WELCOME TO DIE!
I love this game, colorful, beautiful and it's X-Men! And the first game I played on my PS3. I played both the JPN and USA Cabinets included in it, use 6 player mode for maximum resolution. USA has the typical bullshit of the era like GAME IS NOT OVER (even tho it is) and cutting heart refill pills that were in the Japanese version. But hey, still a great, I dig the inclusion of Dazzler and I love how it used Pryde of the X-Men pilot as reference. Cutscenes in general rule, great Arcade superhero game.

You ever have that word that you hear and, whenever you do, you just groan as an automatic response? Like, you are so sick of hearing this word due to certain elements surrounding it, that you ultimately distance yourself from whatever is related because of it. For me, that word would be Marvel. Not to say that I hate Marvel, or any of their various properties (don’t worry, I too am a Spider-Man fan), but given how oversaturated Marvel products have become over the years, I am incredibly hesitant to check any of them out, given how much people won’t shut up about the product, regardless of quality, and I am just generally uninterested in them as a whole. This sentiment, however, primarily is directed towards their movies, TV shows, comics, and what have you. In terms of video games… that’s a bit of a different story.

There have been MANY video games based on Marvel’s various heroes and properties, ever since the early 80s, and as you would expect, they all range wildly in quality, either being titles that do a spectacular job at making you feel like you are these superheroes, or ones that make you want to put these superheroes out of their misery. For my personal experience, I have had a hand in both the good and the bad of Marvel games to some extent, having played through the amazing (ha HA) Spider-Man games by Insomniac in recent years, as well as… sigh... the recent Marvel Avengers game (live service games are the Devil’s games). Over the past year, because I am a complete loser with nothing better to do, I have been curious as to the many other Marvel games that had come out over the years, so I decided to start by picking a game completely at random from the list, and I ended up with X-Men for the arcades.

Before I jumped into this game, I didn’t really know too much about, or cared too much about, the X-Men franchise as a whole. I hadn’t seen any X-Men TV show, read any of the X-Men comics, or played any other video game centered around the team. The closest I have come to experiencing the X-Men would be with both the Deadpool movies as well as the Deadpool game, but then again, those are primarily focused on Deadpool, who is not in this game, so needless to say, I am the proper candidate to judge a proper X-Men video game. Thankfully though, this game is pretty simple all around; it’s a beat-’em-up, it’s was made by Konami back when they didn’t suck, and based on previous titles from them in the same genre, I knew what to expect, and thankfully, I wasn’t let down because of that. It is all around a good game, even if it lacks several features that titles in this genre should have to begin with, but it makes up for it in other ways.

The story is your typical comic book plot, where Magneto is trying to destroy the world, and the X-Men have to go stop him, which serves it’s purpose for the kind of game it is a part of, the graphics are very good, not only having the style that Konami arcade games of the genre usually do, but also having a comic book aesthetic that doesn’t feel obnoxious or slapped on, the music is good enough, giving off the vibe that a game about comic book characters should give off, paired alongside some comical, yet enjoyable voice acting from the characters, even if the dialogue for the characters is… strange at points (man, I’ve always wanted to go to Die), the control is exactly what you would expect from a beat-’em-up, and it feels solid and fluid enough to where it doesn’t feel like a slog to carry out attacks, and the gameplay is… pretty much exactly what you expect, which is both a good and a bad thing in this case.

The game is your typical beat-’em-up, where you take control of one of six X-Men, go through plenty of stages from cities, forests, caves, and space fortresses, beat up many different enemies and goons from the comics, gain use to special moves to use towards your advantage along the way, and take on plenty of supervillains from the comic, such as the Juggernaut and Mystique. Now, judging this game is kind of hard, because on one hand, this game does nothing new for the genre, and it even has some thing missing (which I will get to later). But, with that being said, I think what we have here is another case similar to that of The Simpsons Arcade Game.

In order to truly enjoy this game, you would need to be a fan of the X-Men to some extent, and considering how long they have been around, and how well-known they are, it is hard to find someone who would say they absolutely despise them. So, there is plenty to enjoy about this game, given how there is plenty for X-Men fans to enjoy, such as, once again, the appearance of many familiar faces from the comics that you can play as and take on throughout the game. Not to mention, in my case, I played the game on a deluxe cabinet that allowed six people to play at once, and while I played by myself, I imagine that the game’s value would increase tremendously when you play with a group of friends, each playing as your favorite X-Man, and kicking ass with them to your hearts content.

With that being said, if you aren’t a fan of the X-Men, or you just simply don’t care too much about them, there is nothing here for you. It is as basic as beat-’em-ups get, to the point that I would consider this THE MOST BASIC that I have ever covered from this genre so far. What doesn’t help that is the fact that this game is missing one central element that is essential to beat-’em-ups: the items. In literally any other beat-’em-up, there are usually items that you can pick up along the way that can help you out in some way, such as giving you more health, allowing you to use a temporary weapon to deal more damage, or just simply giving you points, and these items tend to add to the enjoyment of the game. Here, however, there are no items at all in the whole game, which is strange, considering that in the Japanese version of the game (which released two months before the other versions, by the way), there actually ARE items that you can pick up to help you out. So… why would you remove a feature like that before you release a game in other territories? Man, even in the 90s, Konami made dumbass decisions that make no sense.

Overall, despite how basic the gameplay is, and the sheer lack of items, this is still an enjoyable beat-’em-up, and a pretty good starting point for me in the world of X-Men games. I would recommend it for fans of X-Men or Marvel as a whole, but trust me, if you do plan on playing this game, make sure you get a group of friends to play with you. It will make the experience a lot more enjoyable if you do. You know, after two of you spend the first five minutes of the session arguing on which out of the two of you should be Wolverine.

Game #334

Beat this shit at a barcade. Probably cost me $10 but fuck it, it rips. The Mystique plot twist at the end had me hootin and hollerin. Shoutouts Bonebreaker, I don't have an action figure of him. Shoutouts Dazzler, should’ve been Rogue but whatever. And Cyclops runs around in his little diaper.

I actually played the first half at one barcade and the second half at another barcade in a different time zone. This happened less than one week apart by pure coincidence. Also if you're gonna play this at a barcade prepare to use the stickiest joysticks in your life.