What was the Neo Geo Pocket?
When it was first released in 1998, the Neo Geo Pocket was SNK's entry in the long line of ultimately futile attempts to grab even a speck of Nintendo's handheld market share. It did not work. It was discontinued in 1999 and replaced that same year by the Neo Geo Pocket Color.
Unfortunately the colour version didn't last much longer because SNK went bankrupt a year or two later. But where they failed financially, SNK succeeded in bringing a typically unique product that perfectly represented their output at a mini scale.
Why should I care?
Because the NGPC was SNK firing on all cylinders. The same SNK that developed Metal Slug 3 and Mark of the Wolves. They set about shrinking down their best known arcade games to glorious 160x152 resolution, and considering the limitations of the system it is difficult to imagine how they could have improved on their efforts. And in mirroring their arcade output, the NGPC was home to some of the best handheld fighters ever produced.
This was largely thanks to a very clever piece of design on the hardware itself - the clicky micro-switched stick. And boy does it CLICK! Very noisy. You can't play it at night. It is an absolute dream to use though, and makes pulling off double QCF movements easy and pain free. Seriously, I cannot wax lyrical enough. This is the best controller SNK have ever made - better than the original AES stick (it has buttons that aren't shit).
The stick is also the reason I wouldn't recommend emulating most NGPC games. It will soon be emulated via the excellent looking Analogue Pocket, but without that stick you'll only get half the story. Do yourself a favour and track down the original hardware.
The games
Sadly the NGPC was pulled from shelves before its time, so it doesn't have a very large library. However I'd argue it has one of the best quality to quantity ratios, up there with the Dreamcast. Some highlights:
SNK vs Capcom: Match of the Millennium
Capcom famously made great use of this license swap, while SNK seemed to waste it on the fun but shallow SNK vs Capcom on the MVS. Well, they made up for it on the NGPC with this - probably the best fighting game on the system with a huge roster of characters and plenty of fun side content. This best represents the care with which SNK treated the platform; many of their ports weren't simple conversions with different graphics, they all added something unique (Last Blade had a frickin' baseball mini game!).
SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters Clash
They weren't messing around, and you'd accuse them of milking the licence by now if CFC wasn't such a quality game. Framed around an RPG of sorts, it's a simple but fun card battling game that comes in SNK and Capcom versions. It's worth the price of admission alone for the many obscure SNK and Capcom characters that appear on the cards. There was a sadly Japan only sequel and an apparently horrid DS version too.
Metal Slug: 2nd Mission
While the hardware was seemingly designed for 1v1 fighters, SNK's other flagship franchise Metal Slug was always going to suffer. There's just no way you could shrink down the mayhem of the arcade games when the hardware only allows you to show a handful of spites on screen at once. So they tweaked things - it increases the amount of branching paths so there are over 30 missions that will require multiple play throughs. The pace may be different, but it is still recognisably Metal Slug and arguably the best entry in the series outside of 1-3.
Faselei!
Famously one of the rarest games, mostly because it was only released in Japan and the UK briefly before it was pulled from shelves. Making a trip to my local EB at the time turned out to be one of the best decisions I made - I can't say it is worth paying £200 for a UK copy, but it is a very good semi turn based strategy game that needs a bigger audience.
Sonic the Hedgehog Pocket Adventure
Honourable mentions:
Neo Turf Masters
The Last Blade
King of Fighters R-2
Dark Arms: Beast Busters
SNK Gals Fighters
Puzzle Link 2
Dynamite Sluggaer
Biomotor Unitron
Samurai Shodown! 2
I'm convinced. Where can I get one?
The consoles and unboxed games were going cheap a few years back, but prices have sky rocketed since. Still, I'd recommend picking one up soon if you're interested. As I said previously, the real hardware is the only way to go. Try to go private sale if you can, if not Ebay of course.
Unusually for most things video game related, the European games are most sought after. They came in a frankly awesome AES style plastic clam shell, whereas the US and Japan had crappy cardboard boxes. Expect to pay £50-200 for European games, and significantly less for US/JP copies. Most unboxed games can be had fairly cheaply though, and like Game Gear games they came in snug plastic cases so should be in good condition. There is no region protection.
Alternatively there is the Analogue Pocket releasing next year with an NGPC cart adapter. This will undoubtedly have a better screen than the NGPC (no backlight), and hopefully allow you to pair it with a decent controller to make up for the lack of a clicky stick. I hope this can bring more attention to these awesome games.
What about mods?
When I originally created this topic, the only available LCD screen replacement was unfortunately a fair bit smaller than the original version, so you lost almost as much as you gained. Recently however a new replacement LCD has been released which is almost exactly the right size and even has some neat features such as a retro pixel effect (which actually looks pretty great).
If you want to fit the screen yourself, the one you're looking for is by Hispeedido. You may be able to find a local reseller, but the source will be this Aliexpress listing (regular and slim versions available): https://www.aliexpress.com/i/1005002181010707.html
Here's some tips on the install:
Be aware that fitting the screen yourself may require some soldering and can be tricky. If you're concerned I'd recommend finding someone to install it for you, but it is well worth the effort. You can also order replacement cases and buttons if you don't want to use the original shell. Here's some of Resetera's efforts (cue Left Bank Two):
Also, there is a Game Drive available from RetroHQ (https://www.retrohq.co.uk/products/neo-geo-pocket-neopocket-gamedrive-flash-cartridge) which lets you play the entire library of 70+ from SD card, as well as patched versions such as Card Fighters Clash 2 in English. There is a cheaper Flash Masta cart available too, but this only stores ~2 games vs ~10 in the Game Drive.
Image credits
I stole the images because I'm a pleb, so here are the sources:
https://speedyjx.com/tag/neo-geo-pocket-color/
http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2014/03/hardware_classics_snk_neo_geo_pocket_color
http://superadventuresingaming.blogspot.com/2012/08/snk-vs-capcom-card-fighters-clash-ngpc.html
https://pixelclash.tumblr.com/post/143633255674/metal-slug-2nd-mission-neo-geo-pocket-color
http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/faselei/
https://aminoapps.com/c/sonic/page/blog/sonic-pocket-adventure/wKab_jDmSouWqja8WvgeLZ3YZZ6xDmW2Q3N
So, hopefully this has been useful or at least bought back some memories. Please share either way!
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