MARVEL RIVALS returns to what Superhero Video Games SHOULD be

[@lokilikesfrogs]

Guardians of the galaxy released a few years ago and have overwhelming positive reviews on steam

[@Yojack872]

There's a guardians game?

[@anthonysmurthwaite6258]

​@@Yojack872 yes and it's really good

[@lokilikesfrogs]

@@Yojack872 it has a really great stroy and characters

[@commonsense5199]

The Guardians of Galaxy is great game but sadly it suffered because it released after avengers game and Square Enix bad marking. Guardians of the Galaxy deserves better.

[@kadeemk4679]

Here to also cosign GOTG​ being a solid game with a good story @@Yojack872

[@anthonysmurthwaite6258]

Concord wasn't free to play, it was $40

[@Fantagonistic]

Whoops! I can’t believe they thought they could charge for it!

[@anthonysmurthwaite6258]

@@Fantagonistic it was probably the single biggest reason for the game failing, if it was free to play it wouldn't have done well but would most likely have gained a dedicated audience but it was a $40 game in an overcrowded typically free to play genre that had no USP released right around the time a valve hero shooter was in open beta getting a quarter of a million concurrent players, and yes character design was a big issue with the game but even with the best character design in the world this game would have had no chance

[@thekingsome8573]

Yeah the new designs do remind me of a lot of the ridiculously hyper-exaggerated ones from the 90s, they killed it.

[@Fantagonistic]

@@thekingsome8573 I’m glad they didn’t just go with realism again.

[@storitelar]

As a marvel fan I actually really loved ultimate alliance 3 and midnight suns. Ultimate alliance 3 had some of the best designs for its characters. Bright beautiful colors. Strong buff men and beautiful women. Crazy abilities and fun references to comic book lore. It wasn’t anything like the avengers game or suicide squad. Midnight suns may have had a more realistic art style, but they still had their characters whipping out the most ridiculous abilities they could. They also referenced comic book lore and clearly had a love for the source material. That game was my first introduction to Magik and I thought she was awesome in it but I’ll admit she’s not as cool as she is in marvel rivals. It bums me out those two games were duds for a lot of people since they were some of my favorite additions to the marvel catalog.

[@Fantagonistic]

I liked Ultimate Alliance 3, but some parts especially at the end felt very rushed. And it’s so tedious to unlock costumes. I appreciated the game going a different route than other games in style too.

[@dantemustdie00]

​@Fantagonistic yeah compared to previous games, unlocking the outfits was a pain in the ass. Also you couldn't grab and throw enemies

[@anthonysmurthwaite6258]

Guardians of The Galaxy and Midnight Suns were really good

[@iraford5788]

Agreed.

[@littlezig59]

Yup.

[@ktitwayne-leeakabane1345]

Those are good! I also love Spider-Man Shattered dimension, Arkham games, Wolf Among Us, Telltale's Batman and Telltale's Guardians Of The Galaxy 😊

[@Fantagonistic]

But they didn’t sell as well as the companies wanted. With different designs styles I wonder if they, especially MS, would have done better?

[@Fantagonistic]

@ Wolf Among Us is one of my favorite Telltale Games!

[@ismaila.3981]

I do agree with this video for the most part- the stylized look and comic inspiration is a huge reason why this game is succeeding. I would like to point out, however, that when you brought up the example of Concord as a F2P game that the game costed 40$ at launch and I do not believe it ever dropped the prices in the vein of kill the justice league. Still, excellent analysis overall!

[@Fantagonistic]

@@ismaila.3981 Oops! You’re right. I think it’s hard for me to comprehend that they thought people were gonna pay for that.

[@ONEPEAKFRFR]

Marvel Rivals' success is a good thing, but the biggest issue I think there is with the superhero game genre is that most of them are kinda generic. There are tons of heroes that could benefit from all sorts of gaming genres, but sadly, will never see the light of day because a lot of these companies can't afford to take a risk. And when they do make different games, they are nearly never advertised. Like, Midnight Suns is pretty cool with a neat concept, but most Marvel fans don't even know the Midnight Suns had a video game, same with the blade game coming out. 4:17 - This I 100% agree with. There are so many characters with so many different stories that would make for awesome video games. Like, imagine a Souls game that has you be an Amazonian fighting the New Gods, or a Weapon X stealth game. A Flash game? The question? Superman? Yeah, I know making these games would be very hard, but there are people who would 100% be willing to do it. I hate when mfs say "woke" this, "DEI" that, when in reality the true problem is the fact that the people who do want to make good games aren't allowed to or just aren't given the opportunity to do so. Which is why I'm happy .Marvel Rivals looks the way it does. It's actually kinda sad how many studios won't let their artists be artists and use the medium to its fullest extent. TLDR: Marvel Rivals is great, and I wish big studios would allow their artists and writers/game devs to be more creative with what games they want to make. But sadly, a lot of games that would be amazing conceptually probably won't be filling the pockets of rich millionaires and their even richer

[@eeveeofalltrades4780]

Imagine a Flash game where all you have to do is find a clever solution. Like, where every "fight" against non-speedsters is just a speedster slow-motion scene from a movie that you can play.

[@jboy544]

@@eeveeofalltrades4780 You should check out this guy who's working on a game with Flash mechanics that are inspired by Arkham combat. It's super awesome and shows how well a Flash game could be implemented if WB studios really cared. kzbin.info/www/bejne/o4XFd3evd7WHeac

[@azuresaiyan9005]

I like the cartoony art style which accentuates the characters’ main features, but the costume designs are a real eyesore for me. But this is also a hero shooter. It interests me about as much as SSKTJ.

[@Fantagonistic]

@@azuresaiyan9005 Gameplay isn’t for everyone, but I hope this’ll lead to other styles of superhero games that use more fun styles. (But I know it’ll more likely just be other companies poorly trying to copy this game’s style and gameplay…)

[@jboy544]

I remember getting super mad that the story of Marvel's Avengers was so lackluster without many iconic villains that I made my own story for it. It included the Cosmic Cube (Tesseract), Masters of Evil, AIM, Captain Marvel coming in, Ronan the Accuser and the Kree Invasion, and set up the Cube being used to make Ultron. A longer story incorporating more characters and lore would've made this game something worth coming back to

[@magnum567134]

Some of the mobile games do the stylization alright. They might not go as crazy with the proportions, but they at least keep the bright colors

[@Fantagonistic]

Phone games have done better at this cause they seem to know the recipe for getting money out of people a lot more than a lotta these bigger games.

[@Spongemonkey26]

One of the reasons is Rivals looks like super heroes straight off the comic pages. The games that have failed miserably the heroes look like people doing comic con cosplay...

[@Fantagonistic]

@@Spongemonkey26 Very true. And not even good cosplay either.

[@omri1058]

marvel rivals hawkeye design is one of my favorite designs ever

[@Naoto-kun1085]

Considering how deep cut some of the references are, I do feel like the people who made this game are Marvel nerds, and most importantly they know what Marvel nerds want!

[@Fantagonistic]

@@Naoto-kun1085 They do seem to be trying to impress comic fans, which I’m not thankful for.

[@criticalplat1num80]

Something to appreciate about this video is that when you mention attractive looking characters. you're not just bitching about the women like certain people. While I usually don't care about characters being "uglified", I do think there has been a weird push to make characters not look exaggerated, which is a shame because these characters are supposed to be superpowered beings and gods amongst men.

[@backup368]

Marvel and DC have both heavily relied on movies to make money. Even Marvel Rivals is counting on those same movies to make them money with special movie-themed skins. Movies have been at the forefront of western pop culture for decades, and that's how AAA western games have made money, by imitating film. That means a grounded setting with characters that look like actors and not Pixar people. There's too much money at stake for these companies to just make cartoons. That isn't to say western companies never make cartoons anymore. There's MultiVersus and Fortnite, and obviously these games are not story-driven large-scale games like SSKTJL was.

[@Fantagonistic]

@@backup368 That’s what they hoped for, but the imitating the movies strategy hasn’t been getting people to play. It’s smart to use recognizable characters and even elements of designs from the movies, but they gotta also bring something new to the table too.

[@backup368]

@Fantagonistic There's GTA, Assassin's Creed, Hogwarts, Cyberpunk 2077 and Diablo 4 that sold tens of millions of copies. They feel being the next GTA is more reachable than trying to be the next Mario.

[@nuclearwaste2062]

There are plenty of western AAA games that don't imitate film. And many of their superhero games that try to copy the movies end up failing. Even Sony spiderman ps4 took nothing from the movies. It told its own story and was successful. As for art direction, that's completely subjective. Astro bot won game of the year and it had cartoon like graphics. And the year before that bg3 won and it wasn't based off of any movies.

[@Gtube3838]

I always liked to believe the avengers game needed more time in the oven. Was mad as hell they canceled that marvel first person view game.

[@lszel]

Guardians of the galaxy was fire amazing game

[@Fantagonistic]

@@lszel I’ve heard a lotta people liked it, but it didn’t sell nearly was well as they’d hoped it would. I think Avengers likely hurt its sales a bit.

[@akanomamushi15]

Luna Snow was an OC character from a Marvel game made by NetMarble and they added her in Rivals. Having a Marvel license and already developed a currently running game made it less difficult for NetEase to make Marvel Rivals in terms of characters.

[@lex_rodriguez]

Honestly, as much as I'm enjoying Rivals, I don't think I would have gotten it if I had to buy it. The marketing and fsct that it's free is what helped this game. Guardians had almost no marketing, Midnight Suns was geared towards a very niche crowd and Avengers just shouldn't have tried to be a live service game - the gameplay for its core heroes was very strong and the story aas great when it wasn't being built around the live service maps.

[@Fantagonistic]

@@lex_rodriguez Agreed. Free to play was the smart idea

[@jboy544]

Agreed. Avengers shouldn't have been live service because they clearly prioritized that than making the base story goof. I remember getting super mad that the base story of Marvel's Avengers was so lackluster without many iconic villains that I made my own story for it. It included the Cosmic Cube (Tesseract), Masters of Evil, AIM, Captain Marvel coming in, Ronan the Accuser and the Kree Invasion, and set up the Cube being used to make Ultron. A longer story incorporating more characters and lore would've made this game something worth coming back to

[@nicholase82]

Why did they think we want to kill the justice league. The game could have given us a weird plot reasons that forced the justice league to use special guns to fight off the alien invasion.

[@rprfl4mezyt964]

That would've flopped harder then kill the justice league

[@jaybee27D]

i mostly agree about the importance of having less realistic, more stylized and bombastic character designs being necessary to bring in an audience for these characters. however, i disagree that there’s necessarily something wrong with depicting female characters as less hot. personally, i think we should have a mix of explicitly sexual and non-sexual female AND male characters. and Rivals does this a little. Captain America’s planet hulk outfit seems rather sexualized to me. but it’s still pretty imbalanced. most of the male characters aren’t particularly sexualized while most of the female ones are. i get the argument that “female power fantasies center more around being attractive” but idk if i really agree with that. also, you can make characters attractive without making them hot. it just annoys me that they’re aiming to mimic the success of Overwatch, but Overwatch had far more character diversity at launch while still having striking character designs imo. Squirrel Girl is the most unique female character design in Rivals and she’s literally just the same as the others but with wider hips. it also bugs me that they felt the need to give her longer hair when she always has a pixie cut. they could stand to make her more comic accurate. but again. i’m a big fan of great stylized character designs, and adding hot characters is still a plus.

[@MrSafior]

Agree, I dislike that "oversexualize" is the default look for female character. Like you type even Squirrel, who has the more unique look, still pretty standard, especially with this huge focus on are chest and rear.

[@salamjr.9101]

Superheroes game shoud be?? Not tps game, TPS dan FPS games don't even need superhero frills that don't have superhero characteristics

[@ktitwayne-leeakabane1345]

Does it has single player? To me that's what count for an good superhero game.

[@Gtube3838]

Nah my friend it's team based pvp

[@ktitwayne-leeakabane1345]

@@Gtube3838 I figure that and it's kinda hard to compare it to single player superhero games. MP games are usually fun but they are an after thought and they work best as bonus to the single player .

[@Gtube3838]

@ktitwayne-leeakabane1345 true remember hulk ultimate destruction straight classic right along with the spiderman games. Was bummed ultimate alliance 3 was only on Nintendo

[@jmurray1110]

Like the fact they’re stylalised just they tend not to be my cup of tea a lot if the time Too many brick shit houses looking at you frank and the costumes are a touch too over complicated at times I do like they didn’t default to cell sharing it can be a good style but it’s easy to mess up

[@Fantagonistic]

@@jmurray1110 It’s not for everyone, but it’s nice to see something different.

[@Blueguy404]

I love how unpolitical this video is. Since I hate how many videos rage bait about unattractive designs in superhero media is "woke." Glad to know there are people who just think ugly realistic designs are just bland and unappealing.

[@shrekkek9396]

But they are woke. Making them ugly was the intention, it's not random.

[@MrSafior]

The fact it's also mentioned that "nonstandard" characters design already exist in the comics, with showing characters from both gender has an example also help. Still disagree at the idea that female characters need to be "oversexualize".

[@lukeamparo6586]

I miss Ultimate Alliance. Wished the 3rd one wasn’t a Switch Exclusive. Hopefully we get a fourth entry that’s even more loyal to the comics after Rivals’ success. Just need enough folks to buy them Psylocke skins and battle passes. And have streamers continually stream it like they did Overwatch. Oh, and the “fan projects” too😏😉