Video Game / X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse

Mutants—humans possessing incredible powers as a result of genetic mutation. Persecuted by their fellow man for being... different. In order to teach mutants to use their powers for the benefit of all, even those who hunted and feared them, Professor Charles Xavier created the X-Men. His ultimate goal: to create a world where humans and mutants can live together in peace.
Genosha, a little known island where mutants are imprisoned, forced into labor by a brutal army and robot Sentinels. There is one being whose evil mind has other, far more sinister plans in mind for those captured mutants of Genosha... the monstrous entity known as Apocalypse.
X-Men, you must depart for Genosha and free our fellow mutants! Good Luck.

— Opening Narration

X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse is a Beat 'em Up / Platform Game developed and published in 1994 for the Super Nintendo by Capcom, based on the popular X-Men comic, with a few elements from The '90s cartoon series. Professor Charles Xavier has dispatched five of his best X-Men to the island of Genosha to rescue fellow mutants that are being forced into labor by the evil Apocalypse. However, after completing this mission, Magneto arrives, threatening to destroy Genosha in 24 hours, so the heroes depart to his space station, Avalon, to stop him before he destroys the world.

Gameplay-wise, the player has an attack button, a special attack button, and a jump button. You can choose from Wolverine, Gambit, Psylocke, Cyclops, or Beast, each with their own set of moves and combos. At the title screen you can choose to play Mission Mode (the normal story) or Training Mode (letting you practice the first stage for each character). At the start of the game, each character has a mission to complete. When all missions are accomplished, the game continues linearly.

Had a tie-in comic, Prelude to Perdition.

See also Marvel Super Heroes: War of the Gems, which uses the same gameplay and mechanics.

Not to be confused with X-Men: Apocalypse.

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STAGE START

• A God Am I: The Final Boss sees himself as this, as seen in this Exchange with his second-in-charge.
  Magneto: So, Exodus, Xavier's children are no doubt coming to Avalon. They must be taught who their true master is.
  Exodus: With pleasure, my master. They shall bow down before your presence, and renounce Xavier's ways.
  Magneto: Only then will Xavier understand that Magneto is the most powerful mutant in the world.
• Adaptational Badass: While definitely a Badass in the comics, Final Boss Magneto gets this cranked up to eleven in the game. He's given twice as much health as the two bosses detailed directly below, Apocalypse and Exodus, as well as Juggernaut, all of whom are better at taking a beating than he is in the comics. Despite this toughness upgrade, he is also allowed to keep his signature Deflector Shield, meaning that in spite of all that health you'll only have a short window of opportunity in his attack patterns to hit him. Unsurprisingly, he's the only boss in the game that qualifies for Marathon Boss status.
• Adaptational Wimp:
  • Downplayed with Exodus: Despite this game coming close to portraying him accurately, it features him only as a Mini-Boss with a fraction of his powers.
  • Apocalypse himself. Despite being immortal and immensely powerful in the comics, and even a Large Ham in the '90s cartoon, in this game he's merely a Bait-and-Switch Boss, who gets quickly demoted and replaced by Magneto upon defeat.
• Advancing Wall of Doom: More like a wall of lava chasing you through a tunnel at the start of Apocalypse's stage.
• And the Adventure Continues: The X-Men have merely shattered Magneto's plan, and he escapes again, not without first vowing to come back. Professor X appears to congratulate the team for their victory, and tells them that they must continue their mission of making a world where humans and mutants can coexist in peace.
• Anti-Frustration Features: If you fail to defeat Magneto at the first attempt, you can try again with the same character, or another. Magneto will resume the battle with as much vitality as he had left, which means you don't have to restart the whole fight.
• Attack Its Weak Point: Some of the robotic bosses in Avalon have a core you have to aim at.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Psylocke's diagonal flying kick attack deals huge damage to any baddie, but you have to get really close to them; and it has a lot of recovery time, so, if you fail to connect, you'll be wide open for an enemy to counter.
• Background Boss:
  • The Sentinel boss in Wolverine's stage; you have to fight its head, and the rest os its body is only visible in the background.
  • Also the giant core boss at Wolverine's Avalon Stage.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: The Brood; when they hatch, they are human-sized.
• Boring, but Practical: Wolverine's Drill Claw attack is not as flashy as his Tornado Claw, but it's easier to perform, and it deals almost the same amount of damage if aimed correctly.
• Boss-Only Level: The fights against Omega Red and Juggernaut in the Danger Room. It's an exercise prepared by Professor X as tests of skill for the upcoming battle with Magneto.
• Bound and Gagged: Cyclops, Psylocke and Wolverine are all captured in the Comic-Book Adaptation by Exodus and brought to the Final Boss's lair to be "tried for your crimes against your race".
• Bullfight Boss / Ramming Always Works:
  • The guard robot minibosses. Be ready to dodge if it starts flashing in gold.
  • Tusk also charges at you.
  • So does Juggernaut.
• The Cameo: If you're able to beat the game without using passwords, and without losing a single life, you will be rewarded with an extended cutscene with Bishop, Rogue, Storm, Jubilee and Jean Grey.
• Combos: All characters have a standard autocombo, performed by rapidly pressing the Y button.
• Comic-Book Adaptation: A tie-in comic was created as promotional material for the game. It was produced in limited quantities, and so commands a fairly hefty price on the secondary market.
• Cores-and-Turrets Boss: The robotic bosses at Cyclops's and Wolverine's Avalon stages have a core you have to aim at. The boss at Beast's Avalon stage is a turret that moves back and forth, and fires lightning bolts.
• Corrupt Church: The Acolytes of Magneto, particularly in the tie-in comic where their base is depicted as looking like a medieval dungeon despite also being a high-tech Space Base.
• Crosshair Aware: A crosshair chases Psylocke for the first part of her Avalon stage. It will shoot two laser beams if able to lock on its target.
• Cue the Sun: After defeating Magneto.
• Death from Above: Wolverine has a diving attack in his arsenal.
• Defeat Means Friendship: After defeating Apocalypse, Professor X says that the Genoshan government has agreed to open a dialogue regarding their treatment of mutants. This is cruelly defied by Magneto:
  You're far too easily duped, Charles. Humans can never be trusted!
• Developer's Foresight: Ironically, the writers of the tie-in comic to the game. They intentionally end the comic on a cliffhanger, with Cyclops, Psylocke and Wolverine captured and taken to Avalon. As it turns out, those are the exact three characters that have to fight Avalon's guardian Exodus as a Flunky Boss. Beast and Gambit, the two X-Men left behind, are also the only two characters that get to fight Exodus 1-on-1 in the game.
• Disc-One Final Boss: Apocalypse. At first it seems he'll be the final boss given that he's the responsible for the mutant imprisonment in Genosha (Having his name in the game title doesn't help); but he's quickly demoted and replaced by Magneto upon defeat.
• Diving Kick: One of Exodus's favourite attacks.
• Engrish: Mild case, not enough to qualify for "Blind Idiot" Translation but some lines are worded rather awkwardly.
• Epic Flail: The guard robot miniboss in Psylocke's stage attacks you with one of these.
• Epunymous Title: The game is named X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse. Guess what is the name of one of their main foes?
• Extra-ore-dinary: Magneto can summon four metal plates and throw them at you.
• Eye Beams:
  • Cyclops's Optic Blast.
  • The Sentinel bosses also have them. At the start of Psylocke's mission, she's knocked off her hovering bike by a sentinel using eye beams.
  • Exodus can attack with these.
• Flunky Boss:
  • The Incomplete Sentinel boss at Wolverine's stage is assisted by some Genoshan mooks.
  • The Brood try to keep you at bay, and protect Queen Brood.
  • Also Exodus, who is assisted by his Acolytes if fought by Cyclops, Psylocke, or Wolverine. Beast and Gambit get to fight him 1 on 1.
• Fragile Speedster: Wolverine and Psylocke are very fast, with good combos to deal a lot of damage.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: In the game, Juggernaut and Omega Red appear only as training simulations. In the tie-in comic, they actually appear, working together in a Villain Team-Up that was apparently orchestrated by Magneto.
• Gas Mask Mooks: They exist in some stages: the baddies with guns and grenades.
• Giant Mook: A few stages have a noticeably larger and more musclar mook, who's also stronger - he can take three Optic Blasts, whereas his regular buddies all die to a single one.
• Hijacked by Ganon: Despite being the villain the game is named for, Apocalypse turns out to just be a Disc-One Final Boss who vanishes without fanfare after his defeat and is neither seen nor mentioned again for the rest of the game.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Apocalypse in the tie-in comic. Turns out he hadn't planned on his stock of Genoshan mutant slaves being infected by the Brood, and when they transform and Zerg Rush him he's forced to flee.
• Hologram: The boss in Gambit's Avalon stage is a machine that creates holographic copies of the other X-Men.
• Inconveniently-Placed Conveyor Belt: The battle against Tusk takes place on a conveyor belt over a lava pool that moves back and forth.
• Informed Ability: Psylocke's main power is to create psychic knives, but the closest she has in-game is a charged punch, useful to deal with the stronger baddies.
• Insect Queen: Queen Brood, a massive creature that mostly attacks by sending her Brood at you.
• Interface Spoiler: The game takes proper care to hide that Magneto is the real main bad guy... except that his face is one of the possible characters in a password, so it's easy to draw conclusions from that.
• Jack of All Stats: Cyclops is the most balanced of the group in regards of strength and speed.
• Left Hanging: The Comic-Book Adaptation ends this way, with Omega Red and Juggernaut beaten, but half the team abducted by Exodus to Avalon to be tried by Magneto.
• Life Drain:
  • Used by Omega Red. He drains your lifebar and adds that energy to his own.
  • Magneto can send you an energy ball to drain your lifebar; unlike Omega Red, Magneto can't add that energy to his own.
• Lightning Bruiser: Gambit has great speed, and hits very hard. His kinetically-charged cards give him a long range option.
• Marathon Boss: The Final Boss has twice as much health as any other boss and is invulnerable to attack for most of his attack pattern, making the fight against him a long, hard slog of chipping away at him.
• Made of Explodium: Queen Brood explodes upon defeat.
• Mecha-Mooks: The Sentinel bosses, specially in Beast's stage, where you have to fight three of them.
• Mighty Glacier: Beast is the slowest of the group, but the one who hits the hardest.
• Mission Control: Professor X talks to the X-Men between missions to gives a brief summary of what comes next.
• Mooks: Chrome, who in the comics is a fairly flat character from the first generation of Acolytes, is in this game the template for the Avalon Acolyte enemies.
• Mooks, but no Bosses: Gambit's stage doesn't have a proper boss fight; the closest it has is a fight against a helicopter miniboss with Frickin' Laser Beams, after you take the lasers down, you have to jump in, and beat up the baddies inside.
• Mook Maker:
  • Tusk attacks by sending his Tuskettes at you.
  • Queen Brood also sends her Brood at you.
• More Dakka: The train boss at Cyclops's stage attacks you with a huge arsenal of missiles, small bombs, and baddies in hovering bikes with machine guns.
• Multiple Game Openings: At the start of the game, each character has a mission to complete, but they can be played in any order. After all the missions are complete, the game continues linearly.
• Never Say "Die": Averted with Apocalypse.
  Come to me, X-Men. Come to your doom!
• Ninja: Psylocke, according to her profile.
• One-Hit-Point Wonder:
  • The weaker versions of the Gas Mask Mooks are this.
  • The regular mooks are this if you Optic Blast them.
  • The Tuskettes are also this.
• Palette Swap: The regular Genoshan mooks come in three different colors as an indicative of their attack patterns. The same goes for the Brood in the forest stage.
• Password Save: Of the "Level" Kind. To write passwords, the game uses portraits of the X-men, as well as Apocalypse and Magneto.
• Plasma Cannon:
  • You find two of them in a large shaft in Wolverine's Avalon stage.
  • This is the main attack of the core bosses in Wolverine's and Cyclops's Avalon stages.
• Playing with Fire:
  • Gambit and his telekinetic cards.
  • Apocalypse can also throw a fireball at you.
• Power Floats: Exodus attacks from above. And so does Magneto.
• Psychic Powers: Psylocke, according to her profile.
• Recurring Boss:
  • The guard robot miniboss in Wolverine's, Psylocke's, and Beast's stages. Each time it has a slightly different attack and pattern.
  • The first time you defeat Exodus, he escapes. If you get to Magneto, and lose, you may choose to try with another character, you'll find Exodus with half of his lifebar, and you can finish him for good. And, if you get again to Magneto, and lose, you can choose a third character, Exodus won't appear anymore.
• Rise to the Challenge:
  • At Apocalypse stage, lava rises in a large shaft leading to Apocaylpse's room.
  • At Psylocke's Avalon stage, the fight against the huge rocket boss takes place in a large shaft which is scrolling down, so, you have to jump from platform to platform to avoid falling to your death.
• Rule of Three: At the first stages, there are some square ítems with a Capital X on them. You have to collect three of them to gain an Extra Life.
• Scenery Porn / Technology Porn: The backgrounds in Avalon stages are gorgeous.
• Selective Magnetism: Magneto uses his magnetic powers as a force field, or to summon metallic plates, and throw them at you.
• Shock and Awe:
  • The guard robot miniboss at Beast's Stage shoots balls of electricity at you.
  • The turret boss at Beast's Avalon stage fires lightning bolts at you. The whole stage may also count as this, given it's a huge electrical trap.
  • Magneto uses his force field to zap you.
• Shoryuken: Wolverine's Tornado Claw requires the same input as in Street Fighter.
• Shout-Out: Gambit's Combo Finisher is similar to M.Bison's Double Knee Press.
• Space Base: The Final Boss's space station, Avalon.
• Spread Shot: Gambit can throw three cards at the same time.
• Stripperiffic: Beast on the male side, Psylocke on the female side.
• Super-Reflexes: Beast of all people. He has super agility that allows him to walk on the ceilings, and move unusually fast for a character his size.
• Teleport Spam:
  • Apocalypse uses this to confuse you.
  • Exodus is also fond of this tactic, and so are his Acolytes.
• The Brute: Tusk is this to Apocalypse.
• The Juggernaut: Appears as the boss of the second Danger Room stage.
• The Smurfette Principle: Psylocke is the only female in a group of five playable characters.
• This Cannot Be!: Magneto's reaction after his defeat.
• Training Boss: You must battle Omega Red and Juggernaut in the Danger Room, as a preparation for the upcoming battle with Magneto. Subverted by the fact that you still lose a life if you're defeated.
• Traintop Battle: In Cyclops' first mission, he has to destroy a huge supply train that throws bombs, missiles, and is protected by hovering bike-riding baddies shooting at you with machine guns. You have to aim at its core below, although most of this battle takes place on top of it.
• Unique Enemy:
  • The Brood are exclusive to the forest stage.
  • Exodus's mooks only appear at the Avalon stages, along with some small robots with Frickin' Laser Beams.
• Vehicular Assault: The battle against the tandem rotor helicopter miniboss in Gambit's stage takes place on a motorized surfboat.
• Vertical Kidnapping: Exodus's main attack: he swoops down, grabs you, flies high above and drops you to the ground.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Magneto. As seen in his speech, he still searches to protect mutants from humans.
  I, Magneto, master of magnetism, shall deliver a crushing blow to the Genoshan government in 24 hours. Tell your X-Men to evacuate Genosha Immediately and take the other mutants with them. I have no intentions of harming fellow mutants. Obey Magneto, savior of the mutant kind!.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: After defeating Apocalypse, it is unclear if he died, or just escaped.
  • This was actually addressed in the tie-in comic, where it was revealed that Apocalypse had been attacked by the Brood and forced to flee.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Lampshaded by Beast after defeating Magneto.
  One who relies solely on power can never truly win. Magneto, violence can never be the solution!
• Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: After Apocalypse is defeated, Magneto announces his intentions to attack Genosha, and the X-Men have to stop him as well.

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