Spiderman and the xmen script
Dude X-men gets me all like (hums theme song)
And then Spider-Man is all
like (hums theme song)
Imagine being a kid in the 90s
and loving these, thinking like “they should mash them together!”
So they did and it gets you all like aaaaagggGGGHHHHHH!
(intro)
What is it about certain retro games that haunts
us to this day? I have a few that I could never beat as a kid - like a shameful conceit that I
was bested. Spider-Man & The X-Men in Arcade’s Revenge defeated me when I was young, over and
over and over. I felt like I had to go back to it. Like a bloodfeud, I’m back decades later
to excact *my* revenge, for the same reason any of us finish any video game: to feel like I’ve
actually accomplished something in my life.
Spider-Man & the X-Men in Arcade’s Revenge,
a game with not one, not two, but three trademark symbols in the title screen alone.
The intro sequence jumps right into a cutscene presented through comic book style panels, which
honestly is kinda cool. Spider-Man notes of the missing X-Men members lately, notices Gambit
walking down the street and then VVVRRRRMP! He’s sucked up into a garbage truck or whatever.
Thus we lead into the very first stage, with Spider-Man breaking his way into a compound.
Let me start with this - for a 1993 Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis game, Spider-Man plays pretty
great. His running and jumping is as responsive as it can get, shooting webs is good, but I would not
had expected any game to capture his mobility as well as they can in 16 bits. He can stick to and
climb almost any wall, but most importantly - they nailed his web swing! The sound effect is perfect,
you can control the height of the swing, but most importantly the speed and momentum registers in
a believable way. Seriously - no other video game at the time comes close to how good Spider-Man
feels here. They even have his Spider-Sense, which is a mini radar that directs Spiderman to
locating these blinky light things that must be collected in order to open up the exit door.
The first stage is a great introduction level. Plenty of space for Spiderman to roam around,
some simple robots to shoot down, and a bit of a scavenger hunt for the blinky things to
encourage learning all of his mobility options. I have replayed this first level so many times
because of just how fun it is to be Spiderman, climbing on walls and doing some swinging.
Then you beat the first stage, and are instantly reminded that oh yeah…. this is an LJN game.
Spiderman finds and releases the X-Men, only for Arcade to appear. For those unaware,
Arcade is a Marvel Comics villain, but like… D-tier. His whole thing is he captures people and
forces them to escape his contrived death games in his arena subtly named, “Murderworld”. And yeah,
he pretty much always look like this - white suit, green shirt, stupid yellow bowtie.
With the X-Men released, they all need to escape Arcade’s murder games, which gives each
hero two levels of their own to fight through, all with their own style of gameplay. They
also all have their own style of being so aggravatingly bullshit difficult that
it’ll make you pull your hair out.
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You can play as any hero and complete their stages in any order. Spider-Man continues to
play mostly like he did in the intro stage, only it’s a more straightforward “get to the
end” instead of having to find a bunch of keys. Only now there are way more enemies, way more
damaging spikes, and instant death pitfalls everywhere. It’s way easier to take a bunch
more damage in these levels, and the health items don’t restore a whole lot. But don’t worry
- you can get also get a bunch of these different colored Spider tokens! What do these get you?
Points. For a high score. That’s it.
His Spidey-Sense is reduced down to warning
you when a boss shows up. Which the first one that does is The Shocker! He’s an
easy fight that is entirely skippable, and he explodes into point gems. But then in the
same level, the second boss is… also the Shocker. And then in the same level, there is a third boss
- ...this guy! Now I consider myself decently well-versed in the Marvel universe, and I had
no idea who this red Pterodactyl is. Thankfully a bunch of helpful people who watched me play
through this over on my Gameplay channel pointed out that this is N’astirh, a demon from Limbo who
once kidnapped 13 babies to sacrifice them in a ritual known as Inferno, and once took over
the body of Hobgoblin to become Demogoblin, and uses the transmode virus to convert others
into technomatter so he can feed off of them.
In here, N’astirh poops gems when he gets
hit that heal you ever so slightly.
Cyclops plays very differently than Spider-Man.
While his running and jumping are the same, he can shoot his eye lasers in all the directions.
But for good measure, he can also punch, and do what has to be the most uncomfortable awkward kick
I’ve ever seen someone do. Seriously, just throw a gamer chair behind him and a desk in front and
he looks like me 90% of the time I’m at home.
For whatever reason, Cyclops’ stage
is running through mine shafts, which means riding mine carts. Annoyingly, he can
only use his OPTIC BLAST while standing still, which means aiming has you stand completely still
to shoot, and before you can look down to fire, you have to crouch first. It’s hard to explain
without having the controller in your hand, but it makes Cyclops control stiffer than
the stick that’s always up his ass.
You all know Storm, right? She can control
weather, usually shoots lightning, and she can fly. And according to LJN, what’s the best
way to translate all of that into a video game? …make her swim. All of her levels are underwater.
She can still shoot lightning bolts at least, while somehow also not electrocuting herself.
Weirdly, Storm’s levels are also the easiest, because instead of a life bar she has air, and as
long as you can make her head above the surface, you can keep her air maxed out. Doesn’t mean
it isn’t stressful though, because every bit of damage depletes her air quickly. I swear, I can
hear the drowning music from Sonic the Hedgehog everytime I play her. …whew, god damn.
At least there’s still my favorite X-Man, Gambit. Hold on, Beaudreux? How’d
they get his last name wrong?
His stages are about what you’d WAAGGGGHHHH!
Throughout the entirety of his level, you must run from a massive spiked ball of instant
death. This means constantly moving forward, not knowing what’s coming ahead, and taking a
massive amount of damage from every single enemy that hits. Bullets deal less damage than getting
booped by an enemy. Now you can stall the spiked ball by hitting it with one of Gambit’s cards,
however unlike every other character in the game, Gambit is the only one with limited ammo. If
you run out of cards, you’re pretty much dead, especially since there are times where you have
to break through blocks to progress forward. You need to make sure you’re killing enemies with
Kinetic Card throws so that they drop more cards, all while running away from certain doom.
Now I’ve been saving the worst for last, and that’s Wolverine. With how weird all
these levels have been for everyone, you could not possibly expect the theming for
Wolverine’s levels. Brace yourself.
What. The hell. What the hell is this!?
WHAT THE HELL IS THAT!? Why!? Why clowns!? ? Why jack in the boxes with tommy
guns!? Weird Claw Hand Clowns on Roombas, bomber planes!? And the entire time,
the ENTIRE time, clown laughter.
Playing as Wolverine is honestly as smooth as
Spider-Man’s. Run, Jump, claw stuff. He also has a button that makes his claws pop in and out, which
you gotta admit, few things are as cool as being able to control that SNIKT sound. If you keep
your claws away, Wolverine will even regenerate a set amount of life back. You can even claw
through certain walls with his uppercut. Again, this is actually pretty cool.
What I’ve been glancing over this entire time is how incredibly bullshittingly difficult everything
about this game is. You’re gonna die a lot. Remember the Cyclops mine carts? What I didn’t
mention is that if you miss any jump and land on the tracks, instant death. Dudes can shoot
you from off screen, and robots can infinitely spawn and chase after you. Spider-Man has
way more bottomless pits, as does Gambit, and in Storm’s every single thing hurts,
including things you thought were backgrounds and every single explosion, including ones you
cause. Think Wolverine’s is completely straight forward!? SURPRISE, buzz saw to the nutsack.
Why is it that when Spider-Man gets hit, he gets flung backwards like fifteen feet
into the air, Gambit doesn’t react at all, Storm gets hit like eight times in a row from
everything, and when Cyclops gets hit he looks into the camera like he’s in The Office?
And for every single one of them… there are no checkpoints. You have to beat each stage in
one go. Remember how Spider-Man had THREE bosses alone? Die at any of them and boom, back to the
beginning. Don’t screw up a single Cyclops jump, don’t get lost in Storm’s underwater
maze, don’t move too slow as Gambit, don’t get hit by a pie as Wolverine!
You have three lives, and zero continues. Not three lives each - THREE lives between them all.
That’s why I never beat this game. Having to start over upon every single death, running
out of lives, and getting sick of having to redo the intro stage over and over and over
again just exhausted me into submission.
Thankfully, there is a single exploit you
can take advantage of. On Gambit’s levels, and only Gambit’s levels, you can collect 100 of
these star things to earn a one up. However, there is a single star here that is glitched, and won’t
vanish if you hit at an angle. You can jump over it and back, repeatedly, to rack up hundreds of
stars and free lives. Do this until you’re crushed to death, rinse and repeat. I did this until I
got over 30 lives. That oughta be plenty!
Also, I want to point out the rather
hilarious death scream all the X-Men do. And that Storm’s death scream
is far more haunting.
Also worth pointing out, and
easily an undeniably amazing thing about this game – the music is great.
Not just great, but downright impressive!
It has no right having music this
good. These are full on compositions, not just quick looping 40 second melodies. The
bass line in every Spiderman level is tight. I don’t know of any other Super Nintendo
game that has percussion that sounds this clean. Listen to the hi hat! The soundtrack is standalone incredible, and
it makes having to replay every level sting a bit less because at least they jam. Well
except for Wolverine’s, since, y’know.
Spider-Man has to fight three bosses, Cyclops
fights a Sentinel, Storm fights nothing, Gambit fights a King while he has a Jack-2 off suit, and
Wolverine fights… dude I don’t know. I think this is supposed to be Apocalypse. It took me twelve
attempts at this boss battle alone. I haven’t even talked about all of their second levels yet.
Because they get to be even more bullshit.
Spider-Man has way more bottomless pits, requiring
a lot more web-swings of faith and enemies off screen pelting you away. And at the same time…
rain, with heavy winds that push you in whatever direction. It doesn’t just push, it makes you
face that direction which can completely screw up your web shots. Lots, and lots of falling
to my death here. And at the end of it all, TWO bosses, at the same time! Carnage, and Rhino.
Rhino runs back and forth and rams the wall, making you fall down your ledge automatically.
And Carnage jumps around shooting back at you, only he’s invincible some of the time. Honestly
I couldn’t figure him out, so I kept shooting off screen hoping for the best, until I heard him die.
And with Rhino, you web swing into him. But man, after like two hours and dozens of lives later,
I’ve officially gotten farther in this game than I ever have in my entire life!
Cyclops has even more leaps of faith and way more enemies to kill, including yet
another Sentinel. And then, once you beat his second stage, SURPRISE! Bonus third level,
versus a GIANT sentinel! Frustration aside, this is actually a pretty decent boss fight, as it
loses chunks of itself as you blast them off. This Sentinel shoots missiles, energy balls, and those
surprise prank Snakes that pop out of cans.
Storm’s second stage is largely the same as her
first, only more maze like and even more water to go through. The boss, if you can call it that,
at the end is blasting these orb things. Again, not too bad as long as you manage your air.
And then there’s Wolverine’s second stage, by far the most aggravating, bullshit of them all. The
entire level is you running from the Juggernaut. Along the way, you cut down anvils and whatever
to slow him down. All while killing enemies, clawing through walls, and avoiding ball pits.
Why? Because the ball pits are instant death.
Which makes sense. Do you know how many
diseases there are in those things?
If the Juggernaut catches up to you at any point,
he’ll also instantly kill you. So run and run and run, slowing him down, and when you finally
get to the end… a ballpit you cannot pass. And when the Juggernaut reaches it… you die. Jump
into the ball pit to trick him into going into it, also death. No, you have to *kill* the Juggernaut
before the end of the level, or you die.
I got stuck here for hours. Remember when I said
30 lives should be enough? NOPE! I thankfully did not beat Gambit’s first stage on purpose,
just in case I needed more lives. And I did!
So to kill Juggernaut, you cannot miss a single
one of these anvils to drop down. But for whatever reason, some of these are just.. Fake. You can’t
cut them down! I would claw them over and over and it just wouldn’t happen! Why would they
do this!? Juggernaut has to hit these things, and on top of that, you have to stab him, a lot.
Like, a lot a lot. There’s no speeding to then end here - it’s basically a countdown timer to you
doing enough damage to kill him. After dozens of attempts and all the stabbing i could possibly
do… he still wouldn’t die. And that’s because just cutting these things down isn’t good enough.
You have to time it so that you slice the ropes, they fall, and they have to LAND on Juggernaut
in order to get enough damage in to have a chance at beating him. This is the absolute
worst level - you cannot miss a single thing.
Okay… there’s still Gambit. Thankfully all my
attempts at gaining extra lives made it easier for me to blitz through it. But even towards the end
before the boss, I’m getting low on life and cards and… yo! Look at all those power ups I can get!
Stars, more cards, more life, I’m gonna grab… uh… I’m gonna get… oh my god. You can’t. It’s
impossible to get these power ups up here! Even if you destroy the blocks properly, Gambit
can’t jump high enough to get up in there. There’s no other way in, these are all fake! Are you
kidding me!? The game is FUCKING WITH ME!
Yeah I no longer trust anything that
comes next. I’m getting as many lives as possible because I refuse to lose here.
So I’m gonna get some more. Let’s go with another cool… hmm… 80? 80 lives sounds good.
I was able to kill the card boss. And the second stage.. Is an autoscroller. But going up. It’s a
lot of the same trappings as the previous stage, only you have to guess which side to
go up on. Because if you choose wrong, you’re trapped and you’re dead. Look at this
- they even put a bunch of powerups at a dead end just to further insult you.
Why does this queen card look like it wants to suck me off? Does the king
card look at me the same way? …yup.
The autoscroller goes for way longer than it
should, and you really start to feel it since you have to start over after every death. Of course
there’s another boss at the end of this stage and it’s… giant… robot lady? They might supposed
to be the Hellfire Club but I have no idea.
But hey, with her finally defeated it’s… another
Cyclops stage? Aww come on! At least it’s short and… oh, now Wolverine? Oh okay, this is kinda
neat. Now every characters runs through a short level to make their way to the final showdown
with Arcade. Wanna know the crazy part? Storm has a normal level! Look! She can shoot
lightning in every direction and jumps super high! This is great and so much more fun
than any of her swimming garbage! Why couldn’t they have her like this the whole time!?
And sure enough, it’s a final showdown with the man himself, Arcade. And by man himself I mean a
giant tank of him. You have to play Spider-man for this part. Just do your best to shoot the machine.
But don’t worry, the X-Men are here to help! …sort of. If you get near them on the side,
they’ll each do a single attack to act like they’re helping. They’re basically worthless,
especially Wolverine who only has melee range, and he doesn’t even have his claws out.
Eventually the tank explodes into springy Arcade robot, and that blows up into several
more Arcade robots, and when they die… it’s finished! Arcade appears on the screen,
says he’s blowing up the complex. Kaboom! They all jump out in a dramatic explosion!
Only now Storm’s wearing the wrong outfit!
“You think he got out?” “You can count on it!”
“C’mon, let’s go home!” And then… game over, title screen. Wow. The developers didn’t
even want credits to put their names in.
What is it with LJN games and being almost
just good enough to make you excited at first, only to be sucker punched a fraction into
their games? Arcade’s Revenge starts out so promising - smooth controls, different characters
to play in different ways, surprisingly kickass music. But they always make them unfairly
difficult and near impossible to beat. They’re not difficult in a fun way, just infuriating, and then
as kids we never beat them because they aren’t enjoyable to attempt over and over again.
It’s like they figured out their formula early on and incorporated it into everything
they’ve ever made. LJN didn’t just want your money, they also wanted to punish you for it. I
can only imagine what they’re all, wait hold on a god damned second! You were all standing on
a cliffside. Spider-Man what the hell are you hanging upside down from!?
(OUTRO)
