SNK NEOGEO Mini Samurai Shodown Limited Edition Bundle: Ukyo Tachibana

This Samurai Showdown edition of SNK’s Neo Geo Mini is a beauty filled with arcade classics. You have your Metal Slug, Fatal Fury, KOF, and of course Samurai Showdown, as well as lesser known titles such as Magician Lord and Twinkle Star Sprites. All Samurai Showdown titles are present except for SS V Perfect. There is a decent selection of titles, however it’s definitely missing some essentials such Fatal Fury Special and Metal Slug X, however some of the games make up for it. KOF 98 and Garou Mark of the Wolves are two of the best titles on this system.The hardware itself is nice. It does lack clicky sanwa buttons, but what there is is still responsive and effective. The LCD screen is crisp with good speakers and I personally don’t see the issues I’ve read about the HDMI picture quality. It’s still beautiful. The controller is excellent. It’s hefty with a nice thumbstick. I’ve read many complaints of the controller lacking the clicky stick of the original Neo Geo CD. I’ve never seen or used that controller so it really doesn’t bother me.Overall this particular variant of the hardware satisfies my passion for retro gaming. I would only recommend this to fans of Samurai Showdown. The regular International variant is much cheaper and is perfectly acceptable for newcomers alike.

I am not really familiar with SNK NEOGEO games, but I collect all of the mini consoles (NES, SNES, PS, TG16, Genesis), so I figured I would get this one.As a gamer, the package includes mainly fighting games that are all very similar (this may be heresy to an SNK fan, but for the average gamer, this is likely true) and shooters. I enjoy the Samurai Showdown games the most since those were the only ones I was familiar with as a kid. The little screen on the system itself is surprisingly adequate for gaming, and the HDMI tv connection works well, even if its not the most clear conversion to an HD signal. The lack of a rechargeable battery is almost unforgivable given how portable this system could be, but a battery pack attached to a usb c cable can mostly remedy that problem.As a collector, this console is very weird to review. Unlike the offerings from Sega, Nintendo, Sony, and Konami, SNK did not attempt to recreate their NEOGEO CD console. Instead, they decided to recreate their iconic arcade cabinet in mini form. This has a huge advantage for a playing without a TV, but it also looks odd sitting with my collection of mini consoles since its really a mini arcade cabinet.The translucent blue is cool and a little silly, but I like it overall. The package includes two really nice controllers, a mini hdmi cable, and a usb c charging cable, so this Samurai bundle is a great value over the regular package. It also includes a couple of decals so that you can customize the system to look like an arcade cabinet. Great package.

As a kid, a Neo Geo was always the stuff of legend, something a friend of a friend had, cost a fortune, had amazing and very expensive games for the time.Fortunately now I get to own one and it doesn't disappoint. I remember playing some of the games like King Of Fighters at the cinema before the movies started and this brings back fond memories. Playing on the miniscreen, these games still have that intoxicating mix of bright colours and loud music that made them so addictive.At the same time however, extended play can be overwhelming. But i think that was integral to the original appeal and the goal of SNK to increase player turnover at the arcades. So this machine is something I get to enjoy with friends or by myself after a day at the office.Most of the games are fighting games, with multiple versions of each, and i haven't really figured out the difference between each e.g. Samurai showdown yet. It's not really a question of if they are there for filler but without all the versions of e.g. King of Fighters the collection would feel incomplete. Plus there are many tag team and team play games like Metal Slug.If you are looking to relive some gaming memories with friends or play them with younger relatives I would recommend this. It is fun to play at parties. Likewise I would consider Capcom's arcade console or the PS1 mini (esp for Super Puzzle Fighter).The only shortcoming of this machine would be that the graphics do not scale quite as well on our 50inch TV but i cannot say if that is due to the TV or the console.So, overall I'm very happy with this.

Pulling this out of the box and looking at the controller and the branded cables was probably the most entertaining part of buying this mini console. It includes a lot of great games but the controller is really bad and it seems like the emulator used for the games always has some level of graphical smoothing added at all times even when you turn off the "enhanced graphics" option in the setting menu. I think this is why everybody complains about the graphics not looking as crisp on a bigger screen. I have never touched an original "clicky" neo geo controller, but it's pretty clear that the analog pad on this controller has way too much movement making the control feel sloppy. You are better off playing any of these games on console. They have basically flooded all the digital markets with ports of everything Neo Geo.

The controller's are garbage on top of it being clunky theirs a little "bump" on top of the thumb controlled joystick on them. If you play with the controller it digs in so plan on getting a different controller if you buy this other than that the system plays awesome looks great but you have to put the decals on it and you have 1 maybe 2 chances to do it right or it looks like garbage.As for the shipping they lied about having this in stock and took over a week to even get it into shipping as they had to order it from some other place!!!!!!!!