• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Arika and SNK to Collaborate and Revamp SNK IP

Thick Thighs Save Lives

NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
GIcUx0iaQAAIkVX


Arika has agreed to collaborate with SNK to revamp (reclaim and revive according to the announcement) SNK IP, as per an announcement post on X (formerly Twitter). The post goes on to explain that as SNK owns more than 200 SNK-branded game content, Arika has agreed to collaborate with SNK as part of their efforts to revive past IP, and this collaboration is planned for non-fighting game IP.



While SNK might be known for their fighting game intellectual property such as The King of Fighters, The Last Blade, Fatal Fury, and Samurai Shodown, they have also worked on some other IPs such as Metal Slug, Baseball Stars, and Ikari Warriors. No other details regarding this collaboration have been announced at this time, including any potential IP involved.

Arika, known for their work on the Street Fighter EX games, has most recently worked on development for Tekken 8 and the upcoming Endless Ocean Luminous.

 

BlackSandrock10

Neo Member
I saw that on X/Twitter this morning, sounds interesting and promising. Hopefully (keyword here!), Arika can finish off their Fighting Layer business and see what they come up with. Whether it's Metal Slug (as someone mentioned!), Art Of Fighting (I must be mad!), Baseball Stars or even Beast Busters (long overdue!), I'm down with that!
 
SNK has been very consistent with quality games in recent years, even SNK Heroines Tag Team Frenzy, a borderline joke game, and a borderline Dead or Alive Xtreme type game, is really fun.

So I have no doubt it will be at least good!

I kinda wish it was a new Last Blade game, but I'm glad they are going for a non-FG.
 

00_Zer0

Member
I saw that on X/Twitter this morning, sounds interesting and promising. Hopefully (keyword here!), Arika can finish off their Fighting Layer business and see what they come up with. Whether it's Metal Slug (as someone mentioned!), Art Of Fighting (I must be mad!), Baseball Stars or even Beast Busters (long overdue!), I'm down with that!
I always thought of them as the SF EX team or the Fighting Layer team, but when I looked into this further I was surprised to see the breadth of games they had a hand in, so I'm confident that this is a good decision on SNK's part. Let's hope we get some cool shooters out of this partnership.

Btw, here's a list of games they have been directly involved in:

Aa Mujou Setsuna/Metal Torrent (2009/2010, Nintendo DSi through DSiWare)
Endless Ocean 2: Adventures of the Deep (2009/2010, Wii)
Jewelry Master Twinkle Light (2010, Xbox 360 through Xbox Live Indie Games)
Bust-A-Move Universe (2011, Nintendo 3DS)
AR Games (2011, Pre-Installed on the Nintendo 3DS)
3D Classics Excitebike (2011, Nintendo 3DS through Nintendo 3DS eShop)
3D Classics Xevious (2011, Nintendo 3DS through Nintendo 3DS eShop)
3D Classics Urban Champion (2011, Nintendo 3DS through Nintendo 3DS eShop)
3D Classics Twinbee (2011, Nintendo 3DS through Nintendo 3DS eShop)
3D Classics Kirby Adventure (2011, Nintendo 3DS through Nintendo 3DS eShop)
3D Classics Kid Icarus (2012, Nintendo 3DS through Nintendo 3DS eShop)
Tekken 3D: Prime Edition (2012, Nintendo 3DS)
Teddy Together (2013, Nintendo 3DS. Bandai-Namco)
Dr. Luigi (2013, Wii U through Nintendo eShop)
Dr. Mario: Miracle Cure (2015, Nintendo 3DS through Nintendo eShop)
Fighting EX Layer (2018, PlayStation 4, Windows)
Tetris 99 (2019, Nintendo Switch through Nintendo eShop)
Super Mario Bros. 35 (2020, Nintendo Switch through Nintendo eShop)
Pac-Man 99 (2021, Nintendo Switch through Nintendo eShop)
Fighting EX Layer Another Dash (2021, Nintendo Switch)
Chocobo GP (2022, Nintendo Switch)
Tekken 7 (2023, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Windows)
Tekken 8 (2024, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, Windows)
Endless Ocean Luminous (2024, Nintendo Switch)
 

Solidus_T

Banned
What do you mean Tekken 8 is entirely developed by them?
Bamco outsourced the development of Tekken 8 to Arika and acted as consultants for the balance changes. You can tell that Arika developed it by the details of the practice mode - it is not the typical Tekken training mode layout, instead looking *exactly* like Fighting EX Layer. I'll add that some of the Arika employees, including their freelance sound team, are former Namco employees. This game represents a return to Tekken for some of them, others have stayed on the Namco Sound team since Tekken 1. Among the returning people are some greats like Shinji Hosoe and Ayako Saso
 
Last edited:

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
magician lord got meh reviews. But it was an awesome game. Really hard too. Watching speed runs it looks easy if you know what your doing. It’s a very short game if you plow through it with good gaming skills.

But great visuals and rocking music. Game has really weird floaty jumps making it challenging.
 

yurinka

Member
Great news! I think they would be a good fit for a new Samurai Shodown or Last Blade game.

Arika, known for their work on the Street Fighter EX games, has most recently worked on development for Tekken 8 and the upcoming Endless Ocean Luminous.
They also worked on their own great Fighting Layer series, which are some sort of Street Fighter EX spin-off.

What do you mean Tekken 8 is entirely developed by them?
Arika has been a long time staple for fighting games. In fact, Tekken 8 is entirely developed by them
No, Arika has been just one of the many support/outsourcing teams that worked on it: https://www.mobygames.com/game/216563/tekken-8/credits/playstation-5/
 
Last edited:
magician lord got meh reviews. But it was an awesome game. Really hard too. Watching speed runs it looks easy if you know what your doing. It’s a very short game if you plow through it with good gaming skills.

But great visuals and rocking music. Game has really weird floaty jumps making it challenging.

The arcade version is a lot easier because of instant respawn from where you died, and you can credit-feed. Lot harder to do the latter at an actual machine than an emulator though.

The home version limited lives and continues, and IIRC you restart at the beginning of the level or a checkpoint when you die. The people who play the home version flawlessly definitely use the arcade version to practice because of those changes.

Overall though it's a pretty fun game and I'd definitely be interested in that being one of the IP Arika are helping to bring back. Shock Troopers would be another.

Magician Lord 3 would be perfect as a pixel art metroidvania and Athena an action platformer with rogue-like elements.

I'd be down for those.
 
The arcade version is a lot easier because of instant respawn from where you died, and you can credit-feed. Lot harder to do the latter at an actual machine than an emulator though.

The home version limited lives and continues, and IIRC you restart at the beginning of the level or a checkpoint when you die. The people who play the home version flawlessly definitely use the arcade version to practice because of those changes.

Overall though it's a pretty fun game and I'd definitely be interested in that being one of the IP Arika are helping to bring back. Shock Troopers would be another.



I'd be down for those.
There's a few versions of the arcade cartridge/software. Some of them have checkpoints and not instant respawn, for a weird bit of info.
 
They could re-release these games as collections (similar to what they did with the Neo geo pocket games). Then they could release new iterations of the most famous ones like Metal Slug.
 

00_Zer0

Member
SNK has so many games that Arika could reboot that I'm frothing at the mouth thinking about it. Metal Slug, Shock Troopers, Sengoku, Ikari Warriors, Last Resort, Blazing Star, Pulstar, Twinkle Star Sprites, Ironclad, Baseball Stars, and Neo Turf Masters. If Arika could release a half dozen of these games and turn them into quality reboots or sequels then I would be happy.
 

CamHostage

Member
Good stuff, Arika is a versatile developer and I hope they do lots of cool stuff with this collab.

SNK has so many great IPs that are buried. It would be good to see some new games, remakes, or even well done remasters (not just emulation) to come out.

Yeah, some people have already mentioned fighters, but I'm glad they actually say that fighting games are not a priority for this deal. SNK is still alive with its fighter production, let them keep going there. (Same with Metal Slug that it is still active, even though they've gone 3D and mobile recently and the old Irem side of SNK is not there in this most recent incarnation; a good new one could still happen if a couple cards line up.) The wealth of other titles in the SNK franchise library is what I'm personally interested in, and I've been wanting companies like SNK or Konami or Capcom to find developers who can do those brands justice again the way that SEGA has with stuff like SoR4, Wonder Boy Returns/The Dragon's Trap and the most recent round of SEGA revivals. I wouldn't be mad if Arika picked something cool out of the fighter library too, but I'm hoping they start with something cool with an underused genre and push this partnership into a few titles before seeing if their fighting style matches up to do one of those.
 
Top Bottom