The Neo Geo Pocket Color's First RPG, Biomotor Unitron, Launches On Switch Tomorrow

Just waiting for the inevitable Neo Geo Pocket Color Selection Vol. 2.

Looks like Robomon Daimond or Pearl 😂

I'm really looking forward to the eventual Neo Geo Pocket Color Selection Vol. 2!

It'd be cool to see Faselei and Pocket Color Tennis.

This one was…okay. Not much in terms of customization of your parts when the end game gear is so overpowered. At least that’s what I remember.

@CharlieGirl Faselei is the dream. I wonder how they’d handle the Vs. mode, like SvC Card Fighters? (with multiple save files on the same system)

This came out at the time when SNK are deeply in debt, those fighting games and expensive arcade console did not help them at all so trying to make games in other genre seems like the way to go.

@masterLEON probably? I certainly didn't expect the re-release of Card Fighters to have modern QoL changes. I'm sure there's more tricks up their sleeves.

I'm intrigued. But I struggle with most rpgs, especially older ones. At $7.99 though, it might be worth taking a flier on it.

@masterLEON The terms "SNK" and "RPG" immediately recall Crystalis to mind, for me. I take from your words that this title doesn't reach the high plane of that game. This "Faselei" looks interesting, but I guess nobody ever really tried to recapture that early '90s magic...

@CANOEberry I've heard Faselei got released so late in its life that in North America it didn't get a proper release. But only as a clearance gacha bundle where you get a console and random selection of games. Hope for a good pull!

@KingMike @CANOEberry It didn't get a boxed release in North America but it was in the clamshell packs that included a system and some games. That's how I got my copy.

Huh, sounds like it was a bit ahead of it's time.

Wondering what else awaits in Vol. 2. Who knows, maybe Bust-A-Move Pocket will finally return 🤷

@Magician you took the words right out of my mouth.

@KingMike I was deep in the Neo Geo Pocket scene and that's what I recall. The US release came later in those bundles. When the game initially came out, SNK and Aruze were already in trouble and the NGP was being phased out, so the only way to get Faselei at the time, and I had really been looking forward to it, was to try getting it from overseas. I don't remember if the Japanese version had an English option. I don't think it did. I remember having to order it from a store in the UK from where I am in the USA. I also remember people in the community taking the opportunity to price gouge by buying multiple copies and trying to sell them for $200. To be fair, one of said gougers did offer me a copy for close to retail because he knew me, but by then I was able to order it, though that seemed uncertain for a while. It showed up in those bundles months later, and probably in small numbers.

This was one of my favorite games growing up. I was probably the only kid I ever knew who had it, but I sure loved it. Pretty fun and unique experience. That said I think I am going to wait for the Volume 2 collection, I learned from buying these the first time.

@CANOEberry Ah, Crystalis. I remember playing the Game Boy Color release of that. Great game at the time, though I never finished it.

Maybe I should give it a spin on NSO sometime.

@Serpenterror @CANOEberry The bar got raised extremely quickly on JRPGs and other genres in the mid to late 90’s with the Playstation (and Saturn). The storage, the ability to stream video, and 3D polys were everything a then-next-gen system needed to surpass the previous gen. Well, that and big budgets for emergent technologies. The NEOGEO as a platform wasn’t future-proofed to handle anything other than tiles and sprites, including the NEOGEO CD. The Z80 processor, while being a workhorse for a almost a decade of arcade games before the NEOGEO debuted, was not good for multimedia or general purpose processing like the x86 and 68xxx in home computers, due to their limited functionality and memory bandwidth. Those few seconds of low framerate Double Dragon movie clips in the DD fighting game? Tiles, and a bunch of ROMs. Probably the most expensive, inefficient, and only way to get video running on the NEOGEO. The Pocket was the only other hardware SNK had, and a 16-bit Game Boy Color competitor with a good thumbstick was not enough to do any heavy lifting. Especially not against Nintendo, and not when SNK’s bread and butter, the arcade, was losing business to the home market. That said, Yumekobo did a decent job with Biomotor Unitron. I would have liked to see a portable Blazing Star, Pulstar, or Viewpoint from them, but shmups already fell out of favor by that time.

@masterLEON You are the exact revisionist of videogame history that is ruining the internet. Thankfully there are more popular channels coming out with facts rather than fague memories or just legit created ones.

"The Z80 processor, while being a workhorse for a almost a decade of arcade games before the NEOGEO debuted was not good for multimedia or general purpose processing like the x86 and 68xxx in home computers, due to their limited functionality and memory bandwidth. Those few seconds of low framerate Double Dragon movie clips in the DD fighting game? Tiles, and a bunch of ROMs. Probably the most expensive, inefficient, and only way to get video running on the NEOGEO."

The Neogeo's main Processor was the 68000, (wow) and was used in most computers including the Commodore Amiga, FM Towns, the Sharp X68K (that was the dev platform for the Capcom CPS1/2), the Capcom CPS1/CPS2 as the CPU [Look up Motorola 68000), and unfortunately the Z80 (Zilog Z80, an 8 Bit micro) you mention was never relegated to the main CPU, it was an Audio DSP/Soundcard for your expert ears.... (All NeoGeo systems use the z80 to handle sound and music playback. It runs at 4MHz and only has access to the YM2610, M1 ROM or Z80 files, and its own RAM. It communicates with the 68k CPU via a single-byte channel.)

Also you realise the Neo Geo operated on ROM carts, so they had instant access to 'memory' on the cart, 'Memory Bandwidth' wasn't a thing, they could just add more to the cart, money permitting.

And I lived in Japan for 8 months starting in xmas 1998, and the Neo Geo pocket (monochrome version) absolutely decimated the Nintendo Gameboy Color, the runner up to the Neo Geo Pocket was the Gameboy Light which was a Gameboy pocket with a backlit screen. I bought a Neo Geo Pocket (mono) on Launch and it is today still one of the best handhelds ever, 2nd only the the Neo Geo Pocket Color or the Wonderswan Crystal.

Also the Game Boy Color isn't 16bit, just like the Nintendo 64 isn't 64bit.

The point of this post was to show the absolute parroted narrative that people like @masterLEON falsey spread into the internet, making, YOU!, the reader dumber and less informed because of the importance of their 'view' of how a time they never lived in happened and what they want you to parrot out, basically like a Trump supporter.

Peace,

Shane.

And the Neogeo system lived quite happily into the mid 2000's, alongside the Gameboy Advance (which had ports of a lot of Neo Geo games or had sequels on the system), which was what everyone wanted from a Gameboy 2. (I mean if you actually were back then... and not just making stufff up)