X-Men - Handicap Patches
Platform: NES
2013.1.31
v1.0

Table of Contents
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1. About X-Men
2. Hack Details
3. Patch History
4. Known Issues
5. IPS File
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1. ABOUT
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The X-Men are a fictitious team of supermutants created by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby in 1963, but you probably already knew that. The NES game apparently wasn't important because it was published by LJN (instead of its parent company, Acclaim), & somehow was licensed by Nintendo.

This title is known for one obvious flaw in game design: The CPU player sucks... & you can't disable that 'jobber. These patches attempt to make the game more playable.

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2. HACK DETAILS
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A number of patches are included so you can pick & choose which ones you like:

. don't_lose_x-men: after losing at a stage, all X-Men will still be selectable (see 4. KNOWN ISSUES)

. invincible_cpu: 2nd player is immune to damage (whether they are the CPU or Player 2)

. longer_stasis_bomb: freezes enemies for a slightly longer period of time

. secondary_text_palette: reveals the secondary text in the post-stage screens

. shorter_magnet_freeze: reduces the amount of time X-Men are frozen by a magnet by 1/4

. solo_mode: disables CPU player

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3. PATCH HISTORY
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v1.0: 6 patches total

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4. KNOWN ISSUES
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. don't_lose_x-men: Though you don't lose X-Men, it doesn't mean you have unlimited lives. Selecting different characters in succession after each failed mission (as if you WERE losing characters) will result in only being able to select the final character on the sixth choice (thus triggering a Game Over after this). A Game Over will still be triggered even without doing this, eventually. Another side effect to this patch is losing the 2nd player even when you have multiple X-Men to select from.

. invincible_cpu: a side effect of this code makes both players immune to other things, such as pits & using super powers

. longer_stasis_bomb: I don't even know if this patch makes a significant difference

. secondary_text_palette: none

. shorter_magnet_freeze: none

. solo_mode: also disables the 2nd player, so I took this mode out

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5. IPS FILE
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Apply the IPS file to '(Marvel's) X-Men (U)'