Super Nintendo #1: Super Soccer

Developer: Human Entertainment

Publisher: Nintendo

Release: May 1992

I love these busy SNES boxes. Look at all those dots and rectangles!

So the suggestions are in about what I should write about and I got a lot of good outlandish requests. I will try to get to them all eventually, but my brother comes first so I am taking his suggestion and writing about some SNES sports games. Super Soccer was one of the initial twenty games when Super Nintendo made its way onto Nintendo Switch Online, and it was almost certainly the one people were least excited about. With games like Super Mario World and Super Metroid to play that definitely makes sense. The sports titles felt a bit like filler. Super Soccer, though, is a good game that shouldn’t be ignored.

Suddenly I have the urge to play Game Boy. Okay maybe that's just how I always feel.

There’s just something pleasant about playing Super Nintendo. There’s a reason Super Nintendo’s style gets copied so often in retro inspired titles. Super Soccer might be a bit dull if not for the great presentation. The music is fun and the graphics are colorful with a nifty pseudo-3D scrolling effect that makes the Super Nintendo look even more powerful than it actually is. It’s a very simply arcade style soccer game that is perfect for people like me who don’t really know that much about soccer. It’s basically passing and shooting in this one. You can even choose to have your goalkeeper be controlled by the computer. The simplicity keeps things moving quickly which is good because the game is fairly lengthy. To beat it you have to win against every team plus an extra difficult Nintendo team. I had trouble enough with my first match so I could only imagine playing it enough to get good at it. It is certainly the type of game that you would rent because there weren’t that many options in the middle of 1992 and then end up having it take up your weekend. I am surprised that never happened to me.

Of course all this soccer can get tedious after a while, so the game is not perfect. The simplicity means that every match is going to play similarly. Also the odd perspective makes it hard to see down the field sometimes, especially when you are the one running toward the screen. I also don’t like that the goalkeepers wear different colors than the rest of of the players. That is probably realistic, but it makes it hard to tell which goal I am supposed to be shooting at. I had to wait for the other team to take the first shot. I was also disappointed by the halftime show. I love halftime in these old games, but this one just had the players slowly walking off and then the players slowly walking back on. This is the 16-bit era people! You can do so much more. At least show the excited crowd.

Still I had fun with this one and it is safely going into my green section. I am putting it right below Pinball at number 19 which isn’t bad for my first SNES game. I know the console has its clunkers, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Super Nintendo ends up high on the quality list. If a generic sports title like this one can impress me than there’s no telling how much fun I am going to have.

1. Super Mario Odyssey

2. Galaga

3. Donkey Kong

4. Exodus: Ultima III

5. Pac-Mania

6. Wrecking Crew

7. Super Pac-Man

8. Pac-Man

9. Excitebike

10. Arc the Lad

11. Clu Clu Land

12. Artifact Adventure Gaiden DX

13. Mickey’s Racing Adventure

14. Metro-Cross

15. Ice Climber

16. Gaplus

17. Dragon Spirit

18. Pinball (NES)

19. Super Soccer

20. Walt Disney World Quest: Magical Racing Tour (GBC)

21. Red Sea Crossing

22. Baraduke

23. Tennis

24. Hogan’s Alley

25. Gamma-Attack

26. The Legend of “Valkyrie”

27. Galaxian

28. Evoland

29. Cosmic Commuter

30. Hot Pixel

31. Wild Gunman

32. Defunct

33. Gyruss (2600)

34. Looney Tunes Racing

35. Squidlit

36. Baseball

37. Birthday Mania

38. Bad Street Brawler

39. Burly Men at Sea

40. X-Men (HyperScan)

41. My Name is Mayo

42. Marvel Heroes

43. Ben 10

HyperScan #3: X-Men

Developer: Semi-Logic

Publisher: Mattel

Release Date: 10-23-06

This is the third and final HyperScan game I currently have in my collection, and thankfully I have saved the best for last. I know that’s not saying much, but X-Men actually comes fairly close to feeling like a real video game. It was the pack in game for the console so I guess they wanted to show off their best work. It also shows what the card system might’ve been like in more capable hands. Before you get too excited though I should say that it’s still a bad game. However, its a bad game comparable to other bad games. It doesn’t create a whole new level of badness like the other HyperScan games. 

See this looks like a real game!

X-Men is a traditional 2D fighting game that actually does a few things I like. In the game you can jump right in and fight or train in the danger room. I enjoy the danger room training because it gives the game a simulation feel. The mini games are simple but downright pleasant compared to my other Hyperscan experiences. It also shows off something that might’ve actually been fun with the card system. You could train your fighter, scan and save the stat increases, and take it over to your friends house to fight their best card battler. This was fairly novel in 2007 before everyone was playing online. It’s a shame they didn’t focus on multi-player more in other games. Of course there are still pointless cards to collect, and you can’t play at all without at least one character card, but at least the cards felt like they needed to exist this time around.

Sadly they still didn’t get around to making a quality game. The fighting is just about as simple as it gets. You just have to attack until you build up your special meter then hit the R button to use it. I’m not sure if there are other special moves because I didn’t really need to know. I did just fine mashing buttons. Now I have nothing against a fighting game that I am actually good at, but I do wish there was more strategy involved. I also wish the story mode was more fleshed out. Maybe it’s in the instruction book, but I would like to know why I was fighting Iceman. Was he a villain at the time? I don’t know my 21^st century X-Men all that well. It’s just another game element that they were too lazy to care about. It’s a shame because with some polish this could actually be a decent game.

For now this is the last HyperScan game I can review because the other two are a bit harder to find. I would love to be able to finish off a few more of my consoles. I think the system I have the next fewest games for is Turbografx-CD, but I have to get a new controller for that one before I can play it again so I’m not quite sure what is next. X-Men was good enough to go above My Name is Mayo. I know that is faint praise, but for a HyperScan game it feels like a real victory. I doubt the other two games will be hidden gems but maybe they won’t be complete disasters. That’s the best I can hope for.

HyperScan quality percentage: 0/3

1. Super Mario Odyssey

2. Galaga

3. Donkey Kong

4. Exodus: Ultima III

5. Pac-Mania

6. Wrecking Crew

7. Super Pac-Man

8. Pac-Man

9. Excitebike

10. Arc the Lad

11. Clu Clu Land

12. Artifact Adventure Gaiden DX

13. Mickey’s Racing Adventure

14. Metro-Cross

15. Ice Climber

16. Gaplus

17. Dragon Spirit

18. Pinball (NES)

19. Walt Disney World Quest: Magical Racing Tour (GBC)

20. Red Sea Crossing

21. Baraduke

22. Tennis

23. Hogan’s Alley

24. Gamma-Attack

25. The Legend of “Valkyrie”

26. Galaxian

27. Evoland

28. Cosmic Commuter

29. Hot Pixel

30. Wild Gunman

31. Defunct

32. Gyruss (2600)

33. Looney Tunes Racing

34. Squidlit

35. Baseball

36. Birthday Mania

37. Bad Street Brawler

38. Burly Men at Sea

39. X-Men (HyperScan)

40. My Name is Mayo

41. Marvel Heroes

42. Ben 10

HyperScan #2: Marvel Heroes

Developer: Semi-Logic

Publisher: Mattel

Release Date: 2006

Marvel Heroes is better than Ben 10 because at least it fooled me for a few minutes. For about the first 10 minutes of playing I thought that it might be an alright game and not just a big scam. Sadly I was wrong. It’s so similar to the scam of Ben 10 that I don’t even have much to say about it in my intro. It is interesting to see a bit of Marvel ephemera from right before Iron Man came out and changed their fortunes. However, if you want to get a copy of it for your Marvel collection you’ll probably want to leave it in the box.

"Wait till the kids at school see my dirty back alley card!" - Not even the dorkiest kid in class

Marvel Heroes is a side-scrolling brawler featuring different setups for different characters. The card gimmick in this one is that all the different character cards are esentially their own tiny games. I started up the Captain America story card that came packaged with the game and was surprised to find myself actually having a little bit of fun. It played pretty quickly, the controls were decent, and combat was actually fun. I was almost ready to move the game into the purple section and call the HyperScan not a total loss. Unfortunately it didn’t take long for it to all fall apart. The story mode that goes along with the card consisted of three short levels with a few comic panels in the place of load screens. Captain America is looking for Baron Zemo. Then he finds Baron Zemo. That’s the whole Captain America story and it only takes about ten minutes. At the end of it there was a prompt to scan a Captain America card, however the story card I had didn’t work. Apparently you need one card to play the story and a different card to save your stats. This machine never stops infuriating me.

Just look at this stupid thing! At least Whirlwind makes a pretty good fan.

When I scanned my regular Hulk card I found a very different and much worse game. First of all the character card version of the game makes scanning a much bigger necessity. I even had to scan a boss to fight. Does anyone want to play a game where they have to provide their own enemy? You could at least make complete levels Mattel. Then I started my game as the Hulk and instantly fell in a hole and died. It was a hole I couldn’t get over with my regular jump no matter what I tried. I discovered that Hulk has a long jump that is activated with one of the shoulder buttons, but it would’ve been nice to know before I got a game over trying to move past the first hole. Sadly the level is full of them. Any time there was a change of elevation I didn’t know if it was just a small cliff or a deadly hole. I spent the whole game worrying about falling to my death. I doubt Hulk would even get hurt much if he fell into the grand canyon so it’s annoying and nonsensical. Why did they put these holes everywhere? Why not just focus on fighting bad guys? There wasn’t anything like it in the Captain America part of the game. I guess each character is a completely different awful game. It’s like Action 52 if you had to buy the games in individually priced blind bags to get the whole set. It’s downright shameful.

Needless to say Marvel Heroes is another HyperScan disaster. The whole console reminds me of a video game you would see in an early 90s cartoon made by non gamers. Everything is slow and weird and the whole thing is designed to take parents’ money. Even the most unscrupulous smartphone games don’t quite sink to the level of the HyperScan. Hey why buy one good game when you could spend twice as much money and play a dozen bad games? That’s the flawed logic of history’s most flawed console. Marvel Heroes is saved from the cellar by virtue of it not being Ben 10. Thankfully the HyperScan only has five games so at worst I’m only going to have to write about it three more times. I just hope I have a little sanity left after I am done.

1. Super Mario Odyssey

2. Galaga

3. Donkey Kong

4. Exodus: Ultima III

5. Pac-Mania

6. Wrecking Crew

7. Super Pac-Man

8. Pac-Man

9. Excitebike

10. Arc the Lad

11. Clu Clu Land

12. Artifact Adventure Gaiden DX

13. Mickey’s Racing Adventure

14. Metro-Cross

15. Ice Climber

16. Gaplus

17. Dragon Spirit

18. Pinball (NES)

19. Walt Disney World Quest: Magical Racing Tour (GBC)

20. Red Sea Crossing

21. Baraduke

22. Tennis

23. Hogan’s Alley

24. Gamma-Attack

25. The Legend of “Valkyrie”

26. Galaxian

27. Evoland

28. Cosmic Commuter

29. Hot Pixel

30. Wild Gunman

31. Defunct

32. Gyruss (2600)

33. Looney Tunes Racing

34. Squidlit

35. Baseball

36. Birthday Mania

37. Bad Street Brawler

38. Burly Men at Sea

39. My Name is Mayo

40. Marvel Heroes

41. Ben 10