8 Of The Best Neo Geo Pocket Games

Prepare your wallet for a bit of a battering as we take a look at some of the Best Neo Geo Pocket games. They’re super expensive and often quite difficult to get a hold of. But, if like me, gaming is in your blood and your DNA you’ll want to track down some of these games and play them for your self.

The Neo Geo Pocket console was first available in 1999 in Japan and then later on the US and European versions of the console were revealed. The color version of the console was a successor to the Neo Geo Pocket and offered significant upgrades over the original. With those significant upgrades came better games too.

The power draw from the handheld console was so low you could game for over 40 hours! The 40 hour battery life came from just 2 1.5v AA batteries, which is astonishing,

Considering the Neo Geo Pocket was a pretty capable console back in 1999, the asking price of just under $70 was a steal. Today though the console will set you back almost double that, $140 on average for the original 1999 edition. Re-makes and copies are available but real gamers know, original is best.

That’s not the most expensive thing about the console though. The games go from anywhere between $50 up to $1000! They aren’t generally speaking all that rare, I imagine you’ll be able to find some of them quite easily. If you wanna check out some other retro and scarce games, check out this collection of Rare PS1 games.

The console goes for around $200 and is often available via Amazon.

So, like I said, strap in and check out this list of the best Neo Geo pocket games ever made.

The Best Neo Geo Pocket Games

First up on the list is a game that has, for me anyway, got quite a lot of replay value. It’s a digital collectible card game that was initially poorly received but has since grown into garnering a bit of a following in recent years as more and more people revisit older hand held consoles.

SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters Clash

One of the best games for the Neo Geo Pocket.

After playing Pokemon Trading Card Game on Gameboy, I wanted to play another card game that was just as good, if not better. This really scratched the itch.

Essentially the game focuses on “card fights”. Two players will battle it out, using their card decks. Each deck of cards must contain atleast 50 cards of two different types: character cards and action cards. Character cards, like the name would suggest represents a character from either SNK’s or Capcom’s gaming universes.

Character cards are the main type in the game and these cards have two statistics: Battle Points (BP) and Soul Points (SP).

BP’s are similar to HP in the Final Fantasy games and SPs’ are sorta like MP in the FF universe. The idea is to get your opponents card down to 0BP. Once they are, that particular card is discarded.

It’s quite a fun game and well worth trying to your hands on it.

Puzzle Link

Puzzle link is a Puzzle Game. It’s got really simple puzzle mechanics and it’s pretty addictive. It’s one of the cheaper games available for the Neo Geo Colour, which makes it quite accessible to new owners of the hand held console.

Puzzle Link is a tile-matching game where you need to clear away the blocks that take up the space on the grid. You’ll clear these blocks by creating a chain of two or more discrete sections of each block type. You form this chain by firing one-block-width units of pipe from a launcher at the bottom of the screen, you can only point the block launcher left or right, which is where the difficulty comes in. This restricted movement makes it quite a pain to fire the blocks where you want them do go.

There are three modes to play through; Normal, Clear and Battle. I find the clear mode to be the hardest to complete, it’s a great game, you’ll load up the game and before you know it, you’ve spent the last 2 hours working your way through the puzzles!

Pac-Man

Does this game really need an introduction? It doesn’t! It’s a really good port of the original though. It works really well, and the clicky control stick is a joy to use.

It’s not just one of the best Neo Geo pocket color games, it’s easily one of the best games of all time. Now, some people may say it’s just for the pure joy of nostalgia that they like this game.

It originally came to Neo Geo Pocket Color in 1999, so give it a chance. Even though the sound is a little ‘off’ and you’ll need to play on the ‘zoomed out’ mode, It’s a super portable version of a classic and it plays well, I enjoyed it.

You’ll find it available on ebay and sometimes you’ll find it available at your local entertainment exchange. Be expected to pay a premium though, it’s quite sought after.

Biomotor Unitron

When I think of Biomotor Unitron I think of Pokemon with Robots. That’s a very simple view of this awesome neogeo pocket colour game.

In the age of battling little creatures against each other, it seemed as though the original and best, Pokemon was so far ahead of the competition that nothing was ever going to take it’s number one spot. And that’s pretty much remained the case for the last 20 years.

Digimon and Yugioh cards being the closest competitor despite not being exactly the same in terms of cultural impact. I can’t think of anything that’s come close really.

In the case of Biomotor Unitron, a game that only ever saw a one game in the series it’s often an often overlooked Neo Geo Pocket Color game, which is a shame as it’s one of the best. Biomotor has crazy over the top strategy elements and in-depth character creation system aswell a massive amount of grinding.

It has something for everyone and it looks super retro on the pocket colour screen and really reminds me of Pokemon Red for Gameboy colour and that’s not bad thing! It’s certainly up there with the best games on the Neo Geo! Go check it out.

Sonic

I used this games artwork as the main blog image for good reason, I think that game alone is worth buying the console for. It’s such a good game and I think all Sonic games tend to pass the test of time. It can be described in one word, classic.

The game is a port of the 1992 released game, Sonic The Hedgehog 2 for the Sega Genesis. It’s a decent port and borrows most of then main themes and gameplay elements. It does have some unique stages and elements from other games in the series, which I quite like. It takes the best of the best and compiles them into a hand held version on the pocket colour.

The game was released for the Neo Geo all the way back in December 1999 and received generally positive reviews. Critics wrote that they felt Sonic Pocket Adventure was a faithful and true to form adaptation of the original Sonic game formula.

Last Blade

The Last Blade: Beyond the Destiny was first released for the handheld console back in 2000.

It’s a much scaled-down version of one of SNK’s most subtle, under-rated and underplayed fighting games. The Last Blade is similar in design, atmoshpere and themematics to Samurai Showdown, but hosts its own array of sword wielding ninjas.

The Neo Geo Pocket Color edition features a couple of additional modes. So, alongside the normal VS mode you also get a story mode and a survival mode. It’s such a fun game and the click buttons make it a real button basher.

It’s quite difficult to find this game in good condition so to give gamers a fighting chance you can also get it on Nintendo Switch. It’ll cost you around $8 for the re-release, which I think is a bargain considering it gives you fight fans the chance to play one of the rarer games on the Neo-Geo Pocket Color platform.

Hit the link here to buy it from the Nintendo Store.

Dark Arms: Beast Buster

Dark Arms: Beast Buster was first released in 1999. It’s an action role-playing game released by SNK for the Neo Geo Pocket Color. It’s a sequel to arcade shooter Beast Busters. Dark Arms has you playing as a girl, Meghan Loughlin, whose job is to defeat and contain a nasty outbreak of demons. You’ll also be required to act as a mediator between this world and the next.

You can collect the spirits of the various demons and zombies you fight in the game with a gun known as “The Catcher”. The story is really good and I’d love to see a modern take on the game released for the PS5.

Once you’ve got enough spirits you can then use the captured spirits to ‘feed’ your weapons. Basically you use their spirits as ammo! You can also use them to enchance your weapons into more powerful ones by evolving them. Your basic handgun for example, can evolve into the Sub Shotgun, which then evolves into the Shotgun.

These game has plenty of content, it’s not a run and gun, there is some strategy involved and it’s really good fun. Nintendo have also included it in their Vol 1 collection of Neo Geo games they’ve announced for the switch.

Faselei!

One of the best and rarest games for the Neo Geo Color.

I’ve heard comparisons that Faselei! is reminiscent of the PSOne game Carnage Heart and I can definitley apreicate that sentiment.

The game is set in the year 2099. It’s a time the world is suffering after the end of World War III. The Middle Eastern nation of Istar attempted to broker peace between the remaining nations. The king was assassinated, which as you can imagine, caused all sorts of issues!

When it released Faselei! became one of the most popular games for the portable system. I think it’s also becasue of how technically advanced the game was, squeezing every last ounce of processing power out of the Neo Geo Color.

Copies of the game in existence are said to number less than 10,000. Due to a re-call they’re probably less than half of that, so that means there’s around 5000 copies ever sold due to the mentioned recall. This makes it a rare game due to scarcity.

Along side the low numbers of available copies, due to the technical superiority in terms of graphics and sound it’s very sought after. This’ll mean that you can expect to pay a pretty penny on ebay and other auction websites.

The Best Neo Geo Pocket Games Honorable Mentions

There are many great games for the NeoGeo Pocket Colour. The below 9 games didn’t quite make the cut (in our opinion) of being the best games for the handheld console. But, they do deserve a mention and are well worth checking out.