Review: Neo Geo Pocket Color Collection Vol. 1 (Nintendo Switch)

 And I’m no stranger to this – I’ve played Street Fighter GBC and Tekken Advance, and I can attest they both reach the coveted standard of “they did their best, but also, why though”. I don’t know how many people in the 90’s played the gorgeously animated games by Capcom, Namco and SNK in the arcades, and then cried out for a version they could play on the bus. But popular demand aside, the Neo Geo Pocket Colour supplied it in droves – and each one in this collection is worth playing.

There are six separate fighting games available in Volume 1 of the collection, each a unique representation of its property rather than a scaled-down port of an arcade game. Amazingly, every one has redone sprites and controls to make sure it works well for the handheld system. This was aided by the original NGPC’s eight-direction joystick, which enabled precise controls compared to the D-Pad on Nintendo’s handhelds. The use of taps and hard-presses for weak and strong moves respectively, means that SNK’s trademark four-button fighting style translates perfectly onto the NGPC’s face buttons, though this can be hard to differentiate on the tiny buttons of the Switch Joy-Con. None of the manuals have instructions for each character’s special moves though, and this isn’t available via the menu either – so you’ll need to look up a guide for each game. All these small issues aside, with each title you do feel like you’re playing a fighting game in an arcade. I can’t claim expertise on any of these games, but here’s a rapid breakdown of all of them:

SNK Gals’ Fighters: A unique game and not an arcade port, SNK Gal Fighters is one of the more standard fighting games of the lot. It features the female fighters from across SNK’s properties (11 total, three unlockable), and their movesets feel true to their arcade counterparts. The personality of the characters comes across from the animations and the before/after fight dialogues. There are unlockable items from beating each character’s story mode, mostly cosmetics – but I like the added replay value available. A training mode and 5 difficulty levels makes this one of the deeper options available in this collection, though the difficulty does skew on the easy side.

Fatal Fury First Contact: I’ve always felt the Fatal Fury series to be the most bare-bones of SNK’s fighting lineup, and that assessment shows clearly here. Despite releasing after King of Fighters R-2, the NGPC Fatal Fury game has 13 characters (two unlockable) and a simple 1P and 2P mode, with nothing else, not even a training mode. The fighting is well-paced, so if Fatal Fury’s style is your favourite, then there’s fun to be had here – though there’s nothing that sets it apart from an arcade version also available on Switch.

King of Fighters R-2: SNK has a weird habit of releasing the definitive version of King of Fighters first, and then the earlier/lacklustre iterations afterwards when nobody would ever want to buy them. On the Switch, KoF ’98 (the best one) came out first, and then followed by ’97, ’96, ’95 and ’94. The same has happened here: R-2 is the expanded KOF experience on NGPC, with 14 characters and additional single-player content; we can only assume KOF R-1 is coming later. The classic KOF combat is here, with players selecting a team of three fighters to face off against increasingly difficult computer opponents. There’s also the option to run a classic Arcade mode with one fighter, or to pick a one-on-one CPU fight in the sparring mode. After clearing Arcade mode once, “Making” mode is unlocked, which is an RPG-like character creator where you can remix the main cast’s movesets: but this is a grindy game mode with lots of random drops – not recommended unless you love the gameplay here. KOF R-2 also has a much-needed training mode, the lack of which I can imagine turned many people off the mainline series.

Samurai Shodown 2: I don’t personally like the Samurai Shodown games because they feel more defensively-oriented to me: because the characters wield swords and every hit should feel significant, fights are over in four or five good hits and gameplay revolves around edging forwards and backwards to bait your opponent into making a mistake. This manifests in some extreme hit/stun flow in the NGPC version, and I can’t tell if this is a performance issue or an intentional part of the gameplay. This is also a game where the difference between weak and strong hits matters, and with the difficulty that the Switch hardware brings, this wasn’t one of my favourites in the collection.

The Last Blade: I did not know that The Last Blade got a port on the Pocket Colour, and I was pleased at just how excellently it plays. There are new unique sprites for every one of that game’s characters, along with gorgeous backgrounds, balanced gameplay and surprisingly little slowdown. There’s a full story mode for every character, just like the arcade original, with gorgeous backgrounds and insets which look fantastic even when blown up onto the Switch screen. The balance of combat is good here, with the series’ penchant Power and Speed choice clearly replicated – but it does feel slower than the arcade original. A gallery serves as this game’s replay value, with key art purchasable with points earned from playing. Is it as good as playing The Last Blade or the sequel, both of which are also available on Switch? No, not by a long shot. But is it impressive, in a historical-curio kind of way? Absolutely yes.

SNK vs. Capcom: The Match of the Millennium: Saving the best for last, this game is absolutely essential to the NGPC. It’s a content-loaded fighting game with fan favourites from SNK and Capcom’s properties, with 26 characters (8 unlockable) and a multitude of game modes. This is also the fastest fighter in the collection, with the performance holding up well at all times. The reliance on special moves from the Capcom side of the roster means it’s also fairly playable on the Switch hardware. It’s adorable to see the chibi versions of the Capcom characters duking out with the familiar SNK mainstays, and every character’s playstyle feels like a familiar translation of their home game. There’s also the generous Olympic Mode which sees the cast of characters engaging in minigames like time-attack, survival battles, and completely fighting-irrelevant activities like a Darkstalkers themed rhythm game, a Metal Slug themed whack-a-mole game, and a Ghost ‘n Goblins themed arcade minigame. Even if you don’t like the fighting genre, there’s lots of fun to be had here: it was perfect in 1999 and it’s perfect today.

For what it’s worth, each of these fighting games has its own distinctive flavour, so with the choice of six you’ll find one that you want to devote your time to. The simplified controls, training modes, easier difficulty and added single-player content means that these are a more accessible entry into each respective franchise compared to the full-size Neo Geo counterparts. The David Sirlin led Pocket Rumble, also available on modern devices, seems to take a lot of inspiration from these ports on the Pocket Colour, down to the two-attack-buttons, reduced health bar and adorably pixelated characters – showing the longevity of this design style. These games are certainly not lesser versions of the flagship fighters, as other handheld ports like Street Fighter GBC or Tekken Advance are. All of the games in the collection are fun and playable, and because it’s SNK, you’ll be spoilt for choice.

The Non-Fighting Games

And then there are the other titles in the collection:

Both entries are classic Metal Slug – fast-paced run-and-gun action with gorgeous animation and big, screen-sized boss battles. I like the way the handheld’s limitations, and the fact that these games were never meant for arcade, means the developers thought more deeply about level sizes: the levels in both NGPC games are bite-sized with varied challenges, offering something new with each minute. HP-bars and plenty of health pickups means that the level of difficulty is manageable, now that the developers are designing experiences to be completed, instead of merely receptacles for spare change. It’s a great entry-level Metal Slug experience, if you can handle the performance issues.

Dark Arms: Beast Buster: The most unusual game in the collection, Dark Arms is a spin-off of the arcade top-down-shooter Beast Buster, which sees the player developing living weapons in a Dark Fantasy inspired action-RPG. The NGPC did have a couple of RPG titles, and this one does a good job of showing off what the handheld was capable of. It has a rudimentary monster capturing system which lets the player feed and evolve guns to fill out their arsenal, and there’s a good range of weapons from beam guns, melee weapons and the classic shotgun and machine gun.

The designs are very forward-thinking for 1999 – before the indie market started tacking exp-bars to everything, here was SNK creating an engaging weapon upgrade system and a sizeable menagerie of monsters that required a diverse loadout. The enemy designs are memorable, fitting the Hammer-Horror theme: spooky but not overtly horrifying. Each also has varied attack patterns so you can choose how you approach it. There are six levels total, which isn’t a lot, but a day-night cycle keeps things interesting by varying enemy spawns. I think of this game as being a good comparison to the Gargoyle’s Quest/Demon Crest series by Capcom: horror-themed action games with mild RPG elements, which let players choose either grinding or dexterity to power through levels.

The game isn’t difficult, and the length isn’t long either, clocking at around five or six hours. There is a bonus dungeon for players to test out their endgame loadouts, but after that, there’s not much else to be done here. The various weapon choices and monster capturing do both lend to replay value, but I felt the small dungeon sizes and simplistic puzzles just aren’t much fun to retread over and over. The narrative is also scattered and hard to follow without consulting the manual. It’s certainly worth one full playthrough – it won’t take up much time and the gameplay and enemy designs are very satisfying – I’d not recommend buying the full collection just for this, though. It’s a nice hidden gem, and it’s wonderful that SNK saw fit to make this rare title accessible for the modern audience.

The whole collection features a promising ten games from a sorely underlooked handheld console, all of which hold up well today. The collection doesn’t have the same sheer value for money that something like the SEGA Mega Drive Collection does, but you shouldn’t underestimate how well all of these handheld titles told up today. While Volume 1 does lean heavily into the fighting game genre, it’s SNK – you knew what you were getting into. I especially liked the way that the handheld ports simplified and distilled the core of each property, but not in a limiting way: I felt like I was getting the proper Metal Slug, KOF and Last Blade experiences, but simplified down to be more accessible for a newer player. With an excellent multiplayer mode and opportunities for replay value across the titles, Neo Geo Pocket Color Collection Vol. 1 is a welcome addition to the retro compilations across the Switch eShop.