After you’ve put a few hours into a game it’s relatively apparent to see what the developer was intending players experience with their product.

With some recent reviews it’s easy to see. In Metroid Dread the intention was for players to explore, experiment and experience some anxiety from the new EMMIs. In Deathloop the intention was to create a pseudo reverse murder mystery in first person with some roguelike elements. In Aliens: Fireteam Elite the intention was to make a relatively simple co-op third person shooter in the Aliens franchise.

So what’s the intention in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy? Well it’s fun. Yes there’s more to it than that (hold your horses) but fun is the absolute, undeniable goal. Almost every second of this game is made to bring a smile to your face and if this game doesn’t spark some kind of joy in your life you need to check your pulse because you may already be dead.

But what’s on offer here? Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy is a third person brawler that has players take control of Peter Quill, Star-Lord, the leader of the team of heroes for hire.

When this game was announced many were disappointed by the fact that only Star-Lord is playable with the other characters only available in combat as cooldown attacks, but combat is just one element of this game.

It’s easy to think of this title as having three distinct parts: exploration, combat and decision making.

Exploration does just mostly involve walking around but this game is endlessly fascinating when it comes to that process. Players get to explore alien worlds that aren’t just Earthly palette swaps but instead unique, otherworldly wilds.

This game is so bright, so vibrant and so weird that just walking around is a joy.

This joy doesn’t come from just the fantastic environmental design and flawless art. The writers on the game took the more quiet parts of the exploration and filled it with chatter from the team.

The writing is another almost spotless endeavour with not a single line of dialogue coming across as filler or useless. Every line spoken by the characters serves an important purpose towards expanding the lore of the world, building comradery between the Guardians, furthering character arcs and more.

Just walking and palling around with these characters may be the best part of the game and it’s made all the better with some clever gameplay design decisions.

The player can take their time to look around and not follow the obvious path towards progression. This will lead to discoveries that unlock resources for upgrades as well as costumes for the Guardians.

Finding the familiar pink crates containing new costumes got us more hype than we’ve been for a long time. The fact that these skins need to be found and can’t be bought with real money (there is no real money purchases in this game at all) made the discoveries all the more gratifying.

Finally kitting out your Guardians in matching outfits may have been the gaming highlight of the year. We’re not even kidding. The legitimate feeling of a small accomplishment like this is both a testament to the game design but also the overall success of the developers to make us care about these characters. More about that later when we touch on the story.

The next pillar is combat and, for at least half of the game, we felt that this was the weakest part.

This is because Star-Lord, AKA the player, is by far the weakest member of the team. His Element Guns do pitiful damage even after upgrades and they pale in comparison to the cooldown attacks of the other characters.

This quickly remedies itself as you play thanks to a constant stream of upgrades not only making the entire team more powerful, but also more congruent. By the endgame you’ll be juggling enemies effortlessly and encounters that were hard-fought struggles in the past become pushovers.

The other way this works itself out is with deep customisation options for difficulty. There are presets for the overall difficulty of the game but then individual factors can be finely tweaked to suit the player perfectly.

We really hope more developers offer this customisation for difficulty in the past as it not only helps with accessibility but also makes the entire experience more personal as you change fights to suit you.

The last pillar of this game is decision making which ties very closely into the story. There’s shades of Telltale Games in the functionality with dialogue choices changing what happens in the story and little popup boxes saying “this character will remember that” and similar messages giving you a clue as the consequences of your actions.

Funnily enough Star-Lord being the worst member of the team in a fight is directly in contrast to him as the strongest member in leadership. Sure Drax can lift a boulder over his head and Gamora can kill an enemy with a single hit, but Star-Lord’s decisions have much more serious implications for his team for better and for worse.

The writing of the story, much like the dialogue, is fantastic. The events in the game are on the long winded side but they’re always entertaining and you can find yourself in the “just ten more minutes” loop as you wait for more of this world to unfold.

A final massive pat on the back is for the voice acting. Not only do the main Guardians here have professional, impressive voice acting, but even smaller characters with less lines are treated well.

From small touches like voice cracks during emotional moments to bigger, booming voices for certain NPCs, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy may be a benchmark for future games.

And that may be the overall impression many people have when finishing this game. There’s nothing that we can really complain about and we had a smile on our faces from the first boot up to the credits roll.

This is the superhero adventure game many have been waiting for ever since the MCU took off and we’re crossing fingers for a sequel.

Oh and “flark” is this game’s replacement for the F-word.