SNK Producer Yasuyuki Oda Talks About Reviving Old Series

In a recent interview, SNK producer Yasuyuki Oda talked about SNK’s recent efforts at reviving the past, whether via rereleases with the Neo Geo Mini and SNK 40th Anniversary Collection, as well as whether other series might come back. [Thanks, Dualshockers!]

Here are the highlights:

• The Neo Geo Mini was indeed decided upon after seeing the success of Nintendo’s Classic Edition Mini line of consoles, but SNK have been talking about doing so for a while now. Nintendo’s success was just a perfect timing as it highlighted fan demand.

• SNK 40th Anniversary Collection was made in conjunction with Digital Eclipse, who managed to restore the games by borrowing the arcade boards from famous collectors, as the source code was not preserved. There’s a running joke in the company where they joke that if they waited any longer, such a collection would be impossible thanks to the boards themselves slowly dying.

• On The King of Fighters XIV on Switch, Oda said that there are technical hurdles to overcome regarding performance, but if those problems could be solved, it “would definitely be a possibility”. Oda also says there are early talks of The King of Fighters XV, although the game’s not even in pre-production.

• Regarding bringing back other SNK series, Oda would definitely want to bring back the Fatal Fury series, but is unsure whether SNK would be able to surpass the expectations of fans, which has been growing ever larger in the absence of the series.

To end off the interview, Oda asked a question of his own, regarding Metal Slug: “If we rebooted Metal Slug in some way, would they [gamers] be happy with the same “one hit you die” mechanic? Do gamers today think we should put it out that way?”

When asked to elaborate further, he continued, “Obviously there is a lot of stuff that people want us to reboot. We have people asking for Garou [Fatal Fury], people asking for Art of Fighting, people asking for Last Blade, people asking for Metal Slug… We would love to do all of them for obvious reasons. There are always discussions going on, but whenever we get down to it and we start talking about rebooting Metal Slug we start thinking, is it ok to put out a game like that nowadays?”

SNK 40th Anniversary Collection releases for Nintendo Switch in North America on November 13, 2018 and in Europe on November 16, 2018. All 11 DLC games will be available on December 11, 2018.