X-Men 2: Clone Wars

The game begins with a cold open ; upon booting up the console, the first stage begins with the player character being randomly selected from the roster. Completing the first stage prompts the appearance of the title sequence and opening narration. In most stages, the player must traverse environments populated with enemies and hazards and reach the exit. Some stages require the player to fight and defeat a boss enemy to proceed; minor boss fights occur at the end of the stage, while major boss fights comprise stages in their entirety.

Each playable character has a suite of basic melee attacks with ground and aerial variations, and a "mutant attack power" which typically takes the form of a ranged attack. Each character has a health bar which maxes out at 10 hit points; while at 9 or more hit points, the character's mutant attack power becomes more powerful. The player can restore their character's hit points by collecting health pickups scattered throughout stages. Some characters can unleash charged-up versions of their mutant attack powers which deal more damage and/or have a wider area of effect, with the drawback that the character must remain stationary while charging.

Some characters also have additional traversal options such as wall-jumping , climbing walls and ceilings, or flight. Some shortcuts and health pickups can only be collected by characters possessing the appropriate traversal abilities. Whenever the player completes a stage or loses a life, they can change their current character to any available playable character. Every stage can be completed by any playable character, but each stage's layout and unique challenges often cater to certain characters' strengths while being more difficult for others, incentivizing the player to switch characters often.

The player begins play with nine lives , with no way to earn more lives or continues . If the player loses all their lives and gets a game over , all progress is lost and the player must restart the game from the beginning.