You read that right! The puzzle game “Roosters” from the 1991 unpopular masterpiece “Three Wonders” is going to be launched on Neo Geo? ! This classic side-scrolling action game from Capcom originally only appeared on arcade platforms, but now it has been forced to be brought to SNK’s 16-bit beast Neo Geo by fan DomKid. This is a different-dimensional collaboration that even Capcom and SNK did not dare to think of back then!
What exactly is “Roosters” (US version name: “Midnight Wanderers”)?
Don’t be too surprised if you haven’t heard of this game. After all, it debuted as one of the three-in-one collection “Three Wonders”, along with the horizontal shooter “Chariot” and the puzzle sketch “Don’t Pull”. You can control Lou and Siva, two dwarfs who look like hobbits, to bravely break into the Demon Castle to regain the stolen mysterious chariot. The gameplay is similar to a mixture of “Devil Village” and “Contra”, and the difficulty is also quite hard-core!
Arcade Original
At that time, Capcom wanted to bring “Three Wonders” to its own Capcom Power System Changer (equivalent to Capcom’s version of Neo Geo AES), but the plan ended up being aborted. As a result, these three games were only ported to PS1 and Sega Saturn by Xing Entertainment in 1998 (also limited to Japan!). After that, it can only be experienced through various reproduction collections, and it will not appear in “Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium” until 2022.
QuoteA text from the Seven Kings of Bahamut：
Midnight Wanderers (ルースターズ, Japanese Roosters, subtitled “Quest for the Chariot”) – a platform game, like other Capcom games such as Mega Man and Strider. Players control a hobbit named Lou and his traveling companion Siva, essentially running, climbing, and shooting enemies. Lou’s friend Sena was turned into a statue by the game’s boss, Gaia, and it’s up to the player to decide whether she returns to human form.
Fan-made Neo-Geo port
Fans themselves transplanted Neo Geo!
This porting was done by fan developer DomKid. His last work was the “Castlevania” fan game “Maria Renard’s Revenge”. This time he challenged to resurrect “Roosters”/”Midnight Wanderers” on Neo Geo! The current version is developed using Earok’s Scorpion Engine. Although it will not be a complete 1:1 transplant, it already has 30 types of character animations and the basic HUD is also completed. However, there are no sound effects or music yet, but DomKid promises that this is just the starting point and will continue to be optimized in the future!
Capcom X SNK fantasy rendezvous? !
Think about it, this game was the work of Capcom back then, but now it has been transplanted to Neo Geo, the console of SNK, Capcom’s arch-rival. This kind of dream meeting across eras is simply a historical event! This makes people wonder, will more Capcom arcade games be shoehorned into Neo Geo in the future, or even become a new trend among fans?
Although this ported version is not yet fully completed, the enthusiasm alone is touching. If both SNK and Capcom officials learned this spirit of caring for old IPs, maybe the game industry wouldn’t just have endless remakes now! Now, let’s wait for DomKid to continue development and see how far “Roosters”/”Midnight Wanderers” on Neo Geo can go!