NeoGeo Battle Coliseum

The story

NeoGeo Battle Coliseum is a tag fighter with two characters on each side, drawn from across SNK's history: Fatal Fury, The Last Blade, Metal Slug, Art of Fighting and more. SNK Playmore and Sammy announced it at the 2004 AM Show. A network test ran on 28–29 April 2005 at Club Sega Shinjuku West and Club Sega Akihabara, and SNK's press release gives 27 July 2005 for the launch.

Two kinds of extra character

Putting in any AW card unlocked Athena and Mars People, member or not. Operators' machines also unlocked them by themselves after a set time.

Members could also buy the three bosses from the shop: Mizuchi from 25 August 2005, Shishioh from 1 September and NEO-DIO from 15 September, at 1,000, 1,500 and 2,000 points. Those are the dates in SNK's notices; Arcadia's October 2005 issue says Mizuchi was out on 7 August, and players were discussing his price by 19 August, so he may have arrived earlier.

Colours, messages and titles

Every fighter had eight extra colours to buy. You picked them by holding E with A, B, C or D, or Start with A, B, C or D, on the character-select screen. A player's diary from 30 July 2005, three days after launch, already mentions buying colours for Washizuka and Jin Chonrei.

Each fighter also had four extra victory messages, 300 points each, chosen by holding E and a button during the music before the victory screen. The shop section lists every one, in Japanese with an English translation.

Titles shown under your name cost from 100 to 8,000 points. The guidebook prints 34 and says there were more.

Member channels

The website had three member channels: My Data for your name, title, prefecture, records and purchases; Data for statistics; and Shop. The public side had game information, events, venue lists, nine national rankings (non-members saw only the top ten) and Flash videos of fights. The site was presented by a host character, Kaname (鹿目).

Each month the ten players with the most versus wins got a special title and Proof of Prowess (猛者の証), a glow around their fighter.

The game also had Fight Money events for card players. Versus wins earned money, the biggest totals earned titles, and a Double Up option let you halve your health to double what you could win.

A phone service, Bato Culture (バトカルチャー), appears in a screenshot in Arcadia No. 60.

Points

10 points for starting a game, 5 for clearing a CPU stage, 10 for continuing, 10 for challenging another player, 5 for a versus win, 4 for a perfect, and a bonus for win streaks. Fighting Level, the game's own experience score, was separate.