Fantastic Four (PlayStation)

Fantastic Four It's Clobberin time (to destroy this awful game)" Protagonist(s): Mr. Fantastic Invisible Woman The Thing The Human Torch She-Hulk Genre(s): Beat-Em-Up Rating(s): K-A Platform(s): PlayStation Release: August 30, 1997 Developer(s): Probe Entertainment Publisher(s): Acclaim Entertainment Country: United Kingdom Series: Fantastic Four Predecessor: Questprobe featuring Human Torch and the Thing Successor: Fantastic Four (2005)

Fantastic Four is a PlayStation video game developed by Probe Entertainment and published by Acclaim Entertainment. The game was released in 1997, and is based on the Marvel Comics characters of the same name.

Why It's Not Fantastic

1. Releasing a beat-em-up game in 1997 is an extremely bad idea, as at the time, the genre was practically dead.
2. Poor character models, for example, The Thing looks like a giant turd.
   • She-Hulk is also taller than everyone else for some reason
3. Horrible menu screen.
4. Poor feeling controls.
5. Bad graphics, especially for a 1997 PlayStation game. Crash Bandicoot came out a year before this game, and that had way better graphics.
6. The AI player characters are extremely poor, as they will constantly waste ammo, take damage really fast and run into walls.
7. Awful voices for the characters.
8. The gameplay is extremely boring, all you do is beat up enemies and move forwards. Other games of the genre had way more interesting things to do.
9. Punching enemies doesn't feel satisfying to do.
10. Terrible level design.
11. Bad character animations, for example:
    • She-Hulk's animation is this weird looking punch.
    • Invisible Woman's animation is generic and sexist whenever she blocks herself she looks like she's dancing.
12. The sound effects are really annoying.
13. Parts of a level can obstruct where you can go, block helpful power-ups or even cause unnecessary death, for example in level two, there are craters that cause immediate death that you’ll just stumble into and precariously thin bridges that are impossible to judge your position on, also leading to death or a huge chunk of your health taken out.
14. Barely any story. All you do is punch bad guys until you get to Doctor Doom and after you defeat him the game is over.
15. Barely any replay value.
16. Enemies will constantly swarm you when you are playing solo.
17. The music feels like it was taken from a completely different game, and doesn't fit the game at all.

Redeeming Qualities

1. It was the first Fantastic Four game that allowed you to play as all 4 members of the team, as the previous game only allowed you to play as the Human Torch and The Thing.
2. It does support multiplayer.
3. She-Hulk is a playable character, referencing the time after Secret Wars where she joined the Fantastic Four for a short period of time.
4. The game can be good for laughs, as the bad animations and ugly character models can give you a good laugh.
5. It's not as bad as the Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer game, and it's still better than FANT4STIC.
6. The loading screen has a kart racing mini game which was interesting.
7. Fine box art.
8. At least it stays faithful to the source material.
9. Fantastic Four (2005 video game) video game is a massive improvement.

Reception

Fantastic Four received overwhelmingly negative reviews. Next Generation criticized the poor control and rough sprites, and GameSpot and Next Generation both found the music completely failed to fit in with the game. Next Generation said, "Like the worst of Acclaim's licensed games for the last eight years, this one takes a venerable piece of pop-culture property, in this case Stan Lee's Fantastic 4, and reduces it to dismal side-scrolling action – using 'action' in the loosest sense of the word." In Japan, where the game was ported and published by Acclaim Japan on February 19, 1998, Famitsu gave it a score of 16 out of 40.

GamePro's brief review criticized that "the character animation is stiff, the sound effects are campy, and the gameplay quickly becomes repetitive as waves of enemies attack in predictable patterns." IGN ventured that it "could very well be the worst game ever made." GameSpot had a more mixed reaction, arguing that Fantastic Four has some interesting features, such as its multiplayer capabilities, and that if the core game had been worked on so that it wasn't so boring and easy, it would have been a much better game.

Though they never reviewed the game, Electronic Gaming Monthly named Fantastic Four Worst Use of a Good License in their 1998 Video Game Buyer's Guide, commenting, "Aside from its somewhat-decent polygonal graphics, Fantastic Four is nothing more than dull, repetitive Final Fight rehash."

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