X-Men Legends

X-Men Legends brought the party-based action RPG concept to the GameCube, inspired by titles like Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, set in the world of the comic-book X-Men and their eternal fight for coexistence between humans and mutants. The player assembles a four-member team of mutants from a broad roster of characters such as Wolverine, Storm, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, or Iceman, and takes them through a story campaign in which they face Magneto and his Brotherhood of Mutants, determined to establish mutant dominance over humanity. Each character has their own skill tree and unique attacks derived from their comic-book powers, which encourages the player to experiment with different team compositions depending on the nature of each mission.

Combat takes place in real time, with the ability to switch between controlled characters at any moment, while the remaining team members are handled by AI or, in multiplayer, can be controlled by other players — the game supported cooperative play for up to four players on a single screen, a fairly ambitious and technically demanding feature for its time. The environments draw on classic X-Men universe locations, from the X-Mansion through the Danger Room to the island of Genosha, and the game gradually unlocks new characters and abilities, offering solid replay value for players returning for repeated playthroughs with different lineups.

Contemporary reactions particularly highlighted the cooperative mode and the faithfulness to the comic-book source material and character voice casting, which helped make X-Men Legends one of the more popular titles based on the Marvel license at the time and helped kickstart the genre of comic-book action RPGs, which later continued with further installments across multiple platforms. Even today the game is interesting as a demonstration of how well the combination of hack-and-slash mechanics with character selection and cooperative play worked on a single console, and for X-Men fans it remains one of the most comprehensive game excursions into their universe.

Why play it: For X-Men fans and cooperative-play enthusiasts, it's one of the most comprehensive excursions into the comic-book universe, thanks to its faithfulness to the source material and the combination of hack-and-slash mechanics with character selection on a single console.