X-Men: Mojo World

"An interesting X-Men game that nobody played"

Developed by Sega, X-Men: Mojo World is a 2D action game featuring the most popular mutants from the comic books. It was one of the last cartridges to be released for the Master System and, as far as I know it, was available exclusively in Brazil.

In this game, the villain Mojo has kidnapped some members of the X-Men team, who are being held in various theme-based areas. Your task is to save all of your mutant fellows and then seek and defeat Mojo himself. In the beginning, you can control only Wolverine and Rogue, but as you rescue your teammates, you have the option to control them as well: Cyclops, Gambit, Havok and Shard are all selectable characters.

You progress through left-to-right scenarios, collecting items, defeating lots of lesser foes, and facing a boss at the end of each level (all of them familiar faces, like Magneto or the Sentinel). You can always choose the character you wish, and each one has a unique special ability: Rogue can fly, Wolverine can auto-heal, Gambit can throw explosive cards and so on. These mutant powers are incredibly useful, but they have limited use, so you'd better save them for the most difficult moments of the game. X-Men: Mojo World has a pretty adequate degree of challenge overall, and once you learn the basics of the game, everything becomes quite entertaining.

The gameplay has a few drawbacks though: there are occasional tricky jumps, the controls are a bit loose and, most importantly, the characters are seriously unbalanced. While you can easily complete any area with Gambit or Rogue, characters like Cyclops and Shard are total weaklings that cannot even defeat regular enemies without a lot of effort. Simply using these heroes to go anywhere is like a harder difficulty setting in itself. Well, at least it is a nice feature for X-Men fans to play as less mainstream mutants like Havok or Shard in a game.

In terms of graphics, X-Men: Mojo World is very nice. The backgrounds are clear and colorful, each stage looks unique and the sprites, too, are both large and detailed. Granted, the animation may be a bit choppy, but you can instantly recognize your favorite heroes and villains from the comic books. The visuals are, indeed, one of the best aspects of the game. As for the audio, it is nothing spectacular. Only average 8-bit quality tunes and sound effects, none of them particularly memorable.

In general, X-Men: Mojo World is a really good game, one of the best action titles available for the Master System. I honestly didn't expect anything good when I first played it, but I can say I was pleasantly surprised. Give it a try if you have the chance.

Overall – 8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 01/30/08

Game Release: X-Men: Mojo World (SA, 1996)