Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: Upgrades and Skill Points Guide

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 comes exclusively for Nintendo Switch. This scrolling action, with hack'n slash mechanics, is a triumph of fanservice that, despite the limitations and flaws of a slightly outdated combat system and a bit woody animations, presents RPG mechanics quite interesting, although not innovative.

Each superhero in the game has different parameters with peculiar statistics that characterize and differentiate him.

The parameters to keep an eye on are as follows: Strength; Durability; Mastery; Endurance; Vitality; Energy.

In addition to these, you need to keep an eye on two other important game elements, alliance improvement points and skill points, which together will be crucial to increase the number and effectiveness of each character's powers and determine the outcome of a battle against the most difficult bosses and intergalactic level.

Character Stats

Listed below in a table are the statistics with their respective effects on gameplay:

Strength

As expected, strength determines the physical damage done to opponents: the greater this statistic, the more our punches will hurt.
Recommended to boost it to massive characters like the Hulk, martial artists like Elektra or "hybrid" characters like Wolverine.

Durability

The greater the Durability of a hero, the less damage they suffer from melee attacks and bullets (unless they are energetic). Extremely resilient characters are good at taking on ranks of base enemies, who tend to rely on melee.

Mastery

Mastery determines the damage caused by the energetic and/or magical attacks of our heroes.
Particularly suitable for characters like Doctor Strange, Storm and Scarlet Witch.

Resistance

As with durability, resistance determines the level of defense against energetic and magical attacks.
Statistics that is much more useful in the advanced stages of history, against magical enemies.

Vitality

Basically, the greater a character's vitality, the greater his health.
This is one of the statistics whose effects are the easiest to detect in case of increase, because the characters will have more HP.

Energy

The energy allows you to use your character's abilities, so the higher the statistic, the more often you can unleash his or her more powerful attacks.

Alliance improvement points

Points for improvement are an often overlooked element of Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 , but they are extremely useful.

You'll earn upgrade points Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 every time a character levels up.
To spend it, go to the lab menu and select Alliance Improvement.

This takes you into a hexagonal net of buff that gives your team permanent passive updates.
This can result in increased statistics or improved resistance or damage output.

When you acquire the node at the corner of the central hexagon, you will unlock a completely new hexagon of nodes, connected in a spider web system (Spiderman has nothing to do with it, not directly at least).

Make sure you unlock them by spending alliance improvement points, along with credits earned in the game, to ensure you don't fall behind: these party upgrades can make all the difference in battle.

After collecting all the buff in an orbital hex, you'll unlock the special central passive ability, which is very powerful and useful.

You can also earn upgrade points from some Infinity challenges.

Skill Points

Skill points are fundamental in the game, since they are used to unlock the special moves of each individual hero and to improve their damage and efficiency.

To improve your skills, go to the Team menu and select a character.
Then press "A" to see information about the hero, then press "L" to access their abilities.
Now move the cursor to the desired skill and press "A" to level up.

Skill points alone are enough to unlock an ability and upgrade its first level, but to reach the level-cap of each special power, you'll need so-called skill spheres.

Types of special spheres

You could control the most powerful heroes in the universe with your pad, but that doesn't mean they can't improve further.
During all your games in Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 You will be able to upgrade the skills of your favorite heroes to face even the most evil and powerful intergalactic enemies.

But to do that, you're gonna need the right materials. Most skill upgrades require skill spheres, which can be hidden in the environments you visit.

In the Team menu, you can then increase the power of your abilities beyond the first enhancement level to make them more efficient or expand their area of effect.

As far as the vacuum spheres are concerned, these will only serve in case you want to reset the characters' abilities, recovering all the points spent, in order to reorganize them and redistribute them as we like.

Below we will explain how and where to find these spheres.

Skill Spheres: Where and how to get them

The main source of the game's skill spheres comes from the challenges of infinity: extra levels that are unrelated to the plot, of varying difficulty, whose rewards are transferred to the main story.

Infinity Challenges

The challenges of infinity are neither more nor less what you would expect from the bonus challenges of any video game.
They are extra levels in which you'll have to defeat a particular boss or resist different waves of enemies, respecting certain parameters (time challenge, not using distance attacks, etc.).

At the completion of each challenge, you will get an evaluation and a grade that will be fundamental to establish the type of reward and the amount of useful items obtained (often skill spheres, of course).

Completing the challenges of infinity is not only the most effective way to get skill spheres from the beginning of the game, but also allows you to get special costumes and extra characters for your party.

The list of challenges of Infinity looks like a hive-shaped grid, to unlock new challenges you need to complete adjacent levels.
Each challenge has a different level of difficulty and in addition to the rewards, you can also transfer the experience points earned in battle to the main story.

Additional Spheres Positions

Outside of the challenges of Infinity and the boss battles of the main story, you can find additional spheres hidden in the game.

SPOILER ALERT! Below we will list bosses and locations that we will meet later in the adventure:

• During the first mission of the Galaxy's Guardians, look for an unbreakable wall when you teleport to prison. Break the box inside for a globe
• Later The Raft when you head to the prison control tower there is another box at the end of the first security puzzle you encounter
• Win the battle of Miles Morales, Marvel, Spider-Gwen
• Beat Mysterio
• On the way to Shadowland, there's a metal fence you need two heroes banging to break the second set of headlights you encounter. Inside the box is a globe
• Beat Elektra
• Beat the first battle of Ultron
• Last Beat
• After being chased by Juggernaut at the Xavier Institute, you'll need the Barrage and Rapid-Fire skills to break the box on a ladder.
• Beat Magneto
• Beat Dr. Strange's boss
• After meeting Dr. Strange, there will be another closed box on the right side in an area - you need Barrage and Rapid-Fire to break it.
• Beat the Loki boss
• In the jungle of Wakanda when you are first attacked by the turrets, jump on the ledge on the right and destroy the box.
• Klaw Beat
• Defeat the possessed guards of the Wakanda elite.
• When you enter the Necropolis of Wakanda, go down the right side path as you encounter the first wave of enemies.
• In Hel, keep your left in the second enemy area, jump on the ledge and you'll see a fragile box.
• In Hela's palace you will enter a side-scrolling room with two levels, there is a fragile box on the low path
• Beat Sutur
• When you enter the Asgard palace through the alternate entrance, there is a secret door behind you near the shield point - You need a Defense and Charge character
• In the palace closet after releasing and fighting with loki, jump on the high boxes
• Beat the Red Skull
• Defeat Ebony Maw
• Defeat Supergiant
• There are two boxes on both sides of the room before the elevator after the fight with the Supergiant boss
• Defeat Cull Obsidian
• Beat Corvus Glaive
• Defeat Thanos
• Defeat Thane

Vacuum spheres: where to get them

During the main story, you can also find the famous vacuum spheres which, as written above, are necessary to reset and redistribute each character's skill points (also here watch out for spoilers):

• In a safety gate box after meeting Luke Cage
• Beat Dr. Octopus
• Immediately after Jessica Jones takes you to Shadowland, you will come to a fork in the road where you can cross a bridge on your left or a raked garden in front of you. In the raked garden there is a box with a Vacuum Ball and an Infinity Rift inside.
• After you beat Bullseye and cross the side-scrolling corridor, you'll reach an elevator. On the opposite side is an unbreakable wall with a box of objects behind it. You need a flurry and a hero shock
• Defeat Ultron's sentries with the wasp.
• Break the top right trunk in the team training room at Avengers Tower after restoring the terminals
• Save Xavier Institute from the first wave of Sentinels
• Complete the alpha level in the Danger Room
• When you first enter the dark dimension, you will jump off a big cliff. Below the edge you'll find a fragile box with a Vacuum Ball inside...