Mutation Nation

The Neo-Geo isn't known for it's beat-em-ups, and the beat-em-ups it has are some of the worst out there. Given the Neo-Geo hardware launched in a post Final Fight and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles world, you'd think that SNK would have tried a little harder in their earlier efforts to at least match the quality of those titles on their wonder hardware. Unfortunately they had their hands full developing so many titles for their new machine that each game didn't have a whole lot of time to gestate to become something much better than a rip-off of another developer's game with more color. 

Games like Sengoku (the first one), Ninja Combat, and Burning Fight were launched between 1990 and 1991 to tepid reviews and lukewarm consumer and arcade sales. While it languished a bit too long in development hell given its library number, Mutation Nation released in 1992 to some mild success. Along with Robo Army and Sengoku 2, Mutation Nation is often sited as one of the top three brawlers on the hardware and has become one of the higher priced games from the Neo-Geo's early era between 1990 and 1992 in the modern collector market.

Mutation Nation is exactly what you'd expect out of a brawler: you walk along a linear path beating up mutants and thugs by mashing on the attack button to create auto-combos. Fortunately, there are some neat adjustments SNK made to the baseline mechanics that help Mutation Nation to feel somewhat fresh - if you know how to play. 

Each character's full combo is between 8-10 hits. The neat part about the combo strings is that they can be interrupted with other attacks or even movement. Enemies flanking your character is a key AI element in any brawler - especially one made to eat your quarters in the arcade. Rather than having an attack that hits behind you, you can actually interrupt your string by pressing the opposite direction and continue the combo on the enemy directly behind you. You can also interrupt the string with a quick jump kick to try to escape a sticky situation. 

Speaking of jump kicks, you have two varieties: one that hits on the way up, and one that angles down after you're reached the apex of your jump. Konami's Turtles in Time has a similar mechanic with its jumping attacks. Also similar to Turtles in Time is the hop jump. A handy tool you'll use often is to tap jump for a hop, then immediately press attack to do the rising kick. If you do it fast enough you'll hop off the ground with your foot out in front of you. You can also control the trajectory of your jump after you're airborne, which is uncommon in this genre. 

The special moves on hand are actually quite useful, and unlike other brawlers you have access to more than one. The first special attack is a dragon punch style move you perform by pressing the jump button with the attack button held down. Like the other combo interrupt moves, you can insert this anywhere in a combo to hit the enemy as a part of the string for a guaranteed knockdown. What's more is that you can actually control the arc of the dragon punch forward or backward to use it as an escape or to hit other airborne enemies. 

Where things get interesting is with the second special attack. Like all brawlers, Mutation Nation has a move that will get you out of trouble, but you have to sacrifice a bit of life to do so. Holding down the attack button will put your character into a charge state indicated by the POW meter under your life bar. Once you are charged you can continue to hold down attack and move around for about 10 or so seconds until you lose your charge. Each of the two characters has one special attack that is unique to them, but they also have a few other special attacks that they can unleash if they grab the correct power-up item. 

• A huge energy ball that hits enemies in front of you, but also has a hurt-box behind the character as well for a short distance. 

• Lightning towers are super useful to clear the entire screen of baddies.

• Fast warp takes care of any enemies in front and behind you in a straight line kind of like the special moves in the brawler/platformer Eight Man. 

Keep in mind that you can only carry one type of super special move at a time, but you do have a limited stock of specials to use indicated by a number next to the POW meter. These super special moves do not require you to sacrifice a portion of your health, which is handy in a pinch. If you run out of stocks, though, you will perform your character specific special move and lose two points off of your life bar. You can gain additional stocks by picking up power tokens or another super special move item. Each item pick up also refills one bar of your life meter.

Difficulty was always an issue in these early Neo-Geo games, and Mutation Nation is no different. Despite being a bit too hard, the game isn't terribly frustrating due to all the options you have as you move along pummeling enemies. It would have been nice if each enemy had a life meter you could track, but only the bosses have a meter. Once an enemy is close to being defeated they begin flashing red, so at least there is some indication of stamina. The AI is cheap, no doubt about that. You'll find yourself in insurmountable situations beginning around stage 3. Even on Easy, I've never seen the game cleared in one credit.

Really, the overall lack of hit-stun and juggle states are the bulk of what makes this game so difficult. The designers at SNK didn't implement any sort of hit-stun on enemies so they can easily break your combo strings. Another odd design choice is that enemies bounce on the ground for a couple frames after landing from a jump. This means that if you anticipate an enemy landing in front of you and attack once their feet touch the ground, they are still in a "jump state" and you'll end up sending them flying to the other side of the screen with just one hit. Basically, this makes crowd control quite difficult in the game as there are swarms of enemies that attack you from all sides at all times from stage three onward. If there were a more fleshed out juggle system (hitting enemies while they are airborn), and longer hit-stun states, Mutation Nation would be a bit more pallatable. 

The story is some gibberish thing about a doctor that turned people into mutants and you need to stop the mad doctor with your non-mutant super powers…or something. It’s non-sense like many early Neo-Geo games and is there just to give the player some sense of place and purpose.

That said, the pixel art on display is stunning for a 54meg game! The characters and enemy sprites are large and detailed with quite a bit of animation. I think the standout part of the presentation is the varied backgrounds across the six stages. There is quite a bit of motion in the backgrounds, and the expert use of color really helps the world to feel more alive than most other SNK brawlers from the era.

While not as impactful as the pixel art on display, the sound design is generally fine. Aside from some general grunts and screams from enemies and player characters, there isn’t much vocal work in the game and I’m glad for that. Unlike many early Neo games, the memory isn’t being eaten up just by voice overs so more space could be dedicated to the graphics and sprite work. The music is actually pretty decent, but it’s not up to par with later SNK releases. That said, you can definitely hear the influence this game’s soundtrack has on later releases. You’ll hear familiar riffs and instruments that are reminiscent of the Fatal Fury 2 soundtrack. The stage 3 music has a similar jungle beat to Joe Higashi's Thailand stage in Fatal Fury 2/Special, for example.

Mutation Nation is a good game, and there is a fair amount of strategy involved in all of your combat options. But it still doesn't have quite the level of polish as Capcom’s and Konami’s brawlers that were released around the same time. If just a month or so of balancing and graphical sheen were put into the game, it would stand tall with some of the best beat-em-ups of the day. Basically, if you’re looking for a solid brawler on the Neo-Geo, you can do much, much worse and not a lot better. 

So, is it worth your money? Well, Mutation Nation is not a cheap Neo-Geo game despite it being one of the early ones. It’s not rare, so it’s easy to find in the modern retro game market. That said, it is expensive for what it is with prices for a complete Japanese copy running between $320 on the low end to $700 on the absurdly high end. On Ebay you’ll never see it drop below $500. It is profoundly less on both the MVS and Neo CD, so you’ll have better luck on those platforms if you don’t want to break the bank on what most people consider to be a mediocre game. There were no ports to other consoles of the day, but you can find it in the modern digital market in the Arcade Archives series or one of SNK’s mini-consoles.

If you want to add this game to your AES collection, my advice would be to wait. Despite it being a decent brawler on the Neo-Geo, that isn’t a high bar to clear. You’ll be better off getting the more important games in the short-term and leaving this for a purchase down the road - unless you have a particular love for beat-em-ups, then I'd say go for it. It's cheaper on average than Sengoku 2. While Sengoku 2 is the better game, it's also less traditional so you'll probably get more mileage out of Mutation Nation if you're looking for something more similar to Final Fight.