Mini-Review
Fatal Fury First Contact
NeoGeo Pocket Color	From: SNK

One thing you get from SNK is beat 'em ups. This will be familiar to most older gamers as the main competitor (clone) to Capcom's Street Fighter series. Graphically, this is the business - characters are huge and brilliantly animated to SNES-like standards, making the excellent King of Fighters look almost second-rate. You simply won't believe this is on a handheld, and it really shows up the Game Boy Color as an 8bit dinosaur. The controls are superb, thanks to the NGPC's brilliant mini-joystick, and you'll rapidly get the feel of the game. The characters have a tendency to feel very light in this post-Tekken era, but as a conversion of the more stylised 2D fist-fest, this is a superb example. There are only 11 fighters, but all are totally different in style. Sadly this game is bereft of modes. One-player and two-player are all you get here, which is a criminal oversight, especially the lack of a training mode. Longevity soon suffers as a result, which is a shame given the excellent gameplay.

FG verdict

83%

Mini-Review
Samurai Shodown 2
NeoGeo Pocket Color	From: SNK

Another graphical tour-de-force. Large characters, smooth, fast animation, bright colours and flashy special moves make this another joy to watch. This is one of the first games to seriously show the NeoGeo's potential as a true handheld SNES/Mega Drive. Gameplay doesn't disappoint either. This is very different in style to other 2D beat 'em ups like Fatal Fury and King of Fighters. The inclusion of weapons is well executed and allows some brutal countering. Special moves are well balanced and bonkers, and no one character has it all their own way. A more thoughtful form of attack is called for and button-bashers will be minced very rapidly by a skilled opponent. One of the keys to victory is reversing attacks and timing your counters - very satisfying if pulled off. Combination attacks are intuitive and come about as a series of well-tagged basic moves and specials in a very Tekken-like way. This is quirky stuff though, and not to everyone's tastes. There's a brilliant card collection mode and survival mode to increase longevity, but again, no practice mode knocks the score down. If you like your fighting games a little different to the rest, buy this.

FG verdict

85%

Sega Rally 2 / Puzzle Bobble 2