This is it, the last final push of GBA games. We’ve gone through one and two and three other articles, but now it’s time to finish this so I can finally move onto the PS1 gam- I mean, so we can give a good shake to every GBA Marvel game. I’m definitely not checked out of this already, and eagerly awaiting it to be over. I can’t even remember like 80% of the Marvel games I’ve played anymore, honestly.
I had someone about a week ago describe to me some old Spider-Man game they used to play on their Game Boy, trying to get me to figure it out, and were of course very vague about it. “You could web swing, and like crawl on walls! I think you fought like that electric guy maybe! It was sick!” Turns out they were talking about the first Amazing Spider-Man by Rare on the Game Boy, and I was confused as I thought I must have missed playing it since I had no recollection of it. I played it; I had to go back and check the article. I gave it a 2, I couldn’t get past the subway train level due to some silly bats. I entirely forgot about it. After enough Marvel games to the head, they kinda just start blending together, ya know? Anyway, just a little Octopus anecdote.
God, just keep on the path Octopus. Keep on path and eventually soon you’ll be playing something you actually want to play. Keep. On. The. Path. You laugh to yourself when you think I'm not looking, don’t you? I hear it. You cackle as every game brings you closer to playing PS1 Spider-Man and your beloved Raven action-RPG trilogy. You’ll never be free of this, sea creature, and you know it. There's always going to be some other ****ing terrible licensed game in front of you. You crave it, want to feel them all over your gross tentacles or whatever. You feel it in your soul, for I am your soul. You cannot escape me. You are puny, you are small. You are nothing; a hollow shell, a rusty trap that cannot hold me. Smoldering, I burn you. Burning you, I flare, hot and bright and beaut-
You know the joke here already; I’m going to say “whoah, where'd that come from?” Also, not sure why that ridiculous and played-out comedy bit of ‘bad games have made me go insane! Ah!’ started quoting The Dark Knight Returns at the end there. I think it's a little confused.
Anyways, what's first in this finale of the GBA games? Ultimate Alliance. Oh god, please no. God. ****. No. Please.
Marvel: Ultimate Alliance
Developer: Barking Lizards TechnologyPublisher: Activision
Year: 2006
This was easily the game I was dreading playing the most of the last four articles. It is of course a port of the spectacular Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, a game that’s been on just about every console that’s ever been released since it came out. It takes the general storyline from the console versions, and nothing else; it instead replaces it with ****. Just ****. This is one of the worst designed games I’ve ever played, in all honesty, and I’ve played some real ****.
Like it was designed by Mephisto himself.
It’s a 2D side scroller this time around, seeing you walk across very ugly levels with your very ugly character models to do battle with very ugly looking enemies such as ‘Grabber’ and ‘Brawler’. It's blurry, washed out, badly animated; it's just ****.
Obviously in adapting a technically seventh gen console game to the GBA, there’s going to be some sacrifices. And there was plenty of stuff torn out of it like a prized pig at a butchers to get it to fit into its tiny little cartridge. Gone are really 90% of the levels, gone are the four controllable characters. You get three this time that you can swap between, as well as a selectable special ‘striker’ character you can call in to do a screen clear. Gone are even really character powers, replaced with them maybe having two or three things they can do with one attack button. There is a leveling up system across all characters you can do from the menu, but who even cares. Gone even are the characters, considering the twenty-three character roster of the sixth gen versions (it’s a little complicated) is reduced to only ten playable characters this time around and the six strikers, but they don’t count.
The gameplay is abhorrent, straight up. You have a basic attack button, and a jump, and they both feel like garbage. The hit detection on your attacks is terrible, your jump is weirdly floaty, and it becomes pretty clear pretty damn quick how badly programmed the game is. Here’s one; say you’re doing a jump attack. If you hit the attack button a few times while in the air, regardless of if you hit anything, you’ll cancel your jump attack animation somehow, go into your character's normal grounded stance, and can in fact do your grounded attacks while you’re still falling through the air standing until you land. It managed to make that happen quite a few times, to great entertainment each time. Enemies swarm you and the hit detection is so off that you can’t even really manage to do anything against them; especially when you start having to deal with the energy system. ****, the energy system.
I have nothing witty, I ****ing hate this game.
The energy system is the worst goddamn thing in this whole mistake of a video game. Every character has an energy meter, just like the console versions. The difference this time around is your energy is used to just do basic attacks, as your alleged ‘powers’ are all just tied to your basic attack button. I repeat; you use your energy meter to just do basic attacks. This means that when you get low on energy, and you will as you need to use it to attack, you will become unable to do literally anything until you get enough energy back to do a single very slow punch, then be left with no energy again. This is one of the worst decisions I’ve ever seen in a video game. Energy does recharge over time, and I think maybe faster when a character isn’t currently in play, but god ****ing damnit is it ever just unfun to deal with. It is such a fundamental flaw in how the game plays that I’m convinced Ultron designed it to drive organics into destroying themselves in rage. You nearly got me, you vibranium encased monster who wanted to marry the Wasp once, who’s sort of technically his mother? That was a weird moment, man. Also, they cut Ultron from the game.
Oh yeah, this game is absolutely riveting if you can’t tell.
Each character has some specials, sort of. Each one has one done by hitting both buttons, which varies from Elektra summoning a…geisha ghost? to heal her, or Captain America garbling some unintelligible voice line into I guess his ear piece that I never figured out the effect of. They also have a sprint attack, which I guess counts as a power in the context of this game, and from there it gets nonsensical and really messy. Some characters have another they can do by hitting forward or backward while holding down the punch button, which is the second time that bizarre input has come up for some reason, and I was unable to figure out if there were any others. It’s okay though, as they were all mostly ineffectual really. Wolverine’s B+A ‘special’ sees him unleash some claws of fury for a second or two which I think instantly kills any enemy. What do you think this does against bosses? You’d probably reasonably guess solid damage to them instead of instantly killing them, but you’d be wrong. It does nothing to bosses. It does nothing to bosses.
Not even Blade can save this game.
This is something on the same tier as Mutant Academy on the GBC, in that I just straight up don’t think this ever should have been released. Considering how many sacrifices there were in order to make this, why even bother? What did they expect? I wasn’t too kind on either Spider-Man 1 or 2, being other GBA ports of 3D console games, but those at least didn’t make me question their existence while I was playing them. I’d say maybe the game was too ambitious, but then again the actual programming and gameplay of the game is terrible so a smaller scale idea wouldn’t have made a difference in this case. If the game was perhaps a more stripped back beat ‘em up with only one character, and actually properly designed and coded maybe? I don’t know. **** this game, this is the third entry in the ‘worst Marvel game ever’ tier list; Uncanny X-Men, GBC Mutant Academy, and now this.
Score
0 SHIELDs out of 5.
Spider-Man: Battle For New York
Developer: Torus GamesPublisher: Activision
Year: 2006
Okay, I got through the worst game, I can get through the rest. It’s all a cake walk after Ultimate Alliance. How’s Spider-Man: Battle For New York? I mean, compared to the last game it’s impossible to be considered ‘bad’. Battle for New York is just another in the long storied line of bland Spider-Man games.
Ultimate Goblin; the Hulk, only he can also shoot explosives out of his hand.
This is a prequel to the GBA Ultimate Spider-Man despite not having ‘Ultimate’ in the title, which is the second time there’s been a sequel to only the handheld version of a multi-console Spidey game; the first instance was Spider-Man 2: The Sinister Six which was the GBC-only sequel to the GBC version of the PS1/N64 Spider-Man. This is of course not to be confused with Spider-Man, the movie-tie game we covered the GBA version of in the first article, or Spider-Man, the SNES/Genesis 90’s cartoon tie-in I suffered through earlier in that series. Spider-Man, the PS1 game, also had its own sequel in Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro making two separate versions of the same game having different sequels. What an absolute ****ing mess.
Here we have something magical; a fire hydrant on top of a metal construction beam. Makes sense to me, no logistical issues about this one. This **** is just lazy, they clearly just dropped this down in the level without even caring where it went.
Anyway, I was just stalling as I just don’t really want to talk about Battle For New York to be honest. As a prequel, this game covers mainly the Ultimate version of Green Goblin’s first appearance; he’s a little hulk-like in that continuity, and can shoot energy blasts for some reason. Gone is Venom, and filling his second playable character role is Goblin.
The game is mechanically identical to the first game, having the same controls and the same idea just somehow feeling more bland and uninspired. The combat feels a little slower and more of a slog, with enemies having more health than in the first game. I’d routinely be punching two or three guys around for a solid 10 seconds just waiting for them to finally die. This can be counteracted by the game’s upgrade system, seeing you able to several several parts of each character with one being attack damage; it still felt rough even with some points invested, though. It ultimately just feels like a rush job sequel, slapped together with the mostly recycled assets.
There’s a lot of this; running around trying to find where you’re supposed to go.
The one definite gameplay change is Spider-Man having incredibly little amounts of goo to sling around before you run out and need to find a refill. This once again ties into the upgrade system as you can increase your goo shooter capacity, but again it just felt kinda bad to actually play with. First starting out, you would legitimately run out of goo after swinging maybe two or three times and shooting a single ball. There was usually a refill token around somewhere, but still; kinda ruins the power fantasy a little bit.
Yep, another game for the “another soon to-be-forgotten by Octopus Marvel game” pile.
Score
2 Thwips out of 5.
Spider-Man 3
Developer: Vicarious VisionsPublisher: Activision
Year: 2007
Okay, so for a hot minute playing this I was having some serious deja vu. Spider-Man 3, the movie tie-in game to the most divisive Raimi movie, is so much like the GBA Ultimate Spider-Man games that I honestly thought I goofed and had to check what game I was playing after like 5 minutes. This is kinda confusing, given that this was made by Vicarious Visions, the devs who made the other handheld Raimi games, and not Torus Games who made the two Ultimate Spider-Man’s. What happened here? If I were to guess this was probably just half-assed and thrown out the door with entirely recycled assets and code from the generally superior Ultimate games, because it’s literally some of the same character models and assets and code.
Left: Spider-Man 3, Right: Battle for New York. Mhm…
The web zip is the same as Ultimate Spider-Man, it’s the same Spider-Man model, the gameplay is the exact same seeing you largely zipping around to flip switches to put out fires. It’s just GBA Ultimate Spider-Man 3, really, with some very minor changes and additions.
Again, the attack animations are a 1-for-1 copy of the Ultimate games, complete with the return of the perennial Spider-Man crotch punch. No Spidey game is truly complete without it.
There are some new tricks the game throws at you this time around. You can do both a dash and forward roll that lets you move through enemies, and you also have infinite webs as this follows the Raimi movies where Peter makes his own goo in his body. I’m not going to stop calling it ‘goo’; I'm not above such humour. You even get some decision points here and there about which of two levels you want to tackle first; they may have stolen the HUD, and the controls, and most of the gameplay elements, but at least they threw some new stuff in there.
You also constantly have to put out fires in this just like the two Ultimate games, while you never had to in the other Raimi games. Mhm…
Something else new the game does is add in the symbiote suit, the classic outfit everyone never shuts up about. In this game, there’s no real explanation for why or how it finds and attaches itself to Peter; there’s no meteorite crash like in the movie or anything. He goes to sleep, wakes up covered in black goo, and is just like “eh, it’s probably fine’ and just continues on like nothing happened.
Don’t you hate when you wake up in the morning and find yourself covered in a symbiotic organism that makes you super cringe? Well, no point in letting it ruin your day, I guess.
The black suit triggers once you fill your rage meter, done by breaking objects and fighting baddies. Once it’s out, you do more damage, can break specific walls to progress through levels, and can yank enemies towards you with your web to uppercut them which seems to instantly kill any enemy. There is something kinda strange with it though where you lose it if you get hit once by anything, which is…not quite how that works I think. Video game logic, I suppose. At least when you get knocked out of it you’re fully healed back in your plain not-edgy red-and-blue Spider suit.
Oh no, I can feel myself getting edgy again! I can feel the cringe building inside me!
Most of the power-ups you’ll find in the game have been removed, save for some web power and attack power ups. They only last for the level you find them of course, which doesn’t really make much sense to me. The levels aren’t really that long, and it kinda feels like you’ll get fully upgraded for like maybe one or two dudes near the end of a level before you’ll just be reset for the next one. It’s not necessarily something that terrible, just kind of an odd decision to me.
It’s probably the best of the three Raimi tie-in games, given that it just stole the better Ultimate Spider-Man ideas really. It’s not bad, but Spider-Man 2 also made me go briefly mad so perhaps the bar isn’t set very high. Overall, another ‘not bad but not that good’ experience, which is a dime-a-dozen with Spider-Man by this point. Also the motto of most of the GBA Marvel games, now that I think about it.
Score
2 ½ Thwips out of 5.
Ghost Rider
Developer: Magic PocketsPublisher: Activision
Year: 2007
Alright, here we go, wild card time. After 95% of these previous GBA games, I’m itching for something new, and something that isn’t another ****ing Spider-Man game or Ultimate Alliance. This is the tie-in to the first Nicolas Cage movie, which is a rather dull watching experience to be honest save for Cage’s usual energy (the sequel is a much better fever dream ‘good bad’ movie), but perhaps the video game could be something entertaining. Is it, I ask myself, desperately hoping something actually great will come out of this GBA series? You may not believe this, but ****. Yeah.
This game is another dark horse like Flame On, honestly. I was hoping it would be at least entertaining, but I didn’t expect it to be this much of a banger. This is a legitimately good game.
Your mother****ing Johnny Blaze, Ghost Rider. Getting pulled into hell by the biggest ass of the whole MCU, Mephisto (carrying the likeness of Peter Fonda from the movie), you start whippin’ and bruisin’ anything in your way. It’s a simple 2D action-platformer, but really captures the feel of the character like Flame On did. Seriously.
You have some punches, but where the game of course really puts a lot of focus is on your chain attacks. You can grab the demonic souls of the underworld with them, swing them around, angle them both vertically and diagonally to actually hit things when you need to, and did I mention you can grab dudes with them and pull them into a haymaker? You can start punching dudes in front of you, then switch over to your chains to hit an enemy in the corner launching fireballs at you, then start rolling around to dodge enemies coming in at you from all sides. There’s also a normal fisticuffs grab you can do to just start beating on an unfortunate enemy. It’s some great simple gameplay, and smartly designed; the perfect combination.
Everyone’s always scared of the hellfire chains and the penance stare, but what you really got watch out for is getting grabbed like a little ***** and punched out.
Enemies frequently surround you, but the game is also designed around this. Your chains, while less damaging than your fists, can hit around you and behind you while swinging, giving you great coverage. But, they also can only hit enemies in front of you if from a certain distance, making enemies directly in front of you a priority. This can get a little hectic sometimes, which is why the game gives you another great tool right from the beginning; a roll with invincibility during its start-up that also lets you move through enemies to reposition. It’s fantastic. Where was this fun in 95% of the other games? Why did it take Magic Pockets, a no-name dev who put out Petz: Wild Animals - Dolphinz and Antz Extreme Racing before this, to get something this easy right? Where was this from Vicarious Visions, who have proof they could actually make a good Spider-Man game, which has been foreshadowed enough already?
There’s even some hellcycle stages as there should be in any Ghost Rider game, where suddenly the game turns into Road Rash. Hell yeah, brother.
**** yeah.
There’s even an upgrade system that sees you use your blue orbs to upgrade your usual assortment of moves and stats. This may sound like a bit of a DMC inspired idea, and you’re right; just wait until we get to the PS2 version.
You don’t have to put on that dress toniiiiight…Who knew Johnny was a fan of the classics.
I genuinely was surprised at this, and goddamn did I need something actually fun. Who could ever have predicted that the tie-in to the first Nicolas Cage Ghost Rider movie would get the highest score of any Marvel GBA game? Seriously. Play this game, and it just may surprise you. How’s this compared to the PS2 version? You’re just going to have to wait for that, but that may just surprise you too…
Score
4 Penance Stares out of 5.
And it’s over, it’s finally over. We’re free of the GBA, sixteen games; 10 of which I’ve already forgotten. There were really only two truly terrible games, being the accursed Daredevil and the actually flabbergasting and wretched Ultimate Alliance, but the vast majority of the rest were just bland, which is somehow worse. I struggled to even write a few paragraphs about Spider-Man 1, or Spider-Man: Battle For New York, or Fantastic 4, or X-Men: The Official Game (seriously, is there an unofficial game?). I really had to dig in there. And then somehow, like two beacons of light breaking the bland grey clouds, there were two; Fantastic 4: Flame On and, against all odds, Ghost Rider. Who ever could have guessed that they would have the highest scores of their whole system.
Here’s the tallied average game score of the GBA Marvel games; 2.5. Yeah, that checks out. The GBA scored 39 points even out of a possible total of 80. That’s rough, buddy, but not the worst yet so far; it beat some of the other article series by .5, so that’s something maybe. This is our on-ongoing scores of my very complicated mathematical calculations across the generation eras we’ve covered so far, as this is obviously why we’re all here;
- Initial third generation; average game score of 2.
- The Game Boy and Game Boy Colour; also average of 2.
- Marvel arcade games, blessed be their name; average of 4, baby.
- The 16-bit SNES/Genesis/Mega Drive/Whatever; average of 3.
- The GBA Marvel games, not blessed be their name; 2.5.
What’s first in the next article? Well, there’s not many games luckily on those consoles…sort of. Part one is going to be a first; I’m going to talk about a whole pile of games collectively, but I’m not going to be scoring them. You see, there’s ports of a whole bunch of fighting games we covered in the arcade series to the PS1 and Saturn, with only one of those consoles getting a good version of the games and the other getting…something. It would be really strange to have to split the score somehow between the PS1 versions and the Saturn versions (as only one would actually be getting good scores), and there’s also the fact that the Saturn versions were only released in Japan. My solution; I’m just going to talk about the ports in general and not worry about giving them arbitrary quality scores.
Until next time, as I’m off to find another 60’s Spider-Man cartoon image to crudely photoshop for the cover as is tradition.a
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