SNK is back with a second collection of its Neo Geo Pocket Color games. We have already discussed many of these separately, so this review will focus on the games we have not yet covered. Some of these new games are among the best on the system, but sadly some are left untranslated and this hurts the experience for players.
King of Fighters Battle de Paradise is a board game video game in the King of Fighters universe and sadly is hampered by a language barrier as the game is untranslated. You can bring up the manual to decipher the text, but it resets to the first page each time and in many instances is unhelpful. The game has a basic structure that can help you get started, and there are plenty of minigames that are simple enough to figure out.
Many of these minigames are based on SNK properties and some are not extremely text-heavy affairs, but the problem is that there are many minigames that are. There are a good amount of quizzes for instance, and things like that which will cause all sorts of issues for players who cannot read Japanese. Given that there is a fan translation for the game already, it would have been nice to see SNK actually translate the game here.
Next, we have Ganbare Neo Poke-Kun which can be compared to a Tomodachi game meets WarioWare and while there is a language barrier, it is not as big of an issue. The issue is that while you can compare this to WarioWare, it is not as good. The protagonist is an ant-like creature who lives inside the Neo Geo Pocket Color’s internal hardware that lolls around the room. You will need to press buttons, make various things go off and on, and cause some commotion before you can call in visitors who do not really do much.
The real meat of the game is the 30 mini-games but you have to build a meter before they are available. The games are fine and arcade-like, but there really isn’t any direction on how you are doing. It honestly comes off as tedious after a while and not a game worth checking out.
Mega Man Battle & Fighters, is a port based on the Capcom arcade games ( reviewed here) and is a solid conversion even if the graphics are massively scaled back. The entire experience is still here, but untranslated, and again fan translations are available, and it feels like something could have been done here, even if it was just the menus. The game is still worth checking out, and a is a fun Mega Man experience, even compared to the arcade versions.
Big Bang Pro Wrestling was reviewed separately.
Biomotor Unitron was reviewed separately
Card Fighters Clash was reviewed separately
Baseball Stars is a great little adaptation of the arcade games, and offers nine teams with different abilities in pitching, batting, fielding, and running, though the latter is automated. This means the main focus is on hitting your swings and being positioned right. It’s very basic but fun at the same time. The other sports games are Neo Geo Cup ’98 Plus and Neo Geo Pocket Tennis which are rather fun. The former is a decent Soccer game that reuses sprites and has simplistic controls but has a bit of an addictive element. Neo Geo Pocket Tennis is far more fun though, with multiple modes, five courts and multiple characters to choose from, but there are some issues with collision detection. Overall, the sports games are okay but not the best.
The collection redeems itself though with Puzzle Link 2. Puzzle Link 2 is one of the most addictive puzzle games ever made and has a very original concept to it. You must create links between proper icons that appear in descending lines in order to remove the objects, but there is a time limit. The game starts out easy but quickly shows its devious nature and difficulty as you go on. This is not even getting into the two-player local mode which makes for some chaotic fun, and ultimately Puzzle Link 2 is the best of the games in this collection that was not released separately
So all in all Vol.2 has a wide selection of games, and the auto-save option is very welcome, but a bit disappointing compared to how good the previous collection was. There are many amazing games still left to be brought to Switch and PC, from the handheld, but these particular choices made for an odd combo. The good games are indeed very good and worth checking out, but it may be a bit much for some to get the whole collection when many of the games not appearing elsewhere are okay at best besides Puzzle Link 2, and this is not even getting into the lack of translations. With the usual bonus content added to these collections, there is something good in Neo Geo Pocket Color Selection Vol 2, but those looking for a collection with multiple unique games of the best quality may want to look eslewhere.
Disclaimer: A review key was provided