Of all of the fighters SNK offered up on its new platform, Fatal Fury was the biggest success. It had a very different feel from its cousin Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, but it certainly wasn’t lacking in mechanical depth or interesting characters. It’s not hard to figure out why SNK fast-tracked a sequel for release in the following year, though it would have to make do without Nishiyama, who was already on to other responsibilities. Fortunately, Fatal Fury 2 would benefit from being able to borrow some ideas from Capcom’s ground-breaking title. The result was a fusion of the elements that made the first game so interesting and aspects that were quickly becoming codified within the genre.

The sequel addressed the biggest shortcoming the first game had when stacked against Street Fighter II by expanding the roster of playable fighters from three to eight. Among the new characters was a kunoichi named Mai Shiranui, whose bouncy personality and, er, other bouncy elements made her a big fan favorite almost immediately. Other major additions include the taekwondo master Kim Kaphwan and a new big bad named Wolfgang Krauser. It was another big success for SNK, but there were more lessons to learn from Capcom that would be picked up for the following year’s Fatal Fury game.

Capcom had hit it big with Street Fighter II, and it seemed hesitant to slap a new number on any follow-up. At the same time, there was money on the table and Capcom wasn’t about to leave it there. Thus, four iterative follow-ups were produced to keep the quarters flowing, each one taking what had already been built and adding a little extra on top. This was the approach SNK would take for 1993’s Fatal Fury Special ($3.99). This game uses Fatal Fury 2 as a basis and makes a number of improvements and additions. The boss characters from the previous game are now playable, and the three characters cut from the original game have been restored. The gameplay speed has been increased, and a new combo system has been implemented to bring things ever closer to the Street Fighter II standard.

There was also an interesting secret in Fatal Fury Special. The main character of one of SNK’s other popular fighters, Ryo Sakazaki of Art of Fighting, made a special guest appearance in the game. Should the player beat all fifteen opponents without losing a single round, they’ll face off against Ryo after felling Krauser. Defeating him added him to the playable roster, and it was this fun little trick that served as the seed for The King of Fighters ’94, a mega-crossover of SNK characters that kicked off SNK’s bread and butter series from then on. That was all in the future, of course. In the present, Fatal Fury Special was the most successful game yet in the Fatal Fury series.

In the here and now, I would argue there are better games in the Fatal Fury franchise, but Fatal Fury Special is certainly a great one. I’d certainly recommend it in a general sense. Of course, we have to deal with the usual Arcade Archives issues when it comes to fighting games. I’ll go through them again for the benefit of anyone who is new to these reviews, but if you’ve read one of these before you know what I’m going to say.

Using touch controls with any of SNK’s fighting games is always going to be a bit of a challenge. You can have some fun with it, but it’s less than ideal. If you have an external controller and don’t mind using it, then you have nothing to worry about. The game plays very well that way. Multiplayer is also limited to those who have the right set-up. You’ll need a couple of external controllers, plus a display you feel comfortable enough having you and a friend crowding around. No wi-fi multiplayer and certainly no online multiplayer.

As a result of these demands, I imagine most people who buy this game will be playing against the CPU with touch controls. It’s hardly the best way to enjoy a game like this, but I won’t say you can’t enjoy it. You can turn down the difficulty all the way if you like thanks to the robust set of options Hamster has included here, and you might get some extra enjoyment out of the usual Score Attack and timed Caravan modes. And hey, if you can beat Krauser with touch controls then you have my respect. That and a buck won’t even get you a can of Coke these days, but you’ll have it.

Anyway, that’s where we’ll park this one. Fatal Fury Special isn’t the very best fighting game we’ve seen in the ACA NEOGEO line so far, but it’s certainly in the upper tier. It unfortunately has to deal with all the usual problems that come with fighters in this line, but I didn’t exactly expect Hamster to solve that problem at this point. If you’ve found some entertainment in prior NEOGEO fighters adapted to mobile, you’ll likely get some here as well.

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.

To get the usual talk out of the way, let’s address the old app. It’s still on the App Store and still technically works, after all. Heck, it was just updated a year ago to be compatible with iOS 14. That doesn’t mean it’s a great experience on modern devices, though. Dotemu’s The King of Fighters ’97 ($2.99) came out more than ten years ago, and for its time and place it was a great port of the game. It played as well as it could, the emulation was sound, it had support for the kinds of external controllers we had at the time, and offered local wireless multiplayer support. It wasn’t exactly rolling in options, but it was more than good enough. Time has taken its toll, however. The biggest issue these days is that the virtual buttons didn’t grow along with the displays of devices, and it’s even tougher than usual to play on tiny buttons. I can’t recommend the Dotemu version anymore, I don’t think SNK should be selling two versions at the same time, and I expect the publisher to deprecate it sooner or later. Get the new one.

Anyway, The King of Fighters ’97. It came out in 1997 on the NEOGEO, so the title of this app certainly checks out. It was the fourth game in the series that had by this point become SNK’s most reliable franchise, and brought the Orochi Saga story arc to its close. In terms of gameplay, it introduced a system where you could choose between two playing styles before picking your team. The Advanced Mode followed in the footsteps of The King of Fighters ’96, albeit with some tweaks, while the Extra Mode takes after The King of Fighters ’94 and ’95. This addition not only did a great job of tying all of the previous games together, but also gave players greater customization and variety in how they played the game.

In terms of character selection, six characters from the previous game were dropped. Kasumi Todoh, Mature, Vice, Geese Howard, Wolfgang Krauser, and Mr. Big all hit the benches for story reasons. Chizuru Kagura moves from the sub-boss position into the regular playable roster, while fan favorites Blue Mary and Ryuji Yamazaki from the Fatal Fury series join Billy Kane to form a new team. Yashiro Nanakase, Chris, and Shermie are fully new faces and end up serving an important story role. Otherwise, the roster carries over. Popular characters like Terry Bogard, Kyo Kusanagi, Iori Yagami, Mai Shiranui, and Athena Asamiya are all here along with many others. Plenty of great characters to learn to use, like any game in this series.

The usual ACA NEOGEO gripes with fighting games in particular apply here. First, it can be really cumbersome trying to make some of the commands work with the virtual controls. There are no assists here, unlike the Dotemu version, so if you don’t have an external controller of some kind you’re just going to have to make the best of it. It’s also very difficult to get multiplayer going, as you’ll need a couple of external controllers and a display you’re comfortable rubbing elbows around. In other words, you’re probably going to be spending most of your time playing alone. The story here is certainly worth going through though, and you have plenty of options to tweak to give yourself as much of an edge against the rude CPU as possible.

If you don’t mind the multiplayer being hard to get at and have an external controller, this is a great experience. Just like playing the Arcade Archives release on any other device, but with a few bucks more in your pocket. You get the usual extra modes here, and they’re alright to mess around with. You can also choose between the Japanese and Overseas versions of the game, which is good if you enjoy blood and bounce, as the kids say. In terms of options, you can adjust the difficulty, remap buttons, tweak video and sound settings, and customize the virtual pad to your liking. Online leaderboards are also here, as usual. I don’t typically think of fighters as games to compete on leaderboards with, but if you get into that kind of thing, it’s here.

The King of Fighters ’97 is a terrific fighting game and another of the many feathers in SNK’s hat in this genre. If you have an external controller and plan to play solo, it’s easily worth picking up. Those stuck with touch controls will want to carefully consider what they are really looking for out of this kind of thing, but I’m just repeating myself here from prior reviews. Hamster has done a really good job with this release, also as usual, and I think it’s only a better set of multiplayer options away from being the best possible mobile port it could be.

Lizardry developed 7 Days to End With You which was self-published on mobile, and I had my eye on that thanks to its aesthetic. When I got to know Lizardry was behind Refind Self: The Personality Test Game, I expected good art, and it delivered with its aesthetic and music. Adventure games live and die by their story, and I found the smart storytelling and structure here great, but the characters and introspection aspects really elevated it to something special.

Once you get past the name, Refind Self: The Personality Test Game begins with a grave. You control an android near the grave which happens to be of the doctor who created you. You now have the freedom to do anything or go anywhere more or less. As you make decisions including small ones like how long you sit on a bench all contribute to your personality which is being analyzed. Despite the name and structure, you’re playing this to discover the narrative and secrets more than finding your own personality.

Barring the decisions you make in dialogue or for how you want to spend the limited time you have, you get to see a glimpse of your personality and a part of the overall story. The limited time depends on the analysis happening with each decision you make while playing. A single playthrough will take about an hour or a bit more, but you can’t see everything Refind Self: The Personality Test Game has to offer without at least three playthroughs. Once it is all complete, you get to share your ID with others. It is interesting seeing how others responded to specific things in-game as well.

Despite the simple gameplay, I found myself enamored with the world here, and ended up loving the characters and mini-games quite a bit. Lizardry is definitely worth paying attention to for all future projects. I hope each game tries something different like this one did with its structure. The only aspect some might take issue with, is the length. I have no problem with the asking price of $3.99 for a three or four hour long experience, but keep that in mind before grabbing it if you were hoping for something longer.

While I like the pixel art and character designs a lot, I want to give a special mention to the soundtrack. It was another lovely surprise with how much it manages to accomplish in elevating the narrative moments and mini-games. I haven’t seen it up on streaming, but it is available on Steam here.

I’ve been playing Refind Self: The Personality Test Game on both iOS and Steam Deck. While it looks and runs fine on Steam Deck, it has no native controller support. To play it here, I’d recommend using the controller layout that lets you use the left stick to simulate WASD and then using the touch screen for click interactions. Without that, grab an external mouse if you want to play it. On iPhone 15 Pro and iPad Pro, there is no controller support, but I had no issues with Refind Self: The Personality Test Game barring some slight scrolling jitter in parts. It feels great on touch. It also looks great and loads quickly on my devices. If you have the option, play it on iOS or PC with a mouse over Steam Deck right now. Hopefully we get proper controller support in an update on both Steam Deck and iOS.

If you enjoy touching stories and adventure games with a focus on characters and introspection, you will love Refind Self: The Personality Test Game. I think many folks will skip it thinking it is one of those throwaway test-style games, but I ended up enjoying my time with it a lot across iOS and Steam Deck. I can’t wait to see what Lizardry does next, and look forward to seeing results from more people when they play Refind Self: The Personality Test Game.

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.

Let’s get right to that, then. Despite being able to save yourself a buck by buying the old version, I give my strongest recommendation that you do not do that. Some of those old Dotemu apps are still somewhat working, but Samurai Shodown II is in very rough shape. Its external controller support is spotty, it crashes semi-regularly, the touch controls are in a sorry state due to being designed for far smaller displays, and there are some emulation glitches on top of that. Don’t buy the old version. Friends don’t let friends buy the old version. SNK really ought to remove it from the store at this point.

Alright, that’s settled. So let’s talk about Samurai Shodown II as a game, and this ACA NEOGEO version of it. When people are asked which Samurai Shodown game is their favorite, Samurai Shodown II tends to be the one that comes up most often. It has a great roster, the play mechanics are well-balanced, and it has a lot of depth without getting too caught up in gimmicky systems. In a sense, it is the original Samurai Shodown concept in its purest, most ideal form. After this installment, there were a lot of attempts to change things up that met with varying degrees of success. I have a fair bit of fondness for every game in this series, and I tend to lean towards SamSho V Special as the best one, but I think I would be most likely to recommend Samurai Shodown II to someone looking to break into the series.

Of course, we’ve got the usual issues when it comes to this mobile ACA NEOGEO version. Samurai Shodown II has a lot of very involved special moves with precise motions you’ll need to do with the stick and buttons. If you have an external controller, then that’s fine. Connect your controller and have a good time. If you’re stuck with the touch controls, however, this might be one of the most problematic NEOGEO fighters to play. It’s really hard to do the more advanced moves using the virtual stick, and unlike with the Dotemu version there are no crutches for using special moves built in. If you’re willing to spend a fair bit of time with it, you might be able to get to a point where this isn’t a huge problem, but it’s always going to be a second-class experience.

It would be less of an issue if it were easier to play against another human, because at least you would be equally disadvantaged. If you’ve read any of my ACA NEOGEO reviews before, you know the drum I am about to bang. The only way to play multiplayer in this game is to use multiple external controllers and huddle around one display. If you have the set-up for it, then it’s a fine experience. But I think that’s a big “if". Realistically, you’re going to be battling against the challenging CPU opponent, who has no problems using its own special moves against you. Even the Bluetooth local multiplayer as seen in the Dotemu version would be a big help. It’s not that there isn’t some fun to be had here, especially for the reasonable price, but unless you’ve got the right set-up you aren’t going to be able to enjoy this game the way it’s meant to be.

I’ve said all of this before in every ACA NEOGEO fighting game review I’ve done, and I assume most of you are used to it by now. I would go so far as to say you probably anticipated I would be talking about all of these points. If so, you might be the sort that has been able to get over these issues before and enjoy these fighters. You just want to know how this game in particular is. Well, it’s really good. Samurai Shodown II rules. Hamster’s emulation is fantastic. You get lots of options to tweak as you like, and if you turn the difficulty all the way down you can have some fun slicing up the CPU opponent without much pushback. There are the usual Score Attack and timed Caravan extra modes, and you can choose between the Japanese and overseas versions of the game. Online leaderboards are here if you’re looking for some competition, and I could see some people really getting into that end of things.

I think with all of these ACA NEOGEO releases, we have to weigh the benefits of the low price and ease of access against the cons of some features being restricted and the overall playability being a fair bit worse for those using touch controls. I’m personally of the mindset that even these fighters can be worth the few bucks you’ll spend just to have the occasional bout against the computer. It’s a bit of enjoyable stress release as long as you quit before you get to the frustrating boss fights. But I also think that unless you have just the right conditions, this is probably the worst way to play the game on modern platforms. Absolutely, unquestionably better than the version we already had on mobile, but if you have another means of playing Samurai Shodown II, you should take it.

That’s really where I’m at with Samurai Shodown II. I’m glad we have a better version of the game. That old app needed to be updated or trashed, and I think it would be wise if SNK did the latter. It was fine in its time, but ten years is absolute eons in mobile gaming. This ACA NEOGEO version is up to Hamster’s established level of quality, and that’s a great thing. As to the game itself, Samurai Shodown II is excellent, and perhaps one of the finest on the NEOGEO, but this isn’t an ideal way to enjoy it. That being said, if you can accept the various challenges that come with the usual ACA NEOGEO suite of options, then by all means grab your katana and get to work.

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.

As I’ve already said, Dotemu’s Blazing Star ($0.99) was a fine version for its time and place. Playing NEOGEO games on your iPhone or iPad in 2012 was pretty cool, and they ran well enough. Most flaws were well-hidden by the small displays most players were rolling with. In the case of Blazing Star, it was a game a lot of people slept on back in the day. It felt for many like they had found a hidden treasure, and shooting games work better with touch devices than most classic genres. In case you didn’t like the touch controls, the game also featured iCade support that was expanded out to external controllers as those began to propagate. You were given limited continues, but the mission mode allowed you to start the game from any stage you had previously reached. A nice compromise.

With all that said, its last major update was a very long time ago. Dotemu and SNK have done minor updates to keep it running on new versions of iOS, but the app is showing its age badly in a lot of ways. The emulation isn’t working properly, for instance. The second stage is a flickery mess due to some graphical issues, and that’s not the only bit that isn’t working the way it ideally should. It probably goes without saying, but Hamster’s Blazing Star ($3.99) runs flawlessly, like all of the developer’s other ACA NEOGEO games. It also features the usual extras and options we’ve come to expect from the line, and in the case of this game things like the time Caravan Mode, Score Attack, and corresponding online leaderboards make a big difference in how replayable the game is. I think the touch controls work a little better in Dotemu’s version thanks to some mobile-specific settings, but in all other regards Hamster’s take is superior. Sometimes by a lot.

If you’re new to Blazing Star and trying to decide which version to buy, the low price on the Dotemu version might be tempting. A buck isn’t much to throw down. Neither is four bucks, but three extra dollars in your pocket isn’t nothing. Still, I strongly encourage you to choose the ACA NEOGEO version. It’s highly likely that it will be the version SNK maintains going forward, and those emulation issues are big enough that even if they were both kept around I would still send you towards the Hamster version. The additional options are a nice bonus, and you won’t have to worry about whether or not your external controller will work. You also get unlimited credits, so you can feed your way all the way through if you’re into doing that.

I’ll also say that those who already own and enjoyed the previous version of Blazing Star will want to pick this one at their nearest convenience. Again, I don’t want it to seem like I’m belittling the work done by Dotemu. But eleven years is a long, long time. That it took this long for a new version to outclass the old one speaks to its quality, but outclass it this does. What’s four more dollars to keep on enjoying such a great shoot-em-up? The added modes and options even allow you to appreciate the game from new angles. It’s worth it.

All that and I’ve barely talked about Blazing Star itself. The NEOGEO wasn’t exactly home to the finest array of shoot-em-ups, since the genre was in a bit of a weird place during much of its life. Still, it had a few excellent ones. Some would say that Blazing Star is the best of the bunch, and I would count myself in that group. Particularly if we narrow the focus to horizontally-scrolling shooters. It’s visually pleasing, the action is challenging but manageable, the power-up system is easy to understand, and the bosses are pretty wild. The voices can be a little too much at times, but it also lends the game a bit of quirky charm that certainly helps it stick in the memory. A very agreeable game, one that is fun to learn and even more satisfying to compete on leaderboards with.

Like other shoot-em-ups, it plays fairly well even if you’re relying on touch controls. If you want to play it closer to the way it was intended, you can’t go wrong with using an external controller of some type, but it’s a fine enough experience to whip out of your pocket for a few minutes while you’re waiting for whatever thing life is making you wait for. The save state support in this ACA NEOGEO release means you can always stop and pick up later, too. Really, short of tracking down a cabinet or AES console, this is as good a way as any other to play this fine shooter.

While Blazing Star is yet another double-dip for SNK on mobile, I firmly believe this is one that is easily worth taking them up on. Newcomers should splurge and throw the extra few bucks to pick this up over the old version, and those who own that one are advised to grab this for the many advantages it offers. This is a great game that plays very well on mobile, and it’s nice to see it looking all nice and shiny for the current year. Unless you hate shooters for some reason, I can’t recommend Blazing Star enough.

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.

Baseball Stars 2 released a couple of years after Baseball Stars Professional, which was among the launch titles for the NEOGEO hardware. SNK had clearly learned a lot of lessons in those two years, some of them the hard way. Truth be told, some of the team members from Baseball Stars Professional had already shown some improvements with 1991’s Super Baseball 2020, so it wasn’t just a straight jump from the first Baseball Stars on NEOGEO to this second one. Some of the improvements come from being more comfortable with the hardware, knowing when and where to use things like scaling in service of the game rather than simply to try to wow people with graphical tricks. Some of it was down to some of the team members stepping up to bat for a baseball game for the third time in as many years. I also think the sheer pace at which SNK was churning out games, a necessary pace for a hardware manufacturer in its position, led to a lot of iterative progress in terms of quality.

I’m not saying that SNK in 1992 had everything on the ball, but it was a smarter company with a clearer focus and more experience in delivering punchy arcade hits that pleased the crowds. And indeed, I think that’s what Baseball Stars 2 is. There aren’t a ton of truly great arcade baseball games. Even companies like Midway or Konami couldn’t quite get a proper handle on it the way they did with other sports. SNK pulled it off with Baseball Stars 2. It’s a terrific arcade game, with great graphics and sound, snappy gameplay, and just the right amount of over-the-top silliness to make it feel like a spectacle.

It’s a ton of fun against another human player, but you can also have a rather decent time going up against the CPU. That’s a good thing, because as usual unless you have some extra controllers and a display to crowd around, you won’t be playing multiplayer here. That leaves you with a fifteen-game pennant race against the computer, plus the usual extra modes Hamster puts in the ACA NEOGEO releases, complete with leaderboards. The CPU is still a bit of a rude boy here, as this is still an SNK game. Rubber banding is in full effect, so woe be it to you if you get too far ahead in a game. Still, it’s more manageable here than it was in Professional because it’s a more level playing field.

Specifically, the fielding in this game is a lot better than it was in Professional. The scaling and zooming doesn’t obstruct your view in the same way, so it’s a lot easier to do what you need to. You can also choose automatic fielding if you don’t want to deal with that end of things, but I think the game is lot more enjoyable if you have full control of things. You can beat that silly computer! You have all the coins in the world to buy giant bats with! That fifteen game sprint to the championship offers a fairly meaty challenge for an arcade sports game, and the chase is worth the few bucks you’ll pay for Baseball Stars 2.

Just keep in mind that this is an arcade baseball game. You won’t get anything even remotely resembling sim elements here. No team management, no roster editing, nothing. You step up, you play baseball, you go home. Enjoy the extremely colorful and well-detailed graphics, marvel at all the funny animations, laugh at the repetitive yet charming commentary, and… I don’t know, goggle? Let’s say goggle at the crisp sound effects. I’ll give SNK this: even when the games didn’t play the best they could, they usually looked and sounded fantastic. That was harder and harder to pull off on the NEOGEO hardware as the years passed, but SNK knew how to make that hardware sing. Anyway, this is the best looking baseball game on NEOGEO. Yes, out of all three of them.

Baseball Stars 2 plays a bit better with a controller if you have access to one. The Backbone or Kishi will work a treat, but use your weapon of choice. It was originally designed around physical controls, after all. But the virtual buttons get the job done here quite well thanks to the nature of baseball. It almost helps a little with fielding since it’s less likely you’ll be tilting in any directions when the camera cuts away, ensuring you won’t be marching your little fielder in the wrong direction for a second. These kinds of pick and play sports games usually fare well with touch controls, so I suppose it isn’t a surprise they work well here.

I’ve already gone over the usual ACA NEOGEO bits, but as a quick recap. You can use an external controller. You can only play multiplayer via a single device using extra external controllers, and you both have to look off the same screen. No online or local wireless multiplayer. You can play the Japanese or international version of the game, and there is a score attack and timed Caravan mode available. Each of these modes has its own online leaderboard that will probably have about ten people on it. Good luck and godspeed. You have access to a number of options, including gameplay tweaks and graphical options. You can save your progress whenever and load it later, at least in the main modes. The emulation is top-notch, like having the arcade machine in the palm of your hand. You’re a real hot dog!

If you were waiting for the best NEOGEO baseball game to arrive in the ACA NEOGEO mobile line, congratulations! The wait is over, Baseball Stars 2 is here. This is a very fun arcade baseball game that still holds up really well and has survived the transition to mobile intact. There’s no easy access to multiplayer, and I’m always going to harp on that in these reviews, but otherwise it’s really hard to find much to complain about with this particular release.

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.

I still remember the first time I saw Cyber-Lip, because it was also the first time I saw a NEOGEO MVS cabinet. It was 1990, I was eleven years old, and I was over at my friend’s house for the weekend as I tended to be in those days. He lived over on the other side of town, the side of the town that frankly didn’t have a whole lot around besides houses. I’ll tell you what it did have, though: R & S Video. Run by a couple named Rod and Sheila, this place was one of the coolest locations in my boring-butt hometown. That was down to Rod being an absolute man-child and Sheila putting up with him as long as the money came in. Rod was a barely functioning alcoholic, a complete burn-out, and one of the more unique fellows I’ve ever known. He’s not with us anymore, and hasn’t been for a very long time. He tried to drink himself to death and he ended up being successful. But he was a very important part of my life, so cheers to him wherever he may be.

R & S Video was in the main a video rental shop, back when such things were a license to print money. They sold snacks, they rented VHS tapes and NES games, and they even sold saucy magazines. One of the few locations for that in my town, I’ll hasten to add. Slowly but surely, however, Rod’s other interests seeped in. Music, especially metal. Stereo equipment. Import game machines; I first played the Super Famicom via R & S Video, renting it for $27 for one night. But best of all, arcade games. Up until R & S Video opened, there were very few choices for arcade games in my town. There was The Pool Hall, where good kids were not allowed. The bad kids who smoked went there, you see. You could also find a few machines here and there in laundromats, the shopping mall, and such.

But man, R & S. Rod knew what was cool and hot and he wanted it in his place. He always had a fine selection of the best games, and when you saw a cabinet in a game magazine with some effusive praise attached to it, you could be sure it would soon arrive at R & S. It’s where I first played Street Fighter II, busting out a Hadouken. It’s where I saw Sub-Zero first rip out a spine, the bass booming throughout the shop as parents shuddered at the screams. And it is where I first encountered the NEOGEO, its own sound system being no slouch. Four games in one cabinet, and being a good Contra-loving lad my eyes were drawn to one in particular: Cyber-Lip.

I have to admit that at the time, and for a while after until an issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly corrected, I thought the game’s name was Cyber-Up. That’s how it looked in the logo on the title screen, and Lip? Why Lip? It turns out, the big bad is a giant mouth. Yeah, that’s a thing. But wow, it was so colorful and detailed. The characters talked! Look out below! Ha. When you shot enemies, they broke apart into pieces. The bosses were big! You could grab onto overhanging bars and shoot at enemies below you! When you died, your guy came back on some kind of wicked rocket sled! Wow, what a game! I’d feed my meager quarters into it when I had the chance to, not make much progress, and then think about it until the next time I got to play it. Cyber-Up! Lip! Whatever! Now this is the power of the NEOGEO!

Cyber-Lip isn’t very good. It’s a very plain run-and-gun action game that has a decent but not spectacular presentation. It’s a far stiffer game than any of the good Contra games, and it’s a lot less inspired. It feels like half of the game involves popping out of an elevator and going through a slight remix of the same gunky sewer. The boss patterns are bland, but when the game decides to kill you it probably will. Some of the power-ups are enjoyable to use, but some of them like the grenade will put you in mortal danger if you’re flying solo. It has its moments to be sure, but even comparing it to Contra III: The Alien Wars on the Super NES lays bare its numerous failings.

The team that made Cyber-Lip would soon get up to much more important things. The key members went on to make Fatal Fury, and that went over somewhat better. The director of the game, after a solid tenure at SNK, left and joined DIMPS, where he worked on things like The Rumble Fish. None of the people involved with this game had anything to do with Metal Slug, which is a natural comparison given it is the other Contra-style run-and-gun on the system. Sure, five years separate the two and perhaps it isn’t fair to put them against each other as a result. But one can’t help but look at Metal Slug and think that it does what Cyber-Lip wanted to do, only infinitely better. We can shoot diagonally. We have the technology. If you’re going to play a NEOGEO run-and-gun action game, Metal Slug has five games you should play through before you even think of touching Cyber-Lip.

But right here, right now, in this mobile ACA NEOGEO context, I think I can give Cyber-Lip a light recommendation. Its lack of diagonal shooting makes it a bit easier to play with touch controls, assuming you aren’t using an external controller. If you get bored you can always make a save state and come back later. You probably won’t be able to play with a second player, but you can still have a decent time on your own. And I think the ending alone might be worth the price of admission here. Sixteen quarters for that kind of bonkers closing, one that was never followed up on at all? That seems pretty fair to me.

Cyber-Lip was sometimes used on good ol’ Nick Arcade for one of the game challenges. Kids would have to try to get the best score they could within a certain amount of time. You know, it’s not a bad score attack game. As usual, ACA NEOGEO has modes and leaderboards to support that. There are online leaderboards for the main mode, and you’ve also got a Score Attack and timed Caravan mode in case you really want to live out your fantasy of being called down by Phil Moore. There are better genres for this kind of thing, but it works better here than it does in, say, fighting games.

The usual ACA NEOGEO stuff. You get all the usual options and extras, include gameplay settings, video and audio options, and control customizations. You can play with an external controller if you like, or you can use touch controls. They’re not perfect, but you’ve got endless coins. Multiplayer requires enough controllers for all and a display to huddle around. The emulation is spot-on, but Cyber-Lip never taxed the NEOGEO much to begin with anyway.

If you enjoy run-and-gun action games and have tapped out the Metal Slug series on mobile, I think Cyber-Lip is worth the asking price. It’s not a great game and if I had paid a couple hundred bucks for a NEOGEO cartridge back in the day I don’t think I would have been very impressed, but for four bucks on mobile it offers more than enough thrills and weird things to shoot to make it worth your while. Just keep in mind this was a very early game on the system, and that the designers really couldn’t think of any better way to link stages other than an elevator. Also, never pick up the grenades, unless you want to be a goner. Cyber-Lip: it’s great, it’s bad, it’s fine. Evolution, friends.

What I will say is that this is, without question, the best fighting game ADK made. It’s almost frustrating, seeing how far the developer had come from the likes of the first World Heroes. Where could it have gone from here? We’ll never know. All we have is Ninja Master’s. It’s a game that shows ADK had been doing its homework, but it’s also a game that struggles from the company it was in. This game arrived in 1996, and by then SNK had a lot of irons in the fighting game fire. Between King of Fighters, Samurai Shodown, and Fatal Fury all flying high, it was at a point where the company’s new fighting game IPs were getting devoured by their own older siblings. Ninja Master’s is unfortunately no different.

The chief gimmick of this game, beyond the all-ninja cast, is that you can whip out a weapon at any time during the fight by pressing B + C at the same time. This changes the moves available to you along with various other factors, but not in such a way that your unarmed actions are rendered useless. Indeed, I would say that fighting unarmed is just as effective as using your weapon on the whole. It all comes down to how you like to play, and the situation. This blend of armed and unarmed fighting action makes it seem like ADK was trying to have its Fatal Fury and Samurai Shodown it too. In addition to this mechanic, you have the usual SNK desperation moves, super moves, super desperation moves, and so on. You can also use your meter to put yourself in a hyper state that can be pretty helpful at times.

Ninja Master’s has another somewhat unique element among SNK fighting games, though one that wasn’t unusual at the time: dial-a-combos. If you’re not familiar with that term, it refers to a combo where you can just hit all the buttons in sequence without concern for timing and the whole combo will just roll out. Some people like them, some people don’t. Tekken uses them, and it certainly has no shortage of fans. Around the time this was being made, Killer Instinct would have been doing fairly good business and it is probably one of the more well-known dial-a-combo fighters. But you didn’t see a lot of SNK games use them, so seeing them here is interesting.

Otherwise, this is just another NEOGEO fighting game, and that’s not a bad thing. You have a solid cast of varied fighters, and they’re all detailed and well-animated. The backgrounds are terrific, with lots of interesting elements to catch your eye if you have a second to look around. The medieval Japanese setting and ninja focus tie everything together so that it doesn’t feel as scattershot in a thematic sense as some other SNK fighters. The bosses here are quite wild and toppling them is certainly a challenge, but the game gives you enough leeway early on so that you can enjoy batting the CPU around a bit without too much resistance. Which, as we all know, is pretty important for these mobile releases.

I think Ninja Master’s is a pretty good one-on-one fighter, and if it had been in any other camp than SNK’s (apart from Capcom), it would probably be among the very best of that publisher’s offerings in the genre. In the SNK line-up, it has to settle for the upper mid-tier. If you enjoy the theme, you can add some extra points to the bottom line. I like the weapon gimmick, though it probably isn’t used to its maximum effectiveness. Again I can only wonder what a sequel might have brought us when the first attempt was as solid as this is. If you’re tired of spinning the usual hits, give this one a play.

Of course, when we’re talking about these mobile versions, it’s not enough to simply consider the game itself. We also have to think about how well it adapts to mobile, because that’s a different question. As usual for ACA NEOGEO releases, the only multiplayer option requires external controllers and huddling around one display. Most are probably not going to be able to make much use of that, so you’ve got a fighter you can only play in single-player. This one isn’t too shabby in that regard because the CPU isn’t a total jerk until you get near the end, but there’s no doubt something is missing by not being able to play against another human player.

The other consideration comes in the controls. If you’re sporting an external controller like a Backbone One or Kishi, you have nothing to worry about. You’ll be playing it just like anyone on other platforms can. The touch control option is a bit mixed. Some of the special moves can be tricky to pull off, and the desperation attacks are a real pain. Interestingly, that dial-a-combo system is a boon here. At least for me, it’s easier to punch in those combos via touch controls than it is to deal with a standard combo system using such means. It’s no worse off than most other SNK fighters when it comes to special move commands, but in terms of whipping out combos on those virtual buttons, I think Ninja Master’s is more manageable.

We have now reached the part of the review where I talk about the usual features for ACA NEOGEO games on mobile. You can access a variety of gameplay, video, audio, and control options. The Japanese and International versions of the game are available for standard play, plus you get Score Attack and timed Caravan modes to play. There are online leaderboards for all of these ways to play, and they do extend the entertainment value of playing a fighting game alone somewhat. The emulation quality is great, and you would expect it to be given Hamster’s extensive experience in this area by now.

Ninja Master’s suffers from most of the usual problems with the fighting games in the ACA NEOGEO line. You’re highly likely to be playing solo unless you can meet some tough requirements, and fighting games on this platform don’t exactly shine when you’re stuck fighting the CPU. Still, the unique weapon system and dial-a-combo mechanic mean that there is at least something worth noting here, and I can’t argue that the theme and cast aren’t cool and well-implemented. If you’ve been able to enjoy any of the other fighters from SNK on mobile, you might want to give this one a shot. It’s not the best of the bunch, but it’s quite good.

So, first of all, let’s talk about the roster. It mostly keeps the same characters, but it retires Carol the dodgeball girl and that one kid with the shield. In their place we get Rosa, a cool girl with a katana, and Kim, who wields a staff and has some mad Tae Kwon Do skills. He may or may not be related to the Kim we know and love from more famous SNK fighters. We also have a new final boss who is quite a bit cooler than the previous one. The rest of the bunch are essentially the same, but it’s impressive how swapping out a couple of the odder fighters for a pair of more grounded ones helps the roster feel more consistent overall. The backgrounds have also been reined in, with more thematically appropriate venues that actually feel like they’re from the same setting.

The mechanics have seen some heavy changes. The multi-plane fighting that served as the closest thing to a gimmick Savage Reign had has been tossed out entirely. It’s fully gone. The simple ranged weapon attack mapped to A + B is also gone, nixed in favor of more typical commands and special moves. One button uses your weapon, one button punches, and one button kicks. As to that fourth button, that’s where Kizuna Encounter gets interesting. You see, that fourth button allows you to tag in your partner character.

Let me hit you with a couple of release dates. Kizuna Encounter, released in arcades worldwide by SNK on September 20th, 1996. X-Men vs. Street Fighter, released in arcades in Japan by Capcom on September 25th, 1996. Both of these games introduced a feature that would become very popular in the genre in a hurry: tag team matches. Sure, the idea of having the player choose a team of fighters was well-established by this point, most famously in SNK’s King of Fighters series. But in those games, each character took their turn fighting. You couldn’t swap your characters on the fly mid-round. In Kizuna Encounter and X-Men vs. Street Fighter, you can. Check those dates. Kizuna did it first.

Kizuna Encounter also uses its tag system in a very interesting way. You can tag between your characters whenever you like, but you have to be in your tag zone. It’s basically the area where you begin each round. If you’re outside of that zone, you can’t tag in your partner. Further spice comes from the fact that if either of your fighters has their life bar diminished, the fight is over. No, the other character won’t jump in and continue the fight. So you have two full life bars to work with, but you have to juggle them to get the most out of them. On the other hand, if you can dominate your opponent and keep them away from their tag zone, you only have one life bar to whittle down. This… is a very intriguing hook. Wow, the sequel to Savage Reign has a solid hook!

I wonder if the developers understood at the time how ubiquitous this mechanic would become, albeit with a few tweaks? Probably not. But here we are, looking back almost thirty years later, and this game feels pretty darned good to play. That the tag zone element didn’t catch on serves to give this game a distinct flavor that helps it rise above a lot of its contemporaries. No, it doesn’t have Wolverine in it. I will admit that is a notable disadvantage versus the other tag-team fighter that came out that week. But when you compare it to Savage Reign, it’s frankly incredible how much of a glow-up Kizuna Encounter is.

As a cherry on top of all of this for mobile players, this is actually rather enjoyable to play in single player. The CPU isn’t too nasty, at least until you get to the last boss, so you can enjoy giving them a thrashing with the various characters when you have a spare minute or two. This is important because as usual you are probably not going to have the right set-up to enjoy this mobile version in multiplayer. You’ll need external controllers and some sort of means of displaying the game for both players. You know, unless you want to snuggle up around your iPhone screen. So yes, you’ll probably be flying solo and taking on the CPU opponents.

Time for the rest of the usual comments. As mentioned, you can use an external controller and it’s definitely the way to play. Hook up your Backbone or Kishi and you’ll be whipping out those special moves no problem. The touch controls are a bit harder to deal with, but Kizuna Encounter isn’t a game that relies heavily on fancy chains of moves or combos, so there are worse choices. The usual extra modes are here, along with all of the gameplay, video, and control options we’ve seen in the other ACA NEOGEO releases. The Score Attack and Caravan modes are an alright fit here, allowing you to jostle on the leaderboards if enough other players show up to the party.

With all the usual provisos about ACA NEOGEO mobile versions of fighting games in mind, I kind of dig Kizuna Encounter. I think you’re better off enjoying it on a platform where you can indulge in the multiplayer mode, but taking it for what it is, I can think of worse ways to blow a few bucks on a mobile game. It’s one of those NEOGEO games that I think a lot of people missed, and I would say that it holds up rather well for a game of its vintage thanks to that enjoyable tag team feature. If you don’t mind being essentially locked to single-player in a one-on-one fighter, give Kizuna Encounter a look.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

SNK wasn’t exactly known for racing games, and I don’t think the NEOGEO ended up changing that perception much. I’m not sure if it was because the hardware was ill-equipped to keep pace with the powerful units SEGA and NAMCO were pushing into the arcade space, or if SNK just felt like they couldn’t really keep up with the competition in a design sense, but we ended up seeing just six racers on the console/arcade hybrid. That’s counting two horse racing games, too. Thrash Rally was the first racer on the system where players controlled cars, and the only top-down one.

The choice to do a top-down racer at this point in time was an interesting one. While this particular branch of the racing genre was still fairly successful on consoles, the more spectacle-heavy arcade scene had long since ditched them in favor of behind-the-back vanishing horizon games. Indeed, we were only a year away from the complete and utter game changer that was SEGA’s Virtua Racing. Even with a bit of scaling thrown in for spice, Thrash Rally looked a bit unimpressive for an arcade game of its vintage.

I guess this kind of gets to the elephant in the corner of the NEOGEO room. As a home console, the NEOGEO was considerably more powerful than anything else you could find at the time. It wasn’t even close. But as arcade hardware went? It was fine, but one of its big selling points for arcade operators was in how affordable it was. It was reasonably priced, generalized hardware that was built to handle a wide variety of experiences. It couldn’t and wouldn’t compete on a power level with more specialized, expensive hardware kits. It had its strengths, of course. When it played to them, the games could have a fair bit of razzle-dazzle. But there was only so much it could do, and each passing year dated the hardware further. The long life of the system must be credited to SNK and its various developers’ art, music, and game design talent. Well, that’s my opinion anyway.

A lot of the games in the early years of the system were trying to puff up its power. The later years came off like SNK was trying to show it could still hang with the competition. But I think if we look at the gooey, delicious middle years, we can find a comfortable groove for its software where it isn’t trying to put up any pretenses and is just enjoying itself. Thrash Rally was an early runner in that field, to me. It looks good for a top-down racer, for whatever that is worth, but it succeeds on its gameplay merits more than anything. I would go so far as to say that it’s a more enjoyable racer than its spiritual follow-up, despite that game having a considerably more gorgeous look.

Thrash Rally is a rally racer where you use your choice of several vehicles and challenge one of two different rally championships. While there aren’t any official licenses in play, everything is very nudge-nudge-wink-wink. That’s particularly the case if you play the Japanese version of the game, where the cars have names like the Toyot GT-Four, Parsche 911, and the Lancian Deleta. The two rally championships are themselves loosely based on the real-life 1992 World Rally Championship and Paris-Cape Town Dakar Rally. You can pick from six cars for the former, which consists of five separate races taking you from Monte Carlo to the United Kingdom. The latter gives you an additional three vehicles to choose from, and it’s just one long race from France to Cape Town.

The game leans more on the arcade side of things to say the least, but you do have to take the terrain into account and learn when to brake and when to gun it. Your choice of car is very important, as each of them have their own parameters that will affect how you have to race. I like the not-Porsche, but I recommend trying them all to see which one fits you best. Unlike a real rally race, there are other drivers on the track with you and you are indeed racing against them. Well, some of them. Some of them are just there to populate the track and get in the way a little. Collision is very loose here, in favor of the player. You’ll often just blaze right through cars in your path, leaving a wreck behind you. You’ll want to aim to get first in every race, but as long as you don’t run out of time you can keep going.

Yes, this is pretty normal as arcade racers go in that you’re up against a clock, an opponent far more nefarious than any competing car. You have to reach each checkpoint before the clock runs out. If at any point you fail to do this, you’re out. You can insert a credit to continue, at least. It’s a solid challenge, especially while you’re getting a feel for the cars and tracks. You can modify the difficulty as usual via the options menu, so you can scale it up or down as needed. Perhaps more useful is the presence of online leaderboards, which allows you to compete with other players’ times. You also get the usual Caravan and Score Attack modes, which are particularly challenging in this game.

You can play the game with an external controller if you have one, but the multiplayer option isn’t available here at all due to it requiring the rarely-used link cable. Touch controls work reasonably well for this game, as it only uses two buttons. Accelerate, brake. Use the virtual stick to steer. Almost as easy as it gets, and it’s more than doable via touch controls. It’s always nice when one of these games plays nicely with touch, and I find myself more encouraged to recommend those that do.

Thrash Rally might not have the graphical sizzle of other racers on the console, but in terms of sheer playability it may well be near the top of the small pack. It fits mobile very well, and whether you’re playing with an external controller or touch controls there is plenty of fun to be had here. It’s kind of funny how top-down racers are probably more acceptable in today’s market than they probably were back in 1991. Well, whatever. If you like top-down racers, pick this one up. You’re not likely to regret it.

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.

Congratulations! You’re the captain of your very own spiffy new tiny pirate ship. It’s not very roomy, but at least you don’t have to worry about mutinies. Since you’ve got a ship, there’s really nothing else to do but to head out onto the high seas and get to looting and pillaging. A brief yet slightly boggling tutorial will walk you through everything you can do. Swipe your finger to steer, tap the screen once to fire your cannons, and double-tap to make your ship dash. Developer, your little wordless tap animation can also be read as a swipe. It’s okay to just use words to explain how to play. The tutorial culminates in a battle with a Kraken, and no matter what you do your cool powerful ship is going to go under.

Congratulations! You’re the captain of a second, much weaker tiny pirate ship. You’re going to have to scrape up the cash if you want to get a fully decked-out ride to go take revenge on that stupid Kraken. The only way to get your hands on that loot is to take it from others. Wander around the map attacking the ships that appear, making sure to grab any crates or barrels they leave behind. There are different kinds of ships that can appear, some of whom are more than capable of hitting back, and you’ll have to deal with other non-ship hazards as well. Your starting cannon requires you to get right up in the faces of your foes, and your starting hull can only take a single hit. If you can last long enough, the Kraken might appear. Dodge its tentacles and you can take home a little bonus for your efforts. Good luck!

You’ll probably end up sinking another ship, of course. Luckily, you don’t lose this one. You can even use your ill-gotten loot to upgrade it, if you want. There are also better ships you can buy if you have enough money, each one specializing in a certain thing. Ships can be upgraded along three parameters. Armour gives you extra hit points, Sprint gives you a better boost, and Cannons increases the range of your shots. There are also several Perks you can pick up. This all costs more and more as you upgrade, so it’s quite the grind to get a nice maxed out ship.

The bigger grind comes from the new maps, though. You’ll need a ton of loot to open up the other maps, so expect to spend a fair bit of time on map one before progressing to the second and so on. You won’t be getting your revenge on that Kraken for a good long while. I understand that to an extent the grind is the game, especially given my love of role-playing games. But a long, direct grind is something you can really only get away with by carefully setting up the rest of the design, and I’m not sure Tiny Pirate Ship pulls that off perfectly.

So, first of all, I’m not super-thrilled with the controls in this game. There are times where you are going to want to be firing your cannons rapidly, but if you aren’t extremely careful you’ll end up boosting instead. Unexpectedly boosting in the middle of combat is generally not a good thing, and will result in taking a hit quite often. I’d love for these two actions to be more distinct in terms of how you activate them, perhaps making one of them on a virtual button. I think the developer was trying to avoid such things, but preserving the purity of the UI loses its nobility when it comes at the cost of the gameplay quality.

I’m also not overly satisfied with how the game’s difficulty seems to work. In addition to being a grinder, there’s also a score attack element to the game. Your highest loot haul is recorded, and there are leaderboards where you can compare with other players. Ideally then you would want to survive for as long as possible, allowing you to get a higher score. But the thing is, outside of the Kraken’s appearances, it never really feels like it’s getting any harder. It ends up feeling more like a battle of attrition, and the longer you play any given session the more boring it gets. I’m not really sure how this problem could be fixed, but endless games really do need escalation to stay interesting and I don’t get that feeling with Tiny Pirate Ship.

All that having been said, I did have fun with Tiny Pirate Ship and will likely fire it up for a round here and there in the future. That’s really how it plays best. It’s more of a toy you pull out for a few minutes, like spinning your ring on a table or something. Treat the grind as something that will eventually solve itself. Ignore the leaderboards. Just load it up, blast some ships, grab some loot, and put it away after a couple of rounds. That doesn’t fix the control issue, but that problem loses some of its punch when you’re not so fixated on surviving those long haul sessions. It’s worth the few bucks it’s asking if you’re looking for a little action game to enjoy.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

League Bowling is another one of those early NEOGEO games, dating back to the console’s first year on the market. Its most impressive on-paper feature was its support for the NEOGEO Multi Link, which allowed four cabinets to be connected together for a whopping eight-player battle. In practice, I don’t think I ever saw four NEOGEO cabinets in one place together. But hey, cool idea. Each cabinet supports two players, and indeed even when you are playing solo you’ll only be working with half of the screen. The other half will helpfully display the extremely complicated set of controls for the game.

There are three different modes of play in the game, and in all of them your goal will simply be to score as many points as you can. You can pull in a second player in this mobile version if you have enough external controllers to go around, but otherwise you’re just going to be bowling alone and trying to carve your place on the scoreboards. The first mode is Regulation, and it’s exactly what it sounds like. Bowl your ten frames and see how close to a perfect 300 you can notch. Flash mode offers up a timing-based bonus if you can throw a strike or spare, and the total here can go as high as a whopping 3,000 if everything lines up right. Finally, there’s Strike 90. In this mode, strikes earn you 90 points for the frame and spares get you 60. The maximum score here is 900 points.

After choosing your mode, you also get to choose which hand your bowler will use and how heavy of a ball you want. It adds a little depth to the game, but you can also just ignore it if that’s your preference. Then, it’s time to bowl. This is one of the more straightforward NEOGEO games control-wise, and it makes it a great fit for mobile players who are using touch controls. The stick moves your bowler left or right. One you’re in your preferred position, press the button once to stop the direction meter and again to stop the power meter. It’s all timing and knowing which throws you need when, so pretty much anyone can get the hang of it in a hurry.

And that, my dearest chums, is it. There’s nothing more to it. Get your best score, enter your initials, tell Hamster’s wrapper to submit your score to the online leaderboards, and have another go. You can choose between the Japanese and International version of the game, and you also have a Score Attack and Caravan mode as usual. The Score Attack mode is functionally the same as playing normally, as it’s always one credit for one game anyway. The Caravan mode gives you five minutes to get as high a score as you can muster. Realistically, unless you really dawdle, your game should always be over within three or four minutes. But hey, another leaderboard to compete on.

League Bowling has often been criticized for being a little too thin and a little too repetitive. But it’s bowling, isn’t it? If you try to jazz it up too much, you’ll just break it. Within an arcade setting, it was just about perfect. Waiting for your clothes to finish washing? Need to kill a few minutes before the movie starts? On a break from work? Pop in a coin and have a quick game. Its simplicity and straightforward nature are exactly what make it an excellent arcade game, and I’ll go as far as to say that it also makes it a great mobile game. Touch controls? No problem. Don’t have a lot of time to spend or don’t want anything to involved. It’s got your back.

The leaderboards add further incentive to keep improving, and you can always compete with your own scores as well. But it’s also just good fun to play a game or two, in and of itself. Who doesn’t like watching a ball speed down the lane and take down all of the pins? It’s one of those primal joys that jolts humans directly in the happy zone of our monkey brains. We throw a thing at a thing that is pretty far away, and we knock down that thing. Ah, that’s the caveman happy juice. And League Bowling will absolutely hook you up with it. Throw in some colorful, cartoony visuals, and the crisp sounds of the ball and pins, and you’ve got a great mobile sports game that isn’t going to shake you down for extra money. Well, not in this form anyway.

Now for the boilerplate ACA NEOGEO stuff. In addition to the two different versions of the game and the extra modes, you’ve got a wide assortment of options for the game, display, and so on that you can tinker with as needed. You can use an external controller if you would prefer to, and if you have an extra you can play multiplayer. This is the only way you can do so, however. And there is unfortunately no way to access the multiplayer modes for more than two players. It’s just how it is. The emulation quality is up to Hamster’s usual speed for NEOGEO, which is to say it’s pretty much spotless.

Simply put, if you’re looking for a great pick-up-and-play sports game for your mobile device, you can’t go wrong with League Bowling. It’s perhaps simple and streamlined to a fault, but the bowling action is precisely what it needs to be where it counts. It’s a great companion to Big Tournament Golf, and indeed might even be a better choice when time is of the essence. The light nature of the game suits this platform well, and it plays like a charm with touch controls. An easy recommendation.

I’ve written quite a lot of reviews of these ACA NEOGEO games already, and I hope that one of the things I’ve managed to express is that this console’s early days were really bizarre and subsequently charming in a particular way. Before Street Fighter II laid out the path the arcade business as a whole would take throughout the 1990s, SNK didn’t seem to have any clear idea where to go with its new console’s library. Clearly, it wanted some games that would show off what the hardware could do. Beyond that, the library reflects a company throwing an awful lot of mud at the wall to see what would stick. Fatal Fury would show the way forward, but that didn’t come until deep into the NEOGEO’s second year of life.

The console was more than thirty games deep at that point, and we can see a lot of different kinds of releases in that early bunch. Sports games of various types are a given, and there were plenty of those. A couple of shoot-em-ups, a couple of platform games, a couple of beat-em-ups, a couple of puzzlers. But perhaps the most unusual of these early games was The Super Spy. It may also have been one of the more ambitious. You play as international man of mystery Roy Heart, who has been sent on a mission by the CIA to infiltrate a building that has been occupied by terrorists. Hey, I’ve seen this movie. This set-up could work for a bunch of traditional genres, but SNK decided to make a first-person beat-em-up.

For some reason, our boy Roy has entered the building armed only with a knife and a gun with twelve bullets in it. But worry not, as his martial arts skills are impressive. You’ll have to get used to them, as you’re going to be using them a lot as you make your way through sixteen floors filled with enemies. You’ll find weapons now and then by rescuing hostages that temporarily add some sizzle to the steak, and you can use your knife until it rusts from overuse (that’s not how that works at all), but most of your kills are going to be with your bare hands or well-toed foot. There is some extremely light exploration here as well, and I will say that this was all very dazzling to look at in this game’s time. Really big characters, decent scaling, lots of impact.

The hand-to-hand combat takes a lot of cues from Nintendo’s Punch-Out!!, with the ability to block and duck the attacks of your foes between your own swings and hooks. If you try to slug it out without making use of these features, you’ll end up emptying your wallet of coins in a hurry. You know, if you had to worry about that with this version. You don’t, you can feed virtual coins as often as you want to get through this sheer endurance battle of a game. But I beseech you to actually engage with that melee combat system, as if there is enjoyment to be found in The Super Spy it is through mastery of it. Once you get the hang of how it works, I dare say you might even start having some fun.

I wish I could tell you that fun lasts for the duration of the game, but we’re all too old to believe in faery tales. It gets monotonous after a few floors’ worth of similar-looking ninjas, and I’ll remind you that there are sixteen in total. Worse, things step into the realm of frustration a bit too often as enemies step out of the range of your dukes. Hope you saved some ammo. Once you learn the game and know when and where to make use of your limited weaponry, things can go a little brisker and more pleasantly, but I’m not sure how many people would set their minds to do such a thing unless they paid a couple hundred dollars for a cartridge.

Sounds like bad news for The Super Spy, then. Wrap it up, prepare a couple of stars, and we’ll all get on with our day. Except! Except Hamster has done what it usually does for its releases here, and one of those usual things actually makes The Super Spy a lot more interesting. The extra modes that the developer always adds are included here, complete with online leaderboards. That means you have a score attack and timed caravan mode to play, both of which limit you to but a single credit. And that in turn means that if you want to make any headway at all in these modes, you must come to grips with the game’s distinct mechanics and intentions.

It is in doing so that you’ll find that The Super Spy is a bit better than it sometimes gets credit for. Sure, beating the game is a bore and a chore, but I could say the same for Capcom’s 1942. Arcade games are so far away from their context here in 2023 (or whenever you’re reading this) that I think we sometimes forget that they weren’t necessarily meant to be beaten the first time you sidle up to the machine. You weren’t supposed to have infinite credits, dropping in another coin every time you fail instead of learning the game properly and building your skills. I’m not going to sit here and say The Super Spy is fine art, but I will say that if we appraise it under its original conditions, it’s alright. And Hamster’s stock extra modes force you to do that, albeit to an extreme.

I suppose it’s time to go through the normal bit. You can play with an external controller if you want, and honestly it’s a much better way to go about things if you have the option. The button layout isn’t especially complicated here, but the emphasis on dodging and replying with speedy timing can make the touch controls a little unreliable. You get a lot of options to play around with here, and we’ve already talked about the extra modes and online leaderboards. The emulation is good, but I’m sure we all expect that by now. A more bespoke set-up might have benefited The Super Spy, but I get how the whole business model works here.

The Super Spy is a game that is perhaps at its worst if you choose to play it by credit-feeding your way through its tedious campaign. I can understand why it wasn’t particularly well-liked by AES owners back in the day, and I similarly get why modern reviews don’t have a lot of nice things to say about it. But I don’t think it’s totally without merit, and the extra modes in this ACA NEOGEO mode make the game interesting enough to be worth tossing a few bucks at if you’re a curious retro gamer. It’s extremely Early NEOGEO Core, and if that sounds cool to you then I will give this a hesitant recommendation.

It’s not as though SNK didn’t have its occasional miss, particularly early in the console’s life. What makes Savage Reign‘s shortcomings so interesting is that the game came out in 1995, well after SNK and its development partners had figured this whole fighting game thing out. It is improbable that a game of Savage Reign‘s quality should come out at the time that it did, but it most certainly did. The idea behind it was sound, at least. Add another weapon-based fighter to the SNK line-up, with a modern flavor to contrast with the medieval Japanese Samurai Shodown series. Add in a new gimmick in the form of a second tier fighters could battle from. Like Fatal Fury but with boomerangs and dodge balls.

Yes, I said dodge balls. The weapons most of the fighters in Savage Reign wield are… unconventional to say the least. And that’s appropriate, because the characters are pretty unusual themselves. There doesn’t seem to be much of a consistent theme here, and it hurts the game’s identity. A cyborg, a cheerleader, a clown, a martial artist, an old guy dressed like a beach bum, a cop whose top is way too tiny with some Zangief-like chest hair, and a few other oddities populate the game’s ten-character roster. Each of them has their own stage that fits their specific theme, but it’s really hard to figure out how any of this fits together. And sure, none of this affects how the game plays. But that lack of consistency makes this game sometimes feel like a plate of leftovers from other SNK fighters at times, and it has a hard time standing out among the many other options the NEOGEO had to offer.

I don’t want this to sound like a total disaster, though. Savage Reign isn’t a bad game, and if it were the only fighting game you had around, you could do a lot worse. It looks good, with plenty of details in the backgrounds and well-animated characters. It does that characteristic NEOGEO zooming, particularly when you start hopping around to the second tier of each stage. The gameplay is functional enough, playing a bit like the earlier Fatal Fury games thanks to all the lane-hopping shenanigans. The weapons are mainly projectiles but get incorporated into melee attacks in some fun ways, and some of the stage designs handle their second tier in a very unusual fashion.

The issue with Savage Reign is more that this is a very average fighter that lacks a proper focus. There are a lot of different pieces thrown in here from other games, but they don’t really mix well together and it ends up feeling like an odd hodge-podge as a result. So too does the roster of characters, and again it isn’t really in a good way. I think there’s certainly room in the genre for a bunch of wacky misfits, but this game feels like it’s trying a little too hard to check things off of some list of awesome ideas someone had. Does it matter? Well, yes. It’s trying so hard to be so many things, it never really drills deep on any of its ideas. It’s about as shallow a fighter as you could find at this stage of the NEOGEO’s life, more akin to the kinds of things that came before Fatal Fury found its footing.

With all of that said, I think we have to look at the current context in which we are viewing Savage Reign. This is a low-cost mobile port, one that you will probably be mostly playing in single-player. It’s likely you are using touch controls, though there is of course external controller support for those who want to take advantage of it. My assumption is also that anyone who has read this far into a review of the mobile version of Savage Reign is at least interested enough in NEOGEO to have played all of the more famous fighters from SNK. So let’s see how that measures up, then.

Unlike NEOGEO console owners back in the day, you won’t need to justify a $150 cartridge purchase or whatever here. The last boss isn’t nearly as nasty as the usual SNK boss, and the wacky spectacle of it all makes for some amusing single-player bouts. The lack of depth means you can get by without too many fancy combos, which makes it easier to play using the touch controls. And this is certainly one of the less-celebrated fighters from SNK, which means you might not have played the wheels off of it yet. With all of that taken into account, I suppose I can’t tell you to completely avoid this release. It’s only a few bucks, and I expect you can get that much fun out of it.

The usual Arcade Archives boilerplate. You get a robust list of extras and options, including additional modes and online leaderboards. The emulation is sound as a pound. Is a pound sound anymore? I don’t know. But the emulation is good, is what I’m trying to say. You can only play multiplayer if you have an extra controller, as there are no wifi or internet play options available. You probably know this already, because I say all of this every time. It hurts every single fighter in this line-up that multiplayer is such a difficult thing to get going, but it is what it is at this point.

Savage Reign is incredibly mediocre by the standards of SNK’s NEOGEO fighting game line-up, and as with other ACA NEOGEO fighting games the poor options for multiplayer make this one of the worse ways to experience it. But you might find something endearing in its quirky nature, and there aren’t many fighting games that let you beat someone into unconsciousness with a dodge ball. I sure wouldn’t make this a high-priority purchase, but there may just be a few bucks’ worth of button-bashing fun for some of you here.

This is another game that arrived shortly after the Japanese launch of the MVS but made it in time for the North American one. It actually makes use of some of the console’s features that didn’t see a whole lot of play in some regions, and I certainly can’t say there wasn’t an attempt made here. The NEOGEO could take memory cards, in theory allowing one to save their progress and return to it on any other NEOGEO unit. Not really necessary for most games, since they were arcade games and tended to be fairly short affairs. And frankly, I can’t imagine too many people stumped for one of those devices specifically to use with the arcade units. But Riding Hero had support for the memory card, and in this case it was rather important for one of its three modes.

It also had support for another curious feature, and in this case it was actually the first game to do so. If an arcade operator had two NEOGEO cabinets, one could connect a cable between them to play this game’s head-to-head versus mode. This support also extended to the later home version. Naturally, very few arcade operators had two NEOGEO cabinets. The whole point was that you could just have one and change the games in it. But the feature was there, and Riding Hero was the pioneering use of it. If Riding Hero had been a better game, perhaps it would have seen arcade operators buying extra cabinets to take advantage of this feature.

Sadly, Riding Hero isn’t a better game. It has one really cool idea, and that idea is the only reason it’s worth considering today. Otherwise, everything about it ranges from middling to poor. On a technical level, it barely passes. It looks worse than SEGA’s motorcycle racer from three years before, and not by a little. But hey, high bar there. It’s not the worst-looking early NEOGEO game by any means. I don’t think it did the new system any favors in terms of selling its graphical muscle, but it probably didn’t hurt it too much either.

It’s the gameplay mechanics where things really run into trouble. The handling of your bike isn’t too bad, albeit with a bit of lag that takes some getting used to, but games like this can easily go awry based on your interactions with other racers and objects. The collision in Riding Hero is an absolute nightmare. If you get anywhere near anything, you’ll bounce, go into a spin, or crash. Fair is fair, but this can happen even if rival bikers hit you from behind, something you can’t possibly see coming. Crash recoveries take so long that any wipeout can almost completely knock you out of a race. You have a limited Turbo you can use, but because the course map isn’t displayed you never know when it’s safe to fire it off. The CPU rubber bands like wild, too. It’s infuriating to play, and it feels like no amount of practice is enough to overcome some of this nonsense.

So, let’s talk about the modes of play. First of all, that versus mode is right off the table. You can’t link systems here, so you can’t access any multiplayer. That leaves you with the Grand Prix mode and the Story mode. The former is a standard affair. You choose your favorite bike and race against other bikers on a variety of courses, and you need to not only stay ahead of the timer but also finish in the top three to move on. There are several other bikers on the road with you, so you really need to be careful you don’t get hit from the rear. Fail to place, and it’s a game over. Win enough times and you’ll become the champion. Good luck with that.

The Story mode is the one saving grace of this game. It’s the one truly interesting thing in the game, and if a person was to somehow fall in love with Riding Hero it would be for this. You don’t see this kind of thing in arcade games very often, and it’s really only due to the memory card feature of the system that it can be here. In this mode, you take on the role of a young rider who wants to break into the street bike racing scene and eventually participate in the Suzuka 8 Hours Endurance race. You’ll have to work your way up by competing against other bikers for money, which you can use to upgrade your ride and eventually pay the entry fee to the big race. These races are typically one-on-one, but unlike in Grand Prix mode, there is other vehicle traffic on the road. Swings and roundabouts. The cars are annoying and you will constantly hit them, but you have less concern about getting rear-ended.

It’s such an odd thing to have in an arcade racer. You have a map you can move around on. There are characters to talk to, with a fair bit of dialogue. You can also return to your home, which is where you would have used your memory card in the original machine. There’s actually a degree of non-linearity here, and if one wanted to be very generous with the term you could almost call this RPG-ish. So yes, this is the system’s only motorcycle racing game and arguably one of the few things on the system that could be kind-of-sort-of called an RPG. That certainly makes it of historical note, and it might just be the hook for some of you.

I just wish the actual gameplay was less irritating, because the Story mode is a really cool feature that makes this stand out among other ACA NEOGEO offerings. But the game itself just isn’t very fun, and there’s only so much that fancy lipstick can do for a pig of this nature. The mechanical issues are only made worse if you’re playing with touch controls. There’s just no margin for error here given everything that is stacked against you, and the virtual stick is enough to push things over the red line. If you’re going to play this, you should take advantage of the support for external controllers. Give yourself a fighting chance.

You get all of the usual Arcade Archives stuff here. Both Japanese and overseas versions of the game, and you’ll likely want to stick to the overseas one unless you can read Japanese. There are also High Score and Caravan modes with online leaderboards, though this game isn’t exactly set up for either of those to be much fun. The gameplay options are quite nice here, allowing you to tweak the difficulty and time limits a bit to make the game more tolerable. Be the kind arcade operator we all wish we had back in the day. The emulation is of good quality, of course. I probably don’t need to say that in these reviews at this point, but whatever.

There’s assuredly room on mobile for another arcade-style motorcycle racer, especially a one-and-done purchase. But Riding Hero is almost impossible to enjoy as a pick-up-and-play experience thanks to its frustrating gameplay, so that’s right out. The Story mode is more interesting to poke at, and if you are willing to put up with… well, the game itself, you’ll find a rather unique experience in what Riding Hero has to offer. Not a good game overall, but it is in some ways a fascinating one, and that might be enough for your money if you have the right inclinations.

Honestly speaking, there isn’t a whole lot to say about Ninja Combat as a game. It’s not very good, especially in the sober light of retrospect. It has a few interesting ideas, some good and some bad. Having your characters toss shuriken instead of using their fists or feet as a basic attack was unusual, and it accidentally robs the game of those nice oomphs and thwacks that drive a lot of the satisfaction in brawlers. It has unlockable additional characters that you’ll get access to as you play the game, which helps keep it fresh all the way through even if those other characters aren’t very cool. In general it tries to be different, and I think that’s where it often trips over its feet.

Hamster has done its usual job here, with the same extra modes and options we’ve seen in all of the ACA NEOGEO line. That means you get external controller support, which isn’t a bad idea at all here. You’ll need external controllers to play in two-player mode, which is local only. Online leaderboards are here, even if this isn’t really the sort of game where score attacking is much fun. If you’re stuck with touch controls it isn’t the worst thing in the world. You can credit feed your way all the way through after all, and it doesn’t take a lot of finger wizardry to play a beat-em-up this basic.

Well, let’s digress a little. Ninja Combat, as it turns out, was not a launch title for the NEOGEO console in Japan. It was very close. Close enough that it made it for the North American launch a few months later. And that’s why I tend to think of it as a launch title. When the NEOGEO launched in the West, I was about eleven years old. I was spending a lot of time at arcades with my friends, and I remember the first time we entered our usual arcade and heard those booming speakers on the NEOGEO MVS. I don’t remember all four of the games loaded on there, but I do know that Ninja Combat was one of them.

Like most kids born in the era I was born in, I thought ninjas were just about the coolest thing ever. Not real ninjas, of course. But the silly superhero-ish ninjas that pervaded pop culture in the 1980s. So the twin protagonists of Ninja Combat, with their Day-Glo outfits and complete lack of stealth, appealed greatly to me. I thought it was cool that they threw shuriken instead of punching. There was a button that made them do backflips! There are so many weapons they can pick up, too. And heck, look at the way they walk. Carefully putting one foot in front of the other, as ninjas do.

Perhaps because I didn’t have access to NEOGEO games at home, a couple of these early games really stuck in my brain, and Ninja Combat and Cyber-Lip were probably the two biggest. I would daydream about them. I would draw the characters on the back of school worksheets. To me, these games were among the very best one could find anywhere. When they were shuffled out of the MVS’s rotation for keeps, I mourned them. I waited for ports to the Super NES or Genesis. I mean, we got Fatal Fury. We got Art of Fighting. We got World Heroes. Surely those ports of Ninja Combat and Cyber-Lip are coming. But they didn’t. At that time, I really couldn’t figure out why. Eventually they faded considerably from my brain. Street Fighter II, you understand. Mortal Kombat. Easy to move on.

I didn’t get the chance to play these games again for well over a decade. Ah, time to play Cyber-Lip and Ninja Combat again, those fantastic arcade classics of my youth. It didn’t take long with either title for me to realize why they hadn’t been ported. Why almost no one else talked about them. Why no other kid around me had been obsessed with their characters and gameplay mechanics like I was. These games were not good. They were not good at all. They weren’t memorably bad, either. They were plain toast. An unsalted cracker. As consequential to the NEOGEO as half the songs on the average pop music album were to the person who bought it. They filled the slots, grabbed a few coins from people gawking at the new cabinet, and faded away when it became clear they weren’t catching as much attention as other games.

Why on Earth would anyone play Cyber-Lip instead of Metal Slug? Who in their right mind would play Ninja Combat instead of Sengoku 3? The lies that nostalgia likes to tell were laid bare once I had fired up those games again and memory clashed with reality. Bad games. Boring games. Boo. Another one for the pile with Bubsy the Bobcat, Road Runner’s Death Valley Rally, and The Rocketeer for the NES. The fool loves of a fool child whose imagination could fill in any gaps left by an over-worked development team.

And yet, and yet. And yet I still buy Ninja Combat and Cyber-Lip when they are made newly available on a console or device that I own. I know exactly what kinds of games these are now, and I know I’m not going to have an overly good time playing them again. But I buy them, and I play them, not exactly fully sure as to why. Probably chasing my childhood, like many of us do. Perhaps hoping to find something good to latch on to, so that I might tout them as a hidden gem in some sort of fancy list of games where I’m trying to look like an iconoclast. But there just isn’t that sort of thing in Ninja Combat. Nothing but a pair of Day-Glo ninjas awkwardly swinging clubs at considerably less snazzily-dressed opponents, their hair flapping in a perfect rhythm as their bodies heave with each breath.

I buy, I play. And so I have again. And it’s here in this meandering essay that I say the only reason you should pick up Ninja Combat ACA NEOGEO is if you, too, are affiliated with this particular shade of times gone by. I can’t imagine most other people getting much out of it, as it may well be the blandest NEOGEO beat-em-up of them all. So yes, this one is only for Shaun and people who have read all of these words and nodded their heads to at least half of them. The rest should simply wait and see what next Wednesday brings instead. Maybe Cyber-Lip?

That’s a really difficult question to answer, and I suppose it comes down to a few things. First of all, I must admit that Top Player’s Golf is more realistic in its presentation than NEO Turf Masters is. If the over-the-top approach of the latter bothers you, there’s a chance you’ll find Top Player’s Golf more to your taste. There are also some out there who treat the Arcade Archives like a trip through history, and in that sense Top Player’s Golf certainly has a place. It was SNK’s second golf game after Lee Trevino’s Fighting Golf, one of just four launch titles for the NEOGEO in North America, and as previously mentioned was the only golf game on the console until 1996. It has its merits in that regard.

Then there are people who have already played the wheels off of NEO Turf Masters/Big Tournament Golf and are just looking for a new golf game to play. You’re less interested in whether Top Player’s Golf is better than NEO Turf Masters and more in whether or not it’s a golf game worth playing on its own merits. And you know what? I think it is. It’s not the best golfing game around by any means, but it’s fine. It’s a fairly low-effort take on the sport that might be the flavor you’re looking for. At the price these Arcade Archives releases go for, I think it earns its keep.

You’ve got three modes of play to dig into here. The first two are what you would expect. Stroke Play has you take on CPU opponents in a full course of 18 holes at one of two Country Clubs. Match Play is meant for two human players and you’re obviously not likely to be getting much use out of that with this version. The third mode is a little more unusual. Nassau Game can be played against the CPU or another human, and it throws some unique challenges into the competition. Amusing enough as a bit of variety. As mentioned, you’ve got two clubs to play at, and there are four different golfers to choose from.

The gameplay itself is as simple as it gets. Set your direction, choose your club (the game will always set you up with a reasonable choice if you don’t want to fuss with this), then choose Shot. A meter will pop up, and you can press the button to start your swing. Hit the button again at the desired amount of power, and that’s it. You can choose to have a caddie make recommendations to you if you like, and that’s certainly something to listen to the first couple times you run through a course. Indeed, those crisp voices were one of the ways this game flexed the new hardware. There’s also a bit of scaling when your shot heads into the air, and the colors are certainly quite rich for the time.

So yes, it’s fine. And the simple controls do suit mobile play very well, so that’s something in its favor. You can use an external controller if you want, but it’s totally fine with touch controls. If you want to play against another human, you’ll need to use external controllers for local play. No internet. I know I say it every time, but every time is some reader’s first time. Maybe if I keep complaining something will change. All the other usual Arcade Archives features are here, including extra modes and online leaderboards. The emulation is the usual high quality.

If you’re looking for a NEOGEO golf game to play, you should absolutely buy Big Tournament Golf. If you’re looking for a second NEOGEO golf game to play, Top Player’s Golf is decent enough. Just remember that it originally released in 1990 and that the six year gap between it and Big Tournament Golf was a massive one in terms of game design evolution. This is a simple, straightforward game of golf with very few frills and practically no depth. Maybe that’s okay sometimes.

What went wrong? Well, a lot of things. Baseball Stars on the NES hadn’t released too much earlier than this game, and it’s likely that the gap was too small to really take a lot of lessons forward. This game also had to be tuned for arcade play, meaning it had to keep those coins coming in rather than simply satisfying the player for their lump-sum purchase. On top of all of that, as a launch title for the hardware it had to try to show off as much of the system’s muscle as possible, even if that was to the detriment of playability. Is that everything? Maybe. Let’s roll with it for now.

Baseball Stars on the NES was a really cool game, and a lot of that came down to how much customizability and persistence it brought to the genre on the console. You could make your own custom characters and teams and save them using the battery back-up, improving your players using the money you earn by winning games. You can also use your money to buy new players for your team, too. A lot of this became normal in sports games soon enough, but Baseball Stars was ahead of its time as a console baseball game. In terms of gameplay, its batting and pitching more or less followed conventions. But its fielding was incredibly well-done, bringing in many elements that would be copied by the competition soon enough.

Baseball Stars Professional has… pretty much none of that. No created players. No team customization. Certainly no full season mode or RPG-like upgrades. Just two modes: a tournament mode where you play against a series of CPU-controlled teams, and a single-match versus mode for two human players to face off. The gameplay is as simplified as it gets, reducing just about everything to a few basic actions. The excellent fielding found in the NES version is absent here, and it’s made even worse by the insistence of flexing the NEOGEO’s scaling capabilities. You really can’t see things that you need to see because the game is so busy being proud of its graphical prowess. This is one of the least pleasant baseball games to run defense in of any that I have played.

Oh, I should also mention that the teams aren’t balanced at all. Make sure you pick a good one until you get the hang of the game, because the bad ones make things very difficult against what is already a fairly tough CPU opponent. The computer opponent is generally a very rude fellow. All the struggles you have with defense are no issue for the CPU. It will catch the ball easily because it doesn’t have to “see", and its throws are uncannily accurate where yours will often falter. It’s not a lot of fun to play against the computer, and that’s a particular issue with this mobile version because that’s probably what you’ll be doing most of the time.

I will grant that Baseball Stars Professional looks good for its era. The graphics are vivid, the animations are decent, and those scaling effects that make fielding such a pain are at least not for naught. If its job was to make the new NEOGEO hardware look like a step above at launch, it did its work well enough. And hey, some people do inexplicably have some affection for this title. I’ll take its considerably better sequel any day of the week, but if you’ve got nostalgia for this game I certainly can’t argue against it.

The game also plays fairly well with the virtual touch controls. No real need for button combinations and the stick movements are simple enough. You can use an external controller if that’s your jam, and if you want to play against another player you’ll need to bring one for your friend. Again I will note the lack of online play in these ACA NEOGEO releases, and again I will lament its absence. It’s particularly bad in games like this where the CPU opponent is a total butthead almost directly from the hop. The extra modes and leaderboards Hamster adds in for every release don’t do a whole lot for this game, but they’re there.

It’s often said that Baseball Stars Professional is the worst of the initial NEOGEO launch games. It’s also said to be a lousy sequel to the NES game. Yes, I agree with both of those statements. This wasn’t SNK at its best, and its usual proficiency at sports games didn’t come through here. It’s more of a historical curio than anything at this point unless you have a personal connection to it, and I’d probably be comfortable calling it the worst of the games selected for the mobile ACA NEOGEO line thus far. Not even worth even a few measly bucks in quarters, but then again, it never was.

Developer Saurus was founded in 1994 and was largely made up of former SNK employees who didn’t feel like moving to Osaka after SNK closed its Tokyo offices. It worked on several NEOGEO games along with a variety of console ports and is probably best known in the West as the team behind the Shock Troopers top-down run-and-guns. Like a lot of the developers working on NEOGEO games in the later years of the console’s life, Saurus was really good at flexing the aging system’s strong points to make attractive, detailed visuals for its games. Anyway, off to the horse races.

Horse racing is still somewhat popular in Japan to this day, but in the 1990s it was going through an especially big boom. In typical fashion, everyone and their uncle was soon making a horse racing game for the various consoles of the era. The junk bins at second hand game shops in Japan are positively drowning in horse racing games for the Super Famicom, PlayStation, and SEGA Saturn. Some of those games took a heavy sim approach to raising and racing your steeds, while others were little more than gambling games. Stakes Winner does what many other NEOGEO sports games did so well: it takes a sport with a lot of nuances and complicated aspects and compacts it into a fun, approachable arcade game.

The first thing you’ll do when you start the game is name your jockey. Four letters ought to be enough for anyone, right? You then get to choose your horse from a group of several colorful characters. They all have their own stats, racing style, and appearance, along with a fancy name. With that done, you’re ready to race. There are twelve races in total in the game, and you need to rank in the top three if you want to win any money. As an added incentive, failing to rank in the top three means you’ll have to drop another coin in. That doesn’t matter much for us here in the current year with our fancy unlimited credits, though. Neigh, it’s all about that cash prize total, which works as an ersatz score. You’ll want to do your best to earn the top prize in every race.

The racing itself is fairly simple. You can move your horse around with the stick, with a double-tap forward making it jostle any horses in front of it and a double-tap back slowing you right down. You have one button that flicks the reins a little and speeds up your horse at the cost of a little stamina, and another button that whips the horse for a big speed burst at the cost of a lot of stamina. That’s all there is to it. The first couple of races are so short that you can pretty much fly through them at top speed without fear of running out of stamina, but after that you’re going to have to be very careful about when and where you apply that whip.

Throwing a wrench into the racing is the presence of pick-ups along the track. Some of these are good, offering you a speed burst or extra stamina, while others are bad, slowing you down for varying lengths of time. In case you were wondering why you would ever use the move to slow down, avoiding those bad items is one great reason. The only other wrinkle to the game comes from the training segments, where you can earn permanent upgrades for your horse. You’ll need to get good at these as the later races are almost impossible if your stats aren’t up to where they should be.

While it’s far from conventional, especially if you’re unfamiliar with horse racing, Stakes Winner offers all the fun of a good racing game. The core stamina management aspect forces you to consider the track you’re on, and the pick-ups and other horses add in that vital element of chaos that keeps things spicy. You can even play this with another player, and it’s an amazingly good time. Of course, that’s pretty hard to do with this mobile version. You have to play locally and you’ll need some external controllers. I’m just going to assume you’ll mainly be playing alone. Still, even taken in that context, Stakes Winner is really enjoyable.

Hamster has done its usual work with this, and I could almost copy and paste this paragraph in these reviews at this point. You get a wide range of options to tweak, and you can choose between the Japanese and overseas version of the game. The usual extra modes are here, though they’re not quite as fun as they are in something like a shooting game. You can use an external controller to play, though the touch controls are mainly adequate. The double-taps are a little annoying to do on a virtual stick, but you can get the hang of it with a bit of practice.

Stakes Winner gets some extra credit just for being something a little off the beaten track, but it is a genuinely excellent arcade game all on its own. SNK had a knack for this sort of thing, and the end result is a horse racing game that I think anyone can enjoy even if they have zero prior interest in the sport. I hope we eventually see the sequel, Stakes Winner 2, but until then there’s plenty of fun to be had with this fine version of the original.

Ghost Pilots arrived on the NEOGEO within the system’s first year, when SNK was still trying to find its footing with the hardware. Inspiration would arrive soon after its January 1991 launch. Street Fighter II hit in February 1991 with all the force of a raging bull, kicking off a fighting game phenomenon that the NEOGEO was able to benefit greatly from. In those early days, one of SNK’s secret weapons was a talent that had been lured away from one of its major competitors. Takashi Nishiyama is a man who shouldn’t need an introduction, but let’s go ahead and give him one.

Nishiyama is, perhaps, one of the more important figures in arcade gaming history. He got his start at Irem, and was responsible for two of its biggest early hits: Moon Patrol and Kung-Fu Master. He then made the jump to Capcom, where he was involved with games like Section Z, Trojan, Legendary Wings, and Street Fighter. Yes, the first one. Sure, it wasn’t a patch on its sequel, but we wouldn’t have that game without the original laying the groundwork. He was approached by SNK after he took his leave from Capcom, and started on two projects for the new NEOGEO system. Each would represent one of his genre specialties from his previous works, and one of the two would prove to be a critical, influential, iconic game for SNK. The other was Ghost Pilots.

Ghost Pilots is a vertically scrolling shoot-em-up for one or two players, though unless you have a couple of external controllers, you’re likely to be flying solo on this mission. The setting is World War II, and you’re up against a huge chunk of the Nazi forces. Your weapon of choice? A bafflingly sluggish seaplane, decked out with a standard machine gun and a limited number of one of a few different bomb types. The gun can be upgraded by picking up power-ups, and you can pick up extra bombs along the way. Basically, this is an attempt at doing a Toaplan-style shooter in a setting similar to that of Capcom’s 19XX series. With Nishiyama’s experience and the power of the NEOGEO, this should have been a slam dunk.

Well, even the best miss a shot now and then. Ghost Pilots is extremely dull. It’s sluggish. The power-ups are so vanilla they feel like they came from an early 1980s shooter. There aren’t enough enemy types to properly mix things up, and it only takes a couple of stages before you’re likely to tire of various colors of airplanes swooping in at you. The graphics are fine but hardly impressive for the era, with only the bosses really showing anything interesting from a design standpoint. After the first stage you get to pick between two routes, which is perhaps the one interesting thing Ghost Pilots does. Neither one is terribly exciting, unfortunately. It feels like a game that came a half decade too late.

We’ve got the usual extras from Hamster, doing their able best to give the game a raison d’etre. The Caravan and Score Attack modes are about as much fun as you can hope to have with this game, and trying to hustle your way up the leaderboards gives the game a shot in the arm it sorely needs. You have access to a bunch of options for the game itself, and if you have an external controller you can use it to play in lieu of the completely serviceable touch controls. As mentioned before, the game has support for simultaneous two-player action, but you’ll need an extra external controller for your second player. As usual, no online multiplayer support.

Despite the extra modes and high-quality presentation by Hamster, I have a lot of trouble recommending Ghost Pilots with any vigor at all. Sure, it plays fine. You can pass a few minutes with it if you need to. There’s certainly a decent bit of content here for a shooter of its era. But it just isn’t very enjoyable. Your plane is too slow and your firepower too plain, making the core gameplay feel dull. It’s all very repetitive thanks to the limited assortment of enemies and unimaginative stage designs, too. Is it worth a few bucks? I mean… maybe? It’s not trash or anything. But you can certainly find more enjoyable shooters for the same price, so I wouldn’t bother with this one unless you’re absolutely starving for a game of this sort.

Sort of, yes, and absolutely. I don’t like leaving questions unsettled for too long. When I wrote my review of Samurai Shodown IV ACA NEOGEO, I mentioned that it’s rare to find anyone that loves every entry in the Samurai Shodown series due to how inconsistent the games are in their mechanics and aesthetics. I think if you polled the masses, you’d see a lot of people citing Samurai Shodown II as their favorite, followed by a near-equal number of votes for IV and V Special. As far as the NEOGEO entries go, you’ll probably see the least number of people pulling for the original game and Samurai Shodown III.

Yet I think if you asked those same people what their second-favorite game in the series is, you’d see a lot more support for Samurai Shodown III. It’s a weird game by the standards of the series, one that its sequels largely set out to walk back from. That weirdness, however, is precisely what makes it stand out among its peers. Samurai Shodown III has a lot of ideas. Some of them are good, some of them are bad, and some of them are good but badly implemented. But there’s something to it. A charming flavor that calls to mind the likes of Bushido Blade, cutting down to the essence of pop samurai media. Samurai Shodown has always been characterized by how swift and brutal rounds can be, but Samurai Shodown III is perhaps the epitome of that ethos. It’s entirely possible for matches to be over in two or three strikes.

The character line-up is one of the reasons why a lot of fans tend to shy away from Samurai Shodown III. The roster is smaller than the previous game, with just twelve characters to choose from. It introduces a few new characters but cuts tons of fan favorites like Charlotte, Cham Cham, and Earthquake. Some of those new characters are a lot of fun to use, and they fit the game’s grittier, more realistic aesthetic better in some ways. It’s a bit hard to hash everything with the greater timeline of the series, and the game doesn’t seem particularly interested in storytelling relative to the other entries. Indeed, one of the things I don’t care for in Samurai Shodown III is in how few chances the characters get to show off their personalities compared to the other games. Story isn’t the biggest thing in fighting games, but in these ACA NEOGEO releases we’re largely relegated to single player so it does take on a slightly greater importance.

There are a lot of gameplay changes here from Samurai Shodown II, and some of them ended up sticking around in the series. There are more buttons dedicated to your weapon attacks, with just one serving as the kick. Throws are out in favor of shoves that leave the enemy open to a good slash or two. After picking your character, you can choose a grade that determines, roughly speaking, how balanced your offense and defense are. Pick the advanced grade and you won’t even be able to guard, with a permanently full Rage Gauge as a consolation prize. Notably, this game brings in the Bust and Slash system that gives you light and dark versions of each character, with slight differences in the movesets between them.

As I mentioned before, matches in Samurai Shodown III can be quick and nasty. You can sidestep attacks, counter-attack, and whip out unblockable slashes. Your Rage Gauge fills up like a shot glass under a Slurpee spout. You can block in the air now, which provides more incentive to take to the skies without fear. Some of these elements didn’t return for the next go-around, and it’s not hard to see why. Even a pair of evenly-matched expert players can feel cheated by how fast things finish, and if you’re up against the CPU your quarters can disappear so fast you’d think your wallet was the dimensional space from which all the uncles of the world pull the coins they pluck from behind children’s ears. And in true SNK fashion, the last boss is a complete and utter… holy smokes, is that Dick Van Dyke?! Sorry, I thought I saw something there.

That being said, we don’t have to worry about blowing all our quarters, do we? Through the magic of the Arcade Archives line, we only need to worry about the sixteen quarters needed to buy the app itself. After that, we can help ourselves to an endless supply of credits. Better still, we have access to those coveted difficulty options. Turn it all the way down and the CPU is only mildly rude. It’s okay, Shaun said you could do it. Go learn the ropes that way and then turn it up again as needed. ACA NEOGEO options are lovely things, and you’ve got the full suite of them here as usual. Not just difficulty, but also all sorts of other things. Tweak as you like.

Also similar to other ACA NEOGEO games, you can play the game with an external controller if you wish. I highly advise it as the motions you need to pull off in this game can be a real bear with the touch controls. You can still have some fun with virtual button bashing without a controller, but there are probably better games to play if that’s all you’ve got. External controllers are also the only way to play multiplayer in this version, and that’s a real shame because I think the particular charms of Samurai Shodown III are best brought out with endless credits and another human. I know I keep banging this drum, but I wish some other option could be figured out for multiplayer in these releases. Most players will have to get by with the CPU opponent, and I just don’t know that I would call that very enjoyable in this game.

Samurai Shodown III probably shouldn’t be anyone’s first Samurai Shodown game, especially in the ACA NEOGEO mobile line with its limited multiplayer options. But its quirky qualities do make it an interesting choice for a second Samurai Shodown game. Because of how much it divided the fandom, Samurai Shodown III saw a lot of its rough edges sanded down or completely cut away in successive entries in the series. That makes it rather unique, and I think there’s something to be said for that. Make sure you pack an external controller of some sort and a lot of patience if you decide to pick this one up, though.

Despite many attempts, the NEOGEO was never quite able to deliver a beat-em-up on the level of efforts from the likes of Capcom and Konami while the genre was still somewhat hot. It made a few good stabs, but truthfully once SNK caught the fighting game genre by the tail it simply made more sense to focus efforts there. I’m not sure what possessed SNK to want to create another one in 2001, but I suppose it was a strange time for the company on the whole. The company had been acquired by pachinko company Aruze the year before, had shut down its American offices not long after, and was about to run into one of the more bizarre bankruptcies and resurrections you can find in the video game business.

Amidst all of this chaos, game production marched on. SNK, such as it was, was working with a number of developers to continue producing games for the NEOGEO hardware. One of its more recent partners was Noise Factory, a local developer founded by ex-Atlus members who had worked on games like Princess Crown. Its debut title, Gaia Crusaders, was a beat-em-up. Perhaps that’s the reason why SNK ended up having the developer work on a further follow-up to the one NEOGEO brawler that managed to become a series: Sengoku.

It had been eight years since the 1993 release of Sengoku 2, and the whole business had changed dramatically. People weren’t playing Super NES and SEGA Genesis games at home; they were playing PlayStation 2 games. The arcades weren’t all about Mortal Kombat II and Super Street Fighter II anymore. Indeed, they were barely alive at all outside of Japan. As for the beat-em-up genre, it was a virtual corpse at this point. To the extent that it did exist, it was mostly through ill-fated efforts at bringing polygonal graphics to the genre. It was into this climate that Sengoku 3 arrived, and it’s little wonder that it mostly ended up flying under the radar as a result. Its home version sold in such low numbers that it fetches a couple thousand dollars in the collectors’ market these days.

A genuine shame it is. Sengoku 3 is easily the best beat-em-up on the NEOGEO. It’s also a rare example of its era, a time when games in the genre really had to be slick and have a strong hook to catch any attention at all. By this stage even Capcom was getting extremely experimental with its attempts. Sengoku 3‘s pitch wasn’t too wild. Four initial characters to choose from, as slick of a presentation as the NEOGEO could muster, some fairly involved combos, a few fighting game-style special moves, recruitable boss characters, and the ability to pick up a variety of projectiles and toss them at your foes. The game even had the audacity to ditch the character summoning from the first two games. Indeed, it’s almost a fully clean break from the previous games in all but name.

Perhaps the biggest improvements come in the general feel of playing the game, though. NEOGEO brawlers always felt a little odd when compared to the more popular titles in the genre. Sometimes it was the jumping. Other times it was the way hits landed on enemies. Sengoku 3 doesn’t feel weird to play. Quite the opposite. It’s as smooth as the best in the genre, and its wide variety of attack options mean you’re never lacking in new techniques to try on your foes. Hits land in a satisfying way, and the overall movement of your character feels right. You can do honest-to-goodness combos with juggles that go up into the double-digits of hits once you get good at the game.

So yes, Sengoku 3 is a spectacular effort. The best in its genre on the hardware by some measure, one of the finer games on the system full-stop, and a beat-em-up the system can finally put up against its competitors with pride. It plays really well with touch controls, and you can always make use of an external controller if you prefer. As usual, you’ll need external controllers to enjoy the game’s multiplayer features in this ACA NEOGEO form, but it’s a lot of fun to play even if you’re going solo. The usual wide array of options are present here including the now-standard extra modes Hamster packs into every ACA NEOGEO mobile release. It’s a good way to play the game, and is a great choice for fans of this genre who want to crack some heads on their mobile device.

Sengoku 3 was a little late to the party on the NEOGEO, but I’m glad it’s here in a somewhat more timely fashion for the ACA NEOGEO line-up. This is one of the shining jewels of SNK’s long-lived console, and it plays great on mobile whether you’re using touch controls or a controller. My gripes are the usual ones about not being able to play multiplayer online and the lack of AES options, but those are minor compared to the positive aspects of this game. You won’t find many better ways to deliver a beat-down on your device of choice.

So yes, this is a late 1999 NEOGEO game. One of the last before SNK was swallowed up by pachinko company Aruze and went into perhaps its darkest era. Prehistoric Isle 2 is one of the last non-fighting, non-Metal Slug games SNK released on the system. By this point the system was very mature, which meant a couple of things. First of all, SNK’s developers (Saurus and Yumekobo in this case) had a pretty good handle on the hardware. Second, the system had fallen woefully behind the competition in terms of pure processing power. SNK must have taken notes for what Nintendo did in a similar situation, because Prehistoric Isle 2 uses a ton of prerendered CG for its visuals, often using it to create a faux-3D look that was mildly impressive at the time but is more than a little obvious today.

Prehistoric Isle fans were likely disappointed, though. This sequel really doesn’t share much with the original game aside from also being a side-scrolling shooter where you fight dinosaurs. The original game bit pretty hard off of R-Type for its core mechanics, but by 1999 that wouldn’t have been very trendy anymore. Instead, the follow-up takes some cues from the popular Cave shooters of the era for its power-ups and basic gameplay. You have two different helicopters to choose from, each with their own basic shot type and limited bomb attacks. You can tap the fire button for concentrated more powerful shots, or hold it down for continuous shots that fan out more but deal less damage.

As for the power-ups, they can be picked up from destroyed crates or from people you manage to rescue. They’ll switch you between a few different kinds of weapons which can in turn be leveled up. You can also add missiles to your arsenal and pick up additional bombs. Prehistoric Isle 2 is a bit lenient in one sense. Instead of a stock of lives, you have a life bar that can take five hits before you die. You can even find rare health pick-ups to restore a portion of the meter if you’re very lucky. If you continue, you’ll be dropped right where you left off. It’s an easy game to coin feed through if you want to, in other words.

Taking hits has its costs, though. Each hit downgrades your weapon by one level, and if you’re carrying any rescued people you’ll lose them. Some enemies drop stars that will give you extra points at the end of the stage, but continuing wipes out your whole stock. If you want to maximize your score, you need to collect and keep as many stars as possible, rescue as many people as possible by escorting them to a helicopter that will take them away, and max out your weapon level to activate a temporary score multiplier.

This can be a little tricky because the regular enemies are sometimes bullet sponges, generally appear in large numbers, and love to rain holy hell down on you with their bullets. The bosses by comparison are surprisingly easy to deal with. Their patterns aren’t too tricky and as long as you’re patient they will eventually go down. There are six stages in all and some of the bosses can take more punishment than others, and the last boss in particular is a rather memorable set of encounters. All in all, this game is enough of a silly spectacle that less skilled players can probably enjoy credit-feeding their way through, while the scoring mechanics are deep enough that those who want to dig deeper will unearth something for their efforts.

The biggest problem with Prehistoric Isle 2 is that it just doesn’t have much going for it beyond its unique theme. There’s no defining mechanic here, so it ends up feeling like a very generic shooting experience. Given how late in the game this title arrived, it’s disappointing how plain it feels to play. That said, it’s not bad either. It rides that middle line very closely, perhaps content to lean on its visual punch to carry it through. I’ll grant that it can sometimes be very pretty for what it is. The dinosaurs and other monsters look rather plastic, but the backgrounds often carry a depth and life that you don’t often see in SNK’s shooters. Certainly worth the ride at least once just to see it all.

After that one trip around the proverbial town, it falls to Hamster’s usual tricks to extend the game’s life. Score Attack and Caravan Mode both shine nicely here thanks to just how many scoring opportunities are present in the game. You always feel like there’s room to notch a higher score, which is a nice source of replay value for a game that otherwise lacks it. You can also choose between the Japanese or overseas version of the game to play, though it doesn’t make much difference in this case. Shooters take very well to these kinds of extra modes, so if you love the high score chase then you’ll have things to do here.

Prehistoric Isle 2 plays fairly well with touch controls, though you also have the usual option to use an external controller. You can bring in a second player through external controllers as well, and that does add some spice to the game. Half of the fun in this silly game is in the content tourism, and it’s always more enjoyable to take a trip with a friend. I wish there was some kind of online or wireless multiplayer option, but I’ve been banging this drum for a while and don’t expect anything to change there. Fortunately, the rest of the options haven’t changed either; you have access to just about all of the settings you could ever ask for to mess about with to your heart’s content.

What else can be said? There are better shoot-em-ups on the NEOGEO and we’ve seen a couple of them in the ACA NEOGEO line. There are also some worse ones, and we’ve seen a couple of those too. But I’ll say this: none of them look quite like Prehistoric Isle 2 does. It’s very much of its time and place, and that dated nature has a charm to it. Nothing on the NEOGEO looks quite like it. The sheer zing of that visual presentation helps what is otherwise an aggressively average shooter, and Hamster’s usual fine work makes it shine the best it can in the present era. Worth a spin if you’re looking to shoot some dinos on your mobile device, at least.

Of all of SNK’s NEOGEO beat-em-up attempts, Sengoku was the one that had the greatest reception with coin-dropping arcade-goers around the world. Despite having some slightly stiff controls, the compelling premise, character-swapping mechanic, and excellent presentation attracted plenty of players in the early era of the NEOGEO. Critical reviews were less kind, but that didn’t seem to hold the game back in the least. With the development team given the nod to do a sequel, one could only imagine how the ante would be upped.

Time travel. In contrast to other forms of media, time travel rarely goes wrong in video games. We love that stuff. Chrono Trigger. Turtles in Time. Ocarina of Time. Day of the Tentacle. Blinx the Time Sweeper. Nothing but legends there. Add in the fact that beat-em-ups lean heavier than most genres on a flashy attention-grabbing premise, and time travel is a full-on winning play. So when the feudal warlord returns in Sengoku 2, he doesn’t just attack modern-day Washington again. No, this time he’s going to attack and take over several major moments in history. Ninja Dave and Cowboy Kev, with the help of a priestess, will travel through time to battle the forces of the warlord wherever they pop up.

The gameplay doesn’t have a whole ton of changes from the first. The multiple weapons of the original game are gone, which is kind of unfortunate. Instead, you start with a sword that you’ll always wield. You can do high and low attacks with your weapon, and by pushing both at the same time you’ll block. Orbs can be picked up as before, but this time they’ll just upgrade your attacks. The character transformations return, but this time you start the game with all three available. Choices include a doggo, a tengu with a lengthy rod weapon, and the world’s worst-dressed ninja. You can transform into them temporarily, and the tengu in particular is very useful. It’s as fun of a gimmick as it was in the first, though occasionally just as pointless.

It’s still fairly stiff compared to the offerings of Capcom, Konami, and even Jaleco, with a lack of fun combos and chain moves. That said, it’s a faster and smoother game than its predecessor, making for an overall more enjoyable experience. There are also some horse-riding sections in the game that help add a little sizzle to the oft-repetitive slicing and dicing of the standard gameplay. It’s also improved from a presentation standpoint, with better animation, more intimidating enemies, and some wild stage backdrops as you get tossed around in time. There’s no question which of the two games is superior; Sengoku 2 handily bests the original game.

I won’t beat around the bush too much longer, however. Sengoku 2 is not a great beat-em-up. It’s barely a good one. I wouldn’t say this series had a truly excellent installment until its third and final outing. But Sengoku 2 is good enough. A fun little diversion to run through on your mobile device with however many credits you choose to use. The game is more fun with a friend, but as is the norm with these ACA NEOGEO mobile releases, you’re probably not going to have everything you need to make that happen.

On that note, let’s talk about the usual stuff. You can use an external controller if you have one, and that’s a fine way to play. If you’re stuck with touch controls, you’ll still have a decent time with it. Beat-em-ups generally seem to handle well enough with touch controls and this is no exception. You get the same extra modes as we’ve seen in other ACA NEOGEO releases, and the same robust array of options to choose from. Online leaderboards give you an extra incentive to keep coming back and are a most welcome feature.

If you enjoyed playing through Sengoku on iOS, this is an easy recommendation. Sengoku 2 is a better game than the first and its conversion for mobile has been handled in a similarly competent fashion. I still wouldn’t call it a particularly amazing title, but slashing your way through its bizarre and beautiful locales is a pleasing enough use of your time and virtual coins. Here’s hoping we won’t have to wait another year for the superb follow-up to make its appearance in the ACA NEOGEO line.

Pulstar is technically the predecessor to Blazing Star, even if the naming doesn’t make that connection perfectly clear. Developer Aicom changed its name and ownership between the two games, but there were several shared staff members and Blazing Star did indeed start life as a follow-up to Pulstar. Like Blazing Star, this is a side-scrolling shoot-em-up. It’s a very different animal, however, and I think it’s safe to say that a lot of things about that game were informed by reactions to this one. Don’t assume you’ll enjoy one because you like the other, in other words.

There’s an elephant in this room, so let’s name it first. This game is pretty obviously inspired by R-Type, and not by a little. I’ve heard some people whisper legends that Pulstar was developed by ex-Irem people who were dissatisfied with R-Type II‘s direction, but I can’t find anything to support that. Aicom was kicking around at least as far back as 1987, the year R-Type released. There’s no shared staff at all as far as I can tell. No, I think the simplest answer here is probably the true one: the folks at Aicom were as impressed by R-Type as the rest of us, and wanted to take a crack at making their own spin on it.

Thus, we end up with a relatively slow-paced shooter with a heavy emphasis on memorization for survival, biomechanical organisms everywhere, a chargeable shot, and a protective bit power-up that can block shots and damage enemies. Some parts of stages and bosses pay heavy homage to R-Type, too. It’s also difficult in the same way as R-Type, with a checkpoint-based respawn system that means you’ll have to practice, practice, and practice some more if you want to make any progress at all. The margin of error for much of the game is razor-thin, and completion is certainly not for the faint of heart. There are eight lengthy stages to play through in order to reach the ending, and I’d be awfully surprised if most people made it even halfway through.

It’s probably no surprise, but I don’t think Pulstar is as good as R-Type in almost any respect. I don’t even think it’s as good as R-Type II, though it’s closer. I could try to really break it down into granular detail, but it really does come down to two main points. First, the level designs and enemy patterns are pretty obnoxious. R-Type needed a fair bit of accumulated knowledge to survive, but those with quick reflexes would spend far fewer coins to make it through than those who brute-forced it. Reflexes won’t really help you much in Pulstar. It throws things at you that you can’t possibly avoid without knowing about them ahead of time, and it does it a lot.

The other thing that hurts it by comparison is how its power-up bit works. Unlike in R-Type, you can’t launch or move the bit. It attaches to the front of your ship and that’s that. It’s very useful, necessary even, for blocking enemy shots, and it makes a nice cow-catcher for weaker enemies. But a lot of the fun of the bit in R-Type came from its versatility. You could fling it and have it act as an independent unit. You could attach it to the rear of your ship to guard your backside. And yes, you could park it on the front much like how Pulstar‘s bit works. Without those extra actions, the bit in this game feels like a slightly glorified shield and little more.

There are a couple of abilities you have access to in Pulstar that you wouldn’t see in R-Type. For the bit’s part, you can launch it as a screen-clearing bomb in a pinch. It can be handy to save your skin, but your chances of surviving bit-less in the aftermath aren’t great. You’ll have to memorize when power-ups are coming up if you want to get the most use out of this ability. While you can charge your shot (again this is necessary for survival a lot of the time), the meter goes both ways in this game. Tap the button rapidly (or use the rapid-fire ability that comes stock in Hamster’s Arcade Archives) and you’ll eventually get a different sort of powered-up shot. You can also find various power-ups, but again many of them mirror the ones seen in R-Type, all the way down to the bouncy lasers.

This is all probably making me sound like I’m really down on Pulstar. I think it’s pretty good, actually. I don’t like it as much as R-Type or Blazing Star, but a game can fall short of those and still be really great. Pulstar has some really great qualities to it. The presentation is outstanding, among the very best on the NEOGEO hardware. It uses pre-rendered graphics, which is usually a kiss of death as far as aging well, the usage here surprisingly holds up. There are many moments in the game that really struck me with how nice they looked, and not just by the standards of 1995. The soundtrack, by the talented Harumi Fujita (Bionic Commando, Mega Man 3) and Yasuaki Fujita (Final Fight, Breath of Fire), is fantastic. A good shooter needs a great soundtrack, and Pulstar fortunately has one.

The controls are solid, and there are certainly worse games to bite from than R-Type in general. Some of the bosses are incredible to behold, with multiple stages to deal with that keep upping the ante every time you think you have things in hand. Pulstar‘s take on the battleship stage from R-Type is quite a behemoth to wrestle with. A fully powered-up ship feels empowering in the way you want to see in a shooter like this, and even if you die and lose all your power-ups you generally still have a chance to recover. As teeth-shatteringly hard as the game is, it never feels impossible. Often highly improbable, but it’s that slim chance you can make it this time that fuels games like this.

And now we’ve reached the portion of the review where I repeat most of the things I’ve said in other ACA NEOGEO reviews. You can play with touch controls or use an external controller, and it controls well enough either way. You get the same extra modes as usual, with a Score Attack and Caravan Mode available. You can also choose between the Japanese and Overseas version of the game. There are tons of options here, and the ability to save and load your state will certainly be of use. The emulation is on-point, but you probably don’t need me to tell you that. It’s a good way to enjoy this game, though serious players will want to make sure they have a good controller to help them go the distance.

While I still prefer Blazing Star and Aero Fighters 2, Pulstar is probably my third-favorite conventional shoot-em-up in the NEOGEO library. It was one I was hoping would hit mobile back in the day when its follow-up made the hop, and so I am very happy to see it here now. As long as you don’t mind your shooters being hard as nails, you’ll likely get plenty of value out of this release.

That makes the existence of Top Hunter: Roddy & Cathy ($3.99) a bit of a rarity. Developed internally at SNK by ex-IREM staffers, the game arrived in the summer of 1994 alongside The King of Fighters ’94. One of those games became near-legendary, carving its legacy into the very platform in an indelible way. The other was Top Hunter. A quirky little platformer/beat-em-up hybrid for one or two players, one could generously say that it paved the way for Metal Slug in some small way.

While there is no significant shared staff between Top Hunter and Metal Slug, there are some common elements. The visual style has that same sort of silly-but-gritty feel to it, and there are plenty of amusing enemy animations. You can find vehicles to ride on, and you’ll sometimes get your hands on a gun. Platforming is largely perfunctory, with jumping mostly being used to avoid attacks rather than navigating harrowing platforms. Stages are capped off with a boss fight, usually against some kind of large opponent. That’s about all of the shared aspects.

There are two key mechanics to Top Hunter. The first is your stretchy arms, which allow you to grab a variety of objects and either smash them or toss them. You can also use them to work various machines, switches, and so on. You’ll generally defeat foes by smacking them or throwing something at them, but you can make use of some traps and some special moves for a little variety. The other gimmick is that every stage has two planes, and you can hop between them as needed or desired. Sometimes traps or power-ups need to be accessed from the opposite plane, encouraging you to swap regularly.

I’ll be frank: there were a few platformers in this era that tried this kind of thing, and I don’t feel like any of them were substantially better for it. Probably the best of the bunch was Wario Land for the Virtual Boy, and there’s a reason for that. The 3D effect of the console helped solve a problem that seems to be inherent to this kind of design. Namely, it can be difficult at times to tell which plane a given object is on. In this game, it can make it hard to line up throws and even occasionally result in taking a hit you didn’t think was going to hit you. The art style here makes things a bit worse as little is done to distinguish the planes visually.

Well, it’s not a huge deal. A bigger problem with Top Hunter is that it too frequently lacks tension. This is an unusually easy game for an arcade platformer, and once you’ve got the hang of things you can go ridiculously far on each credit. The enemies just don’t pose much of a threat to your extremely versatile and powerful character. There also aren’t enough enemy types, so you’ll start seeing the same faces again and again. It’s amusing to mess around with everything and try defeating enemies in different ways, but ultimately Top Hunter is a little boring.

This boredom can be alleviated somewhat by bringing a friend along for some good old-fashioned co-op mayhem, but this is of course an ACA NEOGEO release for mobile. That means you’ll only be able to play multiplayer if you have some external controllers and don’t mind huddling around your mobile device of choice. I’d imagine for most people, that’s not going to be the typical play experience with this game. You’re most likely going to be playing solo, and that’s the less fun way to go about experiencing Top Hunter.

It does however benefit from the fact that we don’t get too many high-quality, premium games of this kind on mobile. I’d say it takes to touch controls even better than the Metal Slug games do since you don’t have to worry about precise aiming as much. I suppose as a solo experience, it takes to mobile better than some NEOGEO games do. And I do want to stress that the game isn’t a half-effort by any means. It’s quite gorgeous in that way NEOGEO games tended to be, and each of the four worlds have a distinct look to them. You get three levels in each world, plus a rather climactic final stage. If you play the included Japanese version, there are even some secret endings to find. It may not be thrills every minute, but it certainly brings the value.

As this is part of the ACA NEOGEO line, the expected extras and options are all here. You can play with an external controller, you get both regional versions of the game, there are extra modes with their own online leaderboards, and you’ve got more options than you can shake a stick at. The emulation quality is good, and my only gripes about Hamster’s part in all of this are my usual ones about not having online multiplayer or the MVS version as an option. It’s a great package, and it’s a bit luxurious that I’m pretty much used to this level of quality in such a low-cost release.

I’m not the biggest fan of Top Hunter: Roddy & Cathy, but it’s a decent enough romp that clearly had a lot of care put into it. A little too easy and repetitive at times, and I’m not sure its dual-plane system works as well as it should, but for a few bucks you’ll get your fun out of it. Add in the usual suite of features that comes with Hamster’s ACA NEOGEO line, and you have a pleasant distraction for a lazy weekend afternoon.

The answer to that question is, unfortunately, mostly a no. On the positive side of things, you’ve got a wide array of characters to choose from and can pick whichever pilot you like in single-player. There are also quite a few stages, with the branching nature of progression in the game giving it an extra bit of replay value. Some of the characters can now charge up their basic weapon, which adds an extra style of play to the game. There are a few interesting and very amusing secrets to find. It’s a competent game in most respects, and it hasn’t lost that bizarre sense of humor that made the previous game so memorable.

The biggest failing of Aero Fighters 3 is in the brevity of its stages. Some of them barely get going before the boss arrives, and they’re all conspicuously short. The bosses are a bit longer, with almost all of them taking on multiple forms until they finally go down. The patterns run on the basic side, and few of them have any truly interesting gimmicks. A complete run will take you through eight stages, with a few of them being bonus rounds. So yes, not very long or interesting, and you’ll be spending almost as much time fighting bosses as you will traveling through stages.

A clever scoring system can save many shooting games in similar circumstances, but while Aero Fighters 3 does have a bit more to chew on in that regard compared to the second game, it’s not especially intriguing. Defeat enemies, avoid getting killed, pick up bonus point items when they crop up, and try to hold on to your powered-up state so subsequent power-ups will just give extra points. You’ll also want to learn which routes have the most potential for higher scoring and take those. It’s not nothing, but it’s also not really good or unique enough to elevate the game.

What does elevate it somewhat is the same thing that helped the previous game so much: the humor. Your chosen character will make comments as you progress through the game, and each solo character and team has a unique ending, most of which are ridiculous. The Russian team of Spanky the Dolphin and the twin sisters Chaika and Pooshika, for example, have an ending where the ladies are wondering just how a dolphin flies an airplane. It then cuts to Spanky complaining about the heat and removing his head, which is now obviously a costume, revealing a strange-looking guy underneath. There’s a lot of strange jokes like this in the game, and it makes you want to clear the game with everyone just to see them all.

The other way this follow-up loses something compared to its predecessor is less consequential for this mobile version, but it does bear mentioning. Aero Fighters 2 allowed two players to mix and match characters from different countries, but Aero Fighters 3 forces both players to use characters from the same country. This significantly cuts back on the number of potential endings, which is probably why the developers did it, but it also cuts back on the flexibility in building teams. But in this mobile version, you can only play with a second player if you have external controllers anyway, so it is not likely to be a factor for many of you.

While we’re here, let’s cover the usual checklist of points about Arcade Archives mobile releases. You get the usual array of modes, with both international and Japanese versions of the game available along with a Score Attack and Caravan Mode to play. There are online leaderboards for you to compare with others on, essential in this kind of game. The game features support for external controllers, though like the previous game the touch controls work perfectly fine here. You also get the usual array of options, including difficulty toggles, video settings, control mappings, and audio settings. Naturally, the emulation is as high quality as ever. Hamster has NEOGEO down to a science by now.

Aero Fighters 3 isn’t quite the game that Aero Fighters 2 is, but it’s still a decent enough shoot-em-up romp to be of interest to genre fans at this price. The goofy humor helps it stand out from the crowd, and having so many different characters to use adds greatly to the replay value. If the levels were a little longer and the bosses a little more interesting, this would have been a better experience all around. But it is what it is, and Hamster has done its typically fine job in adapting it for mobile devices. For the price, it’ll do.

Unlike many of the games we’ve seen in the ACA NEOGEO line-up so far, Twinkle Star Sprites arrived several years into the life of SNK’s console. It was a 1996 release, and it would end up being the final game released on the system by developer ADK before they moved on to supporting SNK’s handheld NEOGEO Pocket. It’s an unusual game to be sure, but it’s not hard to see what inspired it. Shoot-em-ups were always reliable earners in arcades, and competitive puzzle games had caught fire in the wake of Puyo Puyo. Why not try to combine them?

Thus, the competitive shoot-em-up was born. At least, I think this is where it was born. It’s certainly the first one of its type that I remember seeing, and it’s an idea that took some time for me to warm up to. Shooters usually see you making your way through carefully planned stages, grabbing power-ups, blasting everything in sight, and taking down huge bosses. Sometimes the aim is to reach an ending, but usually it’s about racking up a high score. If there does happen to be multiplayer support, it’s typically in the form of having another player jump in and help out.

Twinkle Star Sprites tosses each player into their own half of the screen. The players have to blast away the enemies in usual fashion, with a basic shot, charge shot, and limited stock of bombs serving as the main tools for doing so. But there’s no end to the stage or final boss waiting for you. No, your enemy is the other player. By blasting away enemies in chains, you’ll send attacks over to the other field. If they hit the player, they’ll take damage. Naturally, the enemies can also deal damage. Whoever runs out of life first loses, but the final hit can only come from the other player.

The really fun bit is that you can hit the attacks your opponent sends over to your screen, and by doing so you will send them back with a little extra mustard on them. After a few volleys, the attacks start getting really nasty, spawning invincible enemies and even bosses. Take too long to win and Death will appear, but even Death can be bounced over to your foe’s side of the screen. It’s wild stuff, and if you have two well-matched players the matches can get absolutely chaotic in all the best ways.

And that, my friends, is wherein the rub lies. Twinkle Star Sprites has single-player modes, and they’re as extensive as any arcade head-to-head puzzler’s are. But the real meat of the game is in that multiplayer mode, as the CPU can never be as fun to play against as another human player. While you can play the mobile ACA NEOGEO games with two players, you ideally need a couple of external controllers to do so. There is no wireless multiplayer or online multiplayer option available here, and you obviously can’t both use touch controls on one device. It really does hurt the appeal of this game.

It’s the usual set of options and extras from Hamster, in other words. Decent touch controls that work fairly well with the kind of game this is. External controller support for those who prefer that way and have the means. Tons of video, audio, control, and difficulty options to tweak to your liking. Additional modes that allow you test yourself against others on the online leaderboards. Your choice of the Japanese or Overseas versions of the game. A solid package all-around for this lovely little game, and the price is certainly more than fair.

Twinkle Star Sprites plays well on mobile in the mechanical sense. The controls work well enough, it’s running as smoothly as it ever did, and you have a wide array of options and features. With that said, similar to the fighting games that have been brought to the mobile ACA NEOGEO line, the relatively complicated and specific means of playing with another human really does a number on the appeal of this game. Can you still have fun with Twinkle Star Sprites solo? Sure. Maybe even enough to justify dropping the handful of coins to buy it. But this certainly isn’t the optimal way to enjoy everything this game has to offer.

I’ve talked a bit before about how SNK did a bit of hunting around to try to find a popular beat-em-up brand to call their own on the NEOGEO before hitting it big with fighting games, after which point it didn’t really matter anymore. Mutation Nation may not have been its most successful attempt (the Sengoku trilogy would probably take that title), but it turned out better than most. Review scores were friendly back in the day and it still tends to be well thought of even now, and it certainly pulled in its share of coins for a while. And rightfully so, in my opinion. It’s a well-made example of the genre with a couple of solid hooks.

The story isn’t terribly clear, as in most arcade games of the era. Some mad scientist did some genetic experiments that went out of control and ended up mutating normal citizens, turning them into bloodthirsty monsters. A couple of young men named Ricky and Johnny come back to town after a long absence and take it on themselves to stop the mutant menace with their hands and feet. While they aren’t mutants, they both know how to carry themselves in a fight. They can also make use of a range of special attacks by collecting power-ups along the way. Their journey will take them through six decent-sized stages filled with some truly wild creatures, with boss fights in particular going way over the top. That’s really it. Even the ending doesn’t offer much in the way of details.

But hey, it’s an arcade beat-em-up from 1992. You’re not here expecting Chaucer. You’re looking to bash some heads in, and that’s what Mutation Nation is good at offering. You might have to search around a bit to find the head, but that’s another matter. Strangely, what makes this game work so well is that it plays things relatively straight. You’ve got an attack button and a jump button. The attack button busts out strings of attacks, the jump button sends you a sensible distance into the air, and pressing the two together does a special move. No energy cost there, but it’s also not as powerful as similar special attacks in other brawlers.

You have some cooler tricks up your sleeves (metaphorically that is; Johnny doesn’t believe in sleeves) however. Pick up the items strewn about the streets and you’ll see a letter and some numbers appear in the status area. Simply hold the attack button until your POW meter fills and release to launch one of a few different super moves (the letter determines which), dealing some serious damage across a wide area. And that’s your arsenal, apart from a simple grapple attack that I forgot to mention before. Just pretend I told you that in the last paragraph where it would have fit better thematically.

The small list of moves ends up working quite well for the game, largely coming down to the fact that the basic attack combo is both effective and enjoyable to unleash. It sure doesn’t hurt that jump kicks work better here than in most SNK beat-em-ups. The super moves add a pinch of variety, and the pick-ups needed to use them are plentiful enough that you can make fairly regular use of them without worrying that you’ve wasted them. Your hits connect with a nice solid feel, and I think I’ve mentioned before how instrumental I feel that is in making for a good game in this genre.

But what really makes Mutation Nation stand out from the pack, to the limited extent that it does, is its colorful cast of enemies. They’ll often mutate mid-fight, and the designs are creative and gnarly in all the right ways. It adds a great deal of variety to the game, avoiding the standard street brawler trope of your foes just being a series of different people in weird clothes. Part of the fun is in seeing what bizarre creations will crawl out in front of you next, and like I said earlier, the boss battles really show off some interesting ideas.

While the game is light on graphical gimmicks, Mutation Nation actually makes good use of the NEOGEO’s technical capabilities. The characters are large and detailed, and the backgrounds look great. The animations of the monsters, particularly when they mutate, are really cool. The main characters also animate well, and their now extremely dated 1990s designs carry a lot of charm. The music leans hard into rock, occasionally dipping into the zone I tend to refer to as butt-rock, and there’s nothing wrong with that at all. For a beat-em-up released in 1992, the presentation is really quite good. It’s naturally been considerably surpassed by other games over the years, but it holds up well.

Now we head to the part of the review specific to this ACA NEOGEO version. To likely no one’s surprise, there’s little to talk about here that we haven’t talked about before. The touch controls work well with the simple two-button action, and you can use an external controller if you’ve got one and prefer to play it that way. If you have two (and only if you have two) controllers you can also indulge in the enjoyable two-player mode. You get the usual options here, including both Japanese and overseas versions of the game, a Caravan Mode and a Score Attack mode, and lots of settings to tweak. The usual visual, audio, control, and difficulty stuff. Hamster is nothing if not consistent in how it puts these things together.

So yes, the usual complaint about how I wish we could do some online multiplayer, but otherwise I don’t have a lot to complain about with Mutation Nation. It’s a really fun beat-em-up that holds up well and plays nicely on mobile. Perhaps not the most original of games in terms of mechanics, but it does what it does well and gives you a lot of entertaining sights and sounds along the way. Until Sengoku 3 is added to the ACA NEOGEO mobile line-up, I can’t imagine I’ll score another NEOGEO brawler higher than this one. Well worth the meager asking price, that’s for sure.

It’s a tale as old as time, as far as the game industry goes. A mad scientist creates an army of robots and tries to take over the world, and I guess Mega Man is busy or something because two robot warriors have been dispatched to take care of him and rescue the civilians he’s captured. They’ll have to battle their way through the mad scientist’s robo army (title drop!) which consists of a variety of mechanical creations. There are six stages in total, taking you through various grim and gritty locales. Unlike many other games in the beat-em-up genre, you don’t have a choice of characters. Player One is always Red Guy With A Human Face, and Player Two is always Blue Guy With A Robot Face.

Robo Army was developed by many of the same people behind the Art of Fighting and Fatal Fury games, but it doesn’t have anywhere near their ambition. Scratch past the theme and you’ll find Robo Army is about as plain a brawler as you could find. You have some basic attack combos, a back attack, a jump, and a special move button whose effect varies based on how full your special gauge is. You can grapple enemies and deal extra damage to them, too. Enemies will sometimes leave behind their arms or pipes when you defeat them, and you can use those as weapons. You’ll also find life pick-ups, energy pick-ups, and a special item that will make you temporarily transform into an invincible car that can run over enemies.

That’s pretty much the extent of things. For a 1991 NEOGEO game, Robo Army is surprisingly free of gimmicky displays of the hardware’s power. You’ll get the occasional scaling sprite when things come in from the background, but most of the NEOGEO’s muscle is being used to keep things moving smoothly with multiple, sometimes large, characters on-screen. The visuals look decent enough, and you get some fun clang-and-crash sound effects as you scrape your metal fists against the enemies’ metal jaws. It’s not an exceptionally lush game for its era or anything, but it’s good enough. The sense of impact of your strikes is a bit better than in Burning Fight, and seeing the enemies break apart certainly helps to sell your hits. There are also a few amusing animations, like when a car-robot decides to chew on you a bit with its hood.

Robot Army is a totally serviceable beat-em-up, and if the theme does something for you, then you’ll find it an enjoyable enough romp to fire up here and there. But it never really goes beyond that, and smacking a robot about the head with its buddy’s arm will eventually lose its charm after a while. A very long while, mind you. I mean, that’s absolutely hilarious. I wouldn’t be surprised if the entire game was greenlit on that specific part of the pitch. But eventually that thrill will fade, and all you’ll be left with is a Jaleco-tier brawler with more pans-banging-together sound effects. Something good enough to toss a few quarters into while you’re waiting for your clothes to dry, but not good enough to remember after you’re done folding them.

The nice thing about Hamster is that the company has room in its heart for games like that in addition to the big hits, though. I’ve done many of these reviews by now, but I’ve never really stopped to mention how nice it is to see SNK and Hamster walking outside the lines of the usual hits that get mobile ports. The SNK of the past would have done the Metal Slugs, King of Fighters, Samurai Shodowns, and a few other odds and ends and called it a day. In fact, that is exactly what they did. We’re now in a reality where we are getting high quality releases of some really obscure games that relatively few people care about, and from both a presentation and variety standpoint, I think that’s great.

By now, the features of the wrapper for these games are known quantities. Controller support? Yes, and through that, support for local multiplayer. Save states, check. A variety of options for adjusting video, audio, difficulty, and controls. Online leaderboards and the usual Caravan and Score Attack modes. Japanese and Overseas versions of the game. If you don’t have an external controller, this is one of those games that plays just fine using the touch controls. I’ll go ahead and insert my usual gripes about not being able to play multiplayer online, but that’s really all I’ve got to complain about with regards to Hamster’s handling of things.

If you’re looking for another average beat-em-up to add to your pile, have very specific happy memories of Nick Arcade, or just gotta catch ’em all with the ACA NEOGEO series, you won’t have a bad time with Robo Army. It has a fun theme that it executes well, and that goes a long way to hiding the actual bread-and-butter game that it is. It plays well enough on mobile, and I cannot stress enough that you get to pick up robot arms and beat other robots with them. If that isn’t worth four bucks, what is?

I’ll come right out and say that I think luck favored SNK to an extent. While it turned out the occasional hit and had several popular games under its belt, at the time of the NEOGEO launch SNK was not a company known for turning out varied, high-quality games across numerous genres. It wasn’t exactly Capcom, Konami, Namco, SEGA, or Nintendo. In a lot of ways, the NEOGEO was a very reckless move for the publisher. SNK tried to put out games in all of the hot arcade genres, but in the early going most of its successes and failures mapped its prior strengths and weaknesses quite closely. The one major genre where it found success where it hadn’t before was in one-on-one fighting games. Fortunately for SNK, that was soon to be the only genre most arcade-goers cared about.

Burning Fight ($3.99) is a good example of the pickle SNK could have found itself in. The company knew it needed an answer to the likes of Double Dragon and Capcom’s then-recent hit Final Fight, and somehow Burning Fight is what it came up with. It’s not even a little shy about pulling from its competition, and it’s hard not to come away with a first impression that screams “dollar-store Final Fight“. The game enjoyed very positive reviews and reasonable success in its time, but retroactively it seems to have become something of a punching bag among the overall NEOGEO line-up.

Let’s roll with the idea that not every game can live up to the best in the genre, and it’s not really a reasonable expectation that it should. Burning Fight is, without question, not as good as Final Fight. It’s not fit to be mentioned in the same conversation as Streets of Rage or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Not many games in this genre are. But how is Burning Fight compared to the average side-scrolling beat-em-up? How does it compare to things like 64th Street by Jaleco or Tecmo’s arcade Ninja Gaiden? In that context, it looks a little better.

It’s a perfectly serviceable brawler, neither amazing nor terrible. You have three different characters: the fast but weak guy, the strong but slow guy, and the average guy. Fast guy and average guy even look like Guy and Cody. They walk through a fictionalized version of Osaka with a lot of charming details in the backgrounds, battling a variety of punks, suspiciously familiar pro wrestlers, and even the occasional vehicle. There are lots of destructible objects, and a rather impressive array of weapons you can pick up and use. Seriously, this game tosses weapons at you a mile a minute. The areas you fight in sometimes are so littered in weapons that you can get caught in a cycle of picking them up when you just want to punch a dude.

Your moves include punching a guy, kicking a guy, jumping, and jump-kicking a guy. You can also throw a guy, but it’s not as useful here as it is in most other brawlers. There’s also the standard super attack that costs some of your life, here deployed by pushing the jump and punch buttons at the same time. Not exactly an overwhelming arsenal, and you’ll find that any attempts to get fancy get shut down pretty quickly by your foes. They, by contrast, have all kinds of ways to come at you. Generally speaking, if they’re close enough to punch, you’ll want to punch them. If not, try to kick them. If they’re too far for that, you need to get close. Jump-kicks are rather hit or miss in this game with the way enemies can mob you and shut down your offense, but if you’re feeling frisky by all means give them a try.

The hits have a very peculiar feel to them that you can see in a lot of SNK’s beat-em-ups of the era. It doesn’t feel so much like you are landing strikes on your foes as you are attacking the air they exist in and causing them some form of psychic damage. That said, there’s a certain charm to it and it’s hardly a problem that Burning Fight alone suffers from. One of the secret ingredients to a great game in this genre is making sure the hits have impact. Capcom and SEGA sometimes made that look easier than I think it probably was.

You get five stages to battle through, and they take you through a nice variety of locales. Each one is at the very least capped off with a boss fight, while some of them also feature mid-boss battles. You can also find bonus areas in some sections. Enter these places and you’ll be challenged to destroy some objects in a certain amount of time, with extra points and life refills as your reward for success. It’s a little bit of spice you don’t see in many other games of the time, and while it’s just a small thing I do appreciate it. As mentioned, the background details in the game are really fun. The main characters are a bit bland in terms of animation and so are most of the enemies, but the game does have a few enjoyable touches like having enemies scale in from the background.

As with most games of this type, Burning Fight is almost certainly best enjoyed with a friend. Of course, this is the mobile ACA NEOGEO line, which means the only way you’re going to get a two-player game going is by connecting two external controllers to your device. Games like these really make me wish Hamster had some kind of online multiplayer solution, but what can you do? I will say that you can have a good time here even if you’re using the touch controls, as there really isn’t much need for precise inputs. You’ll probably have a slightly easier time with a controller, but it’s not like you’re going to run out of coins here or anything.

If you’ve played any of Hamster’s recent ACA NEOGEO releases on mobile, you’ll find the array of options and extras quite familiar here. You get the Japanese and international versions of the game, a Score Attack mode, and a timed Caravan mode. There are online leaderboards to compete on, which helps add some life to the game as there are actually quite a lot of interesting scoring opportunities in the game relative to some other beat-em-ups. Difficulty, display, control configuration, and other options are essentially the same as we’ve seen so far in other releases in this line, offering just about everything you would want to see.

Burning Fight is a very, very mediocre beat-em-up for its time. You can have some fun with it, but you probably won’t remember very much about it after you’ve finished it. Nothing it does elevates it from being more than the uninspired Final Fight wannabe that it is, but there’s a certain core pleasure to knocking around heads that is alive and well here. Hamster’s done its usual good job with the conversion, and it’s one of those arcade games that plays decently even with virtual buttons.

It’s a shame there isn’t an easier way to get a two-player game going, because that would add some mustard to a game that desperately needs it. Without that, Burning Fight is what it always was: a completely forgettable scrolling beat-em-up that nevertheless will help you pass an idle hour or so should you require its services. It’s not the kind of game the NEOGEO is known for, and it’s extremely fortunate for SNK that it never had to be. There’s no reality where this should be on your device before Streets of Rage 4, but there are certainly worse ways to get your brawling on.

There’s an interesting history behind the Aero Fighters series, also known under the title Sonic Wings in some countries. The first game, released in 1992, was a vertically-scrolling shooter built on dedicated arcade hardware with the usual tate screen orientation. The main designer on the game was Shin Nakamura, and he put together a rather orthodox Toaplan-style game whose main distinguishing feature was its large cast of eight unique playable characters. The game was a success for Video System, but the company had decided to move all of its arcade game development to SNK’s NEOGEO platform. This was likely a financial decision, as it mitigated some of the considerable risk of making arcade games.

This choice didn’t sit well with everyone at the company, however. Shin Nakamura was interested in following up Aero Fighters with more games like it, but the NEOGEO’s use of a horizontally-aligned monitor ran somewhat at odds with the conventional set-up for vertical shooters. Nakamura, along with several others, felt so strongly about this that he decided to leave Video System and found a new company. That company, Psikyo, would go on to carve its own legend in the shoot-em-up genre with games like Strikers 1945, Samurai Aces, Gunbird 2, and many more.

Whither Aero Fighters and Video System, then? While the loss of those key staff members no doubt hurt, the show had to go on. The remaining members of the Aero Fighters team, with the support of other Video System employees, got to work on a sequel for SNK’s NEOGEO hardware. Releasing in 1994, Aero Fighters 2 turned out to be a pretty solid success. More sequels would follow until the brand ended in a somewhat tepid fashion with 1999’s AeroFighters Assault for the Nintendo 64. Video System itself would close its doors just two years later.

Back to the happier days of 1994, however. In terms of mechanics, Aero Fighters 2 plays things pretty safe. Understandable, given the circumstances. You once again choose your favorite pilot and take to the skies in ten stages of vertically-scrolling action. Each character has their own main weapon and special move, with power-ups to boost the main guns and extra pick-ups increasing your stock of specials dropping from certain enemies. You can play this game with another player, and part of the fun comes from finding effective combinations of skills. There are some secrets to find, but for the most part this is a straightforward, well-made shooter.

The novelty in the game is not found in its mechanics, but rather in its tone and story. The characters are absolutely ridiculous, and include a dolphin, a baby, and a head in a jar. They all have things to say between stages, and different teams will produce different dialogues and endings. Aero Fighters 2 is unique in the series for allowing you to partner any two characters together, which leads to this game having more interactions and endings than any other Aero Fighters game. Some of them are poorly translated, but many of them are just intentionally bizarre. You’ve probably seen memes cut from this game at some point in your life.

Aero Fighters 2 probably isn’t going to be at the top of the list for score attack fans, but there are enough variables here that it’s not a bad game for that purpose. While there are many endings to uncover, the game itself is a little on the shorter side due to the brisk pace of each stage. The difficulty is also rather moderate by the standards of the genre, so just about anyone can make their way through it and probably even take a solid run at score attacking. Very fundamental stuff, but the sense of humor and constant action make Aero Fighters 2 a crowd-pleaser.

Hamster has done its usual job in bringing this game to the Arcade Archives initiative. It’s well-emulated, offers up plenty of options, has support for external controllers (indeed this is the only way to play multiplayer), and has online leaderboards for all four of its main modes. You can play the game in both its Japanese and overseas version, and you can also tackle the High Score and Caravan modes that Hamster always includes. Those modes are both enjoyable to play in this game. It’s hard to find much to fault here in terms of Hamster’s part in the process.

While the NEOGEO wasn’t exactly known for wall-to-wall bangers in the shoot-em-up category, it did have some very good ones. Among those, the Aero Fighters games were consistently the most popular and arguably the best. I’m sure we’ll be seeing Aero Fighters 3 roll in sooner or later, but Aero Fighters 2 is an excellent game all on its own. It also takes very well to touch controls, making it well-suited to mobile play. Another win for the mobile ACA NEOGEO series.

Originally released in early 1992, Last Resort is pretty plainly informed by Irem’s legendary R-Type. It’s a horizontal shooter where the main type of power-up comes in the form of various satellite bits that you can position as you like. This enables you to shoot in multiple directions, fling the satellite out, or guard your vulnerable flanks as needed, and the game expects you to learn how to take advantage of that very quickly. Where R-Type only had one type of bit that you could power-up, Last Resort offers a few different variants, each with their own attack patterns. The setting has a cool post-apocalyptic vibe that is often directly ripped from Akira, and both enemies and bosses have interesting designs and solid attack patterns.

So yes, this is a rather good game. It may not be as celebrated as Blazing Star, but I think it’s certainly worth checking out if you enjoy more strategic shoot-em-ups. It’s not quite as devilish as R-Type, but it’s not that far from it in terms of difficulty. Fans of that game will want to give Last Resort a look if they’ve missed it in the past, as it gives off a lot of the same vibes. There are five stages in total, but you’ll have to play through them twice to see all this game has to offer. When things get tense, there are bouts of slowdown and flicker, but I suppose the game is in good company with that trait in tow. No matter how high you raise the tech ceiling, someone will hit their head on it.

We’ve been through enough of these Arcade Archives releases now that regular readers will probably be familiar with how Hamster has handled this port. It emulates just as it should, and offers both Japanese and International versions to play. You get two extra modes in the form of Score Attack and Caravan Mode, putting your ability to rack up points to the test. This isn’t a great score attack shooter, but extra options are still nice. Speaking of options, you’ve got all of the usual ones for adjusting video, audio, difficulty, controls, and more. There is leaderboard support, and you can make use of external controllers if you have one. This also allows you to play the game’s two-player mode.

While Hamster’s efforts on each of these games are largely identical, not all of these NEOGEO games suit the mobile experience well. That is particularly the case if you aren’t using an external controller and have to rely on the touch controls. Well, I’m happy to report that Last Resort takes to touch gameplay like a fish to water. There are probably better set-ups for this sort of thing than a virtual pad and virtual buttons, but I didn’t have any trouble getting to grips with the game and playing it just like I would on a controller. It’s also a fine single-player experience, so not being able to access that shouldn’t be a major concern for most players either.

Some of you out there are probably buying all of these ACA NEOGEO releases, and at these prices I can’t blame you. Very collectible and all that. But for those who are taking a more pick-and-choose approach to the offerings, Last Resort is one of the games you’ll want to strongly consider. As long as you’re okay with the fact that this is a tremendously challenging shoot-em-up, you’ll probably have a great time with it. The visuals are good, the gameplay is intriguing and enjoyable, the soundtrack is great, and Hamster has wrapped it all up in its usual high-quality package. Certainly worth the price of admission.

Anyway, we’re looking at the usual things here. The general features of the ACA NEOGEO line are well-established now, and King of the Monsters is no different. You can play the original or overseas versions of the game, play in arcade mode, and challenge a score attack or timed caravan mode with online leaderboards. You can play with touch controls or use an external controller, and if you have more than one external controller you can play in multiplayer. A wide array of options are available, including difficulty, audio/video, save states, and more. Really, apart from implementing some kind of online multiplayer and maybe including the MVS version for kicks, you couldn’t really ask for more from Hamster here. Nothing unexpected there.

As to the game itself, it’s a fun one. It’s more of a wrestling game than anything else, which makes sense for when and where it released. You can choose one of six different monsters, most of which are pretty clear in their source of inspiration. Geon is a big dinosaur-like creature, Woo is a massive ape, Astro Guy is a giant-sized superhero, and so on. If you’re playing in single-player, you’ll battle the five monsters you didn’t pick as you make your way through a number of Japanese cities, ultimately doing a mirror match against your own monster. You then battle all of the monsters again but with the cities shuffled. Complete that, and congratulations: you’re the King of the Monsters.

Each character has an assortment of moves at their disposal, and you’ll need to use them to wear down your opponent before successfully pinning them. Yes, the giant monsters battle to a three-count fall. I guess everything has its own rules. Simple enough, and more than a little button-bashy, but it works. Unfortunately, like many other wrestling games of the era there really isn’t a whole lot of depth to the thing. A sequel would follow the next year that added a few new elements, but at the end of the day this series is more about immediate cheap thrills than long-term engagement. A rough proposition for a $150 cartridge, but not the worst thing for a few quarters here and there, or perhaps a few bucks on a mobile device.

It is, however, a game that benefits greatly from being able to play with other humans. Being realistic, most players who pick this up on mobile aren’t going to be equipped to do that. Most people playing on mobile will be enjoying it as a single-player affair, and I don’t know how long it’s going to leg out in that context. If you enjoy giant monsters and are fine with a glorified 1980s wrestling game with some of the most awesome set dressing ever, you can probably find four dollars’ worth of entertainment out of it. Something to fire up every so often when the memory of its repetitiveness fades and enjoy a bash or two.

All that said, the game isn’t too bad to play with touch controls should you have to do so. This isn’t a combo-heavy game with a bunch of tricky motions to bust out. The pace is deliberate enough and the controls simple enough that the touch controls are more than capable of keeping up. So if you happen to have fond memories of playing King of the Monsters alone or watching kids play it on Nick Arcade, you’ll get a decent enough experience here even if you don’t have a controller.

King of the Monsters may not be the best NEOGEO game, but it is assuredly an iconic one. The concept of taking a wrestling game and mashing it up with giant monsters is an entertaining one, even if the reality doesn’t quite match up to the image. It’s a game at its best when you have someone else to play with, but that’s not an easy thing to manage on mobile even if it is technically possible. Still, as a corny bit of action to fire up now and then, you could do a lot worse than this.

Big Tournament Golf ($3.99), formerly known as NEO Turf Masters, is the first of these releases where I can say it scores as high as possible on both scales. It’s an amazing game, one of the best to grace the NEOGEO hardware. At the time of its release you wouldn’t necessarily have thought a golf game could work in an arcade format, but it sure did. It perfectly rode the line between satisfying depth and accessibility, and its course designs were great fun. And wouldn’t you know it? This is one game designed around button controls that works perfectly well with touch controls.

There is a fly in the ointment, however. Big Tournament Golf is also the first of these releases that isn’t making its debut on iOS with this release. Dotemu actually brought out a mobile version of NEO Turf Masters all the way back in 2016, part of a line of NEOGEO mobile releases handled by the company. It featured custom touch controls and was generally a good way to enjoy the game. Unlike some of the other mobile ports from Dotemu, NEO Turf Masters no longer walks among us. It was pulled from the App Store a few years back when it stopped working. This new version has no connection to that one, so even if you owned the previous port, you’ll have to buy it anew if you want it.

Well, Big Tournament Golf is worth a few bucks every several years, I suppose. To tell the truth, I think Hamster’s “one size fits all" approach has resulted in a better version of the game for us. Naturally, this one works on modern versions of iOS. That’s a big plus right out of the gate. The standard virtual controls have been used here instead of a system of swipes and taps, but it turns out they work nicely.

You also get a lot more options here than in Dotemu’s port, covering gameplay elements, button mappings, video options, and more. There are save states, both international and overseas versions of the game, plus online leaderboards and the usual extra modes. Oh, and you naturally get external controller support too, in case you want to play with buttons or just want to enjoy the multiplayer.

Anyway, this is a great version of the game, and the improvements over Dotemu’s version make it a little easier to swallow buying it a second time. This is the MVS version of the game, which means you get as many continues as you like. There are six different golfers to choose from, each with their own abilities, and four fictional golf courses set around the world. The mechanics are as traditional as it gets. Pick your club, set your direction, and tap the button to set your shot power and elevation when the meter is in the right position. You have three different shot buttons you can use for a standard, hook, or slice shot. Simple? Sure. But it works, and it works well.

Part of the fun of Big Tournament Golf that can’t really be replicated at home is in how its credits work. One coin buys you a few holes, and if you can manage to score under par reliably you’ll keep getting extensions. Now, you can just feed in more coins in this version, so that’s not so important. But if you discipline yourself you can still enjoy the zesty feel of trying to stretch your coins as far as possible. Or you can ignore all of that and simply have a nice time attempting to get as best a score as possible.

There isn’t much more I can add, really. Big Tournament Golf is an amazing game that is well-suited for mobile. Hamster has done its usual outstanding job bringing it to the platform, loading it up with all the options and features you could ask for. While some may chafe at buying a new version of a game they may have bought before, the reasonable price and improvements make that less of an annoyance than it may have otherwise been. Even if you don’t like golf, this is one game you’ll want to add to your collection.

So what happened to what was arguably SNK’s most popular series during those lost years? Development on The King of Fighters 2001 and The King of Fighters 2002 was handled by a Korean company named Eolith and a group of former SNK employees who had formed a company called BrezzaSoft. With KOF 2001, they closed off the storyline that SNK had been building in the previous installments. By the time KOF 2002 ($3.99) came around, SNK was back in the hands of its original owner and BrezzaSoft had been folded back in. This would be Eolith’s last work on the series, and in some sense that’s a shame because The King of Fighters 2002 is really a fine entry in the series. Some consider it the best, even.

The King of Fighters 2002 is another Dream Match entry, where canon is set aside and characters past and present can come together regardless of where they’re at in the story. While this one doesn’t include every single fighter from the past, with characters like King notable by their absence, you get a whopping thirty-nine playable fighters along with returning boss Omega Rugal. It reverts back to the three-on-three set-up that was used in the earlier games in the series, discarding the Striker system from King of Fighters 99. In a lot of ways, it felt like a throwback to better times for SNK.

It’s an excellent fighting game, with lots of characters to learn, a strong presentation, and good balance. The only real downer with this version is that it’s naturally based on the NEOGEO original. Through various ports and an outstanding remake, more features and characters were added to this game over the course of the decade. The NEOGEO version is the most bare-bones take on the game, and while it’s great on its own, anyone who has played a later version will notice many things are missing. Well, these are the NEOGEO Arcade Archives, I suppose. Can’t fault them for accuracy.

Indeed, as ever we can’t fault Hamster for much here. You get a full array of options for video display, controls, difficulty, and more. There are save states you can use at your leisure, which helps mitigate some of the intense difficulty of the story mode. You can play with an external controller, and even hook up two in order to play with a friend. The standard arcade mode is here in both regional forms, and you can also play a ranked Score Attack and Caravan Mode to try to climb up the online leaderboards. The emulation is as sound as it has been in previous Arcade Archives releases, so there’s nothing to fear on that front.

If you have an external controller, this is a fantastic way to play a really great fighting game. I wish it had some kind of online multiplayer support, but I don’t think the console versions of Arcade Archives have that either. The question, as always, is in how well it adapts to touch controls. If you’ve played any fighting game ports on mobile before, you probably know the story. The touch controls are okay, and if you practice enough you may be able to make a decent go of things, but there’s just no substitute for a physical controller or joystick when it comes to fighters with complex commands like this one. Of course, without external controllers you are also limited to playing against the CPU.

So we end up with a very similar conclusion to when I reviewed Samurai Shodown IV. This is a really strong game, but if you don’t have an external controller or two you’re really not going to get to enjoy the game at its best. While the touch controls aren’t a complete disaster like they were in Puzzled, they’re not as accurate as you’ll need to pull off all of the wild moves packed into this game. On top of that, the lack of online play means you’ll be confined to playing in single-player mode. Hamster has done its usual fine work here, but there’s only so much that can be worked around. If you’re just looking to crack some skulls when you have a spare minute or two, however, this will do the job.

Puzzled was a first-year NEOGEO game that didn’t do much to hide its source of inspiration. It’s a falling block puzzle game that uses the exact same shapes as Tetris, but forces you to use them for a different purpose. Each stage features a preset arrangement of blocks, and a little airship trapped at the bottom of the well. Your goal is to make lines to remove blocks until the airship has a clear path to escape through the top of the well. The longer you play, the faster the pieces will fall. Should you overflow the well, you’ll have to start the stage over again. There are sixty stages in total, so the game definitely isn’t hurting for content.

The game didn’t exactly light the world on fire, perhaps because of its modest visual punch on an arcade platform that was selling on its sizzle. It was a nice bit of variety in the line-up, and I’m sure some players gravitated towards it. But it was never going to be the kind of game to become an all-timer in the system’s library, and I think we can safely say it didn’t. It’s not a bad game by any means, but it’s nothing special. Other games had done its concept better before, and more would do it better after.

Like a lot of arcade puzzle games, its difficulty ramps up sharply after only a few stages, its thirst for coins never truly quenched. The multiplayer could best be described as two single players playing alongside each other, as there aren’t any ways to interact. The piece distribution is different each time you continue, and it is very obvious in not following any sort of equality in which pieces it gives you. It’s very common to get several of one type of piece in a row, which can be a boon or a curse. So you just bang your head against the difficult stages, hoping you get a mix of pieces that will actually allow you to get the necessary lucky break to succeed.

There is an ace in the hole that works better for being able to coin feed to your heart’s content. As you play and clear lines, you’ll fill up a meter that allows you to fire off a bomb. The more full the meter is, the bigger the blast. This meter persists across continues, and a full meter blast can sometimes solve a stage in one go. Not the most satisfying way to resolve a problem stage, but Puzzled may have you reaching for salvation more often than you would think.

It’s even worse in this mobile version should you find yourself relying on touch controls. Like the other ACA NEOGEO games, you can play with an external controller. If you really want to play this, I’d consider that almost a must. It doesn’t take long before Puzzled demands speedy precision, and the touch controls simply aren’t up to the task. The analog controls are too sensitive, and the digital controls aren’t fast enough. One mishap can easily ruin whatever progress you’ve made in a stage. You’ve only got one button for rotation, an issue in the original game that means you really need to haul your butt to get some pieces the way you want them. That too is worse with touch controls.

None of this is on Hamster, though. The developer has applied the same care here that is has to its other ACA NEOGEO releases, so if you happen to love Puzzled and think I’m a clown, you have nothing to worry about. External controller support, a bevy of options, leaderboards, extra high score and Caravan modes, and more. Save states do their best to make a frustrating game more manageable, allowing anyone who is persistent enough to push their way through the game. If you have an external controller, this is as good a way to play Puzzled as any.

But do you want to play Puzzled? It’s a rather uninteresting variant of Tetris that has a lot of flaws, some of which are magnified if you’re trying to play it with touch controls. Said controls also introduce some new problems, making an already-vexing game an even more agitating experience. Those with external controllers will only have to deal with Puzzled as it ever was, with an assortment of options and features to try to bring out what little shine it has. The NEOGEO has a lot of great puzzle games in its library that might be better suited for mobile, but this isn’t one of them.

Let’s start with the good news. As NEOGEO games go, Zed Blade maps fairly well to touch controls. You’ll likely have a better time with an external controller, but it’s not terribly cumbersome to play it with the touchscreen. Hamster has kitted out this release similarly to the others in this line. You get both the Japanese and Overseas versions of the game, support for external controllers, multiple modes of play with support for leaderboards, and an embarrassingly thorough array of options to tweak to your liking. While none of this is new to those who have already dipped into the ACA NEOGEO mobile waters, there isn’t really anywhere else for Hamster to go here. It’s as full of a package as you could ever ask for.

Unfortunately, all of that is in service to a rather substandard game this time around. Zed Blade was the sole NEOGEO game from developer NMK, a Japanese company that kicked around from the mid-1980s to the end of the 1990s. This is normally where I would tell you what it is best known for, but none of its twenty or so games really made much of a mark. Its biggest success was probably the Game Boy title Rolan’s Curse, in as much as it is its only game that got a sequel. By and large, NMK paid for its daily bread by making middling shoot-em-ups for the likes of Jaleco and UPL. Zed Blade saw the developer joining up with SNK for exactly the sort of affair it tended to busy itself with.

The game launched in September of 1994 for the NEOGEO arcade hardware, so we’re well and truly out of the launch period here. While there were plans for the game to make the usual trip to the home version of the NEOGEO and the NEOGEO CD, nothing ever came of them. That’s typically not a great sign for the quality of a NEOGEO game unless there were some licensing circumstances at play. Indeed, Zed Blade didn’t exactly light the arcade world on fire. That’s not entirely its fault, mind you. Shoot-em-ups didn’t put butts in seats the way they once had by the time the mid-90s rolled around. But if any shooter was to do it, it sure wasn’t going to be this one.

Again, Zed Blade isn’t a bad game. It has a neat concept where you’re battling against a rogue AI that can cobble together forces from whatever is laying about. The soundtrack is quite good, as one would expect from the work of Manabu Namiki, who would go on (among many other achievements) to create the music for most of Cave’s legendary shooters. You get a lot of customization options, with three pilots available and a decent array of selectable weapons. You can choose your forward shot type, your rear shot type, and your missile type. There are three different options for each, and if you add in the pilot selection there’s quite a bit of variety here. Those weapons will also power-up as you collect icons, and there’s also a special bomb that you can use a limited number of times.

The visuals are nicely detailed, though the colors are on the blander side of things. The enemy designs aren’t very exciting in general, though some of the bosses are cool. For a 1994 NEOGEO game it really doesn’t have much graphical dazzle, but it’s not hideous either. There are eight stages of varying degrees of quality, with a few inspired bits sandwiched between a whole lot of overly familiar locales. It takes about a half hour to sail through the whole game, which is par for the course for many shoot-em-ups. As always, it comes down to the scoring system.

One of Zed Blade‘s quirks is in how you can rack up points. For the most part, it’s similar to other horizontal shooters of its era. Destroy enemies, grab power-ups, don’t die. But you can also earn points by hitting things that can’t be destroyed. So if you want to destroy the bosses quickly, aim for their weak spot. If you want to milk them for points, aim anywhere but. I’m not sure that it works, but I appreciate there was some effort here to do something different. It makes for an interesting Caravan/Score Attack, if nothing else.

The biggest problem with Zed Blade, apart from its bland visual style, is in how it plays. Your ship is just a bit on the big side, with a hit box to match. Depending on the character and weapons you choose, the game can feel like a slog with extremely spongy popcorn enemies until you get properly powered up. It takes a while before you feel like you’re commanding any real destructive force, and you always feel like you’re taking up an uncomfortable amount of screen real estate. This is one of those games where nudging obstacles and walls will blow you up, too. Mind the roof.

If you’re just looking for another arcade shoot-em-up, Zed Blade does the job. It doesn’t do it particularly well, and it probably won’t etch itself into your memories with any force. But it’s okay. For its part, Hamster has given it the same star treatment it has offered the other ACA NEOGEO titles. If enjoying Zed Blade is a thing you want to do, this is a classy way to do it. Those who are looking to collect them all will probably have fun playing through this once or twice. Those who are more selective will want to look elsewhere for their arcade kicks.

But launch titles tend to benefit from a bit of a halo effect, don’t they? Especially launch titles on flashy new hardware like the NEOGEO. NAM-1975 was indeed a cool-looking game, and there was a certain spectacle to it. You could say the same for most of the launch games, though. NAM-1975‘s popularity came from a variety of factors. First, its theme. Enough time had passed since the close of the Vietnam War that America was now looking back on it through the scope of entertainment. Platoon and Full Metal Jacket were big hits in the theaters. Tour of Duty was holding up its end on TV. It was only natural that video games based on the topic would also garner interest.

TAD Corporation’s Cabal had been a solid success only a couple of years before, bringing greater popularity to a relatively quiet branch of the shoot-em-up genre. Gallery shooters were enjoying a brief time in the sun as a result, and it’s likely no coincidence that SNK chose to have one at the NEOGEO’s launch. The last piece of the puzzle? NAM-1975 is just a really good arcade game. You shoot your way through six intense stages of action, picking up weapons, lobbing grenades, and rolling your way out of danger as best as you can. The graphics are great, and the digitized voices had a lot of impact at the time. It’s hard as hell, and it plays a nasty trick with its final boss, but such was the state of arcade games at the time.

If you’re unfamiliar with gallery shooters, they’re somewhat similar to a light gun shooter but without the light gun. You not only need to move your crosshair around, but you also have to keep your on-screen character out of the line of fire. If you’re shooting, you’re not moving. Part of the fun of games like these is in knowing how to balance your defense and your offense, and NAM-1975 certainly nails that aspect. You’re given a standard gun and a limited supply of grenades, plus the handy ability to dash and roll. You can collect new weapons with limited ammo, plus some more powerful bombs. If you keep your eyes peeled for hostages to rescue, you may even end up with a little temporary support.

Classic gallery shooters can be a little tough to play from a modern perspective. It can be tricky to handle the aiming if you’re used to things like twin-stick controls. It’s even weirder when you’re using touch controls. Everything in your instincts will make you want to touch to aim, but you’ll have to manipulate the virtual stick to move your crosshairs around the screen, all while being careful with those virtual buttons so that you’re moving your character when you want to. I can see why NAM-1975 was selected for the ACA NEOGEO treatment this early on, but it’s perhaps not the smoothest of transitions to touch controls.

Of course, like the other mobile ACA NEOGEO releases, this game has support for external controllers. If you have one of those, this game plays just as well as it ever did. Throw in all of the other features that come with this line, and you’ve got a nice slice of arcade action with plenty of options and extras to tinker with. For the price of a mere sixteen quarters, NAM-1975 is easy to recommend. You get both the Japanese and overseas versions of the game, a few different modes to play, online leaderboards, and if you scrounge up a second controller you can even enjoy the pleasures of co-op multiplayer.

If you don’t have an external controller, it’s a lot harder to get behind this release. It’s not anything that Hamster has done wrong, but just that the game isn’t a good fit for touch controls. No amount of love put into the package itself could change that. If you think you can wrestle with the touch controls and enjoy yourself anyway, then give it a shot. After all, you can keep feeding in credits to compensate for any mistakes, at least up until the point that you can’t. If you practice well enough you may even get the hang of it. But it’s clearly not the optimal way to enjoy this classic.

NAM-1975 can’t rely on its impressive presentation as much these days, but the core gameplay here remains as enjoyable as ever provided you have an external controller. If you’re stuck with touch controls you will most likely find this a rather difficult game to deal with. That’s on top of the game’s already sharp difficulty curve, which hits a nasty spike with the final boss. You can still enjoy it with virtual controls, but you’re most likely going to be fighting it the whole way through. A solid classic, a game with serious historical value, but maybe not the greatest fit for mobile.

Let’s go over those details again though, just in case. You get the original game nicely emulated with a wide variety of options and features. Both Japanese and overseas versions are available to play with a selection of difficulty options, video options and filters, control layouts and button remappings, sound settings, and more. You can play with virtual controls or external controllers, and if you have multiple controllers and a friend who wants to join in, you can play local multiplayer. There are also online leaderboards and a couple of extra modes in the form of a score attack and a time-limited Caravan mode. You really can’t ask for much more.

That leaves us with the game itself, then. Shock Troopers came a year after the highly successful debut of Metal Slug, and in a sense follows a somewhat similar outline. It takes a well-established genre that had seen better days and throws some NEOGEO muscle at it to see what happens. Rather than the side-scrolling run-and-gun, however, it sought to revitalize a genre that SNK had plenty of past experience with: the top-down shooter. With major hits like Ikari Warriors under the company’s belt, you can’t blame SNK for wanting to give it another try.

Well, Shock Troopers didn’t go over quite as well as Metal Slug, but it didn’t go over badly either. With impressive 2D graphics, amazing set pieces, an assortment of characters to choose from, multiple routes that encourage replays, and solid action, Shock Troopers gave arcade-goers a real thrill in its day. It was popular enough to earn a sequel, though the series didn’t go much farther than that. We should see that follow-up sooner or later, but this first game is well worth enjoying on its own.

While the core gameplay isn’t too different from classic overhead shooters, Shock Troopers has a few twists that make it a step above earlier examples. You can play the game in two different modes. One sees you picking a single character to take through the game, getting a stat boost to help you out. The other has you picking a team of three, which gives you the advantage of using their various talents as needed. There are eight distinct characters, each with different stats and their own special bomb. Regardless of who you pick, you can make use of a basic machine gun weapon and a melee attack that will earn you some bonus points for your daredevil attitude. You can also perform a useful roll to get out of the way of… whatever.

Each playthrough will take you through six stages, but it’s not as simple as that. You get to choose your route at various points throughout the game, and it will take you at least a few playthroughs to see them all. They’re sprawling affairs that take you in various directions and throw in lots of fun elements to mix things up. You can pick up new weapons that will give you a temporary boost and allow you to create some real carnage. While the game doesn’t offer twin-stick controls, you can lock your firing direction by holding down the shoot button. The controls work well whether you’re playing with the virtual buttons or an external controller, with the speed and responsiveness you would want for a game like this.

Shock Troopers is another great pick from the NEOGEO library for a mobile conversion. This kind of game plays well with touch controls, and Hamster has packed it full of features and options that allow you to fully appreciate the game on your own terms. It’s an excellent action romp that frankly goes harder than it probably needed to, and if for some reason you never saw fit to drop a coin in its slot back in the day, this is a great chance to give it some of your attention.

Considering the reliable nature of some other SNK series, Samurai Shodown has been remarkably inconsistent. As such, it’s rare to find anyone that loves every entry in the series. Samurai Shodown IV‘s popularity comes from a few improvements over its predecessor. Some characters cut from the third game make their return, the visuals were given a more cartoonish look, air blocking was removed, and a tide-turning Rage Explosion move was implemented. When used, it sacrifices your POW meter for the remainder of the match in exchange for a boost in strength. You can also commit seppuku, which not only denies your opponent the satisfaction of victory but also starts you off the next round with a full POW meter. Oh, and there’s also the Fatal Slash, which can flip the script in one fell swoop.

Compared to other one-on-one fighters, matches in Samurai Showdown games can be swift and brutal. Samurai Showdown IV leans into that, and as a result matches are fast-paced and lively. There’s a particular flavor to this series that few others share, and it’s what keeps players coming back even twenty-five years later. Is it well-suited to mobile? Well, that’s another question. Virtual controls and fighting games don’t always mix well, and some of the motions required in this game are particularly vexing on a virtual pad. To make matters worse, multiplayer is local only and requires you to have an extra external controller.

If you’ve read my review of Metal Slug 5, all of the options and features mentioned there apply here. You can play both the Japanese and Overseas versions of the game, try a one-credit score attack, or go for a Caravan run to see how many points you can rack up in five minutes. You get save states, and a wide array of options for difficulty, button layout, video and audio, and more. There are online leaderboards as well, which is the only real online interaction with other players on offer here.

The game has support for external controllers, and it makes a huge difference for those that use them. Otherwise, you’re stuck with the virtual controls here, and they’re about as good as they can be. There are lots of options for customizing them just the way you like, if nothing else. But unless you have an external controller or two, you’re most likely playing Samurai Shodown IV using virtual controls against the CPU opponent. It just isn’t the best way to go about experiencing this one. The price is reasonable and the package is good, but the transition to mobile hits this game harder than it might some others.

Provided you’re used to playing fighters with virtual controls (or have some external controllers) and don’t mind that you’re most likely going to be confined to single-player battles, you probably won’t find this to be an unpleasant pick-up at all. The game itself is excellent, easily one of the better fighters from a console where that statement really means something. But it’s just difficult enough to experience the game the way it’s meant to be played with this particular version to keep me from recommending it with too much vigor.

Rather than retread old (and surprisingly still functional) ground, the opening salvo from Hamster fills out a few gaps left in some of the more popular series. One of those, and perhaps of most interest, is Metal Slug 5 ($3.99). Dotemu handled ports of Metal Slug, Metal Slug 2, Metal Slug X, and Metal Slug 3 for mobile devices. It was a reasonable stopping point. There’s a whole big story in it, but the long and short of it is that those games were as far as the original developers behind the series went and are generally the most well-liked. Another developer took over for Metal Slug 4 before the series went back to SNK with Metal Slug 5.

As such, Metal Slug 5 can be seen as something of a homecoming for the legendary run-and-gun series after a somewhat tepid chapter. It is not as tight and smartly-paced as Metal Slug. It isn’t as perfectly silly or bombastic as Metal Slug X. It’s not as epic in scale or scope as Metal Slug 3. But it’s a good romp. It has five cool stages, and some really neat boss battles. There are a couple of branches to be found, but nothing on the level of Metal Slug 3. Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing is up to you. You get a few new Slug vehicles to go with some returning ones, and a completely bananas final boss. Nothing too revolutionary, but a regular ol’ home-cooked dinner was a fine enough step after Metal Slug 4.

So yes, as a game it is worth plunking sixteen quarters or so into. But how about the package? I won’t say that Hamster is the absolute top of the heap when it comes to retro rereleases, but it’s generally known for doing a good job in terms of both emulation quality and breadth of options. In terms of the former, this release is up to the usual standards. The game runs as it should, and I doubt anyone will find many nits to pick with that end of things. Of course, the same could be said for Dotemu’s NEOGEO releases. NEOGEO emulation isn’t arcane sorcery at this point, so what it really comes down to is what kind of options we’ve been presented with.

The interface used in these mobile releases differs in appearance from that seen in Hamster’s Arcade Archives releases on other platforms, but the basic functions are familiar. You can dive into either the Japanese or Overseas versions of the game and get playing, or you can try the special High Score and Caravan modes. The first challenges you with racking up as high of a score as possible on one credit, while the second sees you doing the same with a five-minute time limit on top. They’re fun, even if they’re not necessarily as well-suited to this style of game compared to, say, a shoot-em-up.

In terms of options within the game itself, you get quite a rich amount. Difficulty options, save states, virtual button configuration and layout, rapid-fire switches, display settings, and more. It has just about everything a person could ask for, and easily blows Dotemu’s offerings out of the water.  The game has support for external controllers, and you’ll probably want to make use of one. While the virtual controls are as good as you could hope, it’s always going to be a little tricky to use such methods with games designed around precise stick-and-button controls. The only way to play multiplayer is by making use of external controllers, as well.

Still, if you’re particularly deft with virtual controls or have access to an external controller you won’t find much to be unhappy with in terms of Hamster’s work here. This is an impressive, feature-rich package. The game itself is an enjoyable slice of action, if not quite up to the level of the Metal Slug games that have seen mobile releases so far. It’s a promising start for Arcade Archives on the platform, and hopefully will lead to seeing some of the more esoteric NEOGEO games make their way over as well.

UPDATE: As pointed out in our forums, these ACA NEOGEO released DO in fact support physical controllers, it’s just not very obvious. With a controller connected to your device, click the icon on the title screen that looks kind of like a USB cable with Wi-Fi signals coming out of it to enable the controller support.

I think it’s a good choice, if only to deliver on the mission statement of Arcade Archives as we know it on other platforms. Hamster’s line of retro rereleases isn’t just about bringing out the most popular games, or the most critically-acclaimed ones. It aims at a greater sort of preservation, a more complete one. The greats, the not-so-greats, and everything in between. Some of Hamster’s choices can boggle the mind, but it not only paints a more thorough historical picture, it also allows players to find fun games they may have never stumbled upon before.

Now, Alpha Mission II isn’t that obscure. Indeed, in the early days of the NEOGEO it was a bit of a darling. A flashy vertical shoot-em-up with tons of power-ups and a few really wild stages. Your ship can collect armor pieces and go into one of several cool powered-up modes. It got good reviews, earned lots of quarters, and entertained people for a while until other titles bumped it off the rotation. History has been less kind to it, with more modern releases earning some sharp words and garnering little attention. It doesn’t really fit the character that the platform ultimately settled into. But in its time and place, it was fine.

What helps here is that it is a shoot-em-up, and shoot-em-ups take to mobile quite well. While you can make use of an external controller if you have one, the virtual controls work quite well here. You can even turn on auto-fire. You can only partake in the multiplayer co-op gameplay if you have external controllers for each player, but I suspect most people playing shooters on their mobile devices aren’t too concerned about that.

You get the same assortment of options, extras, and features as in the other Arcade Archives mobile releases. Difficulty options, control mapping and layouts, graphical and audio settings, save states, and more. One feature I particularly like for this game is the ability to rotate the screen and play in portrait mode. You can do it with the other releases, but it just feels better here. Now, this is a 4:3 game so don’t expect it to fill the screen if you play it like this, but it’s still cool.

The same modes of play are on offer here as well. You can play either the Japanese or Overseas version of the game, see how high of a score you can get on a single credit, or play a Caravan mode where you have five minutes to earn as many points as you can. Caravan modes and shooters go very well together, and it’s fun to see how high up the leaderboards you can climb. Yes, Alpha Mission II is a case where everything in the Arcade Archives package comes together quite nicely.

As for the game itself? Well, it’s alright. The power-up system is a bit confusing (there are power-downs, and those are fun), the bullet patterns are a little on the rude side, your default weapons lack much punch, some stages are an absolute drag, and it can be irritating trying to get into your armored state as you need to be very careful about what you pick up and what you don’t. But once you get used to how it all works, you can have a good time with it. Learning when to use your armored form and when to save it is a nice bit of strategy. The second level, which sees you taking apart a massive ship piece-by-piece, is quite memorable. It certainly tries some interesting things, including a between-level shop system.

Alpha Mission II is hardly a must-have or a must-play, but a decent enough spin for the few bucks it’s selling for. If you enjoy classic shoot-em-ups, you’ll get a few thrills out of this. More importantly, it fits the mobile platform a lot more comfortably than its peers in the Arcade Archives line-up so far. The game plays quite well with the virtual controls, so even if you don’t have access to an external controller you can still have a really good time. If you want to see what these Arcade Archives releases are all about in the best possible light, this is the one to get.

UPDATE: As pointed out in our forums, these ACA NEOGEO released DO in fact support physical controllers, it’s just not very obvious. With a controller connected to your device, click the icon on the title screen that looks kind of like a USB cable with Wi-Fi signals coming out of it to enable the controller support.

There is no real goal in Townscaper. You “play" or interact with it to express your creativity. What immediately made me fall in love with Townscaper on iOS, are the interactions and feedback. Every little thing you tap on is accompanied by a lovely pop and click. It is one of the most elegant interactive toys you will have used for sure. Townscaper has you tapping anywhere to spawn colored blocks, paths, roads, roofs, arches, stairways, and more. The game has its own rules for what spawns when you click a specific thing. I love how everything reacts to what you do from the ripples in the water to archways forming when you tap randomly around a tall tower.

There are many color options and lighting options here as well. Oskar even added a lovely animation for the lights coming on when you change the lighting to reflect darkness or night time. If you’re in the mood for precision, you can even enable a grid or just go free form like I’ve been doing so far. If you make a mistake, there are undo and redo options as well. You are also able to share your creations through long text that you can copy to load on another device. This is basically the workaround for seemingly no iCloud save support. If it is in, I haven’t been able to get it to work so keep that in mind.

On the iPhone 11 and iPad Pro (2020), the only in-game options I see are toggling a 30fps frame rate cap and anti-aliasing. When a console or PC game comes to mobile, I always hope for additional control options. Townscaper has full controller support. I used my PS5 DualSense controller and it felt great. Touchscreen controls are the way to go here for sure, but the controller option is nice to have and well implemented. You can also play in any orientation on iOS.

Townscaper on iOS looks fantastic and feels great to play, but I was a bit confused by the lack of a full soundtrack. I then discovered that Oskar meant for this to be an accompaniment to listening to music or a podcast. It makes sense on that front, but some relaxing music would’ve been nice to have. I’ve been using the newly released Forza Horizon 5 Pulse radio station playlist while playing Townscaper.

One thing I’d love to see is having small people walk around or inside your creations. Right now, there are things that give you the feeling that there are people like the lights or even birds flying around, but it would be great to have more than that. This is possibly beyond the scope given that Townscaper is meant to be a relaxing interactive toy and not a full-fledged game.

Townscaper isn’t going to be for everyone though. I can see some people getting bored of this very quickly considering there isn’t any in-game goal or progression barring what you build and want to see yourself. After seeing so many screenshots of gorgeous things my friends made, I’m glad to finally have a perfect version of Townscaper on my iPhone and iPad. While iCloud sync would’ve been great to have, there is a workaround and everything else in this conversion is exactly what I wanted. If you held off on getting Townscaper on PC or Nintendo Switch, the iOS version is definitely worth it. If you already own it elsewhere, you will likely enjoy it a lot more on iOS thanks to the added control options and ease of access.

Felix the Reaper is a 3D puzzler in the style of Sokoban. Promising shadowy puzzles, comedy blacker than a city sky at midnight, and a dancing reaper, there are a lot of places it could fall short. Unfortunately, fall short it does… where art, music, and animation are high points, the gameplay itself leaves much to be desired.

Each chapter starts a little before a character’s timely death, and each level therein we guide Felix through shadows, moving barrels here, mirrors there, setting the stage just so for the star of the show to fall. Of course, it wouldn’t be a game, let alone a puzzle game, if all the shadows just aligned perfectly from the get-go. It’s a little more work than that, and frequently requires moving boxes, barrels, bundles of wheat, mirrors, and other miscellaneous items and beings to create a shadowy path to your destination. In addition to rearranging the environment, players also have a measure of control over the sun’s position, almost in a sort of time travel—although that can’t be entirely accurate, because time is explicitly frozen while Felix is around. Whatever the cause, the idea is interesting, and rather fun to play with.

Although playing with shadows is an immediately interesting mechanic, all the steps and juggling positions and going back and forth and back… and forth again can get rather tedious, especially if you’re never entirely sure what to do (although this is somewhat alleviated by the “next step" button in the menu). It’s not a big deal in the early chapters, but by chapter four… you’re really starting to feel the tedium sometimes, and that’s without going back to get three skulls, or playing the hardcore level variants.

Well, it’s a little much for me anyway, but for folks who find the basic puzzles a just right, or even a little easy, and who want a bit of a challenge? Well, you’re who the hardcore levels are for. These levels are slightly altered, have the additional objective of collecting coins, and new limitations—namely, players cannot rewind to the last milestone, or restart the level… and if you want to go back and do them later, you’ll have to replay the base level. And if that wasn’t enough of an extra challenge, there are also “super-achiever", time trials accessible from the level menu for those who meet certain skull requirements. Altogether, there are more than enough levels, at a variety of difficulty levels (although none especially easy), for a great many people.

Felix the Reaper is a fun game, but that’s not really due to the gameplay. No, the gameplay itself is often just there, while the enjoyment is primarily due to our dancing protagonist and his tunes. Watching Felix slide from one point to another, dance in place, or bounce his way into the televator is fun, and one wonders what he is listening to. Fortunately, we know. Probably. It isn’t exactly a stretch to assume that the soundtrack we’re listening to is the very same music our lovable reaper is dancing to. If so, it’s not half bad. As background music, each of the thirteen tracks ever so subtly alters the mood from whimsical, to pensive, to melancholy, to upbeat and happy, and more besides, while always keeping to a certain lightheartedness. It’s almost a perfect fit. Almost.

Why “almost", you ask? Well, it’s a small, petty thing… but some of—well, actually, a great many of—the dancing animations don’t quite line up with the music. This is almost certainly because they are idle animations, and so difficult to line up perfectly, but… I’ve spent a bit of time watching them (it’s hard not to, when you’re trying to figure out where to put a particular puzzle piece goes), and it becomes glaringly obvious pretty quickly that they aren’t synced up to the music. A small thing, to be sure, but when your main character is supposed to be dancing to the music you’re listening to, it’s annoying to see them not actually in sync.

Moving back to gameplay, remember how I said it was fun to play with the shadows? I stand by that. It is not fun, however, to constantly try to correct the camera angle. Nor is it fun to tap a square and not go there, or to try and drag an object to a square and either not have it register, or try to place the object on another nearby square. Each of these is annoying individually, but altogether, they’re really quite a pain. Add in the action and move limits, and the clock, and some of the later levels really start to not be very fun.

That’s not all, though. Part of Felix the Reaper’s appeal is the ridiculously over the top ways each character dies. Deaths like accidentally spearing your brother because you mistook him for a deer; or a dog chasing an extra crispy tenderloin down a well, dragging the blind madman down with him. Haha, Oops. Maybe it’s the gory, close up shots of each death, or maybe it’s that each character is more sad than comedic… but I really don’t see the humour. Which is a shame, because I came in expecting to really enjoy these, and… I’m not.

Right from the start Felix the Reaper makes three promises: There will be dark comedy, there will be shadow puzzles, and there will be dancing skeletons. It delivers on all three. The humour is black, the puzzles are interesting, and Felix’s dance moves are excellent, if somewhat mistimed. This is clearly a labour of love, and that love shows through clearly. Unfortunately, it was not evenly distributed, and the rough patches make themselves known rather quickly. Nevertheless, I would encourage you, oh reader mine, to give it a shot. Watch some gameplay, read a few reviews—it could be just the game for you!

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If you’re looking for a game that demands quick reactions, a bit of planning, a dash of luck, and more guns than can be crammed into an escape pod then, well, you’ve come to the right place. End of the Universe delivers on all counts, with a double helping of guns and only half an escape pod. Players wake up on an unknown spacecraft in unknown space with one very clear objective: Survival. It is, of course, quite futile, but that shouldn’t stop anyone from trying! Between the mess of asteroids and space junk, there’s hardly room to breathe let alone avoid the missiles and plasma ejected from all those ships over there. Nevertheless, it must be done. As if a legion of baddies with bullets wasn’t enough, there’s also the bosses to contend with: Space centipedes, advanced starships of unknown design, and cosmic horrors with mind-bending technology. Against these odds, survival was never an option.

It is delightfully difficult, and it owes this difficulty in large part to the tiny health pools and the frequently ridiculous number of bullets on screen. While a single hit, scrape, or close encounter with flying debris only removes a single hit point, it’s a considerable loss when you’ve only three to begin with. Outside of the first three stages or so, enemies seem to multiply like sand, frequently sprouting from asteroids or thin air. Fortunately, stages seem to be quite a bit larger (or simply not have out-of-bound areas), which allows for just enough room to maneuver and not feel quite so cramped by the imminent danger of hitting an asteroid, baddie, or the edge of Bad Space.

Control-wise, the basic one-finger or two-finger options used in Immortal Rogue have made their return, along with a sensitivity slider. Drag to move, swipe to boost, release a swipe (or tap) to fire the heavy weapons; alternatively, move on one side of the screen and use heavy weapons on the other. They work well, although they do require a bit of practice if you haven’t used them before. My biggest grievance, actually, is with the turn animations. The turn rate is rather slow, which makes the animations feel clunky, and it’s a little hard to predict which way the ship will turn at times. That said, it is not out of place for a space ship to take such large turns. Not like a giant hunk o’ metal can turn on a dime, eh?

Not very keen on the starter ship or the smart turret? There’s good news: There are a ton of unlockable weapons and even more ships to find, never mind the skills. Each ship has a certain number of slots that can hold modifications, heavy weapons, or light weapons. Modifications are force multipliers, changing the basic functions of either the ship or any equipped weapons that fit the critera. Examples include movement speed boosts, recharge rate boosts, fire rate boosts, and other, more niche changes. Heavy weapons are the go-to for bosses, featuring heavy hitters like particle cannons, plasma casters, and smart missile launchers, as well as more unique and niche weapons like remote turrets and mines. Light weapons, on the other hand, include the ever useful homing rocket, rocket launcher, and auto cannon. They throw weaker punches, but a whole lot more of them. Add in skills like larger explosions, boosting to recharge heavy weapons, or a skill that causes enemies to throw out debris, and there are more than enough ways to turn good weapon into an incredible weapon, a good build into an incredible build.

Deserted space highways and broken worlds, ancient battlefields and thriving hives, all have been crafted with an eye for minutiae and it shows. The backgrounds are not alone in their detail, however. Tentacled monstrosities, cosmic horrors, advanced spacecraft, missiles, lasers, and other various enemies and projectiles are similarly detailed, although not nearly as much. Despite the detail, the background is not too vibrant, the enemies not too distracting, and bullets and hazards are not too dull. All is precisely as it should be: Clear, playable, and informative, but also pleasing to the eye. Make no mistake, however: This is not a game you play because of the art. It is a rogue-like, and its visuals, excellent though they are, are not beautiful.

If the art conveys the impression of an empty void and an impending doom with enemies on all sides, then the soundtrack instills an urgency to do… something. It is rarely quiet, calm, or relaxed, and certainly never slow, instead favoring fast-paced, high-intensity tracks that lend weight to the air of impending doom that permeates every stage. Thematically, I love it. While it’s really just a hand-wavey excuse to blow up aliens with cool weapons in space, the idea of a last bon voyage, guns blazing, at the edge of charted, or uncharted, space is… well, frankly it’s pretty great. Each and every element of End of the Universe—movement, enemies, environments, soundtrack, and all the rest—reinforces the central feeling of being isolated, alone against hordes of uncaring, unyielding baddies, and that it’s only going to go downhill from here. I, simply put, am a fan.

Overall, End of the Universe feels good to play. While neither music nor sound effects alone stand out, the combined effect, especially with the art, is excellent. The controls are smooth and work well, and the basic gameplay of avoiding obstacles, bullets, and catching baddies with a hail of lasers, missiles, or a black hole (a black hole!) is incredibly satisfying. While it’s certainly not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, fans of Immortal Rogue will not be disappointed. More broadly, anyone interested in pixel art, rogue-likes, pixel art in rogue-likes, or fast-paced games with mild tones of existential dread should give it a shot. It’s worth it.

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Enter Rogue Legacy ($3.99), a rogue-lite with a very low tolerance for poor character control. Even with a number of quality of life changes, and some surprisingly good controls, this game is hard. It’s hard in other releases as well, but on screen controls simply cannot deliver the pinpoint control required, which makes the iOS experience even more challenging. Nevertheless, Rogue Legacy welcomes all comers for a quest to explore a cursed castle, beat bosses, and (maybe) figure out who the devil keeps writing all these journal entries.

Knowing how Rogue Legacy plays, and knowing the basic mechanics of the game, is fairly important for understanding why pinpoint control is so important. At its most basic, Rogue Legacy is a platformer with an emphasis on hacking & slashing a variety of enemies, and looting gold and blueprints from their corpses. Fairly typical RPG fare. However, death is rather more permanent than a typical RPG. Once dead, characters do not come back. Instead, you may choose one of three descendants to take up the mantle, inheriting all the gold acquired in the previous run, and the upgrades purchased in all previous runs, and enter the castle.

Once in the castle, players explore a variety of rooms and biomes hunting on a quest to slay four beasts and unlock a golden door. These beasts are no normal creature, and defeating them requires preparation and powerful equipment and enchantments. Such equipment can only be purchased with gold looted from monsters, chests, and the sundry abandoned furnishings within the castle. Quite often, it is too difficult to both explore and acquire gold for the next run and hunt a boss, since both resource pools (health and mana) are quite limited, and there are only a few ways to replenish them. At any given point there may be a variety of enemies, projectiles, and environmental hazards to avoid, as well as gold or other treasure to collect, all in a room that could be large and easy to navigate, or only have a minimum of platforms to utilise, or perhaps collapsable platforms, or even no platforms at all! Messing up even once means taking a not insignificant chunk of damage which could be the difference between successfully beating a boss, getting the last bit of gold needed, or dying early. Mana is somewhat able to mitigate this, allowing players to take out some enemies at range, which means less damage taken by melee minions and more room to avoid projectiles.

With the basic concepts explained, perhaps it is more clear now why precise movement is so important. Without comfortable, precise controls, it’s far too easy to accidentally bump a spike, or a bullet, or stay too long on a floor trap, or run into any number of other projectiles or enemies or hazards. Do that enough, and the little bit of damage taken each time adds up pretty significantly. Virtual controls work, but that’s about all that can be said. They don’t have the precision of a physical joystick, the tactile feedback of a button, or the comfort of holding a controller, or even the familiarity of a keyboard. Even accounting for the minor quality of life adjustments made for mobile convenience, they simply are no better than adequate. A keyboard, on the other hand, can feel a little clunky. The movement is either a full-on sprint or a hard stop, and jumping doesn’t quite feel natural. It is, however, precise. No action is taken that was not intended, no projectile or frenzied wave of bullets cannot be dodged. It doesn’t feel right, but it does feel good. A controller, though, is practically perfect. There’s a physical joystick for precise movements, the button layout feels good, and a controller is pretty comfortable. Dodging projectiles, navigating precise platforms, and handling a variety of enemies at once feels smooth and well-tuned, if not easy. If games are made with a specific mode of input in mind, Rogue Legacy was made for controllers.

Rogue Legacy is a hard game, and while using a controller makes it somewhat easier, it’s still not exactly an easy game. Practice, as well as leveling up your character and buying equipment, are really the only ways to make the game “easier". To allow virtual controls to really be an option, some changes were made to the Wanderer edition that are not in the other releases. Notably, the collapsing platforms redeploy after a certain amount of time, and swiping down on the screen (rather than swiping down and tapping either jump or attack) drops through some platforms, or triggers a downard attack. There are also new traits specifically for mobile that flip controls, hide controls, or otherwise inhibit the viewable screen or ease of use, but that’s sort of par for the course as far as Rogue Legacy is concerned.

As a last point of note, while MFi controllers (and PS4 and Xbox One controllers, if you’re running iOS 13) are supported, the controls are not optimised for them yet. There is currently no way to view the map from a controller (you have to tap the map icon), nor is there a way to pause the game from a controller. Additionally, some of the traits (specifically left-handedness and synesthesia) seem to be entirely negated. Hopefully there will be improvements and optimisations in time but, of course, there is no guarantee.

If hard, platforming, hack & slash, and perma-death are selling points, Rogue Legacy is the game for you. It’ll beat you down until you figure out what a monster’s tell is, until you manage to unlock just the right enchantments, or until you give up. If you’re persistent enough, and willing to spend the time to learn the game, it’s very rewarding, a ton of fun, and will last a long time. But it’s not a game for everyone. If you’re someone who doesn’t want to spend the time or have the patience to learn the game, or you just don’t enjoy repeatedly dying or losing characters, this is not the game for you.

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It’s Holly’s 10-year high school reunion, and this is her first time back to her hometown since she fled post-graduation. Your old friend Flynn is thrilled to see you when you walk into the bar, but there’s a noticeable space where another friend, Grace, used to be. Grace and Flynn were engaged, but she passed away. Even after all this time, Holly has a deep friendly love from Flynn, made clear when later she risks her own life to rescue him. I believe the title seems to come from the phrase “a fate worse than death," which refers to a horrible experience that makes life unliveable. For Holly, this is whatever happened to cause Grace’s death.

The gameplay in Worse Than Death is mostly pure point-and-click goodness. Tap and hold to walk, double tap to run; that’s about all you need to remember to succeed. Every step forward is a feat, as there are often puzzles to overcome road blocks. Each “aha!" moment is incredibly rewarding. There is also a solid stealth element to the gameplay: trial and error, combined with patience and attentiveness, is needed to maneuver past the monsters who seek to harm you.

The game lulls you into a false sense of security before slapping you in the face with terror. Some of the fear is visual, but most of it is purely auditory. Visual and auditory cues are integral to your survival. When an invisible beast is nearby, Holly’s heart will beat crazy fast and you’ll hear it grow louder as the monster gets closer. If you move with your heart beating hard, the monsters will find and attack you. The developer uses haptic feedback wonderfully and sparingly.

I call them monsters, but the enemies seeking Holly are mostly unseen, making them that much more terrifying. Holly has spent the last decade running from her past, afraid it will catch up to her; this fear is physically represented by the monsters she is running from.

There is loads to look at and explore, and often you’ll need to seek out a specific piece of information or item to proceed. If you get turned around, pause for a hint explaining your goal. It is so easy to miss clues or information needed to solve puzzles. So if you’re like me, it’s easy to become a bit frustrated – but a few deep breaths and a fresh look around will often reveal what was overlooked.

There are a few technical details worth mentioning. First, the game auto saves often, so it is easy to play for a few minutes, put it down, and return later on. Second, it supports MFi controllers, which I never felt the need to use as the on-screen controls are quite good, especially on phone screens. I can understand why, on a tablet, the controller would come in handy, as the touch points become quite spread apart. Third, I’ve run the game on both the lowest recommended devices (and iPhone 7 and an iPad Air 2), and in both instances it runs perfectly smoothly. There is zero lag and quick load times.

Unlike Home, which is entirely reliant on 2D pixel graphics, Worse Than Death features high-res comic-style panels to help advance the narrative. Something I love about the game is that all the high-res artwork was drawn by hand on the iPad Pro; it’s a real testament to the tablet’s versatility. The artwork is extremely polished, and I can only imagine the amount of screen time needed to perfect every line.

Worse Than Death is not a very long game: it should take about 3.5-4 hours to finish it. The length is perfect, as anything longer would become bloated with gameplay instead of retaining focus on the narrative. It is a bit difficult at times, especially for me because I am admittedly far too impatient to do stealth well. The good news: difficulty modes will be added in an update later this summer. I look forward to using an easier mode for my replays.

Regardless of my personal struggles with stealth gameplay, Worse Than Death is an incredible experience of love, life, and the past that haunts Holly. She’s the type of heroine you cheer for whenever she succeeds, and that you truly feel bad for when something goes wrong. The simple gameplay enhances the narrative by not overpowering it, and the use of auditory cues really is amazing. Simply put, Worse Than Death more than lives up to my expectations for it, and I already look forward to my next playthrough.

Now, three days later, I’ve jumped all the jumps, collected all the collectables, and dodged all the hazards. Yet I am left with a question: What is it that is so elegant, so exquisitely tuned that it captured Apple’s attention? Was it, perhaps, the delightful feedback when pulling back to jump, or the tactile bump on first launch? Or maybe the smooth gameplay, seamless animations, and forgiving difficulty? Perhaps it was a mixture of it all, or something else entirely—who can say? Regardless, there is something to be said for a short game with nearly flawless components.

Ordia is a visually impressive game. Using three distinct colour palettes it crafts a delectably minimalist experience across three detailed “worlds”, each with its own atmosphere and style. Even on the scale of a single level, an effort has been made to liven up the background, and it shows. There’s always a bush, a waterfall, or some other touch that adds a certain flair to levels that would otherwise be lacking. The overall effect is wonderful, and it’s hard to find anything that deserves criticism, save (and I’m really stretching here) maybe walls in worlds one and two could use a little more… style. As it stands, they are little more than bland mono-colour boundary lines.

More than just a pretty decoration, though, colour is used to differentiate between hazard, hang point, and other useful or interesting objects. Take, for instance, the colour teal. The blob of primordial goop we fling is teal, and hang points are teal. That’s it. Whenever this colour is used, it means that surface or point is safe and can be stuck to, or on, and jumped from. Pink, on the other hand, always denotes a hazard––touch it and you’ll collapse into composite materials like the loosely grouped ooze you are. Yellow, though, is a bit of a rule breaker. Rather than a single use, it covers just about everything teal and pink don’t: Springboards, tasty morsels, and floating jump points. Whenever yellow is used, you know it’s different.

Despite what the rather tame art style would imply, Ordia isn’t precisely a relaxing game. Don’t get me wrong, the moment to moment pace is prettylaid back, and outside of time trials there’s no pressing need to rush to the end. There’s plenty of time to line up the shot, breathe, and double check before leaping from one brief point of security to the certain safety of another point, between which dwells an angry group of angry pink plants. Until, rather suddenly, it is no longer quite as easy as it once was, and you’re left desperately aiming, leaping, and trying oh so very hard to avoid the spikes on the walls, the red blob chasing you, the terribly hungry worms in the walls, or some other dastardly hazard. They are all found in the most inconvenient of places, and they all want nothing more than to ruin your day––and they’re quite good at it, too.

Fortunately, all those complications are introduced slowly, and it is not much trouble at all to adjust and keep pace. Right from the start, however, is something of an extra bonus for the entrepreneurial and completionist spirits: Each level contains ten yellow, absolutely delicious morsels for our dear leaping slime. They can be found behind false walls, by bouncing off yellow seed-like plants, or, sometimes, in plain view. Getting them usually requires some fancy fingerwork, or waiting just a little longer than comfortable before flying away to safety. A few, though need no more than a carefully aimed leap. Really, it just depends on the level and, to some extent, the world.

Despite the picture I’ve painted so far, though, not all of Ordia is perfect. While it is certainly hard to find flaws, they are there––the most notable of which is the level design. Every game has a certain amount of level design, and it could be argued that it is the single most important part of the experience. Unfortunately, it seems that some parts, some hazard sequences, are used multiple times between levels. Nothing so blatant as recycling whole levels, of course, but… nevertheless, it is noticeable. Perhaps it was done to keep the overall difficulty curve smooth, or to extend an otherwise too short level. Or, maybe, it was simply an oversight. It’s impossible to say for sure, though, and any theories as to why is nothing more than speculation. Besides which, it is a small complaint, and a small blemish on an otherwise spectacular game.

Additionally, and while I wouldn’t consider it to be a flaw per se, Ordia is a rather short game, clocking in at a mere 39 levels in all (including the bonus time trials). That’s, say, about three days worth of game, or less if you really want to push it. Bumping that up a bit, though, are two additional modes for each of the thirty base levels: Time trial, and hard mode. In time trial, players are given a time to beat and must complete the level. Quite often the given time is very generous, and fifteen, twenty, even thirty or more seconds can be trimmed off. Hard mode, however, is a different beast. It removes all checkpoints, and hazards are more difficult. What does that mean practically speaking? Well, if you die you have to start over. While I haven’t noticed a difference with the basic pink spikes, the rotating buzzsaw creatures are faster and worms are more aggressive. In short, all hazards are faster, or give you less time to traverse them in some other fashion.

All in all, Ordia is a hell of a game. It’s absolutely gorgeous, the animations are buttery smooth, and the sound effects and haptic feedback are incredibly satisfying. So satisfying, in fact, that if you aren’t actively paying attention, you don’t even notice them. It sounds counterintuitive, but you don’t want your sound effects to shout too loudly or they’ll become distracting. Apple was right––it’s a great game, and well worth the time invested. Everyone, but particularly one-handed gamers, fans of finger-flinging fun, connoisseurs of minimalism, or folks looking for a solid offline portrait game, should give it a shot. Unless an inflatable pink hazard or pushy choral chimes are involved, you can’t go wrong.

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Looks pretty good, right? Solid soundtrack, great visuals, smooth controls… what’s not to like? Well, the controls themselves, actually. While I’ll admit that the controls work well, and they are unobtrusive, I do not like them. Before I really criticise them, though, let’s take a look at how they actually work. Movement is handled by swiping (and holding, to continue to move smoothly) either to the left or the right, and the magnet is activated by tapping. No jumping, no tapping miscellaneous buttons on the screen, nothing. Quite elegant. My complaint, however, is specifically in regards to iPad controls: Swiping on an iPad, particularly when the iPad is supported by a stand of some variety, is cumbersome and doesn’t feel great. There is a simple solution, though: Add a toggle for a second, entirely tap based, control scheme. Tap (and hold to continue to move) on the right side to move right, the left to move left, and the middle to activate the magnet. Simple, iPad friendly, and no additional UI buttons necessary.

Gameplay, similar to the controls, is fairly simple: Get the magnetic box from the starting location to the glowing outline with the star. Simple. Except, of course, for all the obstacles composing the puzzle. These obstacles range from the simple hole, to lasers, gaps, switchable blocks, and more. Sometimes completing the puzzle is as simple as filling a hole with a box and rolling across; other times, it’s as complicated as flipping two or three switches, activating or deactivating a laser, and repelling from one platform to another. This wide range of difficulty, however, isn’t linear. That is to say, there may be two or three easy levels, then a very, very difficult level, then another four or five easy levels… or there may be a difficult level, an easy level, and another difficult level, and then another easy level! It feels as though very little thought was actually put into deciding which levels should come first and which should be used as a challenge. It isn’t an issue with level design, mind you—Magnibox’s puzzles are very well made. They’re just ordered in what seems to be a somewhat random fashion.

Magnibox feels very much like a mobile game, although not in the cheap, freemium way that’s become attached to mobile gaming. No, this feels like a game made to be played on the go. Puzzles tend to be very short, frequently solvable in under two or three minutes, meaning all 160 levels could be played in only a few hours… if one was so inclined. Despite that, or rather because of that, it’s best played in short bursts—a level here, a level there; maybe a bit of trial and error before finally reaching the solution. This ties back into level design: Each puzzle is small, short, difficult (but not too difficult), and fits nicely into a single bite. For comparison, Daggerhood’s levels were ridiculously short… but also very, very hard, frequently requiring five-plus minutes each; Magnibox on the other hand, rarely takes longer than two. For the difficult puzzles.

While “fun” is certainly subjective, and while I wouldn’t want to say it is objectively fun (that’s a bit of a broad generalisation), Magnibox is at the very least satisfying. Grabbed a power up and pulling to that negative block over yonder? There’s a solid Thunk when you get there. Hopping through a teleporter? A quick Bw-ong and it’s done. Add in the upbeat soundtrack, the absence of time limits or any kind of pressure or sense of immediacy to act on something right now and you’re in for a one-way ride to happy town.

On the whole, Magnibox is pretty great. It sets out to deliver a charming platform puzzler experience, and it more than accomplishes that goal. It has a premium feeling, a relaxed pace, smooth controls, and so very, very many unique levels. While it could do a better job with its difficulty curve and introducing new mechanics, and while I have a special dislike of the swipe controls on iPads, the gameplay and unique feel more than make up for such minor issues. At its price point, Magnibox is well worth picking up.

The game places you in the role of Organa, Irene’s shop assistant. Irene runs a small, bustling organ shop. As Organa, your main duty is to tend to the greenhouse. It’s a whopper of a job, with several things needing to be done at any given time, but surely Organa (and the player behind her) is able! So why do people come in seeking organs? Placing an organ inside an inanimate object brings it to life, with the soul of the organ. Customers request organs for various reasons, such as the little girl who wants her cat to talk or the farmer who needs a scarier scarecrow.

Before I discuss what I liked (and what I didn’t) as far as gameplay in Forget Me Not: My Organic Garden, I want to give credit to the incredible artwork in the game. Each aspect is done with such a delicate hand, from unique characters to the tiny harvestable organs. If the concept of an organ-growing organic garden didn’t hook me, I’m certain the artwork would have. There is an incredible level of detail in every graphic element. Even the teeny tiny little animals are somehow full of life, and I love zooming in and watching them flit around doing their work.

There is a special ease to the garden workflow. Click all animals, water as much as possible, create mincemeat, rinse and repeat. It’s surprisingly soothing. You’ll go from managing a single kidney tree to balancing several trees, multiple animal species, and other garden tools. The learning curve is reasonably paced, spread out amongst the story events. Trees and tools in your garden have levels, based on usage. New levels mostly increase productivity and sometimes quality. In addition to trees and tools, your garden will be home to several species of animals, each helping in its own way. For example, frogs fill your watering can and moles increase organ production.

Organa’s time is spent mostly in the garden (except when tending shop or speaking with Irene), where she has to:

• Water trees to increase organ production and quality.
• Activate small animals.
• Collect organs of varying quality to complete quests.
• Click the door (black and white means its inactive, when it’s ready it becomes coloured in) to advance in the story.
• Pickle ripe organs.
• Create mincemeat from unripe organs.

Screen real estate is especially sparse in the garden, yet a long banner remains in the upper left corner. Its full text states: “Trace organs to harvest them. Touch objects to show their explanations and parameters." But the banner scrolls and the beginning gets chopped off, not returning until you do something in the garden and scrolling away quickly. This information would be better off in a one-time pop-up early in the game, or just elsewhere in the menus. It doesn’t need to cover up actual items in the garden.

I do have a few other issues with interface choices. Navigation and selection often relies on tapping tiny dots, a difficult feat with my stumpy fingers (thanks, dad) and an iPhone 8. I assume the experience is less frustrating on devices with larger screens. And the game plays in landscape mode, making it impossible to play with one hand – a must for clicker-type titles. Graphically, I understand the decision, as the garden simply would not work in portrait mode… but still, it’s an annoyance.

Direction for what to focus on (after all, you can’t water all plants fully at one time!) comes from the quest list, with story quests being listed first and garden tasks afterwards. The quest list becomes a bit aggressive, with more tasks than anyone could complete at one time. I counted 21 at one point. These tasks often overlap, such as asking for three different quality combinations for a single organ. Limiting to one task per organ wouldn’t solve the problem, though, as there are issues with the quest list as it relates to your current levels. For example, I had a quest asking for a superior type of kidney long before I had the ability to create one. A more streamlined quest list would have absolutely had a positive impact on my experience with the game.

You will easily get several hours of play fromForget Me Not‘s storyline. Its description promises you can continue playing past the story’s conclusion, but I struggle to find the point in doing so. It’s fine being confined to the story, you can always replay it. The story isn’t terrible heavy, but does successfully give purpose to what you’re doing in the garden. Still, the game is more waiting and watering than reading dialogue (thankfully).

In the end, Forget Me Not: My Organic Garden is a delightfully active addition to the tapping genre, bringing it into the premium game world instead of setting it adrift amongst throngs of free-to-play titles. The artwork is the superstar, absolutely darling and always intriguing. The story is a bit light, but there’s nothing wrong with that when the purpose is to work in a garden. And the gardening itself is streamlined, logical, and a pleasure to play. The issues I have with the title – usually UI-related – certainly detract a bit from the parts I loved, but the game is still well worth a playthrough (or two).

While the art is a bit plain, don’t let that fool you! What Solar Settlers lacks in visual flair it more than makes up for with a variety of cards and a different experience each game; nevermind the strategy behind actually winning. Unfortunately, such strategy seems to be hidden for a disappointingly long time despite the inclusion of optional placement matches. This is likely due to the ranking system, which is intended to provide enjoyable matches and replayability alike by matching skill with challenge. For quite a while, though, this did not work for me.

Actually sitting and playing Solar Settlers is quite fun. A single match can range from a five minute brain tease to a twenty minute exercise in mental gymnastics—although the latter is admittedly far more common after unlocking expert difficulty. In normal mode, matches tend to require minimal strategic thought, instead presenting something that could be considered a puzzle. What do I mean by that? See, in normal you tend to have an abundance of resources—an abundance of hydrogen, of oxygen, of ore, and of cards. As such, it’s less a matter of planning this turn, next turn, and maybe a turn or two after so much as looking at your hand and the board—the colonists, and the planets you have discovered—to work out how make the most out of what you have and, ideally, win.

Expert, on the other hand, unlocks at level ten and offers a grueling experience that requires much more planning and a better strategy than “Let’s throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks.” To achieve this radical shift, two changes are made: Settled colonists generate oxygen on turn, and exposed colonists require twice the oxygen to survive. That’s it. Those two changes turn oxygen from a minor annoyance into something that seriously limits growth, requiring constant maintenance and a decent plan of action. Ranks are not carried over between expert and normal, and for good reason—they are simply not applicable to each other. Thankfully, expert mode is a toggle that can be switched freely between matches in the options menu, not a permanent change.

Digging into the actual meat, gameplay revolves around settling colonists into their permanent homes throughout a new solar system. Sounds pretty simple, right? Aside from being millions of miles away in a little metal tube, the necessity of having to harvest materials to build habitats, the hydrogen to move, and enough oxygen to not suffocate, it is! It’s also quite relaxing. There’s one more layer, though: Cards. Cards are not drawn at the beginning of each turn, they are produced by a variety of planet upgrades (and a home world, or starting planet, but that’s neither here nor there), earned from goals, or simply received by salvaging other cards. But, however they are gained, they are always used by either playing to a tile on the board for a variety of benefits, or by tapping and holding to dismantle into a material, oxygen, hydrogen, a new colonist, or another card.

While some cards can be played immediately on some or any planet or tile, others require resources—usually ore, but sometimes oxygen or hydrogen instead. These resources are not simply delivered, however. No, they must be earned by the hard work and occasional death of your settlers. They can be gathered from a variety of planet tiles, but those planets must first be discovered—you can’t mine ore from a water world, nor can you gather oxygen from a gas giant or hydrogen from a jungle planet, and you probably won’t have everything you need immediately. Each planet has two resource tiers which offer different benefits for harvesting. A rock world, for example, typically yields one ore and one hydrogen when harvested with a single colonist on the tile, and two ore and one hydrogen when there are two or more.

Mixing the proper amount of exploration and resources, especially card draw, is essential to establishing a stable colony. During my play, particularly on expert, I found that although oxygen was a definite priority, the real difficulty was in finding the cards I needed. While space stations, artificial worlds, and planet upgrades are certainly helpful, Solar Settlers is a game about settling colonists. Turning productive colonists into happy, settled, colonists is quite a tall order without habitats, though, and that requires a bit of luck. As such, it is important to pay attention to the current goal, collect the occasional card draw, and hope to discover free hab units to make up for bad luck.

We’ve come so far and I haven’t even touched on the different races yet! While the basic gameplay is the same (all races need oxygen, hydrogen, ore, and a place to live), there are subtle differences in how those needs are met. For example, humans (the basic race) tend to have production-focused homeworlds: Produce a card, some oxygen, a colonist, a this or that or the other. Formids, on the other hand, reward planet upgrades, and others reward exploration or other focuses. Each race plays just a little bit differently than the others, and has a variety of specialised cards unique to it that benefit from their gimmick. While it is not necessary to unlock, play, and master every race… what’s the fun in ignoring the options? Variety adds spice!

In terms of flaws, there aren’t very many. There’s the normal difficulty, sure, but I half wonder if that wouldn’t be solved by just playing more, and there’s always expert mode for a challenge anyway. Outside of that, the artwork, while not bad, is not something that could be considered a masterpiece. Fortunately, it is only really prominent in the main menu, although it isn’t easy to ignore. Moreover, this isn’t a game you want to sit and play three, four, five matches at a time. It gets a bit repetitive, and the replayable veneer starts to wear thin. It can be done, but it’s better enjoyed with breaks between games.

In sum, Solar Settlers offers diverse card sets for a variety of races to colonise new solar systems. While this requires careful thought and strategy in expert mode, it tends to be rather easy outside of it, despite its ranking system. While I enjoyed playing the game as a whole, I found the best experience was in choosing a random race and playing on expert, although that resulted in quite a few losses. While it does have flaws, they are few and easily overlooked. Solar Settlers is an easy recommendation, and one I make whole-heartedly.

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In Photographs, the narrative and puzzles become intertwined, and I mean that in the best way possible. It makes it a bit difficult not to spoil anything, but I’ve made a concentrated effort to only mention the first two stories and even then, sparsely. It’s a game worth your full attention: I recommend playing it when you have a good chunk of time to focus, rather than in short bursts. It’s not that it wouldn’t be enjoyable with shorter play sessions, it’s more that you won’t want to stop for anything.

When playing a game, it is so important to me that it has soul. Photographs has just that; actually, it has five souls, each needing help with their own regrets, beginning with The Alchemist and The Athlete. My immediate questions: Who is trying to help these souls? And how? The why, we learn quickly enough.

Each soul has their own story, told through a series of snapshots, puzzles, and photographs; each story begins with a relatively small location that expands and evolves and you continue through the narrative. First, you need to find and focus on a specific item in a scene. This launches a puzzle (each story has its own type), and once that is complete you’ll get more story in the form of photographs. A story (one per soul) takes about 30 minutes, or longer if you’re like me and find yourself stumped for a few (or several) extra minutes on the more difficult puzzles. Nothing is ever out of reach, though – sometimes it just requires methodical thinking and trial and error, but nothing is unsolvable.

So how are the narrative and the puzzles intertwined? Thematically, for one. Puzzles do relate directly to the protagonist: the Alchemist contains a sort of slide puzzle set in a garden, while The Athlete’s puzzles are physics-based and diving-themed. But puzzles can also evolve based on narrative. For example, when a girl becomes ill, she responds differently to your puzzle swipes compared to her healthy companion. It’s a sort of subtle genius that I could praise over and over again, heaping on more praise per story, but that would just ruin everyone’s experience. I do, however, promise that a thread of extreme thoughtfulness is the undercurrent of all puzzles.

Photographs is a deep dive into how we come to regret the decision we’ve made, as the world shifts around us and we cannot catch up. The stories each capture true guilt and shame that come with decisions that end up negative, while the puzzles represents the anxiety that permanently accompanies said decisions. It’s all connected. Protagonists vary in age/gender/race, so odds are you’ll relate to at least one. I see a bit of myself in The Alchemist, as he’s trying to solve a medical mystery and I’m often doing the same for myself. I also see a bit of myself in The Athlete, where a young girl needs to make difficult decisions that will impact her present and her future.

I’m sure I’m not the only one that compares the artwork of Photographs to that in other pixel-art titles, the most popular arguably being Thimbleweed Park at the moment. And that’s no surprise: the art in Photographs is by Octavi Navarro (who was also an artist on Thimbleweed Park). The picture-perfect pixel art makes zooming in a downright delight. On the soundtrack side of things, the game’s music is by Ben Prunty. He’s done the music for a handful of other well-known titles, including FTL. The music and sound effects successfully capture each story and moment while succeeding at sounding fresh despite how long you may find yourself stuck on a puzzle. I’ve played enough puzzle titles to know how incredibly difficult that can be, so hat’s off to Prunty for striking the right balance.

When I think about it, Photographs seems like it’s everything, narratively, that is lacking in 10000000 and You Must Build A Boat. Gone are the frenzied decisions, often thoughtless motions, replaced with a shorter game with arguably less replay, but a narrative and structure that will allow for it to linger in your mind longer than the other two. The term “video game" doesn’t feel right when Photographs is more than that: it truly is a haunting experience of human nature and compassion, depression and connection.

The game takes place in randomly-generated dungeons; the goal is to get through ten increasingly difficult floors. There are enemies around every corner, chests to plunder, a shopkeep to meet, and a whopper of a boss battle waiting at the end of the last floor. Moving around is as simple as clicking where you would like your little hero to go next, so usually you’ll be going through doors, towards enemies, or searching for loot. When you’re close enough to enemies, a battle will automatically begin – but don’t worry, you’ll never be ambushed and always take your turn first. And there’s no time limit, so you can take your time and really plan out how the battle may unfold if luck is in your cards.

You use your deck of cards to battle, with cards either useful for attacking or defensive moves. You have a limited amount of energy per turn, and each card will display a value for the energy it will use. Sometimes enemies are simple, but other times they spawn more enemies, making strategy a necessity. And sometimes you just need to beat the snot out of them while sacrificing your own health. Either way, they get much more difficult the lower you descend into the dungeon.

Card Crusade doesn’t claim to do anything revolutionary, and that’s why it shines. When you begin a new dungeon, there are eight characters to choose from – if you’ve unlocked them. Each has its own unique power and card. At first, only the crusader is unlocked; you can check on the others to learn how to earn them. This equates to a remarkable amount of tactical choice from the very beginning of each new playthrough. Each character even has two avatar choices, although this impacts absolutely nothing other than a splash of color on the screen. Your typical RPG classes are present and renamed: for example, dark mages are Sorcerers and white mages are healers. The actions required to unlock each is related to their characteristics. Familiar RPG enemies also make appearances, and you’ll find yourself battling with anything from rats to slime to other sorcerors. Learning about each is as simple as a tap during battle.

Here is a gameplay example, the first floor of a dungeon:

Altars add another level of gameplay. Unlike many of the elements which I praise for being familiar, altars are a new element to the genre. Altars randomly appear and alter gameplay if you so dare. One aspect will become more effective (say, your blocking) while one becomes less so (such as your magic attacks). It’s just another way that Card Crusade layers strategic choices.

So those are the elements familiar for (and one new to) roguelikes, but what about the all important deck of cards that allow battles to flow? I’m a collector, and am very satisfied with the amount of items/enemies to clear in the dungeons. It’s so enjoyable, in fact, that I find myself clearing every floor before stepping down to the next. This also has strategic value, as it keeps my character level up and increases my chance of finding treasure chests containing new cards or the shop to purchase new cards.

And it really is all about the cards. Some, such as potions, are consumable. Others can be used repeatedly, and a handful can only be used once per battle. There are attack and defence cards, armor cards, physical cards, and magic cards. But like Pokémon, I’ve gotta collect ’em all. The shop helps with the goal. Every now and then, you stumble across a shopkeep surrounded by items you can purchase. You can also ask the shopkeep to remove cards from your deck, but it will also cost you. Item prices are perfectly reasonable when compared to the gold collected through the floors, especially if you chose to break all the vases (but you don’t have to).

The variety of cards available was perhaps the biggest surprise about Card Crusade. I expected the usual, things like attack with a sword or put on armor, but I didn’t expect such a vast array that range from funny, to pop culture, to familiar. Each card has its own pros (and often cons) so having a good variety is key, especially once you hit the lower floors. There are a few standouts for me:

• Mitosis deals a bit of physical damage while costing little energy, but also duplicates itself permanently into your hand with every use. It reminds me of the scene in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows when each bit of gold they touch reproduces itself.
• Speaking of HP, another of my favorite cards is Horcrux, which deals a bit of magic damage but (far more importantly) gives you a permanent +4 damage if its attack kills. It costs health, as though you’re using a bit of your soul to grow more powerful. He Who Must Not Be Named must be close.
• Berserk is a very familiar move, and deals damage equal to your missing health; it is a lifesaver in tough battles!

For all the praise I have for Card Crusade, I do have some minor complaints. First, I would love a better way to view your current deck – the current system is a list, but a tile view would be wonderful. I also believe the game would benefit from cloud saves. I love playing on my iPad while at home, and would love if those saves linked to the game on my phone so I can share unlocked characters and scores. And that reminds me: scores. The leaderboards don’t seem to work, but I hope it’s online as there is another section where you can view your own runs.

When it comes to describing Card Crusade, I think calling it a new classic isn’t an exaggeration. Classic roguelike gameplay with classic characters, classic villains, classic pixel art, and music reminiscent of the early console days. Seriously, the music makes me feel like I’m back in my cousins’ playroom watching them in awe. The game is great for one-handed play while you’re standing on crowded public transit. It provides near-infinite possibilities as it stands, but my mind is already floating to what could be added later on, such as even more cards, themed events, or new characters. The world of Card Crusade is pretty much limitless and full of strategic possibilities!

It should be noted right off the bat that one thing Motorsport Manager Mobile 3 does not feature is retina-singeing on-track action. Though the visuals have been given nifty and noticeable improvements throughout, with everything from the menus to the track renderings looking better than ever, the races themselves are still contested by colored dots. If you’re a true sports sim fan, this might not bother you at all — heck, the insanely popular Football Manager titles were just dots playing soccer for years — but actually watching your cars do battle with their competitors and actually look like cars is perhaps the final frontier for this series, and it hasn’t quite made it there yet.

What this third game has done is bring a whole bunch of new and interesting racing options to the table, beginning with the addition of new racing series beyond open-wheel cars. The end goal is still to make it to the generic version of Formula 1 and compete against the very best race teams in the world, but how you get there is now much more a matter of personal preference. Your fledgling team begins in Tier 4 and has to work its way up, but right off the bat you have both open-wheel and GT series from which to choose. In the next two tiers, there are also endurance racing series to pick from, where you attempt to complete the most laps in 45 minutes (which thankfully go faster than real life minutes, so it’s not as lengthy a grind as it might sound) and have to swap in three drivers per car to make at least one lap each. A driver’s focus stat is used as a de facto health bar for endurance racing, and while it’s obviously a scaled down version of how such races play out in the real world, its a welcome and different challenge.

The nuts and bolts of team management remain more or less the same as in previous series entries, as you juggle sponsors to make sure enough money is coming in, hire the best talent available behind the wheel and in the shop, and generally try to keep pushing forward in terms of both skill and equipment. One new facet is the ability to build and expand a supplier network for your race team, adding different transportation assets to your cause. Starting from just a single hub, you can eventually grow the supplier network to be a truly global affair, with each additional hub offering the chance to unlock more bonuses for your race cars provided you have enough assets to support them.

Also new is the addition of mechanics to your race team to supplement the efforts of your engineers. While said engineers still contribute by lending their expertise to the parts you build, mechanics work one-on-one with the driver (or drivers, if you’re in an endurance series) to get the cars performing better. When the relationship between driver and mechanic reaches its full potential, it unlocks multiple bonuses to pick from for each race. Alas, mechanics have also proven to be the most controversial new feature among early reviewers, as they have removed the custom setups for qualifying and race day and turned them into something of a card-based mini-game that is reliant on the mechanic’s skill. This adds a fun risk/reward element as you attempt to push the limits on what your car is capable of without going too far over the line and making an adjustment that actually makes it worse, but the randomness can be frustrating, and experienced gearheads will likely not appreciate the way it removes some detail for the sake of making a pretty technical part of racing more accessible. It certainly takes some of the value out of the qualifying process, which led me to simulate it a lot more often than I had in the past.

Don’t like qualifying at all? Then you’ll love the political aspect of the game, basic as it is, because it allows you to vote on rules changes to any racing series in which you’re planning on sticking around for the next year. These modifications include things like adding or dropping tracks, changing the safety car rules and outlawing the Energy Recovery System — another new twist this time out, and one that requires you to play a more active role in managing each lap unless you automate it. Only one change comes up for vote at the end of each season, but it’s still fun to see how you might be able to influence the race series to your benefit, particularly with a new mechanic called Influence. Not only can you use Influence to help sway race series votes, but if you build up enough of it by signing the right sponsors and making generally savvy overall decisions, you might find yourself with enough to convince a driver to re-sign when he was looking elsewhere, steal a part design from a rival race team or close a deal instantly when expanding your supplier network.

Some early adopters of Motorsport Manager Mobile 3 have suggested that all of the new features combine to make the home screen too cluttered, but all of that information needs to be accessible from somewhere, and the devs did a pretty nice job overall making both new and old mechanics easy to both find and understand. The tutorial system has been given a big upgrade to accommodate all the new stuff too, and it helpfully walks you through any new feature you encounter for the first time unless you turn it off. Overall, the aesthetic of all the menus, charts and whatnot that you need to keep your race team humming along smoothly is pleasing, and there are even touches like additional animations and an avatar for your race team principal (that’d be you, unless you don’t like playing yourself in video games) that series veterans will almost certainly appreciate.

Motorsport Manager Mobile 3 does offer a few IAPs, which tends to get people irritable when you’ve already paid to download the game, but none of them are at all necessary to enjoy the full game experience. You can pay real money for in-game funds if you’re pants at financial management, or you can pay for a game editor in case you want to populate, say, the top open-wheel series with the real teams and drivers from F1.

That leaves us with one final question, and it’s a pretty big one: Is the game challenging enough? On one hand, it definitely is, because you can’t just show up and start winning races right off the bat in every series. On the other, it’s not too difficult to get into a cadence where you have all of the game mechanics figured out to the point where you can more or less will yourself to championships maybe every other season. The key is actually in the preferences menu if you find that to be the case: Not only is there an individual race difficulty switch, but you can also flip on Hard Mode to give the overall in-season AI a bump. We can confirm that this is, indeed, much harder, so the challenge is there provided you know where to look.

it makes sense not to make things too daunting from the start, because just like we said before, Motorsport Manager Mobile 3 is simulating forms of racing that not everyone, especially those of us in the U.S., really understand all that well. It’s to the credit of its developers that it accomplishes it so well that you’re likely to get sucked in after playing just a race or two and really want to start building up your race team to chase down championships.  Even if you don’t know your splitters from your spoilers, you just might find yourself enjoying the ride here.

Apart from the new places and faces, though, Teen Titans GO Figure is an awful lot like the original game. This time, you’ll start the game by choosing the Titan you want to play as, so you don’t have to be Robin if you don’t want to. It’s been a couple of years since the height of Teeny Titans-mania, and the company that makes them is discontinuing the toys. One last batch is going out to stores, and just like that, the Titans are sucked into the collectathon all over again. You’ll be going along with them, naturally. That involves buying, searching out, or winning more than 100 figures, as well as participating in (and winning) a number of tournaments that are held around the three cities. Not too far into the game, you’re given the reason why the toys are being discontinued, which gives the Titans an excuse to leave Jump City for one of DC’s more popular locales.

Your choice of playable Titan doesn’t have any effect on the gameplay, but you will get a lot of customized dialogue based on your choice. Regardless of your pick, you’ll be experiencing largely the same stories and missions, but the different ways each Titan interacts with the game’s many NPCs can be a lot of fun to check out. And you will be doing a lot of interacting with NPCs. You’ll always have a main story mission in play, but you’re probably going to hit a wall if you try to proceed directly towards finishing those missions. To survive the mandatory battles that come during the story, you’re going to need to power up.

There are lots of ways to do that. You can acquire new figures that are more powerful than your current ones. They can be bought at the many shops found across the cities, and you’ll occasionally earn them as prizes from completing side-missions or random rewards from tapping shiny spots found around each map. Of course, buying figures is going to require coins, and a lot of them. You’ll find coins scattered around the map, and they regularly replenish themselves, but if you want to make real money, you’ll need to either solve side-missions or engage in battles. Some side-missions involve searching out objects on the map or handing in particular figures, while others will force you to battle, typically under special conditions.

You’ll also want to level your figures up, which can only be done through battling. Most of the side-mission battles will be way beyond your capabilities near the start of the game, so you’re going to have to farm that experience off of random NPCs. Nearly everyone you can talk to in the game can be battled, and if saving the day means picking on some kids with cheap figures, so be it. Each level up will either unlock a new ability or give you the chance to pick a stat to increase. Only the three figures who join the battle will earn experience, so if you want to cover your bases for special challenges, you can expect to do a fair bit of grinding.

You can also fit your figures with custom chips that convey various benefits. A figure can only hold a single chip at a time, and removing the chip will destroy it. Losing chips isn’t the end of the world in most cases, so you’re free to re-spec this aspect so long as you don’t mind wasting coins. Figures can also be enhanced by feeding them other figures, with similar figures offering a greater boost. Successful enhancement increases the strength of your abilities, and is essential for surviving some of the tougher battles.

So far, this is probably sounding very familiar to those who played the first game. And indeed, Teen Titans GO Figure is almost entirely similar to the original in terms of its nuts and bolts. Map exploration is similar, battles work in the same way as the first, and a considerable number of the figures are hold-overs from the previous game. Many of the visuals, animations, music, and other audio make the jump as well. There’s a lot of new content here thanks to the new cities and the redesigned layout of the original map, and there have been considerable changes to abilities and characters to make combat more balanced and challenging.

At the same time, however, it doesn’t take long for a sense of deja vu to kick in. I’m having trouble deciding how much of an issue that is for me. I loved the original game to pieces, but I’m not sure the pieces I loved were the grinding, scavenger-hunting, and fetch-questing. I feel like more thought has been put into the combat challenges, forcing you to use a variety of figures instead of just relying on one strong team, but the cost of that is that you’re going to need to keep quite a few figures in good fighting shape. The new figures are great, but I’d be lying if I said the game offered the same thrill of the hunt when most of the game involves reassembling a collection I already worked hard to complete before. Reassembling it in largely the same way, no less. Grind up coins, hit the shops, shuffle around for the ones you don’t already have, then head back out and get more coins.

There are a few other new things that I should mention. First, let’s address the IAPs, since the first game didn’t have them and I know some of our readers may be concerned about their presence here. There are a few ways you can spend real money in Teen Titans GO Figure, but none of them are required in any sense. First, there are Riddler Eggs. Pop open one of these to get a random grab-bag of goodies including figures, coins, chips, and accessories. You’ll get the first one free so that you can see what they’re all about, but after that you’ll have to buy them if you want them. Everything found in them can be found elsewhere, of course.

Next, there are Repaint Tokens. These can be exchanged with a special NPC to repaint your figures in several pre-set color patterns. It’s purely cosmetic, and Repaint Tokens are available in abundance without having to buy them. Finally, there are rare figures. This rotating selection gives you the chance to outright buy some of the more difficult-to-find or expensive figures in the game. Again, every character you’ll find here is available elsewhere in the game. This just gives you the chance to buy them if you don’t feel like earning them in-game. Some of these rare figures command an absurd price in the game’s stores, but that was also the case in the original game so I’m not calling foul here. All three of these IAPs are accessed by visiting the Riddler’s Shop, and you can disable the IAPs if you don’t want the temptation.

Another new addition, and probably the biggest change mechanically speaking, is the presence of accessories. These are special items that you can bring into battle. You’ll have to charge them up by collecting batteries and performing attacks, but once they’re ready to go they will produce a variety of helpful effects. You can only bring one with you at a time, adding another strategic layer to a battle system that already offered quite a bit of depth beyond its simple presentation. It’s also one more thing to collect. There’s some great fan service with these accessories. The first one you’re likely to get is an actual Green Lantern, and you’ll come across the Bat-Signal and even Superman’s underoos before all is said and done. Accessories aren’t an obvious game changer, but I can appreciate the challenge that the developers had in trying to freshen up a battle system that already worked so well without accidentally destroying it.

Speaking of fan service, this game is packed to the absolute brim with DC references. Some of them are extremely cheeky, like a side-mission that tasks you with hunting down a bunch of people named Martha. The intense rivalry between Jimmy Olson and Bibbo Bibbowski over who is Superman’s real best pal is hilarious. Every signboard, every bit of graffiti, every stray detail is a chance for developer Grumpyface to insert a joke or reference, and you’ll almost never be disappointed for looking at just about everything in the game and talking to everyone. Perhaps more than anything else, it was this new batch of entertaining dialogue, humor, and background detail that had me pressing forward through the game. I’m glad the developer was given a bigger sandbox to play around in this time. They seem to have had a lot of fun with it.

I’m less thrilled with the progression curve in this game. You have a lot of freedom almost immediately, which is not necessarily a bad thing. But you’ll soon start piling up side-missions that you’re not going to be able to clear for a very long time, and the difficulty of the story missions ramps up fairly early in the game. After scouring Jump City, Metropolis, and Gotham along with the sub-locations that branch out from them, you’ll likely have more than 20 side-missions in your backlog, many of which will require you to have a relatively strong party assembled. So what can you do? There’s nothing for it but to grind. Grind experience, grind coins, power up in the most dull possible ways. Once you get over the initial hump things smooth out dramatically, though there are still some extra-tough challenges to be found for those who go looking.

I don’t want to pick on the increased difficulty too much, though, since the general ease of the first game pre-update was an issue for some. This is a harder game to be sure, and in many regards it is for the better. Some of the old reliable tricks aren’t quite so reliable anymore thanks to how things have been rebalanced, and enemies have a bit more bite to back their bark. It’s mostly in the game’s opening hours where things are a bit messy. There’s still plenty of grinding to done throughout the whole game if you want to collect every figure, but I reckon most people with that mentality know what they’re signing up for. Nothing is forcing you to seek out all of the figures, and the game’s proper story certainly doesn’t require it. But if you do want to do it, be ready for things to get a little silly in places. And I don’t mean ha-ha silly.

If I sound like I’m waffling back and forth on this game, it’s because I am. In a vacuum, it is unquestionably an awesome game, one that is worth your time and money. It’s Teeny Titans but more of it. But it resembles the first game in more ways than not, and unlike in the case of, say, Battleheart 2, it really hasn’t been that long since the original came out. As a result, the parts of the game that are functionally almost the same as before sometimes feel like work. There’s a reason each new generation of Pokemon introduces a mostly-new assortment and allows you to carry over your old collection if you wish, and it’s because collecting the same things you already collected before isn’t nearly as much fun. The new figures and wider scope of the adventure are all great things, but this still feels close enough to Teeny Titans that it’s almost wearisome at times.

Let’s bring this to a close, then. Did you play Teeny Titans? If not, then go ahead and get Teen Titans GO Figure. It’s great, and you’ll have an amazing time with it. If you did play the first game, how excited do you think you would be to replay it? If you would be fine with that, again, full steam ahead here. Enjoy yourself. But if you can’t see yourself replaying the first game right now, you’ll want to really ask yourself if you have the desire to play a sequel that has you doing a lot of the same things all over again. Of course, if you’re a big fan of the Teen Titans or the DC Universe in general, this is all moot. The bulk of the game’s new content is found in how it mucks about in that particular brand, after all. Grab the game, you’ll love it. The game may be spinning its wheels, but hey, there are worse wheels to spin.

Another area that players felt needed a little work was in the uneven difficulty throughout the entire game. Tiny Bubbles allows you to play levels in a pretty non-linear fashion so it was never a major issue, but there were certain levels that most definitely felt overly hard at times. Pine Street Codeworks went through all of their analytical player data and made adjustments to the difficulty on the levels that seemed to give the most people trouble, so the result should be a much more even ramping up of difficulty with the levels closer to the end game still being a pretty significant challenge. Finally, an Android version is still in the works but isn’t quite ready yet, but when it does launch it’ll be using a free to download with premium unlock IAP model that seems to suit the Android world better than iOS. We’ll update you when we learn a release window for Android, but in the meantime check out this latest update to the iOS version of Tiny Bubbles and check out the forum thread for some discussion.

Now, that’s not to say that there haven’t been some changes or improvements made in Battleheart 2. There are a few key ways the game differs from the first, and I’ll go into those shortly. But it’s certainly safe to say that if you played the original Battleheart, you already have a pretty good idea of what to expect from this follow-up. You’ll put together a team of four characters from a varied selection of 12 different job classes, head into real-time battles against waves of enemies, drag your finger around a lot to give commands, and enjoy the spoils. As you fight battles, you’ll level up, earn gold that can be used to buy new gear, get new gear directly, or earn other resources that can be used to enhance your characters. Every so often, you’ll need to take down a big, burly boss to proceed. Beyond upgrading your team, there isn’t much going on between fights, so don’t come in here expecting a sweeping epic that will bring a tear to the eye of a teenager or anything.

What you should expect is another humongous platter of real-time battles packed with tension and plenty of opportunities to make your own strategies. In fact, the battles themselves have barely changed at all from the original game. Waves of enemies will appear from the sides of the screen. To attack them, simply drag a line from one of your characters to your chosen opponent. To use healing magic or buffs, drag a line from the caster to the intended target. To use special skills, tap on the character, then hit the icon for the skill you want. If it needs a target and that character isn’t already targeting someone, just drag that line again. To move the character, simply tap on the character and, you guessed it, drag a line to wherever you want to move to. Characters will automatically attack nearby monsters if they can, so you don’t have to be completely precise when things heat up.

The battle system is the heart and soul of the game, and it’s just as good here as it was in the first. The enemies tend to be a lot weaker than your party members, but they’ve got the numerical edge in many cases. Even when they don’t, not all of your party members are likely built to withstand direct combat. Casters are generally squishy, so if you’ve got two close-combat fighters and two magic-wielding support characters, you’re going to need to juggle things if even only three baddies show up to the party. And of course, it’s often quite a bit more than just three bad guys. Using your characters’ skills at the right time is one of the keys to success, as they need to cool down after you use them. Sure, you may want to spam that ice magic like there’s no tomorrow, but you may want to hang on to that skill that freezes an enemy in place in case something wicked this way comes. It can be tough at times, and if you don’t keep up on improving your characters, you might find yourself having trouble moving forward.

And here, my friends, is where the RPG bits come into play. There are, broadly, speaking, four ways you can power your team up. The first is by gaining levels, which happens when you collect enough experience points. Instead of the first game’s system where each character had their own distinct level, here you have an overall party level. This is a very good thing, as it encourages players to try out different teams and doesn’t punish the player if a certain character keeps getting sacked just before the end of the battle. If one character survives, they’ll all reap the rewards. So if you want to try out a samurai instead of a berserker, do so without worry. No one has to catch up, and no one will fall behind. You don’t even have to unlock the other characters this time around. Have fun.

Well, okay. That bit about no one being able to fall behind isn’t perfectly accurate. Let’s talk about the other ways you can upgrade your team. Coins are a great thing and can be exchanged for goods. Monsters carry them, and you will take them, because that’s how the world works. Rubbing the coins on yourself is not enough to make you more powerful, however, no matter how much Uncle Scrooge might believe it to be so. Instead, you need to bring those coins to the shop and exchange them for equipment. Some of it, like weapons and armor, is restricted to particular classes. Accessories, on the other hand, will fit anyone. Oh, certain effects are clearly better with some classes than others, but the game isn’t going to tell you no or where to go in this respect. Equipment will not only improve your stats, but it can also grant special effects like haste or HP regen. It’s good stuff. You want it.

Maybe what you have isn’t quite giving you the punch you’re looking for, however. The shop carries a small and generally random assortment of items that changes between battles, so you may not be able to find the more powerful version of the thing you have, either. Do not fear! You can enchant any of your equipment to give it a little more kick. You’re going to need some crystals to do that, though, and the more powerful the piece you’re trying to improve is, the more it’s going to cost you. It’s pretty much the only way to spend those crystals, so it’s not like you need to save them for a rainy day or anything.

Finally, there are your skills and talents. Each character comes with their first special skill unlocked. You can use skill points to unlock the other two, which then opens up a wide array of passive talents you can spend skill points on. If there’s a penalty for swapping characters anywhere, it’s here. I should be very clear that you can always grind more experience, gold, crystals, and skill points. Nothing will stop you from doing so, and you can even somewhat direct which resource you’d like to earn more of thanks to having a choice of battles to tackle. But there’s little doubt that swapping out a character that has a lot of skills unlocked for a fresh character is going to require you to invest a little time into the new kid.

The mission select map is pretty nice. You’ll always have a choice of a few different missions to take on, with one being at the same level as your party, one being a little lower, and one being a little higher for the daredevils out there. The boss of each area has a fixed level, so you can take it on whenever you feel like you’re ready. You’ll also eventually unlock an Endless Arena where you can battle endless waves of bad guys and see just how far you can go. I really like the way Battleheart 2 does this compared to the first game. It makes it feel more like a world and less like a menu, all without losing any of the snappiness of the original.

The mission select screen is just one of many ways where Battleheart 2 outdoes its predecessor when it comes to presentation. The visuals use the same style as the original game, but with far greater detail and richer colors. The backgrounds look wonderful, and there’s quite a variety of them. Enemies and characters alike benefit from better animations, and the big bosses really can be a sight to behold. In general, the UI has been greatly improved over the original, but I do wish Mika Mobile had taken a page from some of the games that Battleheart inspired and added a way to select characters without tapping them directly. It can be hard to pull them apart when they get bunched together, and as the game gets more difficult, every second counts more and more. I suspect the developer didn’t want to clutter the play area with too many icons, but it leaves us with that same old problem from the first game.

I haven’t even mentioned the multiplayer mode yet, which allows you to join up with up to three other players to enjoy a lovely bit of co-op monster mashing. It was a little buggy when I tested it out for this review, but I believe a patch is already on the way to address certain issues. To be honest, it’s not really something I anticipate I’ll be spending much time with, but it’s never a bad thing to have more options.

In the end, its adherence to the original game is perhaps the worst sin that Battleheart 2 commits, and it’s not much of a sin at all. The game is the safe sequel to Battleheart that the many players who fell in love with the first have wanted all along. Its changes are entirely for the better, and they’re all sensible things that never threaten the core that worked so well before. It’s a much longer, more robust game with a lot more to play around with on the whole. Best of all, it’s just a single up-front payment to enjoy it all. This game could have easily been made into a free-to-play game with all kinds of stuff to buy with real money. Mika Mobile didn’t go that route, and it just makes this tasty bowl of comfort food all the more comfortable.

The following year in September of 2016, Robot Gentleman brought 60 Seconds! to the iOS platform as 60 Seconds! Atomic Adventure ($3.99), where its silly survival formula translated pretty well to the touchscreen. Now just over three years after the game’s original launch on desktop, and Robot Gentleman have announced that 60 Seconds! has passed the one million copies sold mark, and they’ve announced a bunch of different DLC coming to all platforms. On iOS that will be in the form of the Rocket Science DLC which is slated for sometime this year. We don’t know much about what that will entail, as the only description we have of the DLC is “Get ready to face a brand new challenge mode on mobile, which will put your scavenge phase skills to the test." Hey, whatever it is I’m onboard, as I think 60 Seconds! is a really unique sort of game on the App Store.

You certainly do set out on a classic adventure. You play as Khoma, a young man on a quest to save his father from the Blue Witch of Bethem′s curse. Khoma sets out to meet with the Red Witch, hoping she can help him free his father from her sister’s curse. The Red Witch can help of course, but it won’t be easy. Khoma must collect all of the Oneiric Objects of Bethem, in the process becoming a powerful wizard.

You play the first dungeon, where you will get the initial Oneiric Object, from the secret warehouse for free. Then with a quick in-app purchase you can buy the rest of the game. I really like this model of IAP; what’s not to like about a try before you buy scenario? By the time you finish the first dungeon you will have a fair idea if you want to keep playing. The purchase to continue is really easy; an avatar pops up on the road and tells you to pay to continue, you do your IAP and he thanks you and goes away, leaving you free to proceed.

The first time I opened Stories of Bethem: Full Moon it felt very familiar, my brain was quick to make the connection back to the very first game I played on my brand new Super Nintendo. No doubt you will make the connection too. From the simple, retrogressive graphics, through to the catchy yet repetitive tunes, the influence of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is unmistakable.

GuGames have made sure their game is a highly respectful homage to a game which defined a generation of gamers. There are quests within the main story line, and hidden treasures to be found if you explore. You need to get new spells or more power to get into places, so you will be re-exploring the same areas more than once throughout the game. You collect potions, ingredients and rupees… er, sorry, gems, as you run around destroying shrubs, barrels and monsters. You also move rocks and balloons to solve puzzles and proceed through barred areas.

The game is purposefully familiar, though without the feeling of being a disrespectful, copycat attempt to make money. Rather, you feel the makers of Stories of Bethem: Full Moon have taken inspiration from a game which helped ignite their passion for gaming, much like a musician influenced by music. GuGames are taking the player back to a simpler, yet no less challenging era of RPG games, and I, for one, am more than happy to jump on the train and go with them.

The dialogue is simple and feels very contrived; again, it is my feeling this is purposefully done to reference vintage RPGs like the Zelda franchise. Especially, since the Red Witch admonishes Khoma for breaking into her house and stealing. Something we all know is the cornerstone of how you make your riches in these kinds of games. The dialogue and graphics may be plain and simple, the game itself however is not.

Stories of Bethem: Full Moon offers many hours of game play; there is exploration aplenty and you will be popping into houses and talking to people, who may give you hints about the game or send you on a special quest for them. There is plenty of weaving back and forth between locations and returning for obstacles which you did not have the skills to clear the first time.

The first time Khoma visits the Red Witch he is given a bracelet which allows him to cast a wind spell. With this you can destroy bushes and barrels as well as kill the creatures you bump into along the way. The little critters can be quite annoying; a lot of them take more than one hit of your wind spell and move fast. When you move to a different zone the creatures will re-spawn when you return. The loot from killing them is quite small, so I tend to avoid them more than kill them.

Mana is limited and as you need your wind spell to clear shrubs and barrels out of the path, killing the avoidable creatures can lead to wasting your mana refill potions. Later in the game you can collect the auras from monsters for the museum, which makes killing one here and there more worth it. The only reward I have noticed is it appears in the museum for you to go and look at.

Through the game you collect unknown medallions and once you find the Green Witch you can trade them in to upgrade you bracelet and increase the strength of your spells. The Yellow Witch will give you (for gems and ingredients) a potion to refill your health and mana at once. You will also find little dudes guarding fast travel portals you can unlock to get from place to place faster.

You will find all the traits of a good RPG adventure in Stories of Bethem: Full Moon, and I’m not going to lie, at times you will be lost as to what to do next. My best advice for when you inevitably become stuck is to stop and look around, you have possibly missed a turn off somewhere and will need to backtrack a little. If that doesn’t work, try leaving the game for a while and coming back later; a fresh pair of eyes and refreshed brain could just work it out.

GuGames really should be proud of the bounty they have put on the table with their latest game, it’s fun and full of nostalgia, everything I look for in an RPG game. Oh, and of course there is a princess, deep in her castle just waiting for you to come and see her. Make sure Link, er, I mean Khoma, doesn’t keep her waiting.

Ok, so with that out of the way, the reason I’m bringing this all up today is that a brand new update has arrived for Starman, and it’s a really cool one. It adds in a brand new “Flow Mode" to the game, which is an additional area you can unlock and play around inside endlessly. There are puzzles to discover and solve here, but it also acts as sort of a sandbox where you can explore, interact with things, change the weather, and more. Here’s a trailer showing the new Flow Mode area in Starman.

Seeing as the base game of Starman isn’t a terribly long experience, Flow Mode seems like the perfect answer for fans of the game who want more. If you’ve previously played and beaten all the levels in the regular campaign of Starman, you’ll unlock the Flow Mode for free. If you haven’t done that yet, but still want to check out Flow Mode, you can pay for that privilege and unlock it early with a 99¢ IAP. Either way, if you enjoy puzzle games that aren’t necessarily that difficult but always leave you with a feeling of “Oh, clever!" when you complete a level, and you enjoy a really atmospheric setting, I’d definitely suggest checking out Starman and its new Flow Mode. Also, until July 15th, you can try out Starman for free for the first time ever through the Apple Store (Free) app. Just head to the Discover tab in the Apple Store app and scroll down for a bit until you see the Starman promotion, and then download away!

And honestly, this kind of perspective feels a bit more natural than many 3D platformers, because think about how you navigate spaces. You consider walking through hallways, and while you are moving through three-dimensional space, it feels a lot like just walking down a corridor in a two-dimensional manner. That’s what this kind of forced-camera perspective does. Admittedly, it was originally designed for the 3DS, where the 3D view of the screen gives things a perceived depth that helps out in some cases, but it still really works on 2D screens!

For Suzy Cube, a 3D platformer on mobile, this makes it a lot easier to navigate the world. You never have to worry about the camera being an obstacle. Well, at least not intentionally, as the game does strategically hide some secrets in the landscape. But when you have these very regimented segments of levels to navigate, it prevents a lot of frustration that pops up from wide-open three-dimensional level design. More developers need to ape this kind of level design, because it works incredibly well in Suzy Cube.

It also helps that Suzy Cube has some fun level designs to play through. The pyramid levels, where you have two different paths to play through to unlock the exit, are fun in part because of their non-linearity. The three stars in each level are often hidden away in clever spots that reward you for going off the beaten path. Again, the perspective makes things feel like you’re always on the proper path, but there are just enough elements that reward you for going against the grain a bit. The only things that didn’t really work for me were a low-timer level where you often slide down snowbanks (the lack of depth perception hurts here), and the boss fights, which use the same boss with a variation in patterns.

Anyone making a 3D game with a virtual stick needs to play Suzy Cube and study how well it works. I hope the developer gives some talks somewhere, because the world needs to know how to make 3D games control this well. I think it might be the use of aggressive stopping of Suzy and a limited use of inertia. The point is that it feels great to control Suzy with the touch controls, and the gap in accuracy between the touch controls and physical controls is minimal at best. You absolutely have to play this game just to see how good a 3D platformer can feel on mobile. It’s witchcraft. I have no clue how NorthernBytes pulled this off, and I hope other developers figure out how to mimic these kinds of controls so that our 3D games on mobile all feel amazing.

Maybe you’re still a skeptic. At least you have the option of whether you want to use physical or virtual controls, as the game does support MFi controllers! Seriously, go back to touch controls after using the physical controls. The difference really is as small as it possibly could be. The game also supports the Apple TV, both with the Siri Remote and MFi controller support. However, there aren’t cloud saves, so choose your platform wisely.

Suzy Cube has several different powerups, Mario-style, that not only let you do things like slam the ground and fly around, but also discover hidden things in previous levels. For example, you see a block that has cracks in it, but you can’t break it right away. Until later on when you find out how you can break them…and your powerup hats carry from level to level. Of course, if you take damage, you lose your powerup hat, which might complicate your quest to discover what those blocks! The one downside to this system is that Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World at least had item slots so you didn’t have to find particular items each time, and you can’t just quit a level once you get the hat you want.

Suzy Cube contains five worlds with five levels each that you have to complete in order to beat the game. Then, each world has an optional level that unlocks after you collect enough stars, along with 11 levels in the Secret World. Not exactly so secret if it’s right there on the screen! Those optional levels are a lot of fun, because they really play with the mechanics of the game. One level is a Plinko board, where you have to figure out the proper path downward in order to get all three stars. Another one I like deliberately uses forced perspective to mess with your perception of where different blocks exist in 3D space. It’s a lot of fun.

Suzy Cube herself is a simple character design, but the animations go a long way toward giving her a strong sense of personality. Most everything is cubic, but again, they aren’t just anonymous enemies, they feel like they’re an alive part of the world. My favorite enemy is one that mimics your movements with a smile on your face, and you just have to trick them by jumping and then going around. Another enemy you have to knock off of a ledge, and it sweating and looking panicked when it’s near the edge is another touch of attention to detail.

Suzy Cube was in development for three years, and it’s clear just where all that time went into. Everything about the game is absolutely well-crafted to a ridiculous degree. Suzy Cube is one of the best 3D platformers ever made for mobile, and you ought to play it.

During the next year work continued on Suzy and it wasn’t until the following GDC in March of 2017 that we got another hands-on look, and again, were completely bowled over with how well it played on touchscreen and how inventive and fun the level designs were. Just about a week later Suzy got her very first official trailer, and a few months after that NorthernBytes sent out a Bat Signal for beta testers from our community. Once real-world feedback started pouring in from beta testers, that’s where Suzy really started to take shape, and in August NortherBytes inked a deal to publish Suzy Cube with prominent developer and publisher Noodlecake Games. Go Canada!

Then in September, NorthernBytes put out a really interesting blog post about making touchscreen controls feel great in a 3D platformer like Suzy Cube, and it was a really interesting read. I suggest you check it out if you haven’t. Of course, as close as Suzy was getting to the finish line, you can’t just rush development of a passion project like this, and so it turned out that for the third GDC in a row we checked in on the progress of Suzy Cube this past March. The difference this time around was that Suzy had an actual release window of spring 2018, and just a couple of weeks ago NorthernBytes and Noodlecake finally nailed down a solid release date of June 19th. And guess what? That’s today!

We’ll have a full review coming really soon, but based on all the time we’ve spent with Suzy over the years, I can confidently say that if you enjoy 3D platformers and want to marvel at just how well they can control on a touchscreen when a developer puts in the time and effort to craft them properly, then go ahead and dive right into Suzy Cube without reservation, and be sure to leave your thoughts about it in our forums.

Every death sees you starting the current level from the beginning and doing the whole thing again, which can become a little frustrating, especially if you could see the end of the level before you died. You have no choice but to keep trying and ′git gud′. A lot of the game play relies very heavily on timing, one moments delay, one movement too early, and you will be taking damage. The only real issue within Gleam of Fire is for a game which relies so heavily on the timing, the movement of the hero can be a little awkward.

The right touch controls work well, you can jump attack and dodge with no issues at all. On the other hand (its a subtle pun, don’t miss it) the left touch control for movement has a very poor ergonomic feel. It feels somewhat cramped in the left corner and I needed to hold my thumb in an odd position. As well as the cramped feel to control the vertical movement, your avatar has no acceleration or deceleration, you simply move or stay still. Personally the speed of movement is less of an issue for me than the cumbersome positioning of my left thumb. Your milage may vary on this though, particularly depending on your normal posture when holding your device while playing a game with virtual controls.

Gleam of Fire is a game with huge potential, despite the issue of horizontal movement, it is a game I keep going back to and spending sizeable chunks of my day playing. I find myself drawn into the game’s world time and time again, in large part, due to the graphics. The gothic looking design works well, everything is in shades of black and blue against a moonlight background. As you kill silhouetted creatures, their blood leaves bright streaks of red upon the blackened ground.

You play an avatar best described as an ageing Batman with a radioactive potbelly (which reminds me of a Gotham based burlesque show I recently attended where the finale was a beer bellied Batman in platform boots). You move through the world with your, one speed, Not-Batman, looking for the portal to the next level and lighting torches along the way. There are three torches hidden in each stage, each one giving you one star on level completion. You can finish the stage with out finding them all, it just means you just will be missing a star, or two for that level.

There are three worlds to get through, each with ten levels and a boss fight. Even making it through the first world is difficult, but after giving it a go every day, I made my way to that first boss fight. I′ll mention again here it isn’t an easy game. If you are finding a level particularly difficult try upgrading Not-Batman. Unless I missed some obvious directions when I started my first play-through the upgrade button can be a little difficult to find. You will find it on the top of the menu screen and you use the stars, and the little light orbs you collect through each level for upgrades. The options are very simple, health, mana, normal attack and each of your special attacks can be increased.

The levels do get progressively harder, so it is a good idea to check in and upgrade your avatar often. Just when you get use to the type of monsters you are dealing with POW, BAM, Not-Batman runs straight into something new. The awesome thing is you can run, the monsters do not track or chase you. They also do not change positions when you die and restart the level, which means eventually, you will know where things are and be able to avoid or prepare as required.

The App Store description had me squealing with excitement, clapping and cheering for a metroidvania game. It certainly had that look, had that feel, however, Gleam of Fire is missing two key components of the true metroidvania style. The first missing element is worlds do not appear to interconnect becoming one huge world you move back and forth through. The second, and in my opinion, most important ingredient missing is the ability to backtrack to previously unreachable places as you pick up new abilities and skills.

It does tick the metroidvania boxes of side view 2D graphics and rewarded exploration with hidden rooms and obstacles to find. These components combine with the visual aesthetics to make a great and highly enjoyable game, even with the two omissions from the highly sought after genre. Gleam of Fire is an awesome and challenging adventure, one I am very happy to be taking and urge you to embark upon yourself. If you are a fan of 2D platformers, challenging game-play, and the (admittedly lightly linked) metroidvania genre, you definitely want to give it a go. I guarantee, if you download it you will not be disappointed, and honestly Not-Batman could use your help, I keep getting him killed.

But if you take damage, then your POW meter drops to one bar and if you don’t get a bomb within 5 seconds, you die. Also, if you take a hit while at one bar, you die instantly. Your POW meter also steadily decreases, so if you take long routes to the bombs, you might find it takes an extra bomb pickup to activate MAX mode. The one ability you have beyond this is Time Shock. Tap the screen, and time slows down and enemies will run away from you, allowing you safe passage to where you need to go.

Silverfish DX is all about tradeoffs. Is it worth going around a horde of enemies to get to the bomb, if it leaves you in danger for a longer amount of time? But the cost of messing up is that you might have to collect three bombs to get back to MAX, and that’s assuming if you survive. Time Shock also has a cost in that you won’t get many protons from your kill with the bomb, because enemies will scatter out of the way. See, one trick to get a lot of protons from one bomb is to lure enemies to chase you near a bomb, then swing around it, and fly back into the bomb as the horde nears it, taking out a bunch at once and flying you straight into a bunch of protons. Of course, you better be sure that you have enough POW to go MAX…

The game is brilliantly tense as you play, because you always have these systems on your mind while you’re trying to just survive. Things just keep ramping up without you realizing it, and you’re making strategic decisions with each bomb. Do you go for the existing hordes, knowing that they’ll run, or for the new ones popping up that you can get to before they scatter? Do you use your Time Shock now to get to a bomb and trigger MAX mode, at the risk of not having it if you need it right after you get out of MAX? Or do you wait, and possibly wind up needing it anyway? So many decisions and tradeoffs have to be made while you play, and the game is fantastic at combining raw thrills with strategic intent. It’s the same way that it feels like Pac-Man, and it feels like Geometry Wars Pacifism, but yet…not.

Of course, you’re probably well aware of all this if you’ve played the now-defunct Silverfish releases on iPhone and iPad. What’s the difference between Silverfish DX and the old Silverfish games? First off, instead of being tied to the cardinal directions, you now have 360 degrees of movement. This makes it a bit easier to navigate through tight spots of enemies, as you now can go at an angle, and not just in a straight line! I always found being stuck in the cardinal directions to feel a bit weird when enemies could run everywhere, and this alone makes this the definitive version of the game. If you miss moving in cardinal directions, use the d-pad on your MFi controller.

One thing missing from Silverfish DX compared to previous versions is the lack of extra modes besides the default one, though they all kind of used similar rules just with different tweaks. They were nice to mix up the experience, but it’s not the most glaring omission. Also, according to the developer, barely anybody played the extra modes, so there is a reason why it’s only the one mode. Though, if you see all the enemies in the game, there might just be something new for you…

The game supports MFi controls, and they work well, though there is some latency inherent to the MFi controller standard, so you might find it easier to play with the touchscreen. Honestly, I just find them different, like the turning angle is a bit different on each one, and I’ve broken high scores set with each control method while I played, but I got 10 million with touch controls. There is a bug right now with MFi controls where you can’t activate the time burst by hitting the trigger (I also wish this power was on a face button, and not just RT) after the first play session. So, you’ll need to tap the screen to activate that power. The game also has Apple TV support!

I feel like my one complaint with Silverfish DX is that it’s kind of shallow because it is just that one game mode. It’s a good game mode, and it’s well-made. But, it’s still just an arcade high score chaser, and while surprises come in the form of enemies that you discover for the first time, you’ll get the gist of the experience rather quickly. It becomes about iteration and improvement on high scores. Perhaps you’ll love that, but just be aware of it when you’re coming in. But, I had a lot of fun with Silverfish DX, and hopefully this version lasts forever, so we don’t have to wait until 2026 for Silverfish DX’ Turbo: Championship Edition Plus.

Pocket Run Pool is, at its heart, a game of billiards. But it tweaks the pool concept just enough to feel familiar, yet with its own strategies. You have 10 balls on the table, ranging from two to 13 point values, and each pocket has a rotating multiplier: 1x/2x/4x/6x/8x/10x. So, getting the seven ball in the 8x multiplier gets you 56 points. Every ball that goes in a hole causes the multipliers to rotate clockwise, so if you want to chain together x10 scores, you’ll need to make sure your previous shot leaves you in a good position, or be willing to take a difficult shot. You get three lives per game, and you get bonus points for leftover lives.

Pocket Run Pool controls well, as you just drag left and right to aim your cue. I wish you could make tiny movements more easily, though. Tapping a button on the side will call up the cue shot, where you swipe back then forward to shoot your shot. It’s easy to hit a shot with just about the amount of power you want, but of course, some shots will require just the right amount of power. The indicator that shows how hard you’re hitting the ball you’re targeting is absolutely brilliant interface design. It makes perfect sense, and doesn’t extend too far, so as to make hitting long shots too easy.

The main game takes place in Standard Run mode, where you have your 10 balls to sink. A perfect score in this mode is 800, but this is a pipe dream to attain with regularity, unless you’re really, really good at hitting shots. It is quite possible if you get a good break, and can hit your shots well, just don’t necessarily expect to be getting it right away! Do remember that while you’re going for high scores, the game also tracks your total number of wins, so if you get into situations where you might lose the win, it might be worth eschewing high score opportunities. This mode also tracks your average across all play sessions, in case you want to track how well you’re doing across all play sessions. I sink a lot of time into this mode, just because the core game mechanics are so much fun to play with, and you can get through a round in just a couple of minutes.

The Break of the Week mode gives you one specific puzzle to try and get a high score on. The mode will track your streaks of 650+ and 750+ scores, so you can see how well you’re doing over time. This mode is a great way to learn how to hit tricky shots, as if you want to maximize your score, you’ll have to hit some difficult shots. And this mode will let you get a static setup for every time you play, so you can try to get certain strategies down pat.

The riskier half of the game comes in with Insta-Tournaments and High Stakes mode. These two modes use an in-game currency of chips, and if you run out, you have to use a Rebuy to get back in. These can be earned by watching video ads, buying more through in-app purchases, or using one of the five free ones you get for purchasing the full game unlock.

Insta-Tournaments run every few minutes, with every player that enters getting the same break. You get one shot to score a high score on this table, and the top players win chips. This mode will really test you to get more consistent, because while anyone can put up the occasional 700 round, can you do so when the pressure’s on? Even if it’s all asynchronous multiplayer, it still feels rather intense. It’s easy for standard games to feel at least a little disposable, because hey, if you lose, you can just start over. Here, with stakes on the line, it forces you to be just a bit more careful.

High Stakes mode is where the game gets weird. You have to pay 1000 chips to enter, and then do your break shot. After the break, the game randomly selects a condition, such as balls of random sizes, or death balls, or placing bumpers on the table. You have to pay an additional 1000 chips to accept the condition, 100 chips for a re-roll (with the cost increasing each time), or you can just back out, losing the 1000 chips. You can win back more than you bet for playing this mode, and since wins only count, it’s a test of your survival skills, though a multiplier of your prize increases based on how well you score. You can score low enough to where you won’t make your wager back!

Still, I’d play it really careful in this mode. This is where the rebuy system comes in. It’s not as risky as Sage Solitaire‘s (Free) True Grit mode, since you can buy your way back in, but it’s still something you might have to pay money to play again! At least you can win more credits for doing well in Insta-Tournaments (which only cost 250 credits to enter), and can watch ads for more rebuys. But it’s fun to have something where there’s the stake of losing something.

This little game is just so incredibly compelling. The controls and mechanics work really well, making it really easy to just play. The indicator that shows where a ball will go on its first impact helps out a lot. You still have to be good with hitting particular angles, and knowing how much power to use (hitting a ball too hard into a pocket can cause it to bounce around the edges and back out). If you like to just get sucked into round after round, the Standard mode is for you. But the addition of the money system, particularly with High Stakes mode’s twists, gives the player who enjoys some risk in their experience something to get out of the experience. I can also see the potential for more upgrades, particularly with new modes and new conditions for High Stakes mode that would be fun to play with.

But it all wouldn’t matter if Pocket Run Pool wasn’t fun to play, and it’s so much fun to play. The game strikes a perfect balance between being casual enough to just idly pick up and play, but requiring enough thought and strategy to remain compelling. Its modes have enough intrinsic motivation to drive you to keep going. Definitely give Pocket Run Pool a download, and see if you get hooked as I am. Send help.

Shadowmatic follows in the grand tradition of puzzlers that let you manipulate objects through the touchscreen in a relaxing and personal way, like the Zen Bound series, Blueprint 3D, and The Room series. We loved the look of Shadowmatic right from its first trailer and followed it closely during its development prior to its official release in January of 2015, and we enjoyed the game so much we chose it for our Game of the Week then. Apple liked the game a lot to, and awarded it a coveted Apple Design Award during WWDC 2015. Triada Studio has kept the game well-maintained over the years, including updating it for the iPhone X last fall, but this will be the first time in quite a while that new content is being added to Shadowmatic, and I’m pretty excited. Look for the new chapter to arrive by this Thursday the 19th.

When it comes to building sims, most mobile games go as big as possible. We’re talking about designing entire cities, countries, planets or what have you. It’s not that often that you get to focus in on a more micro level, but that’s exactly what Project Highrise ($3.99) has you do, zeroing in on just one building at a time and seeing if you can handle the economic and logistical challenges involved. If Tiny Tower and SimCity got together and had an offspring — which would probably involve lots of drafting paper and nothing carnal — this game would likely be the result.

Though you’re free to leap right into the sandbox mode or individual scenarios, your time in Project Highrise is best spent first going through the five short tutorials. Each one introduces a different important concept, beginning with basic construction. The interface works quite nicely on touchscreens, as you can simply tap and drag to move around your building, pinching to zoom in and out. The graphics are stylized but clean, and there’s never a time when you’re confused about what you’re seeing. A series of icons laid out in a bar across the bottom of the screen let you jump quickly to different construction options, while important information about your skyscraper is displayed at the top. Time can be sped up (something you’ll find yourself doing often) or paused with buttons in the upper-right corner.

As in just about any building sim known to man, money is a big deal in Project Highrise. You’ll start with a certain amount on hand, allowing you to expand your highrise horizontally and vertically, but the idea is to eventually have more revenue coming in each day than you are spending on upkeep. Once you have one 24-hour day under your belt, your money counter at the top of the screen will also let you know if you’re currently making a profit or in the red, which is a nice touch.

Depending on whether you’re tackling the sandbox or an individual scenario, you’ll have the option of creating an office building, an apartment complex or some combination of the two. Dual-zoned buildings allow you to play with the entire set of available tools, but it’s also more difficult because office workers and apartment tenants expect slightly different services — though there is some overlap between the two. For example, both apartments and sitdown restaurants require water lines running to them, an example of how the game walks a nice line between realism and playability.

Regardless of your building’s focus, the balancing act is similar the further you go. Fancier offices, businesses and apartments bring in more rent, but they also ask you for more specific conditions and services. Dwellers in a two-bedroom apartment might bring in a family of four, adding to your overall population and producing some nice coin, but they prefer to be on the upper floors, want the noise level to be kept down and would prefer your building had a laundry service in addition to having power and water lines. Similarly, a dentist might want to set up shop in your office building, but they’ll need a lower floor, power, water and phone lines and at least one pharmacy on hand.

Happily, you’ll have some boots on the ground in the form of construction workers (who might be robots, since they seem to be on duty 24/7, though they do eat, so who knows?) who occupy an office in the basement of your building. They’re the ones that tackle all kinds of tasks from building new floors to removing debris and making space usable again if you decide to bulldoze something, and while you can queue up any number of jobs for them at any given time, they move at their own speed and can be a little unpredictable when it comes to the order they decide to finish their work. That means it’s best not to get too ambitious, and since you can use the entire 24-hour day to do your magic, you’ll soon learn to wait until your office workers are gone for the day or your tenants are asleep to do anything major.

Perhaps the most satisfying part of Project Highrise is the way that everything works together in a logical, connected fashion. The workers in your building need places to eat, and thus patronize restaurants if you build them. Businesses do better when they have more foot traffic, but it’s possible to build public transit stops and launch media campaigns to boost it. The people in your skyscraper can sometimes be demanding, but there’s rarely a time when you won’t be able to figure out what to do to satisfy their desires. Whether you’ll have the resources to do it is another question, but that’s kind of the fun involved.

There are three different difficulty levels to choose from when starting a new game, which primarily affect the economic underpinnings of the sim. The hardest setting throws all kinds of money worries at you, including a smaller starting amount, higher costs and lower revenues. The individual scenarios offer a variety of different constraints to challenge you, things like building height limits, bans on the most basic offices or apartments, and even a layout that forces you to build two towers while keeping a park intact that sits in-between them. Once you have the basics down, however, you’ll pretty much have all the tools you need to handle any kind of weirdness you encounter.

Random events also pop up from time to time during your building management career, though the game doesn’t make it very clear that this is the case. Things like bad weather, city-wide construction and other twists can have positive or negative effects on your skyscraper which will subside after a certain amount of time has passed. Unfortunately, it’s not as easy to track the passage of time except within a single day, one of the few gripes that come to mind when dealing with the interface since nearly everything else is pretty intuitive.

The other minor annoyance is that the acts of laying out new floors, running utilities and setting up new spaces for rent — all things you’ll be doing a ton — can be a little frustrating to do precisely on the first try. It’s almost as if the game is too sensitive, and it’s definitely unforgiving. For example, when you want to run water lines across an entire floor, you need to tap where you want to start and drag all the way across in one motion, because if you lift, it’ll automatically end the line. There are also times when the pop-up info boxes obscure places you’ll want to lay things down, and you’ll end up closing out, dragging your building into a slightly different place and starting anew. These aren’t fun-killers by any means, and you’re not generally racing the clock, but you will encounter them during long sessions.

If you dig what Project Highrise is all about, there’s plenty of content for the initial purchase price to keep you building for quite some time. More scenario maps can be purchased if you still want more, bringing new structures, services and amenities to to the party, though they cost as much as the base game (and their cost isn’t clearly marked within the game, either). If you just want more cosmetic options, there are seasonal, holiday and geographic-themed packs available for 99 cents each that can scratch that itch.

What Project Highrise really does best is to occupy a bulider niche that hasn’t really been filled despite many previous games that have made the genre a mobile favorite for years. By keeping the focus tight but exploring a number of different facets within the single-building constraint, it’s a really entertaining way of proving that bigger isn’t always better. It’s the type of game that can easily have you starting to play, looking up later and seeing that way more time has passed IRL than you ever suspected, and that’s a nice compliment for any sim.

This is a turn-based puzzler where you move one between connected nodes on the grid-like levels, using stealth to avoid detection from the police. You move, and then the police make their move, but if you walk into their line of sight, or into a fail state position where you are one tile from them, this will happen even before the police make their move, even if their behavior indicates they will turn a certain direction, for example. Your goal in each level is to make it to the designated graffiti spot, spray paint your message of truth (or a giant cartoon dong), and then bust it to the exit, without getting nabbed by the coppers.

Where Vandals differs from the other Go games is that sound generation plays a big role in deterring your pursuers. You can whistle to draw nearby guards, though you better have a plan to book it out of there before they see you and try to capture you. The guards aren’t very smart for most of the game, thankfully, so you can just get out of their line of sight…usually. You’ll also pick up bottles that you can throw further than you can whistle, so you can create diversions. You are the loudest street artist in the history of the medium, so you will wind up drawing attention to anybody near you when you spray your latest masterpiece. So, ideally you’ll want to send your enemies far away, and then spray in peace.

A lot of the fun actually comes from making your own graffiti. You’re given a fresh canvas on each level, and while you can just use the name you put in (with a variety of different fonts) you can also draw your own graffiti. There isn’t a time limit, or any bonus to drawing custom graffiti, it’s just a neat thing that you can do. And hey, it’s a nice bit of fun.

The game offers three stars for doing well on a level: completing without being seen, getting the bonus star, and completing in under a certain number of moves. You can complete levels without any stars, though getting stars mostly just unlocks other levels, including side quest levels you can play through. While it might not make it possible to win a level with the Invisible or Turns conditions, you can do some fun things like getting cops to chase you around corners, freeing up the exit in the level for you. The cops have predictable behavior, and while the game can throw some stumpers at you, I never felt excessively challenged.

Also, the game does more than just use graffiti and street art as a convenient theme. There are photographs you can tap in some levels that will show you information on street art history, and educate you about some famous street artists throughout history. The game itself takes place in different periods of history in famous world cities, and artists from those scenes are featured in these little info cards.

Vandals supports portrait and landscape orientations, which is something more games absolutely need to do going forward. Especially for a turn-base game like this, where it feels like there’s no reason for it not to support portrait mode if at all possible. Vandals can be played one-handed on a bus or train, or just sitting back, relaxing. It’s a convenience factor that many games, especially puzzle titles, tend to overlook.

The chief problem with Vandals is that it’s extremely derivative of the Go games. There’s something rather particular about the rules, the structure, even the interconnected dots, that makes the game just feel like an unauthorized entry in the Go series. This is fine! It’s a good game series to steal from! Of course, it seems like Square Enix Montreal isn’t making any more Go games, so if you want more of this kind of gameplay, something like Vandals is what you’ll have to enjoy. And honestly, I find Vandals to a bit more enjoyable than Deus Ex Go was, particularly since Vandals has a sense of style and character that Deus Ex lacked.

The problem is that I didn’t really enjoy Deus Ex Go because it didn’t bring a whole lot that was new to the table. While I’ll certainly enjoy something like dual-stick shooters in all their variations, this turn-based puzzle gameplay is built around so many specific rules that future games built around those rules will start to feel similar. Each of the Go games added its own twists, but it feels like the concept has had diminishing returns with further entries. And Vandals, as a game that cribs from that series, winds up being an original title that still feels a bit tired. Like, I’ve been here before, I’ve seen how this all works. Sure, there’s a couple new gameplay elements, but that’s not exactly anything surprising. Live by the homage, die by the homage.

The counterpoint is that if you haven’t played the Go games or enjoyed Deus Ex Go, you’ll likely have a good time with this one. Such is the nature of these kinds of games that hew closely to their source material. And it’s certainly a credit to Vandals that it feels just like the “real" thing while also honestly having its own catches. I just can’t get over the fact that I feel like I’ve played this before. It’s not bad, just that maybe the concept needs to wait a few years before it feels fresh again.

Gosh, this game brings a smile to my face every time. There was just one problem with the US release of Part Time UFO, and that is that the game did not support the full screen of the iPhone X. As an iPhone X owner myself, I’ve come to detest any games that don’t support the full screen and are instead presented off-center with borders on the sides (or top and bottom, depending on the device orientation). It’s a somewhat petty complaint, but dagnabbit it bothers me, so I spend most of my days silently praying that all of my favorite games will eventually get updated for iPhone X. Well, I can at least cross this little gem off the list as today a new update arrived for Part Time UFO adding support for the full, beautiful screen of the iPhone X. Hurray! If our 5 star review and all my gushing isn’t enough to convince you that Part Time UFO is worth your time and money, the discussion thread in our forums is filled with tons of positive impressions, too.

I’m a huge fan of SMG’s content across all platforms, with the likes of Thumb Drift (Free) and One More Bounce (Free) nailing the compromise between a successful free-to-play monetisation with enticing and substantial gameplay. Death Squared really felt like a huge step up for the studio, and so seeing it not perform as well as the developers may have hoped is disappointing, if somewhat predictable. I really hope that SMG manage to keep up their impressive run of essential App Store titles in the future, even if they take a guise similar to their slightly older releases. The co-op puzzle action of Death Squared is a lot of fun, whether on iPhone, Switch or soon to be Android, and at a $3.99 price point I can definitely recommend giving the game a look, especially for anyone lamenting the steady demise of free-to-play mobile games. Check out Death Squared on Android later this week, and let us know your impressions of any version of the title on our forum thread.

The Bonfire is a game where you will be directly and indirectly navigating the choices of a settler who is setting out to combat a great evil. You start by gathering raw materials and making crude structures by yourself. As you build places to work and sleep, wanderers will visit you willing to live and work in your village. It is your job to apply your burgeoning workforce in a balanced way to the tasks of protection, gathering, exploration and supplying. The game cycles between day and night where night cycles tend to focus on how well fortified you are and day cycles being the primary working time. The control scheme is minimal and helps accentuate a design philosophy championed by games like Alto’s Adventure ($7.99), Monument Valley ($3.99), and Prune ($4.99).

The immediate goal set forth in The Bonfire is survival and construction, and is highly reminiscent of another fantastic mobile game Kingdom: New Lands ($4.99). The controls really mesh well into the idea that you only have control over so many things as a leader, and you can decide to get involved in defense or production but after a while you will notice your contributions pale in comparison to workers equipped with the right tools for the job. More building and crafting options open up as you build your tiny village. Workers all have specific traits as well as hunger and energy levels that all impact how well they do the jobs you assign them.

The hero of the story is measured by how effective you are at cultivating a society capable of waking an avatar to fight for your cause. Beyond the story, there is a score you will accrue based on a number of metrics including game completion speed and whether or not you played on the hardcore difficulty that the game offers. Normal mode allows you to reload the game to the day in which you die, but hardcore immediately ends the game upon your first death. There is a learning curve to surviving in The Bonfire, and even a bigger one in learning how to maximize your score. Unless you like paying for mistakes heavily, you may find the hardcore mode too punishing until you beat the game for the first time. Hardcore is where the game will find its replayability. Once you win the first time, the real challenge will be putting up the highest score possible and the largest source of points is found by leaving normal mode behind.

Gathering materials is the spark that opens up building and crafting options. Once buildings are constructed or tools are crafted, you can assign workers to new jobs. The cycle repeats itself as these new jobs open up new materials, new building and new exploration options. Any time you might feel stuck in the game, there is usually a job, building, or crafted item that has not been pursued and while you will not find any hints in game, the one I would give you is to do everything and make everything possible when you find yourself stuck and you will soon be back on your feet working towards a new objective. I can confidently say I have not found any jobs in this game that are 100% useless nor have I found any jobs that must be 100% staffed at all times, which opens up a lot of room for maximizing the efficacy of your workers.

In a lot of ways this game is a mirror of an iOS classic, A Dark Room ($1.99). Both share very similar control and society development schemes. More importantly, they both offer an interface that forces you to jump into decisions without any type of suggestion or hint of what is to come. This mystery and joy of discovery is a powerfully rewarding combination. While The Bonfire has a beautiful veneer, A Dark Room tells a slightly more compelling story (which, if you are not familiar with, it’s worth a download!). While I did enjoy the story of The Bonfire, it does not take center stage. The journey and the view are much more central to the core experience here. Seeing your workers toddle about and your guards trudge along allows you to connect with the game in a way that A Dark Room doesnt really have any analogue for.

If you decide to pick up The Bonfire, it might be for the spirit of discovery and adventure, or it might be for the artistic quality and simplicity. It may even be for the fact that so many great games seem to be comparable to this one. Whatever your decision is predicated on, there is so much here to enjoy. A certain zen tranquility exists playing the game. Even if you were to constantly be re-allocating workers to maximize production and push for a high score, the simple act of existing and working that you see the hero and the village going through has a therapeutic quality that is well worth the price tag.

Lichtspeer‘s theme is a unique combination of 1980s lasers and neon with…Germanic themes? You’re summoned by an ancient Germanic god to launch your spear of light at endless hordes of enemies across landscapes including desert temples for his amusement. The game is incredibly ridiculous, and the faux-German text littering the game, along with the German names you have to give your character, provides the whole experience a unique flavor. I also like the Lichtspeer death counter: your character name keeps increasing in Roman numerals depending on how many times you die, so you could be Helmut CXXVI, for example. It’s a subtle but funny thing that goes a long way to help out with the theme of the game. Oh, and the currency you earn, Licht Standard Denomination, is just so coincidentally acronym’d LSD. Hmm. The whole game is goofy…yet grand, in the way that you have to deal with pirate vikings and hipster ice giants.

Yet, the game means serious business. You need to have a lot of patience in order to do well at Lichtspeer. You have to contend with the parabolic physics of your spear, and some enemies have tight windows where you can hit them, or armor that means you can only headshot them. Different environmental hazards pop up, such as lasers that need to be deactivated by hitting a switch. Some enemies man spear guns, and you need to destroy them before they can get their aim down right and hit you. Each level does have multiple stages, but when one failure in a minute-or-two time frame that the game provides will kill you quickly, then you’ll have to restart that stage. A slightly off-kilter angle can doom you.

Lichtspeer does reward the player for doing rather well. Continually racking up headshots, quick kills, and long-range shots means that players can run up the points multiplier and the style percentage at the end of each level. I don’t know if it’s plausible to get a 100% style bonus, but if you want to do it, be my guest! The game makes sure that just killing an enemy is okay, but getting headshots and specialized kills, that just feels great.

The game is level-based, which perhaps is because of its nature as a console/PC title, as if it was mobile-first it would probably be more of an endless-style game. Which would be a great mode to have here! However, this does mean that the game can steadily let you learn how the controls work and introduce new enemy types, before they all start to stack up and give you a real test. There are no game overs, so when you die you just restart at the beginning of that stage, though it can be frustrating when that happens.

Lichtspeer‘s concept at its heart is really fun, but the game really shines when it starts to throw wrinkles into the equation. The touch controls make fending off enemies from both sides of the screen a bit tricky, but it’s still just a really cool scenario that feels rewarding to defeat. The enemies that detonate when you hit them a certain way make for fun targets.

When I first heard of Lichtspeer, it seemed like the ideal game for touch. Interestingly, it doesn’t use the controls I was expecting, slingshot-style like Angry Birds, but instead having you aim forward with your finger. You can wind up blocking off part of the screen with your finger, unfortunately. Also, aiming upwards, especially when you need to do it quickly against some enemies and bosses, is rather tough. The charge time to launch a spear is where much of the control weirdness will come in. It’s tough to quickly launch off a spear as you have to charge it up to get any kind of distance on it. You will frequently run into issues where you’ll need to quickly launch a spear to take out an enemy right about to hit you…but you won’t be able to launch it off. Better to use one of your abilities. I occasionally manage to accidentally trigger some of my abilities, such as the shield in particular when I’m trying to just launch a spear, or the kinda-phallic Lichtray when I’m trying to aim forward.

Ultimately, I’m curious to pick this up on Switch just to see how the game works with joystick controls instead, because the touch controls feel unnaturally difficult to deal with at times. Using a button and a stick might actually work better? Or perhaps using a mouse on PC would be most ideal. I imagine the game’s level layouts would require some tweaking in order to work with slingshot-style controls, but I’d like to see it in a future update.

Lichtspeer comes with a solid amount of content. The 13 levels alone for $3.99 would be worth it, but there are multiple difficulties to play after that, not to mention the quest for gold medals on each level. If you preordered for $1.99, you’re a freaking genius. The developers estimate about 4-6 hours, and that sounds about accurate. There isn’t an endless mode, though this would be perfect for mobile in particular. If you like replaying existing content to maximize your performance, then you’ll get a ton of fun out of Lichtspeer. Its difficulty and control frustrations mean this is only for patient players, overall Lichtspeer is a goofy good time.

HAL Laboratory did have a life before Nintendo, primarily making games for computers such as the Commodore VIC-20 and the MSX. But it’s best known for its work that came out of its partnership with the console giant. Games like Kirby’s Dream Land, EarthBound, Super Smash Bros., and Pokemon Snap were all developed hand-in-hand with Nintendo, and wunderkind programmer and once-head of HAL Laboratory, Satoru Iwata, eventually became Nintendo’s president. It’s a little strange to see HAL doing work on non-Nintendo platforms again, but I suppose if even Nintendo itself is doing it, it’s not that strange.

Most of HAL’s games since Kirby have involved the little pink puffball, but the developer has made the occasional original title here and there. On the Nintendo 3DS, they created a trilogy of great puzzle-platformers called BoxBoy!. It’s those games that come to mind when playing Part Time UFO, and not just because their star Qbby makes a little cameo. Both BoxBoy! and Part Time UFO involve taking a relatively simple, familiar gameplay mechanic and exploring it fully. In BoxBoy!, that was the old video game staple of box puzzles. In Part Time UFO, it’s about taking the idea of a crane catcher in as many interesting directions as possible. You play as a little UFO who has come to Earth and already fallen to the scourge of accumulating wealth.

In order to make ends meet, our little UFO has to take on a variety of part-time jobs. Like any of us, the UFO has to try to make do with his current skill set. Fortunately for our hero, it has something a little more useful than an undergraduate degree in the arts. Not only can it fly up, down, and all around, it also has a pretty handy claw that it can use to pick things up and drop them. But how many different kinds of jobs can you do with that? Well, as it turns out, there’s fishing, loading trucks, helping cheerleaders with their pyramids, assisting with circus performances, being a sous-chef, and many others. What can’t this UFO do? Besides picking its nose, anyway.

Each stage presents a certain scenario similar to the ones I’ve outlined above. The game will give you a primary goal, which typically (but not always) involves picking up a few things and putting them in a designated place. There are also three hidden goals, and you don’t get much more than a simple picture to clue you into their requirements. But clue in you must, because the only way to unlock new stages is to check off these hidden goals. Some of them are practically gimmes, like finishing the stage in a set amount of time. Others involve careful observation of the stage elements or a genuine show of skill. Between the varying main goals and the numerous hidden goals, Part Time UFO stays fresh a lot longer than you might expect.

Whether you find the hidden goals or not, you’ll still get paid for your work at the end of each stage. Your hard-earned wages can be used to buy new costumes for the UFO, and they’re more than mere cosmetics. Well, some of them are, anyway. New costumes will often grant some sort of advantage to the UFO, allowing it to move faster, pick up heavy objects more easily, and so on. There are quite a few costumes available, so you’ll probably be unlocking them for a while. The nice thing is that you never really need any of these costumes to succeed. They’re useful, but not required. Oh, and if you should see a certain little fellow from one of HAL’s 3DS games show up in the UFO’s apartment, make sure you tap on him.

All of this would be for naught if the core gameplay didn’t work, mind you. Luckily, HAL has done a great job of making these crane controls feel good. There are two different control layouts available. The default set uses a virtual stick to move the UFO and a button to engage or disengage the claw. The other, designed for one-handed play, has you swiping to move the UFO and tapping to drop and raise its claw. Both work well, though I’ve tended to stick to the first set-up for its more precise nature. This UFO catcher is thankfully kinder than the real things. The weight and balance of the objects you pick up is of course taken into account, but the grip of your claw is better than you would expect rather than worse. Most of the nuance comes from how you pick things up, in what order you grab them, and how you drop them. If you aren’t careful stacking monkeys, for example, the whole lot may come tumbling down.

Surprisingly, Part Time UFO is a paid up-front app with no IAPs at all. The irony of HAL taking inspiration from an exploitative style of game to make a satisfying game with no extra money required on a platform where the reverse is all to often true is not lost on me. You don’t have to side-eye any of the shop prices or goal requirements because you know that there is no other way to proceed than simply playing and improving. I doubt HAL is going to be rewarded for this somewhat bold move, but it’s still nice to see in a time where original mobile experiences without a coin slot attached are getting rarer and rarer.

The only remotely negative thing I can say about Part Time UFO is that it does end eventually. You’ll probably need to replay many of the stages to finish all of the hidden goals, but sooner or later those 25+ stages will be exhausted and all of the costumes will be unlocked. I think the enjoyable mechanics make it fun to go back to levels and see what kind of different results you can get, but some might be turned off by a paid game that you can play through in just a few hours of dedicated play. If that’s you, well, with all due respect, you can go kick rocks. Part Time UFO is great, and I hope this isn’t just a one-shot effort from HAL.

In Antihero, you run a thieves guild as you attempt to gain enough victory points to defeat either the AI or a human opponent. When I started playing the first scenario of the Campaign, I thought that the game would be all about overpowering your opponent by controlling enough territory and killing enough people. I was quickly surprised by the intricacies of the game mechanics and the depth and variations the developers have managed to weave into this digital board game.

You start the game with a Master Thief, and you gradually use that character to burgle for gold and scout the map. Using the Master Thief’s abilities, you begin to build your economy, which will get you gold and lanterns each turn. The gold can be used to hire new gang members (urchins, thugs, Saboteurs, etc) while the lanterns are used to research various upgrades, which include things like giving your Master Thief an extra turn, getting more gold per house you burgle, and many more.

The various members of your gang bring their own special abilities to the game and allow you to win those victory points. Urchins infiltrate various buildings, which then provide you with benefits per turn, Thugs can block access to various parts of the map, Gangs can take out enemies and also evict those poor Urchins, and so on. Using these various members efficiently is the difference between winning and losing. For instance, if you manage to get three Urchins in a church, you get one victory point. However, you lose that victory point if your Urchins get evicted.

Additionally, each Urchin you buy in the same turn becomes more expensive, so you might want to use Urchins to infiltrate the orphanage so that future Urchins become cheaper to buy. And if you fear your opponent will try and evict those poor Urchins from the church and cost you a victory point, you can use a Saboteur to trap that building for two turns, nullifying any eviction attempt.

The game’s many clever mechanics and ways in which the various characters interact make it really fun to play and will get your strategic gears turning. Do you try and have your gang kill more of the enemy’s thugs, since every kill allows you to upgrade that gang? Or do you instead use your gang to evict those poor urchins from the Trading House so your opponent’s lantern intake slows down? Do you upgrade your Thugs’ health and use them to isolate parts of the map (that you can then plunder more easily), or do you upgrade your Master Thief into a killing machine and wreak havoc on your opponent’s attempts to block you? Antihero offers a ton of different ways to play, and I never felt that I only had one viable way to win, which is a sign of a well-designed game.

Antihero‘s various scenarios also help add different ways to approach each match. There’s one scenario where you have to steal jewels from the Palace at the center of the map, but in order to do so, you have to place a Thug on each of the two Guard Towers. As you can imagine, these rules turn the Guard Towers into slaughterhouses and force you to time your moves carefully. Another scenario has you stealing invitations to a masquerade and using those invitations to sneak your urchins and thugs into the Masquerade Ball before your opponent does.

To win in Antihero, you have to collect a specific number of Victory points, but those victory points could come from all kinds of actions, including taking out a specific character, completing a scenario-specific action, or even buying one of the very expensive Victory points. All these variations make for a very entertaining strategy game that will keep you on your toes the whole time you play it. And the game doesn’t include dice, so you won’t have to curse your luck when you see your plan fall apart simply because of a bad dice roll.

Antihero offers plenty of content to keep you occupied, including a long Campaign, a Skirmish mode that can be played against an AI opponent or in local multiplayer, and online multiplayer—which offers both synchronous and asynchronous modes. The Skirmish mode is highly customizable and really fun to play. The Campaign also acts as a great tutorial that walks you through the game’s mechanics and even some of its strategies, although there’s still plenty to discover for yourself.

Visually, the game is a real looker. The cartoonish characters with their oversized heads are charming (even when they are gutting someone), and the maps are colorful and well designed. There are also some great animations when characters are idling on the map, including plenty of side glances. The buildings don’t look that sharp when you zoom all the way in on the iPad, but that doesn’t detract much from Antihero‘s great art direction. The music is also fun as are the various sound effects, including the sounds of clubs on skulls.

Antihero plays very well on the touchscreen, although the game doesn’t offer an undo function, which can be an issue when you accidentally lose an action point because you tapped on the screen without intending to. And it’s often unclear how far your Master Thief can move while scouting, which—combined with the lack of undo—can mess up your move. The game also doesn’t offer a way to watch a replay of your opponent’s move (without exiting to the menu and returning to the game), which can be an issue because you’ll often get distracted when playing on your phone on tablet. And Antihero doesn’t offer the ability to remove or speed up the various animations (like money flying to your money pile or the burgling animation), which can add up over time. These aren’t major issues, though, and don’t detract from the overall quality of this really entertaining game. But I would like to see some of those issues fixed.

Antihero is a premium game with only cosmetic IAPs, and for $3.99, it’s definitely a steal. The three IAPs are just skins for your various characters, but they are quite fun. The one IAP adds four Master Thief skins from the upcoming Armello game, the other one adds four skins based on literary characters, such as Sherlock Holmes and Tiny Tim, and the last one turns your Master Thief into Oliver Twist.

If you’ve been looking for a fun but challenging digital board game with a lot of depth and a great visual style, Antihero is the game for you. There’s plenty of content to play through and clever strategies to figure out, and all of that is dressed in a lovely art style. Now go take out all those street urchins and take over the town; just know that you’re in for a challenge and will have to plan carefully and execute at just the right time.

Antihero is a turn-based strategy game that has you playing, as you could probably guess from its title, as the bad guys in a Victorian-era setting. You’ll run a guild and hire a gang of ruffians who do your evil bidding like bribing, stealing, blackmailing, and even murdering in order to take over the city. There’s a story-driven campaign mode as well as skirmish battles against AI opponents for single player, and both ranked and casual PvP modes for online multiplayer. The online is even cross-platform with the desktop version that released back in July, so hopefully that means there’s already a good player pool of opponents to square off against. We’ll be diving more into Antihero now that it’s finally out, but if you’ve been waiting years to get your hands on this one you can grab it right now with the link below and share your thoughts about it in our forums.

Set in the fictional Arcadia Bay, you play as Max Caulfield in this adventure. Max is a high school student at Blackwell Academy and the story begins with her having a nightmare. This nightmare sets the pace for what is about to happen over the next few episodes but she has no idea yet. After waking up, you get your first glimpse at school life and are introduced to how interactions work here. I love the pencil and marker animated look the UI has here. In fact the tone of the full experience reminds me of a good indie film with some aspects borrowed from TV shows like The O.C. and Scrubs. Some of the dialogue is cringeworthy and I love it. After the opening section Max discovers her gift in a particular incident. You can rewind time and this plays a big part of the story.

Rewinding time isn’t just a way to redo decisions but a way to alter the story for the better or in some cases worse. There are some basic point and click adventure game puzzles here and some of them even require you to see a situation play out badly before using the time rewind to set things straight. I love how it affects dialogue letting you get a glimpse at all possible outcomes. Another great thing you will notice about Life is Strange is that decisions will actually make a big difference in the story as episodes go by. These aren’t just added for show.

Photography plays a big part of the experience as well. Max can use her camera at certain locations to take optional photographs. These act as collectibles here. Some of them are pretty obvious initially but there are some super obscure ones. I don’t want to spoil the locations or the photographs but I had to use a guide back when this originally released to get 2 of the optional photos. I encourage everyone to explore as much as possible because the locations here are very well done. Even the hallway has so many nice touches when it comes to small things like graffiti and flyers stuck on the walls.

I mentioned indie films before and this feel extends to the visuals as well. Dontnod’s visual direction here is stunning. There are obviously a few low resolution textures given this is a console port even on the iPad Pro I played on but the combination of the great lighting and the lovely art results in something memorable and great looking. On comparing it to the PS4 version I played before, characters have some low resolution assets but the overall feel is the same. It has been great replaying this on the iPad and iPhone. The only real complaint I have for visuals is the lack of proper lip sync. This was fixed to some extent through updates but it still isn’t great.

Music and voice acting are definitely the highlight of the experience here. The use of licensed music for the opening credits as you walk through the hallway is fantastic. This game reminded me how much I enjoy the use of licensed music in games when done well. While the tracks from Syd Matters and Jose Gonzalez are great, the icing on the cake is Jonathan Morali’s score. On its own, it could easily be the score for a film like Juno.

While the lip sync has some issues, the voice acting itself is great. Hannah Telle and Ashly Burch did fantastic with their roles here and it was hilarious listening to some of the cringey dialogue for the first time in over a year as I replayed this again.

Outside of the small visual issues, the iOS port has a few problems. For one, controller support is basically non existent. Pairing my Steel Series Nimbus and switching the controls in game to a Joystick control resulted in the controller only working for movement using the left analogue stick. Nothing else worked. Thankfully the touch controls are great but take some time to get used to. Moving in and out of rooms or moving to a new area resulted in some slowdown on my iPad Air 2 but the iPad Pro 9.7 could handle everything almost perfectly. Life is Strange supports seamless iCloud sync which I took full advantage of while playing on the iPhone 7. Another thing to note is Life is Strange runs full screen on both iPhone and iPad. There are black bars for cutscenes on iPad though since those were originally widescreen on the target hardware it launched on. The in game journal also has black bars on iPad since they couldn’t be bothered to redo the art for it for the iPad 4:3 screen.

Since this is the first episode, Dontnod did a great job with making me hate the episodic format upon release. The first episode literally had me craving for more and the wait for episode 2 was unbearable. You won’t need to worry about that because Episodes 2 and 3 are available right now via in app purchase with the remaining episodes launching early next year. I hope the visual issues and some performance issues are ironed out because this could end up being the best way to experience Life is Strange. The lack of proper controller support is baffling because this exists on multiple consoles. Out of all the point and click adventure experiences available today, Life is Strange is my favourite by a long shot. I hope this does well for Square Enix so they can port Life is Strange: Before the Storm as well.

I like the game’s visuals, and I’m always up for playing games that emphasize tactility, since touchscreens are great at representing that. The whole concept of the game is different enough from The Room to feel like a different experience, and some of the puzzles are associated with real-life killers (the Zodiac for instance), which should make Riddlord intriguing to play. Riddlord is out now and costs $3.99.

Ava plays much differently and has access to all sorts of cool toys to help you work your way through her 10 new levels and side story. The DLC pack and new episode can be accessed through the pause menu during the regular game, and it will set you back $2.99 should you choose to buy it. While there’s been no indication that there’s more in store for Space Marshals 2 after this Ava Missions DLC, I’d happily pay for any more content updates like these as long as Pixelbite continues to make them. Even if this is it though, I’m perfectly happy to see new content in one of my favorite games that I thought was done getting new content. So if you enjoyed Space Marshals 2 and figured you were done, grab the latest update and consider buying the new DLC pack for an extra dose of an extra great game. As an added bonus, Space Marshals 2 is currently a buck off to celebrate the new update.

You are the 77^th and final Returner, a group of astronauts who have been cryo-sleeping in orbit, waiting for the day they could re-activate a sleeping group of humans to resume human civilization and re-population after being absolutely decimated by an alien species. The fight seemed pretty one sided based on the aftermath. Like, pimply middle school kid vs Brock Lesnar one sided. And in addition to that, 75 of the returners are kaput. Done-zo. It’s just you and Colonel Ling, number 76. Colonel Ling was the first to wake up and headed off to the ship ahead of you, but dangerously leaves floating video diaries strewn about the ship to give you context and story. Considering the first one you find is right next to an open void and could have easily floated out to space, her planning gives me pause, but that’s just the start of it, and kind of beside the point. The real reason we’re here is puzzles. Lots of puzzles.

So I wasn’t kidding when I likened this game to The Room. Mechanically it is pretty much the same, as you explore an on rails set of points with the freedom to look around and touch stuff from those fixed spots. Some would call this The Room in Space, but I don’t want to diminish it with that comparison. The Room may have been a giant inspiration, but the games keep very separate identities. For one, the puzzles here are far more abstract. Rather than building on previous puzzles in an intricately linked series, they’re more disconnected, and made up of line drawing, pattern matching, block sliding, rotating, etc. All in the guise of alien tech. Even the very first door, which is a kind of tutorial door, seems too ludicrously convoluted to actually be a functional piece of a ship, so it’s best not to think about all that very much. It’s all just dressing for puzzles, in the end, and doesn’t make much sense.

The puzzles are good. Not great, but good. Something like 20 percent were challenging with the rest falling between easy and adequate. You can activate helmet AI hints, but I turned them off at the start. Honestly, the real star of the show here is the environment. The graphics are jaw dropping at times. Great lighting and particle work supported by decent sound design and a soundtrack that was vaguely reminiscent of FTL ($2.99) at times. It’s weird for the star of a puzzle game to be the graphics, but it’s the one aspect that continually impressed me throughout. I just barely made the minimum requirements with my iPad Air 2, though our forums report some earlier devices working as long as iOS 11 is installed. Anyway, the puzzles come in a pretty wide variety, as you power-up consoles, doors, bridges, and other ridiculously advanced devices. The aliens here and their tech are photonic and crystalline in nature. Basically everything is light and crystals. I don’t know if being one of these aliens lets you bypass all these puzzles, because honestly, even though I said not to think about it too hard, I can’t help it. Making people solve intricate pattern puzzles to just turn something on makes me chuckle with how silly it is.

Speaking of that, the story in its current state is a bit disappointing. For one, there seems to be no good justification so far for Colonel Ling to have gone on so far without you, solving all these puzzles only to disable them because something starts following her. I don’t know if she actually woke up weeks ago or what. The aliens themselves are the main point of intrigue and interest. How they work, what they want, how they build this tech, and so on. The last room of the game seems to build up to a major reveal, and kind of does, but then it just ends on a total cliffhanger with a black screen thanking you for playing and telling you that more content is on the way. So hopefully when the story is finished it will be great, but right now it’s all promises and little to no delivery, which is mildly worrying. As an aside, the voice acting of Ling was just a bit too wooden for an ‘amazed and shocked’ scientist. I don’t know if it was second language barriers or what.

All that said, I am game to keep playing. If I wasn’t a sci-fi lover expecting more of a story, I probably wouldn’t have been disappointed by the story and just enjoyed the solid puzzles and fantastic visuals. And the game does a wonderful job of planting those seeds of wonder and inquisitiveness. As you explore this alien ship and get hints of their culture and even their biology, it creates a genuine sense of awe and intrigue for those players like me who are highly susceptible to that kind of content and in that frame of mind. This is the debut game of the creative Copenhagen based Fantastic, (yes, actual studio name), and what a debut it is. I’m looking forward to seeing this game completed, and whatever else they put out in the future.

The story here is that in the distant future, there’s an island divided neatly down the middle into two countries. They have a very uneasy alliance, with war just one bad move away at all times. In the middle of the two countries sits a special hotel with an onion soup that’s famous far and wide. A VIP guest arrives to try to get his hands on the soup recipe, and things quickly start to get out of hand. Before the night is through, every guest of the hotel will have to learn the meaning of love and peace. If they survive, anyway. Got all that? It’s not really so important, particularly when you’re just starting the game. But it doesn’t hurt to know.

Million Onion Hotel is the brainchild of Yoshiro Kimura, best known to Western gamers for titles such as Little King’s Story and Dandy Dungeon. He has always marched to the beat of his own drum, and that’s certainly on display in this game. As he also did with Dandy Dungeon, Kimura has pulled together a lot of familiar elements to make something entirely unusual, wrapping it up in a bizarre yet compelling story that plays out in brief cut-scenes during the course of the game. While Dandy Dungeon was a bit of a long haul, however, Million Onion Hotel can be decidedly brief once you know what to do. It feels more arcade-inspired, even as the meta-game requires you to play multiple times to unlock a special ending.

Okay, but what do you actually do in this game? This is a fast-paced puzzle game where you’re presented with a five-by-five grid that represents the hotel. Various objects and creatures will make their way onto the grid, beginning with simple onions that spring up from the ground. While many objects vary in terms of how you need to interact with them, most of them can be removed by tapping on them once or twice. Once you do, the square underneath them will change color to red. Make five red squares in a row and you’ll be rewarded with a time extension, clearing the board and putting you to the job of doing it all over again.

At certain intervals, you’ll run into boss fights where you need to collect and use knight onions to whittle down the boss’s life bar before they can run out your clock. The enemies get harder and appear more often the longer you go on, and more dangerous and direct threats to your timer will appear frequently. Run out of time, and that’s the ball game. Your score will be tallied and any cards you’ve unlocked will be awarded to you. The game ramps up so quickly and severely that you’ll likely be pawing at your screen like a maniac by the end of the session. And that would be your first mistake.

Like the titular hotel, there’s more to Million Onion Hotel than initially meets the eye. For example, the later bosses will seem nearly impossible to beat if you just walk into them cold. But what else can you do? You’ll probably notice the fruits and hearts that are tallied at the end of your game, but where do you get them? If you go into the sub-screen to read the cards you’ve earned, and you should because the translated notes are delightful, you can check out the requirements you need to satisfy to unlock the others. Wait, I can rescue people? I didn’t even see people! How does that work?

With its zippy pace, Million Onion Hotel pushes the player into sloppy play, but it also strongly hints that there’s something else you need to be doing. You’ll probably sort out the fruit thing easily enough by chance or by paying attention to the tutorial. Simply, if you can make more than one line at a time by tapping on an object, the background will shift and some fruits will appear. Keep following that train and you’ll soon realize that you can collect extra knight onions and rescue characters by making strategic matches, which results in a boosted score, more unlocked cards, and some stockpiled attacks to give you a leg up on the next boss you fight. It’s essential to learn this way of playing if you actually want to see all the game has to offer.

Your first serious goal after you’ve learned the ropes will likely be to survive long enough to see the whole story play out. After that, you can try to unlock all of the special cards, some of which have some tricky stipulations. Finally, when all else is finished, the game settles in nicely as an enjoyable score attack. Million Onion Hotel is frankly so frenetic that there’s always room to improve your score. I imagine many players will hit their own skill ceiling and, provided they’ve seen at least the main ending, call it a day there. In that sense, Million Onion Hotel isn’t quite as replayable as other puzzle games might be.

The game shines the brightest while it’s still showing you all of its tricks and oddities. The cut-scenes are bizarre and go in unexpected and sometimes inexplicable directions. The new enemies are often quite off-the-wall, and their accompanying sound effects and animations can be very amusing. Even the way the playfield evolves as you make your way through the story is neat, but can only surprise you once. Don’t get me wrong: there are secrets packed within secrets here, but the novelty of the game’s many quirks is at its most effective on that first playthrough. At some point it settles down from being a trippy experience into just being a cool game.

If you’ve got an appetite for unusual games, have good reflexes, and a keen ability to assess patterns quickly, Million Onion Hotel was made just for you. If you don’t? Well, you’ll probably have a good time with it anyway. It can be really confusing at times, but usually in a good way. As iOS gamers, we’re fortunate enough to have a wealth of stylish puzzle games with personality to burn, but I can promise you that none of them are as adorably eccentric as this onion-plucking pleasure cruise.

Runic Rampage is one of those classic cases of a game that was seemingly destined for a mobile release, as its procedurally generated level structure and fast-paced hack ‘n slash action is perfectly suited to a more portable guise. With a vibrant aesthetic and a whole lot of charm through its gratuitous violence, Runic Rampage looks like an immensely enjoyable premium mobile romp, in a genre that has been dominated by low-effort free-to-play alternatives. If the virtual controls are good enough to do its source material justice, Runic Rampage is certainly worth a look for action gaming fans – considering the publisher’s familiarity with the genre, there should be nothing to worry about at all. If you have any strong opinions on the game, or if you’re looking for more impressions on Runic Rampage, be sure to head by our forum thread.

Destroy the evil at the heart of a haunted manor! As an orphan, you discovered your ability to commune with the spirit world and ghosts. When your uncle Kent mysteriously disappears, you’ll embark on a journey find out what really happened. With your trusty companion Devanand at your side, you make your way to Darnecroy Manor, where Kent was last seen. It is…The House.

Within the manor, you’ll encounter the master, Lord Bastian Reaves; his mysterious servants, Oriana and Loren; and the thousands of spirits teeming around and in this haunted mansion. But will you shatter the power that binds the ghosts to the House, or claim it for yourself? Can love bloom in a haunted house? Most importantly, how will you escape, when the House comes for you?

Sounds like the perfect thing to turn out all the lights and cuddle up with heading into the Halloween weekend, no? You can expect to find a review for Heart of the House from our own gamebook afficianado Shaun just as soon as he can find the dang time for it, but if you generally enjoy interactive fiction or the previous releases from Choice of Games it seems like a pretty safe bet to check this one out. Also, if you weren’t around during the Nissa days at TouchArcade, check out her archive of stories she wrote for us between 2011 and 2014, nearly 350 in total! She was one of the most universally loved writers both by readers and our staff, and we’re thrilled to see her latest project come to fruition with Heart of the House. Finally, if you want to talk about this latest release or just swap your favorite Nissa stories, you can do so in the discussion thread in our forums.