Review of Spider-Man: Separation Anxiety (SNES)

Spider-Man: Separation Anxiety is a great game if you're looking to torment yourself. Even if you're a big Spider-Fan you'll be hard pressed to like this detestable game. Let's break down the individual elements within the review.

Story : The story hardly matters as this is a beat em' up, but there's the usual trouble that you're all familiar with when it comes to Spider-Man games. Venom's symbiote has run out of control and it's up to Spider-Man and Venom to tackle the problem. The only villain that appeared in the game that I was familiar with was Carnage, who is the last boss.

Graphics : The colors are extremely drab and the characters don't look very fluid doing their actions. The villains also look very blocky due to the limited amount of animation. The backgrounds are plain and dull and don't provide much atmosphere for the listener.

Sound : Though the introduction song is good, the rest of the tracks toil in mediocrity. They're unobtrusive at least, but it should be noted that there's a good chance you won't remember a single note of the music after you've played this game.

Game play : Right off the bat, pressing start does nothing to remove the introduction screens. This wouldn't be nearly a problem if the introduction screens were so long, but there's at least ten seconds where you're doing nothing but waiting for the main menu. Very annoying and gives a good idea of what's to come.

You can't choose who to play as. First player must be Spider-Man and second player be Venom. So very frustrating. There's an endless amount of henchmen in this game, and you can't skip any of them. This makes the levels annoyingly long and not fulfilling. All the enemies look and act the same and blend together seamlessly, nulling your senses and making you bored.

There's no full screen extra joy attack in the game, which means you need to manually beat every single enemy you encounter. This takes forever coupled with the fact that there's an absurd amount of enemies. The bosses are uninspiring and don't thrill you at all.

The password system is short and easy to use, and there's passwords to give you 50+ lives. Chances are, you'll need this password and a ton of patience if you ever wish to complete this game.

The ending is perhaps one of the most unfulfilling endings I've ever had the misfortune of seeing. Upon completion of this game, you see a picture of Carnage then the credits roll. After hours of mindless and boring fighting, this is your reward.

Re playability: It took the will of Captain America to even play through this game the first time. I'm positive I will never play this again, unless it's to remind myself how bad a game can be.

Overall : 1/10 for a nice introduction song. The rest would best be forgotten.