Evercade Announces Two More NEOGEO Arcade Carts

in Hive Gaming4 months ago

If you are a Neo Geo fan from back in the day, or even recently, you know the high price of original carts and hardware. It is painful to the wallet to say the least. Modern gaming has provided many options to enjoy these arcade titles at a much more affordable price. Evercade is one such platform, handheld and home console options available, that fans of SNK’s venerable arcade machine can enjoy the games. Recently, Evercade announced two new NEOGEO Arcade cartridges featuring a myriad of arcade titles. As usual though, your mileage with either cart will vary depending on your interest level in the included titles.

NEOGEO Arcade 2 Cartridge

This cart is probably the most well rounded of the two in my opinion for straight arcade action fans. It is not perfect, but we will never see that with these compilation releases – there is too much nostalgia pulling to get a couple of AAA title filled carts when they can sell more carts by spreading the contents around.

The titles included are:

Gorou: Mark of the Wolves
Art of Fighting 2
Metal Slug 2
Crossed Swords
Ninja Commando
Sengoku 2

This cart does lean hard towards physical brutality of some sort. Hardcore Neo Geo fans will remember just how heavy the Neo Geo library in general leaned this way.


NEOGEO Arcade 3 Cartridge

This is the weakest of the two carts to me as I was never a fan of Super Sidekicks or Twinkle Star Sprites. For some, this might be the best of the two. That is the beauty of retro gaming.

The titles included are:

The King of Fighters 97
Samurai Shodown II
Metal Slug 3
Ghost Pilots
Super Sidekicks
Twinkle Star Sprites

It was kind of interesting that the NEOGEO Arcade 3 went with two overhead shooters and two 1-on-1 fighting games.

There is a bit of variety in these two carts and, honestly, grabbing both, a preferred method of play, etc is still less than one original Neo Geo cartridge (affiliate link) when they launched (and possibly now depending on which game).

Looking for a deal on a hard to find Evercade release? Check out Amazon (affiliate link) or eBay (affiliate link) for a wide selection of releases (some hard to find now).

Pre-orders open on August 29th, 2025 with the release date set for October 2025 via the Evercade website.

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I am a bit ambivalent due to my experience with the Evercade EXP-R. I like the idea, but the build quality and the emulation are a bit spotty in select titles. I do like the fact that the savefiles are stored on the cart and the collector aspect of it.

It is sad that officially licensed options for games like those on the Neo Geo are not as good quality wise as alternative options are. I have no problem supporting licensed releases like this but I am held back when I learn a game I wanted is not as good as it could have been.

With the Neo Geo, I know I will never own originals, even today they are out of range for my wallet (mainly the cost of the console itself).