Marvel MaXimum Collection review: the arcade hits shine, but one game surprised me

Retro game collections are always a mixed bag of the great, not-so-good, and those unsung heroes that just make you curious. Marvel MaXimum Collection can’t escape that reputation, but the good are very good, and that unsung hero really does need to be played.

Marvel MaXimum Collection is a mixed bag of 13 classic titles from arcade cabinets to 8- and 16-bit consoles, and for many, it represents the golden age of comic book gaming. I’m reviewing on PlayStation 5, and even at its worst *ahem* Spider-Man & Venom: Separation Anxiety, it’s at least engaging and nostalgic, complete with all the quirks, flaws, and pixelated charm that defined '90s superhero action.

The crown jewels of the collection are undeniably X-Men: The Arcade Game and Captain America and The Avengers. Konami’s X-Men is a textbook beat-’em-up, echoing the likes of the developer's Turtles in Time and The Simpsons that ruled '90s arcades. The game is rich in animation, easy to pick up, and stuffed with details, though it can bottleneck at coin-grabbing boss fights.

Captain fantastic

Personally, I lean more toward Data East’s Captain America and The Avengers of the two headliners, which feels more inventive even by today’s standards. Its sprites are smaller but packed with detail, levels brim with surprises (mid-stage shifts and shooter mechanics that riff on Data East's own Sly Spy), and the roster favours deep cuts like Klaw, Grim Reaper, and Red Skull over the usual marquee villains.

Arcade perfection, for me, lies in here, being quirky, fast, and genuinely fun. There’s a Mega Drive version of Captain America for novelty, and it has a lovely little touch: the characters break the frame when performing aerial attacks. The NES version is a watered-down variant of Konami’s legendarily tough 2D Turtles game, available in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge.

The collection also includes SNES and Mega Drive console entries, Spider-Man & Venom: Maximum Carnage and Spider-Man & Venom: Separation Anxiety. These feel flat compared to the arcade hits: bare-bones animation, bland level design, repeated enemies and shallow gameplay. There’s the odd charm, such as choosing to play as either Spider-Man or Venom, and Maximum Carnage names each 'street tough' with a kind of personal vendetta, so if you want to punch Lizzie, Mack and Danny, be my guest, but by and large, they underline just how much creativity went into the arcade originals.

A standout among the console ports is Spider-Man/X-Men: Arcade’s Revenge. It received mixed reviews at launch, but channels my nostalgia for The Amazing Spider-Man on Amiga with its full wall-crawling, web-swinging, and puzzle-like stages. The first level’s ‘Security Eye’ tagging, followed by X-Men stages and a Spider-Man finale, keeps things fresh.

Arcade’s Revenge is also one of many inclusions that play better because of added new game options, including save states and rewind, a godsend when death used to mean restarting from level one. Completionists will appreciate that you can play it across SNES, Mega Drive, Game Boy, and Game Gear, with each version offering slight nuance to the formula.

Surfing on nostalgia

The unsung hero? NES released Silver Surfer. This top-down and side-scrolling shooter channels the spirit of classics Nemesis and R-Type, with relentless blasting, 'Options' to upgrade your shots, hidden levels, and niche comic characters.

On release in 1990, Silver Surfer was met with criticism for its sky-high difficulty – one-hit death and stages that demand pixel-perfect navigation as much as sharp shooting – but in this collection, with rewinds and save states, it comes into its own. Silver Surfer is a surprising gem in a collection dominated by beat-’em-ups and more prominent releases of the era, and with added NES-isms like cheats, level select, a truly great soundtrack, and detailed pixel art, Silver Surfer is a highlight.

It's a somewhat patchy collection but the wealth of editions across many retro console formats, as well as online multiplayer support for up to six players for X-Men: The Arcade Game, and the collection’s extras – high-resolution scans of box art, manuals, vintage adverts, a music player, display filters, and rewind/save-state functionality – this is still one of the better retro collections I've played.

So, while not every title lands, the highs are high, the nostalgia is strong, and the modern presentation and extras make all the difference. With arcade legends, handheld rarities, and hidden gems like Silver Surfer, Marvel MaXimum Collection offers a generous, sometimes great, but always enjoyable tour of Marvel’s early ‘90s gaming legacy.

Image 1 of 3