Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy review – Flaws ‘n some mix

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Translated review can be read below.

Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy isn’t the game that you’re expecting it to be, as developer Eidos Montreal’s stab at the fan-favorite heroes for hire plays like a title that strives to set itself apart from Insomniac’s excellent Spider-Men games and Crystal Dynamics’ disappointing Avengers.

All the right ingredients are there, as Guardians of the Galaxy mixes action with exploration, team banter, and a licensed soundtrack that’ll convince your parents that you’ve finally developed a good taste in music, all wrapped up in a dysfunctional team that has been heavily inspired by the breakout success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s 2014 blockbuster film. Here’s what is surprising though: All of those aforementioned elements are layered together in a way where certain flavors overpower the others, which makes for a decidedly surprising experience.

That cosmic adventure is one where you’ll spend far more time engaging with your team rather than blasting through obstacles, as Guardians of the Galaxy lays on the narrative with hours and hours of conversation and in-game cinematics. It’s a shock to realise just how straightforward and linear this game is, with each chapter featuring rare moments to go off the beaten path and grab a collectible item or a new costume. Deviation from the script clearly wasn’t on Eidos Montreal’s agenda, as the entire game feels like a sprawling film with an entire galaxy of conversation thrown in for good measure.

That’s not to say that there isn’t any action though, and when it’s time to finally draw elemental blasters and let loose, GOTG feels like a terrific mix of action and team-based tactics.

You’ll only ever directly control Peter “Star-Lord” Quill during combat sequences, with each teammate adding offensive and defensive abilities to the mix through a quick combo-tap of shoulder and face button commands. The idea is solid and fun to pull off, because while you’re peppering the battlefield with lasers you can command Drax to bulldoze his way through enemy ranks, have Groot ensnare foes with his roots, or ask Gamora to chop the opposition down to size.

Every Guardian has a specialty, and once you start mixing and matching combos, you’ll be surprised to see just what they can do when they throw down in a scrap. Every character can also add to their arsenal with a collection of three unlockable skills and an ultimate attack, but the game’s miserly allocation of skill points from its meager number of combat sequences means that your time will only be truly battle-ready during the endgame.

One other mechanic that’s worth mentioning though is the huddle system of GOTG. When the chips are down and it looks like the galaxy’s finest A-holes are about to fall, Star-Lord can call the team in for a morale-boosting huddle. The catch here is that you need to listen to your team and select a valid response to get them back in the game. Call it right, and you’ll be able to unleash their special moves more frequently thanks to a very generous cooldown timer, or call it wrong and only Star-Lord will benefit from his pep talk. Either way, you’re guaranteed a more dynamic action sequence while a chart-topping hit from the 1980s plays in the background.

While GOTG may be incredibly light on action, its places far more emphasis on interacting with your team and exploring the various planets that you visit. Granted, these worlds will have you traversing a strictly defined path, but there’s no denying that Eidos Montreal is playing to its strengths here. From the inside of a Nova Corps ship to the cavernous gospel tubes of the Chruch of Unity, every single level is an artistic tour de force of alien architecture and bleeding edge space technology.

There’s a charm to each one of these locations, whether it be the constant brain dust falling on civilians inside of the rotting giant head of a space-god that has become a hive of business for smugglers, the wild plant-life of backwater planets, or even the bedroom of a Kree commander. Everything looks digitally decadent with design, and Xbox Series X, the added horsepower puts GOTG in the running for a game with out-of-this-world visuals.

But it’s the characters of GOTG that carry its 15-hour story, misfits and monster queens who have been brought to life by facial and motion capture technology that truly feels next-gen. Quality voice-acting can help sell any story, but seeing that acting fleshed out with subtle facial ticks, a sideways glance, or even a curl of the lips to covertly imply sarcasm? That’s immersive stuff right there that’ll help sell you on a story where the entire galaxy is in peril.

And when it comes to how the Guardians interact and grow as a team, Eidos Montreal hits the space-ball right out of the park. Peter Quill is an ambitious leader who’s clearly in over his head as he desperately tries to hold the team together, Gamora is a former assassin looking for peace, Rocket is an incredibly abrasive Kree experiment with a planet-sized chip on his shoulder, and Groot…well Groot is Groot. It’s Drax who steals the show though, with voice actor Brandon Paul Eells once again bringing the Thanos-slayer to life with a performance that is both blunt and nuanced, hilarious and heartbreaking in equal measure. Every character in this game has their moment in the spotlight, but Drax feels like the true heart and soul of GOTG.

As good as those characters are and the story that they create during their misadventures, the same can’t be said for how the game paces itself, especially with a third act that drags on for far too long and a misdirect regarding one key character that never truly pays off in the way that it was intended to. GOTG is full of these narrative-stretching moments, long scripted sequences that constantly outstay their welcome with unnecessary padding instead of organically moving the story forward.