Faselei!

Faselei! is a tactical role-playing game that landed on the Neo Geo Pocket Color back in 1999. It was developed by Sacnoth and published by SNK, first hitting shelves in Japan and then arriving in the United Kingdom the following year. A planned North American release got canned when SNK pulled the console, so European copies are a bit of a rare find. The game puts you in control of a mercenary group called Faselei, who pilot mechs through a civil war. It's a turn-based strategy affair that makes good use of the handheld's limited but capable hardware. The core gameplay revolves around commanding your mechs in grid-based battles. You have a pool of action points to spend each turn, which lets you queue up commands like moving, attacking, or using special abilities. Positioning and resource management matter a lot, since you need to balance offense, defense, and movement across the map. The interface is clean and the pixel art is detailed for a handheld game, with small but expressive sprites for each mech. Faselei! is worth checking out if you enjoy tactical RPGs and want to see what the Neo Geo Pocket Color could do beyond fighters and platformers. It's a unique title in the system's library because SNK didn't publish many strategy games for it. The combat system with action points feels a bit like a simplified version of what you'd see in Front Mission or Vandal Hearts, but adapted for portable play. It's not a blockbuster, but it's a solid, niche game that rewards careful planning.