Just finished the DS game. Thoughts:
+ Spidey is really fun to control. Swinging, zipping, and combat all feel tight and natural. Not a big fan of gliding, though.
+ Combat is essentially 2D Devil May Cry with Spider-Man. I said in my earlier impressions that it can get a bit repetitive because it's easy to find a handful of moves that work on certain enemies and keep using them, and while that's true, it doesn't work out nearly as well when you're facing multiple enemies. Enemies will hit or shoot you out of a combo if you let them. It can be tough.
+ I love how they made new techniques pickups that you find instead of something you buy in a menu. You don't have to grind for experience, and they're some of the more exciting pickups to find because you have a new toy to experiment with next time you get into a fight.
+ A decent amount of content. The challenge maps are fun, but really hard. There are a bunch of challenges to unlock stuff. These include typical runs of this kind of Metroidvania game, like a low percent run and a couple "beat the game in a certain amount of time" runs. Finishing this game 100% would require some dedication. Doubt I'll ever do it.
+ The game looks very nice. Obviously you have to take into account the fact that it's on the DS, but they worked with the limitations and it overall looks good. I especially love the way Spider-Man animates.
+ Boss fights are fun and challenging, as you might expect. I died to most of them at least once before I figured out their patterns, and even then I still just squeezed through.
+ The first Spidey game in years that doesn't feature symbiotes in any way. No black suit, no Venom, no Carnage. Look, I like Venom as much as the next guy, but does he really need to be in every game?
- Despite having a decent amount of content, the core game is really short, and the map is pretty small. There aren't really different "areas" like you'd expect in this type of game, just the three different dimensions, one for each Spider-Man (there's no Ultimate in this version), and all three are quite small. Or maybe it just seems so small because you can cover ground so fast compared to other games. Either way, I wish there was a bit more to explore.
- Really only two types of enemies: little guys and big guys. They have several different skins of varying strengths, and little guys can pick up weapons, but their attack patterns remain the same. There are also little drones who take one hit to kill, but they hardly count.
- While I like that you no longer have to grind for experience so a combo multiplier would be pointless, the lack of a combo counter at all is a tad disappointing. I like trying to get that number as high as I can, even if it doesn't actually apply to anything.
- Touch screen mini-game while traveling between dimensions. Every single time. Come on now, it's 2010. I thought we were over this. Your game doesn't need to have touch screen mini-games just because it's on the DS.
- Boss lineup is different from the console version. Not inherently a bad thing, but a lot of them feel like second- or third-stingers at best. The console version gets most of Spidey's big bads plus Deadpool, while the DS version get, what, Calypso? Boomerang? Tinkerer?
- With one exception, all exploration-related power-ups are either A) something that one or both of the other Spider-Men started the game with, or B) are basically keys that have literally no function except breaking some sort of barrier to let you advance. Though in the game's defense, I guess it's hard to come up with good new traversal abilities for a character who can stick to walls and swing pretty much anywhere from the start.
Overall, a really fun game. Hopefully this team stays on for the next DS Spider-Man game. If not, hopefully they keep up the good work elsewhere.
, will get it eventually.
