Classic Comic Book Beat-em-Up Action.
The game does a great job of bridging the film with the characters from 40+ years of the comics. Younger gamers who have seen the movie will be able to relate to it, but so will people who haven’t seen the film but read the comics growing up. Even though I haven’t read a FF comic in nearly 15 years, I still got a little excited finally seeing the Mole Man, Puppet Master, and Diablo in a video game. Dr. Doom appeared from time to time in lots of Marvel titles, but I doubt those three showed up in more than 10 combined issues of anything but Fantastic Four.
The graphics are good and capture a film-like atmosphere. The backgrounds try to take on a realistic appearance, and do a good job of accurately representing surroundings. While not jaw-dropping, these graphics hold their own with most other action titles on the market.
The sound effects and music are also good. Again, not stellar, but not cheap or canned. The sound is not a major selling point, but also can’t really be complained about.
The player controls during combat are fairly accurate and reasonably responsive. The camera does not always do the best job of following the action, but can be manipulated with the right analog stick. Combat can get pretty chaotic, which makes it difficult to lock onto particular enemies or aim distance attacks. The controls function well during combat, and the small glitches and flaws rarely ever affected gameplay.
Platforming controls are a slightly different story. Many of your characters still suffer the NES era problem of not being able to accurately run and jump at the same time. While platforming does not play a major role in this game, expect some difficulty timing jumps and getting your character to respond. Many players will experience a few unnecessary deaths due to poor platforming controls rather than actual platform difficulty. Also, don’t expect your teammates to do any better; platforming AI is set somewhere between mentally retarded and comatose.
I greatly enjoyed the cooperative levels. Your teammates AI during combat is some of the best I’ve seen in a beat’em’up, and the ability to switch players on the fly adds a lot of variety and a little bit of strategy. The ability to level up on player’s combos and abilities gives players a reason to try and meet the games goals.
My only problem with the game, other than the horrible platforming, is that developers seem to have cut some corners with the smaller aspects of the game. About 75% of items in the game are destructible. This becomes annoying when you need to break one of the 25% of the items that aren’t, and spend several minutes looking like a fool while you pointlessly try to hit this unbreakable object. There is also about 50% free roaming action and 50% invisible walls. This limits exploration, and you can usually count on an invisible wall being in front of a door that it would be really convenient to use. You can also be sure that there will never be an invisible wall in front of any cliff or ledge that your character could fall off of during battle.
Cutscenes are also all rendered with the in-game graphics engine. In my opinion, it wouldn’t have killed them to add at least one or two movie clips to the gameplay. Also, players are required to hit the X button after each character speaks, which ruins the flow of the scene.
Overall, I really enjoyed this title. The selectable difficulty levels, unlockables, and different playable characters added a lot of replay value. The game is a little short, but provides a great beat’em’up fix. Fans of the comics and those who liked the movie won’t be disappointed. Gamers who enjoy arcade style co-op action would do well to rent or buy this title. A little more effort and the game could’ve been perfect, but it’s still a fun gaming experience.