Jay Hunter

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The new My Hero Academia battle royale is full of pay-to-win garbage

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SHOULD I PLAY MY HERO ULTRA RUMBLE?

Skip it unless you’re obsessed with battle royale games or the My Hero Academia series. My Hero Ultra Rumble is a free-to-play title that combines the core gameplay of battle royale with some elements from fighting games. Although it captures some of the style that has made the anime and manga so popular, it’s plagued by poor design choices, from progression walls to an abundance of microtransactions.

TIME PLAYED

I played My Hero Ultra Rumble for three and a half hours. I’ve played around twenty matches, but I’ve only won twice. Each match lasted from five to fifteen minutes, depending on how early I was defeated. I’ve played five different characters so far, but I’ve enjoyed using Cementoss and Midoriya the most.

WHAT’S AWESOME ABOUT MY HERO ULTRA RUMBLE?

• Fighting other players. My Hero Ultra Rumble combines the complex, randomized gameplay of battle royales and the action-packed brawls of a fighting game. I had to find items across an open map while staying on the move as the safe zone shrunk. Beating other players in fights required mixing punches, kicks, and special abilities. The best moments of the game had all these elements coming together for a dynamic, exhilarating experience that proved the game’s potential, if nothing else.

• It’s just like My Hero Academia. If you’ve seen almost every episode of My Hero Academia like I have, you’ll find a lot to like in this game’s presentation. The gameplay setting reminds me a lot of the joint training battles that happened in the series where classes would divide in groups of three to battle other students. There are a lot of references to the franchise, as well as some hidden secrets for players to discover. The game even looks identical to the series and captures the anime’s comic art style perfectly.

WHAT SUCKS ABOUT MY HERO ULTRA RUMBLE?

• So many microtransactions. It’s no surprise that a free-to-play battle royale game features microtransactions and a battle pass. Still, I was shocked by just how much content is on sale in My Hero Ultra Rumble. The game is filled to the brim with paid events, gacha banners, cosmetics, premium content, and tons of other things that require real money to obtain. While I understand why there are microtransactions, I hate that I can’t go five minutes without seeing a gacha banner or scrolling by an advertisement of the premium shop.

• It’s a grind. I’ve played a lot of battle royale games in my life, so I know the difference between regular free-to-play microtransactions and a game that’s full-on pay-to-win. My Hero Ultra Rumble is a prime example of the latter. Almost every character in the game is locked behind some sort of progression wall, making for a time-consuming, tedious experience just to gain access to characters you might love from the source material.

By my estimation, it would take me weeks of play just to build up a roster of eleven characters. To ease this grind, Ultra Rumble features microtransactions that allow players to jump over these challenges and unlock characters instantly. Players are pushed harder to spend money than to waste time actually playing the game.

• Poorly designed menus. The menu layout in My Hero Ultra Rumble is very confusing and messy. I had difficulty navigating all the different tabs and figuring out where to go. I even had to turn to Google to figure out where to unlock characters, because I simply couldn’t locate the option in the menus.

• Learning the game. It’s one thing to explain things comprehensively, and it’s another to make that lesson entertaining for the learner. My Hero Ultra Rumble’s tutorial and tips are informative, but they’re just a bunch of words stuck to a dialogue box. There’s no sense of fun in learning how the game works which makes reading the rules feel boring.

💬 Are you going to play My Hero Ultra Rumble or will you probably skip it? Tell me down in the comments!

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Comments

TrinityGhoul

sorry not sorry alot of you complaining its ptw are really dumb xD you can unlock characters free especially though seasonal, cry all you want and make excuses you guys just suck at the game and want to give it hate. the gotcha is mainly cosmetics but also has a small chance to unlock a character for you which you are always free to just earn through seasonal pass which is free, ita just gaining exp. i havent payed for anything and i havent had anything to complain about the game is good, many of you just throw shade cause you cant have things your own may, make the game yourself instead of crying about it no one ask for people like you to stay in the game, its obvious the ones who get annoyed by this comment are the toxic players who act like they are good and rage quick the second they die even when your last team member is able to revive you none of you can wait just complain talk crap and blame others for your trash game sense and spacing

10/21/2023

Author liked

Jay Hunter

Author

It's not about being bad at the game, it's about spending an absurd amount of time trying to make progress and achieve a better gameplay experience. This game is designed in a way where characters are rewarded after players reach certain levels in the seasonal pass. Players can acquire seasonal levels by farming earnable in-game EXP - or by using real money to purchase seasonal levels. And it's not easy to grind EXP to level the seasonal pass. It takes a lot of time to farm all that EXP in one sitting and it could easily take me days or a week depending on how frequently I play. The seasonal pass, at least from what I played during my time with the game, only provides a small-ish amount of characters and not the entire roster seen in the character selection menu. This means not only do free-to-play players have to grind multiple hours of content, but they don't even get all the characters in the game. On top of that, everyone can use whatever character they like in matches. While it's great to fight against different heroes and villains, it's a little unfair or disadvantageous for newer players with base characters to go against other players with stronger, unlocked characters. This basically means players who have played longer will obviously have a better chance at winning, regardless of skill, because they have a bigger selection of playable characters to choose from. Back to the seasonal pass mechanic. Not everyone has the time to play a battle royale for hours on end. Battle royales are games with matches that last anywhere between ten to twenty-five minutes and most players, including myself, are content with spending an hour or two in the game, not endless days. This slow progression urges players to spend real money on seasonal levels to save time and receive a better gameplay experience. Now, this design isn't completely terrible, but it could be a lot better. For example, the seasonal pass could feature all the characters, and getting the EXP to level up could be way quicker and easier. Or maybe the game could automatically unlock ten playable characters for new players at the start, so people would have more fun with the game. OR maybe the game could add a feature where players can use earnable in-game currency or resources to purchase characters directly from the shop instead at a fast rate. Overall, there are a lot of solutions that can be made to improve the average gameplay experience. It's nice that you had fun playing the game and I can agree that I briefly did too, but I didn't like that I had to grind hours of content just to make progress and try out different characters to have more fun. I enjoyed the game as is, but I wish everything was much more easily obtainable. Hopefully things get better in the future.

10/23/2023

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SpFinX

Weeks to build a roster of eleven characters? In typical gatcha you need weeks to build ONE =) --- This game still sucks too, real p2w garbage trying to milk fans.

10/08/2023

Author liked

Jay Hunter

Author

Sad that it is too. I wish the game was more generous!

10/09/2023

Master Tac

in short it's overly grindy which pushes players towards purchasing progression. there are way to many cosmetics or rather "pointless" cosmetics. and just too many purchases overall that don't give you anything meaningful.

11/07/2023

Author liked

Devin

me who played Pokemon unite : 💀

11/03/2023

Tobias

Good review!

01/13/2024

SUMODC

Brodie ass a video games

10/13/2023

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