Because I have not/will not choose a soundtrack for SUICIDE SQUAD: KILL THE JUSTICE LEAGUE

Oh boy, I don’t know how to start. I’m sure everyone has already read and listened to every review article and video they want about this game. But I might as well give my two cents as someone who basically makes a living out of live service games and explain why it’s taken me so long to post a review. I finished the game over a week ago and have delved into the ending a bit and have a lot to say.

I’ve been playing a variety of life-service games for a long time: Genshin Impact, Destiny 2, Warframe, and a handful of mobile card games and RPGs that have been ongoing for many years. I understand the idea of ​​grinding out games like crazy and doing the same thing over and over, day after day, year after year. That said, I can’t believe Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League isn’t as fun to play. But what blows me away the most is that, even with great characters, combat, and aesthetics, I was often bored, frustrated, and actively annoyed by the game… and that’s just during the campaign. The post-game offered more loot and fun ways to grow, but again, it really feels like a chore to do those missions and beat those levels. I’d rather watch reruns of The Office and fold laundry than play most of the missions in Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League.

Now, this is a pretty bad start and you and I would expect a fairly low score for this game. But let me explain why I have trouble giving it a rating of any kind. First of all, the game looks really nice. It’s not top of the line, but it can actually look relatively spectacular, especially the facial animations in the numerous cutscenes. There are actually well-designed and entertaining characters in those cutscenes. While humor isn’t my cup of tea most of the time, the banter between the characters gives them some real life and depth. Each character is not only unique in their design (obviously), but their movement and combat mechanics can help them feel quite different.

This brings me to my second good thing about the game: traversal. It seemed very clunky at first, but after getting to know each character, I found my favorite (teleporting with Captain Boomerang is endlessly fun). But other reviewers and players are enamored with other characters and their specific traversal types. This shows a lot of genuineness, uniqueness and emphasis in style between the four characters. Unfortunately, though, traversal is basically the only thing that makes the characters unique. While they may have different weapons to use and different abilities, the moment-to-moment gameplay is virtually identical between the four of them. It’s a lot of fun to jump from rooftop to rooftop through chaos and fighting enemies, but your style, commitment/approach to missions and gameplay will be more or less the same no matter which character you choose.

While the actual combat and movement can be very exciting (even though it’s so similar between the four of them), it feels like it goes to waste due to the low intelligence of the enemies. But it’s not just the bad AI enemies that make this combat disappointing, it’s also the objectives and missions that players face. As I said at the beginning, I’m used to playing the same game modes, killing the same enemies, and doing the same missions for years and years in a variety of games (I’m easily talking 7,000+ hours in live service games in last 6 years). But Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League feels like a new level of generic and uninteresting. Move the load slowly while enemies attack, pick up missing items and crush them in the center while enemies attack, kill all enemies in an area and one or two more like it are all the variety of missions you get in this game. All of these missions are fine for world exploration and general grinding, but when they’re also exactly what you do in the story and endgame (with bigger health bars and some time limits), it really makes you wonder what on earth the developers they had actually been developing for so long. The best way to explain this empty phenomenon is if you had crazy skills, pretty cool weapons, and unique mobility, but the entire game took place inside a training simulator. No, not like a Star Trek holodeck, more like a generic target to test out your builds and weapons. The “training area” might look cool, but its objectives follow the same patterns and get bigger health bars at the same rate you get stronger. Ultimately the game gives you all these powers and options without any truly fun/engaging/challenging encounters.

This finally brings me to the end of the game, the live service aspect of Kill The Justice League. To not spoil anything, I will say that the final game is 110% integrated into the main story’s ending, making it feel more like you’re playing a long-winded tutorial with some interesting story beats that could/should lead to something grander. a long time from now in a later season. The actual end game consists of players having to play the same missions they’ve done from the start to gain currency to spend on special missions (the same types as before with some difficulty modifiers) that get increasingly difficult and reward “special “. ” gear. I like that there are specific and slightly more creative challenges in these special missions, but the fact that they are just slightly modified versions of the campaign/general missions makes them feel bland and boring 99% of the time.

So why didn’t I just post the review and give it the 4/10 it probably deserves? Part of the reason is that some parts are good while others suffer. But another part, and most of the reason, is because I 100% believe this game was not designed to be a live service game from the start. But due to corporate influence, the game was forced to have a lot of microtransactions, become an eternal game, and spread the content as thinly as possible to feed players just enough to keep them interested. I think this game could have been really great if it was a game that was finished in under 20 hours with an expansion or two added that delved into the “final game” plot. Rocksteady knows how to make full experiences and fun encounters, but only in limited bursts. I see the team trying to venture out and do a good enough job with the task in front of them, but I’m sure many of them realized how the live service and missions would be received long before publish the game.

I could go on and on about this game. My friends, wife, and family can attest to the endless amount of comments I have about Kill the Justice League. But it mostly boils down to the idea that this game suffers incredibly because it tries to be a live service game. If the developers had spent more time crafting actual boss battles, unique enemies, and creative encounters with creative rewards, then this game could have honestly been pretty good, easily a 7 or 8 out of 10. But because of the bland mission design, legitimately annoying and boring boss battles, and mediocre loot, this becomes a chore to play while trying at every turn to keep players engaged with superficial mechanics and systems. Overall, this is a testament to the problems of corporate influence in artistic design, becoming another cog in the wheel that is the “content” machine.