EDITOR'S NOTE:
We here at Gaming Hell wish to salute game console manufacturers who have finally seen fit to give us a screenshot button pretty much as standard on controllers nowadays. Makes our job a million times easier, let me tell you. So, all the following screenshots are taken from the Switch collection rather than MAME or a NES emulator, aside from the chart showing all the games on the set (partly reused from the last SNK set we covered, because of course). Additionally, Digital Eclipse's Head of Restoration Frank Cifaldi gets mentioned a lot here because he offered a lot of insight into the development of this set, either on his Twitter account, or in the chat of this JP_Ronny stream or in this talk he did at MAGFest 2019. So, if there's any behind-the-scenes comments made here, it's from one of those sources. Ta for that.

It's time to return to the land of no Nakoruru, no Marco Rossi, not even Terry Bogard- pre-Neo Geo SNK.

Last time, SNK's output from roughly 1980 to 1990 was to be found on the PSP in the form of SNK Arcade Classics 0, a twenty-strong collection of their early work which was a bit here and there. Developed by G1M2, the emulation was a bit patchy and the extras a bit wishy-washy, but it was also the only ports of some of these games, until they were individually reissued as PSP Minis that you probably didn't even know existed. Unless you reread our own article. Anyway, in the intervening seven years between then and today's topic, SNK got to porting their Neo Geo back catalogue again before returning to proper development with The King of Fighters XIV. The annoying thing here is that said ports varied wildly in terms of feature set and quality due to three primary developers being involved- Hamster, whose Arcade Archives Neo Geo releases across all major platforms are barebones but faithfully emulated; Code Mystics, who focus on adding online play to games like The Last Blade 2, Garou: Mark of the Wolves and Samurai Shodown V Special for PS4 and Vita; and DotEmu, whose Steam port of Shock Troopers: 2nd Squad crashed on the final level of a co-op game. They were even releasing ports of ports for the PS4, specifically the Neo Geo sets originally released on PS2 like Art of Fighting Anthology and Fu'un Super Combo as well as Metal Slug XX, basically an emulation of the PSP version. This lead to the slightly absurd situation where there are three distinct versions of Metal Slug 3 available on PS4- the Code Mystics version, the Hamster version and the Terminal Reality version on Metal Slug Anthology. Phew! However, aside from a few Switch releases via Hamster, their pre-Neo Geo output was left out.



Enter another hand, then, Digital Eclipse! No no, this isn't the same Digital Eclipse you're thinking of. The old Digital Eclipse were known for their arcade collections such as Midway Arcade Treasures and Capcom Classics Collection, but over time the quality of these sets and their ports in general deteriorated (mostly after they were merged with ImaginEngine to form Backbone Entertainment), leading to sloppy collections like Midway Arcade Origins (which is literally missing a button from Xybots so you can't play it properly) and the first couple of Sega Vintage Collection games on PS3 and 360 before they were handed over to M2. In 2015 though, the Digital Eclipse name was properly revived, including the hiring of noted video game historian Frank Cifaldi, and the collections they've put out since- Mega Man Legacy Collection, The Disney Afternoon Collection, and Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection- are considerably better and chock full of information and history about the games included. SNK 40th Anniversary Collection, then, is Digital Eclipse giving SNK's earlier games a proper rerelease on home consoles, and offering a look at the early years of the company. The bar of quality isn't terribly high- they just have to be better than SNK Arcade Classics 0. Let's see if they can pull it off, then, and from the start it's looking good as thirty-two games are included when you add in the post-launch DLC games (which are free- nine are in a patch, and Beast Busters and SAR - Search and Rescue have to be downloaded separately as they bump the age rating up). Twenty-three arcade titles and nine NES / Famicom games, and most of those include both a Japanese and US version, very generous!


First, here's the arcade games in year order, with World titles first, Japanese titles second.
Titles in light blue are the post-launch DLC games.


Ozma Wars
 (1979)

Sasuke Vs. Commander
 (1980)

Fantasy
 (1981)

Vanguard
(1981)


Munch Mobile /
Joyful Road
(1983)

T.N.K. III /
T.A.N.K.
(1985)

Alpha Mission /
ASO - Armored Scrum Object
(1985)


Athena
(1986)


Ikari Warriors /
Ikari
(1986)

Victory Road /
Dogosoken
(1986)


Bermuda Triangle
(1987)


World Wars
(1987)


Guerilla War /
Guevara
(1987)


Psycho Soldier
(1987)

Time Soldiers /
Battle Field
(1987)


Chopper I
(1988)


Paddle Mania
(1988)

P.O.W. - Prisoners of War /
Datsugoku - Prisoners of War
(1988)


Beast Busters
(1989)


Ikari III: The Rescue /
Ikari III
(1989)

Prehistoric Isle in 1930 /
Genshi-Tou 1930s
(1989)


Street Smart
(1989)


SAR - Search and Rescue
(1989)

And the NES games, starting with the arcade ports in year order followed by the two console-exclusive games:


Alpha Mission /
ASO - Armored Scrum Object
(1986)

Ikari Warriors /
Ikari
(1986)


Athena
(1986)

Ikari Warriors II: Victory Road /
Ikari II: Dogosoken
(1988)


Guerilla War /
Guevara
(1989)

P.O.W. - Prisoners of War /
Datsugoku - Prisoners of War
(1989)

Ikari III: The Rescue /
Ikari III
(1989)

Iron Tank: The Invasion of Normandy /
Great Tank
(1988)

Crystalis /
God Slayer
(1990)
Additionally, the Japanese console version of Guevara includes a half-finished port of Sasuke Vs. Commander, which was included at the insistence of the main programmer Kin-chan (thanks, Shmuplations and TCRF). To play it here using two JoyCons (1P Blue and 2P Red) with the default controls, hold A and B then press Minus on the One Player / Two Player select screen, set the area to 5 on the Construction menu, then hold Up and A and B on both JoyCons and press Minus (make sure Area 5 is still selected!). It's tricky to do on your own, so make a save state for next time!


Overall, this is a solidly-curated list of titles, although you can probably see that the games it shipped with were the killer apps, the ones people would know, while the free DLC games were anything-goes- this is what Cifaldi said happened, and he can specifically be credited with including Fantasy, as he really fought for it! On the one hand, a few games included in SNK Arcade Classics 0 have not shown up here (specifically Marvin's Maze, Vanguard II, HAL 21, Touch Down Fever, Gold Medalist and Super Champion Baseball) and The Next Space and Gang Wars which were released as PSP Minis are not here either, leaving Time Soldiers as the sole remaining Alpha Denshi / ADK rep (this was an intentional choice, as it completes the Loop Lever collection, which we'll get back to, but Frank Cifaldi didn't want to include any other ADK games as they were mostly developed by them rather than SNK, who published them or own the license now). However, this collection more than makes up for those omissions with those nine NES / Famicom games (none of which have ever been reissued in their original form) as well as Fantasy, Munch Mobile, Paddle Mania, Beast Busters and World Wars, which have been properly emulated for the very first time here. These additions also mean that this set represents a little more of SNK's pre-1985 work, with Fantasy and Vanguard (missing from SNK Arcade Classics 0) being particularly significant in that regard, and also every digital Loop Lever game is here (Touch Down Fever I & II and Fighting Soccer used a different, optical one). In other words, there's not much to complain about in terms of games included! About the only game you could make a strong argument for is the original Baseball Stars on NES, a pretty big title for SNK, but there's a chance it wasn't on the cards at all.



Now, we're going to cover things a little differently here, as we've covered over half of these games before through SNK Arcade Classics 0, and you probably all know how we feel about Iron Tank by this point (it's one of our favourite NES games, get on it). We're not going to go through every game as that seems a little redundant, so we're just going to have a look at a few that are newly-ported to this collection, as well as talk briefly about the home console games, before shifting our focus to things like the control scheme, game settings and extra features. These things are what the Digital Eclipse collections make their focus (well, usually, but this one was published by NIS America and they didn't really communicate this intention particularly well) and Cifaldi even described them as 'interactive art books' in his MAGFest talk, emphasising Digital Eclipse's mission to offer the experience of playing these games to anyone, even those like myself who struggle with the likes of Victory Road and Athena. To begin with the arcade games, the standouts of the new games are probably Time Soldiers (a more laid-back Ikari Warriors with a time-travel theme), Ozma Wars (presented in colour for the first time, a unique spin on the gallery shooter) and, bizarrely, Paddle Mania! We'd never even heard of Paddle Mania before this set, and it is wild, starting out as a normal, if exaggerated table tennis game, then escalating every other stage where you fight players of different sports, like a sumo wrestler, a volleyball team, and even a synchronised swimming team. It is definitely the surprise of the pack. I did really want to try and like Munch Mobile too, but it's a really busy, unintuitive game which makes it difficult to get into, sadly. Bit of an acquired taste, that one. Generally, though, it's an interesting list of games, and the emulation corrects a lot of errors commonly seen in MAME (Fantasy's Funky Town Tiger makes the correct noise, Ozma Wars has proper sound emulation, etc.).



Now the console games, all for the NES and rereleased here for the first time, tell a story all of their own, and it's rare to see a collection like this even include home ports alongside the arcade originals. Alpha Mission got a pretty competent home conversion almost certainly because one of the original programmers on the arcade game made it themselves, in under six months. The three ports that followed, though- Ikari Warriors, Athena and Ikari Warriors II: Victory Road- are far more characteristic of early NES ports from big arcade companies who hadn't quite adapted to console development yet, as they were contracted out. Specifically, these were handled by infamous trash developer Micronics, and it shows, with terrible controls, constant sprite-flickering (the HUD in Ikari Warriors switches itself on and off!) and rough scrolling. Evidently SNK took their time getting sorted out in the console space, but they eventually did, and the ports that followed were of a much higher quality, especially Guerilla War which is a real standout. As their arcade titles became less worthwhile for NES conversion, they put out home-exclusive works- not especially well-represented here without the Baseball Stars games, but Iron Tank and Crystalis do a good job, and while we're not a huge fan of RPG games, it's impressive to see a traditionally arcade-only developer pivot to action RPG just like that. So while the inclusion of some of these home versions is more for historical purposes than being particularly good, the ones that are great (did we mention you should play Iron Tank?) make them worth the effort put in. Don't sleep on Guerilla War in particular, it's great!



Now, it's time to move on to extras and features, and there's only one place to start. Controls are a big deal with this one, seeing as it collects all the games that used the digital Loop Lever- originally a special kind of joystick that you twisted to change the direction your character faced- and a lightgun game. The solution for the Loop Lever control scheme is a little different from the one used in SAC0, letting players choose between a twinstick approach- each direction on the right stick (or the buttons of your choosing) corresponds to a different direction, allowing you to snap to any direction as opposed to having to move through all directions as with the original arcade releases- or a single stick mode- your character will face the direction you move (the exception is Ikari III, where you will always look where you move- this was done intentionally to make the spin kick feasible, otherwise you'd have to hit Jump, Kick and spin the right stick all at once). Personally, the twinstick approach works very well for us, making the games considerably easier to play and more accessible, and if you really want, you can simulate the actual Loop Lever control by rolling the stick clockwise or anti-clockwise rather than just pointing in a direction. That said, I would've liked an option similar to the shoulder button-centric 'Manual' option in SAC0 just for those players who got used to playing these games in MAME with a setup like that, but the fact Digital Eclipse got the twinstick mode working at all is commendable. Sadly, Beast Busters, the only lightgun game on the set, got a raw deal, with only one inadequate control scheme in the form of an auto-centering crosshair. The JoyCon analogue stick just isn't big enough to allow you to cover the whole screen reliably, and with no analogue sensitivity options you are really going to struggle to play it properly. A wired Gamecube pad feels a little better, but while expecting gyro controls would be a bit much, offering some kind of alternative control scheme, anything, would've been preferable.



Another major game-related option is in screen orientation, and this is where the portability and flippable nature of the Switch comes into its own. Sixteen of the games on the set use a vertical monitor, and this set accommodates screen rotation so you can get them in the correct orientation however you like. We don't have a Flip Grip to test it with, but with a little ingenuity you can have a setup that works for you, and so if the twinstick control mode suits you, this makes this collection the definitive way to play T.N.K. III, Ikari Warriors and Guerilla War (and, I dunno, some of those other Loop Lever games, I guess) at home. Yes, there's the PS4 version of this set, but playing these on a properly-oriented screen is absolutely the way to go. There's also a few features included to help new players learn these games and make them a little less daunting in the form of a rewind feature, one save state per version per game, and the Watch mode that lets you see a tool-assisted (but still humanly possible) playthrough of one version of each game (usually the English arcade one). Watching these games being played well is especially useful given how difficult SNK games historically are, and you can even jump in if you like, but they're also the closest the game has to instructions for these games, as none are provided. A lack of instructions is one of the concessions made for the set's short development time (four months!) which is on the one hand understandable, but also pretty unfortunate for people who want to properly learn how to play these games- games like Athena, Alpha Mission and Psycho Soldier have a lot of elements that aren't super-clear just from playing, especially when it comes to what items do, so this is definitely something we'd like to see included in future collections, and one of our few genuine gripes. To cap off the feature set, you get most of the critical dip switch options for arcade games (but not things like switching demo sound on / off), fully-customisable controls, and a toggle between Japanese and US versions of each game (except Ozma Wars, Sasuke Vs. Commander, Vanguard, arcade Athena, World Wars and Paddle Mania which use a generic World version), all features that are welcome and should also be standard for collections at this point. I mean, you'd think so.



Of course, Digital Eclipse nowadays have a reputation of collections with a huge amount of historical content, and this set has their most ambitious work so far- SNK Complete Works 1978-1990. A collaborative effort between SNK staff themselves and many game historians, including shmuplations and VGDensetsu, this takes a look at, pretty much, every game SNK released before the launch of the Neo Geo in April 1990 in the form of a slideshow with screenshots, flyers, instructions, artwork, whatever was to hand. Some games get only brief mentions owing to not being preserved- Mahjong Classroom has a colour flyer and one screenshot, Jongbou 2 only has a monochrome (!) flyer- but if SNK had a hand in it, it's here. Some of the little tidbits of information are fascinating, and others made us burst out laughing (the story about Guerilla War's tank graphics especially), and some have had to be written vaguely which made us also laugh, like Fighting Golf being endorsed by 'a major golf star of the time' (obviously Lee Trevino) and Mechanized Attack being inspired by "a popular action horror film in which a robot wears human skin" (yes, it's The Terminator). However, it is as thorough as possible, and it's an essential documentation of video game history for SNK nerds, with the one thing we'd change being the slideshow format (text is attached to each screenshot so you have to scroll through ~all~ of them to get to one specific snippet of text, which is very inconvenient when you want to see one bit of trivia). Other extras include basic achievements with goofy names and a music player, although annoyingly none of these features apply to the home versions of arcade games or the DLC games. You probably don't want to hear the Micronics soundtracks, but you will want to hear the NES Guerilla War soundtrack, which is completely different. It absolutely lives up to the premise of an interactive art book, but while we'd all love to see this kind of approach for other company gameographies, this set is not only focused on a particular company who put out relatively fewer games than most companies, but also on a very specific part of that company's history, pre-1990. Unprecedented access to SNK materials helped too- SNK paid old staff members to help with the project, and even paid Kaori Shimizu for her Psycho Soldier voicework. As such, it makes this one a unique treasure, one that may not be easily replicated for other companies, as much as we'd be on that (would gladly buy multi-volume Taito sets, let us give you money). A superb addition, in any case.



As ever, that was a lot of words- a lot of words- and mostly nice ones. It's pretty clear, even if we didn't have background info on the set's development- that this was a collection made with a lot of love and a ton of input and help from SNK themselves. The games themselves are a wild bunch with some real 'marmite' games in there like Ikari Warriors, Athena and Munch Mobile, but there's also some fantastic titles present- Sasuke Vs. Commander, Psycho Soldier, Iron Tank, Paddle Mania, Prehistoric Isle in 1930, both home and console versions of Guerilla War- with an exemplary set of features and extras to make them almost as accessible as possible (it can make us appreciate even Victory Road, just a tiny bit, and that's an achievement). We say almost because of the omission of proper instructions which is really unfortunate, again a result of its short development time (which probably lead to the few errors like Athena not handling continues correctly that were patched out shortly after release). The other mark against the set is the rough controls for Beast Busters, which stings because we were looking forward to that one in particular. Putting those aside though, this has pretty much everything we want when it comes to a retro collection- faithful emulations of both US and Japanese versions of each game, proper adjustable game options and (mostly) configurable controls, historical context for every title included (and then some)- and so while we can't reasonably expect retro collections in the future to have quite as robust a history section as this, we do hope others learn from its example in pretty much every other regard. An easy recommendation for SNK fans and game enthusiasts alike... Unless you really had your heart set on Beast Busters. You can dock a star, in that case.

For being an actual reissue of Iron Tank, oh my goodness, have my dreams come true, SNK 40th Anniversary Colleciton is awarded...

In a sentence, SNK 40th Anniversary Colleciton is...
An ideal template for future retro collections.




Before we leave, we'll link to Frank Cifaldi's MAGFest 2019 talk about this set again. It's a good watch.

That was certainly educational, wasn't it? Never say you don't learn anything on this site.