REVIEW -- Injustice 2

Injustice 2 is a fighting video game developed by NetherRealm Studios and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. It is the sequel to 2013's Injustice: Gods Among Us. The game was released in May 2017 for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Similar to the previous installment, a companion mobile app was released for iOS and Android devices.

The core gameplay remains similar to its predecessor, albeit with minor adjustments to returning game mechanics. Injustice 2 introduces a new feature called the Gear System, a loot-dropping system that rewards players with costume pieces and equipment that can be used to customize characters' appearances and modify their abilities and stats. According to developers, the idea for implementing an RPG-style progression system into a fighting game had existed since before the fall of Midway Games, the original publisher for the Mortal Kombat series. Director Ed Boon also sought to incorporate gameplay mechanics used by multiplayer shooter games, such as personalization, character creation, loot, and leveling up, into the fighting game genre, which led to the development of the Gear System.

Injustice 2's storyline centers around Batman and his insurgency's attempt to restore society after the fall of Superman's regime; however, the arrivals of the newly formed supervillain group "The Society" and the alien Brainiac force Batman to consider freeing the imprisoned Superman to help combat the threats.

Plot: (FULL Spoilers) 

Five years after Superman's defeat, Batman and his collaborators attempt to piece the world back together. However, a new faction, the Society, composed of villains spearheaded by Gorilla Grodd, emerges and plans for world domination. With several of his allies either victims of or collaborators with Superman's failed regime, Batman is forced to create a new team to combat the Society. He sends Black Canary, Green Arrow, and Harley Quinn to combat them in Gorilla City, where Doctor Fate warns Green Arrow and Black Canary of an incoming threat towards the planet. After defeating Grodd, the two are abducted by Brainiac, the true mastermind behind the Society. Having previously collected and destroyed Krypton, he had intended to reclaim Superman, but became interested in adding Earth to his collection. After Brainiac takes over Batman's communications hub, Brother Eye, Batman searches for allies to combat him.

Catwoman, Batman's double agent within the Society, frees Harley from Gorilla City. Flash and a reformed Green Lantern reunite before joining Batman, who sends Hal to Atlantis to gain Aquaman's assistance. Aquaman refuses to cooperate at first, but relents after Brainiac attacks Atlantis. Meanwhile, Black Adam has found Kara Zor-El's disabled evacuation ship in space and brought her to Kahndaq, where he and Wonder Woman give partial truths about her cousin, leading her to become "Supergirl". When they witness Brainiac's forces attacking Earth, they attempt to revive the regime. Desperate, Batman releases Superman from custody.

Cyborg, Catwoman, and Harley Quinn return to the Batcave to free Brother Eye from Brainiac's control and coordinate civilian evacuation efforts. Wonder Woman takes Supergirl to Metropolis, and openly challenges Batman's plan. When she comes close to killing Cheetah and Harley Quinn, Supergirl stops her and heads to the Fortress of Solitude to confront Superman on the matter, learning the truth of her cousin's tyranny. With several of Earth's cities abducted, Brainiac prepares to eradicate the planet. The alliance attempts to take on Brainiac's ship, but his shields are too strong and he seemingly kills Superman in the process. They concoct a plan to weaken Brainiac's shields by using Aquaman's trident as a conduit for the magic of the Rock of Eternity.

Grodd pursues Aquaman and Black Adam with a brainwashed Black Canary, Green Arrow, and Blue Beetle. After Aquaman kills Grodd, the pair successfully weakens Brainiac's shields enough for Batman and Supergirl to break in. The two are captured, but Batman is rescued by Superman. After they defeat a brainwashed Firestorm and Swamp Thing, they are confronted by Doctor Fate, turned into Brainiac's servant by the Lords of Order. Fate is defeated and his helmet is destroyed, removing the Lords' influence; however, he is impaled and killed by Brainiac. They then incapacitate Brainiac, taking control of the ship. Superman manages to restore most of the cities back to their original locations.

The heroes are divided over Brainiac's fate. Batman, Flash, Green Lantern, and Supergirl want to spare him in order to restore the lost cities. Superman, Aquaman, Black Adam, and Wonder Woman want to kill him to eliminate his potential threat and use his ship. Batman subdues Superman with a gold kryptonite-laden dagger and a battle ensues. Batman and Superman defeat each other's teammates before engaging in a final battle in the Batcave. The battle has two endings, depending on which side the player chooses.

If Superman wins, he kills Brainiac, bonds with the ship and reestablishes the regime. He offers an imprisoned Supergirl the chance to join his army, claiming he restored the remaining cities and put Earth at peace. She refuses, and is horrified when she sees Batman under Superman's mind control.

If Batman wins, he depowers Superman and imprisons him in the Phantom Zone. He decides to create a new Justice League with his allies and offers Supergirl a membership within it.

Gameplay: 

It's time to throw dem hands...

Injustice 2 retains numerous gameplay mechanics from Injustice: Gods Among Us, including environment interaction, stage transitions, clashes, and character traits. The trait system, like before, provides a temporary buff or ability that compliments each character's playstyle. The super meter, which allows players to execute enhanced special moves and unlock powerful "super moves" when fully charged, also returns. Players can expend meter to perform new techniques, such as an evasive forward roll, which provides a way to overcome enemy keep-away tactics, or an air recovery, which lets characters escape an opponent's combo early. Most environmental attacks, which were completely unavoidable in the first Injustice game, can now be blocked; however, certain environmental attacks with large amounts of startup, such as throwing a car, will remain unblockable.

Injustice 2 introduces a loot-dropping system, known as the "Gear System", which offers character-specific costume pieces and equipment with status-altering effects. The Gear System uses RPG-like mechanics to reward players with experience and loot after every match. Every playable fighter is given four base stats: strength, defense, health, and ability, the latter of which impacts special attacks. As players collect experience points and subsequently level up, their characters' base stats will increase. Players can enhance their base stats even further by equipping gear obtained through loot drops, which also lets players customize the look of their characters. Rarer gear can include one or more bonus augmentations, which range from new visual effects for special moves to higher yields of in-game currency or experience points. Players can receive additional bonuses by equipping their characters with all five pieces of a single gear set. Gear comes in three varieties: equipment, shaders, and abilities. Besides the random loot earned at the end of a fight, all three types of gear are available to purchase in loot crates, known as "Mother Boxes", using in-game currency. Each character has five equipment slots for donning new costume pieces, which include their head, torso, arms, legs, and an accessory; two ability slots for equipping new or modified special attacks; and one shader slot for altering their color scheme. The game will also include five separate gear loadouts for each character, allowing players to switch between their setups at the beginning of each match.

The game also includes a microtransaction system. Players can buy "Source Crystals" using real-world money to purchase cosmetic adjustments for fighters, such as premier skins and shaders, instead of waiting to obtain them through normal play. Source Crystals can also be used to buy "Transform Gear". Transform Gear lets players apply the visuals of one piece of gear to another, allowing them to match their preferred stat modifiers with their preferred costume pieces. Lastly, once players have reached Level 20 with at least one character, Source Crystals can be used to level up other characters to their maximum levels. NetherRealm representatives clarified that any purchases made with Source Crystals are strictly cosmetic and offer no gameplay advantages.

In addition to the campaign, online, and arcade modes, Injustice 2 introduces a new "Multiverse" mode. Similar to the "Living Towers" mode from NetherRealm's previous title, Mortal Kombat X, the Multiverse allows players to travel through series of parallel worlds within the DC Universe and battle against opponents with various handicaps, stipulations, and goals. Online multiplayer will feature the option to disable Gear System upgrades and modifications, reducing all base stats to their default levels, turning any equipped gear into purely cosmetic items, and providing more balanced gameplay for competitive matches. Players can also form online "guilds" with up to 50 other players. Guild members can collaborate to complete daily and weekly cooperative objectives to earn and share gear exclusive to guild gameplay and climb the worldwide leaderboards.

The Verdict: 

Narrative

The game picks up almost immediately after where the first game left off, only 5 years later after the Justice League (from the main continuity) teamed up with Batman's Insurgency to defeat (Evil) Superman and take him to prison while his regime of followers went into hiding. I found it rather odd, at least from a gameplay perspective that Robin/Damien Wayne plays like the "new" Robin in the prologue of sorts, but he plays how Nightwing/Dick Grayson did in the original game, despite the fact that he's not playable this time around. I'm aware that Nightwing had an alternate costume/skin that made him take on Damien's appearance in the Injustice universe, but that would be just straight up rude (or better yet... cruel) of NetherRealms to include Nightwing as a DLC add-on out of one of the future additional (of possible 10 total that NRS are promising).

Things quickly rehash/recap the events that kickstarted the events of the first game that ends with a face off between Batman and Superman before fast-forwarding to the present with the alarming presence of Brainiac coming to Earth. I found it rather interesting that this sequel took some subtle nods from some of DC Comics' other works, such as Batman developing Brother Eye to monitor the rest of the metahumans on Earth (which ultimately bit him in the ass like it did during the Future's End event), Brainiac coming to Earth after the emergence of Kryptonians (Superman and Supergirl) peaked his interest, and Batman's kryptonite-powered Bat-suit (same thing Terry McGinnis uses against Justice Lords Superman in the Batman Beyond comics that are canonical with the animated series of the same name and the Justice League Unlimited animated series) to name a few.

I hope NRS does an Arrowverse themed Premiere skin pack for we can get costumes and dialogue for the CW versions
of The Flash, Captain Cold/Leonard Snart, Supergirl, and Canary. 

Each chapter of the 11+ chapters of the Story Mode (with 76 battles total if you want to see EVERY event transpire from all perspectives), allows you to play as one or two characters with the case of team-ups you have the option of selecting a different character prior to the pending battle at hand. My only gripe with this is that you can only pause or skip when the game reaches a certain point in the cutscenes, but restarting/reloading checkpoints after losing a battle or restarting where you quit is rather a chore as you're forced to watch a lengthy cutscene or two before you get back to where you were. I know that's more than enough to annoy casual players, along with the sometimes unforgiving AI in this mode. Some battles the AI is a complete pushover, while others it really kicks it up a few notches.

Each of the characters seem interchangeable with little effort done for their individual motives outside of maybe the Trinity, Supergirl, and Brainiac while others you're stuck left wondering why were they even here for this game's events, such as Atrocitus and Dex-Star just showing up in Hal Jordan's chapter merely to offer a Red Lantern ring to him or Cheetah and Reverse Flash showing up in Wonder Woman and The Flash's chapters respectively. I just felt that there was little thought put into some of these encounters other than "Oh let's have their archenemies and rogues face X hero/anti-hero here" to extend this campaign's run-time out or act as mere fan service. It just comes off as lazy in execution in the grand scheme of things.

To say that Grodd's Society (Reverse Flash, Cheetah, Bane, Deadshot, Captain Cold, and Grodd himself) were supposed to be major players in this game like the initial trailers hyped them up to be, they came off to be to pretty much an afterthought once Brainiac came into the picture and filled in the time doing his grunt work when he could have easily sent his drones to do what Grodd promised to assist him with.

Batman's Ending - This is the preferred ending for most players and the one I leaned towards more after dwelling upon it. Batman's planning proved to be fruitful - as usual - as he manages to subdue Superman and strip him away of his powers with the gold kryptonite. Imprisonment into the Phantom Zone is what they should have done in the first damn place, but given that thing, I doubt that would have held him in there long anyway.

That being said, I felt this was the "good" ending out of the two, with peace returning back to Earth as Batman and Supergirl lay down the foundations for a new Justice League. For some reason these games continue to ignore what happens to Batman's allies and Superman's Regime members after the climax. It just comes across as VERY lazy writing. 

Superman's Ending - This is the ending that didn't sit well with a lot of people - myself included - that left the Injustice universe in a far worse state than it was when the game began. Superman has merged his mind with Brainiac's ship and restored the archived civilizations and remaining cities that were thought to be lost. We can safely assume that Superman killed Brainiac as well, but anyone who follows the comics or seen any cartoon that Brainiac has been in knows that guy is harder to get rid of than butt acne and Ultron combined.

Call me crazy, but I think this ending is the one that has a lot more potential to be made canon with future sequels in this universe as there's far too many possibilities on where they could take this further. I know this is the ending that most people don't like and much rather they make Batman's ending canon, but if you read the Injustice tie-in comics, this universe has a knack (more like ongoing trope) for everything going from bad to worse, to shit hitting the fan in the worst way possible. 

Gear System

The Gear System allows players to customize their character(s) with stat modifying buffs and bonuses that change their appearance.  

As detailed above, the Gear System adds a RPG element to the fighting game genre, with loot boxes to have players obsess over like the fans of Overwatch as their rewards from their performances in matches from multiplayer and even single player content. The problem with this system is that while it's fun and addictive enough to extend the game's shelf-life outside of the competitive realm, it's completely random on what loot you acquire for the character(s) that you are playing. There's an option in the General Settings in the main menu to optimize/sway the loot acquired more towards the characters that you are playing currently, but it's still going to be a grind to get the stuff that you want. Out of the four days I had the game rented out of the past weekend, I got one character up to roughly Level 15, a few others to 5-10 thanks to play in Story Mode and miscellaneous Multiverse events and Battle Simulator ladders, but grew bored with this task rather quickly. Eventually I stopped caring how the gear looked on my favorite characters and was just looking for stuff with the best stats period. As the Multiverse challenges increase in difficulty or the rewards spike up in value, I'm sure that most players will resort to doing the same thing, especially in online multiplayer matches where these buffed characters are allowed to go nuts. 

I do appreciate the effort here by NetherRealm Studios to give players the ability to truly make these characters their own cosmetically and via customizable abilities and stats, but I wish there was an option to equip/change your gear without going all the way back to that menu. In single player modes, especially after receiving rewards, they should have included an option to open Mother Boxes right on the spot instead of going back to that menu too. It gets rather redundant really quickly. Players must also note that Mother Boxes should be opened the second you get them as the loot and gear within always applies to your character(s)'s current level, with the rare instances where you might get an Epic (rare) loot drop that is max level.

At least NRS had the foresight to make sure these customizations where only allowed in specific modes of play and won't completely ruin the online experience like the customizations found in Tekken Tag Tournament 2. God, I hope Namco-Bandai learned from their mistakes for Tekken 7...

Overall Experience

Damn, this game had some superb promotional artwork done.

To be honest, I can't speak on the Online Modes as it worked the first night of my rental with this as I was able to join a Guild, but for the rest of the weekend those options on the Main Menu were either grayed out or inaccessible in red, citing that I couldn't connect to the Injustice 2 server, despite being online to PSN. Maybe I had a bugged copy of the game or NetherRealms were doing maintenance but that's something I guess I would have to come back to if I were to rent or purchase this again down the road. From what I have heard from my friends' own online experiences, Deadshot is pretty much the Week 1 Deathstroke from the original Injustice, dominating the online matches with everyone resorting to spammable tactics for wins. 

I have to give NRS props where it's due. DC Comics' heroes and villains haven't ever looked this good in video game, since maybe DC Universe Online, but even these character models blow a lot of those out of the water. I'm glad that they abandoned the grim and depressing colors of the previous game and breathed a lot of life here with the usage of more colors. It makes this world come to life visually and aesthetically on an artistic level too. While I'm not too crazy about a lot of the voices cast to play parts in this (Kevin Conroy as Batman, George Newborn as Superman, and Susan Eisenberg as Wonder Woman I was perfectly fine with, but everyone else was either hit or miss IMO), the lip syncing and facial animations were incredible. I just wish NRS would quit recycling that death animation at the end of matches where opponents would fall down, only to stand back up and drop to one knee/on their knees in defeat. It's a minor gripe but looks so damn lazy when everything else looks amazing in this game.

As for the controls, they are the same as the first game, but I ran into a minor issue. If you're a Street Fighter player and looking to do those style inputs in a NetherRealms style fighter, it's not going to be understood by the game by default. Instead, the game has Input Shortcuts and Negative Edge enabled by default, so you have to disable those if you want traditional Street Fighter style inputs for the game. Even after changing that in the menus, I had an issue where moves weren't coming out properly to the point where I just said screw it and went back to the default settings. It's possibly something that will get patched out/corrected in a future update, but a minor annoyance for me in my short time with the game. Hey, I didn't care for those input controls for Mortal Kombat 9 nor the original Injustice and it's rather ridiculous that they have the option to switch the style inputs only for it to work haphazardly. 

With Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite and Tekken 7 on the horizon after the flop that was Street Fighter V's console release, Injustice 2 definitely raised the bar up from out of the toilet and into the heavens on what should be expected out of these fighting games in terms of single player content. Injustice 2's Story Mode is roughly 3-5 hours of content alone if you manage to do EVERYTHING with all of the branching story paths and multiple playable characters. The Multiverse is a fun, yet easy method to grind for EXP (experience) for characters, tokens/coins for spending on in-game items, and acquire Mother Boxes for obtaining more loot to customize your character(s) with. I'm glad that they scrapped the STAR Labs mode from the original game for this as those mini-games went from fun to absolutely retarded. Here, you can just pick up your favorite character(s) and have a ball however you see fit, no matter what your skill level is. On top of that, the Multiverse challenges refresh and update every few hours/days, so there's always something new to come back and do, along with the daily challenges (Street Fighter V has this as well, but who actually cares about doing those daily?) as well. 

Let's not forget about the downloadable content (DLC) on the horizon as well.

I can easily tell that Black Manta and Raiden make up the two of those 6 remaining DLC fighters, but no idea on the rest.

Sweet news to hear that Starfire is getting to be in this as I wanted her to be in the original, but seeing Red Hood makes me groan with disgust that I'm hoping that this game doesn't make the same mistake the original did and oversaturate the roster with nothing but Bat-Family affiliates and Batman rogues. From the tie-in comics and characters in the DC Universe as a whole, they shouldn't have any shortage of characters to pick from to be in this game. It's not like the original game where they had to depend on fan favorites and the established Batman brand to sell the product to people since it was a new IP. I know there's going to be plenty of people that disagree with me in that aspect, but for fuck's sake, there's TONS of games out there where you can play as Batman-themed characters. There's SOOO many other characters in DC Comics that deserve some representation in these games too.

Play It or Don't Bother?

Martha ain't gonna save you from this beatdown, Bats.

I personally rented the game last week for 5 days - completed Story Mode, ran through all most all of the roster's individual character trials/tutorials, and had enough time to dwell into the Multiverse for a lengthy bit of time. With the online content excluded, I enjoyed my time with the game. If you like the original game, there's more of the same while the fresh faces on the roster spice things up in a positive manner. I just hope that they bring back some of the other noteworthy characters from the original back in some fashion. If John Stewart can be in this as a premiere skin for GL and he's dead in the official storyline canon, I think NetherRealm Studios can find a means to make other characters playable in a similar regard. They have more than enough content here to keep players busy on and offline for months on end with the Multiverse and grinding it out for loot for Gear customizations for their favorite fighters while online Guilds and the Online AI Simulators will ensure that players of all skill levels will get something out of all modes of play. 

While I could knock this game for the sometimes "clunky" speed combat feels at times (it's just something about NetherRealms games that always feels off to me coming from Tekken/Soul Calibur and Street Fighter into playing this) and the recycled death/defeat animations, there's still some fun to be had here. NRS definitely learned their lessons from their first outing here and definitely raised the bar for a fighting game launch with tons of single player content, a thorough tutorial to teach players the basics and advanced techniques, and a stable (from what I've heard) online environment. 

Sorry, Capcom, but you're definitely going to have to bring your A game when Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite drops later this year after that mess that was Street Fighter V's launch last year. DC Comics and NetherRealms have raised the bar big time. For that, I'm more than happy to recommend that players give this game a shot. There's something here for everyone to enjoy, whether you plan on grinding it in the long haul and master every character and dominate the opposition online or you're just in for the short run for the story and messing around with the Multiverse and other various single player content.