Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales is a spin-off sequel to Marvel’s Spider-Man. This game stars Miles Morales and it is a smaller scaled game with a much shorter story. The first game showed how Miles gained his powers and then confiding to Peter about it. Here, in this game, he is already established as a second, younger, Spider-Man that the public knows about. The story is set up when Peter goes on vacation and thus Miles is the only Spider-Man looking after New York. Of course, it just so happens that Miles encounters a villain that he needs to stop.
The game plays near identically to the first game. Miles has plenty of acrobatic moves with the iconic web-slinging ability taking front and centre. The web-slinging is just as much as the original, and just as impressive. It’s so fun that you usually don’t use the fast travel and instead travel to your destination using the long way. Miles can easily climb and run on walls. The combat is a combo based system where you chain together attacks and moves. Spider-Man will automatically strike the closest enemy. His webs and other gadgets aid in combat.
Dodging plays a big part in the game as you constantly need to be moving. If you successfully perform a perfect dodge, you’ll stun the enemy and refill some of the bar that is needed to use his powers for. The biggest differentiator of Miles as Spider-Man is that he has Venom powers. These are special attacks that he uses his bio-electricity for. There is a light RPG touch to the game where Miles gains experience points as he beats his opponents, completes quests and does other things. He uses them to level up and gain skill points to unlock new skills and additional effects for his existing powers. As he progresses the story, he also unlocks new suits and new gadgets that he can use.
Finally, Spider-Man has a suite of stealth abilities although they’re not that varied. It doesn’t give you a ton of options, but they’re not a pitiful selection either. It’s something that meets you halfway as it isn’t a huge focus of the game. There are plenty of sections where it is designed to be cleared using stealth but if you cannot be bothered, or aren’t good at it, you can always try your luck at brute forcing it by fighting and knocking out all the opponents. This is usually the harder approach given that the enemy swarms and outnumbers you. The game has plenty of simple puzzles that usually just involves scanning the environment to see what items needs to be pulled. Even if you are stuck, you’ll get a hint from the characters within seconds.
Miles is younger than Peter and this plays out well in terms of the way he speaks and acts. This also affects how the game plays out since combat is flashier thanks to the Venom powers. Even though the combat is functionally identical, it feels more fun thanks to the focus on style. The music is also another area where it is similar to the first game but adds a unique twist to suit Miles. It’s surprisingly good and memorable. The track that plays when Miles is swinging in the city is suitable episode thanks to its mix of orchestral and electronic.
This is a short game and it shows in the story where the pacing is extremely fast. It is set piece after set piece, which ends up working well. It’s constantly exciting and the visual spectacles are a treat. The story is simple and predictable as it doesn’t even try to hide its reveals, although it still manages to be enjoyable as you watch Miles struggle to be Spider-Man. He has to go through the save things as Peter such as juggling both his personal and superhero responsibilities. The short nature of the game also means that you’re constantly leveling up and unlocking new abilities and perks.
It’s not so much an origin story for Miles rather than one that just explores his past and his current. We learn a lot more about him, his friends and the environment that he grew up in. The climax of the game keeps upping the pacing with some fun boss battles sprinkled throughout. Again, it is the visual spectacle of the game that really impresses you and while the game runs fine most of the time, it did chug in the finale. The main story is only around seven hours long but this can be seen as a positive as the game does not get stale or even come close to overstaying its welcome. After the story, you can free roam and finish off all the side activities as well as starting up a New Game+, which allows you to bring over all your unlocked abilities and gadgets.
There are plenty of sidequests in the open world of New York. There are the standard collectibles but there are also the scripted sidequests, which has more effort put in given that they have some story elements behind them. When traversing the city, it is easy to get distracted since you end up encountering these optional things so effortlessly and naturally, that it doesn’t feel like a chore when you complete it. It’s also refreshing to see the number of suits that you can unlock without it being locked behind DLC or microtransactions.
Overall, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales is a fun and enjoyable short side game to the series. If you understand that it is supposed to be short and is not aiming to reinvent anything, then you will have a great game. The fast pacing, the small new additions, and the flashy visuals and choreography makes this game a blast to play. Unfortunately, these same factors also mean that the story will feel overly familiar as it doesn’t try anything new, but it is strong enough to provide an excuse to play the game and progress the story.
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