Hope you all enjoyed the video! I just remembered that I did a whole video on Sonic Pocket Adventure a few years ago, so if you want to see some more NGP love, check that video out here! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Db01ieHJjQs.html
it always bothers me when one of the first things said about these consoles is "even thought it came out in 1999, the screen wasn't backlit"... modern gamers really need to understand how and why these consoles were made that way. in 1999, we all wanted backlit screens indeed, but the gbc, ngpc and wonderswan instead chose to go with battery life. the swan got 30hours on one battery, the ngpc 40 on two (and they were sold for the equivalent of 30 and 60 bucks, respectively), and this is the numbers that mattered (and the screens were genuinely good, too, if you're ever held an ngpc or a swan alongside an old game boy -and even the gbc, which was way too dark, same with the gba-, their screens were *godlike* in comparison, big and crisp). only two machines had tried going with lighted screens before, the lynx and the gamegear, and both failed because they needed ungodly amounts of batteries to play a meager two to three hours (and were thrice as expensive as the game boy, too). we'll need rechargeable lithium batteries and another leap in compact technology (thanks mobile phones for that, ask the ngage) to go backlit, with the gba sp and nds, *four to five years later* (and the nds retailed for *$150* !). no light in 1999 *wasn't* a problem ; it was a necessity, for autonomy and retail price, and we all accepted the tradeoff.
I love the NGPC! I used to have one when I was younger, I actually just bought a used one to do some mods and case swaps. And as much as I'm for sustainable packaging for products, wowzer did we get shafted on game cases!
Good luck with the mods! Yeah no idea why they decided to only use cardboard boxes in America? Probably cost saving.. if you’ve got some, consider getting some protective cases for them!
The problem with a lot of the also-ran handhelds of the 90s is their companies just weren't as aggressive as Nintendo. While other handhelds had the Gameboy beaten on technical specs, Nintendo made sure through aggressive marketing, bundle deals, and pricing, that every kid wanted a Gameboy for Christmas. In Australia, I saw a total of _two_ Lynxes in my childhood. Never saw a Gamegear despite all of my friends having Sega consoles at home, and the Neogeo Pocket was never released down here to my knowledge. Everyone had a Gameboy, and by the time Pokémon came out, some kids had two, because they needed a second one to complete their Pokédex. While it's tempting to think Pokémon is what secured the Gameboy's place, it had been undisputed king of the hill for years before Pokémon came out. I think Pokémon had more to do with there being no point in competing with Nintendo after the Gameboy Color, which is why the GBA ran almost entirely unopposed for its whole generation. I think another thing that held competitors back is the nature of gaming at the time. Throughout the Gameboy's early life, gaming was a pick up and play affair. You didn't need save games, because you'd be playing a simple sports game, or Centipede, or some other game that'd take you half an hour to finish if you're good. Nintendo's library excelled at that, with much of the Gameboy core library being adaptations of NES titles. Nobody really offered anything apart from bite sized pick up and play gaming experiences, and you could get those on the console everyone had, the Gameboy. There was no compelling reason to get a Lynx or a Gamegear, because, while they had colour screens, the screens were just as bad for ghosting as the DMG-1's. The first time I used a Lynx, I didn't even realise the screen was colour because of the lighting around me. It just looked like a grey soup worse than the Gameboy.
All good points, yeah I think Nintendo really had a monopoly not just because of the insane amount of money they had for marketing, as well as NES ports etc, but also because they understood what differentiated a handheld from a console game, a lot of what Atari and Sega tried to do was bring the console experience to the handheld, which didn't always gel with the kind of way the games would actually be played. Nintendo's always done really well differentiating the two... until recently at least!
Love the NGPC. Personally even tho I owned every handheld. I always had a low key grudge against game boy and game boy color.The games on GB and GbC felt like mini mini games,like I wasn't playing a real game worth buying. It wasn't the same feeling for example when I would play Gamegear games and NGPC games, the games felt like actual games with gameplay depth. Like Capcom vs SNK felt and played like a home console quality game, a feeling I didn't get from GB. It wasn't until the GBA that I finally thought Nintendo had a great handheld that was as good as game gear and NGPC
I can see why you'd feel that, but there are some good deeper games on the Game Boy too! They are just few and far between in with all the licensed kids games and quick cash grabs, which something like the NGP had a lot less of
I like the Gamegear more than the Gameboy. The Gamegear has deep sound to it. It is fun to hold in your hand. Most of the games are fun, and Sonic Triple Trouble is pretty good. There was even a TV tuner for it and a Master System adapter. It was a real battery eater though, so I could only play Gamegear with an AC adapter. I remember playing Neo Geo Pocket Color on the train during my college days. I wish there were more platformers on it.
Great to see some content on the NGP! I actually have a couple ROMs like Sonic Pocket Adventure and SNK Gals’ Fighters that I was going to play on the Everdrive GBA, but of course that emulator isn’t worth much of anything ;^^ hopefully I can find a way to play these games soon! Great video!
Cool! I've always wanted to try the Dreamcast link up! Apparently Sonic Pocket adventure and SA1 and 2 on the dreamcast were going to support it, but it was dropped... wonder if a Chao garden was planned for the game?
Here in the US, remember reading about the Neo Geo Pocket Color in gaming magazines, but never seeing it on shelves. Now that I think of it, even the magazines didn't publish reviews for the games either...
I love how it has a scrolling background layer. That creates a really cool effect. Parallax is rare in an 8-bit system, especially this kind of parallax And it can be used for other stuff too I bet
I never realised how brilliant the Neo Geo Pocket's library was. Very much looking forward to more of them hitting the Switch in the future. Awesome Video.
Great video here! I have no nostalgia for this console, I tried it out first time ever 2 years ago, and its definitely an awesome system that deserved better! So far, I've been really liking Metal Slug: 2nd Mission.
Thanks! Goes to show how good of a system silt is, that you only played it a few years ago and could still enjoy it! It still feels fresh! Think it’s partly due to the arcade style gameplay of a lot of the games!
@@RetroBreak you definitely need some soldering skills. I learnt by myself. Got a cheap electric board from Ali express and bought a soldering kit and was learning how to tin the points. Once you get used to that, then yeah you can definitely do it. Honestly, give it a go. It's fun to do and the satisfaction when you complete the mod is amazing
The most satisfying thing mankind has created would have to be the Neo Geo Pocket stick haha. Them clicks are like bubble-wrap times a thousand. Mmmmmm. Some of the best spritework ever exists in a bunch of NGP games too. Great choice for a video topic.
Agree to both points! I’ve had the NGP on my desk for a few weeks now and when I’m bored at work I’ll pick it up and just click the click stick! So satisfying!
11:28 i’m really surprised that they actually showed how the baubles looked on the monochrome neo geo pocket in the british manual! the monochrome was only released in japan and was on the market for a very short time; there were only something like nine monochrome-only games and very few backwards-compatible color games
I've got a soft spot for this. I had one and it got stolen from my bag at school which was crushing. My parents were able to get a new one for me eventually, but that memory is stuck in my head. I loved card fighters, gotta try and give it a go again, especially that there is an english patch for the sequel.
I loved my Neo Geo pocket, I bought every game I could find at the time and there wasn't one game that I didn't enjoy. It was sad when SNK pulled the plug. They sold off remaining stocks by repackaging the handheld and a few games in a blister pack without the SNK or NeoGeo branding - was a sad ending for a fantastic machine. I wish I'd kept my Biomotor Unitron.
Great video, my favorite games on the system are probably Card Fighter’s Clash, Faselei!, and Pocket Tennis. CFC and Faselei are surprisingly deep experiences for the handheld (Faselei even has a vocal song in the intro!), and while Pocket Tennis isn’t super deep, it is super fun to play and the simplicity and cute art style gives it a lot of charm.
Great to see you again Nick. So glad that you reviewed the awesome NGPC. Such an underrated unit that offers so much even after all these years. I made sure I have this in the collection bro. What a gem this unit is. 8^) I posted this up on, The official NEO-GEO Thread for others to take notice and enjoy on what you have to say bro. Thank you for sharing this and keep up the great work for sure. 86) Anthony..
KoF R2 is a very good Pocket Fighter for the system, but SNK vs Capcom: Match of the Millenium is one step sharper in many ways, it has great graphics and has alot more characters, and it got some fun of mini games and extra super moves to unlock by playing mini games. It can also link up with SNK vs Capcom: Card Fighters Clash to unlock all the hidden characters in Match of the Millenium if you link your card album. As well as to link up with the Dreamcast KoF 1999 Dream Match Never ends to get points that you transfer from the Dreamcast game to the NGPCG and SNK vs Capcom Pro on the DC to transfer points from the mini games to the DC version to unlock stuff in that game. I got both the Neo Geo link cable with 2 NGPC systems and Neo to Dreamcast link cable to try these stuff out, it adds some flavor to the games but its not like you need it, its just a cool feature.
Damn right this deserved better. I totally missed out the first time around, so I've been snatching up the Switch ports from Day 1. So far I've tried Card Fighters, Big Bang Wrestling and Unitron. I just wish SNK would drop Faselei next cuz I'm really into strategy.
I always get this system confused with the Wonderswan. Then I remind myself "oh yeah Wonderswan had the Evangelion tamagotchi where you raise an Angel in a shockingly complex recreation of NERV HQ, Neo Geo Pocket Color had the one Sonic game IGN gave a perfect 10/10 score" Also holy shit the image at 0:50 made me really concerned for a second until I remembered European cars have the driver's seat on the right lol
Great video!! I absolutely love the Neo geo pocket color! Picked it up when it came out and played it a ton!! Match of the MILLENNIUM and card fighters where my favorites.
The reason they have so many slot games etc is gambling is illegal in Japan so these games can give you the thrill without using cash and breaking the law 😁
I miss my NGP so much. I had 13 games, including Biomotor, Fasali, Dark Arms and the Card Fighter and SNK Vs Capcom games. Hope the guy in Brazil I sold them to enjoyed them. I’ve tried emulating them but nothing beat that clicky stick.
I highly recommend the new bigger backlit screen :) I bought a second NGPC for cheap from Japan and the screen for only $45 on ebay, and it was quite an easy mod, the first ever screen mod I attempted on my own… just had to have my roomie desolder and resolder the speaker, the rest is quite straightforward.. some people also do extra work for the on screen display stuff, but it isn’t necessary
Big fan of this console. Really great games like Sonic, the card fighters and standard fighting games. Just a really cool device and I'd love to see a classic rerelease.
it's not *just* that the games on this system are good (and they are very good). but the hardware was just better than GBC. faster processors, sharper colors, cleaner pixels, better sound, etc. but with all of SNK's problems at the time, this poor thing never had a real chance 😞
Yes as I showed near the start, pretty much all the specs are slightly better. But not a huge leap ahead of the GBC.. sound is actually a bit worse, less channels I believe
I bought the Neogeo pocket colour a few years ago. I bought two each for 50 euro. I bought some games like Pac-man, Metal Slug, King of Fighters. I bought Samurai Showdown twice, but I got no link cable. Maybe I should get on ebay and buy a cable. Awesome handheld. I think the larger memory on the Gameboy colour is for displaying the colours on screen. King of Fighters looked very fast on my Pocket. Metal Slug showed tons of sprites.
I actually owned three different NGPC. The first one was broken by a friend's little brother, second was stolen, and I still have the third one. My current one is the lite and it csme with a slots game. I really need to get a back-lit screen.
NO TECHNICAL FEATURES?! That clicky stick in itself is fantastic! Still best D-Pad ever for a handheld! Bothers the parents and gives you all the comfort of an Arcade stick that you need! :P. One annoyed adult at a time :P. All kidding aside, the Ram was not a problem, one could easily put some on the cartridge had the system lasted longer. The system's main CPU had plenty of DMA channels as well, so you can keep a lot of the tiles just stored on the rom itself. It also won't make the system run slower. That's more a development issue. It either fits in ram or it doesn't. But it is why later Color Only games like Metal Slug Second Mission were MILES ahead of the previous color and gray scale compatible games. Sonic is another game that actually runs quite fast. I am sure had it actually lasted a bit longer, SNK would easily have taken advantage of those DMA channels, used bank switching for the carts (as they did in the Arcade A LOT) and just brute forced it with ROM size and some ram on the cartridge itself into something that would have surpassed the GBC in everything. It just didn't last, as the Gameboy advance was the final nail in it's coffin. Not to mention that better systems were out there if you were just in it for the graphics in Japan :P. I mean FFS, Bandai's wonderswan's series of handhelds were just insane in the end in what it could pull off :P .
I had the blue camo. The stick is amazing and probably the best part. More portables should emulate it. I had biomotor unitron wish I kept it now for that price tag! :D
My brother bought the black and white console at the time and I bought the gameboy color…when the color version came out just 6 months after he was pissed!…but he used all the money to buy the color version but was never able to sell the black and white, we still have those till today but is been unused for a long time now
Your accent has always been so interesting to me. When you said you go to Edinburgh for your job, it made me focus more on your accent... and I'm wondering, is it like a British English / Scottish combination? Like 85% British English, 15% Scottish? The way you say "found" reminds me of Scottish, for instance. But this could just be confirmation bias! Either way, very nice accent!
How does this compare to the Wonderswan, Sega Nomad, and Turbografx LT? Furthermore, I'd like to see 16-bit consoles ranked by battery life. Lastly, it's fascinating that it took 12 years after the Atari Lynx came out to make 16-bit handhelds obsolete. Even more astounding is that an 8-bit console dominated the market for 12 years.
Nice review and gotta say I’ve never played a real Neo Geo Pocket. I had never heard of it before the games were released on the switch. Easily the best fighting game for me is match of the millennium. Not only is it an excellent fighter with a ton of characters to unlock to make a total of 26, 13 SNK and 13 Capcom. But the mini games included are awesome too.. including metal slug shooter and a ghouls and ghosts jumping game. It’s probably the best hand held fighting game of all time. And honestly might be better than capcom vs SNK. Like a lot of brits I was priced out of playing SNK/Neo Geo games growing up. Which is sad really. They are easily one of best games companies and seem to really care about quality. That shows in this device and it’s games. Far better than Nintendo’s game boy
This was a truly great console for those who purchased at the time, best handheld for awhile until GBA SP launched unless you were one of the very few who front lit modded a GBA. The original GBA might as well have been a useless brick since the screen was so dark. At least with the NGPC you could see the screen easily without angling it directly into the mid day sun. A console doesn't need a ton of titles if over 50% of the titles are great which this library did. Unlike its big brother, the games were cheap and a good value for the time. For such an obscure console I had very little trouble finding games and even years later games would surface at retail in liquidation.
It’s actually my current goal to collect and beat every physical neo geo pocket game (except slots bc I don’t think it has an end?) anyway currently I have 32 Neo geo pocket titles. (Most North American as im trying to finish those first!) now don’t get my wrong I love the switch version but the physical is nothing compared. Also did you know they finally made a FULL screen mod for the NGP and a new flash cart that can hold ALL NGP games and it loads one at a time with 4/5 on stand by
I had one, I must be the only person that thought the stick sound was annoying. Most people I showed it to were disappointed with this, due to the reputation of the Neo Geo being a graphics powerhouse & this being somewhat graphically below the Lynx & GG.
Saw a Neo Geo Pocket in my local Cex once with a copy of Sonic, I didn't get it, although I was tempted. Afraid I'll probably go the Switch port route for trying this system's games. I did pick up a Wonderswan Color from ebay last year with a backlit ISP screen (Also came with a FlashMasta cart). bought it from the same guy who modded two of my 3DSs. I had a look through a box of Wonderswam games at Allan's stall in Blackpool, but decided to pick up Saturn games instead.
I had one of these when they came out, but in the UK it was realy hard to get the games, I only has sonic, streetfighter vs snk , and I think some other game. But streetfighter vs was amazing for its time
I think if it had a backlight it would've done a lot better. Saving battery seems worth it until you're standing under an awning on a sunny day trying to play your NeoGeo. Crazy how much marketing and brand recognition contribute too
yes if it got more support i believe it could have survived, i live in the usa and i only knew 1 person that had the neo geo pocket color, so even back in the day to me it was rare!
You got me! Haha… truth is, I got that collection 2 weeks after recording the first part of the video.. it’s been difficult to make this one so I’ve been piecing it together over time! XD glad it’s got a re release!
@@RetroBreak I looked it up, and apparently the Collection on Steam has Crush Roller in the collection instead of SNK vs Capcom Match of the Millennium. It’s probably due to licensing, but it’s nice that Crush Roller is easily available for people that want to play it.
Not sure how that’s relevant to anything? And there’s a lot of puzzle bobble clones, guess it’s generic enough that any one can copy it, same with bejewelled
I missed out on getting a Game drive a year or so ago and they are out of stock now. Flashmaster is in stock though so kinda tempted but the limit or 1 or 2 games at a time seems restrictive
I just bought one for my son for Christmas. I got it from Japan. I have a question for you, the screen is hard to see during day time. Is there a way you can make the screen brighter?? I spend a lot of money for it . Thank you!
If you just got a regular one it doesn’t have a backlight. The one I have in the video has an IPS screen. You can get them modded or buy a kit and try to do it yourself
I said 1999, and that it was common not to have one. But I would have liked to see it have one. Also, it was actually MORE common in 1989 as both the Game Gear and Atari Lynx had one.
