NEOGEO POCKET COLOR SELECTION Vol.1 Steam Edition: NeoGeo Pocket Color Selection Vol. 1 Achievement Guide

SNK presents… the NeoGeo Pocket Color Selection Vol. 1: Steam Edition! This is a collection of NeoGeo Pocket (and Pocket Color) games from 1999 and 2000. This collection was originally released on Nintendo Switch. With its Steam release, we see the swapping out of SNK VS. CAPCOM: The Match of the Millennium for CRUSH ROLLER, and of course, 13 wonderful Steam Achievements! This guide will cover them in order of how the games are displayed on the main menu, from left to right.

All of the information is complete for all achievements, although I may touch it up with pictures. I’d also be pleased to write a guide for Vol. 2 after I complete that! When I do make it in the future, I will link it here. Let me know what you think of the guide in the comments, and let me know if you have any questions!

This is my very first guide! I maybe went a little overboard in some explanations, but personally I’d rather have a lot of information and a clear mission rather than blurb that has me half-guessing.

Also, I will be including credits and links to where I originally found some of this information. A couple of the games here required me to look on old GameFAQs “Cheat” pages. Remember when we used to call secrets cheats?! It made me think that some of these “Cheats” were just totally BS, but nope! Thank you GameFAQs! Anyways, one motivation for this guide was to put all of the information in one place, but thank you to the people who originally posted these online!

With that out of the way, are you okay!? Buster wolf!

Some achievements here require long continuous play (looking at you, BIG TOURNAMENT GOLF), so you may worry about your progress. However, there’s no need to fear! If you hit “Exit” on the Selection Pause menu, it’ll save exactly where you are, like a save state. If you close the game after doing this, boot it back up and start the game again, you’ll be exactly where you were when you left off. Just don’t hit “Reset” or change the Language or Device options. All of these will reset the game, and you’ll have to start all over again. Closing the Selection on Steam without doing this first will undo your progress since the last time you exited from the Selection’s Pause Menu. Remember: Exit = save state!

An extra nuance to changing languages or devices is that while it may reset the progress for that particular PLAY SESSION, it doesn’t reset your DATA. Almost all of these games emulate the NeoGeo Pocket Color’s battery saves, so you don’t need to worry about losing your unlocked characters or anything like that. You can also have separate progress on both the English and Japanese versions of each game, and you can switch between them. You also retain your data moving from one device to the other.

Just one last thing: I have seen in Steam Discussions people losing progress, and it comes mainly from mixing manual saving, save-states, suspending, and Rewinding. I’d advise not getting too creative with how you save your games. Just be careful! These are great emulations, but you don’t want to mess up your saves!

There are three achievements tied to the main menu and the lovely bonus features Code Mystics and SNK included in this package. We’ll tackle these one by one as they appear on the Achievement list.

From the main menu, press on each game, select “MANUAL,” and then flip through each manual. You can do this as you play the games (and you will need to for a couple of them), but you might as well get it over with. Do you really need an explanation for Metal Slug?! Okay, you kinda do, but still!

From the main menu, press on each game, select “BOX.” This will display a cool 3D recreation of the original box for the selected game, complete with cover art. Press whatever key or button it displays to open it. You’ll then get a 3D recreation of the game cart in its cart holder. I’m not sure if you need to open this, but do it anyway. Back out, and move onto the next game!

Keep in mind, you don’t need to do this for both languages. You can do this for either English or Japanese, and as long as you look through all 10 games, you will get the achievement!

…there was no backlight?

It’s best to get this one over with so that you don’t run into any save problems later on, especially with BIG TOURNAMENT GOLF. Simply select any game, but before you start it, go down to “DEVICE” and switch it to “Black & White.” Next, play the game. Exit back to the main menu, and do this for the next game until you’ve done all 10.

Fun fact, not all of these games run in Black & White. It kind of puts into perspective how quick an upgrade the original Pocket Color was. Not even six months later! Imagine being an early adopter!

Like golf? Well, get ready to golf like your life depends on it. This is one of the most time-consuming achievements in the game, but it’s fun and easy!

What you need to do is win the Triple Crown. That means you must win first place in all three tournaments (Japan, America, and Germany), 18 holes each, TWICE. Sound hard? Well, maybe this was brutal on the NeoGeo Pocket, but good news: we’re time travelers! We have Rewind! Although there’s a slight catch.

The catch with using Rewind is that it’ll only go back about ten seconds. For long shots, if you wait too long and the ball lands somewhere you’d really rather it not, then rewind may not be enough to undo your bad shot.

The good part is, if you set the difficulty to Easy, and you get consistent Birdies and Pars (see if you get an Eagle or a mythical Hole in One! It’s possible!), then you’ll be sitting very comfortably in first place, dominating your opponents several times over. Don’t worry if you get a bad shot you can’t reverse.

Also, take extra note of the “Save states (kinda)” section of this guide, especially the second paragraph. This is a long achievement, one of the longest in the Selection, so if you need to take a break when attempting this, press “EXIT” in the Selection’s pause menu, and do not reset the game or change the options. You will have to start the Triple Crown again from scratch if you do this on accident.

Last, don’t worry about the in-game option to suspend your game. This was a battery-saving feature before the Nintendo DS came and made sleep mode a standard feature for gaming handhelds. If you do choose to suspend, it actually leads you to a screen asking if you want to continue your game, so you can accidentally reset the game if you’re not careful here. But, if you manage to do it anyway, Rewind! Fast!

This is one of the easiest achievements in the Selection. In order to get it, all you have to do is beat the first level in time attack in under a minute.

Crush Roller is an arcade-styled, Pac-Man-like maze game. You control a sentient paintbrush named “Brush”, and your goal is to color the entire board while avoiding enemies.

There are only three tricky things about this achievement. First, are two monsters tracking you down. They’re not a huge pain, but they may have you Rewinding.

Second, you have to get used to the board’s layout. It’s not exactly flat. There are little bridges that connect and run over other parts of the road, and you need to color both the bridge AND the underside, even if that part isn’t visible.

The last tricky part is that your turns aren’t exactly 90 degree angles. They have a very slight bend to them. Why does this matter? Well, if you fill out the whole board like normal, you might still not beat the stage. Look closely at the paint you leave on those transitional roads that bring you to the other side of the screen (they flash red and yellow). On this stage, if you turn opposite of the transitional road, you’re leaving a tiny bit of road unpainted! I think the game does give you a very slight bit of leeway with what you can leave unpainted, but this achievement took me three tries because of this. Not a big deal, but still worth noting.

Basically, remember to paint the roads that lead you to the other side of the screen! If you fill out the entire board, the achievement will pop!

Dark Arms: Demon Buster 1999 is the only RPG in this compilation, but you don’t need to play it too long to get the achievement! I kinda wish we did!

For this achievement, you must evolve your HandGun into the BeamGun. You can do this by capturing enemies with your Catcher Weapon and then feeding them to the HandGun, which I’ll detail below.

You need 100p to evolve the HandGun. All enemies in the game reward different amounts of points for your weapons, so zombies give you 1p, skeletons give you 2p, and so on. It’s such a quick and easy grind that it’s not really worth cluttering up this guide by detailing the optimal way to get those 100p. It’s pretty much inevitable that so long as you’re capturing all of your enemies, you’ll get the 100p in 30 minutes, give or take. Just capture a few of every new enemy you encounter, and bring them back every now and then to see how much they’re worth.

Now that you have 100p worth of enemies, talk to The Master (the hooded skeleton man), choose to develop the weapon, select the HandGun, and then feed it whatever you have. Once you reach 100p, select “Evolve” and choose the second option, this is the BeamGun. Go save, and the achievement will pop!

This is an easy and quick one. In order to unlock Alfred, all you need to do is finish off five rounds by hitting your opponent with S moves. You build your Power Gauge by hitting your opponent. Once it’s full, you have about ten seconds to whittle their health down and unleash your S-move. Look in the manuals to learn how to pull off your selected character’s S-move. After six rounds, a cutscene will play, and you will battle Alfred. If you win, you beat your character’s story, unlock Alfred as a playable fighter, as well as the achievement!

Credit where I learned this secret: retro_9980 on GameFAQs[gamefaqs.gamespot.com].

Cheeky title.

This achievement will bring you through most of the content that SNK GALS’ FIGHTER has to offer! This might take a few hours. To get it done a little faster, you can take on optional challenges, which I’ve listed below. Also, just for clarity, this game calls Special Moves “Mighty Bops,” which I think pretty cute.

To unlock this achievement, you must unlock the three secret characters. They are:

• Yuki
• Whip
• Miss X, whose identity remains of one of the greatest mysteries in gaming. Who is she?!

You unlock Yuki and Whip by beating Q.O.F. mode with every base game character (of course excluding the secret characters themselves).

You can unlock Miss X by simply playing 100 rounds, or 13 playthroughs… but that’s no fun. Another way to unlock her is by doing little challenges to unlock all 16 battle items. This method will allow you to get the trophy in 11 playthroughs. Whichever you choose is up to you, but I recommend the latter to get the most out of the game! Below is a list of items in menu order, and how to get them. Refer to the list anytime you go up against the fighter!

The one to look out for is Yuki’s item, the Photo of Kyo. This one can be done on any playthrough, but you need to know what you’re doing to encounter her in Q.O.F. mode.

Credit to where I learned the following info: markrc on GameFAQs[gamefaqs.gamespot.com]

To get this item, beat Mai by using one of your specials. These are the moves in the manual with the * star next to them.

This one requires you to beat Yuri after popping off two Pretty Bursts in a single round. You can perform a Pretty Burst by hitting down, down, then both A and B buttons at the same time. Each Pretty Burst is different for each character.

All you need to do is beat Athena without any of your special attacks. This includes Mighty Bops and Pretty Bursts. If you’re bad at fighting games like me, this one might come naturally! If you accidentally pop one off, you know the drill.

To get this item, beat Leona with a combo. This can be done pretty easily with a Mighty Bop. You may want to use Rewind to make sure you don’t mess this one up.

What is it called when you steal a hampster? A Ham-ham Heartbreak!
(Real g’s know what I’m talking about)
All you need to do to get this one is defeat Shermie by Time Up. Smack the crap out of her until she’s barely down, then evade until the timer hits 0. After that, the hampster is yours! …You monster.

I’m not so sure this is tournament-legal…
This is simple. Just beat Shermie, who you fight before Mrs. X during every playthough of Q.O.F. mode.

You must beat Nakoruru within 15 seconds. Either round is okay. This can be tricky, but with our time-travelling emulation technology, you can make short work of her.

Wait, it’s fake?!
You must beat Shiki with a Mighty Bop. I haven’t tested to see if a Pretty Gauge would work, but Mighty Bops work 100%.

Beat Akari within five seconds of the timer running out. You may come in clutch and do this naturally, but if you manage to whittle her health down fast, evade her until the last five seconds, and then go in for the kill. Use Rewind to get the timing right.

Ah~… so dreamy~…
This one’s a little tricky. And dreamy. In order to get this item, you must taunt Yuki twice in one round before beating her. However, normally you’re not able to fight her in Q.O.F. mode, and you need to do that to get the item. In order to fight Yuki in Q.O.F. mode and get her item, you must win three rounds in the first six stages with Mighty Bops. This is simple. Learn at least one your character’s Mighty Bops, and use Rewind to make sure you pull it off successfully. If done correctly, your fight with Whip will be pushed back a stage, and you’ll fight with Yuki instead. Taunt her by moving in any direction and hitting the NGCP “Pause” button at the same time. Do this twice, defeat her, and then the item is yours.

Somebody dropped their mask… Could it be…?!
You can get this by beating the game on difficulty level 4. You can change the difficulty in the main menu, “GameOptions,” and “LEVEL.” This does not stack with the next item, so you’ll have to do this in a separate playthrough.

Who left their uniform here, just… laying around…? But more importantly… what did he change into?!
You can get this by beating the game on difficulty level 4. You can change the difficulty in the main menu, “GameOptions,” and “LEVEL.” This does not stack with the next item, so you’ll have to do this in a separate playthrough.

The way to win this one… is to lose! Play through Q.O.F. mode with any fighter, but lose two rounds to Miss X! Remember: do this after beating the game as all of the other 10 characters, because you need to beat Q.O.F. as all characters, and then beat Whip for her item.

I feel kinda bad about taking this…
This one is simple! Just beat Q.O.F. mode as Whip!

Another simple one! Just beat Q.O.F. mode as Yuki!

Another pretty straightforward one. Simply beat one without taking any damage at all. Maybe you’ll get this one naturally. If not, use the Rewind feature to reverse your damage. With the powers of BS, anything is possible!

This one’s pretty quick and straightforward. All you need to do is beat the game’s story mode with any character. You can do singles, doubles, doesn’t matter! After beating the game, your achievement will pop, and that’s all there is to it.

You see the length of this section. Yeah, this is the one. This is the most boring achievement in this collection. On the bright side, it’s not hard and boring, but… it’s still pretty boring. I can at least appreciate we get to see the whole game unlike SOME OTHER GAMES in this collection!

Like the description says, you must unlock both of this game’s mini-games, “Juzoh in Homerun Competition” and “Mukuro and the Great Escape from Hell’s Gate.” This requires us to be in battle for four hours total, and only then will the mini-games be available for purchase in the game’s Gallery mode (this game’s shop). Idling on the main menu doesn’t work, and neither does training mode.

We’re going to be grinding this out via Time Attack. The reason is that you’re invincible in Time Attack and so you’re allowed to go semi-idle. You can let your opponent beat the crap out of you that entire time, and it’ll still count towards the game’s internal clock. Time Attack has a timer set for 60 seconds, but I timed it, and it’s actually 120 seconds. Thankfully, it counts as 120 seconds, and not 60.

In between the mini-games, other items will be added to the “Special” section of the store every 30 minutes. You’ll notice a little “New!” icon appear next to the gallery when this happens. These act as your guide for how much time you’ve spent, and how much is left until your next mini-game. Since one scroll unlocks every 30 minutes, that make “Homerun Competition” the fourth, and “The Great Escape from Hell’s Gate” the eighth. When you unlock any of the in-betweens, go to the menu and move over the item to clear the notification, so that you’ll know when the next one becomes available.

You want to minimize the amount of time you’re spending in menus as much as possible to keep that internal clock counting. I timed it, and you can get from the end of a round of Time Attack to the start of a new one in 18 seconds if you’re fast.

Originally I thought the game was running on wacky time, because once it took 52 minutes for a 30 minute unlock to appear. To be honest, I think it was a combination of rewinding, me actually playing the game and grinding for money for other unlockables, spending time in the Gallery skimming the profiles, catching a breath between rounds, and then going out of my way to select my favorite character and her scrolls.

Unfortunately, my best advice is to just let the timer go, and don’t play the game. Going semi-idle is the best strategy, with you just going in and resetting every two minutes. That brought my time down to 37 minutes per half-hour unlock. Honestly, it makes the game feel less like a fighting game and more like a Tamagotchi.

Despite all of my tips to help minimize your time getting the achievement, I sincerely do recommend you forget about it at first, and actually play and enjoy the game. That is, until you’re ready to enter the grind. Go try to unlock the bonus characters, read through their stories, and just play like normal at first. I am personally not familiar with the Last Blade series, so I enjoyed getting to know about the characters and their stories. It really is remarkable, being able to shove so much of this game’s identity into a little handheld cartridge. Plus, once you’re ready to grind, you’d already have shaved a little off the top of your grinding adventure.

One last thing: if you’re lacking the currency to buy the mini-games, find an optimal strategy for taking out as many enemies as you can in Time Attack. I can take down 17-20 enemies consistently with Hibiki. Jump, slash before hitting the ground, down Attack, cancel into forward Attack, repeat. Both mini-games are cheap, so don’t worry about funds. A couple of dedicated runs of Time Attack, and you’ll be able to afford both of them no problem. Once you buy them both, that’s it! Great work!

This one is easy-peasy! Basically… just beat the game! The game will take you maybe thirty minutes to an hour to beat, and you don’t have to do anything special. Just have fun!

The achievement for 2nd Mission is a little more tricky than 1st Mission‘s, but keep in mind that this achievement is not missable. It’s just tricky.

To get this achievement, you must rescue at least 30 prisoners, which if you’ve played a Metal Slug game you know to do this by shooting them! (Did you forget what kind of game this is?!) When you beat the level where you rescue the 30th prisoner, the achievement will pop.

You need to keep an eye out for prisoners. Some of aren’t even on the ground, so you’ll have to jump and shoot them from just barely off-screen sometimes. Like a couple of other games here, Rewind is a godsend.

However, SNK knew what they were doing when they made this game! Unlike the arcade iterations of this series, these prisoners are proper collectibles, and they keep track of them in the “Office” menu. That means you don’t have to get all of them in one playthrough, which is great news, because this game has many branching paths! I am not a Metal Slug expert, but I had 31 out of 100 prisoners by the end of my first playthrough, which is admittedly cutting it a little close. But let’s say I got 27 for example. I could go down a separate path from the one I took before and find the last prisoners I needed pretty easily.

Just take your time, keep an eye out for prisoners as well as potential branching paths, and just have fun playing the game. If people are really struggling with this one, I may edit this guide with more detail on specific locations. Listing all 100 prisoners would be a huge time investment, and it goes a little out of the scale of this guide, but let me know your thoughts.

This is another easy achievement, although it’s not very clear on how to get it.

To get this achievement, you must obtain one of five of the main villain Yuga’s cards. You do this by playing as him, and beating Gandara, who you fight just before the final boss, who always drops one card.

To play as Yuga, select “1P Play” from the main menu, go down one row, then highlight the middle character, Kuroko. Press whichever key or button is assigned to “B,” and then that character will change to Yuga. While holding down “B”, press “A”, and you’ve now started the game as Yuga. Burn through the game with his cheap ranged attacks, and this achievement is yours!

Credits to where I learned this secret: XPLICIT187 on GameFAQs.[gamefaqs.gamespot.com]

Congrats on completing NeoGeo Pocket Color Selection Vol. 1! I want to say thank you to the original devs, as well as CodeMystics for bringing these games to lif. and then back from the dead again! If you enjoyed your time with Vol. 1, Vol. 2 is already on Steam. Here’s hoping for a Vol. 3! I’m hoping there’s a certain… Pocket Adventure they’ll finally rerelease!