Reviews from

in the past


This ended up being my game of the year for 1994. #BelieveIt

A GUITARRINHA DA MUSICA DE ENTRADA É EPICA!

I remember spending a lot of time dicking around in Beast's stage because I just loved the music and wanted to keep listening to it

This was an early emulation classic for me, and for some reason I used to discount it as being not good enough, or not what I wanted it to be, or something. I have something like an anti-nostalgia for it. But I think now that I've played a lot of other, much worse games from this era, it comes off a lot better. The character movesets, the gorgeous SNES graphics with great animation and very faithful and detailed renderings of the cast, the music (aside from that goddamned Capcom SNES guitar sound), - everything is pretty far above average for this type of game in this period, and I do finally recognize that.

It's certainly not perfect, or even something you'd call a hidden gem, or whatever. The back half feels weirdly tacked on and bad, and some of the bosses are garbage. But for a licensed game in the mid-90s you can do a lottttttttttt worse.

Also: Psylocke.

Apesar de ser um pouco lento, é um bom jogo. Nunca me dei muito bem com jogos de rolagem lateral que possuem sprites muito grandes, mas me lembro de ter me divertido bastante.


I wonder why the game designers were so hell bent on making clunky final bosses with 10 kilotons of xp

A solid SNES action game that sounds and looks better than it plays. The levels are boring and the gamepay is very slow paced. Could use a lot more speed and more varried stages. Decent game still though.

MASTERPIECE!!!
gameplay divertidissima(mas é snes ne galera, tem que lembrar da dificuldade da epoca que foi necessaria pra criar jogos com gameplays mais longas, entao conte sim com um jogo bem dificil), personagens bombados e bem feitos kk, e a progressão das fases é muito boa, fazendo com que vc se divirta de modo unico em cada fase que joga.
é, marvel, vc sabe fazer game…pena que é só quando quer.

clang clang clang clang foooooooooooooooosh

Essentially a predecessor to War of the Gems, but oddly enough significantly better in every regard imo. It's also much shorter and easier, really easy in general actually. Highlights include being the first game I've played thus far where Wolverine doesn't suck horriblgod fuck i just bumped my head i was pacing around and wlaked like right into the doorframe auhbgn fiuck this im going to.lay down

A challenging X-men brawler with a cool cast of playable characters.

I'm surprised to see this game hasn't got any reviews as of me typing this. I feel its a pretty solid game, granted I've never got far in it. Each character has their own ways of fighting, but otherwise it is a pretty standard beat-em-up with some platforming elements. Fun to revisit but its no Turtles in Time.

X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse is a tough-as-nails, classic SNES beat-em-up starring your favorite X-Men! Playing as Wolverine, Cyclops, Beast, Gambit, and Psylocke, you'll fight your way through hordes of enemies and iconic bosses. The graphics are bright and colorful, the music is catchy, but the real challenge makes this one addictive for retro action fans. It can get repetitive, and the difficulty spikes are brutal, but if you love a challenge and the X-Men, it's a worthwhile blast from the past.

An Uneven But Good X-Men Game

The Island of Genosha has captured and enslaved mutants via the commands of its dictator Apocalypse. Professor Xavier sends Wolverine, Cyclops, Psylocke, Gambit and Beast to put a stop to this.

Of course this won’t be an easy task. Because it’s a Capcom game on the SNES, a company that tend to either make their games not too difficult (Aladdin or Disney’s Magical Quest) or have it be pretty brutal until you learn the game (Mega Man X). X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse definitely falls into the latter.

Initially, rather than choose your favourite X-men out of the bunch and go through all stages, you instead get a specific stage with each character. Some are easier than others (Cyclops and Psylocke’s are likely the ones where you will meet the most difficulty). Once this is done, you continue through more stages where this time, you can select whichever X-Men you decide.

Gameplay is a 2D beat ‘em up with platform sections. The gameplay is solid but a caveat is that X-Men abilities are done in a Street Fighter-like manner; Want to unleash Cyclops blast beam? I hope you can do a hadouken input! Its not all complicated but it might throw some people off who expect a simpler control scheme for moves. That said, it does make each character stand out and everything else is standard.

This means that some stages (and bosses) are going to be easier with certain characters, so its the trial-and-error. And for most of your time spent on X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse will be finding this out the hard way.

The reason for its difficulty is that even normal mooks can deplete a good chunk of your energy via swarm tactics, early game can see cheap enemies introduced depending on who you picked, and if you lose a life, its back to the start of the stage. Yup, no checkpoints. Did you get punched to your doom while escaping a crumbling roof? Restart! Did you die to the boss? Restart! And if ONE of your X-Men loses all their lives (in the first half of the game)? GAME OVER! And while the game uses a password system, you don’t get your first one till you beat the first five stages. Another factor is that health pick-ups are sparse and you have to go out of your way to get an extra life.

Oddly, the second half of the game is easier though is still no cakewalk and has the usual BS.

It comes down to basically a game where you need to memorize everything to beat a stage with at least minimal mistakes. Because just one bad turn and you’re starting a level again. There is an initial frustration of cheap deaths but there is a satisfaction of suddenly things clicking and you find the optimal way to get through a level or beat a boss. There is a training mode but that only allows you to do the first five stages.

When it comes to presentation, X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse does the job. Visuals are very nice. Bright, large it feels like an X-Men game. And while some may prefer the gritty visuals that the Mega Drive game did, it hard not to feel its distinctive. Stage design is a slight let down, though Wolverine’s stage is pretty nifty in that you use his claws to climb certain parts of the stage and Beast’s showcases his ceiling-clinging ability (which is needed unless you want to lose lives quickly). Audio is less satisfactory as the music is like a weaker version of Mega Man X games, a little catchy but not memorable.

X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse doesn’t quite reach greatness as the difficulty spikes, cheap hits and deaths, with a presentation that could be stronger. But its still a good game that offers a challenge and a feeling of satisfaction once beaten. Well worth a go.

Rating: 7/10

X-Men Mutant Apocalypse is definitely one of those games I really needed several attempts to get into to appreciate. X-Men was basically my childhood, so I was super excited to load up the rom when I was a kid, but... I ended up being a bit underwhelmed and turned off by the difficulty TBH?

Flash forward to this month where on a whim I decided to give it another go and realized the problem. The input detection in this game is a bit imperfect, innit. The player has to make sure they're facing a certain direction and then perform the special move input, and even then it may drop sometimes. I'm the last person in the world to complain about fighting game inputs, and in other beat em ups with these inputs like Guardian Heroes or Final Fight 3 I can always do them more consistently. I think the input detection in this game just feels a bit off for this type of beat em upformer, but once I adjusted to it somewhat I started to really get into the game.

Visually, the game is mostly pretty rad! The sprites aren't MVC tier quality but they look about as nice and detailed as they could with the sheer amount of objects always on-screen, with the colours feeling picked right out of the 90s X-Men comics and cartoons. Just about all the proportions are on point, with characters like Gambit having visible abs and muscles to suggest his physical prowess and characters like Juggernaut being extremely hulking. Also, whoever drew Psylocke's sprites was crazy downbad good lord. I think the bright colours of the X-Men characters sometimes clash a bit with the game's dark world and may have preferred some designs like the dark red-brown Wolverine costume, but I think some designs like Gambit's thieves guild costume were a few years after this game's release so it's forgivable. At least my boy Magneto still looks like a BAMF. https://twitter.com/SigmaPosting/status/1378557944766230539

I feel pretty positively about the music. I don't think Gambit, Wolverine, Magneto, Psylocke, or Juggernaut have themes quite as memorable as in MVC games, but I still think Wolverine's is top notch and Cyclops' really befits that of someone who is constantly called in to fight war after war and is just tired of all that bullshit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T7zgTrk0tU

Actually thinking about it, the instrumentation just makes me feel like the music was mostly rejected compositions for a Mega Man X game, which isn't a bad thing but just definitely something I get vibes of from the boss music especially https://youtu.be/jkGlRm2Bk6g

Anyway, what about the gameplay? Well X-Men Mutant Apocalypse is basically a cross between the Mega Man X trilogy and Final Fight 3. It doesn't always gel together into a perfect experience but it fits the game really strongly overall, actually! Every character feels totally unique with different normals and focus. Wolverine and Psylocke have pretty great DPs and agility with tools like wall climbing or triangle kicks, while Cyclops is an almost pure zoner character to contrast Beast's rushdown focus. Then there's Gambit who feels like Jack of all trades, which I suppose is fitting when he's constantly throwing Jacks at motherfuckers.

Each character's specific levels suit them well enough, though when the character meet and tackle non-specific levels that's when it hit me; the game is extremely unbalanced. For example, in the final stage, every character needs to fight Exodus, but while Beast or Gambit have an easy time fighting him due to their command normals hitting him really fast with wide hitboxes, it was a struggle hitting him with even Wolverine or Psylocke's DP. It definitely feels like an unapproachable game, even if it's not a ballbustingly hard game when you've figured out the best way to route through it.

As for the story... eh, it's whatever. I noticed the English version is missing details like the bios being trimmed, but I think even in the Japanese version each X-Man only has one line each and that kinda sucks actually? I won't remove points for it but man it's a wasted opportunity to include more banter when the heart and soul of X-Men comics was the soap opera ass interactions.

Overall X-Men Mutant Apocalypse is a solid enough beat em upformer that gets a rec to play once if you're a fan of X-Men as well as MMX and Final Fight styled games. A romhack that alleviates input detection issues and maybe adds some darker shading to characters or extra dialogue could be just the push this game needs to bump it from a ~7-7.5/10 to an 8/10 for me.

tldr Capcom was the best at what they did, and what they did was very nice!

MUITO BOM, mas aquelas fases finais são putaria

Joguei esse jogo por pura piada, mas ele é um joguinho bom que da pra divertir numa tarde de sábado com um pastelzinho do lado e um suquinho de maracujá

beautiful, best marvel game of all time, but it's so hard

Not entirely sure why some are calling this a beat-em-up. This is more of an action-platformer. The game will switch between each of the 4 characters having their own levels and sharing 1 level between them.

Overall, a good game, a little unforgiving at times for my taste, but the music from Beast's initial level makes up for it. Certified banger.

Only played bits of it but it's pretty much a precursor to War of the Gems.