Believe it or not, I was once not the snarky twenty-something who posts reviews about games (and various other things) on the internet. Once I was a snarky six or seven year old and I got my hands on this for my Super Nintendo. Being that I'd been a fan of superheroes ever since I was a kid, as I've gone into many times here on this blog, seeing this as the cover, how could I resist? It looks awesome!
I mean, you have Spidey front and center, Wolverine with his epic claws out, Captain America letting out a freaking death howl, and Iron Man with a fist raised to punch some evil-doer right in the fact, and - to top it all off - you got Hulk at the back ready to smash in the face of any fool stupid enough to get in his way.
Basically put, this game - by its cover alone - looks so stupidly awesome!
And now we've come to a time where Marvel is bigger than ever...something I did an entire retrospective of the pre-Age of Ultron films of and have been keeping up with the movies as they've come out, something which I do so very, very little. So, looking back on this little gem (no pun intended), I decided to dig out my old SNES and see if it was indeed the awesome button mashing adventure it was in my youth.
...only problem was I couldn't find my SNES. No idea where it is. Thus, to the internet and emulators. Huzzah indeed! Hence, I was taken back into the 90s and the War of the Gems. Adam Warlock has summoned to him five Heroes with Attitude in order to collect the Infinity Gems. Separately, they are six artifacts of extreme power in the Marvel universe. But when brought together, they can create an even more powerful artifact - the Infinity Gauntlet.
And, of course, with the likes of Doctor Doom, Thanos, and the Magus out and about trying to get a hold of them, he'll need the help!
The game allows you to pick from a computer at the Avengers Mansion, showing the Earth and various locations upon and above it in space where Infinity Gems might be found. Unfortunately, it's a bit of a crapshoot in that you're not guaranteed to find a Gem in each area, just that you might. So the player has to go through every section until they find the two or so Gems in each sections - baring the events that separate the plot, where a Gem is guaranteed to pop up after defeating a boss.
But after selecting a stage, you have to select one of the five heroes that have already been mentioned. The group is fairly balanced - Spidey is the smallest but also the fastest, whereas Hulk is largest but stronger than the rest. In between them, we have Wolverine as not as fast as Spidey and not as strong as Cap, and Iron Man who's stronger than Cap, but faster than Hulk.
As you might have guessed, it's a beat 'em up slide-scroller. You move from left to right (directional orientation changing only rarely), you punch a bunch of lower-tier enemies before moving on to punch a bigger enemy. There are, of course, occasions where there's a mini-boss shows up, but for the most part, it stays true to form.
When the player gets a Gem, they are actually able to use them as equip items for certain bonuses - such as the Power Gem increasing a player's physical combat strength or the Soul increasing a player's health meter - items can also be picked up in the levels or awarded for completing the Avengers training room, which will pit the player in a one on one fight against one of various enemies from the game. If the player does well enough, they can get health pickups or a Revive for a fallen character.
On the whole, it's not a difficult game. Once you learn the boss attack patterns, it can be ridiculously easy (I found even Thanos could be taken down by Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man without breaking too much of a sweat). My one major criticism would be when your character takes a particularly nasty hit, they're thrown back in a needlessly dramatic fashion, lie on the ground for a second, and then slowly get back up, which is wasting my time and several frames of animation that could have been used elsewhere.
Upon reflection, this game is pretty good and ridiculously addicting. I found it frustrating as a youth, but that happens when you're six years old, you have no hand-eye coordination, and you don't know any better as far as video games go. It doesn't get more complicated than "punch things to get through to punch other things", but it doesn't have to. It's a beat 'em up, simplicity itself. And for a Marvel game, you could do a lot, lot worse.
Marvel Super Heroes: War of the Gems was developed and published by Capcom for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.
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