The originalMarvel Ultimate Alliancetitle is the quintessential Marvel ensemble game. Many Marvel games have featured huge rosters of playable characters whether they were multiplayer or not, but there’s a potent nostalgia and yearning for classic comic book Marvel inMarvel Ultimate Alliance, specifically Raven’s debut entry, that marks it as a wholesome and lovable cornerstone.Marvel Ultimate Alliancewas conceived right before the Marvel Cinematic Universe began to subsume all other Marvel media, and as such it holds a special place in superhero video game history with depictions inspired largely by comic book source material.
As such, it’s captivating to seewhat settingsMarvel Ultimate Allianceexploresand how they’re represented. This is aided in no small part by trivia consoles that players can use as a whetstone to sharpen their lore knowledge against in each act, and each hub world behaves like a wonderful intermission where players can converse with various NPCs representing Marvel’s wide pantheon. Each hub is terrific in its own regard, and yet a futureMarvel Ultimate Alliancegame—if there’s ever to be another—would be foolish to revisit Asgard after the first game’s adaptation of the Norse mythology realm was adapted so spectacularly.
Marvel Ultimate Alliance’s Asgard Hub is a World of Its Own
With infinite depictions of the nine Norse realms and a fairly large prominence inMarvel lore,Marvel Ultimate Alliance’s Asgardis certainly not novel. However, once players reach Asgard it becomes abundantly clear how much care and attention was put into its hub world. This Asgard is portrayed as a mystical plane with trees rooted on a rock drifting in a sea of stars. Here, players can explore and see neat points of interest such as the Well of Helvelgamar, talk to Sif, and even witness Hermod speedily racing about.
It makes sense that Asgard would have a role as a dedicated hub inMarvel Ultimate Alliancesince Loki is one of the game’s primary antagonists, and the build-up to his boss fight is terrific with so much immersion absorbing players into the setting. One incredible moment in Asgard sees players able to enter the Hall of the Honored Fallen and enjoy a feast with Asgardians as well asvarious Marvel characters such as Thing, who can be talked to while he eats a leg of mutton.
Asgard is represented inMarvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order, but without an actual hub it pales in comparison to how great the original game’s Asgard is and merely emulates theMCU’s interpretation with a shimmering golden city beyond the Bifrost Bridge.
Marvel Ultimate Alliance’s Asgard Levels Brim with Creative Interactivity
The rarity ofMarvel Ultimate Alliance’s Asgard then extends to its level design. Many levels revolve aroundMarvel Ultimate Alliance’s generic combat to advance, and yet there are areas in the original where players engage with the level in genuinely creative and thoughtful ways, which include:
Marvel Ultimate Alliance’s two sequelsdemonstrate how one-dimensional the franchise’s brand of action-RPG can be when there isn’t much interactivity besides ordinary squishy combat with abilities being spammed repeatedly. Meanwhile, the original game peppered fun interactivity into nearly every sequence and Asgard in Act 3 is an extraordinary example of that.
The series has lost the plot in numerous ways and it’s once again unclear ifMarvel Ultimate Alliancewill ever be exhumed. If it is, the franchise should avoid Asgard like the plague unless it can somehow miraculously right the wrongs ofMarvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Orderand eclipse the original game’s Asgard, though that would be an unenviable and nearly impossible challenge due to how superb it is in every regard.
