4.5/5 ★ – patjans5's review of Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy.

From the time this game was announced, to the time it was released, I had no expectations it would be good, especially after Marvel's Avengers. Even after the praise it's been given, I wasn't convinced. On a whim I decided to give it a try, and man was I wrong. Guardians of the Galaxy is easily one of the best games I've played in 2021. In Guardians of the Galaxy you play as Star Lord, the leader of the Guardians, as you try to save the galaxy as well as keeping yourself and your team together. This is told wonderfully by it's decision based dialogue, and similar to the likes of Mass Effect and Dragon Age, your choices not only affect your team and how they view you as a leader, but it affects the course of the story itself. This makes you really think about the decisions you make, at least within the sometimes limited time window the game gives you. On top of that, the story itself is overall fantastic. Some pacing issues here and there for me, maybe I even found it to be a bit too long, but throughout most of it I was completely committed to it. I thought it was very well told, and just like the Marvel's Spider-Man game and Miles Morales, it could easily be a movie, and a damn good movie at that. All the characters were incredibley well written, and the story was engaging, heartfelt, and funny. It's clear it took a lot of inspiration from the 2014 film as well as it's sequel, but it still manages to feel original in every way. Not to mention there's plenty of nods to various Marvel comics spanning over the decades. Branching off of how well written this game was, one of my favorite aspects of the game was the dialogue. What made the movie so great was the chemistry between the characters, the obvious tension between such wildly different characters just barely held together by the fact that they cared about each other. This game touches beautifully on each Guardian's past, as well as their relationship towards each other. This is expanded on by individually talking to them throughout the story, finding objects hidden in various maps for them to talk about in your ship, and even just taking the time to listen to them banter during missions. Each character was well written, and provided various levels of emotional moments and comedy. The only thing I didn't like was the repetition of the in-combat dialogue, which sometimes, depending on how long the fight takes, can repeat multiple times in a row. With how much dialogue the game had in total, I'm surprised they couldn't come up with more battle quips for each of them. Speaking of combat, the mechanics of this game are another shining example of how fun this game felt. I was initially put off by the fact that you only played as Peter Quill in the game, but controlling each character mid-battle with a variety of different moves was an absolute blast. You can unlock more in the form of skill points you get from battle, as well as different moves for yourself as well. But seriously, the combat never got old, and the game posed various challenged that requires you to think on your feet and find diffent battle combos to gain the upper hand in fights. Not only in combat, but you use your team to progress through the map, from traversing to the objective, to finding hard to reach places in search of collectables, like the various outfits you can equip your team with, which was a fun nod to previous Guardians of the Galaxy lore. And why wouldn't you want to explore this game more? It's absolutely beautiful to look at. From the world building, to the graphics themselves, right down to character models, it was constantly stunning to look at. Better get your photo mode ready, because there are plenty of picture perfect moments in this game. I'm just shocked at how much I loved this game. I went from not caring about it, to becoming completely invested in it pretty much instantly. I can't recomend this game enough, especially if you're into Marvel and decision based RPG's.