The best Marvel RPGs

The quality of Marvel games have been developed over the past decade thanks to experiences such as Marvel's Spider-Man and Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy. Gone are the days of cheap licensed games on the NES and SNES, where Marvel games came out on a constant rotation, from Spider-Man to X-Men titles.

Prototype, Megaton Rainfall, Marvel Lego Superheroes 2

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Overall, there aren't many RPG games based on Marvel properties. While none of the following reach the heights of triple-A RPGs that Baldur's Gate 3 or Persona 5they are good in their own right. With the recent uptick in quality, maybe one day there will be a Marvel game as sharp as the other iconic RPGs. Currently, these games will be ranked based on their quality and how deep their RPG mechanics go.

5

Marvel Heroes

Marvel takes on Diablo


Marvel Heroes Tag Page Cover Art

Marvel Heroes


Released

June 4, 2013

ESRB

t

Developer

Gazillion Entertainment, Secret Identity Studios


Marvel Heroes is a fascinating and complex game to talk about, as it was an ever-evolving free-to-play game. It can easily be compared to Diablobut with Marvel characters and enemies instead of angels and demons. Gazillion Entertainment developed and released it for PC platforms in 2013, constantly updating it with new characters and story missions as the years went by. It was renamed three times as Marvel Heroes 2015, Marvel Heroes 2016and then Marvel Heroes Omega to coincide with the latest build, which was finally released on consoles for the first time. Unfortunately, it didn't last long. PS4 and Xbox One fans got Marvel Heroes Omega on June 30, 2017, and then shut down servers, along with the shutdown of Gazillion Entertainment, on November 27, 2017. Thankfully, fan servers still exist, but it's never been the same.

The last few days the game itself was amazing. New players can choose from a variety of free and paid heroes, including Spider-Man, Nova, Captain America, Blade, Ant-Man, Black Widow and more. Each character had a distinct skill path that suited their style, such as using Captain America's shield to ricochet off enemies or Spider-Man's webbing to hold enemies in place. With friends online, players could group up and create their own Avengers teams of heroes. Compared to other top-down action RPGs like X-Men Legends 2: Rise of Apocalypsethe environments in Marvel Heroes was much larger, giving players more room to breathe, especially in multiplayer. The only reason it's ranked at the bottom is because it's not officially playable anymore without fanservers.

4

Marvel's Avengers

Kamala's big debut

In terms of production value, Marvel's Avengers is the best looking Marvel RPG ever made. It just stumbled a bit with its live service model and wasn't quite an RPG. It can be more like an action-adventure game, and it has RPG elements like costumes, equipment, skills and levels. The game follows an Avengers celebration day as superfan Kamala Khan attends and witnesses a disaster where Captain America dies. With superheroes now on the run due to a new edict, the world is in chaos. That's when Kamala stumbles into Bruce Banner, and the two essentially go on a road trip to help reassemble the Avengers. It might also be a spoiler, but it's obvious since Captain America is playable in the game: he didn't die. The first list of heroes included Kamala as Ms. Marvel, The Hulk, Captain America, Black Widow, Thor and Iron Man.

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In the campaign, players will be locked into certain characters during missions, mostly Kamala. It's about as exciting and well-told as other action-adventure games from his era, such as Uncharted and Marvel's Spider-Man. The story and voice acting are definitely the biggest strength with Marvel's Avengerswith talents such as Nolan North, Troy Baker and Laura Bailey. The characters also controlled well in combat. Iron Man's flying ability is amazing, Black Widow's spy tech offered some great stealth gameplay, and smashing enemies like the Hulk was just plain fun. More characters were added after, along with new stories, including Kate Bishop, Hawkeye, Black Panther, Jane Foster, Spider-Man, and the Winter Soldier. The only thing that made the game stumble was the mission structure. It can get repetitive, as there wasn't much content at launch and post-launch content was released too far apart. It was the narrow scope that helped the game focus on its story, which was both good and bad.

3

Marvel's Midnight Suns

Card-based tactics

Marvel's Midnight Suns is arguably the most RPG-like Marvel game of the entire list. Players get to create their character, The Hunter, who is fully voiced as a male or female hero, and is tasked with creating a secret society of Marvel heroes to stop the evil sorceress Lilith, who is corrupting other heroes and villains. Players assemble their team of heroes from both obscure and well-known Marvel characters, including Doctor Strange, Blade, Magik, Ghost Rider, and so on. Similar to other Firaxis games, Marvel's Midnight Suns is a strategy game. In this case, character actions are dictated by cards that can account for their movements and actions during their turn.

Maps are usually smaller than those of other strategy games, making them a bit of a breeze to complete. Between missions, players can hang out at The Abbey, their hideout, to converse with other characters and find out more about them. Story choices also play a role in the game, so when it comes to customization options, Marvel's Midnight Suns wins. The game's charm definitely comes from learning about character quirks, like Blade's love of movies, and while the camaraderie between The Hunter and the other Marvel heroes doesn't quite hit the mark compared to similar strategy games like Fire emblem: Three housesthe overall package is interesting and entertaining.

2

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance

The Avengers Assemble!

Unlike Raven Software's previous two Marvel action RPGs, X-Men Legends and X-Men Legends 2: Rise of Apocalypse, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance cast a wide net to get more players. In 2006, Marvel fans could purchase versions of this game on GBA, PC, PS2, PS3, PSP, Wii, Xbox and Xbox 360, and there was a remaster in 2016 for PS4 and Xbox One. The main console versions started with a team of four consisting of Captain America, Thor, Spider-Man and Wolverine, who were on the hunt for Doctor Doom in his castle. Like any good Marvel story, the game evolved from there, allowing players to explore famous locations like Atlantis, Asgard, Stark Tower, and the Sanctum Sanctorum. Deadpool, Human Torch, Ghost Rider, Daredevil, Nicky Fury and many others were added to the roster throughout the campaign as well.

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On missions, players could always choose which four characters they wanted to bring with them, except in co-op, as everyone could choose their own hero. At that time, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance was a new way to combine some of the best heroes and villains in an epic RPG that made sense in the Marvel universe. With the advent of MCU movies, this game probably wouldn't have been as exciting if it was released today, since crossovers happen all the time. The cutscenes also lack the production value of anything like that Final Fantasy 7 Rebirthbut Marvel fans will get a lot out of this game's story regardless. In addition, the remastered versions help to make Marvel: Ultimate Alliance more accessible compared to some other games, or at least accessible to those who bought it between 2016 and July 2018, since that's when it and its sequels were removed.

1

X-Men Legends 2: Rise Of Apocalypse

Top-Down Mutants

There are two really good ones X-Men games from the PS2 era: X-Men Legends and X-Men Legends 2: Rise of Apocalypse. X-Men Legends Set the tone with a dungeon crawler that lets players take four X-Men heroes on missions. They would each level up as they went. The plot was a typical battle between good and evil, with Magneto once again trying to take over before the X-Men rolled into town to take care of business. It was a good top-down action RPG, though X-Men Legends 2: Rise of Apocalypse is better on several fronts. The game adapts the Apocalypse storyline from the comics, bringing together Magneto's team and the X-Men in a joint effort to stop him from destroying everything.

The first game only offered four-player local co-op on all platforms, but X-Men Legends 2: Rise of Apocalypse added online support. It's still a better co-op game, but the ability to play online is there. The diverse range of characters is better than that of the first game, as there are villains to play, such as Magneto, Juggernaut and many others. Once players have found their four favorite X-Men, they can continue playing as them to maximize their levels or switch it up from mission to mission. Overall, it's a very thick story that won't move gamers, but the brawling action and diverse cast of X-Men characters are more than enough to place X-Men Legends 2: Rise of Apocalypse top of the list.

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