The popularity of KOF ’98 is highly documented and is often regarded as one of the greatest arcade fighting games of all-time. Back in the late 90’s early 00’s too many people outside of Japan never really got the chance to play King Of Fighters ’98 aside from the arcade centers. The Neo Geo AES was too expensive and Neo Geo CD was not that popular in western countries like North America. While KOF ’98 was released in America for the Sega Dreamcast in ’99 not a lot of people owned the console; since it did poor in overall sales compared to the N64 & PS1. Back in ’99 a game called King Of Fighters R-2 was released for Neo Geo Pocket Color which was based off the events of KOF ’98. King Of Fighters R-2 was like the mini version of KOF ’98 and was released for the more affordable Neo Geo Pocket Color which averaged around $70 in terms of price. The gameplay for King Of Fighters R-2 was pretty basic especially since Neo Geo Pocket Color consisted of two buttons and a D-pad. Similar to KOF ’98 players could perform special & super attacks which looked pretty unique for King Of Fighters R-2; considering how the visuals for Neo Geo Pocket Color looked.
As cool as King Of Fighters R-2 was there was not too many people who had chance to play the game since Neo Geo Pocket Color ended up being discontinued in 2001. It was rare to see a head to head fighting game back in the day that had 8-bit like graphics; since platformers and run n gun titles were more common for consoles like NES or Game Boy in the 80’s-90’s. Its highly doubtful that King Of Fighters R-2 was a huge success in the Neo Geo Pocket Color despite its fun factor. Even though, the visuals included Neo Geo Pocket Color arguably looked better than that of Game Boy Color; the game system did not have the popularity or the longevity of the Game Boy Color. Either way, King Of Fighters R-2 could still be considered a high quality handheld game by late 90’s-early 00’s standards.
Gaming Hearts Collection 