At its core, Marvel MaXimum Collection is a 6-game collection with the included iterations of each title, making for a total of 13 games.
The overall presentation is a little barebones, but it gets the job done. From the main menu, you can choose between Games, a Music Player featuring the OST from each title and an option called Archives, which gives access to scans of game manuals, box art and even a hand-annotated design document for Spider-Man and Venom, which is a nice addition for any superfans.
The full games line-up is as follows: –
X-MEN The Arcade Game
Both offline and Online versions
This is probably the best game included in the collection and is probably why it’s the first game you see when you open the menu. This side-scroller brawler was a delight at the arcades, and it’s no different here. You choose between one of 6 different mutants, all with their own unique abilities and set out to defeat Magneto’s army across a decently lengthy campaign. The game is very colourful and features a lot of memorable voice lines, which I remember being a highlight back in the arcade.
Captain America and The Avengers
This includes the Arcade version, a port for the Megadrive, simply known as the ‘Mega’ version and the 8-Bit version, which is a NES game.
The second game on the list, and arguably the second-best game also. This side scroller allows for up to 4 players to play simultaneously, choosing between Captain America, Hawkeye, Iron Man or Vision, all of which have their own weapons and movesets, making each of them feel unique to play.
The Megadrive version plays the same as the arcade version, although everything is toned down in scope, the music doesn’t sound as good, and character sprites are nowhere as detailed, which is to be expected as this did have to fit into a Megadrive cartridge instead of a massive arcade PCB. Overall, it’s a pretty good port, and it’s quite amusing going between the Megadrive and Arcade versions to see what concessions had to be made.
The last version is the NES version, and this game plays completely differently from the others. This version is more of a side-scrolling platformer, more akin to a Megaman game than the other versions. It’s not a terrible game, but it is definitely the weakest of the three, although a nice inclusion nonetheless.
Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage
Both the Super Nintendo and Megadrive versions are included.
This is probably my least favourite set of games in the whole collection. Both versions included are almost identical, with you playing as either Spider-Man or Venom for a pretty lacklustre brawler. Levels are dark and bland and always seem to stretch on just a little longer than necessary. Enemy design is pretty repetitive, and bizarrely, there’s no multiplayer mode even though you get to choose between two different protagonists.
Venom and Spider-Man: Separation Anxiety
Once again, Super Nintendo and Megadrive versions are both included
Separation Anxiety feels like they took Maximum Carnage and bolted on a multiplayer mode. In fact, the first level of both games is pretty much the same, with the gameplay not being much different. It’s worth a playthrough with a friend, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to complete this by myself.
Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade’s Revenge
This has four ports in total, including the Super Nintendo and Megadrive versions. Also included are ports of the Sega Game Gear and Nintendo Game Boy games, with all 4 ports playing pretty similarly.
Oddly, you start out playing exclusively as Spider-Man, and you have to find a bunch of bombs scattered throughout the first map before you can proceed to save the X-Men. After the prologue, you get to choose to play as Wolverine, Gambit, Storm, Cyclops or Spider-Man, all of whom have their own unique set of levels to battle your way through. It’s quite a fun platformer overall, although the controls are definitely a little more on the clunky side, which is especially true on the handheld versions.
Silver Surfer
The last and arguably the most unique game in the collection is Silver Surfer, which is essentially a shmup and possibly one of the hardest games I’ve played. This was originally released on the NES, and it’s the only version made and included in this compilation.
The Silver Surfer’s hit box is massive, and there were plenty of times where I was 100% sure I didn’t get hit, only to lose a life.
Performance and Presentation
The Marvel MaXimum collection runs on the Carbon Engine, which is essentially a back-end that supports a ton of different emulators, and I must say, the quality of the gameplay here is really good. I felt no input lag, nor did I find any problems with visual artefacting; everything in terms of presentation is great.
Each game offers pixel-perfect display modes, along with 4:3 and 16:9 for those who wish to stretch the image, and there’s even a so-so CRT filter for most games in the collection if you are into that kind of thing.
The Game Boy version of Arcade’s Revenge doesn’t allow you to stretch the image, but does allow you to apply a dot-matrix style filter, which is pretty well executed. Bizarrely, the Game Gear version allows for all the screen modes and includes a unique LCD filter.
Along with screen filters, there are options to change the background image, save and load save states, and you can even rewind your gameplay if you are finding certain parts of a particular title a little too difficult, although this is disabled online for obvious reasons.
If you are finding things a little too tough, there’s an included cheat menu for each game, offering things like infinite health or infinite lives, which can be toggled on or off before starting a game, which will prove very useful if you want to see anything past the second level of Silver Surfer.
On one occasion, the game crashed, closing the software and booting me back to the Nintendo Switch’s homescreen. This only happened once in my 10 or so hours with the collection. After playing for a few hours more, I was not able to recreate the crash, but just be warned, it could happen, and it might be an idea to make use of the save state function, especially if you get pretty far in one particular playthrough.
Conclusion
Overall, the Marvel MaXimum Collection is a solid little trip down memory lane, although not all of the included games are certified classics. I would have much preferred to see some of the games like X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse or X-Men 2: Clone Wars, and a little less of the 16-bit Spider-Man offerings. Perhaps there will be a follow-up collection at some point in the future.
The use of the Carbon Engine ensures all the titles run great with minimal lag, although I do wish the UI were a little jazzier instead of the rather plain menus we ended up with.
If you grew up hanging around the arcades, stuffing cash into these machines or trading tips on the playground, then I’d consider this collection a nostalgic must-have for your Switch library. Even if you only have a passing interest in the Marvel series, the X-Men arcade game and Captain America and the Avengers alone make this collection well worth picking up.
7
Nintendo Switch review code kindly provided by Overload PR