Mister Negative returns to the series in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, as one of the early bosses that Miles faces. One of the main villains in the first Marvel’s Spider-Man game, Martin Li is back as Mister Negative for this installment. Miles is featured as part of the story in Marvel’s Spider-Man and is forever intertwined with Li, making it an obvious battle for the younger Spider to face. It is one of the most powerful parts of the Marvel Spider-Man 2 story taking place at Kraven’s facility, with Miles having been locked up.
Boss fights are once again fantastic cinematic experiences, but now have more of an RPG feel with a clear health bar for bosses. They remain full of big set-piece moments, but in-between is a much tougher challenge for you than in the original game five years ago.
Phase One Mister Negative
You will be dropped into a makeshift arena while playing as Miles to face Mister Negative with Kraven watching on. The boss fight is broken into three clear sections, but throughout all of them, Mister Negative’s speed is the biggest problem. In the first phase of the fight, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 will give you a quick tutorial on how to combat his initial attacks.
These will primarily be a low horizontal attack which you can jump over and a vertical attack which comes straight at you and can be dodged, both are similar to his move set from the original game. At this stage, he will also throw crush attacks at you which you will need to dodge out of the way of, as they can’t be parried.
His most dangerous attack sees a red warning appear when he is lunging towards you, but this can be parried delivering extra damage back to him.
At this stage normal combinations and special Venom powers cause enough damage to him, so staying patient and chipping away at his health is the best way to go. Web strikes are also useful as they will temporarily tie Mister Negative up, allowing you to get in a more powerful attack with Miles.
The key to victory throughout the fight is being able to defend and avoid his quick-firing attacks.
There is a small window when his attacks are building up just before they hit, giving you time to avoid them and if you do so there will be plenty of opportunities to attack.
Phase Two Mister Negative
Once you have fully cleared Mister Negative’s health bar a cut scene will play, signaling the start of the second stage of the fight. Li will now summon a large demon in front of Miles. He will activate a large shield around himself making him immune to all attacks including Venom.
At this stage, all you can do is dodge/parry the attacks until your abilities return, as nothing you do will take damage off his health bar. Once your abilities are active again, use either Venom Punch or Chain Lightning near the shield, this will break it allowing you inside, opening up Mister Negative to attacks. After you have registered a hit on Li the shield will drop and it will return to the fight as per the first phase in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2.
In the second phase, Mister Negative’s attacks will largely be the same as previously, except he will now chain three together which need to be dodged or swung away from. He has extra items that he can throw at you, which need to be dodged, along with a more powerful red warning attack.
These can cause substantial damage to Miles, but once you learn the perfect time to press dodge, you will be able to consistently avoid them. For your own attacks sticking to combinations and Venom abilities will quickly be able to take his health bar down.
Phase Three Mister Negative
Once you have taken down Mister Negative’s health for a second time, he will again bring his shield back up for the start of Phase Three. For the final section of the fight, he will introduce no new attacks, but become more aggressive and direct. After his health is fully down for a third time he will again quickly summon the shield, where you will only need to attack him one more time to complete this stage.
Using a combination of Miles’s variety of different attacks, Venom Powers and Gadgets are the best strategy to overcome the boss.
After completing the third stage there is still more work for you to do, as you try to catch the Demon with Miles in Martin Li’s created world. Miles needs to keep moving forward and swinging as quickly as possible to keep up. At a certain point when you are close enough, you can press Triangle to jump onto the Demon with Miles.
Following the cut scene, you will be back on the ground facing off against oncoming demons, but these are in line with the standard groups of enemies you face throughout Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. There will be several waves of this, as Miles tries to tackle his inner demons, but they don’t get harder and this is the easiest part of the boss battle. You don’t need to defeat them all, but just survive for a set period of time and your battle with Mister Negative will be done.
Mister Negative can be a tough and emotional boss battle to overcome early in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, but once you get used to his patterns of attacks he can be easily defeated.
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Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
- Franchise:
- Spider-Man, Insomniac’s Marvel Universe
- Platform(s):
- PlayStation 5
- Released:
- 2023-10-20
- Developer(s):
- Insomniac Games
- Publisher(s):
- Sony Interactive Entertainment
- Genre(s):
- Adventure, Action
- Engine:
- Insomniac Engine v. 4.0
- ESRB:
- T
- Prequel(s):
- Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Marvel’s Spider-Man
