Marvel's Wolverine Review — Full Breakdown & Transcript

[00:00] And we're back with another episode of Before You Buy, that show where we give you some straight-up gameplay and our first impressions of the latest games we're releasing. It's me, Jake Baldino, and today we're talking about Marvel's Wolverine.

[00:13] This is the newest adventure from Insomniac. Of course, you know, the people behind the Spider-Man games. As a fan of those games, comic books, these characters, this should have been a slam dunk for me, personally.

[00:26] I am the target audience, and I just tend to love this stuff and really gloss over a lot. I overlooked things. But I regret to inform you that I didn't love Wolverine. It looks great. It has some moments. Look, I have some positives and some cool stuff I'll talk about,

[00:40] but ultimately I was left unsatisfied with this adventure. It's not that it's kind of short. It's not that it's extremely linear. I like a simple old-fashioned adventure game. Hell, I love the previous Wolverine games. I don't even really need a game to be really that long.

[00:54] It's just that this doesn't feel like a definitive Wolverine game I imagined us having. like how we had with Spider-Man 2018. This is something that just comes up short. Short in the sense that I played it, I had some fun moments,

[01:08] but ultimately I was left unfulfilled with the whole package. Maybe it's just me. Anyway, just so you know, I've been playing a review copy, and this footage is captured running on a PS5 Pro, and it's also going to be as spoiler-free as possible.

[01:22] Now, just top-level story, this is an all-new standalone adventure. You have Logan, he's a mutant with powerful healing abilities and an adamantium skeleton and very little memories of his past.

[01:35] In this world, he's on a version of Team X from the comics, working with characters like Mystique and Sabretooth to do covert missions and protect mutants. The game kicks off with a real bang of an opening mission, as you get whisked into this adventure with Team Grey.

[01:51] that's probably about as far as I'll go plot-wise without spoiling anything. I'll be honest, some of the trailers, it felt like they showed the whole game, but I'm not going to do that. What this does is it puts you on this globetrotting adventure, right?

[02:04] With you visiting the Canadian wilderness, Vancouver, Japan, Majapur, and other places. It's a linear adventure of corridors and hallways with occasional split paths, some open areas,

[02:18] and some explorable story sections where you can walk around and talk to folks. Your main actions in the game are traversal and combat. I really like traversal. It's simple, but it's pretty thrilling.

[02:30] Everything from the way Wolverine sprints to how he jumps and how he climbs and mantles all just feel so, so right and in line with the character. The right amount of stocky, aggressive guy combined with animalistic movements

[02:45] make running around as Wolverine feel simple, sure, but fresh enough. This is where Insomniac really gets this stuff. You can quickly scale walls, you can do a big jump across a rooftop, slide under something with his claws behind him and sparks.

[02:59] All of it is stylish and pretty satisfying to pull off, and it feels authentically Wolverine. You're taking chase during certain sequences, or you're just closing the distance between some enemies. There are some instances where you can hide in the grass

[03:13] and kill some enemies and stuff like that, like do some self-kills, but it's pretty simple. And honestly, Wolverine is better off going all out, which is always inevitable. And this is where combat comes into play.

[03:25] Combat is a murder fest, obviously. Look at it. It's got lots of gore and slick, stylish animations of lopping off legs, smashing in faces, all that. So, using Triangle, you leap towards enemies to close the distance.

[03:39] Your main strikes are done with mashing the square button. You can also press and hold to kick enemies to knock them into each other, off ledges, or into an object to stun them. You can also parry enemies.

[03:52] Stunning enemies allows you to get a bunch of stabs into them real fast. You know, like, twist, shoot, twist, shoot. But then you able to press a different button to do a different stab instead that lets you back a little extra health But you choose between the two because the more you stab an enemy the more your rage meter builds up making you more lethal as well as embracing combo enders

[04:12] You do a lot of square button mashing, yes, but if you end your strikes with triangle as a combo ender, you'll do more damage. Building your rage up even higher, you'll go into a full berserker rage mode where the screen changes color

[04:25] and you're way more powerful and you can do even easier, gorier finishers. Just classic video game stuff here. I didn't expect them to reinvent the wheel with what Wolverine does. It sucked. Also, as long as you have at least one rage bar,

[04:38] you can lose all your health and then just get back up. So, with regenerating health and all the rage stuff bouncing between enemies, yes, it's mindless and button-nashy, sure, but there's just enough to think about while doing it for a nice little push-pull effect.

[04:55] Enemies will occasionally flash red, and you've got to dodge out of the way. You know the drill. if they flash yellow, you can do a special parry that does a lot of damage. Certain enemies can actually, like, leave their sword shoved in Wolverine,

[05:07] and then this will temporarily limit how much health you can regenerate. But then he can do a finisher where he rips out the sword and shoves it in someone's face. This is very good, very creative stuff for what is a simple combat

[05:19] system. I like it. You also have some special attacks on a cooldown. These are less exciting, but, like, you hold the trigger and you press the face button to do a tornado spin, a drill claw, a kind of grab and charge, to name a few.

[05:32] These abilities are cool in a pinch, but, you know, like, not super strategic or anything. Wolverine levels up, and this combat builds a little bit. Without spoiling too much, like, eventually you can charge your lunge at people,

[05:44] you can get different face button special abilities to swap in and out of. Leveling up gets you skill points to spend on this skill tree to make these abilities stronger, and then also unlock some other maneuvers that make later gameplay a little more interesting.

[05:59] You also have these mutation strands. These are essentially equippable passes that you can stack onto your Wolverine throughout the game. At first, you can only equip a few, but deeper into the game,

[06:12] you're equipping a bunch of little passive bonuses. I kind of found myself just kind of sticking with what works and not really messing with it too much, and honestly, after a while, I forgot that this system was there. There's not too much flexibility or creativity with it, or there's not a super intense incentive to really use it and take advantage of it.

[06:29] But I don't know. I didn't really need a complex system or anything here. I just like killing guys. When the combat does suffer, it's just in some general enemy messiness and then overall repetition.

[06:41] When the difficulty ramps up, you can get pretty brutalized. And the challenge can be fun. I was actually surprised how challenging the game can be in spots. But also, you can get in a situation where you're surrounded by like seven or eight enemies, and they all hit you at the same time.

[06:57] You'd have to hit the parry button for each individual strike, so sometimes it can just become impossible, and you can just get completely spammed into like a corner. Thankfully, Wolverine is a tank, so it's fine, but like it can just feel a little messy, like there's something missing there.

[07:13] That's minor. The bigger thing really is the repetition. By the end, it's really starting to stretch a little thin. The last enemy type introduced is interesting, but they're also damage sponges, so you really just find yourself doing the same few combos, mash and square, that you've been doing for most of the game.

[07:31] The last few hours of the game really felt kind of like rinse and repeat with enemy encounters, and I found myself starting to get a little bored. I wasn't having as much fun, and that's the most important thing for me.

[07:43] What the game does have going for it is that at least it doesn't totally overstay its welcome, at least. I finished the game in about 15 to 16 hours. I got a little bit more out of it, about 18 hours, replaying some sequences and doing all the optional challenges.

[07:58] I'll talk about that a little bit more later. Those challenge sections are random door portals that pop up during your adventure. It's like Wolverine's memories. Here you enter his log cabin where you can keep track of some collectibles and read some texts about his memories and every door you find gives you a new challenge It usually a combat challenge with some modifiers or a traversal challenge where it like race to the finish in the fastest

[08:22] time. These are extremely uneventful, just kind of reusing and remixing some game elements and just giving you a little bit more to do. They unfortunately feel kind of thrown in. Maybe it's because I get my fill of combat during the course of the game anyway, or just

[08:38] the traversal challenges being super easy, or maybe the fact that, like, the rewards for doing these things aren't that great. Again, it's just more stuff for my skill tree and my education strands that I only really passively cared about anyway. There's just not too much to it, and it

[08:53] feels like it was included kind of out of obligation rather than real purpose, because none of them are really that interesting. After a while, they popped up, and it felt like I had to just do it to get it over with. But it's weird, because sometimes they pop up at odd times, like throwing off the pacing

[09:09] of the actual adventure. Now, for the hardcore out there, the trickier ones are at least pushing through, because with some of them, and you don't realize this at first, some of them you unlock some extra skins at least. And, but wait, as a Wolverine fan, I will say the skins really do

[09:24] deliver. So much representation of Wolverine across, like, the decades of this character. Skins unlocked also net you different sets of cosmetic claws you can equip. This is more subtle stuff for Wolverine nerds, but I really enjoyed it.

[09:39] If you were hoping for, like, the Spider-Man skins equivalent in this game, you get it. Like, 100%. And on another positive, like, it's not all complaining. Visually, the game looks great.

[09:51] The level of detail, the level of gore, the gore on Wolverine's body. also the color palette it's a good bright interesting game with a lot of detailed environments

[10:03] character spaces I know you see screenshots and stuff but I feel like in motion the characters look good and expressive I still can't get over Wolverine's big giant puppy dog eyes it's kind of untangling but otherwise visually the game looks great

[10:17] the detail of the characters the design of the suits the lighting the destructible environments it's all there you really feel the quality Unfortunately, if you're frustrated with modern game design decisions, this game has a lot of them.

[10:31] Now, again, the game's linear and pretty straightforward, which I don't mind. I love a good old-fashioned video game adventure. But the game is also painfully hand-holdy. Look, when there's only one small hallway to go down right in front of you,

[10:46] the game often still just shows you a giant scentline trail marking your path. This isn't that big of a deal for most people, but honestly, after a while, I felt it kind of distracting. Collectibles are usually hidden down like a side hallway,

[10:59] and they're basically blasted in your face with a sound and a visual indicator, so you don't even really have to look for them. Quick time events, you can also just not press a lot of the buttons, and the game continues.

[11:11] If you've played a few AAA action games, this one really, unfortunately, just plays like on autopilot. Now, in the past with certain games, I've been okay with simple games with not a lot of gameplay,

[11:23] But it's usually because some other gameplay element or some other story thing, something makes up for it. But unfortunately with Wolverine, the story did not land with me.

[11:35] And honestly, that's what upset me the most. The pieces are there, right? Like I said, the game looks like a million bucks. A lot of these actors are acting their asses off. There are some interesting Easter eggs.

[11:48] But this adventure feels kind of like a meandering B-side what-if comic. Not something really worthy of a big Insomniac Wolverine AAA bajillion dollar game debut, you know?

[12:00] I love comic books for all their different interpretations and remixes of characters and situations and origins. I've had some of my favorite characters thrown in some really weird stories,

[12:12] but this one felt just kind of like remixing for the sake of it without much to say and without much real enthusiasm for Wolverine and his world The adventures you know aside from a couple of moments that I really like most of it

[12:25] just kind of feels like more of a downer, and it's not that exciting. Now, it's a new Wolverine, which is fine on its own, but it's a dour story, that again, it kind of feels like a downer a lot of the time, not really doing justice to the characters,

[12:40] while also just revisiting stuff, rehashing stuff we've seen already done with these characters, but in far better fashion. It's a Logan I don't quite connect with during certain beats, and it's a Jean Grey that is done really dirty, in my opinion,

[12:55] and falls prey to every romance cliche in the book. And honestly, Troy Baker's in the game, and he's the standout here. He does a really good job with what he's given, and just when I think I've seen every side of Troy Baker

[13:08] and honestly thought I was sick of him, he delivered in this game a really interesting and nuanced character. But again, I'm talking about a Wolverine game. I should be over the moon. But by the end of the game, I just didn't really care.

[13:22] Again, there were one or two really cool, also a couple of weird things the game did that as a 90s comic book fan, I did really enjoy and didn't expect to see. But none of it really amounted to much.

[13:34] None of it really set up much. I don't really care to see where it goes. And even if it went nowhere, if it was a self-contained good adventure, that would be one thing. but it all just left me kind of feeling sad, really.

[13:46] I use the word meandering already, but ultimately, like, the game just didn't land for me. When I finished it, I found myself just kind of like, okay. And that's not a good feeling to have. It's okay if the gameplay absolutely blew you away and you were hooked with it,

[13:59] but for me, with the gameplay being just all right and the story not being fulfilling, that's what kind of did it in for me. So, look, it's a fine playthrough for the hardest core Wolverine fans with an open mind.

[14:11] maybe you're curious, I guess, like I'm not going to tell you not to play it. I got 18 hours total after playing thoroughly, messing with photo mode, cleaning up some extra challenges at the end after I finished the story.

[14:24] That might not warrant full price for you. It would for me if the story or the adventure truly blew me away, like Insomniac has done in the past, but it really didn't. I was so excited for this one, but it left me feeling lukewarm.

[14:39] I may be out of line on this one. I hate being the bearer of bad news, you know, the messenger. Always check other opinions other than mine. People can feel completely differently about this one. You know, how you feel about a story is kind of subjective.

[14:51] But, again, I want to reiterate, I am usually the target audience for this stuff. I gobble up these types of games. And unfortunately, Wolverine didn't satisfy me. But, again, that's a before you buy. I gave you some pros, some cons, and some personal opinions.

[15:05] And now I want to hear yours down in the comments. What's your favorite Wolverine game? We've been playing as Wolverine in video games for decades now. It's crazy to think about that. What's your favorite Wolverine adventure?

[15:17] I'm not talking X-Men. I'm talking about the man himself. Let's talk about anything like that. Let's talk about expectations for this game, skin predictions, anything like that down in the comments. If you've got anything else for me, be sure to yell at me on all social media.

[15:29] Just look at Jake Baldino. But that's what we've got for you today. if this gameplay on stream here, anything like that helps inform your purchase decision, your play decision, clicking the like button helps us. We appreciate it. But that's it.

[15:41] Thanks for listening to us, Yaps. I'm Jake. Thanks for watching. We'll see you guys next time.

[16:03] The end. Take me in. Die, the poor. No, don't go. Here. I'm not going. No, you're not going. I'm not going. No. No. No more. I'm only alive.

[16:17] No, don't go. No. Take me in. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye.