When talking about games that are just a ton of fun to play with friends, the first game that comes to our mind right now is MultiVersus. This dynamic, slick, platform fighting title is an absolute blast to play. It has an excellent team-play element, and it is tremendously enjoyable in its singles mode as well. Honestly, we have very little negative to say about MultiVersus. Well, the gameplay at least.
You see, a game isn't just its core mechanics and primary gameplay. You don't spend all your time in matches when you sit down to play MultiVersus. And that is where things get just a touch shakier. For all the things MultiVersus nails, there are some ancillary elements that can be a little frustrating. Those are the things we're going to talk about here.
As a quick note, we're going to avoid saying "more characters", "more skins", or "fix the glitches". Those are all things that are clearly being worked on right now, and MultiVersus is still technically in BETA, so we don't think there is any question that those are all things that we will see in the future.
9 We Need Something After Completing The Battle Pass
When the Mini Battle Pass was extended, one thing became painfully obvious. We need something for those people who have obtained the Battle Pass already. Look, one of the great things about Battle Passes is that they create a sense of accomplishment. You play the game, you get the points, and you fill the bar. We know it is a Skinner Box-esque mind manipulation, but it feels good, so we aren't complaining.
However, what happens when you have filled that aforementioned bar? Well, then it takes those daily missions and makes them feel like acts of absolute futility. Suddenly, things that same thing that gave us a kick of dopamine feels like a sad reminder of how our precious battle points are just going to waste. We need something to make those Battle Points still feel relevant after you have gotten everything. Give us a little gold for every additional thousand BP we earn past the limit. Now we would suddenly have all our motivation back!
8 The Lab Needs Work...
Hey, we're ecstatic there is a training room in the first place. That is a fantastic inclusion, and it adds a lot of value to the experience. However, as it is, it definitely is lacking some really basic functionality. Like, right now you can't even have a second player join you in the lab. So, you have to just use the training dummy options, but there are a lot of things you can't even make them do.
For instance, you can't set them to jump at you and use a certain attack. This means that you can't practice using moves to beat specific air attacks. It makes the Lab a pretty flawed training tool. We love that it is here, but we need to have better training dummy options so that we can get more out of it.
7 Let Us Play Online With Local Friends
So, we get it, the emphasis with MultiVersus is primarily on online play. But damn, it sure would be nice to partner up with a local friend and go online. You know, mic couch co-op with online play. Other games that focus on team play have had this option. Both Tekken Tag Tournament 2 and Street Fighter X Tekken had the ability for a pair of friends to take their team online.
We get it, games have slowly been pulling away from couch co-op, but we still think this is a feature that would put MultiVersus over the top. Honestly, it may be the deciding factor when it comes to how often the game gets played in certain households.
6 Give Us Pre-Set Perk Loadouts
Look, we love the perks. We think they are a brilliant way to help express your playstyle. We love how they give us an opportunity to accentuate the aspects of our characters that we are most interested in. However, the process for setting your perks up every time can really drag down the pace of the match. Of course, having pre-set loadouts would instantly fix this issue. Give us the option to choose between pre-established loadouts so that we can speed up the perk selecting process.
While we are on the topic of perks... It is wonderful that, once you hit a certain level, you can use your partner's unlocked perks. But what isn't wonderful is that you need to choose the same perks over and over again, even if you are partnered up with a buddy and have formed a group. Please allow us to use the same loadouts between partners without having to pick our perks all over again.
5 Character Trials Would Be Nice
Right now, if you pick up a new character, your options for learning them are limited. Basically, you have to look up their movelist and then go into the lab and try to figure things out on your own (and unfortunately, the lab has issues). Beyond that, it is trial by fire. You have to just enter into a random online match, and try to figure stuff out how a character's moveset works in practice. In the process, your opponents aren't likely to go easy on you. No one loves to get smacked around when they really don't feel like they understand their character.
Sure, guides can help fill the gap a little, but it would be nice to have an in-game set of character trials to help demonstrate what a character's strengths are. As is, picking up a new character can be a bit of a struggle, and it is extra rough when you are paired with a partner who now has to carry your dead weight. Some basic character trials would be a fantastic addition.
4 We Need Improved Matchmaking
We don't know if this is something that just hasn't been implemented yet, but currently, the matchmaking is a little... off. Sure, ranked mode has been announced and that is great, but even the non-ranked mode needs to have some kind of matchmaking, right? Because if a player is rocking a level 1 Batman, a character they have never played, gets teamed up with a level 4 Wonder Woman, and then they are matched up with a team that consists of a level 15 Finn and a level 19 Velma, those lower level players are probably going to have a bad time.
It is especially rough when people who haven't unlocked a single perk for their character are facing off against opponents who literally have every perk in the game at their fingertips. That's messed up! Look, if you didn't have a particularly large pool of players to draw from, this would be more understandable, but MultiVersus is extraordinarily popular. Surely the matchmaking could be better than it currently is.
3 There Is Too Much Downtime
Boy is that MultiVersus game a ton of fun... when you get to actually play it, that is. And hey, finding a match is extremely fast. Unfortunately, waiting for people to choose characters, waiting for people to choose perks, and then loading into the match can take multiple minutes. That isn't great. We need to speed things up. We already discussed ways to speed up the perk selection, maybe it would also make sense to not let people swap characters during rematches.
As for the loading into the matches, that almost certainly has to be as slow as it is to accommodate people on older hardware. We understand that MultiVersus needs to support legacy consoles, but maybe make it so that people on modern consoles and PCs with SSDs can toggle whether they want to play with those people on legacy consoles. Let us harness the power of our SSDs!
2 Something Needs To Be Done About The Music
Like it or not, music is a huge part of games. Everyone can hum the Mario theme, and that is because that theme is a banger. The same could be said about the OST to most of your favorite games. Now, what is in MultiVersus isn't bad, it just feels a tad generic. Which is sorta bananas, as this is a game filled with characters who have memorable themes associated with them. Hell, Bugs Bunny is from the Looney TUNES.
At the moment, the only music tracks that you could associate with any of the notable roster members is found in Batman's Cave. It sounds very Batman-y. That's a good start. However, what MultiVersus really needs is to include a few bangin' arrangements of the classic tracks associated with these beloved characters. MultiVersus does right by the voices, it needs to do right by the music as well.
1 We Need More Interesting Stages
That Scooby-Doo Haunted House? Choice! The Bat Cave? We love it! But after you get past those two stages, things take a turn for the worse. Look, it isn't that the other stages are awful. They just feel a little middling. We would love to see some truly out-there stages. Stuff that really shakes the gameplay up, even. Make it so that these stages are optional and people can opt-out if they want a more balanced experience, but have them be part of the rotation when a lobby has players who have all enabled them. A little zaniness never hurts in a platform fighter!
If the developers working on MulitVersus don't want to include tracks quite as zany as some of those found in Smash Bros. we can understand that, but at the same time, the visual element needs to at least be a bit stronger. The combatants are all packed with character, we wish we could say the same for the stages.