Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy Reviews

When Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy was revealed, many players got flashbacks to the flopped Avengers game that publisher Square-Enix put on shelves. Fortunately, as a live-service game, Guardians is a complete single-player adventure from start to finish. As a bonus, it's being developed by Eidos-Montréal: the studio behind the Deus Ex games and the most recent Tomb Raider game, among others. That can't go wrong, can it?

Guardians of the Galaxy is a third-person narrative action game where you take on the role of Peter Quill, better known as Star-Lord: the frontman of the Guardians. Together with friends Drax, Gamora, Rocket and of course Groot you go into the universe in the Milano in search of adventure. Although the average movie buff will probably know these characters from the 2014 and 2017 Marvel movies of the same name, they are not copies of the characters from the movies in the game. As with the many different comic series, these Guardians are unique and therefore not linked to previously published films or books. That said, they are of course still the same characters in essence, so the well-known character traits such as Groot who only says “I am Groot” and Drax who does not understand the concept of humor are of course present.

Who are the Guardians?
In this Guardians of the Galaxy universe, the team hasn't been together very long, but well-known villain Thanos has already been defeated. With a major interstellar war still fresh in their minds, the Guardians set out to make money from debris from the Quarantine Zone: an area where all the war's waste is stored. When leaving this zone where access is prohibited for unauthorized persons, the Milano is intercepted by the agents of Nova Corps. Peter and friends receive a fine that they cannot pay and so the now rolling snowball of poverty continues to grow.

During the adventure that took me just under 14 hours to complete, you will encounter several familiar and unfamiliar faces. Who these are I keep a secret, but for fans of both the comics and the movies Guardians of the Galaxy is a feast of recognition. To top it off, your journey will be narrated virtually non-stop by the rest of the Guardians. When we heard this in the trailer during E3, I thought this would get annoying pretty quickly, because they really never keep their mouths shut, but luckily this isn't too bad. During my session with the game, apart from some small, generic things, we hardly heard the same text twice.

Getting roasted
Everything you do will be commented on. Whether you close the fridge or go into a side aisle to find scrap to upgrade your skills, the Guardians are ready to roast you. What they say also often applies to the environment where you are at that moment. In addition, no wipes are wound for the fact that you are playing a game. For example, a comment comes along about why the sometimes ridiculous amount of enemies all look alike and who took the time to make all their uniforms.

With these kinds of jokes it is of course very important that the delivery is well put together. Fortunately, the cast of Guardians of the Galaxy consists of a talented group of voice actors who manage to do this believably. Also in terms of background music it is fine, although this score is rarely memorable. Fortunately, the original music is supported by a strong zipper of 80s hits that regularly return in the game. Guardians of the Galaxy's combat isn't as solid as hoped, but blasting enemies with Wham! Or A-ha in the background makes up for it.

Accessible gameplay
Although Guardians is somewhat similar to Uncharted or the modern Tomb Raider games when exploring the planets, in terms of combat you can best compare it with a kind of mix between Mass Effect and Final Fantasy VII Remake. You can also occasionally make choices that can reasonably influence the course of the story. However, you always end up at the same end.

As a player you only control Star-Lord with his two pistols, but with the push of a button you can have attacks carried out by your comrades. At first this seems quite simple, but as you unlock more attacks you can shake really cool combos from the controller. For example, you can command walking tree Groot to trap enemies with its branches, then unleash Drax to deal stagger damage and then finish it off with a strong attack from Gamora. Although this system becomes more fun while playing, the combat remains the weakest point of Guardians of the Galaxy and that is a pity. Fortunately, the game has a lot of accessibility options to make the game as easy or difficult as you want. The makers recommend setting the difficulty to 'Normal', which I did for this review. However, if you find the battles are too slow or you die too often, you can independently increase or decrease the damage both you and your enemies deal.

Interplanetary splendor
What fortunately does not disappoint is the graphical aspect of the game. Wow, Guardians of the Galaxy looks great in terms of both graphics and art direction! Almost every chapter takes place on a different planet or space station and these vary enormously in appearance. On one planet lightning flies around your ears while on another planet you suddenly find yourself in a large neon-lit city. There is a planet where they have jelly instead of water and enemies are also large jelly blocks and a little later you are walking through the snow of a frozen planet looking for a sign of life. There is no shortage of fantasy at Eidos-Montréal.

No Avengers
People who expected publisher Square-Enix to have a kind of repeat recipe of last year's Marvel's Avengers with Guardians of the Galaxy can go to sleep tonight with peace of mind. Fortunately, nothing could be further from the truth. Although the combat sometimes leaves something to be desired, the rest of the game is so strong that it is easy to pierce through. The surprisingly emotional story of Guardians of the Galaxy is certainly on the level of, for example, Marvel's Spider-Man from 2017 and is not inferior to the average MCU film. However, players who have little to do with this and are looking for a game with strong gameplay should look elsewhere.

Conclusion
Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy may be the surprise of the year for many. The cast is funny and interesting, the different environments look great and the story keeps surprising. Unfortunately, the combat isn't as strong as it could have been, but that shouldn't spoil the fun. For fans of Marvel comics and/or movies, this is an absolute must.