There was a moment in Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League where I set down my controller, wiped the tears from my eyes, looked at my TV and said aloud, “How. Dare. You.” I got up, took the dog outside, grabbed something to drink, and whatever else I could think to waste a little time. I just needed a moment. I couldn’t believe that a game about otherwise expendable prisoners being coerced into para-military service to save the world could make me both laugh and tear up during the same 15-hour campaign.
Suicide Squad did that and so much more, and they did it more than once. To avoid spoilers, I won’t tell you what made me tear up the first time, but I will say that the second time it happened, it was because of a touching end-credits tribute to Kevin Conroy. Conroy voiced Batman in almost 60 different projects, starting with the animated series in 1992, but sadly passed during the production of Suicide Squad in 2019.
Story-telling At Its Finest
One thing that continued to amaze me all the way until the end of the story in Suicide Squad was how well-developed it is. Each character has their own sense of humor, their own understanding of the world around them, their own likes, dislikes, sense of morality, etc. Harley Quinn is deranged but has a deep sense of loyalty and admiration. King Shark is honorable yet vicious. He is the first one to understand the need for teamwork. I could go through and tell you which characters were well-developed in the universe, but it would literally be a complete list of the characters.
Suicide Squad did a great job of subverting expectations. There was a moment when Harley Quinn showed great empathy to another. In another moment, we get to see the team defend another character and they did the right thing for the right reasons at great personal risk. It didn’t feel out of place or out of character but it gave our unlikely heroes depth and was a perfect reminder that no one is exactly as they seem…not even the “bad guys.”
The writing was so good that I honestly want more of just that. Give me these voice actors with these storytellers doing an animated movie or tv series for Max. I could not get enough of Suicide Squad’s narrative and even feel a little sad that it’s already over. With more post-story content coming, I suppose future DLCs or games could let us return to Metropolis or perhaps a trip over to Gotham, but for now, I’m finished with the narrative as it stands.
If you read part 1 of my review, you know I hadn’t found any problems with the campaign and from a narrative point of view, that stayed true. I can’t say the same for the campaign overall, though. As much fun as I had, it doesn’t erase the glaring issues with the missions. All missions lead back to one simple truth: Suicide Squad cares more about being a live-service multiplayer game than having a stellar campaign.
Multiplayer Woes
This became increasingly obvious when I tried to do matchmaking. Let’s be clear about one thing: I hate matchmaking…in any game. I hate it most because I would much rather play with people I know and can jump on a Discord call with. To be fair, Suicide Squad has a Discord server where players can meet and be on the same page before hopping into a match with each other. For everyone else, matchmaking is random but does claim to allow you to jump into a match with others at the same point in the story.
The one and only time I tried matchmaking during the campaign, I was paired with just one other person who was definitely NOT in the same place as I was, and I missed both a cutscene entirely and got a major spoiler that I had almost no context for. This was utterly unacceptable and should have never been able to happen.
Much like Fortnite throws everyone into a lobby before launching a match, Suicide Squad should be forcing everyone into a lobby before starting any gameplay and confirming that it’s the same point for everyone in the party. Instead, players can have their setting open to matchmaking, and players jumping in can get randomly thrown into a game already in progress.
Without a storyline per se in the upcoming Season 1, this form of matchmaking could work very well, but the narrative should not have any chance to throw someone off by not ensuring that players are actually in the same place. Personally, I liked doing the campaign in solo anyway. There are some missions that certain characters are better suited for. Suicide Squad calls the characters “psyched up.” Psyched up characters get better drops, better damage, and earn XP faster. Taking missions where a character is psyched up is a great way to level up a character quickly. Without other players in my party, I was able to play whomever I wanted and never had to share psyched up characters.
Confusing Combat
I said before that the combat was very good. It felt tight, and the loadouts were useful for playing to a player’s strengths and styles. That’s all still true, but it’s also all very confusing.
The longer I played, the more I realized that the live service and objective-based missions are the bread and butter of Suicide Squad. The loadout options and upgrades have become so exhaustive that I’m sometimes a bit overwhelmed. I started to lose focus on what guns and gun types complement the way I play. I have even been mid-match and thought, “Well, this isn’t the gun I thought it was. I think I’m going to die now.”
Boss Fights are the most unique part of Suicide Squad. In a subtitled game, Kill The Justice League, it’s probably not a stretch to guess the primary source of boss fights. Each member of the Justice League has their own strengths, abilities, and powers and are extremely fun though they can be very stressful to play. The final boss, Brainiac is the mastermind (yes… pun intended) of the entire plot to take over Earth. The boss fight before I got to him took me no less than 10 attempts to complete and was mentally exhausting. So then, tell me why Brainiac was a one-and-done kind of villain who was a rehash of an earlier boss fight.
Brainiac is arrogant, pompous, smug, and overly confident. He comes off as menacing and fearsome as he does the proverbially necessary explaining everything to the heroes…or anti-heroes in this case. I initially was incredibly impressed and was very eager to see him in action. Having him be so much easier in comparison to the bosses who came before him took all the teeth out of this fight. I was reay - too ready for this fight. His arrogance and confidence turned out to be nothing more than simple hubris.
Conclusion
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is still worth checking out. I wish I was only reviewing the story. It sets up for the live service post-story portion of the game fairly believably and is the reason to play. I wish I was only reviewing it as a live service multiplayer experience. It gets high marks for being a great option for your next LAN party. What? No one uses LAN anymore… well you get the idea anyway. If I had such narrow scopes of interest for my review, Suicide Squad would be getting an extremely high score.
Unfortunately, I have to consider the entire game while I review Suicide Squad. Its incredible storytelling should cause you to give it a chance, but don’t be ignorant of its matchmaking issues, the highly repetitive nature of the campaign missions, or the fact that the end of the game comes off as super confusing. It may be worth waiting for a sale for anyone other than the most dedicated DC fans out there. Suicide Squad had great potential, but for me, it ultimately fell short.
Full Disclosure: A copy of this game was provided by PR for the purposes of this review. Reviewed on PS5.
