Games That Push The Limits of the NEO-GEO

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The Neo Geo, the don, the capo, the final boss of the 16-bit console generation. Guess what? I'm going to be taking a look at some of its most impressive titles.
Index
00:00 Intro
00:23 Nam 1975
00:57 Cyber Lip
01:57 Blues Journey
02:46 Magician Lord
05:30 The Super Spy
07:06 Riding Hero
09:39 Metal Slug
14:43 Fighting games
15:23 Galaxy Fight
18:42 Garou: Mark of the Wolves
21:18 Viewpoint
21:37 Blazing Star
22:03 Neo Drift Out
20:33 Neo Turf Masters
23:09 Last Hope
23:55 Strikers 1945
24:29 Sengoku 3
24:55 Ending Waffle

[@videogameobsession]

Great job on the video. I just wanted to touch upon a few details based on my own experiences as an owner of the Neo•Geo AES home system, at launch, in the USA. 1. The Neo•Geo AES was launched in the USA in December 1990. (Wikipedia, and other sources, often wrongly state that it was released ONLY in Japan in 1990, and not until 1991 in the USA. This is of course false). I bought mine on 1990.12.18. 2. The prices were originally as follows: $399 for the "Silver System", which contained the console, ONE arcade stick, and NO game. And $550 the Neo•Geo "Gold System", which contained the console, TWO arcade sticks, and ONE cart. You had the option of picking between either Baseball Stars Professional, or NAM-1975. (Soon after the launch, SNK woukd also add the option of Magician Lord as the choice of game cart).**Again, Wikipedia and other sources often claim the system was $650 at launch. This is untrue. They are confusing the deal SNK USA had made with brick and mortar retailers, Babbage's, Software Etc., and Electronics Boutique. That happened in later Summer 1991, and for $649.99 MSRP. 3. Originally, Neo•Geo AES Cartridges were dynamically priced, based on their ROM sizes. For example, in 1990, League Bowling, at only 26 Mbits, sold for $120 (USD), while the largest game at launch, Top Player's Golf, (62 MEG) sold for $170. Later games such as Meal Slug 3, were htting sizes of 708 Megabits, or more.. This was even higher than the system's start-up screen brag was claiming "330 MAX MEGA". 4. Speaking of later AES games, some of the final releases, after SNK started seeing financial woes, had very small USA release quantities. With Metal Slug 3, Sengoku 3, and others reportedly only releasing print runs of only 500 copies each. This is a big part of the reason why those are now selling for $3000 for a mint copy. 5. One last thing. People tend to think of the Neo•Geo as a VS. Fighting system.. While SNK has some amazing fighters, they also have a pretty good blend of other genres as well. I went through all of the 157 games and have done some quick math, I suck at math!.. but I've come up with 37.5%. That's the total number of fighting games on the Neo•Geo. (50 out of 157). To put this number in perspective, the Neo has 24 sports games, 16 shooters (Shmups), and 16 run & gun games. Sure it's a lot of fighters, but people often tend to believe that the system is MOSTLY fighters. Often people throwing out numbers like "90% fighters" "75%", but no.. It's 37.5%, so please correct those people when you get the chance. I love the Neo•Geo, and I love it for it's classic arcade style action, sports, among others. -MattH.

[@super-retro-gamer]

Thanks. This comment should be an extension to this video. 🤓

[@garethlewis4586]

Just to add, Neo Geo wasn't released officially in the UK but in early 90s grey import versions could be brought. No idea if it had to be converted to play on PAL TVs, they were so expensive no one had one. From memory £200 a cart, around $400 Usd at the time 😮

[@DigitalHaze65536]

I got my Neo Geo AES GOLD in early March of 1991 with Magician Lord for $599+tax. (mail order from a store in the back of a magazine) I think perhaps people get the perception of the fighting games being more popular on it due to Hamsters "ACA Neo Geo" releases, I think they are missing more of the other types of games on that collection. (every fighter I can think of is on it, but it's only like 108 games in total) It would have been nice to see a proper Magician Lord sequel.....

[@gaylordfocker7990]

Even as a child we knew not to ask for a Neo Geo for Xmas. It was a rich-mans toy. $200 for a single game was absolutely ludicrous.

[@cramsa]

The games weren’t “ports” but actual arcade machines minus the cabinet…. It was substantially the best of its time if you were into arcade fighters etc…. It even bested the 32bit arcade ports.

[@gaylordfocker7990]

@@cramsa Who said anything about ports? I was there, dude. I owned all the magazines. It doesn't matter if they were the exact arcade game or not. One single game cost as much as a SNES, GENESIS, and Gameboy combined.

[@cbrmax4192]

they were expensive due to the huge memory onboard and, yes, they were 1:1 transfer of the coin op

[@Theshark15z]

Even then, no store kept in stock. You had to order those.

[@jetfrog4574]

@@Theshark15z Electronics Boutique

[@jasonblalock4429]

What I find truly impressive about the Metal Slug games is that they're so "over-animated" and yet never feel sluggish or unresponsive. (Aside from the slowdown.) Having animation with so many frames, without compromising responsiveness, is a serious challenge - one that a lot of other games at the time failed miserably at.

[@kayceecheshall2818]

Metal slug doesn't have a lot of transitional frames or inertia.

[@GamingForst1]

@@kayceecheshall2818 no wonder its kinda hard to emulate when u dont overclock the emulator

[@purplehaze2342]

​@@GamingForst1 it emulators perfect on my crappy mxq pro box

[@jim-df7sx]

@@GamingForst1 never found metal slug to be hard to emulate on normal emulators with capable hardware. only on things like old cellphones, nintendo DS etc.

[@GamingForst1]

@@jim-df7sx im talking about the arcade version

[@s727r]

Neo geo was an amalgamation of 8/16/32 bit architecture, not solely 16 but.

[@TheOldest]

When you consider how many years SNK used this hardware it's an incredible tech achievement that has never been repeated.

[@adrianprince7266]

Greatest console ever created. It was a true honor to own one.

[@pablocasas5906]

I think it's kind of weird to call the NeoGeo a console, I mean the retail version is a console, but in its core is more of an arcade board, like the Capcom CPS hardware

[@cbrmax4192]

me too 👍 I don't know why my head told me to sell it long time ago 🤦‍♂️

[@returnofmerenguespersempre6664]

It is, just picked up the collecting.

[@omegarugal9283]

the neo geo was great, its 13 year long lifespan proves it

[@erockbrox8484]

As a kid in the 90's you always heard about the Neo Geo, but none of your friends had a Neo-Geo. Shit was expensive.

[@random_an0n]

i was the only kid who owned one,same for a mega cd back then and my dad had a pc in the early 90s but the neo geo? only got a few games for it at the time,and barely any stores stocked games for it cause it was so expensive,no kids had one either so i got a megadrive the next year with a mega cd cause all the latest games like sonic etc was for that. still own them all too!

[@KyleReeseCel2029]

Depends on who you knew and where you grew up. Rare but my friend had one. As well a couple of my friends relatives or other friends that had one. I had the TurboGrafx another friend has the Sega Master System. Few had them but somebody did possibly more common in bigger cities.

[@Hubert-rh4hz]

We had only 1 kid which had a neo geo, sure rich kid, with 100 games. But it is what it is, I had for example a Sega game gear (true better than a game boy), and 0 kids to swap games. And the game gear ate 6 batteries every few hours. Sometimes it’s not the best to have the best.

[@random_an0n]

@@Hubert-rh4hz doubt he had 100 carts,maybe a mvs converter or a 60 in 1? 100 aes carts would of been 300 each we are talking richie rich here lol

[@ankhenaten2]

I had a friend who's brother had a neo geo, the dude was a dr.g dealer😂😂

[@StraightOuttaJarhois]

I knew the Neo-Geo was good at sprite scaling, but I had no idea it could only scale down. What a strange and interesting limitation.

[@kayceecheshall2818]

I would bet that it has to do with how the pixels are mapped from source to destination. Scaling an image up works in reverse because the sprite plotter must compute the source pixel from a destination coordinate.

[@robertwilson3866]

It's great because you never get that pixelated look.

[@guaposneeze]

I think that may be somewhat misleading. If you look at the Galaxy Fight planet/stage select screen at 15:59, you see big ol' chunky upscaled pixels as the planet zooms in when it is selected. So the upscaling may not have been "officially" supported or something, but there was clearly some way to do it.

[@wizkaqueefa9003]

​@@robertwilson3866 You ALWAYS get that Pixelated look on Neo Geo & every other 16-bit/24-bit Console of the early 90s. The better color palette & design = less pixelated than SNES/genesis

[@robertwilson3866]

@@wizkaqueefa9003 No i meant on the sprite scaling. On games like Outrun, Afterburner the graphics get all pixellated when the sprites get enlarged but on Neo Geo they look great

[@gabrielhowardMKE]

I do not intend to sound as if I'm blowing smoke up your 455: now with that out of the way - this has become one of my absolute favorite KZbin channels. The in depth information, the thoroughness, the attention to detail and narration that is pleasing and easy to listen to. Please keep making these gaming documentaries and minidocs, they are wonderful.

[@Sharopolis]

Thanks! Carry on like that and you might become one of my favourite commenters!

[@londongaz2]

Took me far too long to work out the four five five thing 😆

[@RetroDawn]

@@londongaz2 Me too!

[@MauricioVives]

Good stuff! Thanks in particular for putting some "baseline" games at the beginning to help calibrate expectations for the system.

[@Sharopolis]

Thanks!

[@darrenwinn22]

As a very fortunate AES owner with fully loaded Terraonion ROM cart, this was a really lovely piece of work to absorb. Always amazed me how incredible some games still look today on a decent CRT (Slugs / Garou etc) but I'd never considered how the NeoGeo was completely lacking in certain areas, to the extent that Lemmings would be nigh on / absolutely impossible (which I had on my trusty GameGear). Anyhow, lovely stuff, thanks again and I'll 100% share this YT link with the NeoGeo community where I can.

[@cjheeley]

We are so fortunate that we can play these brilliant games through emulation. The SNK artists were the best. Magician lord and Cadash are my favourites.

[@axelprino]

Gotta love how everyone picks the green ship in Blazing Star, it's just the default option to most players because of the spread shot.

[@dariusq8894]

It's silly, but one of my favorite games of all time is "King of the Monsters 2" on Neo Geo. They did make ports to other consoles but none of them came close the fidelity which Neo Geo put out.

[@papawshane]

A local video rental shop where you could get movies to rent, also did games and game systems. When I was a teen, after school I worked in a garage/gas station. I got paid every Friday and since I only had to work 1 Saturday a month, I spent the other 3 weekends renting a NEO-GEO from Friday until Monday. I would call days ahead and reserve the system, to the point I didn't have to call anymore, she held it for me anyway. Living in the country, trapped tightly between the mountains back then, there wasn't places I could buy it. Actually, I had no clue what it was when they got it, but seeing the back of the game boxes, I had no choice but to get it and try it out. Inside I knew it was going to promise things t couldn't deliver on, as many games/consoles did that all the time back then. I got Super Baseball All Stars 2, and took it home. I just absolutely couldn't believe what I was seeing and something you don't hear to much about, how amazing it sounds. It was like everything you saw at an arcade, but in your home. Suffice it to say, I basically got no sleep on weekends again, for a long time.

[@Bugrim]

В России практически не было этих систем, но в начале 2000 я познакомился с эмулятором Нео Гео и был в шоке от Метал Слага. Совсем недавно собрал свой автомат на плате MV-1B и картриджа 161 в 1 с суперганом для джойстиков Сега Сатурн. Какие бы игры могли быть, если вместо Сеги или Супер Нинтендо у всех стояла эта консоль!

[@ScratchedWinter]

Would love to see a collaboration between yourself and DF Retro, your stuff is on he same level imo

[@orderofmagnitude-TPATP]

Yes, yes, yesss. I was hoping you'd do this. Great timing as I'm ill in bed and need something to take my mind off it all.

[@dlfon99]

Hope you get better soon!

[@orderofmagnitude-TPATP]

@@dlfon99 many thanks. Horrible withdrawal of medication... be ok tomorrow when i pick up again, probably over share - but now I've hit 40 I've gone from 8.5 stone to nearly 13, thus medication I've been on over a decade seems to run out much faster - but channels like this one really do help my mind not concentrate on feeling like death warmed up by 2 degrees lol

[@Sharopolis]

Yes I hope you feel better too!

[@bananonymouslastname5693]

Sorry you're ill, but I'm glad you've found some pleasant distractions!

[@orderofmagnitude-TPATP]

Thank you everyone for the empathy.... Means a lot....oh gawd here are the emotions lol.

[@computer_toucher]

If I remember correctly MAME had pretty decent Neo-Geo emulation in 1998, so the Dreamcast AND MAME were options for Garou :)

[@ssppeeaarr]

ya dreamcast is when we got good ports of SNK games. until emulation caught up and the later consoles. when u couldnt afford neo geo to play these games. lol.

[@purplehaze2342]

Technically you could say it was a 24 bit console.

[@Charlie-Cat.]

Hi Sharo, What an amazing, well thought out, and informative video you done regarding the Neo-Geo. This really is a greatly detailed upload to be shared for newcomers and vets alike to enjoy what the Neo-Geo is and has to offer for the public. I love it kind sir. Thank you for sharing this. I've been playing Neo-Geo for 33 years and it's never a dull moment playing the game for sure Sharo. The game that made me a buff since is Magician Lord. A very challenging game to play for sure. Your upload was posted up on the Neo-Geo thread over on the forums on AtariAae for others to take notice and to enjoy bro. Thank you for sharing this with us and keep up the excellent work you provide for the community. 8^) Anthony...

[@witecatj6007]

This was always one of my favorite systems, despite never actually owning one. Great games and had awesome soundtracks.

[@ZakuIIKai]

Twinkle Star Sprites pushed the limits for sure. It intentionally crams so much stuff on the screen that it slows the game to a crawl. Plus it was made by ADK who did a lot of the engineering on the Neo Geo hardware itself.

[@notenoughmonkeys]

Former Neo Geo MVS owner here. So the pricing for new games was around $200-$300 when I was shopping around back in the day. I seem to recall that's roughly what I paid for Garou MoTW (thankfully closer to $200 from what I remember). What cannot be understated though was the price of the second hand market. The majority of my collection was around $5-10 per cartridge, as fortunately the demand for MVS amongst collectors was pretty low... AES on the other hand, eep!

[@random_an0n]

i only own likr 5 aes games and those are all loose carts the cheapest ones are like 40-50 british pounds,like the early fatal fury or KOF games,even the most common with no box games cost the same as a new ps5 game lol

[@Pulmonox]

The Neo Geo is one of those consoles that REALLY showcase how experienced programmers can make the absolutely utmost use of the hardware. For a 24 bit system it was right between that 16 and 32 bit era (SNES and Playstation). Because of it's exceedingly long lifetime for a console/arcade system (15 years) the developers became VERY familiar with the system's capabilities. When you compare early games to the Neo Geo to the later games it was night and day. Early games were barely any better than their 16 bit counterparts, but later games rivaled some PS1 games. Just look at Fatal Fury vs Mark of the Wolves. Night and day, man.

[@illiteratedino]

Sharopolis video on the Neo Geo!? I couldn't click fast enough. I did a bit of digging and the Neo Geo is a strange beast. It's really powerful compared to the SNES and Genesis, but it seems to also have a harder time with pseudo 3D or polygon graphics compared to the SNES and Genesis. I'm not talking about enhancement chips games like Virtua Racing or Star Fox. I'm talking about stuff like Race Driving or Another World.

[@NigelXW]

I wonder if it might have enough space to do something like another world completely per-rendered

[@vainitauh]

Lucky and Wild, Baseball Stars 2, Baseball 2020 where exceptional games on this console as well. NEO-GEO will forever be the ultimate arcade experience.

[@hardkoregamer1981]

In The Hunt, Gunforce 1 & 2, Gunstar Heroes, Wild Guns, Vector Man 1 & 2, Alien Solider, Conta Hard Corps, Earth Worm Jim 1 & 2, Demolition Man, Midnight Resistance, Realm on SNES, Rendering Ranger R2 on SNES, Robocop Vs Terminator on Sega Genesis, Terminator, Mega Turrican, Turrican 3, Ruff 'n' Tumble,Jim Power: The Lost Dimension in 3-D, Alien Carnage to name some that hold up pretty well to Metal Slug imo.

[@Breezyacre]

Such a great video! Thank you and keep em coming!

[@Athesies]

I wish we could've seen a successor to riding hero on the same system. It would have been nice to see how close the neo geo could get to creating a super hang on like experience

[@JohnnyWednesday]

Thanks for the video man! hearing you talk about these systems is like opening one new in the box!

[@Sharopolis]

Thanks Johnny! Your comments are always welcome.

[@JohnnyWednesday]

@@Sharopolis - always a pleasure! I'll still be here when you've got a million subs and you're unboxing a mint condition "Cartoon Classics" Amiga pack :P

[@BurritoKingdom]

Great video!!! My fave videos are like this one and the Lynx. Unique consoles that did things differently. So many vids on the Nintendo and Sega retro consoles but during the 80s and 90s there were so many obscure consoles that were released that most retro channels don't cover

[@Bozar069]

Its because almost no one had the Neo Geo. It was an amazing console that everyone wanted but no one could really afford.

[@belstar1128]

Great i played a lot of these games in arcades growing up .neogeo arcade systems where very popular compared to other brands .and the last time i saw them in public was as recent as 2012. but growing up i didn't realise there was a console version. back in the day it as harder to get info about this stuff the marketing for games was more limited.

[@zZiL341yRj736]

Love Neo Geo games at the arcades.

[@dwightdixon8508]

Although I do enjoy my AES system & games I never really thought any of them pushed the hardware because it was so powerful at the time and the extra bits (not talking CPU bits people) and available space in the massive cartridges seemed limitless. I’m fact I always felt it was the Genesis/MD & SNES that developers pushed hardware quite literally in hundreds of games but definitely some fantastically impressive games you’ve listed here.

[@kennymccormick8295]

I'm fact

[@markerhabit]

My Neo-Geo experience starts and ends at beat-to-hell cabinets with one or another of the King of Fighters games. I had no idea how good these games look! Your explanation of the hardware capabilities was great as always, but I was distracted by the visuals and I'm sure I missed bits. 😅 Just amazed at how people figured out how to use this hardware so well.

[@jordanbenson2980]

Absolutely bloody love these videos. Love the neo geo

[@DarkusObscurius]

Damn, i love Galaxy Fight so much, it's sad we didn't had some sequels.

[@jasonpaulwilson76]

It's hard to explain how good this console was in the 90s. I used to play the games at Skegness, then couldn't believe it when my friend swapped his Amiga 500 for one. He literally walked past my house. I went round about 10 mins later. It was awesome! Then I ended up owning one myself and the very game I used to play at Skegness - World Heroes 2 Jet. I swapped it for a Sega Saturn at a local game shop. Then fast forward a year and I ended up owning a Datel SuperGun and a Final Fight PCB. Awesome times! :)

[@xxFORDIExx]

Another brilliant video. Thank you 👍

[@iamdarkyoshi]

Look ma! My name's in the credits! Another really cool look into a console I never really got to experience. Cool stuff.

[@FormerHumanX]

I've played the Metal Slug games but somehow never knew about Cyber Lip. I wonder why there weren't way more Contra style shmups during the 8 and 16-bit era. The formula is so simple and the games are lots of fun.

[@seblav9386]

Fortunately it was possible to rent one at that time. There was a great video games store with a lot of games and consoles to rent.

[@loganford3921]

Sometimes I forget that Garou MOTW is running on 1990 hardware. Everybody who was into beat em ups wanted one but it was the prices of the games was the roadblock for !many.

[@wimwiddershins]

Great video, the NeoGeo is an impressive beast. That "cereal" looks like garbage though.

[@brendanroberts1310]

Both are really expensive but only one is worth it.

[@mikeg2491]

As someone who does keto I bought the cereal and the taste isn’t actually bad but the texture of it is gummy and sticks to your teeth. Their cereal bars are better than the boxed cereal though.

[@summerlaverdure]

great video! do one for the hyper neo!

[@super-retro-gamer]

I always believed there was something superior about NeoGeo games and it was satisfying to confirm that from this video. Absolutely loved watching every second from start to end.

[@CrashHeadroom]

I hear a fellow english accent, I see neogeo, I KNOW the metal slug section is going to be the longest lol Nice one my man :D.

[@inceptional]

Interesting that you were so impressed with the realistic-shaped shadows and reflections in Galaxy Fight on Neo Geo, as this was also one of the things that impressed me with Killer Instinct on SNES (and with no flickering either), and even more so considering that sheer difference in relative power and indeed prices of both machines' games: kzbin.info/www/bejne/i3Lch4uNjpKqodU kzbin.info/www/bejne/i3Lch4uNjpKqodU

[@GeomancerHT]

I wish we had some open sourced modern "old school consoles" in development, so we could get a fast cpu like the Genesis one, keep the FM synth but add a sampling engine like the SNES, and also the transparency and mode 7 hardware, and unlimited rom size. I want to code for an old school console but as I cannot make my mind in which one to pick, I won't do it XD

[@shenglongisback4688]

​@@GeomancerHT I wanted the same thing .

[@returnofmerenguespersempre6664]

Best 16 bit era console, for all the wrong reasons.

[@HappyGodFlower]

It was always the Metal Slugs games and the Samurai Showdown games. They were always beautiful at the arcades. And I know. Im a 90s kids.

[@sanjidhossin591]

Last blade 2 is also great Bgm was phenomenal

[@TheOldFartGamer]

I can count the number of JRPG on this system with my testicles

[@ryanmoore8003]

i worked in arcades during the late 90's and early 00's and the Neo-Geo totally had it's place. Hot swapping games was great and there were even boards that could hold multiple carts that you could select through. Games like metal slug financially punched above their weight when compared to the big initial outlay of say a Tekken.

[@alvallac2171]

*'90s *'00s The apostrophe takes the place of the omitted millennium and century. *its place (possessive) it's = contraction of "it is" or "it has"

[@jameswelch2850]

I love being a patreon so I can see these vids first. Some of the best content on KZbin.

[@Sharopolis]

Wow, thanks! Much appreciated!

[@retroresolution]

Seconded - an absolute top tier channel, and one which is criminally underrated

[@linkthehero8431]

$200 for one game? I'm glad the Arcade Archives NeoGeo series is on Switch; the Switch does an awesome job emulating the NeoGeo and I can get the games for a fraction of the price. I have Alpha Mission II and Ninja Master's so far but would like more.

[@Iji_aya]

Eu adoraria ver um vídeo seu sobre os jogos que puxaram o Pc88 ao limite

[@RmnGnzlz]

Great video, imo you just missed The Last Blade 2 which I think looks even better than Garou but other than that you nailed it.

[@ReaverPrime]

Even all these years later, Real Bout Fatal Fury 2 remains my favorite fighting game ever. My brother and I used to literally spend hours in a singke sitting beating on each other in Real Bout 2.

[@LordmonkeyTRM]

I have waited years for this

[@darrenmccoy]

It's great with a Neo SD pro cartridge.

[@raszop]

metal slug has the mose beautiful 2d graphics there ever were and probably will be. the pixel art is on top level. animation! is beautiful. every little thing is so beautifully animated... such a shame snk decided to kick the metal slug series releasing cashgrab mobile games... ms3 is peak of 2d graphics and animation.

[@williamoverton7775]

Rouge leader one and two were like neo Geo games.

[@javierruizleon]

I visited SNK every month in the 90s, there was a time that they worried about Polygons when the PS1 came out

[@yourikhan4425]

I had no idea why the Neo Geo was so different from the other consoles.

[@mekman4]

Great Stuff!

[@fastcarsnfreedom5407]

Can you cover Killer Instinct for SNES that game’s graphics still blow my mind!! And I had a play station when I first played it at a friend’s house back in the late 90s!!

[@gpturismo]

I want an AES w/Ram cart so bad. I wish I never sold my Neo Geo back in the day.

[@EnigPartyhaus]

What, no mention of the saturn port of Metal Slug that has way better animation due to requiring the RAM cart

[@OzymandiasWasRight]

I still say Neo Geo is the most beautiful console ever made. God i wanted one SO bad growing up. Here i am 20 years later....still cant afford one.

[@mikeeone5649]

It was technically a 24 bit machine. It could display a ton of color , could do scaling and rotation. It also had more ram and the carts were huge for the time. They were technically around the same as N64 carts. People get all confused with megs and megabytes. I think one meg is 64 megabytes. On the other hand the snes and genesis used 4 megabyte cartridges Standard. They could expand up to 24 megabytes. Later on carts were modified to go to 32 megabytes. So one Standard neo geo cart was one meg or 64 megabytes. Not sure how high the carts could actually go but I am pretty sure some neo geo games went to 256 megabytes. I think later on they had one cart that went over 700 megabytes? For contrast not certain but the largest N64 games were 256 megabytes. So neo geo was putting PS1 , N64 size games on a 24 bit machine. That is why the damn cartridges cost so much. In order to get it almost arcade perfect SNK would cram those carts with a crazy amount of memory for the time.

[@johnkurian344]

The Bugatti of game consoles

[@FlarryFlats]

DUDE - How'd you get Rich Evans to do your cereal ad???

[@isntyournamebacon]

I remember wanting one of these so bad back then. I was really into JRPG's like Final Fantasy III and Chrono Trigger at the time though. I wondered what one of those games would look like on the NeoGeo. The system was mostly fighting games and shooters as far as i knew. Not alot of bang for the buck at 700 + 250 for the top tier games. Chrono Trigger wasn't exactly cheap but way more game for the $ imo. But to this day, if i see a NeoGeo arcade, i'll plop spare change in an have a go.

[@Bakamoichigei]

Fun fact: The program code alone for Metal Slug 3 is 50% larger than the largest SNES game! Yes; the P-ROM alone is _64 megabits._ 😮 Interesting aside: In most versions of the cart, this is two 32mbit PDIP mask ROMs, but there's an early revision where the two P-ROM sockets are spanned by a daughterboard which is basically a NEO-GEO Pocket Color dev cartridge with 4x16mbit flash memory, so it could be quickly rewritten with the same tools. btw, my understanding is that arcade operators were paying upwards of a grand for a game at the height of the MVS's popularity, which explains why some were using adapters to illicitly run AES carts in cabinets... 🤔 Another interesting thing about the arcades; SNK had a system for renting carts so ops could do location tests and decide whether or not they wanted to buy the game. You can spot these carts because they come in a slightly translucent white shell with SNKG molded in the side and no serial numbers or warranty label. Speaking of serial numbers... You can tell if an MVS game entered the secondary market during the system's lifespan, because the serial number will often be cut from the label so SNK couldn't find out what operator was reselling games. (I've even got an MVS mainboard or two with the serial _dremeled_ off the PCB! 😅)

[@ssppeeaarr]

of course it be bigger neo geo was 24bit console and way more megs in power. 330 power or someshit like they ad on the game case and in boot up. lol. idk why u have to diss snes like that. its port of fatal fury 2/special was pretty decent. tho i prefer sega gens fatal fury 2 overall. glad dreamcast got a good chunk of SNK fighters tho before its demise. for ones who never had the pleasure or money to own the neo geo console. or hyper neo geo for that matter. 😁😟

[@Doomguythedoomslayer]

@@ssppeeaarr the neo geo was 16 bit not 24 bit that is like saying the Atari jaguar is 64 bit lmao

[@ssppeeaarr]

@@Doomguythedoomslayer lol im going with what SNK said idc. but still the gpu was 24bit. the neo geo could push better sprites and scaling and all that. why neo geo games that did get ported to 16 bit consoles look and play terrible... the exception being gens port of fatal fury 2. 😁 i consider that genesis street fighter alpha 2.

[@Doomguythedoomslayer]

@@ssppeeaarr I disagree, the neo geo is basically a souped up SNES like the Wii is a souped up GameCube with faster clock speed more ram etc

[@humansrants1694]

@@Doomguythedoomslayer Neo Geo was nothing like the SNES hardware it had far more expensive processors in based on the Gang Wars arcade PCB.

[@esotericmissionary]

I never really thought about how long the Neo*Geo was in the console race for before. What was it, 15-ish years? With that ideas in mind, how about a Consoles That Push The Officially Supported Time Limit, or something like that?

[@random_an0n]

it came out in like 1990 so it was probs in development stage as early as like 1986-87 its pretty amazing tech from that era could pull off what it did.

[@harrymasonsm]

Im Suprised art of fighting 3 didn't make this list. With the combination of the animation and scaling. Sure it wasn't the best fighter but wow did it look impressive

[@alvallac2171]

*I'm *surprised *fighter, but *impressive!

[@sugarhieroglyph]

"On the GLEEN!!"

[@BigMacOrange]

For a min i thought super spoon was a neo geo game i had never heard of😅

[@johneygd]

Well you might think that polygon rendering should be possible on the neo geo trough software, Maybe trough extra expandiblr ram?

[@davecool42]

I was almost a teen when the console released. Even my richest friends at the time couldn’t afford the system. Still never played the hardware. Maybe one day!

[@pablocasas5906]

Another pair of fighting game on the NeoGeo with amazing animations, which I think it was developed by the same team as Mark of the Wolves, is The Last Blade 1 & 2. It has beautiful animation and background designs, but unlike Garou it features scaling similar to Art of Fighting and Samurai Shodown

[@ssppeeaarr]

i think garou was the absolute limit of the neo geo hardware tho. it pushed everything to its limit to make that game run good n look good as it did... animation so fluid it rival'd the legendary sprites of capcoms SF3. miss those days. of 2D gaming.

[@herik82]

Feels weird hearing a news reporter talkin about neo geo

[@macgyver6999]

Released before SNES Still had games years after Dreamcast ☠️

[@moomah5929]

Mhm, talking about Metal Slug and bringing up the PS1 version but not the superior Saturn version? Then there is the Neo Geo CD version too. Back in the day I would have loved seeing RPGs on the Neo Geo. Only the Neo Geo CD had the Samurai Spirits RPG. Never really could pick a favourite between MotW and Last Blade 1 / 2. MotW had amazing animations and especially loved playing B. Jenet. Btw, nothing wrong with the pronunciation of Garou. Could also point out that the speaker in the game has a lisp when saying "Mark of the Wolves", which I simply can't unhear ever since I heard it the first time so many years ago. xD The demo mentioned at the end reminds me of arguments in the Demoscene about some demos claiming realtime 3D but in the end using tricks like these.

[@Ucceah]

it's prnounced "garoo", as every OU is in japanese, as a long Uuu sound. as on "you". pronouncing that equivalent to an L, some in between od a D and an L, is much more tricky. :D thanks for the comment bating. lol. you're welcone!

[@flashbacks7892]

Look up the game called Razion, absolutely mind blowing, biggest cart ever made, at a very hefty 1500+ megs, along with crystal clear cd quality sound, best game to show its hidden true power.

[@happyspaceinvader508]

Awesome video, but surprised you didn’t mention the NeoGeo ports for the Nintendo Switch. They seem ok to my eyes, but I’d love to see a proper tech analysis.

[@edwardperkins1225]

What's the reason for omitting tiles? Does it require a lot more to be added to the hardware or were they worried that programmers would rely on tiles and not animate and move things as much? It seems like they could have does even more scrolling and had more reserved for necessary sprites. I know they're more limited, but are tiles so much more trouble to use, or did they just not think they needed them?

[@mercster]

Yeah those early release titles were rough.

[@Holammer]

It's a hard pill to swallow, but developers did more limit pushing on the Megadrive than they ever managed on NEO-GEO. There's no 'The Adventures of Batman and Robin' on the system.

[@humansrants1694]

Well they would have to pay the licence fees and it would have to be the right type of gameplay for the cinema and bowling arcade.

[@Holammer]

@@humansrants1694 I did not mean an actual batman licensed game. I used it as an example as that particular game is famously pushing hardware by doing every trick in the book. kzbin.info/www/bejne/kGG2amV8qJqahck

[@ryanfitzpatrick3256]

Nice!

[@FantasyVisuals]

Neo Geo was 24 bit - the MC68000 haS a 16/ 32 bit architecture. 4096 colours on screen for it's time was mental

[@segare-trop-vieux3932]

I was blown away when I first saw metal slug in the arcade and wanted to have it on a console.. damn I didn’t expect that much money to get a copy of metal slug in 1999 when I search for it (950€)… still the jackpot if we compare to 2023 prices 😂

[@Hubert-rh4hz]

In 1999 we had no Euro

[@segare-trop-vieux3932]

@@Hubert-rh4hz dude I know that, the ting is that I was living in Switzerland and we don’t have it , so instead of telling you that the game was ….chf( the Swiss francs) I used euro like this anyone understand 😉

[@thecunninlynguist]

I always wanted a neo geo

[@craigix]

I feel like it could handle something like Wolfenstein3D with that scaling hardware, a ray caster should run on this using the sprite scaling to draw the walls.

[@3rdalbum]

FPSes were possible on the Lynx using the sprite scaling, so...

[@saddemon3913]

I always thought that neogeo is 32 bit, due to its complicated and cool games with massive of colorful sprite palettes, but even fact its 16 bit, its making it even cooler

[@starstarstar4643]

Hes a actually wrong The neo geo is a 24 bit system

[@saddemon3913]

@@starstarstar4643 welp, its close to 32 heh 🤷‍♂️

[@humansrants1694]

@@saddemon3913 Well its coded in 16bit so no where near 32bit the bits don't really matter no point saying this 32 cylinder engine is a beast when its only the size of a rubix cube.

[@daranyillh6446]

Shocked Samurai Shodown 5 Special isn't in here, it's even bigger than Garou

[@geekehUK]

If you want a comparison for metal slug, I'd suggest Alien Hominid

[@brianbergmusic5288]

Different art style, but it does scratch the itch, gameplay wise.