The announcement of Spider-Man: Miles Morales was quite confusing… no one in my friend group knew for sure whether it was a standalone game or DLC. Needless to say, I was excited when I learned that it was a standalone game. But is this game a worthy successor to 2018’s Spider-Man? I will explain why it is and isn’t.

Spider-Man: Miles Morales (or Miles Morales which I will be calling it for simplicity) is the sequel to 2018’s Spider-Man. With the success of 2018’s Spider-Man, I was expecting big things but when I saw the price of $50 I lowered my expectations. After playing the game twice and unlocking all of the achievements I can say the game is worth $50. Miles Morales has a story that takes about 7 hours to complete if you mainly focus on doing the story. There are a few extras if you want to unlock the platinum trophy.

The gameplay is an improvement over the previous game. Especially with them taking advantage of Miles’s personality and making a fluid and stylistic swinging style. Swinging is also more fun with using the PS5 controller with the haptic feedback and the adaptive triggers immersing you. They also made the combat more fun with you now being able to jump onto a wall and being able to then launch yourself towards the enemies. In terms of gameplay Miles Morales is a major improvement.

Sadly, not everything can be an improvement. The story for miles is okay but not something noteworthy, definitely a downgrade from Spider-Man 2018’s story. I think what really makes the story not as great as Spider-Man 2018 is the villain. A quick summary is that Peter Parker leaves to help Mary Jane with a job in Europe. So he leaves Miles in charge of protecting New York. Then a new group named The Underground begins to rise. So Miles must stop them by himself. During the story, Miles makes a lot of progress as a character but there is just something about the story that makes me dislike it.

Honestly, the villain just makes me mad with how hypocritical and emotional they are. The villain is supposed to be very intelligent but when acting out their plan they have tunnel vision and don’t think of the consequences. I asked my friend his opinion about the villain and he told me, “ I think the villain strives to be unique from the regular archetype villains where they are the polar opposites to the hero. In this case, the villain was not fleshed out enough and therefore they can be seen as a weak villain, though trying to be unique.” I can agree with him that the villain tried to be unique and what hindered them was maybe that we just didn’t have enough time to actually develop their character. There was also another villain who was pretty generic, but I can’t say much without revealing spoilers. 

The suits in this game are great. My favorite being the Programmable Matter Suit. I was asked by someone to talk about the suit with the cat, also known as the Bodega Suit. Once you complete all the side missions you can unlock the suit. The suit features Spider-Man with his classic suit under a gray shirt, a red hoodie with a spider symbol on it, and black and red Adidas. Also, he wears a backpack with a cat inside from Teo’s Bodega named Spider-Man. The cat is able to help you knock enemies out while using finishers. But honestly, the suit looks unappealing to me so I never used it much.

So that was my review of Spider-Man: Miles Morales. I apologize for making this a little long but I appreciate those of you who read through it all.So remember to keep reading the MTS Times and have a good day!