VISCO Collection Review

Who among us doesn’t love a good retro collection? Being able to relive your youth on modern gaming platforms — with the added bonus of not putting a life savings worth of coins into an arcade machine — almost always ends up being a nostalgia-fuelled good time. But with seven fairly obscure titles comprising the VISCO Collection, are these games enjoyable enough to warrant the purchase? Let’s find out.

Now, unless you have a fond memory of the Neo Geo, chances are you may not be aware of Visco Corporation as a game developer. With games released from the late 1980s to the early 2000s, it isn’t particularly well-known, especially in today's era of videogames. That doesn’t necessarily mean it wasn’t a great company, and VISCO Collection aims to showcase some of its best titles.

The first title you’ll see is 1992’s Andro Dunos, a horizontal-scrolling shoot ‘em up that offered a good challenge with its fast and frantic gameplay. You’ll need a quick trigger finger to survive the many enemies that can show up on screen, although the multiple weapon system (something that feels like it was ahead of its time) offers players a solution to any situation that may arise. A weapon type that allows you to fire backwards? That’s something I need in every scrolling shooter, please!

Flip Shot and its sequel, Bang Bead, are next up. These two play like a much more interesting game of Pong (almost Windjammers-esque, if you will) and see your chosen character up against the opposition to try and, essentially, score a goal. There’s more to it than that, though, as behind each character is a row of defences that you’ll need to work towards destroying (done by colliding the ball/puck with them) until there’s nothing left but your foe and a defenceless goal. With each playable character having their own stats as well as special moves to trigger, this was a fun duo that my co-op partner and I went back to most.

The 1999 shooter Captain Tomaday is perhaps the most unique game in the collection, thematically. An interesting premise that sees the anthropomorphic tomato in a vertically scrolling shoot ‘em up, Captain Tomaday’s visual style may look like something akin to a preschool educational game, but this provides a whole lot more of a challenge than being able to count to 10. The screen very quickly becomes littered with enemies, and I found this to be perhaps the most difficult game of the lot. With one button assigned to each fist that fires forward, Rayman-style, at a steady pace, you can opt to release the button for a charged attack instead. It took a while to get to grips with the controls, but this was still an enjoyable enough title despite my many, many deaths at the hands of even the most generic of enemies.

Ganryu, our next entry, is a side-scrolling hack-and-slash platformer that, despite an impressive pixel-art style, is as generic as they come. There are a few stand-out moments, such as finding secret areas and collectables that aren’t situated on the main path through a level. While it isn’t a bad game by any means, Ganryu doesn’t do anything to stand out from similar games such as Shinobi and has some rather cumbersome controls. At least the boss fights are enjoyable, with learnable attack patterns to learn in order to overcome them. Far from terrible, but not a “must play” either.

Three guesses as to what the next game, Goal! Goal! Goal!, is all about! Yes, the beautiful game is here in its pixelated glory, although it may look impressive (at least for 1995) doesn’t play all that well. For starters, the camera feels way too close to the action, meaning it can be tough to judge exactly where you should volley the ball in order to keep on the offensive. There is a map of the field that takes up a portion of the screen, but the practically non-existent teammate AI doesn’t exactly help in setting up a good tactical manoeuvre. This may seem harsh for a game that’s almost 30 years old, but having played many football games throughout my life — hi, Sensible World of Soccer! — this felt rough to play. With overly aggressive opponents, a seemingly short-sighted referee, and goalkeepers with faster reflexes than Ultra Instinct Goku, Goal! Goal! Goal! Can be a nigh-on impossible challenge.

Neo Drift Out is the 1996 isometric racing title that rounds out the list; this slick, satisfying title kept me coming back for more long after I’d beaten the game's six tracks. You’ll need to memorise each bend in order to shave precious seconds off your times, although there are prompts that signal what corner is coming up for those first few practice runs. Despite being fairly simplistic in its mechanics, Neo Drift Out was still a blast as I effortlessly drifted around tight turns and sped across the finish line.

There are online modes for five of the titles, but no matter how hard I tried or how long I sat in my own lobbies, there was never anybody online to play with. Every game bar Neo Drift Out has multiplayer capabilities, though, so at least you and a friend can have some classic couch co-op fun!

Finally, let’s talk about the overall presentation of the collection. Many similar retro game compilations offer a wide variety of additional extras, such as concept art or scans of the original manuals of home console releases. There is very little in VISCO Collection that evokes a trip down memory lane, with the only supplemental features being a few filters and screen sizes. Each game does have its own manual, but these are generic three pages showing players the controls, the year it was released, and a short summary of what the title is about. Disappointing for sure, especially when compared to the likes of Castlevania Anniversary Collection or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection.

I mostly enjoyed my time with VISCO Collection and felt that the majority of the games included were still a pleasure to play regardless of their age. Despite a lack of extras and a simple menu design that doesn’t do much to showcase these seven titles, the majority of what's offered is a good time.