365//365: Day 214 – X-Men 2: Clone Wars (GEN)

The first X-Men title on the Sega Genesis had a sort of nostalgic vibe to it. Gamers fondly remembered the good times with the four selectable mutants and the four selectable one time use mutants, hitting the Reset button at the end of Mojo’s stage out of frustration only to discover that they just advanced the level forward, and more. Sadly though, we all were wearing ruby quartz glasses that Scott Summers lent us, and didn’t really care to remember the monotonous gameplay, plain Jane game world and lack of health restoration. Fortunately, there was a sequel in X-Men 2: Clone Wars, that did right the wrong of the previous title. But did this George Lucas name stealing title do enough to make this franchise a viable one?

When you power on most any video game from the 8 bit era on up to now, you are usually introduced to visuals of who developed the game, published the game, heck sometimes it’ll open up with a dedication to someone or something. The moment you power X2 on, you’re literally thrusted into the action, with one of the six selectable mutants in your control. You going in cold, both in the story as well as the setting of the arctic backdrop you were dropped into.

Thankfully each mutant is not restricted to how many times they can use their powers at any given time.

Depending on the mutant you’re forced with on that first stage, you’ll notice a couple of things right off the bat — the first being the more detailed visuals as a whole. Even with the mostly white backdrops, you can tell there’s a bit more care with the character models, as well as the scenery at hand. The next thing you’ll notice is something that hindered your progress in the first title has now been fixed — your mutant powers. No longer are Xavier’s students limited to how much they can use their powers and how long you are required to wait for them to replenish. Being able to unleash an optic blast at will, without having to stand around for 45 seconds in order to refill enough utant power bar to shoot another blast, is a breath of fresh air, one that should have been implimented a game earlier.

Controlling each mutant feels a bit more diverse this time around. While most characters have some sort of double jump, Cyclops does not, yet has a better ability to command the direction of his jump. Nightcrawler has a double jump, with a funky speed boost at the end of the second jump. The agile characters feel about the way they should, although out of the six playable mutants, only Cyclops and Gambit should be the ones with a slightly lessened agaility. Each of the mutants have a modest length to their melee attacks, so there’s less worry about needing to get up close and personal with your foes.

The difficulty is a bit on the lenient side, at least early on. Some of the bosses however, even the boss of the first true stage, can throw you for a loss if you don’t exercise extreme patience and proper timing. While there are health regeneration issues yet again, there are at least a few more restoration pieces you’ll stumble across. If worse comes to worse, Wolverine can regenerate to a certain point, within a reasonable amount of time, and is one of the best characters in the game.

Even with the generic snow stage you're dumped into when powering the game on, Clone Wars looks much more fleshed out than the previous title.

Unfortunately, the audio fits the typical mess that most Sega Genesis titles seem to fall under. While the horse has been beaten past death on the audio capabilities of the Sega Genesis, or lack thereof, but it’s disheartening to see a game with otherwise moderate to across the board success, being hindered by an audio performance that’s as appealing as listening to an Atari 7800 game? As enjoyable as many Sega Genesis titles manage to be, only a small handful manage to produce an audio production that suits the action on screen, and sadly X2 isn’t one of those.

Even with the audio hang ups, X-Men 2: Clone Wars builds off of what was acceptable in the first game and refines it, offering an across the board more enjoyable experience. While you won’t go deaf from the poor audio quality, it does hurt the overall package, reducing what could have been one of the best games on the system, into a strong title that’s hampered by an unfortunate and profound set back.

Rating: 7.0