CLOSE COMBAT
MULTIVERSUS is an unexpectedly great matchup – even if it does whiff a few attacks
I’m Adventure Time’s Jake the Dog, standing on the edge of a Rick and Morty-themed arena. I’m about to beat Shaggy from ScoobyDoo into a bloody pulp while my teammate Arya Stark is casually stealing Batman’s face. A few years ago this would have given me severe whiplash, but in a world where tennis star Naomi Osaka is throwing hands at Naruto in Fortnite, nothing surprises me any more. Well, except for one thing: MultiVersus is actually pretty damn good.
Believe me, I never expected it either. The initial reveal left me disinterested – it looked like another weaksauce attempt to be Smash Bros, and I’m not much of a platform fighter gal anyway. I much prefer my fighting games in a tight, enclosed 3D arena a la Tekken and
Soulcalibur. I came into
MultiVersus not expecting much, but found that Player First Games has begun to lay the groundwork for something remarkable.
Don’t get me wrong, MultiVersus’ biggest inspiration is still clear. Anyone who has spent a modicum of time with Nintendo’s brawler will quickly get the gist: smack your opponent with a mixture of normal, air, and special attacks in order to increase their damage meter; avoid letting them do the same to you. Victory has nothing to do with
getting a health bar from 100 to 0, it’s all done through the damage meter. While the number is low, you’re weighty and difficult to knock off the top and sides of the arena. As it gets higher though, your character turns into a rubber bouncy ball, and becomes susceptible to all kinds of spikes and knockback attacks that can fling you straight into the death zone. Knock your opponent out of the arena enough times and you’ll claim victory.
MULTI PLAYER
It’s your standard platform fighter formula at this point, but MultiVersus manages a few key differences that really set it apart. The first one is how the game handles its roster. Every character belongs to a class: tank, support, mage, bruiser, and assassin. Tanks like Wonder Woman and Iron
Giant can take more hits and are harder to ring out but are slower. Assassins like Finn the Human and Arya Stark are nimble fighters, dealing big damage quickly.
What’s nice is there doesn’t feel like any pressure to match up particular classes – you can easily run a team of two supports and successfully outmatch bruisers and tanks if you have the skill. They’re a great initial indicator of how you can expect to play each character, but it doesn’t feel like any one class is at an inherent disadvantage compared to the others.
There are also the game modes themselves. While other platformers feel more at home in a free-for-all or 1v1 setting, MultiVersus thrives off a 2v2 format. The other two modes are present in the game, but this game was absolutely made for 2v2 and it’s where I spent most of my time. Every character has abilities that can support teammates as well as harm foes. Jake the Dog can swallow opponents and spit them out, but he can also quickly chomp an ally and save them from a nasty combo. Wonder Woman’s lasso can grab onto opponents but also serve as a quick rescue for teammates.
Every character has abilities that can support teammates
KILLER INSTINCT
It took me a while to get used to the synergy of playing with another person, and to the way MultiVersus feels in general. It’s an awful lot floatier than other fighting games I’ve played – it’s lacking a bit of weight, and characters can hover around for what feels like a lifetime. It starts to feel pretty good once you’re in the flow of things though. While I would still like a little more snap, the floatiness feels largely necessary for decent recovery and actually making use of those teammate abilities.
I had access to the entire roster straight away, but those coming into it free-to-play will have to work to unlock each one. Thankfully each one is readily available to try out in