Developer: Blizzard Publisher: Sunsoft Release: 08/94 Genre: Beat em up
The Death of Superman was a one two punch of events alongside Knightfall that rocketed DC Comics to the top of the sales charts in the early 90s. This was long before the internet so you could still keep information about future events under wraps. It was also before the comics industry realized you could “kill” a popular hero for a temporary sales bump and would abuse it regularly. To my then 12 year old self this was it; Superman was dead for good. Oh to be young and dumb. Of course that was far from true but the speculation gained national attention. That would spill over in to video games with Sunsoft and Blizzard creating the Death and Return of Superman video game. Unfortunately while the idea behind the game is sound the execution is lacking.
The Death and Return of Superman retells both stories from the comics in truncated form. You get to play as the original Superman right as he faces his fated battle with Doomsday. In the wake of his death four men all referring to themselves as the Man of Steel arise to take his place. The mystery of who is the original lingers as you get to play as each one and the plot unfolds. For the most part the game does a good job hitting the most important beats; you have to remember both stories took place over the course of a year across four monthly Superman titles. While you miss the particulars you at least get the broad strokes pretty well.
Throughout the course of the game you play as all five Supermen. There is a decent array of moves per character and the gameplay is very similar to Batman Returns on SNES down to throwing enemies in to the background. Of course you have to accept the silly idea that regular thugs with chainsaws are any threat to a Superman but I digress. Sadly despite their moves looking different every hero shares the same general move set. The only differences are their super moves. A cool touch that is explored in depth is the ability to fly. Everyone can fly at any time and flight is a good way to avoid being swarmed. There is almost always at least one annoying flying enemy so you will use this extensively. While I wish each character was distinct at least the mechanics are solid.
I respect the developer’s willingness to incorporate most of the important moments from the stories that make up this game to create a lengthy adventure. But the game suffers for it in multiple ways. The repetition is the biggest one. There are only a few enemy types that repeat heavily as the pacing is bad. Because they are following the plot of the comics it means you replay certain levels and scenes multiple times. That also means you fight the same enemies and bosses too. By stage four I grew bored of the game and had not even played as all the Supermen yet. They certainly try to switch things up by including a few flying segments but these are mindless shooter levels you can easily complete by holding the attack button and never moving. This game desperately needs more diverse content.
Truthfully even if Death and Return of Superman were shorter it would still have problems. As I said before the pacing is bad. The large sprites may look impressive but it also means you rarely face three enemies simultaneously. Because waves have so few enemies they make it up by featuring more of them which grows tedious. All five Supermen play near identically with very small differences which ruins the impact of featuring all of them. This is probably the most disappointing. Each of the characters has distinct abilities that would make for a far more interesting brawler with more time. Instead we are left with a game that does the bare minimum gameplay wise to take advantage of its license.
Like most brawlers Death and Return of Superman is hard. But in this case that is because the game is extremely cheap. Enemies deal large amounts of damage which is bananas as these are Supermen. They also employ cheese tactics such as waiting over your downed body to immediately attack when you get up to catch you in a loop. The bosses especially love doing this. The game is especially stingy with items. If you play normally you may see one or two health items if you are lucky. You must throw enemies in to the background to unearth more but even then they are not common. I suppose this is to ensure you make use of the mechanic but it gives the game a very high difficulty curve that in my opinion is not worth it.
In Closing
The Death and Return of Superman should be great. All the pieces are there to create a unique brawler in the genre. Instead the designers opted to create a generic beat em up that outside of its comic book license is indistinguishable from the rest. That in itself is not a problem if the game is good. But in this case Death and Return of Superman is only slightly above average and deserves better.
