/vr/ - Retro Games

>>1967125
I can't speak for all SNK games, but in Metal Slug case the secret ingredient was Nazca Corporation, a group of former Irem employees who were tired of the company's inactivity. Now, if you look at the non Neo Geo arcade games Irem was developing before that (such as In the Hunt, GunForce 2 and Undercover Cops) you can clearly see where the talent was coming from.
I also recall reading somewhere that the Neo Geo could display more sprites on screen than the average system and did not use tilemap background layers, opting rather to layer sprites upon sprites to create backgrounds and the foreground action.