Well, launch day rolled around and i couldn’t resist checking out the game. After playing through it once, here’s a short list of ideas i’ve attempted along with the results.

1) Switching characters during fusions doesn’t work. The other two characters simply disappear until the fusion ends and the point character fully recovers. It’s a shame, because it would have opened up a lot of combo opportunities.

2) Switching between characters after using their powers negates the stamina recharge waiting period. Normally you have to wait a couple seconds before the blue bar starts refilling, but when you switch to another character, the previous one starts recharging immediately. Basically you never have to resort to melee attacks.

3) It’s possible to land all three hits of a triple-hit targeted fusion (such as Spider-Man+Songbird) on a single opponent, by positioning the aiming marker right next to the swinging character. Stand next to a boss and initiate Spidey’s fusion, then aim the target right by him. He’ll swing the boulder over a very small radius, so the backwards swing connects as well.

4) Triggering a story point with the Iceman+Wolverine fusion has the added bonus of giving you a closeup of Wolverine’s ice armor gradually melting off as you listen to Nick Fury tell you what to punch next. Try it on the first stage prior to picking up Black Widow’s intel drop.

5) In the last prison stage, there’s a section where you have to navigate through a cluster of damaging energy geysers. You’re supposed to activate a console then follow the green light path to the other side. However, you can ignore all of this by simply holding forward and mashing LB to roll through the field. You’ll take a little damage but it’s way faster than dealing with the puzzle.

6) In the “Breakout” Simultator Disc mission, i tried using Iceman’s Freeze Beam on the sentry guards, but it doesn’t seem to stun them any longer than normal. Ice Pillar randomly slows them down, but i don’t like it because the robot spotlights recover deceptively quickly, even before the icy coating wears off. (Eventually i got to 93,350 points using Human Torch. He’s good because he has flight, which is slightly faster than walking in case you need to make a run for it, and because Fire Pillar autotargets enemies around corners. It doesn’t have great range, but if you learn the robots’ patterns and stay patient, you can always flank them.)

7) Melee attacks can be interrupted by powers, which can be interrupted using fusions. It’s useful for combo purposes and also for setting up fusions on bosses. A lot of those guys like to move around a lot which makes it difficult to hit them with certain fusions. Luckily there are several powers which can stagger even bosses, such as Thor’s Lightning Rod. All you have to do is confirm a hit with one of these and then cancel into fusion.

8) Powers can be interrupted by both uses of the LB button: blocking and dodging. That’s great news for launchers with slow recovery such as Thor’s Thunder Smash, because tapping LB will free him up to juggle with Mjolnir Strike. It’s also useful for cutting down the recovery times of boosts like Luke Cage’s Throw Down, so that you’ll be ready for opponents when they come running at you. Best of all, your stamina bar begins recharging immediately when you use either interrupt.

9) Fusions can be interrupted by blocking and dodging. Pretty crazy huh? Not as useful as you’d think though. Projectiles and tornadoes disappear immediately, so unfortunately you can’t use this ability to summon your own private armageddon with four tornadoes and three boulders wreaking havoc. The fusions which launch a character straight up into the air for them to come crashing down seemed like the most promising workaround. But even those don’t give you anything, because the airborne character will simply drop harmlessly. Although it’s a safe bet that a lot of funny situations and glitches will emerge from this trick.

10) It turns out that canceling powers into block/dodge still counts for numerical heroic deeds requirements. For instance, one of Venom’s medals demands 100 uses of Leaping Feast, which would normally take twenty minutes or more. But in the Basic Training simulation, you can easy rack up 20+ uses per wave of enemies by using Leaping Feast and immediately dodge-canceling it as soon as it hits once. You don’t have to sit through his entire lengthy attack sequence while your teammates destroy all the enemies.

That’s it for now. Is there any actual interest in discussing this kind of stuff for an otherwise mindless game like MUA2? If anyone cares enough, i’m sure there’s a lot of cool tactics waiting to be discovered. The combat system isn’t exactly on the same level as God of War, but a few combos certainly do look promising.