Simply Marvel-ous
Written: Sep 25 '04
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Graphics,Music,Gameplay
Cons: Some character choices, the lack of single player options
The Bottom Line: If you like Marvel's heroes and/or Capcom fighters, you need this game
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| flash-hammer's Full Review: Marvel Super Heroes for Saturn |
When Capcom's X-Men: Children of the Atom, a game that coupled a Streetfighter style gaming engine with Marvel Comics' famous mutants proved to be a huge success, both in the arcades and on the Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation, Capcom and Marvel took the next logical step and made a game, using a Streetfighter style engine, but this time using characters from all over the Marvel Universe.
This allowed players to pit Wolverine against The Hulk, Spiderman in mortal combat against Captain America, Iron Man versus Psylocke,Shuma Gorath in wits with Blackheart and Magneto in a duel with Juggernaut before taking down Doctor Doom and Thanos.
As you would expect, the game is a one-on-one fighter in whcih you select one of the above characters, apart from the latter two, and duke it out against all the rest in Best out of three rounds fights to see who can reduce whose energy bar to zero faster. Each character is outfitted with a selection of special moves, performed in the usual Capcom manner of D-Pad movements in conjunction with Button presses, and Super Moves which can only be used when a separate bar of energy is filled up, something achieved by connecting with hits on the enemy.
To further spice things up, the game has thrown in infinity gems. At the start of each fight, each character has a gem each, there are
6 Gems, and you can activate them to grant your character some variety of upgrade. However, if you, or the enemy for that matter, is carrying unused Gems, they can be beaten out of you.
The 6 Gems are Power, which increases your character's strength, Time, which makes your chosen hero faster, Space, which increases your defence, Mind, which grants your character Super Bar recovery, Soul, which recovers life back and Reality, which grants your character the ability to fire off projectiles randomly.
These add a whole new level to the already lovely fighting engine, and some of the effects can be pretty comical, such as using the Time Gem on the already quick Spiderman or the Power one on the Hulk.
One thing you can rarely fault in a Capcom 2D fighter is the quality of gameplay, and Marvel Superheroes doesn't disapoint. It's closer to the aforementioned other Marvel/Capcom tie in game than Streetfighter, full of air combos and giant leaps, but it still captures the Streetfighter magic. The Gems add another distinct gameplay aspect to help it from being just a sequel to X-Men: Children of the Atom.
You should know better than to ask about the collision detection and such of a Capcom 2D fighter's Saturn port, and the startling this is that if you own the Capcom expansion cart, it's actually possible to make the game faster and smoother, despite the fact it seems lighting quick and smooth as silk to me sans the cart.
The only complaint I have is that the game doesn't include any other single player modes besides Arcade. Come on Capcom, where are Survival and Team Battle?
Graphically, the game is 2D-hand drawn Sprite perfection. Huge characters animated very fluidly, with Stages packed with detail, this is probably one of the best looking 2D games ever. All the characters look awesome, you have to love Spiderman's hyperactive, creepy pose and Hulks heavy breathing stance.
A few of the stages are also cool double-stages, where the setting changes, the best example being Wolverine's, where you are duking it out on a wooden bridge in the jungle, only halfway through the fight the ropes holding it up snap and you fall down to continue your fight on the remains of the bridge in the river below.
The graphics are apparently also upgraded with more animation if you have the cart, I can only speculate as to how great that must look.
The sound in the game is also pretty good. The characters voices are well chosen, and Wolverine and the other X-Men are still voiced by the folks who provided their voices in the excellent Fox cartoon. The music is cool theme songs, and fits the game well, because they all have an air of battle about them.
The game controls the close to being the same as X-Men: Children of the Atom
X:Light Punch
Y:Medium Punch
Z:Fierce Punch
A:Light Kick
B:Medium Kick
C:Fierce Kick
L:3-Punch Buttons
R:3-Kick Buttons
Performing Super jumps now must be done manually (by pressing down then up), and dashing likewise (double tap the direction you want to dash in), The Super moves of each character are performed by the universal code of a Quarter Circle Forward D-Pad motion while pressing all 3-Punch buttons. To activate a Gem, perform a Quarter Circle Backwards and 3 Punches. If you have more than one Gem in your possession, pressing L R cycles through them.
As I expected, the controls are nigh on perfect, and the Saturn pad seems to have been made with them in mind, there actually aren't control issues. At all.
On the whole, Marvel Superheroes takes all the excitement of X-Men: Children of the Atom, and somehow finds a way to turn it up a notch. Possibly because there are more classic characters at your disposal this time, possibly the Gems, I don't know exactly what, but the game just seems to have an extra 'Oomptht' to it. It has plenty of little touches such as Captain America being able to lose his shield that help add a level of coolness that distinguishes it from just being Streetfighter with Superheroes.
With the exception of the lack of single player modes, although most of them I rarely use in other fighters anyway, I only have two complaints. One is that the game seems to be a bit on the easy side in single player. Possibly because I am used to the horror-show difficulty of Magneto from X-Men: Children of the Atom, but Thanos just didn't seem up to the challenge. Maybe fighting Magneto so much made me better as these games, who knows.
The other is some of the character choices. Even though I went through years of being a comic fan, and I was at my peak when this was released, I had never heard of Shuma Gorath or Blackheart. Why are they here? who wouldn't have prefered characters like Thor or The Punisher to these two losers? a slightly similar note is Psylocke, who personally I quite like, but for the token female character, wouldn't Storm or Spider Woman have made more sense?
But those gripes aside, MSH is one of the best fighters I have ever played, and it possibly even eclipses the other Capcom fighters on the Saturn I have played for being my favourite. It's got bright and flashy animation, some legendary characters, superb music and the ever-reliable Streetfighter engine behind it, so naturally multiplayer is incredible fun. Without a doubt one of the best fighters for multiplayer play since the original Streetfighter 2 hit, because everyone is familiar with at least one character. Who doesn't know the Hulk or Spiderman? it's one of the rare occasions where a big name licence isn't all the makers of the game are relying on to sell their game.
If you like Capcom fighters and own a Saturn, I would definitely look into getting your hands on a copy of Marvel Super-Heroes. Even if you own another Capcom fighter for the console, I would put in the effort to look for it, because it is the most complete of all of Capcom's 2D fighters for the console in my opinion.
Given that I feel it actually improves on the other Capcom fighters I have reviewed, I feel I can't give the game anything less than full marks. It truly is a beatiful fighter that anyone who enjoys heroes and fighters will absolutely adore.
Related Reviews
Captain America and the Avengers for Sega Genesis
The Incredible Hulk for Sega Genesis
Maximum Carnage for Sega Genesis
X-Men for Sega Genesis
X-Men 2: Clone Wars for Sega Genesis
X-Men: Children of the Atom for Sega Saturn
Spiderman for XBox
Recommended:
Yes
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flash-hammer
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