Mutant Fighter, originally titled in Japan as Death Brade), is a 1991 fighting game published and developed in-house by Data East for arcades. It was later ported to the FM Towns, Sharp X68000, and Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The SNES version was developed and published by I’Max. It is a sequel to Data East’s 1989 arcade title Hippodrome.

Gameplay

Mutant Fighter’s roster includes eight playable characters – three human characters and five monsters; the human characters are the Fighter, Amazoness, and Hercules. The monster playable characters are a Werewolf, Golem, Minotaur, Dragon, and the Beast. The SNES version instead has five playable characters, omitting the Werewolf, Golem and Dragon from the roster. Non-playable characters faced as opponents include the Hydra, the Doppleganger, the demon Pazuzu, and the Archmage. Different characters have different Power, Speed, and Defense stats. Mutant Fighter features one-player mode versus AI or a two-player cooperative mode, where the players compete against two AI opponents simultaneously.

The player may choose which opponents they face in the first three matches, sans the unplayable characters; after these three matches the opponents are chosen by the computer. When successfully hitting their opponent, characters accumulate Energy, which can be used for special attacks. Each character has unique special moves. In addendum to each character’s unique move, there are 19 different attacks which can be achieved through different combos. The arcade version’s title screen demo mode serves as a tutorial for the player to learn these moves.