LogFAQs > #977186421

I finally 100% beat Spider-Man 2. Overall, I'm more satisfied from a gameplay standpoint. I feel the combat takes a bit of time to really get to the level of combat in the first game with the gadgets. But once you get enough upgrades with them, it feels really good to play. Travel is great. Bosses are great.

But my god I hate these Mary Jane segments. I just don't get why they keep shoehorning them in it. I preferred it more when it was full on stealth though. Rambo MJ attacking and defeating legions of Hunter soldiers with complete ease while I have to beat the hell out of them with the Spider-Men was just a bit jarring to me.

And I hate to weigh in on the Miles Morales is Spider-Man debate, but I think it's fine that he is when there's not another Spider-Man there. It's awkward having them both call each other Spider-Man, and a bit silly when everyone in universe is just calling Miles "Younger Spider-Man". What's even the point then? Just give him one of the other names they've used for him, and let him be Spider-Man when he's the only one.

I'm not really terribly satisfied plot-wise though. Some stuff is awesome. Kraven is awesome. Peter's stuff is really solid. Loved the Venom stuff. They did a good job taking a ton of modern Venom stuff too. Miles had nothing going on and I'm stunned they didn't have anything substantial to give him for this game. The Martin Li stuff worked, but the rest is... Ehhhhh.

But spoilers.

I have no idea what they're doing with Kraven here. They build him up as some turbo badass, have him kill villains off screen. He's the primary antagonist for much of the game. We're trying to stop Kraven and his Hunters from taking over the city and killing all the supers... and then they just feed him to Venom to make him look even more badass.

Kraven stood out on his own without needing to kill a bunch of villains off screen. What purpose does this serve, exactly? At least show it to us. Just shoddy work there. And then why are we using Kraven just to make Venom look more badass? They did a fine job of it as is. Why not keep Kraven and the Hunters around for a while longer?

Have him at odds with Spider-Man, where Kraven wants his god damn fight with him and is using his Hunters to make his way to Venom. So they have two things to worry about. Then you can have him do his fight after incapacitating the Spider-Men for a while. Have Peter at odds with whether or not to stop Venom and Kraven from killing each other and stopping the Symbiote takeover.

I know they did a similar thing in the first game, where Mr. Negative was the primary antagonist, and then they throw Doc Ock and the Sinister Six in it much later. But the plots at least intertwined. Devil's Breath was a huge part of both stories. Spidey definitively stopped Mr. Negative's plot before a much bigger one appeared with Doc Ock. But in this game the Kraven story just ends abruptly and then immediately launches into the Venom story, and Kraven and his Hunters are complete nonfactors at all and we're just in this giant symbiote takeover. Just feels sloppy. Why make me do all of these Kraven and Hunter side quests if they're all just totally pointless by the time Venom starts taking over everything?

I also didn't love the complete symbiote takeover either. It felt rather sudden and Venom's power was frankly completely outrageous. And I'm sad Venom had personality for literally one moment in this game.

Also a severe lack of villains to fight here. What is it? Kraven, Sandman, Venom, Mr. Negative? With a fun bonus Chameleon deal? Perfect opportunity to give us redux fights with the villains we faced in the last game by trying to stop them but having them get captured by Kraven in the end.

Overall, I'm satisfied. But narratively, it feels like a very solid step down from the first game. I really wish the story was better than it was, even despite having some awesome moments in it. Hoping the DLC is better than the first game's though.