In 1995 and 1996, Capcom released two arcade fighting games featuring its popular Mega Man characters, Mega Man: The Power Battle and Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters, respectfully. When the Neo Geo Pocket Color came out, it was a boon for portable fighting game adaptations, so Capcom miniaturized the two games into one compilation.
The fighting games on the Neo Geo Pocket Color were chibi, or super deformed, versions of traditional arcade fighters. This was due to the limitations of the Neo Geo Pocket. This works perfectly for these two games, as Mega Man's crew and the robots he fights against are stylized in a way that still looks good when squashed into cute forms.
The Neo Geo Pocket Color had sound hardware that sounded great, and had all of the boops-and-beeps as you'd expect for 16-bit hardware of the 1990s. The music from the arcade game sounded great when converted to this hardware, and the sound effects did as well.
The games themselves were fun versions of the boss fights of the Mega Man games, and that is translated perfectly in this compilation. These boss fights have always been fun to play, and this is the perfect home for them. The thumbstick controller was uncommon in portable game consoles at the time, and the Neo Geo Pocket Color had one that was very responsive. This is what made it so good for one-on-one fighting games, and it is also why this conversion retained the feel of the arcade games even as the graphics were scaled down and reduced heavily in resolution.
Mega Man Battle & Fighters, or Rockman Battle & Fighters as it was known as it was originally a Japanese only release, was a lot of fun on the Neo Geo Pocket Color. The hardware was perfect for one-on-one fighting games, so it was a perfect fit for a conversion of these two arcade games. The hardware is much weaker than that of the Capcom Power System boards of the arcade, but the cute squashed chibi characters work extremely well for the characters from the Mega Man series. This is, without a doubt, one of the better titles that the Neo Geo Pocket Color offered.
Final Verdict:
4 out of 5
