An Honest Look at Superman on the NES

Superman on the NES is one of the many games that I didn’t know about when I was a kid. The only thing I know about this game is what I’ve seen on the internet. Most of that hasn’t been good.

I’m going to go into this with an open mind and see what it has to offer. Like with other retro games, I want to like this one. Nobody wants to pick up a game and have a miserable time with it. At least that is what I’m assuming.

I’m going to do my best to find some reviews of this game from when it was released. It was released in 1987, so I’m not too hopeful. Because of the game’s age, I’ll be relying on Moby Games and other review aggregators. This isn’t ideal, but it is what I have to do here.

TLDR: An Ambitious Mess of a Game.

Narrative

The game’s story has the player controlling Superman, and he’s trying to save Metropolis from Lex Luthor. Superman gets this mission after speaking with the Statue of Liberty. I’m not sure which color of kryptonite causes hallucinations, but it seems like Superman snorted it before the game started.

The manual gives you a brief explanation of what is going on, but there isn’t much meat on the bones. We don’t know what Lex Luthor’s latest scheme is going to be. I guess that isn’t all that important.

It does tell the player that you’ll be fighting racketeers, robots, and Lex Luthor. It goes on to explain that you should collect “POWER STONEs” to increase your power, and avoid Kryptonite. I suppose that’s all a kid needs to know, assuming they can read the manual to begin with.

Gameplay

Fortunately, walkthroughs for Superman are available online, along with scans of the manual. This isn’t something I normally say about a game like this, but in a case like this, it does help. Here are the links to the walkthrough I used (Link) and the manual (Link).

The controls take some time to get used to. Movement is very slippery, and you have a short attack range. I have a lot of problems with the super flight in this game.

To go along with this, you must press the up button on the D-Pad to jump. The other two buttons are for attack and superpowers. There weren’t many options for developers when it came to mapping the controls to the controller.

Super Flight is one of your many superpowers. It’s your fast travel option, and I think it’s very cool that it’s included in the game. It can be painful at times, especially when you’re unsure about what to do.

This is how it works. First, press Start and choose Super Flight. Then, press the B button, select, move the cursor to the desired location, and press Start. It is way too complicated, but at the very least, it works.

Kryptonite comes in a few colors in this game. Here is a list:

• Blue – Heals
• Green – Kills you
• Red – I’m not sure.

Here is a list of your superpowers:

• Super Vision
• Super Flight
• Spin
• Heat Vision
• Super Breath 1
• Super Breath 2

Each power has a limited number of uses. These can be upgraded and refilled by collecting items with the same icon. Is it a good system? Sure, I guess it is fine.

You also have a Super Hearing power, which seems to be a passive power. I’m not sure what is going on with it. This game is way too complicated for its own good.

You have to walk around and talk to people so you know where to go. When you get to the city, you can switch between Clark Kent and Superman by going into a phone booth. It’s cool, but I’m not sure it is necessary.

There are a few things that I like about the game. Switching between the superpowers, investigating the city, and the fast travel system is very cool! Unfortunately, the controls are atrocious and completely screwed up.

Visuals

This isn’t a terrible looking NES game for 1987. It’s a little goofy, but it fits in with the other games released around the same time. I’m not sure what other game it looks like, but it definitely looks cute.

Superman has one big problem. The visuals can harm you as enemies will pop onto the screen, giving you little chance to react in time. While the projectiles are flashing, they move a bit too quickly for you to avoid easily.

The level design is rather boring. It is simply moving on a series of straight lines until you find a building to enter. Thankfully, there is a map for you to use so you can know where you’re and which direction you’re going to go.

I like the graphics. The characters look cute, and they look good for an NES game released in 1987. After I get past the cute graphics, things go downhill rather quickly.

Reviews at the Time

My plan was to use Moby Games. Unfortunately, this was a dead end. The only reviews were from the 2010s and were not useful for what I’m trying to do here. Just in case you were wondering, reviewers gave the game a rating of 2.6/10, while users gave it a rating of 4.3/10.

Sadly, I wasn’t about to find a review of the game from 1987 or 1988. This game was released late in December 1987, so the reviews would probably appear between December 1987 and February 1988.

I tried to look up magazines from 1987 to 1988. For this, I used the Video Game History Foundation’s Digital Library. Sadly, I wasn’t able to find what I was looking for. I knew this was going to be a long shot, not because of the Foundation, but because of the nature of what I’m searching for.

After a little tinkering around, I was able to find some things. My search range was 1987-1989, and my keyword was “Superman.” While doing this, I came across an arcade game that I didn’t know about, which is always a fun discovery.

The 1988 arcade game from Taito was seriously messing with my search. I could find articles on it, but not on the NES game. This is when I tapped out on the whole thing. What this means is that I have little to no insight into what people thought about the game when it was released in 1987. Oh well.

6/10. This is a bad game. I don’t think it is anywhere near as bad as some people say. The controls are bad, which kneecap everything else that this game has going for it.

Pros

• Fast Travel System
• A lot of Superpowers

Cons

• Slippery Controls
• Awful Hit Detection
• It’s a Mess

Conclusion

There is a lot of bullshit going on with this game. The developers were rather ambitious with the core concept of the game, but the end result wasn’t very good. It had some very good ideas and tried to stand out from the other games on the system.

In 1987, this game was something a little different from the other games on the NES. It feels like a watered down version of Zelda II and Simon’s Quest. It has so many more problems than either of those games.

Much like the previous games I’ve mentioned, Superman was way too ambitious for its own good. I wish it had been a better game, because it has some stuff in it that could be good. At the end of the day, Superman on the NES wasn’t very good.

If you liked this post, please check out my reviews of Simon’s Quest or Stinger.