Traditionally speaking, I’m not a fan of fighting games that don’t have Smash Bros. in the title. Sure, I played several incarnations of Street Fighter 2, but so did everyone. And like everyone else, I’ve been brutally maimed in Mortal Kombat. But since those games on the Super Nintendo, I haven’t bought any “traditional” fighting games. Honestly, I just was never that good at them. When Injustice was announced, I didn’t really pay much attention to it. So what if it was a fighting game with DC characters. I didn’t buy DC vs. Mortal Kombat after all.
But then I started seeing some videos for the game, and it gained my interest. The interactive backgrounds looked fun, the transitions to different sections of a stage looked fun, and the super moves looked amazing. Still though, it was low expectations that I downloaded the demo. And while, there wasn’t a lot to the demo, it was a good taste of what the game had to offer. And it also was the final thing that convinced me to buy the game.
So, I bought the game early Thursday afternoon (had a couple days off from work) and finished the main story later Thursday night. I don’t really have an hour estimate for you, but it wasn’t that long. But really, it’s a fighting game. What do you expect? But what there is of that story is fantastic. I don’t want to give too much of the story away, but it does involve elseworlds, which explains heroes fighting other heroes. And yes, you can assume that some of those heroes have turned evil because of events that have transpired in this world.
Did I mention the story is fantastic? There were times where I thought ‘just one more fight,’ but then I’d get drawn back into the story, and just couldn’t put it down. And let’s not forget the voice acting. Seriously, you could combine all of the cut scenes, and have yourself a very enjoyable movie. In fact, you should go to YouTube, and see if someone has already done this.
Aside from the main story, there is also the “classic battles” to go through. These are your “traditional” fighting game story modes. You know the ones? You pick your character, fight a selection of other characters, and then the main boss. Upon completion, you get a short ending tailored around that particular character. Sadly, I haven’t unlocked all of the endings. Honestly, I only unlocked one, and that was of Shazam. But still, it was pretty interesting.
This being a fighting game, I do have to talk a little bit about the mechanics. Overall, I didn’t find it to be very complicated. The special moves were always 3-5 buttons, but each character had pretty much the same button combinations. Gone is memorizing character specific move sets, and that is a good thing. For me, I like switching up the characters I play as. I get bored if I keep playing as the same character. So it was nice to be able to switch characters often, and not having any difficult pulling off moves.
I found it to also be a plus that it was simple to pull off the really special moves. If you market your game around a couple nifty gimmicks, those gimmicks should be easy to do. Interacting with the background is done with a single button press, when you’re in position to do so. And just how can you tell if you’re in the right area? The game tells you. If you’re opponent is in an interactive area where you can attack them with something in the background, the button flashes on screen. And the really special moves are pulled off by simply pressing R2 and L2 (on PS3).
There was one other thing noticeably different to me. There’s no such things as rounds. The way the fight works is that you have essentially two power bars. When a fighter loses the first power bar, there’s a small word of celebration, and a short break to regroup. This happens when each fighter reaches this point. So, you could lose your first power bar, and the fight pauses, then immediately after restarting, your opponent reaches that point and the fights pauses again. I generally liked this. It gave me a feeling that a particularly dominating round wasn’t being lost with the start of the next round. Of course, this works against you as well. But overall, I liked it.
Overall, I am greatly satisfied with this game, and think it is well worth a buy.
Comicdom Wrecks! 