MUTATION NATION

In all the time that I have been playing Neo Geo games, there is one question that has always bugged me. Why has there never been a really good side scrolling beat 'em up for this system? There's lots of great one on one fighters, so why no side scrolling beat 'em ups? We have had to put up with games like Robo Army, Burning Fight, Ninja Combat and a few other boring games of this genre on the Neo Geo. About the best Side scroller is Sengoku 2 and even that isn't all that great. All the best ones appear to be the Capcom beat 'em ups, like Final Fight, Cadillac's and Dinosaurs and Dungeons and Dragons etc.

This is a 1992 game, but I was hoping it might be a little bit better than the other Neo Geo games I just mentioned, but once again it seems that Mutation Nation is a very boring fighter that plays just like all the others. It is a simple case of dodge your opponents move, press attack button a few times, then dodge again, then tap attack again and repeat the process. To give it some credit, it does have a few other moves, such as the different specials you can charge up and use. Certain items also give you different abilities (like projectile attacks) when collected. You use them by holding down the attack button for a few seconds.

You can also press the attack and jump buttons together to do a Dragon-punch style attack. One thing that the game is definitely lacking though, is a choice of characters. Player 2 can play as a different person, but he basically is the same as player one anyway. None of this really matters though because you will be so bored with Mutation Nation after 20 minutes (at the most!), you will just turn it off and play something else.

By looking at the shots above, you can see that Mutation Nation isn't much to look at either. The characters are all uninteresting and the backgrounds are average. Basically it's extremely bland. There is nothing at all of note and it uses the usual "one sprite for 70% of the opponents" on each level that you usually see in games like this. No surprises at all.

When I came to write about the sound in this game I had to switch it back on for a minute to remind myself what it sounded like. That's how uninspiring it is. Its not terrible, just the typical sound of most Neo Geo games from the early nineties, in other words: not at all memorable.

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Overall: 📊

I hate to be so nasty towards a game, especially when it is quite old and also when there isn't anything drastically wrong with it, but I can't see this holding anyone's attention for any longer than it held mine. I think it's the type of game I would have enjoyed around the time it was released, but not now. There were actually much better games of this type around at that time too, like Capcom's Final Fight. I think that the aforementioned Capcom game "Cadillac's and Dinosaurs" is the best example of a 2D side scrolling beat 'em up, it just puzzles me that no one has ever come anywhere close on the Neo Geo. I guess not many people really bother playing this sort of thing anymore.

Do yourself a favour and try something else, unless you are a real die-hard fan of this genre.