Thank you Limited Run Games for sending us this game to review!

The early 1990s was a great time to be a fan of beat 'em ups. Whether you enjoyed the classics at home or in the Arcades, there was a lot to enjoy. Games based on the Marvel universe also got in on the action. This was during one of the heights of their popularity, given the many comics, TV shows, and games of the time. (I certainly loved the X-Men cartoon in the 90s!) This MARVEL MaXimum Collection is a celebration of early '90s games, and is a remarkably solid collection of Konami games from that era.

I looked it up, and there were a ton of games made with the Marvel brands back in the early 1990s. This collection is far from comprehensive. However, what is included are certainly some of the better games from that era. The 1990s also saw the first 2D fighting games featuring Marvel characters; none of those are included here.

What is interesting is rather than just including a best version of each game, it instead includes many versions of each game. Some versions represented include Arcade, SUPER (Super Nintendo Entertainment System/SNES), MEGA (Sega Genesis/Mega Drive), GEAR (Sega Game Gear), 8-BIT (Nintendo Entertainment System/NES) and PORTABLE (Nintendo Game Boy). They don't use the actual system names, no doubt because they didn't want to get permission to name the systems on non-native hardware. Here is a list of all of the games, and what systems are represented for each:

X-Men: The Arcade Game (Arcade)
Captain American and The Avengers (Arcade, MEGA, 8-BIT)
Spider-Man & Venom: Maximum Carnage (SUPER, MEGA)
Venom & Spider-Man: Separation Anxiety (SUPER, MEGA)
Spider-Man and The X-Men in Arcade's Revenge (SUPER, MEGA, GEAR, PORTABLE)
Silver Surfer (8-BIT)

X-Men: The Arcade Game is certainly the highlight of the package, and the most technologically advanced game of the lot. You can play the 2-player, 4-player, or 6-player version of the Arcade board, and the 6-player version allows up to six players locally with controllers, or you can go online to play with others via an online lobby. Rollback netcode is featured, so connection stability should work well. I didn't see anyone online when I tried it, but if you don't have a friend willing to buy a copy, there is always Remote Play Together, which is supported for this game. Whatever the case, I love that it allows you to play with six local players, which is sadly not as common as I'd like. Now to convince the family to play it with me...

Captain American and The Avengers is also a pretty solid Arcade title, though not quite as good looking as the X-Men game. It plays well, and supports up to four players on the Arcade version, which is really nice. The Genesis version is an Arcade port, and includes a two-player mode. The NES game is actually a platformer, and is quite different from the other versions. Something else to try if you want to check everything out!

Spider-Man & Venom: Maximum Carnage is a game that has taken on a bit of a cult status in the years since its release. I played it to completion and it's as tough as nails, and I needed the cheats to do so. I played the SNES version, though the Genesis one is also quite decent from what I can tell. I really like that in between each level there is a story told through comic panels shown on screen. The music is also pretty good. It's a fun but horribly-balanced game that would have driven me up the wall without cheats.

Venom & Spider-Man: Separation Anxiety is actually a game I own physically on a SNES cartridge (we picked it up at a garage sale a while back). From what I can tell, the SNES version is considered superior to the Genesis. It shares a lot in common with Maximum Carnage, but is a significant downgrade in several areas, like graphics, music, and there are no longer comic panels in between levels. It is an upgrade in other areas though, as the enemies are better balanced, and there is a two-player mode, where you can play as Spider-Man and Venom at the same time. I completed this game, which also would have never happened without cheats.

Spider-Man and The X-Men in Arcade's Revenge is an interesting platformer with action and puzzle elements. I played a bit of the SNES and Game Boy versions. The controls are not great, though again the SNES version is generally considered the best of them all. Your level progress resets on each death, making it a much more difficult slog to get through, so I kinda gave up on this one. It's not terrible, but it requires a bit more patience and perseverance than the other titles, even with the infinite lives cheat. There is a rewind feature on the emulator that could help, though. Either way, I appreciate that so many versions are included.

Silver Surfer is a somewhat obscure NES shoot 'em up, rather than beat 'em up like most of the other games. It's extremely difficult, but thankfully there is an invulnerability cheat if you want to just see what it's about. Because this version includes auto-fire (the NES did not), I think this game is actually beatable with some practice. I will say that for a hero as powerful as the Silver Surfer, he sure can die easily from any impact with anything ever. Of course, this is a common game mechanic in the shoot 'em up genre. Each level is fairly short, but there are both horizontal and vertical shoot 'em up segments, so the variety is nice. Bosses are fairly easy. It's not a bad game, and the music is surprisingly excellent for the NES.

The emulation seems good enough to me, though I am not an expert in the original games to notice anything as being off. It's nice that you can use save states and rewind on all of the included games, though I do wish you could have multiple save slots per game. To be clear, you do get a save per version of a game - so a different one for a SNES vs. Genesis title, for example. When I played I rarely used the rewind feature, but it's certainly nice to have.

Each game shows you a picture of what the controls are, based on your connected controller; if you only have a keyboard available, that is shown on screen instead. The controls can't be customized, which is a shame. I suppose Steam Input can probably work around that limitation, but it's far from ideal. Thankfully, the defaults are perfectly fine and make sense. NES and SNES titles perfectly map to modern controllers just fine, and the rest are close enough. You can use either the D-Pad and left analog stick (or both), so use what feels more comfortable to you.

From a technical perspective, the collection is pretty solid. Interestingly, the minimum CPU requirements are extremely low, but when I tried playing it on a system closer to those specs, I got audio drops, which is a common issue for emulators when a CPU isn't fast enough. This was on one of the two SNES Spider-Man & Venom games. The PC in question (a GPD Win 2) uses a low-power Intel Core m3-7Y30 processor, which should be well above the Core 2 Duo mentioned in the minimum system requirements. Outside of that caveat, I had no other issues.

Morally, the collection is fairly typical of early 1990s gaming fare. There is a fair amount of animated violence, often enhanced with superhero powers. You beat up other humans and various villains. There are punches, kicks, throws, as well as the aforementioned powers. In the shoot 'em up, you also blast enemies out of space. There are some still images including blood, but it's not a common occurrence. The ESRB notes some minor curse words like 'p*ssed', and some tobacco use present.

Like most games from that era, some women are drawn in such a way as to expose large parts of their belly or cleavage, while others wear skin-tight clothing to accentuate their curvature. Media from that era didn't shy away from that, and these games are no exception. There is no other sexual content that I'm aware of.

The MARVEL MaXimum Collection is a really solid collection of classic beat 'em ups and other notable games from the early 1990s. X-Men: The Arcade Game is a truly fantastic headliner title, and the six-player online play is also great. The other included games are also pretty decent in their own right, though obviously with some better than others. I also really like how many ports and versions are included. Perhaps best of all, the price is actually lower than I initially expected for a collection like this. If you are looking for a great way to play the classic Marvel games once again, take a good hard look at this collection. Recommended!