Spider-Man: Miles Morales — Doing More with Less
I feel there’s increasing pressure from developers, particularly Triple A studios, to deliver games with more and more content. For most Playstation Studios, one way this has manifested over the years is through many story-driven games becoming longer in length, from the 10–12 hour mark to around 20–30 hours. Usually, lengthier game narratives are a win for players, as it provides studios with the added flexibility to tell the stories they want to tell — it offers writers with some more room to build more magnificent worlds and flesh out characters and their individual arcs. However, this is often easier said than done and many studios this generation have encountered difficulties delivering longer games with even pacing and meaningful content throughout.
Although the first Spider-Man game from Insomniac Games is arguably the most faithful and polished Spider-Man game ever released, I thought the game’s main shortcomings came from its narrative which simply tried to achieve too much within its allotted time. Insomniac committed to the daunting task of balancing two major storylines focused on different villains — Mr. Negative and Doc Ock. Ultimately, I felt the game struggled to find a sweet spot in balancing the two, as Doc Ock’s time as the central antagonist was much more rushed and its conclusion felt less cathartic as a result. The 20-hour length of the game only made the transition between these storylines feel even more jarring and the pacing feel even more disjointed, with two-thirds of the game building up Mr. Negative despite Doc Ock being the final villain.
Insomniac’s spin-off of their first Spider-Man game, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, takes a different approach with regards to the game’s scope. Instead of being a full-length sequel, the game tells a more condensed story that’s around half as long. After playing through the entire game, I thought Miles Morales was stellar despite the game having less content than the original. The more cohesive direction of Miles Morales’ story addressed most the issues I described above with the first game’s plot, and does a better job of developing characters and giving the narrative clearer, consistent themes throughout. Despite the game playing almost the same as its predecessor, its gameplay still manages to feel fresh and exciting with new enhancements to combat that come from Miles’ unique abilities as Spider-Man.
Of note, I don’t own a PS5 yet and I completed this game on the PS4. From what I’ve heard, the game looks and performs amazing on PS5, and delivers an experience that can be truly touted as next-gen. I unfortunately cannot comment on any of these graphical and performance enhancements in my review, but I can say that the game ran fine on my PS4 despite the game pushing the PS4’s hardware little bit harder compared to older PS4 titles.
Story
Unlike the original Spider-Man, the shortened plot of Miles Morales meant that Insomniac had less liberties when it came to deciding who and what to feature in the story, and how to position things from start to finish. The original game had a lot more leeway when it came to featuring beloved characters and villains, and implementing many unique action sequences and levels throughout to keep things fresh. With greater breadth, there were many times in the first game where things just felt out of place and did not need to be there. A good example would be the Mary Jane stealth missions, which I’m pretty sure nobody asked for and isn’t something players of the original game would miss. For Miles Morales, the Insomniac team decided to emphasize depth over breadth. Although the story has fewer moving pieces, these pieces fit and flow more neatly together with nothing dragging on for too long or feeling like it could have been omitted. Miles Morales hit a home run in delivering a game with better pacing and narrative structure, while still remaining true to the intense action, humor and powerful moments that enamored people with its predecessor.
Insomniac also made a stronger commitment towards more meaningfully exploring each character, their struggles and their relationships with each other in this game. Comparing the protagonists of both games, I feel that Miles Morales has a more compelling character arc than Peter Parker from the original. In this game, Miles is left to protect New York on his own for the first time, and aims to prove himself and improve his confidence as a Spider-Man that the public — and Miles himself — perceives as inferior to the first Spider-Man. Miles also grapples with the realities of being a hero and the sacrifices that come with the job, and he is often confronted with tough decisions that challenge his loyalties with those closest to him. The internal struggles that Miles faces as an inexperienced hero is something that permeates the entire plot of the game, and Miles’ classic coming of age story leads to Miles growing a lot more as a person compared to Peter Parker in the first game. In comparison to Peter Parker, who did not really develop all that much as a character from start to finish in the original, Miles Morales had a much more satisfying conclusion to his character arc with the events of the story greatly maturing him and earning him the respect of his community.
With fewer characters vying for screen time compared to the original, the cast of Miles Morales have many more opportunities to develop and shine. The character that best exemplifies this is Phin Mason, Miles’ childhood friend who has a deep and personal connection to the central conflict in the story. The game does a great job of rationalizing her motivations and fleshing her out as a more complex and conflicted character, allowing you to connect with Phin more deeply compared to other supporting characters in the first game. Phin also has great on-screen chemistry with Miles and the conflict between them in the main story is expertly built up and leads to an incredibly emotional and impactful resolution.
Most of the other supporting characters in the game were also strong as they possessed memorable personalities, fascinating backstories and played off of each other well. I feel like there wasn’t a single character that was noticeably underdeveloped, which was a problem in the first game with the Sinister Six. However, I didn’t care much for the Underground — an enemy faction in the game — because they were just kind of there as muscle for the Tinkerer, one of the game’s antagonists. The Tinkerer’s main objective to take down Roxxon — the other enemy faction — wasn’t the ultimate goal of the Underground as a whole (the Underground bought into this goal to gain access the Tinkerer’s technology) and I felt like the game could have expanded a bit more on the Underground’s other exploits.
Although all open-world games have fetch quests, there were a few fetch quests in this game that I thought were particularly well executed. For these quests, completing objectives unlocked voice logs that provided meaningful exposition on Miles’ family and their past. Family is a central theme in Miles’ overall story (in the comics and in both Spider-Man games), and I liked how these fetch quests provided rewarding dialogue that only added to the weight of moments in both games involving Miles and his family. I hope future installments of Spider Man (and all other games for that matter) add side / fetch quests with a bit more purpose like the ones that I referenced above, as opposed to superficial challenges that are there to pad the game length (such as the science experiments from the first game). The rest of the side content in Miles Morales is on par with the original game.
Gameplay
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I have relatively few complaints about the combat and traversal from the first Spider-Man game, so I was pleased to see that most of these elements were carried over to Miles Morales with minimal alterations. The game feels just as fast-paced, fluid and responsive as the first.
However, I wouldn’t say that the gameplay of both games is identical. Miles Morales has some new features that differentiate it from the original game, and addresses some of the flaws of the original game’s combat. One of the main issues with the original game is that there are hardly any drawbacks with healing. The ability to heal in the original game is granted through a focus meter that fills up through damaging enemies, and the only alterative use of your stored focus is unleashing a one-hit finisher on an enemy. The one-hit takedown was never a crutch in combat, so it is quite easy to manage your focus — just heal when health is low and use your finisher when your health is higher. Lacking a well balanced trade-off between healing and using a finisher, combat in the original felt like a breeze for a really long stretch in the game after unlocking some key upgrades and I remember going through a 6–7 hour period without dying at all.
In Miles Morales, there’s one very significant change that was made to the focus meter. The focus meter is still used for healing, but instead of being used to unleash a finisher (now a finisher is automatically granted with a 15x combo) it is now used as energy for a Venom Attack. Venom Attacks are powered by Miles’ bioelectric abilities, and deal significant amounts of damage to enemies. In this game, Venom Attacks are absolutely essential in combat. I deployed these attacks much more frequently compared to finishers to soften up enemies — which are bit more resilient in this game — and most of these attacks are AoE attacks that helped greatly with crowd control. Furthermore, many enemies and bosses in the game are designed around this mechanic in mind, with many of them having Venom Attacks as a weakness (because it disables their weapons). I like how the focus meter was reworked in this game because there’s now a legitimate incentive to withhold from healing with Venom Attacks being so crucial. There’s a lot more strategic decision making required on when to heal and attack, and this added piece of complexity really makes the combat feel more challenging and makes Miles behave noticeably different from Peter Parker in combat.
The stealth combat in this game is also improved with two key differences. First, Miles has a camouflage ability that allows him to sneak around enemies undetected and re-position and re-enter stealth after being spotted. Second, Miles can mark enemies across the map and through walls. This allows the player to be more aware of their surroundings and tactically plan how to stealthily take down enemies one by one. With these enhancements, stealth feels more approachable and satisfying in this game and I definitely had tons of fun clearing enemy rooms without getting detected — it felt more like a puzzle maneuvering around the map and baiting enemies out of position to pick them off.
The upgrade tree in this game is slightly different as well with most of Spider-Man’s combat techniques from the first game unlocked by default. The upgrades this time around are focused on Venom Attacks and camouflage, which is something that I can commend because it makes these new features more multidimensional. I can’t say the same for the gadgets though, as I still think they kind of suck. There’s fewer of them now which makes managing gadgets less overwhelming, but they still don’t do enough in combat to make them worth switching to often.
Music
The music in this game is frickin’ great and one of the things that you immediately take note of when you boot the game up for the first time. The soundtrack of the original definitely fit the game, but it didn’t really leave anyone speechless because it was what you’d expect from a Spider-Man game. In Miles Morales, the game has the same heroic-sounding compositions, but a large majority of these tracks are juxtaposed with hip-hop, funk and R&B to give the game a truly distinct soundtrack that matches perfectly with Miles Morales and his overall qualities as a character.
I just can’t write a review about this game without calling this game’s magnificent music out.
Conclusion
If I recall correctly, I remember some people being disappointed that Miles Morales wouldn’t be a full-length game when it was first announced. Some people still probably wish that Miles got a 15+ hour story on par with the original Spider-Man.
In my opinion, this game manages to do a lot more with less. I felt this game left a more profound impact on me than its predecessor by the time I finished it, and I would attribute this to the game’s more focused narrative emphasizing strong characters that the player can easily connect to. Miles Morales also does not reinvent the wheel in areas where the original game excelled and thus continues to deliver the Spider-Man gameplay we all know and love, but the game does make some tweaks that allows the gameplay to stand out as a distinct experience.
Although it is true there’s less content in this game with many aspects of it either similar or identical to the original, this game is still phenomenal and one that I can strongly recommend for PS4 and especially for the PS5.
