NEOGEO Pocket Color Selection Vol. 2 Review
The NEOGEO Pocket (& The color variant) is a handheld I never owned as a child, I vividly remember being quite envious of a classmate who had a Color model. I started saving my pocket money to go towards buying my unit but within 4 months of me becoming aware of the machine, it was already discontinued. The Pocket Color only lasted 9 months in total in the UK before SNK decided to pull the plug which was a real shame. I used my savings to import a Game Boy Advance some months later, so I guess I dodged a bullet there really.
During its short lifetime, the NEOGEO Pocket Color had a pretty robust and diverse library of software made available, although many titles remained exclusive to Japan.
In this review I will be looking at the NEOGEO Pocket Color Selection Vol. 2. Much like the previous Selection Vol. 1 there are ten games total and it’s quite the mixed bag this time around.
Each game uses the same level of emulation as we have seen in the individual NEOGEO Color releases recently allowing you to choose faux NEOGEO Pocket backgrounds, LCD Matrix filter overlays and a rewind function as standard. As before, the emulation quality is really good and each title even contains a scan of the original game manual which is a very nice addition.
The main menu we load into has all ten game carts on display, you can even view renders of the game box and cartridge individually which is a nice touch.
Baseball Stars Color
The first game in the collection is Baseball Stars Color a solid little baseball game with tight mechanics and colourful graphics. The game takes a little bit of getting used to but it’s quite a lot of fun once you get the hang of how everything works. The rooster is varied enough to make the game different each time you play. Personally, I’m not a big sports guy but I am sure this game would appeal more to the Japan / USA markets where Baseball is much more prevalent.
Big Bang Pro Wrestling
This is a really good wrestling game with great presentation, the sprites are colourful and large which is something you wouldn’t really find on a Game Boy Color back in the late 90s.
Each character has their entrance to the ring and their move set, however, the game is let down somewhat by the limitations of only having two buttons for attacks and I found it a little fiddly to get to grips with at times. You only really have a grab and a punch button with everything else being dictated by the direction of the direction pad. I guess am just not very good at it as I lost almost every match I tried, but I can see this is a great game if you are willing to get over the initial learning hump.
Bio Motor Unitron
Bio Motor Unitron surprised me, it’s a full-fledged RPG. I always assumed it was some type of fighting game for some reason. After playing for some time, I would argue that this is one of the best games in the collection. You have a large number of playable characters to choose from, with you able to choose different races and sex. The game is mainly menu driven similar to say Shin Megami Tensei IV and you use it to navigate the world and talk to its various denizens.
There’s the arena for fighting and progressing the story and a world map that leads to sections where you can freely roam around and get into random battles to grind etc. You can purchase parts to increase your machine’s abilities as you progress through the story.
Even though menu based, the character portraits are of really high quality and I recommend any RPG fan to check this game out, it was a pleasant surprise.
Ganebare Neo Poke-Kun
Ganebare Neo Poke Kun is very Japanese, both in style and in language as there’s no English translation here, this is the Japanese version. The manual has been translated at least and it’s quite a unique title. Ganebare Neo Poke Kun is a simulation game of sorts rifting off the virtual pet craze of the late 90s.
Your job is to keep Neo Poke-Kun happy and motivated as he is a game developer. Neo Poke-Kun exists in a small apartment and spends the day sleeping, thinking of video game concepts and being annoyed by us, the player. The A button usually allows someone inside the room, the up button turns on the apartment’s light and a full 360 spin of the analogue stick causes the apartment to be destroyed, it is quite bizarre.
Upon seeing all of the various actions Neo Poke-Kun will become motivated enough to churn out a game. These games are fully playable and start small, such as pong clones etc. The further you get in the game the better the quality of the game is produced and you end up with some pretty ambitious Strategy RPG titles, it’s quite good, although the game suffers from a lack of direction. Perhaps that in itself is a meta-narrative on the games industry in general.
The King of Fighters: Battle De Paradise
Also sadly Japanese only, The King of Fighters: Battle De Paradise is an excellent Mario Party-style board game set across 4 unique boards where you compete for coins. You roll the dice to dictate how far you move and you can either land on tiles which will give you coins, take away coins, start a mini-game or give you a penalty.
The mini-games available are varied and a lot of fun although the descriptions are all in Japanese. Although most of the Japanese is quite basic, there are some Kanji used making the game hard for people who cannot read Japanese. Most of the games are quite straight forward like picking which door to go through, shooting bad guys, running a race ala Track and Field or playing a spot the difference game.
The graphics are colourful and it always makes me happy to see the chibified version of all the King of Fighters characters. This is an addictive game, irrespective of language, I highly recommend it.
Mega Man Battle and Fighters
I’ve already done a full review of these two titles which you can read here. My main impressions of the two included titles are they are great conversions of two great fighting games, although they both are slightly let down by the inclusion of unlimited continues which makes the difficulty a little lacklustre. I was also disappointed by the lack of translation once again.
All in all, both are good games and a lot of fun.
NEOGEO Cup 98 Plus
NEOGEO Cup 98 Plus is a fun yet simple soccer game which nice, large sprites and a large number of national teams to select from. As I said earlier, I’m not the biggest sports guy but I had a lot of fun here, even though the CPU trashed me almost every time.
It’s a good game and a welcome inclusion, but nothing to write home about.
Pocket Color Tennis
Pocket Color Tennis allows you to choose between 8 unique characters all with different stats to play tennis across 5 different court types.
The game is simple yet addicting and I found myself playing this game a lot more than I thought I would. It’s no Virtua Tennis but it’s pretty solid with nice movement and animations. This was by far my favourite sports title in this collection and I recommend you check it out.
Puzzle Link 2
Puzzle Link 2 is an odd one to describe, it plays like a mix between Puzzle Bobble and Tetris but in reverse. You shoot up what is essentially pipe and have to connect two of the same block types together. Once connected the blocks and everything between them will disappear.
As the game goes on the blocks will edge closer to the bottom of the screen like in Puzzle Bubble and once they do it’s game over.
It’s kind of hard to describe this type of puzzle game in words but I can say it’s pretty good!
SNK Vs. Capcom Cardfighters’ Clash
This game is a really good card battler game. I’m not generally a fan of this type of game but I love Cardfighters’ Clash. The game takes place in a top-down, almost Pokemon-inspired style where you walk around and initiate card battles with people. Defeating opponents nets you new cards with different abilities etc and each card is based on legacy SNK or Capcom characters. it’s nice to see the art these cards have.
The object of each battle is to slowly grind down your opponent’s cards points, then eventually the opponent’s points. It’s fun and addicting and there’s even a NEOGEO Pocket Color version of the Spencer Mansion from Resident Evil which made me smile.
It’s a really good game which you could get lost in for hours.
Conclusion
In conclusion, NEOGEO Pocket Color Selection Vol.2 is a great collection of games although let down a little by the lack of translation on some of its best titles. The included titles this time are a little more eclectic and I feel like there’s no true stand-out title here. Sonic or Puzzle Bobble would have been a nice inclusion to help round out the collection.
The games included here range from good to great with no real bad or subpar titles making the cut and the value for money is great. I would recommend picking up a copy as there’s a lot of fun to be had here.
7.5
Steam review code kindly provided by SNK
Played on Steam Deck
