X-Men: Children of the Atom (Japanese: エックス・メン　チルドレン　オブ　ジ　アトム, Hepburn: Ekkusu Men Chirudoren obu ji Atomu) is a 1994 fighting game developed and published by Capcom and released on the CP System II arcade hardware.

The game's plot is based on the "Fatal Attractions" story from the comics – players control one of the X-Men or their enemies in their fight against the villain Magneto.

The gameplay has much in common with Capcom's previous fighting games, Super Street Fighter II Turbo and Darkstalkers.

Children of the Atom introduced multi-tiered fighting environments in which the ground would crumble and characters would fall into lower parts of the level.

The player can choose between one of six X-Men members or four of their enemies (for a total of ten selectable characters) and proceed to compete in a series of best-two-out-of-three one-on-one matches.

Akuma from Super Street Fighter II Turbo appears in the single-player mode as a secret opponent at the sixth match if the requirements are met.

[6] According to Tatsuya Minami, Capcom's senior manager of the Product Planning and Design Section, the biggest difficulty with converting the game to the Saturn was the memory restrictions.

Capcom said that this was left in by mistake, hence why the ability to play as Juggernaut was not included in the North American or European releases,[13] or in the later PlayStation version.

[33] Covering the arcade version, a reviewer for Next Generation highly praised the selection of characters, the interface, the new special move mechanics, the animations, and the voice overs.

"[25] Scary Larry of GamePro said the game was "converted perfectly" to the Saturn and applauded the accessible controls, fast gameplay, colorful graphics, and lack of slowdown.

[30] A reviewer for Next Generation bemoaned the 2D fighting game genre as done to death, but admitted that X-Men: Children of the Atom manages to be highly appealing in spite of this.

[35] GameSpot's review of the PC version opened by calling it "an admirable and near-exact conversion of Capcom's 1995 arcade hit" which "proves that the PC is indeed a viable platform for fighting games", but went on to criticize that it does not run as fast or at as high a resolution as the arcade version, and lacks the ability to chain combos.

"[27] Critics also judged it a poor conversion given the length of time it spent in development, citing extensive slowdown and frustratingly choppy animation due to the numerous cut frames.

"[19] According to a retrospective review by GameFan, the game "displayed some of the most chaotic and over-the-top action found in a fighter at the time (...) achieving much success and praise across arcade rooms."

The PlayStation port "suffered from missing frames, slowdown and lengthy load times" due to the platform's limited RAM and its architecture restrictions in regards to 2D games, but was called "an admirable attempt" nevertheless.

"[37] In 2012, GamesRadar included it among the little-known classic fighting games that deserve HD remakes, adding that "Capcom set the precedent with this lavish-looking fighter, cramming in the fan service, captivating graphics, and frantic gameplay that the Versus series is now known for, but in the one-on-one variety.