Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 is one of my favorite Switch exclusives, thanks to the colorful visuals, button-mashing gameplay, and plentiful post-game content. To this day, I’m forming teams and going through those Infinity challenges to try getting more rewards and leveling up my favorite Marvel heroes. It’s not perfect; this is very much a 3D beat-em-up that can get repetitive, but it’s a solid basis for more of these fan-service beat-em-ups, and Marvel Ultimate Alliance 4 would be nice.
However, with the MCU leaning towards mutants again with Avengers: Doomsday, it’s clear that the Marvel universe will revolve around the X-Men again, sooner or later. While Ultimate Alliance 4 is what most Marvel fans want, thanks to the variety of characters you can have, it might not be the worst to go back to the series’ roots and work on X-Men Legends 3 instead.
For those unaware, the Ultimate Alliance series spun off from the first two X-Men Legends games. It was these two action RPGs that introduced the four-person team system and addictive beat-em-up gameplay, though it primarily focused on Marvel’s merry band of mutants. Now that Marvel cares about the X-Men again, capitalizing on that with a return to this series would be ideal.
Mutant and Proud
Pivoting from Ultimate Alliance 4 to X-Men Legends 3 could benefit the series in numerous ways. Not only would it get gamers more familiar with the world of button-mashing X-Men, but the focus on a particular group of heroes could lead to a better story, something MUA3 received plenty of flak for.
While Ultimate Alliance 3 was a very fun game, its standard Infinity Stone story did feel like an excuse to go around the Marvel Universe without much depth. Fans were tired of the stones after they became a huge plot point in Infinity War and Endgame, so seeing that story rehashed in MUA3 did lead to some eye rolls. It did give us plenty of unique environments like Avengers Tower and Wakanda, along with plenty of fun characters to use, but the story felt like an excuse to bash some Marvel action figures together.
Going back to that X-Men vs Brotherhood dynamic could lead to a much more focused story. The series has always used Mutants as an allegory for racism, so we imagine a good tale could be made to get these characters together again. We could even see some X-Men ‘97 influence in here by making Magneto a good guy, but that’s just a fanboy brainstorming.
X-Men Diablo
Aside from a more focused plot, X-Men Legends 3 could go back to the more Diablo-like RPG formula that the Ultimate Alliance series has strayed away from.
The first two X-Men Legends games had light RPG elements. You have potions that can heal your health and power, equipment that increases your stats, and collectibles that could unlock extras. Fans could also unlock a myriad of powers for each character, offering plenty of customization. While not an in-depth RPG system by any means, fans did appreciate putting some thought into their teams, and it feels like the recent MUA games have simplified things a bit too much.
The original Marvel Ultimate Alliance is probably the last one that felt like an RPG, as it still had gear to equip and a ton of abilities to unlock. Starting with MUA2, you only had four combat abilities, some passive buffs, and a simplified badge system that buffs your entire party. MUA3 kept that four-combat-ability system and replaced gear with the annoying ISO-8 mechanic that forced players to fuse crystals for status buffs. Because ISO-8 drops were so rampant, players would have to manually delete some to get and fuse more, leading to plenty of annoying menu management.
If we do get X-Men Legends 3, the devs need to go back to a simpler gear system and maybe bring back that in-depth ability tree. We don’t blame the recent MUA games for going towards a simpler beat-em-up system, but fans did enjoy those bits of menu management, so bringing it back could be ideal. Just don’t bring back ISO-8, it’s so bad, even though I love MUA3.
Children of the Atom
Going back to X-Men Legends isn’t necessary, as we could just get Marvel Ultimate Alliance 4 and add all of those improvements I mentioned above. While Ultimate Alliance 4 is cool, X-Men: Legends 3 would be bigger because it's making a statement about the new Marvel hotness.
That statement? Mutants are back, and they never should have left to begin with.
Many of us still remember how Marvel devalued the X-Men and Fantastic Four to the point that Disney could buy Fox and get these properties back. It was a pretty disgusting tactic that led to years of floundering comics and poor decisions that are finally being fixed today. We’re sure that Marvel vs Capcom Infinite wouldn’t have been released with a poor roster if this dumb mandate hadn’t taken place.
Despite the mixed reception for Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3, it did signal the return of X-Men and Fantastic Four to video games proper. There’s plenty of X-Men in the base game, while the Fantastic Four were the focus of MUA3’s DLC story. With all that in place, going back to X-Men Legends would feel less like a demotion and more like Marvel embracing their roots again.
Could we get X-Men Legends 3 in the future? Sure. And if not, I’ll take an HD remaster of the first two games, alongside the re-release of the first two Ultimate Alliance titles and MUA3 on consoles outside of the Switch.
What, too greedy?
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