Samurai Shodown! 2 (1999)

Picked up my NGPC for the first time in a long while and decided to start with this one. What SNK accomplished here all those years ago is still really impressive. Up until the NGPC, fighting games on handhelds never got it right for me. Even on the more powerful GBA, fighters were pretty much unplayable for me. That they were able to do this on this little handheld with just two buttons?

The game is not perfect. A training mode would be nice and, like most NGPC games, the music leaves a lot to be desired. I've tried a few characters so far. As with most SamSho games, Haohmaru seems to be my character. I also enjoyed playing with Jubei. Hanzo is definitely not for me in this particular iteration.

I also have this game on the Switch (it was a preorder bonus for the newest Samurai Shodown game). I still have not played the Switch pocket version, though it's hard for me to imagine it being better than the original. The NGPC's clicky stick just makes this feel so good to play, but it would be nice it not need a direct light source to play. The main issue with this system is its lack of a backlit screen. Given enough light, however, I think the display really looks good.

All the SNK fighting games on the Neo Geo Pocket Color look pretty much the same, using cutesy chibi sprites for all the characters. But there's still something unique to each one, when you actually start to play them. My favorite series from SNK has always been Samurai Shodown, so I wanted to start with that one for my dive into this underrated handheld.

Samurai Shodown is less about hitting button combos quickly for all the different moves, and more about strategizing and careful timing. There are fourteen characters with unique weapons and abilities, my favorite being Shiki (the teleporting ninja girl). The backgrounds look pretty cool in this game, but the coloring for the characters is a bit weird. It's a fun fighting game though -- easy to get into, tough to get good at. One cool thing for replayability is the inclusion of special cards you can earn. Using these cards will alter the stats of your character in various ways, giving you slightly different experiences when you play through the game multiple times. Completionists can try to collect all the cards, each of which features a nice little sprite artwork of the characters.