(Reviewed Genesis version)
When I see an early-90s licensed beat-em-up I know not to expect razor-tight controls or ultra-polished mechanics; the question is usually along the lines of "does this capture the spirit of the source material and (especially in the case of superhero-themed games) does this make me feel like the guy I'm controlling is a badass?"
As far as this criteria goes, Captain America and the Avengers is a bit of a mixed bag. Data East sure packed in a lot of villains: A-listers (Mandarin, Red Skull, a hilariously malnourished-looking Juggernaut), Z-listers (who the heck are the two guys robbing a bank in the first stage?) and guests from other franchises (is that a sentinel?!). A lot of the music is surprisingly kickass and there's a good amount of digitized speech, and there's a good amount of character to the way the playable characters walk around and kick ass - I particularly like Vision's uncanny-valley movements, walking around arms crossed and then throwing wild haymakers with no wind-up. One nice touch is how the boss themes switch to a more heroic theme when you gain the upper hand; that's pretty cool!
The game doesn't quite do so well at the second part though - you see, your characters can't get staggered. Instead, every attack that hits you will result in you falling down with a rather sad "OH!" that sounds like someone reacting to a pimple-popping video. This is true no matter how wimpy the attack is, and after Iron Man reacted to a regular mook's punch by taking a Neymar-style dive for the nth time I had to wonder if these were the "Avengers at home" my mom kept telling me about.
Gameplay-wise, the control scheme is a little weird: why have two buttons do the same thing (attack) when each character has a projectile that needs two buttons to activate? Other than that, everything feels smooth enough, if lacking a little weight. But the biggest strike against its game feel is how it handles priority - without exception, each character's jumping attack has by far the highest priority of any of their moves that there is almost never any reason to use anything else against bosses. You can't stagger them with standing attacks at all, so boss battles end up resembling a ballet more than a brawl.
This simple but mind-numbingly tedious solution to boss fights meant that this was actually one of the first games I remember completing as a kid - so it has that bit of nostalgia in its favor. Outside of that, it's not particularly good.
When I see an early-90s licensed beat-em-up I know not to expect razor-tight controls or ultra-polished mechanics; the question is usually along the lines of "does this capture the spirit of the source material and (especially in the case of superhero-themed games) does this make me feel like the guy I'm controlling is a badass?"
As far as this criteria goes, Captain America and the Avengers is a bit of a mixed bag. Data East sure packed in a lot of villains: A-listers (Mandarin, Red Skull, a hilariously malnourished-looking Juggernaut), Z-listers (who the heck are the two guys robbing a bank in the first stage?) and guests from other franchises (is that a sentinel?!). A lot of the music is surprisingly kickass and there's a good amount of digitized speech, and there's a good amount of character to the way the playable characters walk around and kick ass - I particularly like Vision's uncanny-valley movements, walking around arms crossed and then throwing wild haymakers with no wind-up. One nice touch is how the boss themes switch to a more heroic theme when you gain the upper hand; that's pretty cool!
The game doesn't quite do so well at the second part though - you see, your characters can't get staggered. Instead, every attack that hits you will result in you falling down with a rather sad "OH!" that sounds like someone reacting to a pimple-popping video. This is true no matter how wimpy the attack is, and after Iron Man reacted to a regular mook's punch by taking a Neymar-style dive for the nth time I had to wonder if these were the "Avengers at home" my mom kept telling me about.
Gameplay-wise, the control scheme is a little weird: why have two buttons do the same thing (attack) when each character has a projectile that needs two buttons to activate? Other than that, everything feels smooth enough, if lacking a little weight. But the biggest strike against its game feel is how it handles priority - without exception, each character's jumping attack has by far the highest priority of any of their moves that there is almost never any reason to use anything else against bosses. You can't stagger them with standing attacks at all, so boss battles end up resembling a ballet more than a brawl.
This simple but mind-numbingly tedious solution to boss fights meant that this was actually one of the first games I remember completing as a kid - so it has that bit of nostalgia in its favor. Outside of that, it's not particularly good.