Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order Review

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After the X-Men Legends games, developer Raven Software decided to make a game that shares a similar gameplay style and brings together more characters than just Marvel’s iconic mutants. The first Marvel Ultimate Alliance is a fun game that features a diverse roster of Marvel heroes on a quest to stop the Masters of Evil. Developer Vicarious Visions was primarily responsible for the development of the sequel; Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 and despite the interesting Civil War story arc and improved combat, in general, the game failed to capture what made the first one so great. The next game in the series was put in the hands of Team Ninja, the developer responsible for several popular action and fighting games including Ninja Gaiden (2004) and Dead or Alive. Developed by Team Ninja and published by Nintendo, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order was released for Switch in July, 2019. Since then, multiple patches have released and new playable characters, game modes, outfits, voice lines, and some other content was released as DLC.

The story centers on the Infinity Stones and the heroes trying to collect them before Thanos and the Black Order do. It all starts when the Guardians of the Galaxy discover the location of the Stones and inadvertently alert the Black Order to their presence. Before the villains can get them, Star-Lord uses the space stone to scatter the other stones and the quest to find the rest begins. Shadow of Doom is the only DLC that includes new story content and it picks up right where the main story leaves off. As I was playing through the game I noticed that some elements are inspired by the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I think the biggest issue with the plot here is that it’s predictable and not very compelling. The story basically plays out like this; go to an area, fight a bunch of enemies and a boss, retrieve one of the stones, go to a new area and do it all over again. Rinse and repeat. I think the voice cast does a good job but many of the actors sound like they’re trying to mimic the characters from the films.

I went into Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 expecting gameplay similar to its predecessors and what I got was a grinder. Grinding and farming make up a big part of the game. You’ll need to grind excessively to get the most out of it. Much like it’s predecessors, 3 is very repetitive and while grinding and repetition are not new to the series at this point, 3 takes things to a whole new level. There’s more than enough characters to play as and challenges to overcome but not enough variety. What’s amazing is that the DLC doesn’t really remedy this. It adds new stuff but doesn’t mix things up enough.

On the plus side, if you can get past the repetition and grinding and enjoy Marvel and this style of gameplay, Ultimate Alliance 3 offers hundreds of hours of content. You’re getting plenty of bang for your buck. I do think Ultimate Alliance 3 has the best and most varied roster of playable characters in the series up to this point. Unfortunately, the game lacks the hub areas that were present in the previous two entries but you can interact with NPCs at certain points and I do kind of wish that some of these NPCs were actually playable like Jessica Jones and Winter Soldier just to name a couple.

Now lets get into the actual gameplay. When playing solo, you control a team of four heroes and can switch between them freely. In the story mode, you can swap out heroes at S.H.I.E.L.D. Points which appear rather frequently in the environments and the camera is atrocious. The Classic Camera, anyway. You can switch to the Heroic Camera which follows your selected hero more closely and even lets you lock onto enemies. The classic camera doesn’t always focus on what it’s supposed to and it doesn’t help that it’s already easy to lose track of what’s going on thanks to all the numbers and visual effects that fill the screen during combat. The game does support up to four players but I didn’t get to try the multiplayer. From what I hear, the multiplayer camera is even worse.

You will receive certain bonuses for selecting certain sets of heroes and each hero can move around, jump, double jump, block/guard, dodge, and pick up and throw objects. Some characters can even fly. All characters can perform light and heavy attacks but you can no longer grab and throw enemies which kind of sucks. Each character does feel different and they can all unleash powers or abilities which drains their energy. You can perform Synergy Attacks which is when two nearby allies combine abilities and this is a crucial part of the gameplay. I don’t like the fact that the characters need to be near each other for this to work because if playing solo, the AI will sometimes move or get hit right before you press the button to trigger a Synergy Attack and then it doesn’t work and it can throw you off and you have to get back into position and try again and that gets annoying after a while. During battles, you’ll fill up a gauge and when it’s full, you can unleash an Extreme Attack and if you unleash it for multiple heroes at the same time, you’ll unleash an Alliance Attack which can inflict a shit-ton of damage.

Just like the previous entries, Ultimate Alliance 3 is a button masher and even though each character does feel different, it’s their abilities that really define them. In my opinion, the combat feels overly reliant on Synergy Attacks. Synergy and Extreme Attacks are great for quickly taking down tough enemies or multiple foes at once. I often found myself focusing more on building up enough energy to pull off Synergy Attacks because they’re simply more effective than standard abilities. The challenge in this game in many ways depends on the level of your characters. As you use characters, they will gain experience and level up. You can upgrade their abilities and at a certain point, you’ll unlock the ability to equip them with ISO-8 crystals which can provide different bonuses and most of the crystals you acquire are random. You can upgrade or improve your entire roster with Alliance Enhancements and there’s a ridiculous amount of them. My biggest problem with the upgrades and bonuses is that, individually, they don’t feel like they make a noticeable difference because of the small percentages they offer. Collectively they do but it’s hard to notice because the challenge ramps up as you progress.

I found that leveling up characters is the most important thing. No matter what game mode you decide to play, the game always conveys a recommended level for whatever the challenge is and this includes the story chapters. If your characters are under the recommended level, it’s time to start farming for experience. Now this is where things will get problematic for some players. The roster does not level up together. If you don’t use a character, they don’t earn experience. And if they’re not even close to the recommended level of whatever you’re doing, there’s a good chance they will fall and you’ll fail. I found that if my characters were at least ten to twenty levels higher than the recommended level, I was able to overcome the challenge without issue.

As you progress through the story and complete certain challenges, you’ll unlock more playable characters and these characters are always at a level that’s appropriate for the challenge or chapter you found them in. As it relates to the story mode, this is good if you want to use them right away so in some ways the story encourages you to switch out characters often but if you want to swap out characters with others you haven’t used in a while, you’ll have to grind and/or farm to level them up. What’s the best way to do that, you ask? The other game modes, specifically the Infinity Trials. As you progress through the story, you’ll unlock Infinity Trials but some of them are unlocked by finding them the environments and by completing other Trials. You can also replay story chapters.

There’s multiple Infinity Rifts that contain multiple Trials. The Trials are simply challenges that have special conditions. Completing a Trial and its objectives will reward you with different things. There’s about a handful of different challenge types. You’ll have to defeat waves of enemies, bosses, some Trials put a focus on certain attack types, and others can only be completed by specific characters. They all start to feel the same after a while. If you’ve played one wave-based Trial, you’ve played them all. What makes it worse is you’ll probably repeat several trials dozens of times just to level up characters. Some playable characters are locked behind Trials as are outfits and the outfits are a bit disappointing because many of them are just alternate colors.

Whether you enjoy the plot or not, you’ll have to replay through the story multiple times if you want to unlock everything. After you beat it the first time, you’re encouraged to play through it again on a higher difficulty and then on another difficulty after that. The higher the difficulty, the better the rewards. Plus, you’ll unlock more Infinity Trials, outfits, and other things. But much like everything else in this game, it’s just another repetitive thing. It’s the same story but more challenging which means more grinding and farming. Ultimate Alliance 3 is all about repetition and it’s very easy to hit a wall, forcing you to grind.

The Curse of the Vampire DLC introduces the Nightmare difficulty and Gauntlet game mode. The Nightmare difficulty is just another reason to play through the same old story again albeit with some new conditions. The Gauntlet mode features numerous Gauntlets of consecutive challenges. However, these challenges are basically Infinity Trials except you go from one challenge to another and can’t swap out characters. After beating one, you can replay through it again in what the game calls Endless mode and each playthrough is more challenging than the last. The idea is to keep playing through it until all your characters fall or you decide to stop. You will have to replay through several of them multiple times to complete all the objectives. You are scored based on your performance in each Gauntlet and you can post your scores online.

One cool thing about the Vampire DLC is that you can earn tokens. The tokens can be spent in the S.H.I.E.L.D. Depot on various resources and to unlock new outfits and voice lines. Each character has their own set of voice lines which can be swapped out. I was thankful for the Depot because it’s where you can buy XP Cubes. You’ll acquire them just by playing as well but if you have enough currency, you buy a ton of them at once. They’re used to instantly increase a character’s experience making them quite useful.

Each subsequent expansion after Vampire adds new Gauntlets and Rise of the Phoenix adds a game mode called Danger Room which is multiplayer focused, however you can play through it solo. Two teams face off against each other in rounds. And each round is like a challenge and, yes, these, too, are similar to Infinity Trials. However, the gimmick here is that you can force negative effects on the other team by completing certain tasks and the team that completes a round first wins and can select a bonus for the next round.

If it isn’t obvious at this point, the Infinity Trials, Gauntlets, and Danger Rooms are all very similar. The expansions add some new conditions to mix up the challenges but it’s not enough to make them feel that much different from each other. And these challenges are basically variants of story scenarios. Just by playing the game, you’ll acquire resources and they can also be acquired from containers found in the environments. Along with all the visual effects and numbers you see during combat, you’ll also see text appear indicating you earned a reward which includes resources. Some of the resources you earn or acquire be spent on different things like upgrading abilities and ISO-8 crystals and unlocking Alliance Enhancements.

It seems like the ISO-8 crystals are the game’s attempt at depth. That’s because most of the ones you get have randomized properties and can affect characters in different ways. They can improve attributes and/or provide bonuses. You can equip each character with any combination of crystals. Plus, you can modify the crystals to make them more efficient or deconstruct them for resources. After unlocking the ability to equip them, you’ll start earning and finding them left and right. They come in different colors and rarities and they’re not organized very well although there are some decent filter options. As soon as you go into the ISO-8 Management menu, you’re greeted with your entire collection of crystals and you have no idea what’s what until you highlight or select one and read the description. And to add insult to injury, sometimes the description is long and you can’t even scroll through the text manually.

As mentioned before, the challenge in this game really does depend on the level of your characters. If my characters were at a much higher level than the recommended, I could easily mash buttons and win fights. If my characters were at a lower level or around the same level, knowing when to attack, block, and dodge is much more important. There is a good variety of enemies and plenty of villains/bosses to fight. Friendlies and enemies attack on sight and if playing solo, enemies will primarily focus on the player which can make trying to revive fallen team mates a pain in the ass.

You’re given a certain amount of revives per battle and when a team mate falls, I found the best thing to do is to let another AI team mate revive them because enemies can and will often attack you, interrupting the revive attempt. The friendly AI can often jump right into the fray and revive a fallen team mate without too much trouble. One thing the friendly AI does that is annoying is they will sometimes pick up and throw things when I don’t want them to. Depending on the challenge, I might leave throwable items on the ground to be used later against certain enemies but the AI will sometimes pick them up and just chuck them. It’s a minor gripe and, overall, the AI in general is okay.

Much like Ultimate Alliance 2, the environments in 3 are linear. But they feel more diverse. You’ll fight your way through a Kree Ship, The Raft, Wakanda, and the Dark Dimension among other locations and the Shadow of Doom DLC will take you to Latveria. There will be rooms and areas off the beaten paths that sometimes lead to resources or Infinity Trials and finding anything is not very difficult due to the linear level design. In fact, you’ll be alerted whenever an Infinity Trial is nearby. It would be impossible to get lost and you can always replay through a chapter if you did miss something. There are obstacles that can be broken with certain synergy attacks, you’ll have to solve simplistic puzzles from time to time, and there are numerous hazards to watch out for. In the end, I feel like there should have been more locations. Trials, Gauntlets, and Danger Rooms are all set in areas from the story so you’re going to revisit the same areas frequently.

I really do like the presentation in Ultimate Alliance 3. It’s bright and colorful, the characters and environments are detailed, and the visual effects help make the combat feel satisfying. Although, all the effects and numbers, and text that appears on the screen during battles can make it easy to lose track of what’s going on as mentioned earlier. So I guess my biggest gripe with the presentation is that the screen can get too busy. The audio work is pretty good. The soundtrack consists of dramatic and heroic-sounding tunes that fit the action well. Strikes and impacts sound good and the bigger hits result in what often sounds like glass breaking. On the technical side, the game did crash on me a few times and the frame rate does tank when there’s a lot of action and effects on-screen. But other than those big crazy moments, the frame rate was pretty consistent with the Switch docked and handheld.

I do want to mention that I play from the cartridge and feel the load times are a bit on the long side which is more of a problem in any game modes outside of the story and is one of the reasons why I prefer grinding Trials instead of Gauntlets. Loading a single Trial or Gauntlet can take up to around thirty seconds. After the initial load of a Gauntlet’s first challenge, each subsequent challenge doesn’t take as long to load. However, if your characters are at a high enough level, you can complete some of the Gauntlet challenges faster than they take to load. Once you beat a Trial, you can retry and it will immediately start over.

I invested close to seventy five hours into this game just for this review and I’m still playing just to unlock everything. So despite it’s many issues, to say I don’t enjoy it would be a lie. I like the roster, I like the core gameplay, I like trying out different combinations of characters, and I’m impressed with the amount of content. The replay value is insane. Even though I think the combat relies too much on Synergy Attacks, there is an addictive quality to decimating a horde of foes with a Synergy or Extreme attack. I think “addictive” is a good word to describe the game in general. If you like this style of gameplay, that is. You’re constantly rewarded and there are multiple ways to improve your characters. The amount of stuff you can unlock and do is crazy and that’s what kept me going. Unlocking more characters, outfits, and challenges, earning enough points to unlock more Alliance Enhancements, acquiring better ISO-8 crystals – these things are what kept me playing. Overcoming challenges will primarily depend on your level. You’re basically just trying to keep up with level recommendations which will lead to a lot of grinding and repetition. Ultimate Alliance 3 is by far the most repetitive game in the series up to this point. I think it’s biggest problem is that there’s not enough variety. Everything feels like a grind after a while.

I find Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 interesting because, honestly, I feel that it’s just not very good. And yet I also think it is good because I was having fun and it keeps me coming back despite its problems. Ultimately, it’s just a repetitive game and it’s not going to appeal to everyone. I would only recommend Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 to those that not only enjoyed the previous games and/or this style of gameplay but also don’t mind grinding and farming. It’s a great game to play in short bursts or long sessions. It’s great for killing time and it can be played solo or with friends. If you’re looking for something to keep you occupied for a long time, you should definitely check out Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3.