X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse (1994)

X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse is a game I grew up playing quite a bit, yet having finally finished it in its entirety 30 years after its release, it's wild that the majority of what I played was simply the first levels.

The game begins by having the player beat an intro level with five different characters, and at times, even that could be a difficult task. But it does work as a decent way to integrate yourself to how these characters play. From then on, you can pick who you want to play the rest of the game through with, yet the difficulty amps up in a way that makes you want to try out other characters and different tactics.

Depending on which character you choose, the level changes to prioritize each character's skill set. And yet, I don't know if it always does the best job of this. I also found that within this action side-scroller, not all of a character's moves worked as well as they should. In a way, Mutant Apocalypse sort of plays like Capcom's other two major series of the time—Street Fighter and Mega Man—mashed up into a weird amalgamation. Yes, you can pick and choose what order you want to play the levels, but some of the special moves have to be inputted almost like this is a fighting game. It's an odd combo that doesn't always work. Especially in the latter levels, where things get much hairier, and the difficulty amps up in a way that can often feel like too much, it can get frustrating to not have moves go off right when you want them to, and missions can be more trial-and-error than one would like.

But for the most part, I still have fun with Mutant Apocalypse. The animation looks quite nice, and I do appreciate that each character feels wholly unique from the others. This truly feels like five different missions that you can test out with each of these characters, while also making sure you can spend more time with whatever character you prefer regardless. But having played through this game finally and made my way through the difficult final few levels, I still think I'll probably just stick to playing those intro levels and trying out these characters from here on out.

X-Men Mutant Apocalypse, for SNES

Rating: 6.5/10; Above Average

Played: Feb 2019

X-Men is a 2D side scrolling brawler/platformer that controls similar to games like Final Fight and Ninja Warriors. Unfortunately, this means most of the controller’s buttons are not used and alternate types of attacks are performed by pressing combinations of buttons. Power attacks are a pain to perform, requiring various combinations of the movement, jump and attack buttons even though in training mode the power attack is assigned to a single button. Why??

The game has a fairly good story for an action game and starts off with a level for each of the 5 playable characters. After those initial levels, you can choose who to play as in levels that feature a small variety of enemies, bosses and platforming. It is a very interesting concept that is mostly wasted in this game. Imagine a more in-depth metroidvania type of game which encouraged repeating the levels with each character to find things only one character can get. Instead, it just serves as your lives. Though each character has different move sets and platforming ability, one of the biggest flaws of the game is the fact that most of their mutant powers are not implemented. Some of the other X-Men show up at the end of the game but are not playable. A shame as they would have made for some great replayability. Now for a brief discussion of each character:

Wolverine:

He is a fast melee combatant who can climb vertical walls. That is cool and all, but his claws fail to kill most enemies in a single hit and even worse, he does not regenerate health. Playing as him should be equivalent to playing on an easy difficulty, except when fighting Magneto. The game does not give him any kind of penalty when fighting Magneto. It is like he does not have any metal on him at all.

Cyclops:

Mostly uses weak and short range melee attacks when he should be more of a glass cannon ranged type. His ranged beam attacks are hard to perform, especially given they should be his main style of attack. The screen is also a bit too small to benefit from range.

Gambit:

Uses ranged attacks like Cyclops and his staff has great reach. Too bad he does not have a charged up power strike with the staff. He can attack straight up with his cards, though it took me like 15 minutes to figure out how to do it since controls lists are not shown in game (the boss for his initial stage can only be hurt by that attack).

Beast:

A somewhat slow attacker with decent melee range. He can do some acrobatic attacks and walk upside down on ceilings as his special type of platforming. He is probably the best implemented character but that is because his powers pretty well match the gameplay.

Psylock:

Even though I watched the X-Men cartoon, I had no idea who this was and it does not seem like she makes use of her powers. She has weak and short range melee attacks, though she is able to jump higher than everyone else and even juggle herself between enemies by jumping between them.

Despite the story and production values, the game feels more like a brawler with an X-Men coat of paint rather than a true X-Men game. Though the gameplay itself is good, the distinct lack of accurately implemented powers for the characters makes it feel like you are not truly playing as those great characters.