Game Title: LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2
Developer: Traveler’s Tales, TT Fusion
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Availability: Retail | Digital
Battery Life: 2.5 – 3.5 hours
Download: 10.6 GB

LEGO games are a hobby of mine, and I have said before that the fact that the Nintendo Switch is getting true multiplatform console LEGO titles, it means that handheld gamers can now experience true, fully-fledged LEGO games on the go. It started with LEGO City and LEGO Ninjago Movie, but the latter really was not on the large scale that many previous console LEGO games have been.

However, I was hopeful about the newest LEGO game, because it was an original story game, and it was a LEGO Marvel game, which are known to be big and exciting. Even LEGO The Avengers had a sandbox free-roam world on handhelds, and an even bigger experience on home consoles.

So, let us take a look at the game. Here is my review of LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2 for the Nintendo Switch!

Story

The Avengers are enjoying times of peace when Kang the Conqueror appears in the skies of Manhattan and uses Time Travel technology to capture the citizens of Earth as he builds his utopia, known as “Chronopolis”, a giant city made up of several cities and locales taken from different time periods and dimensions..

Regrouping, The Avengers are joined by The Guardians of the Galaxy and various heroes from the alternate dimensions brought into Chronopolis. With an even larger group of heroes than usual, the team goes into action to take down Kang and restore the worlds to the way they are supposed to be.

I would not call the story of this game incredible or mighty in any way. The story is pretty simple. Kang screws up reality and you go on a long fetch quest to penetrate his fortress and make things right. The best part of the story is, instead, the plethora of world mash-ups, like seeing Spider-Man meeting Spider-Gwen for the first time, or Ms Marvel’s nerdgasms as you explore New York Noire.

Gameplay

Like previous games before it, LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2 is a 3d platforming and beat-em-up game with light puzzle elements. However, I can add in that this game is also open-world in nature instead of just having confined levels and small hub worlds like the Vita version of LEGO The Avengers.

The biggest thing of note here is that there is an Open World hub you can explore here. Unlike the sandbox New York from previous LEGO Marvel games, this is a huge open world with over a dozen different level-sized areas you can go to and explore. This is the largest world I have ever seen in a LEGO game. Once you start flying around, you see that this is to such a large scale that handheld gamers may be overwhelmed by its size at first.

As far as progression goes, you have an ongoing story, which constantly pushes you towards your next Story Level. Between levels, though, are pre-story missions that will unlock full levels and optional missions and quests you can do in the Open World areas. While out here, you can use any unlocked character, or a custom character you can craft with their own unique look and powers. So, you always have the choice of either going towards the next story segment or wandering around the open world for quests, races, or real-time combat events that spawn in the various areas you can explore.

Unlike the Open World, story levels are in enclosed areas, which is much more familiar to what handheld gamers have had with LEGO games in the past. Each level had a predetermined party of 2-4 characters that can platform, fight off enemies, and solve light puzzles as you navigate your way through the level and story scenes of that chapter. As always, each story level ends in a boss fight with a famous Marvel villain and finishing a level unlocks Free Play, where you can bring other characters in to gain access to secret areas for extra collectibles and playable characters.

The nice thing about this game is how well it mashes up different Marvel worlds and gives a ton of different comic runs their own shine that don’t typically have a lot of it outside of video games. You have levels based on big hitters like Thor and Spider-Man but you also have levels around less-known comics like Sub-Mariner and The Old West.

This also ties into length. With so many different franchises getting the spotlight, the story mode of the game will take you a good amount of time to finish. I am used to LEGO games taking around 6-8 hours for their entire story scenarios, but LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2 took me around 16 hours to get to the End Credits.

After you finish the story, you are left with all the side missions you can do until the bulk of the DLC releases, which will coincide with the upcoming MCU movies, like Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War. But every area in the open world has real-time crime events for you to go through as well as a lot of puzzles and hidden collectibles to collect, so there is a lot you can do just by exploring around each area.

Controls

Controlling the game is not hard to do. LEGO really sticks to the same general control scheme in all of its games, so if you have played a previous LEGO Switch game, you know the drill.

The Left Analog Stick is used for moving and the Right Analog Stick can move the camera. The four triggers are used as well. L and R are used for centering the camera in the Open World and ZL/ZR are used to swap between your party members during gameplay.

Then we get to the face buttons. A is used for interacting with objects and Charge Attacks while B is used for jumping and activating flight for flying characters such as Iron Man, Captain Marvel, and Spider-Woman. Y is used for melee and lock-on attacks while X is used for swapping nearby party members and activating certain characters’ transformations, like Ms Marvel growing into a Giant or Spider-Gwen turning into Gwen Stacy.

All in all, pretty simple and, as always, the game shows you how to do everything via tutorials.

Presentation

Graphically, the game looks good for the most part. When the game is docked, everything looks really fluid, smooth and all around flawless. No jagged edges to be seen. However, in handheld mode, the visuals do get a bit blurry. It is not a huge blur, but it is noticeable when switching between the two modes.

Performance, though, is done quite well. The first level seems a little shaky, but for the most part, it is a nice and smooth fps with little to no drops across the game in both docked and handheld modes.

The only issue with performance is crashing. I had the game crash on me twice when I was playing the game, both in the Open World environment. There did not seem to be a trigger for these crashes. One was right after I assembled a LEGO object while the other was when I was exploring in the air as Spider-Gwen. I have heard reports of crashing in other areas, like during story scenes, but have not encountered that, myself. And 2 crashes in 16 hours isn’t terrible, but could potentially be an issue.

Battery Life

I had a general thought on what Battery Life would be. LEGO games, after all, tend to all have similar battery life. Here are my times, from 100% to 0%

Max Brightness + Wi-Fi – 2 hours, 47 minutes
Max Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 2 hours, 51 minutes

Low Brightness + Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 13 minutes
Low Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 39 minutes

This is becoming the norm for more and more games. LEGO Marvel 2 will net you between 2.5 and 3.5 hours per charge.