When Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered finally arrived on PC last year, I couldn’t believe how much I was enjoying it. Despite being a more “typical” example of an open world game formula, it managed to feel fresh and exciting nonetheless and, most importantly, made the open world itself be fun – usually more fun than linear story-driven segments. So, even though I felt that the DLC package The City That Never Sleeps was absolute garbage and stopped playing it midway through the second one, I was still excited to play more of the same with Miles Morales. And now that I’ve done that, I’m glad that I did. Even though it does feel like more of the same.
Just like the main game, this title is an open world action adventure where you play as Spider-Man. Except, this time you are Mile Morales, a very young superhero still learning the ropes under the tutelage of Peter Parker. Peter has to go on a trip and leaves Miles as the only New York’s Spider-Man which quickly spirals out of control due to unexpected events. Overall, this is a far simpler story and story structure in comparison to the previous game and instead of a lot of separate threads slowly connecting into one big storyline, we have a very straightforward tale, even if the goals of some of the enemies Miles fights are unclear at the start.
In some ways, it actually feels like what you’d expect the first Spider-Man in this series to be, a simpler “tutorial” tale that eases you into the universe with a younger more inexperienced character, yet Spider-Man: Miles Morales manages to turn this around and make it feel like a sequel, instead of a step backwards. There are new abilities and mechanics, some of the familiar ideas have a new twist on them. And the story, despite its simplicity, is still something you will care about as the characters are strong and their struggles are relatable. In general, I’d even argue that Miles and his story are more interesting than the one Peter has, but at the same time – the way Peter’s story was told and how it all unfolded made for a far more exciting and engaging experience. But again – the storytelling in this game is good for the character and the arc he’s going through and it’s different and interesting enough.
The changes in mechanics and abilities are a bit of a hit and a miss, though. Miles’ bio-electricity attacks, for example, are a neat and overall more helpful take on special attacks than the ones in the previous game, but on normal difficulty they are usually nice to have, not necessary. Until actually required, where some enemies are either impossible or just too hard to handle without using them. And his ability to go invisible that unlocks later makes an already rather easy stealth even more trivial. But being accessible in fights as well it does provide you wish some cute tactical abilities. Gadgets were severely cut down, and that’s a pure improvement, as most of them are now useful to a degree. Tweaks to suits and abilities they allow also some variation and planning, but just like in the original some of the passive abilities feel almost pointless while some extremely useful.
A far more impactful change is in how side-content is handled. You now have an app that tells you about any side-activities available while street crimes are now always infinite and are considered “completed” once you do one type at least once successfully. More types appear as the story moves along, but nonetheless it really changes the whole pace of the game. If the previous title felt like “several days of Spider-Man’s life that start normal but spiral out of control”, where you were often doing these crimes and other more mundane tasks between huge twists in the main storyline, Miles Morales feels like a more linear tale. To the point where doing these recurring crimes feels almost pointless and the only motivation to do it is the upgrade currency you get for doing them.
As a result, the whole experience felt far more “typical” to the open world. Still using extremely fun mechanics, still having super exciting traversal. Now with better story driven missions. Sadly not much improved boss fights (seriously, it’s still a huge weak point of this game how annoying most of them are). But, nonetheless lacking some sort of spark that the previous game had. So while I was glad to experience a new story and, as mentioned, I actually prefer this set of main characters, the overall experience ended up being more forgettable.
If you liked Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered and didn’t get tired with it by the end, definitely give Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales a go as well. Just be prepared that it’s a good story with some welcome gameplay updates, but a less exciting experience overall. If you had to choose between the two, however, I’d say go with the first one and you can ignore this one.