Neo Geo Battle Coliseum could soon be playable natively on Windows

Neo Geo Battle Coliseum is making an unexpected move to Windows. Developer KuroRaiden is working on a PC recomp of SNK Playmore’s 2005 crossover fighter, with more information planned once development gets closer to an alpha build. There’s no release date yet. There’s no public alpha either. For now, KuroRaiden is keeping details limited, but the project puts one of SNK’s stranger fighting games in front of PC players for the first time in native form. And NGBC really is one of the strange ones.

SNK threw almost everything into Neo Geo Battle Coliseum

Neo Geo Battle Coliseum arrived in Japanese arcades in 2005, during a period when SNK Playmore was moving beyond the ageing Neo Geo MVS hardware. NGBC ran on Sammy’s Atomiswave arcade system and used the opportunity to pull characters from across decades of SNK and ADK games. Calling it an SNK crossover doesn’t quite cover the selection.

The familiar names are present. Terry Bogard, Mai Shiranui, Kyo Kusanagi, Iori Yagami, Haohmaru and Geese Howard hardly need an introduction for anyone who’s spent time with SNK fighters. NGBC gets more interesting once you move past them.

Metal Slug brings Marco Rossi and a playable Mars People alien. King of the Monsters supplies Cyber Woo. World Heroes contributes characters including Hanzo, Fuuma and Mudman. Aggressors of Dark Kombat gets representation through Kisarah Westfield. Art of Fighting, Samurai Shodown, The Last Blade and several other SNK series get seats at the table too. There are 40 playable fighters in total, mixing famous faces with characters rarely seen outside their original games.

SNK Playmore created two new protagonists for the crossover, Yuki and Ai, rather than placing an existing hero at its centre. Their job ties into NGBC’s loose story, but plot isn’t really the attraction here. The roster is.

It’s the sort of character select screen where Marco Rossi can end up fighting a samurai, an alien or a giant mechanical gorilla. NGBC doesn’t spend much time worrying about whether any of this makes sense.

Good.

It’s not King of Fighters with a different name

NGBC uses two-character teams, but it doesn’t play like a smaller King of Fighters. You can switch fighters during the match instead of waiting for one character to lose. Tagging lets an injured partner recover some health away from the fight, giving team selection more purpose than picking two favourites and hoping for the best.

Certain pairings can perform Double Assault attacks too. These team moves tie the two-character format directly into NGBC’s combat rather than treating tagging as a novelty. The roster helps here. Characters come from games with very different fighting styles, so building a team can produce combinations SNK’s regular series rarely offer.

Terry himself is a good example of NGBC’s approach. Instead of using his classic Fatal Fury appearance, the game draws from the older Terry seen in Garou: Mark of the Wolves. It’s a small choice, but one which gives NGBC its own identity rather than turning it into another greatest-hits package.

Neo Geo Battle Coliseum had a strange route home

The arcade release received a PlayStation 2 conversion later in 2005 in Japan, followed by releases in other regions. An Xbox 360 version arrived through Xbox Live Arcade several years later, bringing revised presentation and online play into the mix. After this, NGBC largely stopped moving.

SNK continued releasing new King of Fighters games. Samurai Shodown received another major entry. Older titles appeared across modern consoles and PC through ports, collections and rereleases. Neo Geo Battle Coliseum remained a one-off.

It never grew into a series, and it never received the sort of modern PC release enjoyed by several other SNK fighters. Its unusual cast and tag system left it sitting in its own corner of the company’s catalogue. KuroRaiden’s project could change the PC side of the equation.

The Windows version is still early

KuroRaiden describes the NGBC Windows recomp as something of a worst-kept secret. Development is underway, with more information coming closer to alpha. Beyond this, details are scarce.

There’s no announced release window, feature list or set of PC requirements. Nothing has been confirmed regarding display options, controllers, online play or other additions players might expect from a modern PC version.

It’s better to leave those boxes unchecked until KuroRaiden says more. The main news is much simpler: Neo Geo Battle Coliseum is being reworked for Windows, and the project has reached a stage where its developer is ready to speak about it publicly. For an SNK crossover packed with Terry Bogard, Haohmaru, Marco Rossi, Mudman, Mars People and a giant robot ape, a conventional comeback probably wasn’t going to happen anyway. A Windows recomp seems strangely appropriate.

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