Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy Review

"Hooked on a Feeling"

Campaign

October 25, 2021 at 7:00am
By Jason Stettner

In what was one of the more surprising games that I’ve ever played, I absolutely loved Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy. It was an absolute delight filled with glorious action, deep emotional beats and some gut wrenching scenes that came together for what was a perfect experience. This is an original story based on what I’d describe as more of a comic book influenced grouping.

The team here is comprised of Star-Lord “Peter Quill”; Gamora, Rocket Raccoon, Groot and Drax. There are some secondary characters present including an old fling of Quill’s that happens to have a daughter, a magical space canine pal named Cosmo and also the hilariously awesome Mantis. You’ll see some others pop up, but there are guidelines on who can be mentioned in my review at the moment to keep things spoiler free.

While this is largely focused on a more intimate tale of the core group, the surrounding cast does get their fair share of screen time for sure. Moving past that, you personally take on the role of Star-Lord. You’re the leader of this team and you need to manage them. Whether that’s with giving pep talks which are hilarious and grant musical beat moments of awesome, or regular combat scenario management.

You guide this team, and keep them together across what’s an over sixteen hour core story. There’s also a new game plus if you’d like to continue for another run. It’s a chunky game, it packs a serious punch and by the end I was still wanting even more from it since I was vibing with things so well. That being said, I was more than satisfied with the narrative.

I hope we do see a sequel to this game, that would be grand. I should also note that you impact this story too. You’ll make choices that will alter some elements of what’s going on, that added a nice extra layer of player driven control that I appreciated. The music interlaced with the epic action and hilarious moments were awesome throughout this journey in space.

I’m not actually sure there’s a game that I’ve ever laughed so much to. It’s really quite interesting as this group is funny, I loved their quirks and strange actions. The group is really messed up, and that helps lay the foundation for understanding their individual motivations. It’s got everything, from happy moments to ones of complete sorrow. It’s complex, expansive and it completely took me by surprise.

I was having just a grand time with it, and I hadn’t expected anything close to this level of quality or enjoyment. It was a thrilling time, just an absolute blast. You really care about these characters and it was very, emotive towards the ending. It’s rather intriguing that they could tell such a balanced story and keep it engaging the whole time through. There are of course some twists, big shifts and wild things that happen that should surprise even the most knowledgeable of the Marvel fans.

I should also just briefly talk about the core group a bit more, just for those entirely new. Star-Lord “Peter Quill” leads the team, having fought in the grand wars years prior and coming from Earth where you get some flashback sequences littered throughout. There’s Gamora, a daughter of Thanos and the deadliest woman in the galaxy. She has some darker spots in her history, and does not like it when scary dudes take over.

Drax the Destroyer is literal, tough and also lost his family due to Thanos making him a tad so so towards Gamora. Finally the duo teaming of Rocket and Groot. The latter is the last of his kind, a magical tree of sorts. Then there’s Rocket, a lab experiment with some deep hating of water. While dysfunctional, they are a team and one that has been present for awhile. Their company is newly established, but many events have already happened which you hear about over the course of this story. It’s neat to dive into a squad that knows what they’re doing.

Gameplay

This is very much a narrative focused adventure. It keeps things focused on action and a more linear style of play. You’ll move through a wide range of environments battling what came across as a very distinct selection of enemies. The locations you visit felt seriously vast, Mass Effect like in regards to their scope and wonder.

You’ll traverse these locations as a team solving some light puzzles and venturing off the path slightly to find some extra items. These include parts for upgrading perks at work benches or even the odd special costume to use with your team. Combat wise you’re battling with special environmental guns, your team is also fighting and helpful.

You’ll need to guide them for special movements and you’ll unlock more of these as you gain the points over the course of the game. It can be quite a frenzy of combat as you unleash this plethora of abilities to perfect synchronization to annihilate foes that you battle. When it comes to combat there are a ton of difficulty sliders in case you were wondering.

Make it hard, or just something easier to have fun with the narrative. I don’t expect that normal will give any regular player trouble. Going back to combat you can also use parts of the environment to aid you. There are boxes Gamora can cut down or places Groot can root up to smash people. These assist with some of the busier combative scenes that take place throughout the lengthy story.

It all looks really cool when it’s in motion whether you’re slashing cultists or sending the Nova Corps flying about. It’s just a blast to do, and it feels awesome. Mix that in with the musical soundtrack that is awesome and some pep talk pump ups to ignite the songs for one stellar smooth time. It seriously just feels cool and rather epic. It never misses a beat, from story to action and pack again it keeps things flowing well.

When it comes to the visuals I thought the game looked fantastic, being filled with depth and ambience. The characters look fantastic, and lively. I was playing this on Xbox Series X where the game had two modes. There was a quality 4k 30fps option and a 1080p 60fps option, I chose the latter for the fluidity. There’s also HDR support as well. Moving past that, this game also has excellent checkpoints included and I didn’t really come across anything of note consider the length of the experience.

The Conclusion

Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy is a perfect joyride featuring action packed moments that are balanced with more emotive segments. It really does play along the lines of bringing some more sorrowing tones to the forefront while keeping that hilarious tone rolling. I appreciated seeing this as I didn’t at all expect to connect with this one like I did. I really didn’t have any expectations going in and was surprised by the story they told here.

It really did have some darker moments to it, and you could see the emotional pain within the performances. There’s a lot that this team has to deal with. I liked that it felt intimate to the core crew, but also handled it’s supporting cast very well. You were never sure what might happen when you venture to a new location and I think that’s special. One moment you’re feeling like a real badass team and the next you’re picking each other up.

I liked that you had choices that impacted the situation as well, that being to a limited degree but one that made me feel like I had a choice in what was happening. You mix that in with sleek commands for your team and the gameplay just feels good. You smash your way through scenarios with pumping musical tracks while also having this lingering need to save the galaxy. It’s a really neat balance.

The story feels smaller in scope story wise which helps focus on the characters, but then there’s this massive save the galaxy scenario looming over. It was glorious. This is a high caliber narrative driven experience that may bring some tears along the way. It’ll make you laugh, perhaps being the funniest game I’ve played while also wanting to bring some sadness alongside that. It’s a good sway of emotions, that they handle quite well here. An incredible experience that makes you look at the Guardians of the Galaxy in a whole new way. This could be my game of the year, which I hadn’t thought of prior to playing.

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Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy Review on Xbox Series X
Review Code Provided by 47

Rating Overall: 10