Sega came out with X-Men in 1993, for Genesis. You can play as one or two of the four caracters, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Wolverine and Gambit. Other X-Men can be summoned but not played as, by going to the pause menu. In this run, Nightcrawler is used almost all through the game, except for some boss fight that needed a real man to handle the job so then Wolverine is used. The main goal is like pretty much every X-Men game... You do a couple stages, then beat Magneto. Near the end of the game, a reset of the console is required to reach the final stage. This made the game unTASable for quite some time, since Gens did not support it.

I started working on this, back in the days, on Gens but had gave up on the idea when i realized it did not support the soft reset. Now, with BizHawk, i could finally make it happen. A run of this was done on SDA by honorablejay. He pulled it off in only 8:46 wich is amazing, if you ask me. This game is brutal to rush through. Unforgiving platforms with crazy hitboxes that can make you go mad. I knew my way pretty well but his run helped a-lot at certain places.

The trick i use the most is obviously the divekick. It allows the caracter to move a little more than 3 times the speed of regular walking or jumping. The main goal is to reach high, in order to dive longer distances. After landing, the player is stopped for a short period of time so i try to do as little "divekicking" as possible. With Nightcrawler, You can skip many huge sections of the game. Even boss fights can be avoided by teleporting right pass them. Teleports come in 3 sizes. Small is done by pressing "A" for about 0-20 frames. It is short distance but cost less MP. Who knew they had limited powers. A Medium cost more but gives you a lttle more distance. Sometimes just enough to skip a boss ex: Juggernaut lvl 1. There is also a way to go through ceilings by summoning Iceman. You need to make him appear right under the desired spot then jump on his trail of ice.

My first teleport is through a pillar that would usually be opened by hitting a switch in the lower cave. When well positionned, you get teleported through the pillar and high on the screen. This allows a nice long divekick. Juggernaut is skipped by doing a medium teleport over his section. You need to be up in the trees to do this. Right after skipping the miniboss, i pause to call for help. I used Archangel to open the door at the end of the stage. I needed to summon him early so that his second attack hits the door. If not, he would have came in to high. For the boss, i used Archangel, sinced he is the only one that will give 3 hits. I managed to get 2 shots very quickly by having the screen advancing, Archangel will dissapear faster then comes back faster. This boss can be hit at any time by Archangel but not your caracter. The final kick can only be done when the boss is vulnerable and re-summoning is too slow.

I start by going upwards to have less divekick pauses. You would usually gather keys to open doors, in this level, but with Nightcrawler, all this is avoided. A detour is taken to grab a MP refill, as this game is very cheap. I suicide jump just before the spaceship scene, since Jean Grey will carry you a good distance, as fast as a divekick would. On the ship, you start off being pushed very quickly towards the back and that is not good, since you need to be close to the door where the 9 guys come out. If not, well... They will not come out. After all this, is the boss. I drop in with divekick and a quick death. Deathbird is weak against teleport attacks and has a short invulnerability sequence. After the battle, an elevator opens up, leading down to Lilandra. You can jump towrards the wall, while in the elevator, to almost reach the top. It will push you out from the wall but also allow you to drop floors without using teleport or the elevator.

This level starts with Sabretooth who is skipped by doing a simple teleport. Then you must hit the sword in order to get in the lighthouse. Here i skipped most of the level by teleporting through the wall reaching the elevator. Also Juggernaut is once again skipped. I used the elevator route instead of teleport straight up to the boss room. Doing so saves on precious MP and prevents me from having to chasse blue balls all around the place, for MP. I did not test it but it might be faster. Who knows? The first strike on Apocalypse is done while transforming to avoid being hit. Wolverine is used, to beat him. He can only be hit after he throws his punch at you so it is faster to take a hit just before. When invinsible, i just hit him as soon as possible.

This is, in my opinion, the hardest stage. I start going down, to avoid taking a hit from the guns but also, to be able to call iceman early, so that i dont wait for him. He is used to skip a good part of the level. I took damage with the damn birds since to kill it, i would have had to be behind. I grab the iceman icon that i will use later then teleport through the wall. There is also another wall that i could teleport through but not enough MP. I skipped grabbing one of the orbs so this happened. In exchange, i was able to use my teleport to get to the boss room thus avoiding getting electrocuted. Ahab can only be hit when his full body is out. I even took the time to use Rogue on him.

I start off with a nice divekick that leads in the wall. The purple guys are hell to avoid. One, i even needed to stop, for a couple frames, while he did his shit because thats how crazy they are. If your coming from above, he will punch you with a huge hitbox almost impossible to avoid. If you arrive from lower, he will throw a fireball at you. Mojo, one of the main bosses, is skipped and then the reset is finally pressed.

A-lot of MP is used in this final stage but there is also plenty laying around. I start with a straight teleport that should have been upwards. This would have allowed for a longer dive and one less pause. I only noticed this after. Iceman is used, once again. This leads to a MP sphere wich is used to take a shortcut later on. After this, i just fly to Magneto, thanks to all that mutant power laying around. You need to be in the middle of the lowest floor to activate the battle so i just dive in. I take wolverine back out since everybody knows wolverine is very strong against Magneto, being made of metal and all. He can only be hit when he has thrown all his junk then landed on a platform. I stopped the movie right after starting the spinning attack and that's it.

feos: Juuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuudging!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

feos: Acceblishing to Moons.