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The Title Screen
Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade's Revenge is the title of a video game first released for the Super NES in 1992 by Software Creations, and published by Acclaim's LJN label. The game was later released for the Genesis, Game Boy, and Game Gear (versions for Sega consoles were released under the Flying Edge label). The single-player game features Spider-Man and the X-Men, teaming up in one of the first Marvel Crossover games to take on classic villain Arcade.

The playable characters are Spider-Man, Cyclops, Wolverine, Gambit and Storm.


GET READY TROPER. The game provides examples of the following tropes:

  • Actually a Doombot: Since everything past the introduction level takes places in Murderworld, the bosses (Apocalypse, Juggernaut, etc) are all just Arcade-built impostors.
  • Adapted Out:
    • The Game Boy has a lot of boss characters not appearing, due to the game only having one stage per character instead of two.
    • Master Mold doesn't appear in the Game Gear version at the end of Cyclops' second stage.
  • Advancing Boss of Doom: Juggernaut chases Wolverine through an entire level (and if you haven't killed him by the end, you basically get to choose between death by Juggernaut and death by ball-pit).
  • Advancing Wall of Doom: Gambit must outrun a giant Doom-ball with spikes.
  • Anti-Frustration Features:
    • If you get a Game Over and made it past the tutorial stage, it is possible to skip it if you didn't power the game off.
    • The Game Gear version had several implemented, due to the console only having two buttons:
      • Wolverine's claws are always up, allowing him to deal damage.
      • Cyclops' Eye Beams can damage the cave trolls, which he can't do in the other versions.
  • Anvil on Head: Wolverine gets to use this attack method on Juggernaut.
  • Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Gambit's level boss is a gigantic Selene robot. The Final Boss also starts as one of these.
  • Battle in the Rain: Spider-Man's second stage takes place in the middle of a thunderstorm.
  • Big Bad: Arcade, of course.
  • Bladder of Steel: Having no save option or any continues were some of this game's biggest flaws; it made the game near-impossible to beat.
  • Boss Arena Recovery: N'astirh spawns dozens of rubies every time Spider-Man swings into him. The rubies are only good for increasing your score, but none of the other bosses give out goodies in this way but him.
  • Boss Battle: The game pits the characters against android duplicates of the following rogues:
    • Spider-Man's bosses: The Shocker, N'astirh, Rhino, Carnage
    • Cyclops's bosses: Sentinels
    • Wolverine's bosses: Apocalypse, Juggernaut
    • Gambit's bosses: Giant playing card, Giant Black Queen
    • Storm's boss: Tank Defense System
  • Boss-Only Level: The Final Boss is the only one that gets an entire level all to himself in this game.
  • Bottomless Pits: A lot of the stages have bottomless pits, with the exceptions being Storm's underwater stages and Cyclops' stages.
  • The Cavalry: You fight the final boss as Spider-Man, with all the X-Men standing on the sidelines offering fire support. Their attacks damage the Arcade mech, but it's up to the player to destroy the Mecha-Mooks that pop out of it.
  • Checkpoint Starvation: None of the levels have checkpoints, meaning you'll have to redo the entire level again if you do end up dying on the current level.
  • Circus of Fear: The Wolverine levels have gun-toting Jack in the Boxes, robotic clowns, toy plane bombers and dangerous wind-up toys.
  • Conspicuous Electric Obstacle: During the Storm's stages, she has to swim through and flood a tank with water. One of the main obstacles in the course is a pair of bolt emitters that emit a vertical yellow bolt.
  • Crossover: This was the game's main selling point back in the day.
  • Dual Boss: The final bosses for Spider-Man's levels are Carnage and the Rhino. Rhino charges back and forth on the ground while Carnage harasses you on the rooftops.
  • Easing into the Adventure: The intro level exists for this purpose.
  • Energy Weapon: The giant Selene boss attacks you with these.
  • 11th-Hour Superpower: Storm gets this for the final levels, since that's the only time the player gets to play her on dry land. She jumps higher and has stronger projectiles than any other character.
  • Foul Ball Pit: Weaponized in Wolverine's second stage, fitting the circus theme. There are ball pits scattered about that act as Death Traps. The stage itself is a race to destroy the Juggernaut before he either kills you or forces you into a huge deadly ball pit at the end of the stage.
  • Giant Mook: The boss Sentinel of the Cyclops levels. A normal-sized version appears beforehand as a Mini-Boss.
  • Healing Factor: True to his comic book form, Wolverine slowly heals back to full health when not in combat (though only if his claws are sheathed).
  • Immune to Bullets: The Cyclops levels have actual cyclops enemies that are invulnerable to Cyke's optic beams, forcing the player to defeat them with his puny kicks.note 
  • The Juggernaut: Guess who.
  • The Maze: Storm's levels are an underwater version of this.
  • Made of Explodium: Being robots, all the bosses go boom when they've been defeated.
  • Matryoshka Object: The Final Boss, of all things, is this. It starts as an Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever and shrinks into smaller forms the more you damage it, until finally the mecha is destroyed and a half-dozen Arcade robots pop out of it.
  • Mecha-Mooks: It wouldn't be an X-Men game without Sentinels, and they're the bosses of Cyclops's levels.
    • The Final Boss spawns seven Arcade robots for Spider-Man to finish off.
  • Minecart Madness: Cyclops's levels
  • Mini-Boss: The normal-sized Sentinel Cyclops has to fight before the Giant Mook version, as well as Spider-Man's first boss the Shocker.
  • Monster Clown: The clown enemies in the Wolverine levels. They're actually modeled after an obscure clown character from the comics, the very-appropriately named Obnoxio.
  • Mook Lieutenant: Gambit's first boss is a giant playing card that spawns little chess pawn enemies to harass Remy.
  • Nintendo Hard: Make no mistake, this game is hard! Your characters take a lot of damage from attacks, health items are scarce and none of the stages have checkpoints. There's also no continues in this game, meaning you'll lose a lot of progress past the tutorial level.
  • One-Hit Kill: Jump onto the minecart tracks in the Cyclops levels and you will die instantly. And since Cyclops, like everyone else in this game, doesn't so much jump as he makes itty bitty hops, you'll have to learn to time your jumps perfectly if you hope to pass his levels.
  • Puzzle Boss: The boss of the Storm levels is this.
  • Revenge of the Sequel: The classic example of a work being titled in this way just for the Rule of Cool.
  • Rogues' Gallery Transplant: The boss of the second Spider-Man level (first if you don't count the intro stage) is N'astirh, a relatively obscure X-Men villain from the Inferno (1988) Crisis Crossover.
  • Roofhopping: The Spider-Man levels have you jumping from platform to platform using this.
  • Super-Toughness: Juggernaut has obscene amounts of health.
  • Toy Time: Wolverine's stages have a heavy circus/toy theme, with robotic clowns, building blocks, gun-toting Jack-In-The-Boxes, and deadly ball pits. While Gambit's stage isn't quite as colourful or heavy on the theme, it does feature armed chess pieces.
  • Trial-and-Error Gameplay: Dear god, yes. The Cyclops and Wolverine levels are the worst offenders.
  • The Unmasqued World: After completing each character's two levels, the player will be automatically transported to the final levels which run through Murderworld behind the scenes.
  • Under the Sea: Storm's two levels are both spent underwater, navigating a submerged maze. Think Nemo 33 in Hell.
  • Villain: Exit, Stage Left: Just like in the comics, the game ends with Arcade pulling a Karma Houdini and getting away.

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