Namco
Marvel Land

Namco is probably one of the most famous and prestigious video game companies, known to video game enthusiasts, at least for experiencing the (endless) saga of the deadly fighting game "Tekken".

However, if "Tekken" captured thousands of players, in 1989, when we were still at the dawn of video game platforms, this little almond-eyed gem, "Marvel Land" (aka "the little angel game", for us young video gamers) was born. Young, because I was just 9 years old (I was barely more than knee-high).

I can't forget the '80s and the '90s (at least as far as the first half is concerned). Say what the heck you want, but I loved that era. I loved it because kids were still free to go out on the streets and play a game of soccer, improvising a team, where even the goals were virtual and improvised. And when the ball ended up crashing against the unfortunate roller shutter (or gate) at hand, the owner would be there, leaning out of the window, ready to rant, threaten, and curse.

And it's exactly on this last point that I'd like to focus. Yes, cursing. Because, even as a kid, thanks to "Marvel Land," I learned to swear like a damned soul. Curses so colorful they went beyond the unimaginable, which drove the player at hand to express themselves in language that was nothing less than vulgar, not to mention apocalyptic.

The gameplay is very simple and even more linear and uncomplicated the story. A story that I had to dig up from "Wikipedia" (the biggest encyclopedia there is), since the only version we had in arcades (or bars) was the Japanese one where you couldn't understand a darn thing when various characters conversed calmly and blissfully at the beginning and, respectively, at the end of each stage.

Let's start with the story. I discovered that my "little angel" is not an angel (in fact: he never was) but actually a cross between a boy and a dragon and he even has a name, as well as a royal class of belonging! He is a prince and his name is "Talmit", and his goal is to save the Marvel Land amusement park, occupied (indeed: usurped) by the villain at hand, alias "King Mole", guilty of having kidnapped Princess Luxi (daughter of Lord Coni, builder of Marvel Land) and having taken over the Underground Kingdom (hence why, after each stage in the park, I found myself having to survive in the "sewers"), thus threatening the existence of said park.

The park is divided as follows: the land of flowers, the land of prairies, the land of sweets, and the land of ice. Each section is protected by a fairy (Florrie, Sylphie, Sweetie, and indeed Wondra), whom King Mole has imprisoned and who in turn need to be rescued.

With this exciting premise, our friend will have to face an indefinite and endless series of enemies, including spear-wielding moles, piranhas, digging ants, giant roses, and Medusa heads that unleash terrible (and deadly) electric shocks. But the real kicker is that our "little angel" (what the heck do you want? He had wings, for me he was a little angel, indeed, for us!) has no energy level, so the slightest contact, even unintentional, with anything that could harm him (including drowning in water or lava) will constitute his passage to the other world.

The unimaginable curses and swearing minted by every player when they saw their little angel perish. Little angel, moreover, who died in the most obnoxious and irritating way possible, that is, raising his arms and spreading his legs, only to disappear from the screen, almost like Brainy Smurf when he gets kicked in the backside and thrown off the smurf lands.

Moreover, to defeat his enemies, our hero HAS NO WEAPON except jumping on his opponent's head. For example, I now remember that bastard pirate who threw his hat and you had to dodge it while he attacked, and you had to (all simultaneously calculating the precise millisecond) jump on his noggin. How many deaths. How many curses.

One button, one jump, one chance to survive threats coming from land, sea, and sky.

However, to help our friend, there were some chests containing a pair of handy super-elasticized boots, allowing him to run faster, as well as a nice pair of super-dragon green wings that allowed him to perform superhuman jumps and, at the same time, glide and soar over Marvel Land skies, and finally, his most powerful weapon: an umbilical cord of golden angel-clones that acted as a shield and he could at the same time use as an offensive weapon against his bastard enemies. Clones that changed color, turning from gold to sky blue only to disappear and leave you alone again against the rest of the world.

Each level ended the same way (more or less): jump on the ark, leap and break through the target that gave precious bonus points to the little dragon-angel.

Different stages were also planned, including the "bonus stage", where your only task was to grab as many shooting stars (the golden ones were the most precious) with the sole purpose of adding an extra life just to prolong your agony, and stages where you had to ride on a roller coaster, jumping from cart to cart and avoiding the damn flying, spear-wielding bastard moles (yes, they could fly as they were attached to a jet engine... Genius!). Even in this type of stage, curses were not spared and flew in bursts.

And then there were the usual Final Bosses to challenge (if you got there alive) within the undergrounds of Marvel Land. Undergrounds which, to overcome, you had to make a vow to some Celtic god, given the huge and inhuman difficulty.

How do you defeat a boss? By jumping on their head? No! You beat them at tug-of-war or by playing a game of rock-paper-scissors (all original! If you lost, you had to block your opponent's hit with your shield; on the contrary, if you won, you had to hammer your opponent before he lifted his own shield to block your shot). The final Boss, King Mole, had to be challenged in two ways: the first, in the classic rock-paper-scissors game; the second, a real breathtaking combat "mano a mano" that I, personally, despite countless tokens comparable to an immeasurable sum (expressed in Lire, rest its soul) have never managed to defeat.

The really annoying thing about this damn game is that once you died, you didn't start from where you lost, but (apocalyptic curse) from the beginning of the stage or halfway through it.

In the park, it depended on where you kicked the bucket; in the undergrounds, it was always from the beginning, to increase your level of stress, anger, nervousness, and swearing fanaticism.

I never had the honor of knowing how the hell this game ended. What happened to that bastard King Mole, who I was supposed to save (whether the fairies or the princess) and, above all, now that I think about it: but in the end, did Talmit deserve a good romp with Luxi as a reward?

This, only the ingenious creator of this ingenious platform-game can know (or the few chosen ones who managed the arduous, yet unlikely, feat of killing King-freaking-Mole).

And, to top it off, it certainly deserves five stars.

Exactly, yes indeed!