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.

Finally beat this game after having it for like 10 or 11 years. This game is extremely important to me. I grew up with it and played it a ton as a kid. Brings back memories of my Grandma and being at her house playing this. I cherish those memories since my grandmother passed away, so beating this game means a lot to me.

Now to the actual review. I honestly don't really know quite what to make of this game. It doesn't take very long to beat, only like 4-5 hours. This isn't a bad thing at all, just thought I should note it.

The Gameplay is your average 3D platformer, so it's ok. Not great by any means, but ok. Jumps can be a little weird sometimes, the camera screws up a lot so you can't always see the exact spot your going to land. This isn't that bad tho, so I guess I'll give it a pass.

The Animation of the Cutscenes are really well done, and it impresses me that they got it to look like that on a Gamecube. The voice-acting was really well done as well, all characters sound great, especially Bugs and Daffy.

The best thing about the game is the Looney Tunes theme. Looney Tunes is probably the best cartoon franchise of all time, and one of my favorite fictional worlds. They do a great job with the Looney Tunes humor and tropes that makes the cartoon so great.

I really liked the levels and thought they were intelligently designed to be fun and have that good Looney Tune charm. The missions to get the monkeys are nothing special though, and neither are the collectables, but they're an alright distraction from the main game.

Now the worst part about the game. This honestly drops the games rating down pretty hard, and if it wasn't in the game, I might have given this game a 3.8/5. At the end of the game, you reach the door you need to enter to get to the final stretch of the game. Now mind you, this game makes you collect monkeys like they're Stars or Jiggies, but these monkeys are never actually needed to progress to the next level. But for some reason, when you get to that that door, you now all the sudden need 35 monkeys to open the door. There are a total of 45 monkeys in the game so it may not seem like that big of a hassle, but then you realize you have to go through every level and get the bonus monkeys, and the game doesn't just allow you to run through the level freely to do it, you have to do the missions all over again. The ending boss fight isn't even worth all this hassle, and I had to look up what the hell to do to beat that final boss.

Despite that massive hiccup, I still have a special place in my heart for this game, and genuinely had a good time with it. It's good Looney Tunes gaming, and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to play a good 3D Platformer.

Score: 3.4/5
Letter Grade: B