On November 1, 1999, the game division of Toshiba-EMI spun-off into a company named Hamster Corporation, and from its very conception the entire purpose of Hamster has been to re-release video games. It started off with your standard physical re-releases of PS1 games, like Overblood, Magical Drop F, Shienryu (a.k.a. Gekioh: Shooting King), & Wolf Fang, before moving into new releases of old arcade games on the PS2 through the Oretachi Game Center Zoku series, & then helping release PS1 & PS2 games digitally on the PS Store via the "PS Archives" line, better known as "PSOne/2 Classics" internationally. What people know Hamster for the most today, however, is the Arcade Archives series, which strives to release the original arcade versions of various old-school games to modern formats via the absolute best emulation possible, and "ACA" has been the first ever home release many of these games ever received; most of it is only available on PS4, but the Switch has been seeing some games as well. Starting back in May of 2014, Arcade Archives has since released (& is planning release of) 83 arcade games, but after just two years Hamster started a spin-off of this series, one with a more laser-targeted focus.
On October 27, 2016, Hamster released The King of Fighters '94, the first in the ACA Neo Geo sub-series, which would be solely dedicated to re-releases of games originally put into arcades via SNK's Neo Geo hardware; this line is available on PS4, Switch, Xbox One, & Windows. Take note that these re-releases are specifically of the MVS versions released in arcades, unlike the Wii Virtual Console, which re-released the AES versions for home. As of this article, Hamster has since released (& is planning release of) 95 Neo Geo titles, which is more than the main series, and with only 156 games ever officially released for the hardware, that means that roughly 60% of the entire Neo Geo catalog is now available for purchase on modern consoles, which is amazing. In fact, similar to the main series, ACA Neo Geo has resulted in the first-ever home releases of some games, like Gururin, Prehistoric Isle 2, Zed Blade, & ZuPaPa!. Now while I'm sure Hamster's ideal goal is to eventually release all 156 games, I'd imagine that some just aren't going to be possible, due to various reasons. For example, licensed games like Eight Man, Legend of Success Joe, & Chibi Maruko-chan: Maruko Deluxe Quiz might be too unlikely to happen, while untranslated & Japan-centric titles like the various mahjong, shogi, & quiz games may either never see re-release or will simply remain Japan-exclusives; to be fair, Hamster has released Japanese-only games internationally via the main line, like Ikki.
Still, even after all of that, I found six games that I feel are longshots for ACA Neo Geo, but still have some hope of a chance for them to see inclusion one day. Also, I found an unreleased, 157th Neo Geo game that could possibly see its first ever official release.
Hamster really takes Arcade Archives seriously & makes every effort to work with various third party companies to make releases happen, and has even bought the rights to Nichibutsu, UPL, NMK, & Video System's entire catalogs in order to keep their games from becoming lost & forgotten. One company that hasn't signed on board as of yet, though, is Visco Corporation, which left video games back in 2001 & has since focused on slot machines & producing televisions. While "Visco Games" is certainly a small name in the history of gaming, the company was actually the biggest third-party supporter of the Neo Geo during its life, developing & releasing 13 games. Today, some of these games have become hyper-cult-classics, like Captain Tomaday or Neo Drift Out: New Technology, & Visco even worked with Taito & UPL to produce the Puzzle de Pon! games & Neo Mr. Do!, so getting Visco on board for ACA in general is likely something Hamster is looking to do already. Still, if I have to choose one Visco title to include in this list, then it's what is easily the best game in the company's catalog, Breakers Revenge.
Originally location tested in 1994 under the names Tenrin no Sho/Book of the Shining Heavens: Chicago & Crystal Legacy, Breakers is a 2D fighter from late 1996 that, on the surface, looks to be nothing more than "Street Fighter on the Neo Geo", and I mean that very strongly. While Capcom wound up suing Data East back in 1994 over how much Fighter's History took from Street Fighter II, Visco Games wound up being even more blatant, with many of its characters being shamelessly copy-pasted from Capcom's iconic lot. Thankfully though, and really surprisingly, Breakers actually stands as one of the Neo Geo's absolute best fighters, which is amazing considering that the hardware was flooded with the genre to biblical proportions. Gameplay is fast, combos are easy to connect, the fighting is Capcom-esque in all of the best ways, and there's even a neat bit of a metagame with the titular mechanic, breakering. In short, every character has certain moves that can be "breakered", or allow the opponent to counter while in hit-stun (i.e. you can punch back right after being punched), which adds some extra risk-vs-reward to the gameplay, especially if you're fighting against someone who knows exactly which of your moves can be breakered out of. In mid-1998, Visco released Breakers Revenge, an update that added one more character & offered some minor balance tweaks to the rest of the roster, making it the definitive version of the game. In fact, Breakers Revenge still sees competitive play to this very day, especially in Japan, even though only the OG version ever saw a home release back in the day, & only in Japan.
To be fair, Breakers Revenge is probably the most likely of my picks to eventually see inclusion to ACA Neo Geo, especially since Visco has since been more open to licensing its catalog out. In 2015, French retailer Neo Ayato worked with Visco to give Breakers Revenge its first ever Neo Geo AES release, French indie publisher JoshProd officially licensed both (OG) Breakers & 2D hack-&-slasher Musashi Ganryuki for official release on the Dreamcast in 2017, & Brazilian company QUByte plans to release Vasara HD Collection next year, giving two of Visco's final video games their first ever home releases. Therefore, I see Visco working with Hamster as something that will eventually come to be, and there are some really neat titles to look forward to in that case. When that happens, I hope we'll see a definitive release containing not just Breakers & Breakers Revenge, because there's really no point in selling them separately, but also Tenrin no Sho: Chicago, if only for the fun of it; reports do say that it plays somewhat differently, with only one level of super meter & a shared command for supers.
[9/2019 UPDATE: Not directly related to the ACA Neo Geo line, but QUByte Interactive announced after the release of the Vasara Collection that its next Visco collaboration will be the Breakers Collection, containing both games, which is set for release in 2020. Therefore, you can technically count this entry as having been fulfilled.]
The Neo Geo AES was (& still is) infamous for its massive price point, and part of that was because SNK didn't originally intend for it to be released to the public; it was meant for public establishments to rent out, but wound up becoming more popular than expected. Therefore, in late 1994, SNK offered a more cost-effective option, the Neo Geo CD, which traded in the bulky & expensive cartridges for slim & cheaper optical media. While the system's single-speed drive was fine for the smaller games that were initially released, as Neo Geo games got larger those load times became longer & more frequent, & in 1997 the system was discontinued, alongside the Neo Geo hardware itself; the final game would be The King of Fighters '99 in December 1999. Still, during that time, some publishers decided to skip over the AES & instead make the NGCD the sole home release for certain MVS titles, like the previously mentioned Neo Drift Out, & there are even about eight games that are 100% exclusive to the CD variant; I say "about" due to the fact that Neo Geo CD Special & KOF '96 Neo Collection aren't really "games". This shouldn't deter Hamster in any way, though, because the hardware in the NGCD was the same exact thing as the original Neo Geo, minus the disc drive, and even though they aren't exactly "arcade" games, I hope that we will eventually start seeing some NGCD exclusives in the ACA Neo Geo line. If that comes to pass, then there's one game I'd definitely love to see come out, Crossed Swords II.
No, I didn't pick Samurai Shodown RPG, and it's mainly because that game would require a lot of first-time translation, which puts it out of contention for this list; also, my pick is more arcade-y, anyway. The original Crossed Swords was developed by ADK in 1990 & worked like a fantasy adventure take on Nintendo's iconic Punch-Out!, where you played as a knight who had to wait for openings in his enemies' defenses before assaulting them with your sword or magic; it was also considered a spiritual successor to The Super Spy, which played similarly. It took a few years, but ADK would finally release a sequel in 1995, & decided to make it a CD-exclusive. Crossed Swords II played more or less the same, but expanded on the gameplay by giving players the ability to pick between a male knight, a female warrior, & a male ninja, who all offered their own advantages & weaknesses. While the original game is more well known, & even was a major inspiration for 2010 WiiWare game Rage of the Gladiator, those who have played it generally agree that the sequel is the better game, & today the Japan-only CD-exclusive goes for high prices online.
The interest in Crossed Swords II even resulted in homebrew developer Neobitz converting it to be playable on AES hardware, complete with a highly limited physical release & even some bugs fixes; obviously, though, this was not an official re-release. Still, if some fans can make something like that happen, then Hamster should be able to theoretically release some Neo Geo CD-exclusive titles via ACA Neo Geo, and hopefully that will one day happen.
To most people, the Neo Geo is filled with nothing more than SNK-developed games, and that would be understandable; it's not like Capcom licensed out its CP System hardware to other developers. The Neo Geo did have its share of third-party development, however, though the most prolific of them would only be ADK, Data East, Visco Games, & Video System. All others, like Taito, Sunsoft, or Technos, only had maybe two or three games for the hardware; some, like Tecmo, Takara, & Wave, only released a single game. Hudson Soft was in the latter category, only ever releasing three games for the Neo Geo, two of which were Bomberman games. As for the third, Hudson went to a less likely, but actually very fitting, franchise, Red Entertainment's Tengai Makyou, better known as Far East of Eden internationally. While the franchise is primarily RPG-driven, it does have a couple of fighting games, both released in 1995. One was Tengai Makyou: Karakuri Kakutoden/Far East of Eden: Clockwork Combat Tale for the PC-FX, which was an FMV fighting game similar to Hudson's earlier cult-classic, Battle Heat. The other was Tengai Makyou Shinden, or Far East of Eden: Kabuki Klash, which is my third pick for this list.
Ostensibly a crossover between the first two games in the franchise (Ziria & II: Manjimaru), though only in terms of the heroes (the final bosses are solely from the first game), Kabuki Klash is a weapons-based 2D fighting game in the mold of Samurai Shodown, complete with the ability to disarm your opponents & a character who throws items onto the field that you can use. Dig deeper, though, & you'll see where Hudson & developer Racdym (now known as Racjin) made their game into its own beast. While "SamSho" tends to be more methodical in its execution, Kabuki Klash is much faster paced, with simpler commands for special moves, & a magic system for large & powerful supers. While it may not be one of the absolute best fighters on the Neo Geo, mainly due to the sheer competition, it still remains a really fun, charming, & enjoyable game in its own right. Kabuki Klash is also the sole entry in the Far East of Eden franchise to ever see an official English release; GaijinWorks wanted to bring over the Xbox 360 remake of Ziria a decade later, but in the end couldn't. If nothing else, Konami (which now owns all of Hudson's properties) should continue its working relationship with Hamster & put all three of Hudson's Neo Geo games out on ACA Neo Geo It's not a big contribution in the end, but Bomberman & (especially) Far East of Eden do deserve the attention here.
Out of every entry in this list, this one is easily the most mysterious of all, especially since it seems like SNK only handled the marketing for this game; at the very least, SNK did the actual distribution for all other Neo Geo games, even third-party. Released in 2000, Nightmare in the Dark was the sole game developed by AM Factory (no relation the Sega's AM game divisions), was co-designed by Hisanori Takeuchi (a former Kaneko designer who would later join Sacnoth/Nautilus for the latter two games in the Shadow Hearts series), & directed by Akihiko Uto, a former Kaneko producer. It was distributed by pachinko & sticker machine manufacturer Gavaking/Eleven, with this being the company's sole video game release, before becoming a subsidiary of Chugai Mining Company in 2001. Needless to say, the game never saw an official home release, so any covers you see online, like the one above, are nothing more than fanmade ones made for unofficial cartridge releases; I'd say that the like of the title on said cover is a blatant giveaway. It really makes one wonder just how many MVS carts of Nightmare in the Dark actually exist, and if the rights still exist in any way for Hamster to even make an ACA Neo Geo version possible in the first place.
So why even include this game in this list, then? Well, it's actually a rather fun single-screen puzzle/platformer, and with a slick visual style, too. You play as a gravekeeper (or two, if you've got a friend) who has to take out all of the enemies on the screen by hitting one with fireballs until it becomes a giant fireball, which you can then launch around the screen, hoping to hit other enemies to instantly take them out & clear the screen. Yes, Nightmare in the Dark is a blatant copy of Toaplan's Snow Bros. from 1990, but it certainly wouldn't be the only one for the Neo Geo, as Face's ZuPaPa! would do very much the same in 2001, & even Visco had its own take with Bang² Busters around the same time! Anyway, while AM Factory's take on Snow Bros. may not necessarily be the best on the hardware, especially since it's only 25 stages long, it's generally considered to be the best looking, with a visual style that can't be beat. Also, while ZuPaPa! actually just came out recently, & if Visco gets involved with ACA Neo Geo then Bang² Busters is likely a guarantee, Nightmare in the Dark is a much larger question mark, which in turns makes this a perfect pick for this "longshot" list. Obviously, AM Factory doesn't exist anymore, and who knows where the right to the game currently exist; hell, for all we know, Chugai Mining Company might still have the rights! Still, seeing this game be given a proper home release for the first time ever would be really cool, so one can only hope Hamster can pull it off & just outright buy the rights to this game.
The story of the death of the original SNK Corporation & how it eventually transitioned into SNK Playmore can be a bit of a confusing one, so here's a quick rundown. At the start of 2000, SNK got purchased by pachinko company Aruze, after a run of declining profits. Eventually, employees started seeing the writing on the wall, and many started leaving SNK. Some went to Capcom, others went on to form Dimps, and in 2001 the founder of SNK & other executives would form Playmore; these are all relatively well-known, however. The one that isn't as known is the group of employees who left & formed their own studio, Brezzasoft. Effectively, this last studio would be the one most associated with the Neo Geo during this tumultuous time, as Brezzasoft would be responsible for helping other studios get games developed & released from late-2001 to mid-2002, during which Playmore worked to get the rights to SNK back from Aruze & re-establish itself as the next generation of the iconic company. Brezzasoft helped Eolith produce The King of Fighters 2001 & helped Noise Factory & Mega Enterprise develop Metal Slug 4, but the main game that Brezzasoft is probably most known for is the unofficial sixth entry in the Double Dragon series, Rage of the Dragons.
Released in late 2002, Rage of the Dragons is an interesting beast, because it's actually an international co-production with Mexican studio Evoga, which had previously developed a soccer game for arcades back in 2000. For a fun fact, KOF character Angel is actually named after Evoga head Angel Torres, after he beat a bunch of the SNK staff in a KOF tournament when the two companies first started working together. While Brezzasoft did the actual development, it was all conceived & designed by Evoga, which had originally wanted the make a direct sequel to Technos' Double Dragon game for the Neo Geo back in 1995, which itself was very loosely based on the Hollywood movie adaptation from 1994. Unfortunately, Evoga couldn't get the rights to the franchise, as Million (which was formed by former Technos staff) got a hold of them, so the staff simply made their game a strong homage to the franchise. This resulted in Billy & Jimmy Lee being changed to Billy & Jimmy Lewis, Abobo was changed into sub-boss Abubo Rao, & a couple other non-fighting characters were based on Double Dragon characters like Linda & Marion. The end result of all this is a two-on-two tag-team fighting game that's earned itself a bit of a cult following, and is considered by some to be one of the best games that came out late in the Neo Geo's life, as the hardware would only be used for another two years. RotD characters Jimmy, Elias, Lynn, & Mr. Jones would later appear 2003's Power Instinct: Matrimelee as bonus characters
Unfortuantely, while Brezzasoft would eventually become absorbed into SNK Playmore, Evoga would go out of business in 2004, having only made two games, but had plans for a RotD sequel, a port of the original for the PS2, & even an apparent basketball game that used KOF characters. Combined with the game's extreme similarity to Double Dragon, which seriously borders on copyright infringing, it's actually hard for anyone to tell if Rage of the Dragons can legally be released again, since the rights seemed to have belonged to Evoga, not SNK Playmore. Hopefully something can be worked out if that's the case, and maybe Arc System Works (which currently owns all of Technos' properties) would have no issues with the similarities, because Rage of the Dragons deserves a new chance to shine.
Now while this list is actually done alphabetically, & semi-chronologically, this would have been the "final" entry regardless, simply because I consider this to be the "Holy Grail" of longshot ACA Neo Geo hopefuls. The deal that Capcom & SNK made in 1999 to create some crossover titles was a dream come true for fighting game fans of the 90s, as Capcom's CP System output & SNK's Neo Geo catalog tended to result in the best games in the genre during that time, and the fact that the two companies had been intrinsically linked since the beginning really made it feel like it was just meant to happen at some point. After all, SNK published Vulgus (Capcom's first ever game) in America, while SNK's iconic fighting game franchises (Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting, KOF, etc.) were created after the creators of Street Fighter left Capcom for SNK after the first game. Unfortunately, said deal did nothing to help SNK, with general speculation being that only the producing company for each game actually received money, i.e. Capcom made no money from SNK's games, while SNK got nothing from Capcom's. Many also speculate that the deal between Capcom & SNK demanded that each company produce two traditional fighting games, and while Capcom fulfilled their part with the two Capcom vs. SNK games, come 2003 SNK had so far only fulfilled half of that deal, with 1999's SNK vs. Capcom: The Match of the Millenium for the Neo Geo Pocket Color; apparently, the two Card Fighters Clash games for NGPC don't count.
At the very least, this would help explain why SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos came out the way it did.
Released just barely over two weeks after Playmore acquired the final rights to the SNK name proper from Aruze, it was using under the awkward "SNK Neo Geo" name up until that point, the final traditional fighting game from the Capcom/SNK deal is easily the most bizarre of them all. The roster is filled with highly non-traditional picks, like Samurai Shodown's Earthquake, Red Earth's Tessa, KOF's Goenitz, the Mega Man Zero version of Zero, Metal Slug's Mars People, & Darkstalkers' Demitri. Unlike any other game in the overall Vs. Series, SVC Chaos is strictly a one-on-one affair, though at least every single character pairing has its own individual pre-match banter, which is neat. Unfortunately, though, the game feels rushed, almost as if SNK Playmore was contractually-obligated to get the game out before a certain time. SNK's side is mostly copy-pasted from other games, similar to what Capcom pulled with its own games, and fans have since noticed that some of the Capcom side are actually simply tracings from Capcom games & even other SNK characters; Balrog is heavily based on KOF's Heavy D!, for example. Finally, the gameplay in SVC Chaos doesn't feel quite as polished as it should, which again gives the feeling that the game was rushed out to arcades, possibly due to contractual obligations. All that being said, though, there's just something about SVC Chaos that still manages to make it a supremely appealing game, even with its faults. Maybe it's the roster of unexpected characters, maybe it's the unique visual design making everything look abandoned & even post-apocalyptic (apparently the plot is that everyone is dead & in purgatory, so that'd make sense), maybe it's the music that sounds unfinished yet still sounds completely unlike just about any other SNK fighting game... Or maybe it's the combination of everything, including the really cool Neo Geo interpretations of the Capcom characters.
Unfortunately, it looks like the only possible way we'll ever see SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos included as part of ACA Neo Geo is if SNK & Capcom were to enter some sort of new deal, one that would also allow Capcom to do something with it's two games. Sure, Capcom vs. SNK 2 was re-released digitally on PS3, but that was just the PS2 port, i.e. Capcom was just re-releasing an existing product (or SKU, even), which doesn't require a new deal. Could it happen? Sure, anything's possible (I know people, like myself, would go crazy over an updated release of CvS2), but who knows if the Capcom & SNK of today have any interest in doing so.
And now, as mentioned at the start, here's an unreleased game that I think actually has a fair shot at being a part of the ACA Neo Geo roster.
Like any successful piece of hardware, the Neo Geo is no stranger to unreleased & unfinished games. Some were actual sequels to previous games, like Garou: Mark of the Wolves 2 (Garou Special in Japan). Others were simply updates of existing games, like an apparent 4-player version of Kizuna Encounter. Easily the most common of these, though, would be original creations, and most of them have remained generally lost to time, with only screenshots left behind to prove their existence. Some have since been found & shared to the public via emulation, though, and even some have seen extremely limited official releases, like the previously mentioned Bang² Busters or Treasure of the Caribbean. SNK even did one itself when the original AES version of Ironclad/Choutetsu Brikin'ger was released on the Wii Virtual Console; before then, it had only been released on the NGCD. The one I'm going for to finish off this list, though, is easily the most likely to finally happen officially, though, & that's simply because the company that currently owns the rights to it are already working with Hamster: Data East's Ghostlop.
Out of all of the third-party companies that supported the Neo Geo, Data East is easily the most well known. The company released six titles from 1993 to 1997 (Spinmaster, Windjammers, Fighter's History Dynamite/Karnov's Revenge, Street Slam/Dunk Dream, & Magical Drop II & III), and pretty much every single one of them has gone on to some sort of cult-popularity; it's even been argued that KOF's Lucky Glauber was meant to be a reference to Street Slam. During this time, specifically 1996, Data East had another game in the works called Ghostlop ("lop" is an Engrish misspelling of "rope"), but wound up never releasing it. In terms of gameplay, it was interesting fusion of Breakout & Puzzle Bobble/Bust-A-Move, where you tossed red & blue balls at the ghosts above you, with the goal being to keep your playfield clear, while trying to fill your opponent's up. The game would effectively remain unknown to the wider gaming public until 2003, though, when Billy Pitt wound up in possession of a prototype cartridge that had been kept on the shelf of an Ohio arcade for years after SNK sent it for location testing; it's guessed that it tested poorly, hence why it never saw release. Though technically a prototype, the entire game was there to be played, complete with the ending. In the end, Pitt wound up selling his find to a French team to produce a limited physical reproduction run, only for other Neo Geo fans to pool together & buy it from the French team; afterwards, it was ripped & distributed online. Pitt now regrets selling it in the first place, but at the same time Ghostlop was now available to more than just a handful of people, where it could become more well known. Today, Pitt has a website cataloging what is currently known of the some of the other unreleased Neo Geo games, like Sun Shine, Hebereke's Pair Pair Wars, & Fun Fun Bros..
Coincidentally enough, 2003 was also the year Data East went out of business, and eventually most of the company's trademarks & properties went to mobile game company G-mode, & today it heavily licenses out its Data East catalog to third parties. Most assume that G-mode owns the rights to ALL of Data East's catalog, but in actuality don't; Paon, for example, owns Windjammers & Glory of Heracles. If you look at G-mode's current Data East site, it doesn't list every title it owns the rights to (simply stating that "Besides this, G-MODE owns many titles of DECO"), but if you use the Wayback Machine & look at its old site, then you'll see that G-mode does actually have the rights to Ghostlop, so it is possible for this game to finally be given its first ever official release at some point. Now, to be fair, Ghostlop may not be up there with the Neo Geo's best puzzle games, but it's still a neat curiosity that deserves the chance it never got over 20 years ago.
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Of course, this list isn't anywhere near definitive, and it shouldn't be. I obviously skipped some notable inclusions, like Super Dodge Ball or Matrimelee, & I purposefully ignored the awesome stuff that will obviously see release eventually, like King of the Monsters 2, KOF 2003, or Twinkle Star Sprites. SNK's Neo Geo remains one of the most iconic pieces of arcade hardware, but there are tons of lesser-known & championed games released for it that have not been given a new chance to appeal to gamers. What Hamster is doing with ACA Neo Geo is simply outstanding, and one can always hope that, eventually, the entire Neo Geo catalog will become available for purchase on current-day consoles. Sure, some are extremely unlikely, but if there's a will there's a way, & Hamster has generally shown a willingness to plow through any & all obstacles in its way, if necessary.
Breakers Revenge © 1996-1998 Visco Corporation
Crossed Swords II © 1995 SNK
Far East of Eden: Kabuki Klash © 1995 Konami © 1989, 1995 Red
Nightmare in the Dark © 2000 Eleven/Gavaking Co., Ltd.
Rage of the Dragons © 2002 Piko Interactive
SVC Chaos: SNK vs. Capcom © SNK 2003 © Capcom Co., Ltd. 2003
Ghostlop © G-mode
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