Capcom was already doing a lot of good once they acquired the X-Men license to produce X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse. It's the example every company worth some salt should take: a licensed property should be treated just like any hallowed gaming-centric franchise should, and not as a way to make a quick buck. Capcom treated Mutant Apocalypse like they did for numerous Disney games, by taking those characters and giving them gameplay mechanics similar to one of their beloved franchises; in those cases, they were similar to Mega Man, Final Fight, and Strider. The best thing about them? They all worked. So it follows that Capcom should continue the trend for X-Men: Children of the Atom, whose gameplay style is similar to their venerable line of fighting games.
CotA is all-too-commonly described as a clever fusion of the mechanics of a Street Fighter game (you could've said Alpha, given the aesthetics, but this game actually predates that) with X-Men characters instead of who you would expect to see (well, mostly) in a Capcom fighter. But that's not entirely accurate. In terms of its approach to gameplay and combo-heaviness, CotA actually feels like the natural evolution of the mechanics found in the criminally underrated Darkstalkers franchise. Like Darkstalkers, the game relies on the player maximizing damage capacity based on stringing a plethora of hits from a chain combo. It was sad to see that Darkstalkers never got the respect it deserved, but at least the fighting style it birthed lived on; and it turns out that it was very fitting for an X-Men game.CotA gives you the choice of ten characters to play initially. The cast was pretty balanced with characters from opposing sides, with heroes like Wolverine, Cyclops, Storm, Iceman, Psylocke, and Colossus, along with villains like Silver Samurai, Spiral, Sentinel, and Omega Red. Both Juggernaut and Magneto make appearances as non-playable boss characters, this game containing the infamous god-like Magneto - which was significantly (and thankfully) toned down in this game's progeny. Also, just about every character in the game has their voice from the animated series.
Similar to Capcom's previous fighting games, CotA utilizes a six-button control scheme; three punches and three kicks, both going from light to heavy. Dissimilar to Capcom's previous fighting games, CotA uses them within a game whose pace is wickedly fast. Gone is the methodical strategic planning required in a Street Fighter game, and in its place is a combo-heavy and intuitive system whose primary focus is fun above anything. And it delivers that in spades, and makes the product more accessible for anyone who found the average 2D fighter back then a bit too daunting to approach. Turns out the combination of that along with the appeal of X-Men was a winning combination. Oh, and the special techniques are completely over-the-top. They're very dazzling, though we didn't have the benefit of going on the internet and browsing videos on Youtube in the mid-90s, where we could have seen that Capcom definitely got the inspiration for them from the Japanese intros for the 90s X-Men animated series (which I'm sure had a bigger budget than one episode of the series; definitely).
Also, that's not to say there was zero strategy involved to be successful at this game, as you're sure to be creamed with that mindset. CotA requires more skill than strategy, but you'll still have to figure out how to land the attacks so you can display your skill on an opponent. Combos can do quite a bit of damage, though sometimes that's especially dependent on who you're using. Characters like Sentinel and Juggernaut are naturally going to do more damage than Wolverine and Psylocke, but the former two are going to have trouble getting to the opponent - which isn't much of a problem for the latter two at all.
The game, like any fighting game, comes alive when you're fighting a human opponent, but in the mid-90s we didn't have any benefits like online play. In the interim between fighting humans, we had to play the AI. It was kind of a pain, but not because it was boring, but because the computer was criminally difficult - very similar to Super Street Fighter II Turbo's. Don't you just love fighting AI opponents whose strategy consists of the lovely "I know what you're going to do before you do it!" style of input reading? It sure makes for some fantastic bouts of frustration, especially when you take on the Juggernaut and Magneto, the latter of which has a move which counters just about any attack in any character's arsenal. You knew he was destined to be nerfed for a future installment with that, because he could be a little too deadly in the hands of a human.
The game also had another hidden character: Akuma from the Street Fighter franchise. Unfortunately, it's pretty obvious that he was just thrown into the game quickly for some thrills, with him having the same sprites from Super Turbo and all (which makes him look way out of place). The special effects that come when he does any of his are pretty cheesy. And like Super Turbo, his voice effects are borrowed from other characters; though they were fitting in that game, in this one, they're so awkward they're hilarious. A shame this game predates Alpha, because his sprites there would've fit this game's perfectly. What's here is as bad as seeing Morrigan in Capcom vs. SNK 2.Unlike the last arcade game, Capcom was thankfully good with doing home ports, which this game had for Saturn, PC, and Playstation (in that order). The Saturn game, which released in 1996, wasn't a perfect home port; but that didn't matter when it was close enough that it didn't hinder the gameplay in the least -- though it would matter these days, this being the age of the internet and all. People love to complain about that kind of stuff. Personally, I haven't played the PC version, though I had the benefit of playing the incredibly late PSX version - which released two years later. Unfortunately, Capcom didn't handle this port themselves, and it shows as it's almost an insult to call the game a "port." It doesn't have any slowdown that plagued PSX ports of faster-paced games like this, but the result of that was an unbelievably horrendous framerate. It was easily enough to make the game completely unplayable.
Children of the Atom deserves a lot of respect for being the progenitor of the Marvel vs. franchise that became so popular. These days, it's been outclassed by its progeny, but it's still aged well enough to be perfectly playable. Just make sure it's the Arcade or the Saturn version, though.
Images courtesy of VGMuseum.
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