Has this not been the year for reviving old games? Sheesh. Of course, what most of you believe is old started back in the mid-2000s. For us old fogies, it means the 90s and below. Anyway, the 90s have been revisited with the NEOGEO Pocket Color Selection Vol. 2 from SNK. It’s a good collection coming from a handheld system that was with us ever so briefly. If you don’t know much about the NEOGEO Pocket Color, it was a surprise to the U.S. shores back in 1999 for a punchy price of $69.95. Not bad for a system that featured a color screen and some strong titles.
The good folks at SNK figured that rehashing this system’s classics in PC form would be a great way to remember the little engine that could, and they weren’t wrong. The NEOGEO Pocket Color Selection Vol. 2 is a wonderful trip down memory lane that features some good times, some bad times, and some very confusing times. Oh, so confusing times.
Anyway, let’s get right into this selection collection.
What’s the big deal?
Over the last couple of years, SNK has trickle-released some of the NEOGEO Pocket Color classics, which probably wasn’t the best way to handle reintroducing them back into the wild. While I don’t mind single titles for under a certain price, it’s a hard sell for those who never heard of the system before. Anyway, the Selection Volumes were definitely the right choice of package and delivery for these unknowns, and this volume specifically has some gems in it. Here’s what you’re getting with this release:
SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters’ Clash – To be blunt, this is the best game in the selection collection. This is an early version of a card fighting game that features numbered cards with familiar SNK and Capcom characters on them. You go head-to-head with NPC competition in this game and try to build out the best deck to take down the enemy in the most brutal and quickest way possible. I wore out many watch batteries on my NEOGEO Pocket Color playing this game. The adventure is comparable to a Pokémon card game and has just enough personality to go toe-to-toe. While it isn’t a capture animals and then fight them against others sorta deal, it still has longevity in its narrative and replayability. It honestly didn’t take long to get back my card fighter legs for this game. It was the gem of the bunch.
Baseball Stars Color – While I absolutely despise having to haul my old butt to a real baseball game, I’m a freak for baseball video games. There’s less scratching and you can play this game in less than an hour. Anyway, Baseball Stars is a simple baseball game that doesn’t do too much to make itself a competent gaming experience. The foul ball about the experience is how difficult the AI is in the game. It’s ruthless, as are the controls, and pulling off a double-play (near impossible). While the mechanics and design are clearly aged, the charm of it is not. It’s a stupid fun game.
NEOGEO Cup ’98 Plus Color – You know it’s soccer. You know you want to play it. What I was expecting with this experience is tiny players on a large field. What you get with this experience is large players on segmented pieces of the pitch. And trust me, the latter works much better, as it uses every inch of that screen size. In addition, this game has an intelligent passing system, a great player support system, and is just darn fun. It’s certainly basic in its design, but nonetheless, for a 1999 game, it’s fun. FIFA take note.
Big Bang Pro Wrestling – This one is tough to love, even if it looks like a direct copy of the NES wrestling game from yesteryear (maybe called Pro Wrestling? Clever as shit, right?). For a system with two buttons, this was a pain in the caboose to figure out. Sometimes less means more complicated in the long run. The game has some spunk and personality by featuring tournaments, single matches, and a championship match, but the controls are so darn overwhelming.
The King of Fighters: Battle de Paradise – This is a weird, yet entertaining game. Almost every King of Fighters game I have ever played has been straight-up fighting. Player against player, group against group, learn the moves, pull off miracles, and boom! Fighting. This is a board game. Yes, you read that right, a board game. This is akin to Mario Party, and not a bad knockoff either. It’s an entertaining game of chance that features mini-games, hidden stars on a die-drive board, and plenty of ways to screw over your opponent. This might be my second favorite part of this collection.
Mega Man Battle & Fighters – I’m still stunned by a previous review I did that there is a Mega Man game that lies in the fighting genre. I can see the natural transition from action-adventure to this, but it’s still an odd concept to me. It works, it’s fun, and it’s essentially just tons of boss fights, but it’s a Mega-Man-frustrating fighting game. It’s a nice addition to this collection for those fans of the series.
Biomotor Unitron – This is a more serious, robot-driven Pokémon clone that resides within the strategy RPG genre. You essentially build up a robot, compete in tournaments, and try to survive while thriving. If you’re looking for the prequel to Real Steel, you got it. Surprisingly, this game works well and is fun, though it can be a little chatty at times. This is another entertaining addition to this selection. It certainly has some sustainability and longevity to it.
Ganbare NEO Poke-Kun – I haven’t the foggiest about what is going on in this game. I tried playing it, but it’s still weird and unsettling at times. I think it might be an angry duckbug that enjoys being isolated. The genre is a simulation, but it’s honestly downright confusing when it comes to figuring out what the hell is going on. I will leave it at that, good folks.
Puzzle Link 2 – I have never played the first one, but PL2 is a weird cross between Bubble Bobble and any basic iPhone ball-color game where you try to link colored balls together to eliminate them from the board. Yeah, it’s a funny way to put it, but you know what I mean. It’s a neat game and I can see getting addicted to it quickly.
Pocket Tennis – This is fun for 10 minutes max. Then the angles will make you hate your sports choices in this collection. It’s pretty, but wow is it difficult to hit that ball at times.
This is the NEOGEO Pocket Color Selection Vol. 2 in a nutshell. Honestly, not a bad collection overall.
Kudos to Extras
While this isn’t going to be as deep as Atari 50, not even close, the good folks at SNK have included manuals, different languages, and sometimes different versions of the games (if you enjoy reading Japanese, be my guest). I think the presentation of the games and some of those added features make this more of a collection with the effort put into it. I also enjoyed the fact that you can play these games in classic NG screen mode or have a brighter, more cleaned-up screen to play them in. It’s the little things, ya know?
Questionable Price Point
While you do get a good chunk of entertainment from a system that truly didn’t go far, the scariest thing about this collection is probably the price point. I think that if SNK dropped this to about $19.99, then it might be worth it, but asking people to pay $39.99 for this on steam, well, that’s pushing it a little. Adding extra content or doing something else to entice gamers out there might make that price point justifiable. I would pay that price because I know this system extremely well, I even have two of them at home. But the games are dated and the only folks that would garnish any interest from these titles are those gamers looking for some nostalgia. I love the collection here and I think that some games will certainly last a long time, but it just seems a bit too much for the overall collection that you get.
Anyway, let’s wrap this up.
Conclusion
The majority of games featured in the NEOGEO Pocket Color Selection Vol. 2 are fun, while some fall flat. Overall, I think SNK released a solid selection of titles for volume 2 of this series with some added extra to boot, but they really do need to rethink that price point.
