Difference between revisions of "X-Men: Children of the Atom"
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Capcom's contract with Marvel stipulated that Capcom include a character from the ''[[:Category:Street Fighter|Street Fighter]]'' franchise in the game. As the development team wanted to focus on the X-Men proper, they included Akuma as a secret character rather than using Ryu or Ken.{{magref|maximum|3|71}} | Capcom's contract with Marvel stipulated that Capcom include a character from the ''[[:Category:Street Fighter|Street Fighter]]'' franchise in the game. As the development team wanted to focus on the X-Men proper, they included Akuma as a secret character rather than using Ryu or Ken.{{magref|maximum|3|71}} | ||
− | According to Tatsuya Minami, Capcom's senior manager of the Product Planning and Design Section, the biggest difficulty with converting the game to the Saturn was the memory restrictions. The Saturn (as well as the [[PlayStation]]) has only 2 megabytes of RAM, while the arcade version of ''X-Men: Children of the Atom'' used 32 megabytes for character data alone. Because of this, a third of the animation frames had to be cut for the Saturn version. | + | According to Tatsuya Minami, Capcom's senior manager of the Product Planning and Design Section, the biggest difficulty with converting the game to the Saturn was the memory restrictions. The Saturn (as well as the [[PlayStation]]) has only 2 megabytes of RAM, while the arcade version of ''X-Men: Children of the Atom'' used 32 megabytes for character data alone. Because of this, a third of the animation frames had to be cut for the Saturn version.{{magref|mms|40|19}} |
The home version of the game was originally a Saturn exclusive. While the Saturn version was ported by [[Rutubo Games]], the PlayStation and [[IBM PC]] versions were contracted out to [[Probe Entertainment]]. | The home version of the game was originally a Saturn exclusive. While the Saturn version was ported by [[Rutubo Games]], the PlayStation and [[IBM PC]] versions were contracted out to [[Probe Entertainment]]. |
Revision as of 12:13, 28 June 2023
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X-Men: Children of the Atom | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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System(s): Sega Saturn | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Publisher: Capcom (Japan), Acclaim Entertainment (US, Europe) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Developer: Rutubo Games | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Distributor: Roadshow Interactive (AU) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Licensor: Marvel Characters | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Original system(s): Capcom CPS-2 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Developer(s) of original games: Capcom | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sound driver: SCSP/CD-DA (28 tracks) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Genre: Fighting, Action[1][2] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Number of players: 1-2 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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X-Men: Children of the Atom (エックス・メン チルドレン オブ ジ アトム) is an arcade fighting game developed by Capcom. Originally released for the Capcom CPS-2 arcade board in 1994, it was ported to the Sega Saturn in 1995.
Based on the X-Men comic book, it is the first fighting game produced by Capcom using characters under license from Marvel Comics. It is unrelated to the later comic book series of the same name. The game was widely praised for its gameplay and colorful graphics and for the quality of the port.
Contents
Story
The game is loosely based on the "Fatal Attractions" storyline. Magneto plans to unleash an electromagnetic pulse on Earth that will disrupt the magnetic fields and create havoc on the world's electrical systems, ushering in a Dark Age for Earth's non-mutant population. With the promise of a mutant-run planet, the X-Men's most formidable foes join forces with Magneto.
Released around the time of the mid-1990s X-Men animated series, the game features voice actors from the series reprising their roles.
Gameplay
The game is a fighting game follows the same fighting game controls and conventions Capcom previously established with the Street Fighter II games and the original Darkstalkers. Players control one of the X-Men or one of their enemies in a fight against the villain Magneto. Matches are played to the best of three rounds. If a battle goes more than three rounds without a victor (because of draws or double knock-outs), the next round is a "Sudden Death" round where characters are knocked out in a single hit. The game saves records such as high scores and wins/losses to the console's internal memory.
Children of the Atom adds a combo system that features long combos that can even be performed in midair. Also featured in the game are various tactical maneuvers, including the ability for characters to roll. The game introduced multi-tiered fighting environments in which the ground would crumble and characters would fall into lower parts of the level. These concepts and the fast pace of the game would provide the basis for Capcom's Marvel vs. Capcom series, which started with the game's successor X-Men vs. Street Fighter.
Characters move with and and dash with and (or ++). They jump upward with and jump behind and ahead with and . Characters can Super Jump high into the air with (or ++). They crouch with . Punches are done with (light), (medium), and (strong) and kicks are done with (light), (medium), and (strong). Light attacks are faster and hard attacks deal more damage. Special moves for each character are done by pairing specific directional combinations with an attack button.
The player has an X-Power gauge (similar to the Super Combo gauge in Super Street Fighter II Turbo and the Special gauge in Darkstalkers) that builds as the player performs regular or special moves. X-Power gauge starts at level 1 (blue) and reaches level 2 (range) when it becomes half-full; at this point, an Aura begins to surround the player's character until the gauge becomes full and reaches "Level Max." When the X-Power gauge is blue, only normal and special moves are allowed. When the X-Power gauge is orange, characters can perform an X-Ability, a special ability that consumes a portion of the X-Power gauge. When the gauge is full and begins to flicker colors, characters can perform a Hyper-X ability, which inflicts a great deal of damage but consumes a large portion of the gauge. The X-Power gauge levels are retained between rounds but reset after battles.
Throws and grabs are done by holding the D-Pad toward an opponent and pressing a medium or hard punch or kick button. Characters can perform a reversal when being thrown with the same command. When the X-Power gauge is at level 2, characters can land safely with by holding with all three punch buttons. Or characters can roll away or toward an opponent after being thrown by pressing or and then a punch button repeatedly. Breaking one's fall from a throw or performing a counter-throw consumes a portion of the X-Power gauge when performed. Guarding is done by holding the D-Pad away from the opponent.
After selecting a character, the player can choose between Manual or Automatic blocking. However, using automatic blocking limits special moves to their medium versions.
Modes
The game has multiple modes:
- Arcade Mode: A single-player mode where the player faces six of the other characters in the game in best of three one-on-one matches before battling Juggernaut and Magneto. A second player can challenge the first by pressing START , with the victor of the match continuing the game.
- Versus Mode: A two-player mode where players can choose their characters and battle each other in best of three one-on-one matches, with the ability to set a handicap for each player and choose any stage.
- Survival Mode: A single-player mode where the player fights as many opponents as possible on a single vitality bar. Some vitality is restored between battles.
- Group Battle Mode: A two-player mode where players choose one to five players each and compete in a set of one-round matches. Each player tries to eliminate all of their opponent's fighters. Characters do not recover vitality between battles.
Characters
Move lists assume the player is facing right. If facing left, and should be reversed. P refers to any of the punch buttons, while K refers to any of the kick buttons.
The X-Men
The Villains
Omega Red | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Omega Red is a Soviet supersoldier who can absorb the life force of his victims. He has tentacles that he uses like whips in combat.
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Sentinel | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sentinels are giant robots that were programmed to hunt mutants. They attack with a variety of weapons.
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Silver Samurai | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Silver Samurai is a master swordsman who can channel mutant powers through his sword.
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Spiral | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Spiral is a six-armed warrior sorceress from Mojo World.
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Juggernaut | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Juggernaut is a massive human with superhuman strength and durability. He is the penultimate boss of the game. He is not normally selectable, but he can be unlocked to play in the Versus Mode in the Japanese version of the game.
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Magneto | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Magneto is a mutant with the ability to generate and control magnetic fields. He is the final boss of the game. He is not playable in this version of the game. |
Hidden
- Main article: X-Men: Children of the Atom/Hidden content.
Akuma | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Akuma is a secret character, appearing in his Super Street Fighter II Turbo form. He can be fought in the single-player mode under certain circumstances. He can also be played in the two-player mode by entering a cheat code.
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Stages
Each character has his or her own stage where matches are hosted. The stage can be manually chosen in the two-player modes.
History
Development
Capcom's contract with Marvel stipulated that Capcom include a character from the Street Fighter franchise in the game. As the development team wanted to focus on the X-Men proper, they included Akuma as a secret character rather than using Ryu or Ken.[9]
According to Tatsuya Minami, Capcom's senior manager of the Product Planning and Design Section, the biggest difficulty with converting the game to the Saturn was the memory restrictions. The Saturn (as well as the PlayStation) has only 2 megabytes of RAM, while the arcade version of X-Men: Children of the Atom used 32 megabytes for character data alone. Because of this, a third of the animation frames had to be cut for the Saturn version.[10]
The home version of the game was originally a Saturn exclusive. While the Saturn version was ported by Rutubo Games, the PlayStation and IBM PC versions were contracted out to Probe Entertainment.
Legacy
The game was the first in a series of fighting games by Capcom featuring characters from Marvel Comics. Characters from X-Men: Children of the Atom would reappear in several subsequent Capcom fighters, including Marvel Super Heroes, X-Men vs. Street Fighter, Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes, and Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes.
Versions
Following its 1994 arcade release, X-Men: Children of the Atom came to the Saturn and remained the only home version of the game for two years. While most of the game remains in-tact, the Saturn is forced to drop many frames of animation (something partially rectified in later games with the introduction of the Extended RAM Cartridge). Differing screen resolutions also mean the character portraits are placed below rather than beside the HUD in-game.
X-Men: Children of the Atom would come to the PlayStation in 1998 (after Marvel Super Heroes) and see more drastic cutbacks, swapping out its intro for a pre-rendered video and having both longer load times than the Saturn version and a lower average frame rate. It is also missing background animations present on the Saturn.
The Japanese release of the Saturn version allows players to play as the Juggernaut in the two-player Versus Mode via a cheat code. Capcom said that this was left in by mistake, hence why the ability to play as Juggernaut was not included in the North American or European releases or in the later PlayStation version. The PC version allows players to play as either the Juggernaut or Magneto.
Production credits
- Game Planners: Nin, Poo, Hiratou "X68K" K-Suke, Kiyo, Fuji, Otouto Tomita
- Programmers: Aoi-Tokimeki, Tarabar - Black, K.nishi-Man, Sailor-Ponkichi, O.G.T.-Iron Liver, Mo.Suzuki-Memorial, MiN-T3, Hard.Yas -466P+K-, Kaw.Hiroshima
- Object Designer: S.Yamashita, Ino, Kuriotoko, Yue, Minobe, M.Nakatani, Ari, Eripyon, Miwazo, M.Sato, Kamonohashi Sato, Kazuko Kawanaka Pyo!, Dway Nishimura, Igami, Youjirou, Sagat, Ta, Jun Matsumura 26, Nishio "VIP.T2", G.Kamina, Ushi, H.Yoshino, Eiji, N.Fukuda, H.S, Manish, Shinya Kitamura
- Scroll Designer: Fukumoyan, Yamapuu, May, Devil Ohnishi, Kazu, Akiko.O, Hiroko.N, Iwai, Kisabon, RK
- Music Composers: Anachey "Takapon", Syun Nishigaki, Hideki OK, Isao "oyaji" Abe
- Sound Designers: Hiroaki "X68K" Kondo, Toshio Kajino
- Voice Actor: Mr. George Buza, Ms. Catherine Disher, Mr. Cathal Dodd, Mr. Dan Hennessey, Mr. Norman Spencer, Ike-Bomb
- Special Thanks:
- Capcom USA: Mr. Alex Jimenez, Mr. Eric Luther, Mr. Phillip Reed
- Marvel Entertainment: Mr. Mark Erickson, Mr. Dana Morshead, Mr. Mike Thomas, Mr. John Conroy
- Marvel Japan: Mr. Paul T. Takaki, Ms. Kumino Asakura
- Mr. Shiraiwa
- Special Thanks to Acclaim Black Team
- Travis Williams (PAX), Tyrone Miller, Douglas Yellin, Mike Archer, Michael Weiner, Carol Caracciolo, Harry Reimer, John F. Gonzales, Howard Perlman, Robert Coffey, Paui.S.Lindsay, Jim Dunn, John P. Cooper, Steven C. Mattocks, Peter Sanflippo
- And All Capcom Staff
- Presented by: Capcom
Magazine articles
- Main article: X-Men: Children of the Atom/Magazine articles.
Promotional material
also published in:
- Next Generation (US) #18: "June 1996" (1996-05-21)[12]
- GamePro (US) #93: "June 1996" (1996-xx-xx)[13]
Artwork
Physical scans
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85 | |
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Based on 34 reviews |
Technical information
- Main article: X-Men: Children of the Atom/Technical information.
References
- ↑ File:XmenCotA Saturn JP Box Back.jpg
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 https://sega.jp/fb/segahard/ss/soft_licensee1.html (Wayback Machine: 2020-03-20 23:04)
- ↑ http://www.sega-saturn.com/saturn/other/april-n.htm (Wayback Machine: 1997-06-06 05:51)
- ↑ https://groups.google.com/g/rec.games.video.sega/c/uCMhsINntuE/m/6kWhYr6_ol0J
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Game Players, "Vol. 9 No. 3 March 1996" (US; 1996-0x-xx), page 57
- ↑ Computer & Video Games, "May 1996" (UK; 1996-04-12), page 65
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Computer & Video Games, "June 1996" (UK; 1996-05-09), page 88
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Sega Saturn Magazine, "March 1996" (UK; 1996-02-24), page 70
- ↑ Maximum, "January 1996" (UK; 199x-xx-xx), page 71
- ↑ Mean Machines Sega, "February 1996" (UK; 1995-12-xx), page 19
- ↑ File:X-Men Children of the Atom Saturn credits.pdf
- ↑ Next Generation, "June 1996" (US; 1996-05-21), page 151
- ↑ GamePro, "June 1996" (US; 1996-xx-xx), page 7
- ↑ GamesMaster, "March 1996" (UK; 1996-02-15), page 40
- ↑ 576 KByte, "Május 1996" (HU; 1996-xx-xx), page 43
- ↑ Consoles +, "Janvier 1996" (FR; 199x-xx-xx), page 90
- ↑ Computer & Video Games, "February 1996" (UK; 1996-01-12), page 54
- ↑ Edge, "February 1996" (UK; 1996-01-12), page 84
- ↑ Famitsu, "1995-12-01" (JP; 1995-11-17), page 31
- ↑ Fun Generation, "01/96" (DE; 1995-12-20), page 65
- ↑ GameFan, "Volume 4, Issue 3: March 1996" (US; 1996-xx-xx), page 13
- ↑ GamePro, "March 1996" (US; 1996-xx-xx), page 56
- ↑ GamesMaster (UK) "Series 5, episode 18" (1996-01-18, 24:00) (+13:05)
- ↑ Game Informer, "May 1996" (US; 1996-0x-xx), page 48
- ↑ Hobby Consolas, "Febrero 1996" (ES; 1996-xx-xx), page 54
- ↑ Intelligent Gamer's Fusion, "Volume 2, Number 8: May 1996" (US; 1996-0x-xx), page 85
- ↑ MAN!AC, "02/96" (DE; 1996-01-10), page 37
- ↑ Maximum, "February 1996" (UK; 1996-xx-xx), page 138
- ↑ Mega Force, "Janvier 1996" (FR; 199x-xx-xx), page 92
- ↑ Mega Fun, "01/96" (DE; 1995-12-20), page 30
- ↑ Mean Machines Sega, "February 1996" (UK; 1995-12-xx), page 50
- ↑ Player One, "Février 1996" (FR; 1996-0x-xx), page 66
- ↑ Saturn Fan, "1996 No. 3" (JP; 1996-01-19), page 78
- ↑ Saturn+, "Easter/April 1996" (UK; 1996-03-07), page 46
- ↑ Sega Magazin, "Mai 1996" (DE; 1996-04-10), page 81
- ↑ Sega News, "Leden 1997" (CZ; 1997-xx-xx), page 14
- ↑ Sega Power, "March 1996" (UK; 1996-01-18), page 24
- ↑ Sega Pro, "February 1996" (UK; 1995-12-28), page 50
- ↑ Sega Saturn Magazine, "1995-13 (1995-12-08)" (JP; 1995-11-24), page 193
- ↑ Sega Saturn Magazine, "Readers rating final data" (JP; 2000-03), page 13
- ↑ Total Saturn, "Volume One Issue Four" (UK; 1996-12-29), page 69
- ↑ Ultimate Future Games, "February 1996" (UK; 1996-01-03), page 72
- ↑ Última Generación, "Febrero 1996" (ES; 1996-0x-xx), page 94
- ↑ Video Games, "2/96" (DE; 1996-01-24), page 80
- ↑ VideoGames, "April 1996" (US; 1996-03-19), page 62
X-Men: Children of the Atom | |
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Main page | Comparisons | Hidden content | Magazine articles | Video coverage | Reception | Technical information
Demos: X-Men: Children of the Atom Hibaihin (?) |
X-Men games for Sega systems | |
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Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade's Revenge (1993) | X-Men (1993) | Wolverine: Adamantium Rage (1994) | X-Men 2: Clone Wars (1995) | X-Women: The Sinister Virus (unreleased) | |
Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade's Revenge (1994) | X-Men (1994) | X-Men: GamesMaster's Legacy (1994) | X-Men: Mojo World (1996) | |
X-Men: Children of the Atom (1995) | X-Men vs. Street Fighter (1997) | |
X-Men: Mojo World (1996) | |
X-Men: Mind Games (Unreleased) | |
X-Men related media | |
Sega Tunes: X-Men 2: Clone Wars (1996) | |
Unlicensed X-Men games for Sega systems | |
X-Men vs. Street Fighter (Mega Drive) (1998) |
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