I’ve always loved comic books and pretty much every comic book film (except for the Hulk (2003), Daredevil and Elektra). So, as you can probably imagine, I have the same veracious appetite for comic book heroes in mobile apps as well. There are loads to choose from out there, but one in particular has recently caught my eye. Marvel Future Fight, developed by Netmarble Games promises to give me a full dose of all the gamma radiated, spider-bitten, Adamantium skeleton driven gameplay that I could hope for. Its release date was all the way back in April 2015, which makes this pretty old for a mobile app, but does it give me everything it promises?
Storyline
In Marvel Future Fight evil versions of Marvel heroes and slightly more evil versions of Marvel villains have been brought to this dimension from an evil parallel dimension (well, sort of). This convergence as it is so-called is all part of a big plan that will ultimately end with the world’s destruction, so it’s up to the Marvel heroes (and the less evil villains) of this world to stop it.
Ok, it’s a little odd that you can choose villains to fight against evil, but from a story side it’s always Captain America, Black Widow and Iron Man that are the subjects of the story, so it’s easier to skip over the villain part.
In super-short, it’s your basic good defeats the bad guys story but like most mobile games, the story is purely there to link the gameplay features together, and it does do this.
Gameplay
The first thing you’ll need to do is pick your team. When you first start you don’t have that many choices, but you’ll always start off with Black Widow, Iron Man and Captain America. You are also given a free 6 star character of your choosing. I chose Rocket Raccoon from Guardians of the Galaxy, who really does kick ass.
Who you choose to put in a team together, can unlock extra powers, stat increases or even special skills. For example, put Rocket Raccoon and Groot together in a team and when they’re at a high enough level you get a skill where Groot heals RR while Rocket Raccoon sprays the place with bullets.
Once you have your team, you can start kicking some ass. Although the set-up may vary depending on the game mode you’re playing, the gameplay tends to play out in a similar way. You’ll always control the team leader, the other two players of the team will pop in and out of gameplay as they perform their special attacks, but only the team leader will be controllable by you. Simply use your attacks and special skills to attack screen after screen of minions before defeating a big bad at the end of the map.
Occasionally you or the level bad will be helped out by an additional hero. This is great news if you get assistance as there is another (computer-controlled) player on the screen with you. This is less good if the enemy is assisted as you have another boss to contend with at the end of the level. Though, admittedly, you only have to kill the main bad to complete the level.
Now, let’s talk about leveling your characters. When you play through the levels, you’ll gain experience. This experience will ultimately lead to your character leveling up as well. The more you level up, the tougher and more powerful that hero is. Simple, though character leveling is not the only way to power-up your team in Future Fight.
Every ten levels you can use gold to increase the strength of the hero (or villains) skills and to increase the strength of their equipment.
There is also mastery. Collect enough tokens and each hero can gain a mastery star. Mastery stars make your character more powerful, but also unlock special skills hidden behind that mastery level.
There’s so many ways to level your team up, and so many characters to collect you’ll struggle to get them all leveled up, but you’ll definitely find a team that suits your playstyle.
One last quick thing, on the different modes there are within Future Fight. There are four different modes within the game…
Mission – These are your single player missions. Choose your team, and go up against computer controlled opponents to progress the story, or simply to gather resources to level up your heroes.
Arena – PvP battles against friends or teammates. It’s your time against theirs for gold or loot.
Challenge – For higher level heroes. Without a tough powerful hero you’ll stand no chance in defeating these high-powered opponents. Though the risk is high, so is the reward.
Co-op – Team up with other heroes, and take out powerful foes collaboratively.
There are around 15 different modes all in all, so you’re bound to find a mode that you adore.
Graphics
Marvel Future Fight is a very good-looking game. Each Marvel hero, minion and villain is represented faithfully. The animations are smooth, even on my fairly old Apple 6+ and when you press auto-play and see the game in a more cinematic mode, the action looks so good you start to wonder if you’ll ever manually control your hero again.
Control
When you’re not in the action portion of the game, you simply tap on the button top select. There’s really nothing more to mention there. During the action part, you have all your attacks on the lower right hand side of the screen and your movement D-pad on the left side. Though, simply holding down the default attack will automatically move you towards your nearest enemy to attack them. On the earlier levels you can get through the mission simply by holding down attack and then smashing the big bad with all your special skills at the end.
Difficulty
The difficulty is one of the better things about Future Fight, as you can tailor the difficulty by what you’re trying to do and with what level / power of character you are trying to do it with. This ultimately means that the difficulty can be as easy or as difficult as you want. Want to languish in the lower levels with an OP hero, you’ll kick ass but you won’t level up very quickly. Want to level up faster, then try a lower level character on higher levels.
I’m all for choice and a game that allows you to play with such a varied level of difficulty is a rarity. It’s nice to not have to manage with any pre-set difficulty levels.
Replayability
It’s difficult for a game to get more replayability, and the fact that this game has been around for over two years is testament to this. With so many different heroes and villains to unlock and level, plus their different costumes this alone would be enough for most people, but if you also add all the different modes, settings and PvP options, I can see many players keeping on coming back to Marvel Future Fight, even if they have to give it a break every now and then.
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Jim Franklin
Jim Franklin is a freelance writer, living in Derby UK with his wife and his player 3. When time allows he likes nothing more than losing himself in a multi-hour gaming session. He likes most games and will play anything but prefers MMO's, and sandbox RPG's.
