The gameplay is pretty fun, as it works well as a no-frills Super Smash Bros. clone. I received too many sexist direct messages and voice messages over the years which have put me off of online multiplayer, but I decided to give it a chance again with this game. I'm glad I did. It's a lot of fun in the four-player melee mode. The 1 vs. 1 battle wasn't as fun in my opinion, but it does play just fine for those who enjoy that kind of play. An experimental arcade mode was added to the game at the tail end of season one that allowed coins and experience to be gained offline. It has easy, medium, and hard gameplay. The easy mode has three stages with unlimited retries, the medium mode has five stages with three retries, and the hard mode has eight stages with no retries. It's nice to have an offline mode, but it is really just as simple as that. Fighting games rarely have robust stories, but it would be great if they added even a simple story to this mode. Since the coins and experience earned here are lacking in comparison to the online modes, there is little incentive to play this mode as it stands.
The character roster is pretty robust, featuring characters from all the major studios in Warner Bros. Discovery's arsenal. By the end of season one, there were two characters from Looney Tunes, the Tazmanian Devil and Bugs Bunny. LeBron James, in his cartoon form from Space Jam: A New Legacy is also playable. It's weird that they'd have a character that would have to rely on likeness rights from a real-life basketball star, but it does make sense in a way because the new Space Jam film is quite likely the inspiration for this game. It also contains four Cartoon Network characters. It has Finn and Jake from Adventure Time and Steven and Garnet from Steven Universe. Its two Adult Swim characters are from the Cartoon Network adult programming block's most popular property, Rick and Morty. Hanna Barbera is represented by Shaggy and Velma from Scooby-Doo. Willam Hanna and Joseph Barbera also have representation from the MGM property, Tom and Jerry. The cat and mouse work together for a change, as the duo is counted as a single character. DC Comics also has ample representation with Wonder Woman, Superman, Harley Quinn, and Black Adam. Warner Bros. films also are shown some love with two Mogwai from Gremlins, Gizmo and Stripe, and the titular character from The Iron Giant. HBO even gets represented by Arya Stark from Game of Thrones.
Most characters get familiar voice actors, although some of them, such as Rick and Morty and Superman, only use voice clips rather than new recordings. One exception is Steven Universe, now voiced by Daniel Divenere rather than Zach Callison. It's a weird decision since they could have very well used Zach Callison voice clips. It's possible that there is a licensing issue at play here. It also contains the last voice acting work of the late, great, Kevin Conroy as Batman before his untimely death from cancer on the 10th of November.
The freemium aspect is overdone in my opinion, as all of the announcer packs, costumes, and most of the cosmetic items are locked behind a paywall. Even alternate costumes and cosmetics for the sole original character, Reindog, have to be purchased with real-world money. It makes no sense to me to pay real-life money to expand a character with no legacy behind it.
Thankfully, every character can be unlocked with coins that can be earned through gameplay. Hopefully, as the game adds more new characters, the freemium temptation won't set in and they will remain unlockable through gameplay.
The first season of MultiVersus is pretty fun. The characters that are available represent all of the main studios owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, the game is a solid clone of Super Smash Bros., and the multiplayer is fun even for people who normally don't play multiplayer games. However, the arcade mode is a barebones affair that really needs to be fleshed out, and the game dips into the freemium well too much with most cosmetic features unlocked behind a paywall. The game is still marked as an open beta, so hopefully, these issues can be ironed out.
Final Verdict:
4 out of 5
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