- Joined
- Dec 29, 2000
- Posts
- 13,156
Hey, everyone. As I slowly go through my Anime Central loot, I find more and more to talk about that relates to the Neo Geo. This time out, I'll take a few to mention the All About SNK books I picked up.
The All About SNK books, for those of you that don't know, are books with compilations of art, screen captures and other goodies (marquees, button layouts, move cheatsheats, related toys, posters and other paraphernalia) that SNK has provided for us fans throughout the years that tell us of the history of this creative and innovative company. Specifically, All About SNK vol. 1 focuses on all of the characters in SNK's fighting games between the years of 1991 to 2000. Any of you that have seen the All About Capcom book will know how this book looks, but for those that don't...
The books takes a look at each of SNK's fighting games throughout the years. It starts with the Fatal Fury series, then shifts to AOF, then KOF, then SS and then others, such as Buriki One. The layout is such that they'll first give some history on the series, then break it down and take a more detailed look at each individual game in the series. Each series gets it's own 'section', and each game in the series gets its own 'chapter' within the 'section', and the book shows you some screen captures, marquees and special move diagrams that go on the cabinets, describe the gameplay basics and give you an overview of the game's story. Then, one character at a time, they give you a small illustration of the character and beneath that, in columnized format, they show you that character's ending cinema screens with any accompanying text printed beneath. There are anywhere between three and four characters per page, so as you might imagine the images are pretty small, but they're all there for you to reference. Every character's ending in every SNK fighting game is shown, along with the various merchandising tie ins and so forth.
The first book is chock full o good stuff, not just the games but a lot of the stuff related to it as well. There's even a section in the book giving you a breakdown of all of the Fatal Fury video game commercials that were shown, as well as the AOF2 commercial and others. It's a thick book (again, anybody familiar with All About Capcom knows what I'm talking about), about three or four times as thick as a standard anime art book. You don't get any sprawling images because there's so much material to cover, but it's an informative book with a lot of history detailed in it. Even if you can't read Japanese, you should try to find this book if you're into SNK's fighting games at all.
The second book, All About SNK Extra vol. 2, is a more conventional art book, both in size and scope. It's basically a collection of illustrations spanning the breadth of their game series (there are even some nifty SS PSX illustrations in there, for example). Some are old, but some are brand spanking new and have never been seen before anywhere to my knowledge. I was really surprised by the volume of illustrations that were new to my eyes, and I have almost every SNK art collection that's ever come out. My favorites are probably the new Garou image with Terry, an arm around Rock's shoulder as he puts the famous Fatal Fury cap on his adopted son's head, and the Buriki One illustration with Gai Tendo in white shorts standing next to a muscular but very attractive girl wearing similar dress with an accompanying top. Overall the book is a fine offering. Personally, I prefer the aesthetics of the second book over the history the first one offers, but that really doesn't matter because I'd buy both in any event <IMG SRC="smilies/smile.gif" border="0">.
Anyway, they're out there so go and get 'em. Again, I'm not at home as I write this so if anybody wants ISBN numbers I can provide them later.
The All About SNK books, for those of you that don't know, are books with compilations of art, screen captures and other goodies (marquees, button layouts, move cheatsheats, related toys, posters and other paraphernalia) that SNK has provided for us fans throughout the years that tell us of the history of this creative and innovative company. Specifically, All About SNK vol. 1 focuses on all of the characters in SNK's fighting games between the years of 1991 to 2000. Any of you that have seen the All About Capcom book will know how this book looks, but for those that don't...
The books takes a look at each of SNK's fighting games throughout the years. It starts with the Fatal Fury series, then shifts to AOF, then KOF, then SS and then others, such as Buriki One. The layout is such that they'll first give some history on the series, then break it down and take a more detailed look at each individual game in the series. Each series gets it's own 'section', and each game in the series gets its own 'chapter' within the 'section', and the book shows you some screen captures, marquees and special move diagrams that go on the cabinets, describe the gameplay basics and give you an overview of the game's story. Then, one character at a time, they give you a small illustration of the character and beneath that, in columnized format, they show you that character's ending cinema screens with any accompanying text printed beneath. There are anywhere between three and four characters per page, so as you might imagine the images are pretty small, but they're all there for you to reference. Every character's ending in every SNK fighting game is shown, along with the various merchandising tie ins and so forth.
The first book is chock full o good stuff, not just the games but a lot of the stuff related to it as well. There's even a section in the book giving you a breakdown of all of the Fatal Fury video game commercials that were shown, as well as the AOF2 commercial and others. It's a thick book (again, anybody familiar with All About Capcom knows what I'm talking about), about three or four times as thick as a standard anime art book. You don't get any sprawling images because there's so much material to cover, but it's an informative book with a lot of history detailed in it. Even if you can't read Japanese, you should try to find this book if you're into SNK's fighting games at all.
The second book, All About SNK Extra vol. 2, is a more conventional art book, both in size and scope. It's basically a collection of illustrations spanning the breadth of their game series (there are even some nifty SS PSX illustrations in there, for example). Some are old, but some are brand spanking new and have never been seen before anywhere to my knowledge. I was really surprised by the volume of illustrations that were new to my eyes, and I have almost every SNK art collection that's ever come out. My favorites are probably the new Garou image with Terry, an arm around Rock's shoulder as he puts the famous Fatal Fury cap on his adopted son's head, and the Buriki One illustration with Gai Tendo in white shorts standing next to a muscular but very attractive girl wearing similar dress with an accompanying top. Overall the book is a fine offering. Personally, I prefer the aesthetics of the second book over the history the first one offers, but that really doesn't matter because I'd buy both in any event <IMG SRC="smilies/smile.gif" border="0">.
Anyway, they're out there so go and get 'em. Again, I'm not at home as I write this so if anybody wants ISBN numbers I can provide them later.
