NG:Dev Team’s “Love Letter” to the Neo Geo, Kraut Buster, Officially Released

Shaggy December 27, 2018 0
NG:Dev Team’s “Love Letter” to the Neo Geo, Kraut Buster, Officially Released

Way back in March 2015, the development group behind such modern Neo Geo MVS releases like NEO XYX, Gunlord, Fast Striker and others announced their next project: Kraut Buster. This was an ambitious project that sought to provide their own take on the run’n gun genre, drawing comparisons with SNK’s Metal Slug and Konami’s Contra.

Today, NG: Dev Team put up a lengthy post on their Facebook page, and via newsletter, to announce that the game is available, with pre-ordered units shipping out “2-3 weeks from now on.” As of this writing, the status on the “Gamecenter” kits are listed as SOLD OUT, although it looks like you can still add the game to a cart and order. I just imagine that you’ll have to wait a little longer than the 2-3 weeks for the package to arrive.

While NG: Dev Team did issue occasional updates, it has been a hard and long process for the group to get to the point of offering a release build. As you can read from that post above, a ton of features and character abilities were built into the game, from dash slides, to ability masks, to co-op special moves to weapon position locking and more. The sales page mentions that a playthrough on normal route can take about 40-60 minutes, with more to come back to in other modes, characters & routes.

The game is also only available on the Neo Geo MVS system at this time, with an AES version looking to be complete a few months from now. While some fans are clamoring for a Dreamcast version, I wouldn’t mind seeing these guys make the jump to the Exa-Arcadia platform, which will be launching in 2019.

As to other future plans for NGDT, here is what they said in that long post:

The Kraut Buster pixel artists finished their work on our first exclusive(?) Switch handheld game and already moved on to our next pixel art NEOGEO+arcade game. 
While Kraut Buster was made the render gfx team worked on a couple of Shmups, that will be revealed and released over the next 2 years.
We also expect to expand the team further in the next year(s) and maybe add a new hardware platform to our portfolio.

Maybe the Exa is that new hardware platform…or maybe not. We’ll wait and see. Either way, congratulations to the team for reaching this milestone; if you get your hands on the game, let us know how it plays!

[Official Kraut buster website]

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