If there's one thing I love, it's fighting games. X-Men Next dimension was a successor of sorts to the Mutant Academy series from the PS1 era, featuring 24 characters from the world of X-Men duking it out on the then-next gen.
The game offers a healthy selection of modes: Story, Arcade, Versus(Player), Practice, Team, Survival and Time Attack. All of them are pretty much self-explanatory, but 'Story Mode' bears special mentioning. Story Mode is made up of several cut-scenes spread out throughout several fights, while some sections allow you to pick a character, the outcome is always the same. As far as the story goes, it's pretty dull and uninteresting, with Bastion kidnapping Forge and the X-Men coming to his aide, but hey, at least it actually has a story mode. Funnily enough, only about half of the character roster makes an appearance on this mode, and even less can be picked to play as.
The fighting is surprisingly solid for a western Fighter, and it has a few original ideas that I really liked. Your basic tools are: two punches and two kicks, light and heavy for both, blocking by holding back, a throw and a counter, not unlike DoA's, albeit it can't be used while being comboed. The game featuress aerial combos, by tapping up after popping the opponent up into the air, cancels into the supers and specials and even juggles. Sometimes I felt as if the collision detection was a bit off at times, particularly against the large characters.
Each character has access to about 5 different specials, spread throughout 4 tiers. Y'see, the energy bar is made up of three Segments, and while each special has a different tier, it only consumes one segment of the gauge, except tier 4 specials which consume all three segments. Say, you use a a Tier 2 special, in this case only the second segment will be spent, while the first and third segment remain intact. But there's a rather interesting mechanic, in which you can 'move' energy from the other segments into one of your choice. For instance, having all three segments full allows you to: Pull a tier 4 special, two tier 3 specials(By moving energy from Segments 1 and 2 into the third one) or many uses of tier 2 and 1 specials! It's done by holding Z on the control and then whichever button is assigned to each segment. While gimmicky, I found it unique and interesting. On the other hand, one thing I did not like about the specials was the way they were used. Usually they involve pressing A+B or X+Y plus different directions. If you are gonna have simple commands for specials like these, make them universal amongst the entire cast! It's annoying going from one character into the next, and now A+B+Left is a tier 2 special instead of a tier 4, and in no way does it help in making characters 'feel different', if that was their intention.
It bears mentioning that the camera loves to freak out. Many times it will get stuck on walls, or even on the floor while you pull off some of the flashier movies. Eventually you get used to it, but it can get pretty bad... One of Betsy's specials is unwatchable on the ceiling stage, since the camera will always glitch. And on some of the busier stages, like jungle stage with all the water, can suffer from a bit of slowdown every now and then, nothing major.
The character roster is fairly decent, featuring most of the then popular X-Men.There's 24 characters, 22 out of them being entirely unique, while there are two semi clones(Phoenix and Dark Phoenix, Psylocke and Betsy) and I loved how characters come in all shapes and sizes, from the enormous Sentinel, the beefy Juggernaut or the short Wolverine. Each character also has 8 different colors, although there was an off putting amount of red alternate costumes. Unlocking stuff(About 6 of the characters, and 6 of the alternate colors) can take a while, particularly the ones requiring 1900+ rounds or spending 20 hours in the game, but there's a code to fasten the whole process... or just clock 56 hours into the game.
The game's visuals are downright ugly and there's no two ways about it. Character models are ugly, some characters being oddly proportioned or even built, while the animation ranges from really good(Beast) to very spotty(Gambit). As for the textures, they are muddy and blurry. And the CG cutscenes present in the Story Mode? Hilariously fugly. No, this is not a good looking game. As for the music, forgettable at best, I can't remember a single tune from the game!
X-Men - Next Dimension is more than a sum of its parts. The graphics are ugly, the camera is buggy, collision detection feels spotty at times... and yet the game is a blast to play. I can also admire some of it's original ideas, like the way the energy gauge works, or the different shapes and sizes combatants come in! It's probably not a fighting game you'll want to take super seriously, but one that's fun to play.
8.0 out of 10
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