Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy (2021, Playstation 5) Review

LOUD, OBNOXIOUS AND PRETTY

My ears bleed and my eyes melt while playing Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy. At any given moment the screen erupts in color: pink, purple, turquoise, yellow, green, red — tasteful design clashing with garish excess in something resembling an abstract art installation. At times, I swear I’m seeing colors that don’t even exist. I can’t decide whether it’s beautiful or distracting. Maybe both. 

The audio assaults you in much the same way, layering dialogue and music on top of each other. The orchestra roars without melody. The characters constantly voice their opinions. The soundscape desperately tries to direct my emotions while I struggle to tune it out.

This is exactly how I remember the Guardians of the Galaxy movies. Every dial is cranked to maximum — and these ones go to 11 — all the time. In that sense, Eidos Montreal has captured the feeling perfectly. Unfortunately, because I don’t like it. The game’s relentless need to entertain through millennial quip-dialogue gets on my nerves. They never shut up. ADHD seems to be the greatest superpower of all.

Still, the story is good, even if it feels somewhat unfocused at first. As Star-Lord, your task is to unite and lead your ragtag crew of Guardians. A mysterious alien force is enslaving entire civilizations across the galaxy by luring them into “The Promise”, a fantasy of a better life.

Aboard the Milano, you travel from planet to planet, visiting space stations, desert worlds, ice planets, and other places that practically defy description. Most astonishing of all is the Quarantine Zone: the shattered remains of a massive space fleet, fused together by strands of pink, fleshy organic matter. All throughout, the lighting is brilliant. The presentation is on Sony first-party levels.

In a less exhausting context, the universe Guardians of the Galaxy creates would have been phenomenal. But the game never allows you to absorb any of the details. Everything that happens is commented on, and when nothing happens, that has to be commented on too. As a result, everything — the story, the world, the lore — reaches the player pre-chewed. Repeating the same observations internally isn’t the same thing. You’re never given the chance to make the experience your own.

Terrified of allowing even a single minute of downtime, the game hurls one action sequence after another at you. Generic combat encounters are broken up by sliding sections, free-falls, spaceship battles, and quick-time events. Every now and then, the game lets you breathe through a puzzle or some simple exploration. But then Square Enix opens the dialogue floodgates again and unleashes the nonstop bickering. Complaints that you’re taking too long. Snarky comments because you’re exploring for loot and upgrade materials.

“Hell-OOO! The unbeatable intergalactic threat is THIS WAY!”

The entire game revolves around coming together as a team to defeat an overwhelmingly powerful enemy. Combat becomes tedious quick if you don’t rely on your companions. Your blaster barely scratches enemies on its own. But through an absurd number of button combinations, you can strike where it hurts most: stagger enemies, expose vulnerabilities, pile on status effects. Order Gamora to assassinate targets or Rocket to blow them sky-high, and the job’s done. Underneath it all lies a surprisingly deep stat and ability system.

So yes, the freedom is there. But the game is far too frantic to let players fully take advantage of its systems. The controls barely have room for all the mechanics. Some abilities I almost never used simply because I forgot they existed. Before long, combat turns into a repetitive headache, especially the endlessly drawn-out boss fights.

And honestly, I don’t understand how these characters can stand each other. Drax distrusts Gamora. Rocket can’t handle being contradicted. Gamora threatens anyone who gets too close. Worst of all is Star-Lord himself: a man in his thirties or forties trapped inside his teenage self, mentally frozen in the moment his mother was murdered by aliens. He still listens to his ’80s mixtapes. He dresses like a teenager trying to look cool. He talks like a teacher trying to sound hip in front of his students.

At times, the game attempts real emotional depth. But when Star-Lord tries to bond with the crew, in the style of Shepard from Mass Effect, it rings painfully hollow, like someone who has watched how real leaders speak and is trying to imitate them.

The personal conversations with the crew are completely uninteresting, probably because the characters in Guardians function and look more like toys than actual people. It feels like interrupting a game with your Star Wars action figures just to make them have deep conversations.

I’m simply outside the target audience here. Guardians of the Galaxy is made for younger players. Maybe they need protection from anything too unpleasant. Personally, I want to stare death in the face. Around the halfway mark, though, the game finally pulls itself together, becomes more focused, and the story takes a fascinating turn. Or maybe that’s just when I finally accepted the game’s tone. Its portrayal of a religious intergalactic cult threatening to consume all life is unsettling. The darkness lurking beneath the surface is finally allowed to speak louder, and that’s ultimately what saves the game from mediocrity.