ACA NeoGeo the Last Blade for Nintendo Switch

NeoGeo, a name that conjures up many memories for me. I played many of them in the arcades in the 90’s, including titles such as Samurai Shodown, King of Fighters, Fatal Fury and many other hits. I never really got to play the Last Blade, however. It was only until recently that I really could experience the joy that is the Last Blade. Coming in at $7.99 USD on the Switch eshop, it’s just at the right price to dive right in! I’ll go over the presentation, the controls, the difficulty, the sound and music and finally an overview of the whole thing.

When you first start the Last Blade, you’re asked to select from one of several modes. You can choose Japanese, American, Caravan or High Score mode. I won’t go into the latter modes, Caravan and High Score, because I didn’t find those interesting. Once you pick Japanese or American, you’re given a choice of which user to select to play the game with. After that, the intro starts up and you’re asked to “insert coins” as you would in a real arcade. To do so, you press the L button to insert coins and the R button to start(as player one). You’re then presented with a choice of combatants, each with their own unique special moves as per the usual fighting game rules. After picking one, you can choose either Power or Speed mode. I haven’t played the game long enough to understand the real differences between them. Regardless of your choice, you’re whisked away to the first fight! The presentation for all the above is completely flawless and one of SNK’s best, with I feel the only games rivalling it’s presentation are the sequel, Garou: Mark of the Wolves and King of Fighters.

Now for the controls. The controls are very tight and it’s very easy to pull off combos, even despite the age of the game. Certainly, you do need practice, and that’s one of the downsides of the game I’ll get into later. Anyways, the controls are very responsive and usually only need a little push to really pull off anything. I’d say it’s also one of the game’s best features. Also I would recommend the use of the Pro Controller or an arcade stick, by say, Hori, for the best experience with the controls.

As for the difficulty, it’s rather hard, especially if you’re not good at fighting games. I’ve had years of experience in fighting games, but I am by no means a master at them. The last boss also exhibits what some would call “SNK Boss Syndrome,” which means that they are really are cheap and unfair. I found this to be true a little, and it took me at least 10 tries to beat the boss. There are options to lower the difficulty, but what is really glaring is the fact that you can’t switch the game to what is called “AES” mode. NeoGeo, the console, was no different from the arcade version, but there was the fact that many games, when you used them in a NeoGeo console, would often have a menu of options that you could select from, and that usually included a training mode. This port lacks the option to switch to console mode, sadly. In any case, because of the difficulty, I would recommend that you mostly play this with your friends to have the best time.

The music and sound are amazing, and just a joy to listen to no matter what. Sometimes the music is purely ambient, however, but other times it’s got such a Japanese feel you can’t help but be surprised out of what they could do with the NeoGeo’s hardware. You’ll want to find the soundtrack online after listening to the music in the game! As for the sounds, they’re all hard hitting, and the sound effects do the game real justice. There’s no tinny or otherwise out of tune sounds here.

Overall, I’d say the game is definitely worth it, especially if you have a Pro Controller or 2, and a friend. It’s unfortunate about the lack of a AES mode, but maybe one day they’ll do us a service and patch it in. I’ll give this 4/5 stars due to the facts mentioned above. Great game, just needs some adjustments in this port.