'Smash Ultimate' DLC: Practice for Terry With Neo Geo's Arcade Stick

If you want to get the jump on the competition before Terry Bogard officially joins the roster for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, you’ll want to pick up Neo Geo’s new plug-and-play arcade controller. That way, you’ll know how to throw Burn Knuckles and Power Waves before all the young’uns that asked “Who?” when Terry was officially revealed last week as the game’s next DLC character.

On Tuesday, SNK announced the Neo Geo Arcade Stick, a classic arcade-style controller you plug into your TV via HDMI output that gives you access to 20 (!!!) different fighting games from SNK. The controller works as both its own controller for PCs or for the desk-sized Neo Geo Mini.

There is no release date for the Neo Geo Arcade Stick.

Schematics released by SNK show HDBI, USB, and headphone ports for the controller, along with some ports to connect the controller to the Neo Geo Minis. There is also a convenient “cable storage box,” meaning you won’t have to deal with annoying wires when the controller isn’t in use.

While not quite comparable to the current trend of miniaturized “Classic Editions” of the NES, Sega Genesis, and Sony PlayStation, the Neo Geo Arcade Stick functions similarly for SNK’s deep fighting game library.

SNK is keeping quite on what specific games will be included in the controller for now, but fans can probably expect multiple entries from SNK fighters like Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting, Samurai Shodown, and the yearly The King of Fighters to be pre-loaded into the controller. 

While fans can also hold out hope for obscure games like Breakers Revenge, they can just as likely rule out the SNK vs. Capcom titles.

The Arcade Stick is not only a convenient way to pick up and play King of Fighters on modern televisions, it’s also a great opportunity to introduce a new generation to SNK. While the company still released games throughout the 2000s and 2010s — Samurai Spirits, a continuation of the Samurai Shodown games, launched this past June — it doesn’t have as big a profile as the likes of Sega, Nintendo, or Capcom. But it did play a role in the console wars of the ‘90s. While primarily raged between Sega and Nintendo, SNK and its Neo Geo consoles also competed in the same space at the same time.

Just as the Neo Geo Arcade Stick is the perfect primer on SNK history, it’s also the ideal training dojo for Terry in Smash Bros. While the game will naturally streamline Terry’s Fatal Fury inputs into the simplified Smash Bros. way, Sakurai could just as easily leave Terry’s combo inputs intact. That’s what he did for Ryu and Ken — their moves deal more percentage damage with the old school inputs than simply activating them with Smash Bros. controls.

A preview video by Nintendo teased Terry’s move set in Smash Bros., which will include his signature Power Wave. You can almost bet that moves like the Power Wave will be more powerful with the old control input than the convenient Smash Bros. scheme. So practice now.

As the Super Smash Bros. series has increased its scope to not only Nintendo history but gaming as a whole, the inclusion of Terry Bogard is Nintendo paying homage to an old competitor.

There is no announced release date for the Neo Geo Arcade Stick. Terry Bogard joins the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate roster in November.