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A friend brought his Oculus to a get-together and what I thought would be a quick "mess around in one little VR mission" session to throw myself back into the world of VR took nearly 2 hour dull, repetitive odyssey. And that's WITH him having done the tutorial first. I can't believe one entire questline took 2 hours. Why are VR developers not only incapable of just bringing the same game pacing as regular games over to VR, but making them so so SO much worse?
On top of that, I was expecting this to take place around, you know, Galaxy's Edge. Since it's in the title. Instead, I was out in a bunch of samey canyons and caves shooting one of 5 enemy types. Oh boy! That's my favorite thing about sci-fi or space fantasy, is when you strip unique settings away and give me a hiking tour with laser guns. Disney, you've done it again, you really get this franchise!
Speaking of "getting" this franchise, gotta love how if you have any kind of barrel chest or gut that the "shove items into your chest to store them" mechanic doesn't work about half the time. Sure, Disney, the bulk of Star Wars fans are fit and beautiful. We can see it every time we're at Galaxy's Edge. We're all in no way much closer to the Wall-E people at all.
Anyhoo, this was a decent albeit repetitive distraction while waiting for a rib roast to finish, but unless I were to find myself in that exact scenario again I don't know why I would touch this soulless thing any further. Saved me the curiosity of wanting to find a PSVR 2 to try it, at least.
On top of that, I was expecting this to take place around, you know, Galaxy's Edge. Since it's in the title. Instead, I was out in a bunch of samey canyons and caves shooting one of 5 enemy types. Oh boy! That's my favorite thing about sci-fi or space fantasy, is when you strip unique settings away and give me a hiking tour with laser guns. Disney, you've done it again, you really get this franchise!
Speaking of "getting" this franchise, gotta love how if you have any kind of barrel chest or gut that the "shove items into your chest to store them" mechanic doesn't work about half the time. Sure, Disney, the bulk of Star Wars fans are fit and beautiful. We can see it every time we're at Galaxy's Edge. We're all in no way much closer to the Wall-E people at all.
Anyhoo, this was a decent albeit repetitive distraction while waiting for a rib roast to finish, but unless I were to find myself in that exact scenario again I don't know why I would touch this soulless thing any further. Saved me the curiosity of wanting to find a PSVR 2 to try it, at least.
I just got a Series X and I slammed right into playing this, but what had been hyped up as a GOTY contender very quickly annoyed the hell out of me with piss-poor anime trope writing. By 2 hours in, several times I've gotten some variation of
Protagonist: "I am the greatest!" dramatic anime pose and smoke
A robot or another character: "....are you done?"
Protagonist: Oh!... heh heh! rubs neck and smiles
Like Jesus Christ I don't expect Miyazaki writing from games but this character sucks so bad that it distracts me from the otherwise great art engine. The rhythm combat is whatever. I get what they're trying to do, but it's too repetitive. I gave this game the length of a 2.something hour movie before giving up, it got a fair shot.
Protagonist: "I am the greatest!" dramatic anime pose and smoke
A robot or another character: "....are you done?"
Protagonist: Oh!... heh heh! rubs neck and smiles
Like Jesus Christ I don't expect Miyazaki writing from games but this character sucks so bad that it distracts me from the otherwise great art engine. The rhythm combat is whatever. I get what they're trying to do, but it's too repetitive. I gave this game the length of a 2.something hour movie before giving up, it got a fair shot.
This review contains spoilers
Most of the QOL improvements are pretty great but I vastly preferred the power/gadget system of the first game and, for as much as I griped, of Miles' game over this one. The ability regeneration was never fast enough for the frenetic battles, so many encounters devolved into punch/dodge/parry flurries that made me feel less Spidey and more Kratos.
The story wasn't very surprising. The past few games have been a bit unpredictable with how they twist the mythos around but much of this game going beat-for-beat with every incarnation of "Peter gets venomized" was, frankly, boring. The only thing I didn't expect was for them to go in the Anti-Venom direction with nods to Knull and even Separation Anxiety, but that was more of a surprise that they went further with the symbiote lore than I expected. It still wasnt really NEW.
Kraven was completely OP and so were his troops, and the excuses for them being so powerful were about as flimsy as why Hammerhead's goons in the DLC had Avengers-level strength. This is a story that on paper works really well, to bridge and blend everything from Kraven's Last Hunt to the Venom saga, but in reality it's very unfocused. Miles' story was an afterthought in many ways, which may have been intentional to his storyline of feeling brushed to the side, but it only "works" within the context of this story. THIS story, as told, could have been told differently and that avoided. If you make a sequel to a movie where one of the main characters is gone for most of the film on vacation with their family, it may "work" given the logic of the film, but it's still less of a film for it, you know?
The Lois Lane-ification of MJ continues and I don't care. I mean it, I don't care for it but I don't care to go hard against it. I wish they had any other type of characterization to write for her as an alternative to "hot model who is endlessly supportive of her loser partner" but I won't complain about this. Any problems I had with her levels come down mostly to the gameplay and not the content.
There was such a lack of focus in this that felt chaotic compared to the first game. The first game got narratively hectic but it blended it together with Spidey just trying to hold it all together. This time, it felt like they could have done that with Miles or tweaked the formula, but instead it felt like a series of DLC packaged as one game. And that's not to say anything about several storylines that are clearly being held off as DLC.
Speaking of post-game, I genuinely don't know where the game will go from here. Miles has been set up to take care of NYC as THE Spider-man, but also he's going to college and agonized about it the entire game. Maybe they'll somehow reconcile that in DLC. Or it'll never be mentioned again. Anyway moments after Peter declared he's taking a break I had him go solve some crimes so clearly they don't care that much.
The game was a bit glitchier/buggier than I had hoped but I've come to expect this dip with all of the PS5 first party sequels having the same issue. Horizon 2, Ragnarok, and others all just feel noticeably impacted by covid development, though I'm glad for any studio that didn't put their employees through misery just to churn this stuff out.
I liked it well enough, I'll obviously be back for more, but too much repetition, a lack of narrative focus, and less satisfying combat/enemies will have me dropping the game as soon as I've platinumed it instead of playing it well beyond for a continued Spider-experience.
PS: I'm practically a communist but oh my god were the Vision Academy missions written by a paid DEI consultant? No teenager, no matter how woke, talks or acts like this outside of commercials for private education. This is like what the democratic party wishes "radical left wing youths" would be like instead of teens rightfully calling out institutional injustice and fighting for climate change. It's the most "don't boo, vote!" writing I've ever seen in a game.
PPS: Miles' sponsored Adidas suit had no narrative reason to be included in the game and I changed back out of it the milisecond I could.
The story wasn't very surprising. The past few games have been a bit unpredictable with how they twist the mythos around but much of this game going beat-for-beat with every incarnation of "Peter gets venomized" was, frankly, boring. The only thing I didn't expect was for them to go in the Anti-Venom direction with nods to Knull and even Separation Anxiety, but that was more of a surprise that they went further with the symbiote lore than I expected. It still wasnt really NEW.
Kraven was completely OP and so were his troops, and the excuses for them being so powerful were about as flimsy as why Hammerhead's goons in the DLC had Avengers-level strength. This is a story that on paper works really well, to bridge and blend everything from Kraven's Last Hunt to the Venom saga, but in reality it's very unfocused. Miles' story was an afterthought in many ways, which may have been intentional to his storyline of feeling brushed to the side, but it only "works" within the context of this story. THIS story, as told, could have been told differently and that avoided. If you make a sequel to a movie where one of the main characters is gone for most of the film on vacation with their family, it may "work" given the logic of the film, but it's still less of a film for it, you know?
The Lois Lane-ification of MJ continues and I don't care. I mean it, I don't care for it but I don't care to go hard against it. I wish they had any other type of characterization to write for her as an alternative to "hot model who is endlessly supportive of her loser partner" but I won't complain about this. Any problems I had with her levels come down mostly to the gameplay and not the content.
There was such a lack of focus in this that felt chaotic compared to the first game. The first game got narratively hectic but it blended it together with Spidey just trying to hold it all together. This time, it felt like they could have done that with Miles or tweaked the formula, but instead it felt like a series of DLC packaged as one game. And that's not to say anything about several storylines that are clearly being held off as DLC.
Speaking of post-game, I genuinely don't know where the game will go from here. Miles has been set up to take care of NYC as THE Spider-man, but also he's going to college and agonized about it the entire game. Maybe they'll somehow reconcile that in DLC. Or it'll never be mentioned again. Anyway moments after Peter declared he's taking a break I had him go solve some crimes so clearly they don't care that much.
The game was a bit glitchier/buggier than I had hoped but I've come to expect this dip with all of the PS5 first party sequels having the same issue. Horizon 2, Ragnarok, and others all just feel noticeably impacted by covid development, though I'm glad for any studio that didn't put their employees through misery just to churn this stuff out.
I liked it well enough, I'll obviously be back for more, but too much repetition, a lack of narrative focus, and less satisfying combat/enemies will have me dropping the game as soon as I've platinumed it instead of playing it well beyond for a continued Spider-experience.
PS: I'm practically a communist but oh my god were the Vision Academy missions written by a paid DEI consultant? No teenager, no matter how woke, talks or acts like this outside of commercials for private education. This is like what the democratic party wishes "radical left wing youths" would be like instead of teens rightfully calling out institutional injustice and fighting for climate change. It's the most "don't boo, vote!" writing I've ever seen in a game.
PPS: Miles' sponsored Adidas suit had no narrative reason to be included in the game and I changed back out of it the milisecond I could.