Marvel Future Revolution was released on August 25 to Marvel fans across the globe. Considered Marvel's first open-world RPG for mobile, the ambition and scale of the game is suitably grand. It's difficult to judge the quality of this type of game as patches and updates continue to roll out hot and heavy for the first few months after release.
Now that the dust has settled, it's possible for players to take a good look at the game as it's meant to be and see whether it's for them. While Marvel Future Revolution is excellent, it's not perfect, and there are still improvements that could be made.
7 OVERWHELMING USER INTERFACE
The first thing most players do after they finish the tutorial is hit the menu button to see their options. For experienced RPG players, they might expect something like this, but for Marvel fans who are new to the genre, this type of menu with its icons leading to further submenus could be incredibly overwhelming.
Many features are locked until certain requirements are met, so their presence is a further unnecessary distraction. Combine that with the fact that the game provides the player with an ample amount of consumables that can't be used until quite a few hours of grinding later and new players have quite a daunting task in front of them.
6 VOICED LINES
Many rpgs— excluding some survival games— require extensive interaction with NPCs to progress the game. Most of those games make it clear up front whether the dialogue will be visual (words the player can read onscreen) or audible. It's becoming more and more common for well-made, high profile games like Marvel Future Revolution to have both, and they do— sort of. After a fully voiced opening sequence and tutorial mission, the game opens up and allows the player to talk to people. As they do, they'll notice something strange: characters will say their opening sentence out loud, then continue their talking animation silently as the text continues to appear onscreen.
At first this seemed like a glitch, but upon playing more of the game it became clear that only the first line of every interaction is voiced. It's surprisingly frustrating and disorienting, especially after the quality of the opening. It's possible to go into the settings and turn the audio for voices all the way down, but a problem that the player can fix is still a problem.
5 AUTOPLAY
The problem with auto-play is an unusual one. It's too damn good! Autoplay pulls off amazing combos because it knows the exact cooldown times for every power. Many players starting out will be frantically pressing powers and hoping that someone dies and it's not them. Accidentally click a power that's still on cooldown and the player's hero will yell something melodramatic like "My powers have failed me!"
Autoplay even heals your hero when they reach a set amount of damage, something that is hard to keep track of in the middle of a giant fight. Heroes on autoplay can even collect items and turn in missions. As painful as it is to say, auto-play needs to be nerfed. As it is it's completely possible to grind by simply running into a group of enemies, pressing autoplay, and letting the game sit for a few hours.
4 FILLER MISSIONS
Filler missions are a necessary evil in games this large. Not every quest can be a main quest. The important thing is to keep them interesting. Sometimes Marvel Future Revolution nails it, but that only makes the regular fetch quests more mundane by comparison.
For example, the mission where the hero has to go turn on the anti aircraft guns to protect the Vision core from an Ultron assault feels much more fun than the quest where the hero has to walk approximately two steps to the left to pick up a first aid kit and then return. Both quests require the exact same button presses, but one feels much more important than the other. Fetch quests and escorts missions are fine, just put a little heart into it.
3 LEVEL LOCKS
Nothing's wrong with introducing players to different features of the game in a slow and controlled fashion. However, when a new player looks at their options and sees that a good 80% of the game isn't open to them yet and they have to commit a lot of time to playing before they get a chance to experience those features, it can dampen their enthusiasm.
It's hard to sink time into a game that has so many unknowns, and with level requirements as high as they are, the amount of playtime it would take to really get a feel for the game could easily exceed 24 hours. It would be a bummer if a player spent an entire day of their life grinding just to decide that the game, even with all its features, isn't for them after all.
2 MOVEMENT CONTROLS
The movement controls for this game are not horrible by any stretch. For getting from place to place, they're fine. It rarely affects battles and the maps are fairly spacious. Flight is fun, but it's hard to change altitude, meaning the hero occasionally hovers too high to interact with items and NPCs. Conversely, the hero sometimes flies straight into the ground and starts running awkwardly like that's what they meant to do from the start. Flying heroes also turn like boats, sometimes running into buildings instead of going around them or shooting too wide and accidentally going down the wrong street entirely.
Most of these issues are standard fare for open-world games and would be beneath notice if not for the blessing and curse that is auto play. Watching a character fly at the perfect height, easily move to avoid obstacles, dart around corners, and do a cool superhero landing directly in front of the NPC they need to talk to is a thing of absolute beauty. It's almost a crime to fly manually. Now that they've shown that kind of flight is possible in Marvel Future Revolution, the next step is to put that level of control in the hands of the player.
1 PAY TO WIN
The most prevalent problem around mobile games is its microtransactions. Nothing's wrong with dropping a little cash every now and then to get a cool costume or unlock another character. Players who pay to win are dropping insane amounts of money every day.
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Player reviews indicate that it is impossible to play the game competitively without paying an exorbitant amount. Many reviewers confessed to spending money on the app regularly, some up to $100 a week, and said they still didn't come close to the top players. There are ways to make microtransactions without destroying the game's difficulty curve, like exclusive skins and other aesthetic options. As it is, many players leave in frustration after attempting PvP.