 Mar-Ville and DC got a fair share of their superheroes into 16 bit games. Marvel got Spiderman and the X-Men into multiple games, DC got Superman and Batman into a few. Into 1995, Image Comics joined the party and got their first superhero game with Todd McFarlane spawned the video game. Yes, that is the game's full title, and yes, I will be referring to this game simply as spawn, as any sensible person would. As you might guess, this game has a side-scrolling beat-em-up, surprise, surprise, walk to the right, match buttons kick the crap out of enemies and you've seen this a million times before. So, is there anything that makes Spawn stand out from its contemporaries? Actually yes there is. Spawn is kind of a beat em up fighting game hybrid, incorporating street fighter style commands into regular combat, so Spawn can do stuff like throw fireballs and teleport. That's pretty badass. The only problem with this is, well, the game doesn't exactly tell you that you have all these capabilities. On the surface, Spawn has plenty of regular conventional beat em up stuff like this sweet ass dolesome kick, or being able to float with his cape, so unless you read the instruction manual, or you just happen to accidentally get lucky while mashing buttons, the game doesn't tell the player that you're capable of all this extra stuff. One solution to this could have been to treat it like how Mega Man X earned his abilities, by finding them one at a time in hidden areas where Dr. Light would helpfully describe what you can do now. I'm not asking for my hand to be held, just let me know in whatever way that I can do all this cool stuff. Because there are quite a few of these moves, there's a full screen attack, there's a multiple fireball attack, an attack that freezes enemies, and each move costs a certain amount of life points. That's what that counter up there at the top corner is. It might seem like the game gives you a lot of points, and that you'll never run out, but holy crap, this game is hard, so you're gonna need every single one of those points and every single one of these moves. Take sections like this here, where everything is moving so slowly, and you've got all this stuff attacking you, you're pretty much just trapped. You can jump kick your way out of trouble, like you can in so many other beat em ups, and yeah it feels a little cheap to do that, but sometimes in spawn you just have to do that to progress. Anyway, another aspect that makes spawn a little different is that there's no three-dimensional plane here, or no y-axis in other words, this is a pure side-scroller, similar to how Ninja Warriors is laid out, I mean it pretty much has to be that way for the fighting game moves to be able to be implemented. Despite my nitpicking though the combat here is well done, take for example another game that tried to do something similar, like Batman Forever, that game is a complete disaster. spawn is light years ahead, and much more polished. Another major factor that makes spawn stand out is the visual design. Not only are the graphics and sprite work great, but the whole presentation here featuring still shots with some fantastic artwork here, it goes a long way toward making it feel like you're playing through a spawn comic. The spawn sprite in particular is really nicely done, the cape is super detailed and the combat looks really cool. I was impressed by the music here too, which fits the game nicely. In terms of a total package of visuals and sounds, spawn seriously might be one of the very best on the Super Nintendo, I mean just look at these backgrounds, that's badass. There's 17 levels here, and that can be seen as both a good or a bad thing. On one hand if you love spawn and you love this game, there's plenty here for you to enjoy, but on the other hand it's still just to beat them up at its core, so the gameplay can really drag. On the bright side there's at least a password system here, so you don't have to beat the game in one sitting, and there's unlimited continues as well. So yeah, is spawn worth playing today? I do think the game should be commended because it does try to do something a bit different in a genre that has all sorts of boring and generic button mashing gameplay. Not only that, they get a little creative with the level design here and there as well, like spawn needing to carefully float down to the bottom here without taking too much damage, that's a little different. So yeah, while spawn may not be on the level of something like Batman Returns, I do think it's on the same level as something like Death Return of Superman or Captain Commando. If you like the beat them up genre but are looking for a slight twist on the gameplay, it's worth checking out.