Why Spider-Man 2 Feels Forgettable

Many agree that Insomniac’s Spider-Man 2 feels forgettable despite having a fast paced story full of excellent set pieces, boss battles, and characters (Peter Parker, Miles Morales, Venom, Kraven, and more). In today’s video, Irogen explains why the sequel has less staying power than its predecessor.

#spiderman2 #spiderman2ps5 #spidermanmilesmorales

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[quads]

Craziest thing was when I found out that Peter only had the symbiote for 3 days
Which is incredibly short and just feels rushed

[Mdk]

The storyline of Spider-man 2 just feels off despite its great gameplay. Plus the rushed third act of the game just feels wrong and forced to see.

[Lane_Matthews]

The mission where you drop off the pigeons stuck with me more than the actual story of the game

[XxHUNTRNTRxX]

Something I noticed recently is what happens immediately after Venom gets his hands on the meteorite in a cutscene. Half of NYC getting covered in alien goo in a matter of seconds is hilarious to me and showcases how rushed that part of the story was.

[rickblaine]

The worst issue for me is Venom. Like, him showing up at Peter's house and infecting Mary Jane out of pure spite? YES. That's what all the third act should have been like. That's who Venom is supposed to be. An extremely personal villain. A superpowered stalker completely obsessed with ruining Peter's life. But no, we end up discovering that Harry was no longer responsible for his actions after like five minutes, and the final villain is just some alien wanting to conquer the world. That is NOT Venom.
And of course, I mean, the problem isn't comic accuracy per se. It's just the usual thing: if you want to change things up, that's great. Just do it for the better.

[JuanGomez-bsue]

As a kid I never really understood that the symbiote was a metaphor for addiction, and it's something that Spider-Man 3 represented perfectly.
How someone is not acting like himself and how that starts to push away your loved ones.

[Bman]

One thing I’ll mention = the marketing. SM2’s marketing told us way too much about the story as opposed to SM1. From the jump, we knew we’d be fighting Kraven and Venom. We didn’t know the circumstances, but we knew we’d fighting them. Then the Black Suit = some of us more than likely knew that we’d get to play, some of us didn’t. But then they dropped the Gameplay Reveal, as well as the Lizard boss fight which confirmed we’d get access to the suit. Now comparing SM1, from the jump the focus was on Martin Li vs Spider-Man. Every (if not then most) single trailer/gameplay from SM1 has Spider-Man fighting the demons. The only hint we get at Doc Ock being in the game is at the end of the Raft demo where Peter’s jumped by the Sinister Six and he says “Wait..You?” while looking up at Doc Ock. Great marketing at the time bc it made you think = “who was Peter looking at?” It’s a question you don’t get answered until you play the game. When you play the game, the moment you beat Martin Li and saved the day, you believe the game is over. But then the Raft prison escape happens, we find out the entire time that the person Peter was looking at is Doc Ock (who we see is on the mental decline the entire game; Peter even blames himself in a way for neglecting Otto) and then the city is turned into a warzone bc of Otto.

TLDR- The marketing of Spider-Man 2 had a negative effect on the game itself.

[ajcorpus]

I’m able to suspend my disbelief but seeing Hailey survive and beating a group of symbiotes just from a spray can bottle was too much I laughed at it

[josephbugeja]

It doesn’t have the same effect because this game’s missing the “one element” of that’s basically essential to every blacksuit symbiote story (The Spider-Canon if you will) that is missing is the consequences, specifically the potentially permanent fracturing of the entire core cast specifically Peter losing everyone that he has called an ally in his life & everything that he has built up since the beginning of the first game for the villains in the game to be able to establish a permanent foothold on the city’s criminal underworld.

[rondefrom]

just did my second playthrough (about to finally fight venom in endgame) and i can’t tell you how many story points happened that made me say “damn i forgot that happened” and i just did my first playthrough in november last year.

[KaoticKwan]

Idk if this is case, but the game feels as if some parts were cut out to make a deadline. Both the Kraven and Venom Arcs just feel really empty even tho there are great moments it just feels like an incomplete story

[okdingo]

The problem with the "symbiote makes Peter bad" thing is that he can't really be blamed for anything he does while he has the black suit. This game cranks it up another level by having people straight up possessed by it. In the original symbiote storyline in the comics the suit wasn't even really evil or influencing Peter's behavior.

[lakshaykochhar]

I also found Harry turn to be rushed, if not outright character assassination, because how good of friends that Peter and Harry made it out to be.

[POTTERANDMATRIXFAN]

The one thing I hate about Venom is how Harry seemingly embraced the symbiote. Then when his head pops out during the final battle, he's suddenly back to his normal self and wants to be "saved". I think the symbiote should've had a permanent impact to his character, much like Octavius. It felt cheap to kill off the symbiote so easily, put Harry in a coma and call it a day.

[clemensprod.]

The end of the sandman side quests was disappointing asf. I was like really that’s it? No end big boss fight?

[joelbahrnes]

Despite loving this game so much, I will admit that I had a lot of anticipation and excitement going into it based on how the symbiote storyline was setting up from the previous games. Most of the things that were done I predicted would happen in the game’s storyline but I think it comes back to it lacking enough risks or long term consequences for each character. I feel like the foreshadowing of Norman inevitably becoming the Goblin has been very underwhelming personally despite appreciating that Insomniac is taking their time with building him up. I also think that Harry should’ve died in order to seal Norman’s descent into madness and insanity which would’ve made the impact more chilling, heartbreaking, and unsettling to witness. Doc Ock is also my favorite villain out of Spider-Man’s rogues followed with Green Goblin as a close second so I’m hoping Sony will allow Insomniac to deliver a much better story for the third game that’s not lackluster and more memorable like the first game. I’m crossing my fingers that they’ll be able to manage both of the villains respectively and not rush their future arcs compared to Venom.

[Razorjaw]

MJ dying would’ve felt so impactful, especially with how OP her character was lmao

[Jawz_]

it’s so weird I can vividly remember each piece of the story in the first one. The thing is that even as much as I loved spiderman 2, I forget a lot of the plot points. The game was wonderful though.

[WxFROST]

Peter's symbiote arc is rushed, like really fk rushed. we only get and i'm not exagerating 4 main missions with the black suit. And Miles overpowering symbiote Peter is a fk travesty. Midsomniac had only one job, deliver Symbiote Spider-Man to its full extent, but they decided to split the narrative into 2 putting useless missions like the museum robbery, hailey mission which btw it's unnecessarily long which for me devalues the replayability of the game. Miles could've been in the game in cutscenes and certain missions but the fact that he takes 50% of the main missions where we could've got a more expanded symbiote story, a story not rushed but slow burning to the point where Peter is truly seeing his change in morals and tactics and more aggressive interactions with those in his circle and villains. And then doing the Venom arc where we see Harry frustrations and anger towards Peter and his bond with the symbiote blaming him for his situation.

[athcat]

i hate how the characters talk like their managers are listening