Superman is an arcade beat 'em up/shoot 'em up released by Taito in 1988. It is based on the character Superman by DC Comics. The player assumes the role of Superman, who must fight through five levels to make the world safe from the evil Emperor Zaas. The game can be played by up to two players simultaneously, with the second player taking control of a palette-swapped version of Superman.
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Oh boy. Here we go again. To start with the good stuff, this is easily the best looking Superman game to have come out by 1988 and the digitized theme is very well done. Ok, now for the usual commentary: The gameplay is bad. It's repetitive, it's dull, and towards later levels just gets absurdly hard.
I'm going to go on my Superman rant now. There's never been a good Superman game and that can be blamed on three things, only two of which matter.
The first is technical limitation, this game doesn't suffer from it, and the only Superman title that's really held back by it alone is the Atari 2600 title, so we'll discard it for now.
The second and third are the human obsession with "The Superman That Can Punch Anything" and "The Superman Who Decides to be Evil". This game's weakness stems from the "Superman That Can Punch Anything" point of argument.
When Superman was created, he was a powerful antithesis to war, hatred, the atom bomb. He was something to put hope into for kids at the newsstand who were surrounded by emerging geopolitical struggle and whispers of fascist uprisings. Superman was something to be admired because of his ability to protect as an ideal. This was something comics were uniquely equipped to do, as a visual language of action and color can communicate excitement even when the narrative of the thing moves quietly.
So as it has come, time and time again, for video games to do "what only they can" with the caped boy scout, they've dared to ask to bold question "What if instead...Superman WAS the nuke?" and "What is Superman could punch REAL good?" Superman (1988) by Taito is another such game.
It's coated in the hopeful color and chime of Reeves-era Superman, and in quiet moments like Superman flying over a scenic mountain sunset, it channels these themes well. But at its core, Superman is half beat-em-up, half shoot-em-up, ignoring the hero's power set and ethos to fit into an arcade cabinet. It's simple, visually busy, and can be played with only a single button if desired, which says all that needs to be said in my mind.
There's never going to be a good Superman game until players and developers alike can accept a game in which the point is to struggle to do good with unlimited power, instead of a game where you struggle because of a health bar or a murderous dictator Superman. And as such, this title is just alright.
The first is technical limitation, this game doesn't suffer from it, and the only Superman title that's really held back by it alone is the Atari 2600 title, so we'll discard it for now.
The second and third are the human obsession with "The Superman That Can Punch Anything" and "The Superman Who Decides to be Evil". This game's weakness stems from the "Superman That Can Punch Anything" point of argument.
When Superman was created, he was a powerful antithesis to war, hatred, the atom bomb. He was something to put hope into for kids at the newsstand who were surrounded by emerging geopolitical struggle and whispers of fascist uprisings. Superman was something to be admired because of his ability to protect as an ideal. This was something comics were uniquely equipped to do, as a visual language of action and color can communicate excitement even when the narrative of the thing moves quietly.
So as it has come, time and time again, for video games to do "what only they can" with the caped boy scout, they've dared to ask to bold question "What if instead...Superman WAS the nuke?" and "What is Superman could punch REAL good?" Superman (1988) by Taito is another such game.
It's coated in the hopeful color and chime of Reeves-era Superman, and in quiet moments like Superman flying over a scenic mountain sunset, it channels these themes well. But at its core, Superman is half beat-em-up, half shoot-em-up, ignoring the hero's power set and ethos to fit into an arcade cabinet. It's simple, visually busy, and can be played with only a single button if desired, which says all that needs to be said in my mind.
There's never going to be a good Superman game until players and developers alike can accept a game in which the point is to struggle to do good with unlimited power, instead of a game where you struggle because of a health bar or a murderous dictator Superman. And as such, this title is just alright.
I have a heart for arcade oddities that never got a port for home consoles. Being a weird brawler/shmup mashup with rather decent large sprites for 1988, Taito's Superman sure falls into that category.
Back then, I remember, having bought a couple of Superman comic books, so I would probably have played the game as well, should I've been stumbling over it. It was my orientation phase for American superheroes after European and Disney comics and sadly the newsstands in the German countryside only offered a few examples, which also had to do with how those books had been distributed over here.
Anyway, it sure wasn't the best time to grow up on the Man of Steel and complemented by the Spider-Man cartoon show, the webslinger soon became my favorite series instead. Sups on the other hand, don't know if there is really a majority of fans for the late eighties books, had gone downhill from the rather decent Richard Donner movie to some of the rushed fails of Cannon, who broke our small hearts as well with Masters of the Universe in 1987.
The nineties would have something different in store. Manga, Image comics or even real underground splatter comics had been a lot more interesting to my adolescent self than the Lois & Clark soap opera, so please excuse Superman never continued playing a role in my life, especially after discovering Batman through Tim Burton, whose retro-futuristic design framed me to look for somber sides of the eighties Dark Knight and The Killing Joke became one of my most beloved graphic novels.
Decades later, I sure have no memory left for any contemporary Superman characters, but I remember the movie theme Taito used extensively here. The odd inverted color Superman for player 2 isn't canon, I suppose. The creators also decided on a weird gameplay crossover, maybe forgivable in context with the Man of Steel exclusively, because Superman can actually do these things.
1988 isn't exactly the peak for brawlers either. You'd rather still have found run and gun games of varying quality or platformers with sometimes astonishingly wicked physics. Just remember how you've been practically standing in the air to get a jump in Nastar done.
I can only surmise for that reason it might have been less of a surprise at the time, when you realize by pressing up you rise into the air instead of being forced to walk down the alley like you would in any ordinary brawler. You still could do that. In fact to unlock some of the few power up items you also have to destroy objects based on the ground, but as the enemies can fly, you should too.
Whilst you don't use a jump button, the two triggers are punch and kick for both the horizontal ground and the usually following vertical flying passage. But then suddenly Superman speeds up in the air, horizontally again, being able to punch and shoot laser beams. You better use it, as meteorites and missiles are rushing towards you. In higher levels different obstacles are added.
It's a game play's fever dream actually. One moment it's Asteroids and a war game at the same time, then you're dodging boss fire like in R-Type, just that it lacks variable weaponry. In fact, you can only collect some life up, a single projectile shot you don't have to charge for, or a nuke. It might have been a little better, had I known from the beginning you can as well charge a shot by holding punch. I was too busy blasting two finger triplets on the fire button instead.
Just from the looks Superman might have been released in 1991 and still wouldn't have stood out negatively too much. I could also very well imagine though it could have been easily ported to the Amiga 500 and even more so the Sega Mega Drive, allowing for use of both action buttons.
Both systems had enough programs being just as redundant in enemy design and the quite linear formations shouldn't have been much of an issue either. It's possible the license just didn't allow it, as sometimes it feels like arcade producers of the late eighties didn't expect much from a home console port and so they went for just the one option.
Superman though also isn't an exception from typical arcade mechanics, throwing stuff at you in a way to obviously make sure you have to keep feeding coins to the machine. In this case especially enemies catching you in a spider's web or simply clinging to you can be a huge pain in the ass.
As innovative as Superman seems to be at first sight, the novelty shine wears off quickly and the 30-45 minutes playtime is the absolute maximum you'd want to invest. Taito actually gave a good impression of how little was made from the franchise's potential at the time in general, even though it has its moments and might still be the best Superman arcade game ever produced.
They were clearly looking for something different. It might even just have been a year or two too early to come up with a concept like that. The shmup part, gameplay that was well established since the mid 80ies, actually works better than the brawling part, a genre whose epitome was emerging between 1989 and 1991, in my opinion.
Having received rather mixed than good reviews, Superman is quoted to be amongst the most successful machines in Japan for at least a month and so it might have raised some attention with its fresh composition of elements. I find it a little hard to appreciate the game from a contemporary perspective as so much happened in-between. There are so many games I'd prefer to Superman, though it still fascinates me for what it did.
Back then, I remember, having bought a couple of Superman comic books, so I would probably have played the game as well, should I've been stumbling over it. It was my orientation phase for American superheroes after European and Disney comics and sadly the newsstands in the German countryside only offered a few examples, which also had to do with how those books had been distributed over here.
Anyway, it sure wasn't the best time to grow up on the Man of Steel and complemented by the Spider-Man cartoon show, the webslinger soon became my favorite series instead. Sups on the other hand, don't know if there is really a majority of fans for the late eighties books, had gone downhill from the rather decent Richard Donner movie to some of the rushed fails of Cannon, who broke our small hearts as well with Masters of the Universe in 1987.
The nineties would have something different in store. Manga, Image comics or even real underground splatter comics had been a lot more interesting to my adolescent self than the Lois & Clark soap opera, so please excuse Superman never continued playing a role in my life, especially after discovering Batman through Tim Burton, whose retro-futuristic design framed me to look for somber sides of the eighties Dark Knight and The Killing Joke became one of my most beloved graphic novels.
Decades later, I sure have no memory left for any contemporary Superman characters, but I remember the movie theme Taito used extensively here. The odd inverted color Superman for player 2 isn't canon, I suppose. The creators also decided on a weird gameplay crossover, maybe forgivable in context with the Man of Steel exclusively, because Superman can actually do these things.
1988 isn't exactly the peak for brawlers either. You'd rather still have found run and gun games of varying quality or platformers with sometimes astonishingly wicked physics. Just remember how you've been practically standing in the air to get a jump in Nastar done.
I can only surmise for that reason it might have been less of a surprise at the time, when you realize by pressing up you rise into the air instead of being forced to walk down the alley like you would in any ordinary brawler. You still could do that. In fact to unlock some of the few power up items you also have to destroy objects based on the ground, but as the enemies can fly, you should too.
Whilst you don't use a jump button, the two triggers are punch and kick for both the horizontal ground and the usually following vertical flying passage. But then suddenly Superman speeds up in the air, horizontally again, being able to punch and shoot laser beams. You better use it, as meteorites and missiles are rushing towards you. In higher levels different obstacles are added.
It's a game play's fever dream actually. One moment it's Asteroids and a war game at the same time, then you're dodging boss fire like in R-Type, just that it lacks variable weaponry. In fact, you can only collect some life up, a single projectile shot you don't have to charge for, or a nuke. It might have been a little better, had I known from the beginning you can as well charge a shot by holding punch. I was too busy blasting two finger triplets on the fire button instead.
Just from the looks Superman might have been released in 1991 and still wouldn't have stood out negatively too much. I could also very well imagine though it could have been easily ported to the Amiga 500 and even more so the Sega Mega Drive, allowing for use of both action buttons.
Both systems had enough programs being just as redundant in enemy design and the quite linear formations shouldn't have been much of an issue either. It's possible the license just didn't allow it, as sometimes it feels like arcade producers of the late eighties didn't expect much from a home console port and so they went for just the one option.
Superman though also isn't an exception from typical arcade mechanics, throwing stuff at you in a way to obviously make sure you have to keep feeding coins to the machine. In this case especially enemies catching you in a spider's web or simply clinging to you can be a huge pain in the ass.
As innovative as Superman seems to be at first sight, the novelty shine wears off quickly and the 30-45 minutes playtime is the absolute maximum you'd want to invest. Taito actually gave a good impression of how little was made from the franchise's potential at the time in general, even though it has its moments and might still be the best Superman arcade game ever produced.
They were clearly looking for something different. It might even just have been a year or two too early to come up with a concept like that. The shmup part, gameplay that was well established since the mid 80ies, actually works better than the brawling part, a genre whose epitome was emerging between 1989 and 1991, in my opinion.
Having received rather mixed than good reviews, Superman is quoted to be amongst the most successful machines in Japan for at least a month and so it might have raised some attention with its fresh composition of elements. I find it a little hard to appreciate the game from a contemporary perspective as so much happened in-between. There are so many games I'd prefer to Superman, though it still fascinates me for what it did.
It's a competent brawler mixed with some horizontal shooting levels. Bonus point for including John Williams's iconic theme from the original movie.