Retro Review: Fantastic Four (1997)

<p>The 90&&num;8217&semi;s were a great time to be alive&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;m thankful that I had my teenage years and early twenties during them&period; Had I known that I was living in one of the greatest eras I may have been more mindful to take my time and smell the roses&period; As it is I have great memories of this era&comma; a majority of the best memories are from when my parents and I would go to the San Diego Comic-Con&comma; before it got hijacked by all the movies and all the comic books were forgotten&period; I had a PlayStation in 1998 and I can&&num;8217&semi;t believe that I missed out on this version of the <em>Fantastic Four<&sol;em>&comma; don&&num;8217&semi;t get me wrong&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;m thrilled I didn&&num;8217&semi;t pay &dollar;39&period;99 for this hot garbage&comma; but I bought up as many comic book video games as I could&period; I&&num;8217&semi;m thankful I only paid five dollars for this puppy because that is about all that it is worth&period; I&&num;8217&semi;m surprised Marvel let this be released&comma; I really am&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Even though this is a comic book video game and sometimes the stories in the comic books are flimsy&comma; this one is insanely flimsy&period; Basically&comma; Dr&period; Doom creates a device that transports the Fantastic Four and She-Hulk&comma; she must have been at the Baxter Building&comma; to different locales to fight different mainstay villains&period; You get to fight the Molemen and see their home-world&comma; you have a nice little vacation with the Skrulls&comma; say &&num;8220&semi;hello&&num;8221&semi; to Prince Namor and eventually get to see the sights in Latveria&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s nice that they spiced up the locations you get to see&comma; but it doesn&&num;8217&semi;t save how bad this game is&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;133122" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-133122" style&equals;"width&colon; 640px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-133122" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2018&sol;01&sol;17002101&sol;ff199777&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"640" height&equals;"360" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-133122" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Fantastic Four<&sol;em> &&num;8211&semi; Acclaim Entertainment&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>The controls are pretty decent&comma; but the punch detection needed a lot more work&period; This game is a four player &lpar;if you have the adapter&rpar; brawler that would be pretty fun with friends&semi; however&comma; when going solo it gets frustrating and boring&period; You can play as one of five characters and each one of them has a special move&comma; you can be Johnny Storm&comma; Mr&period; Fantastic&comma; The Thing&comma; Invisible Woman&comma; and She-Hulk&period; If you have the four player adapter you and three buddies can rock this short game out in a few hours&comma; if not less&period; However&comma; you need to know the controls&comma; Circle is block&comma; Square is punch&comma; X is powerful attack and Triangle is jump&period; They aren&&num;8217&semi;t hard to learn&comma; what you really need to grasp is the 3D in the game since it plays like <em>Final Fight<&sol;em> or any other side-scrolling brawler&period; Lots of your punches will not land because you are not lined up properly with your enemy&comma; this will get you killed fast seeing as the enemy A&period;I&period; knows exactly where you are&period; If you can overcome this&comma; the game becomes slightly more enjoyable&comma; but don&&num;8217&semi;t hold your breath&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>For a 1997 game&comma; it actually aged pretty decently&period; Yes&comma; the enemies don&&num;8217&semi;t really vary but from level to level&comma; but the main characters look good on the screen and the brief cut-scenes you get are done quite well&period; The coolest aspect of the game that I found was the music&period; The developers decided to go with a 70&&num;8217&semi;s type grindhouse style of music&period; You feel pretty badass as you watch the opening cut-scene and hear that music that puts you right in the 70&&num;8217&semi;s&period; This music does make sense though&comma; in the late 90&&num;8217&semi;s the nostalgia level for the 1970&&num;8217&semi;s was at an all-time high&period; The <em>Star Wars Special Edition<&sol;em> was in the theatres&comma; <em>That 70&&num;8217&semi;s Show<&sol;em> was soon to debut&comma; so why not take advantage of that in a video game&quest; It worked though and it is one of the best parts of this game&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;133127" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-133127" style&equals;"width&colon; 474px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-133127" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2018&sol;01&sol;17005439&sol;th&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"474" height&equals;"355" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-133127" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Fantastic Four<&sol;em> &&num;8211&semi; Acclaim Entertainment&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>The only thing that made this game worthwhile to me is the feelings of nostalgia as I played it&period; This game took me right back to the 90&&num;8217&semi;s and my lovely misspent youth&period; I wish I could tell you that this is the <em>Fantastic Four<&sol;em> game that you&&num;8217&semi;ve always wanted&comma; but I would be lying&period; If you want a good <em>Fantastic Four<&sol;em> gameplay <em>Marvel&&num;8217&semi;s Ultimate Alliance<&sol;em> and chose the proper characters&comma; then imagine it is your very own <em>Fantastic Four<&sol;em> game&period;  I really don&&num;8217&semi;t see any reason for anyone to go out of their way to find this game&comma; it is a nice novelty especially if you have the four controller adapter and four patient friends&period; But other than that this would be a great waste of money and shelf space&period; Let us be very happy the Rocksteady brought licensed games into the future and made them something to be reckoned with&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;