Noise Factory's neo geo legacy

After SNK declared bankruptcy, the future of their various intellectual properties became uncertain. Despite Aruze's reported efforts to relegate the cast of the SNK universe solely to the world of pachislot related ventures, many companies developed new entries in previously successful SNK franchises after the properties were rescued by Playmore Corporation. One of those companies was Noise Factory.



Although there were other developers such as Eolith, Mega Enterprise, and BrezzaSoft that also helped keep the SNK franchise torch burning with new releases such as King of Fighters 2001 and Metal Slug 4, let's take a look at some of Noise Factory's more unique releases during this time frame.



While the aforementioned later entries in the King of Fighters and Metal Slug series would go on to reuse many assets from previous titles, Noise Factory's contributions to established franchises such as Sengoku, Shin Gouketsuji Ichizoku, and Rage of the Dragons (originally a Double Dragon game co-developed with Evoga) would feature new takes on established gameplay and a noticeable shift in graphical style. Although somewhat divisive among fans, many of Noise Factory's games during this time can be viewed as some of the more unique franchise sequels in the late Playmore-era Neo Geo library.

In recent years, SNK Playmore has become known for their tendency to support the King of Fighters franchise over many of their other properties. Much of Noise Factory's efforts during the later years of the Neo Geo represented an initiaive that flew in the face of the usual franchise asset recycling. Retaining the same spirit of rebirth and renewal that late SNK titles such as Garou: Mark of the Wolves possessed, Noise Factory's aspirations represented an attempt to take a bold step toward a possibly brighter future for previously less successful SNK series.

How do you feel about Noise Factory's neo geo titles?

Sengoku 3 is a cool looking game, but the enemies going on and off screen alot really annoyed me early on in the game. I get a headache everytime I play it. I love my fighters but for some reason i never really got into matrimelee. Looks ok, but some of the whack songs turned me off and I never gave it a chance. I did enjoy playing ROTD back in the day. Pretty fun game

I give them props for keeping the Neo Geo alive. I wish they ported Rage of the Dragons, Matrimele and Sengoku 3 on the Dreamcast.

Damn i never realized Sengoku 3 was NOISE FACTORY. Much like Data East and Psikyo, it really sucks to see some of these great old Jp devs go under.

poor some liquor out

From what I remember, NF only did the art in ROTD, Evoga did everything else.

NF was okay, but the gameplay mechanics and hit detection was at a level beneath even 1995 titles. What they should have done was bought the source code for SSIII or KoF95, and then worked with that. I imagine that at that point, SNK would have been happy to sell that off because they weren't using it, and haven't used it since. I would have said Last Blade or Garou, but I think that those engines were still potentially going to be used in future titles, if SNK could ever have dug itself out of a hole.

Instead, NF seemed to recreate the wheel, and for it's early efforts, NF made ok games.

Also, I didn't like Sengoku 3. It pained me that they used the name Sengoku. It could have been something else and I would have been okay with it. But it wasn't a Sengoku game.

Matrimelee is one of my favorite Neo games of all times. I think they did a really good job with the music and making it fit together with the characters and story of the game.

Evil Wasabi said:

Also, I didn't like Sengoku 3. It pained me that they used the name Sengoku. It could have been something else and I would have been okay with it. But it wasn't a Sengoku game.

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My thoughts too regarding the franchise, however I do like Sengoku 3.

Xian Xi said:

From what I remember, NF only did the art in ROTD, Evoga did everything else.

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Whats up Xian Xi. Evoga was responsible for the initial planning and design of the game; meanwhile, final graphics, sounds, and programming is credited to Noise Factory. As is the case with many titles releases during this particular time in the neo geo's lifespan, the final game was the product of a collaboration of developers. Since Noise Factory is credited as a co-developer, I did not want to exclude RotD.

sengoku 3 is definitely my favourite out of all their work and within my top five favourite beat em' ups of all time.

and as for rage of the dragons and matrimelee, i always wanted to come back to these games. but the neo has so many fighters that i needed to master, that these two games had to be pushed back down on the list. will come back to them one day.

I had a lot of fun playing Rage of the Dragons and Matrimele I not sure about Sengoku 3 though.

I personally love Sengoku 3 and is probably my favorite Neo title. On another note, Matrimele never sat well with me. I just never cared for it.

Sengoku 3 had fantastic visuals, great controls and a cool combo system, but I found the pacing extremely slow, very few enemy variety and level design uninspired and too long. Even if beat 'em ups are inherently repetitive (and I love the genre), Sengoku 3 was too slow and repetitive for me. It's a pity though, since the base was pretty good.

[OCEAN] said:

Sengoku 3 had fantastic visuals, great controls and a cool combo system, but I found the pacing extremely slow, very few enemy variety and level design uninspired and too long. Even if beat 'em ups are inherently repetitive (and I love the genre), Sengoku 3 was too slow and repetitive for me. It's a pity though, since the base was pretty good.

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S3 had a ton of enemy sprites but they didn't know how to vary the enemy generation and the result was that you would for too long facing the same shit. And why always the same shit in groups? This is something other brawlers grew out of after TMNT the arcade game.

I played Sengoku 3 for the first time last night and I noticed the same thing right away. It felt like I was fighting the same groups for a long time. And it got boring. I'm sure I need more time to get better. There must be a good way to beat-up groups quickly. Hopefully two-player will be a better experience.
Visually the game looks really good.

It still astonishes me, how well the Power Instinct franchise fit the Neo after going through the hands & heads of Noise Factory. Matrimelee offers masterful simplicity, tons of humor and the kind of over-the-top statement, that actually fulfills the style over substance promise, others have barely vocalized. As good as a coming of age Waku.

oliverclaude said:

It still astonishes me, how well the Power Instinct franchise fit the Neo after going through the hands & heads of Noise Factory. Matrimelee offers masterful simplicity, tons of humor and the kind of over-the-top statement, that actually fulfills the style over substance promise, others have barely vocalized. As good as a coming of age Waku.

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I assume you played Matrimelee in Japanese form.

It did look great, but the gameplay was not that fun. I chalk up the gameplay failure to it being a new effort for NF. Like I said, if they used the existing engine for SSIII it would have been a great game to play.

At first thanks for bringing up this thread OP.

I always wanted to check out Noise Factory's Gaia Crusaders which looks like it was originally planned for the Neo Geo. In the end it was released on the Cave 68000 hardware and therefor stayed arcade only. Should be interesting for being an original IP and not a sequel to a series which has a completely different appproach than what NF did (yes, I'm talking about Sengoku 3...).



The games that were released on the Neo Geo after all are a mixed bag in my oppinion. Sengoku 3 fails completely in reviving the spirit of the first two games in the series and as was pointed out before doesn't really deserve the Sengoku brand. On the other hand it has a nice combo system and due to lacking competition it's one of the best brawlers on the Neo.
I like Matrimelee for bringing the Gouketsuji series to the Neo. On the other hand the backgrounds are dull and the fighting system is not very elaborated compared to the many other good fighting games on the Neo. However the soundtrack is one of the best of all Neo games hands down. Generally speaking Toshikazu Tanaka did a fairly good job on all his contribution to video games.
I don't have RotD so I can't judge too much on this one. The soundtrack is quite nice though.

Another interesting side note on NF is that the music section of Metal Slug 3 was completly done by them.

suicidekiller said:

Another interesting side note on NF is that the music section of Metal Slug 3 was completly done by them.

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VERY interesting indeed. good info.

I love SENGOKU 3. Always want to play it again, one of my favourite titles of the NEOGEO's library.
In my opinion it is a magnificent brawler and a great star in the library of the system. I love all the graphic work done by NF but not only this.
Sprites moving with great smoothness, six characters which are excellent (I enjoy playing with Kurenai), the combo system is one of the best that I've seen in a Beat 'Em Up, with very deep gameplay... GREAT GAME!
I enjoy this game every time that I play it on my NEO-GEO. Great legacy from NF.

ULTRA 4TH GEN said:

I love SENGOKU 3. Always want to play it again, one of my favourite titles of the NEOGEO's library.
In my opinion it is a magnificent brawler and a great star in the library of the system. I love all the graphic work done by NF but not only this.
Sprites moving with great smoothness, six characters which are excellent (I enjoy playing with Kurenai), the combo system is one of the best that I've seen in a Beat 'Em Up, with very deep gameplay... GREAT GAME!
I enjoy this game every time that I play it on my NEO-GEO. Great legacy from NF.

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Hell yea, bud. Could not agree more. This is my favorite Neo title.

Evil Wasabi said:

I assume you played Matrimelee in Japanese form.

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God, you're right, I forgot to mention that it was brutally westernized, just like MDIII was. Yes, I only play those through a Japanese BIOS.

Taking the SSIII engine would've elevated the gameplay for sure, but threw the concept off balance -- in my opinion this game clearly benefits from its flaws. I'd rather welcome your engine advice for a sequel, which would be the logical progression anyway. To be balanced for this PIM means remaining off-balance.

oliverclaude said:

God, you're right, I forgot to mention that it was brutally westernized, just like MDIII was. Yes, I only play those through a Japanese BIOS.

Taking the SSIII engine would've elevated the gameplay for sure, but threw the concept off balance -- in my opinion this game clearly benefits from its flaws. I'd rather welcome your engine advice for a sequel, which would be the logical progression anyway. To be balanced for this PIM means remaining off-balance.

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There actually were two sequels to Matrimelee although I think you are better off calling them updates. Bonnou Kahou has been ported to the PS2 (JP-only) but the last entry from 2009 remains Taito Type X exclusive. Some info can be found here.

I still haven't layed my hand on the PS2 update but I think you can get it dirt cheap from Yahoo Auctions.

PS: Thanks to this thread I did some research and found a nice offer for a Gaia Crusaders PCB. So I'll finally be able to play this one too

suicidekiller said:

There actually were two sequels to Matrimelee although I think you are better off calling them updates.

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I know, you misread my statement: I meant a sequel for the Neo. That's always a different thing, wouldn't you agree? Where else would you see Candy Cabs in the background .

Ok, gotcha. You are too much of a Neo enthusiast Oliver. I don't really care for the hardware as long as the game's good (which I doubt for the aforementioned Matrimelee updates)