Hello and welcome! My name is Katosepe and I’ll be your host for today’s Video Game of the Day.
If you’re familiar with comic book history, you know that in the mid-2000’s, Marvel was in a strange place. This was pre-MCU still but Spider-Man and X-Men were sweeping the box office. Marvel comics sales were slumping but their external media was soaring. Crossover events were big business but an overabundance of them was causing fatigue in fans. Marvel was throwing everything at the wall to see what stuck. Video games were no exception. X-Men Legends had proven successful and Marvel Ultimate Alliance was well into development but Marvel wanted to see if other genres would work as well and EA was willing to give it a try. Today’s game is the fruit of that deal. Today’s game is Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects, developed by Nihilistic Software and released on the Playstation 2, Xbox, Gamecube, DS and PSP in 2005.
Marvel Nemesis is a 3D fighting game similar to the Dreamcast cult classic, Power Stone. Two characters are thrown into a relatively small 3D environment and have to duke it out to find out who’s the better super. The story mode in Marvel Nemesis has a single player play through a series of challenges including beating up hordes of minions, destroying environmental obstacles or facing off against a supervillain.
What makes Marvel Nemesis unique is that along with their famous characters such as Spider-Man, Daredevil, and Iron Man, Nemesis has a team of villains known as the Imperfects that are entirely new characters made by the development team. These characters are considered part of the Marvel canon and were used in conjunction with a Marvel comic made at the same time called Rise of the Imperfects. This comic had no direct connection to the game’s story other than using the same characters and actually conflicted with it in many ways.
Ultimately, Marvel and EA’s experiment wound up being a flop. Marvel Nemesis received poor reviews with the DS version being especially maligned. The game sold poorly and Marvel dropped their deal with EA the next year, choosing to stick with Activision for their Marvel Ultimate Alliance series. Despite this, many players continue to have nostalgia for Rise of the Imperfects. It’s a flawed game but one with the potential to be something better. Maybe someday, with Marvel’s newfound resources, they will be able to take another crack at the 3D fighter.
Thank you so much for listening! For more trivia on Marvel Nemesis or the other games we talk about, follow me on Twitter @vg_oftheday. Archives and transcripts are on videogameoftheday.com. Don’t forget to check back here tomorrow for another Video Game of the Day.
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Devin "Katosepe" Sloane is a long time gamer and host of the show Video Game of the Day. He firmly believes Darklands is the pinnacle of gaming achievement and this is a hill he will die upon. Where his nickname came from is a secret to everybody.
