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The Marvelous Duo – Ultimate Alliance 3 – The Danger Room Update

January 19, 2020

Acharky/ Let's Play/ The Black Order/ The Marvelous Duo/ Twitch/ Ultimate Alliance 3/ VOD

Despite a few delays, my good friend Acharky and I would never miss out on an opportunity to be Marvelous, and this latest update to Ultimate Alliance 3 allowed us to do just that.

Join us as we talk about comics and media while taking on newcomers Iceman, Gambit, Cable, and Phoenix. And then, we take the Danger Room for a spin and do some Infinity Challenges.

As we both said during the stream, neither one of us are fans of the concept of the Phoenix Force. Personally, I don’t find it interesting, but that’s only as a casual observer of comic book lore. My only real experience with it is as an evil entity that just possesses people to destroy the universe… or something.

That said, it makes sense to include her in the roster of playable heroes, along with the rest of this update. It’s good to see the X-Men finally get some much needed love after being snubbed for years due to the movie rights being owned by Fox, and Disney unwilling to provide the free advertising to a competitor. I only wish this didn’t come at the cost of the Disney monopoly acquiring even more intellectual property to be sealed up, forever out of reach.

And it’s nice to see Ultimate Alliance 3 getting updating so long after launch, even if there’s only one more planned update remaining. My complaints with it aside, I still want it to succeed. While a lot of my problems, like the fact each character is leveled separately, will never be fixed, I can at least recognize that new features make leveling under-developed characters easier.

It’s always good to come back, and I can’t wait to return for another stint with the next update.

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The Marvelous Duo – Ultimate Alliance 3 – Finale(?)

October 6, 2019

Let's Play/ The Black Order/ The Marvelous Duo/ Twitch/ Ultimate Alliance 3/ VOD

After spending the first 15 minutes of the stream downloading an update that had been pushed just moments before we began, Acharky and I were finally able to commence the endgame in Ultimate Alliance 3. To pass a bit more time, we even take a moment post-game to discuss the Infinity Trials.

What awaits The Marvelous Duo after this? It’s difficult to say, but don’t think that our adventures have ended just because the game has.

The biggest problem with this game is that it’s the latest entry in a franchise whose last game was released way back in 2009. And while there is a graphical upgrade, and a new roster to accompany this shift into a new generation of Marvel fans, it’s on par mechanically with it’s predecessors. In some ways, it’s even regressed.

As Acharky and I have both harped on, it’s a real shame that only the host of an online match can swap characters, since that ability is such a core feature to the series, and why making a team of superheroes is so much fun. Even in our previous runs of UA1 and UA2 on PS4, we never had this problem.

I’m also disappointed that they still make it so that only characters in the active party gain experience. With a cast as vast as the one in this game, it makes it impossible to swap out heroes without intentionally reducing the group’s combat effectiveness. Since many enemies already take longer than they should to keel over and die, and some stages in the mid to late game can be challenging even for a level-appropriate team, you’d likely need to go back and replay large sections of the game to train up a new character.

I wish level locked to the player/account, rather than each individual character. Infinity trails and XP cubes help by giving players alternative ways to “raise” heroes they want to play, but never leveled up. However, that feels like a band-aid to cover up the real issue that such grinding should not be necessary.

That said, I do appreciate the existence of the Infinity Trails. It provides both a way to level up the team if the player gets stuck on a certain boss and also a place to keep playing after beating the game, to unlock new characters and costumes.

With the promise of new characters, costumes, and story content on the way, I look forward to seeing what becomes of Ultimate Alliance 3 in the next few months. Complaints aside, I really enjoyed playing through one of these games again.

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The Marvelous Duo – Ultimate Alliance 3 – Part 1

September 1, 2019

Acharky/ Let's Play/ Marvel/ stream/ The Marvelous Duo/ Twitch/ Ultimate Alliance 3/ VOD

A long time ago, in an age before THE QUIET MAN, Acharky and I used to stream together more frequently. Although the footage from those streams is long gone, we had a series we called “The Marvelous Duo”, where we played through the Marvel: Ultimate Alliance games together.

We thought after beating MUA2 that there would never be another game in the franchise. Much of both of our surprises and delights, a third game was announced, exclusive to the Nintendo Switch. Just as I was about to approach him to see if he had an interest in reviving our old series, he actually brought the subject up on his own.

Thus! THE MARVELOUS DUO HAS RETURNED!

For better or worse, this is exactly what I expected from an Ultimate Alliance game developed in the era of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s so strange to go through a game like this now, because back when the originals were released, Marvel comics were big, but had yet to reach the broad, mainstream appeal that they do in today’s world. Before the movie, most people would be hard-pressed to identify the Guardians of the Galaxy, but now they’re household names.

And after going through levels themed on the Guardians/Captain Marvel, Spider-man, and Jessica Jones respective, combined with a plot to defeat Thanos and collect the Infinity Stone, it’s not hard to see the MCU influence, among others like Spider-Verse, Venom and the Netflix shows. That said, it’s also clear that the game is taking a more comic book inspiration when it comes to the cast’s personalities and designs. In addition, one should not overlook the inclusion of Wolverine from the X-Men, and Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel. While they aren’t popular movie picks, both of them are fan favorites from the comics.

Though I’ve never been much of a comic book reader, Marvel lore has always held my interest. As a longtime fan, it’s fun to playthrough all of these set pieces and explore them, seeing what references exist and where they choose to pull from. While I don’t expect the script to ever become a masterpiece, I look forward to seeing what else they pull from and how they tie it all together.