NeoGeo Pocket - Overlooked or Overhyped?

[sun0wl]

That said... The Wonderswan has a much more interesting library if you grew up with Foxkids or are a weeb.
And the Wonderswan has/had a larger homebrew community as a result.
They're both niche handheld that broke somewhat into the west in their own ways, kinda feel like a comparison is unavoidable yet whether you buy one or the other would come down to your preference when looking at their libraries.

I will die on the hill that the NGPC is the best looking handheld ever released lol

i was going to post in the wonderswan thread but this is all so painfully accurate, especially the Fox Kids weeb part lmao

Biomotor Unitron and a few other NGPC games are also available on the Switch store IIRC.

 

[Ezri_Muldoon]

i was going to post in the wonderswan thread but this is all so painfully accurate, especially the Fox Kids weeb part lmao

Seeing all the Digimon games for 02 and the ones that tied into Tamers all have fan translations seriously tempts me
Plus Klonoa, Wizardry one remake, Mr Driller and the first Battle Network game.

But I'm picking up a NGPC next month- looking forward to modding in a backlit screen & conveniently FlashMasta still stocks flash cards for both the Wonderswan & NGPC that are cheaper then the clones on Ali express lol
Which is refreshing as I do enjoy supporting the original engineers. It's just not always cost effective :/

 

[RetroMule]

The only time I ever heard the Neogeo Pocket talked about felt like from Ashens when mentioning the joystick while reviewing NeoGeo devices.

I do have a NeoGeo Pocket Color, and I enjoy it. The joystick is very nice, and the games I played on it are enjoyable. I would lean on the over looked side of things if I were to be honest. I rarely hear it mentioned or brought up, and I think it's because of the game library. Most of the heavy hitters are NeoGeo games, which people mostly think of the arcade versions. I feel I hear more about the Wonder Swan because of the anime licensing it has because of Bandai.

 

[Ezri_Muldoon]

Slightly off topic but does any one on this forum have any experience developing NGPC Homebrew/Indie games?
I've found the remanence of development software that runs rather well on a windows XP Virtual machine, tile editors, assemblers, music composers and debuggers with official English development documentation from back in the day can be found on archive.org.

But there is little to none fan documentation or visual development walkthroughs, nor support on 8BitWorkshop (although Dithertron it does allow you to make images 32768 colour NGPC Compliant) so I'm curious to know if anyone has prior experience with homebrew as a small scene did pop up in the early 2000nds but records of it seem to be falling into obscurity.

 

[Bonkers225]

A great little handheld that came at the wrong time with GBC, WSC, and soon GBA dominating the market.

 

[nattybohman]

I love mine. It had a lot of fighting games that were good, but I'm not really into that. Surprisingly good non-fighting games like Biomotor Unitron and Dark Arms too.

 

[GuyZero32k4]

Still got mine, but I'd only gotten 2 games for it. SNK vs Capcom MOM, and Card Fighters Capcom version. Worked shitty job at the time and thats all I could get.

 

[Graves Ruinwalker]

Its extremly overlooked !

Dark Arms : Beastbuster is extremly underrated and should have more games .
Collecting , grinding and improving guns that turns into demonic mass-killing machines in a world full of undead/beasts/monsters/Paranormal creatures both huge and small ? Count me in without any thought !
This is monster hunter but more american and horror-based .
Im still baffled that we dont have this concept more often to make great games .

Even the SNK vs Capcom Card game is a genius idea and was actually released as an TCG outside of the games. But sadly not longlived and only in japan .

That handheld was awesome and easy too emulate .

 

[Yousef]

Overhypelooked.

 

[Ikagura]

Neither.

 

[bjork]

You know, I spent some time with mine this past weekend, and that port of Neo Turf Masters might be the best demake ever? I guess you gotta appreciate golf games to enjoy it, but even though it's shrunk down due to the hardware, it still plays so well.

 

[SpikeSlania]

I wish I still had mine. I got lucky when I bought it back in highschool. Estarland was trying to clear out inventory so was selling the system packaged with like 6 games online for like $20 or something, that was almost 2 decades ago. Playing Metal Slug was a dream when you had good lighting conditions. No backlight was a bummer but it did take over alot of my handheld gaming over my GBA SP until I got my PSP atleast.

 

[DragonMals]

People either remember the Neo Geo Pocket for the SNK fighter games which has probably some of the best Pixel Art that I have ever seen and wished that there's a mini cluture surrounding people that have done fanart or original art in the style of those games, or Sonic Pocket Adventure.

 

[Evaccaneer Doom]

I'm calling it underrated totally not because of Red Eye who comes from the two Metal Slug games from this console and has yet to leave aside from Attack and Defense

 

[PurpleShoes]

A used NGPC was the first thing I bought at a retro game store with my own money! I am so into niche handhelds. They often have unique hardware and cool ideas.
Unfortunately, I think the NGPC has a really lackluster library if you're not into fighting games. I get that's SNK's whole deal, but I just think the clicky stick would be god's gift to some good Shmups or platformers.
Sonic Pocket Adventure is great, at least.

 

[newageretrohippie]

I feel like it was UNDER hyped

 

[Pjira]

I've never seen or had one but played a few of the games elsewhere and had fun. Especially the SNK/Capcom card game on the Switch is pretty good. I still need to try Sonic.

 

[Natsuyasumi]

I had a NGPC (Aqua Blue) back in 2003,2004. I loved it. I only had a few games; Gal Fighter, Samurai Shodown, maybe Metal Slug? Whatever I could find in rural Colorado lol.
But now with emulation I’ve played most of the console’s library and almost everything stands up. I also have to give major props to the joystick, I loved that clicky thing!

 

[Wechseln]

NGPC was amazing, It hadn't many games but it was filled to the brim with gems. Capcom vs. SNK Card Fighter's Clash alone is one of my favourite games from all time!

 

[OpenVMS]

A great example of good tech held back by marketing. On paper the NGPC had impressive tech for the time. But, SNK didn't reach out to 3rd party developers, so the library was pretty small and SNK didn't appeal to a wider audience so it was relatively unknown and suffered from low market demand.

 

[CG4R12I4N]

The library is honestly way better than GBC and you can argue all of the games there are good, much like Dreamcast after it. Plus it had the best pocket fighting game and card game as well in SNK vs Capcom.
Just a shame the genres aren't varied enough to justify having the system. And shit marketing + late release really bummed out people who actually interested, with soon GBA domming the market and SNK bankruptcy in 2001.
Definitely overlooked for sure.

 

[OpenVMS]

Just a shame the genres aren't varied enough to justify having the system

Kind of ironic people say this about the NeoGeo as well, although the accusation is a little less fair there, as the NeoGeo has a larger library than its handheld counterpart.

I will say the fighting games on the NGP are just about the best you can get with two button and are genuinely great. The Neo Turf Masters port is also one of the best golf games for the time.

 

[poilaunez]

I own a NGPC. It is a quite fun system, the dpad is perfect, BUT:

- very few title unique to this console (like the two Metal Slugs) ;
- there is no opensource SDK at this time ;
- it is only playable in full light (no backlight screen...).

 

[nattybohman]

You know, I spent some time with mine this past weekend, and that port of Neo Turf Masters might be the best demake ever? I guess you gotta appreciate golf games to enjoy it, but even though it's shrunk down due to the hardware, it still plays so well.

Neo Turf Masters is a blast! That's what I'm talking about when I say that there are so many fun non-fighting games on that system. Pocket Tennis, Crush Roller, Sonic, Bust a move, and even shanghai mini was fun.

 

[CG4R12I4N]

Even their RPGs beat anything in GBC not named Pokemon IMHO. Faselei! and Biomotor Unitron are super solid, and Dark Arms: Beast Buster totally killed Zelda and Adventures of Mana.