It’s true that if you’ve played one LEGO game, you’ve played them all. The series has since added full voice acting and an open world hub area since LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes in 2012, elements still present in LEGO Marvel Super Heroes, but for the most part, the game is still the same straightforward LEGO game fun for the most part.
With that said however, the set pieces and missions in LEGO Marvel Super Heroes are at the top of their game throughout every sequence! Every setting and skirmish feels enjoyable, stud-collecting is as addictive as ever, and the way that the various Marvel personalities are set up is extremely well-done, even with the game containing just over 150 playable characters if you include optional DLC! Yes, there’s a lot, so chances are, your favourite Marvel heroes and villains are in the mix somewhere!
Each character in the game, be they hero or villain, has their own combination of abilities that make them unique, even if they effectively overlap for replaying levels in Free Play after finishing the main story. Some abilities are unique perhaps to the point of feeling a bit arbitrary, like Captain America only being able to trigger certain switches meant for his shield for example, but it’s extremely impressive that the game gives you full reign of a character’s established abilities, without over-complicating things, nor betraying gameplay!
Some abilities do seem a bit strange though, such as clawed characters like Wolverine being used for digging. The affinity of certain characters will also be occasionally suspect to picky Marvel purists. The worst example is Spider-Man not being considered a ‘smart’ character who can operate scientific devices, despite being a scientist and despite being one of the smarter superheroes in the Marvel Universe. Strangely, he’ll just shrug when you try to get him to use a computer, while Black Widow, an expert espionage agent but by no means as scientifically smart as Spider-Man, can use complicated science tools without issue.
Examples like this sound like nitpicking, true, but that is something that’s going to bug longtime Marvel fans, especially when the rest of the game realizes so many legions of Marvel characters so incredibly well otherwise, even in LEGO form! The amount of detail put into Iron Man’s flight and repulsor blasts, Thor’s hammer, Spider-Man’s web-swinging, Hulk’s charging, and Captain America’s shield-throwing is legitimately amazing, and you can tell that the developers were very careful to capture every element of each character’s powers, personalities and mannerisms. For the most part anyway.
In contrast to most other LEGO games, LEGO Marvel Super Heroes isn’t quite as obtuse with its puzzle design, especially since Coulson and the game itself will prompt you to use certain types of characters at certain points if you get stuck for even just a short while, perhaps to the relief of some. Most of the levels are combat-heavy and straightforward to proceed through, but the way that you use your pre-set team of heroes in the main story still feels clever, rewarding and often amusing. The boss battles aren’t quite as satisfying though unfortunately, since even large-scale confrontations with big Marvel baddies like Magneto, Red Skull, Loki and Doctor Doom simply play out as protracted puzzles where you just tear apart some part of the scenery that lets you hammer a weakness, get in a punch, and repeat.
In fact, if you’re hoping for a challenge, then you’ve probably never played a LEGO game before. LEGO Marvel Super Heroes is tons of fun, but it won’t tax serious gamers in the slightest, even during Free Play and when hunting down all of the optional challenges, collectibles, characters and trophies/achievements. It’s still very satisfying to fight through familiar Marvel locations like a secret HYDRA base, the X-Mansion, Stark Tower and the Baxter Building as well-realized LEGO heroes, but there’s still no death penalty beyond losing studs, and combat is still a simple matter of mashing the attack button until all of the goons are defeated most of the time.
Fortunately, playing in co-op with a friend is more fun than ever in LEGO Marvel Super Heroes, particularly since you can use a few team-up attacks like Wolverine and Colossus’s Fastball Special, as well as reflect beam projectiles with Captain America’s shield using characters like Iron Man or Human Torch. The co-op is still limited to two players unfortunately, which is extremely annoying, since many missions give you more than two heroes at once. It’s also still limited to local play, so if you were hoping that the LEGO games embracing next-gen meant that they would embrace greater connectivity, well, you’re still out of luck unfortunately, as even the PS4 and Xbox One versions of the game are offline-only.
The Wii U version is particularly troublesome in terms of co-op however, since you’ll need at least one other Wii Remote/Nunchuk combination or Wii U Pro Controller to play with someone else, or two if you don’t want to use the Wii U Gamepad, which merely displays a minimap and lets you set destinations, and that’s where its usefulness ends. Yes, it compensates by allowing off-TV play if someone else needs the television, but it’s still disappointing that only LEGO City Undercover has bothered to try more ambitious Wii U Gamepad ideas.
Worse however is that the Wii U version doesn’t adjust its button prompts if you use a Wii Remote/Nunchuk controller, which feels very sloppy and will no doubt confuse children especially! As if that weren’t enough, certain levels are bugged and won’t proceed properly unless at least one player is playing with the Wii U Gamepad. If you are planning to play this game on Wii U, hopefully you’re ok with using the Gamepad, because otherwise, several unique glitches are constantly going to be threatening your play experience!
With that said however, the game is quite large, and will keep you busy well beyond its 10-12 hour main story. It will take players quite a while, potentially tens more hours, to amass every character, complete every optional mission and attain the Platinum Trophy/achievement cap. Getting lost in the vibrant open world is still a delight, especially when you can play with someone else, and even just messing around with the various LEGO Marvel characters is a lot of fun, even if you don’t have any set objective in mind.
Sure, in the end, it’s another LEGO game with the same founding gameplay formula as any other licensed LEGO game, but the incredible amount of polish and fun offered by this latest rendition will keep Marvel fans and LEGO game fans alike constantly coming back for more, and smiling all the while!
LEGO Marvel Super Heroes, like the LEGO Batman games, doesn’t adapt any specific story from any movie, comic or cartoon from its universe, and instead comes up with something familiar in execution, but otherwise entirely new.
The main premise of the game involves intergalactic herald, the Silver Surfer crashing on Earth and having his cosmic-powered board shattered into various cosmic bricks, which various Marvel super-villains attempt to greedily get their hands on. As the Marvel Universe’s heroes step in to assess and contain the mysterious cosmic bricks, also trying to deal with the villains, it becomes evident that the villains are not acting on their own authority, instead the underlings of an alliance made between Doctor Doom, Loki and Magneto, who aim to use the cosmic bricks for some nefarious purpose.
Thus, S.H.I.E.L.D. rallies heroes from all across the Marvel Universe, from Spider-Man to Iron Man to The Hulk to the X-Men to the Fantastic Four to Captain America to Thor and more, to stop the villains before disaster strikes.
The story is obviously not terribly deep, and if you’re familiar with Marvel’s various personalities, you’ll likely be able to call every plot turn in advance, even with an original story. Nonetheless, the plot is a very heartfelt love letter to Marvel lore all-around, borrowing famous elements from the comics, cartoons and especially the live-action movies. For a younger player who likes the Marvel movies especially, they’ll be delighted to feel like the personalities they enjoyed in live-action are now interacting and referencing their prior exploits in LEGO form.
Even for adult players, the movie nods throughout LEGO Marvel Super Heroes are often very clever. During one mission for example, Mister Fantastic remarks that he has never been inside the Statue of Liberty, to which Wolverine responds that he could give a tour. It’s a subtle nod to the climax of the original X-Men movie taking place inside the Statue of Liberty, and it’s a very nice touch! Even better is a trophy/achievement called ‘Don’t I Know You?’ awarded for pairing up Captain America and Human Torch on a Free Play mission in co-op, cutely referencing the fact that both characters were portrayed by Chris Evans in their most recent live-action movie releases.
The humour will probably largely be lost on people who aren’t all that familiar with Marvel movies or comics, but there’s still some solid moments of slapstick here and there, even if this ultimately isn’t one of the more humourous LEGO games of the bunch. It’s more cutely amusing than laugh-out-loud hilarious, especially with the heinous amount of awful, awful puns in the dialogue.
Even if established Marvel fans will get the most out of the story however, it gets the job done, and if you aren’t already familiar with these heroes and villains, this game provides a great introduction to all of the noteworthy characters and locations in Marvel lore, while also demonstrating what makes them so cool and appealing!
Next: The Verdict