In the Hunt was one of the few arcade style games based on, well, submarine battles. Not realistic in any particularly strong way, In the Hunt was squarely in the arcade blast-a-thon genre. If it moves, shoot it or avoid it. Probably the world’s shortest strategy guide there. While In the Hunt saw ports to the Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation, both of those versions had their own problems from obvious loading times to unexpected slowdown. Now the Neo Geo is getting a crack at the sub shooter, a hardware released a good half decade before Sony or Sega’s consoles, and three years before this game hit arcades itself. Yeah, this is going to be interesting.
Currently Early Work in Progress
According to The Otaku Authority this fan port of In the Hunt is being handled by Casa De Ruivo whose members, Ozzy and Johnny16Bit, are quickly growing in notoriety in the homebrew independent world. They did the Double Dragon One port to Neo Geo.
What is shown so far is about two weeks’ worth of work porting the game.
Now, I am using “porting” loosely here as they are using assets from the arcade game. I get it, not everyone has the time, money, or energy to create 100% original sprites and audio so shortcuts must be taken to make these things happen.
I do want to point out that it would be a disservice to those previous ports to compare 1:1. Circumstances are completely different here.
Neo Geo Can Still Go
Neo Geo is nearly 40 years old and still strong within the homebrew independent world. A lot of what we are seeing now is thanks to game engines that have been ported to the hardware making it easier for homebrew developers to make new games available.
Still, the hardware handles these aftermarket engines quite well and shows Neo Geo has more power available. Anyone that grew up with Neo Geo knows it is a pixel pushing powerhouse and a game like In the Hunt, with its over-the-top levels of detail, will fit in just fine.
The art style of this game has always amazed me.
I am a sucker for overly detailed sprite based games. Neo Geo was right up my alley. Sadly, I never saw an In the Hunt arcade unit, that I remember anyhow. My mind was blown the first time I saw a YouTube video of it in action thinking, how could this really be from 1993?
It's like Metal Slug but with submarines. LOL
It really is like that. Definitely has that Neo Geo overly detailed sprites feel to it.
I tried this out at a local arcade a few months back. It's actually a lot harder than it looks!
I played it on either PlayStation or Saturn back in the day at an EB that had it on demo. I was interested but it just didn't strike me hard enough to actually buy it. It is visually impressive, no doubt. It may have been the difficulty that turned me off back then.