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SNK just launched 3 new Neo Geo classics on mobile, with more coming soon
Samurai Shodown IV, Metal Slug 5, and Alpha Mission II are now available on Android and iOS
Arcade Archives is a series of classic games from yesteryear republished and emulated on modern hardware, such as the PS4, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox One. These games are published by an entity known as Hamster Corporation, with a subseries of games under the ACA Neo Geo label. Well, the first wave of ACA Neo Geo games have landed on mobile, bringing modern ports of Samurai Shodown IV, Metal Slug 5, and Alpha Mission II to Android and iOS through emulation.
Tencent is bringing a new Metal Slug game to mobile, and it actually looks decent
The question is, will Tencent ruin it?
SNK and Tencent recently announced a new Metal Slug game for mobile, and it will be developer by TiMi Studios, an incredibly hot Tencent subsidiary that worked on Call of Duty Mobile, and is also currently working on Pokémon Unite. So far we know that the upcoming arcade shooter is tentatively named Metal Slug Code: J (as a placeholder), and so all we have to share right now is a teaser trailer that contains a minute of pure gameplay, and despite what you're thinking, Metal Slug Code: J actually looks like a competent successor in the Metal Slug series.
Humble Bundle has unveiled its latest selection of games, and this time it has partnered with SNK to produce a selection of ports that first appeared on the Neo Geo. We're talking The King of Fighters. We're talking Metal Slug. We're talking Blazing Star, Fatal Fury, Garou: Mark of the Wolves, and Samurai Shodown II.
Beast Busters may not be as well-known as some of SNK's other franchises (i.e. The King of Fighters and Metal Slug), but it's older than both. The series first appeared in 1989, and it has since been eclipsed by other entrants in the light gun shooter genre. Watching the trailer for Beast Busters featuring KOF Deluxe will probably have you thinking of The House of the Dead.
SNK Playmore has released no shortage of ports into the Play Store, and now it's putting all of them on sale for 99 cents. Well, just the paid ones. Some were already available for free. The company is doing this in honor of the Neo Geo's 25th-ish anniversary, a gaming console SNK released towards the end of 1990, which eventually served as a home to many of these titles.
Most of the games in the Play Store from SNK Playmore are related to The King of Fighters and Metal Slug franchises, but these are far from the only ones the company has produced over the years. Fighting game fans in particular have been able to enjoy Samurai Shodown II, along with an entry in the Fatal Fury series—Garou: Mark of the Wolves. Now the company has released the arcade hit Fatal Fury Special into the Play Store as well.
Zombie games are not novel. In fact at this point, they're about as far from "novel" as you can get before slipping right off the treacherous slopes of ironic reference. But SNK's latest mobile game Best Busters actually manages to infuse some new ideas into the zombie shooter genre, and pull it off with the developer's signature anime style. Now if only they could do so without falling into the trappings of free-to-play mobile games...
SNK's The King of Fighters series has been around since 1994, making this year the franchise's 20th anniversary. To mark the occasion, the company has re-released a copy of The King of Fighters 2012-A into the Play Store for free. For now, it sits alongside the paid version, released over a year ago, which still goes for .99.
The Rhythm Of Fighters is a quirky take on SNK's storied history of 2D brawlers... that plays like a swiping, tapping musical game. This unique title has met the same fate of other games by big publishers who apparently wanted more bang for their buck, and shifted from a paid game to free-to-play. (See Assassin's Creed Pirates and Asphalt 8 for other examples.) But if you spent the measly dollar that the game cost when it launched, don't fret: SNK is here to placate you with free stuff.
Listen up if you're particularly fond of classic 2D platformers, old-school fighters, or general nostalgia. SNK Playmore is currently offering all of its paid games for just 99 cents apiece. For one title, The Rhythm of Fighters, this is the usual price. For the nine other releases available, this is a discount of roughly 75%, as they usually go for around $3.99. That means you could go through the list and get the full collection for the same amount three games would usually cost.
The King of Fighters '98 was a special release from the very beginning. As the fifth game in SNK's popular fighting game series, it attracted players by bringing back brawlers who were killed off in previous versions. Future releases would return to the storyline, but '98 did not care and lacked a plot of its own. The game was all about the fighting, and now it's available for Android.
I don't think I've seen such a strange combination of traditional 2D fighting games and music-rhythm gameplay since the vastly underrated Slap-Happy Rhythm Busters. In The Rhythm of Fighters, you take SNK-Playmore's classic cast of King of Fighters characters (and a few others) and have them beat the crap out of each other. But instead of over-the-top button combinations and super moves, this game tasks you with tapping and sliding in time with the chiptune music, which will correspond with your fighter's moves.
SNK's Metal Slug series is one of the most beloved 2D side-scrolling shooters of all time, right up there with Contra. And fans of the originals were no doubt pleased when the twitchy, skillful, and delightfully pixelated games made their way to Android. So for the series' first foray into a new mobile title, it's only natural that SNK Playmore would make... a tower defense game.
There's something strange going on with SNK's The King of Fighters. Way back in March of 2012 an Android version of the classic 16-bit 2D fighter series was published, with a frustratingly short list of supported devices and no small amount of technical problems. The app disappeared from the US Play Store before too long, only to reappear this July. Now there's a brand new version, The King Of Fighters-A 2012, available alongside the original Android release.
Need a little old-school kick to start your weekend? Then look no further than SNK's developer page on the Play Store. Over the last few months they've populated it with no less than four of their classic Metal Slug side-scrollers (Metal Slugs 1, 2, 3, and X) and the top-down space shooter Blazing Star. All are available at significant discounts: half off for the Metal Slug games, bringing them to two bucks each, and a full two-thirds off for Blazing Star, which is now just a dollar.
If you're into old school shoot-em-up sidescrollers, it's hard to beat the Metal Slug series. One can only imagine the insane amount of time and devotion that SNK put into making these 16-bit wonders back when they were headlining titles for the Neo-Geo brand. They were near instant cult classics in Japan, and when they found a new home on the original Play Station console, saw even greater worldwide acclaim.
If you're of the opinion that games these days are entirely too easy, what with automatic saves, regenerating health, and veritable labyrinths of handy chest-high walls, then you'll want to pick up side-scrolling classic Metal Slug. It harkens back to a simpler time (namely 1996) when men were men, women were women, and gigantic tanks bristling with missile launchers were waiting at the end of every level.