It’s time to finish the 8-bit generation of Marvel games. Some of you may have even read the first article (https://retrogametalk.com/threads/marvel-games-in-the-third-generation-part-one.53/) and I know you’ve been chomping at the bit to see the epic conclusion to these games of the utmost quality.
Coincidentally, part two has some of the worst ones, other than Uncanny X-Men (I will never let it go.) So grab your impossibly bouncy nigh indestructible shields, for first up we have Data East’s Captain America and the Avengers.
Captain America and the Avengers
Year: 1991Publisher: Data East
Developer: Data East
Platform: NES
One of the many home version ports of the coin-op arcade game and also, as I discovered, terrible. The NES version ditches the button masher beat 'em up gameplay of the original arcade and other console versions and instead is a simple action platformer.
First things first: the hit detection is non-functional. At least there's no bubbles in this.
According to Data East this level is in Tampa, Florida if you couldn’t tell from the massive trees and free standing waterfalls.
The hit detection is terrible. Enemies directly in front of me would routinely not be hit by any of my attacks. I think Hawkeye, the only other playable character in this version, gets off slightly easier with the hit detection issues for whatever reason and his bow projectile seemed easier to hit things with. The worst offender is Cap’s jumping drop kick; I don't think I managed to hit a single enemy or power up dispensing robot thing once with the kick in my time with the game, despite moving to be inside my target. It just would not function.
The objective of each stage, allegedly set in real areas in the States, is to find a power gem hidden in one of the previously mentioned robot dispenser units. With this gem you can then unlock the exit somewhere else in the level, but usually it's maybe ten feet away from the power gem.
Who put these here? They also don’t disappear once they’ve been hit or anything, so you can just infinitely get things from them.
All this is communicated to you by the Wasp at the start of the game or in-between levels with some pretty strange dialogue.
Poor Hawkeye and Cap, both of them are unable to form any coherent sentences other than “Roger, Wasp” after playing this game for too long. What does she mean by ‘gain power’? I never noticed anything different after picking up nine 'power-stones' from the same robot dispenser.
You can fight some bosses by travelling through their little icon on the map like it's the hammer bros in the original Mario, and it's always the same robot guy who just throws barrels at you. Not sure what's going on there.
Definitely pass on this one. Hard pass.
Score
1 Shield out of 5.
Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six
Year: 1992Publisher: Acclaim/LJN
Developer: Bits Entertainment
Platform: NES, Master System, Game Gear
The last NES game on the list and of course it started as it ended; in the trash. This game isn't Uncanny X-Men tier, but it's not much better mainly because you're not getting assailed by never ending bubbles.
You do have to deal with some rats, though. They're not even super powered and don't even have anything to do with the Sinister Six; they're just regular New York rats, so of course they attack you on sight.
Right off the bat, it took me perhaps two seconds to realize that the game is borderline unresponsive with its controls. The jump button itself seems to only work in certain circumstances as I often would need to hit it twice to make Spider-Man jump. If you jump while standing still, for some reason you can only move Spider-Man forward during the jump and not backwards at all which is rather strange. If you jump while moving you of course jump forward in that direction, but the aerial control is so very little that it makes any sort of delicate jump almost impossible.
The broken controls extend into the combat as well. The attack button is also very unresponsive, and I found it not coming out as the game ate my input seemingly many times. Something even worse is the leaping kick. If you hit the attack button once, Spider-Man does a basic punch. But if you hit the button twice quickly, like say when you already hit the button once and nothing happened so you hit it again, Spider-Man instead does a leaping jump kick. This results in you often flying across the screen almost at random, and is incredibly frustrating. Outside of that ground based aerial attack, Spider-Man cannot attack in the air once he's jumped and that's perhaps the strangest design choice in this game. You never realize how you take the ever present jump attack in any other action platformer for granted until you don't have one. Instead of making an attack in the air, Spider-Man can shoot a web diagonally ahead to swing on things. Don't bother with this; the range is short enough where it's not going to let you swing over gaps you wouldn't just be able to jump over, and you can't jump after swinging so you'll never actually be able to gain height with it. It's just useless, basically.
Not only are you wrestling with the broken controls, you're also battling with the worst member of the Sinister Six: the hit detection. It's fascinating how something so simple can be overlooked or flat out broken but here we are with two games in a row with the worst hit detection I've experienced (and Uncanny X-Men, still never letting it go). Your attacks will never connect unless you are seemingly in the exact right spot which is hard to pinpoint, particularly when that enemy is moving around like they tend to do. Fortunately, it also extends to the enemies so every encounter with a generic goon in this game is a spastic dance routine with neither side being able to land a hit on the other. Even worse for the poor little computer based enemies is the fact they're dumb as rocks and often you can move past the stationary ones and they will be unable to contemplate what just happened and keep shooting straight ahead, oblivious to Spider-Man now standing right behind them.
They also explode when you punch them? Every enemy explodes into a couple little red bits when they are defeated, including bosses. Spider-Man’s had enough apparently and is just letting the full power punches fly, and his fury is terrifying.
The worst example of all the bad things in this game I encountered in my brief time with the game (more on that later) was the first boss fight with Electro. You find him charging from a power generator, so you punch the switch to turn it off and he begins to fly around on a platform. The issues are legion with this fight. As mentioned before, you have no jump attack other than the awkward leap kick on the ground and Electro is constantly flying away on his platform which is an issue right away. So you have to use your ground attacks against him, which ends up creating a stalemate where you just wait for him to randomly swoop down to you so you can throw out a punch and pray both that it comes out as intended, and that it connects against him which it often won't anyway- oops, turns out you hit the attack button one too many times and now you're leap kicking away, better get back into position. Don't worry though, because he has terrible aim with the lightning bolts he throws at you and even if they come close to hitting you they still likely won't due to the hit detection. The fight took me maybe 10 minutes which doesn't seem like a lot unless you're playing it, in which case it feels like an eternity.
Why yes, that lightning bolt is flying diagonally upwards and yes, he did in fact launch it that way. I don’t know why.
I managed to beat Electro, and went on to the second level of Sandman who's hanging out in a sewer? I think a water filled sewer would be the last place he should be in, but just go with it. I'm jumping around, dodging some ornery New York rats and I miss a jump into a platform because if you haven't caught on by now, the controls are terrible. No problem I think, I'll just find a way back up.
There was no way back up. And here's something I hadn't mentioned yet, similar to the sin the previous Wolverine made; Spider-Man can't climb on walls. He can climb on certain backgrounds, but any actual progress blocking vertical walls he can't climb. There's a platform I can't jump high enough to reach and I can't swing across the gap because the web swing is useless. I could restart and not miss that jump, but then I'd have to go through Electro again and I honestly just don't want to. And so came an end to my time with Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six on the NES.
This is how Spider-Man ends. Not with a bang, but with an easily escapable scenario that he just can't get out of in this game. If only he had the ability to climb the wall behind him like some kind of arachnid humanoid.
Of note is the differences between the NES and the Master System and Game Gear versions which came out in 1993. The Sega versions are overall easier with different item and enemy placements, the graphics are brighter and there’s one other thing that completely changes the game: you can shoot a web ball when you’re in the air. You actually have an aerial attack. Wow, such innovation. The Game Gear version is the same as the Master System save for a smaller field of view given the smaller screen size. Overall, all the versions suffer the same issues fundamentally so the Sega versions do not improve the experience at all, and the score is the same.
Oh, I guess the graphics are fine.
Score
1 Thwip out of 5.
Spider-Man vs the Kingpin
Year: 1991Publisher: Sega
Developer: Technopop/Sega
Platform: Genesis, Master System, SegaCD, Game Gear
This is the first game on the list to land on a Sega console, crossing the street onto the competition’s side. The effects of that? Probably not really much other than some much scratchier sounding music tracks. This game is also a bit of a strange one development wise as it originally came out on the Genesis developed by Technopop, who was an actually pretty important company to the console- but that's neither here nor there. It was then ported backwards to the Master System by Sega themselves in-house (and was one of the last official North American releases for the ancient console) and the Game Gear and then was ported a year later again in-house at Sega to the newly released SegaCD. The Game Gear and Master System versions are identical save for a smaller resolution, but the other remaining ones on the SegaCD and the Genesis are different enough to warrant their own entry when we get to that point. I know it's terrifically important to people that every version of Spider-Man vs the Kingpin is represented, I got you.
First up, it controls perfectly acceptably and it's hit detection is functional which means it's already an improvement over Return of the Sinister Six. It's a competently made game. It's simply frustratingly hard, but has some actual potential. The Kingpin has framed Spider-Man for stealing a nuclear bomb somehow, and I guess people believe him. He's also assembled the Sinister Six to defeat you. You have 24 hours to clear your name before the bomb goes off, so there is a time limit element. In my time with the game, I didn't see it as a pressing concern however unless I were to use the rest mechanic frequently (more on that later).
Everyone talks about ‘NES hard’ as a benchmark for retro difficulty, but what I learned from this game is that people should be talking about ‘Master System hard’ instead. This game is brutally punishing. I know, rewind to the Silver Surfer review when I didn't knock points for that game being difficult. But this one is different; Silver Surfer I would still call ‘fair’ as through stage memorization you can make it through the numerous dangers in your way but in this, it is simply difficult. There isn't much strategy you can employ other than praying.
Just look at this. There’s a constant dive bombing, uh, fly directly above me, a thug in front of me who never stops shooting and I assume it’s Electro constantly bombarding me with lightning bolts from every conceivable angle at the same time from the second I started the power plant stage.
There is a selectable difficulty of Easy, Normal and Nightmare. I was playing on Easy, and I don't want to contemplate what Nightmare’s like then. The difficulty is high, enemies (and especially bosses) are capable of dealing a lot of damage very quickly and move fast. The game’s first real level after having to crawl into a window at the Daily Bugle sees you investigating a warehouse. This level is nothing particularly difficult, even when Doc Ock finally shows up as he's not terribly difficult if you just trap him in the corner and spam your crouching toe kick move at him. But it's a dastardly trap to lure you into a false sense of security, as it only gets exponentially worse from here. The next stage sees you take on the sewers, and oh god- the bubbles are back.
No, I thought they were done with. This game wasn't even published by LJN, what are they doing here?
Sorry, I got distracted there. The boss of this stage is The Lizard, and this is when the difficulty jumps. Unlike Doc Ock he is quite agile and jumps around which wouldn't be so hard if he didn't also out range just about all of your attacks with his tail. He’s rough, and you only have one life in this game. You can use a magic amulet given to you by Doctor Strange after you've completed the first level to teleport back to your apartment and rest to get some health back at the expense of wasting 15 minutes of the timer and having to restart the level you left.
From the Lizard, it only ramps up more. And it's a shame, because this game has some potential. I like the idea of the time limit to clear your name, I like the idea of resting to get some health back but at the expense of time, and the controls and everything are sensical and functional. They even incorporated a very basic photography system where you can go into the options menu and activate the camera icon to take photos of things on the screen. If you take photos of defeated bosses, you gain money which you use to buy more webfluid; that's honestly pretty cool. It's just honestly ruined by the difficulty. Like I said earlier, it's a difficulty that's just oppressive rather than a challenge you need to overcome or learn and it’s just plain immersion breaking to see Spider-Man chain stunned to death by three muggers.
The Central Park mugger is a terrifying opponent, you know. Five of them could probably take down the Hulk.
I'm sure eventually you can power through the game, but why would you want to? It's just a frustrating experience all around. I will give it half a point higher than I would have otherwise for what I think is some ‘fancy’ concepts that worked but are dragged down but the brutal difficulty, it’s some real missed potential.
Score
2 ½ Thwips out of 5.
X-Men: Mojo World
Year: 1996Publisher: Sega
Developer: Sega
Platform: Master System
This game is a strange anomaly. It was released on the Master System exclusively in Brazil in 1996 due to the fact that the system was still being supported in that market at the time. The Game Gear version was exclusive to North America, so we’ll get to that eventually. The console was seven years old in Brazil when this game came out, and it was still getting an official Sega game release. It's fascinating to think about how different game markets can be radically different like this and all the factors that affect it. Did you know that half of all Master System sales are estimated to be from Brazil? And that TecToy, the company that handled Sega production in Brazil, made a new Master System model in 2019 and has been since the 80’s? And it outsold the PS5 due to comedically high tax tariffs on imported consoles? It's a very fascinating rabbit hole to go down, looking at the different variations in international console markets. Anyway, I'm just trying to stall for time as there's barely anything to talk about with X-Men: Mojo World.
The X-Men are looking a little ‘uncanny’ if I do say so. This image is clearly just taken from the Game Gear version and they didn't even bother to put it in a higher resolution. Also, who’s that beside Havok? Is that supposed to be Storm but she has black hair and is doing the Spider-Man hand thing for some reason? I'm still stalling.
The game isn't really bad in the sense of being a broken mess like Return of the Sinister Six or my favourite, Uncanny X-Men; instead it's just entirely bland and uninspired, ‘bad’ due to a complete lack of taste or vibe. Nothing stands out, or particularly makes you want to play it. The controls are fine if maybe a little stiff, and the graphics are very good for a Master System game. It's a little weird how to activate your character's special mutant power you have to hit both buttons for some of the characters instead of something easier like select, but it's nothing unworkable. The game is slow in general, with everything just feeling slow. Enemies shoot slowly, you attack slowly and jump slowly and move slowly. It's the definition of slow.
I know Cyclops is clearly supposed to be wearing his original ‘first class’ outfit but something about it just seems off somehow, like he’s wearing a one-piece swimsuit.
I don't have a critique or a funny little description for this. This game inspires nothing.
You slowly jump around some platforms, maybe take a few enemies out with some punches then repeat. The spot you have to go to transition screens is never very clear of course, so you spend a lot of time wandering around. Nothing the game does is bad per say, it's just nonexistent essentially.
Yeah, just don't bother playing this. Unless you're in Brazil apparently.
Score
2 X-Genes out of 5.
Conclusion: Third Generation in Review
The first era started horribly, was on average bad throughout and then ended blandly. But that was sort of how it went back then; quality control was severely lacking in those wild frontier days. The common talking point you hear now is “they just don't make video games like they used to, man” but that to me is some nostalgia-tinted glasses, and I invite that person to play Uncanny X-Men. Developers were still trying to figure out what worked and didn't work on the 8-bit consoles as the video game market continued to expand and grow, and there are mountains of terrible games out there for the NES alone. I think what people generally mean by that sentiment is that games were simpler back in the ‘good ol’ days’, which is of course true and unarguable considering the limitations of the hardware.Let's look at some choice games of this batch and see what we can infer. The best with 4 Uzis out of 5 was The Punisher by Beam Software. It was simple, effective, its controls were actually functional so it beat Uncanny X-Men and Return of the Sinister Six on that alone, and it really captured the feel of the character. Frank Castle doesn't worry about collecting hidden keys and floppy disks or fighting bubbles and rats; why should you then? The game was made well, and is difficult without being insurmountable.
The worst game with no argument whatsoever was Uncanny X-Men. It was a broken game from the first screen. The controls were unresponsive, and even something as simple as moving was a challenge against the game. The enemies were never-ending bubbles and worms and cubes. The game was absurdly difficult combining the enemies and the poor controls, I was never sure if anything in the game was working correctly and the objective of collecting floppy disks was not readily apparent. It's garbage of the highest order.
Contrasting those two examples it's easy to see what makes a successful NES game, at least in the licensed Marvel Comics world: responsive controls, and simplicity. It seems like it should be easy to grasp those concepts, but here we are. Most developers/publishers of the NES and Master System era had the general strategy of ‘pump as many games onto the market' and hope something sells and development of that speed and plan rarely left time for play testing or quality control. I wouldn't be surprised if that's why Return of the Sinister Six and Captain America and the Avengers turned out the way they did with their grotesquely broken hit detection issues and glaring design mistakes.
Averaging out all the scores of the third generation leaves us with a final score of 2.12 out of 5 with its 8 games, and a combined score of 17/40. So overall, not a very good start to say the least. Poor Marvel Comics video games would be held back a year if this was elementary school. It had one great game with The Punisher and a fine one with Silver Surfer, but was brought down by the dead weight of one of the worst games I've played with Uncanny X-Men, the borderline non-functioning messes of Return of the Sinister Six and Captain America and the Avengers, the sheer blandness of Wolverine and X-Men: Mojo World, and the overly difficult missed potential of Spider-Man vs. the Kingpin.
Will the Marvel dynasty redeem itself going forward? Maybe, maybe not. The next article is going to be on the compact brethren, the short kings: the handheld consoles. It will cover the original Game Boy, the Game Boy Colour and the Sega Game Gear. Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about the perennial favourite of the Game Boy Advance; did you know that it has sixteen Marvel Comics games on it? Now you do. With a line-up that big of games, I feel that it could be done with its own feature article later down the line as adding it to the other handhelds would result in thirty three games in one; that's maybe a little much. So stay tuned for the Game Boy Advance down the line.
Total games? Seventeen, covering a lot of Spider-Man titles (some of which we’ve seen in this article in big console form). Help me. See you next time, true believers.
