very proud to be continuing the journey with this video sponsor Squarespace they just resigned for the sixth year running making them our longest and most supportive partner they helped me do what I do just like their website creation tools help millions of people start new careers build new businesses or just get things done they're offering a special discount to viewers of this channel so stick around to the end of the video to learn more all right so Marvel Rivals doesn't need much introduction you've probably already seen how much this game has popped off it peaked
at over 480,000 players on launch and still sits at over 4 100,000 concurrent players a week later and it's easy to see why it takes the Marvel Universe perhaps the most recognizable name in pop culture today and fuses it with the bones of OverWatch one of the most beloved hero Shooters on the market or at least it used to be see I think a key part of Marvel Rivals success is that it's launching at a time when OverWatch is at its lowest point for context I was really into OverWatch at launch in fact all those
good times with friends was what compelled me to get into video editing in the first place but I alongside many others fell off over the years specifically the whole OverWatch 2 Fiasco has really dissuaded me from returning the switch from 6 versus 6 to 5 versus 5 making teams overly reliant on their single tank a roll queuing making even quick play Feel overly competitive and the nail in the coffin was blizzard completely dropping the PVE mode that actually Justified OverWatch 2's existence not to mention that this totally replaced the original OverWatch so you can't even
go back to the way things were if you wanted to I'll admit that kind of left an OverWatch sized hole in my heart there have been many and I mean many new hero shooters that have popped up in its wake but none that quite hit the same spot that OG OverWatch did until now because yeah I'll say right off the bat Marvel Rivals is the closest a hero shooter has come to filling that hole nedes has done a bang-up job at taking the Marvel Universe and translating it into a fun competent hero shooter I mean
as far as a Marvel themed OverWatch goes there isn't a lot more I could ask for if that's all you need to hear to dive in you'd be right to do so but it isn't without its shortcomings on one hand its tried and tested hero shooter formula does lead to those exciting match defining moments that make this genre so enticing character kits and synergies have been thoughtfully crafted to fully deliver on your favorite Marvel hero fantasy and the presentation overall is genuinely s TI on the other hand it relies too heavily on that expected formula
presenting maps and modes that lack the creativity present across the rest of the game and its disregard for True structure leads to a kind of messy hero shooter that's sometimes difficult to take seriously as team fights often descend into a tornado brawl akin to a Looney Tunes cartoon if OverWatch is a professional soccer match with all its divisions roles and rules to maintain the Integrity of the sport and make it easily watchable Marvel Rivals is a game of beach soccer with your mates and anything goes Scrappy romp that often descends into complete chaos you know
clashing shins people slipping on the sand all over the place you see overwatch's problem is that it started out as that beach soccer match but as people complained about their sore shins and rolled ankles more rules were added gradually evolving into this self-serious competitive sport that's fun in its own way sure but I think it's left a lot of people wanting to go back to those Beach soccer days where everyone was just in it for the joy of the thing and that's Marvel Rivals steps up to the plate the of with the Amazing Spiderman your
powers and might simp I am BR one below all from Leg Marvel Rivals has for lack of a better word The Source there's a remarkable level of visual cohesion and attention to detail present across every element of this game from the UI with its flashy animations for me clicking tabs in a menu to this awesome pop out Parallax effect when hovering over character portraits and I mean look at these character designs they are genuinely Peak they're familiar yet find a fresh take with such bold Silhouettes rendered with striking Line work and harsh Rim lighting to
push the comic book- like visual style and the roster isn't just the a-listers you'd expect from the MCU but obscure ones like Jeff the land shark who I literally had no idea existed they've even got squirrel girl who's lowy kind of busted honestly fitting given that she's single-handedly beaten some of the biggest villains in Marvel history that deep understanding of the Marvel universe is perhaps most present in the character kit design almost every one of these characters plays exactly how you would hope them to without compromise Iron Man is a DPS who fires Repulsor blasts
from above can hit enemies with a uni beam if they get too close and can fly in definitely with no fuel system or anything to hold him down similarly a Rocket Raccoon can Scurry along walls and use his jetpack to stay slippery while supporting his allies with all manner of gadgets whereas clo and Dagger is a support who's perfectly positioned as a sort of dual character that shifts between healing and damage capabilities Captain America is a super agile tank one of the fastest characters in the game in fact with his Sprint and leaps while Magneto
is this slow moving force of nature pressing ever forward almost begging enemies to take a shot at him just so he can brush them off with his powers of magnetism Magneto sure there's a couple weird exceptions like Loki being an odd choice for a Healer or Hulk having this bubble Shield ability but for the most part the power fantasy of these characters has been impressively retained here rather than contorted to fit the hero shooter mold that does result in Marvel Rivals having far more melee oriented characters than any other hero shooter on the market making
it feel almost more like a brawler than a shooter at times now that's a cool way in which this game feels a little different from its competitors and again I'm glad that those character fantasies have been retained but it does lead to some kind of wonky balancing and visual noise characters like Iron Fist for example are real menac right now with autot tracking lunge attacks to ensure he stays within melee range likewise all the other melee characters have similar levels of insane Mobility to keep up and this can lead to team fights devolving into complete
Mayhem there's almost no way to make call outs or strategize as everyone's just zipping around at light speed that chaos can be fun for sure particularly when it leads to those crazy Final Stand moments where everyone's just piling onto the objective but it is messy and sometimes the outcome of a fight can feel more down to luck than skill or coordination where coordination has been smartly encouraged though is in this team up mechanic so certain character combinations will activate passive Buffs or Grant bonus active abilities for example if rocket is on a team with Groot
he can ride on Groot to take less damage and Groot gains more Health if there's a Punisher or Bucky on the team rocket gets an extra ability that lets him place down an infinite ammo zone for them to go ham Hulk gives Iron Man and Doctor Strange extra gamma damage on their abilities while giving him a health buff whereas putting Hulk on a team with Wolverine lets you perform the iconic fast ball special which is both hilarious and effective okay okay well e me oh the team up system is far more than a surface level
gimmick these are genuinely impactful bonuses that make you think about your team comp in a way that I've never quite experienced in Another Hero shooter like it's almost as if you're trying to form a winning poker hand it's all communicated in game very well too with the character select screen suggesting team ups based on the team's current picks and you can easily ping the team ups that you'd like to set up these are simple yet smart additions making synergizing with your team surprisingly easy without a single spoken word netes clearly know how important it is
to capture the spirit of the Marvel Universe and what it means to embody these characters to the point that they've actually brought on so many voice actors to reprise their roles like the iconic Yuri lenthal as Spider-Man and Brian Bloom as Captain America he voices Captain America in The Avengers animated series I want to be clear that that stuff matters way more to me than the critiques that I'm about to dive into too because yeah while I've had a good time with Marvel Rivals overall it does have its problems problems that make this more of
a casual Pastime I'll be dipping it in and out of rather than my new PVP Obsession that I hoped it' be got one I like the co so it's almost impossible to talk about Marvel Rivals without making comparisons to OverWatch I mean this game basically wouldn't exist without it it has the same same modes it has similar map structure many of its hero kits are remixes of OverWatch Heroes it's very familiar in that sense the fact that you can now get the OverWatch experience without actually playing OverWatch shouldn't be underestimated I think that's exactly what
many people were looking for and Marvel Rivals delivers on that front but I think that derivative design does undermine what this game could have been for example the maps and modes you've got an arena mode which is just a deathmatch thing that nobody really bothers with so the main modes are quick play and competitive both will send you into either a payload mode or a best of three capture the hill and that's it that's that's all the modes to be clear they are functional they are the staple modes in this genre no hero shooter would
be complete without them but it does feel like a missed opportunity to offer experiences that are at least a little unique especially given how much material you've got to work with within the Marvel Universe like you've got this cool mix of heroes and villains but no Heroes versus Villains mode considering this is the Doom season I would have liked to have seen a mode where it's just a bunch of Heroes ganging up on someone playing as Doom there's no neutral objectives like I don't know Infinity Stones that can be used for wild plays or team
Buffs I mean the fact that fortnite is pulling off this sort of thing but a dedicated PVP Marvel game isn't is kind of whack and hey maybe this sort of thing is in the pipeline but I think this launch would have landed stronger for me had there been something here other than the stock hero shooter modes that we played many many times before now of course OverWatch also launched with these exact same two modes however gameplay variety was introduced through its map design on a level that I don't think Marvel Rivals quite matches in OverWatch
every map has been smartly constructed to offer vastly different gameplay experiences take ilios for example one map is on the side of a cliff that's part open arena on one side but the capture point is inside this little tiny building another is just an open area with a giant hole in the middle of it and then the last map here has no death zones around it at all you've just got to Juke it out in CQC within a sunken Arena even the payload Maps like Route 66 watch point gibralta and Dorado they're all memorable because
of how they transition between cramped indoor spaces and then outdoor spaces with long sight lines forcing you to adapt on the fly all that is say that every capture the hill map in Marvel Rivals just feels like that last ilios map just a flat arena in the middle of a big room with maybe a Death Zone on one side of it same goes for the payload Maps I don't think they play enough with Sidelines to create variety they're mostly just the same sort of long linear Pathways with plenty of open space around them to ensure
all the aerial characters have room to fly around that is why I think they're designed that way to ensure that every hero is sort of equally viable on every map and I think some will enjoy that aspect but to me it makes matches feel rather syy and the map roster being as limited as it is right now doesn't help either in an effort to remedy that environments are destructible which is a fun mechanic don't get me wrong but to me it doesn't quite do much to enhance the experience this isn't Battlefield or the finals where
explosives are kind of a scarce resource where using destruction will actually give you the jump on enemies you just sort of accidentally blow up the arena as you play and even if you do it intentionally rarely does that create or eliminate opportunities because of how mobile all the heroes are like sure you can blow up that bridge but who cares because nobody was going to use that bridge anyway sometimes though it does kind of work like this time where an entire building collapsed leaving nothing but its roof intact which we kind of used as a
sort of makeshift Al Cove to give us a height advantage and there have been times where I thought I was clever for blocking off entrances as Groot but the enemy team just decided to blow a hole through an adjacent wall to get around it in these moments I see the vision it's just that they feel a little few and far between and aren't enough to make up for the dry maps and modes I had hoped then that competitive play would inject more of that strategy and gameplay variety but it doesn't at least not in my
experience at the moment there is almost no discernable difference between comp and quick play other than both teams taking turns to push the payload and making players yell more profanities because their rank is at stake as you'd expect teammates will often just ignore everyone else and install loock their favorite DPS within Nan I don't have a problem with this in quick play I mean the majority of the roster are DPS characters so it's only natural but in competitive it meant that I was almost always forced into playing tank or support since there's nobody willing to
switch and look I'm happy to do so I mean all the tanks and supports are a lot of fun to play but I think this is where I wouldn't mind Marvel Rivals having some sort of roll queue for the competitive mode just so people can continue to play the roles that they want with less of that friction similarly there is a neat system that allows each team to ban picks like some M do but that only kicks in if all players are at Diamond Rank and above so yeah I know it might be a hot
take but I do think roll que and character bands being available Baseline in the competitive mode would be a great way to both differentiate comp as well as help Band-Aid balancing issues both now and in the future last thing I'll touch on is monetization which I do actually have some nice things to say about given this is a free-to-play title and netes is behind it you might have some concerns here but I'm pleased to report that it's actually not bad I mean character skins range from 15 to 20 Australian dollars which is still on the
high end for me but for what it's worth they do look fantastic and each one can be bought together with a custom MVP animation which all look pretty sick notably you can actually earn premium currency in this game by completing rotating objectives I mean it's no hell divers too you don't earn a lot and it's it's kind of awkward because it relies on playing certain characters on specific Maps but it's enough that if you just need a little bit extra to buy that outfit that you want you can bridge that Gap without forking out the
cash in the interest of consumer friendliness while there are battle passes as well they don't expire you can just work through them at your own pace even though I'm not a fan of these as a progression model I would much rather earn skins for a character by playing said character this is a great compromise that makes fomo less of a thing and I'm glad more games are adopting this model for their battle [Music] [Applause] passes they are so is Marvel Rivals the OverWatch killer that everyone seems to suggest look I don't think so at least
not yet even after all the controversy OverWatch still has better game feel map design it's easier to watch and has a level of Versatility within its character kits that allows for unmatched skill expression but that doesn't mean I'm not having fun with Marvel rivals on the contrary I've been really enjoying it for what it is a chaotic hero shooter that does a fantastic job at capturing the spirit of the Marvel Universe on both a visual and mechanical level so even though I've had no shortage of criticisms in this review I hope that still comes across
underneath at all I also can't overstate just how much that Marvel angle makes me excited for the future of this game I mean you never guaranteed that any new OverWatch hero down the line is going to appeal to you but you can bet your ass that everyone's got a favorite Marvel character they're waiting to join the roster given how netes have Faithfully implemented their current slate of heroes and villains that anticipation alone is probably going to be enough to have me logging in for years to come imagine Cyclops Daredevil hell they've shown that they're not
afraid to get a little weird so if they bring in my boy reptile it is all over for me like I said Above All Else Marvel Rivals is a fun time it's like we're back to just playing that good old Rough and Tumble Beach soccer again it's a bit messy sure but when I've got a doctor strange main sling ringing us behind the enemy for a game-winning team wipe they're a badass Captain America player single-handedly holding down the payload before support arrives in those moments it's like an epic comic book sequence unfolding before my very
eyes and it's then that my bruised shins feel a little less sore it's definitely the closest a hero shooter has come to filling the void that OG OverWatch left for many of us so if you yearn to relive those days of old or even just love this universe like I do and want to scrap with your favorite heroes and villains I recommend Marvel [Music] Rivals 5 years ago I signed my first annual partnership on the channel it was a deal that gave me the confidence to quit my job and go full-time on YouTube the partnership
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