MultiVersus preview - "The best online platform fighter?"
MultiVersus might be the best platform fighter that isn't Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and it already has better online gameplay.
Super Smash Bros. created a new genre of fighting games, and after five entries in the series, it’s too easy to lose sight of how far the game has come. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is platform fighter perfection, with the kind of cast and polish that other fighting games can only dream of. It’s easy to take for granted, and that became clear when Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl released; a full-price game that felt like a budget title in every imaginable way, right down to all of the iconic Nick characters being inconspicuously silent throughout every single match. It was haunting, almost as if you played with possessed husks that had their identities stolen. As it turns out, presentation is a huge deal in fighting games, so it’s a good thing that MultiVersus has got everything right so far.
The cast hasn’t been fully confirmed yet, but everything here is either faithful to the original character design, or stylized to make them look at home with the other characters. Arya Stark doesn’t look unnatural next to the likes of Taz and Finn the Human at all, and that’s an achievement in itself. But better yet, they feel authentic. Unlike the horrific charmless clones of Nick Brawl, here, Tom and Jerry feel like Tom and Jerry, complete with a classic OTT holler when they get knocked out of bounds. If you’ve ever watched the cartoon (and who hasn’t?), this will put a smile on your face.
The same goes for most other members of the cast. Wonder Woman uses her whip, shield, and sword, Superman has strong strikes and is floaty, Jake the Dog morphs into weird and wonderful shapes, Taz is usually dashing around the screen as a swirling tornado – it’s chaotic, but that’s exactly what you should expect when all of these characters come together.
Of course, all of that is meaningless if the gameplay is good for nothing. It’s still early days, but the game is distinctly floaty. Yes, that should of course apply to Superman, but the rest of the cast has a similar feel. It is very easy to manipulate your character’s movement in the air thanks to a variety of moves that can change your trajectory. In most platform fighters your movement is limited to make moving off the stage a risky endeavor – here it’s just viable. Characters have multiple aerial jumps, multiple aerial dodges – complete with directional inputs – and can even string three special moves together in a row. This means opponents are hard to keep off stage and knocked out if they haven’t taken enough damage, but also allows you to chase opponents far into the air and knock them off the top, giving skilled players who can string combos together an edge over those that want to just land a big hit.
Things still need a bit of tightening up. Sometimes an attack animation looks like it connects, but just doesn’t, leading me to believe hitboxes don’t quite always match up to animations. This sort of stuff sounds like a nitpick, but it’s crucial for something as dynamic as a competitive platform fighter. And competition is definitely in mind. An online ranking system is in place, and while there is a 1v1 mode present for everyone who prefers to play that way, MultiVersus is designed for 2v2 battles primarily. You can partner up with a friend and take on online foes all day long. And thanks to rollback netcode, the games I played ran very smoothly, with some minor hitches along the way.
All of the tricks of the live service trade are here too, as you’d expect from a modern F2P game. A battle pass, of course, and more cosmetics than you can shake a box of Scooby Snacks at. Mercifully, unlocking characters is a fairly simple and cost-free affair if you’re willing to put in some work, while the character-specific emotes and costumes will require you to invest more than your time if you want to unlock everything you like. It remains to be seen how the monetization will impact the game, but for now, as long as you can play online with friends as much as you want at no initial cost, while boasting the same level of accessibility as Smash, it’s going to be a popular proposition for kids and adult party nights alike.
While it’s still early days for MultiVersus and it might be a bit too presumptuous of me to say anything yet, I thought my experience playing it was good. In fact, I’d go so far as to say very enjoyable. Super Smash Bros. is a series I’ve spent countless hours with and I’ve become a platform fighter snob as a result, but even in this early state, this is the most I’ve ever enjoyed playing a platform fighter that isn’t Smash. The roster is cool, the stages look great, the characters sound as they should, and the online gameplay is easily better than what Smash has to offer. If you’re after a new platform fighter to sink time into, MultiVersus might be what you’re looking for.
Written by Dave Aubrey on behalf of GLHF.