Fragarach

I've been waiting for this. Anyone with an interest in the genre should really have a look. Fantastic game!

@FTL I absolutely agree. I can only imagine how boring it must be to build something like this. No clever solutions to the inherent limitations of Lego, mostly just a whole lot of the same few colours of brick, stacked one over the other. No thank you. And the price per piece is just ridiculous.

@boxoctosis why go so far?

If this keeps SNK in business and their workers employed, then so be it. Looking forward to many more SNK games on the future.

Great review. The trailer had already sold me on the game, but I'm happy to know both the gameplay and soundtrack are also up to par. That lovely CGA style was truly an inspired choice, and that it reminds me of some of the earliest games I ever played is another layer of joy. I guess I'll go and play some more Alley Cat until I'm able to go and get this

Fantastic game. Hopefully Hamster will see fit to release more (relatively) recent games such as this one in the future.

Doesn't the counter only keep the last 2 years of use? Even if not, this is just a ridiculous amount of time to spend playing video games.

I was really excited for this a few years back. Now I would prefer they just admit it's not going to happen rather than to keep hopes alive. This just reeks of Duke Nukem Forever at this point.

@GrailUK I'll take a leap of faith and guess it would be BCV: Battle Construction Vehicles.

@BANJO Yes, most of their work was technically outstanding, if not always very entertaining. I would also suggest trying Asterix and Obelix XXL on GBA, though don't bother too much with Driv3r.

@Dakotastomp As far as I know, yes.

I believe the old Velez & Dubail site had a portion dedicated to the team history, but that seems to be absent from the current VD Dev one.

I would suggest watching the video below by SSFF, as it does a great job of showing their work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfOR3XqrJc4

@Zyph Absolutely. I've loved their work from the moment I came across the GBA V-Rally and everything before and since is at the very least amazing from a technical perspective. The loss of Fernando Velez still saddens me today, though I've never met the man. All the same, VD-Dev deserves a lot more love and I'll be getting this as soon as possible.

"...only new Nintendo SWITCH hardware..."

How about the Nintendo Classic line? No chance on a N64 or Gameboy classic for the holidays?

Great! Now where's my Banjo amiibo?

@JR150 TMS and Xeno X were on my mind while reading this. Well, better late than never.

I wonder if Rally Rock 'N Racing will be any good.

Great to see Gameloft finally giving the Switch some love. Now how about a Asphalt 9 port?

@Moroboshi876 My sentiments exactly. I've been eagerly been waiting for PB2 since the it was announced for the second to last batch of NeoGeo ACA games and at this rate I starting to doubt we'll ever see it released.

Does anyone know how many NeoGeo games are left for Hamster to realistically publish anyway?

@YANDMAN I would, but seeing as I never read any official comment from either pelikan13 or Nicalis that clearly states that development duties were entirely given over to Nicalis or that they were just coming in for publishing duties, I'm left wandering.

@YANDMAN did he ever publicly state that he abandoned the project? Last I looked at the Kickstarter page he didn't so much as bother to inform backers that the game was being handed over to Nicalis.

This is a great game, though the controls have me wondering how it will stack up to the Wii and 3DS releases. Anyone know if there will there be any new content added to this version?

Holy sh**!! Puzzle Bobble 2!!!!!!!!!!

I also used to love their movies as a kid. As one would expect, they don't really hold up too well these days so I wouldn't recommend anyone revisiting them. The game however I was very much looking forward to and going by Gonçalo's review, its about as good as one could hope for. I'll be getting this as soon as I have the free time to enjoy it.

Prehistoric Isle 2 is a must and Real Bout 2 is also great. Will we ever see Baseball Stars 2 and Puzzle Bobble 2 though?

Hummm, no G-Darius? No deal.

@SwitchVogel Thanks for that. No doubt I'll be downloading this very soon then

Can anyone confirm if Eri Nobuchika's tracks are included in this version, specifically "Lights"? That and "Shinin'" really made the original game unforgettable for me.

Going by the trailer alone this looks like a very lazy port. The aspect ratio is all kinds of wrong and the filters are ugly as sin.

Great column indeed. We really should get many more baseball videogames than we do these days. My hopes for the near future hang with the next Super Mega Baseball and the possibility of a new (dedicated) Mario Sports title. Also, that we never got a 3rd The Bigs game is great shame.

This holds a special place for me as it's PS1 incarnation was my first home KOF experience, but this ACA release is sadly lacking the NeoGeo CD stage music. Those would be a great feature for Hamster to add as an option (where available). Having said that, here's hoping KOF 2003 will get an ACA release sometime in the future.

@Lroy Absolutely. I get the feeling publishers are taking advantage of the current hype for the switch to get away with charging these prices, especially considering many of these games were developed years ago, been heavily discounted on several platforms in the past, and for all we have been told, porting to the switch is a mostly painless affair. Having said that, I would guess this strategy will work as expected and these inflated prices will become the norm.

Those retail download prices are insane! I can't believe games of this quality are asking for 30€ each. No thank you!

So this week my vote goes for The Flame in the Flood.

@joey302 I don't really use twitter, but if you hear back from them, please let us know

@joey302 my thoughts exactly. I literally can't find anything on that game aside from the initial announcement and screenshot, and now that the september release window has passed (and the movie is all but forgotten) I fear it will suffer a quiet death.

@AlphaJaguar Yes! That and Rival Schools, please!

@Freelance , This game also got me thinking about Anno for Wii and DS, and how great both of them were. It's too bad we're not likely to ever see a proper sequel to those, but thankfully Frontier Days seems to fit that space well.

_{Can you post these in the thread? -Lz}

@BakaKnight
I feel you. Living in Portugal means its slim pickings for a baseball fan, especially on Nintendo systems. I'll still hold some hope for this one to come out here in the future, but not so much for Rusty. Would definitely get both if given a chance tough.

I can definitely get behind this as an idea. Love most of what was on the arcades in the late 90's and Sega had arguably the best catalog in the industry. Let M2 have at these, please!

I reeeealy hope this gets a european release. It won't sate my thirst for a real baseball game on a Nintendo system, but it does looks all sorts of fun. Plus, I think the pricing model is actually super interesting.

I would purchase a figure of Lorne Lanning in a heartbeat.

~~ soooo dreamy ~~

Again no Shock Troopers 2. Will this ever be released in Europe at all at this point? I'm always looking forward to the weekly update only to be disappointed every time.