The Platinum Edition: Marvel Super Heroes

Welcome to Playing with Power the Platinum Edition. This is where I look at an old game from my youth, play it and make some comments and see if it’s still good. For the first post I am going to look at the 90s fighting game Marvel Super Heroes.

Marvel Super Heroes (1997 PlayStation).

Background

Marvel Super Heroes is a game I know of due to a cousin once bring it over. I remember at the time being amazed by it. This was due to the 90s having various Marvel characters on tv at the time and being able to play a game where you control them, it was amazing!

At the time I remember not being so good at the game, but it didn’t stop me enjoying it. The game play is a lot like any Street Fighter game. You have two character battling each other, and they have a list of special moves and super moves. Only difference this time is the character are superheroes and villains from Marvel Comics.

The game doesn’t have a large roster, which isn’t surprising due to the time, but you have some of your fan favourites here. Spider-man, Wolverine and Hulk, while having villain characters such as Magneto, Dr Doom and Thanos. This was the first time I’d even heard of Thanos, but that came back to help me out later in life.

The Story for this game is basically know existent, unless you’re a Marvel fan, which I feel would have been a very niche market at the time. Basically, the game is the Infinity Saga but very small from. With every character having their own each individual ending when you beat the arcade.

Gameplay

For the purposes of this, I decided to do an arcade play though as Captain America. Which was an experience, as I forgot how cheesy Cap used to be. But it is safe to say the experience was fun. As you get to use the power of each of the infinity stones, which give your character different powers.

As I started the ladder my first two battles were pretty easy to get through, but then eventually the difficult started to go up, and it got a little more difficult. As it took me a couple tries to defeat other characters on the ladder, as I feel some characters are overpowered. For the sub boss you take on Doctor Doom, and for the final boss you take on the mad titan.

This final battle was hard, as you don’t have access to the infinity gems, and Thanos can certainly mess you up with a few moves with him being so powerful. There was an upside to me having to fight this stage so many times, it allowed me to notice the other Avengers frozen in the background while you fight him. Till eventually I beat him and got my ending, in which Cap and Thor throw the gems into a black hole and then go off to fight more bad guys.

30 Years Later.

I enjoyed this game; I don’t remember it out of the two-player mode. It’s just a shame you don’t have to fight the full roster on the ladder. As you only face eight opponents and two those are secret boss characters. I would have loved to be able to see if I would have had the same fun when playing with someone else, but it was only solo options for me. I think I could have easily gone for one more round with a different character, but I think I’ll save that pleasure for another day.

I think this game is still fun to be had after almost thirty years. This game was one of the games which lead into the Marvel vs Capcom series. This was the first time I played this game seriously, and I rather enjoyed it. Maybe next time I would try it with Spider-Man or Iron Man and up the difficult. What I will say is, this is a game that is still as good as my memory.