Superman
Arcade
Nostalgia Factor:
When I was a kid, my family would often take me out to the bowling alley with them. I had no interest in bowling, so I would spend most of my time in the arcades, hanging out and checking coin slots for quarters. I rarely had enough money to play more than a game or two, so much of my time was spent watching the looping demos on each machine or watching other people play. One of the games I would often keep my eye on was Superman. I was not a huge Superman fan at the time, but I always thought the game looked pretty cool. I liked the side scrolling shooting stages. Did I ever actually play the game? I don't know! If I did, it was for no more than a minute or two, since this game is a big time quarter eater.
Now that I have the means to play the game on my Retropie, I figured I'd finally come back and give it a shot. Superman for the arcade. Is it any good? Let's find out.
Story:
I'm not sure this game has a story? When you let the arcade unit play, without putting a quarter in or touching anything, there is nothing story related that comes up on the screen, like with most arcade games. All you get between gameplay demos is a still image of a bald green guy holding the planet Earth in his palm.
When the game starts, again - nothing is explained. Clark Kent jumps into a phone booth, changes into Superman, and he takes to the streets to start punching out bad guys. You play through a series of levels until you get to the final boss - the green guy from the intro. Once you defeat him, the game ends. You get an end screen that says:
Their actions saved Earth. There's no time for rest until evil ceases to exist on Earth. Earth will need them sometime in the future.
Their actions? Is Superman nonbinary now? I think the game just assumes you beat the game in two player mode. But I didn't. I played in single player mode. Huh. And that's about it. Superman flies through New York City, oh excuse me - Metropolis - as the sun sets in the background. The credits roll.
Deep. Very deep.
Gameplay:
This is an easy game to pick up and play. It is similar to other beat 'em ups, but instead of walking up and down on a 3D plane, you fly up and down. You punch and kick your enemies. They punch and kick you. The only real challenge is in the game's hit detection, which is not always great. Once you make it through the first side-scrolling stage, you enter a vertically scrolling stage. This acts just like the other beat 'em up stage, except scrolling upwards instead of left to right. Again, you punch and kick enemies as you rise through the city. Beat this stage, and you enter a 2D shooter stage where Superman fires eye-lasers at his enemy. Beat this stage, and you move onto chapter two.
Each chapter is exactly the same: side scrolling stage, vertically scrolling stage, 2D shooter stage. There are five chapters to play through. Beat chapter five, you beat the game.
Gameplay is simple enough. The beat 'em up stages are actually pretty easy. It is the shooter stages that are the most annoying. The stages themselves aren't too bad, but the boss fights are annoying AF. They are wars of attrition where you can easily hit your enemy, but can't avoid his attacks. So you are basically just trading damage. This is where I lost the most quarters. There's no strategy involved. These stages are designed to cheaply kill you over and over again so you put in more money. I was not a fan at all.
The game as a whole was... fine. I played on my Retropie. I don't know how many times I was forced to put in a virtual quarter, but it was quite a bit. It probably would have taken about ten dollars to make my way through this in an actual arcade. And most of that is because of the cheap boss fights.
Is this game fun to play? Kind of. It was a curiosity from my childhood and I am glad I played it. But I doubt I'll ever be playing it again.
Graphics:
The game looks okay. Superman looks good. The city looks good. I like the sunset and the view of the Metropolis skyline during the game's ending.
The negative? The enemies are just generic, palette swapped characters with no personality, which is emblematic of the game itself. It is severely lacking in any type of personality whatsoever. The stages are dull and repetitive. There are no real standout graphical moments. It is a very basic looking, low effort type of game. Not that it looks ugly. Just very uninspired.
Sound:
The arcade rendition of the Superman theme song is fairly well done. The rest of the music and sound effects are completely forgettable. Again - emblematic of the game itself.
Overall:
As you can tell, I am very "meh" on this game. It isn't bad though. In fact, it is a completely inoffensive and playable game. It is just very average. From the graphics, to the music, to the gameplay, everything is average. So guess what score it is going to get? I want to give it lower than a C, because of just how forgettable the game is. Better games than this have gotten lower scores than a C. But I just feel like it does everything SO average, that a C is perfect for it. Average effort from the game developers = average score from me.
Now that I've had time to think about it, I walk back what I said earlier in the review. I might play this game again someday... if my son is interested when he is old enough to play two-player games. He might enjoy this. As a solo venture, however, I am completely uninterested in ever playing this again.
THE GRADE:
C
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