...On the one hand, I also suck balls at traditional fighting game controls and cannot reliably produce inputs. On the other hand, I'd consider Doomsday a much better example of a close-ranged fighter than Superman, who can just cheat with his laser-vision-across-the-bottom-of-the-screen thing. I *did* play the Vita version, but I prefer to use the D-pad over joysticks as much as possible because I will never not be traumatized by having destroyed the forward input on multiple N64 controllers as a young man. Also, as a fellow Smash Bros. immigrant, I appreciated being able to cheat and cheese off chunks of health with stage interactions.
Still! I generally hate it when people use my lack of dexterity as an excuse to slag off legitimate criticisms of games, and if you had a miserable time, you had a miserable time. I can understand that.
...What I can't understand at all is the assertion that S.T.A.R. Labs isn't optional because trophies? Like... Intellectually, I can clearly and plainly see that it matters so much to you you capitalized it, and made the realization of its importance the emotional crux of your review, but I could not give less of a shit and can't understand why you care at all. Like, they're just meaningless garbage and who cares? They are the very definition of both "optional" and "bragging rights" in and of themselves, offering no real benefits or game experience changes; I find the emotional weight and importance you place on them here deeply mystifying.
Again. I appreciate that it's clearly not optional for you, even if I can't understand. But it still feels like a weird-ass line in the sand to draw.
My personal thing is aiming for 100% in my collection in regards to trophies, just for the sake of saying \"I\'ve experienced these games to their fullest\" and to get all I can out of them. Up until Injustice, I\'ve come across trophies that were hard to get, most assuredly, but none that felt impossible...until S.T.A.R. Labs. I totally understand if you don\'t give a shit on that front (I was expecting someone to question the importance of that), but in the context of what I wanted and expected out of this game, it\'s most definitely a con/sticking point (and also, IMO, poor game design - even if it were PURELY optional with no trophy attached, it should still be completable purely on skill/familiarity with the game rather than RNG).
Meditating under the weight of the log with a thousand backs.
For what it’s worth, in my experience fighting games in general and Netherrealm games in particular almost always have atrocious trophy/achievement design.
That doesn\'t surprise me in the least, honestly.
Meditating under the weight of the log with a thousand backs.Leave a Comment:
Good Story, Subpar Game
Let me make one thing clear right off the bat: I'm no good at fighting games. The "best" I can do is a 4+ player free-for-all in Smash Bros, and even then my losses far outweigh my wins - but at least there I still have fun and feel like I have a chance. Here, on the other hand, I don't.
The story of Injustice is pretty good for what it is, especially with the addition of the prequel comics; this is the story that taught me just how many amazing moments, positive or negative, can come from a well-established setting like the DC Universe being allowed to tell Status Quo Is God to fuck off. Shocking, permanent character deaths? Powersets changing and being shifted around? Absolutely insane battles you'd never get to see in "canon" with real consequences? It's all here and more. Honestly, this is probably the first "Superman goes evil" storyline since the original "A Better World" two-parter from the Justice League cartoon to actually do the premise, well, justice - over the course of the prequel comics, you see in painstaking detail just how rationally Superman falls from The Paragon to The Dictator, and every missed opportunity at correcting his course is heartbreaking to watch play out. The story of the game on its own is decent enough and has some interesting moments between characters meeting their alternate-universe selves, but since it takes place almost entirely in "Year Five" you miss or only get told about a lot of the crazy stuff from years 0-4.
Where this game loses me, though, is the gameplay. Don't get me wrong: even though I'm no good at them, I have nothing against traditional fighting games on principle and I greatly respect players who make high-tech gameplay look easy and smooth-flowing (like the famous Street Fighter II tournament finale). What gets my gander here is that Injustice, though a decent superhero fighting game in a vacuum, only goes halfway to actually being a good game on its own merits. Due to my lack of experience in the genre, I can only point to a general, persistent feeling of frustration in matches (all of which were A.I., since I never actually got to the point of going online before rage-quitting the damn thing) - the A.I. isn't necessarily a cheating bastard but it sure does make life miserable since, unlike you, it doesn't have to rely on a PlayStation controller's D-pad for precise direction inputs and thus never screws up attacks. I found that all the primarily close-range characters (Superman and Batman particularly) were just far, FAR outmatched by any other fighter with even a hint of range to their standard attacks; punching and kicking quite literally falls too short much of the time, and their ranged special moves are a chore to pull off properly with the aforementioned directional buttons. There's also the extra mechanic(s) of each fight lying in the super meter for each character: in addition to letting characters actually perform their super moves (and I take great umbrage over said moves being blockable after how much time and work you have to put into getting them to begin with), these meters can also be used for Clashes, which are almost always used by the opponents right as they're about to die so they can restore a good chunk of health and just prolong the fight further. I can't recall a single time it ever worked out in my favor or when it made sense to initiate a Clash instead of a beefed-up special move or my super move, so I'm confidently calling this completely unnecessary.
What specifically made me rage-quit, though, was the S.T.A.R. Labs battles, which basically have you fulfill special conditions while fighting to earn the top rank: all of 3 fights in, I was met with an AGONIZINGLY frustrating condition of "Don't get hit by Batman's projectiles" that ended up requiring pure RNG to accomplish, and 3 fights after that I was told to "Complete a 4-hit juggling combo" while not getting hit ONCE in return for 20 seconds that I couldn't pull off for the life of me, even after practicing elsewhere and watching someone else do it on You Tube. If this were purely optional and for bragging rights, I wouldn't mind, but this is for one of the TROPHIES - no wonder the completion/platinum rate is so damn low on PSN. That's when I realized that I was having anti-fun with this game and that it simply wasn't skyrocketing my blood pressure over, so I quit and am never looking back or apologizing.
Final verdict: beating up a bunch of famous DC characters is fun enough, I guess, especially when you pull off their supers, but I really would recommend just watching the cutscenes on You Tube and reading the comics elsewhere if you're as casual at fighting games as I am. This is not an entry-level part of the genre by any means, and it's certainly not well-made enough to merit toughing through either. But hey, if you're both a DC fan and an expert at traditional fighting games, have at it, I can't stop you.