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  • ‘Metal Slug X ACA NEOGEO’ Review – A Redo of a Redo, But Still a Great Time – TouchArcade

    ‘Metal Slug X ACA NEOGEO’ Review – A Redo of a Redo, But Still a Great Time – TouchArcade

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    Alright, let’s do this one more time. Not the last time, mind you. We still have Garou left. But the age of my comparison reviews between ACA NEOGEO re-releases and the pre-existing (and still available) Dotemu-developed versions is just about at its end. Metal Slug X ACA NEOGEO ($3.99) is the latest release in Hamster and SNK’s mobile Arcade Archives initiative, and one that I know a lot of folks have been waiting for. I mean, I even told you to wait for it when Metal Slug 2 ACA NEOGEO hit. Took a little longer than I thought, but here we are. Let’s go into the details.

    If you’ve read any of previous reviews of ACA NEOGEO releases that ostensibly replace the decade-old Dotemu versions of the same games, a lot of this is going to be familiar. I will go through it anyway, because some of you might be new. Feel free to head on to the next paragraph if you deem it necessary. So, the Dotemu version of Metal Slug X. It was quite good for its time, but its time was when Iron Man 3 was ruling the movie screens and everyone was doing the Harlem Shake. Things have marched on, and despite receiving updates over the years those original mobile versions are in rough shape now. While you can still buy the Dotemu version and save a buck by doing so, you should not. The ACA NEOGEO version is superior in every meaningful way. There, that’s all settled.

    Metal Slug X is a strange game in the context of its series. While Metal Slug 2 had been very well-received and was a big success, it was hard to deny its technical issues. It suffered from severe enough slowdown that even a generation of players who had been raised on NES slowdown found it jarring at times. Developer Nazca Corporation had started work immediately on Metal Slug 3 after finishing up the second game, intending to make it the biggest and best run-and-gun action game that SNK’s NEOGEO platform would ever see. Fair beans to Nazca – the developer did more or less pull that off.

    Still, those intentions meant that the third numbered installment would take two full years to finish development, which was a very long time for a company that was in dire financial straits and needed every hit it could muster. Egads! SNK’s 1999 fiscal year was ruined! But what if… Nazca Corporation were to make some adjustments to Metal Slug 2, shift it over to the more advanced Metal Slug 3 engine, and disguise it as a new game? Oh ho ho ho ho ho! Delightfully devilish, Shin Nihon Kikaku.

    I’m being a little cute here to force the reference, but there’s no getting around the fact that Metal Slug X is a meal slapped together from the leftovers of last night’s Metal Slug 2 dinner. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, of course. This is a safe space and I think we can all admit that hot turkey sandwiches are usually better than the roast turkey the night before. It happens. And that is what happened here, too. I feel bad for people who were buying the extremely pricy AES cartridges, as they basically got Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3‘d here, but they were probably rich anyway. Metal Slug X rules. It’s a better game than Metal Slug 2 in every single way, and it’s just different enough to justify picking up even if you already own the game it’s based on.

    It’s better on a technical level, with considerably fewer instances of slowdown and substantially lower severity when it does occur. There are more enemies about, owing to the freedom the Metal Slug 3 engine offered. Aesthetically, while the stages themselves use the same themes and layouts, the time of day has been changed in most of them to make things feel fresher. The music has been arranged and altered in some stages, and the Metal Slug 3 announcer has been added. There are some new sound effects, and an improved credits sequence.

    Over on the gameplay side, there are a lot of little changes that add up to a big difference. New bosses, new enemies, new vehicles, more P.O.W.s and power-ups to find, new weapons, improved versions of existing weapons, and new behaviors for various objects and gimmicks. It’s a more difficult game, but not egregiously so. Indeed, I think the difficulty is just right in this game, with the extra heat compared to Metal Slug 2 proving to be most welcome. The pacing is really good too. I love Metal Slug 3, and it’s certainly a towering achievement in its genre. But I can’t argue with anyone who says that the last stage drags out far too long. You won’t have that issue with Metal Slug X. It’s all killer, no filler.

    My heart struggles to choose between this game and Metal Slug 3 when I’m asked which is my favorite game in this series. I can’t pick, but the point is that if you’re into this genre at all you might as well own both of them. Four dollars? Yeesh. I threw way more quarters than that into this game back in the day. I think its snappy nature also makes it more well-suited to mobile than Metal Slug 3. Now, this game does suffer from the same issues we’ve seen with all the other Metal Slug ports to mobile. If you’re not using an external controller, you’re stuck with using touch controls in a game that can be quite demanding in terms of precision. But you have unlimited credits, so it doesn’t particularly matter if you die a lot. You know, if you just want to have fun and tour the game. The other issue is that to play multiplayer, you’ll need enough controllers for everyone and a display you feel comfortable enough crowding around.

    Otherwise, it’s smooth enough sailing. You get both the Japanese and international versions of the game, tons of options to mess around with, a handy save state feature so you can stop and pick up at any point, and the usual extra modes every Hamster game comes with. The timed Caravan mode is decent here, and the score attack mode is a good challenge. There are online leaderboards to compete on as well, which can add some replay value to the game if you need more. Everything is emulated well, but there’s no surprise there. NEOGEO has been a solved problem for Hamster for a very long time now.

    If you have an external controller or don’t mind the idea of playing with touch controls, Metal Slug X is about as good a run-and-gun experience as you’re liable to get on mobile. It’s a tightly-paced, action-packed tour through some wild and wacky stages that will keep you on your toes the whole way through. One of the best games on the NEOGEO, and I’m glad we’ve got a fresh version of the game to enjoy for the next ten years.

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    Shaun Musgrave

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  • ‘Metal Slug 2 ACA NEOGEO’ Review – Double the Action, Double the Slowdown, Double the Releases – TouchArcade

    ‘Metal Slug 2 ACA NEOGEO’ Review – Double the Action, Double the Slowdown, Double the Releases – TouchArcade

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    I think Hamster and SNK might be speedrunning these now. Another week has passed, and we’ve got another ACA NEOGEO release that essentially replaces an existing app. That’s all well and good, since the older versions of these apps are over a decade old. They need to either be overhauled or replaced, and in light of pretty much the entire first-party library of the NEOGEO being released through the brand-consistent ACA NEOGEO line, it’s not surprising SNK has opted for the latter choice. I do wish the old apps would be removed from sale when this happens, but what can you do? The latest game to get the treatment is Metal Slug 2 ACA NEOGEO ($3.99), the first sequel in the popular run-and-gun franchise.

    If you’ve read any of my recent reviews of games that follow in this pattern, you can skip ahead to the next paragraph. This is just my general recommendation that you avoid picking up Dotemu’s conversion of Metal Slug 2 that at the time of this writing remains on the store. Yes, it’s a dollar cheaper. But it’s only a dollar, and I think the differences here more than make up for that extra buck you spend. This new version is not only likely to have a far longer future, but also is designed for modern devices and their displays, which are things we cannot say for the older version. You get more options and extra features with the new version, and greater compatibility with external controllers. Spend that extra dollar, you deserve the treat.

    Metal Slug was likely a pretty big surprise to SNK when it released back in 1996. Nazca Corporation, the developer behind the game, was a team formed by ex-Irem employees who had left the company to pursue their ambitions. This was a seasoned bunch, having worked together on games at Irem such as Air Duel, Undercover Cops, GunForce II, and perhaps most famously, In The Hunt. Nevertheless, its first efforts as Nazca Corporation proper went far beyond most expectations. A pair of NEOGEO titles, published by SNK themselves: NEO Turf Masters and Metal Slug. The former is one of the finest arcade-style golfing games ever made, and the latter? Well, it soon became a staple of every NEOGEO MVS around.

    SNK made what was for this time in its history a rare wise business decision: it bought Nazca Corporation lock-stock. You don’t want to lose talent like that. Its first mission as a wholly-owned subsidiary of the company was to follow up on the ultra-hot Metal Slug, a mission that it would more or less carry out for the rest of its unexpectedly short lifespan. But how can you top something as wild as Metal Slug without losing what brought people to the game in the first place?

    Metal Slug 2 offers the same number of stages, with six in total. The game goes a bit more over the top with its themes than the first game, and there’s more variety in general. The playable roster has doubled with the additions of Fio and Eri. They play the same as the guys, but it’s nice to have the choice. There are a few new weapons, and one of the returning ones has been upgraded. The titular Metal Slug vehicles also see their selection expanded, with the SV-Camel, Slugnoid, and Slug Flyer showing up in set places during the game. The original SV-001 tank is here too, of course. There are some other fun extra bits in here too, like how your character can be turned into a mummy or how one of the prisoners will follow you around throwing fireballs after you save him.

    All of this ambition comes at a cost, however. Metal Slug 2 is notorious for the severity of its slowdown when the action picks up. And pals, the action picks up often. It’s so bad that Nazca actually opted to revisit the game the following year, using the improvements of the engine of the then-in-development Metal Slug 3 to remove many of the technical issues plaguing the game. The team also added some new goodies in while they were at it, and that revised version became Metal Slug X. That is not this game, but I’m sure we’ll see it soon. This game is as it ever was, and that means you’re going to be running, jumping, and shooting through some molasses at times. History isn’t always pretty.

    I think to a great degree Metal Slug X negates this game, but for the serious Metal Slug fan I think the differences can be interesting enough to make Metal Slug 2 worth keeping around. If you’re not into that kind of hair-splitting or aren’t planning to catch them all, you might just want to be patient and wait for Metal Slug X‘s ACA NEOGEO version. I imagine it will come in a matter of weeks, simply because Hamster and SNK don’t have too many other games to touch on at this point. From a gameplay perspective Metal Slug 2 loses to Metal Slug X in every way. On its own merits, it’s quite a lot of fun despite the issues. And hey, it’s not likely you’re going to have a second player on screen gumming things up even worse.

    Yes, I have to bang my usual drums here. First up, playing this game with touch controls is not ideal. It can be done, and you’ve got unlimited credits to work with here so it doesn’t particularly matter if you keep on dying. But a challenging game like this really works best if you can use an external controller to play. If you have one, this is just as fun to blast your way through as it is on any other platform. You’ll probably have to go it alone, because multiplayer requires external controllers and a display you feel comfortable hunkering down around. Well, you could do a lot worse on iOS even with all this baggage in tow.

    You get the usual ACA NEOGEO options here. Game settings, control mapping, virtual control adjustments, audio and video options, and so on. You can play the Japanese version with all the blood spurts or the Overseas version with all the sweat spurts, and you also get the usual Score Attack and timed Caravan modes. Those extra modes are pretty fun here, especially the Score Attack. This is a game you can get through on one credit if you practice enough, and it’s a good challenge to see how far you can go while accumulating the most points possible. You get your online leaderboards as well, allowing you to compare your feats with those of other players. The extras supplement the game well, even if the necessary sacrifices of the mobile format don’t.

    Look, if you’re going to buy Metal Slug 2 on mobile, this ACA NEOGEO release is the one you want. And if you’re trying to collect all the Metal Slug games or even all of the Arcade Archives releases, don’t let me stop you. But even setting aside the usual issues with Metal Slug games on mobile, I have to recommend the average player simply wait for Metal Slug X to get a rerelease. It’s everything this game is and more, with the improvement of the egregious slowdown being no small favor. A good game, but one made largely redundant by another entry that will be here soon.

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    Shaun Musgrave

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  • ‘Metal Slug ACA NEOGEO’ Review – Another Tour of Duty for SNK’s Classic Run ‘n Gun – TouchArcade

    ‘Metal Slug ACA NEOGEO’ Review – Another Tour of Duty for SNK’s Classic Run ‘n Gun – TouchArcade

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    Well, here we go again. The latest addition to SNK and Hamster’s mobile Arcade Archives line is none other than Metal Slug ACA NEOGEO ($3.99), a second take on a game we got a mobile version of a decade back from Dotemu. That was a fine version for its era, albeit with all of the problems one would expect from trying to convert a run-and-gun action game from sticks and buttons to touch. Time has marched on, however. Despite some updates over the years to keep the game running, there are a lot of issues with it in the current year. Is that enough to merit buying the game again if you already own it? Should those who have neither version spend the extra buck for the new one? Come on in and find out the obvious answer.

    So again I do want to clarify that Dotemu’s Metal Slug 1 ($2.99) was a perfectly fine version for its time. Things were very different in the mobile scene back in 2013 when that game was first released on mobile, especially with regards to screen sizes and aspect ratios. While the app saw occasional updates to maintain compatibility with various versions of iOS, some aspects didn’t get much in the way of reworking. One of the biggest problems with these older Dotemu NEOGEO ports is that the touch screen buttons are too small for modern displays, even at their largest setting in the options. That is also the case here, and it makes the old version very hard to play. You can use an external controller, but compatibility is a bit spotty. There are also a few minor emulation issues.

    I’m repeating myself here from other recent reviews, but despite the slightly cheaper price I would caution strongly against buying the older version over the ACA NEOGEO one. I don’t even think SNK should still be selling that version now that this one exists. I doubt it will ever get the necessary updates to make it as playable as it used to be, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it gets retired in the near future. The ACA NEOGEO version isn’t exactly a treat to play with touch controls either, but it’s a lot more comfortable. It also offers many more options and modes, which I think makes it the one to pick all-around. Even if you’re using an external controller, you’ll find the ACA NEOGEO version runs and plays better.

    As to the game itself, Metal Slug probably doesn’t need too much introduction if you’re interested enough in NEOGEO games to be reading this review. If SNK’s home/arcade console system is known for one thing, it’s The King of Fighters. But if it’s known for two things, the second one is Metal Slug. Developed by ex-Irem folks at Nazca Corporation, this run-and-gun action game is among the very finest the genre has to offer. It’s not hard to see why it spawned such a long-running and popular series. The graphics are incredibly detailed and lavishly animated, the gameplay is excellent, the pace of the game is zippy, the vehicles are exciting to use, the bosses are ridiculous, and it’s as much fun to play alone as it is with a friend. It’s also silly without pushing things too far, which is welcome in a genre that tends to tilt one way or the other when it comes to humor.

    That said, the level of challenge and the fact that you need to pull off some wild moves make this ill-suited for touch controls, though in this ACA NEOGEO version you have access to an infinite number of credits to finish the game with. If you’re going to play the game seriously, you’ll probably want to make use of an external controller. It plays great that way, and it makes this version perhaps the best, most affordable official way to play Metal Slug. Throw in the usual extra modes, which work out quite well for this sort of game, and you have a really nice package here. Will the online leaderboards be populated? You can be part of the solution to that one, my friends.

    The Dotemu version of the game had a handful of nice options, but this ACA NEOGEO version offers quite bit more to play around with. You can adjust the various difficulty options, tweak the controls to your liking, and tinker with the video and audio to a decent extent. You also get the usual save and load options, something the previous version was lacking. It’s nice to be able to stop and pick up a game like this anytime you want on mobile. Of course, the usual ACA NEOGEO issue is here in that you can’t play multiplayer very easily. You’ll need a couple of external controllers and must both play off the same device, so unless you have something bigger than your iPhone it’s going to be a bit of a cramped situation.

    I think players going the touch screen route will want to carefully consider what they are looking for from ACA NEOGEO Metal Slug. If you don’t mind the fact that you will probably be playing sub-optimally, having trouble hitting angles and doing quick maneuvers, and dying a whole lot, then you can still have a good bit of fun here just touring the game with unlimited credits. It’s certainly no worse than any other virtual button-based run-and-gun game on iOS, and the quality of the original game shines through sufficiently for you to have a nice time with it. Sixteen quarters, people. You can own this game and keep it in your pocket for sixteen quarters. Tell that to the you of 1996. Their mind would be blown.

    I’ve said a lot of this before about various other ACA NEOGEO releases, and this perhaps collects many of those points. Better than the previous version? Absolutely. Good game? Friend, it’s so great. Well-suited to mobile? Probably not, especially if you’re using touch controls. Worth picking up anyway? Yes, I think so. It’s feature-rich, gives you all the margin for error you could ask for, and is affordable to boot. A solid pick for fans of arcade classics.

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    Shaun Musgrave

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  • ‘Metal Slug 3 ACA NEOGEO’ Review – SNK’s Biggest Slugfest Returns – TouchArcade

    ‘Metal Slug 3 ACA NEOGEO’ Review – SNK’s Biggest Slugfest Returns – TouchArcade

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    All the way back in August of 2012, Dotemu and SNK released an iOS version of the NEOGEO classic Metal Slug 3. For its time, it was about as good of a port as you could ask for, hampered only by the difficulty of playing such a precise game with virtual controls. But time marches on, and like the other NEOGEO games developed by Dotemu, that version of the game hasn’t seen any significant updates in almost a decade. I’ll go into why that’s a problem, but suffice it to say I can see why Hamster and SNK have decided to release an ACA NEOGEO version of Metal Slug 3 ($3.99) for iOS. What are the differences? Venture in and we’ll have some talkies.

    I’ll go into my usual rigmarole soon, but I want to deal with the elephant in the room first. The old version of Metal Slug 3 is still on the App Store and it’s a buck cheaper than this one. Why shouldn’t you buy it? Certainly, it has a couple of features that aren’t found in this new one, in particular support for multi-device multiplayer via Bluetooth. It’s a bit difficult to play the mobile ACA NEOGEO games with other players, and that does make a difference for a game like Metal Slug 3. There’s also the Mission Mode feature that allows you to jump to any level you’ve previously reached. It’s a handy feature in a game as long as this, especially given the branching paths that characterize this installment.

    But friends, take heed: very old iOS games that haven’t been given regular care come with some serious drawbacks, and Metal Slug 3 is no exception. The biggest issue comes from the virtual controls. The buttons in the old version were the right size for the displays of the era, but eleven years later things have seriously changed. The virtual buttons are now absolutely tiny and barely useable. The stick in particular is a real pain. The old version sported compatibility with the iCade, which was about as much as you could have hoped for at the time. That’s… not so useful now, and its support for modern external controllers is a bit spotty. Metal Slug 3 with touch controls was always dicey, but the ravages of time have made that old version extremely awkward to play in the current year. I wouldn’t recommend it, even if the extra buck might get you a delicious Snickers bar. Well, probably half of one these days.

    Okay, that’s out of the way now. Don’t buy that old version. SNK should pull it off the store, frankly. This new ACA NEOGEO version has all the usual features. You can tweak a bunch of options, use some properly-sized touch controls, play with an external controller, use save states, compete on the leaderboards in a few different modes, and use as many continues as your little heart desires. And your little heart will desire many, because this game is a coin-guzzling pig. I think my singular greatest gaming accomplishment was finishing this game with one credit back in 2006. It took me a year of near-daily practice. It just keeps going. Unlimited continues! You’ll want them.

    This whole review feels like I’m backing out of a tricky parking spot. So, let’s talk Metal Slug 3. This is my favorite Metal Slug game. Some others prefer one of the first few games, and I can respect that. A few prefer one of the games after this, and I’m not sure how to feel about that. Enjoy, I guess? This was the last game in the series developed by the original team, and in a lot of ways it feels like the developers knew this was the grand finale. It’s a massive game, perhaps too large for some. The last stage is almost as long as some entire games. Most of the stages have branching paths, and often more than one. Each leads to a completely different area, often with unique backgrounds, enemies, and bosses. This is disgusting excess, and I absolutely love it.

    The usual four heroes are here, and you can choose whoever you like. It doesn’t matter much. There are tons of different weapons, lots of vehicles to commandeer, and fun transformations in some of the stages and branches. Metal Slug 3 is constantly throwing new things at you, so the run-and-gun action stays exciting from start to finish. This game came out in the year 2000, when things were pretty grim for this genre and 2D games as a whole. Metal Slug 3 had to keep the fires burning, and it brought enough firewood for all. If you haven’t played it before and have any love for the genre at all, you really should.

    But is this version the way you should play it? If you have an external controller, that’s an easy choice. Yes, this is a fantastic version. It runs the way it should, and the suite of options fills things out nicely. The only downside is that you can’t play multiplayer unless you have a couple of external controllers and don’t mind crowding around a single display. As a single-player experience, it’s as good as any other option. Connect your controller, drop the necessary four bucks, and have a lovely day going through it all.

    If you don’t have an external controller, it’s harder to recommend. This is a very intensive game and it requires a lot of precise movement if you want to avoid dying several hundred times. I’m a fairly deft hand with touch controls, but even for me this is a bit tough to deal with. Can you still have sixteen quarters’ worth of enjoyment? Sure. You’ll die a ton, but you have as many credits as you need. It’s a hefty enough game that you’ll get your value out of it even if you’re just touring it by throwing dead bodies at the bosses. But if you want to play it seriously, I don’t think the touch controls are going to do it for most.

    If you’ve never played Metal Slug 3 before, this isn’t a terrible way to dive into it. Throw in an external controller and you’ll have a grand time. It’s also easily worth the upgrade over the old, now sadly outdated Dotemu version. This is one of the crown jewels of the NEOGEO, and I’m glad we have a fresh version on mobile. It’s a poor fit for touch controls, but the game itself is so good that it’s worth putting up with it to see everything it has to offer. Not every SNK mobile game is worth the double-dip, but I think Metal Slug 3 is.

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    Shaun Musgrave

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  • ‘NBA 2K24 Arcade Edition’ Is Now Available on Apple Arcade – TouchArcade

    ‘NBA 2K24 Arcade Edition’ Is Now Available on Apple Arcade – TouchArcade

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    Hey there, sports fans! And video game sports fans! I know those are sometimes not the same thing. I know many fans of basketball, video or otherwise, have been hotly awaiting the arrival of the latest in 2K Sports’ long-running hoops series on Apple Arcade. Well, wait no longer, friends. NBA 2K24 Arcade Edition () is available right now in your App Store of choice. Go get that download started right now, and then come back here to have a little read about the details. It’s going to be a minute or two.

    Yes, you’ll need a hefty 10.8 GB free on your device to download and install the game. When you compare that to versions of the game on other devices, that’s actually fairly economical. But there’s no two ways about it, that is one beefy big-pants game. Luckily, that heft also refers to the game’s contents. You get the usual experience here, with controller support and everything. All that stuff you loved about last year’s version? It’s here again. There are also the expected updates like fresh rosters and such. The cover athlete this time is Allen Iverson, and for long-time fans of the franchise that’s a nice nod to where it all started. Iverson was on the cover of the very first game, NBA 2K on the magnificent SEGA Dreamcast.

    But that’s all window dressing. What’s actually new? There are apparently some new modes including The Endorsement, some new customizations for MyPLAYER and MyCOURT, and some legendary showdowns with The Greatest Fantasy Team challenge, and more. I’m not really sure how all of that shakes out, as it sounds somewhat familiar even to my ears. But if the App Store description is touting it as new, it must be! No one ever fibs on the internet.

    As mentioned, most of what you saw in last year’s version is carried over here. You can play in Quick Match, go all-out with MyCAREER, take on a more supervisorial role in The Association mode, play online in real time, and enjoy cross-platform play with all Apple ecosystems. I’d recommend playing with a controller, but you can also make do with the time-honored touch controls if needs must.

    Okay, that should be about enough time for the download to finish. Or maybe not, if you’re a quick reader. I can only take you this far though. NBA 2K24 Arcade Edition: it’s here, it’s now, it’s potentially wow. Put that meat on the plate and dig in, Apple Arcade subscribers. Steak sauce… optional.

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    Shaun Musgrave

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  • ‘KOF ’98 ACA NEOGEO’ Review – Today’s Bout Is A Mirror Match – TouchArcade

    ‘KOF ’98 ACA NEOGEO’ Review – Today’s Bout Is A Mirror Match – TouchArcade

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    I’ve wondered if and when this would happen, but now the day has come. For those who haven’t followed the state of SNK on mobile over the years, the Arcade Archives aren’t the first time the former arcade giant has reissued its classics on iOS. Around a decade ago, it did several releases with Dotemu. Each one was hand-tailored to an extent and as such there were only a handful of titles released. Mainly the big hits. That of course included one of the more popular entries in the King of Fighters series, The King of Fighters ’98 ($2.99). Hamster has up until now intentionally been steering clear of those titles, but we finally have our first overlap with KOF ’98 ($3.99). So how does the new compared with the old? Let’s find out!

    I actually wrote the TouchArcade review for The King of Fighters ’98 (Dotemu version) nine years ago. I’m going to borrow a bit from myself to introduce the game before we start making comparisons. Shaun of 2014, take it away!

    “The King of Fighters ’98 represents the first “Dream Match” installment of the series, where the story is set aside so that old and new characters can appear alongside each other, even if they’re dead or it doesn’t fit the plot. As such, with a few notable exceptions, this game has every character from King of Fighters ’94 through King of Fighters ’97, rounding out the roster to an impressive 38 characters. If that’s not enough for you, nine of the characters even have alternate versions that reflect an earlier incarnation. What makes that number of characters even more impressive is how well-balanced the game is. While some characters, like Iori or Kyo, definitely outshine others, such as Andy or Billy, the gap between the best and the worst is smaller than just about any other fighting game with such a large list of playables.

    As usual for the series, you pick a team of three characters and fight it out against other teams of three. This installment was from the era where you couldn’t tag in and out freely, instead choosing the order in which your fighters will appear. If you finish off your opponent, your character’s health will get restored a little and the next fresh opponent will face you in the next round. Eliminate the whole opposing team and you win. KOF ’98 carries forward the Advanced and Extra modes from KOF ’97, offering different styles of building and using your super meter. Aside from the roster changes and balancing, the gameplay isn’t much different from the previous year’s version, but that’s pretty typical for a fighting game sequel. There’s no story, and the boss this time around is Omega Rugal, an SNK boss if there ever was one.”

    Alright, that seems adequate. Odds are good that if you’re reading this, you probably already have a decent idea of what The King of Fighters ’98 is. You might even own that previous version. So let’s get to the proper meat and see how Hamster’s KOF ’98 fares against Dotemu’s The King of Fighters ’98. First, I will say that the emulation quality is excellent on both. Once you’re in the game and playing, there’s very little to distinguish the two. The sound is a bit better on Hamster’s version to my ear, but only a bit. Dotemu’s version skips the attract mode and title screen, so Hamster’s version does offer a more authentic arcade experience. Both versions support external controllers, and that is the recommended way to play.

    That will bring us to the first major difference: the touch controls. Dotemu’s version is customized to an extent, with context-specific touch buttons, an SP button for easy activation of special moves, and a choice between the standard four button layout or six buttons with some button combos. You can adjust the size and opacity of these controls, but since this is a fairly old app even the maximum size is a bit on the small side. You can’t move them around, either. Hamster’s version uses the same stock touch controls seen in its other Arcade Archives releases. There are no special buttons or combo buttons here, but you can move around the existing virtual buttons, chance their opacity and size, adjust the diagonal sensitivity, and even choose whether the input on the stick will be digital or analog. I’m not going to lie: Dotemu’s SP button makes it easier to bust out moves with touch controls, but Hamster wins in every other regard.

    Indeed, broadly speaking, Hamster gets the win in options. Hamster’s version allows you to tweak a few specific gameplay settings where Dotemu’s just allows you change the difficulty level. Hamster allows you to fully remap controls; Dotemu’s does not. In terms of video settings, Hamster allows you to change the screen layout and orientation, turn the wallpaper on or off, whether you want to display “off-screen” graphics (things that the bezel of most displays would have hidden back in the day, and gives you a wild degree of customizability in terms of applying filters to the visuals. Dotemu lets you choose whether you want a smoothing filter on or off, and if you want scanlines. Hamster offers sound setting options; Dotemu does not. You can make a save state and resume later in Hamster’s version, but in Dotemu’s you have to start over every time. Hamster is the clear winner here.

    The extras are where things get a little messier. Hamster offers its usual selection. You can pick between the Japanese and International versions in standard mode, and the standard Score Attack and timed Caravan modes are here. Each mode has its own online leaderboard to compete on. Multiplayer is available, but only on the same device using multiple external controllers. Over on Dotemu’s side, you have a standard single-player mode using the International version of the game, a training mode that gives you a CPU dummy to beat up on, and support for multiplayer via local wireless. That last feature is a welcome one, as I personally feel it’s easier to set up matches with another person that way. Neither one supports online multiplayer, unfortunately. I’d give Dotemu the edge here, though it’s not a dramatic win.

    The last difference is the price. This new version costs a dollar more than Dotemu’s old one. It’s just a dollar, but it’s still a dollar. That will get you at least a couple of slices of bread these days. Looking at the overall picture, which version is best is going to depend on your situation. The small virtual controls on Dotemu’s version really hurt its value if you’re not playing with an external controller. The training mode and more convenient multiplayer are great extras, and the game runs just as well. Hamster’s standard Arcade Archives features certainly give you more to play around with, but things like the Caravan mode aren’t as well-suited to fighters as they are to, say, shoot-em-ups. Multiplayer is pretty awkward to get going here, too.

    If you already own the Dotemu version of The King of Fighters ’98, this new version doesn’t make a very compelling case for itself. If you don’t have either of them and are trying to choose, it’s a hard call. This one costs more and has more options and extras, but the Dotemu one has a couple of nice features you won’t find in this Arcade Archives release. I’d probably recommend this new one simply because it has a lower chance of being deprecated, but I think it’s otherwise a hard call. KOF ’98 is a great game that, like other arcade fighters, isn’t necessarily the best fit for mobile. It was dicey to recommend once, and I’m not sure I can muster much enthusiasm for a second dip.

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    Shaun Musgrave

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  • ‘Zupapa! ACA NEOGEO’ Review – A Welcome Face From The Past – TouchArcade

    ‘Zupapa! ACA NEOGEO’ Review – A Welcome Face From The Past – TouchArcade

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    I’ve been informed by the shadowy consortium that occupies the penthouse floor of TouchArcade Towers that I am not allowed to talk about any video rental shops for the next few reviews. Fine. Fine. I wasn’t going to talk about any of them today anyway. Frankly, by the time Zupapa! ($3.99) showed up in any arcades, video rental shops were about to begin their descent anyway. This is a game with an interesting history, and it’s really fun to play on top of that. Wins all around. Let’s talk about both of those things, shall we?

    Let’s start by talking about Face. Face was a Japanese developer and publisher that first popped up around 1988, and it was around for a relatively long time as those things go. None of its games were especially big hits, and only a few of them ever saw release outside of Japan. That said, there was a certain flavor to many of its efforts. Face made some very unusual games that had a lot of character to them, with Hany in the Sky on the PC-Engine (the Japanese Turbografx-16) being a great example of that. Its best game was probably Money Puzzle Exchanger, a charming variant on Data East’s Magical Drop that still has a cult following to this day. It was a company whose output always felt like it was one or two small changes away from being great, and in light of that it wasn’t terribly surprising when it shuttered its doors somewhere around the year 2000.

    Zupapa! makes for a great excuse to talk about Face. It was first shown by Face at a Japanese arcade exhibition in early 1994, which would have likely seen it come out alongside some of the company’s other arcade games around that time. It disappeared after that, which was odd but not completely unprecedented for Face. It buried an entire Time Cruise game, after all. No, the really curious thing about Zupapa! isn’t its disappearance. It’s that it showed up again after the death of Face, published by SNK in 2001. Presumably when the company closed down, SNK decided to pick it up and use it to bolster the release schedule of the aging NEOGEO system. But this was during the brief span of time that Aruze owned the company, just before the bankruptcy of the original incarnation of SNK. Why was it picking up long-dead games? Was Zupapa! finished by Face, or did SNK have to bring it to the finish line? Questions we’ll probably never have the answers to, friends.

    Still, knowing that Zupapa! was originally meant to arrive in 1994 does help us understand how such a modest game arrived so late in the console’s life. Zupapa! is a fixed-screen platformer, a genre that had its heyday in the mid-to-late 1980s with games like Bubble Bobble, Snow Bros., and Rod Land. They were fairly scarce after Street Fighter II made its impact in the arcades, but you still saw the occasional release here and there for a couple of years after. By 2001, it was practically as dead a sub-genre as the fixed-screen shoot-em-up. A very odd release in what was otherwise a sea of fighters and Metal Slug sequels on the platform. But hey, we’re looking back more than twenty years later. The whole library is vintage at this point. Still, that genre’s place in time relative to the NEOGEO itself means there aren’t too many games like Zupapa! on it, something that helps this game shine even brighter.

    Zupapa! shares a lot of traits with the best games in this genre. The graphics are colorful, detailed, and well-animated. The levels have a lot of variety to them, and you’ve got a rather large number of them, with forty-five in total spread across nine worlds. The bosses are huge and really creative, and the different enemies are fun to deal with. The goal on each stage is to clear out all of the enemies, all while getting as many points as you can. You can’t take too long to do it, either. Beat them all and you’ll be whisked to the next stage. You can play with another person, but that’s obviously a bit of a pain in this mobile release. It’s too bad, because as fun as it is solo it’s even better with a friend.

    Games like these always have some kind of gimmick for how you attack the enemies. Bubbles, snowballs, vacuums, slamming them back and forth into the ground with your rod, and so on. In Zupapa!, you have two ways to tackle your foes. First, you can punch them. It has limited reach, though you can get a power-up to extend it. Smack them and then touch them to finish them off. It’s reliable but it won’t earn you many points. No, if you want to get those big scores, you’ll have to engage with the game’s main gimmick.

    There are little creatures named Zooks populating each stage. If you touch them, they’ll follow you around. You can throw them at enemies and they will start pounding on them, immobilizing them. Up to four can be attached to an enemy at once, though even one will stop the enemy in their tracks. Touch the enemy and not only will they be taken out, an explosion will trigger, taking out any other enemies it touches. Its size is based on how many Zooks were on them. Enemies that are defeated by an explosion will leave behind foods you can collect for points, and the more you take out at once the higher the point values of those foods. It’s in your interest to try to set things up for those big scores. I mean, unless you just want to play through the game and don’t care about scores. Even then, exploding a bunch of enemies in one go is sometimes easier than knocking them out individually.

    Each stage layout presents its own challenge. Sometimes the Zooks are easy to get at, while other times you’ll have to go past the enemies to get them. Sometimes you have a lot of room to maneuver while other times you’ll have to squeeze in with the baddies to get at them. There are special gimmicks like springs and breakable walls, and some interesting hazards too. I’ve always found that the best games in this sub-genre have a strong focus on varied level designs, and Zupapa! carries itself quite well in this regard. None of the themes overstays its welcome, and you’re always facing something new. The bosses are genuine highlights, but make sure you grab a speed boost power-up before facing them if you can. This is an arcade game, after all. It wants your coins, not your forgiveness.

    As you can probably tell, I like Zupapa! a lot. I’ve always been fond of this particular kind of arcade game, and if you’re like me then I think you’ll have a good time here as well. It’s a little trickier to play with touch controls than it is with a controller, but it only uses two buttons so it isn’t particularly egregious so long as you’re not completely turned off by virtual buttons. If you play with an external controller, then you really have no worries at all here. Sadly, you can only play multiplayer if you have enough controllers and a display you can share, but that’s nothing new for the ACA NEOGEO line. I’m going to save us the usual paragraph here and say you get all the usual options and extra modes here, and those Score Attack and timed Caravan modes work pretty well with this game. Hamster’s done a good job here.

    Zupapa! is one of those games that is really hard to hate. It looks nice, plays well, and has plenty of game to offer for your buck. Provided you’re okay with the control options you have access to and aren’t repelled by fixed-screen platformers, I think this is one of the easier ACA NEOGEO games to recommend. It’s just good, simple fun, and that’s something that has always translated fairly well to mobile play.

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    Shaun Musgrave

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  • Party-To-Go’ Apple Arcade Review – No Maracas, No Life – TouchArcade

    Party-To-Go’ Apple Arcade Review – No Maracas, No Life – TouchArcade

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    Samba de Amigo finally got its first proper sequel on consoles with the release of Samba de Amigo: Party Central. To go along with it, there is also this Apple Arcade game, titled Samba de Amigo: Party-To-Go (). Given the heavy online and multiplayer focus of many of the modes in the console version, Party-To-Go can’t easily follow in the dance steps of its fellow. For better or worse, this is a different sort of beast despite sharing the look, user interface, unlockables, and most of the soundtrack with its console counterpart. Wait, “for better or worse”? This is a review! Let’s determine which of the two it is!

    What is Samba de Amigo? Well, it’s a rhythm game that was originally released in arcades in 1999 and on the Dreamcast in the year 2000. This puts it relatively early in the whole rhythm game boom, especially when looking at ones that used plastic instruments. SEGA is always a few years too early to the party, and it’s never a good thing for them. In this case, the plastic instruments were maracas, and they were a lot of fun. You had to hold them at one of three heights and shake along to the beat. Sometimes you would have to make poses, too. Great fun in the arcade and at home, especially if you have spectators there to laugh at you. The soundtrack leaned Latin, but had plenty of classic SEGA tunes and pop hits to round things out. It even had a cover of A-Ha’s Take On Me by ska band Reel Big Fish! Ska! It’s like punk, but with horns and happy!

    While the game had a cult following, that was really all it was able to manage. Part of that came down to its home version being on the Dreamcast, part of that came from the cost of the maracas, and part of that was just rudeness. It’s a good game, people. It got a Wii port several years later, but the Wii remotes just couldn’t sub for the maracas. Also, it had Mambo Number 5 on the soundtrack. In 2008. That’s flying too close to the sun, SEGA. This port was developed by Gearbox, the makers of Duke Nukem Forever and Brothers in Arms DS. I get the impression it didn’t do very well, so Amigo went into the vault only to be allowed out to play in SEGA All-Star games.

    The monkey has been freed, however. Not just one game, but two. Sort of. Since this is a review of Party-To-Go, I’m going to be focusing on it. I reviewed the Switch version of the other game, Party Central, in the SwitchArcade Round-Up if you want to read about that. In Party-To-Go, you’re given just two modes to play. First is the Rhythm Game mode, where you just pick a song to play and the difficulty you’d like to play it at, then have at it. The other mode is exclusive to this Apple Arcade game. Story Mode takes you through a weird tale of Amigo and the Legendary Maraca trying to bring music back to the Earth. It takes the form of a series of missions that you’ll have to complete. Finish one and you’ll get some story and unlock the next. You’ll also earn coins and levels the same you will in Rhythm Game mode, and can use them to unlock cosmetic items for Amigo.

    I like this Story Mode a lot better than the StreamiGo mode in Party Central. There’s less song repetition, and it’s less vague about what you need to do to succeed. The story itself is pretty… banal, to be kind. It makes use of some decent FMV cutscenes now and then, but for the most part it seems to be going for the vibe of an instant message conversation. Which is fine, except the characters are usually face to face. It’s filled with the kind of dialogue you just want to skip through, peppered with the occasional really good line. Well, at least we now have irrefutable evidence the monkey is in a romantic relationship with the puberty-gifted fairy. It’s a fun mode to play through, and I suppose that’s the bottom line.

    The soundtrack is mostly similar to Party Central, with a nice mix of classics and contemporary music across a variety of genres. Not many songs from the original return, and it doesn’t seem like the DLC songs from the other game are in the list here. But you do get a few exclusive songs including tracks from PSY and Lady Gaga, and that’s cool. The tunes are definitely more general in their appeal than the first game’s soundtrack, but that’s fine. It means most people should be able to find at least a few songs they know, and will be able to learn some new ones, too. Win-win.

    Samba de Amigo: Party-To-Go does not have maracas controllers. It does not attempt to replicate them, and even warns you not to shake or move your device. No, this game is entirely touch-based. The screen is divided into left and right and three different height levels. When the ball enters the circle, tap that side and height. When it tells you to pose, put your fingers in the right place. When it tells you to swing the maracas back and forth, slide your fingers back and forth. It’s certainly more accurate than the maracas or any motion controls would be, but it isn’t as fun. I also find some of the sliding motions and commands to be a bit unintuitive to pull off with touch controls. It feels like SEGA just tried to cram in everything Party Central does gameplay-wise into Party-To-Go, but not all of it works due to the differing input method.

    Still, setting aside what it isn’t, Samba de Amigo: Party-To-Go is a decent enough rhythm game with really strong production values for the most part. It’s not quite as good as Apple Arcade stablemate Taiko no Tatsujin, but the music is good, the gameplay mechanics are fairly easy to grasp, and between the Story Mode and unlockables you certainly have a lot to do. At times it feels like something cobbled together with bits of another game, which it probably has been, but it sometimes feels like it’s doing its own thing too. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, there is controller support here. It works like the button controls in Party Central, mapping the positions to the sticks and buttons. I wouldn’t advise it.

    I think the Story Mode and extra tunes in Samba de Amigo: Party-To-Go make it worth trying out for fans of the series even if they’ve already grabbed Party Central, but there’s no question this game loses something the further it moves away from the grace of the maracas controllers. If you don’t care about that, and there’s a very good chance you don’t, the only thing you really need to worry about here is that the demands of the note charts seem more tuned for console play than touch. You’ll have to really twist your fingers at times. Otherwise, it’s a decent game for its genre with a solid list of tracks to tap along to. Nothing remarkable, but good enough.

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    Shaun Musgrave

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  • ‘Bullet Hell Heroes’ Review – Saving the World Doesn’t Come Cheap – TouchArcade

    ‘Bullet Hell Heroes’ Review – Saving the World Doesn’t Come Cheap – TouchArcade

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    The mobile ecosystem has done pretty alright with shoot-em-ups over the course of its history. Indeed, some of the earliest cell phone games were shooters. When the iPhone launched, we soon had a bunch of great conversions of Cave’s arcade shooters amid a number of indie games. Sky Force, Phoenix, Danmaku Unlimited, .Decluster, and more have provided us with a steady stream of enjoyable experiences in the genre. I think we can add another log to that cozy fire with the release of Bullet Hell Heroes (Free), a shooter that applies a less common theme to some familiar gameplay.

    Well, less common than spaceships or military craft, I guess. Fans of the genre will be more than a little familiar with the Touhou Project shooters, which opt for cute characters instead of deadly craft. Bullet Hell Heroes openly admits its inspiration from those games, and it’s not as though it’s alone in that. This game offers up a whopping twenty-five different heroes to use, each with their own shot and special move. Sure, there’s a shrine maiden in there, but you also get more typical RPG-style heroes to round things out. There’s a good variety here, and it’s fun trying to find the heroes that fit your play style best.

    But a hero shouldn’t set out alone, right? In this game, you don’t just choose one hero for the quest. At first you can bring three with you, with additional slots available via IAPs. These effectively function as extra lives. If your first hero is shot down, the next one will jump in. Run out of heroes and you fail the quest. It’s up to you how you want to build your team, but there isn’t a whole lot of strategizing since the means of swapping characters is to kill the current one. It mostly comes down to whether you want to put your strongest character first or last. Well, that’s not nothing.

    The controls work as you would expect if you’ve played any mobile shooters in the last decade or so. Drag your finger around to move your character, and tap a second finger down to use your character’s special move. You can only do that if you have sufficient MP, of course. Each hero starts off with a full MP bar and the amount consumed depends on the move. You can rebuild MP by grazing shots, nudging you towards that popular mechanic. If you’re bold, you can tee up your special moves at a surprisingly steady pace, and that’s always fun. Since your MP bar caps out, you can’t stockpile too many of these moves, which encourages you to use them instead of just trying to hoard them for the boss battles. Oh, I should also mention that if you have an external controller, the game offers support for that. Either method works fine.

    There are more than twenty different quests to play, each one consisting of a short stage followed by a multi-stage boss battle. While the stages aren’t anything special, I do appreciate that the game isn’t just a series of boss fights. I like to have that little warm-up before the main event, so to speak. The boss battles are naturally the stars of the show, and each one of them is a blast to tackle. They all have their own patterns that can often surprise you, keeping you on your toes as you whittle down their life bars. You can play each of the quests at five different difficulty levels, though you’ll have to earn the right to play the two highest ones. There are also Boss Rush stages to challenge if you’re looking for more to do, adding up to a rather substantial amount of content all-up.

    Since I’ve briefly mentioned the topic of unlocking, let’s talk about how everything works in that regard here. At the start of the game, you have access to three heroes. The rest of them are all locked, and the means of gaining access to them varies. Some require you to beat a specific number of quests at certain difficulty levels. Some are bought with the money you collect by playing stages and checking off the game’s achievements. Almost half of them are bought with real money via IAPs, selling for a couple of bucks each. If you’re unlocking the non-IAP characters legit, you’ve got a bit of a task ahead of you, but it’s one that gives the game a solid sense of purpose and a pleasing trickle of new things to try. I kind of like that set-up. That said, even once you have the heroes there are lots of ways to spend your in-game cash. Each hero can be upgraded in various ways, and it will take a lot of playing to max out everyone.

    Alright, let’s talk about the monetization. Dirty business, but when a game is free to download and play there has to be some way to pay the developer’s air conditioning bills. First up, there are ads. Unskippable ones, and they’re fairly frequent. The game will compensate you for watching them, but they can be annoying. Drop four bucks and they’re gone forever, with an additional hero slot and a coin doubler thrown in for your pleasure. There’s an IAP you can buy for a couple of dollars for an extra hero slot, and it’s available to buy twice. You can pay a couple of bucks for a ton of coins, and that’s available to buy as many times as you like. Finally, there’s an IAP you can pick up for four bucks that unlocks every hero in the game. Don’t buy those individual hero unlocks, in other words.

    If you want to fully unlock everything in Bullet Hell Heroes, you’re looking at spending a rather reasonable twelve American dollars. I think the quality of the game supports that price, and you can certainly get by with one or two IAPs if you feel like it. Heck, you can get by with none of them if you don’t mind ads and the idea of missing out on heroes. But I do want to talk about that IAP that unlocks all of the heroes, because I think it’s in a weird place. It really does unlock all of the heroes, including the ones you would normally get by completing certain objectives and spending coins. That takes some of the fun out of the meta progression, in my opinion, so I think you’re almost better off waiting until you’ve unlocked the non-IAP heroes before buying this one. There are a lot of wrong ways to spend your money with this game, and that isn’t something you want to worry about while trying to enjoy a game.

    Sigh, two paragraphs on monetization. Well, hopefully that’s all properly explained now. I should stress that the game itself is well-made and a lot of fun. I like that the developer went to the trouble of making backgrounds and pixel art monsters, heroes, and so on to fill things out instead of just going with simple shapes. Not that I mind that kind of thing, but it’s cool to see some non-abstract visuals now and then. I liked experimenting with various “parties” of heroes, and some of the special moves are quite unique and interesting to find a use for. There is a lot of stuff packed in here, and it’s all of very good quality. I think any fan of bullet hell shooters will be more than happy with what Bullet Hell Heroes has to offer. Just make sure you shop responsibly when it comes to those IAPs.

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    Shaun Musgrave

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  • ‘Ragnagard ACA NEOGEO’ Review – If Only Fenrir Had Swallowed This Game – TouchArcade

    ‘Ragnagard ACA NEOGEO’ Review – If Only Fenrir Had Swallowed This Game – TouchArcade

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    One of the reasons why the NEOGEO hardware was able to last as long as it did is because SNK was really good at playing to its strengths. Thanks to the obsession with polygons in the mid-to-late 1990s, there wasn’t a whole lot of work being done in the 2D realm for a while, which meant that the beefy NEOGEO’s sprites and backgrounds still looked as good as most of what you would see on any newer hardware. Games like Metal Slug 3 and King of Fighters ’98 show the benefits of working smart within the limits of the hardware. What does it look like if you do the opposite? It might look a lot like Ragnagard ($3.99).

    This is a one-on-one fighter developed for SNK by System Vision and Saurus that features mythological characters and gods as the fighters. The likes of Susano, Son Goku, and Lucifer are included, making for a lively roster of eight playable characters and three bosses. So far, not a bad concept for a NEOGEO game. Fighting games were the system’s specialty, and using deities as fighters is an interesting hook. Sure, eight characters is a bit of a thin roster for this point in time, but not unheard of. The game even has a functioning aerial combo system, which would have been well ahead of its time when Ragnagard released in late 1996. So what’s wrong with it?

    I have to take an important detour first. We need to talk about the 800-lb gorilla in the room around this point in time. Yes, that one. Donkey Kong. In late 1994, Rare pulled off the mother of all magic tricks and Nintendo reaped the rewards. With the next generation on the horizon and Nintendo’s next console still a couple of years off, it was vital to prove that the Super NES was still a viable choice in the face of things like the 3DO, SEGA Saturn, and Sony PlayStation. A fascination with polygons was already brewing in the mainstream, and while the Super NES couldn’t put together a whole lot in real-time, Rare realized it could make 3D models and render them as sprites. With some careful color choices (the Super NES typically could only display 256 colors from a palette of 32,768), Donkey Kong Country looked for all the world like a 3D game despite being no more of one than Super Mario World had been. It was a smash hit, and a lot of folks who were a lot less careful with their color choices decided to ape it.

    So yes, Ragnagard is a pre-rendered CG game. The characters are pre-rendered, the backgrounds are pre-rendered, and this is 1996 so these aren’t the most detailed of models by any means. All of this art has been adapted pretty poorly to the hardware despite the hardware offering a palette significantly deeper than that of the Super NES, and it just looks bad. This might well be the worst-looking one-on-one fighter on the console. I will grant that it looks unique, and there is a certain nostalgia to this precise era that might tickle you the right way. But there’s a cost to all of this, or at least I think there is. Did the pre-rendered graphics lead to the rest of the problems or is it just happenstance?

    Ragnagard just feels bad to play. The way things animate, the way moves play out, the lag on your actions, it’s all just very unpleasant. Basic moves in particular feel almost useless, with really dicey collision that I am choosing to blame on the character models and how they are boxed out. You pretty much have to play for the specials, charging up your elements to power up your character and eventually unleash some death moves. The ground game in particular is awkward, with the best feel happening when you’re taking advantage of the air dash to pull off some mid-air nonsense. Throw in a relatively unbalanced roster and you’re left with a game that even in its best context is best left as a curiosity.

    But this isn’t its best context by any means. Like all of the fighters in the mobile ACA NEOGEO line-up, Ragnagard is hindered by two issues. Anyone using touch controls is going to have a hard time with some of the motions required for special moves or even just keeping on top of four virtual buttons in the heat of combat. You can use an external controller, of course. I found the game more than comfortable enough using my Backbone. But realistically, most players are going to be using the touch controls, and they’re not ideal here. The other problem is of course the inability to play multiplayer without having extra controllers and some kind of shared display. I will bang this drum every time, especially with multiplayer-focused titles like this. We need some kind of local wireless or online multiplayer option in this line.

    You get the usual ACA NEOGEO features like the extra modes and a wide array of options. All are welcome here, even if they are just lipstick on a serious pig of a game. Throw that difficulty down to the lowest setting and smack around the CPU for as long as it will let you, or see if you can chip out a higher score than the other four people on the online leaderboards. Lament that you could have bought a few delicious Snickers bars instead of this.

    With how affordable the ACA NEOGEO line of games is on mobile, it’s a decent way to try out the weirder, not-so-good titles in the console’s library. If you want to throw a few bucks at Ragnagard just to see how a good idea can go very wrong, I don’t think it’s the worst thing in the world. At least you’re not spending a couple of hundred dollars on a cartridge. But I think you could make a good case for this being the worst one-on-one fighter SNK is likely to release in this line, and given how poorly even the best of fighters have fared under its restrictions, that leaves Ragnagard in a very bad position indeed.

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    Shaun Musgrave

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  • ‘3 Count Bout ACA NEOGEO’ Review – About As Fun As Taking A Chair Shot To The Head – TouchArcade

    ‘3 Count Bout ACA NEOGEO’ Review – About As Fun As Taking A Chair Shot To The Head – TouchArcade

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    I don’t have a lot of nice things to say as a whole about 3 Count Bout ($3.99), the latest addition to the mobile ACA NEOGEO line from SNK and Hamster. It’s one or two ridiculously poor decisions away from being a really solid game, and its biggest problem is one that is magnified by the nature of the usual format of these mobile releases. It is agitating how many things it did a decent job with, only to flush it all down the drain in what I can only assume was an attempt to fish more quarters from unsuspecting arcade goers. This one won’t be pretty, friends.

    While King of the Monsters and its sequel were essentially wrestling games, albeit between giant monsters, there was clearly room on the NEOGEO for a more familiar game in the genre. By 1993, SNK was making some of the hottest one-on-one fighters around, so it wouldn’t seem totally unreasonable that it could make a good wrestling game. The character designers did their job well enough, with ten colorful combatants that wouldn’t look out of place in a real federation at the time. Each of them has a fine assortment of moves, with plenty of strikes and some special moves to spice things up. The graphics and audio are really good, playing to the strengths of the platform very well. It even mixes things up and gives you some street fights from time to time.

    In regular matches you can win by pin fall or submission, both of which require you to wear down your opponent’s life meter to have any chance of success. When you’re in other locations, the only option is to beat the opponent to the point that they don’t wake up for a ten-count. Yes, those ones aren’t three-count bouts. Well, it happens. You can choose to play in a few different modes, but most mobile players will only have one available to them. You as a single player will tackle the CPU opponents in a series of battles in order to win the championship. If you happen to have enough external controllers and feel like huddling around your mobile device, you can also do two players against a CPU tag team or battle against each other.

    Let’s get to the problems now. The main issue here is the difficulty. This ACA NEOGEO release allows you to adjust the difficulty, but even on its easiest setting, the CPU is an absolute beast once you get a few matches in. It is incredibly aggressive, it will win the button-mashing grapples almost every single time, and if you even think about using strikes it will punish you during the wind-up. It’s not like it’s impossible to win the single-player mode. If you’re tenacious you can find your own cheap, semi-reliable ways of fighting back. But it isn’t fun to play the game like this. Not at all. The upshot is that you get a couple of decent bouts before the computer opponent starts lobbing you around like a beach ball. You’ve got about as much hope of fighting back as the ball does.

    Indeed, the only real way to enjoy 3 Count Bout at all is to play one-on-one against another human. If you can swing that, it’s alright. Nothing to go running up and down the street shouting at the top of your voice about, but you can have an okay time. Alas, that’s a tricky thing to pull off in these mobile releases. I really wish there were some other options for playing multiplayer in these games so that I could show more kindness to games like this, but I can only work with what is put in front of me. All the other ACA NEOGEO extras, such as additional modes and options, don’t mean very much when the core single-player experience is as miserable as this.

    Simply put, 3 Count Bout is an incredibly poor fit for the most common use case of these mobile releases. You won’t find much joy in its single-player mode due to how quickly and thoroughly the CPU player becomes punishing. The multiplayer options require extra controllers and a means of displaying the game for both players, which isn’t going to be something most can take advantage of. And even if you did, all you would end up with is a middling wrestling game with some nice visuals. Stick to King of the Monsters for your mobile grappling kicks.

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    Shaun Musgrave

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  • ‘King of the Monsters 2’ Review – Give Invading Aliens an Eyeful of the Eiffel – TouchArcade

    ‘King of the Monsters 2’ Review – Give Invading Aliens an Eyeful of the Eiffel – TouchArcade

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    Gosh, Hamster’s been at this for a while now, hasn’t it? About a year and a half ago, the original King of the Monsters arrived on mobile by way of the ACA NEOGEO series. I reviewed it at the time and despite the game’s iconic status I wasn’t too hot on it due to the thin amount of content and lack of multiplayer support. We’re quite a ways down the road now, and it’s time to take a look at the mobile release of King of the Monsters 2 ($3.99). It’s a well-loved follow-up to be sure, but does it shine in this format? Let’s slide in and have a look.

    There isn’t a whole lot of juicy history behind this game. SNK scored a strong hit with the original King of the Monsters in early 1991, at a time when the company needed all the success it could get. So yes, of course we get a sequel. King of the Monsters 2 arrived in early 1992, and it made a few changes to the gameplay seen in the previous game. The original King of the Monsters was basically a wrestling game with an interesting theme. You would choose one of several monsters and then battle the rest of them, one at a time, in stages set in various Japanese cities. Then you do it again, and that’s the single-player game. Grab a friend for one on one fun and you’ve got a pretty enjoyable bit of arcade diversion.

    One of the fun things about the original game was how the arenas were cities that were slowly destroyed over the course of the match. It really made you feel like you were a giant monster, and a person couldn’t help but want more of that. Well, how lucky we are! King of the Monsters 2 gives you some room to stretch your legs, such as they are. Each stage still culminates in a one-on-one battle, but before that match-up you’ll wander through short stages, swatting down airplanes or aliens, smashing bridges and buildings, and collecting power-ups. There are more power-ups this time around, and each of the monsters can level up a couple of times. They get access to more special moves when they do, along with stat and health buffs. It’s in your interest to smash everything and try to find those power-ups, but be careful not to grab the bad ones.

    This is a good time to talk about the monsters. The playable roster has been significantly trimmed down this time. There are only three monsters to choose from. The Godzilla-like Geon is here in mutated form, the King Kong-like Woo has powered up into Cyber Woo, and the Ultraman-like Astro Guy is here in a slightly modified suit. These, apparently, are the only survivors of the original monster wars as chronicled in the first game. Yes, there’s a story. That’s half of it right there. The other half is that aliens have invaded so these three remaining kaiju are tasked with stopping it. Let them fight, and all that. Don’t worry about a potential lack of creative creature designs though, as you’ll get to see plenty of other monsters as you make your way through the game.

    There are no pin falls this time. There’s still a lot of wrestling DNA in King of the Monsters 2, as you will regularly get involved in grapple fights with the boss creatures. But your goal this time is to whittle their life meter down to zero, at which point they’ll go kaboom. There are no electrical power lines serving as ropes to whip them into this time, and the game broadly feels more like a beat-em-up as a result. A beat-em-up whose stage-to-boss ratio of time spent is very different from most others, but a beat-em-up nonetheless. Some may lament this change, and I do think it’s swings and roundabouts if we’re talking about playing the games in normal conditions.

    We’re not, though. This review is about the mobile version, and we have to take a few things into account. First, while players certainly can make use of an external controller, it’s more likely that they’ll be using touch controls. Next, while players technically can play in multiplayer via extra controllers and some sort of decent-sized display, it’s more likely that they’ll be playing alone. I personally find the first game’s more pure wrestling approach to be more fun in multiplayer. It’s less random, the whole tug-of-war of trying to pin the opponent is interesting, and there are more characters to choose from.

    But King of the Monsters 2 is, I feel, considerably more satisfying than the first when it comes to single-player. The opponents are more varied in their forms and attacks since the game doesn’t need to consider how a human will control them. Traveling through the stages smashing things and swatting lesser enemies is enjoyable and helps set the stage. Chucking buildings can feel cheap in multiplayer matches, but as a single-player feature it’s awesome. The random power-ups (and power-downs) are more tolerable when they aren’t messing up an otherwise interesting battle between two human players. The locations are a lot more varied in setting, too. That’s important when you’re playing alone, because it helps ward off repetition. There’s a proper final boss here as well, and it’s a real SNK sonofagun.

    What I’m trying to say here is that for the purposes of most mobile players, King of the Monsters 2 is a considerably better experience than the first. There’s even a good ending and bad ending, encouraging further replays. It feels less like you’re playing a multiplayer game against the CPU and more like you’re playing a normal game meant for one player to have a good time with first and foremost. Some of the controls can be a little trickier with the virtual buttons so there is still a benefit to using an external controller if you have one. Still, even with touch controls it is a hoot to fire the game up and smash your way through a few aliens and landmarks. You can save whenever you need to, so feel free to break the game down into as many sessions as you need. It’s a cheap game that likes to milk you for as many coins as it can, but you have all you need.

    This game is also a good one for the usual extra modes Hamster includes in all of these releases. There are lots of opportunities for variable scoring here, and you can also go faster or slower through the stages to an extent. That means both Score Attack and the timed Caravan modes work very well, provided the leaderboards are active. Even trying to better your own scores adds some value to the game. All the other usual options are here, of course. Game settings, video and audio settings, and control settings are all here. The only thing missing is an option for online or wireless multiplayer, and no I am never letting that particular bone go.

    I knew going into this what the result would be, more or less, but I can happily recommend King of the Monsters 2 in its mobile form to anyone looking for some arcade action. For what it is, it holds up really well. The graphics still look good, the game plays well, and there just aren’t a whole ton of good kaiju brawlers out there even now. The single-player mode is enjoyable to bash your way through, and with three characters and lots of variability, it stays surprisingly fresh on multiple playthroughs. All in all, a good addition to the ACA NEOGEO mobile line-up.

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    Shaun Musgrave

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  • ‘Stakes Winner 2 ACA NEOGEO’ Review – Getting Back On the Horse – TouchArcade

    ‘Stakes Winner 2 ACA NEOGEO’ Review – Getting Back On the Horse – TouchArcade

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    A few months back, Hamster and SNK released Stakes Winner in the ACA NEOGEO mobile line. As I am wont to, I reviewed it and found it to be a really enjoyable and unique game that fit the needs of mobile gaming quite well. Well, now we have Stakes Winner 2 ($3.99). What are the differences? Is it better? Worse? Will it pull ahead by a nose, or is it just another old nag? I’m trying to write like an old GamePro writer. Do you like it? Probably not. Look, I’ve done so many of these games, it’s getting hard to write an introduction paragraph. The main thing is that we’ve got the follow-up to a game that surprised me in a pleasant way, and it’s time to see if this one can do the same.

    Stakes Winner 2 was a relatively swift sequel, as these things go. The first game was an immediate hit in Japan when it hit in late 1995, and SNK wasn’t going to rest on its laurels. Developer Saurus was tapped to make another game in the series, and it wouldn’t be the last time it would have to take on this task. It would, however, be the last time Saurus would do so on the NEOGEO hardware. Given the quick development cycle of just one year, you can probably imagine that the game doesn’t exactly reinvent the wheel. In a lot of ways, it feels very similar to the first game. Not necessarily a bad thing, but something to keep in mind.

    That means the racing action is going to be familiar if you followed my advice and played the first game. You’ll have to manage your stamina as you make your way around each track. grab useful items, and try not to run into any of the other horses while doing so. There’s a new Burst move you can use once per race in the final sprint and it can be the difference between victory and defeat. Each horse now has a stat for this ability, so you’ll want to consider that when picking between the now dozen-strong roster. Jockeys now have some special moves of their own, busted out with fighting game-style commands, and this adds yet another layer of strategy to each race. The races are faster and even more fun than before, and while I will once again bang my drum that this game is super-fun with another player, it’s good enough to enjoy even if you’re riding solo.

    Those new jockey moves come courtesy of the Jockey Training selection between races, a new feature added to the game. Pay a big chunk of money, get a slick move. You can also pick these moves up if you manage to beat a Rival when they challenge you. As before, you can also train your horse in a minigame between races to get some permanent upgrades to their stats, an essential part of keeping pace with the pack as you go deeper and deeper into the career mode. You’ll also find yet another new addition between races in the form of a special shop. You can spend your hard-earned money here to buy items you can use in the next race. So here again we see the basic foundation of the first game left intact but with new things built on to add some complexity and strategy to the proceedings.

    One more cool thing is that you can now choose between two… what are they called? Derbies? Well, you can pick between Europe or America this time, which means you’ve got two completely different modes to clear in story mode, each with their own tracks. Given that you will likely be playing this mobile version of the game in single-player, that kind of extra content is extremely meaningful. All the new ways to spend money add another consideration to your gameplay choices, because your final winnings is your score. If you spent more along the way, your score will be lower. To push your score higher, you have to rely less on the various helpers the game offers. In this ACA NEOGEO version, it’s even more important since you’ll be posting that score to the leaderboards to compete with other players.

    Look, I’ll wear it proudly: I love Stakes Winner and I love its sequel even more. I didn’t think I would, but after giving them a fair shake I think these are some of my favorite non-fighters on the NEOGEO. The second game is one of the deeper single-player experiences available on the platform, as far as I’m concerned. I know this kind of game is odd for Western tastes, but if you’re patient with it and take it on its own terms, I think you’ll love it too. As a game, Stakes Winner 2 is excellent.

    How is it as a mobile experience, though? Well, as mentioned you aren’t going to get to play the fun multiplayer mode unless you have external controllers and a desire to huddle around your mobile device. I think it’s wonderful even as a single-player experience, so it can survive that loss. As for the controls, I do have to admit that pulling off the special moves is a bit trickier than I’d like on the virtual stick. It’s a bit better to play on an external controller if you have one, but I’d say it’s still mostly fine on touch controls. Just be aware this is a more complex game than the first one and that means the controls have more to deal with.

    The extra ACA NEOGEO modes are here, and the Score Attack mode is a great challenge. The Caravan mode doesn’t do much for me on this game, but you can’t win them all. The usual options are available, so you can tweak game settings, controls, and so on as you like. Hamster’s emulation is as on-point as ever, so the game looks, sounds, and plays just the way it should. I’d like to do my usual whinge about not having internet or wireless multiplayer, but I acknowledge that some of these games are so niche that I should be happy we’re getting them at all.

    If you liked Stakes Winner, you’ll love Stakes Winner 2. While the core of the game remains the same and the overall presentation hasn’t changed a great deal, the additions to the single-player mode significantly enhance the overall experience. It’s a zippier game, a more strategic game, and just a better experience on the whole. There aren’t many games like this out there, especially in English, and I think those who are willing to take the gamble on something unusual will find themselves rewarded for their courage.

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    Shaun Musgrave

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  • Top-Down Rally Racer ‘Thrash Rally’ ACA NEOGEO from SNK and Hamster Is Out Now on iOS and Android – TouchArcade

    Top-Down Rally Racer ‘Thrash Rally’ ACA NEOGEO from SNK and Hamster Is Out Now on iOS and Android – TouchArcade

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    Hello. Our pal Mikhail is on vacation right now, and that means it falls to me to announce this week’s ACA NEOGEO release on iOS and Android from the folks at SNK and Hamster. This week’s pull comes from very early in the lifespan of the arcade/home platform. It’s none other than 1991’s Thrash Rally ($3.99), originally developed by ADK. You can pick it up now on your mobile device of choice for a lean, mean $3.99. Wondering what it looks like on mobile? Well, you can peep a screenshot below. Or check your local App Store listing. Options a-plenty, but you’ll be doing me a favor if you check it out here.

    A top-down take on rally racing, it perhaps wasn’t the most immediately impressive NEOGEO game of its time, but it sure was a lot of fun. Critics largely enjoyed it, and it did well enough for itself to earn a spiritual successor in 1996 called Over Top ($3.99), which was already added to the mobile ACA NEOGEO line a while back. I’ll most likely be doing a review of this game soon, as I have for many others in the past. In case you missed it, last week’s ACA NEOGEO mobile release was the futsal game Pleasure Goal, and you can read my review by clicking somewhere around… here. And in case you want to check out the website for the ACA NEOGEO mobile line, that can be found somewhere around… here. Do you have any happy memories of Thrash Rally? Will you be picking this one up? What’s your favorite game in this series so far? Do you like pineapple on pizza? Feel free to chime in on all of these questions in the comments below.

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    Shaun Musgrave

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  • ‘Pleasure Goal ACA NEOGEO’ Review – Not All Goals Can Be Attained – TouchArcade

    ‘Pleasure Goal ACA NEOGEO’ Review – Not All Goals Can Be Attained – TouchArcade

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    In the last few months, Hamster has by and large been filling out its ACA NEOGEO series of releases with titles from the earlier years of the system’s life. Once in a while, we’ve gotten the odd (and I do mean odd) later release, however, and this week appears to be one of those. You probably remember some of the sports games on the NEOGEO. NEO Turf Masters. Baseball Stars Professional. Windjammers. Super Sidekicks. But I’d be willing to bet that most of you haven’t heard of Pleasure Goal ($3.99), a 1996 release developed by Saurus. There’s… there’s probably a reason for that.

    Saurus was founded in 1993 and spent most of its brief life as a subsidiary of SNK. It was founded by employees of SNK’s Tokyo branch after it was shuttered, and more or less took its place all the way down to occupying its same office space. While it handled a lot of different tasks for SNK, including crafting NEOGEO Pocket ports of some of the NEOGEO’s biggest hits, Saurus is probably best known for its Shock Troopers series of run-and-gun action games. Well, outside of Japan anyway. Inside Japan, it’s probably more known for creating the Stakes Winner series of horse racing games. It’s possible you might remember them from Prehistoric Isle 2 as well.

    Saurus’s first game on the NEOGEO console was Stakes Winner, and it was a solid success. One of the members of Saurus, Kenji Ishimoto, had been the planner on another earlier sports success on the system while part of SNK Tokyo: Super Sidekicks. Perhaps that experience led to him wanting to take a swing at a similar sport. Pleasure Goal is is meant to be a futsal game, even if some of the details don’t line up. The broad strokes fit. You’ve got five players on each side, and the field is a lot smaller than the usual soccer pitch. Close enough. Heck, the game’s Japanese title is simply Futsal. I rest my case.

    Whatever you want to call it, this is a more compact take on soccer, and I think that’s actually a pretty good idea for an arcade sports game. Less space to maneuver means more players crashing into each other and shorter trips to the goal, which means more shots on goal. Look, I’m Canadian. The closer a thing gets to hockey, the better I think it is. Setting that aside, a more immediate and action-packed version of a popular sport should be a sure-fire win. I shall call it… “arcade-style soccer”. Trademark it, Jared.

    Pleasure Goal, unfortunately, was not a win. It’s not an especially poor game. The graphics are nice. The controls are responsive enough. Easy to pick up and finesse is but a button away if you know what you’re doing. The music is a short loop that will drive you bonkers before you even finish a single match, but such is life. You get a decent amount of time for your coin, even if you lose. There are lots of teams to pick from, which is nice. But despite getting a lot of the boxes checked, it just never quite comes together the way you would hope.

    There are only two modes here, the Saurus Cup (for one player) and Vs. (this one is for two). I’d imagine most mobile players will be sticking to the first of those two, which sees you pick a team and try to work your way through the tournament brackets until you take home the cup. The CPU is… fine. Not too rough, though it gets a little wild once you get a few matches in. That’s about what you would expect, though. Imagine buying a $200 cartridge for your NEOGEO and rolling the CPU in one night. You’d then pull it out in front of your friends and bravely try to present it as being better than NHL ’94 on the Genesis, even though you know the truth. A tragedy in two acts.

    So what about it doesn’t work, apart from it being a bit thin on things to do? Personally, I just didn’t find it very satisfying to play. The more compact play area makes it hard to set up interesting plays, and the way the goalkeeper reacts means the best tactic is often just to rush the goal with whoever gets the ball. Passing isn’t completely pointless, but it’s pretty near to it. The button assigned to tricks takes a lot of getting used to if you want to have any proper control over what happens, but in the end those fancy moves aren’t going to produce any better results than good ol’ goal charge.

    Pleasure Goal works better with another human player, which is a revelation that I doubt is shocking anyone in the crowd. Except that one guy two rows from the back, but he was shocked when Mysterio turned out to be a bad guy in Far From Home. There’s no helping him. Anyway, with another human player you can enjoy the chaos a little better, and there’s more of a point to trying to show off with the tricky moves. The music is still maddening no matter what you do, though. But of course, the problem here is the usual one with these mobile ACA NEOGEO releases: you probably aren’t going to be able to pull off multiplayer.

    The game supports external controllers, and that is what you’ll need to play with someone else. I’d probably advise using one anyway, as this game makes fairly extensive use of three of the four NEOGEO buttons during gameplay and it’s easy to mess things up with the virtual buttons. It’s not unplayable without a controller by any means, but using one will certainly make for a better experience overall. At any rate, you’re probably playing alone, which means you’re just challenging the Saurus Cup with various teams until you get tired of it all. Is that worth four bucks? It might be! Personally, I don’t know that I would have fed four bucks’ worth of quarters into this game. That’s sixteen whole credits, and I would probably have switched over to Metal Slug by my third coin.

    Like I said earlier though, it’s not a horrible game. If you have an inclination towards arcade sports games, futsal, or just love that whole NEOGEO core experience, I think you’ll get a good enough time out of poking at this for a bit. I’ve played far worse sports games. I think that the more general audience and retro game fans who don’t have a “catch ’em all” mentality with the ACA NEOGEO line will be less enthused. It’s a very average game that adapts to mobile in a very middling sort of way, neither heaven nor hell but caught in that bland in-between. It’s incredibly forgettable, and its mobile incarnation carries on that tradition with grace.

    ACA NEOGEO review boilerplate time! External controller support, check! Variety of options for gameplay, video, controls, and so on, check! Japanese and International versions included, check! Score Attack and Caravan Modes, check! Online leaderboards, check! Great emulation, check! I’ll stop the bit here to comment on those extra modes, because like with most sports games they really don’t work out well here. The five minutes on the clock in Caravan Mode is just about enough for a single game, which doesn’t leave a huge spread for potential points. Score Attack fares a bit better but it’s still not exactly a thrilling chase. These modes sometimes save these games, but here they’re just serving as checkmarks in some imaginary boxes. They’re here because all ACA NEOGEO games have them.

    To sum it up, Pleasure Goal is okay. It is average. You can have some fun with it, but you’ll likely forget all about it by next Tuesday. As a mobile port, it is also sitting right in the middle of the line. It’s not ruined by touch controls and a lack of multiplayer, but it’s certainly worse for the wear. I think those who really enjoy arcade sports games will get a few days of light fun out of it, but there’s a reason its name doesn’t typically come up when people are talking about their favorite NEOGEO games.

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    Shaun Musgrave

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  • ‘Aggressors of Dark Kombat’ Review – An Ambitious Fighter That Doesn’t Click on Mobile – TouchArcade

    ‘Aggressors of Dark Kombat’ Review – An Ambitious Fighter That Doesn’t Click on Mobile – TouchArcade

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    It’s an eye-catching title, isn’t it? Aggressors of Dark Kombat ($3.99) came out in 1994 for the NEOGEO, and by then Mortal Kombat would have been scorching hot. So why not? Why not use the word ‘Kombat‘ in your fighting game title? More’s the better since it fits a cute scheme where the initials of the game fit the initials of the developer, ADK. Of course, this is just the English title. Over in Japan, the name is Tsuukai Gangan Koushinkyoku, which translates to “Thrilling Intense March“. Whether it’s ‘Aggressors‘ or ‘Intense‘, this game wants you to know right up front that it’s going to be exciting. Talk is cheap, though. How is the game itself?

    Before Street Fighter II arrived and laid down the clear template that most 2D fighters would follow for the next few decades and counting, there was a lot of experimentation in the one-on-one fighting genre. Some were similar to Street Fighter II, treading in the footsteps of the likes of Yie Ar Kung Fu and Karate Champ. Single-plane action, usually with at least a couple of attack buttons and jumping mapped to up on the stick. But there were other ideas for how things could go, and one such was the arena fighter. In these games, you could move in and out of the screen in a manner similar to beat-em-ups like Renegade and Double Dragon. If there was jumping at all, it would typically be mapped to a button of its own. Games like Violence Fight and Pit Fighter used this style to varying degrees of success, and it wasn’t an incredibly unusual template to work from at the time. After all, scrolling beat-em-ups were all the rage. Maybe there was something to this third dimension of movement thing?

    The thing is, by the time Aggressors of Dark Kombat arrived in 1994, this type of fighting game had become exceedingly rare. Well, outside of wrestling games, anyway. 3D fighting games would soon bring this kind of movement back into vogue, but we weren’t quite there yet. The closest to this mechanic being in play in a popular fighter was Fatal Fury‘s use of multiple planes. But the NEOGEO had plenty of conventional fighters at this stage, so why not try something different? That’s what ADK did with Aggressors of Dark Kombat, and I can’t exactly say it was wrong to try. Aggressors of Dark Kombat has a lot of issues, but it’s certainly distinct and it’s honestly not entirely un-fun.

    There are eight different fighters to choose from here, mostly fitting the theme of street combat. You’ve got a button for punches, a button for kicks, and a button to jump. Fights take place in arenas that aren’t much longer than the usual fighting game stage, but allow the fighters to move in and out of the screen a fair bit. There are also sometimes weapons laying around that you can make use of, along with some destructible stage elements. Spectators might even toss a weapon in now and then, because people are like that. Players have access to a speedy dash by tapping or double-tapping the stick in the desired direction. Along with your standard array of attacks and special moves, you can also grapple your opponent by getting close and hitting both attack buttons at once and pushing any direction, like in a wrestling game. Matches consist of just a single round, but the fighters have multiple meters of health to work through.

    As with many fighting games of the era, you have a meter at the bottom of the screen that fills up as you fight. This is known as the Crazy Meter, and when it fills up you can use your character’s Crazy Attack. If you land this attack on your opponent, you win. It doesn’t matter how much health they have left. Match over. This is where the aggression or intensity comes in, I suppose. This is a game that really does favor the aggressor, because if you can get your meter topped off first and catch your opponent off-guard, you win. Mastering grappling is also a key to victory, but even more important is learning how to escape from grapples. And this is where the first problem comes in with this game in its mobile form.

    At some point, all SNK fighters become extremely frustrating to play in single-player. SNK bosses are a trope in the fighting game community for a reason. That usually kicks in with the final boss, though. You get to have your fun up to that point, and after that you really need to make no mistakes if you want an ending. Aggressors of Dark Kombat starts getting annoying a lot earlier. After you’ve gotten a few rounds in, the CPU opponent starts making use of those ever-so-handy grapples. The timing for countering grapples is very tight, and until you get it down pat you are going to hit a complete wall when this happens. Even once you do, it’s not terribly fun. This isn’t the greatest of fighters even when you’re playing against another human, but if you’re stuck with the CPU it’s really nasty.

    That’s going to be the reality for most mobile players, though. Unless you have the extra external controllers and set-up for multiple players on a single device, all you’ve got is single-player. It’s really hard to recommend this game with that in mind. I’ll also note that those playing with virtual controls are going to have a real job ahead of them since the game relies heavily on things like light taps, heavy pushes, and dexterous use of the stick. Between the tricky touch controls and rude computer opponents, you’re going to be in for an unpleasant time. Those with an external controller can step around the control issues but still have to deal with the jerk CPU. Even flicking the difficulty settings down doesn’t help a ton. You just have to stick with it until you become an absolute pro Aggressors of Dark Kombat player. Something for the resume, at least.

    Ah, it’s time for the boilerplate ACA NEOGEO talk. You get the usual array of modes here. The international and Japanese versions are available, with the Japanese one giving you some blood here and there for extra INTENSITY. There’s a Score Attack and Caravan mode with their own online leaderboards, though the game isn’t really well-suited to such things. As mentioned, you can use an external controller to play if you want. Hamster has loaded the game up with the typical options for video, controls, and so on. The emulation is spot-on. It’s hard to fault the effort here, it’s just that the game itself isn’t a great fit for the challenges of the mobile format. I really do wish some form of online multiplayer could be sorted though. Even local device-to-device wireless play would be welcome.

    Aggressors of Dark Kombat is not a great fighting game, but it is a really interesting one. I recommend checking it out if you want to play something unusual in the genre, but I can’t really recommend this mobile release being the place to do so. It really screams for multiplayer, and the touch controls just aren’t up to the unique demands of the game’s quirky systems. The price is certainly more than fair, so if you want to take a silly punt on it I won’t tell you not to. But I think for most people, the cheap CPU opponents and awkward virtual controls are enough for me to advise giving this one a pass.

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    Shaun Musgrave

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  • ‘Ninja Commando ACA NEOGEO’ Review – You Don’t Generally See Ninjas Do That – TouchArcade

    ‘Ninja Commando ACA NEOGEO’ Review – You Don’t Generally See Ninjas Do That – TouchArcade

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    Sometimes I wonder what real ninjas from back in the day would make of their pop culture depictions in modern times? Would they be excited to see how kids adore them? How they’ve basically become superheroes of a sort? Or would they be irritated that their dedication to espionage has been reduced to conspicuous blue jumpsuits and direct attacks? An intriguing question, and one that I will neither answer nor bring up again in the body of this review of Ninja Commando ($3.99), the latest game to hit SNK and Hamster’s mobile ACA NEOGEO line.

    Hey, I’ve been doing this for twenty-five years now. Coming up with fresh openers is tough. I suppose I could have just gone with an old reliable template that almost everyone can enjoy and apply the topic of the day as needed. I didn’t do that, but you know who did? Alpha Denshi and SNK, back in 1992. They barely even hid it. Just stapled Ninja onto Capcom’s Commando and took an early lunch. Okay, that’s kind of rude. The top-down run-and-gun had been a very popular genre throughout the late 1980s on the back of hits like the aforementioned Commando and SNK’s very own Ikari Warriors. One might even suggest that the very existence of the NEOGEO was built on the backs of such titles. With that in mind, we can surely excuse any indiscretions in terms of creativity with the broad structure of this game.

    If Ikari Warriors followed in the wake of Commando, I think it’s safe to say that Ninja Commando treads in the footsteps of Commando‘s follow-up Mercs. Your characters have wider move sets and a more interesting array of attacks, the play area is often wider than the screen, and you’ve got a life bar instead of having to suffer one-hit kills. The story premise here is certainly its own thing, if nothing else. The villainous Spider and his Mars Corporation have developed a time machine and plan to use it to attack the past and control the future. Man, this isn’t even the first SNK game that uses that villain plan. As these things go, the only ones who can stop Spider’s machinations are a trio of ninjas: Joe Tiger, Ryu Eagle, and Rayar Dragon. They chase their foe through seven periods of history, arguably causing more damage to the timeline than Spider and his goons. Hey Joe, I don’t think you’re supposed to murder Nobunaga Oda before his time!

    This goofy plot is part of what makes Ninja Commando so fun. Oh, I probably haven’t mentioned that yet. Ninja Commando is a lot of fun. You get to choose your favorite ninja, each with their own weapons and moves, and either go it alone or with a friend on a big stupid adventure through history. There is a big caveman who grabs his fellow cavemen and throws them at you! Yes, you have to fight mummies. World War II? They wouldn’t be Ninja Commandos if they didn’t stop in there, would they? The game has its tongue firmly in its cheek but not so much as to be obnoxious about it, and some of the dialogue really has to be seen to be believed. The pixel art is really strong, and I think it must have been a lot of work to make these areas so distinctive and populate them with period-appropriate enemies of all kinds. It has a lot of personality.

    As for the gameplay, it has a few tricks up its sleeve but mostly sticks with what worked in the past. Your characters have their own basic shots that you can only fire ahead of you. They’ll power up the faster you hit the button, oddly enough. You can do a somersault or flip to get out of the way of attacks, and it can be useful if you get the hang of its movement and the game’s collision boxes. You can also fire in multiple directions when flipping, making it one of the few ways to attack enemies beside or behind you. The third button uses your smart bomb-style attack, which can be useful in a pinch. Likely inspired by the fighting game craze going on around it, Ninja Commando also equips each of the three characters with some command based special moves. They are extremely powerful so it’s not a bad idea to get the hang of them, even if it can be a bit tricky using touch controls.

    A brilliant segue into the bits where I talk about how it plays on mobile. Of course, you can use an external controller and get the standard console (arcade?) experience, but I’m happy to report that even if you’re limited to the touch controls you’ll still have a relatively good go of it here. The special moves can be a pain to pull off and trying to maintain maximum power on your shot can be troublesome, but by and large the game plays nicely with the on-screen buttons and stick. You won’t be able to bring a buddy without external controllers, but hey, real commandos fight alone. It’s Rambo, not Rambo and Friends. Except for the animated series. But we don’t talk about that! The point is, this is actually a really nice mobile experience.

    All the usual Hamster ACA NEOGEO stuff is in play. Two versions of the game, plus the Caravan and Score Attack modes. Those extra modes are quite enjoyable with this game, and the online leaderboards add to the excitement. The options are familiar, extensive, and as welcome as ever, and the emulation is spot-on. By now most of the people reading this probably know what to expect from these ACA NEOGEO releases in terms of extra features and overall presentation, but I have to put it here for those reading this review first. Hi, new reader! Please stay a while! Stay forever!

    If you’re looking for a straightforward but fun top-down run-and-gun game, you’ll be well-served by Ninja Commando. It’s not as fancy as the Shock Troopers games but its wild premise and strong execution make it a decent highlight from the NEOGEO’s earlier years. It plays really well on mobile even if you don’t have an external controller handy, and is actually quite good for filling out little pockets of spare time during your day-to-day. A solid addition to the ACA NEOGEO mobile line, and one I can easily recommend.

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    Shaun Musgrave

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  • ‘Football Frenzy ACA NEOGEO’ Review – Will Punt for Points – TouchArcade

    ‘Football Frenzy ACA NEOGEO’ Review – Will Punt for Points – TouchArcade

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    While they aren’t the main thing the NEOGEO is famous for, sports games didn’t do too badly on the system. SNK made sure to cover all of the major sports with at least one game, except hockey because everyone knows Canada isn’t real. Now, some of those ventures went better than others. You can’t get through most top ten lists of games on the console without hitting golf and “flying disc” games, and the soccer, baseball, and horse racing games seem to have at least done well enough for themselves. You can usually spot the ones that didn’t land, because SNK never went back to the well on those sports. Football Frenzy ($3.99) is the only American football game on the system, and I think I’ve gone and spoiled my review in the opening paragraph. Oops! Please click anyway, my family needs food.

    Anyway, we’re in 1992. The NEOGEO had been out for a bit, and SNK’s takes on various sports had been doing well enough. We’ve got both feet into the one-on-one fighting boom by this point and SNK was already benefiting from getting in on it as early as possible. Still, not much point to an arcade machine that can hold multiple games unless you’ve got a variety on offer, so the sports games would continue. American football may not have been the most globally popular of sports, and still isn’t, but the North American market was big enough to be worth catering to in a very specific way from time to time.

    It’s been a couple of decades since this whole video game mess had kicked off at this stage, and American football has finally started to find a proper footing in the electronic realm. Primitive yet important steps like 10-Yard Fight, Intellivision NFL Football, and that noisy buzzing Mattel handheld had given way to the double-pronged assault of pigskin pleasure that was Electronic Arts’ John Madden Football and Tecmo’s Tecmo Bowl. Two great ways to handle the sport, showing the way forward for any who desired to follow. SNK’s Football Frenzy seems to be more in the camp of the latter, presenting its action from a side-view.

    This wasn’t SNK’s first time at the football rodeo, having taken the plunge initially with the 1987 release Touch Down Fever. That game wasn’t exactly a striking success, but the team that worked on Football Frenzy was completely different from that one. Indeed, this game was developed by and large by the same people who made King of the Monsters. I could imagine some tantalizing possibilities from that background, but it’s actually a fairly straightforward take on the sport. Ten teams, all fictional. A small but reasonably varied selection of offensive plays. No choice of defensive plays, which is odd and kind of annoying. The strangest thing about it is that you can actually punt through the uprights for three points. One gets the sense that the developer may not have been intimately familiar with the sport, but who knows?

    You’re obviously meant to play against another player here for the ideal experience, but we all know how that goes with these mobile ACA NEOGEO releases. You technically can play against another player, but it involves multiple external controllers and realistically most of us aren’t going to be bothering with that. So the computer opponent it is, with a tournament that sees you trying to win three games. You’re probably used to this if you’ve played SNK games before, but it’s a tough haul. The CPU will stonewall your plays so often it barely seems worth trying anything even slightly fancy. Passing plays are the way to go here, as running plays will typically end in failure. But given that the computer is likely to be your only opponent, I suppose it’s better if it’s too strong than too weak. You can also tweak the difficulty settings in the game options, as usual. It helps a bit.

    In terms of presentation, it’s actually pretty good for its time and place. The players are nicely detailed and well-animated, and the NEOGEO uses its characteristic zooming feature to focus or pull out on the action as needed. It’s colorful, vibrant, and overall a really nice-looking game. The audio is decent, with some light commentary and extremely generic but inoffensive music. The hits don’t have quite the bone-crunching quality I’d like to hear in a game like this, but I suppose you could argue that is more realistic.

    Whenever I review these mobile ACA NEOGEO releases, there are always two things to consider. First, how good is the original game? In this case, it’s not exactly an all-timer. You can have some fun with it, but there’s a reason it didn’t get any sequels and people don’t often talk about it. The second thing is how well it plays in this mobile ACA NEOGEO format. This mostly comes down to how well the touch controls work and how much the game loses by being confined to single-player, balanced against any gains from having extra modes and online leaderboards. And it’s not really good news on that front.

    This game uses all of the NEOGEO’s buttons when plays are unfolding, and you need to be able to hit the right one at the drop of a hat. It also requires some repetitive button pushing for speed boosts and joystick wiggling to get away from your opponent’s defense, and those don’t work very well with touch controls. I’ve already talked about the vexing CPU opponent, but it’s also worth mentioning how little there is to the game if you’re flying solo. It’s really just that tournament mode where you have to win three in a row. You can change teams for a slightly different experience, but that’s pretty thin gruel as variety goes. The extra Caravan and Score Attack modes save some Arcade Archives games, but they don’t do much here. It all relies on you enjoying the basic gameplay enough to keep coming back, and I don’t feel like Football Frenzy holds up well under the conditions at hand.

    On its best day, you could say Football Frenzy is an amusing way to kill a bit of time with a friend before watching a movie or while you wait for your clothes to dry. There’s some potential here to be a nice mobile time-waster, but those who must rely on touch controls and can’t pull off the troublesome means of bringing in a second player will likely find this more frustrating than fun.

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    Shaun Musgrave

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  • ‘Crossed Swords ACA NEOGEO’ Review – Infinity Retro-Blade – TouchArcade

    ‘Crossed Swords ACA NEOGEO’ Review – Infinity Retro-Blade – TouchArcade

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    Look, I don’t know if Chair’s outstanding Infinity Blade (RIP) series was at all inspired by SNK’s Crossed Swords ($3.99) or if they just had similar ideas independent of each other a couple of decades apart, but revisiting this 1991 NEOGEO title via the ACA NEOGEO mobile port sure made me think about it. It’s obviously not a patch on Infinity Blade in terms of presentation, and it’s not up to in terms of mechanics either, but it’s close enough to make me remember the happy times when we had three whole Infinity Blades to enjoy. Sorry, I’ll shut up about Infinity Blade now for a bit. Let’s look at Crossed Swords and see what’s what, shall we?

    Crossed Swords came in more or less at the tail end of the NEOGEO’s first year on the market. The system hadn’t had its Fatal Fury moment yet, though that would come scant months later. Street Fighter II: The World Warrior had already come out and was absolutely wreaking havoc on the make-up of most arcades, but the big shift to fighting games was still in the future. There was still room for something weird and interesting, and long-time SNK partner Alpha Denshi (ADK) was more than willing to provide. In these heady times, you still saw a lot of arcade games trying to bring in RPG elements to entice the Dragon Quest-addled minds of Japanese gamers, to varying degrees of success. So what happens if you take the success of SNK’s The Super Spy and try to smash some RPG into it? You get Crossed Swords, I think.

    So here’s the deal with this: it’s Punch-Out!!. It’s even more Punch-Out!! than The Super Spy was, even going so far as to place your transparent character on the screen. You’re a brave warrior and you need to stop the demon warlord who threatens the peace of the realm with his army of nasty monsters. You start your journey with a simple sword and shield, but they’re more than up to the job at hand. Your shield can block strikes at two different angles, activated by pressing up or down on the stick. You’ve got two different buttons for your sword strikes, allowing you to slash and thrust, and you’ve even got a bit of magic you can use in emergencies. Blocking is usually better than dodging, but you’re also able to move left and right if you feel the need.

    In general, the name of the game here is to guard your opponent’s attack and then counter with your own. The timing is tricky, but particular enemies will use particular patterns and you can take advantage of that with practice. The combat is surprisingly fun for how little there is to it, and while it can get a little repetitive over the course of the game, it holds on longer than you might think. The enemy variety helps with that, and so do the variety of stages you’ll traverse. This isn’t the flashiest NEOGEO game by any means, but it takes good advantage of the hardware and still has an appealing look and sound today. Enemies jump into and out of the background using scaling sprites, and you’ll also get various NPCs using that feature too.

    Defeating enemies will reward you with various pick-ups, not the least of which being gold. You can use that gold to upgrade your sword via merchants between the stages, and each sword brings new magic abilities. You can’t buy your way to better shields, but you can find new ones along the way if you choose your routes well. This is about the sum of the game’s RPG elements beyond its fantasy trappings, but it’s more than enough for an experience like this. Finding the optimal route, learning the enemy and boss patterns, and seeing all there is to see makes for at least a handful of engaging playthroughs.

    Crossed Swords isn’t quite as reliant on button combinations as The Super Spy, and that means it gets along better with touch controls if you find yourself depending on them. As usual, an external controller is going to work better. It’s what the game is designed for, after all. But if you have to play with touch controls, you’ll really only have a slight hassle with the tiny list of special moves that most players never use anyway. You would also need external controllers if you want to take advantage of the game’s two-player mode, which is probably the most enjoyable co-op Punch-Out!!-inspired game you can find. C’est la vie.

    You get the usual array of ACA NEOGEO features here, including game options, display settings, ways to fiddle with the on-screen controls, and so on. You can play the Japanese or Overseas versions of the game, and the two typical extra modes are on offer here. I find this one a little too random for the score attack hustle except in the broadest of strokes, but the extras modes are still a solid addition thanks to the online leaderboards. The emulation is spot-on, as you would expect from Hamster. If you’ve been reading any of these reviews, you’ll know all of this already. But someone is reading this one first, so we have to mention it.

    Crossed Swords isn’t a game you’re going to enjoy playing every day. It’s rather substantial for an arcade game from its time and place, but even with all of that its simple block-and-counter gameplay can wear out its welcome after a while. Still, if you find yourself missing that Punch-Out!!-with-swords experience that you used to quench by firing up Infinity Blade here and there, Crossed Swords might be a decent retro substitute. It’s not the first game you might think of when you think of SNK’s long-running console, but if you give it a shot you’ll find it to be a real NEOGEO-core game in all the best ways.

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    Shaun Musgrave

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  • ‘Real Bout Fatal Fury 2’ Review – A Furious Game, But with Some Near-Fatal Flaws – TouchArcade

    ‘Real Bout Fatal Fury 2’ Review – A Furious Game, But with Some Near-Fatal Flaws – TouchArcade

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    When it comes to fighting games, the NEOGEO had more than its fair share. Its top three franchises in terms of name recognition were almost certainly The King of Fighters, Samurai Shodown, and Fatal Fury. Of course, The King of Fighters more or less spun out of Fatal Fury in a lot of ways, and in some sense I feel like the Fatal Fury series was constantly struggling to find a raison d’etre in its wake. Real Bout Fatal Fury felt like the first soft reboot of the series, but it wouldn’t be its last. Still, its success resulted in a couple of direct follow-ups, culminating in Real Bout Fatal Fury 2 ($3.99). And hey, that just happens to be the latest ACA NEOGEO release from Hamster and SNK. Let’s take a closer look, shall we?

    One of the ways that Fatal Fury tended to distinguish itself from many other fighters, including The King of Fighters, was in its multiple lanes. Characters could jump into and out of the background in most of the games, a mechanic that perhaps never fully reached its potential but was interesting nonetheless. Indeed, one of the big changes in the original Real Bout Fatal Fury was to give that maneuver its own dedicated button, a decision which necessitated simplifying the attack button layout. Real Bout also added in a gauge that enabled counters, super specials, and powerful hidden abilities. The longer a fight dragged on, the more likely players would have access to all of these advanced techniques, stepping up the tension appropriately. It also added ring outs, which made for amusing ways to finish fights if you could set them up properly. Perhaps best of all, it was faster and more fluid than its predecessors, making for a more playable and organic fighter overall.

    Real Bout was followed up by Real Bout Fatal Fury Special, pulling a trick that the original Fatal Fury sub-series did after its second installment. More returning characters were added, and the presentation got a big overhaul. Refinement was the order of the day when it came to the gameplay, and ring outs were removed. The number of lanes was reduced from three to a more sensible two, which cut down a bit on the hopping and skipping that sometimes occurs in Fatal Fury fights. Essentially, it improved on the original Real Bout in almost every way and is often considered a favorite among fans of the series for doing so.

    So how about Real Bout Fatal Fury 2? In some ways it feels even less special than Special, not really doing as much work to earn that incremented digit as it perhaps could. There are two brand new characters in the roster, and lots of new stages to do battle in. Perhaps the biggest change is in how it handles the lanes. The second lane is now more of a way of temporarily evading your foe rather than a secondary arena of combat, so you basically duck in and out quickly as needed. Every fighter can now counter without any meter built up as long as the player has good timing, setting down the foundations for the parry-fest that would be seen in the next game in the series. The robust roster makes this another popular choice among series fans, as it has the largest group of distinct assembled characters.

    Anyway, Real Bout Fatal Fury 2 is another one-on-one fighter where you pick your favorite character and battle against your opponents in best two-of-three round fights. Reduce your opponent’s life bar down (twice) to claim a round. Each character has an array of special moves they can pull off if you know the right combinations of directions and buttons, and the aforementioned gauge is here to enable super specials and hidden abilities. You’ve got four buttons in front of you. One does a regular punch, one does a regular kick, one does a strong attack whose form varies from character to character, and the last is for slipping into that other lane.

    You’ll most likely be partaking of the standard mode here, which sees you battling a series of fighters until you reach the boss. The game is obviously at its best if you play against another human player, but you’re going to need some extra controllers to have access to that in this mobile version. Indeed, an extra controller is strongly recommended here. Some of the special moves in Real Bout Fatal Fury 2 are nigh impossible to pull off with the provided touch controls, and even if you can do them it’s a lot easier and more enjoyable to use the actual stick and button controls the game was built for. You might still have a decent time thrashing away at the CPU without a controller, and I will say that the CPU in this game is gentler for the most part than previous entries. But it’s not ideal by any means.

    It’s somewhat vexing, really. The games the NEOGEO was best known for, fighting games and Metal Slug, are probably the least ideal for the default mobile ACA NEOGEO status quo. Precise directional movements, button combinations, a multiplayer emphasis, a minimal focus on score… all of these things are the Achilles’ Heel of the set-up we have here. If you have a controller then some of that is mitigated, but multiplayer remains cumbersome thanks to a lack of online or local wireless implementation. The added modes are aimed at score attacking, and that’s not the most entertaining thing to do with a fighting game. Well, it is what it is.

    Anyway, all the usual ACA NEOGEO stuff applies here. You have access to lots of options, there are online leaderboards, you can play the Japanese or overseas release, and there are the usual additional modes that allow you to take on a score challenge or see how many points you can rack up in a set amount of time. You can use external controllers or you can fly with the touch controls. Your call. The emulation is top shelf, as one would expect from the folks at Hamster by now.

    It all comes down to two points with Real Bout Fatal Fury 2. First, this is a great fighting game and, along with Garou: Mark of the Wolves, the peak of one of the better franchises in the genre. If you dig playing one-on-one fighters on your mobile device, you won’t be unhappy with this one. Excellent stuff. Second, I don’t think one-on-one fighters really work that well on mobile, or at least not in the way that Hamster does things. Can you get sixteen quarters’ worth of fun out of it anyway? Probably, but I continue to wish that these releases could do more to make multiplayer easier.

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    Shaun Musgrave

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