Neo Geo (Ports)

[Shay Chaise]

Since getting the Switch, I've picked up about a dozen Neo Geo ports and I really dig a lot of them. They're releasing them on all formats it seems, and similar releases each month on each system so this thread might be a useful way of flagging up some of the best as and when they come. I expect I've missed out on some interesting curios along the way, too, so I'd love some recommendations. My top releases so far have been:


Garou: Mark of the Wolves

A gorgeous 2D fighter, beautifully animated, a somewhat diverse range of characters and some interesting mechanics which add a good bit of depth. It's part of the Fatal Fury series and has lots of spin-off characters from King of Fighters and more. Coming off the back of lots of Street Fighter 2&4, this has a very similar flow and feel. Relatively simple, short combos and punishers, plus super combos and a kind of 'power play' mechanic, whereby you choose which third of your health bar gives you a boost. Tactically interesting. It also has Children by Robert Miles reworked in midi as the theme for one stage, for no discernible reason. My favourite character is Bonne Jenet, a kind of pirate in an evening gown and heels. I just picked her up straight away, but I've tried everyone and they all feel fun and distinct. It's one of the best fighting games I've ever played.




Samurai Shodown 2

Yes, 'Shodown'. I picked this up and didn't get it. Asked elsewhere for some advice, dropped my assumptions, tried again and now I see why it's so highly regarded. It's almost like a 2D version of Soul Calibur mixed with Tenchu in that every character wields a weapon (mostly swords) and it's about finding openings and punishing. Fights can be really short if you're both mashing but because it becomes quite defensive and tactical, I've had quite a few time out, too - much moreso than with most fighting games. It's very moody, both graphically and in the soundtrack. Some stages seem to have only ambient noise rather than music and it makes for a really tense and dramatic atmosphere. It's not fluid or flashy - at least, not at my level - but it's got a unique character.




Neo Turf Masters

This was one of the first Neo Geo games ported to the Switch when folks were raging about the paltry launch line-up. I picked it up hoping for something to give me a change of pace from Zelda. It won me over with its relentless sense of cheerful Japanese midi jazz funk and its simple, engaging gameplay. With a mate, it's one of the most fun local multiplayer games I've played in the past year. I certainly wouldn't put it up with the fighters above but it's considerably better than the other Neo Geo sports games I've played. It's colourful, charming, it's got a killer soundtrack and it's an arcade take on golf games. I've enjoyed it a lot more than Golf Story, frankly.




Any more suggestions, folks?

[biggytitbo]

I was going to suggest Neo Turf Masters - best golf game ever. There's obviously the Metal Slug games and the equally good Shock Troopers too. And a very good air hockey game called Windjammers.

[Thursday]

Turf Masters looks like it has similarly amazing over the top faces that super sidekicks has, so maybe I'll give it a go just for that reason.

[Penfold]

You're not going to get me to buy a Neo Geo.

[Shay Chaise]

I was going to suggest Neo Turf Masters - best golf game ever. There's obviously the Metal Slug games and the equally good Shock Troopers too. And a very good air hockey game called Windjammers.

I don't think Windjammers has been ported yet but I played it on the Neo Geo at Arcade Club in Bury and had a good laugh. Definitely will be a great one for local multiplayer. Disc Jam was given away on PS+ last year, which is an attempt at updating Windjammers, but I found it a bit fiddly.

I've played and enjoyed Metal Slug 3 but never went any further. It's got bags of charm and character. I was really surprised by how amazing the animation is, some of the greatest sprite work I've ever seen. I also found the various states amusing and surprising, getting frozen and turning into a vomiting zombie. It's a bizarre game, really much more creative than I expected.

I've never played Shock Troopers but I've heard of it. There's so many shmups and 2D fighters, it's hard to pick out the best stuff. Hence this thread, I suppose.

Thurs, it's defo got that Super Sidekicks vibe but I find the core gameplay quite a bit more enjoyable in Turf Masters, possibly because I've seldom played much video game golf.

[madhair60]

My favourite character is Bonne Jenet, a kind of pirate in an evening gown and heels. I just picked her up straight away

weeyyyyy

Metal Slug is diminishing returns. 1 and 2 are the best it gets. X is basically a bloated version of 2, and 3 is a bloated version of X. Spectacle, absolutely, but far too long and arduous to be a serious contender. 1 and 2 are the breeziest and most fun. 4 and 5 are both short and quite good, 6 and XX are fair dreadful and largely unfun wastes of time.

King of Fighters '98 is the god-king of fighting games. Garou is a very (very) close second.

I dunno what's on Wii. T.O.P Hunter is good, ditto Spinmasters. Two arcadey platform beat-em-ups. Shock Troopers is amazing, Shock Troopers 2 is dire. Makes no sense.

[Bhazor]

I miss my Neo Geo Pocket Colour. A shame they never took off. Been quite tempted by a second hand Neo Geo X but now with all the games being ported to Switch I cannae justify it.

[madhair60]

Still got my NGPC, but I usually play the games on the ol' cracked PSP. Such a small library, but so good.

[buzby]

No idea if these have been ported, but besides the ones already mentioned they are the ones I play the most from my 161-in-1 bootleg cartridge (videos in links)

Neo Drift Out - a Gaelco World Rally/Kaneko Mille Miglia-style isometric 3D rally driving game.
Pulstar & Blazing Star - Nemesis/R-Type style sideways scrolling shooters with gorgeous pre-rendered sprites.
Last Resort - another R-Type inspired sideways scrolling shooter with fancy graphics
Strikers 1945 Plus - vertical scrolling WW2-era shooter (think 1942) but with super weapons and power-ups.
Aero Fighters 2 and Aero Fighters 3 -  similar to above except with modern-day planes in 2 (also has pagodas turning into missiles)
Viewpoint - Zaxxon-stlye isometric 3D shooter
Nightmare In The Dark - a sort of Bubble Bobble/Ghosts & Goblins inspired static platformer
8 Man - Manga superhero licenced sideways scrolling beat em up
Puzzle De Pon! & Puzzle Bobble - you will probably know these already, but they did loads of business for Neo Geo operators.

Due to it's sprite-shifting abaility the Neo Geo was almost custom-built for fighting games though, including about a million variations of King Of Fighters and Fatal Fury

[the]

Last Resort - another R-Type inspired sideways scrolling shooter with fancy graphics

I've been playing the shit out of this lately, and it's sex in a pint glass.

Came out in 1992 and some of the sprite designs are so similar to Thunder Force IV (also from '92) that one has to question the incestuousness of Japanese shooter teams at that time.

[Shay Chaise]

Very interesting replies, folks. Cheers. I've picked up Shock Troopers on your recommendation, madhair. I've got a good few shmups on the go, including some Psikyo stuff (which is a little bit palette swappy and basic albeit good wholesome fun) but I'll get round to Pulstar, defo. Blazing Star would have been in the OP but I wrote about it a little while back in a shmup thread.

My next recommendation after a couple of hours of play:


The Last Blade

This is the most beautiful of any of these ports, and as good as 2D pixelated fighters have ever looked. Again, this has gone for a moodier take on the genre, like Samurai Shodown. It's set in feudal Japan with appropriate music and instrumentation, koto and shakuhachi and the like, very eerie and mysterious and beautiful. The backgrounds are even better. Burnt orange autumn leaves crunching underfoot, a background of temples and wooden bridges over moonlit streams. It's a thoroughly gorgeous game. Again, we're fighting with weapons, and more authentically of the period than in Samurai Shodown but there's still plenty of room for imaginative specials involving demonic oni and various magic effects. This time the parry is given a dedicated button which leads into punishing combos and the mechanical twist is the choice between power combos or enhanced normal move speed. Either way, a flurry of flashing katana, dual daggers and pikes is the end result. A spectacularly fun game. Patience and punishers.



I also got KoF98 aaaaages ago but I've not given it a fair crack yet. It's moving its way up the list but loving these three fighters so much at the moment. It might have to wait a bit longer.

[asids]

Neo Turf Masters is good fun. I like it when the Japanese woman says "On the green" because my racist side enjoys mocking foreign accents. Speaking of Neo Geo sports games, have any of the Super Sidekicks games got a modern port? They should. Also the driving games, like Neo Drift Out.

[Shay Chaise]

The presentation on Neo Turf Masters makes the game, basically. The music, the sampled voices, the exaggerated sprite art, it's got so much personality. Super Sidekicks had been ported too, as mentioned above, but the gameplay is a bit too plain and the presentation doesn't quite make up for it there.

Meanwhile, I've been playing the shite out of The Last Blade and Samurai Shodown II over the last couple of evenings. There's actually a lot more depth to the mechanics and gimmicks than I realised and each character had a load of special moves, some much more outlandish than I first realised. The parrying is so satisfying in both, it's true risk/reward and every character has a distinct moveset, even if their weapons appear to be similar.

I can't recommend these enough if you fancy an interesting fighting game with the best pixel art ever created.

[biggytitbo]

The neo geo has loads of good top down racing games too, overtop, neo drift out etc.

[Sebastian Cobb]

You're not going to get me to buy a Neo Geo.

Retropie would be ideal for this.

[Bazooka]

Yeah Samurai Shodown  is a top dollar fighting series.

[Shay Chaise]

Realsies, if you enjoy Shodown, The Last Blade is even better. Well worth a go if you enjoy any 2D fighters. It's crazy how I'd never heard much about it before. I guess because it came out in 1997 when 3D gaming was taking off, and it looks like 'another Neo Geo fighter', it just never got its dues outside of a niche community. I can't wait for my Garou-loving mate to get back off his hols so I can slice him into small pieces.

[Quote]

Waku Waku 7 & Sengoku are both ace, I've no idea if they've been ported onto modern systems though.

I've always loved Baseball Stars 2 (and Super Baseball 2020). Like Neo Turf Masters/Super Sidekicks/Goal Goal Goal half of the fun is the over the top presentation and wacky Japanese interpretation of western sport/culture.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YT71Eqy8bnQ

[Kelvin]

I've got Blazing Star and Metal Slug X on Switch. Blazing Star is good, but I don't love the weird blend of prerendered objects over ugly, often blurry backgrounds. It's fun enough to play through, but Metal Slug X is much better; very satisfying weapons, looks gorgeous, and bar some very dated Middle Eastern stereotypes at the start, and some quite bad slow down, it's just enormous fun to play through over an hour.

My biggest problem with all these Neogeo re-releases on Switch is that they're essentially coin operated. You press a button to "add credits" and it basically breaks the game. Completing them isn't actually a matter of learning and improving, but simply persisting with adding coins until you reach the ending. 

What are the best Metal Slug games, out of interest? After playing X, I'd be interested in playing another one, of a similar quality. If you were to only play two of them, which two should it be?

[Shay Chaise]

My biggest problem with all these Neogeo re-releases on Switch is that they're essentially coin operated. You press a button to "add credits" and it basically breaks the game. Completing them isn't actually a matter of learning and improving, but simply persisting with adding coins until you reach the ending. 

What are the best Metal Slug games, out of interest? After playing X, I'd be interested in playing another one, of a similar quality. If you were to only play two of them, which two should it be?

I totally understand where you're coming from. I think you might have raised the point in the Shmups thread and someone (probably madhair) said it's about completing them on one credit, really (1CC, I think shmup fans call it). I suppose that's why I've most enjoyed Sky Force Reloaded of the recent shmups I've played because I'm never going to be good enough or interested enough to learn a load of bullet hell patterns or safe zones and the like, dying again and again for my troubles. I prefer a little bit of learning waves and steadily getting more powered up through buying extra gear to make progress easier until the next challenge, etc.

That's also why I've mostly been into the Neo Geo fighting games. In one player, they're all pretty solid and you can't really brute force them like with shmups. In two player, they're absolutely brilliant. If you and your ARMS mate played some Garou or The Last Blade, I reckon you'd really get into it.

As for Metal Slug, I've only played 3. Madhair recommended 1, then 2, then they're much of a muchness so good that you might have better ones ahead.

[madhair60]

I made a video on this very subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ycmb8ELaDxM

Short version

MS1 - Brilliant, perfect difficulty, hard but not stupid hard.
MS2 - Brilliant, perfect difficulty but a little tougher, eminently possible, lots of slowdown.
MSX - Re-release of 2 but balance is shot to fuck, halfway through gets insane.
MS3 - Insanely hard, overlong. Spectacle is amazing, gameplay is fucked.
MS4 - Massively shitted on but actually fairly fun if familiar. Much breezier than 3.
MS5 - Absolutely raving mental. Worth playing just to go "eh?" at the end.
MS6 - Long, boring slog. Die constantly and nothing new worth seeing.
MS7 - Ditto except it's on DS and looks like shit.
MSXX - Re-release of 7, shit as ever.
MS Advance - Surprisingly great departure from the norm. Features lots of secrets and exploration.
MS First Mission - Ace
MS Second Mission - Acer

[Kelvin]

MSX - Re-release of 2 but balance is shot to fuck, halfway through gets insane.

Ahh, wish I'd known that before. I'd have bought 2 instead. The difficulty does indeed spike stupidly, which is why the coin thing feels so overused and unbalanced.

[Kelvin]

So, basically I should try MS1 and see if I want to play more beyond that.

[Z]

Metal Slug X on the playstation was a bizarre purchase my uncle made for us from a guy who pirated games back in about 2000. Found it great fun but I imagine I died about a thousand times and was mostly amused by stuff tons of side scrollling contra type things had done before (it was my first one)

[the]

Viewpoint - Zaxxon-stlye isometric 3D shooter

Thank you so much for bringing this to my attention - it's a magnificent cheeky cunt of a game.

I've always admired Zaxxon but found it a cold, tough beast (a lot of it's about correct alignment) - whereas Viewpoint transports the isometry into a 1992-era shooter and turns the fun up to max (while still being a toughie).

I'm failing hard at getting past the first boss at the moment, but it feels like I just need to sharpen up a bit to dodge the bullet sprays. Some of the enemies/obstacles are so inventive too - giant cubist Slinkies, Crystal Maze-style mechanical puzzles...

I can't tell you how much I love the music - sampled breakbeats! That combined with the low-poly ship rotating on the title screen triggers such sincere early 90s joy in me.

A shooter that plays James Brown and Kool & The Gang samples at you and does a record backspin when the boss turns up, how could I fail to love that.

[BeardFaceMan]

Been playing a few NeoGeo games lately after only ever playing Metal Slug 3 before. I fucking love that they tell you what the buttons do before each game. It always pissed me off that arcade games rarely gave any instructions and you had to waste you first valuable 10p working out what to do. Why wasnt I made aware of this system 25 years ago? Then again, I'm sure I heard Jonathan Ross talking about having one back in the day and he was spending a few hundred quid for a game, even then. Were they that rare is was it just import duties or something? Surely the games weren't that kind of price in Japan?

[buzby]

Been playing a few NeoGeo games lately after only ever playing Metal Slug 3 before. I fucking love that they tell you what the buttons do before each game. It always pissed me off that arcade games rarely gave any instructions and you had to waste you first valuable 10p working out what to do. Why wasnt I made aware of this system 25 years ago? Then again, I'm sure I heard Jonathan Ross talking about having one back in the day and he was spending a few hundred quid for a game, even then. Were they that rare is was it just import duties or something? Surely the games weren't that kind of price in Japan?

Neo Geo games gave you onscreen instructions because being a cartridge-based format the MVS motherboards were usually housed in a generic or dedicated Neo Geo-branded cabinet, whereas normal PCB-based games were usually supplied either in fully dedicated cabinets with the instructions printed on the control panel and/or the bezel surround, or for PCBs with the standard JAMMA edge connector as an upgrade kit (PCB, adhesive control panel and bezel graphics and possibly any dedicated controls, like a spinner or trackball) that could be housed in a JAMMA standard cabinet. Also, in the case of the Neo Geo, there were MVS motherboards that could host 2, 4 or 6 cartridges, which allowed you to select from multiple games, so the cabinet for those needed to be generic.

Arcade games really were that expensive back in the 80s and 90s. You have to remember they had the potential to generate a lot of revenue for the arcade operators, and so the manufacturers priced their PCBs (or cartridges in the case of SNK and Taito) accordingly. Very popular PCBs like Pacman, Space Invaders, Donkey Kong, Arkanoid, Street fighter II, Bubble Bobble etc., and some Neo Geo cartridges, were widely bootlegged in the Far East (despite the fact that from the mid 80s onwards manufacturers started to implement sophisticated copy protection schemes in their software and/or hardware, like Capcom's CPS I, II and III systems), and these found their way back to the West for sale to unscrupulous operators for much lower prices.

In a few cases, the bootleg versions have given insight into how the copy protection schemes of the originals functioned, which then allowed the drivers for the original boards in MAME to be fully functional. In turn, the emulated versions have then allowed long dead original boards to be revived (the copy protection schemes usually involved data held in battery-backed RAM, which was erased once the battery died - the game compaines didn't want their games to last forever).

In SNK's case, they released a 'home' version of the 1-slot MVS motherboard as a console, called the Neo Geo AES. it was originally intended for rental use as it was so expensive SNK thought nobody would buy it,  but was eventually released into the retail market due to public demand, despite a price tag of £400 in 1991. It was compatible with standard MVS cartridges, which cost £200 and up (they were the same cartridges sold to arcade operators, so were priced the same to avoid the situation of AES games being bought for use in arcade systems).

Even from a pure hardware perspective, the Neo Geo cartridges were expensive to produce - they could contain up to 330 Mbits of ROM (in some of the later, bigger games this was expanded to 716 Mbits by using bank switching on the address bus). In comparison, the biggest N64 cartridges were 512 Mbits.

[asids]

Very interesting info there, buzby. I had no idea the MVS and AES cartridges were the exact same. Then again, I've never actually seen either the arcade or the AES in the flesh. One day, when I've made billions, I will have one.

Have they ported Neo Geo Cup 98 to the Switch and that yet? Need to get on that pronto. It's a bloody disgrace.

[biggytitbo]

I was going to say, most of the massively inflated premiums on neogeo games were the memory chips? 40mb was a huge amount in the mid/late 90s, considering the first flash drive didnt come out till 2000 and was $100 for a 32mb. The largest megadrive game was 5mb, and Snes 6mb, by way of comparison.

[the]

Neo Geo AES [...] It was compatible with standard MVS cartridges, which cost £200 and up (they were the same cartridges sold to arcade operators, so were priced the same to avoid the situation of AES games being bought for use in arcade systems).

I thought the home cartridges were priced more cheaply than the arcade ones, and they had different pin arrangements to prevent the consumer home carts being used in the MVS?

(With the understanding that the games were nonetheless technically the same, whether experienced at home or in the arcade.)