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So usually when I write articles about Marvel Heroes 2015 I’ll have a part at the top where I state how biased I am towards the game because I freaking love it and play it all the time. Well you notice there isn’t one this time… kind of. That’s because I will definitely be critical about the heroes Gazillion releases if I have to be. Luckily for them, they have really hit it out of the park with Nova in my personal opinion. I will do my best to convey my feelings as well as others opinions from the game forums.
“So far I’ve played him up to level 30 and had fun along the way. The pulsars are interesting and require a little more strategy than I’m used to but seem to be very effective. I love the feel of the “Blast Off” move which recreates his iconic rocketing through bad guys moves from the comics. I’m having fun with him and that’s what counts!” – Punchclops
Powers: So this is the big part of Nova Gaz didn’t need to mess up to please the community, and after looking around the forums a bit, the reactions range from loving them to mixed feelings. Nova’s unique because they gave him the ability to fire pulsars. These are three different powers that fire a ball of energy that acts kind of like a ticking time bomb. After six seconds they explode, all three causing damage and debuffing the enemies in an area in some way. If you won’t want to wait the six seconds (which I think is a bit too long of a timer) you can use certain powers and hit the pulsar with said power to detonate it. Some people on the forums have a problem with this system. They don’t really care for powers that take two different powers to do damage with. I myself am really loving this feature and have read a ton of positive reactions as well. Nova’s signature “Supernova” gives him unlimited power and no cooldowns on powers for five whole seconds, so I love spamming all the pulsars I can in the middle of a group of enemies then detonating them all for massive damage. It’s not just me who likes his powers either. Marvel Heroes’ top streamer on Twitch DegenTP told me his opinion:
“I have had a ton of fun with him and he has a pretty unique mechanic with his Pulsars. That really surprised me on how fun they were. I didn’t think I would like them at first, but it surprised me with how fun they turned out.” – DegenTP
Nova’s dashes and flying give him the speed Nova has in the comics, but some people don’t agree:
“…he feels ridiculously slow for the Human Rocket. I get more speed out of the Silver Surfer.” – RyuKaiser
I tend to agree with RyuKaiser that Nova doesn’t feel like the Human Rocket at first. I currently have been stacking all the movement speed I can on him, and only at high levels, after sacrificing some better stats like crit for speed, do I finally feel fast enough to be Nova. He has a fly that makes you go super fast, but you can’t do anything else while flying. He has a move called Lighspeed Strike that is awesome and makes you zip around hitting enemies in a flash, but so does Daredevil. So I decided to give Nova’s melee build a go to see if that felt more like the Human Rocket and boy did it! Unlike the ranged build, the melee build features a ton of ultra fast moves that have you zipping from enemy to enemy almost at the same speed as Nightcrawler’s teleport powers. When Nova is played this way, you really get the feeling that you are a speedster and because of that I have started to prefer this way of playing him. The last thing to mention about Nova is his shield. He has a secondary resource bar that is his shield, which mitigates some of your damage (of course). This charges as you use movement powers or move around in general. Pretty fun idea! Overall Nova feels unique, powerful and incredibly fun to play! 9/10
Ultimate Power: Every character has an ultimate power, which you can use only once every 20 or so minutes. Usually this power makes you hit like a truck and is a spectacle to watch happen. Nova’s Ult is no exception. As a fan of the comics I absolutely love it. When you hit the Ult button, you see a huge burst of energy come from Nova signaling that he’s called in… The Nova Corps! Over the next 5 or so seconds, several members of the Nova Corpse swoop in overhead from every angle firing energy beams downward in a crisscross pattern obliterating all enemies below. This is pretty awesome, although I haven’t looked closely at the Ult to see if the members are varied in race or species like they should be. I love using this power! 10/10
Voice acting: I’ve mentioned briefly the voice acting of both Troy Baker and Logan Miller, but I’ll quickly review it. I love both versions of Nova’s voice work. My favorite line so far is when you are playing as Richard Rider and you are near someone playing as Sam, Rich will say something like ”A black helmet? What are you some kind of Supernova?” referring to Garthaan Saal the Nova villain Supernova who wore a black costume. Loved that touch. Sam says stuff like “Relax! I totally know what I’m doing!” which is pretty funny and like his character in the comics. You also have World Mind in the game, who will give you classic lines like “Unable to tap into Nova Force” when you’re low, or just tells Richard he needs a target or his health is low and that kind of stuff. Incredible job. 10/10