There are sixteen games featured here, including one that must be unlocked. The general breakdown of titles falls into several categories. Fighting games were a Neo-Geo staple, so we have titles like
Art of Fighting, Fatal Fury, and
The King of Fighters '94.
World Heroes is another in this category and happens to be the unlockable title. Similar in format but built with a focus on weapons and Asian swordfighting are two titles,
Samurai Showdown and
Sengoku. You'll also find
Burning Fight, which is just a side-scrolling street brawl that falls somewhere between a shooter and a fighting game. Three excellent sports games are included,
The Next Glory, Neo Turf Masters, and
Baseball Stars 2. Battlefield shooting titles like
Metal Slug and
Shock Troopers are here, and other side-scrolling shooters include
Magician Lord,
Top Hunter, and
Last Resort. The variety is incredible, although you will see a trend toward fighting or shooting titles and heavy focus on action gameplay.
There is two-player galore in SNK Arcade Classics Vol. 1. The fighting games are obviously going to pit you against the other player, but there are plenty of opportunities for cooperative play as in a brawler like Burning Fight. The sports games remind me of sitting through some long afternoons and evenings playing against a friend or burning quarters in the arcade before these games were available to a home audience. Neo Turf Masters is a damn good golf game, rudimentary compared to the fantastic 3D versions we enjoy today, but still very playable by today's standards. The same is true of a game like Baseball Stars 2. Sports games have come a long way, and then they haven't really come very far at all in the sense that the rules haven't changed. The Neo-Geo sports games captured the excitement of action on the field; if they seem rudimentary, you're missing the point, because it's all about the competition. Metal Slug certainly earned a reputation for punishing gameplay coupled with action that kept you coming back for more punishment. Almost every twitchy title in this collection feels the same way. The fighting games are interesting points in history considering that 3D titles like Tekken were right around the corner. I can remember lining up in the arcade at college behind 20 people waiting to get on and fight; these were hugely popular and playable titles. The fast-moving action and hilariously diverse character lineup in any one game is magnified when you realize how much depth there is in this collection. It would have been nice to see more balance between the fighting games and other titles, but the goal seems to be for SNK Arcade Classics Vol. 1 to represent flagship Neo-Geo titles. Most people associate the system with its fighting games, so it's easy to see the logic in the game selections.
Earning badges is a function of completing specific games or accomplishing objectives set out from the beginning. Once you've earned a certain number of badges, you'll be able to view special features and open up the locked game, World Heroes. Getting through to the end of most games will require more than a few continues, but it's always worth it to see the next outrageous boss, bad-guy variations, or level design. Not that the 90's were some kind of gaming renaissance, but those of us gathered around arcade cabinets were certainly obsessed. It's easy to capture that obsession playing SNK Arcade Classics Vol. 1 when you find yourself coming up with excuses to just play that one level one more time, or try again to defeat that tricky boss. Most of the games include a checkpoint system that saves your last level as a reference so you can pick it up again later. This makes earning badges on completion of the game more realistic for less seasoned players. At least in the co-op games it helps quite a bit for two players to team up, and the second player can join on-the-fly. The only disappointment among all these accolades is the lack of meaningful online content or a connection to any online portal for the games. Scoreboards at least would have been great for bragging rights, and seemingly easy to include, so it's curious they were left out of this release.
