“To me, my X-Men!” The X-Men are the most popular superhero group of all time, even after a decade of playing second fiddle to the Avengers thanks to the MCU. They’ve had countless comic books, several movies, and so, so many video games.
Dating all the way back to the early ’90s, the X-Men have been getting some quality titles. Fans who’d love to control their favorite characters in the group have plenty to choose from, and even a variety of genres from fighting games from action-RPGs to side-scrollers. And while some of the earlier games might be difficult, that just makes whoever beats them a more hardcore fan by the end.
10 The X-Men Arcade Game Provides Multi-Player Fun
In 1992, Marvel teamed up with Konami to put an X-Men game out onto the arcade scene. Though the cartoon was not too far off from premiering, the designs of the characters were clearly more inspired by the X-Men: Pryde of the X-Men pilot and the 1980s comics. Still, players got to play as one of six different X-Men including Cyclops, Colossus, Storm, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, and one of the few games that actually lets players play as one of the best X-Men ever; Dazzler. Up to six players can take this game on and try to make their way to Asteroid M.
9 The X-Men Game On Sega Genesis Features A Tiny Core Cast Trying To Get Out Of The Danger Room
Sega assigned Western Technologies Inc. to create an X-Men game for their Sega Genesis in 1993. By this point, the prevailing look of the X-Men was that of the X-Men from the 1990s animated series, so fans of the show would feel at home here. The cast is unfortunately rather tiny, as it’s only Gambit, Wolverine, Cyclops, and Nightcrawler that are playable. Fortunately, all of them have their own powers they can use to get through the game. In the game, the Danger Room has been infected with a virus and the four X-Men must try to escape the deadly training scenarios and find the person responsible. This game is fun so long as people can tolerate how difficult it is.
8 X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse Sends Mutants On A Mission To Genosha
Capcom worked with Marvel to release another game based on the X-Men in 1994, entitled X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse. This game took the classic X-Men members Cyclops, Gambit, Beast, Psylocke, and Wolverine and teamed them up to defeat Magneto. Though interestingly, the main quest is traveling to Genosha to free mutants after they’d been captured.
In this game, players could choose who to beat every stage with, and of course every character had their own unique abilities to get through the stage. At the end of each stage, players faced a different boss they had to beat to continue progressing. Unsurprisingly, Capcom created a pretty solid X-Men game for the era.
7 X-Men: Children of the Atom Is The First X-Men Fighting Game
Capcom was on an unstoppable roll in the ’90s. They not only had their hit game Street Fighter II out, but started producing a number of other fighters as well. X-Men: Children of the Atom is actually more influential than people might believe, as within the game there are the beginnings of the ideas that would appear in Marvel vs. Capcom later on. The roster is a bit tiny, as there are only ten characters, including six of the X-Men: Wolverine, Storm, Iceman, Cyclops, Psylocke, and Colossus. Interestingly, the game’s main storyline is based on the X-Men’s “Fatal Attractions” saga from the comics, one of their most iconic stories from that era.
6 X-Men: Gamemaster’s Legacy Has One Of the Largest X-Men Rosters From Its Era
X-Men: Gamesmaster’s Legacy was a sequel to the original X-Men game for the Game Gear. Releasing in 1995, the game adapts part of the story of the “X-Cutioner’s Song” and included the Upstarts as villains. The main roster focuses on Cyclops and Storm, but gradually more characters can be unlocked. This actually has one of the most extensive rosters for this era, including Gambit, Rogue, Jean Grey, Bishop, and more. The goal of the team is to find the cure to the Legacy Virus while battling against the Gamesmaster.
5 X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse Saw The X-Men And Brotherhood Team Up
In 2005, Raven Software and Activision released X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse, the follow-up to their popular original title. This time around, the X-Men were up against the threat of one of their biggest enemies; Apocalypse. Because of this, the X-Men were forced to work with the Brotherhood of Mutants. This increases the roster size immensely, granting access to characters like Toad and Sabertooth. The one big drawback of this game is that the roster was split up across all the different platforms the game was released on, so no one got every character.
4 X-Men: Mutant Academy Gave X-Men Fans A Fighting Game For The New Era
By no means is X-Men: Mutant Academy on the level of the Capcom titles. However, it is a fun enough experience for those who bought it on PlayStation. It’s meant to be a tie-in with the original X-Men movie, which limits its roster. The game only has the characters from the film, which results in a roster of only ten characters including both villains and heroes. Nonetheless, players have access to a story mode and survival mode, as well as versus mode for friends that come over.
3 X-Men VS. Street Fighter Is The First Big Crossover Between Capcom And Marvel
Capcom continued its success in the ’90s with the third game in their Marvel fighting series, X-Men vs. Street Fighter. By reusing sprites, Capcom was able to pack this roster with almost twenty different characters. For the Street Fighter side of things, they included all the classics from the Super Street Fighter II era.
Meanwhile, the X-Men got to enjoy both classic heroes and well-known villains of the X-Men. This includes characters like Sabertooth and Magneto as well as Storm and Cyclops. As the superpowers got more ridiculous, even the Street Fighter characters got powered up, allowing for Hyper Combos. X-Men vs. Street Fighter was the last of Capcom’s Marvel titles before the legendary Marvel vs. Capcom series began, and fortunately, they went out with a bang.
2 Spider-Man/X-Men: Arcade’s Revenge Teamed Up Marvel’s Most Popular Characters
Software Creations teamed up with Acclaim Entertainment to create a title based on Marvel’s two most popular properties. Spider-Man and the X-Men: Arcade’s Revenge begins with Spider-Man realizing the X-Men have been kidnapped and finding a way to break into Arcade’s Murderworld to help them escape. Storm, Wolverine, Cyclops, and Gambit all have two separate stages each before the group confronts Arcade. The problem with this game was that it was one of the more difficult SNES titles, particularly for superhero titles.
1 X-Men Legends Let Fans Control A Massive X-Men Team Against Magneto’s Brotherhood
The most fondly remembered X-Men game that isn’t a fighting game is easily X-Men Legends. An action-RPG, X-Men Legends introduces a new mutant named Alison Crestmere and sends the X-Men on a mission to get her back after she’s been kidnapped. This leads them into conflict against the Brotherhood of Mutants, who want to use Magma’s powers for their own benefit. Players control a team of four heroes at a time, leading them into battle against different threats until they face off against Magneto at the end of the game on Asteroid M.
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