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Austin pls redo your First Descendent Review, it became obsolete on almost every level when season 2 dropped, because they fixed or improved nearly everything in that review. If you still want to shit on it...hey it's totally cool man I am here for it....but you should maybe watch some videos on the season 2 updates for the game and decide if a re-review is necessary for integrity of the channel.
Man, getting Austin to do review on the channel was such a great idea. You two are perfect collab material! So glad you both make content for the channel, you kinda became my go-to source for game reviews I can trust. Take this as the highest form of praise - you filled the void that TotalBiscuit left. Keep pooping on bad games that only offer ticked checkboxes and prioritize revenue over player satisfaction! I don't necessarily agree with all your takes and reviews, but they are pretty unbiased and well informed as far as my experience goes. You guys have something the game journalism these days lost. Best of luck to you and your team! :) Btw you put Helldivers 2 on my radar and I'm still playing that damn game (even if the devs are fumbling the bag all the time, it's still a good game despite the incompetent developers it's plagued by).
@@intalek305 did they fix the over sexualization of every fucking character yet? Or does it still feel like playing a porn game with slightly better graphics? I'm here to grind not inspect jiggle physics.
I just love how deadly supports are allowed to be in this game. Perfectly happy to lock in Luna Snow and help my team out while not feeling like I am completely helpless to take advantage of poorly positioned enemies without my team doing the killing work.
100% my favorite aspect as well. I've been maining Mantis these past 4 days while playing with between 1-2 friends, and I have been MVP of literally EVERY SINGLE WIN we've had since playing together 😅. It's made the roll so much more enjoyable, especially since seemingly everyone wants to be a duelist.
Mantis is kinda insane with her damage and CC. Oh there's a Wolverine on me? *sleep bomb, 2 headshots, he runs away scared* She can straight up 1v1 some squishier gankers like Ironfist and Psylocke, completely stop Hulk and Venom so they're just stationary punching bags for the team to wail on a few seconds, it's quite amusing.
Absolutely, back in Overwatch I used to play Zenyata a ton because I could still do some crazy damage to make up for mediocre dps players. In Rivals pretty much all healers are capable of dealing similar damage, Adam Warlock and Mantis are pretty much dps characters if you're a good shot and even Jeff can be dangerous if he's played correctly.
@@aaronottermann5824 Adam and Mantis are great because healing is their side job with at most 4 time consecutive heals. The rest is dishing out the hurt.
Agreed the game just came out balance will come later. People forget when overwatch first came out you could pick the 6 of the same characters and have a wall of bastion and dvas.😂
I would like to say I appreciate that the skins have credits for which comic/movie/etc. they come from. Kinda insane that the only games I’ve played that do that are this and the Guardians of the Galaxy game, but it is nice that they do that
Me too. Only played it for two days and I have like 10 hours. I reached Silver 2. My only issue is all the filling I have to do for players locking dps. They also have to make tanks more fun to play but dps and healers are pretty fun to play
The progression right now is basically "you get a spray and some junk you will literally *never* notice." Everything else requires the intermittent currency grind.
Balance is necessary to maintain the integrity of the game. Even casual players get tired of seeing the same characters over and over again if a meta emerges.@@tyyamnitz8408
Captain America shouting "ASSEMBLE" while jumping in the middle of 6 dudes and tanking all of them while spiderman went for the healers did it for me... I grew chest hair in less than 2 seconds.
@@Destroyeer He's not supposed to do that much damage. he's supposed to make everyone focus and take the attention of the healers from the rest of the team.
i agree, as someone who's stuck with overwatch all this time, i don't see this replacing it for me, but that's because the two games offer very different experiences - i prefer the more structured, streamlined approach with overwatch, but rivals is great as a counter to that
From playing with friends I don't think teamfights have 0 cohesion; rather I think they start out cohesive but then open up just enough to allow for some truly impressive individual plays. It's the perfect mix of strategy paired with desperation that keeps this game so engaging for me.
Agreed. Rivals allows for more skill expression than any other hero shooter. I'm loving the playstyle of Winter Soldier. His mechanic of passively reloading his gun any time he uses an ability is pretty sick.
You’re so right, like the team starts of really cohesive and whether or not your team wipes the other, you kinda start to scramble as you build numbers back up and push for a takeover. Then that back and forth is really fun. You could be capturing the zone for 90% of the match, and the last 10% you get wiped and it’s a battle all the back. Super pleased so far
Bruh if they do the PvE mode that OW2 didn’t, then that would be the actual nail in the coffin. There’s so much they have the opportunity to do with this formula. Imagine comic story campaigns with character progression like in MUA. Open world zones similar to the Lego Marvel games with secrets and collectibles. There’s potential here to essentially fuse together so many aspects of previous beloved super hero games that it makes your head spin and I hope they get the chance to do it.
OW2 abandoning PVE is one of the biggest fumbles of all time and I hope someone picks up the ball. Marvel Rivals would indeed be perfect for something like this.
I do hope that the sort of tame offerings in terms of game modes is helping to give the devs enough testing and data to put together unique, fine-tuned modes that take advantage of the Marvel lore and some of Rival's gameplay strengths. I can understand not wanting to jump into anything too crazy given how chaotic the gameplay can be with all the mobility and it can be difficult to design more complex objectives that everyone can work together to complete.
A PVE mode would actually bring me onto this game. I'm honestly burned out by PVP games. Everything is pvp now a days. I want to do/experience cool shit with my friends, not kill them. *Puts on bifocals* Guess I'm growing soft in my old age.
@@marzoval9551 yeah can you imagine taking what Suicide Squad tried to do with co-op story driven missions where you take down villains. Use that in Marvel Rivals where heroes team up to complete objective based missions that tell an overarching story.
Everyone wants role queue but doesn’t want to admit that it was the start of the death of Overwatch. Match queue then takes absolutely forever. Plus there’s no need to run 2-2-2 of each class when there’s better combinations. Everyone wants this to be another Overwatch but good, but it’s not it’s just an actually better hero shooter
Overwatch has become so rigid and balanced it feels like going to work 6 in the morning, just a chore to play. Marvel Rivals feels exactly like Overwatch in 2016 and i love it.
Game launches in a phenomenal state with plenty of characters and modes to keep us happy during month 0, but yet still people are like "where tf are the modes?!". Give them time. There is a whole story about how Doom is coming, and I for one hope they launch a PvE mode. Look at the Christmas mode. Who tf was expecting Jeff Splatoon?!?! I think Netease are going to be loaded up, and as long as they can listen and balance things, all will be good.
It doesnt matter how many modes they add, fighting feels awful. I dont want to argue about it so let me make an objective statement: This is the weakest Hulk has ever felt in any game. That's a wild statement. WILD.
@@AllfatherBlackYour lack of skill, talent, or any usefulness is a mark against you, not the game. I'd tell you to get good, but we all know that's a futile exercise. Go back to Overwatch 2. Shoo.
@@shinkicker404 skill based match making a.k.a. Playing against people of similar skill level. The only people against this are sweats and losers whose only thing going on in life is stomping pubs
seriously. theyre the sweatiest, stinkiest, most hate filled individuals on earth. why anyone would let them guide the development of a game as the main decider of balance and “fun” is beside me
The combat is atrocious it's not fun there's no impact no depth no variety outside of spamming abilities next to the heroes you know you are made to overpower. ZZZZZ
@@AllfatherBlack incredibly surface level explanation from an overwatch fan, keep your e-sports away from our video games and do REAL sports. Every class in this game is viable if youre skilled enough, you'd get humbled in any class based shooter that takes more skill than hitting one button.
@@MrLefthandedmonkeylmao that’s what I’m thinking but hey everyone is different ! I’m the same gal that falls asleep to true crime so..lmao not the most comforting topic to kick the hay with
I know this seems like a never-ending battle, but role queue is just a bad idea for what this game is and OW is prime example #1. There are 2 main reasons why role queue should stay out of the picture for quite a while (if not forever): 1 - Even if you limit role queue to Comp, it doesn’t matter, because the devs will balance the game around whatever system they implement (1-1-1 or 2-2-2). So this will hurt quickplay and any other modes that are not comp, because the heroes are not balanced for whacky mixups of 5 support, 1 DPS, or 6 tanks. This is why role queue eventually made it to quickplay in OW, because the game was balanced for comp and the quickplay experience suffered for it. 2 - one of the biggest reasons why this game is so good and popular is BECAUSE it has no role queue. It is just pure, unfiltered, unrestricted fun. The decline of OW happened for a lot of people when role was introduced. Yes it creates a more balanced game, but the crazy comps or whacky strategies just disappeared. It also made watching the game so boring with only a handful of combinations of heroes rather than hundreds of possible team comps. Marvel Rivals (at least for now) learned what was fun about Overwatch and did that and mostly steered away from Blizzards bad decisions. It would be idiotic to drag Rivals down into the same pit that OW sits. If you want an ultra-competitive experience, go play overwatch. If you just want dumb fun, Rivals is perfect. STOP trying to make every game into a competitive game. Sometimes, unbalanced messes are the most fun! Not to mention the extended queue times that come with role queue. Just from a quality of life perspective, it sucks to wait 10, 15, or 20 minutes just get in a match. Jesus the game has been out for a week, PLEASE stop asking role queue. The game is fun, let it be fun!
You have no idea how funny this is because that’s exactly how Blizzard got its start! World of Warcraft was literally them doing EverQuest better. The Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo are all games that saw an idea and knew how to make it better and more fun. Read the book “Play Nice” about the rise and fall of Blizzard Activision, it’s amazing
It’s been a long time since we’ve had a large budget shooter game that isn’t focused on being competitive. But what was the last game to have incongruent teams? Plants vs Zombies? They should totally have a hero’s vs villains mode!
I'd argue that the destructible environment is a bigger feature than you make out. Overwatch 2 struggles heavily with snipers and tight angles just dominating lobbies, destructible environments are designed to make these beneficial angles less guaranteed and counterable. Its a very clever solution to a problem OW has had for years. I'd also like to say the role queue argument is a bit more nuanced too. Having them makes queues longer and this issue has plagued overwatch ever since they added one. Add on top of that the most unique, exciting aspect of team comps in Rivals is the team up mechanic which is more neutered by a rigid 2:2:2 structure.
The thing with fortnite is they've also been doing events for years now, and have built upon each one to improve the next. This game just came out, and has a huge roster to start out. That to me is a bit more important and not to mention season 1 is in less than a month. I'd be surprised if there's no new mode or maps. As long as you don't get the same mode b2b too many times it'll work out fine.
I was very surprised to find just how many characters they had on release. Not to mention that they all have their own unique move sets and abilities. A lot of games might make it seem like they have a big selection of characters but you quickly realise that half of them are just like another half with the visuals really being the only difference.
I think hulks kit would make more sense if he used barbarian shouts instead of gamma energy manipulation Instead of bubbles he shouts STOP DYING and you just ignore damage Instead of gamma grip he yells QUIT MOVING and they’re so scared they freeze
Gotta disagree here. Overwatch was fun years ago. Rivals doesn't have to do anything to kill Overwatch--Overwatch/Blizzard has done that itself. What Rivals does do is provide a fun experience that I will easily go back to, unlike Overwatch which I have written off as the unfun, hyped up e-sport lost cause it is.
So glad you mentioned the menu animations because they are rather unique and show that the devs on all sides made the game with tons of passion and love
When my wife saw Jeff she started playing this game. Jeff has been one of my favorite characters over the last few years. He gets little Infinity Comics that are always super adorable. Dude is a meance and I am so glad he is being thrust into the spotlight. Although I've mostly seen people REALLY hate him in this game. Which... yeah I get it he's a bit much right now.
Austin you have genuinely become one of my favourite reviewers, mate. I now trust you just as much as I trust Ralph. I was sus on you at first, but you've earned your keep.
I appreciate that it went tame in terms of map design and game mode and dedicated so much energy to the style pop and the really fun character kits that stay so true to the characters. The maps and modes have a lot more opportunity to come in the future. The core feels incredibly strong right now to provide a lot of fun
I think each hero in this game should have multiple classes instead of just one in future, for example Wolverine can go from duelist to vanguard, Spider-Man from duelist to strategist and etc.
Yep, I expecting Netease to get greedy at some point... but maybe they will surprise me. But I'm expecting about a year from now there will be multiple currencies and timed events and so on.
I'm glad you mention map design because I haven't seen that mentioned by many reviewers. compared to OW, the maps in Rivals seem much more bland. and i don't mean aesthetically. play in any OW map long enough and you will start to appreciate the many nuances that make them engaging: a main lane with side routes and flanks, varied lines of sight, corners that teams can regroup behind, high ground that offers a defenders advantage, and plenty of elements that can be used as cover but not so many that the maps are cluttered. you can tell that every angle was considered in Rivals, the play spaces are far more utilitarian. they do have some character, but feel less like unique spaces designed to craft a map/mode-specific experience and more like giant arenas where cover is an afterthought and I'm not yet sure whether it's map design or hero mobility, but compared to OW it seems more difficult to take and hold space. space is a huge macro mechanic in OW, but in Rivals it is often less clear what is friendly/enemy/neutral space. and that may be a contributing factor to the chaotic moment-to-moment feel
I agree the only really interesting map is the control point hydra base. The points move around and have extra walls removed or added when the point switches hands. Been crushed by the change before so it's not for show either.
I disagree about OW maps being that more engaging, all OW maps are the same bottlenecks and chokepoints and cramped hallways that get old after the second time playing on a map. Any maps with open areas are also just huge dead mans zones.
I actually like the maps more in Rivals than Overwatch. I always hated Overwatchs maps. There were too many bottlenecks where you felt like you were slamming your head against a wall. I’m not sure why they are being praised now.
With regard to the destructable environments: you can press a button to highlight the breakable areas and it's very useful for Hawkeye, Hella and BW types as you can basically make a sniper nest for them. It's actually pretty useful if you learn the maps.
As a former GM Overwatch player and Diamond 1 League player I can say with high confidence that adding bans to lower ELO brackets is a bad idea. Less skilled players notoriously ban the weirdest choices, not anything that would interfere with their teams desired comp. Using Overwatch as an example they'd just ban say Mei or Torbjorn because they can be annoying instead of reducing the amount of tanks available to the enemy team regardless of how little Mei/Torbjorn actually saw play.
For me, overwatch in 2016 seemed like it would never be back again, friends grew apart, responsibility increased, surly that feeling was gone for good? Enter marvel rivals.. the absolute savior of online shooters in general if you are askin me.. and ive loved all 20 hours ive spread across about half this roster so far. The presentation and moment to moment fun ive been able to share with my girlfriend is something I will be forever grateful for.
That's how you know ANY claims of "market saturation" are actually attempts to defend the failure of someone's mediocrity - as a wise person once said, there's always room at the very top.
@@MGC-XIIIBack in my day we chose which sessions/servers we wanted to join. F*ck that stupid "matchmaking" nonsense. It will never live up to what it's supposed to do anyway.
TBH this game will have very strong staying power simply because of the IP. The ball is in the developers/publishers court to not fuck it up. As Austin says/insinuates, people miss the OG Overwatch "Feel". The dev's need to focus on that and find out exactly what they can add/change to bring more of that into Rivals . It's got hella potential.
Damn Austin. I dont know why i'm so proud hearing you do reviews. You have come so far! Good pace, and voice. Very concise yet well-written Like father like son. :)
As an OW player with like 3.5k hours, I GUARANTEE this honeymoon phase will wear off. “Is it balanced lol xd no!” Will soon be replaced by “ugggggh I hate x hero” “we need a tank” etc etc
Monetization in games these days is crazy, 15 bucks for a single skin is crazy, no matter how good it is, on top of being forced to buy more currency than the skin costs Edit: there seems to be a prevailing sentiment that just because a game is free to play it can have a predatory monetization scheme, I wholly disagree, bad/predatory monetization should be called out regardless of whether the game costs money to play or not, a game has to make money, no duh, but it doesn't have to prey on its consumer base to do that, plenty of games have player friendly monetization and still make money hand over fist. Id go so far as to say, player friendly practices will net you more money over time than trying to scrape every dollar you can out of your consumers.
If the game is free, you don't have much of a right to complain about MTX, especially if they are cosmetic only... How are they going to make money? It's a live service game, they needs money to continue developing for the game.
It mirrors real life, wealth disparity is really high. There are people who won't buy skins even for 2$ while there are also whales who wanna gobble up everything. Companies want to appeal to the whales who literally don't give a shit about price. Tho there are also those who buy 1-2 skins for their main and get as much out of it as possible, so yeah.
I don't think it is communicated well in the game at the moment, but as a result, this video is incorrect about how team-up abilities work (7:00) You have two categories: - Seasonal Buffs - Team Up Abilities Take the Hulk & Iron Man example. Hulk has a Seasonal Buff to have increased Health. That is active regardless of whether Iron Man is on the team. BUT if Iron Man joins Hulk, Iron Man gets a boost as well. The seasonal buff is meant to encourage the base character (Hulk) as a build around. Then the Team-Up ability is meant to encourage the related character (Iron Man) as a synergy. The devs have said this seasonal boosts and team ups will shift season-by-season.
Getting a bit meta with this compliment but fantastic work with the beach soccer analogy + bringing it back in at the end of the video. Austin is really coming into his own.
I completely agree on the competitive suggestion ban picks should be allowed from bronze up. It sets the tone and allows for a team to strategise well before reaching diamond. The rest of my personal criticism comes from map variety. Which is an easy fix.
The challenge will be when Rivals needs to keep innovating. It’s a good game, but they’ve had a huge benefit of being able to take the best bits of many games to add to theirs. I’m an Overwatch player but will give this a go, it just seems like a big brawly mess and it seems many characters have similar movement and range attacks. They don’t seem very unique at first glance.
A good review, but I can't say I fully agree with your criticisms of map sameness. I reached Diamond last night, and I regularly change picks from map to map, and even within submaps in Domination. Some are more open, favoring ranged attacks or vertical mobility. Whereas others are more choke point oriented, leading to picks that can take advantage of that.
Compared to OW, marvel rivals actually makes me feel good. And due to seeing superheroes specifically move is really cool! ... (Oh and no motion sickness from first person views)
It’s very rough around the edges and the balance is nonexistent but the potential is there. We’ll have to wait and see if the devs patch all of the fun out.
The third person helps too. I suffer from motion sickness and the third person makes it so I can play without loosing my lunch. Also it's nice to see my characters as I play
People that want role queue most likely played Overwatch a long time ago and don't know how frustrating it became especially in OW2. Teammates locked into roles they're struggling with just because of a system that doesn't balance the game at all is a lot worse than teammates not wanting to play tank or support
you can't balance again without restrictions like RQ tho, so either have a busted unbalance free for all or you try RQ to help you balance, there is no inbetween.
@drbjr8223 what I meant was role queue won't help balance at all, look at Overwatch, it's a giant mess. All these years and they somehow haven't fixed Widowmaker for example
Everyone loved Overwatch on launch because people didn't know how to play. You'd have teams of 5 DPS characters all zooming around just throwing hands with no care in the world. Once people actually learned the game the issues started appearing. Suddenly your team needed 2 tanks and 2 healers because if you didn't have them you'd be at a vast disadvantage compared to the team that did. So rolequeue gets created to ensure that teams aren't doomed in character select. But that creates a problem with the playerbase/hero design because 1/3 of the playerbase doesn't want to play tanks and a 1/3 play healers. So match timers become insanely long. Hence Overwatch 2's reducing the game to 5v5 and with one tank. Now you can find a game, but that game is overly reliant on how the one tank player performs. Marvel Rivals is fun and a looney tunes brawl because no one knows how to play yet. Once the optimization and general playerbase knowledge comes through will it still be as fun? Will it not also run into the same pitfalls overwatch did?
This exactly. Every game like this has a honeymoon phase on launch as most don't fully understand the game and thus metas haven't developed. I'm interested to see what happens when some begin to take the game more seriously and can identify the flaws in their teammates and team composition, to the point where they ask others to swap off.
Feels way more like Paladins than Overwatch. Honestly I thought it was.... fine, but if you played overwatch for too long its hard to go back to the more slippery and generally less tuned experience of other games. I really hope someone manages to make something that is that half way house between a paladins and a valorant again. That is if the concord of it all wasn't the final death knell of anyone attempting the genre again.
This game absolutely has the sauce when it comes to hero design and some cool new mechanics like destructible environments and team ups, but I have some serious concerns about its longevity. I see 2 paths - one where they reign in the balance and follow a similar path to Overwatch by responding to similar problems, or another where they just cater purely to casuals as competitive (not even esports, just ranked) is dominated by boring sustain metas. The big problem is that the vast majority of tanks are boring meat sponges, especially the ones that are good right now (Dr. Strange, Magneto, Groot, etc) and healing is WAY too strong. Play ranked against 4 tanks and a Luna/Mantis backline and you will feel it, and because these supports also dish a ton of damage, I could easily see 3 tank 3 support comps with Adam/Jeff as the third option and its gg. Any remotely serious level of play is going to be as boring or even worse than Overwatch was in GOATs/double shield. When everything is ridiculously overpowered like this, it feels REALLY GOOD while the game remains fresh, I mean, most people are locking 3 DPS comps in quick play anyways. Maybe that's enough, in fact, I think they should probably stick to purely casual play just to be different than Overwatch, but even after binging between 20 to 30 hours I can already tell soon enough these problems will be exposed and the devs will be forced to respond or the competitive match quality will plummet. Probably more of an "enjoy it while it lasts" sort of game.
people disliked role queue in OW at first, but by now it's generally acknowledged to be a necessary evil and overall healthy addition to the game if you design game balance around having a blend of tank, damage, and support archetypes, then you need systems that result in all of those roles being filled in every game. and you need to give players a chance to play their preferred roles. it's not fun to feel forced to be healer or tank because everyone else instalocks DPS first
@@ThisIsFinalRound role queue and meta are two totally different things. one is a format (a ratio among roles to standardize a baseline composition), and the other is what heroes are most effective to play accounting for the role limitations. there have been many different metas within role queue
The fact that the game didn’t launch with a playable Doom is shocking. And I REALLY wanna see a playable Fantastic Four someday. You know the Team Ups would go Buckwild.
i have 7k hours on ow since launch in 2016, it will always be my favorite pvp game ever as a memory, but what they did over last year is absolutely disguting, everything they do now is just ruining the game, iam enjoying MR so much
There's definitely a Colossus in the works, because Wolverine's Fastball Special move-set text had (still has?) an error saying "...with Hulk or ", and Colossus is the traditional FBS guy. Also, obvious choice to have some sibling synergy with Magik. Maybe they'll do an X-Men character drop in a few months?
" i have nice things to say about the monetization" Oh Nice "The character skins range from 15 to 20 dollars" Not nice, skins should be a dollar or two max. Normalized 20 dollar skins are a symptom of vain people constantly buying slop as the price rises without any protest.
I really hate when people say "Marvel Rivals copied Overwatch" because it's a hero shooter game, all hero shooters have similar traits if you say "Marvel Rivals copied Overwatch" you can also say "Overwatch copied TF2" it's so pointless.
Tbf people are speaking much more specifically than just 'it's a hero shooter so it copied overwatch'. I mean, some of the character kits are ripped straight out of characters from overwatch, or as Austin said 'remixed'. But it's also okay! Copying works sometimes! Scarlet witch is just dps Moira but better. Punisher is soldier 76 but slightly different.
@@Zurrke Dude. How is Punisher Soldier 76? Because he has a gun? Or am I missing some part of his kit that is straight from Soldier? I'm genuinely curious if that's all it takes to be like "this is the same character but slightly different!"
@@YuhlemanIncorporated I shouldn't have to do an in depth comparison of all abilities for you to see that punisher is soldier 76 except marvel. And again, I'm fine with them copying, all I'm pointing out is that no one is saying MR is copying OW strictly because of the genre - it's everything else.
@@Zurrke The only hero I can think of off the top of my head that actually feels closest to being a copy is Venom. 3 parts of his kit are straight from wrecking ball. The Punisher and Soldier though?! The only similarity is the left click. Soldier right click: high damage rockets Punisher right click: Mid damage smoke bomb Soldier shift: sprint Punisher shift: Reusable zipline Soldier E: Healing field Punisher E: A mounted turret Soldier secondary weapon: ??? Punisher secondary weapon: shotgun Soldier Q: Aimbot Punisher Q: Dual gatling guns and missile launchers
Here's my hot take on the role queue thing; Instead of role queue or lock, i think they should add passive buff/debuff incentives. For example: 2,2,2 would be the base and for every extra or less dps or support or tank, there'd be a buff/debuff. So there's 1 less tank, 3 dps? Tank gets an extra 150 hp and all dps take 5% less damage but do 10% less damage as well. 3 supp, 3 tank? Tanks lose 150 hp and supports do 15% less healing. Something like that.
Where's this work he put in? Seemed quite lazy to me and coming from someone that hasn't played a lot of recent, current OW2 to understand just how dire a state that game is in. The comment that OW2 'has better game feel, map design and versatility' - I will have to completely disagree with Austin on these points.
I think it’s ultimately a flavor of the week type of game. I don’t see myself playing it more than a few months simply because the champion design is all over the place. Everyone gets an AOE, almost-unavoidable ult, too much going on to really strategize, and I find kill times to be too fast. It’s a lot of fun for the time being.
if this year's made one thing clear, it's that we need more games from Korea and China 🥳 God the art design and atmosphere in this game is so much better than 90% of what I've been seeing from the industry for years.
All of these are Western character designs, except one of Psylocke's, and aside from some optional skins. The hero menu says which comic each skin makes its first appearance in.
I think the first 3 minutes of the video are really naive. Marvel Rivals is not going to stay in this beach soccer mode for long unless they want to lose a lot of their playerbase. Everyone is in the honeymoon phase right now but as soon as everyone realizes Hela and Hawkeye are insanely broken and just play them every match, everyone will get absolutely sick of it. That's what happened to Overwatch. The devs were extremely stubborn about addressing pain points for the first 4 years of the game's life leading to a lot of distrust and toxicity from the playerbase. Also taking a jab at role queue was kinda crazy because that was literally the best change they ever made for the game.
As someone with over 2k hours across OW1 and OW2, I gotta say that imo overwatch and marvel rivals are different enough that they can't be directly compared. The design philosophy is just really different that if you really look at the macro, it's not even close
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Austin pls redo your First Descendent Review, it became obsolete on almost every level when season 2 dropped, because they fixed or improved nearly everything in that review.
If you still want to shit on it...hey it's totally cool man I am here for it....but you should maybe watch some videos on the season 2 updates for the game and decide if a re-review is necessary for integrity of the channel.
Man, getting Austin to do review on the channel was such a great idea. You two are perfect collab material! So glad you both make content for the channel, you kinda became my go-to source for game reviews I can trust. Take this as the highest form of praise - you filled the void that TotalBiscuit left. Keep pooping on bad games that only offer ticked checkboxes and prioritize revenue over player satisfaction! I don't necessarily agree with all your takes and reviews, but they are pretty unbiased and well informed as far as my experience goes. You guys have something the game journalism these days lost. Best of luck to you and your team! :)
Btw you put Helldivers 2 on my radar and I'm still playing that damn game (even if the devs are fumbling the bag all the time, it's still a good game despite the incompetent developers it's plagued by).
Austin also likes Veilguard so.. meh ?
@@intalek305 did they fix the over sexualization of every fucking character yet? Or does it still feel like playing a porn game with slightly better graphics? I'm here to grind not inspect jiggle physics.
The Cpu temps on this game are insane
If Avengers Doomsday doesn't end with Jeff swallowing everyone and swimming off it's a missed opportunity
Da Gambit: "His Name Jeff"
Jeff might sacrifice himself my eating every hero and taking what every ok damage that might end everything and throw everyone out in the end.
I just love how deadly supports are allowed to be in this game. Perfectly happy to lock in Luna Snow and help my team out while not feeling like I am completely helpless to take advantage of poorly positioned enemies without my team doing the killing work.
Same, but mostly with Cloak and Dagger. I've solo taken down multiple duelists who have attacked my team's backline.
100% my favorite aspect as well. I've been maining Mantis these past 4 days while playing with between 1-2 friends, and I have been MVP of literally EVERY SINGLE WIN we've had since playing together 😅. It's made the roll so much more enjoyable, especially since seemingly everyone wants to be a duelist.
Mantis is kinda insane with her damage and CC. Oh there's a Wolverine on me? *sleep bomb, 2 headshots, he runs away scared* She can straight up 1v1 some squishier gankers like Ironfist and Psylocke, completely stop Hulk and Venom so they're just stationary punching bags for the team to wail on a few seconds, it's quite amusing.
Absolutely, back in Overwatch I used to play Zenyata a ton because I could still do some crazy damage to make up for mediocre dps players. In Rivals pretty much all healers are capable of dealing similar damage, Adam Warlock and Mantis are pretty much dps characters if you're a good shot and even Jeff can be dangerous if he's played correctly.
@@aaronottermann5824 Adam and Mantis are great because healing is their side job with at most 4 time consecutive heals. The rest is dishing out the hurt.
Is it balanced? No
Is it fun as f*ck? Yes
For 5 hours then you realize what a cluster fuck it is.
@cosmancho2959 one of the most broken janky messes of all time, but it's fun
Agreed the game just came out balance will come later. People forget when overwatch first came out you could pick the 6 of the same characters and have a wall of bastion and dvas.😂
@@cosmancho2959Game just launched lol. Jesus let them get time to go through their data and feedback. 😂
Don't worry, I'm sure they'll nerf the fun out of the game just like with Overwatch 2.
I would like to say I appreciate that the skins have credits for which comic/movie/etc. they come from. Kinda insane that the only games I’ve played that do that are this and the Guardians of the Galaxy game, but it is nice that they do that
Marvel Future Fight did that as well and I found it cool as hell there too
Marvel avengers did too!
So weird the Insomniac Spiderman games made no mention of their suits original appearances.
Marvel Snap also does this.
The Kojima-length cinematics just to preview a skin are wild no thanks
They may have copied a lot of Overwatch but it was definitely much needed. i’m absolutely loving it so far!
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Better when they improve what they emulate.
Me too. Only played it for two days and I have like 10 hours. I reached Silver 2. My only issue is all the filling I have to do for players locking dps. They also have to make tanks more fun to play but dps and healers are pretty fun to play
@@Darkeus1 too bad they improved nothing
@@heramann6916Lmao let me guess, you thought Concord was good. 😂
Lol, okay bub.
Tf2....
Balance isn’t very good but it’s extremely fun. Progressions system also needs some work to feel more rewarding.
If you think balance is necessary then you are a sheep
The progression right now is basically "you get a spray and some junk you will literally *never* notice." Everything else requires the intermittent currency grind.
Balance is necessary to maintain the integrity of the game. Even casual players get tired of seeing the same characters over and over again if a meta emerges.@@tyyamnitz8408
I'd say they need to buff wolverine and somewhat storm
@blackiechan6078 Storm and Widow needs buffs, ur supposed to attack vanguards with Wolverine for perks and buffs he doesn't need one
Captain America shouting "ASSEMBLE" while jumping in the middle of 6 dudes and tanking all of them while spiderman went for the healers did it for me... I grew chest hair in less than 2 seconds.
This is why Cap is my tank main
"Cap" plays exactly like you hope he would. He's so much fun.
@@AquaShibby3000 screaming and do 0 damage! xD But he really fun, it's true
@@Destroyeer He's not supposed to do that much damage. he's supposed to make everyone focus and take the attention of the healers from the rest of the team.
@Destroyeer oh, you can wreck some ass with him but your real strength is getting that shield up and luring people back to your dps.
The extended soccer metaphor just makes so much sense
i agree, as someone who's stuck with overwatch all this time, i don't see this replacing it for me, but that's because the two games offer very different experiences - i prefer the more structured, streamlined approach with overwatch, but rivals is great as a counter to that
Austin cooked with that
This just made me want to play Lucioball again. I dropped off Overwatch but returned to it for that mode for like 3 years.
I also really liked the looney tunes cloud brawl comparison, I swear to you that’s how most matches I’m in feel 😂
It's called Football!
From playing with friends I don't think teamfights have 0 cohesion; rather I think they start out cohesive but then open up just enough to allow for some truly impressive individual plays. It's the perfect mix of strategy paired with desperation that keeps this game so engaging for me.
Agreed. Rivals allows for more skill expression than any other hero shooter. I'm loving the playstyle of Winter Soldier. His mechanic of passively reloading his gun any time he uses an ability is pretty sick.
You’re so right, like the team starts of really cohesive and whether or not your team wipes the other, you kinda start to scramble as you build numbers back up and push for a takeover. Then that back and forth is really fun.
You could be capturing the zone for 90% of the match, and the last 10% you get wiped and it’s a battle all the back.
Super pleased so far
Strategy? Lmao no…fun? Yes
Bruh if they do the PvE mode that OW2 didn’t, then that would be the actual nail in the coffin. There’s so much they have the opportunity to do with this formula. Imagine comic story campaigns with character progression like in MUA. Open world zones similar to the Lego Marvel games with secrets and collectibles. There’s potential here to essentially fuse together so many aspects of previous beloved super hero games that it makes your head spin and I hope they get the chance to do it.
OW2 abandoning PVE is one of the biggest fumbles of all time and I hope someone picks up the ball. Marvel Rivals would indeed be perfect for something like this.
I do hope that the sort of tame offerings in terms of game modes is helping to give the devs enough testing and data to put together unique, fine-tuned modes that take advantage of the Marvel lore and some of Rival's gameplay strengths. I can understand not wanting to jump into anything too crazy given how chaotic the gameplay can be with all the mobility and it can be difficult to design more complex objectives that everyone can work together to complete.
Have you looked into the options available under the Practice mode in Rivals...
It is a decent start for some PvE action
A PVE mode would actually bring me onto this game.
I'm honestly burned out by PVP games.
Everything is pvp now a days.
I want to do/experience cool shit with my friends, not kill them.
*Puts on bifocals* Guess I'm growing soft in my old age.
@@marzoval9551 yeah can you imagine taking what Suicide Squad tried to do with co-op story driven missions where you take down villains. Use that in Marvel Rivals where heroes team up to complete objective based missions that tell an overarching story.
Everyone wants role queue but doesn’t want to admit that it was the start of the death of Overwatch. Match queue then takes absolutely forever. Plus there’s no need to run 2-2-2 of each class when there’s better combinations. Everyone wants this to be another Overwatch but good, but it’s not it’s just an actually better hero shooter
I agree, just keep it fast and fun. It doesn't need to be 100% balanced or perfect, just have superheroes going crazy
One of the things that helps Rivals not need it is the Hero team up abilities.
Overwatch has become so rigid and balanced it feels like going to work 6 in the morning, just a chore to play. Marvel Rivals feels exactly like Overwatch in 2016 and i love it.
Overwatch balanced? Huh?
@@GigglingStonersya, laughs in S14 patch
@GigglingStoners I haven't played the newest season, but the last 3 or so seasons I felt were very well balanced.
@@jakeling2 Balanced means the game will behave in a way thats expected, and thats just fucking boring.
Game launches in a phenomenal state with plenty of characters and modes to keep us happy during month 0, but yet still people are like "where tf are the modes?!". Give them time. There is a whole story about how Doom is coming, and I for one hope they launch a PvE mode. Look at the Christmas mode. Who tf was expecting Jeff Splatoon?!?! I think Netease are going to be loaded up, and as long as they can listen and balance things, all will be good.
It doesnt matter how many modes they add, fighting feels awful. I dont want to argue about it so let me make an objective statement: This is the weakest Hulk has ever felt in any game. That's a wild statement. WILD.
@@AllfatherBlackYour lack of skill, talent, or any usefulness is a mark against you, not the game. I'd tell you to get good, but we all know that's a futile exercise. Go back to Overwatch 2. Shoo.
They couldn’t have hid this from me for 9 seconds
SBMM has killed it before left the gates.
@@fwabble SBMM?
@@shinkicker404 skill based match making a.k.a. Playing against people of similar skill level.
The only people against this are sweats and losers whose only thing going on in life is stomping pubs
Nobody likes nu-overwatch, but e-sports shitters are like "why isn't this like overwatch?"
Fuck balance, keep it fun. E-sports ruins everything
seriously. theyre the sweatiest, stinkiest, most hate filled individuals on earth. why anyone would let them guide the development of a game as the main decider of balance and “fun” is beside me
The combat is atrocious it's not fun there's no impact no depth no variety outside of spamming abilities next to the heroes you know you are made to overpower. ZZZZZ
@@AllfatherBlack incredibly surface level explanation from an overwatch fan, keep your e-sports away from our video games and do REAL sports. Every class in this game is viable if youre skilled enough, you'd get humbled in any class based shooter that takes more skill than hitting one button.
10:32 shoutout to that Jeff ult that wiped his own entire team
This game has been fun as hell for me. My current go-to game that I play to relax.
How tf do u play this game to relax? There's literally 100 things happening on the screen at once it requires so much attention
@@MrLefthandedmonkeylmao that’s what I’m thinking but hey everyone is different ! I’m the same gal that falls asleep to true crime so..lmao not the most comforting topic to kick the hay with
Same, I been playing every night after work for a cpl hours
@@turkiedurkie4895It's the monotone of those shows lol
that is what I think this game is perfect for. Don't take it serious and knock about in game for a couple hours for some semi mindless fun.
If they put in Ghost Rider, I'll be hooked.
Would go so hard
If they put in Electro, I’ll be shocked.
if they put in Emma Frost, I'll be hard (cause y'know she turns into crystal)
@@stryke-jn3kvoh same, but not because she's crystal hard
@@NinjaRabbit29 if they put in Colossus, that would be pretty metal.
Just in case anyone is struggling with the missions in the game with certain characters, you can complete them against the AI in their mode.
For some of them, for a lot of the ones that reward blue currency vs AI doesn't count. (just for dailies it does)
I think this game will have a very successful future. The amount of potential content in the Marvel Universe is absurd.
Not just the MCU but over 60 years of comics and IP.
@@ZensanFGC For sure. It seems like the devs are going down the comics route. Which is amazing.
Last time I was this early to a video, Concord was still online
Concord has fallen. Hundreds must refund.
Rent free in y’all’s heads fr
why would you compare both games to soccer and then conclude that "that's where marvel rivals steps up to the plate" which is a baseball metaphor?
I know this seems like a never-ending battle, but role queue is just a bad idea for what this game is and OW is prime example #1.
There are 2 main reasons why role queue should stay out of the picture for quite a while (if not forever):
1 - Even if you limit role queue to Comp, it doesn’t matter, because the devs will balance the game around whatever system they implement (1-1-1 or 2-2-2). So this will hurt quickplay and any other modes that are not comp, because the heroes are not balanced for whacky mixups of 5 support, 1 DPS, or 6 tanks. This is why role queue eventually made it to quickplay in OW, because the game was balanced for comp and the quickplay experience suffered for it.
2 - one of the biggest reasons why this game is so good and popular is BECAUSE it has no role queue. It is just pure, unfiltered, unrestricted fun. The decline of OW happened for a lot of people when role was introduced. Yes it creates a more balanced game, but the crazy comps or whacky strategies just disappeared. It also made watching the game so boring with only a handful of combinations of heroes rather than hundreds of possible team comps. Marvel Rivals (at least for now) learned what was fun about Overwatch and did that and mostly steered away from Blizzards bad decisions. It would be idiotic to drag Rivals down into the same pit that OW sits. If you want an ultra-competitive experience, go play overwatch. If you just want dumb fun, Rivals is perfect. STOP trying to make every game into a competitive game. Sometimes, unbalanced messes are the most fun!
Not to mention the extended queue times that come with role queue. Just from a quality of life perspective, it sucks to wait 10, 15, or 20 minutes just get in a match.
Jesus the game has been out for a week, PLEASE stop asking role queue. The game is fun, let it be fun!
How to make your game successful :
1 ) wait for Blizzard to make a game
2 ) wait for Blizzard to fuck up their game
3 ) ???
4 ) profit
Lmaooo shots fired at POE2
@veggiebroth5542 not quite POE2 is not a blizzard game. It's what Diablo 4 wishes it could be
@@Leafsanin9221 what are you talking about?
Blizzard made Diablo.
Blizzard fucked up diablo.
POE2 comes around. Profit.
Pretty straightforward my guy
You have no idea how funny this is because that’s exactly how Blizzard got its start!
World of Warcraft was literally them doing EverQuest better. The Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo are all games that saw an idea and knew how to make it better and more fun.
Read the book “Play Nice” about the rise and fall of Blizzard Activision, it’s amazing
It’s been a long time since we’ve had a large budget shooter game that isn’t focused on being competitive. But what was the last game to have incongruent teams? Plants vs Zombies? They should totally have a hero’s vs villains mode!
I'd argue that the destructible environment is a bigger feature than you make out. Overwatch 2 struggles heavily with snipers and tight angles just dominating lobbies, destructible environments are designed to make these beneficial angles less guaranteed and counterable. Its a very clever solution to a problem OW has had for years.
I'd also like to say the role queue argument is a bit more nuanced too. Having them makes queues longer and this issue has plagued overwatch ever since they added one. Add on top of that the most unique, exciting aspect of team comps in Rivals is the team up mechanic which is more neutered by a rigid 2:2:2 structure.
Amazing take.
S Q U I R R E L
G I R L
Squirt Gi... I mean Squirt... no I meant Squirt on m... ooops I mean SQUIRREL GIRL!!! Yes!
All hips and no ass
They cooked so hard with this. As someone who quit OW when it went to 5 v 5 and full greed I’m absolutely in love with MR
Literally searched this review on u channel up a few hrs ago, and now its here 🙏🏾
I don't get why they didn't have Sue Storm in the game for the bubble shields and leave hulk as a tank/disruptor. But they can always change things!
The thing with fortnite is they've also been doing events for years now, and have built upon each one to improve the next. This game just came out, and has a huge roster to start out. That to me is a bit more important and not to mention season 1 is in less than a month. I'd be surprised if there's no new mode or maps. As long as you don't get the same mode b2b too many times it'll work out fine.
I was very surprised to find just how many characters they had on release. Not to mention that they all have their own unique move sets and abilities. A lot of games might make it seem like they have a big selection of characters but you quickly realise that half of them are just like another half with the visuals really being the only difference.
There's just been a rumor posted (with screenshots) that there will be a seasonal event Gamemode.
4v4 Jeffs only where you paint the map like Splatoon
Trailer is out for it!!!
I think hulks kit would make more sense if he used barbarian shouts instead of gamma energy manipulation
Instead of bubbles he shouts STOP DYING and you just ignore damage
Instead of gamma grip he yells QUIT MOVING and they’re so scared they freeze
Gotta disagree here. Overwatch was fun years ago. Rivals doesn't have to do anything to kill Overwatch--Overwatch/Blizzard has done that itself. What Rivals does do is provide a fun experience that I will easily go back to, unlike Overwatch which I have written off as the unfun, hyped up e-sport lost cause it is.
So glad you mentioned the menu animations because they are rather unique and show that the devs on all sides made the game with tons of passion and love
When my wife saw Jeff she started playing this game. Jeff has been one of my favorite characters over the last few years. He gets little Infinity Comics that are always super adorable. Dude is a meance and I am so glad he is being thrust into the spotlight. Although I've mostly seen people REALLY hate him in this game. Which... yeah I get it he's a bit much right now.
That random photo of Feyenoord really made my day, thank you Austin.
galacta is a baddie
Had to Google that one. But, yeah. Totally is.
Looking forward for Galacta NSFW videos soon
Finally someone else gets it
all i'm saying is galactus and galacta appear to people how they imagine them to look so if you imagined galacta with massive mommy milkers then...
Pre ordered the Peach momoko cover with her and Jeff
Austin you have genuinely become one of my favourite reviewers, mate. I now trust you just as much as I trust Ralph. I was sus on you at first, but you've earned your keep.
07:55 it makes you think about team composition ... unless you're one of the braindead randoms that instant locks the 4th dps on your team
15:31 does anyone know if this is a track from Marvel Rivals? Or just something Skill Up found?
this is the best review I've seen of the game yet. Adequate positive and negative critique.
I appreciate that it went tame in terms of map design and game mode and dedicated so much energy to the style pop and the really fun character kits that stay so true to the characters. The maps and modes have a lot more opportunity to come in the future. The core feels incredibly strong right now to provide a lot of fun
Overwatch really shot itself in the foot with OW2. Marvel Rivals brought back the fun from Overwatch 1 glory days.
I think each hero in this game should have multiple classes instead of just one in future, for example Wolverine can go from duelist to vanguard, Spider-Man from duelist to strategist and etc.
yeah, monetization isn't bad yet, because studios have learned to make i bearable in the review window and way worse later.
Yep, I expecting Netease to get greedy at some point... but maybe they will surprise me. But I'm expecting about a year from now there will be multiple currencies and timed events and so on.
and they just announced a Christmas event with a free Jeff skin, hell yeah
Paladins is the GOAT hero shooter
I did not expect a Reptil shout out. You're a real one, Austin!
I'm glad you mention map design because I haven't seen that mentioned by many reviewers. compared to OW, the maps in Rivals seem much more bland. and i don't mean aesthetically.
play in any OW map long enough and you will start to appreciate the many nuances that make them engaging: a main lane with side routes and flanks, varied lines of sight, corners that teams can regroup behind, high ground that offers a defenders advantage, and plenty of elements that can be used as cover but not so many that the maps are cluttered. you can tell that every angle was considered
in Rivals, the play spaces are far more utilitarian. they do have some character, but feel less like unique spaces designed to craft a map/mode-specific experience and more like giant arenas where cover is an afterthought
and I'm not yet sure whether it's map design or hero mobility, but compared to OW it seems more difficult to take and hold space. space is a huge macro mechanic in OW, but in Rivals it is often less clear what is friendly/enemy/neutral space. and that may be a contributing factor to the chaotic moment-to-moment feel
I agree the only really interesting map is the control point hydra base. The points move around and have extra walls removed or added when the point switches hands. Been crushed by the change before so it's not for show either.
I also don't know if I am a fan of destroyable environments that mend themselves after a time. What is destructable and what isn't is not very clear.
I disagree about OW maps being that more engaging, all OW maps are the same bottlenecks and chokepoints and cramped hallways that get old after the second time playing on a map. Any maps with open areas are also just huge dead mans zones.
Hard disagree, most ow maps have competitive viability first and uniqueness last. The last 3 new maps are the most bland maps they’ve made
I actually like the maps more in Rivals than Overwatch. I always hated Overwatchs maps. There were too many bottlenecks where you felt like you were slamming your head against a wall. I’m not sure why they are being praised now.
With regard to the destructable environments: you can press a button to highlight the breakable areas and it's very useful for Hawkeye, Hella and BW types as you can basically make a sniper nest for them. It's actually pretty useful if you learn the maps.
As a former GM Overwatch player and Diamond 1 League player I can say with high confidence that adding bans to lower ELO brackets is a bad idea. Less skilled players notoriously ban the weirdest choices, not anything that would interfere with their teams desired comp. Using Overwatch as an example they'd just ban say Mei or Torbjorn because they can be annoying instead of reducing the amount of tanks available to the enemy team regardless of how little Mei/Torbjorn actually saw play.
For me, overwatch in 2016 seemed like it would never be back again, friends grew apart, responsibility increased, surly that feeling was gone for good? Enter marvel rivals.. the absolute savior of online shooters in general if you are askin me.. and ive loved all 20 hours ive spread across about half this roster so far. The presentation and moment to moment fun ive been able to share with my girlfriend is something I will be forever grateful for.
"single-handedly beaten some of the biggest villains" excuse me Squirrel Girl had a LOT of help for most of those
That's how you know ANY claims of "market saturation" are actually attempts to defend the failure of someone's mediocrity - as a wise person once said, there's always room at the very top.
I one thing I would change, Wolverine needs to be a tank.
SBMM needs to be OFF/MINIMAL or it's garbage. simple.
@@fwabble what do you want to match make based on?
he definitely needs a way better self heal and some better mobility
@@MGC-XIIIBack in my day we chose which sessions/servers we wanted to join. F*ck that stupid "matchmaking" nonsense. It will never live up to what it's supposed to do anyway.
TBH this game will have very strong staying power simply because of the IP. The ball is in the developers/publishers court to not fuck it up. As Austin says/insinuates, people miss the OG Overwatch "Feel". The dev's need to focus on that and find out exactly what they can add/change to bring more of that into Rivals . It's got hella potential.
Damn Austin. I dont know why i'm so proud hearing you do reviews. You have come so far! Good pace, and voice. Very concise yet well-written Like father like son. :)
like brother like brother
It's actually the most fun I've had with a game this year
As an OW player with like 3.5k hours, I GUARANTEE this honeymoon phase will wear off. “Is it balanced lol xd no!” Will soon be replaced by “ugggggh I hate x hero” “we need a tank” etc etc
People already seem to hate Jeff and Iron Fist, to name a few, so you're not too far off.
people already bitch about that
discredited yourself with the first statement abt 3.5k overwatch hours 😂😂😂😂 maybe leave that out next time
@ Overwatch is goated.
I like that most of these characters are unknown to me but yet apparently well known to die hards who love to spread the knowledge
Monetization in games these days is crazy, 15 bucks for a single skin is crazy, no matter how good it is, on top of being forced to buy more currency than the skin costs
Edit: there seems to be a prevailing sentiment that just because a game is free to play it can have a predatory monetization scheme, I wholly disagree, bad/predatory monetization should be called out regardless of whether the game costs money to play or not, a game has to make money, no duh, but it doesn't have to prey on its consumer base to do that, plenty of games have player friendly monetization and still make money hand over fist. Id go so far as to say, player friendly practices will net you more money over time than trying to scrape every dollar you can out of your consumers.
Welcome to gaming 2015+
If the game is free, you don't have much of a right to complain about MTX, especially if they are cosmetic only...
How are they going to make money? It's a live service game, they needs money to continue developing for the game.
It mirrors real life, wealth disparity is really high. There are people who won't buy skins even for 2$ while there are also whales who wanna gobble up everything. Companies want to appeal to the whales who literally don't give a shit about price. Tho there are also those who buy 1-2 skins for their main and get as much out of it as possible, so yeah.
Agreed. It's the only gripe I really have against it. They do give a few skins free to earn via achiements if you have seen those yet.
I miss when you could unlock things by playing the game. 😢
I don't think it is communicated well in the game at the moment, but as a result, this video is incorrect about how team-up abilities work (7:00)
You have two categories:
- Seasonal Buffs
- Team Up Abilities
Take the Hulk & Iron Man example. Hulk has a Seasonal Buff to have increased Health. That is active regardless of whether Iron Man is on the team. BUT if Iron Man joins Hulk, Iron Man gets a boost as well.
The seasonal buff is meant to encourage the base character (Hulk) as a build around. Then the Team-Up ability is meant to encourage the related character (Iron Man) as a synergy.
The devs have said this seasonal boosts and team ups will shift season-by-season.
We love a Skill Up review 🙌
Getting a bit meta with this compliment but fantastic work with the beach soccer analogy + bringing it back in at the end of the video. Austin is really coming into his own.
"Marvel Rivals is so much better than Overwatch is, but it will never be better than Overwatch was"
The Marvel IP is basically endless so keep huffing that copium buddy
I completely agree on the competitive suggestion ban picks should be allowed from bronze up. It sets the tone and allows for a team to strategise well before reaching diamond.
The rest of my personal criticism comes from map variety. Which is an easy fix.
The challenge will be when Rivals needs to keep innovating. It’s a good game, but they’ve had a huge benefit of being able to take the best bits of many games to add to theirs. I’m an Overwatch player but will give this a go, it just seems like a big brawly mess and it seems many characters have similar movement and range attacks. They don’t seem very unique at first glance.
Every character dont really felt the same when you play them ngl. Even Hawkeye and widow
@@AlphaAceEX Yeah thats one of my favorite parts of the game. The characters feel insanely different lol
The characters are play very unique lol
A good review, but I can't say I fully agree with your criticisms of map sameness. I reached Diamond last night, and I regularly change picks from map to map, and even within submaps in Domination. Some are more open, favoring ranged attacks or vertical mobility. Whereas others are more choke point oriented, leading to picks that can take advantage of that.
Compared to OW, marvel rivals actually makes me feel good. And due to seeing superheroes specifically move is really cool! ... (Oh and no motion sickness from first person views)
It’s very rough around the edges and the balance is nonexistent but the potential is there. We’ll have to wait and see if the devs patch all of the fun out.
The third person helps too. I suffer from motion sickness and the third person makes it so I can play without loosing my lunch. Also it's nice to see my characters as I play
GGs to Squarespace for being a real one.
People that want role queue most likely played Overwatch a long time ago and don't know how frustrating it became especially in OW2. Teammates locked into roles they're struggling with just because of a system that doesn't balance the game at all is a lot worse than teammates not wanting to play tank or support
I'd rather have everyone trying to run 6 DPS badly and having fun than having one person run it down mid.
@@Dystinction1 I think they should just have both? Like a mode with and without (for causal gameplay anyway, comp is a different discussion)
you can't balance again without restrictions like RQ tho, so either have a busted unbalance free for all or you try RQ to help you balance, there is no inbetween.
@drbjr8223 what I meant was role queue won't help balance at all, look at Overwatch, it's a giant mess. All these years and they somehow haven't fixed Widowmaker for example
Its got a lot of old school marvel vs capcom energy to it in its animations and design. Looks great.
Saw "Autism Recommends Marvel Rivals" while scrolling and figured "makes sense"
I appreciate how you guys can find valid criticism among a game that’s mostly being praised . Trying to study how you guys make reviews
Everyone loved Overwatch on launch because people didn't know how to play. You'd have teams of 5 DPS characters all zooming around just throwing hands with no care in the world. Once people actually learned the game the issues started appearing. Suddenly your team needed 2 tanks and 2 healers because if you didn't have them you'd be at a vast disadvantage compared to the team that did. So rolequeue gets created to ensure that teams aren't doomed in character select. But that creates a problem with the playerbase/hero design because 1/3 of the playerbase doesn't want to play tanks and a 1/3 play healers. So match timers become insanely long. Hence Overwatch 2's reducing the game to 5v5 and with one tank. Now you can find a game, but that game is overly reliant on how the one tank player performs.
Marvel Rivals is fun and a looney tunes brawl because no one knows how to play yet. Once the optimization and general playerbase knowledge comes through will it still be as fun? Will it not also run into the same pitfalls overwatch did?
This exactly. Every game like this has a honeymoon phase on launch as most don't fully understand the game and thus metas haven't developed. I'm interested to see what happens when some begin to take the game more seriously and can identify the flaws in their teammates and team composition, to the point where they ask others to swap off.
Yeah they're romanticizing this opening period of the game. Once people learn the game it'll have to evolve the way Overwatch did or die.
Feels way more like Paladins than Overwatch. Honestly I thought it was.... fine, but if you played overwatch for too long its hard to go back to the more slippery and generally less tuned experience of other games. I really hope someone manages to make something that is that half way house between a paladins and a valorant again. That is if the concord of it all wasn't the final death knell of anyone attempting the genre again.
50% of the playerbase are Squirrel Girl Mains, allegedly.
Atleast art wise.
This game absolutely has the sauce when it comes to hero design and some cool new mechanics like destructible environments and team ups, but I have some serious concerns about its longevity. I see 2 paths - one where they reign in the balance and follow a similar path to Overwatch by responding to similar problems, or another where they just cater purely to casuals as competitive (not even esports, just ranked) is dominated by boring sustain metas.
The big problem is that the vast majority of tanks are boring meat sponges, especially the ones that are good right now (Dr. Strange, Magneto, Groot, etc) and healing is WAY too strong. Play ranked against 4 tanks and a Luna/Mantis backline and you will feel it, and because these supports also dish a ton of damage, I could easily see 3 tank 3 support comps with Adam/Jeff as the third option and its gg. Any remotely serious level of play is going to be as boring or even worse than Overwatch was in GOATs/double shield.
When everything is ridiculously overpowered like this, it feels REALLY GOOD while the game remains fresh, I mean, most people are locking 3 DPS comps in quick play anyways. Maybe that's enough, in fact, I think they should probably stick to purely casual play just to be different than Overwatch, but even after binging between 20 to 30 hours I can already tell soon enough these problems will be exposed and the devs will be forced to respond or the competitive match quality will plummet. Probably more of an "enjoy it while it lasts" sort of game.
When Steam spoils you the video, before it becomes available.
TL;DR, it's a fun game, AFTER you get to the point you can perma ban Hela and Hawkeye out of exitence. Until then, hang in there.
highly disagree about role que, it would ruin it
people disliked role queue in OW at first, but by now it's generally acknowledged to be a necessary evil and overall healthy addition to the game
if you design game balance around having a blend of tank, damage, and support archetypes, then you need systems that result in all of those roles being filled in every game. and you need to give players a chance to play their preferred roles. it's not fun to feel forced to be healer or tank because everyone else instalocks DPS first
Role queue was a net positive in Overwatch. I don’t see why it wouldn’t help.
@UncleJemima its seen as a necesary evil, because it is evil. Meta was set into stone and que times quadrupled
@@ThisIsFinalRound role queue and meta are two totally different things. one is a format (a ratio among roles to standardize a baseline composition), and the other is what heroes are most effective to play accounting for the role limitations. there have been many different metas within role queue
The fact that the game didn’t launch with a playable Doom is shocking. And I REALLY wanna see a playable Fantastic Four someday. You know the Team Ups would go Buckwild.
i have 7k hours on ow since launch in 2016, it will always be my favorite pvp game ever as a memory, but what they did over last year is absolutely disguting, everything they do now is just ruining the game, iam enjoying MR so much
There's definitely a Colossus in the works, because Wolverine's Fastball Special move-set text had (still has?) an error saying "...with Hulk or ", and Colossus is the traditional FBS guy. Also, obvious choice to have some sibling synergy with Magik. Maybe they'll do an X-Men character drop in a few months?
OW2 clears marvel rivals tbh - so much more polished and balanced as well as being fun as fuck
this game feels like a cheap imitation
12:21 Austin: you accidentally blow up the arena. Who cares because no one was gonna use that bridge anyway.
Punisher’s Turret: Am I a joke to you?
" i have nice things to say about the monetization"
Oh Nice
"The character skins range from 15 to 20 dollars"
Not nice, skins should be a dollar or two max.
Normalized 20 dollar skins are a symptom of vain people constantly buying slop as the price rises without any protest.
12:33 on console, you can push d-pad right, and it’ll show what surfaces are breakable.
I think it was X or F on PC
it's hold B
I really hate when people say "Marvel Rivals copied Overwatch" because it's a hero shooter game, all hero shooters have similar traits if you say "Marvel Rivals copied Overwatch" you can also say "Overwatch copied TF2" it's so pointless.
Tbf people are speaking much more specifically than just 'it's a hero shooter so it copied overwatch'. I mean, some of the character kits are ripped straight out of characters from overwatch, or as Austin said 'remixed'.
But it's also okay! Copying works sometimes! Scarlet witch is just dps Moira but better. Punisher is soldier 76 but slightly different.
@@Zurrke Dude. How is Punisher Soldier 76? Because he has a gun? Or am I missing some part of his kit that is straight from Soldier? I'm genuinely curious if that's all it takes to be like "this is the same character but slightly different!"
I mean, Marvel Rivals literally feels like reskinned Overwatch, and at no point did Overwatch feel like reskinned TF2
@@YuhlemanIncorporated I shouldn't have to do an in depth comparison of all abilities for you to see that punisher is soldier 76 except marvel.
And again, I'm fine with them copying, all I'm pointing out is that no one is saying MR is copying OW strictly because of the genre - it's everything else.
@@Zurrke The only hero I can think of off the top of my head that actually feels closest to being a copy is Venom. 3 parts of his kit are straight from wrecking ball. The Punisher and Soldier though?! The only similarity is the left click.
Soldier right click: high damage rockets
Punisher right click: Mid damage smoke bomb
Soldier shift: sprint
Punisher shift: Reusable zipline
Soldier E: Healing field
Punisher E: A mounted turret
Soldier secondary weapon: ???
Punisher secondary weapon: shotgun
Soldier Q: Aimbot
Punisher Q: Dual gatling guns and missile launchers
Here's my hot take on the role queue thing; Instead of role queue or lock, i think they should add passive buff/debuff incentives. For example:
2,2,2 would be the base and for every extra or less dps or support or tank, there'd be a buff/debuff. So there's 1 less tank, 3 dps? Tank gets an extra 150 hp and all dps take 5% less damage but do 10% less damage as well. 3 supp, 3 tank? Tanks lose 150 hp and supports do 15% less healing. Something like that.
I can see how much work you put in!
Where's this work he put in? Seemed quite lazy to me and coming from someone that hasn't played a lot of recent, current OW2 to understand just how dire a state that game is in. The comment that OW2 'has better game feel, map design and versatility' - I will have to completely disagree with Austin on these points.
@@Greg-ep9zd it's a bot bro
@@Greg-ep9zdbro discusses with a bot😂💀
I think it’s ultimately a flavor of the week type of game. I don’t see myself playing it more than a few months simply because the champion design is all over the place. Everyone gets an AOE, almost-unavoidable ult, too much going on to really strategize, and I find kill times to be too fast. It’s a lot of fun for the time being.
if this year's made one thing clear, it's that we need more games from Korea and China 🥳 God the art design and atmosphere in this game is so much better than 90% of what I've been seeing from the industry for years.
All of these are Western character designs, except one of Psylocke's, and aside from some optional skins. The hero menu says which comic each skin makes its first appearance in.
no, we dont. and the only reason you feel like that is because you consume only hyperpopular garbage and see only 1% of the industry.
We’ve finally done it. We found the one Reptil fan
I think the first 3 minutes of the video are really naive. Marvel Rivals is not going to stay in this beach soccer mode for long unless they want to lose a lot of their playerbase. Everyone is in the honeymoon phase right now but as soon as everyone realizes Hela and Hawkeye are insanely broken and just play them every match, everyone will get absolutely sick of it. That's what happened to Overwatch. The devs were extremely stubborn about addressing pain points for the first 4 years of the game's life leading to a lot of distrust and toxicity from the playerbase.
Also taking a jab at role queue was kinda crazy because that was literally the best change they ever made for the game.
As someone with over 2k hours across OW1 and OW2, I gotta say that imo overwatch and marvel rivals are different enough that they can't be directly compared. The design philosophy is just really different that if you really look at the macro, it's not even close