GameSpot Recaps 25-Year History of SNK

Decaffeinated Jedi writes "GameSpot has offered up an amazingly in-depth history of SNK -- the company behind such classic games as Ikari Warriors, Fatal Fury, and King of Fighters, as well as the NeoGeo hardware system. The 39-page retrospective covers nearly every aspect of the company's 25-year history and includes an annotated list of key SNK titles, trivia, insider interviews, hardware comparisons, screenshots, promotional art, and more."

Good old times...

[Anonymous Coward]

They simply made _THE BEST_ 2D fighting games, ever.
They were unique and stylish, as always.. SNK shall live on! :)

Crystalis ruled

[Innominandum]

I think Crystalis was one of my favourite Nintendo games. It also never seemed to be very popular either. Maybe the company is cursed?

They forgot to mention one early game

[AtariKee]

Sasuke Vs Commander [arcadeflyers.com], which was SNK's first color machine.

Re:NeoGeo Nostalgia

[Stormwatch]

That is wrong... Street Fighter 2 ran on Capcom's CPS, not SNK's Neo Geo / MVS. Aren't you thinking of Fatal Fury or King of Fighters?

Re:Metal Slug influence for Duke Nukem?

[BackwardEngineer]

No, see, Duke Nukum was released in 1991, while Metal Slug wasn't released until 1996. However, if you are talking about Duke Nukem 3D, which was also released in 1996, albeit January 29th, you still could not say that Metal Slug X, which was released in 1999, was its its influence.

Same with the characters. Marco (one of the two guys you could pick in Metal Slug X, and the only character in Metal Slug), was invisioned way after Duke Nukum had been released.

So, either Duke Nukum influenced the Metal Slug series, or there was no influence at all.

Re:nostalgy

[Anonymous Coward]

Did anyone ever actually PLAY Ikari Warriors?!? That game was HORRIBLE! You couldn't save, it was buggy on NES and after playing for 12 freaking hours all you got for an ending was a thank you from General Kawasaki. The hours and hours of frustration I got from that game were rediculous. When I finally beat it I couldn't believe they wasted my time like that. I never played that game again after that day and it pains me that people call it a 'classic'

/end rant

Re:I remember the NeoGeo

[badasscat]

somehow, the standard controllers that were given with the XBox on their launch seems very small compared to the original joysticks you got with the NeoGeo.

Well, that's probably because they were, but you can't directly compare them. The Neo Geo AES shipped with arcade joysticks, a fundamentally different type of controller than MS's (and the rest of the current industry's) gamepads. SNK also made gamepads for the Neo Geo systems and they were about the size of a Sega Genesis or Super NES pad (which means smaller than the Xbox gamepad).

I always loved the aesthetic design of the Neo Geo AES and its controllers, though. They're these sort of monolithic black slabs, very large but with subtle curves that make them look a lot smaller than they are. The system itself is so sleek that I thought it was about the smallest system I owned, until I stuck it on a shelf with the rest of my collection and discovered it's just the opposite - as large as an Atari 5200, much larger than a PS2, as deep and wide as an Xbox (though not as tall - unless it has a cartridge in it!). It's truly about the pinnacle of industrial design in the game console industry.

The NeoGeo actually felt like bringing the arcade coin-ops in your home , allthough it has never reached any recognition over here (the Netherlands).

Well it didn't get any recognition here (in the US) either. It's one of those things that nobody bought at the time but now that the company's got such respect, everybody claims to be major fans. It's really a bandwagon thing. But there are still relatively few of these systems out there and they're still quite expensive, so I have to always scratch my head at the sheer number of people claiming to have these vivid Neo Geo memories these days. I suppose the arcade machines were more ubiquitous but the home systems were never particularly popular. (I acquired mine through trade; I could have never justified the cost otherwise.)

Oh, and the Neo Geo AES didn't just feel like bringing arcade coin-ops home, that is in fact what you were doing. The home carts were exactly the same as the arcade carts except for the pinouts (in fact adapters exist to let you play the arcade carts on a home machine - they just adapt the pinouts). There's no technical reason why the pinouts were different, either, it was strictly so SNK could charge more for the home carts, as the arcade carts were quite cheap - the idea being to make the money in arcades on the machines themselves, whereas at home it was just the opposite.

Guerilla War rocked

[SpaceRook]

This wasn't the most popular SNK game....but damn, did it kick ass. The level of detail was amazing for a shooter. The only point of the game was to blow shit up, a point driven home by the fact that it was trivial to respawn infinitely. The explosions often bordered on self-parody. Half the time, the NES would slow down as it strained to render them.

SNK Playmore is located at OSAKA, JAPAN

[News for nerds]

>Hopefully Playmore will remember that the
>little details help make a good gaming
>experience. Not stuff like giving Kim Kaphwan
>more frames of animation just because he's
>Korean [note: Playmore is Korean].

Hah? Playmore is Japanese pachinko/slotmachine maker.

Re:Crystalis ruled

[Bendebecker]

It may have not been too popular not becuase it wasn't a great game but becuase it was so damn hard to find a copy of it anywhere. I eventually found it in a used bin about 2 years after I first heard about it from a friend. It is a must for any RPG player. Saying you have never played Crystalis is like saying you never played the orginal Final Fantasy - instant sign of noob. It still has one of the greatest stories I ahve ever seen in an RPG. When you realize that what it was competeing against was The Legend of Zelda (a game with next to no story) just amkes it all that more impressive an accomplishment. Simply put: it rocked.

I can still hum the tower music and whistle the cave theme...

Re:I remember the NeoGeo

[nuxx]

Actually, I think you have the last bit slightly backwards. The MVS (the arcade NeoGeo) carts were new, they were a few hundred dollars a piece, as opposed to the AES (home version) carts which were around a hundred. The pinout difference was to keep arcade ops from putting AES carts in MVS machines. For the most part, SNK (like most other arcade game vendors) sold the game systems and carts for a set price, then the operators made money off the plays. That's why they cost so much.

The reason you see so many adapters these days for playing MVS games in AES devices is because MVS games are (with few exceptions) a few dollars to a few tens of dollars on eBay, while actual AES carts are worth much more.

Luckily I found a full stand-up MVS locally, so I snagged that for $500. A few hundred later and I've got a 30-some title of MVS games. And there's something about playing at a stand-up machine that is just great.

They forgot the MSX port of Ikari Warriors!

[quibus]

I just wrote the following e-mail to the author of the article:

Hello Frank,

I just read your SNK article on GameSpot.com. A very nice in-depth article!

Although, I think you forgot to mention that SNK also produced software for the MSX system, which is virtually unknown in the USA, but used to be very popular in Japan and certain parts of Europe, as well as Brazil.

For some more information about this home computer system, you might want to check out these sites:
The Ultimate MSX FAQ [msxnet.org]
The MSX Resource Center [msx.org]

The only MSX product of SNK I know is Ikari Warriors. For some information about the game, see this page: Ikari Warriors on Generation MSX [generation-msx.nl].

In short: it was released in 1987 for the MSX2 system (the second generation standard of MSX). It's a 2Mbit game.

Some scans of the cover in a higher resolution: front [funet.fi], back [funet.fi], side [funet.fi].

I'm also in posession of this game myself. :-)

I hope you will update the article!
(At least pages 2 (near the bottom) and page 31 should mention the MSX port of Ikari Warriors, I think.