Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 is the sequel to the 2006 Ultimate Alliance by Raven Software. Ultimate Alliance 2 was developed by Vicarious Visions, the same developers who were responsible for the PSP and Wii versions of the original. This change, while seemingly minor, turns out to perhaps not have been the best of ideas, considering Vicarious Visions not so glorious track record, in fact running through their history of games, the vast majority of them are ports.
One good thing, of both games, is the Vicarious Visions Alchemy engine. This engine is capable of some rather impressive level designs, as some of the outside areas actually look really nice, particularly foliage and the way tree limbs effect viewing the action. The character models are also quite impressive when viewed in the team menu, and for the most part while in action. The in game sequences based on the engine have some noticeably rubbery looking models, with strange glows on character regardless of the actual lighting situation they are in. For example, there’s a situation in which Black Widow addresses the team in a room light by red emergency lights and she has a white glow around her edges that is completely at odds with the ‘natural’ lighting of the scene.
Another symptom of the change in developers (Raven Software was busy making the very good X-Men Origins: Wolverine game) is a sudden disregard for the comic book base in the visuals. The storyline is definitely more comic book related, but I’ll get to that in a moment. The art style is certainly inspired by comic books, but in an oddly disconnected way. Whereas Raven based all the costumes and character models on existing art styles/continuities, the character models in Ultimate Alliance 2 are very much a mixture of a few more modern versions of the characters, but also an almost Animate Series kind of approach. Honestly, after hunting through some images of the newer animated shows, I felt the game costumes were very much from those. Despite the Civil War storyline, the majority of the costumes don’t have the comic feel. In fact, a few of them are downright awful, like Luke Cage’s alternate or Invisible Woman’s. Another issue, exacerbated by how comic grounded the first was, is the lack of costumes. Each character, save one, gets one alternate costume, rather than the four for each from the first.
The storyline, as mentioned above, is inspired by the events of the Marvel Civil War storyline from last year; however it plays as a kind of cliffs notes version of it, with major events removed entirely to make way for a rather uninspired Third Act based solely around a bad Borg rip which is neither particularly engrossing nor interesting, and frankly more than a little predictable. While the locations in this one are better connected by the storyline, it suffers from the same problem as the first in that the story really feels only there to give something of a reason for going between each location and giving you some reason to want to keep going forward through the level more than the intrinsic reward of gaining levels.
Now this may seem rather negative to the point of excess, but that is not quite the truth. I enjoy the game, I think what it does, it does well enough to keep you playing, but having played the first one, and many other Action RPGS, to the point of disc failure, it becomes very easy to see where this one falls short. One thing that is a minor point of argument is the simplification of the overall system from the first one. The controls are identical, but leveling up has been streamlined and the collection of gear has been removed entirely in favor of a “Boost” system. While this change may be favorable to those who like to just play through without worrying too much about micro-managing (which also accounts for the heavy handed and glitched Auto-Spend system), it removes part of the fun for people like me who enjoy carefully building characters, even if by the time you hit the level cap you’ll have everything unlocked.
One way they built upon the original is the Fusion system. The first let you combine powers if you managed to strike an enemy simultaneously, resulting in a damage boost and other specialized effects. In UA2, this system is replaced by the Fusions, which allows you to spend a Fusion star, gained by beating things up, to combine the powers of two characters for a significantly helpful attack. These attacks come in three forms: Guided, Targeted and Clearing. Guided fusions cause two characters to run around the screen, under player control, and smash through enemies. Targeted fusions are best against bosses and mini-bosses, and involve one character throwing something at the boss while the second manipulates the thrown object. In the case of Wolverine, the Targeted fusions are variations on the Fastball Special, where Wolverine is hurled at the enemy in a blaze of claws. The final type, Clearing, is the ultimate in crowd control and allows for quick dispatch of a large group of enemies. The Clearing fusions usually have the most distinct look. There are 276 fusions total in the game, though chances are you’ll find a team that has the balance you want and never change.
As for the glitches… well, just be aware of them. A quick search of any forum will give you a list of them, but I experienced characters getting locked into the level architecture, a character getting stuck in an attack animation, a strange audio loop, and one time a character just suddenly disappeared off the map and died. All things considered, these are minor compared to what I have read, which includes complete loss of save files. There is also apparently a co-op bug that can save the hosts data over your own, causing you to need to delete the save file in order to get credit for your accomplishments.
Overall, the game isn’t bad, but when compared to other ARPGs, such as UA1 and Sacred 2, the game falls short. The whole thing will take you maybe 10 hours to run through your first time, and not quite as long the second time, despite going through the opposite side of Act 2. Collecting all the Boosts and costumes will take a while longer, but really this is an artificial extension and without meaningful DLC, I can see the game growing stale rapidly. It’s a fun, if problematic, game that is worth checking out for fans of Marvel or those who enjoyed the first game.
Pros:
A decent amount of fan favorite characters.
Builds well on the basics of the original, in some areas.
Easy to pick up and play.
The Fusions are quite cool, when they are unique.
Cons:
Can be too easy.
Some of the characters are extremely odd choices and detract from the overall quality of the lineup.
Light on content.
Very glitchy.
Gross over simplification of the ARPG format.
Only four of the Fusion attacks are actually visually distinct.
Overall Score: C+
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