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Saturday, June 22, 2024 4:48:59 AM

MultiVersus Review (Ibuki Mioda)

Holy hell what a massive downgrade from beta!
Everything from the beta that was decent but needed work, was all scrapped and made worse or outright removed altogether. Monetization was dialed up to 11 on top of removing things you could earn for free previously.
They spent too much time and money just porting the game to UE5 instead of adding anything players wanted. People play these types of games to see their favorite characters fight each other, but they spent the end of beta adding Marvin the martian and gremlins and then barely added but 3 characters at launch including slot filler like Banana Guard and haven't added anyone since. They said new characters would come every 2 weeks at some point but it's been almost a month since launch and all we have is talk around fixing everything. UE5's porting resulted in many many QoL and design functions being scrapped in time to release the "full" version when all of it was there in beta. Trying to just add it all back in overtime instead.
With the full release, the game has this new single player rift system that reminds me of Disney's Speedstorm seasonal format. You have to mindlessly grind through nodes of repetitive fights while leveling up these gems you obtain. Your ability to beat the AI is entirely contingent on the gems levels. Just getting to level 4 gems gives you things like 200% attack bonus on top of other passives and can KO anyone in 2 charge attacks when fighting an easy difficulty enemy. Of course they give you the ability to pay for gems to speed up leveling like a chinese mobile game. Just getting level 4 gems is already chore, and they somehow allow up to level 8 gems in only a 2 month period. There is no way in hell you are ever reaching that without paying like a whale. Jumping into the first stage that requires level 4 gems and you're met with enemies that barely take any damage whatsoever and auto counter you. They are beatable but you can tell level 4 rifts are overtuned as if they are level 6. This system is far far worse then Disney Speedstorm's just because they make you play the same exact rift stages over and over again on higher difficulties to obtain event progress for things like Agent Smith, BP EXP, gem xp, etc.
The stages difficulties are locked behind obtaining certain gem level averages and many are locked out on a timer or just not even there to begin with for some reason. Many stages in the rifts are locked behind owning certain characters or cosmetics, which forces you to pay up or hope they give out the one cosmetic/character you need just to do the challenges. In addition to that fact, every single stage has a challenge which requires you to beat the stage with a friend on every single one. If you don't do this challenge at all, you are forced to obtain every star in every stage on that rift just to obtain the cauldron, which is the last gem drop reward in a rift. A few training challenges every new player gets, are also tied behind playing with a friend. In general, the gem system is god awful and everything surrounding it that was plastered on it like the forced friend challenges and the difficulties needs to be removed.
On top of that new parasitic content, the also run frequent event challenges often to keep people playing. The problem with these challenges is that they are stupidly tight on time to even bother with them. You can logout for a single day and lose out on things just because you have a life. Even the BP itself is stupidly designed around keeping you playing every day until the next season. This wasn't the case in the beta. They tried to rectify some of the issues by extending 1 event to the end of the season but ignoring the rest, or giving BP Xp for fighting matches (Which should've been there from the get go) but all they are doing is inching fixes out, to see when people stop bitching and then settling there. Because if they commit too much, they can't backtrack later on if it's losing them engagement metrics or revenue in any form even if it causes the playerbase to nosedive like it is right now.
Now as I've mentioned the above specifically because all those things are new systems added. This is not to mention they removed all character mastery cosmetics and shoved them in the shop behind paid currency, or the fact they made getting new characters a slog, or the fact nobody wants to keep playing because of underlying rushed UE5 porting causing issues that never got fixes in whatever they call QA. The general gameplay has slowed down from beta and made it just unpleasant to touch, characters feel like clouds floating around and theres a distinct lack of anything interesting going on outside of the fight itself. Some of the new stages like Dexter Lab or Townsville are way more interesting then the beta ports because they at least have something going on in them. But the beta maps are still the exact same static skybox and bland arena design. Compare the standard Smash Bros. Battlefield stage with the standard one in Multiversus and it's like some poorly done unity copycat just in presentation alone. I'm aware there's not that much of a budget in Multiversus compared to Smash, but this is just on an artist design issue alone instead of a budget problem. The soundtrack is also still the same laughably generic movie soundtrack it was in beta, even on the new stages. There's no variety or different genres. It's not about scale, its about being interesting which this game sorely lacks.
In conclusion, avoid this game even if you are a DC or WB IP fan. The content is on par with a mobile game, the art assets like music and stage design are an afterthought, and the gameplay itself was neutered on top of cutting out many positive aspects from beta. The only positive thing I can say is even with the DCs at least the online is still better then Smash ever had.