Introduction
There are tons of beat them all on neogeo, like say, Robo Army, Burning Fight, Ninja Combat, the Sengoku serie, etc.
Still, noone highs up the overall level, and if you compare with the Capcom's title like, Final Fight, or Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, ... Well.
There's no doubt that the balance between them is weighted in favour of Capcom. So no, not this time fella's : Mutation Nation will not change the world this time.
Story
So through the videogaming years, the beat-em-up genre has been widely exploited. This time, you don't only fight against your usual vilains who took over your little city. You fight against vilains who got some kind of weird shell instead of the head, and other nice wild curiosities. People have been mutated. Brr.
Well, sounds fun and unusual. That's why you generally feel attracted by Mutation Nation : for the fuck's weirdness of it goddamnit !!
Graphics
Let's think about the context. For it's time, it was a good game, that people usually love for the previous reasons.
If you play it nowadays, it's another piece of cake. We could talk about the different levels, about ennemies sprites : they're fun at firlst, I mean, really fun and interesting. Then you get quickly bored.
Maybe because they just repeat themselves over and over. Hopefully, we got this little plus graphic touch, this thing that makes of Mutation Nation an original game, despite its common gameplay.
If I had to forgive its mediocrity, I would say, for an encouragement that it's such an old game ! But it's not THAT old : heeey 1992.
Or I would say that I progressively felt in love for these mutants, so much that I am being touched by their weakness when I put my foot right on their faces.
And the more I kick them, the more I want to kick and kick them. I love you all, and I want to hit you hard.
Well, let's just say that the game lost its gameplay value with age.
Gameplay
The main point of the game, just like any beat-tham-all, is to go straight from your left to your right while punching people's faces. I mean, punching their human scarab's faces, more like that. Hit, punch, kick, jump, take a few items that you could use against your direct opponent, or some items that will regenerate a bit of your energy, few special attacks, and few mutant ennemies that are a bit stronger than the others and that you must absolutely kill to be able to go further, and so on.
If you press the jump button, and the attack button simultaneously, you will perform a special attack, something a bit "dragon punch" like.
You can choose between two guys at the beginning of the game, but unfortunately the second hero doesn't look better than the first one, their clothes are completely gay and their moves aren't so good neither.
that doesn't look very positive, right ? Indeed, I doubt anybody will appreciate that game at all, except maybe if you felt in love for it at the age of seven, so it could become your "madeleine de proust", or something.
Otherwise, no fucking way.
You will never be the first of your stupid facebook friend to say that you like it for a simple reason : you don't.
Atmosphere
Finally, it's quite unfair to destroy Mutation Nation in a review like that. Afterall, who am I to judge like that ?
Joke.
Welcome to objectivity world brother !
If you just imagine that Mutation Nation has been possibly a good game right when it has been released, well, it's not anymore. Period.
So if you just own a neogeo to buy a very few games, and that you're not a collector guy at all, simple : just pass your way !
Music / Sounds
Then again, for the musics, there is nothing marvelous, that's the kind of music you will just forget right after playing the game.
It's pure video games rock'n'roll, so it's not bad at all, but just not wonderful.
As for the sound effects, like when you take a power-up, it's the random noise that you would hear in any video game. And for the punch sounds, they're actually quite good to hear, so the whole picture is not too bad at all, just the usual stuff.
Replay Value
You will play Mutation Nation like twenty minutes, the more enthusiast players would play it for let's say one hour.
But not much more...
Conclusion
Mutation Nation was one of the early neogeo releases, so we must be comprehensive and admit it was not THAT bad for its time.
It has just been less interesting with age.
