Marvel Realm of Champions review: Legion of Dorks

With a small roster of playable characters, a tiny map and poor graphics, Marvel Realm of Champions is a disappointment for Marvel and MOBA fans.

Marvel is no stranger to mobile games – especially as they seem to constantly launch new ones. The iconic brand has fighting games, tactical games, RPGs, puzzle games, and more. But there’s one area that they haven’t really tapped into yet, the MOBA market. Until today, that is.

Marvel Realm of Champions is a 3-on-3 MOBA that takes place on the smallest MOBA map ever. Each map is two small hallways leading to a large round arena. Players face off against each other and, when one team is defeated, you capture the middle point and only then can you attack their B.O.D.O.K. Once one team destroys the opposing B.O.D.O.K. they win. Most of these matches take up to five minutes and require almost no strategy.

One of the things that help make or break a MOBA is its variety of characters. Many of these have large, rich, libraries of characters. For reference, DC’s ill-fated attempt at MOBAs had 45 different characters and many people were bummed at the lack of choices. Marvel’s MOBA? 6.

That’s right, Marvel has launched a MOBA with six characters. Technically seven as one is on the way. These characters are…versions…of popular characters:

• Sorcerer Surpreme – An alternate female Doctor Strange who has hair like Doctor Voodoo.
• Hulk – A Hulk, *shrug*.
• Iron Legionnaire – A Tony Stark parallel part of the “House of Iron”.
• Black Panther – An alt female Black Panther granted tech by her universes Queen Shuri.
• Storm – A blue-skinned equivalent of the famous X-Men from a universe where she serves Apocolypse.
• Super Soldier – A character that hasn’t been released yet that is a dark-haired Captain America look-a-like.
• Web Warrior – One of the many Spider-people that flooded the multi-verse and my personal favorite.

The problem with these characters is that they get pieces and parts of the armor that helps their stats. The biggest issue with this armor (beyond the fact that many of the modes alter your stats to make the game fairer anyway) is that this piecemeal armor equates to every character looking like a massive garbage pile. Hulk specifically just looks like a Fallout Super Mutant. Here’s the recent team of three I was a part of.

With no story, no real sense of progression and constant battles against characters that are clearly bots, the most entertaining part of the game came from the in-game chat which is just constantly flooded with people confused as to what the point of the game is or why they’re still playing. I got myself to level 12 and then deleted the game. This game is so barebones it would be the kind of MOBA Tiger Electronics would put out if they were still making handhelds instead of re-releasing old ones.