16-bit Marvel games, the final frontier. These are the last games that closed out this historic era of gaming. Part One and Part Two have been a very interesting ride score wise, as we have had some of the greatest licensed Marvel games along with one of the worst and, as the joke that keeps on going says, why's it always the X-Men?
I'm curious actually how the DOUBLE MEGA POWER era score will turn out at the end of this article. The utterly wretched Adamantium Rage, with both console versions deserving to be laughed at remember, got the much deserved 0/5 score making it in the same prestigious quality tier of the equally abominable Uncanny X-Men on the NES. I can't believe that was the very first game that started all of this.
Here we go, the final stretch of the era. After these five, we will know how this era stacks up, averaged out against the others with my incredibly scientific mathematical calculations.
Spider-Man
Developer: Western Technologies, IncPublisher: Acclaim (Genesis), LJN (SNES); they’re both the same company, of course.
Platform: SNES, Genesis
Year: 1995
I’ve never played this game, which is strange both considering how I’ve played a lot of Marvel games even before this retrospective, and I also loved the 90’s animated series that this game was based on. Maybe it’s due to the name of just Spider-Man being hard to narrow down? Every time I’d search for Spider-Man games, every other game would pop up and it just got lost in the crowd.
Top: Genesis, Bottom: SNES. Genesis Spidey looks a little off, to say the least.
Anyway, don’t play either version of this terrible game. They’re not quite Adamantium Rage/Uncanny X-Men tier, but by the good name of Steve Ditko they’re not far off. They have atrocious feeling controls, stiff and unresponsive. It’s the kind of game where you have to triple hit your buttons sometimes just to make sure the game reads the inputs. Get hit while holding a direction or a button? You have to release the direction, then hit it again for it to register. I’d say the SNES version was maybe slightly more responsive, but it wasn’t by a wide enough margin to improve it’s score or anything.
Love the dramatic Genesis Spider-Man death, also loved how many times I had to see it.
Even if the controls were more responsive, however, I don’t think it would make a difference as the games are both bizarrely designed in different ways. In the SNES version, you sometimes have to jump into a background element to progress, but it’s never really obvious due to the confusing layout of the stage where you can do this, and once you do figure out where you have to stand in such a specific spot to get it to work. In the Genesis version, the platforms you have to clamber around on have very misleading graphics where a good few inches on the ends of them don’t actually count as solid ground, making you entirely miss jumps that visually were entirely safe.
You crawl around levels, doing nothing that stands out in any capacity. You shoot webs, kinda swing on webs when it wants to work correctly, and engage the same enemies either way. The SNES version has this really frustrating thing where enemies routinely attack you from off-screen before you can even see them, and combined with the unresponsive controls it makes it really easy to routinely get hit before you can react which, of course, is nonsense.
In both versions, you also can collect and throw grenades? Not sure why Spider-Man needs to throw grenades, but I guess a grenade never really hurts someone’s effectiveness. It’s just….strange. I couldn’t get past the first stage boss in either version, with both being Doc Ock. I don't even feel bad about it, I played almost an hour just on the SNES version and that was enough for me.
The web swing hardly ever worked across both versions, no matter if the web hit an object. Also, here in the Genesis version the web effect shoots out of Spider-Man’s hand a few frames before he even raises it. The wonders of going frame-by-frame.
This isn’t Adamantium Rage, but it’s still a pretty atrocious game. Don’t play Spider-Man on the SNES or the Genesis. I haven’t seen this bad of a Spider-Man game since the days of the NES. Almost had me nostalgic for Return of the Sinister Six.
Score
1 ½ Thwip out of 5.
Venom/Spider-Man: Separation Anxiety
Developer: Software CreationsPublisher: Acclaim
Platform: SNES, Genesis
Year: 1995
This is a sequel to the previous article’s Maximum Carnage on the SNES, with this one finally coming over to the Genesis as well. Otherwise, it’s essentially the exact same game under a different name.
You play as Spider-Man or Venom in a storyline really only adapted in name only from the comic mini-series. It’s actually more in line with the first Venom solo series ‘Lethal Protector’, heavily featuring both the Life Foundation stealing symbiote from Venom to make their own, you fighting a lot of Guardsman robots and the Jury villain group as well as the general idea of Venom trying to be an anti-heroic figure.
I don’t remember Spider-Man grabbing and lifting dudes up by the crotch in the comic book, though…
There’s no more ‘loving homage’ to Mob Rules on the soundtrack for one, or any of the other songs Maximum Carnage ripped off. The biggest and most unfortunate missing piece is the comic book style cutscenes, replaced in this game with just a wall of text and a still image of your chosen character. It’s kinda lame, to be honest.
The game is the exact same gameplay wise, even in difficulty. Enemies are numerous to an often comical degree, and they will constantly swarm you and dogpile you. It’s so routine for an enemy to hang back on the edge of the screen until the exact moment that you grab another enemy, then run up right on cue to punch you when you can’t do anything about it. I’m not sure if it’s maybe just easier to grab enemies this time, but it’s something that would happen really commonly even when I wasn't attempting to grab someone. I honestly wonder if enemies purposefully move into you when you’re attacking so you’ll automatically grab them, so that their previously mentioned buddy has a chance to run up and sucker punch you. I wonder…
Here’s the weird thing; the bosses are kind of pushovers. The first three or so bosses I just mashed the attack button on and they quickly fell to my assault without being able to do much of anything. The regular enemies are deadlier than the bosses.
The Jury being pushovers is at least entirely comic accurate.
You can still find tokens that let you summon screen clearing assist characters, being regular Spider-Man team-ups like Captain America and Ghost Rider. No Cloak and Dagger this time around, the platonic (sometimes?) life-couple’s video game appearances are few and far between.
Thanks, Ghost Rider ol’ pal. You’re one demonic possession fire demon that I’m always glad to see.
It’s the exact same game graphically, but at least Spider-Man and Venom have new sprites. They’re both kind of funny looking; Spider-Man’s all hunched over menacingly and he moves like you’d think Venom would. Meanwhile, Venom struts like he’s top dog on the schoolyard or something, swinging his arms in a hilarious attempt to look bigger.
Hilarious. Why does Venom move like that? He’s already pretty big, ya know?
It’s the same game as before, minus a piece of soul that Maximum Carnage had a little bit of at least. I’d just skip this one. It’s not unplayable, it’s just missing some pepper in its recipe and is less noteworthy than its predecessor, which was only ‘okay’.
Score
2 ½ Thwips out of 5.
The Amazing Spider-Man: Lethal Foes
Developer: ArgentPublisher: Epoch Co.
Platform: SNES
Year: 1995
Ah, the Spider-Man game almost no-one outside of Japan knows about given that for some reason it never crossed the pond. And it’s a shame as the game is pretty amazing. Get it?
I could almost say ‘spectacular’, maybe even ‘ultimate’. ‘Superior’. ‘Web of’. ‘Friendly Neighbourhood’. What was I talking about?
Lethal Foes sees Spider-Man take on the rogue gauntlet of the usual Sinister Six members, plus the usual duo of Venom and Carnage and a whole lot of robotic Spider-Slayers. It’s standard fare as far as the controls go, and I have no complaints which is fantastic compared to the earlier Spider-Man. You can shoot web balls, have three basic ground attacks and a really satisfying aerial dive kick attack and can swing from a web to catch crooks, any time. Your crouching attack is a low ground kick straight out of the Street Fighter series, and would put any shoto to shame. What else do you need?
I think the best part of the game, apart from the general overall quality, is that it has some je nais se quois in it; it has some pepper and some spirit put in, unlike Separation Anxiety. Spider-Man’s sprite is well done and has some character in it, and the bosses convey their comic book counterparts well. In-between each of the levels, you get little cameo’s from plenty of Spider-Man teamup fodder. The best one is Iron Fist (**** yeah, Danny Rand!) of course, but that’s just my incredibly biased opinion.
And of course his ‘work’ best friend, Johnny Storm.
Each level has a fairly strict time limit you have to respect, but other than that I wouldn’t say it’s more difficult than any other 16-bit action platformer. With perseverance, you’ll easily be able to see the end. The bosses can be powerful, especially later on, but as per the usual video game logic they sort of have some gimmick or pattern or weakness for you to learn and/or exploit mercilessly.
Octopus tip: Alistair Smythe really hates when you spam your web ball at him after knocking him down. He just seethes with anger, unable to overcome itsoppressive power.
I have no idea if this is true to its original dialogue or the work of the translator on the version I used, but the dialogue can be pretty funny. Spider-Man comes off as kind of a goofy little guy sometimes, which could be intended. It’s also pretty funny to hear Venom repeatedly call people bastards, and throw some damn you!’s around.
The graphics are solid. The sprites like previously mentioned are great, there’s some solid colours and the levels are varied if not a little derivative. Yes, you go to the docks and the sewers; it wouldn’t be a superhero game if you didn’t.
In-between levels, you get these cute little pages of JJ slander. If Peter’s the one who’s taken the photo, our man really needs to work on his photography skills; no wonder he’s always broke.
Overall, The Amazing Spider-Man: Lethal Foes is just a great game. It has some love put into it, it’s well made and just fun to play. It’s a shame it never came over to the West originally. Perhaps Epoch didn’t want to bother putting the effort in to translate and license it for an overseas release, but at least you can play it now. And you should, if that hasn’t become obvious.
Score
3 ½ Thwips out of 5.
The Amazing Spider-Man: Web of Fire
Developer: BlueSky Software, ZonoPublisher: Sega
Platform: Sega 32X
Year: 1996
The 32X, that poor console attachment. You kinda have to feel bad for it, honestly. There was just no world where it was going to be successful due to Sega’s famous blunders of its generation. Web of Fire is an important note in the console's life; it was the last released game for the doomed attachment, and came out after it was announced that Sega was more or less abandoning the console. Does the game break free of its unfortunate circumstances as a real cult classic?
No, no it doesn’t. It’s kinda just a resounding ‘meh’.
It’s weird that I’ve read a good amount of talk about this game being a hidden gem, doomed to a life of never being recognized due to the console it was released on. My response is the same thing I said for Avengers in Galactic Storm; are we playing the same game? What? Web of Fire isn’t as bad as Galactic Storm, for sure, but hardly an underrated diamond in the rough. Though, I suppose in the context of there only being 40 games released for the 32X maybe it stands out more.
The game can’t be that bad though; it lets you do the rare ‘Spider-Man crotch punch, but this time you’re attached to a wall’ maneuver. Take that, the entirely forgotten Eel.
The game sees you play as, believe it or not, Spider-Man. The game actually has a pretty unique set-up which I will give it credit for. Hydra, the evil terrorist organization, has taken control of NYC by somehow dropping an flaming energy dome over the city, one that is in fact web-like and also made of fire. It’s pretty refreshing honestly to get a game that isn’t just ‘it’s the Sinister Six again, and also Venom and maybe Carnage shows up’. It’s in the gameplay that the game falters.
If everyone’s been evacuated, who’s putting out these Daily Bugle updates?
It’s nothing new in terms of controls as you have the usual webbin' and punchin’ button, and it’s responsive and behaves like you think. There’s a few odd things, mainly with the way some of the attacks work. You’d think by holding down to crouch then hitting the attack button that you’d do a crouching punch, but that is not correct in Web of Fire; doing this instead has Spider-Man punch directly below him on the ground like he’s trying to steal DK’s ground pound. As far as I discovered, it’s used only to break some specific floors in levels to progress. To actually do a forward hitting crouch attack, you have to hit diagonally down-forward and your punch button which is a bit of a weird input for this kind of game to say the least.
My biggest criticism of the gameplay is just how awkward everything feels. It doesn’t control badly, just strange sometimes. The just mentioned crouch punch, the jumps are kind of ‘sticky’ and not in the pun way. You can do a forward jumping kick by hitting forward and the attack button, but there’s this weird thing with it where you can’t do it if you’re too close to enemies. Point blank sort of makes sense, even if it is anti-fun, but you can’t do it even if you’re maybe a foot or two in front of them. There’s also your default standing attack combo; the second hit often hits enemies back just enough for the finishing uppercut to whiff, which is a little odd looking. It’s just a little weird.
The game has the usual team-up assist that requires you to find a powerup first in the form of Daredevil grappling onto the screen and throwing one of the ol’ billy clubs around. I’m always down for some DD representation; it’s so few and far between in video games, for some reason.
Graphically the game is pretty impressive I will admit, showing off the marginal power increase the 32X gave it’s host body. Everything has some fluid animation, and there’s some great background animation and work with the city on fire around you.
I’m a fair ocean creature, the backgrounds are actually impressive.
The game just boils down to being really mediocre, and not really that fun to play. It’s not terrible, but I wouldn’t really recommend it outside of the novelty factor of it being the last 32X game ever released, and maybe feeling a little bad for it. The game didn’t even get a review from many major gaming institutions when it came out. That’s how DOA it was, given that the games own publisher announced that the console it was for was dead before Web of Fire was even out.
Score
2 Thwips out of 5.
Marvel Super Heroes in War of the Gems
Developer: CapcomPublisher: Capcom
Platform: SNES
Year: 1996
Here we go. This may even have been what got me into Marvel and superheroes in general when I first encountered it as a seven-year old Octopus, or at least was a major contributing factor; that and the 90's Iron Man cartoon, which I saw before the Spider-Man one. That’s the extent of what we’re dealing with here, the most personal entry in this retrospective so far. Will it hold up to my critical eye all these years later? Well, I’ve played the game since I was a kid of course so I already know, but shh; let’s keep the magic alive by pretending that I haven't played it since until just now. Does it hold up?
Man, Capcom really likes Blackheart. They single handedly carried that Mephisto-spawn throughout the 90’s.
War of the Gems is Capcom’s follow up to Mutant Apocalypse, carrying forth its DNA into the larger Marvel universe. It’s an adaptation of the whole ‘Infinity Gem’ comic arcs, making this the second time Capcom has used the same stories as inspiration as they previously had done the same for the arcade Marvel Super Heroes. You may be asking “those games have mostly the same name, is War of the Gems a console port or something?” No, but it does use the famous Capcom ‘recycle everything’ development method; the sprites of the playable characters (Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America, Spider-Man, and Wolverine) are the scaled down and SNES-ified versions of the ones from Marvel Super Heroes, mostly. There is some original work done for the game, at least.
The difference this time around compared to Mutant Apocalypse is that you can select any character for any of the levels right from the get go instead of having to clear their individual levels first, and there’s overall less levels than Mutant Apocalypse. Each character has special moves of course, performed by the same Street Fighter motion inputs. Cap can throw his shield, Hulk can charging shoulder check enemies; and yes, these special moves are also recycled from Marvel Super Heroes, mostly. Spider-Man has a fairly new moveset outside of his web ball, and Iron Man doesn’t have his unibeam but does have his smart bombs!
Superior tech!
The game is overall I think about the same difficulty as Mutant Apocalypse, which is to say harsh and punishing but only so that you may once again learn. This time around there is more trial and error, as every level is open selection. There are a few gameplay additions the game adds in outside of the open level selection. You can find the Infinity Gems, for one, and each one gives characters a special bonus such as the Space gem giving you bigger jump heights and the Power gem giving you, well, more power. You can also perform 'super moves' for each character by finding power ups, letting you do a huge screen clearing attack. The usual.
The defining complaint I can give about War of the Gems is that it’s lacking that bangin' energy and soul from its predecessor. Gone are the unique stage introduction cutscenes from Mutant Apocalypse with the different characters, replaced with nothing but your chosen sculpted adonis just appearing on the screen. You can feel this especially in the enemies; in the laziest Capcom decision of this era, the majority of the enemies are palette swapped ‘cloned’ versions of characters, including the player characters. Yes, you fight plenty of evil Iron Men. Too many cloned evil Iron Men.
You can tell they're evil by the fact they have spike mohawks. No non-evil person has a spike mohawk.
The bosses are less identifiable characters save for a few recognizable faces here and there, including everyone’s favourite metal faced sorcerer-king and the expected Thanos, owner of the dreaded Thanoscopter. Even featured is the now forgotten and integral part of the whole original Infinity Gem saga, Magus.
Magus, seen here being Spider-slammed like the little ***** he is.
I like the open character selection, but I also don’t. I like the idea, but some of the things that have changed about the game because of it are also complaints I have with War of the Gems. Since characters can now be used on every level, their health carries over from level to level. This wouldn’t be that big of an issue really if it weren’t for a few things; like in the previous game, some levels are only really completable by a certain character, hence the ‘trial and error’ aspect of it. Hulk has a tough time on certain levels just due to his jump not being high enough to even reach platforms, for example. This means that you can easily get into a situation where you have to use Spider-Man to complete a platforming heavy level, only to have him barely have any health left from his last outing and he then promptly will get his scrawny little butt handed to him pretty quickly. You can find health recovery items and even a revival power up to resurrect a defeated hero, but they're pretty rare.
Dr. Doom? More like Dr. Get ****ing Wrecked.
War of the Gems is still a great game, and one that I still think is worth a playthrough. It may falter in some design aspects compared to its better overall predecessor, and may even be a little lazy honestly, but it’s still a marvelous time. It has that same perfect Capcom beat ‘em up gameplay style, the same great graphics, just not the same Soul gem within it.
Score
3 ½ Infinity Gems out of 5.
And so ends another era of licensed Marvel games. Here’s the totally scientific mathematical score that this generation has; all the scores combined is 42.5, and averaged out by the total of 15 games leaves the era with a final score of 3 (rounded up from 2.8). There was in fact the most amount of 4’s and 4.5’s yet in this era with Mutant Apocalypse and both X-Men Genesis games, but then there was the previously mentioned dunce cap of Adamantium Rage and a few lesser performers like The Incredible Hulk and Spider-Man. 42.5 out of a total possible score of 75, ain’t bad.
The tally so far; the third gen Marvel games had an average of 2, the 8-bit handhelds also had an average score of 2, and the arcade games had the highest average yet of 4 (you can’t beat The Punisher, baby).
What’s next? Well, I figured we’d follow the trend of home console to handheld, so up next I’m tackling the beloved, time-honoured classic, the absolutely bangin’ GBA. Hallowed be its name, the eternal GOAT. We’re looking at 16 games this time around, which should be workable. You wouldn’t believe how tight I had to trim these 16-bit articles to be able to post them with five games per article, so I'm thinking the GBA will be four articles of four games each.
Until next time, when we cover the stupendously amazing GBA. Seriously, why was that that little thing so ****ing good?
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