My Idea for Telltale's Marvel Game
I posted this first on reddit. If you guys like it, I'll try to post the rest of episodes 2-5 every few days. Hope you guys enjoy it!
So, I've seen mixed reactions on the news that Telltale Games is working in partnership with Marvel. Everyone wants an action game apparently.
I don't know if this will be any good, but I was thinking about it and came up with my own little 5-episode arc that I think could work well. See, it's not simply about the action and the story. It's about each character's uniqueness. Spider-Man's wisecracking jokes, Hulk's anger, etc.
The way I would do it would be to have 4 superheroes in 4 episodes. Mostly standalone, and linking somewhat to the other episodes, similar to, well, the cinematic universe and comics as a whole. Not origin stories, that would take too much time away. The 5th episode would be a full team-up style episode with the 4 heroes of the previous four episodes, though a world of it's own. So with that introduction, onto episode 1!
Episode 1: Spider-Man
Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a spider can. And the world is his oyster! So, of course, the gameplay's not going to be simply one point to the next. But now's not the time for that. First, a simple tutorial battle.
Fighting gameplay I think would be quite fun. In these episodes, I think there should be little meters that the player can't see that would affect everything. For Spider-Man, that's his confidence meter. Spider-Man is funny. It's his charm. So, when he's about to be attacked, he has the choice to either fight back or make fun of the enemy. This needs to be done very quickly, or it would get pretty boring. Fighting back would damage the enemy (or take damage) depending on confidence levels, but there'd be some interesting fights. Choose to poke fun at the enemy, and you have four choices of joke that need to be made quickly. If the enemy gets it, Spidey gains a confidence boost. If it's not a bad joke, but not great either, Spidey loses confidence. If it's just plain bad, the enemy will use the opportunity to hurt Spidey. Plus, he'd lose massive confidence. As usual with Telltale, there wouldn't be a way to lose, but the suit will get damaged visibly, and so will Spidey. He'll fix it when he has time, but it would be a nice touch. It's fast paced so that the player doesn't lose interest. Also, every once in a while, there'll be an option to take a picture for a little reason I'll get into later.
So what about after the tutorial battle? Well, Spider-Man's having a dull day, so he looks for crime on the street. And we get to another cool feature. Remember that moment in Amazing Spider-Man when Captain Stacy was telling Peter how they'd been following a car criminal for a while to get to his boss? No? Just me? Well, in the episode, when facing an enemy, after beating them, you can web them up for the police to find, interrogate them and let them go free or beat them up some more. Beating them up adds to another meter which I'll get into, and interrogating them gives you clues to finding the big bad/boss. Some of them won't be working for him and won't give clues, but quite a few will. They'll also be there in the final battle this episode. Beating them up also gets them to give you clues, though they won't appear for the final battle. Leaving them for the police to find will lead to something I'll get into later.
After beating an enemy, you'll return to Midtown High (that's the name of Peter's school, right?), where you'll get the chance to chat to fellow pupils, as well as maybe getting beaten up by the school bullies. Mary Jane is just a friend in this game at the moment though. These will add to each of the character's friendliness and trust meters. Friendliness is self explanatory, and trust will be important in a later episode. You'll also be able to fix your suit and take a look at what clues you've gathered. You can also talk to people at the Daily Bugle and hand in pictures to improve relations with JJJ, although you'll start to lose some trust with him if you act suspicious. There's also another secret meter which I'll tell you about in a later episode.
There'll also be some mini-bosses, like Electro, that are optional. What's fun about them is that while they don't add to the clues you gather, if you don't try to stop them, you'll see parts of the city destroyed if you return there later in the episode or in later episodes. Though it's definitely cool to face off against them too. They won't be a big part of the story, so it's not gonna turn out like Spider-Man 3 with too many important villains, don't worry. 
About halfway through the episode, Mary Jane will find a black gooey thing and gives it to Peter because she thinks he'll find it interesting. He can take it or refuse it. Taking it adds to the beat 'em up meter I told you about earlier. This meter is of course for the black Spider-Man suit. If Peter accepts the goo, he'll take it to the lab, where he also fixes his normal suit, and it will start to engulf him. It doesn't take damage like the red suit, and makes you more powerful.
But all this comes at a cost. The beat 'em up meter is a lot more powerful than the confidence meter, but if it gets high enough, it will render the confidence meter practically pointless. The beat 'em up meter will always be higher than the confidence meter in the black suit. If the difference between the two meters is high enough, Spidey will no longer be making jokes in battles and instead act much more aggressively.
If we let enough criminals go with the police, we then need to break into the police station to interrogate the criminals. This decreases trust with the police, but you need the clues to fight the final battle.
The final street battle will be against Harry Osborn. If you talk to him at Midtown High, you'll know he was recently disowned by his father, and if he trusts you enough, he'll tell you he's making money another way. We don't know how, but in this battle, we do now. Stealing. We can choose to fight him or take off our mask and reveal to him that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. Taking off the mask will decrease friendliness and increase trust, while fighting will do the reverse. Taking off the mask will get the information we need quickly, while fighting will beat the answer out of him. Spidey will confront Harry with all the clues and use it to figure out that Wilson Fisk, aka the Kingpin, is behind it all.
After we leave, if you accepted the goo, it will mysteriously leave you. (Maybe it found someone more angry than you?)
During the final battle, you're going to get REALLY hurt. If you didn't tell Harry your secret, you're going to be angry. You'll be more powerful, but also less jokey, more fast and blazing. When you finally face the Kingpin, you put up a good fight, but you'll always end up losing. When you get damaged enough, a giant green foot will appear and crush the Kingpin.
To Be Continued
Comments
If Kingpin is involved DareDevil better be too.
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