Thanks to Limited Run Games for the review code
Title: Marvel MaXimum Collection
System: Nintendo Switch (eShop)
Price: $24.99
Release Date: 03/27/2026
Prelude
Here we have another compilation of IPs I’m not as familiar with compared to most other people. Obviously I at least know the main superheroes from Marvel thanks to the recent MCU films and some other fun things like Marvel Pinball, along with games like Marvel VS Capcom, but there were definitely a few characters I had little prior familiarity with; some of the X-Men here I seriously haven’t seen before now, (they don’t really show up in the modern Marvel movies, at least not yet…) and several of the villains throughout the titles I first learned of through this very set.
Yeah, another instance of an awkward, sheltered early life where Cartoon Network was chosen over the other channels, as well as the early 2000s just not being as strong of a time for Marvel. I remember seeing commercials for that bad Fantastic Four movie (and barely being able to stand watching it when I did try to do so) and that was about it until the MCU kicked off. Still, licensed games have shown me plenty of times that you can have next to no familiarity with an IP and still have a lot of fun (hi again, Marvel Pinball), and considering I do know at least a chunk of these games beforehand plus plenty of the characters, I’m less IP blind going into this than I was with The Disney Afternoon Collection. So what does this assortment of classic Marvel gaming have to bring to the table?
Presentation
Being another Carbon Engine compilation from Limited Run Games, this has a lot of the similar features those sets tend to have as of late; multiple game versions, border/screen size options, manual/box scans, and a music player. The scans are pretty average here and are heavily redacted to remove trademarked system terms, leading to funny moments where a lot of the pages are blanked out heavily or have missing words in the instructions, pretty akin to the Ratalaika sets in that sense. There’s a weird drift effect in the compilation itself when trying to view scanned material, which scrolls your page off screen as you try to fight for being able to read the darn scans, and that can get rather annoying.
The music player here is also weirdly janky, and while the game music here is far better than pretty much every prior Carbon game I’ve covered thanks to the excellence of the Arcade OSTs and the Follin soundtracks, I’ve had a bug happen where when I was listening to music or switching songs in the music player, it would just cause the compilation to lose all audio outside of whenever I jumped into the game. No background music, no sound effects, nothing outside of the actual game emulation, prompting a reset to fix. Quite the bummer considering how great the X-Men Arcade OST is.
Still, the display options for the in-game experience are rather nice, you have a decent LCD filter for the two handheld games, and a CRT filter that has plenty of extra tweaks you can give to it such as a warp effect. It ain’t the best (that would still be Gradius Origins), but it still far exceeds that of the CRT filters from a decade ago that was just slapping lines on a screen; now you can actually curve and darken it! The borders and filter options also save between play sessions, which has been a thing with these carbon engine games for a good while, and far improved from the days in which it just never bothered to retain your display settings after closing the game.
The games themselves sounded and looked as they should to me, with Captain America’s OST being just as solid as ever (including the incredible Genesis OST), and X-Men Arcade nailing that Konami vibe well with any noticeable oddities. Interestingly enough, I genuinely cannot tell if the voices here are the original or from new soundalikes, but I can at least say they are not the weirder ones from the Xbox 360 port. That’ll require someone way more familiar with the game than me to give a solid confirmation on, but I didn’t mind these voices in the game and they fit in just as well as the ones in the Turtles games did.
And yes, even the middling games seem to sound accurate to their system. Maximum Carnage appears to match the OST of the original game despite using a licensed band, and the way too good Silver Surfer NES score sounds perfect here, so no need to fear about most of the sound channels going missing like in the ancient days of the Carbon Engine, it all sounds great!
Gameplay
Outside of the museum features I noted above, plus the usual save states/rewind/cheat toggles, this collection does offer a pretty significant extra in the form of rollback Online play for X-Men Arcade. Sadly try as I might, this was very stingy and best I can tell is the online quality heavily depends on the signal quality of everyone in your session. Seeing that a lot of players recognize the 6P version the most, it was the one most lobbies were made for and I could barely make it a few frames into the game on ethernet before it would completely freeze.
Four Player was only slightly better, but Two Player worked buttery smooth since there’s only one other player to worry about, and I think it works as an OK bonus. You cannot join a session mid-game sadly, which would be a huge help rather than having to start from a selected stage each and every single time, but if you happen to have a few friends with good internet, I think you can still have a pretty fun time playing X-Men online. I wish Captain America was able to get the same treatment, but I can definitely understand why they only picked X-Men if they went for just one here.
Captain America & the Avengers– This game has three versions, and all are pretty special in their own way. This is a Data East game where you take control of four Avengers, Captain America, Hawkeye, Iron Man and Vision as they join together in a co-op belt scrolling adventure. Unlike X-Men Arcade, this is four player only for Arcade and 2 player only for Genesis.
Right off the bat I have to note a weird oddity I ran into while playing this solo; I bumped my second controller on the couch, got it turned on, then went to the home menu and reset my controller pairings only for the game to constantly tell me I lost connection with a controller and have to quit the game; no amount of pushing the B button would get me outta this and if it wasn’t for my save states I’d have had to start all over again since there’s no Stage Select on this one.
I don’t get why you can’t drop out a second controller without resetting the game, since that means if you and a friend start playing, and one of them has to dip out and you try to go solo, you won’t be able to do so since the collection will get annoyed with you for doing so. Nevertheless, I was able to still have a delightful time with all three versions of their game in their own unique ways; The Arcade version has that Data East charm and really funny voice clips, plus some silly exploits you can pull off despite how demanding for quarters the game is. This ain’t one you’re 1CCing anytime soon, but it was real funny to knock Juggernaut down over and over and over again without him being able to hit me thanks to Captain America’s dive move.
The Genesis Version is a lot more balanced and far less frustrating when it comes to the money hungry aspects, and it somehow even retains nearly all of the voice clips, but made even funnier due to them being compressed beyond belief, leading me to laugh like crazy at the title screen’s name call. The colors and hit detection take a big hit though, but adjust to those weird quirks and appreciate the outstanding remixed music from Opera House, and you have yourselves the best home port of the game for the time.
The NES one on the other hand, isn’t a port and is more of its own thing, and compared to literally every other game in this set for home consoles, it’s pretty darn fun, even if it gets real monotonous. Captain America and the Iowa Guy have to rescue Vision and Iron Man and thus chase around bosses within America, which is done by moving from location to location to track down the next boss, while occasionally meeting up with the other character and switching between them as preferred. Hawkeye does ranged moves, while Captain America does melee moves and both have their own spots they come in handy, though I generally preferred Hawkeye for most of the stages I could handle.
See, as much as the platforming is solid, the music is decent, and the levels are fine, this game gets real tedious as soon as you realize you’ll be replaying these stages over and over again to traverse the map; you can’t just skip over a cleared stage, you gotta do it again. This means if one of your two heroes gets captured you have quite the trek back, and the Bosses don’t make this tedium any easier. If it wasn’t for this monotony, I would even recommend you fully complete this version as I would the others, but otherwise this is more of an interesting Data East curio for die hard Marvel or Data East fans only.
Silver Surfer– This game is a weird one, but one I really, really tried to like. See, this is a Silver Surfer themed shmup from the team that brought us the decent port of Toaplan’s Sky Shark. Freed from the constraints of having to redo Arcade music, Tim Follin basically had a dance party on his NES composer and brought us a ludicrously good soundtrack that sets the stage for what should have been an outstanding game.
Unfortunately, one word describes the Surfer’s biggest problem; Balance. You’d think working on Sky Shark would make this game a slam dunk shooter, but alas, that’s not the case here. You have both horizontal and vertical stages to go through in this one, and both of them have similar issues. The Surfer’s hitbox is way too big due to his sprite size, and combine that with too many instances of seemingly background objects being actual walls that will kill you, and you’ll quickly realize why this game has a reputation for being insanely difficult.
I really tried to get into this one, I really did. I’m the kind of guy who often tweaks shooters to their hardest setting for a challenge on myself, and even the jankiest of shooters have enough charm to entertain me a little bit. Yet outside of the first section of a single vertical scrolling section, I couldn’t get far in this one at all, no matter how I tried to play the game more carefully or memorize more hazards. Outstanding music just cannot save a game where a bad hitbox and hard to identify obstacles are the biggest sins. Don’t feel ashamed if you end up turning on the invincibility cheat just to see the ending.
Spider-Man & X-Men in Arcade’s Revenge– I really wanted to like this one. Fully going in blind, having played tons of games people hated but I find at least decent in retro gaming over the years, I hoped this would be an aggressively OK action platformer. At first I even had some blind hope, jumping into the OG SNES version, finding bombs in a sequential order as Spider-Man and being mildly entertained without much frustration.
Then you get past the intro state and pick a character, and realize the true hell you’re in for, and if you’re me also realize that Arcade is the actual name of a person and not describing a redux of the Arcade games, which this game is not. I also somehow thought it would be a wise idea to beat the intro stage four times on each version to compare them all, and try a different character in each version to see which character and version I liked best.
I genuinely do not know what character or version I like best, because I despised everything that came after the intro stage regardless of platform. I guess in terms of animation and sound maaaaaybe the Game Gear one is my personal favorite, (plus the funny fact this joins Griffin as the only non Sega GG game to get a reissue) and the Genesis one is a little more polished than the SNES one? Yet the SNES one clearly has the best music, but was the foundation for this game being terrible four times in a row. Don’t even get me started on the GB version; it barely functions and I’m surprised I made it as far in Cyclops’ stage as I did there before getting frustrated.
Either way, each character has their own weaponry and stages to tackle; Gambit was one I tried and enjoyed the card gimmick with, only to quickly run out of ammo and realize the stage being a chase sequence made it way tougher than the other ones. Spider-Man is more reasonable and feels close-ish to the decent quality of that first level, but still not what I’d consider a good stage, Cyclops is just OK minecart action, and Storm is pure torture to the point I barely could stand her stage and just noped outta there the fastest.
This one kinda bummed me out a bit, since that intro tutorial stage and how solid the animation is on the Game Gear version made me at least somewhat optimistic I’d have an average yet fun game to play, only for this one to fall apart rapidly and show itself as an unbalanced mess. Thank goodness for rewind, and with that feature I can see those who remember this game picking one of the versions to play to completion. Just do not touch that GB version for the love of god.
X-MEN– Konami’s 1992 Arcade game, in 2, 4, and 6 player versions! I already detailed the online multiplayer aspect, but even playing this alone in a solo environment, I found this one to be a lot more fun than I was expecting, even if it pales compared to other Konami brawlers like Vendetta and Metamorphic Force.
You pick from one of the six X-Men to fight the evil forces of Magneto, and go through several stages in a typical belt scroller fashion. There’s not much in the way of fancy moves or combos, and so thus your move potential is pretty limited here. Still, each character does have different moves, and they all have a Mutant Power that can deal more damage to enemies at the cost of some of your health. As a solo game, it’s pretty repetitive, but the outstanding music helps a lot to keep things interesting and fun here, and once you pick a favorite character you’ll likely stick with them above the others.
Of course, Co-Op makes things a lot more enjoyable, which is why I’m bummed the online mode doesn’t have drop in/out gameplay, but at least on the 6 player version you have a double monitor view, meaning even if you pick that while playing alone, you get a wider range of visibility that looks really neat! I think compared to the two Turtles games, this is on par with that first TMNT game for me; pretty solid fun, but meant to be played with friends and monotonous while alone, and lacks the depth and fun of some of their other, later belt scrolling games. Definitely the one most people will be picking up this set for, and it’s thankfully emulated pretty well here.
Spider-Man: Maximum Carnage– To give you a serious, honest, no joke example of my limited (90s) Spider-Man knowledge, I briefly thought The Doppleganger that shows up a few stages in was Carnage himself.
Anyhow, this is a belt scroller made by the same team behind Arcade’s Revenge, and while that initially set code red alarm bells off in my head, I was pleasantly surprised by how decent this game turned out, even if it won’t rock your world and comes off as a huge downgrade compared to the arcade belt-scrollers.
Here you take control of Spider-Man and the occasional Venom as you set out on a solo adventure to tackle the evil forces of Carnage, and you do this by going through short areas, beating up enemies, taking on bosses and advancing to the next stage. A lot of the stages offer comic book like intermissions, which is a pretty neat visual design choice, and I was pleasantly surprised by how decent the music was on both Genesis and SNES; I was honestly expecting the Genesis version to sound like ear destruction, but I was very happy to have a decent soundtrack that fits the soundchip well!
Of course you don’t just have the same old streets over and over again; there’s webslinging, climbing, and some decent variety to keep things from feeling too samey, even though it’s clear there was some kind of budget limitation here. The combos are pretty quick to pull off and the levels don’t feel like they drag on for too long, and considering how every other console game so far has ranged from “horrible” to “pretty decent”, it’s nice to have another one in the decent category. If you know more spider-man lore than I do then the comic scenes will be a real treat here, and it was clear Software Creations was pretty darn passionate about this one.
Spider-Man: Separation Anxiety– I swear to god, I thought this game came out before Maximum Carnage at first, until I realized that no, somehow this released afterward, and the game truly did regress from Carnage in nearly every way.
The cool comic cutscenes? Gone, just text. The decent levels and satisfying combat, even if it got pretty repetitive? Made far, far worse, and now padded with absurd amounts of generic enemies, almost as if it wants to force you to fight them in the new two player Co-Op to make it end faster. The surprisingly catchy music I praised earlier? Nope, now generic licensed game fodder that enters one ear and leaves the memory bank right afterward. The comic book like visual design? Somehow made uglier to the point I could argue the Genesis version in particular looks like it was made in MS Paint, and I have no idea how on earth this happened when the first game at least looked more like a comic book.
Everything here sucks way more than the last game, which at least I was mildly captivated by and would be willing to finish compared to the other Throwback provided Marvel games. SNES/Genesis doesn’t matter, both are equally as boring and I don’t think I wanna get my local co-op bestie back to the house just to slog through this. The cheat enhancements in this collection don’t do much besides give you extra lives and health, and for Separation Anxiety I seriously wished there was a toggle to let me one hit KO the enemies to make it go by faster, since that would make it much less boring.
If any game screamed “We have to fill a quota and get this out now but we have no way to feasibly do that”, it would be this one. Separation Anxiety is just really dreadful and if it wasn’t for how godawful Arcade’s Revenge GB was, I’d easily consider this the worst of the set.
Conclusion
Ultimately, LRG’s Carbon Engine has provided yet another mixed result, though that’s more the fault of the games quality rather than their emulation. X-Men Arcade is a really fun belt scroller that managed to get me enjoying it despite little knowledge of the X-Men, and Captain America and the Avengers is seriously underrated in all three of its incarnations, and the set is well worth picking up if you like those two games and have prior experience with them.
Unfortunately, every other game in this set ranging from unbalanced messes to disaster incarnate really holds Maximum Collection back quite a bit. I know enough Spider-Man to tell that Separation Anxiety is terrible, especially when the aggressively OK Maximum Carnage felt like it had a lot more love put into it for Spidey fans, and I can definitely say despite my X-Men knowledge being next to nothing, that Arcade’s Revenge is abysmal no matter which incarnation you play or what cheats you turn onm and if you want to hate yourself, that Game Boy version sure exists.
Silver Surfer is the one infamous game here I really wished I like more than I did, but terrible level design and bad hitboxes are a shooter’s gravest sin. Add in some weird clunky bugs with the gallery and Arcade Captain America, iffy X-Men online that works better the less people you bring along, and lack of button mapping and you have yourselves a collection where only the two Arcade games I can absolutely recommend for everyone, and the others being either for marvel die-hards or masochists only. I think if Captain America had online support and some of the clunk fixed with the local MP the set would be an easier sell, but when most of the package are typical licensed games with licensed games quality to them, this ain’t a strong enough superhero team.
I give Marvel MaXimum Collection a 5 out of 10.