NeoGeo Battle Coliseum

, abbreviated NGBC or NBC, is a 2-on-2 tag team fighting game designed for the Atomiswave arcade board developed and released by SNK in 2005. The game features characters from several SNK and ADK titles. Subsequently, a PlayStation 2 version of the game was released in Japan, North America, and Europe. The Xbox Live Arcade version was released worldwide on June 9, 2010. In 2020, a homebrew conversion was released for the Dreamcast.
Gameplay.
The game system of the arcade NGBC, as previously mentioned, is a 2-on-2 tag battle, regardless of how many players are playing. While the two-player game system is similar to most tag-team systems of other games, the single player system is unusual.
The game's single play is more like a survival battle, where the player must beat enemy after enemy as long as possible. However, the game gives the player 300 seconds, and when time-out occurs, instead of win or lose, the player will face the boss (depending on how well they perform). Only at this point will time-out determine the victor.
During a single-play, the rule is to defeat either member of the team, not both team members. That is, unlike most tag-team systems (but similar to "Kizuna Encounter" or "Tekken Tag Tournament"), where all opposition must be beaten in order to win, in NGBC the player only needs to beat one member of the opposite team to win, without the need to fight the other member if the first is defeated.
The survival battles are divided into rounds of three battles
Plot.
The official plot, as given by SNK, is as follows: "In February, 2017 of the new Japanese era there is a man trying to rule the NEOGEO World. "I will topple NEOGEO's most powerful warriors and put myself on the throne!". We knew that if he managed to obtain NEOGEO world's awesome power, world domination would not be far from his reach. This man, who sat at the heart of the "WAREZ Conglomerate" with overwhelming financial power behind him, had already set out on his ambitious path to gain NeoGeo World's power. Those who knew the truth of his intentions were already trembling with fear... As NEOGEO World drew closer to the verge of disaster, a WAREZ sponsored fighting competition was announced. This event is called "NEOGEO BATTLE COLISEUM". The Federal Government is worried about the situation, and has secretly dispatched its two best secret agents, Yuki and Ai. A world on the verge of eternal darkness... The future of NEOGEO World is now in the hands of the warriors." (The name of the organization that hosts the tournament, WAREZ, is an obvious play on the word "warez", as SNK Playmore blames software piracy as one of the contributing factors to its 2001 bankruptcy.)
Characters.
A total of 40 characters are playable featuring two original characters and two original bosses and the rest from 11 different SNK series.
Reception.
"NeoGeo Battle Coliseum" was criticized for not making the storyline more obvious in the game and for sub-par graphics. "Blast Magazine" opined the game seemed starkly behind the times. "The NeoGeo fighters have always been looked on by the gaming world with a certain nostalgic level of respect. The games weren’t as good as their competitors. The graphics were excellent on the NeoGeo, but that was years ago, and not much has changed in the games... This is a classic late release for a previous generation platform", wrote the "Blast" reviewer about the PS2 version of the game and gave the game 3/5. IGN gave the game 7.3/10.