Ever since X-Men Legends surprised gamers 15 years ago, we’ve known that multiplayer superhero action RPG’s can be amazing. And yet, as Marvel has progressively permeated the worldwide public consciousness with phenomenons like Avengers: Endgame, we haven’t seen a new game since the original Iron Man film released. With Activision losing the license years ago and Square Enix’s Avengers game seemingly in limbo until recently, imagine how surprising it was to see that a third Marvel Ultimate Alliance was on its way. Not only that, but it was being published by Nintendo and developed by Team Ninja (of Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive fame) exclusively for the Switch! But the developer and platform was not the only thing that’s changed in the last decade, with a roster of characters who have since risen to prominence. But most importantly… is Jessica Jones in the game!?
The answer is yes… in a way. Like the past games, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 allows players to put together a dream team of four. With over 30 Marvel heroes and villains to choose from, the roster features mainstays like Wolverine, Captain America and Thor joining up with newly prominent heroes like Miles Morales, Spider-Gwen and the Guardians of the Galaxy. Even Elsa Bloodstone made the cut! But unfortunately, while Jessica is technically in the game, it was only as an NPC, directing the playable characters towards their fight against The Hand. It’s better than nothing, but with Iron Fist, Luke Cage and Daredevil all playable, it would have been great to get the old Netflix team back together. Designing Jessica based on Kristen Ritter’s portrayal just feels like teasing at this point.
Each character has unique sets of skills, like the ability to fly, shoot or swing depending on the hero. As they progress, each earns experience through combat that leads to developing unique combat skills that can damage large waves of enemies or concentrate large attacks into a single strike. As a top-down brawler, the team can’t get too far from each other. The lack of freedom is made up for by filling the environments with plenty of enemies to defeat, which can be done in increasingly flashy ways thanks to the team up attacks. Once enough enemies are defeated, players can trigger an ultimate screen clearing attack, which can be amplified by having their partners activate it at the same time. With that said, while Ultimate Alliance 2 had some really cool specialized team attacks like Captain America reflecting Iron Man’s energy blasts towards enemies, the third game’s moves seemed more generic. Here’s to hoping that the final version will have more specialized attacks. Oh, and if you happen to be short on friends, you’ll be able to swap between CPU controlled heroes on the fly.
Overall, despite the change in developer and the 10 year layoff, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 seems to be in good hands. There are some concerns with the visual quality of some of the characters that the cell shaded look can’t mask, while crowded areas did lead to some slight slowdown, but the time until the final release might be enough to put down that extra layer of polish. Be ready to assemble when the game launches exclusively for Nintendo Switch on July 19.