Back again for my regular Sunday roundup of quick-fire reviews and impressions of everything under the spotlight at Retro Arcadia this week, old and new and a bit of both. Away from gaming, I enjoyed a nice four day week at work, although my day off on Friday went a bit off-piste… Our son was arriving back for Christmas from his footballing (soccer-ing) in Seattle at lunchtime, which he did without problem, but we’d also decided to get his car serviced either side of getting him from Heathrow Airport. Unfortunately though, on the way to the garage, the fuel pipe sprang a leak, which everyone was blissfully unaware of until it was moved from the car park into the workshop, and long story short, they claimed they couldn’t fix it and therefore wouldn’t service it because it was spraying petrol everywhere, and so a five hour wait for the RAC to turn up began! This also involved me risking moving it to a public car park when the garage closed, but luckily it got there, and when they eventually turned up, they identified the problem and deemed it safe enough to drive home with them following behind, and now it’s being fixed (and serviced) on our driveway on Monday! Not much fun, very expensive, and he’s not thrilled he’s stuck here without his car all weekend, but apart from that, one week to go before two weeks off! Now that’s out of my system, back to games, and once again, I’m still mainly playing that “bit of both” from above on Evercade…

Both the NEOGEO Arcade 2 and Arcade 3 compilations on there had their UK original release dates delayed by a few weeks to the end of November, which isn’t a problem in itself, except I’ve now got the flurry of five of these carts all eventually released on the same day to try and get through in these weekly features! And that’s hardly a chore either, but as said when we covered Rare Collection 1 here last week, and Activision Collection 1 here the week before, we’ll go one by one so here’s the next of them! As with the first of this series a few months back, NEOGEO Arcade 2 contains another six not necessarily easy to come by titles from what Blaze (the Evercade folk) delightfully refer to as “the golden age of pixel-art!” I’ll run through each in turn in a sec, but let’s have a quick look at the overall package first, starting with an actual box to open with an actual manual inside, filled with game histories, trivia, instructions and a few tips on top. And in the case of this one, loads of handy fighting moves too! Once you fire the cart up, you’re also getting typically slick, sortable on-screen game-select menus, quick saves and loads, game info screens and brief instructions, although as with the first collection, no DIP-switch settings yet. Should mention support for two players where applicable too, providing you’re on an Evercade VS attached to your TV, rather than an EXP handheld or one of the Super Pockets (as pictured above).

Turning our attention to the six games included on here, we’ll go alphabetical and start with Art of Fighting 2….  I get confused about where this fits with King of Fighters and Fatal Fury but they all seem to be intertwined and often released on top of each other! This one-on-one fighter is from 1994, and while it improves on its predecessor, I can’t say it does anything I wouldn’t rather be doing in one of its SNK stablemates – it’s big and bold in all respects, the roster isn’t huge but offers something for everyone, and it controls fine, but playing single-player is a miserable experience! It’s just too hard, even with the difficulty turned down, and I don’t think the animation is all that great either. We’re not off to a good start here because Crossed Swords from 1991 is next, and is one of those games I know I should like, and I’ve really tried so many times, but it just never clicks! Think medieval Punch-Out!! with some RPG elements and you’re somewhere near, with timing-based combat from a transparent, third-person (so almost first-person) perspective. Nice looking game, pretty unique idea and quite the rarity, so nice to have it here, but still not for me! I often say the last time I was any good at a fighting game was IK+ on the Atari ST, but actually, I did spend quite a lot of time with Garou: Mark of the Wolves a few years back, so we’re finally onto something I was very pleased to be reacquainted with! Does mean that 2D fighters make up half of this collection though, but I’m good with that, and this one from 1999 is one of the best there is! I believe this was the last of the nine Fatal Fury games, and it does feel like one but it feels new too, with a very well-balanced roster, a bunch of complex but achievable fighting mechanics, and the most stylish presentation you could hope for.

Probably worth the price of entry alone but it’s not alone because here comes Metal Slug 2! This 1998 run ‘n gun sequel is much more of the same, with new characters, weapons, vehicles and a bonkers narrative involving Egyptian mummies, aliens and a persistent risk of obesity! The pixel art presentation is still outrageously good though, same for the sound design, and it mostly plays great… Does get a bit too big for its own boots at times though, and even the resulting slowdown doesn’t compensate for some big difficulty spikes – which is why Metal Slug X exists (and can also be found on the NEOGEO Super Pocket pictured above)! No worries about difficulty spikes our next game, Ninja Commando, though because the difficulty is non-stop! This flamboyant oddity from 1992 is a top-down, run ‘n gun, time-travelling adventure that also comes across like both a fighting game and a shoot ‘em up at times, with a selection of both melee and projectile attacks unique to each of the three playable characters, but it’s all very easy to get into and is fast-paced and full of flair, with the different time periods offering plenty of variety to mask what’s essentially repetitive gameplay, although you’ll likely be long since dead before that’s a concern! Which brings us to our last game on here, Sengoku 2, which has a bit more going for it than its predecessor included on NEOGEO Arcade 1 but still isn’t a patch on Sengoku 3, also included on the NEOGEO Super Pocket, making it a shame you’re limited to playing the best of them on there rather than on a big screen with the Evercade VS. Anyway, it’s a side-scrolling beat ‘em up from 1993, still doing time-spanning, supernatural Samurai stuff, but with a bit more character and style than the first game, and it plays a lot better too – actually, it’s pretty fun in short bursts! Overall, I’ll get my money’s worth out of two games on here alone, and will no doubt come back for a dabble with most of the others while I’m doing so, but it’s not really anywhere near equal to the first collection as a whole.

I did also manage to finish off the new Silent Hill 2 Remake on Xbox Series X, and overall it did one of my top five favourite games of all time total justice. I loved it! There’s more on that here if you want it, but otherwise, I’m still just mostly enjoying jumping around these new Evercade cartridges, and I’ll hopefully get into another of them next Sunday! In case you missed it last Wednesday though, I did finally make a vague effort to get festive with my Top Ten Favourite Christmas Games, so do have a read of that here because I think I ended-up with some surprisingly good stuff in there! Then next Wednesday, the most wonderful time of the year really will be upon us when we get into The Retro Arcadia Game of the Year 2025 Top Ten Countdown, which I always love putting together but this time genuinely represents one of the best years in gaming I can remember for ages! Hopefully see you then!

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