The Neo Geo Mini Gets a Game Lineup

SNK recently announced their Neo Geo Mini, their take on the miniaturized home console designs from Nintendo, but styled like their classic arcade platform from the 90’s instead of the home console version of the Neo Geo. This video has some more details on it.

The mini Neo Geo home arcade console looks very small with a 3.5” LCD and a compact 4-button layout that doesn’t match the arcade but might be more appropriate for the smaller size of this device. Around the back there’s an HDMI-output, a headphone jack, and the port for USB power. Each side has a USB port for a controller, but it looks like a deep port, so might be difficult to connect. The colors don’t match the red and black cabinet we had in the US, but there are two versions of the Neo Geo Mini. One matches the colors of the original Japanese cabinet, and another (pictured above) is what we’ll get with the International version.

There’s also a wired Neo Geo Mini Pad gamepad to go with it, styled after the Neo Geo CD’s gamepad, it’ll be sold separately in black and white. I don’t think it looks as nice as the original pad, but it could be good.

The Neo Geo Mini will have 40 games, but 14 will only be different between the Japanese and International versions. The Japanese version has more fighting games, and the international version has more action games. Each game will be based on the home version, so it’ll have more options than the arcade ROM. Like most modern mini consoles, the Neo Geo Mini will be able to save and load the game’s state to some internal storage in order to get around the limited continues of the versions of these games released for the home system. You’ll access the system menu by hitting start and select at the same time. I think most SNES and NES Classic Edition owners wish they had that feature instead of having to reset the console to access those features.

If you hook up the Mini to a TV with an HDMI cable you’ll be able to adjust the resolution and aspect ratio.

As far as a release date and price, it’s promised to be out this summer in Japan first and there isn’t a date yet for the international version of the Neo Geo Mini. There’s no price yet.

Here’s the game lineup for both versions of the console:

Neo Geo Mini (Japan)

• The King of Fighters ’94
• The King of Fighters ‘95
• The King of Fighters ‘96
• The King of Fighters ‘97
• The King of Fighters ‘98
• The King of Fighters ‘99
• The King of Fighters 2000
• The King of Fighters 2001
• The King of Fighters 2002
• The King of Fighters 2003
• Samurai Shodown II
• Samurai Shodown IV
• Samurai Shodown V Special
• Fatal Fury Special
• Real Bout Fatal Fury
• Real Bout Fatal Fury 2
• Garou: Mark of the Wolves
• World Heroes Perfect
• Kizuna Encounter
• Art of Fighting
• The Last Blade
• The Last Blade 2
• Ninja Master’s
• Aggressors of Dark Kombat
• Metal Slug
• Metal Slug 2
• Metal Slug 3
• King of the Monsters 2
• Sengoku 3
• Shock Troopers 2nd Squad
• Top Hunter Roddy & Cathy
• Ninja Commando
• Burning Fight
• Cyber-Lip
• Alpha Mission II
• Twinkle Star Sprites
• Blazing Star
• Top Player’s Golf
• Super Sidekicks
• Puzzled

Neo Geo Mini (International)

• The King of Fighters ‘95
• The King of Fighters ‘97
• The King of Fighters ‘98
• The King of Fighters 2000
• The King of Fighters 2002
• Samurai Shodown II
• Samurai Shodown IV
• Samurai Shodown V Special
• Fatal Fury Special
• Real Bout Fatal Fury
• Garou: Mark of the Wolves
• World Heroes Perfect
• Kizuna Encounter
• Art of Fighting
• The Last Blade 2
• Ninja Master’s
• Metal Slug
• Metal Slug 2
• Metal Slug X
• Metal Slug 3
• Metal Slug 4
• Metal Slug 5
• King of the Monsters
• King of the Monsters 2
• Sengoku 3
• Shock Troopers
• Shock Troopers 2nd Squad
• Magician Lord
• Blue’s Journey
• Robo Army
• Crossed Swords
• Mutation Nation
• 3 Count Bout
• Blazing Star
• Last Resort
• Ghost Pilots
• Top Player’s Golf
• Super Sidekicks
• Football Frenzy
• Puzzled

I’m not really interested in the Neo Geo Mini because I’m in the process of building a mini arcade cabinet myself, but if I were I’d be pretty disappointed to miss out on Japan-only games like Twinkle Star Sprites. Perhaps it’ll be as easy to hack and install your own games as the NES and SNES Classic Editions have been.