Mutation Nation (Neo Geo AES) Playthrough - NintendoComplete

A playthrough of SNK's 1992 beat 'em up for the SNK Neo Geo AES, Mutation Nation. At first glance, Mutation Nation, much like Burning Fight, bears a strong resemblance to Capcom's classic belt-scrolling brawler Final Fight. But, not content to merely rehash what's already been done, Mutation Nation adds a few new twists to the formula. The biggest innovation on offer here is the power up system: there are several different-colored orbs that can be picked up, and each of these will give you the limited-use ability associated with that particular one. Some create fireballs, while others create waves of lightning, amongst others, and picking up any if these orbs will also slightly replenish you're health. Besides the power up system, the game doesn't deviate too much from the typical examples of the genre, but the controls are responsive and the enemies generally put up a good fight without being too cheap, which is a bit of a rarity for SNK. I love Mutation Nation's style, though. If the title hasn't clued you in already, you aren't fighting against the garden variety of street thugs. You're taking on a metric butt-ton of gross but insanely cool looking mutated people - football players with some form of mollusk for heads, robot man-walruses, wolfmen - it certainly shows some imagination. My favorite probably has to be the boss fight at the nightclub - she resembles Goro with her spidery arms, and she likes to launch robotic bugs at you. The music is also pretty good, especially a game from 1992. Lots of (surprisingly good) guitar riffs and boomy orchestra hit samples mix with the constant drone of thuds, thwacks, and screams to create a gloriously brash cacophony of arcade goodness. All of this is courtesy the cartridge's 54 megabit (6.75 megabyte) storage capacity, according to the front of the box, which was clearly a huge selling point. As any avid reader of gaming magazines knew, that meant a massive upgrade from the SNES Final Fight's 8 megabit (1MB) cart, or the Genesis's 16 megabit (2MB) Streets of Rage 2. It even blew away the original Final Fight arcade game, for that matter, which consumed about 27 megabits (3.3MB)! Mutation Nation was designed to impress, and it really succeeded. Just check out how fluid that animation is! I always wanted to play this after seeing a GamePro review raving about it, and finally got the chance to play it many years later via emulation. It has also been getting quite a bit of play on my Switch thanks to the ACA Neo Geo line of releases. If you loved Streets of Rage or Final Fight, I'd recommend picking this up. At a price point below $10 on all of the current consoles it's a steal (the AES cart was well over $200 when it came out!), and it'll certainly keep you busy for awhile before you're able to just blow through it. _ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (
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