Before there was SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy there was SNK’s Gals Fighters, a quirky girls-only fighting game from SNK that was on the Neo Geo Pocket Color, a really underrated little handheld that was released in the US in 1999 and fizzled out in 2001 due to ongoing financial problems at SNK, and on top of that a lack of support from the company that bought them out, pachinko manufacturer Aruze.

So that part of the story is kinda sad, but the Neo Geo had a great library while it lasted, especially if you’re a fighting game fan. Titles like SNK vs Capcom: Match of the Millenium, The Last Blade, King of Fighters R2 and Fatal Fury were the big standouts in addition to games like Sonic, Puzzle Bobble, Metal Slug and more. It mirrored the Dreamcast in a lot of ways, really ecompassing the whole “burn twice as bright but half as long” saying.

So that brings me to Gals Fighters, a title I always wanted to pick up for my Neo Geo, but didn’t want to shell out well over $100 for on ebay. I wasn’t aware that this was being released on Switch so it was a really nice surprise to see that they not only brought it back – and at a low price at that – but also with a couple neat additions to make the game more interesting. Now this is not a remaster by any means, so don’t go into it expecting actual graphical updates or anything light that. The game is as it was on the Neo Geo.

The premise of the game is pretty simple, and as a fighting game it doesn’t need much. There’s an item called the K Talisman that is said to grant any wish. All the characters in Gals Fighters are competing to get it first and have their wish granted. That’s it. Playing through the Queen of Fighters mode is basically just a normal arcade mode where you get to see each character’s ending and what they wish for. It’s a really lighthearted game and seeing as just how dark everything in real life is right now, I’ll take what I can get. You get access to that, a training mode, 2 player versus and various options for difficulty and such.

Instead of a traditional frame around the game itself, SNK has overlayed the game in a picture of a Neo Geo to give it a more authentic feel. You can go into the options and change the system’s colors, and they’re all the actual colors and styles the handheld came in, which I thought was really cool. There’s also a rewind option if playing another 30 second long round in a fighting game after a loss is just too much for you, and you can also change the display.

So the gameplay itself? Pretty much like a 2 button version of Street Fighter, Fatal Fury or King of Fighters. Like the handheld itself, you’ve only got 2 buttons at your disposal so your standard attacks are limited. Basically you can tap the button for a light punch or kick, and hold the button down for a heavy punch or kick. Plenty of special moves are at your disposal, including special attacks called “mighty bops”. Your gal gauge builds up quickly enough that you can pull these off pretty frequently in matches and if you finish your opponent off with one, there’s which weird little mish-mash of pictures of the character you beat. It was weird but oddly charming.

The game looks great as a 20 year old portable title. The backgrounds are colorful and animated, and the music is fast-paced and the exact same quality as an NES title.

I guess it goes without saying that with only two buttons and what I guess you can consider to be 4 standard attacks, this isn’t a very technical fighter. The matches go quickly so you’re not going to be trying to pull off moves like Cross-overs or Super Cancels, or wake-up attacks, though you do have other moves at your disposal like Big Jumps, throw and and knockdown escapes, and something called a Pretty Burst, that is unique to each fighter.

In addition to that they did mix things up a little in that you occasionally can get awarded items to use as a boost during your playthrough. Some make your opponents weaker, others let your gal gauge build faster, things like that.

The game looks great as a 20 year old portable title. The backgrounds are colorful and animated, and the music is fast-paced and the exact same quality as an NES title. The weakest part is probably the character models. The cutesy art style and detail aren’t the problem so much as the fact that there’s only 3 colors on each girl. While I’m sure it’s the limitation of the hardware, I wish they could’ve figured something else out to help them stand out a little more. What’s there is animated just fine, and the special attacks look good – the fireball effects in particular stood out to me.

2 player mode was a fun surprise. If you’re playing it docked then it’ll show you the standard 2 players on the screen at once and you’ll do your usual fight to see who wins the round. However, and this is the part that I really liked, is that if you play in handheld mode, it’ll flip the screen 90 degrees and you’ll each be playing on the opposite ends of the Switch. It’s kind of like the intention was to make it feel more like 2 Neo Geos linked up with each other like the old days. And if you’re watching this and you’re young enough to not know what I’m talking about, what I mean is that before the days of ad-hoc multiplayer and wifi and high-speed internet, handhelds had to connect with a cable in order to play multiplayer games. Also that cable almost always had a trash connection for some reason. But it was still really great and I didn’t get killed by 12 year olds in Halo. Those were the good old days.

Anyway. At the end of the day this was a really fun throwback and at $8 it was a total steal compared to $100+ dollars you’d get shafted for on eBay. Do I still want the cartridge? Of course I do. But in the meantime this is a fun way to play a mostly obscure title from a handheld that still shined despite not getting a fair shot at success. I’m hoping this’ll do well enough that we’ll see more titles like this come to the Switch.