The Mecha Man Situation is Crazy
As I sit here thinking how I’m gonna start writing this post, I find it very funny how I’m about to write about a game I was interested in when it was revealed at the Game Awards; directly after a Game Awards I was so disinterested in the best announcement I got from it was a free pull in horse game.
ANYWAYS - I remember being interested in this nice stylized game, never played a Telltale before- oh shit what do you mean Critical Role and Aaron Paul what the fuck is that MoistCr1tikal??? Yeah, I was sold. Now cut to when it came out and like many other releases, I was like “Oh shit that came out already? Dammit I gotta find the time”. I found the time.
Dispatch is a Telltale-like choose your dialogue, name will remember that, game with some additional actual gameplay to it, beyond just select dialogue and do quick-time event, about superheroes. The whole thing is very much presented like a TV show, even having different episodes that came out week after week instead of all at the same time; I unfortunately was not able to find the time to play the game until it all was finished, so I couldn’t get that full experience. I’ve also never played or watched a Telltale game before (ok. somewhat lie. I did watch Minecraft Story Mode cause that was the joke game for a while), so I can’t truly compare this game to its past. My experience is definitely not an all encompassing big knowledge style.
I feel like most of this post is gonna be me talking about story and stuff, cause it is basically a TV show, so I kinda want to get the gameplay aspect out of the way first so the rest of my thoughts can hopefully flow smoother.
The game is split up into 2 parts, arguably 3. First, there's the watch a cutscene and select dialogue with the occasional quick time event part. I did turn the quick time events off (shoutouts to the accessibility options btw) simply because they just didn't really add much for me and I wanted to mainly just sit down and watch the big moments when I was getting invested. This is not really big in the video game sense, but I do like the choices. More on that later.
The other part(s) of the game are when you're at your terminal and you are either dispatching your team of heroes to events, leveling them up, building their relationships, picking where to allocate their stats, or doing these hacking minigames where you have to navigate little puzzles with small keyboard combos to plug in, usually with a timer. I really liked both of these. The dispatching section scratches a similar itch in my head that like, Persona 5, or Fire Emblem does. How can I use my time the best, where do I split everyone, who do I team and when, what build is everyone going to get? It's fun, and especially in a game that kinda wants you to play it multiple times, this kind of open ended planning stuff is really key for that. The one part that I don't think was great was the knowledge you get from each mission. When deciding who to send on a mission, you get certain highlighted keywords that give you insight on what stats are needed. Sometimes you read the stats wrong, or sometimes there's a special event that you could have used a different hero for but then sometimes you thought there would have been one but there isn't: it's very unclear and while a part of that is "make the most of failures" and all that, it kinda sucks when it was like "what the fuck how was I supposed to know that??". It's an issue, but not big enough to ruin the game for me. The hacking section is purely awesome. They start pretty basic, but I think they do plenty with these puzzle sections to make them interesting, and there are just enough so you don't feel like it's a one time gimmick or that you're tired of them. The interaction of typing in the button presses and using your mouse to move on really creates that feeling of you at your computer typing a bunch of cool hacking shit. There are these antivirus orbs sometimes that can be annoying, but GENERALLY I feel like you can plan around them with quick thinking and reflexes. I can only think of one time where I thought they were bullshit rocks fall you die type obstacles.
I'm not sure if the previous Telltale works were like this, but I do really feel like this game made itself feel more than just a movie where you say things and click the occasional button, there is an actual game to it.
Now with stupid stuff like "gameplay" out of the way, let's get to the real meat. Characters, story, writing, all of that good stuff that you could get from a TV show or like, a book. My favorite stuff.
It's really good. I did 2 1/2 playthroughs to get all the achievements, so I was able to see pretty much everything. I did a Sonar/Waterboy run and a Coupé/Phenomaman run, did all romances (Blazer, Invisigal, neither), hid and told Robert's identity, and did all 3 of Shroud's fates (spare, kill, Invisigal villain).
I can't tell if this is a reflection on me and the kind of person I am, or the game, or both, but I think the game is at its strongest is when you go all in to redemption, being good, and trusting. It feels most natural to be a good person, to be understanding and forgiving, it feels right. I almost feel like some of the dickhead choices feel not as smooth, but that could also be a fact of "I already heard this dialogue and it feels jarring to come after something that isn't what I already heard". Unsure. But in a game about taking a bunch of people that are down on their luck or at rock bottom and pulling everyone up works best when EVERYONE gets to be pulled up. It also helps when you make your cast likeable enough to want to root for them, even if they're a bunch of former villain assholes or not perfect heroes.
The choices I think Mostly work. But in a way that reminds me of Baldur's Gate III, I feel like some routes were cooked more or they wanted you to focus on more. Waterboy feels like he got more than Phenomaman, it feels like the game would rather you romance Invisigal over Blazer cause it gives her more. But I do appreciate some things having a lasting impact, coming up later in the story, or even affecting the gameplay. I feel like some of the harder choices that hurt more in the end, like revealing your identity as Mecha Man, or keeping Invisigal on the team, gave you more of a rewarding feeling in the end; and it's a cool reflection of easy ways out not giving you as much.
One part I think wasn't handled as smoothly as it could have been, even though it was great for gameplay and later story bits, was choosing between Sonar and Coupé to cut. For a game that can let you go hard into forgiveness, it feels like forcing you to cut one of your heroes feels like it goes against that message, unless of course you're going through a path of fuck you fuck everyone. It kinda felt like "ok we want this to happen but we don't really have a better way to make it happen". But it's also possible I didn't understand it well enough.
The other part I think either could have been done better, or would have been fine being removed, is the romance. I recognize this could just be me and my own personal tastes, but Blazer and Invisigal are both your coworkers, there's some weird power imbalances or inappropriate timings. I'm definitely not saying that messy relationships don't happen, or shouldn't be represented, but I just don't know if they felt super well done here. Blazer starts with a night at the bar that was supposed to be a job interview and involves you actively ignoring someone who Needs help, and Invisigal just has too much pushing you to not trust her/trust her to feel right, plus she's like, your student (or whatever the word for someone with a mentor is). I'm personally not a fan of it, I like the idea of just being friends with them.
I love myself a character focused game. I also feel like I'd speak some of my thoughts better going person by person instead of a grand summary.
I think it says a lot of a game, or any media, when my major complaint over most of it is "I wish I had more" over "What we got was not good". Sure, there's some things I don't think are as strong or executed as well, but generally I really like this cast and the story.
Getting out of the larger thought sections and going to some smaller bits; I think this game is funny. The humor does lean crude, but I kinda don't really get that often so it felt like eating a bag of chips on a diet; I CAN laugh at a dick joke if I want. Especially the payoff of Toxic having his meat out finally getting met with Punch Up, definitely killed me. Not everything hit, sometimes it was a little much for me, but generally I think the humor hits more than it misses. Again, something that's really helped by (but also helps, feedback loop) a likeable cast. Even then, it does still have genuine moments that I think are allowed to just sit. Some might see it as quippy Marvel dialogue, but I don't think it falls into that. Something else that really helps:
The voice acting in this game is phenomamal (intentional joke I promise). I honestly don't think there is a single bad performance in this game. I really love the weird mix of cast they picked; you have your classic voice actors (mainly from Critical Role (my beloved)); you have people that don't really live in the voice acting business, or hell, even the acting business, you have online personalities and musicians, and yet, despite this, nobody seems like they were Just picked for star power or name recognizability. Bringing it back to the whole Game Awards bit, how the hell did this game not make it on the voice performance award??? Whatever it's a sham we all know
I really like the way this game looks. It was part of the reason that first trailer even hooked my eyes at all. Cel-shaded style is by far my favorite visual style anything could pick; it's part of why I love Wind Waker so much, and though I can see some of the background models being a little lower quality, the style they used for this game is really pleasing to the eyes, and especially in the final chapter they go insane with the lighting and colors (I love the Coupe/Sonar fight).
I'm not gonna be listening to the soundtrack casually, but I really like the synthy songs, and I think that it fits the game very well. I also thought it was cool that Prism's VA; Thot Squad, got her songs in it. I mean, it makes sense to have that, but it's still cool.
I'm really happy with this game. It did kinda blindside me, but in a way I'm really glad it popped off so much cause it reminded me that it was around and that I was interested in it. It was the perfect mix of show and game, low effort enough to chill, but engaging enough to keep me involved in its story and play. I'd love to see more of it, but honestly, I don't really know what they could do, so in a way, I think it's fine where it is.
8.5/10. A surprisingly well balanced game with a phenomenal cast of characters and great presentation. It's not perfect, but like its heroes, who is?