Hello there, heathens.
I've come up with a little technique of reviewing called: The Slyme Technique. Named after how he always rates certain things individually before giving an overall ratings. I will review the story, gameplay, side quests, and music.
Story:
imma be honest, the story is mediocre. Like, more mediocre than my humor. pay attention and you'll notice that it basically just copies spider man ps4. conflict between multiple factions, someone close to you is revealed to be a villain, the person close to you wants revenge for a family member that was killed, and the main character has to sacrifice a person close to them in order to save lives. That doesn't sound familiar at all...
only difference is that spider man ps4 took more time to set up all these things and make you connected to characters and get invested. in the end of the doc ock fight, it hits hard to see peter turn his back on octavius because of how willing they were to sacrifice for the other. when peter has to let aunt may die in order to save the city, it hits hard. you see how conflicted he is, and when he makes the right decision, it hits hard because how much more alone he is. miles morales never did this for me. yea sure, phin and miles hung out, but miles had been doing just fine without phin when she was gone for 9 months.
nothing really indicates that phin meant that much to miles. phin never really came off as that likeable or relatable, and frankly, she was pretty flat (no not that type of flat you perverts). I can't remember any trait from her other than ambitious, which ain't much at all. also, am I the only one who finds it just a little weird how phin is all of a sudden a major player in the underworld and can make futuristic tech. I know she was established to be smart, but just smart. not a frickin 250 IQ super genius.
and where did she get the stuff to make this? y'know, maybe I could believe it if there was some dialogue about the underground stealing nano tech from stark industries and phin was the only one able to hack it, or some throwaway line about studying with inventors across the earth after rick's death, but no, she's just that smart. Yet she wasn't smart enough to use the tech for the betterment of humanity and then get revenge on krieger. Just sayin. also, isn't it a bit extreme to blow up an entire plaza? sure, she's just a teenager, but octavius was mentally ill and brain damaged and all he wanted was to kill osborn. heck, how about instead of just blowing up a building you kill krieger? That seems like a much better way to get revenge on him than killing his employees. they even address how destroying the building wouldn't be that big of a deal.
and then there's good ol' uncle aaron. he's one of the only characters that I think had depth. I really like how the bonus missions expand on his story too (however since they are not part of the main missions they are just add ons and shouldn't be the deciding factor on his character). he clearly cares about miles, but doesn't want him to end up dying in the same way his dad did. I'll admit tho, the part at the end where he redeems himself feels rushed.
and addressing the main character himself: honestly, miles is a pretty mediocre protag.
I mean, him trying to live up to peter was cool to follow, and seeing him make his own suit become his own person was cool, but other than that, nothing about him really stood out to me. he's like that one dude in the friend group. he's pretty chill, but you can't really name off much about his personality outside of like... one thing.
4/10 on the story, it is basically a shorter version of the first game.
Gameplay:
the combat runs real smooth, it's good to look at, satisfying, and it gives you a lot of freedom. Like, america levels of freedom (post 1865). However, I've noticed that at some point it loses some of its fizz.
The game gives you a little too much freedom, which means that the player might not play the game in the way that's the most fun. its like when you're little and you and the boys roleplay, your friend says they have a gun, you say that you have a bulletproof vest, then your friend says that his bullets go through anything, and then you say that your vest can still block it, and it keeps going on like that until you two realize that it's stupid. of course you and your friend kept trying to top each other like that, because you had the freedom to make up whatever. miles morales will let you play in any way you want, but the way you want might not be fun. to put it short: you are stupid.
What's most infuriating is when the game introduces a new enemy and then gives you a venom attack. Oh yea, the venom attacks are in serious need of a debuff. Once you fill up a bar it makes tougher enemies a breeze. Even worse is the mega venom attack, which (while cool) is stupidly powerful.
I'd be fine if the attack was a little more costly, but nah, your venom bar resets and that's it. honestly, I prefer endlessly using the melee counter on every single enemy in metroid dread over the venom attacks because you at least needed some skill and studying to nail the melee counter.
7/10 on the gameplay, the combat feels nice, but it gets repetitive.
Side quests and collectables:
Booooooring. Firstly, let me compare the backpacks from SMPS4 to the time capsules in this game. The time capsules in SMPS4 showed doohickeys from spider man's olden days, and they were really neat. It was pretty neat to find a backpack and see that it had some villain equipment or some reference to spider man. It gave you a reason to track em down. I mean, how epic is it that spider man has... kept sandman stuck in a vile for 5 years without any contact with anyone or anything. The capsules... not so much. I wasn't all that thrilled to see a piece of a PC that miles built, or a bag of chili ingredients. The only one that I actually thought was cool was the wakandan flag.
Next is the weapons caches. You basically just figure out how to get to them. Not much there. Then there's bases. Meh. The card things from miles' dad were cool, but there's like 3 of em. The uncle aaron sound things were a little too time consuming, but they were still pretty cool narrative wise. Friendly neighborhood spider man app stuff was boring, and the side story: boring filler. Yea, the cat thing was fine I guess, but the whole fisk thing was a drag, and you don't even get to fight fisk. Heck, this game doesn't have any side bosses. Just a few in the main story. and as for the other side missions, they were just there.
Overall collectables get a 5/10. Half of em are just dumb chores.
The Music:
Imma be honest, this category was gonna be replaced with open world, but open world is nearly the same as side quests. I just needed to say that the music absolutely SLAPS! It slaps harder than my dad with the belt! Nearly every single song is just pure epic. The open world theme is music to my ears, the theme that plays when fighting the underground, and that final battle music is just- **chef's kiss**
10/10 on the music! It's full of the exaggerated swagger of a black spider man.
FULL SCORE:
Doing the math by getting the average of all four scores, Spider Man: Miles Morales scores a 6.5/10 overall, which I think is a fair score.
Anyways, catch ya in the next one.
G'night.
