With all the hubbub regarding Endgame, one forgets that Marvel isn’t JUST a movie company. They also put out tons of other media that everybody can enjoy; cartoons, comics…even games!

We’re gonna be making a Top 5 list every week to celebrate that, all the way up to Endgame’s release.

For our first entry, we’re looking at the top 5 Marvel games you must play if you’re a fan!

So without further ado, here’s the list in no particular order!

1 – Marvel vs Capcom 2.

No legitimate list of games would be complete without Capcom’s seminal VS series of games. While their X-Men: Children of the Atom and Marvel Super Hero entries were great, it was only they stumbled upon X-Men vs Street Fighter did the series hit the big time.

From there, the series went on from one high to another, ultimately culminating in what is arguably the best Marvel fighting game of all time; Marvel vs Capcom 2.

Nearly every character from every game prior to that makes an appearance in that slobberknocker. Plus it introduced perennial favourites like Cable and Ruby Heart to the fray, both who are sorely missed from subsequent sequels.

What makes the game (or series) so good?

It’s definitely the blistering pace, the stylish aerial combos and the over the top specials. Sure, we’ve seen Ryu’s Shinku Hadoken before in Capcom’s Street Fighter series but we’ve never actually seen it fill up a whole damn screen until he did it in X-Men vs Street Fighter!

Every character in the games has gone on to hold a place in the memories of gamers who played the games. Whether it’s Cable’s infamous Hyper Viper Beam shout, to Venom’s ‘We are Venom’ intro taunt to Wolverine’s iconic ‘Berserker barraaaaaaage!’, the games (and the characters in it) have carved a niche in the collective gamer subconscious. Plus the Jazz soundtrack makes it have a VERY unique audio style that no other game (not even in the same series) replicates.

While the game was released for a variety of platforms, we REALLY love the Arcade and Dreamcast versions since they had unique character unlock features.

The Arcade versions featured a time unlock, which gradually added playable characters over time.

  • It went from this at the beginning…
  • To this when everybody was unlocked.

The Dreamcast version however just required points earned from gameplay to unlock new characters. Both unlock methods were absent in the PS3/Xbox 360 releases, which opted to have everybody available from the start, which honestly killed the game’s replay value since it didn’t have a story mode of any kind.

2 – Marvel Puzzle Quest.

Wait, a MOBILE game? A FREE TO PLAY mobile game?

BLASPHEMY!

Normally, we’d agree but in this case we think it’s warranted.

Marvel Puzzle Quest takes the awesome Puzzle Quest RPG-Puzzle gameplay and adds in Marvel characters, a card collecting system AND made it free to play, without making it pay to win.

Puzzle Quest’s ingenious gameplay translated very well to the Marvel license, making nearly every character in the game fun to use. Sure, it’s a bit unbalanced when you use certain characters in a team (try Captain Marvel, Medusa and Ant-Man) but it’s just plain fun.

These guys.

There are in-game purchases but if you scrimp and save (and play regularly), you’ll definitely be able to build up your library with ZERO issues. Since there’s no Energy mechanic, you can play as much as you want as long as your characters have HP to battle.

Just don’t bother with the PVP or compare your collection to long time players and you’ll do just fine.

Dare we say that’s its actually a GOOD example of Free-to-Play done right? Yes we do!

Don’t bother getting the console versions though, not only do they cost money but they’re not updated at ALL. Screw that and get it for Steam or better yet, for your mobile instead!

3 – X-Men.

It’s a beat’em up with X-Men characters, made by Konami in the 90s.

That sentence alone should be enough to earn X-Men a place on the list. Konami (along with Capcom) was legendary for their beat’em ups back in the day. The Simpsons, the TMNT games…and the best of them all; X-Men.

This was a Konami who knew what the hell they were doing and who their fans were. Not the faint shadow of a company that it is now.

Back then, Konami could do no wrong in the arcade scene. After their breakthrough The Simpsons 4-player beat’em up sold like hotcakes, Konami tweaked and improved the formula and produced the X-Men arcade game, with 6-player simultaneous play.

It was a hit. We remember braving the depths of the arcade in Parkway Parade to play the game, teaming up with complete strangers to take down Magneto, the Master of Magnet.

Did we mention part of the reason we love the game is because of its Engrish? As great as the game is, what gets it over the top is Magneto’s broken English, with phrases like ‘Welcome to DIE!’ and ‘I am Magneto, master of magnet! HAHAHAHAHAH!’.

If he wasn’t a cheap boss (just like in X-Men: Children of the Atom), we bet everybody would’ve been laughing at him.

While we STILL question the inclusion of Dazzler (instead of Jean, Beast or even Ice-Man), X-Men remains an awesome lesson in how to create a great beat’em up and one of the best Marvel games.

4 – LEGO Marvel Super Heroes.

Traveller’s Tales’ Lego games are repetitive, boring and formulaic. That’s undeniable. That’s why it’s so surprising that Lego Marvel Super Heroes is so damn good.

It takes a ton of recognizable Marvel Super Heroes (plus a ton more niche characters) and mishmashes them into an open world that’s rife with Marvel easter eggs AND chuckle-worthy humor.


Lego Marvel Super Heroes didn’t deliver much new (other than the open world Lego-fied New York City) but it managed to somehow capture the fun and whimsy a Lego Marvel Superhero game should have.

The gameplay might be your standard Lego fare (running around, clearing puzzles, smashing everything and collecting the studs) but the Marvel integration was very well done, with funny characters, a decent story and tons of locales taken from the Marvel Universe,

Unfortunately, Lego Marvel Super Heroes was a fluke. The follow ups (Lego Avengers and Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2) were as boring as Traveller’s Tales’ million other Lego games.

But hey, one great game is better than nothing.

5 – Spider-man.

Spider-man on PS4 is hands down, the greatest Marvel game of the generation. No other game captures Spidey (his mannerisms, his combat style, his sense of responsibility) better than Spider-man does.

That’s great but the best thing about the game is how fun and awesome webswinging is. Traversing New York City has never felt so cool. Sure, Lego Marvel Super Heroes also lets you play as Spidey in NYC, but Lego Spidey is nowhere near as stylish as the PS4 version.

The game not only marks the video game debut of Mr. Negative, it also chucks in a ton of recognizable foes such as Rhino, Scorpion and Shocker. Hell, they in threw in sometimes good, most times bad guy Taskmaster!

Plus, not only did you get to play as Spidey, you also got to look like Spidey from multiple eras with the bevy of unlockable suits! What more can you ask for in a game?

It’s a damn shame this is exclusive to Sony’s machine. It truly deserves to be on every platform so that everybody can experience how fun it is.

So there you have it, our top 5 Marvel games you MUST play. How many of them have you already tried? What games make up YOUR list?

Sal's been in the industry since the early 2000s. He's written for a ton of gaming and tech publications including Playworks, Hardwarezone, HWM and GameAxis. Recently, Sal served as a juror for the Indie Game Awards at Taipei Game Show 2020. A geek and hardcore gamer, Sal will play everything, on any platform.