SNK Gals' Fighters

Originally a 2000 Neo Geo Pocket Color release, SNK Gals' Fighters makes its reappearance on the Nintendo Switch. Despite its low price, there's a lot more effort than you might expect to make this celebratory release feel cared for.

Gals’ Fighters might fly under many people’s radars, but it shouldn’t. This is fighting game that deserves to hit a wider audience now than it did in 2000 by being on Switch. If you’re looking for something different but with the quality and pedigree that SNK is known for, Gals’ Fighters is worth a download.

I wondered what the NeoGeo Pocket Color used as a stick, and I found out it’s a “clicky stick,” eight-directional D-pad, which I kind of wish the Switch had because that sounds better. Apart from that, SNK Gals’ Fighter is a fantastic little game. There are lots of overlay options as well: you can toggle different screen frames, zoom in or out, swap between two filters, change the button inputs, reset the game into Japanese or English, view the game manual (which you’ll want to read), and there’s even a rewind feature. I hope that SNK continues releasing NeoGeo Pocket Color games on the Switch so those of us who missed out on that short-lived handheld can experience them for the first time.

SNK Gals’ Fighters repays whatever effort you’re willing to put in. It’s a full-featured package with lots of well-polished fighting action and surprising depth to its diminutive setting. It’s just a crying shame about the lack of online.

SNK Gals’ Fighters does a fine job at bringing back a 20-year old fighting game originally made for the Neo Geo Pocket Color, with all its features and limits. But even if the game has not been expanded to face up to today's offers, this piece of retro gaming has quite a charming appeal in its simplicity. If only its local multiplayer had been improved with the adding of an online component, that would have been even better.