X-Men (Sega Genesis) Review

(Originally posted December, 2015)

(1993, Sega Genesis)

In the late 80’s/early 90s, it was all about the NES and SNES. Not just for me, but also for nearly everyone else in the neighborhood. I was heavily in the Nintendo bubble when it came to consoles, even subscribing exclusively to their own magazine. Unless I paid a visit to Toys R Us or flipped through a Sears catalog, I barely knew what was going on with the Genesis or TurboGraphx. Aside from being Richie Rich and having my own arcade cabinet, I thought it couldn’t get any better as a gamer. Finally, all the way into ’92, I had my first major real life exposure to the Genesis with Sonic 2 at a friend’s house. Make no mistake, it was REALLY cool and refreshing to experience, but even then I could tell the Hedgehog didn’t have the eternal quality of Mario. This wasn’t quite the game to lure me in to the Sega camp.

Around ’93 at the age of 10, I just started my comic book phase and soon got wind of the X-Men game for the Genesis. I really loved my SNES, but for the first time, I seriously questioned if I should have asked for a Sega instead. I remember even having a dream about getting a Genesis and this game. Around this time, another friend got a copy at his house. While trying it out, the exhilaration of finally playing it perfumed the mediocre design, leaving me feeling that X-Men was neat, but nothing mind blowing. Further into the 90s, I messed with it again on an emulator and finally saw the game for the licensed mediocrity that it was. Now in 2015, finding a cart for $6 shipped on eBay and looking to expand my current Genesis library beyond all those Sega mega-compilations and a loose cart or two, I decided to just go ahead and get the game for the sake of having it. Plus, it would be nice to finally beat something I briefly obsessed over. What could the harm be? As it turns out, maybe an adamantium claw to the ear drums and a massive optic blast to one’s patience…

Out of all the levels, the opening Savage Land is the most tolerable, but even then the game reveals it’s true nature which lurks just beneath the unbelievably exciting box art. The game as a whole is a broken chore to play, as enemies often pop out of nowhere, lacking weight or solidity when touched. The puzzles and platforming feels crafted just to pad the level length rather than offer any real creativity or excitement. Bosses don’t have any distinctive weak points and offer no clues to the player, leaving the act of finding their vulnerability frames/hit boxes up to researching a strategy or a very grueling process of trial and error, as you’ll be knocked out of the level after one death. The computer virus infected Danger Room will punish you with a game over message on level 3 if you took the option of playing on easy, yet strangely allows for all the other levels to be completed on that same difficulty setting if the level select code is used.

For 1993, the graphics were sub-par, yet deceptively appealing by really nailing the colors of each X-Man and major boss character. It actually looks like Wolverine is going up against Sabretooth. They’re not just a couple of tiny, primitive video game avatars like the NES games. The huge illustration of Magneto at the beginning closely resembles the actual art in the recently debuted X-Men: Vol 2. After the excitement of seeing the comics in motion wears off, it’s easy to notice the game’s not only underwhelming on a technical level, but downright buggy. Hitting pause in the Ruined Future level will switch certain sprite tiles to their destroyed form. Other than the mysterious and gloomy ocean view during the lighthouse level, none of the background designs are particularly exciting, offering a barely passable representation of the worlds that are far better brought to life in the comics.

For the sound, if I said “ultra sonic scaler,” that would seem like I was talking about a cool technical feature like Mode-7 or Blast Processing. I’m actually referring to that torturous cleaning device the dental hygienist deploys, which reminds me of the music in this game. Some of it’s actually very decent and catchy, but outside of the nicely programmed drums, many of the instruments are downright abrasive to listen to. Still, Magneto has some effectively foreboding music and the beat of stage 2 is really fun. A couple of the sound effects are memorably strange, such as the weirdness of Savage Land’s insects and their radio-wave noises. The random, horrible dentist drills actually fit well in Mojo’s stage. On the whole, it’s a bit sad that some potentially good music was held back by poor programming to the hardware.

Even more disappointing than the graphics or gameplay is that so many of the characters and bosses didn’t even attempt to make a worthy transition to the videogame world. The potentially formidable Juggernaut and Sabretooth pop out of nowhere as mere mid-bosses and are defeated with a whimper. There’s no sense of looming showdown except for the Magneto fight. Stages and boss fights are preceded with a couple quick lines of text, but this more than any other game could have used some Ninja Gaiden style cutscenes. Out of the four playable characters, Nightcrawler is satisfying to teleport with, but no one else’s mutant powers feel very extraordinary. The assist characters get a handful of more X-Men in the game, but are a bit underutilized. Wielding your mutant powers is far better enjoyed in Capcom’s X-Men: COTA (which was unbelievably well executed and over the top at the time) or within the spectacle of Konami’s massive arcade cabinet, which back in the day was only behind SF2 and Mortal Kombat in terms of ability to capture everyone’s attention. I shouldn’t expect a ton from a mid-90s licensed game, but Konami and Capcom’s attempts at least tried (and succeeded) at being fantastical.

Not liking to give up on a game after starting, especially near the end, I finally tapped out after getting to (and quickly dying) at Magneto. After my loss, I wasn’t too eager to spend another 30 minutes waiting for Nightcrawler’s teleportation or Wolverine’s healing factor to slowly recharge as I inched my way back through the level. I just looked up the fight and ending on youtube, which was actually pretty decently written and illustrated. A shame this type of narrative wasn’t inserted all throughout the game.

As a whole, the game is very frustrating to play though, even with the level select/difficulty option. All in all, I wouldn’t have been too happy to have received this as a child and am now glad I didn’t press too hard to get a Genesis at that point in time. For those who owned the game in the 90s, I imagine more fun would have come from memorizing the enemy pop-up points and blazing through the game to the astonishment of your kart riding, master-sword swinging friends than the actual playing itself. I kind of regret throwing away the mere $6 that was spent. With other games, such as Clone Wars and Mutant Apocalypse better fulfilling the promise of 16-bit Marvel action, the original X-Men for the Genesis is best left to the memory as a devious point of envy among SNES owners during the early days of the system wars.