X-Men: Next Dimension is a fighting game, released in 2002 for the Xbox, PlayStation 2, and Nintendo GameCube. It is the third game in the X-Men: Mutant Academy fighting game series.
The gameplay is fairly complex, and reminiscent of the Street Fighter and Marvel vs. Capcom style command inputs. Each character has two punches, two kicks, a throw and a counter, combos and special moves, midair motion (including flight for some) and attacks, and Supers of Projectile, Physical, Attack Throw and Unique varieties. The fighting stages are fully 3-D rendered stages with their own layouts. It is possible to knock an opponent to a different part of the stage, which also functions as an individual stage.
There are 24note characters in all, including some unlockable and secret characters. Many of the characters have unique attributes specific to their own mutant abilities; ranging from Wolverine's Healing Factor Super Move, Nightcrawler's teleport attack and Rogue's power-stealing kiss, to Bishop's energy attack that becomes stronger the more damage he takes and The Blob's imperviousness to throws.
The story mode borrows elements from two storylines from the comics. The mutant-hating robot Bastion pays the Brotherhood to attack the X-Mansion while his Prime Sentinels capture Forge. Bastion uses a Mind Probe on Forge to extract the plans for the "Neutralizer" gun that disables mutant powers and sends a fleet of upgraded Prime Sentinels to bring all mutants down to normal. The X-Men and the Brotherhood, after some misunderstandings, team up with each-other to stop Bastion once and for all.
Game modes include Story mode, Arcade Mode, Vs. and morenote , and several movie clip extras.
This game provides examples of:
- Beam Spam: Cyclops. Havok. Oh, and Cyclops.
- Bittersweet Ending: Downplayed. While it is portrayed as uplifting what with Bastion defeated and Magneto brokering a truce between his Brotherhood and the X-Men, a brief shot of Rogue does show her crying upon having her powers restored.
- The Cameo:
- If you found yourself fighting particularly well in the basement level of the Tomb, Apocalypse may rise from his crypt and reward you with an Evil Laugh.
- Tombstones bearing the names "Anthony Stark," "Warren Worthington III," "Benjamin Grimm," and "Peter Parker" can be seen in the opening Danger Room scene.
- The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Cyclops is described in the manual as having "average strength and speed". Like he's the Jack of All Stats of the game. He'll mop the floor with any unsuspecting opponent, and even those who see him coming, with blink and you miss it attacks and long, damaging combos.
- Blocking renders your character immune to all attacks except for grabs (which do little damage and are tricky to use). The AI knows this and- on a bad day- the AI will do nothing but block and wait to attack until after you've unsuccessfully launched an attack and are still immobilized.
- Continuity Nod: The story mode is presented as in continuity with some comics events. Genosha and a previous encounter with Bastion are mentioned.
- As well, the final matches of arcade mode are enemies that the player character had some sort of connection to. For example, Bishop is fought and unlocked with Gambit. This is because Gambit was an integral part of Bishop's first origin story.
- Counter-Attack: Bishop has one as his level one super. It, along with one other attack that uses his powers, becomes stronger as the player takes damage beforehand. Also, regular counter attacks are a major part of the gameplay. At least for the AI...
- Distaff Counterpart: A female sentinel, Sentinel B, is featured in this game.
- Deus Exit Machina: A hilarious example; The Juggernaut charges right at Bastion, who responds by simply using a power ray to teleport him to Mars. The source of Juggernaut's power allows him to survive indefinitely without food, water or breathable air, so he could stay there forever, alone
- Downer Ending: One of the possible endings of Story Mode. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSaO7YX_mDc&feature=related
What's unusual is that you get this ending by doing well; by taking no damage during the final fight with Bastion. - Earn Your Bad Ending: The absolute worst ending sees Jean turn into Dark Phoenix in a fit of rage at seeing Bastion kill Cyclops, likely dooming the universe. You get this by beating Bastion as Phoenix without taking any damage.
- Enemy Mine: In Story Mode, the Brotherhood and the X-Men team up to fight Bastion.
- Free-Floor Fighting: There are levels where you can knock an opponent from one section down to another, dealing additional damage to them. For some levels, there are even multiple paths to make them fall.
- Idiosyncratic Combo Levels: eXtra! eXact!
- Kick Chick: At range, Storm spams lightning. Up close, she spams annoyingly fast kicks with remarkable reach. Usually knocking you into the air so she can use her upward-shooting lightning balls. Most female characters also exploit the range of kicks.
- Large Ham: Magneto. This isn't surprising in the least."LET NONE STAND BEFORE MY MIGHT!
- Launcher Move: Air seek moves can be followed up in midair by pressing up, leading to midair specials, juggle combos, etc.
- Lost in Imitation: Toad in this game is heavily based off of Ray Park's Toad from X-Men, to the point of having some of his quotes and doing a memorable
Throw It In! moment from the movie, where Toad dances mockingly, as his victory pose. - Made of Iron: You can be punched clean off a partially completed building, into an easily fractured ad, and fall down six storeys to a crash landing on a ruined cab - and still go on to win the fight. Even if you're mainly human like Cyclops or Psylocke. Lucky the ground was there to break your fall, eh?
- Mighty Glacier: Sentinel A moves very slowly but hits very hard. So does Juggernaut, but Sentinel A is bigger and slower. Blob too, for that matter.
- Monstrous Scenery: Apocalypse will sometimes appear in the background during fights in the Tomb level.
- Multiple Endings: You get one chance to defeat Bastion with Magneto before Phoenix takes a crack at him. However the endings for winning with Magneto or Phoenix are the same; the Phoenix ending just has her fly down to grab Magneto first.
- Multi-Slot Character:
- Jean Grey is separated into two slots, one as herself and one as her evil form Dark Phoenix.
- Psylocke was split into two forms as well her classic Psylocke form with telepathic powers and a psychic knife, and "Betsy" an, at the time, more modern version who had Telekinetic powers that took the form of a katana instead.
- Power Nullifier: The Prime Sentinels in Story Mode are armed with them. Within the game itself, their Super Moves disable your supers. Forge himself has a "Neutralizer" Super Move as well that does the same.
- Practical Taunt: In Rogue's taunt animation, she blows a kiss - as a short-range projectile which stuns her opponent if it hits them.
- Precision F-Strike: The worst, and only, swear in the game is Cyclops saying "what the hell is going on?". It serves its purpose for the mood.
- Recovery Attack: Each character has a different attack, with different ranges and positioning.
- Rubber Man: Lady Deathstrike, to an extend, as she can extend her limbs while attacking.
- Shout-Out: Some of the special moves (such as Wolverine's Level 3 Super) are taken right out of the Marvel vs. Capcom series.
- Shotoclone: Cyclops, with the added bonus that his projectiles go across the screen instantaneously. Also Havok.
- Status Effects: Several, including burn and confusion, are linked to various attacks. The "Silence" status effect is the main one, and instrumental to the plot. Here, it negates the ability to use Super attacks, as well as some of the effects of standard specials. In story mode for example, this causes Wolverine to stop healing.
- Superpowered Evil Side: The Dark Phoenix, though she isn't included in the plot at all, unless you get the last of 3 possible endings.
- Talking Is a Free Action: Sometimes, everything pauses when you use a super move. Beast always opens his third level super with a remark about how he just thought of something. Meaning that Lady Deathstrike lunges, then freezes in place as Beast tells her he just had an awesome idea - and then leaps high into the air and power-slams her.
- Teleport Spam: Nightcrawler, of course. Not only can the player do this, with varied success, but he also does so in three of his supers.
- Time Stands Still: Nightcrawler's Lvl 4 Super, which freezes the opponent, giving the player ample time to attack. And then translates those strikes into an awesome teleport combo.
