Given the title, the Infinity Stones and the Marvel Cinematic Universe play a key role in all aspects of the game. The story revolves around our heroes’ search for six Infinity Stones as they fight other characters as well as waves of minions along the way. As a new standard in the genre, this is accompanied by full cutscenes featuring exciting action sequences. The characters do act like themselves which leads to some funny interactions but the story itself is boring and the writing is horrific. In addition to story mode and multiplayer, the game ships with arcade mode, a tutorial and challenges for each fighter.
I found the battle system to be pretty simple for newcomers, especially when compared to Marvel vs Capcom 3. As expected, combat is fast and flashy; rarely giving you a chance to breathe. Different special moves are incredibly easy to pull off as well as block, while the game comes with an auto combo which only requires you to press light punch a bunch of times. You can tag in their partner at any time, allowing you to either extend combos or save you from a difficult situation.
Before every match, you must select an Infinity Stone that will give you a unique benefit in the game. For example, the Time Stone gives you access to a quick dash while the Soul Stone can be used to drain enemy health. You can further enhance this benefit by utilising Infinity Storm, which turns the tide briefly in your favour by, say, boosting your damage or reviving a downed ally. It’s exciting to try out different characters with different stones and figuring out which combination best suits your playing style. Right from the beginning, it’s easy to see that there is something seriously wrong with the graphical design. The character models not only lack detail but most have odd body shapes. The models look out of place during cutscenes but no matter what mode you’re playing, there is no consistency in the images you see on screen. The art design of the game is a stark contrast to Marvel vs Capcom 3, to the point where it can look like the game is still under development and the graphics will be added later on. From the environments to the character models, Marvel vs Capcom Infinite can look downright ugly at times.
But even with its lacklustre story or shockingly poor graphical design, Marvel vs Capcom Infinite is a great fighting game. The mechanics are excellent, and do help in forgiving its shortcomings in other departments that are frankly not as important. It does not suffer from the lack of modes that plagued the launch of Street Fighter V, but as a complete package it is not as appealing other games in the genre.
Overall 8.0
