Perhaps my favorite out of the pre-Sonic Genesis platformers. It may lack the strong presentation of Castle of Illusion, but it makes up for it in the mechanics and gameplay departments.
The level design also flirts with momentum a bit in the form of swinging setpieces that help you pick up speed- two or so years before the blue hedgehog would capitalize on the idea of going fast and being rewarded for fooling around with loop-de-loops and other stage gimmicks.
It also borrows a bit from Mario in the form of warp zones, and they are quite literally everywhere in this game. Sometimes you can push a block and be zipped to a later level in the current world, some are accessed by doors higher up on the map and others pop up out of thin air. This may sound annoying, but I actually had a lot of fun finding them all and finding the optimal route through.
As others have pointed out, the game can be a little obnoxious in its difficulty. You die in one hit, and losing to a "boss" (as they're little more than mini games until the very end) will kick you back to the start of the last stage. However, 1ups are abundant and do respawn upon dying and there are unlimited continues on top of a password for each and every stage. (Thankfully, it's an easy system that was four or five letters long from what I remember) It's very do-able in my opinion.
The two major flaws are that World 4 (the last world, added exclusively to the Genesis version for some reason) absolutely sucks and feels like it was designed by amateurs. You can, of course, skip the vast majority of it if you're acquainted with the warp points but I doubt a first time player will be. The second is that the music ranges from tolerable to just flat out annoying.
It is a shame Namco basically forgot about this game. The arcade game nor this beefed up Genesis conversion have ever been rereleased in North America, and it was only ever rereleased once in Japan via the Wii Virtual Console. There was also a whole ass fan site called "The Parade of Marvel Land", which unfortunately doesn't seem to be around anymore.
The level design also flirts with momentum a bit in the form of swinging setpieces that help you pick up speed- two or so years before the blue hedgehog would capitalize on the idea of going fast and being rewarded for fooling around with loop-de-loops and other stage gimmicks.
It also borrows a bit from Mario in the form of warp zones, and they are quite literally everywhere in this game. Sometimes you can push a block and be zipped to a later level in the current world, some are accessed by doors higher up on the map and others pop up out of thin air. This may sound annoying, but I actually had a lot of fun finding them all and finding the optimal route through.
As others have pointed out, the game can be a little obnoxious in its difficulty. You die in one hit, and losing to a "boss" (as they're little more than mini games until the very end) will kick you back to the start of the last stage. However, 1ups are abundant and do respawn upon dying and there are unlimited continues on top of a password for each and every stage. (Thankfully, it's an easy system that was four or five letters long from what I remember) It's very do-able in my opinion.
The two major flaws are that World 4 (the last world, added exclusively to the Genesis version for some reason) absolutely sucks and feels like it was designed by amateurs. You can, of course, skip the vast majority of it if you're acquainted with the warp points but I doubt a first time player will be. The second is that the music ranges from tolerable to just flat out annoying.
It is a shame Namco basically forgot about this game. The arcade game nor this beefed up Genesis conversion have ever been rereleased in North America, and it was only ever rereleased once in Japan via the Wii Virtual Console. There was also a whole ass fan site called "The Parade of Marvel Land", which unfortunately doesn't seem to be around anymore.