Another day, another Lego game played by my spouse and I. I like the superhero ones for the bombastic powers and expansive hubs you can fly around, not to mention the vast cavalcade of whacky characters to discover. I don’t have any particular care for the content but we still had a good time.
This second Marvel-based Lego game strips back the bases it covers for the sake of branding alignment. While Lego Marvel Superheroes was inspired in many ways by the main line of Marvel movies, it also featured the X-Men and others in a new storyline. This one keeps the main story content strictly to “MCU” movies, and while unlockable free play characters still cast a broad net over comics history, any property whose film rights are owned by a company other than Disney are not welcome here (save for a free Spiderman DLC pack).
That doesn’t mean there wasn’t fun to be had finding new obscure weirdos and discovering what they could do. I loved finding characters that I knew about and liked, such as Kamala Khan or Squirrel Girl, as well as finding new folks whose designs or abilities I enjoyed, like Cloud 9 or Gorilla Girl. I was also pleased that we could substitute a female character with equivalent abilities for every one of the main “Avengers” team—except for Captain America’s shield and the oddly rare “fix” ability—ie. Rescue, Thor Girl/Jane Foster, She-Hulk, Kate Bishop, etc.
The plot this time is a retelling of the first two Avengers movies (which we haven’t seen), along with a bonus level each for a handful of mid-phase MCU movies (none of which we had seen either). It’s structured a little confusingly, opening with the beginning of Age of Ultron, then flashing back to the entire first movie, then skipping back ahead, with a brief Captain America flashback early on as well. Either way, we weren’t invested in these stories and found the levels a bit dull, plus it has the usual problem of Lego games reusing movie dialogue of it being mixed too low and lacking impact (especially Tony Stark’s mutterings).
The hubs were again a highlight for me. Lots to do. I wouldn’t be surprised if the “New York” hub was ported directly from the previous game, at least in terms of geometry. There’s a bunch of smaller mini-hubs added though, which was nice. The mini side missions from the previous game have been replaced by lots of smaller quests which give you a bit of dialogue from a character then a basic task. They’re repetitive but it’s fine… hey, doesn’t that just sum up the whole Lego game formula?? Jkjk, we had fun. But Lego Marvel Superheroes was probably better.
Oh, we played on Wii U, which is my preferred format for these games in co-op as it gives each player a whole screen’s width of gameplay. It’s a great feature as long as the framerate holds up, which varies from game to game. I’m pleased to report that this one ran just fine!