Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Review – Left Lifeless

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Review

I know there’s been a literal tonne of negative press surrounding the release of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League (SSKtJL). The truth is, I by no means think it’s terrible. There are flashes of brilliance peppered throughout its relatively short runtime. Gorgeous cinematics and a fun, competent story anchor an otherwise forgettable gameplay loop. Forgettable possibly being an understatement. But, if you go into SSKtJL with your expectations in check, you may squeeze an experience out of it that won’t leave you hankering for a self-inflicted dirt nap.

Naturally, a game titled “Kill the Justice League” will be about hunting down and eliminating beloved members of said faction. For the most part, this is SSKtJL’s greatest strength. While the boss fights themselves with characters like Green Lantern and the Flash may fall short for some, developer Rocksteady does a fantastic job building the anticipation of challenging such daunting, seemingly insurmountable foes. To its credit, the narrative covers all the necessities in communicating the gravity of the overall situation. Each Brainiac-influenced Justice League member seemed more impossible than the last, and much of the fun came from discovering exactly how my team had even the slightest chance at besting them.

Heroic Performances

Aiding the narrative is a strong cast that delivers with conviction. Whether dropping a cheesy joke or a deathly serious monologue, most of the cast effortlessly hits their mark. A special shoutout must be given to the late, great Kevin Conroy. Conroy once again embodies Batman as no one before or after has, and it was an utter treat to experience his final performance as the Dark Knight. Especially given the subtle yet powerful alterations to his delivery now that Batman is under Brainiac’s control. Undoubtedly, the production value behind SSKtJL is everything I hoped it would be from the team behind the outstanding Batman Arkham series.

Shoot Everything in Sight, Suicide Squad!

Though, where Rocksteady decided to differ from their previous foray into the Batman universe vastly, SSKtJL plays like a run-of-the-mill 3rd-person shooter, albeit with a few stylish effects peppered throughout. What’s most baffling is that the four main protagonists – Harley Quinn, King Shark, Boomerang, and Deadshot – couldn’t be more unique from one another. Yet, other than different traversal methods, they feel indistinguishable. Everybody gets a gun, everybody gets grenades, and everybody must shoot, and shoot, and shoot until nothing remains in their way.

It’s hard not to feel like a massive opportunity to create an engaging, 4-player-combo system was haphazardly tossed aside in favor of building a game with Fortnite-esque flavor-of-the-month looter/shooter mechanics. In hindsight, Rocksteady would have been wise to simply implement their combat system from their previous Arkham games instead of trying to cater to present trends. Sure, each character can eventually unlock a finishing move or two that showcases their individuality. And everybody does have a (supremely lackluster) skilltree that allows you to experiment with different build types. But most of the time, it won’t make a lick of difference who you play as or how you choose to doll out their upgrades. This was immensely difficult to come to terms with, killing any chance SSKtJL had of offering replayability.

The Power of Monotony

Though, even if each character felt unique, I’m hard-pressed to ever play SSKtJL again due to its unbearable mission structure. Easily the most egregious of its shortcomings, I saw everything SSKtJL had to show me within the first thirty minutes of gameplay. Even with a few deviances in objectives, each mission feeds into the next like a repetitive, monotonous haze. Whether you’re defending a moving vehicle, saving civilians, or defeating enemies in a specified way, every mission is excruciatingly similar to what came before. Even boss fights, with the exception of Batman’s, felt so underwhelming that I couldn’t possibly imagine ever doing them a second time.

It isn’t just a lack of objectives that hurts the minute-to-minute gameplay, either. The never-ending waves of bland, poorly developed AI prove to be just as much of a back-breaker. SSKtJL has many technical issues, but its brainless enemies stick out like a sore thumb. Often, I would find myself standing a few meters away from my opponents, only to find them staring back at me as if they were statues. In addition, I’d often see things like my characters performing their finishing moves on invisible enemies. And let’s not forget the now infamous bug that was completing the entire game for some upon logging into it for the first time. It’s baffling that no one at Rocksteady caught wind of these pronounced shortcomings. Then again, maybe I should have expected this from a game that slowly gets dull, bland, and downright boring from the 30-minute mark.

Final Thoughts

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League drips with potential but never lives up to the Rocksteady pedigree. I had fun with its story, at times being genuinely left on the edge of my seat with what could happen next. Most of the performances – Kevin Conroy being the best of the bunch – also kept me engaged and entertained with the narrative. But the endlessly unambitious gameplay loop grates on me like nails on a chalkboard. Envisioning this as a live-service game with years of life ahead of it is impossible. Undoubtedly, some will squeeze enjoyment out of it. From my perspective, it’ll be interesting to see if Rocksteady can ever make Suicide Squad feel more entertaining than a bullet to the head.

***A PS5 code was provided by the publisher***