Handheld gaming is more than a compromise of power and portability. Whether it’s the ability to play anywhere, multitask or hold an entire console in your hands, it’s a special experience consoles have never replicated. In a world where high resolutions and teraflops reign supreme, we take a look at a portable relic every month and reflect on what makes it memorable. Be warned, spoilers may occasionally populate these articles.
Games like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat have taken the concept of martial arts tournaments, but have given the fighters superhuman endowments. Sub-Zero can freeze people with ice blasts, Dhalsim can breathe fire and Raiden can summon lightning to electrocute his opponents, but since he’s a god that isn’t exactly the same as the other two examples. With these super powers it isn’t surprising that Capcom started making fighting games with Marvel’s X-Men and other some of their comic book characters, and it didn’t seem too out of place to pit them against their own game characters. Super heroes seem to lend themselves well to fighting games, but the DC universe seemed left out in the cold. That was until 2013 when the studio behind the modern Mortal Kombat games unleashed Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition on the world where gamers could enact the burning question of who would win in a fight, Batman or Superman.
One initial question someone might have about a game such as this is why would these characters be fighting against each other and how would the playing field be leveled? Deathstroke’s mastery of firearms seems like it would be useless against an opponent who has bullet impervious skin. But even though a deep engrossing story isn’t a main requirement for people to enjoy fighting games, the folks at NetherRealm concocted some convoluted narrative to explain why all the villains and heroes are fighting against each other.
The Joker decides he wants to destroy Metropolis with a nuclear bomb, courtesy of Lex Luthor. As is to be expected with comic book stories, the Justice League puts a stop to his nefarious plan. In this confrontation between Batman and the Joker, the two are teleported to an parallel universe with some other members of the Justice League. In this parallel universe not only does the Joker successfully pull off this plan, but also tricks Superman into killing Lois Lane who was carrying the Man of Steal’s half Kryptonian super baby. As a result of this Superman went berserk and killed the Joker. He subsequently formed the One Earth Regime that strives to maintain world piece with an iron fist, killing any who oppose him. In this alternative universe, Lex Luthor is one of Superman’s closest confidants while Batman leads the Insurgency to overthrow him. In a nutshell, duplicate heroes and villains collide in a parallel universe where some loyalties are flipped and wacky mishaps happen due to cases of mistaken identity.
Like its predecessor from a different franchise that was released two years later, the story mode of injustice is divided into chapters. Each chapter has the player controlling one of the heroes or villains as the battle between prime and parallel versions of everyone plays out. Each chapter consists of a few fights and cinematic cutscenes before moving on to the next character. There are also first-person minigames that can effect the starting health of the fighters such as Joker having to press the right button to throw cards at Nightwing. These minigames aren’t anything special, but they do help to add variety and are tailored to their specific characters.
As is typical of fighting games, battles are one-on-one affairs where mastering the execution of combos is the key to victory. With this particular cast of characters the repertoire of moves would have to move beyond assorted martial arts moves mixed in with fireballs for whatever reason. This is an area where the developers did a good job in catering specific moves that made sense with each character’s comic book origins.
Aquaman’s communication skills with sea creatures allows him to call on violent fish to aid him in battle. Batman doesn’t have any innate superpowers, but he has the advantage of being a billionaire with a well-funded science department so he can remote summon the Batmobile to run his opponent down. In addition to all their superpowers and gadgets, environments are destructible as well and can be utilized to a player’s advantage in battle. Unlike other games that use a two round system, the fights are a single round with two life bars with just the briefest of pauses when one life bar is depleted.
The story of Injustice: God’s Among Us won’t be brought up when discussing the best narratives in gaming or how games have the potential to transcend the narratives of other media. It seemed rather convoluted during the play through but fulfilled its purpose for allowing mirror matches and explaining why Superman and Lex Luthor could be on such friendly terms. But as previously stated the story is rarely the main draw with tournament fighters. Injustice boasts a robust roster of many familiar DC heroes and villains that were developed in creative ways to show off their superpowers in a one-on-one duel context. The story might be on the more ridiculous side, but the gameplay more than makes up for it.
The poor PlayStation Vita was a great handheld that never got the support it needed to compete against its main handheld competitor. Injustice: Gods Among Us is available on other platforms, but handhelds in general never had the same support when it came to good fighting games. Injustice is a fun fighting game, and the fact that it translated to Vita is testament that even though the Vita was mercilessly defeated in the handheld war that doesn’t mean it’s without its share of respectable titles.
Get more Pocket Power. Clickhereto view every Pocket Power so far and prepare for a pocket-sized stroll down memory lane.
Disclaimer: Screenshots in this article were taken from the PS4 version of Injustice due to convenience.
