Guardians of the Galaxy Review: ‘Not another Avengers-level missed opportunity’

Guardians of the Galaxy is not another Marvel’s Avengers-level missed opportunity for publisher Square Enix. Despite being a point of contention among fans when it was released, its complete focus on its central characters – and its decision to make Peter Quill a.k.a. Star-Lord the only playable one — greatly benefits the story it tells. And it’s the strength of this story that carries GotG a few steps above Square’s previous crack at the Marvel whip, even if it’s undermined by a lack of polish that really shouldn’t accompany a license of this magnitude.

Guardians of the Galaxy tells an original story that sees the titular anti-heroes creating their own problem, which winds up having devastating ramifications for the galaxy they’re supposedly guarding. As part of a job-gone-wrong, Quill accidentally unleashes a mysterious entity that sets about taking over the galaxy alongside the Universal Church of Truth, a creepy cult led by priest Grand Unifier Raker. This sends the Guardians on an adventure spanning multiple planets, space stations, and the like, that players must shoot and puzzle-solve their way through.

Players may only directly control Quill, though they’re still able to give directives to the other Guardians during combat. Each team member has four unlockable special abilities, all reflective of their own unique skill-set. Groot can lock enemies into place with his tree roots, while Rocket can unleash a devastating flurry of explosives. Meanwhile, Quill is solely armed with his two trusty pistols, though is able to imbue the pistols with special elemental powers as the game progresses.

The Gardeners of the Galaxy

Combat is fast-paced and frenetic, though the lack of variety in Quill’s own arsenal holds it back. Elemental powers mix things up a little and can be used to counter specific enemies weak to certain elements, though he’s mostly resigned to shooting people with the same guns while his friends pull off the cool-looking moves. He has his own set of unlockable abilities, too, though it’s difficult to get too excited about a move where you throw a few grenades on the floor or use your jet boots for an extended period of time.

Outside of each character’s unique abilities, there’s also the team-based Huddle, a special move that pulls the Guardians into a team talk where Quill is tasked with rallying the troops. This sees you selecting a dialogue option that complements the other Guardians’ thoughts — for instance, if they seem overly confident of victory, you tell them to keep their minds focused — but it’s far too easy to know exactly the right thing to say. I eventually found that the brief period of souped-up superheroes it offered was less attractive than just shooting my way through enemies and not having to sit through the Huddle.

Unlike Marvel’s Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy leans heavily into its heroes’ comic book design rather than presenting us with off-brand versions of Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, and co. The same can be said of their personalities, too — Drax lives up to his Destroyer nickname, with him having already killed Thanos prior to the events of the game, while Peter Quill’s heritage is more in line with his comic book counterpart. Rocket and Groot’s adorable relationship is lifted straight from the MCU, though, while Gamora occupies a middle-ground between a stern assassin and a voice of reason.

Drax is back

Each character goes through their own arc alongside the main story, though some are better presented than others. Drax’s should please Marvel fans who were upset with the MCU’s treatment of the character as comic relief, while Gamora’s feels rushed by comparison. Quill is depicted as a far stronger leader than Chris Pratt’s bumbling figurehead, and the Guardians of the Galaxy game actually does a better job of illustrating why these highly skilled warriors would follow Star-Lord’s command more than the MCU ever did.

The draw of the Guardians has always been their unlikely friendship, and this is the focus here. There is constant banter between the protagonists throughout each mission as they expand on their history, share their opinion of the best approach to each situation, or simply rib on each other. Players are given the infrequent ability to choose Quill’s response in certain situations, too, though these options typically rotate between either empathizing with or chastising his partners. They have a moderate influence on the outcome of certain events, though it’s never difficult to figure out which option is the “right” path.

However, while the witty dialogue comes thick and fast, this also ties into Guardians of the Galaxy’s biggest problem — the sheer number of visual, audio, and even occasional game-breaking bugs, glitches, and problems. Now, Square Enix has noted that a day one patch will focus on these, so these are known issues that will hopefully be resolved sooner rather than later. However, it’s no exaggeration to say that nearly every cutscene, shootout, or even gentle stroll to the next area is accompanied by at least one bug or glitch.

The only good bug is a dead bug

Chief among these issues is almost every exchange between characters — some of which are integral to their development and plot exposition — being cut short by the player entering a new area or triggering a new cutscene that will stop the dialogue in its tracks. It got to a point where I’d deliberately have to stand still in order to hear out what my teammates had to say, as pressing ahead with the game would ensure they’d be cut off by the next batch of dialogue. While the plethora of other bugs and glitches can likely be resolved with a future patch or two, it’s difficult to see how the script routinely overrunning the on-screen action will be improved.

The other bugs included, but were not limited to: characters refusing to move to the next destination and thus preventing any progress, on-screen button prompts remaining on the screen, characters T-posing during the middle of combat, the abilities menu refusing to open until the game was restarted, my health bar not regenerating, the camera getting stuck in cutscenes, and a particularly infuriating section where I spent a considerable amount of time trying to find the exit out of a cave, only to find that an essential line of dialogue hadn’t triggered.

It remains to be seen how much the day one patch fixes, but there are so many little flaws bursting through its seams that it will be a gargantuan task to rectify all of them. Hopefully, all of the more glaring ones will be removed with the patch, and checkpoints are forgiving enough that the particularly egregious ones weren’t too debilitating. However, it’s still far too much jank for a Marvel game and brought back unfortunate memories of Avengers’ slew of launch day issues.

Guardians of the Galaxy Review: The final verdict

Guardians of the Galaxy is a solid original story from Eidos Montreal that deviates from both the MCU and the comics, providing something for Marvel fans across mediums to enjoy. However, while it’s certainly a step up from publisher Square Enix’s Avengers, it suffers with its own notable bugs and glitches that detract from the on-screen action. The day one patch will hopefully tackle these problems, and if so this is a highly recommendable superhero game that doesn’t quite step it up like Insomniac’s Spider-Man series, though still does right by its unlikely group of misfit anti-heroes.

Guardians of the Galaxy reviewed on PS5. Code provided by the publisher.