I’ve spent a considerable amount of time with the Invincible VS open beta this last weekend. Live from April 9 to 12, I put a few hours into it on both Xbox Series S and PlayStation 5, watched it be played by people much more adept than I (shoutout Maximilian Dood), and, unfortunately, saw a metric ton of discourse on Twitter about the game. At the end of it all, it looks like it’s going to be a polarizing game for most, and honestly, I’m thankful for that.
High knees make for high action
Knowing barely anything about Invincible outside of the memes that give Omni-Man a fat ass or the endlessly exploitable “Think, Mark!” scene, I was still excited to jump in for one simple reason: it’s targeting people exactly like me — those who grew up with fast-paced fighting games with turbo modes, ones that let you form dream teams of heroes and villains to fight your friends with, rife with high skill ceilings, but also fun that lets you pick up a controller and just play.
One of the things that I and others were apprehensive about was the perceived sameness of many of the characters, a high number of them being Viltrumites, which are a race of alien humanoids with supreme powers and strength. Since fighting games live and die by their rosters, especially at launch, it was concerning, but of the 10 characters in the beta, there’s a nice variation that shows promise for the rest of the cast, most of whom look to be among the most unique picks.
It took me way too long to realize that Allen the Alien was voiced by Seth Rogen
The titular character, Invincible, was a favorite of players online. A well-rounded fighter, he excelled at rushing down opponents and catching me off guard with high speed. He was, surprisingly, one of the few characters I didn’t get to try, along with Omni-Man, who seems similarly balanced, but more powerful.
The character Igravitatedtoward was Allen the Alien. As a former Android 16 player in Dragon Ball FighterZ, he fit the profile of the strongman brawler with just a little grappler sauce in his moveset. Monster Girl allowed me to go full grappler, though, closing distance with armored special attacks and grabbing whoever was on the other side of the screen to tenderize their meat. My point character was Rex Splode, a seemingly normal dude aside from the Kick-Ass-style outfit he wears, who helped me zone out my opponents with explosives and gave me speed that Allen and Girl did not.
Once in a match, it was fun to just press buttons. Normal attacks are all quick and capable of building on each other to launch opponents into the air for maximum comboing. All characters have three special attacks that fit their archetype. Bulletproof was one of my faves outside of my main team, being a rekka-style character who can extend his specials into additional moves to mix up opponents. Super and Ultimate moves are where each character’s personality really shines, whether it’s Battle Beast’s brutality or the snide asshole-isms of Rex Splode, whose Ultimate literally throws exploding neon letters at you that spell “FUCK YOU.”
From what little I know of it, this game seems to have not compromised on the violent, mature tone of the franchise. Throw in that pretty much the whole show’s voice cast appears here as their respective characters, and it should intrigue fans of Invincible for sure.
Sweet, I don’t even need to have a mic to trash talk online
Beyond that, Invincible VS is focused on building some technical breadth under the hood. There are advanced defense techniques like counter tagging in your support characters when your opponent does it first, but you can feint it or have it counter-countered by the enemy, which sets up some mind game potential. Push blocks and combo breakers help you stop assaults as well, but the bigger point to bring up, and certainly the more controversial one, is the combo meter that limits just how many hits you can get in before it breaks your combo and gives your opponent a fighting chance to turn the tide. There are ways to manipulate and extend it with practice, but it’s there to keep more casual players in the game so they don’t end up watching a minute-long combo video and rage quitting (going off what I saw from others during the beta, it didn’t do much to stop that particular saltiness).
Invincible VS is made by some former Killer Instinct reboot developers under the banner of Quarter Up, an in-house development studio of publisher Skybound Games, founded by Robert Kirkman. It just so happens that Robert Kirkman is the mastermind behind the original Invincible comics and subsequent TV show for Amazon Prime. All that to say: It’s in very good hands. A brand new story will make up single player content, there will be a traditional arcade mode, a nice suite of online modes to battle friends and enemies alike, and a year’s worth of DLC is already lined up.
With a compelling budget price of $50 at launch, it could wrest the attention from much of the FGC, especially those that are jaded with the current AAA offerings in the genre for one reason or another. I’m personally excited for it and hope it does well for Quarter Up!
Invincible VS launches into the stratosphere on April 30 on PC with Steam, Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5. See you online!
I’ve spent a considerable amount of time with the Invincible VS open beta this last weekend. At the end of it all, it looks like it’s going to be a polarizing game for most and honestly, I’m thankful for that.
I’ve spent a considerable amount of time with the Invincible VS open beta this last weekend. Live from April 9 to 12, I put a few hours into it on both Xbox Series S and PlayStation 5, watched it be played by people much more adept than I (shoutout Maximilian Dood), and, unfortunately, saw a metric ton of discourse on Twitter about the game. At the end of it all, it looks like it’s going to be a polarizing game for most, and honestly, I’m thankful for that.
High knees make for high action
Knowing barely anything about Invincible outside of the memes that give Omni-Man a fat ass or the endlessly exploitable “Think, Mark!” scene, I was still excited to jump in for one simple reason: it’s targeting people exactly like me — those who grew up with fast-paced fighting games with turbo modes, ones that let you form dream teams of heroes and villains to fight your friends with, rife with high skill ceilings, but also fun that lets you pick up a controller and just play.
One of the things that I and others were apprehensive about was the perceived sameness of many of the characters, a high number of them being Viltrumites, which are a race of alien humanoids with supreme powers and strength. Since fighting games live and die by their rosters, especially at launch, it was concerning, but of the 10 characters in the beta, there’s a nice variation that shows promise for the rest of the cast, most of whom look to be among the most unique picks.
It took me way too long to realize that Allen the Alien was voiced by Seth Rogen
The titular character, Invincible, was a favorite of players online. A well-rounded fighter, he excelled at rushing down opponents and catching me off guard with high speed. He was, surprisingly, one of the few characters I didn’t get to try, along with Omni-Man, who seems similarly balanced, but more powerful.
The character Igravitatedtoward was Allen the Alien. As a former Android 16 player in Dragon Ball FighterZ, he fit the profile of the strongman brawler with just a little grappler sauce in his moveset. Monster Girl allowed me to go full grappler, though, closing distance with armored special attacks and grabbing whoever was on the other side of the screen to tenderize their meat. My point character was Rex Splode, a seemingly normal dude aside from the Kick-Ass-style outfit he wears, who helped me zone out my opponents with explosives and gave me speed that Allen and Girl did not.
Once in a match, it was fun to just press buttons. Normal attacks are all quick and capable of building on each other to launch opponents into the air for maximum comboing. All characters have three special attacks that fit their archetype. Bulletproof was one of my faves outside of my main team, being a rekka-style character who can extend his specials into additional moves to mix up opponents. Super and Ultimate moves are where each character’s personality really shines, whether it’s Battle Beast’s brutality or the snide asshole-isms of Rex Splode, whose Ultimate literally throws exploding neon letters at you that spell “FUCK YOU.”
From what little I know of it, this game seems to have not compromised on the violent, mature tone of the franchise. Throw in that pretty much the whole show’s voice cast appears here as their respective characters, and it should intrigue fans of Invincible for sure.
Sweet, I don’t even need to have a mic to trash talk online
Beyond that, Invincible VS is focused on building some technical breadth under the hood. There are advanced defense techniques like counter tagging in your support characters when your opponent does it first, but you can feint it or have it counter-countered by the enemy, which sets up some mind game potential. Push blocks and combo breakers help you stop assaults as well, but the bigger point to bring up, and certainly the more controversial one, is the combo meter that limits just how many hits you can get in before it breaks your combo and gives your opponent a fighting chance to turn the tide. There are ways to manipulate and extend it with practice, but it’s there to keep more casual players in the game so they don’t end up watching a minute-long combo video and rage quitting (going off what I saw from others during the beta, it didn’t do much to stop that particular saltiness).
Invincible VS is made by some former Killer Instinct reboot developers under the banner of Quarter Up, an in-house development studio of publisher Skybound Games, founded by Robert Kirkman. It just so happens that Robert Kirkman is the mastermind behind the original Invincible comics and subsequent TV show for Amazon Prime. All that to say: It’s in very good hands. A brand new story will make up single player content, there will be a traditional arcade mode, a nice suite of online modes to battle friends and enemies alike, and a year’s worth of DLC is already lined up.
With a compelling budget price of $50 at launch, it could wrest the attention from much of the FGC, especially those that are jaded with the current AAA offerings in the genre for one reason or another. I’m personally excited for it and hope it does well for Quarter Up!
Invincible VS launches into the stratosphere on April 30 on PC with Steam, Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5. See you online!
by David Rodriguez
