When I saw the announcement trailer for Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy and the gameplay it was showcasing, I immediately wrote the game off as something that I’m not going to play. But then the game got released to extremely positive reviews and even some people I know personally played it and praised it. So I decided to give it a go and see for myself what was so good about this game that looked so boring in the previews. And, well, the bits that were shown are indeed quite boring. It’s just that the rest of the game is shockingly fantastic.
I find it incredibly hard to describe what the game is. I mean, sure, it’s a “story driven action adventure” game, it’s an apt description. Yet, I’ve never seen any game done quite like this. It’s like someone decided to mix Mass Effect 2/3, Telltale-style adventure games, action RPG gameplay in the vein of Final Fantasy XV and VII Remake into one, sprinkling some Resonance of Fate in the mixture. Though, even this doesn’t really describe why it feels so novel. Because the secret of the game lies in its structure and pacing. It’s been a long time since I’ve been this constantly surprised by a game done on a huge budget. Scratch that – any budget. The way Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy shuffles genres, activities, planets you visit, story points, the mood of the story is not something that can be properly described.
Sure, this isn’t the most involved plot and the characters aren’t too complex either. It’s a comic book superhero adventure and it doesn’t try to be more than that. What’s amazing is how far it pushes what it wants to be. The characters are simple, yet it’s hard not to start caring about them, not to laugh at their jokes and feel sad about their grief. The story is extremely simple, yet it evolves non-stop throughout the entire playtime. In 16 hours of me playing the game, it kept the pace, constantly introducing new twists, surprising with new developments and avoiding becoming stale. Even mechanically it’s not great, yet, almost never overly leaning on one mechanic for too long.
Yeah, the action isn’t great. It really isn’t, being “sure” at best and “eh, this is slightly annoying” at worst. There are character abilities and slow mo and special combo finishers. There’s a really fun “huddle” mechanic, where Star-Lord gathers the crew for a morale boosting speech. But it’s ultimately unnecessary for most of the game. The exploration is usually limited too, though the game can surprise you with a suddenly open level that you can freely explore. But it’s mostly there for some minor upgrades and, somewhat reminiscent of Jedi: Fallen Order, skins for the characters. You rarely get much choice in the dialogues and even when you do, very few of them have lasting reactivity and influence on the rest of the game.
But the game uses all of these mechanics and approaches in a way where until the very last chapters it’s highly unlikely you can get tired of anything. Because the focus is constantly switching from one mechanic and approach to another, keeping it fresh. The last chapters are a bit too heavy on action, which is unfortunate, but at that point you’re probably so invested in finishing the game, that it doesn’t really matter. And despite being 16 hours, which I tend to consider going into the “longer” game length, when it comes to highly story-driven titles, just because it’s very rare the game can tell you a story that feels worth the time you spend on it, this game felt pretty much spot on with the time. Yeah, some parts could’ve been trimmed. But not that many.
That’s really the strangest and most impressive thing. Despite being a game with incredibly high budget, based on a franchise that has been very popular for the past 10 years, this game manages to feel fresh and respectful of player time. Which is, unfortunately, not what you come to expect from the AAA games nowadays.
The game is most certainly not without faults. Apart from the fact that the action elements aren’t great, you can encounter occasional bugs, especially closer to the game’s final chapters. Though the most noticeable issue that can plague your entire playthrough is the fact that the game goes overboard with the character banter. It’s great more often than not, but it feels as if they recorded so many hours of character speech and simply had no idea where to put it, so the characters start talking every few seconds. Yet, as soon as you trigger an invisible story point, any of those discussions are cut off to say something related to the plot. And sure, this is an issue that is common for games in general, but it’s far more notable here exactly because the characters simply never shut up. More annoyingly, the amount of lines for the combat encounters is quite limited in comparison, despite the fact that combat usually takes longer. Thus you hear the same character barks repeated over and over again during the combat, that is already not fantastic.
I genuinely loved playing this game, though. I didn’t expect this. I couldn’t have predicted this. It doesn’t look that great on paper. Yet, it’s so fun to go through this adventure. Oh and it looks absolutely gorgeous too. While the soundtrack is quite okay. I’m sure people with real or inherited nostalgy for the 80s will like it more, but I’ve had plenty of tracks to enjoy myself. Plus the heavy metal tracks recorded for the game are actually fun, in their own buttrock way. I highly recommend checking Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy out if you’re up for some fun, well delivered and well paced space adventuring.