Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order Critic Reviews

Switch owners will find plenty of content to chew through, particularly with friends, and while it may be the gaming equivalent to a Hulk Smash, that isn't to say that it isn’t a rollicking good time.

Altogether, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 innovates upon the original titles, creating the first fully-rounded Ultimate Alliance title. The depth provided is welcomed, even if it did leave less time to polish synergy attacks and the camera controls. Whether you are looking for a Marvel game or just want a fully-fledged RPG, there is fun to be had with Ultimate Alliance 3.

Ultimate Alliance 3 works great as fan service. It finds a good balance between "hack and slash" gameplay and RPG elements, yet combat mechanics are too simple.

Basically a modern scrolling beat'em up to play alone but even better with friends, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 is exceptionally faithful to the source material, being it comics or movies.

While not perfect by any means, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 is the Marvel game fans have been waiting years to play. Was it worth the wait? I’d say so. But the feeling I’m left with is that I want another. And another. We get two or three good Marvel movies a year; it’s made me greedy. This game will make you long to play a dozen more.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order is an unexpected but welcomed sequel to a beloved franchised that hasn’t aged particularly well. So, is it worth playing? Thankfully yes. By taking the best of what made the series great in the first place, Team Ninja and Marvel Games made a solid action RPG that fans of the genre will have a lot of fun with. Marvel fans will also like Marc Sumerak's work of creating an interesting story that stands on its own. Sadly, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 rough edges will draw it away from perfection and aspects such as camera problems, poor AI and a very simple puzzle design can't be overlooked. The good thing is that it won't stop you from enjoying it.

A mighty multiplayer brawler brimming with content, and carefully crafted characters that will delight both comic book veterans and MCU fanatics.

More so than its predecessors, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order excels because of its character diversity and the ways its disparate heroes work together. For this reason alone it's an ideal co-op game, whether you're playing with another friend in the same room or with three friends online, but the AI more than holds its own if you're playing alone, too. It falters in places, but there's still nothing quite like the Ultimate Alliance series, and this long-awaited third entry makes it a triumphant return for a superhero brawler that feels more relevant than ever.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order isn’t a groundbreaking, narrative-heavy reinterpretation of the comic characters you know and love, but then again neither were the first two games. In that regard, it’s a very faithful sequel that mines the vast roster of characters from the comics while including plenty of nods to the current state of the more modern Marvel Cinematic Universe. While it doesn’t do anything particularly new or outstanding, it embraces the brainless fun of its brawler combat with gusto, and it’s at its absolute best when played with a team of player-controlled supers.

Team Ninja and Nintendo have done a bang-up job, and I sure hope it paves the path to even more Marvel games.

Marvel fans have a date with Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order. Although it can be improved graphically and we miss some characters and game modes, it is a very fun title, which will give us many hours of entertainment, either alone or in company.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 is comfort food. It retains the multiplayer dungeon crawling and love of the source material that made the two previous titles enjoyable, but it also elevates the action just enough to make it better and more entertaining than what came before. Not all of it works as well as it should, yet it’s vision isn’t compromised by the missteps it makes. You’re going to have a good time when you play Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3. And sometimes, that’s all you really need.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order presents us with great combat in a dungeon crawler. The representations of the characters are unique in this post MCU world. It's repetitive, but it's really worth it.

There is a lot of fan service in Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Dark Order and that’s a smart move from Koei Tecmo and Team Ninja. The game is tailored around the expectations of Marvel’s fans, with tons of characters and references to both movies and comics. Sure, cameras are bad and graphic is not so good, but superheroes lovers, the only target of the game, will not care about that too much.

A couple of stripped back features aside, Marvel Ultimate Alliance is a great series revival that should keep new and old fans busy for quite a while. With DLC coming later this year, it will only get better.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order is one of the most cathartic and fan service heavy Marvel games ever.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order is a great beat-em-up game to play with friends. You might not be standing in a hot arcade pumping quarters into a machine, but trust me, this is the pure arcade experience brought to the modern age. Be ready to smash your head against tough bosses and hordes of enemies as you try to protect the universe from Thanos… again.

This is a game which can be enjoyed by the entirety of the Marvel fanbase. It’s nerdy enough for the hardcore (did we mention that Elsa Bloodstone is a playable character!). It’s got every character those who’ve only ever seen the films would want to see. There’s real diversity within the chosen roster too. A team of Black Panther, Ms. Marvel, Luke Cage and Captain Marvel really is the future that liberals want. Perhaps most impressively, it’s a game which is pitched in that sweetest of spots; true universality. Children will enjoy this game. Adults will have a blast too. This, of course, is the Nintendo way, but it’s still worth applauding during this most divisive of times.

For a series that has been away for so long, it hasn't missed a step; stuffed full of fan-service for followers of whichever flavour of Marvel is present. The combat is mashy, but meaty and feels really satisfying when the synergy is just right. This is most fun in co-op, yet is also marvellous in solo. There's a mammoth amount of replayability thanks to grinding through, levelling each of the characters up, taking on the Infinity Trials, and a challenging New Game+ to overcome, not to mention the new content to come with the Season Pass. For a long time now, it's been great to be a Marvel fan, and now Ultimate Alliance 3 is another reason why.

Overall, The Black Order is easy to pick up and play and there’s nothing to keep you from enjoying the thrill of fighting alongside pop culture’s most popular fictional heroes.