Captain America and the Avengers on the NES is a very different game from the arcade, SNES, and Genesis versions of this game. Instead of a beat’em up, it was turned into a side-scrolling action platformer. I’m not exactly sure why Data East did this, but I’m going to keep an open mind while going into it.
This wouldn’t have been the first beat’em up on the NES, and I’m sure the developers could’ve pulled it off. Looking at this game, the developers tried to do something different with the side-scroller format. You have a degree of freedom in how you want to play the game.
This is the first time I’m going to be playing this game. I know a little about it from reviews on YouTube, so I know what I’m getting into. What I’m really looking forward to is seeing what the reviews for this game were back in the early 1990s.
TLDR: It has some good ideas, but it isn’t all that great.
Narrative
The story for the NES game is rather different from the arcade version, and its ports on the SNES and Genesis. There are only two playable characters, and the story has you traveling around the US. So, there were a lot of changes for this version of the game.
In the NES version, you play as Captain America and Hawkeye. Their mission is to save Vision and Iron Man from the Mandarin. Once that is done, you go on to fight the Red Skull. The story isn’t all that involved, which it doesn’t need to be.
The story is fine for a game like this. I liked the arcade story more than this one. That version felt more like a comic book, and the NES version’s story feels underdeveloped to me.
Gameplay
The gameplay is what you should expect from a 1990s side-scroller. It has some good ideas, and I like how you swap between two characters. It is a very repetitive game, which holds this back from being good.
The game has some good ideas, such as controlling two characters at a time. I like that you swap between Hawkeye and Captain America. They play a little differently, which adds a little variety to the game. This is nice, because you can go through the levels in different ways.
The game does get a little repetitive as you might have to go through the same level several times. This scenario shows up when you die. Instead of ending the game, you have a chance to “save” the character who was killed. It is a very cool idea, but it leads to issues.
The user interface is a little wonky. You don’t have a life bar on the screen. I think you can get hit three or four times, and you can pick up health items during the stage, but I shouldn’t have to guess as to what my character’s life bar is at.
The gameplay is fine for what it is. This type of game has been done so many times on the NES that there is a formula to the genre. Captain America and the Avengers does stand out a little, but it isn’t all that great. This is an average game that doesn’t capitalize on the ideas it has.
Visuals
This is a good looking game. There is some variety in how the stages look, but they do get reused a few too many times for my liking. The character sprites look decent, and the cutscenes look very good.
The game reuses the same level way too much for my liking. The levels aren’t too difficult, but they do turn into a “where am I supposed to go?” game. I also don’t like that on some levels, you can’t see the pods that you have to shoot to find the items you need.
The cutscenes were something I wasn’t expecting from this game. They look great, and they’re a great addition to a game like this. While they don’t look as good as what you’ll see in RPGs or on the SNES and Genesis, they still look better than other NES games.
Overall, I like the graphics, but they’re lackluster. I got the impression that they made the game too big, and the developers ended up using the same level too many times. It is a little disappointing.
Reviews at the Time
There aren’t a lot of reviews for this game. I looked at the aggregate score on MobyGames for this. The one review archived from the 1990s gave the game an 80/100. The other review scores are closer to reality.
Just like countless other retro games, the scores take a nose-dive in the 2000s. I feel like I’ve mentioned this every time I look at a game in the NES, but it became cool to bash retro games in the 2000s. While some of these reviews make sense, most of them are simply ridiculous.
It is always important to remember that these reviews are opinion pieces. Don’t take them too seriously, and try not to take them as a personal attack. I’ll get more into it in a moment, I’m just not seeing anything in this game to warrant it getting below a 5/10.
6/10. Captain America and the Avengers is a below average game. It has some wonderful ideas that could’ve made the game stand out, but it wasn’t all that good. It was like the developers tried too hard to make this game different, but didn’t make it fun.
Pros
- Decent Controls
- You can swap between characters
- Bigger than a normal side-scroller
Cons
- Not a beat’em up
- Only two playable characters
- Confusing
- Lots of Backtracking
Conclusion
Captain America and the Avengers was more disappointing than anything else. It isn’t a terrible game, but there isn’t anything here that would make me want to come back to it. This would’ve been one of those forgettable rental games back in the day.
I can’t remember anyone talking about this game when I was a kid. Many of these NES games were rented because of the cartoons or movies. These characters didn’t have that, and if they did, none of my friends talked about them. While I remember renting Batman and X-Men, I don’t remember these at all.
Much of the reason why I dislike this game is because of the arcade game. I really liked the arcade game, and I thought the Genesis port of it was excellent. I don’t think the NES game was close enough for it to be anything other than a below average game. This was a very disappointing game.
If you liked this post, please check out my other posts on superhero games, such as Spider-Man or X-Men.