11. A Unique Soundtrack
The game has a lot of scored music similar to the 2018 game but it has some changes and additions that make it more connected to Miles. For example, the scored pieces have more of a beat which makes sense as one of Miles’ hobbies is making beats. The fusion of orchestral and hip hop is similar to the music direction of the Spider-Verse movies. There are three original songs included. One by Jaden Smith and two by Lecrae
10. Keeping the Overall Story Going
They do a great job at including nods to the 2018 game and its story. It helps a lot with the world-building.
At the beginning of the story, the cops are transferring Rhino and many normal convicts back to the Raft since it has been rebuilt. Rhino fought Peter and also terrorized Miles during a stealth section in the first game.
Peter is invited by MJ to travel to Europe as her photographer and boyfriend. This makes sense as MJ had become a reporter for the Daily Bugle prior to the 2018 game and acted as such during stealth sections in the 2018 game. There was also a lot in that game about MJ and Peter reigniting their romance. Peter taking time off from being Spider-Man to support MJ’s career is an important gesture regarding his commitment to the relationship.
Peter and MJ get wrapped up once again with Silver Sable while they are in Symkaria. Peter even allows Sable and her mercenaries to do all of the fighting this time. Silver Sable and her mercenaries were hired by Norman Osborn in the 2018 game to protect the city and fought Spider-Man. Thankfully, she did not know that Spidey and Pete were the same person.
The Underground’s main hideout turns out to be The Kingpin’s abandoned building and is, of course, the same layout as the first mission of the 2018 game. It also turns out that The Underground rose to power by taking gear from the Inner Demons and Kingpin.
In a mid-credits scene, we see the return of Norman Osborn who is running some experiment on his son Harry. Harry was previously in charge of several scientific research stations designed to help combat pollution. Peter helped Harry complete some of this research in the 2018 game. Norman is presumably still the mayor of New York City.
9. Danika Hart and J. Jonah Jameson
During the 2018 game, Spider-Man was occasionally bombarded with Jameson’s new podcast sponsored by the Daily Bugle. These gave Jameson another medium to rail against Spider-Man. In this game, Jonah’s podcast is back as he has an all-new Spider-man to complain about. He also uses his podcast to suck up to Roxxon. However, we also get the introduction of a podcast hosted by Danika Hart who is a Spider-Man supporter and skeptical of Roxxon. Eventually, Ganke connects with Danika and brings her in as an expert on The Underground. She gives Miles a lot of insight into the dark side of Phin’s crew. Eventually, Jameson and Hart set up a debate which ends with Jameson shouting down Danika. However, Danika is ultimately proven to be right about things and Jameson has to eat crow when Roxxon turns out to be found to be guilty of crimes.
8. The Friendly Neighborhood App
Ganke takes it upon himself to develop an application using Peter’s Spider-Tech. The app lets users post requests for help from Spider-Man allowing him to be a more efficient hero and also connect him to the community. It also alerts Spider-Man to any significant crimes in progress. These are optional side missions but they reveal things about the side characters. Each request fulfilled from the app grows the user base. It then allows Ganke to alert Harlem that they need to evacuate at the climax of the story. Having an app like this is a no-brainer for a new generation of heroes and it becomes integral to the plot.
7. Peter is Absent
For the game to really focus on Miles, Peter needs to be absent to give Miles room to become a hero in his own right. Having a more experienced hero around to help clean up Miles’ mistakes would not make for a good story. Of course, the action of the game starts with a team-up with Peter which is a lot of fun but that could never be the whole game. After that first bit, Peter goes on a trip to Europe with MJ and entrusts the safety of New York with Miles. Peter calls Miles on the phone a couple of times during the story and offers to race back to help but part of Miles’ growth is refusing that help and dealing with things on his own. Miles has to do things on his own in order to gain the confidence needed to do the job which makes him a better hero.
Peter still has a presence in the game but not in person. Peter set up holographic training sequences on rooftops throughout Manhattan. An AI recording of Peter coaches Miles through these training exercises which teach Miles new skills. They are entirely optional. These training exercises culminate in a holographic fight against The Vulture in a recreation of a battle from Peter’s past. It is a really fun fight and you get plenty of snark from Peter during it.
6. The Exciting and Different Gameplay
While web-swinging still has that same delightful and exhilarating feeling, a lot changes when you are in control of Miles. Miles relies on tech less than Peter and instead leans on two major pats of his powerset that Peter lacks. Early in the story, Miles finds that he can absorb and release energy as bioelectricity. He and Ganke name it his “venom”. As the story goes on, Miles learns new ways to use this power. The first is the venom punch which he uses to defeat Rhino during the first mission. He eventually gains a venom jump, a venom dash, a venom stomp, and a venom explosion. Using venom attacks is very satisfying as you can instantly barrel through defenses that would have given the player pause during the 2018 game. It makes for a unique combat flow that is unique but just as good as the 2018 system.
The other power Miles develops is his Spider Camouflage which allows him to go invisible for about a minute. The short bursts of invisibility allow for entirely different opportunities during stealth sections. There are plenty of things that Miles can pull off with this power that Peter would be incapable of.
I really loved the boss fights in the game. Once I learned the gameplay, there was an absolutely fun flow, especially to the boss fights. Most of them involve biding one’s time and getting quick strikes so that I could build up venom power. Then I could absolutely flatten the boss with a good venom punch, sending them flying. My very favorite fight was against The Prowler. A reluctant Aaron Davis fights Miles to keep him from possibly sacrificing himself to save Harlem. Prowler can also go invisible so it is fun trying to predict his sneak attacks, countering them, and making him pay. The boss fights tend to come at very emotional moments so there is a lot of catharsis in conquering them. They are difficult but absolutely nothing in the game frustrated me too badly and if I died, I was happy and excited to jump back into the fray.
5. Making It Personal
Superhero stories are almost always better when the conflict is personal and that is especially true for heroes with big hearts like Spider-Man. During the course of the game, Miles finds out that his best friend Phin has taken environmental activism to an extreme where she becomes a supervillain. Miles also finds out that Phin’s brother Rick was killed by the evil corporation Roxxon which drives Miles further toward doing the right thing. Miles’ Uncle Aaron turns out to be The Prowler who turns out to be working for Roxxon. The betrayal hits Miles hard. The Underground (Phin’s crew) attacks during Rio’s campaign rally which causes Miles’ mother to break her arm. The experience rattles Miles but also inspires him when Rio does not quit.
4. Ganke Lee
Ganke was a creation of the Ultimate Marvel Universe and was introduced in the same storyline that introduced Miles Morales. In the comics, Ganke was the first person Miles Morales told about his secret identity. I am so glad that they kept this element from the comics in this game franchise. In the games, Ganke is Miles’ roommate at the Brooklyn Visions Academy which is a charter school that Miles qualified for. Miles has told Ganke his secret identity as the second Spider-Man. Since it has been a year since Miles earned his powers, Ganke is well-schooled in helping cover for Miles’ frequent disappearances and also hyping up his friend. During the course of the game, Ganke quickly shifts into a role as Miles’ backup. He helps Miles tamper with and upgrade the suit that Peter left for him. He is also available to look up information for Miles to help him formulate plans.
It is also really nice to have somebody for Miles to talk to and constantly hype him up. In Spider-Man, Peter talks to a lot of people on the phone but few know his identity as both Spider-Man and Peter Parker. Having Ganke know everything and have his back feels really good. I also like when he and Miles use the comms to just talk about roommate stuff like the video game that Ganke is developing.
3. Miles Revealing His Identity
One of the biggest tropes for superheroes is keeping their superhero identity secret at the cost of their personal lives. This can sometimes drag a good superhero story down as some things could easily be solved by the hero revealing themselves. The reason why writers struggle against such a reveal is because it can instantly change the status quo of the story. Thankfully, Miles is smart enough to know that sometimes the truth is more important than anything else going on.
He first revealed his identity as Spider-Man to Peter Parker who was already acting as his mentor.
He then told Ganke Lee who became his most steadfast supporter.
His Uncle Aaron is able to guess that he is Spider-Man and Miles trusts him enough not to deny it.
Miles finds out that one of his best friends is the Tinkerer. As the two of them engage in a vicious battle, Miles decides to even the playing field and reveals his face to her. Without doing so, Miles might have died and Phin would have continued on her dark path until the grisly end.
In the third act, Miles reveals his secret identity to his mother although this is not intentional. Still, he owns up to it and his mother accepts the truth and supports her son.
Several other residents of Harlem see Miles’ face at the end of the story but they cover for him similar to the train scene in Spider-Man 2.
2. Focus on Community
At the beginning of the game, we find out that Miles and his mother have moved from Brooklyn to a small apartment in Harlem. Harlem is where Rio grew up and also where she met her husband and his brother. Rio has returned to Harlem to run for a city council seat. Rio is also campaigning against the presence of the energy company Roxxon which is gentrifying the neighborhood. It later turns out that Roxxon’s new technology will poison the people of Harlem. Rio is heavily tied to the community but Miles is kind of lost as all of his friends and hangouts were back in Brooklyn. Of course, Miles connects heavily with the Black and Hispanic fusion of Harlem but he is still struggling.
Of course, as Spider-Man, Miles is also struggling to connect to Harlem and Manhattan in general. Peter has been operating for nearly a decade at this point but Miles is only a year into his career. People are wary of this “other” Spider-Man. A lot of them are solidly behind Peter but are skeptical of this newbie who just showed up. Part of the story of the game is Miles earning the trust of his new community. This includes the local bodega owner, a deaf artist, and more local characters. As the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man App starts spreading, it also spreads goodwill toward Miles as he comes into his own. This leads to Miles going from being referred to as the “other Spider-Man” to “our Spider-Man”.
1. Memory Lane
One of the really nice things that Marvel’s Spider-Man did was to have optional collectibles that help with world-building and flesh out the character’s mythos. However, some of the collectibles did not do this. All of this game’s collectibles further the story and allow the player to learn more about the characters.
The first set of collectibles comes after you first meet Phin alone. They are time capsules that Miles and Phin left all over Manhattan. Each capsule contains an object or objects that help tell a story from their friendship. The first one is mandatory and is the award that the two of them won at a science fair.
The second set of collectibles is not optional and is actually a built-in pause in the game. Miles meets up with his uncle Aaron to talk to him about how he should deal with Phin. Aaron talks about his love of music, something he shared with Miles’ late father Jefferson, and Miles himself. Aaron gives Miles audio samples that Aaron and Jefferson recorded when they were young. He tasks Miles with traveling around the city to re-record these sounds. As Miles travels to record the sounds, Aaron tells him pieces of his backstory with Jefferson. He tells the story of how two brothers became estranged because one was a cop and the other was a thief.
The third set of collectibles happens after the game is over. Miles wakes up on his birthday and finds that his mother has left a postcard in his room. The postcard is the first of many that Miles is tasked with collecting across Manhattan. When he finds each postcard, he also finds a flash drive taped to it. These flash drives contain voice recordings from Miles’ father Jefferson had previously recorded before his death. Each relates a memory of Jefferson’s that connects him to Miles, Rio, and Aaron. These are really touching anecdotes.
There is also an extended playable flashback in the third act just after Phin and Miles won the science award together. At a moment in the story where Miles and Phin seem to be completely at odds, it is a reminder of how close they really are. Also, there is a brief moment where Miles bumps into Peter and Dr. Octavius at the science fair.
Also, you can unlock a suit where you get to hang out with a bodega cat.
