ACA NEOGEO MUTATION NATION - (Ricky Jones, Level 4 Difficulty, English Version)

Описание: Mutation Nation was developed by SNK and released in 1992. One of SNK's earlier titles, that being a side-scrolling beat 'em up, I can easily say this wasn't necessarily one of their better titles - although it there's been far worse, notably another title called Burning Fight. Hell, P.O.W. Prisoners of War was even worse.

In the early 90's, it seemed like it was difficult to develop a good beat 'em up from time to time, although Konami at that time, was easily cranking out great ones such as The Simpsons, TMNT, X-Men, Metamorphic Force, Mystic Warriors, and Violent Storm. Even Sega's Streets of Rage II was a pure quality beat 'em up even though it was on Sega Genesis/Mega Drive.

Bit of trivia for you: Mutation Nation was originally known as Dream Over (good call on the name change) and was supposed to be released back in between 1990 and 1991, so it make sense this title felt a little dated by a year or two, which I suspected initially. As a matter of fact, the game was almost cancelled, but it resumed development and released in 1992. Can't say if it WAS cancelled, it wouldn't have been a huge loss.

So, what's the story of Mutation Nation? Here it is, lifted from the wiki:

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In the year 2050, a mad scientist was shut down by his superiors after conducting bizarre biological experiments but soon after, his lab exploded and the scientist seemingly disappeared. Several years later, there are new buildings put right on top of the forgotten slum where the experiments took place and this time, a genetic virus has started to spread among the tenants, turning them into vicious and dangerous mutants. Two young fighters of the local city, Ricky Jones and Johnny Hart, return after having been away for several years and upon seeing the chaos that's happening, the two of them take it upon themselves to clean up this new nation of mutants before it spreads any further. Along the way they come across not only mutants but also mechanically modified freaks that the mad scientist created to stop them.
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So yep, Ricky and Johnny set out to fight against an army (and quite a repetitious one, at that) of freaks, mutants, and cyborgs. Sounds exciting, but it really isn't. You fight through six areas, fighting various mutated human and not-so-human experiments. When it comes to gameplay, Mutation Nation feels very barebones, since you don't necessarily have too many options to deal with the enemies.

You have your standard A and B buttons that let you punch/kick and jump respectively, and the most notable ability is holding down the A button to charge a special gauge, once when released, lets loose a powerful attack that varies depending on what power-up you picked up. One attack splits your character into two as they dash across the ground and hitting anyone in their way, another lets you leap into the air and crashing back into the ground letting loose streaks of lighting against your enemies, for example.

Each power is noted by little spheres you can pick up ranging from A to D representing each power. You can also pick up little orange spheres which restore life. If you don't have any elemental spheres in your possession, you can still do a special charge attack, but when you release the button you sacrifce a little bit of health in exchange. You can charge at any time, but you have to be careful as the enemies can easily knock you out of it very quickly.

Mutation Nation as I've said before, is very barebones feeling, and it feels like it drags on a little too long throughout the six areas. You fight sub-bosses also before fighting the end stage boss, and what would a beat 'em up be without the usual boss rush towards the end of the game? Either way, it's difficult to avoid taking damage due to the fact some enemies are hard as fuck to hit consistently due to spacing and positioning, and some enemies take advantage of it with their hurtboxes - and its very easy to get stunlocked on some of the bosses too, forcing you to take damage until you die if you're not careful.

Granted, I've only played this game about once several years ago and it never left a grand impression on me, compared to some of my other favorite arcade titles. Not too bad in presentation, just bad in actual execution. But as I've said before, there's worse titles than this, again, like Burning Fight. Surprisingly enough, this game only has one typo, when the mad scientist says "hear" instead of "here".

One more thing, I forgot to show the level difficulty before I started playing (this is what happens when you play a game with a headache), but rest assured, it's at Level 4 difficulty.

See you next game!