UPDATE: I'm writing this right as MultiVersus heads into season 2, and this will likely be my final update. While not _everything_ in this review has been addressed, the game has changed rapidly and substantially and I've got to give the team props for that. Here's a summary of some of the issues that have been patched since this review was uploaded: -Ranked Mode has been added -Input buffer customization returned -Swapping side/neutral attacks returned -Ground momentum is now maintained when jumping, returning some of the offensive pressure lost by punishing boost jumps -Parry mashing to escape slightly suboptimal combos has been addressed -Many infinites have been removed -It turned out that many "hitbox issues" were actually because of a bug where attacks that applied certain status effects and hitboxes on the same frame would ignore the hitbox, this has been addressed -They also fixed a number of hitboxes -The City of Townsville is a bit less obtrusive -Taz can no longer charge utilt indefinitely -Bugs loops no longer exist -Wonder Woman's dair animation was altered to imply less of a lingering hitbox -Wonder Woman's lasso cooldown has been reverted and the variants are now individually balanced around whiff lag instead -"Zoinks" is now spelled correctly -Rifts now have a retry option *Main channel:* ruclips.net/user/mockrocktv *Twitter:* twitter.com/MrMockRock *Patreon:* www.patreon.com/mockrock *Twitch:* www.twitch.tv/mockrocktwitch *Teespring:* teespring.com/stores/mockrock
Love the video, but I am surprised you didn't mention how hard it is to get new characters in this game if you weren't playing since Beta. This actively is detrimental to any competitive offline scene because almost all of them require multiple settups, even at the local scene, and destroys the game's ability to garner in new players by pigeonholding them into a really shitty situation of wanting to play a new character but realizing they have to beat a huge grind wall or pay up. In my opinion this is the game's biggest flaw that will kill it if not seriously reworked.
In regards to the speed-changing controversy, you mentioned how it is bad in a sense because it's not game-to-sequel, but rather the same one thing changing. I would also add it's bad because it shows (yet again) any game that's fully digital can easily just erase itself, or its past self, with no sense of preservation.
@@ShyRangerI think it's also a hard to mention its definitely an obercorrection and wasnt the main thing that fixed the spammy movement of the original; I'd argue what really actually helped the game was the implementation of the dodge meter in itself that drastically slowed down the game's spammy disadvantage state. The large models and too harsh of slowing down makes it a very boring spectator sport even at higher levels and it leaves a game that feels almost too reactable.
Considering this game is licensed by Warner Bros, its clear that the predatory monetization is a result of corporate meddling to try and squeeze as much money out of this as possible, to the detriment of the game itself.
Which is so stupid I understand that due to capitalism focusing on quarterly returns, they don't really care about long-term growth. But holy s*** this game won't even survive past a single financial quarter with how greedy they chose to be these guys are idiots
It's nice to have someone talk about the game Objectively with praise For the stuff that's done right and pointing out the stuff it does wrong. Most people on the Internet just say it's bad or it's really good. Nice to have a discussion
I think the discussion around speed is interesting because it reveals why different people play platform fighters. Moky had a really good video on what he (and a lot of Melee players) appreciate the most about Melee in particular, and that's the two pronged approach of learning and implementing. The art of wave dashing is on its own a skill, but implementing it properly is in itself something that needs practice, and in that sense, it's very clear to see how much you've improved from before, and for a really long time, too. That kind of two-pronged depth, though, also inherently comes with a wall that a lot of players, by default, aren't willing to even attempt to break down, which hampers accessibility, and as someone with a deep love for video game history and not so much for platform fighter mechanics in general, I definitely prefer Ultimate. I think a lot of people struggle with communicating what about a given game is appealing to them, maybe they don't know themselves, and so they boil it own to "high speed = more fun." This has particularly soured Multiversus because a lot of things are SO different, and a lot of what was appealing to certain players IS indeed gone, but it calls itself the same game. I would feel lost for words too, to be honest. It's a shame, too, because this game has some of my favorite character designs ever in a platform fighter, excluding the cooldown and meter overuse on some. Superman, Gizmo, and the Iron Giant are some of the most fun picks in Platform fighter history for me, and seeing the reception and online community be slowly decayed as you mentioned over these past two weeks makes me scared for the future, and for many, this game has betrayed them twice too many times anyways. Anyway, great review.
MockRock is so funny because he's got the most thoughtful platform fighter analysis in the business, but then all his favourite moves are swinging the big sword.
Go play smash then lol what are u even complaining about? "I wish the game that was specifically designed to be a 2v2 alternative to smash bros focused more on 1v1s and was like smash bros" yeah I'm sure they'll get right on it.
"maybe its sheer unabashed greed. i couldn't really tell you." Yes. yes you can. you pretty much already did. Don't hold your punches. its warner bros, they have a track record.
I don't understand why some people are so shy to call out blatant anti-consumerism when they see it? If creating a digital economy that is intended to confuse users into spending as much money as possible while offering loot boxes isn't greed then what is? It's the metaverse garbage all over again. They want an economy that THEY control and they want you to invest in their cryptocurrencies which fluctuate in value depending on how expensive they decide to make the in-game items. They want you to spend as much time as possible in their digital economy as possible and they won't hesitate to punish you if you decide to take a break or don't want to spend money.
He didn’t pull his punches out of love for WB; he pulled his punches because he didn’t want to make any assumptions and wanted to be as honest as possible, even if it is likely because of greed.
@@PoorFinancialChoices I get that and can relate to not wanting to make assumptions but when it comes to obviously greedy tactics from a company like WB statements need to be made. On a broader subject corporate greed is a very infectious problem and we need to very clearly call corporations out on it. When it comes to games they’ll keep ruining good games with greedy decisions if we stand by and give them the benefit of the doubt.
I mean I think the problem is whale fund the majority of these free to play games. I think the montenziation campaign needs to be more targeted on the issues.
I’ve wanted no platform fighter to succeed more than Multiversus, but I don’t think the game is in a sustainable state in the slightest. In both gameplay, business practices.
With banana guard ive seen a lot of comparisons to piranaha plant, being a weird pick from a series that people want to see different characters from. But the thing here is that plant is actually more of a love letter to the wide variety of piranha plant enemies in the mario games, and banana guard is a character with a spear. There were a ton of things they couldve done with this guy but they didn't, so it just comes across as lazy.
piranha plant is a dumb joke character with a bunch of silly animations, references to its appearances in mario, and overall is just so charming banana guard is a dumb joke character but its like an unfunny joke
I know it's not really what you're trying to do here, but when talking about moveset creativity, I feel like Finn needs to be mentioned. I think he truly is the ganondorf of Multiversus. Every other character's movesets are loaded with references, but Finn, who has ten seasons of potential moves, gets a mountain of basic sword swings, uninspired specials, and an item shop gimmick plagiarized from Rivals' Shovel Knight with almost no relationship to his series.
i think finn's general gameplan does capture the sort of brain-off charging-forward vibe of early AT finn and he IS fun to play, but yeah, he's pretty basic all-around. since he's a character who can actually fight it's not too surprising to me though the chargeable attacks and hi-five are good overall imo, and i don't mind collecting money for a powerup because it IS a traditionally adventure-y mechanic. but using the item shop for swords with different properties would be a lot more interesting than "boots of speed", and i'm shocked he doesn't at least have some kind of sweater-grapple move since that's one of his most iconic moments in the show IMO. if they'd gone with his prosthetic arm design they could have also incorporated some stuff there, or used the grass arm in some form, but that dips into the issues with representing a character with tons of different states through a pretty small fighting game moveset
@@Sparkjolteon I don't really mind his normals, and the high five is fine (although a little basic, and weird since first bumps are like, one of the most iconic moves from the series). I think the big offenders are his side B and the lack of AT references in the item shop. What makes the moveset such an issue is the enormous missed opportunities. While the points about the robot arm and swords causing iteration issues are valid, I want to counter by drawing attention to Morty's moveset. Morty's also a basic teenage boy who goes on wacky adventures, and his moveset is almost entirely made up of references to single episodes. Half his moveset is the giant arm that only appears in one episode (and disappears in said episode). If movesets can draw so heavily from powers that the characters only had for 1 episode, then Finn could have, for example, the ice weapons from "chamber of frozen blades", or the wacky items from "Dungeon train", or the magic powers he gets in the wizard episode, etc. Again, he has ten seasons of chaotic adventures, and yet his moveset is as bland and basic as possible. And I'm sad.
This all news to me since I still haven’t gotten into Adventure Time. What surprises me more is the fact that Steven Universe, on the other hand, DID get a healthy amount of references while still being faithful to who he is, despite Finn having so much more potential with a whopping ten seasons. Steven’s a pacifist who can project a shield, and I think the devs came up with a lot of good ideas for how he uses for defense and offense. Mesh that with the reality that this is a game where every character has to get aggressive. This is where the devs made another smart move. They gave Steven his Bubble Boxing Gloves for most of his neutrals and even went as far as giving him his spike wall (If you know, you know). These are moves that would not be canon to Steven until the post-series content, but it does pull from a point in his life where he became more aggressive. “What about Watermelon Steven?” Um…I guess he’s good for setting up a Neutral Special tether whenever you want? Hey, they can’t all be winners.
@@creativeandfunnyname3744 i think they mostly come from different schools of thought - for a fighter like this, you could try to represent a fighter through references and iconic moments, or you can make them fight the way they would in-universe. for someone like finn, who already has a weapon and fights monsters, it makes sense to stick a bit more to actual attacks for me rather than just having him pull out stuff from random episodes i do think there's a better balance they coulda reached though, the shop is dreadfully boring even if the BMO item is kinda cute. i really do love the idea of letting him pick between swords, for example - with Scarlet being his default, the Finn Sword or the Night Sword being an all-around reliable powerup, the Demon Blood sword as a super-powerful weapon that breaks after a few hits, and the Grass Sword as a faster, combo-focused option that hurts Finn over time and maybe replaces his neutral special with a powerful finisher that gets rid of it kinda akin to the BMO upgrade.
You have no idea how good it feels to have a review that doesn’t tear the game to shreds (like the MultiVersus subreddit does) and doesn’t overly praise it either. It’s been so much fun for me so far, but the amount of issues sometimes makes me want to pull my own hair out.
Likewise. I love this game and the concept of it, but even I can't deny that it has many problems that need to be adressed. Good thing that PFG is very open-minded and listens to the community's feedback.
11:55 Speaking of that. Something noone ever talks about, at least in spanish, the game is fully translated. That is text AND dub. And i dont doubt they did the same for other languages, either.
At 6:50 Tbh, this is an absolutely wild hot take I have, but just removing crouching entirely would solve this issue, especially since there is no point to crouching in a game where there is no difference in highs and lows like a traditional fighter
Some characters have uses to their crouch though. Joker for example changes which card he’ll throw with his neutral. Also bugs gets a projectile out of a box. I’m sure they’re more too
You play platform fighters? Of course crouching is important. Some moves, especially while landing, can whiff based on character hit boxes. So while there aren't tradition high mid lows, being able to shrink your hit box ABSOLUTELY matters and is necessary. Also some characters have specific crouch walks, like Snake in Smash.
@@spaghettiwarrior1573 SF5 was 8f input lag (delay between button press and action), MVS is 30f input buffer (how "early" you can be when pressing the button and still have the action happen)
I'd go so far as to say it's absofruitly wild! 😅 (but yeah that shits crazy it's so annoying comboing someone and you do the wrong thing cause 5 years ago you pressed to the left and the game won't forget it)
This kind of video is honestly so helpful to the Multiverse discussion which has mostly become stale and black and white, at least online, with people either arguing that it's certain aspects such as 'Slow gameplay" and "Broken Combo's" are defining of the game's quality and the other side on the backfoot constantly trying to deny the problems that people bring up. I have honestly learned so much more about the game from this video.
my biggest issue with multiversus is the art style. everything looks so corporate and clean and its just not very fun to look at. every character looks like a plastic action figure. i know that 3D is a lot easier to work with for this kind of game, especially with how many skins are in it, but part of me wishes they went with a 2D cartoonish aesthetic. with all the looney toons, scooby doo, and adventure time characters, so much of the cast are from cartoons and would look better in 2D anyway. even the DC character designs are based of their cartoon appearances rather than live action. and if animating every character by hand in 2D would be too much work (which is totally fair), they could have gone for a 3D cel shaded look like the guilty gear series which mimics more traditional animation
My biggest issue is how much overlap the player models have during combo strings- its like they dont exist on the same plane but are still fighting each other, like stickers on top of each other 🤦🏾♂️
I agree with basically every sentiment expressed here. I main black adam because his kit is extremely unique and he’s fun to play. The other night, I found another black Adam player and we played 20 games, super back and forth and it was genuinely the most fun I’ve had in a platform fighter. But yeah current build is absolutely live beta 2.
As a Multiversus content creator I can't glaze this video enough. An absolutely perfect review of the current game systems and flaws. Thank you for making such a good and constructive video for the devs to look into!
6:48 I feel like such an idiot. I’ve spent YEARS dropping punishes and dying to up smashes because my character was standing in place and crouching like an idiot instead of dropping through platforms to hit aerials, and I had no idea how to differentiate the inputs. It actually got so bad that for the entirety of ultimate’s lifespan, I played on FD online because I considered platforms to be just as obnoxious hazards to move around as on any normal stage. It wasn’t until you made your video on final destination that I realized why I thought Samus was so toxic and give plats another try. I used to GROAN every time I loaded a match into battlefield.
I very rarely comment on videos, but wow. What an incredibly detailed and insightful presentation you shared with us. Thank you very much for your high level and rational unbiased analysis. You cleared up a bunch of questions I had about the development side in particular.
I don't like the way the devs look at balancing the game. They prioritize nerfing characters (even the bad ones) and adding cooldowns to moves instead of giving love to the the ones who really need it, like Velma, Lebron, Jake, Garnet... Not a good incentive to spend money on new characters
Yeah like iron giant needed it but needs shoujd be for gage freaking combos not can dash combo And I just hate the cool-down system like why especially on moves it probably should be on Like black Adam why is his dude side special on cool down down special makes sense given it’s a projectile sheild and messes with his projectiles but why tge movement option
@@multiversusuniversity6806 yeah but there’s a difference between a spammabke projectile and a defensive hitbox Think more like pikachu if quick attack became agility if you recover too much
@@AYEANNI Lebron lol. Lowest use rate and win rate and he still got his balls nerfed. One cooldown change just shows that they aren't afraid of slapping cooldowns on characters to 'balance'
I’m so glad to hear someone else talk crap about the city of Townsville. The first time I played on that stage I was like I never wanna play on this stage ever again.
I would be fine with the stage if it weren’t for Mojo Jojo popping up so frequently that he completely interrupts the flow of the stage. It causes it to go from being a normal fight to being ‘see how much stuff you can avoid while TRYING to fight each other’.
I really hate that stage, it's not bcs his design, it's actually good and simple, bur with the pain in the but that is mojo popo spaming bomba and a Lazer and turning ppl intro stupid dog can make everyone hate the stage.
Even though you say the arguments against the slowing down of the game aren't very substantiated, I 100% understand where they're coming from. It's like going from 150 cc back to 50 cc in mario kart, it feels so jarring. But if the new version is better then it's worth getting used to it.
I haven't played it yet, but just looking at the footage it feels as if its played in slow motion... Watching the video at 1.25x speed feels more natural, as if that's what the game _should_ play like.
@@-AirKat- I should clarify, I did play the beta, but I have not played the re-release. I understand it being slower, but it shouldn't be THAT slow, y'know?
@lasercraft32 Its really not that slow when you get your hands on it, not sure if you have yet but even now people are learning more ways to adapt the movement too, a tip. Instead of dodge jumping like we used to in the beta try jump dodging and throwing out a move it does something different which is super fun to play around and definitely gives movement options. We also have IAD and the community recently learned "hyper hop" (only name ive heard for it) so curious to see how that gets implemented
I like the way you switch between giving the game its dues while also pointing out the littler details that can use work, like how long it takes after you die that the opponent can move freely and taunt you. The way I see MVS is it's a game does miss the bullseye on a lot of its decisions, but at its core it still has the makings of a good game. The amount of love you can find despite humble beginnings, is there even with its short comings. The devs have been a lot more receptive this time around with weekly patches and I hope they can see this video to continue improve the points you mentioned. To make MVS from "When you have that good match" to "I'm often having that good match". I still really enjoy this game and I want to see it thrive even with a rough start. It truly holds something that no other plat-fighter has provided with its ingenuity and character design.
Was hoping the patch would get you to address the patch culture. Back in the beta it was my personal biggest gripe with the game and with some of the recent patch notes it seems like it will still be a problem moving forward. The amount of changing attacks by one or two percent is lame as hell and feels like changing something to say something changed. Bigger deal changes feel very reactionary. Before there was no point in finding anything cool a character could do because it was usually gone by next week. Hard to gage now that it feels like every good character just has TODs now but things like WW whip changes and removing iron giant show shortsighted balance decisions that happen to often that I don't find fun. I get people not bringing up patches because that involves following for an extended time but it does feel like it hurts the ongoing playerbase more than they notice.
I'm still not happy that this game took the route of a free 2 play game, because now I have to grind to unlock characters. I know I gotta pay money to play other platform fighters but at least in those games I have a full roster and alternate costumes. This was a disappointment for me personally, maybe future updates will make this game a better product. Great video on this topic 👏
Why did they rush the re-release? Because they had already promised to re-release it in the first half of the year, so they had to. And considering that they were doing weird advertising before the game came back out, Warner clearly expected them to do so earlier than this.
The camera is bad but the slowdown actually is a positive change IMO. It’s by far not a problem compared to literally everything else. They need to overhaul fixing rifts from being completely unfair past the first 3 difficulty levels (friends cant get lvl 7😢), BUT, it is possible to fix if they turned on team-attack so computers cant spam on top of each other
Absolutely bar none the best review of MVS on RUclips. MockRock doesn't just point out obvious, he legit talks about the both pros & cons in great detail.
25:00 Having never played Multiversus, I had to watch earlier clips in the video multiple times to figure out that Jason’s mist teleport was doing damage, because I couldn’t figure out what was hitting opponents. I eventually figured it must be like, a turning shoulder bash or something, but I really didn’t get that it’s “just like that” until you confirmed it later here
Finally! I was a player in the beta and excited for the relaunch, but coming out of a work day to the discourse on launch… all of the conversation online felt so full of conflicting information and especially vitriol. While I know I should form my own opinions, I also didn’t want to reinvest in a game that it’s playerbase hated, casual or hardcore. This was a much more grounded take of all the information I feel I could want on the game’s state, and I feel Much better considering giving it another try at some point in the future. Hopefully the near future, once some of the issues are addressed.
I do feel like this version of Multiversus is like a "secret beta" of the Unreal 5 version of the game, and they're scrambling to make it feature complete before the game bleeds too many players for it to continue existing. It's very fun to play and I like it a lot, so hopefully PFG can scramble this egg before it goes bad.
In response to Nakat's video, which I did watch: tt is true that a slower game moves the emphasis to punishes rather than spamming random moves. However, the game's not yet balanced for that kind of gameplay. Hurt/hitboxes are inconsistent, disjoints are unpunishable, plenty of characters get free super armor, projectils can cover for punishes and when playing teams two players can simply cover every option, not to mention the input buffer alone makes playing like this frustrating and volatile, it's like the characters are constantly playing catch-up with the player's reactions.
One of the main problems I've had with Multiversus is when you jump into the top blast zone, you shouldn't be killed unless you're hit in/into it. Smash and Rivals both do this, and it seems like it'd be relatively easy to add.
This is a really great video that intricately explains all of my feelings and more than I couldn’t accurately verbalize. I disagree a bit about cooldowns being a problem and having too many status effects (it would take a lot for me to say why but generally it comes down to “I understand something bad is going to happen if I allow them to keep doing whatever it is that they’re doing”). I hope the devs watch it because this game, despite some quite frequent frustration with it, is something I willingly come back to without even having missions to do. I think it’s got a better potential roster than even Smash and the one they have right now is already great. They have almost unlimited options and who knows they might even make deals for properties they don’t own at some point. Even though I love a lot of the characters it was Jason, who I have watched zero movies of, that really excited me about the possibilities and I’m quite hopeful for the future because I want to be playing it for a long time.
29:50 eight seconds!? keep in mind this is the same amount of time that zato loses eddie for. Zato gets punished 8 seconds for having the puppet out long, doing lots of special moves, and mismanaging a meter. With this change Wonder Woman loses a move for pressing side+B even if they really wanted the cooldown system, they could’ve at least used shorter timers
I've been having an absolute blast with the game, despite the many gripes i have with it. The two main things that really put me off (which go hand-in-hand) are the overpriced skins, and the quests that come out that require said paid skins (the Arya Stark summer skin for the Pool Party rift). Scummy practice? Absolutely. That and the grind aside, the game is still enjoyable and I can't help but have a blast.
As a beta player who felt like Hungrybox when it came to the expressing how I felt with the full release of the game, it was like you pulled the words straight out of my mouth. I appreciate how considerate you were for each argument, great video!
Smash Ultimate has a 9 frame buffer, but you can start the input as early as you want as long as you hold it until that 9 frames before you're actionable.
As an open beta player who has been playing the hell out of relaunch, all of the points here are very valid. You covered a lot of areas of the game in this video and if I had to send someone a review for this game it would be this one As was already said, but is a an epitomized voucher for the games state, this game was unfortunately rushed and now they are stuck releasing new cosmetics for the big corpa side it’s going to take awhile to fix it all, but they’ve been hauling ass to fix and add to everything. I recommend everyone who wants to love this game to keep an eye on it, as I have faith they’ll get there eventually.
Multiversus biggest issue is, and has always been, optics. The game looks AWFUL. Even if it's a good game, it just has this appearance to it that implies a sort of like, anti-climax. As you said, a lot of kill moves seem to get their 'power' out of nowhere, Garnet has an attack where she slams with her gauntlets fused into a giant club, but it's weaker than he throwing a fairly weak-looking punch. Banana guard has a move where he runs forwards with his spear out, and it'll practically instakill at any percent above 100, it's just so strange. I think smoothing out the VFX can help a lot with that -- I could buy Jason's mist hurting you if it did like a slash vfx when it showed up, I could understand Garnet's neutral charge attack being more powerful if it had some kind of heavy impact effect, I could even understand things like joker's balloon if it inflated to a gigantic size for a brief moment then shrunk down to its regular size afterwards. The game lacking these things makes it feel, in essence, cheap? Compare this to smash bros, and it's easier to see what I mean. When Byleth does basic sword swings that aren't expected to kill, they have a swoosh effect, but it's very light and diminished, compare that to their axe attacks, and you can see the 'severity' of the vfx increase in proportion to the danger of the move. Another good example of this is Hero, where a lot of their sword slashes leave behind a thick trail because they're very powerful, but his smash attacks in specific often will have a sharper glare, a flash of light, or a similar effect to indicate the potential for immense strength. When you see a move kill that looks as though it has a weak animation, it often leads to a feeling of 'oh, it didn't look that strong.' Which can, over time if it repeatedly happens, morph into a feeling of 'Dude, did they just not have the budget to make the animations better?' Or something similar. It's a drop in the bucket compared to all of the other optics issues the game has, but I think that an overhaul of a lot of the VFX is probably due, hopefully sooner rather than later while the game still has public momentum.
i agree with this, imo, superman felt like a harder hitter in the beta, now it feels like every time supes punch, its wacky, his super armor move feels so weak compared to a normal punch string... and his flying grab, well lets just say you prob wont even use that move any more... why, cause supes (cant throw far) at all lol. if i grab you up right next to ring out i should be able to throw you into a ring out, these guys stop a millimeter away nd then can jump away. Yet like you said getting killed by a banana guard at 100 or less, feels so cheap. you cant even get in on some of these characters, supes vs banana is a bad match up just due to banana range, only thing a supes really can do, is fly grab, super armor, both of which feel weaker than every single one of banana guard moves. Don't really think I need to speak on supes lazer nd fly up nd down punch as both of those moves were gutted/nerfed in the beta nd it seems like they kept it that way 😅yet Harley and a few others can poke you with a normal jab nd you burst like a balloon.
probably the best video about post-launch MV I've seen to date. comprehensive and very fair about all the subject matter presented. interesting to think in today's landscape this information may no longer be accurate someday after months of patches, but in my opinion that makes keeping the record all the more important - people should be able to see evidence of what any product like this was once like. I was an avid beta player and while I did learn to adjust to and somewhat enjoy the new live version (WW main in beta and geez, they really made her a lot stronger huh!), I ended up deciding to drop it because of the point you made near the beginning. I was promised one thing and given something else. that something else isn't bad on its own merits, but it's also not what I wanted. that's already a bit of a disappointment, and adding on all the other uh... questionable choices they made in the grand scheme of this relaunch, I decided I'd rather step back, wait, and see what develops (which is its own kind of disaster in a game this FOMO-driven, but I'll have to deal with that only IF I ever pick it back up again, lol) this game was the most excited I'd ever been about a platfighter that wasn't Smash. it was so much more fun than I expected when I tried the beta completely on a whim. I just hope it doesn't end up nothing more than some memories and a bunch of youtube essays about questionable decisions and wasted potential.
On the game speed thing, you make a pretty definitive statement that a slower game speed makes the game more accessible for new people getting into it. But why are we so certain of this? Do we know if casuals actually care about this? What evidence do we have that suggests that? Let's look at Smash bros and the history it has had with game speed. Brawl was derided by the hardcore fandom for its slow speed, but sold more than Melee, a much faster game. Good baseline to set that suggests some truth in the overall thesis. Sm4sh releases and is noticeably faster than Brawl, and the series takes a sales plunge, again consistent with the statement. But then Ultimate comes out and blows both WAY out of the water in terms of sales despite having a speed comparable to Melee (at least more so than Brawl and Sm4sh), how does that work? We can't just blame this on a bigger console install base either, since the Wii and Switch have *roughly* comparable unit sales and Ultimate doubled Brawl's sales before the Switch overtook the Wii in unit sales. There is a very large number of people who started playing Smash with Ultimate, most of whom are statistically likely to be casuals, and did so without much trouble. Now let's ask some hypothetical questions: Would Brawl have sold any worse if the speed was comparable to Melee? Personally, I don't think so. Would Sm4sh on Wii U have sold any better if it was slower-paced on the level of Brawl? Again, I just don't see it. Why did Ultimate sell so much better than Brawl despite being so much faster-paced? Because factoring game speed into the matter of selling a game... doesn't make sense in my opinion. Would Smash Bros. Ultimate have sold better if it slowed the game down? Answer: it already sold 34 million copies and is in the top 20 best-selling games ever. I don't think it matters much at this point. If the logic is that "Slower games are more accessible, thus more people play them" then there's very little evidence that actually suggests this. If there is a portion of casuals who genuinely base their decision to play on game speed, I think it is very minor, if not nearly non-existent, in the grand scheme of things. Anyway let's talk about button mashing. Casuals (in the way I would define them) don't know the intricacies of input and recovery frames. Think of a casual player mashing the one button whose function they understand. For example: a person pressing the light punch button in Street Fighter while getting up from a knockdown, why does this happen? It's essentially a chain of logic that goes "I want to do this thing with this button - Something is preventing me from doing so - I will keep pressing the input so I can do the thing I want to as soon as possible" And in that way, is speeding up the game, making a games' response to player input more immediate, not a way to make it more accessible? Is there not less one needs to overcome in order to do what they want to do with a faster game speed?
Smash is terrible outlier in terms of data because there are so many other points. There are plenty of examples of accessibility leading to more of a player base ( street fighter 6), there are examples where that isn’t true (mvc2). All I know is your analysis has some fallacies
@@paulakroy2635 I'm not trying to argue that accessibility improves sales in general or debate what accessibility even is. I'm specifically just going against the idea that game speed is inherently tied to accessibility.
@@mikkmakk901I mean my point is smash is non example either way. And I’ll say personally that part of the reason I struggled to get into skull girls is because of the speed
This is probably the best summary of Multiversus I've seen on the internet, in terms of highlighting its negatives *and* positives. Multiversus is a game I really *want* to love, and I am able to squeeze a good amount of fun out of it, but it's hard to ignore a lot of the problems stacked against it, as you've brought up. It's a terrible combination of Player First Games' clear inexperience as a newly formed studio (though to be fair, the fact that they're very attentive to fan feedback does help cut them some slack) and Warner Bros' absolute heartlessness in terms of game publishing (a problem that isn't even exclusive to Multiversus *coughSuicideSquadcough*) that puts this game in a very rough position to defend. At its core, there is a very solid and enjoyable game to be had here. It just depends on if you're able to dig deep enough through the intrusive elements to get to it. Also I find it funny you give the Townsville stage so much flack, because it's actually my favorite stage in the game so far lol It feels the most like a Smash Bros stage and the ongoing commentary by Mojo Jojo is too charming to dislike, at least to me.
The speed argument makes more sense from an audience perspective. It’s engaging and more thrilling to watch gameplay that’s rewarded with better response time. Same goes for the player. At a certain point in the slowness of the game can become a turn based rpg.
7:00 coming from smash ultimate, where falling through platforms is inconsistent even after years of playing, i love the down + jump input in Multiversus. Its extremely consistent and not clunky after a few mins of practice
Really great video. Especially for a Wonder Woman main. 1v1 has gotten very stale for me, I keep seeing the same four characters in rotation that I just decided to stop focusing it, so balance patches can't come sooner. I really hope this game doesn't fail, it has a lot of love put into it with the characters, voices, and other details that pay nicely done homages to their series. Also I want to be able to play a platform fighter on my PC with a good sized fanbase, tired of Smash being the only dominate platform fighter.
I bet the speed was lowered for causal players. Sometimes, fighting games are just way too fast for me, and it’s hard to keep up with hardcore players. Causal players are more numerous imo, so of course the devs would appeal to them more
I want to love multiversus, but i cant. The difference between the beta to this is such a big jump(for better or worse) it just is so confusing on why it was pushed out the way it was at launch. Sure WB probably had a huge hand in it which sucks, but this just really hurts the game and its potential future more than anything. No ranked, a stupid amount of currencies, questionable balance/changes in general, lack of features that beta had etc. I know they reworked in a new engine which props to them for doing it with the team size they have but idk id much rather wait longer for more polish, care and features. 😔
I feel like the only people who are going to understand just how bad the networking issues are, are the crossplay friends, where 1 has an xbox or ps5, and the other has a pc. On my mother, me and my friend spent 20 minutes just trying to get 1 game where they didnt get kicked, and it only happened 1 time, every other time they were kicked for connection issues
This. I play 1v1 just fine, so does my friend. I'm ps4 he's ps5 and AS SOON as we get on 2v2 together, I literally can't load a single game, I always crash. It's rediculous.
I enjoyed listening to this articulate analysis. I have faith that this game will get better, since the developers aim to put in the effort using their skills.
Great video! All that stuff with the UI is so true. Especially the build number on the side, why aren't more people mentioning how weird that is?!? And I completely agree with WW's lasso cooldown. Removing it made me excited to try her, but reimplementing it has completely killed that desire.
I should really be getting to sleep, so I’ll try to be brief. Thank you for this video. As always, your analytical insights are a breath of fresh air compared to the New York Drive-Byes of “fix your game” and “your main is trash” that I see on Discord. I promised myself I’d only comment on one topic, and I’ve chosen your critique on the team-exclusive signature perks. This was a problem I had with the game since the beta, but going off of the rebuild’s potential development history, expecting new ones sounded like too much in hindsight. I found it funny when you asked why some characters have two signatures while others get three. When you followed it up by using Arya as an example of someone with one universal signature and one team-exclusive, that was good, but I was also surprised because LeBron has always been the biggest offender to me. He has three, but TWO of them are team exclusive, and what does the only 1v1 compatible perk do? It makes the basketball explode if it hits from a long distance. I’ve only ever seen this in two lights. It’s either underwhelming, or I just never see it happen at all.
It's taking every fiber of my being to not go off on the same spiel of 'my main sucks therefor game bad' that you see in almost every fighting game, but Multiversus is *really* not kind to it's low-tiers. Velma's talents might as well not exist at all, Mid-low tier Lebron got gutted over some twitter clips of a setup that was almost impossible to set up in a real match, and Jason's hitboxes are still the hitboxes of all time. Some characters still don't have any true combos, moves that literally do nothing (A freeze patch that lasts 7 seconds, but only freezes if they stand in it for 6.5 seconds and otherwise has no effect... AND has a cooldown. A 5% damage basic projectile with a 90 second cooldown that is justified by 'it gives 50% faster cooldowns for a few seconds... on a character whose cooldowns are basically worthless'). Most low-tiers only have a handful of functional moves to begin with, in a game with move staling meaning that they just get worse by using their kit at all.
for me honestly the thing that turned me off of this game wasn't speed (I actually really like it) or the monetization/lack of free characters but it was the perks. I love that kind of system in other types of games and I think custom moves are super cool and underutilized but the fact you have to literally sit your ass down and read a wiki just to understand what vague symbols mean a 10% increase to whatever or what you're gonna have to look out for in a fight... and the fact in doubles you have to worry about 4 people's perks... and the fact that everyone gets 4 of them ... like I'm sorry but that's not what I come to this genre for. I specifically like platform fighters because their simplicity and consistency gives you so much freedom to figure stuff out in the moment. I don't want to have to devote hours of study like I do in something like KOF or Tekken or a MOBA. It's really just not for me and I wish there was a mode where you they didn't exist
Thanks for making this video and pointing out the benefits of the slowness! I used to just ride on the "game slow" bandwagon, but now I've now changed my mind, it IS just adjustment from the beta! (tho I still think the hitlag and buffering are objectively bad)
Depending on how this and other Multiversus videos perform (and I guess how the game's overall reception and meta performs), would we start seeing stuff like tier lists and other discussion videos in a similar likeness to what you did for Smash? Despite not personally having any personal investment in the game, I still really enjoyed this video and would like to see more.
I legitimately don't know, there are some topics I'd be interested in maybe covering but they're shaky when patches are happening weekly, and I really can't say what the demand for that kind of content might be. I'm not ruling it out, but I can certainly say there won't be another MultiVersus vid this month, that's all I can lock down for now
I actually like the idea of slowing this game down. Beta was VERY fun but it was kinda of a mindless after a while. Giving the game a slower pace can make decision making more interesting and prominent strategies of spamming projectiles and running can also be rebalanced in a better way. Really seems healthier for the game as a whole. Everything else tho, really dummed me down. Not being able to change my controls how i want. Having options removed felt terrible and im SPECIALLY concerned with the patches of this game The Beta was full of character assassinations or updates that just made then feel so different. And into the full game, a lot of really important character mechanics were also messed with. Now with the first patches already messing with stuff like WWs whip having a cooldown again, even after "full release" its really hard to invest time into a game where idk if my character will exist next week Smash patches would change the characters place in the meta, but never really changed completely the characters gameplay or messed with their most important tools in an unnatural way. But multiversus does not care, and it really makes me dont want to invest in it. Yes, a lot of Mobas, Hero Shooters, etc. Do reworks. Characters get changed and reworked and if you dont like, change characters. But on Fighting Games that characters tools are so much more decisive on how you play the game that it seems really harst to be doing these MAJOR changes willy-nilly
20:38 as someone who enjoys flying arpund the screen at mach 17? I also think the game got slightly to downed down in speed. You can still kinda go fast? But man. That just looks fun to me
Honestly, I think the biggest problem with the speed thing is that it just flat looks bad. It doesn't look natural, the animations were designed for a certain speed in mind and it doesn't look like any of them were tweeked to look better, it just looks like a global 30% or whatever speed penalty was applied.
The atrocious monetization, FOMO, and input buffering killed this game for me. I didn't even mind some of the game's other issues, but those 3 killed it.
As a Marvin main, dash attacking is the most awkward thing ever because he has a weird run and he randomly stops, halts all momentum, attacks, and then halts all momentum again. It’s so annoying to not be able to chose to toward tilt and dash attack.
Townsville isn’t just in singles it’s legal in doubles top Also there’s not enough vanilla stages with no hazards instead we have things like tomadachi life 3 floors and king of fighters breakable walls
The only major problem I see in the rifts is the, “free your ally task”, in the rifts. You’d think that it would be a double battle, BUT NOOO, you have to have a friend play with you, which is an optional task to do, for EVERY MISSION. And it especially sucks when you are so close to getting to the next level, one of to be specific, and it’s just a PAIIIN.
Unironically i think that may be an oversight. Every other rift mission is doable in singles and in the one match that needs you to free an ally from a bubble, there's some dialogue before the match where Harley pops in and says she is going to help. I think it was supposed to be a 2v1 with a Harley ally but they just forgot to put her in
30:00 Imo, depending on the implementation cooldowns can be interesting. I'd say Garnet's side b and up b are the best examples. The move is used, then put on a cooldown but the cooldown *doesn't stop you from using the move*, simply changes the move, with cooldown side b being a combo move, and cooldown up b being a very strong kill move. I wish more characters were like this.
I really hate how slow it feels SPECIFICALLY because I play Finn, one of the fastest characters, who got speed increments through his "Shop" mechanic. These increments feel so much weaker or straight up inconsequential because of how slow the game already is, playing Steven vs playing Finn feels like nothing has changed in terms of moving around. What I liked about Multiversus is how casual it was, how unserious the game could feel, and the fact that they've made so many changes to accommodate COMPETITIVE 1v1's feels like a jab to me, which obviously it's not, they don't know me. But I can't shake this feeling of disrespect to the old game, leaving behind so much charm. The nail in the coffin tho, and this one is silly but very personal to me, is the win screen. At first I thought the win screen was unfinished in the footage released early and said "They clearly will fix this at launch" and they DIDN'T. The Win screen feels so much more empty for the sake of speeding up the process of rematching which I ABSOLUTELY HATE. The old one felt so much more grandiose and epic while this one just feels like a document. For example, your name/your team's name would show up behind your characters emoting infront of a wall colored as your team's color, then the wall would disappear and you'd be in this colored void which I personally like much more than the new "Floating infront of the selected stage", the enemy characters would appear after and emote as well, being BEHIND the winners slightly. This all got lost. And it feels disrespectful.
The part about thanklessly spending forever basically rebuilding the game reminds me of friday night funkin. The team spent a lot of time between the week 7 update back from 2021 and now rebuilding basically the whole game's code and file structure in order to have a more solid foundation to build off of, on top of also hiring more people, managing the production and shipment of the kickstarter stuff, and making the aftual new content. Despite stating that several times people were still very upset at how long the update was taking, though now that it's out things seem to be going a lot more smoothly
Cooldowns suck. Having pieces of your kit unavailable for large percentages of the match is just not fun, punishes experimentation, feels lame. Black Adam feels so much better with having many of his cooldowns removed. So glad they did a pass on him. Marvin still feels bad though. Projectile character where almost all of your projectiles have a cooldown, great. Also finally someone brings up the random number string in the corner. Why is it there? Why is it *still* there? Why doesn't anyone mention it? Its not a huge issue but its weird and feels really sloppy.
I actually really enjoy the slower pace of the game, so far that my favourite fighters are the slower ‘control mage’ types 🤷🏽 this game has a tonne of problems that need fixing but I’m really enjoying the gameplay at least
Never ever played a fighting game led alone platform types so MultiVersus is my first and it was so easy to get into and understand compared to literally every other fighting game and I love it.
6:24 this is one of the few good decisions this game makes and something smash should have fixed long ago. Saying double taps feel clucky is just that smash has gaslit you into liking this bizarre system, fighers have use double taps for dashing for nearly 3 decades.
Cool downs, I absolutely despise them I play Marvin alot and he lives and dies by the cooldown. - his neutral attack, aka bubble is literally one of his best moves, being able to extend side special or be boosted with something like a U-attack shot is cool and being able to absorb shots was amazing..but literally putting a limit on it ruined it in almost every way imaginable. Turning a cool move into a gimmick Seriously, just make it last longer but only allow one on screen or something since just simply dodging it ONCE completely makes it irrelevant - side special, an already gimmicky move takes an eternity to get off cooldown, hell it barely goes any distance without being bubbled. Meaning you have to burn TWO resources just so you can have decent pressure And why the hell does Rick have a cooldown on his ***UP AIR***, just make the seed lose it's added effects don't just nerf the move after one use
10:36 This is genuinely the first I have heard of this, THAT explains why the beta ran fine for me but on the exact same computer the full version drops frames to the point of being unplayable
I’m not sure if you’ve been keeping up with the game but recently there’s been a few updates that fix a few of the issues you ended up mentioning in the beginning at least
6:56 things like this also make things like dash attacks really uncomfortable too because if you do them too fast then you can accidentally go into a jab which can be really bad for a follow up after another move, sometimes the right stick as jab can flick your hits in the other direction too so I just had to change it for more consistency
I was someone who was uncontrollably hyped for Multiversus’ relaunch. The beta was one of my absolute favorite platform fighters and you could rarely get me to shut up about it as it was getting ready to relaunch. I’ve played it three days and haven’t gone back. Other than the dash changes and (funnily enough) the speed, I’ve disliked or hated every change that was made to this game. I can’t see myself playing this game again until major changes are made.
I think he's referring to the big puff of smoke that appears when the move is used. It can be hard to tell where to hit the opponent when they use that move
@@birds1omega6Ok I kind of see what he means, like “where is Taz and how do I hit.” It’s not the hitbox that’s the problem imo (that should just be the cloud, if you’re touching the cloud you get hurt), but the hurtbox is unclear if you want to challenge it.
That's my Frankenstein'd abomination lol. It's a Gamecube controller stuffed into a Switch shell, and then that Switch shell was swapped out for a custom one with octagonal gates.
UPDATE: I'm writing this right as MultiVersus heads into season 2, and this will likely be my final update. While not _everything_ in this review has been addressed, the game has changed rapidly and substantially and I've got to give the team props for that. Here's a summary of some of the issues that have been patched since this review was uploaded:
-Ranked Mode has been added
-Input buffer customization returned
-Swapping side/neutral attacks returned
-Ground momentum is now maintained when jumping, returning some of the offensive pressure lost by punishing boost jumps
-Parry mashing to escape slightly suboptimal combos has been addressed
-Many infinites have been removed
-It turned out that many "hitbox issues" were actually because of a bug where attacks that applied certain status effects and hitboxes on the same frame would ignore the hitbox, this has been addressed
-They also fixed a number of hitboxes
-The City of Townsville is a bit less obtrusive
-Taz can no longer charge utilt indefinitely
-Bugs loops no longer exist
-Wonder Woman's dair animation was altered to imply less of a lingering hitbox
-Wonder Woman's lasso cooldown has been reverted and the variants are now individually balanced around whiff lag instead
-"Zoinks" is now spelled correctly
-Rifts now have a retry option
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the patch did not help, it's 20 matches per battlepass tier even.after the extra buff thar it got yesterday is basically nothing
Love the video, but I am surprised you didn't mention how hard it is to get new characters in this game if you weren't playing since Beta.
This actively is detrimental to any competitive offline scene because almost all of them require multiple settups, even at the local scene, and destroys the game's ability to garner in new players by pigeonholding them into a really shitty situation of wanting to play a new character but realizing they have to beat a huge grind wall or pay up. In my opinion this is the game's biggest flaw that will kill it if not seriously reworked.
In regards to the speed-changing controversy, you mentioned how it is bad in a sense because it's not game-to-sequel, but rather the same one thing changing. I would also add it's bad because it shows (yet again) any game that's fully digital can easily just erase itself, or its past self, with no sense of preservation.
@@ShyRangerI think it's also a hard to mention its definitely an obercorrection and wasnt the main thing that fixed the spammy movement of the original; I'd argue what really actually helped the game was the implementation of the dodge meter in itself that drastically slowed down the game's spammy disadvantage state. The large models and too harsh of slowing down makes it a very boring spectator sport even at higher levels and it leaves a game that feels almost too reactable.
Every time I see one of your game analysis and critic, I can't help but picture the gourmet in ratatouille
Considering this game is licensed by Warner Bros, its clear that the predatory monetization is a result of corporate meddling to try and squeeze as much money out of this as possible, to the detriment of the game itself.
Which is so stupid I understand that due to capitalism focusing on quarterly returns, they don't really care about long-term growth. But holy s*** this game won't even survive past a single financial quarter with how greedy they chose to be these guys are idiots
@@SoulKingBK ikr? Companies feel like they're so bad at their jobs these days...
@@SoulKingBKisn't that less capitalism and just corporate culture as a whole?
@@toolazytobeoriginal4587Lol corporate culture doesn't just exist in a vacuum. It's the outcome, capitalism is the cause.
Which you can point specifically towards discovery, who's been doing so much tax write off its hurts the animation industry very soul.
37:20 oh god it’s Olimar. Everyone in Multiverses has the same UI issues as Olimar. It’s a cast of Olimars
OH NO. OLIMAR.
Makes sense why I got no problems with this
It’s just an arrow over your front most Pikmin what are you on about
Its impossible to see on some stages and also the same color as one of your pikmin@@modernkiwi6447
A perfect roster.
It's nice to have someone talk about the game Objectively with praise For the stuff that's done right and pointing out the stuff it does wrong. Most people on the Internet just say it's bad or it's really good. Nice to have a discussion
Love your videos btw
Same.
This video is the most levelheaded take I've seen.
@@MrGameguyC what non level headed take videos have you watched? guess im smelling bullshi*....
@@DieHard1912 What are you even trying to say
Yoo it's him
I think the discussion around speed is interesting because it reveals why different people play platform fighters. Moky had a really good video on what he (and a lot of Melee players) appreciate the most about Melee in particular, and that's the two pronged approach of learning and implementing. The art of wave dashing is on its own a skill, but implementing it properly is in itself something that needs practice, and in that sense, it's very clear to see how much you've improved from before, and for a really long time, too. That kind of two-pronged depth, though, also inherently comes with a wall that a lot of players, by default, aren't willing to even attempt to break down, which hampers accessibility, and as someone with a deep love for video game history and not so much for platform fighter mechanics in general, I definitely prefer Ultimate. I think a lot of people struggle with communicating what about a given game is appealing to them, maybe they don't know themselves, and so they boil it own to "high speed = more fun." This has particularly soured Multiversus because a lot of things are SO different, and a lot of what was appealing to certain players IS indeed gone, but it calls itself the same game. I would feel lost for words too, to be honest. It's a shame, too, because this game has some of my favorite character designs ever in a platform fighter, excluding the cooldown and meter overuse on some. Superman, Gizmo, and the Iron Giant are some of the most fun picks in Platform fighter history for me, and seeing the reception and online community be slowly decayed as you mentioned over these past two weeks makes me scared for the future, and for many, this game has betrayed them twice too many times anyways. Anyway, great review.
MockRock is so funny because he's got the most thoughtful platform fighter analysis in the business, but then all his favourite moves are swinging the big sword.
I mean sword swing is satisfying
@@jmurray1110indeed.
Aether for the win!
yk I wish Multiversus did some of the stuff Ultimate did with 1v1 specific things, like shrinking characters down or speeding the game up.
It technically does. They patched 1v1 to have 15% less hitstop
@@Technoblast649that literally doesn’t compare. 1v1s still suck and are very boring in comparison
Playing the game it doesn't bother me, but watching the game is hard because it is so slow.
The game is still 2x faster than Ult lol
Go play smash then lol what are u even complaining about? "I wish the game that was specifically designed to be a 2v2 alternative to smash bros focused more on 1v1s and was like smash bros" yeah I'm sure they'll get right on it.
"maybe its sheer unabashed greed. i couldn't really tell you." Yes. yes you can. you pretty much already did. Don't hold your punches. its warner bros, they have a track record.
I don't understand why some people are so shy to call out blatant anti-consumerism when they see it?
If creating a digital economy that is intended to confuse users into spending as much money as possible while offering loot boxes isn't greed then what is? It's the metaverse garbage all over again.
They want an economy that THEY control and they want you to invest in their cryptocurrencies which fluctuate in value depending on how expensive they decide to make the in-game items. They want you to spend as much time as possible in their digital economy as possible and they won't hesitate to punish you if you decide to take a break or don't want to spend money.
He didn’t pull his punches out of love for WB; he pulled his punches because he didn’t want to make any assumptions and wanted to be as honest as possible, even if it is likely because of greed.
@@PoorFinancialChoices I get that and can relate to not wanting to make assumptions but when it comes to obviously greedy tactics from a company like WB statements need to be made. On a broader subject corporate greed is a very infectious problem and we need to very clearly call corporations out on it. When it comes to games they’ll keep ruining good games with greedy decisions if we stand by and give them the benefit of the doubt.
@@moowaffels Dang, good point.
I mean I think the problem is whale fund the majority of these free to play games. I think the montenziation campaign needs to be more targeted on the issues.
This is easily the most thorough and complete feeling take on this game I’ve seen. I’m surprised this isn’t a main channel video.
wait what the heck
I didn't even notice
Well its simply just mockrock talking. So it goes on mockrocktalk
Oh wait nvm im dumb
I’ve wanted no platform fighter to succeed more than Multiversus, but I don’t think the game is in a sustainable state in the slightest. In both gameplay, business practices.
With banana guard ive seen a lot of comparisons to piranaha plant, being a weird pick from a series that people want to see different characters from. But the thing here is that plant is actually more of a love letter to the wide variety of piranha plant enemies in the mario games, and banana guard is a character with a spear. There were a ton of things they couldve done with this guy but they didn't, so it just comes across as lazy.
piranha plant is a dumb joke character with a bunch of silly animations, references to its appearances in mario, and overall is just so charming
banana guard is a dumb joke character but its like an unfunny joke
I know it's not really what you're trying to do here, but when talking about moveset creativity, I feel like Finn needs to be mentioned. I think he truly is the ganondorf of Multiversus. Every other character's movesets are loaded with references, but Finn, who has ten seasons of potential moves, gets a mountain of basic sword swings, uninspired specials, and an item shop gimmick plagiarized from Rivals' Shovel Knight with almost no relationship to his series.
At the very least I thought he would incorporate his various swords but they've just been relegated to being a part of skins
i think finn's general gameplan does capture the sort of brain-off charging-forward vibe of early AT finn and he IS fun to play, but yeah, he's pretty basic all-around. since he's a character who can actually fight it's not too surprising to me though
the chargeable attacks and hi-five are good overall imo, and i don't mind collecting money for a powerup because it IS a traditionally adventure-y mechanic. but using the item shop for swords with different properties would be a lot more interesting than "boots of speed", and i'm shocked he doesn't at least have some kind of sweater-grapple move since that's one of his most iconic moments in the show IMO. if they'd gone with his prosthetic arm design they could have also incorporated some stuff there, or used the grass arm in some form, but that dips into the issues with representing a character with tons of different states through a pretty small fighting game moveset
@@Sparkjolteon I don't really mind his normals, and the high five is fine (although a little basic, and weird since first bumps are like, one of the most iconic moves from the series). I think the big offenders are his side B and the lack of AT references in the item shop. What makes the moveset such an issue is the enormous missed opportunities. While the points about the robot arm and swords causing iteration issues are valid, I want to counter by drawing attention to Morty's moveset. Morty's also a basic teenage boy who goes on wacky adventures, and his moveset is almost entirely made up of references to single episodes. Half his moveset is the giant arm that only appears in one episode (and disappears in said episode). If movesets can draw so heavily from powers that the characters only had for 1 episode, then Finn could have, for example, the ice weapons from "chamber of frozen blades", or the wacky items from "Dungeon train", or the magic powers he gets in the wizard episode, etc. Again, he has ten seasons of chaotic adventures, and yet his moveset is as bland and basic as possible. And I'm sad.
This all news to me since I still haven’t gotten into Adventure Time. What surprises me more is the fact that Steven Universe, on the other hand, DID get a healthy amount of references while still being faithful to who he is, despite Finn having so much more potential with a whopping ten seasons. Steven’s a pacifist who can project a shield, and I think the devs came up with a lot of good ideas for how he uses for defense and offense.
Mesh that with the reality that this is a game where every character has to get aggressive. This is where the devs made another smart move. They gave Steven his Bubble Boxing Gloves for most of his neutrals and even went as far as giving him his spike wall (If you know, you know). These are moves that would not be canon to Steven until the post-series content, but it does pull from a point in his life where he became more aggressive.
“What about Watermelon Steven?”
Um…I guess he’s good for setting up a Neutral Special tether whenever you want? Hey, they can’t all be winners.
@@creativeandfunnyname3744 i think they mostly come from different schools of thought - for a fighter like this, you could try to represent a fighter through references and iconic moments, or you can make them fight the way they would in-universe. for someone like finn, who already has a weapon and fights monsters, it makes sense to stick a bit more to actual attacks for me rather than just having him pull out stuff from random episodes
i do think there's a better balance they coulda reached though, the shop is dreadfully boring even if the BMO item is kinda cute. i really do love the idea of letting him pick between swords, for example - with Scarlet being his default, the Finn Sword or the Night Sword being an all-around reliable powerup, the Demon Blood sword as a super-powerful weapon that breaks after a few hits, and the Grass Sword as a faster, combo-focused option that hurts Finn over time and maybe replaces his neutral special with a powerful finisher that gets rid of it kinda akin to the BMO upgrade.
You have no idea how good it feels to have a review that doesn’t tear the game to shreds (like the MultiVersus subreddit does) and doesn’t overly praise it either. It’s been so much fun for me so far, but the amount of issues sometimes makes me want to pull my own hair out.
Likewise. I love this game and the concept of it, but even I can't deny that it has many problems that need to be adressed. Good thing that PFG is very open-minded and listens to the community's feedback.
11:55
Speaking of that. Something noone ever talks about, at least in spanish, the game is fully translated. That is text AND dub. And i dont doubt they did the same for other languages, either.
At 6:50
Tbh, this is an absolutely wild hot take I have, but just removing crouching entirely would solve this issue, especially since there is no point to crouching in a game where there is no difference in highs and lows like a traditional fighter
I don’t know about this game, but crouching does reduce knock back by a bit in Smash.
Some characters have uses to their crouch though. Joker for example changes which card he’ll throw with his neutral. Also bugs gets a projectile out of a box. I’m sure they’re more too
You play platform fighters? Of course crouching is important. Some moves, especially while landing, can whiff based on character hit boxes. So while there aren't tradition high mid lows, being able to shrink your hit box ABSOLUTELY matters and is necessary. Also some characters have specific crouch walks, like Snake in Smash.
Morty can dodge stuff because of his crouches smaller hurtbox and he gets dodge meter back.
I'm not sacrificing Marvin's goomba walk for this.
30 frames input buffer is absolutely wild
Yeah that’s actually insane. Remember the days when people called vanilla SF5’s 8 frame buffer horrible? That’s nothing compared to this
@@spaghettiwarrior1573 SF5 was 8f input lag (delay between button press and action), MVS is 30f input buffer (how "early" you can be when pressing the button and still have the action happen)
@@muno thanks for the clarification, Sf5 still has an input buffer, but no more imput lag
I'd go so far as to say it's absofruitly wild! 😅 (but yeah that shits crazy it's so annoying comboing someone and you do the wrong thing cause 5 years ago you pressed to the left and the game won't forget it)
Yeah absolutely shit you right
This kind of video is honestly so helpful to the Multiverse discussion which has mostly become stale and black and white, at least online, with people either arguing that it's certain aspects such as 'Slow gameplay" and "Broken Combo's" are defining of the game's quality and the other side on the backfoot constantly trying to deny the problems that people bring up. I have honestly learned so much more about the game from this video.
my biggest issue with multiversus is the art style. everything looks so corporate and clean and its just not very fun to look at. every character looks like a plastic action figure. i know that 3D is a lot easier to work with for this kind of game, especially with how many skins are in it, but part of me wishes they went with a 2D cartoonish aesthetic. with all the looney toons, scooby doo, and adventure time characters, so much of the cast are from cartoons and would look better in 2D anyway. even the DC character designs are based of their cartoon appearances rather than live action. and if animating every character by hand in 2D would be too much work (which is totally fair), they could have gone for a 3D cel shaded look like the guilty gear series which mimics more traditional animation
My biggest issue is how much overlap the player models have during combo strings- its like they dont exist on the same plane but are still fighting each other, like stickers on top of each other 🤦🏾♂️
I agree with basically every sentiment expressed here. I main black adam because his kit is extremely unique and he’s fun to play. The other night, I found another black Adam player and we played 20 games, super back and forth and it was genuinely the most fun I’ve had in a platform fighter. But yeah current build is absolutely live beta 2.
You main *WHO*
As a Multiversus content creator I can't glaze this video enough. An absolutely perfect review of the current game systems and flaws. Thank you for making such a good and constructive video for the devs to look into!
6:48 I feel like such an idiot. I’ve spent YEARS dropping punishes and dying to up smashes because my character was standing in place and crouching like an idiot instead of dropping through platforms to hit aerials, and I had no idea how to differentiate the inputs. It actually got so bad that for the entirety of ultimate’s lifespan, I played on FD online because I considered platforms to be just as obnoxious hazards to move around as on any normal stage. It wasn’t until you made your video on final destination that I realized why I thought Samus was so toxic and give plats another try. I used to GROAN every time I loaded a match into battlefield.
You can also fastfall through platforms.
I very rarely comment on videos, but wow. What an incredibly detailed and insightful presentation you shared with us. Thank you very much for your high level and rational unbiased analysis. You cleared up a bunch of questions I had about the development side in particular.
I don't like the way the devs look at balancing the game. They prioritize nerfing characters (even the bad ones) and adding cooldowns to moves instead of giving love to the the ones who really need it, like Velma, Lebron, Jake, Garnet... Not a good incentive to spend money on new characters
Yeah like iron giant needed it but needs shoujd be for gage freaking combos not can dash combo
And I just hate the cool-down system like why especially on moves it probably should be on
Like black Adam why is his dude side special on cool down down special makes sense given it’s a projectile sheild and messes with his projectiles but why tge movement option
@jmurray1110 ? he literally still moves just the same just no projectile following him lmao
@@multiversusuniversity6806 yeah but there’s a difference between a spammabke projectile and a defensive hitbox
Think more like pikachu if quick attack became agility if you recover too much
They haven't nerfed a bad character yet and they did one cooldown change. Why generalize everything
@@AYEANNI Lebron lol. Lowest use rate and win rate and he still got his balls nerfed. One cooldown change just shows that they aren't afraid of slapping cooldowns on characters to 'balance'
I’m so glad to hear someone else talk crap about the city of Townsville. The first time I played on that stage I was like I never wanna play on this stage ever again.
I would be fine with the stage if it weren’t for Mojo Jojo popping up so frequently that he completely interrupts the flow of the stage. It causes it to go from being a normal fight to being ‘see how much stuff you can avoid while TRYING to fight each other’.
@@thomascabral9800 yeah, he’s the worst part of the stage.
I really hate that stage, it's not bcs his design, it's actually good and simple, bur with the pain in the but that is mojo popo spaming bomba and a Lazer and turning ppl intro stupid dog can make everyone hate the stage.
Even though you say the arguments against the slowing down of the game aren't very substantiated, I 100% understand where they're coming from. It's like going from 150 cc back to 50 cc in mario kart, it feels so jarring. But if the new version is better then it's worth getting used to it.
Im glad you called out the overuse of cooldowns. At the very least, cooldowns should fill faster if you hit the opponent.
Agreed
I haven't played it yet, but just looking at the footage it feels as if its played in slow motion... Watching the video at 1.25x speed feels more natural, as if that's what the game _should_ play like.
iirc it _was_ faster in the beta, but it was made slower & more zoomed in for some reason
@@-AirKat- I should clarify, I did play the beta, but I have not played the re-release. I understand it being slower, but it shouldn't be THAT slow, y'know?
It feels right...
@lasercraft32 Its really not that slow when you get your hands on it, not sure if you have yet but even now people are learning more ways to adapt the movement too, a tip. Instead of dodge jumping like we used to in the beta try jump dodging and throwing out a move it does something different which is super fun to play around and definitely gives movement options. We also have IAD and the community recently learned "hyper hop" (only name ive heard for it) so curious to see how that gets implemented
@@omarijackson1034 I mean like the actual animations themselves feel slower than they should be.
I like the way you switch between giving the game its dues while also pointing out the littler details that can use work, like how long it takes after you die that the opponent can move freely and taunt you. The way I see MVS is it's a game does miss the bullseye on a lot of its decisions, but at its core it still has the makings of a good game. The amount of love you can find despite humble beginnings, is there even with its short comings.
The devs have been a lot more receptive this time around with weekly patches and I hope they can see this video to continue improve the points you mentioned. To make MVS from "When you have that good match" to "I'm often having that good match". I still really enjoy this game and I want to see it thrive even with a rough start. It truly holds something that no other plat-fighter has provided with its ingenuity and character design.
Was hoping the patch would get you to address the patch culture. Back in the beta it was my personal biggest gripe with the game and with some of the recent patch notes it seems like it will still be a problem moving forward. The amount of changing attacks by one or two percent is lame as hell and feels like changing something to say something changed. Bigger deal changes feel very reactionary. Before there was no point in finding anything cool a character could do because it was usually gone by next week. Hard to gage now that it feels like every good character just has TODs now but things like WW whip changes and removing iron giant show shortsighted balance decisions that happen to often that I don't find fun. I get people not bringing up patches because that involves following for an extended time but it does feel like it hurts the ongoing playerbase more than they notice.
I'm still not happy that this game took the route of a free 2 play game, because now I have to grind to unlock characters. I know I gotta pay money to play other platform fighters but at least in those games I have a full roster and alternate costumes.
This was a disappointment for me personally, maybe future updates will make this game a better product. Great video on this topic 👏
Why did they rush the re-release? Because they had already promised to re-release it in the first half of the year, so they had to. And considering that they were doing weird advertising before the game came back out, Warner clearly expected them to do so earlier than this.
The camera is bad but the slowdown actually is a positive change IMO.
It’s by far not a problem compared to literally everything else.
They need to overhaul fixing rifts from being completely unfair past the first 3 difficulty levels (friends cant get lvl 7😢), BUT, it is possible to fix if they turned on team-attack so computers cant spam on top of each other
18:20. This is something super missed by a lot of casuals consumers of fighting games actually miss when discussing fighting games.
Even the Ultimate devs
nick all stars brawl had this problem hardcore and everyone was like "omg melee" even though it was just swinging endlessly
Absolutely bar none the best review of MVS on RUclips.
MockRock doesn't just point out obvious, he legit talks about the both pros & cons in great detail.
This game looks like a DLC simulator with a fighting game side mode
25:00 Having never played Multiversus, I had to watch earlier clips in the video multiple times to figure out that Jason’s mist teleport was doing damage, because I couldn’t figure out what was hitting opponents. I eventually figured it must be like, a turning shoulder bash or something, but I really didn’t get that it’s “just like that” until you confirmed it later here
Finally!
I was a player in the beta and excited for the relaunch, but coming out of a work day to the discourse on launch… all of the conversation online felt so full of conflicting information and especially vitriol. While I know I should form my own opinions, I also didn’t want to reinvest in a game that it’s playerbase hated, casual or hardcore.
This was a much more grounded take of all the information I feel I could want on the game’s state, and I feel Much better considering giving it another try at some point in the future. Hopefully the near future, once some of the issues are addressed.
It truly feels like warmer brothers made them release early on top of execs demanding they make the store more like fortnite
Can't wait for MockRock's "Best of Every Move in MultiVersus" 😂
I do feel like this version of Multiversus is like a "secret beta" of the Unreal 5 version of the game, and they're scrambling to make it feature complete before the game bleeds too many players for it to continue existing. It's very fun to play and I like it a lot, so hopefully PFG can scramble this egg before it goes bad.
In response to Nakat's video, which I did watch: tt is true that a slower game moves the emphasis to punishes rather than spamming random moves. However, the game's not yet balanced for that kind of gameplay. Hurt/hitboxes are inconsistent, disjoints are unpunishable, plenty of characters get free super armor, projectils can cover for punishes and when playing teams two players can simply cover every option, not to mention the input buffer alone makes playing like this frustrating and volatile, it's like the characters are constantly playing catch-up with the player's reactions.
One of the main problems I've had with Multiversus is when you jump into the top blast zone, you shouldn't be killed unless you're hit in/into it. Smash and Rivals both do this, and it seems like it'd be relatively easy to add.
This is a really great video that intricately explains all of my feelings and more than I couldn’t accurately verbalize. I disagree a bit about cooldowns being a problem and having too many status effects (it would take a lot for me to say why but generally it comes down to “I understand something bad is going to happen if I allow them to keep doing whatever it is that they’re doing”). I hope the devs watch it because this game, despite some quite frequent frustration with it, is something I willingly come back to without even having missions to do. I think it’s got a better potential roster than even Smash and the one they have right now is already great. They have almost unlimited options and who knows they might even make deals for properties they don’t own at some point. Even though I love a lot of the characters it was Jason, who I have watched zero movies of, that really excited me about the possibilities and I’m quite hopeful for the future because I want to be playing it for a long time.
29:50 eight seconds!?
keep in mind this is the same amount of time that zato loses eddie for. Zato gets punished 8 seconds for having the puppet out long, doing lots of special moves, and mismanaging a meter. With this change Wonder Woman loses a move for pressing side+B
even if they really wanted the cooldown system, they could’ve at least used shorter timers
My favorite thing about jason is his wall jump sound effect that's just such a good detail
I've been having an absolute blast with the game, despite the many gripes i have with it. The two main things that really put me off (which go hand-in-hand) are the overpriced skins, and the quests that come out that require said paid skins (the Arya Stark summer skin for the Pool Party rift).
Scummy practice? Absolutely. That and the grind aside, the game is still enjoyable and I can't help but have a blast.
As a beta player who felt like Hungrybox when it came to the expressing how I felt with the full release of the game, it was like you pulled the words straight out of my mouth. I appreciate how considerate you were for each argument, great video!
I bought a bugs skin and then it allowed me to be able to buy me a new bugs skin lmao insane.
I'm happy they gave us dpad support for controllers
I started playing brawl on my wii, so I really missed it in future smash games
An overridable buffer or even a buffer only when an input is held may be preferable to just a shorter buffer window.
Smash Ultimate has a 9 frame buffer, but you can start the input as early as you want as long as you hold it until that 9 frames before you're actionable.
As an open beta player who has been playing the hell out of relaunch, all of the points here are very valid. You covered a lot of areas of the game in this video and if I had to send someone a review for this game it would be this one
As was already said, but is a an epitomized voucher for the games state, this game was unfortunately rushed and now they are stuck releasing new cosmetics for the big corpa side it’s going to take awhile to fix it all, but they’ve been hauling ass to fix and add to everything. I recommend everyone who wants to love this game to keep an eye on it, as I have faith they’ll get there eventually.
Multiversus biggest issue is, and has always been, optics.
The game looks AWFUL. Even if it's a good game, it just has this appearance to it that implies a sort of like, anti-climax. As you said, a lot of kill moves seem to get their 'power' out of nowhere, Garnet has an attack where she slams with her gauntlets fused into a giant club, but it's weaker than he throwing a fairly weak-looking punch. Banana guard has a move where he runs forwards with his spear out, and it'll practically instakill at any percent above 100, it's just so strange.
I think smoothing out the VFX can help a lot with that -- I could buy Jason's mist hurting you if it did like a slash vfx when it showed up, I could understand Garnet's neutral charge attack being more powerful if it had some kind of heavy impact effect, I could even understand things like joker's balloon if it inflated to a gigantic size for a brief moment then shrunk down to its regular size afterwards. The game lacking these things makes it feel, in essence, cheap?
Compare this to smash bros, and it's easier to see what I mean. When Byleth does basic sword swings that aren't expected to kill, they have a swoosh effect, but it's very light and diminished, compare that to their axe attacks, and you can see the 'severity' of the vfx increase in proportion to the danger of the move. Another good example of this is Hero, where a lot of their sword slashes leave behind a thick trail because they're very powerful, but his smash attacks in specific often will have a sharper glare, a flash of light, or a similar effect to indicate the potential for immense strength.
When you see a move kill that looks as though it has a weak animation, it often leads to a feeling of 'oh, it didn't look that strong.' Which can, over time if it repeatedly happens, morph into a feeling of 'Dude, did they just not have the budget to make the animations better?' Or something similar.
It's a drop in the bucket compared to all of the other optics issues the game has, but I think that an overhaul of a lot of the VFX is probably due, hopefully sooner rather than later while the game still has public momentum.
i agree with this, imo, superman felt like a harder hitter in the beta, now it feels like every time supes punch, its wacky, his super armor move feels so weak compared to a normal punch string... and his flying grab, well lets just say you prob wont even use that move any more... why, cause supes (cant throw far) at all lol. if i grab you up right next to ring out i should be able to throw you into a ring out, these guys stop a millimeter away nd then can jump away. Yet like you said getting killed by a banana guard at 100 or less, feels so cheap. you cant even get in on some of these characters, supes vs banana is a bad match up just due to banana range, only thing a supes really can do, is fly grab, super armor, both of which feel weaker than every single one of banana guard moves. Don't really think I need to speak on supes lazer nd fly up nd down punch as both of those moves were gutted/nerfed in the beta nd it seems like they kept it that way 😅yet Harley and a few others can poke you with a normal jab nd you burst like a balloon.
probably the best video about post-launch MV I've seen to date. comprehensive and very fair about all the subject matter presented. interesting to think in today's landscape this information may no longer be accurate someday after months of patches, but in my opinion that makes keeping the record all the more important - people should be able to see evidence of what any product like this was once like.
I was an avid beta player and while I did learn to adjust to and somewhat enjoy the new live version (WW main in beta and geez, they really made her a lot stronger huh!), I ended up deciding to drop it because of the point you made near the beginning. I was promised one thing and given something else. that something else isn't bad on its own merits, but it's also not what I wanted. that's already a bit of a disappointment, and adding on all the other uh... questionable choices they made in the grand scheme of this relaunch, I decided I'd rather step back, wait, and see what develops (which is its own kind of disaster in a game this FOMO-driven, but I'll have to deal with that only IF I ever pick it back up again, lol)
this game was the most excited I'd ever been about a platfighter that wasn't Smash. it was so much more fun than I expected when I tried the beta completely on a whim. I just hope it doesn't end up nothing more than some memories and a bunch of youtube essays about questionable decisions and wasted potential.
On the game speed thing, you make a pretty definitive statement that a slower game speed makes the game more accessible for new people getting into it.
But why are we so certain of this? Do we know if casuals actually care about this? What evidence do we have that suggests that?
Let's look at Smash bros and the history it has had with game speed. Brawl was derided by the hardcore fandom for its slow speed, but sold more than Melee, a much faster game. Good baseline to set that suggests some truth in the overall thesis. Sm4sh releases and is noticeably faster than Brawl, and the series takes a sales plunge, again consistent with the statement.
But then Ultimate comes out and blows both WAY out of the water in terms of sales despite having a speed comparable to Melee (at least more so than Brawl and Sm4sh), how does that work? We can't just blame this on a bigger console install base either, since the Wii and Switch have *roughly* comparable unit sales and Ultimate doubled Brawl's sales before the Switch overtook the Wii in unit sales. There is a very large number of people who started playing Smash with Ultimate, most of whom are statistically likely to be casuals, and did so without much trouble.
Now let's ask some hypothetical questions:
Would Brawl have sold any worse if the speed was comparable to Melee? Personally, I don't think so.
Would Sm4sh on Wii U have sold any better if it was slower-paced on the level of Brawl? Again, I just don't see it.
Why did Ultimate sell so much better than Brawl despite being so much faster-paced? Because factoring game speed into the matter of selling a game... doesn't make sense in my opinion.
Would Smash Bros. Ultimate have sold better if it slowed the game down? Answer: it already sold 34 million copies and is in the top 20 best-selling games ever. I don't think it matters much at this point.
If the logic is that "Slower games are more accessible, thus more people play them" then there's very little evidence that actually suggests this. If there is a portion of casuals who genuinely base their decision to play on game speed, I think it is very minor, if not nearly non-existent, in the grand scheme of things.
Anyway let's talk about button mashing.
Casuals (in the way I would define them) don't know the intricacies of input and recovery frames. Think of a casual player mashing the one button whose function they understand. For example: a person pressing the light punch button in Street Fighter while getting up from a knockdown, why does this happen? It's essentially a chain of logic that goes "I want to do this thing with this button - Something is preventing me from doing so - I will keep pressing the input so I can do the thing I want to as soon as possible"
And in that way, is speeding up the game, making a games' response to player input more immediate, not a way to make it more accessible? Is there not less one needs to overcome in order to do what they want to do with a faster game speed?
Smash is terrible outlier in terms of data because there are so many other points. There are plenty of examples of accessibility leading to more of a player base ( street fighter 6), there are examples where that isn’t true (mvc2). All I know is your analysis has some fallacies
@@paulakroy2635 I'm not trying to argue that accessibility improves sales in general or debate what accessibility even is. I'm specifically just going against the idea that game speed is inherently tied to accessibility.
@@mikkmakk901I mean my point is smash is non example either way. And I’ll say personally that part of the reason I struggled to get into skull girls is because of the speed
This is probably the best summary of Multiversus I've seen on the internet, in terms of highlighting its negatives *and* positives.
Multiversus is a game I really *want* to love, and I am able to squeeze a good amount of fun out of it, but it's hard to ignore a lot of the problems stacked against it, as you've brought up. It's a terrible combination of Player First Games' clear inexperience as a newly formed studio (though to be fair, the fact that they're very attentive to fan feedback does help cut them some slack) and Warner Bros' absolute heartlessness in terms of game publishing (a problem that isn't even exclusive to Multiversus *coughSuicideSquadcough*) that puts this game in a very rough position to defend. At its core, there is a very solid and enjoyable game to be had here. It just depends on if you're able to dig deep enough through the intrusive elements to get to it.
Also I find it funny you give the Townsville stage so much flack, because it's actually my favorite stage in the game so far lol It feels the most like a Smash Bros stage and the ongoing commentary by Mojo Jojo is too charming to dislike, at least to me.
The speed argument makes more sense from an audience perspective. It’s engaging and more thrilling to watch gameplay that’s rewarded with better response time. Same goes for the player. At a certain point in the slowness of the game can become a turn based rpg.
7:00 coming from smash ultimate, where falling through platforms is inconsistent even after years of playing, i love the down + jump input in Multiversus. Its extremely consistent and not clunky after a few mins of practice
Really great video. Especially for a Wonder Woman main. 1v1 has gotten very stale for me, I keep seeing the same four characters in rotation that I just decided to stop focusing it, so balance patches can't come sooner. I really hope this game doesn't fail, it has a lot of love put into it with the characters, voices, and other details that pay nicely done homages to their series. Also I want to be able to play a platform fighter on my PC with a good sized fanbase, tired of Smash being the only dominate platform fighter.
I bet the speed was lowered for causal players. Sometimes, fighting games are just way too fast for me, and it’s hard to keep up with hardcore players. Causal players are more numerous imo, so of course the devs would appeal to them more
glad to see you got ike fair back, and now i understand why you had so many wonder woman clips LOL
I want to love multiversus, but i cant. The difference between the beta to this is such a big jump(for better or worse) it just is so confusing on why it was pushed out the way it was at launch. Sure WB probably had a huge hand in it which sucks, but this just really hurts the game and its potential future more than anything. No ranked, a stupid amount of currencies, questionable balance/changes in general, lack of features that beta had etc. I know they reworked in a new engine which props to them for doing it with the team size they have but idk id much rather wait longer for more polish, care and features. 😔
I feel like the only people who are going to understand just how bad the networking issues are, are the crossplay friends, where 1 has an xbox or ps5, and the other has a pc. On my mother, me and my friend spent 20 minutes just trying to get 1 game where they didnt get kicked, and it only happened 1 time, every other time they were kicked for connection issues
This. I play 1v1 just fine, so does my friend. I'm ps4 he's ps5 and AS SOON as we get on 2v2 together, I literally can't load a single game, I always crash. It's rediculous.
Something I wish they'd implement is local multiplayer in Rifts and online 2v2
I enjoyed listening to this articulate analysis. I have faith that this game will get better, since the developers aim to put in the effort using their skills.
Great video! All that stuff with the UI is so true. Especially the build number on the side, why aren't more people mentioning how weird that is?!?
And I completely agree with WW's lasso cooldown. Removing it made me excited to try her, but reimplementing it has completely killed that desire.
Came here expecting another straight hate video but it was surprisingly well rounded! Great insights. I hope the game reaches its full potential too.
I should really be getting to sleep, so I’ll try to be brief. Thank you for this video. As always, your analytical insights are a breath of fresh air compared to the New York Drive-Byes of “fix your game” and “your main is trash” that I see on Discord.
I promised myself I’d only comment on one topic, and I’ve chosen your critique on the team-exclusive signature perks. This was a problem I had with the game since the beta, but going off of the rebuild’s potential development history, expecting new ones sounded like too much in hindsight.
I found it funny when you asked why some characters have two signatures while others get three. When you followed it up by using Arya as an example of someone with one universal signature and one team-exclusive, that was good, but I was also surprised because LeBron has always been the biggest offender to me.
He has three, but TWO of them are team exclusive, and what does the only 1v1 compatible perk do?
It makes the basketball explode if it hits from a long distance. I’ve only ever seen this in two lights. It’s either underwhelming, or I just never see it happen at all.
It's taking every fiber of my being to not go off on the same spiel of 'my main sucks therefor game bad' that you see in almost every fighting game, but Multiversus is *really* not kind to it's low-tiers.
Velma's talents might as well not exist at all, Mid-low tier Lebron got gutted over some twitter clips of a setup that was almost impossible to set up in a real match, and Jason's hitboxes are still the hitboxes of all time.
Some characters still don't have any true combos, moves that literally do nothing (A freeze patch that lasts 7 seconds, but only freezes if they stand in it for 6.5 seconds and otherwise has no effect... AND has a cooldown. A 5% damage basic projectile with a 90 second cooldown that is justified by 'it gives 50% faster cooldowns for a few seconds... on a character whose cooldowns are basically worthless'). Most low-tiers only have a handful of functional moves to begin with, in a game with move staling meaning that they just get worse by using their kit at all.
for me honestly the thing that turned me off of this game wasn't speed (I actually really like it) or the monetization/lack of free characters but it was the perks. I love that kind of system in other types of games and I think custom moves are super cool and underutilized but the fact you have to literally sit your ass down and read a wiki just to understand what vague symbols mean a 10% increase to whatever or what you're gonna have to look out for in a fight... and the fact in doubles you have to worry about 4 people's perks... and the fact that everyone gets 4 of them ... like I'm sorry but that's not what I come to this genre for. I specifically like platform fighters because their simplicity and consistency gives you so much freedom to figure stuff out in the moment. I don't want to have to devote hours of study like I do in something like KOF or Tekken or a MOBA. It's really just not for me and I wish there was a mode where you they didn't exist
Thanks for making this video and pointing out the benefits of the slowness! I used to just ride on the "game slow" bandwagon, but now I've now changed my mind, it IS just adjustment from the beta!
(tho I still think the hitlag and buffering are objectively bad)
Depending on how this and other Multiversus videos perform (and I guess how the game's overall reception and meta performs), would we start seeing stuff like tier lists and other discussion videos in a similar likeness to what you did for Smash? Despite not personally having any personal investment in the game, I still really enjoyed this video and would like to see more.
I legitimately don't know, there are some topics I'd be interested in maybe covering but they're shaky when patches are happening weekly, and I really can't say what the demand for that kind of content might be. I'm not ruling it out, but I can certainly say there won't be another MultiVersus vid this month, that's all I can lock down for now
I actually like the idea of slowing this game down. Beta was VERY fun but it was kinda of a mindless after a while. Giving the game a slower pace can make decision making more interesting and prominent strategies of spamming projectiles and running can also be rebalanced in a better way. Really seems healthier for the game as a whole.
Everything else tho, really dummed me down. Not being able to change my controls how i want. Having options removed felt terrible and im SPECIALLY concerned with the patches of this game
The Beta was full of character assassinations or updates that just made then feel so different. And into the full game, a lot of really important character mechanics were also messed with. Now with the first patches already messing with stuff like WWs whip having a cooldown again, even after "full release" its really hard to invest time into a game where idk if my character will exist next week
Smash patches would change the characters place in the meta, but never really changed completely the characters gameplay or messed with their most important tools in an unnatural way. But multiversus does not care, and it really makes me dont want to invest in it.
Yes, a lot of Mobas, Hero Shooters, etc. Do reworks. Characters get changed and reworked and if you dont like, change characters. But on Fighting Games that characters tools are so much more decisive on how you play the game that it seems really harst to be doing these MAJOR changes willy-nilly
20:38 as someone who enjoys flying arpund the screen at mach 17? I also think the game got slightly to downed down in speed. You can still kinda go fast? But man. That just looks fun to me
Congratulations to Multiversus for releasing their Beta in 2024 😊
Honestly, I think the biggest problem with the speed thing is that it just flat looks bad. It doesn't look natural, the animations were designed for a certain speed in mind and it doesn't look like any of them were tweeked to look better, it just looks like a global 30% or whatever speed penalty was applied.
The atrocious monetization, FOMO, and input buffering killed this game for me. I didn't even mind some of the game's other issues, but those 3 killed it.
As a Marvin main, dash attacking is the most awkward thing ever because he has a weird run and he randomly stops, halts all momentum, attacks, and then halts all momentum again. It’s so annoying to not be able to chose to toward tilt and dash attack.
Townsville isn’t just in singles it’s legal in doubles top
Also there’s not enough vanilla stages with no hazards instead we have things like tomadachi life 3 floors and king of fighters breakable walls
The only major problem I see in the rifts is the, “free your ally task”, in the rifts. You’d think that it would be a double battle, BUT NOOO, you have to have a friend play with you, which is an optional task to do, for EVERY MISSION. And it especially sucks when you are so close to getting to the next level, one of to be specific, and it’s just a PAIIIN.
Unironically i think that may be an oversight. Every other rift mission is doable in singles and in the one match that needs you to free an ally from a bubble, there's some dialogue before the match where Harley pops in and says she is going to help.
I think it was supposed to be a 2v1 with a Harley ally but they just forgot to put her in
30:00 Imo, depending on the implementation cooldowns can be interesting. I'd say Garnet's side b and up b are the best examples. The move is used, then put on a cooldown but the cooldown *doesn't stop you from using the move*, simply changes the move, with cooldown side b being a combo move, and cooldown up b being a very strong kill move. I wish more characters were like this.
Damn you made this game look kinda fun with some of those combos, I’ll have to give it another shot
Yk i thought i was missing a lot of attacks i shouldve hit with jason. And this dudes a damn pinata
Most fair review I've seen. Great stuff
I really hate how slow it feels SPECIFICALLY because I play Finn, one of the fastest characters, who got speed increments through his "Shop" mechanic.
These increments feel so much weaker or straight up inconsequential because of how slow the game already is, playing Steven vs playing Finn feels like nothing has changed in terms of moving around.
What I liked about Multiversus is how casual it was, how unserious the game could feel, and the fact that they've made so many changes to accommodate COMPETITIVE 1v1's feels like a jab to me, which obviously it's not, they don't know me.
But I can't shake this feeling of disrespect to the old game, leaving behind so much charm.
The nail in the coffin tho, and this one is silly but very personal to me, is the win screen.
At first I thought the win screen was unfinished in the footage released early and said "They clearly will fix this at launch" and they DIDN'T.
The Win screen feels so much more empty for the sake of speeding up the process of rematching which I ABSOLUTELY HATE. The old one felt so much more grandiose and epic while this one just feels like a document.
For example, your name/your team's name would show up behind your characters emoting infront of a wall colored as your team's color, then the wall would disappear and you'd be in this colored void which I personally like much more than the new "Floating infront of the selected stage", the enemy characters would appear after and emote as well, being BEHIND the winners slightly.
This all got lost. And it feels disrespectful.
I swear barely anybody has touched up upon the platforms thank you! That one treehouse map is just awful to get through to the bottom.
I would have never guessed ranked mode would still be coming soon after the game came back
The part about thanklessly spending forever basically rebuilding the game reminds me of friday night funkin. The team spent a lot of time between the week 7 update back from 2021 and now rebuilding basically the whole game's code and file structure in order to have a more solid foundation to build off of, on top of also hiring more people, managing the production and shipment of the kickstarter stuff, and making the aftual new content. Despite stating that several times people were still very upset at how long the update was taking, though now that it's out things seem to be going a lot more smoothly
Cooldowns suck. Having pieces of your kit unavailable for large percentages of the match is just not fun, punishes experimentation, feels lame.
Black Adam feels so much better with having many of his cooldowns removed. So glad they did a pass on him.
Marvin still feels bad though. Projectile character where almost all of your projectiles have a cooldown, great.
Also finally someone brings up the random number string in the corner. Why is it there? Why is it *still* there? Why doesn't anyone mention it? Its not a huge issue but its weird and feels really sloppy.
I actually really enjoy the slower pace of the game, so far that my favourite fighters are the slower ‘control mage’ types 🤷🏽 this game has a tonne of problems that need fixing but I’m really enjoying the gameplay at least
Never ever played a fighting game led alone platform types so MultiVersus is my first and it was so easy to get into and understand compared to literally every other fighting game and I love it.
As a harley player I can confirm that I thought that confetti was a damage buff 😭
6:24 this is one of the few good decisions this game makes and something smash should have fixed long ago. Saying double taps feel clucky is just that smash has gaslit you into liking this bizarre system, fighers have use double taps for dashing for nearly 3 decades.
Cool downs, I absolutely despise them
I play Marvin alot and he lives and dies by the cooldown.
- his neutral attack, aka bubble is literally one of his best moves, being able to extend side special or be boosted with something like a U-attack shot is cool and being able to absorb shots was amazing..but literally putting a limit on it ruined it in almost every way imaginable. Turning a cool move into a gimmick
Seriously, just make it last longer but only allow one on screen or something since just simply dodging it ONCE completely makes it irrelevant
- side special, an already gimmicky move takes an eternity to get off cooldown, hell it barely goes any distance without being bubbled. Meaning you have to burn TWO resources just so you can have decent pressure
And why the hell does Rick have a cooldown on his ***UP AIR***, just make the seed lose it's added effects don't just nerf the move after one use
10:36 This is genuinely the first I have heard of this, THAT explains why the beta ran fine for me but on the exact same computer the full version drops frames to the point of being unplayable
I’m not sure if you’ve been keeping up with the game but recently there’s been a few updates that fix a few of the issues you ended up mentioning in the beginning at least
6:56 things like this also make things like dash attacks really uncomfortable too because if you do them too fast then you can accidentally go into a jab which can be really bad for a follow up after another move, sometimes the right stick as jab can flick your hits in the other direction too so I just had to change it for more consistency
I was someone who was uncontrollably hyped for Multiversus’ relaunch. The beta was one of my absolute favorite platform fighters and you could rarely get me to shut up about it as it was getting ready to relaunch. I’ve played it three days and haven’t gone back. Other than the dash changes and (funnily enough) the speed, I’ve disliked or hated every change that was made to this game. I can’t see myself playing this game again until major changes are made.
32:08 Isn’t this just Brawl Meta Knight Mach Tornado? Which was broken, yes, but it was mostly a balancing problem rather than a fundamental one.
I think he's referring to the big puff of smoke that appears when the move is used. It can be hard to tell where to hit the opponent when they use that move
@@birds1omega6Ok I kind of see what he means, like “where is Taz and how do I hit.” It’s not the hitbox that’s the problem imo (that should just be the cloud, if you’re touching the cloud you get hurt), but the hurtbox is unclear if you want to challenge it.
3:41 What’s that controller? I never saw that one before, it looks good
That's my Frankenstein'd abomination lol. It's a Gamecube controller stuffed into a Switch shell, and then that Switch shell was swapped out for a custom one with octagonal gates.
@@MockRockTalk I wish I hadn’t asked