Old faces, new places.
As mentioned above, Neo Geo Battle Coliseum is a compilation fighter, combining characters from many of SNK's fighting (and non-fighting) series in a two-on-two tag team 'Dream Match', much like Capcom has done in games such as Capcom vs. SNK and Capcom Fighting Jam. Of course, SNK's main series King of Fighters began in the same way by combining characters from the Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting series, and even the shooter Ikari Warriors, but Battle Coliseum takes several steps further from reality by combing King of Fighters with characters from series set several centuries apart (Samurai Shodown and Last Blade), with fantasy themes (King of Monsters), and even Marco from Metal Slug! The roster features a wide variety of favourites, such as Kyo, Iori, Kim and Mai, and Terry from King of Fighters, Rock and Hotaba from Fatal Fury: Mark of the Wolves, Haohmaru, Genjuro and Nakoruru from Samurai Shodown and Washizuka, Akari and Kaede from The Last Blade. There are also some additional Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting characters, and even some faces from the long forgotten World Heroes. As usual, for this type of game, there are some new characters, but for once they're actually worthwhile. The two newcomers, Yuki and Ai are tracksuit wearing teenagers whose moves are combinations of other SNK characters, and they're the feature of many other in-jokes too – Yuki has a move that flashes 'MAX 330 Mega' on the screen, referring to the text of the original Neo Geo's boot up, and Ai attacks with what appear to be Tetris blocks!
In fact, it's the detail that really sets Battle Coliseum apart, and the often extreme attention to detail shows that the designers really cared about giving the fans their money's worth. Since the original game was on Sammy's Dreamcast based Atomiswave arcade board, it features excellent high-resolution backgrounds that are very detailed and packed with cameos and references. One particular thing that stood out to us was the inclusion of Athena as an unlockable character – but not the pop star Athena as we know her from the The King of Fighters series, but a shield bearing, arrow firing Athena - a return to the Greek Mythological roots of her original NES game! Character sprites mostly remain low res, but have been smoothed over decently to match the backgrounds, there are even some sprite filter options so you can choose exactly how you'd like this effect to look.
Truly old school Athena is an amusing addition - and a great playing character.
The game plays almost exactly how you'd imagine it would – like King of Fighters 2003 (which had a similar tag team feature) with a more diverse roster. Apart from fighters that are new, from other genres, or are from really ancient games, the sprites have been ripped directly from their respective sources, featuring all their moves (sometimes re-mapped if the game system was different from King of Fighters) and look and play near identically to their original context versions. Unfortunately, this means some characters are visually mismatched – not in style or logic (mismatched logic is the whole point of this game), but in resolution and animation. Rock Howard, for example, retains his ultra smooth animation from Mark of the Wolves, and when he's on screen with one of the older, non re-drawn sprites like Haohmaru (whose sprite originated in 1995's Samurai Shodown III) the difference in animation is glaring. It also slightly affects the gameplay by making older characters more powerful, since less frames of animation mean moves are not as easy to pick for the other player. But since SNK animation has been quite decent for years, it's not too big a deal, and thanks to the sprite smoothing technique the characters hold up quite well visually. It's also to SNK Playmore's credit that most character's damage seems to be tailored to create a reasonably balanced game, although as with every compilation fighting game you'll soon find a character or move that seems a bit too powerful. Following SNK tradition, the bosses are incredibly cheap, and require just as cheap tactics from the player to beat them.
Marco brings in the big guns (is that even funny when it's not a metaphor?).
One serious complaint about the game is that the load times are quite bad. It takes around 20 seconds for the first round to start from the character select screen, and every time the background changes there's another ten second pause. This can become quite frustrating when you're trying to beat an el-cheapo boss for the 12th time, but is bearable in multiplayer. Options wise, Neo Geo Battle Coliseum is pretty much standard for these types of release. There is 50/60Hz option, as well as variety of video modes that slightly stretch the screen in various ways (since arcade monitors have a different resolution to TVs), and you can choose between an arranged soundtrack and the original. Like all the Ignition releases, there are in game move lists available at any time on the pause menu, a feature all fighting games should have. In terms of unlockables, there are a few characters and an art gallery, and that's about it.
It's not going to knock the likes of Street Fighter 3 and Mark of the Wolves off their 'all time great' perches, but Battle Coliseum is fun, looks very decent, and has enough variety, features and nice touches to make it worth a play for 2D fighter fans. If you're an SNK fan of any sort, pick this up without hesitation. It's not going to last forever in single player, but it has a large interesting cast, so could last quite a while if you've got some friends that are also into 2D fighters.
And bringing it back to our original point - it's fun to know that for once you're playing a game that American gamers only wish they could!
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