that NetEase is willing to put the work in for their skins that they offer, I just hope the devs and artists who work on all of the amazing visuals are getting paid for their hard work. To bring back the example of the work they did for the Endgame Iron Man costume, if you were to compare this legendary skin to a legendary skin in Overwatch where you just get the skin and nothing happens to a whole video that plays just to look at the skin. Then the level of style and hard work shines for NetEess, but it is not the only form monetization they have for their game.

Marvel Rivals has a battlepass as well, but what's nice about this battle pass is if you buy it, then you get to keep it and unlock the items in it at your leisure. This is great because this is a great customer friendly move on NetEase part, where in a sea of live service games that force their players into situations where the player needs to pay now or lose out to make their money. People who play Marvel rivals will not have to worry about missing out on cosmetic items they may not have had the time to get. However, only time will tell if NetEse will shine though with their monetization practices for their game moving forward from this season 0. 

Overall, I am excited to see Marvel Rivals grow and add more to players to enjoy as time goes on, and with a story being unfolded through all aspects of the game, I and along with the 10 million other marvel fans will be battling to save the Timestream.