It was originally planned for worldwide release at one point but was ultimately cancelled due to licensing issues with Disney (who then copyrighted the Marvel brand in 2009) and Hamster Corporation.

In Marvel Land, the player must take control of Prince Paco (Talmit in English), who is on a quest to save Princess Luxie (Wondra in English) from the evil Mole King (Japanese: 魔王モウル; Maō Mōru); the gameplay is similar to that of Nintendo's Super Mario Bros.. Power-ups make it easier for Paco to defeat enemies and collect various items to increase his score; these include dragon wings which allow Paco to jump higher and fly (to a certain extent), shoes that can allow him to walk faster for a while, and a clone powerup which allows him to whip multiple copies of himself at enemies in a line.

At the end of the regular outside levels, Paco must jump through a huge target to earn between 100 and 7650 (Namco's goroawase number) extra points; the remaining time will also then be added to the score.

Some rides featured in the various levels, along with the bonus stage parade floats, contain several of Namco's earlier characters, such as Pac-Man (1980), Pooka from Dig Dug (1982), Solvalou from Xevious (1982), Mappy (1983), Grobda (1984), Gilgamesh and Ki from Tower of Druaga (1984), Paccet from Baraduke (1985), Valkyrie of Valkyrie no Bōken (NES, 1986), Wonder Momo (1987), Amul (in "one-headed" form) from Dragon Spirit (1987) and Beraboh Man (1988).

The pink-and-silver female robot who appears at the start of each world, (受付小町; Uketsuke Komachi), also appears in the Namco System 12-era World Stadium games as the Nikotama Gals' catcher and in the Namco Museum series at the information desk.