This review contains spoilers
The Good:
- Some really nice improvements to the formula
- Great presentation, from frame rate to visuals to score to voice acting
- Extremely fun gameplay
The Ok:
- The third act is a little rushed
The Bad:
- Doesn’t really innovate at all
Conclusion:
Spider-Man 2 is pretty similar to a lot of Sony sequels. Like Horizon Forbidden West, GoW Ragnarok, and TLoU 2, it looks and feels better than its predecessor, but the story isn’t quite as good. This isn’t even necessarily a bad thing; Ragnarok takes a minor hit on focused writing in exchange for an absolutely insane scope, which I think it succeeds at. Here, it’s still very fun and quite good, but there’s not such an obvious upside. To start, the obvious thing is that it’s just an absolute blast to move around. The traversal is probably the best part of this game, especially now that web wings make up for those times when you run out of building. It looks fantastic, and both the performances and music are similarly quality. The combat is as fun as ever, but I do have a few gripes. For one thing, I think the new parry mechanic is a little silly. Spider-Man doesn’t parry things; his whole THING is dodging. All this mechanic adds is slightly frustrating mini-bosses that can only be defeated by parrying. There’s also the fact that stealth feels like such an afterthought. At least in SM1 and Miles Morales, we had a lot of gadgets or invisibility. Here, the gadget count is much reduced and Miles’ invisibility is nerfed (and not relevant at all to the story). Still, combat remains pretty fun, so these issues aren’t a huge deal at the end of the day. What’s a slightly larger deal, however, is the rushed story. For the first two acts, it’s pretty good to great, but once the third act starts, it just feels like everything happens so fast. Peter doesn’t wear the suit quite long enough, which makes his entire characterization change feel a little unearned at times. Overall, though, I still really liked Spider-Man 2; it just wasn’t as good as it probably could’ve been.
- Some really nice improvements to the formula
- Great presentation, from frame rate to visuals to score to voice acting
- Extremely fun gameplay
The Ok:
- The third act is a little rushed
The Bad:
- Doesn’t really innovate at all
Conclusion:
Spider-Man 2 is pretty similar to a lot of Sony sequels. Like Horizon Forbidden West, GoW Ragnarok, and TLoU 2, it looks and feels better than its predecessor, but the story isn’t quite as good. This isn’t even necessarily a bad thing; Ragnarok takes a minor hit on focused writing in exchange for an absolutely insane scope, which I think it succeeds at. Here, it’s still very fun and quite good, but there’s not such an obvious upside. To start, the obvious thing is that it’s just an absolute blast to move around. The traversal is probably the best part of this game, especially now that web wings make up for those times when you run out of building. It looks fantastic, and both the performances and music are similarly quality. The combat is as fun as ever, but I do have a few gripes. For one thing, I think the new parry mechanic is a little silly. Spider-Man doesn’t parry things; his whole THING is dodging. All this mechanic adds is slightly frustrating mini-bosses that can only be defeated by parrying. There’s also the fact that stealth feels like such an afterthought. At least in SM1 and Miles Morales, we had a lot of gadgets or invisibility. Here, the gadget count is much reduced and Miles’ invisibility is nerfed (and not relevant at all to the story). Still, combat remains pretty fun, so these issues aren’t a huge deal at the end of the day. What’s a slightly larger deal, however, is the rushed story. For the first two acts, it’s pretty good to great, but once the third act starts, it just feels like everything happens so fast. Peter doesn’t wear the suit quite long enough, which makes his entire characterization change feel a little unearned at times. Overall, though, I still really liked Spider-Man 2; it just wasn’t as good as it probably could’ve been.