Magazine declared the Saturn version "arcade perfect" aside from a few barely noticeable missing animation frames, and called the game itself "the first time comic book superheroes have been successfully translated to game format." They especially praised the well-balanced and distinctive characters and the combo system. 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. He complimented the smooth animation, brightly colored graphics, and balance of character strengths and weaknesses, and acknowledged that "Character recognition of the X-Men adds to the experience". Maximum focused praise on the accuracy of the conversion, saying that it was graphically almost identical to the arcade version and loyally recreated the gameplay. They also praised the home-only features, especially the survival mode, and gave it their "Maximum Game of the Month" award. 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. Reviews for the PlayStation version commented that by the time of its release, two years after the Saturn version, the game was too far behind the times. The four reviewers of Electronic Gaming Monthly pointed out that its successor Marvel Super Heroes was already available on PlayStation, and that a PlayStation port of X-Men vs. Street Fighter was due out shortly. Next Generation stated that "Overall, if you crave 2D fighting fare, you can do worse than this game, but you can also do much better. What X-Men: Children of the Atom mostly proves is that companies should learn to stop projects before they spiral past the time when they're relevant." 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. Shawn Smith of Electronic Gaming Monthly cited the game as further proof that Capcom's 2D fighters were not as well-suited to the PlayStation as they were to the Saturn, additionally commenting that the PlayStation controller does not work as well with the games as the Saturn's, and concluded,