Multiversus Proven: our impressions after the Closed Alpha
Multiversus is the classic title that would intrigue everyone after a single trailer. The perfect sequences in computer graphics show characters from the most disparate universes fighting without holds barred for the most absurd motives. Although the worlds are distant from each other, a great name holds the web together, and this is Warner Bros. which contains many more brands than you might expect.
We are not speaking only of DC Comics in fact, but of Cartoon Network, therefore Adult Swim, HBO, Looney Tunes and much more. The curiosity therefore after such a premise is high, as is the aim of the players of Player First Games, aimed at creating a coherent platform fighting game. This genre, rib of fighting games, may not tell you anything, but as soon as we say the name of that title everything will be clearer, but time to time. Now let’s get to the heart of our experience with Multiversus trying to highlight all the facets of this crazy brawl.
We assume that the title is presented in an excellent way to be free to play. Clean and pastel graphics staged thanks to an Unreal Engine help keep the tone light-hearted and playful and manages to give depth to characters who have always lived in two dimensions. Let’s talk about Finn And Jake from Adventure Time, Steven And Garnet from Steven Universeand even the Aria Stark from Maisie Williams that we did not expect so well transposed into a video game.
We are therefore talking about a big-time brawl that is kept at a constant FPS level without giving up an excellent and very personal yield. Even the menus are tidy and understandable allowing you to jump into the fray as soon as possible after having performed the welcome tutorials. However, the selection of characters is not very well-stocked and although we were playing the beta there are very few for the genre of game we are talking about and above all in relation to the tons of brands that Warner Bros. could draw on.
Inspired but very personal gameplay
Once the tutorial has started, we can immediately find a familiar gameplay but with some really unexpected facets. The genre of platform fighting games owes its success to a particular title that we know very well, that is Brawhalla. The Ubisoft experience has in fact changed the cards for the genre and… you didn’t believe it for a moment, did you? Okay, we’re obviously talking about Super Smash Bros., the title that Multiversus is most inspired by and with which it shares most of the mechanics.
Staring to list them all would be a waste of time so we will hurry up quickly: the clashes are screw-down, you lose a life when we leave the screen and the characters’ life bar is replaced by a dammeter that indicates our “ease” in ‘being kicked out. So far nothing new, but we find in Multiversus many other details that make it much more personal than other competitors.
First of all, the aerial game comes to mind, much simpler and more intuitive than Smash as our character will be able to load the moves even in the air, thus remaining suspended for a short period of time. Still talking about this field we find a much faster control with the elimination of the fast-falling (essential and complex mechanics on Smash that allows us to return to the ground quickly) in favor of an instant speed increase with the inclination of the analog.
Doing so will make it much easier to jump and get back to the ground immediately, allowing us to perform combos in total naturalness, perhaps too much. Yes, because lowering the skill cap allows certain characters, especially those who play well in the air, to be totally broken and unmanageable, starting from our favorite face thief. Keeping the dead weight opponent in the air and dribbling with it becomes really simple, just as it is just as easy to recover from a fall.
The scenarios very much reflect the morphology of the classics of Super Smash Bros.speaking of the positioning of the platforms, but with an additional detail: the edges of Yoshi’s Island (the image above) everywhere and an incredibly strong walljump. To be clear, in the edges there will be no indentations but a large wall on which to slide and jump, as we would in a Megaman Xto then return to the field, thus making the board games really boring.
An unexpected skill level
In return, however, we get an additional move with the special up that is no longer intended for recovery but for sending people up in the air and then slaughtering them in the best possible way. While we have introduced them let’s talk about the moves, another point in favor of Multiversus. These will be divided into attacks, charged and special attacks, and all will have their own aerial version, even the special ones. It therefore goes without saying that we will have four more moves than in Smash and that they are particular and very complex.
In fact, we will hardly have to deal with simple additional directional shots or something that only throws away, but rather we will be able to apply debuffs, heal our companions and save them from dangerous situations, not to mention the creation of platforms and so on and so forth. The system therefore, if in a 1v1 it remains understandable and focused only on the longest and most annoying combo, in a 2v2, the top mode of the title, it is complex and profound where to manage the whole situation we need very advanced skills. Even reading the list of moves we realize that each of these has many secondary effects that if given to a competitive player can only make us speechless.
The last detail we wanted to talk about is the progression system, the real sore point of the offer. We understand that we are talking about a free game and therefore the battle pass is almost a must, but the additional statistics to be unlocked could easily have been avoided. These will be free, mind you: with real money you can’t get any advantage in combatthis is good to specify, but at least in 1v1 we would have done without extra stats, especially to be unlocked over time.
The skill is very important, we have no doubt about this, only that in the most competitive mode there is we expected to be able to learn our character in its entirety right away, not after having made an avalanche of games to level it. Having said that we believe this will be resolved, as the head-to-head interface is really well doneallowing rematches that automatically become a best of 3 in which you can even change characters, and the list of “advantages” (that’s what they are called, you see) out of place.
Summing up, we were pleasantly surprised by this Multiversus. The title promises really well and with great support from the community, and especially from Warner Bros., it could shine in a very good light in the future. Getting inspired by an excellent work like Smash is a very right thing e when this is done by trying to customize the formula so much we can only be happy. Almost certainly in the future there will be no talk of a “Multiversus game”, but the cards on the table to make a must have of the free to play market are all there. For more previews, news and original content, keep following us here on MonkeyBit and on our social networks.