Guardians of the Galaxy feels like Marvel meets Mass Effect and that is a good combo. If you’re expecting to go into the game knowing the story, you won’t. This is an entirely new story that isn’t based on the comics or the movies. The core dynamic is still there, they are criminals, Peter was a Ravager, Groot can only say three words, Drax is still the destroyer, etc, but that’s where the similarities to the previous media ends.
While the game is an RPG, upgrading abilities is not as complex as some others. Each character has one automatic special ability unlocked with two you can unlock by getting experience from killing enemies. There is also a fourth ability available for each character that is unlocked with throughout the story as it coincides with events that happen. On top of the experience, you can also collect scrap parts that you can augment your equipment. You can unlock things like rapid reload and shield restoration speed. This is only for Peter and won’t affect the other Guardians.
Huddles
During battle, you’ll be prompted to huddle with the team and give them a pep talk. It seems odd to do it in the middle of a boss fight or when enemies are all around, but you can’t be hurt and if you make the right dialogue choice you can get unlimited special abilities for an amount of time. The dialogue in these huddles do get repetitive after a while though, if I had to guess I’d say there’s maybe 10 different dialogues before it starts to be repetitive. The good thing about these huddles that the game doesn’t tell you, if your team is down, it automatically revives them.
Costumes
You can find a number of outfits throughout the game, they will be in random cooler looking things. There’s eight outfits for each Guardian including a movie costume that makes them appear as they do in the movies. Some are given to you automatically as the story progresses. While some are underwhelming, ones like Groot’s Five Horsemen of the Apocalypse and Rocket’s Stinger outfits really stand out.
Overall
Despite it’s flaws it’s a fun game. The game is only around 19 hours long, so while it is shorter than a lot of RPGs, it isn’t too short. The game is currently on Game Pass for PC and Xbox, so if you have a chance and love Marvel content, it’s definitely worth a playthrough.
