Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Review
Fantastic narrative and music elevates an otherwise mediocre game
When Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy was revealed to the world during E3 2021, I was shocked. I couldn’t believe that after hitting stumble after stumble with Marvel’s Avengers game, Square Enix had the gall to try and rush out another half-baked Marvel project. Looking at the trailer and seeing a knockoff Star-Lord fight cubes of Jell-O, I did not doubt in my mind that this game would be a flop.
I’m happy to announce I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy is a funny and thrilling intergalactic adventure. It tackles the seemingly impossible task of detaching itself from the MCU movies head-on and succeeds two times over. While it’s not the most polished or innovative game, it still provides an experience that’s a ton of fun. After spending over 27 hours with this game, it’s easy for me to recommend this to fans of Marvel and the single-player Action-Adventure genre.
If It Walks Like a Duck and Talks Like a Duck, It Might Be a Goose
The first thing I thought when I started playing Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy was, “Hm...I don’t know, this isn’t my Guardians”. As I watched the first of many team squabbles, I immediately felt the absence of Chris Pratt (from Mario the Movie fame), Bradley Cooper, and the rest of the crew. It’s a fear I had from the very beginning; I didn’t want to feel like I was playing with a bunch of discount MCU characters for the whole journey.
Luckily, my concerns were gone after the very first mission. The game strikes the perfect balance between old and new. It captures each character’s unique comedic traits that we’ve learned to love from the movies. At the same time, it provides new origin stories and motivations that each team member can build upon. I would even dare to argue that by the end of the game, I had connected more to these versions of the characters than I had with their MCU counterparts. One great example was Mantis. I was familiar with the character from the movies, but her role in the game was drastically different. She also brought quirky and mysterious energy that caught me off guard and inevitably made her my favorite character in the game.
A Master Class in Storytelling
Outside of projects produced by PlayStation Studios, I find it rare that I come across a mainstream big-budget game that tells a story that can truly keep me entertained from start to finish. This is one of those games. Guardians is elevated by its storytelling. The plot, dialogue, and moment-to-moment chatter feel like a breath of fresh air. It is the sole reason I feel comfortable recommending this game despite its shortcomings.
I touched on how great the characters are, but that’s only one fraction of the equation. The writing is extraordinary. Every line feels believable in this world they’ve established. When the stakes were high, I leaned towards the screen. When a comedic bit broke out, I had a stupid grin on my face. I rarely felt like I was just hearing dialogue to move me to the next location or to introduce the next character mechanic. Each play session felt just as satisfying as any movie or TV show.
Couple the writing with the absolutely incredible facial capture and voice acting, and we have magic. The moments when I was talking face-to-face with a character and could see the tears welling up in their eyes, or the anger running through their body, completely moved me. Hearing the pain or sarcasm in a character’s voice always guaranteed they had my attention. It was that extra bit of effort that helped sell the emotion in a lot of scenes.
That being said, there was also A LOT of dialogue, so don’t expect any silent moments during your 20-something-hour playthrough. I legitimately think that there is a piece of dialogue every minute of the game. I personally didn’t mind, but if you’re the type of person who likes a little peace while playing your games, get that mute button ready.
Some Nice Touches
There were a couple more things that helped bring this game together for me: the music and the player choices.
The music was almost a cheat code, as it featured a masterfully curated selection of retro licensed music. Pummeling enemies to “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley is something that just doesn’t get old. The fun doesn’t stop there, though. The game also features an impressive original score, which adds weight and energy to a lot of the game’s most important scenes.
Player choice in games is often an illusion. You pick one of two decisions that have no real impact, and they lead you to the same outcome. In Guardians, the choices actually feel as if they have weight. For the most part, the choices are “neutral” and “good”. One set of choices will often reward you, while the others just lead to a different dialogue. Ironically, the “reward” ends up being that you can skip several waves of enemies and proceed with the story. Almost like they understand that the combat sections feel like time wasted. Nonetheless, I felt transported back to the Telltale days, where every big choice seemed to clearly have some stakes.
A Blast From the Past...Literally
Those of you who are familiar with The Guardians of the Galaxy know there are a lot of retro vibes. Nostalgic music, classic pop culture references, and in this game...dated gameplay. I want to be clear, the gameplay was serviceable. It wasn’t an absolute frustration to play or anything, but at times it just felt stale and boring.
The best part about the combat mechanics is controlling the team through Star-Lord. Queuing up Rocket’s symphony of explosions or calling on Groot to ensnare enemies in place is a blast. There’s a solid variation of attacks for each character, and pairing one teammate like Drax's stagger-focused abilities with someone like Gamora's damage-focused ones brings a nice synergy to the action. To add a cherry on top, there are moments when you activate a “huddle” that essentially removes the cooldown on abilities for a short while, allowing you to cause some mass chaos.
The fun ends when you need to wait for your team's abilities to recharge. To be fair, these attacks charge pretty quickly, but when you are fighting waves upon waves of enemies, you definitely notice a lack of rhythm during the fights. Your base blaster attack feels like it does almost nothing, and that becomes more noticeable as the enemies get stronger. I often found myself staring at the cooldown time,r waiting for my chance to trigger someone’s ability.
Outside of combat, the gameplay feels like you’re going through the motions. The puzzles they sprinkled throughout the game were never challenging. Some were so easy that it seemed like they just wanted you to have something to do as you made your way through the level. Others were unintuitive due to the lack of environmental signaling, which, as a result, made me feel like I was wasting my time looking for something I could interact with.
This is what I meant when I said the gameplay felt dated. While there were some genuinely fun moments in combat, most of the mechanics just seemed like busy work in between story beats.
Rough Around the Edges
Another strike against Guardians is its lack of polish. During my playthrough, I experienced both visual and gameplay glitches. At one point, Star-Lord randomly got tossed several feet into the air. A couple of times, I fell through the map. There were several moments where I didn’t get the proper subtitles, button prompts wouldn’t appear, and some text got frozen on the screen long after it should have disappeared. While I wouldn’t go as far as to say the game felt unfinished, it definitely could have benefited from another round of QA.
Verdict
It seems like the main goal of this game was to build a Guardians of the Galaxy universe that could proudly stand on its own, separate from the MCU. If that was the case, they passed with flying colors. The story, music, and writing in Guardians were such high points for me that at times it felt like this could be one of the best games of the year.
Unfortunately, I was brought down from my highs by rather underwhelming action-adventure gameplay. Combat was fun at times, but boring and monotonous at others. Puzzles were simple at best and poorly designed at worst.
I had a ton of fun because of how much I enjoyed the overall story and characters. I personally resonated strongly with the narrative, so by personal standards, this came in around the 8 range for me. Unfortunately, I can't give this game an 8 overall. I know if the story doesn’t hit for someone, Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy doesn’t have much left to stand on. For that, it’s a 7. It’s a game that deserves a chance from those interested, but the lack of depth and polish in the gameplay ultimately keeps a good game from being great.
