Aside from including new gadgets and more detailed skill trees, Insomniac added a new upgrade mechanic called Suit Tech Upgrades for Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. Upgrades like additional focus bars which were part of the skill trees in their previous Spider-Man games have been shifted to this section. You can easily get Suit Tech Upgrades from Tech Parts and City Tokens by taking photos and doing random crimes between main missions. While we recommend unlocking all gadgets when possible first, your focus should be on investing tech parts and city tokens for suit tech upgrades as these upgrades greatly impact your overall experience. Even though all four upgrade paths are critical, the most important has to be focus upgrades. All of the upgrades impact both Spider-Men, so you do not have to worry about prioritising one over the other.
1. Confidence Boost:
Confidence Boost has to be the strongest tech upgrade and players should grab this upgrade as soon as possible. After playing Spider-Man 2 again, I kept trying to do perfect dodges to heal myself and realised some combat encounters later that this was linked to an early suit tech upgrade I got last time. This upgrade is crucial and can come in especially handy during boss encounters when you want to save your focus bars to perform finishers and deal heavy damage instead of using them to heal constantly. By centring on this upgrade, you will also increase your health from 100 to 120 through the first two health upgrades. To make use of this ability, wait until the last moment an attack is about to hit you or the attack indicator turns red, then press ◯ to perform a perfect dodge which will slightly heal you. Spider-Man 2 tends to unleash hordes of enemies on you which can be hard to manage in higher difficulties, so when you find yourself low on health, just swing away from the enemies and perform perfect dodges when enemies fire their guns at you to heal enough for combat.
2. Double Focus
Focus Bars de facto control the flow of your combat in the Insomniac Spider-Man games. Aside from being used to heal you, they can be especially useful against boss encounters by utilising two focus bars to deal heavy damage. But to do that, you will have to first get the Double Focus suit tech upgrade which opens up the second focus bar for use. This will now allow you to perform finishers on brutes and bosses. Later in the game, it will be critical to have three focus bars; two for finisher damage and one kept safe for healing. By acquiring this upgrade you will also have to first get Webbed Focus which lets you gain more focus when dealing damage to webbed-up enemies. Double Focus is the most integral early-game upgrade, on par with Confidence Boost. It is especially needed for players who have just played the previous games as they have been used to multiple focus bars and will feel its absence in higher difficulty. There is a specific late-game enemy type that is painful to deal damage to, and these extra focus bars will be of severe use then as the enemy type can be defeated with a finisher.
3. Target Acquisition:
During multiple stealth encounters in the main story, you will not have access to the mini-map to get an overlay of the enemies. Target Acquisition proves useful during these encounters. While Spider-Man 2 has a clear focus on combat, stealth is still pretty fun with the use of new abilities like Web Line. Target Acquisition makes playing through these stealth encounters really fun and in a way clinical. It was one of the first upgrades we grabbed, in our replays and would recommend others to do the same. While the combat is pretty fun, trying to deal with most situations through the use of stealth makes you feel like Spider-Man. The game includes full bases that can be cleaned with stealth but that is not feasible without upgrades like Target Acquisition. When you enter a stealth encounter, just press R3 and all enemies within range will be automatically tagged.
4. Air Marshal
Players should lean towards Air Combat more during combat encounters as you will be safe from all melee attacks when in the air and will also deal higher damage to enemies. To further increase the dealt damage, you should grab the Air Marshal upgrade. Dodge under enemies by pressing ◯, air launch by holding ▢ and you can continue your combat streak easily in the air. Spider-Man 2 makes air combat more fluid through skills like Bounce Up which you can use to maintain your air combat. Also, do not forget to use swing kicks and web pulls to your advantage. By grabbing this upgrade, you will also have increased your damage to 120% through the first two damage upgrades. This upgrade is especially useful for Miles whose venom abilities like Venom Jump push enemies into the air.
5. Amazing Launch
Do not leave the traversal upgrade path hanging as it can be the most crucial for your overall experience. While the combat of the game is pretty good, the main highlight for everyone is the traversal with web swinging and web wings. You should make upgrades to make the traversal experience even more enjoyable as most of the game is spent like this. Amazing Launch has been a useful ability in the previous games but it is even more crucial this time as you can link this ability up well with web wings. After pressing L2 + R2 to zip perch, press X just as you land which will propel you further and will help hold or increase your current speed. You can press △ immediately after this to open your web wings with the added boost. By getting this upgrade, you will also have increased swing speed through the first traversal upgrade.
While these may be the best Spider-Man 2 Suit Tech upgrades, you should try to experiment and find the set of abilities in the early game that best suits your playstyle. Although, you will have access to all of these upgrades by the end of the game. If you are looking for a guide on the best skills in Spider-Man 2, check this out: Spider-Man 2: Best Skills To Get.
