The SNK Gallery
The arcade you could take home, at a price almost nobody could pay.
SNK is filed in most memories under fighting games, and the Fighting Wing of this Library already keeps that record. This shelf keeps the other SNK: the company that built one machine for the arcade and the living room at once, then filled it with a run and gun masterpiece, a launch day wizard, and a baseball series that taught sports games how to remember. Every cover below is a door to a history or a question.
NEO GEO
SNK · MVS arcade and AES home · 1990The MVS · Arcade · 1990
The Multi Video System held one, two, four, or six cartridges in a single cabinet, so an operator swapped games instead of cabinets. One million MVS units sold, and SNK kept making software for it until 2004, the longest support run of any arcade system.
The AES · Home · 1991
The Advanced Entertainment System ran the identical hardware at home. It began in Japan as a rental only system, reached American retail at $649.99, and sold 410,000 units. No console photograph is shown here because none could be verified to the Library standard in this pass.
The History
The History of Neo Geo: one cartridge system, two markets, fourteen years of software.
The Price
Why was the Neo Geo so expensive? A $649.99 console and games at $200 and up, explained by what was inside the cartridges.
The Cartridges
Why will an MVS cartridge not fit in an AES? The code is identical. The plastic is the lock.
METAL SLUG
Nazca · SNK · Neo Geo · 1996
Japan · Neo Geo CD · 1996
The Japanese Neo Geo CD cover: Marco Rossi under a pile of rescued firepower, with the Nazca Corporation credit still on the box. The AES cartridge box could not be verified in this pass, so no AES box is shown or claimed.
The AES Box · Gap
The North American AES edition of Metal Slug is among the most valuable cartridges on the system, and its box is exactly the kind of image this Library refuses to guess at. Until a scan is verified, this space stays a labeled gap.
MAGICIAN LORD
Alpha Denshi · SNK · Neo Geo · 1990The Box · Gap
Magician Lord shipped as an AES pack-in game in North America and became the best selling AES title of its moment, per former SNK staffer Chad Okada. Its AES box could not be verified from the sources available to the Library in this pass, so this gallery shows no painting for it and makes no claim about its art.
The Transformations
Elta collects fire, water, and wind orbs in pairs, and the pair decides the form: dragon warrior, waterman, poseidon, shinobi, samurai, or raijin. Six games inside the first one, on a 46 megabit cartridge.
BASEBALL STARS
SNK · NES 1989 · Neo Geo 1990
America · NES · 1989
The American NES box: a slugger, a catcher, and an umpire on the yellow SNK border. Shown from a 317 pixel file, so it renders softer than the Library standard; a larger scan is a swap-in upgrade. The Japanese Famicom box could not be verified in this pass and is not shown.
The Neo Geo Sequel · Gap
Baseball Stars Professional (1990) was a Neo Geo launch title and an AES pack-in option. Its box could not be verified in this pass, so it is recorded here as a named gap rather than borrowed art.
KEPT ELSEWHERE IN THE LIBRARY
Cross doors, not copiesThe Fighting Wing
SNK the fighting company (Fatal Fury, Samurai Shodown, The King of Fighters, and the Capcom vs. SNK 2 crossover) is documented in the Fighting Games Gallery. This shelf deliberately does not rebuild it.
Crystalis
SNK also made an NES action RPG in 1990: Crystalis, known in Japan as God Slayer. Its history already lives in the NES RPG shelf of this Library.