Neo Geo Pocket Color or Wonderswan?

[1upsuper]

Hello. I've wanted to get both a Neo Geo Pocket Color and a Wonderswan Crystal for years, but I always get paralyzed with choice and end up getting neither. At the risk of turning this into the dumbest console war ever, which do you think I should get first? Neither system is prohibitively expensive (yet), and a number of the games seem reasonably priced. I like all sorts of games, including shmups and fighting games, which seems to make them both good choices. I love the Metal Slug series and have wanted to play the NGPC Metal Slug games forever, which is a point in that system's favor, but on the other hand I also really want to play Rockman & Forte and Ghosts 'n Goblins on the Wonderswan.

If you have one system or the other, what do you think of it? If you have both, which do you prefer?

As an aside, it seems like there are bootleg NGPC carts floating around. Is that something you have to look out for? Is that a problem for the Wonderswan too?

[ommadawnyawn2]

Audio and visuals are better on WS(C) while some games seem a tad faster and smoother on NGPC. WSC has more RPGs and AA games IIRC. Would be best to look at the games and pick whichever you prefer in terms of genres probably.

Rockman & Forte is mediocre on WS.

[kingmike]

I'd be surprised if there is as much interest in bootlegs on the WSC.
There's certainly some rare games which I'd imagine some would try to bootleg (that one late shooter, was it called Judgment Silversword?) but it seemed like more of the library was text-heavy games (unsurprising Bandai would produce a lot of license-based stuff).
That of course were never translated (though I heard one or maybe two of the many Digimon games did get an English version released in the HK market.)

I don't know about the NGPC but can confirm the WSC does have about the same visibility issues people had about the original model GBA (the model I had gotten was a used Final Fantasy console with a copy of FF2, can imagine how that might be an issue playing the game.)

[retr0gamer]

I'd go with the NGPC. It's got a small but excellent library of games and it's pretty affordable to get all the best games for it.

The Wonderswan has a few great games but if you don't read Japanese then the selection is very limited as it cuts out most of the library of RPGs and strategy games. With them gone the selection is very limited unlike the NGPC.

[ZenithianHero]

I regret not buying the Neo Geo Pocket at the time, it even had Sonic on there.

[retr0gamer]

The Sonic wasn't great though. It was like a proto Sonic Advance. No original music and most levels were recycled from other games. Suffered from a few issues like the poor level design with lots of un-signposted pits and very cruel requirements to getting all chaos emeralds.

[mainpatr]

I can say that Digimon Battle Spirit is a good game.