It was over a year ago now that we first reported that Bitmap Bureau was bringing its critically acclaimed retro-style beat 'em up Final Vendetta to the Neo Geo AES and MVS and we've finally got our first glimpse at how it will look running on Neo Geo hardware.
In case you're unfamiliar with the story so far, Final Vendetta was previously released across a range of modern platforms like PC, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox before Bitmap Bureau announced its intentions to bring it over to the retro systems and started accepting pre-orders in July last year. At the time, the plan was for the finished ports to be delivered sometime between Q4 2023 and Q1 2024, but it has since been subject to an indefinite delay, which the company blames in part on its recent acquisition.
In the absence of any major news, Bitmap Bureau has been offering customers occasional updates via Twitter to reassure them that it was still in development and let them know that it would eventually show the ports publicly when it was "close to perfect". Now it appears that time has finally arrived, with Bitmap Bureau finally debuting 6-minutes of footage from the game on Twitter, which was recorded using a new prototype PCB on AES hardware.
The footage shows off the opening cutscene, main menu, single-player and multiplayer options, as well as two of the game's levels (The Streets and Club Tigre). It all looks super promising and comes with another update from Bitmap Bureau on how the Neo Geo versions are progressing.
This update states they are now "into the final stages" before manufacturing ramps up.