Marvel Guardians of the Galaxy hands-on preview

I’ll be honest: when I first saw Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy reveal, I was a bit skeptical. Not the tone, or the story or the artwork, but the simple-looking combat that threatened to disappoint. But after spending about an hour and a half practicing it, I couldn’t be happier that I was proven wrong. Guardians combat is a lot of fun and a lot more complex than I thought. And at the end of my little time with him, I found myself wanting to play more.

My sample of the combat came as part of chapter five of the campaign. At this point in history, the Guardians have accumulated a considerable amount of debt that must be paid to Nova Corps. To pay that fine, they must head to The Rock, a Nova outpost. However, things are not as they should be on arrival; it is eerily silent and evidence of a conflict can be found. After a short period of exploring, I came across some brilliant Nova Corp members who were clearly not in their right mind. Naturally, things started.

There are many, many layers to the combat system, so bear with me, but the closest analog I can find is, surprisingly, the Guardians’ Square Enix sidekick, Final Fantasy 7 Remake. Not seriously. Like in that game, Guardians is all about controlling a main character and giving quick orders to your allies as mayhem unfolds. However, there is no character swap here – you’re just Star-Lord.

Star-Lord can set targets and fire them with his dual pistols. These have an alternate fire elemental mode, and a touch of the d-pad switches between four different ammo types: lightning, ice, wind, and fire. I only had the ice option available during my session, but I found it particularly effective, especially when I was inundated with enemies and needed to slow them down. There is no ammo to collect for these pistols; Instead, they operate on a superheat system that requires a well-timed trigger to reload efficiently, a la Gears of War’s active reload. It’s an all-time mechanic that, frankly, I can’t blame any shooter for borrowing. Ranged combat can be combined with fast melee attacks to quickly build up the enemy’s stagger bars, which when full allow you to unleash team takedown attacks for heavy damage.

Then there are Star-Lord’s signature abilities, which can be used periodically by awkwardly pressing the left analog stick (to be fair to Eidos-Montreal, almost all other buttons are in constant use) and selecting the move you’d like to perform with the buttons. face buttons. These abilities include Fan the Hammer, which lets you launch a torrent of high-speed bullets in a straight line that melts anyone in your path, and my personal favorite, Eye of the Hurricane, which flings you into the air before unleashing a spiral of grenades that have a wide area of ​​effect and deal high staggered damage. More distinctive abilities can be unlocked using skill points that you will earn as you level up.

Guardians of the Galaxy Gameplay – Square Enix E3 2021

To keep up to date? Good, because that’s only half. While you can’t directly control the other team members in combat, you can command them, sometimes turning the battlefield into an arena of real-time tactics. This is where the Final Fantasy 7 remake comes in. If you hold down the left shoulder button, the option to use the other Guardians’ abilities will appear. For example, Groot may be instructed to bind a target enemy in his tendrils, which can then be followed with an instruction to Gamora to jump and cut that enemy to deal heavy damage.

It’s a very fun combat system to play, requiring split-second decisions in the chaos. Also, if you consistently deal enough damage, you will build up the boost meter, which when full will allow you to “snuggle up.” This unique mechanic not only gives your thumbs a few moments of respite, it also grants stat boosts to the entire team or just Star-Lord, depending on whether you selected the optimal dialogue option. Hands down my favorite part of this, though, is when the action resumes and a random hit from the ’80s from the Star-Lords playlist sets the soundtrack to the fight. And sure, Twisted Sister’s Were Not Gonna Take It makes sense for an occasion like this, but there’s something even funnier in counterpoint to listening to Hot Chocolate’s Every 1’s a Winner as Rocket shoots explosives in a poor man’s face.

It’s a complex combat system to understand, but the more time I spent with it, the more comfortable I got and the more fun I had with it. With multiple unlockable abilities for each character, there are a host of different combinations to try and find the one that works best for each situation. You will also have to think about that; It’s challenging at times, and these aren’t encounters that you can just get through with a push of the button. When all the systems come together, it can seem a bit like trying to juggle multiple lit fireworks, which could result in a beautiful, explosive display of firepower, or just as explode in your face if you’re not paying attention.

The team throws out witty lines during combat, but also has great moments of interaction during cut scenes and exploration. From this small portion, Guardians seems very well written and, fundamentally, funny. One highlight saw Star-Lord pinpoint the location of a heavy unit by yelling “Big man, 12 o’clock!”, Only for Drax to curtly reply with “The current time is irrelevant!”.

The Guardians’ ship, the Milano, offers more opportunities for a good dialogue. Here, I spent time soaking up the spacious surroundings of my spaceship and talking to my fellow crew members. In that sense, it doesn’t feel like a galaxy far from wandering through Mass Effect’s Normandy, seeing my friends between missions, and strengthening ties. Before long, I managed to strike up a heart-to-heart conversation with Rocket about his unpleasant encounter with the Kree scientists, blew up a bit of Rick Astley from the onboard music system full of ’80s hits, and even met a Flame violet with a loose head of luscious orange hair.

All of this isn’t a million miles apart in tone from the two James Gunn MCU movies, and it feels a lot like part of the Guardians of the Galaxy lineage. However, Eidos-Montreal has made the characters feel distant enough from previous iterations, helping them avoid stumbling across the dreaded uncanny valley that Crystal Dynamic’s Marvel Avengers occasionally made.

More respect is paid to the characters’ relatively short storyline for a dozen unlockable outfits for each member. These range from the classic Star-Lord Team-Lord outfit from Guardians of the Galaxy # 1 from 2008, to Gamora’s look from the 2014 movie. I came across a couple of these while exploring the dark corners of the Nova Corps base. you were visiting, and they can also be rewards for solving puzzles that act as a break from the high-octane action. While not overly complex, these challenges ranged from using my ice ammo to freeze a spinning gear in place, to converting Watch Dogs-style digital connectors to power up a network, and even directing Rocket through small gaps by the ones that only he could pass. It seems that the Guardians will try to change things from time to time and not rely too much on their fun combat.

In the end, I came out a lot more excited to play Guardians of the Galaxy than I had been before my time with him. It offers a surprising amount of depth both when it comes to combat and characterization, with many unlockables and player options available on all of its systems. All this while also playing Take on Me, The Final Countdown or Hangin ‘Tough? Sign me up.

Simon Cardy was unable to meet Cosmo the Spacedog this time, but hopes to do so soon. Find it on Twitter at @CardySimon.