 I grew up a Super Nintendo kid obviously, but I was always intensely jealous when the Sega Genesis got an X-Men game before the SNES did. It had three of my favorites, Wolverine, Gambit, and Nightcrawler, plus Cyclops, but who even likes Cyclops? You also got occasional help from Rogue, Archangel, or Iceman, and it all led up to a final battle with Magneto. The cover alone is badass looking. I wanted this game so bad. A year later, thankfully, Capcom cranked out their own X-Men game for the Super Nintendo, and I remember being disappointed at first because it wasn't the Genesis game, and it wasn't the X-Men Arcade game either, which I can remember a rumor about way back when. But as it is, the game is very solid, but not spectacular. It does hold up pretty well today, thanks to Capcom nailing down the details. It always helps to have huge, detailed sprites in a beat-em-up, for example, and you need to have good sound. It should feel satisfying to kick someone's ass, and it is. It also helps to have some variation in the gameplay, and X-Men Mutant Apocalypse does this by having five characters to choose from. They did a solid job choosing the right mutants for this game as well. Wolverine is a given, obviously. Beast is a good melee fighter. Gambit as cool as hell. Everyone loves Gambit. Cyclops, because, I guess he's just contractually obligated to be there or something? Seriously, does anybody actually like Cyclops? The only strange choice is Psylocke. I like Psylocke, but wouldn't Rogue be a much better fit here? Anyway, each mutant has their own stage, kinda like Mega Man, although the stages really aren't all that different from each other. Each mutant gets two lives. If you die twice, then you can either find an extra guy buried somewhere in another stage to bring them back, or you'll have to complete that stage with whoever you've got left. The combat has a standard kick-punch stuff, but each mutant's powers can be utilized by street-fire-styled commands. This really adds a lot to the game. Gambit throws three kinetically charged playing cards just by doing a simple Hadouken. Very cool. The game doesn't let you do it in mid-air, which is a bummer, but it's still a cool feature. Now, I don't normally talk about story in a simple beat-em-up game, because let's face it, who cares? But I always really like the core story behind the X-Men and how it mirrors the real world when it comes to how people deal with discrimination. With this game, the story features a made-up country called Junosha from the comic book, which quietly enslaves mutants while the rest of the world just sort of turns a blind eye away from it. Well, thankfully, that's what the X-Men are for. They strategically infiltrate key areas, so there's an actual explanation as to why each mutant gets their own area. I just thought that was a neat little touch. Hopefully you're led to a final boss battle with Apocalypse. Where the hell is Magneto? Apocalypse is so lame! Oh, wait. There he is. Never mind. Sorry, my inner 12-year-old is still mad about that. I should mention, if you're a die-hard X-Men fan, you're probably going to be a little bit annoyed with how some of the characters are portrayed, and yeah, it's easy to be pedantic and nitpick the game to death, like why are the brood involved in this game, or why are they associated with any of these villains at all? But none of that matters. The bottom line is X-Men Mutant Apocalypse is a great looking and solidly made beat-em-up.