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00:00It's almost hard to believe that over a decade ago, we saw the long-awaited follow-up to Rocksteady's massive
00:05Batman Arkham Trilogy.
00:07Having spent roughly nine years working on their next game since Batman Arkham Knight in 2015,
00:13surely Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League could show people that the studio can develop other unique games that pay
00:19tribute to beloved superhero IPs,
00:22specifically those within the DC Comics catalog, right?
00:25Comics? New ones on page two? Oh, be the best edition they've ever seen!
00:32According to almost anyone and everyone who lives on the internet, you would think this game was more catastrophic than
00:37when E.T. launched on the Atari 2600 in Christmas 1982, if not equally.
00:43And how could it not be perceived that way when Warner Bros. themselves reported a massive loss of $200 million,
00:50most of that loss being caused by Suicide Squad's development?
00:53But now, having been a year since launch, maybe we can finally sit down, analyze the game for what it
01:00is,
01:00instead of what it could have been, and see if a year's worth of post-launch support might have improved
01:06the game in some way.
01:08Welcome to Mojo Plays! My name is Ty, and today we'll be looking at Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League,
01:14and how it holds today compared to when it first launched.
01:18Discipline. Loyalty. To your team.
01:25Ah!
01:26Before we begin, we publish new videos all week long,
01:29so be sure to subscribe to Mojo Plays, and ring the bell to be notified about our latest videos.
01:35It has certainly been an odd year playing this game.
01:39At launch, yours truly was one of the very few defenders of Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League.
01:44While some of the mission structure was tedious in how frequently you were doing the same few escort,
01:50control point, horde survival missions over and over again,
01:53there was something satisfying in finding the kinetic movement between each character.
01:58It had gameplay similar to Doom, in how moving around was your key to survival.
02:03Zero in on a group of enemies, blast them all in a few short rounds or a single grenade,
02:08then get moving again before the enemies can land a shot on you.
02:11Don't let these snipers pop your skulls. That's my job.
02:19It's not challenging combat at all, but it does give you a bit of a power fantasy,
02:24especially when you're nailing missions on harder and harder difficulties.
02:27Despite how satisfying the controls and gunplay can be,
02:31it does not overshadow any of the game's more glaring flaws, much to my own chagrin.
02:36As most were too focused on the game not being another Batman Arkham,
02:40others were pointing out crucial problems such as the technical instability,
02:44the awkward story moments, the unfulfilling ending, if you could call it that,
02:49the strange design and generic feel of different locations, and the mundane boss fights.
02:54And that goes without mentioning all the fluff that blokes the game in general,
02:59from watching NPCs interact in-game for story moments,
03:02to being whisked around like you're on a ride at Disney World.
03:06Having played through the story mode three times, yeah,
03:09Suicide Squad's flaws here get annoying and frustrating,
03:13as I pieced together what the thought process was behind these choices.
03:18That's Luther wants Batman alive!
03:21Oh yeah, a toy Harley.
03:24Anyhow, nice work guys!
03:26Now listen, what we definitely shouldn't do is put him in some kind of elaborate death trap situation.
03:32What?
03:32But that was the game at launch.
03:34After spending a year on the market,
03:36surely some of these problems have been remedied, right?
03:38Well, let's unpack this all one at a time.
03:42First and foremost, the technical performance has,
03:45well, it's hard to believe the game's been touched at all in this corner.
03:49At launch, I did experience a couple of crashes while playing on base PlayStation 5,
03:54and I haven't had any more crashes since.
04:02However, shortly before writing this video,
04:05I began a playthrough with a friend who was playing on a PS5 Pro,
04:09and the game crashed on him more times than I even experienced.
04:13The most I've experienced were a couple of strange occasions where assets were missing.
04:18Not particles or smaller objects,
04:20I'm talking about entire chunks of buildings, staircases, and other structures.
04:26There was even a moment where Harley straight up disappeared for an entire cutscene and several minutes afterwards,
04:32and another moment where we had two Harley Quinns in our squad at the same time.
04:38Surprisingly, these sizable belches in the system weren't enough to suddenly crash my game,
04:43but it was still befuddling to see a game run smoothly while still not performing properly.
04:49In other words, regardless of which platform you may play this on, your mileage may vary.
04:55Sheesh, what a mess! And it wasn't us!
05:00Security's on.
05:02This is a clearance level X.
05:04As for the story, you can't exactly fix cutscenes and narrative unless you're BioWare,
05:09and pull a Mass Effect 3 size catastrophe with your ending.
05:13Deathstroke is on the offensive. All units, use caution.
05:19I don't need a contract to deliver the kill.
05:22The big disappointment in Suicide Squad's narrative was how it ends with not Brainiac's death,
05:28but the news that you gotta fight this dude 12 more times.
05:32Obviously, this was done to set up the live service elements for the game,
05:36and it was this full year of post-launch support that would make or break Suicide Squad
05:40in trying to show people that there is fun to be had here.
05:44Now, like I said earlier, I have played through the entire main campaign three times.
05:51Twice on my own, and a third time with friends who were morbidly curious.
05:55I even went so far as to pop the Platinum Trophy on PlayStation 5, my 175th Platinum, by the way.
06:03I also took part in the majority of the episodes that came after launch,
06:06so that I could unlock each of the four new characters added after release.
06:10So when I say I cannot recommend this game to anybody, even after the updates and the fixes,
06:17there are some serious problems.
06:20See, the way Rocksteady and Warner Bros. games went about with Suicide Squad's post-launch life
06:25nearly tarnished all positivity I had towards the game.
06:43This wasn't another game with a couple of expansions where you had a new set of missions
06:47that could be done in an hour or two.
06:49No, we can't have a path that is so simple and straightforward.
06:53Are you stupid?
06:54We need these players to live in our worlds, not visit every so often.
06:59And so, the eight episodes that made it out of the planned twelve
07:03have a grindy progression system dubbed Episode Ranks.
07:08While the traditional battle pass granted emotes, costumes, and more for your characters,
07:13the episode rank system was a means to make players grind in order to unlock missions.
07:20Most of the time, these locked missions were just the Brainiac boss fights,
07:24but if you wanted to play the character locked behind the new episode, well, prepare to grind.
07:29All units, rid this world of its remaining joker immediately.
07:35Smile.
07:38Sometimes I think you settle down.
07:40You're not a clown school, but nah.
07:42This world's what I make it perfect.
07:44And I made it to continue.
07:47In most other live service games, grinds can be grueling as you farm for materials, better weapons, and the like.
07:53And of all the live service games I've played, Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League is among the worst when
07:59it comes to grinding.
08:00None of the episodes contain any missions you have not seen before.
08:04The level designs are different as you wreak havoc across dimensions modeled after Arkham Asylum,
08:09a joker-themed metropolis, winter wonderland metropolis, and medieval kingdoms.
08:15And each theme contains interesting layouts that will test your traversal skills.
08:19The problem is that the interesting level design does nothing to keep the game from getting stale.
08:25Every mission is the same nonsense you did in the main story,
08:28and what little endgame content there was before we got episode 1.
08:33Aha, new achievement!
08:34Hey, are y'all gonna keep up or what?
08:37Oh yeah.
08:38No.
08:41No.
08:41No.
08:41No.
08:43No.
08:49You've done it all before here, and it gets old as hell by the time you hit episode 2.
08:54And you don't even get a decent amount of progress in boosting your episode rank.
08:58To give you a point of reference as to how frustrating this grind can get,
09:02I've been playing the game on the hardest difficulty, Invasion plus 3,
09:06which is supposed to increase your XP and currency rewards at the maximum possible value compared to the other difficulties.
09:13I went in and spent well over an hour in the killing time mission, which is an endless horde mission
09:20where killing a certain number of enemies will increase your mastery rank.
09:23Mastery ranks, by the way, are modifiers that ramp up the difficulty even more while increasing the pool of legendary
09:30weapons to reward you with after.
09:32After spending an hour and a half doing nothing but blowing up enemies on the hardest difficulty and reaching mastery
09:41rank 74, how far into an episode rank do you suppose I got?
09:4625?
09:4817?
09:4914 at least, right?
09:51Nope.
09:52I got to episode rank 9.
09:55From 0 to 9.
09:58And to unlock characters, you need to reach episode rank 35.
10:07Every new character is locked behind a mission that is only available when you reach episode rank 35.
10:13Do you know how many hours of gameplay that is?
10:15Too many!
10:16Honestly, the game is lucky I found a character I enjoyed playing as, or else I would have dropped this
10:21months ago when I had the chance.
10:24And hey, what a lovely segue into the next massive problem with Suicide Squad.
10:29Within the course of a year, Rocksteady and Warner Bros. Games added in 4 new characters, bringing the roster to
10:358 playable characters total.
10:37For reference, modern fighting games released their new characters at a similar frequency, so this pacing was sort of expected.
10:45These characters could have breathed some life into the game and possibly helped form a cult following had more thought
10:51been put into their visual design,
10:53how they moved, and the kinds of properties they wield in attacks, for what little the game gave our pre
10:58-existing cast.
11:00Alas, this endeavor in general made players such as I accept that Suicide Squad was simply not meant to last.
11:08I did not need to do that.
11:13You did it!
11:15Brainiac will think twice now about his unethical use of human DNA.
11:20Maybe.
11:21Starting off with episode 1, we were given the Joker.
11:24At first, this inclusion annoyed me because, you know, heaven forbid we ever get a DC Comics product at all
11:31without the Joker getting wheeled out for the billionth time.
11:35Is this performance truly worthy of my attention, Joker?
11:40You can have it, for now.
11:42But once I saw his gameplay and took him out for a spin myself, I found him to be the
11:47most fun character in the entire game.
11:49More fun than Boomerang.
11:51I had a riot surfing rooftop to rooftop on his umbrella, dive bombing into enemies before dropping off a grenade
11:57at their feet,
11:58and raining explosive gag toys from above.
12:00He had a playstyle that made him feel annoying in the funniest of ways, while making traversal across Metropolis feel
12:07fluid as hell.
12:08Overall, the Joker helped me see the ideas Rocksteady had in designing this game.
12:13It's just a shame they flubbed it this poorly, and the quality dropped drastically in the following episodes as we
12:19got the next three characters.
12:29Episode 3 introduced Miss Victoria Frias, aka Miss Freeze.
12:49As for as open as I was to a genderbent Victor Freeze, this character was a sign that the remaining
12:55two characters were going to be half-baked at most, uninspiring at worst.
12:59Miss Freeze surfs around the air while creating ice paths to slide on, similar to Iceman from X-Men.
13:06Unfortunately, she is really clunky to control.
13:09I had a really hard time trying to control my trajectory while also avoiding gunfire, and it resulted in more
13:15downs than I would like to admit.
13:17In the end, the only use I found for her was grinding out all of the Riddler time trial courses.
13:24Easy 3 stars if you can get a decent handle on her traversal.
13:37Episode 5 added in...
13:40Lawless?
13:48Yeah, we got Deadshot's daughter as a playable character for some reason, and she is just the worst.
13:55Not only is she given the obnoxious, zoomer-who-is-a-streamer personality, she also boasts the least unique design
14:03in the gameplay department.
14:04She plays and moves around exactly like Deadshot.
14:08Even her traversal attack is animated similarly to Deadshot.
14:13So, unlocking her was just a massive waste of time.
14:18Okay, they're a little obsessed with us!
14:21And what of the final character that we received in Episode 7?
14:25Is it possible that Deathstroke might make all this grinding worthwhile?
14:40The best way I can describe it is if you were among the many of the few players who actively
14:47played Suicide Squad, you were most likely among the large crowd of that small group that found Captain Boomerang to
14:54be the most enjoyable of the base roster.
14:56Well, Deathstroke is a lot like Captain Boomerang in the way he moves.
15:02The only difference is that he moves much faster and feels a lot more fluid in a way that is
15:07similar to Joker.
15:08So, he's sort of a happy medium between the two.
15:10While Boomerang is slow and offers time to plan your shots before reappearing, Deathstroke is much more zippy.
15:16So, those who enjoy their Twitch shooters might enjoy him more.
15:27All that said, we basically got two really fun characters to start and end Suicide Squad's post-launch career with
15:35two very mediocre characters sandwiched in the middle.
15:37And it begs to question, what other characters could have offered more unique gameplay compared to Miss Freeze and Lawless?
15:45Sticking to adding more female representation in the game alone, we could have had Nightshade, Enchantress, Killer Frost, Vixen, Silver
15:54Swan, Knockout, or Cheetah, who would probably be the most famous among that whole group.
16:00But if you wanted to include more well-known Suicide Squad members, then why did we skip over Black Manta,
16:08Katana, Killer Croc, and El Diablo?
16:11General Zod was a member of TFX in one era of the comics, why not add him?
16:15It just makes you wonder what happened, what decision-making process went underway that made Miss Freeze and Lawless the
16:24choice and led to them being so boring and frustrating to play.
16:29I won't even bother wasting yours or my time on describing the weaponry.
16:33There are some really awesome looking guns based on various DC Comics villains that I thought looked really sick.
16:38Ultimately, I kept using the same loadout for Joker no matter what items I was awarded.
16:44Everything aside from my new shotgun, deadly assault rifle, and overpowered grenade mod felt either unbelievably weak or totally useless.
16:53Let me give you an example.
16:54One mission awarded me a grenade mod that inflicts zero damage.
17:00None.
17:01But it inflicts slow motion.
17:03So that is definitely a thing.
17:10This earth will reject you like a virus, Task Force X.
17:14I had another grenade mod that depleted my shields over a matter of seconds, so I was getting knocked down
17:22left and right.
17:23That is also a thing in the game.
17:25Sounds rewarding, right?
17:27So we phased our butts into Brainy's lair and he was steamed, but guess who else showed up?
17:34Now, as I was writing this video, I quickly glanced at my dashboard to see how much time I've put
17:39into Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League.
17:41And PlayStation says I have played a total of 92 hours.
17:45Wait.
17:45Nope.
17:45That's wrong.
17:46Hang on.
17:46How much?
17:48109 hours.
17:49Though I'd say it's more around 90 to 95, given the number of times I've left the game idle to
17:56go shower, cook a quick meal, go to the bathroom, take a short breather, etc.
18:02Basically, I could have done an entire playthrough of Cyberpunk 2077 or one of the Persona games.
18:08Yet after 90 to 95 hours, 4 new characters of varying quality and design, 8 monotonous episodes with no new
18:17ideas to keep me entertained, 4 of the planned 12 episodes noticeably missing from the game,
18:23a frustrating progression system, and no improvements in technical performance?
18:29What other reason do I have to keep going?
18:32Well, I thought, I kind of want to see if they can at least bring the story to a decent
18:37ending.
18:37Folks, the new ending they gave us actually made my blood boil.
18:43After all of this time I spent playing Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League for a full year trying to
18:50understand it all, we get an ending.
18:53The kind of ending we got is a motion comic where the Justice League never died.
19:00We only killed clones!
19:02Batman knocks out Brainiac with a single punch, the Justice League start putting dimensions back together, and the Squad escapes
19:09Waller to live their villainous lives in another dimension.
19:12Historically, video game endings rarely come out satisfying, but this?
19:17This is probably one of the most nothing burger endings I have experienced in my 30 plus years of gaming.
19:24No exaggeration.
19:25Don't you love a happy ending?
19:28Even Waller gets to say she saved the world!
19:32And she will!
19:33If she knows what's good for her!
19:38All of that said, despite the few aspects of Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League I genuinely enjoyed, I cannot
19:47recommend this game to anybody.
19:49Even after it's been given away for free 99 twice between Amazon Prime and PlayStation Plus, as well as being
19:56heavily discounted in a handful of sales across all digital storefronts,
20:00I assure you, any money and time you have is better spent elsewhere.
20:07Joker was really the only character keeping me entertained for the entire year of post-launch support,
20:14and for the rest of it to crash and burn the way it did and offer nothing new to possibly
20:19redeem the game in any significant way,
20:21oof, what a bad, bad fumble, man.
20:25To its credit, Suicide Squad is not in a worse state compared to its launch, however, no change is almost
20:33just as bad.
20:34Honestly, this entire year kind of paints a dark future for Rocksteady.
20:40Batman Arkham director and writer Sefton Hill and many many other Rocksteady veterans are no longer at the studio,
20:47and at one point early on in Suicide Squad's post-launch cycle, word got out that Rocksteady was being run
20:53by a skeleton crew.
20:55That said, I would not and am not excited about that Batman Arkham rumor.
21:01If anything, this entire year has shown me that Rocksteady might become the next Bioware,
21:07another studio tied down by a legacy that few or none of the new staff have any experience or involvement
21:15in.
21:15As for Warner Brothers games, I really don't know if any of this aggressive push for live service is within
21:22the publisher's wheelhouse.
21:23Besides, isn't DC Universe Online still doing okay?
21:27I mean, who knows, but isn't that enough?
21:30I pray in every elseworld where I possibly exist that I am proven wrong,
21:35and that the new Rocksteady can actually deliver on whatever they end up doing next.
21:41None of us can do this alone.
21:43The team you lead.
21:48The family you choose.
21:51Together, you'll be formidable.
21:54That's something you taught me, son.
21:57Tell me, did you play Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League for yourself?
22:01What did you think of the game and or its post-launch support?
22:04Let us know down in the comments, and be sure to subscribe to MojoPlays for more great videos every day.
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