First off, The King of Fighters: Battle De Paradise is probably not what you are expecting. In a franchise that is well known for its’ fighting games (which make up most of the games released), Battle De Paradise delivers a shot from left field. If you have never seen or heard of this little title on the venerable Neo Geo Pocket Color, then you are in for quite a surprise!

KOF: BDP is not a fighting game at all, even though it has the King of Fighters name attached to it, it is in fact a party game. That’s right, a party game on a handheld. Novel idea huh? The first thing that may come to mind is that a party game isn’t exactly suited for the small screen, often one-player realm of handhelds right? Well, I think KOF: BDP does a pretty decent job of delivering a highly replayable and entertaining little game for handheld gamers everywhere. If you are familiar with party games such as Mario Party or Sonic Shuffle, then you will take right to this board game style KOF.

Graphics: 8.0

Well, there is only so much that can be done on the NGPC’s little screen, but what it can do is showcased well in this game. Since there is not a lot of frantic movement most of the time, and scrolling isn’t too much of a factor, KOF: BDP makes fine use of the NGPC’s specs. The artwork in the galleries is great, the

character sprites are decently animated, and the use of color is well thought out and executed. All of the characters are in “chibi” (super deformed) style, similar to most other NGPC titles, and they use the typical single-color palette employed in a lot of games on the system. The backgrounds are pretty well detailed considering this is a simple board game format release, and the stages are suitably themed to the world of SNK.

Sound: 5.0

No surprises here. The sound is pretty much what you would expect from a monaural speaker on a portable gaming device that is over half a decade old. Tinny sound effects with no background noises present. The music is a combination of original music for KOF: BDP and selected tracks from the King of Fighters series re-done for this systems particular sound capabilities. It is pretty cool to hear familiar songs such as the Psycho Soldier Theme when you go into the mini-games though.

Game play: 8.5

This game will be familiar to anyone who has played any of the Mario/Sonic party games before.

The way the game works is, you roll a die, then your character moves to the appropriate space on the board. The board consists of squares that do different things. Some give you +5 coins, some give you -5 coins, some are card shops where you can buy effect cards that do a number of different things, some send you to mini-games, and some are event squares where

you interact with other characters from the KOF series.

The object of the game is to collect stars, which can be bought from Heidern at the goal square, bought on a special event square (hint: look for Robert Garcia), earned through cards, or sometimes stolen from opponents via a number of different means. At the end of the game (either 30, 60 or 99 turns), whichever player has the most stars and coins (determined by coins if both players have the same amount of stars) is the winner.

There are a variety of different mini-games present in KOF: BDP. Some of them involve spinning the joystick, some are button-mashers, some are memory games, there is a dancing game ala Parappa the Rapper, and many more.

Replayability: 10.0

I have owned this game for almost 5 years now, unlocking almost everything available within the first year, and I still play it. I have played it almost daily for the better part of the last two months now, and still enjoy it. There is so much to unlock, and so many characters to level up that you will spend countless hours doing so. I am still missing a couple of gallery images in fact!

If you own a Dreamcast, a NGPC to DC link cable, and the DC version of The King of Fighters: Evolution, then you will get even more out of this little gem of a game. You can level up your strikers in KOF: Evolution by earning points in KOF: BDP and transferring them to your DC.

Extras: 6.0

Pretty good for a game of this nature actually. There is the aforementioned gallery, which contains 20 portraits depicting some funny scenes involving SNK’s stable of characters from series ranging from Metal Slug to Cool Cool Toon. You can also go directly to the mini-game of your choice and try beating any of your old records. There are a few other sections available in the menu but I can’t read Japanese, so I’m not sure what they are for. Who knows, there may be even more extra stuff lurking in there!

Importability: 10.0

I have enjoyed this game for easily upwards of 100 hours, and I can’t read a single word/symbol of Japanese. If I can get this much out of this game, then certainly anyone can. Any questions about card effects and such can be answered through an excellent faq available at gamefaqs.com. Here is a direct link to it.

Overall: 7.5

While this may not be the title that sells you on the Neo Geo Pocket Color, it certainly is a worthy addition to any gamer’s library. It is the only title of its kind available on the NGPC, and a great diversion from the normal battery of fighting games you probably already play on your system. I highly recommend this to anyone willing to try something different, or if you are a fan of The King of Fighters series of games.