The two NeoGeo Pocket Metal Slug games are both much, much easier than the “proper” NeoGeo games in the series, and they’re also as much about platforming as running and shooting, which differs from the big versions too. They are, however, still both excellent on the tiny screen.

I’ve completed them both before (a few times, I expect), but I hadn’t remembered much from the actual levels. There are a couple where the layout is basically a maze, which was a bit annoying as I got lost and all the baddies respawn, and having to press pause to swap between gun and grenade was not ideal, but 1st Mission was a lot of fun.

Yes, another NeoGeo Pocket game from that Switch compilation. And it seems I’d completed this previously – twice in fact. Like all the other fighting games on the NeoGeo Pocket, it’s very good, although they don’t half do a lot of asset reuse. At least in this one they had to create all the Capcom fighters from scratch though!

I played through it three times. First as Ken, then as Mai, then as Leona, getting the ending for each, Of course, Ken is best.

This game is one I have for the NeoGeo Pocket and I remember I enjoyed it at the time, but don’t remember much about it. Aside from you shoot baddies to get souls which upgrade your guns. Seems, now I’ve completed it on the NeoGeo Pocket Colour Selection on the Switch, that really that’s all there is to it.

OK, so not quite. There’s a story which is badly translated and makes little sense, and you don’t just have a gun, you have some other weapons which you can swap between like “a big alien arm thing” and “some sort of shield I think”. But you do just go round various areas like a graveyard and a cave and a haunted house shooting (or “big alien arming”) ghosts, demons, witches, zombies, and other evil and/or undead creatures.

There’s a day and night cycle, with different characters and foes appearing at one or the other, and because of the terrible text in the game it’s a bit tricky to understand what you need to do so you basically have to wander the whole of each area several times over both day and night to make sure you’ve done everything. This may sound tedious, and it is a little, but you have to grind to improve your weapons anyway so it’s actually not too bad.

Then, when you’ve defeated the final boss it turns out that’s not the end of the game as you have to find a load of (harmless but hidden) witches to combine them together to resurrect something which isn’t really explained. So I did that and got the One True Ending.

Dark Arms was, overall, less fun than I remember but I still enjoyed it.

Although I don’t like golf at all, I’ve always enjoyed a good golf game. From PGA European Tour on the Amiga, which I don’t even remember buying, through Mario Gold, NES Golf, Golf Story, and so on. One of my favourites is Neo Turf Masters for the NeoGeo Pocket, which is the Other Region name for this – Big Tournament Golf.

To be enjoyable, golf games need to be simple. Choose a club, aim, press a button to swing, set power, then set accuracy. That’s it. And Big Tournament Golf does exactly this with no fuss. There are three courses, with increasing difficulty, although actually none of them are really very hard. I completed them all over a couple of weeks, coming first in the tournaments for each.

The Neo Geo Pocket fighting games are such good fun. They might all be the same, more or less, but they’re fun. Even in single player.

I completed this a few years ago, but I recently bought the Neo Geo Pocket collection for the Switch so I’ve been playing the games on there a bit. This is the first one of them I’ve completed, and I did it as Yuri for a change.