Zoinks! What time is it? It’s time to get schwifty in here. And by here, I’m referring to the new cleverly named free-to-play crossover fighting game MultiVersus. After a few attempts by different developers, it appears this Smash Bros alternative is here to stay, well, as long as the developers (Player First Games) can keep up with the many demands by the seemingly unexpected player count.

When a friend told me he had been seeing yet another smash bros.-like game on his TikTok I told him it was probably garbage. But after hearing the crossover featured characters from Cartoon Network/Adult Swim, the DC universe, HBO and others, I couldn’t help but to see what all the fuss was about. And since then I’ve taken my comment back but sometimes it comes back when the game’s irregularities frustrates me, bringing me to the conclusion that the game still needs quite a lot of work to be the game everyone wants it to be.

That being said, MultiVersus is still in open beta, and can be extremely fun if you can manage to overlook the major issues the game has in its current state. It took me a few weeks of nonstop action and playing it exclusively to realize the unbalanced characters, messed up hit/hurt boxes, and jumpy jump bugs that could cause you to fall to your death.

The game was technically designed for chaotic 2v2 combat, however, as a competitive player I felt the need to test my skills in 1v1. A big positive for me is that MultiVersus offers a ranking system for both 1v1 and 2v2 that is character specific, even though ranked play has yet to be released. After achieving top 500 rank in 1v1 with Taz from Looney Tunes and Reindog, a developer designed character specifically made for Multiversus, I found myself fighting bug exploits, hit boxes/ hurt boxes and my own characters flaws more than the enemy character themselves. From Bugs Bunny’s bat hitting behind the swing’s animation, to Shaggy’s endlessly fast impenetrable wall of back to back overreaching hit box attacks, appearing as if some of the game’s problems are deeply rooted within the mechanics themselves.

For example, when two of the same attacks collide it appears there is no set-in-stone answer as to which attack should hit the other character, and unlike Super Smash Bros. there is no parry to solve this issue. A lot of the time attack animations will pass through your enemy, do nothing, and then follow with you being the one who gets hit. It can be very frustrating watching your attack animation land before your opponents and then you get hit anyways. The other huge issue causing this, besides the lack of parry or attacks being able to cancel each other out, is the very inaccurate attack hit boxes and character hurt boxes. Often times you will be behind or above enemy attacks when you get pulled into a Batman, Bugs Bunny, or Harley Quinn combo when you should have had the advantage and next hit.

Wonder Woman gets hit by Bugs Bunny's down attack (hammer) while behind him, followed by getting hit with his up attack (bat) also while behind him.

The last issue I see this game facing is a small development team, possibly but hopefully not, unequipped to handling the desires of their player base for new content in a timely manner, in addition to reworking mechanics and bugs. Rick from Rick and Morty has been postponed when he was suppose to arrive a week before Morty, who was also a week late to the game. New patches have come out without fixing the biggest issues in the game. Luckily the issues have been noticed by the team and mentions of upcoming patches to fix them have been announced. Without a large update to mechanics, constant new content, and bug fixes, I could see this game dying out as quickly as it arrived. In its current state I consider MultiVersus as 6.5/10 with the much needed fixes and new characters it could achieve 8-9.5/10 rating.