Following a summer of movie-based superhero adaptations, X-Men: Destiny offers something different. Rather than giving you an established character in an existing narrative, it lets you pick one of three original mutants and pimp their powers as you see fit. The premise is full of universe-expanding potential, but ultimately, it’s undermined by mind-numbing gameplay.
The game starts strong, introducing a “What if?” scenario where the mutant-vs.-human conflict is at an all-time high in the wake of Professor Xavier’s death. Before long, you’re caught in a struggle between the X-Men, the Brotherhood (Magneto’s crew), the Purifiers (mutant-haters), and the U-Men (mutant-haters who harvest mutant organs). After selecting a core power, you have multiple ways to layer, build, and customize your abilities; one of the cooler ones, dubbed X-Genes, even adds favorite canon characters’ powers to your arsenal. Unleashing the various melee, ranged, and screen-clearing attacks is fun…at first.
Sadly, you soon realize that gameplay consists almost entirely of tiresome clear-a-room combat. Additionally, the faceless attackers can mostly be thwarted with a few basic thumb-blistering attack combos, reducing all your character-building to busywork. Similarly disappointing is the story-shaping “Destiny” system: while siding with either the X-Men or Brotherhood at different points grants access to their respective powers, it does little else to alter the narrative path or mission structure in any meaningful way.
Factor in a short campaign (six to eight hours) and underwhelming visuals, and Destiny looks about as good as a beer-bellied Batman cos-player. Faithful X-fans will dig appearances by Northstar, Surge, and company, but as action-RPGs go, this game’s still a far cry from the Marvel: Ultimate Alliance series.
The three powersets (Density Control, Shadow Matter, Energy Projection) should be familiar to anyone who's played melee, mercenary, or ranged classes in an RPG.
+ Building your own mutant with one of three powersets.
– Painfully repetitive combat; short campaign.
– Dull graphics, clunky animations, and frequent frame-rate drops make it look dated.
? It’s an action-RPG with three unique characters…but no co-op? Why?
