The 90's where my golden years. Man, I miss them soo much..😞 All the kids at my school knew about the Neo Geo. It was THE console to own. Perfect arcade-to-home ports. Too bad no one could afford one. I only knew one kid that had one. My dad's, real-estate bosses, son. Rich kid, to say the lease. He let me play it once, when I was over their house, and man I was blown away! The Neo Geo was in a class of its own. It was a beast. (All the kids i knew had ether a Genesis, or SNES.) After that life changing experience, every time I went into Toy's R' Us I would drool over the Neo Geo display case, dreaming of owning one, someday. But, it was never going to happen with that price tag of "only" $649.99. -What a deal..😆 The game cartridge prices where ridiculously expensive as well.
I am 40 years old now and still feel a slight pang of jealousy in my soul for those who had one when we were kids. We had a bunch of arcade games at the local convenience store.
Yeah we only had one kid I knew who had it. His father was like a surgeon or something. It was $649 for the system and the games were $249. Adjusted for inflation, the games were like $500+ each and the system would be $2k today. Those fighting games + the arcade sticks were arcade perfect. i was over at his house once. It was nuts, lol. It was 1000% better than the NES. It was like having a movie theatre in your house.
Lol my father had a factory back in 90s I was that kid bro also had moongoose bmx Californian and tony hawk skateboard and boomerang Tamiya Rc cars mind you I needed security people were so jealous oh I forgot to mention the shaq pumps lol
I had and still own my neo geo. Although I was in my early 20s when it came out. I just dug it out of storage and hooked it up to a 2030 pvmcand I got sanwa buttons on it now.I still love this system.
To me, Magician Lord always felt like the spiritual successor to the Sega Genesis game, Mystic Defender. I’ve read that Nam-1975 was the first game developed for the Neo-Geo. If true it’s a strange setting (and genre) to place your first game in. I always assumed Ninja Combat was the first Neo-Geo to be released, probably because it was the first Neo-Geo game I played, and every Neo cabinets had it. Eventually it would always be replaced with either Samurai Showdown 2, some version of King of Fighters, or Metal Slug 1.
@@PAKA62 oh, of course, but I was referring to the Vietnam theme, which was somewhat unpopular then, and still is now in the U.S. Usually, when SNK did military themes, it was all fictional settings and countries, with the exception of Guerrilla War and Iron Tank.
The first time I ever heard of Neo Geo was on an infomercial. They talked about the memory cards that you could use at the arcade and then take them home and continue on the home console. I don't ever recall seeing any arcade machines that supported these but the idea of having the arcade experience at home got my attention real quick. Once I saw how much the home console was I didn't even bother putting it on my Xmas list 😅
I really enjoy your videos and this one is especially interesting to me. I love the early years of any of the retro consoles, seeing how developers experiment before the 'winning' formula is discovered. By the time XBox 360 and PS3 come around, I feel much of the experimentation has died, I understand with high development costs of course, it's still a bit of a shame only independent developers push the boundaries now.
Awesome video (as usual) - The first Neo Geo games I noticed were King of Monsters and Art of Fighting AND even then it was only because they were released on the Super Nintendo. I used to see games reviewed in UK magazines and dream of owning an AES. I got there in the end, but it was playing the amazing Saturn ports that finally convinced me to bite the bullet, many years later.
Man...the Neo Geo was like THE coolest thing in any arcade. It's really hard to explain now how much prestige that held back then, and how everyone wanted the home system, and no one could afford it. The liquor store at the corner of the street my elementary school was at had one, so me and my best friend used to go there after school everyday and drop a few quarters in stuff like King of the Monsters or 8-Man.
I can't imagine anyone complaining about Ninja Combat (well, anyone born before 1980 something), it was a blast at the time, the visuals were amazing, the ninja theme was always a win for a videogame, and it was super fun playing with a friend, and let's be honest, if you were between 10 and 13 you wouldn't be going alone to the arcades, so you would always be playing with someone, which was kinda the fun thing about going to the arcades, play with your friends.
@@SegaLordX In Spain almost every Neo Geo review was brilliant, I think it was like trying to make it even more an object of desire. Anyway, back then I didn't care about reviews for arcades, for a quarter it was worth trying, but to me this game was huge, a friend and I had some must games in every visit to the arcades, and this was one of them, alongside Final Fight, Twin Cobra, Wrestlefest and Aliens.
I have always wanted a Neo Geo, to this day I have never seen a home system in person! Thank you for the video and history of the early days of an epic console!
Same and I got one recently. Life's too short - go get one! They're much bigger than I anticipated, maybe 1.5x Megadrive / Genesis 1, but surprisingly lightweight. The carts are just incredible though - absolute units. It's lovely to have the AES, but maybe check out a CMVS or MISTER - much cheaper options and just as good.
I visited SNK in Torrance, CA about once a month, good friends with Chad Okata, great music you choose, think its Castle of Devils from Magician Lord, bought the Gold system when it was released, system two controllers and you could pick any pack in game, I think the Silver system was just system and 1 controller, I paid $699.99 with Magician Lord - the stage with the frogs is insane
@@BeB02090 Chad a 32" Sony PVM in his office, with a modified home console, the SNK techs had it hooked with an RGB cable, joysticks with turbo switch and better cornering sticks. Carlos was a tech guy in the back, hang out with him while listening to 80s Thrash Metal. Alpha Denshi of Japan sent Chad a video cassette with a playable 4 player multi-link World Hereos, we saw it in office, never released
Man, the excitement I felt back in the day when I stumbled upon a new MVS machine in the wild... that actually had a different set of games other than Metal Slug or Sam Sho. 8 man, The Last Blade, Last Resort... Always a treasure chest of games. I never saw the 6 game cab though.
@@BeB02090 oh no, I dont own a cab, I merely speaking of walking into a convenience store or walmart back in the day and seeing an MVS machine to play. I always saw the same few games at arcades and stuff. World heroes, samurai showdown, metal slug. It was nice finding a cab to play that had more obscure titles in it.
Man, this one is right in my wheelhouse. I own nearly all of these on AES, though my League Bowling is on MVS, and I don't own Riding Hero at all. I have to say, I don't think I could agree more with another person's opinions than in this video. Ninja Combat is just so much more fun 2 player! Cyber Lip, too. The Super Spy is also a great time, especially if you approach it like Punch Out. Baseball Stars is one that a buddy of mine and I have a good rivalry playing, as he won't play me at Super Baseball 2020 (I rack up 30 runs a game against the CPU on that one). I think that Magician Lord is my favorite of the early group, if not on the system all together. I've never pulled off a 1cc at it, but I can get to level 5 on 1 credit. 'Nam 1975 is also a jam for me, as I've developed a strange appreciation for gallery shooters in the last 15 or so years. Back then, I didn't like it as much, but now, I do. This was great timing for me. I had to be home sick with my oldest son and I both having strep throat these last couple of days, so we've been playing together some while we aren't resting. I also recently got a new Bluetooth adapter for Neo Geo to try out from Intec Gaming that I hadn't heard of, but bought since it was inexpensive at $26, and one of those new no battery memory cards from StoneAgeGamer. They work great! I wanted the wireless option to have better seating while I play AES games, and it turns out it works well with my 8bitdo controllers. That's perfect, because I really wanted to be able to use more controller options when Xeno Crisis for AES ships later this year. At least, it better... I've been sitting on pre-orders for it and Kraut Buster for years now...
I played the Hell out of Sengoku & The Irritating Maze at my local Pizza Hut back in the early to mid 1990s! That restaurant was fortunate enough to have the premium MVS cabinet and it was always full of fun games....while we waited for the Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat II & 3 cabinets to free up.
So good! Would love to see more videos on the legendary Neo Geo. I wanted one so bad as a kid as well, but could never afford it. I've settled for ports on the Nintendo Switch and a Neo Geo mini to play some of these great games.
@@lwwells I think it's mostly the story/art design. 2nd would be the music. Obviously the graphics and gameplay are good but without the first two it would then be mediocre for me.
@@Chris-Courage I'll give it another shot. I was drawn to the 'adventure/exploration' aspects because I'm a fan of the metroidvania/castlevania games but this just felt like it had so little depth in comparison.
@@lwwells what can be kind of aggravating about magician Lord is that it doesn't give you the time to do any exploration because if you don't go through a stage quick enough, harder and harder enemies start coming your way. It's a little bit more like a run-and-gun with that aspect.
This is one of my favorite videos. Tons of games I've never seen before. Man I think everyone born in the 70s-80s can remember their first SNK cabinet they saw. It was just like nothing else, the graphics, the sound, the sprite scaling. This makes me want to build a cabinet so d@mn bad. Love your content, it always makes my day!
Me and my friends spent a lot of time, and money on neo geo arcade games. My personal favorites were nam 75, crossed swords, magician lord, and fatal fury. I was also a terror at samurai showdown 2, which frustrated my friends, and opponents to no end lol. Great vid x! Always loved neo geo
Magical Lord bosses kind reminds me of the original Shinobi arcade bosses especially the face boss who shoots the bounce ball projectiles and other bosses gives little bit of Ghouls & Ghosts aesthetic
Neo Geo arcade system was cool. Last Resort, Metal Slug and Samurai Showdown were excellent arcade games. The home system on the other was ridiculous. At $200 bux a cartridge that was NOT coming home with me. NOBODY had that thing at least not in my hood. I remember there being a little slot on the arcade cabinet that you could put a memory card in to take the progress of your game home. It was mythical cuz I don’t remember anybody bringing their card to do that. Cool concept though.
As a seasoned gamer since 1981, I'm gonna be honest the Neo Geo MVS libraries of games and the difficulty curve is extremely hard not gonna lie and that's how the development folks over at SNK made their money in boat loads of quarters.
Yep. There was definitely two kinds of games back in those days ones that were fair but difficult and ones that were just ridiculous the way they clearly give you cheap deaths and ridiculous difficulty spikes in order to keep sucking quarters out of your pockets. It's definitely something I don't miss from those days I'll tell you that.
When i saw Neo-geo in the thumbnail it was an insta-click to your vid! plz cover more of Neo games! This console and its games are sooo unique theres nothing like it i may never got an original mvs or aes but i got neo geo x gold from 2012 this and emulation is the only way for me to enjoy it and i have to a great extent. The gfx of this system are sooo i dont know how to say it its on a category of its own its a console cult thing its that special in my mind.
My brother and I bought it together in the early 90s for well over $600 for console. We busted our butts working at the local food store making $5 an hr so it took quite a long time to get it. When we did get it, we were blown away. Truly an arcade experience at home. However after having only 2 games that cost $200 each were were broke! And sadly returned it a month later. Back in those days you still could return open games. It was one sad trip to our local Software Etc that day.
i wish we saw more Genesis ports of these early neo-geo games, not just baseball 2020. Some one did a test homebrew of Magician Lord on the Genesis and it looked great
"Genesis games on steroids" pretty much summarizes the Neo Geo arcade game experience, especially the early ones. These games were orders of magnitude ahead of what was available to play in the 1990-1991 timeframe. Mind was blown upon seeing and having control over these games as an 11 year old. Even though I have the complete Neo Geo zip, I'm slowly building up my collection on Switch (they have all the "good" ones)..no problem paying $8 for games that used to be $200-$250, that now fetch as much as an extra 0 on the end of that original price.
My older brother's birthday party at Shakey's Pizza in June 1990. That was the first time I saw an MVS cab. It was so awesome to have multiple, high quality games in a single cab!! Ninja Combat was so much fun at the time. We were fans of Ninja Gaiden in the arcade (and NES, of course). We got pretty far too but the damage enemies dealt was insane! Baseball Stars Professional & Magician Lord were also there. Sadly, I don't recall the 4th game. An amazing experience I'll always remember. Boy, were we in for a treat for that next decade! I still want an AES but I'll settle for a consolized MVS with RGB if I can find one!!
Magician Lord showed such promise and then ... they just never made another game even vaguely like it. I don't think they ever made ninja hair bounce up and down so high either, but no one cares about that.
It is so much tougher on AES than MVS! At least on MVS you can continue from where you are. On AES, you get sent to a checkpoint when you die, snd back to the beginning of the stage on a continue. Just brutal. It took me some real effort to beat!
In high school, I knew a kid who was a straight -A student, and he had a Neo Geo home console. I flipped out! I invited myself over and played all these games at his house. I later got one in 1994 second hand and still love it to this day.
Ninja Combat may not have aged so great, but I remember seeing it in the wild back when it was new and it was very impressive and fun to me then. I thought about it so much after I played it. This would have been before I had a Genesis. It may not have fallen into the window of time covered here, but King of the Monsters is another one that made a huge impression on me after playing it at a local spot. It's a coin muncher for sure, though I did figure out how to exploit it a bit and beat it in a few credits, whatever limit the AES version had. I fondly remember the early Neo Geo period, and it was just a cool brand with the red cabinets with multiple games. It felt special.
Me and my brother worked our butts off for more than 6 months until we had pooled enough money to actually buy one of these consoles. One of the most exciting moments was coming home to see that big box being delivered by UPS. Of course, buying more games was a crazy amount of money as well. I regret nothing!
The Neo-Geo hardware is kind of like what the Genesis could've been, if Sega didn't have to worry about keeping the hardware price bellow $200 and game price below $100. I did salivate over those ads back in 1991 too. The early years definitely did have a cool variety of games, before they went overboard with the fighters. I never particularly enjoyed 2D fighters, so that whole development was unfortunate in my eyes. Still a lot of gems that held up really well over time on this system.
Yes, especially with the high color pallete and more sprites like the neo geo including the canceled scaler chip for the genesid. If sega was a big company like Sony and others back then and ate all of those cost. The genesis would have been the best console in its generation. No longer need the 32x and maybe the sega cd if genesis had a better/clearer pcm channel and adpcm/pwm support audio.
Ahhh...I remember the time this debuted. Because my mother worked the local bowling alley at the time (with a pretty good arcade inside) and I knew the operator of all the arcade machines as a friend at the time I was there the morning the arcade machine debuted in the alley. I watched it get installed that day. That was a good day and a good memory. Out!
Absolutely mind-blowing mini documentary about snk neo Geo Game. I only happen to know the company for it fighting game. I've heard of the game but never saw them plating, so your video was much appreciated. He was also cool to know that it is a 24-bit systems. I just love the passion in your voice when you talk about this console... I wanted one so bad just as well. Incredible work once Again Sega Lord X.
My best opportunity to grab a NEO GEO was back in 1998 A old comic book/video game store had a NEO GEO AES system on display with about 5 cartridges for about $400 at the time I pondered about grabbing it for weeks. By the time I finally decided to buy, I go there one day, and it was gone, along with the games. Haven't seen a deal on a NEO GEO like that since, and sadly never will again..
So bizarre for a system with amazing scaling, that there's only one 3D racing game for it. Such a wasted opportunity. Oh, Magician Lord is one of the few Neo Geo games where the MVS and AES versions are quite different.
AES version has an intro and of course,MVS lacks it.AES if you continue start from of the beginning of stage where's MVS start from where you last continue.
In my city there was only 1 Neo Geo cabinet which ran Samurai Shodown, it was in the entrance alcove of the Toys R Us. None of the arcades ever had any Neo Geos. So I'm discovering these games for the first time.
I did it.. I spent all my money and sold my genesis (mega drive) with all my games and my snes to get one. I loved the neo geo.. you forgot sengoku the first title and some other fews early titles, the black monster felt like owning the arcade at home for real. The problem was when Fatal Fary and Art of Fighting came out. To buy one of one you needed 250 € minimum.. it meant that for the very same price you could buy a genesis (mega drive here in europe) and one or two new games!!! So I decided to sell my neo geo with Nam75, Sengoku and Cyberlip to buy back a SNES with Turtles in time and street fighter turbo. I was sincerely regretting also to not have the mega drive anymore so I got after few months enough money to rebuy it with streets of rage 2 and Sonic 2. All in all I do regret to have bought the neo geo since I lost my past games.. but the experience of playing it was outstanding all in all!
Sega Lord X....damn bro, you are just on FIRE right now! I can't tell you how much everything you said resonates with me. I too, am in my late 40's and I distinctly remember turning 23 and wanting an AES system *BADLY*. Welp....after saving a few paychecks from my shitty job, I finally got one and CyberLip, Sam Sho 1, 2 and 3 and Crossed Swords were the fist games I bought. All excellent games! I even bought two MAS arcade sticks from my buddy Tao and my buddies and I were playing Sam Sho all freakin' day. Crazy good times! You hit the nail on the head about the diversity of the early line up. It's too bad SNK didn't continue to go down that path, making more run N' gun shooters, beatem 'em ups and sports games, instead of saturating their line up with a bajillion fighters. I eventually sold my AES because, well, like you said, the cost of the carts were just way too high. So upon doing some research, I came to realization you can save more money in the long run by grabbing an MVS system and buying the actual MVS carts which were much cheaper by almost HALF the price. Not only did I get the MVS system, I went all out and got a 6 slot MVS system! No cabinet to go with it, I simply connected it to something called a SuperGun Arcade Jamma box, also from MASSYSTEMS, which lets to connect any JAMMA board to a TV. Haha those were the days!! Anyway keep up the SUPERB content brother. We all appreciate you. You have one of the best YT channels in the history of youtube!
Magician Lord blew my mind when I first saw it. Then my mind was blown again a few years ago when I read there was a double jump glitch. It is a little hard to do, but once you get the hang of it it's fairly easy to pull off.
I first saw one at an arcade that me and some friends had to drive almost 30 minutes to get to. Later on a couple cabinets came to my town. I spent my high school graduation night with some friends at a truck stop eating the godawful greasy burgers they served from the cafe and playing the Neo. They had the newly released World Heroes 2, and we probably tossed 20 bucks of quarters in that thing that night.
90's SNK is such an unforgettable company; they're without a doubt the kings of 2D sprites, along with Capcom. I wish the company never faced any financial issues and we got to see a steady evolution into the same kind of games but without the cheap difficulty to get a lot of quarters from you. In other words, I wish they had their own castlevania, megaman and all those types of franchises.
The first time I saw a Neo-Geo MVS was a 4 cartridge system at a local pizza joint. It had Magician Lord, Cyber-Lip, Top Player's Golf, and Alpha Mission II in the summer of 1991. It was impressive for the time. 3 of the 4 got major playing time for me while Top Player's Golf I only played once and found the difficult very unforgiving.
Thanks SLX - great timing for me, as I've recently bought an AES, NEOSD and a fully loaded SD card. Aside from the well known titles, I was wondering which games to start with, so will use this vid as a reference point. Thanks for the great and varied retro content.
Very nice! I find that folks new to the Neo have a better time if they start with the early games and work their way through the library chronologically. You'll have a better appreciation for just how far those games came in its long life time.
Yo Sega lord I gotta say u have this ability to always drop videos about stuff I wanna watch and am interested in don't know how u do it but I love it said it before but keep em coming bro u the best
It was great to travel back with you to your local arcade; I truly had no idea they didn't start with fighting games - I guess I'll have to try these 10 in the good ol' emulator 😁
I remember seeing the Neo Geo for sale at my game store when it first came out. Of course it was more powerful than either the Genesis or The Super NES. I debated about buying one but decided against it. The system was pricey yes. But that's not the issue. As my friend Keith pointed out,the system is a long term investment. It's the price and variety of games that matters. After playing some of the games I came away pretty unimpressed. They looked good but games like Magician Lord were just mediocre junk and the glut of fighting games didn't interest me. But paying $150 for a single game that wasn't that great and wouldn't have much play value was what really killed the system. The fact that they never had any RPGs or strategy games was the final nail in the coffin. An interesting idea but not really a system worth owning.
Aah, the Neo Geo AVS, the console you could only dream of. Even now they are still expensive, i got my hands 2 months ago on a consolized MVS for a decent price and it is still an awesome piece of hardware.
Love my AES so much. My buddy and I would visit Funcoland to check out the various NG games that would make it to the second hand market. I eventually bought an AES and actually paid full price for a few carts (FF2, SS). One game alone would cost me an entire week's paycheck working at McDonald's. But back then I would be the envy of the other kids for sure. I still own an AES. SNK is KING!!
You’re after my heart with this one, X. I still have my MVS console in my living room cabinet. Can’t find the will to sell her. 🖤🤘🏼 Great work as always
Nicevidéos. More than just a basic review of the machine because you focus on the early days where few game where breathtaking. The best period is the mid life, 92/94 period, with many grat sequels, solid arcade games with nice replay value today and all the amazing 2D fighting games! I remember during the street fighter 2 era how Samurai shodown 2 and art of fighting were real butt kickin' at the time
It was either Neo Geo and 2 games at Babbages or SNES and 4 games at local Wal Mart that had STACKS I mean, PALLETS full of them. I choose the SNES as I didn't want my mom spending that much money on me because the NG was EXPENSIVE! And well... arcades were still very much available in the early 90's for me to play those titles and Neo Geo games were pretty much 1 to 4 coin clears for me. Many times I would have to just kill my credits if I couldn't hand the game to anyone because it was time to leave. Very enjoyable to have got that 4 slot dream cab 20 years later.
The Neo Geo really was the real deal in terms of having an arcade in right in your home, the only caveat was that you had to be well off financially to have that experience.
I definitely was a huge fan of Neo Geo from way back all the way from when I first saw one of the machines at a 7-Eleven or a circle K or something back in the early 90s. I don't remember being too aware of the home console version but then again I was a pretty poor kid and I was lucky to get my hands on a console of some kind to let alone the high end ones. (I never met a single kid or person who owned one back when they first came out, not one) The games were incredible and I was more than willing to throw my quarters into them any chance I got. Of course by the end of the '90s it was pretty much either a King of fighters game or metal slug or something along those lines but I was still a huge huge fan of all their games. Even the worst Neo Geo game was better than some of the best on other consoles and I still believe that to be true to this very day.
I just gotta save I love your channel man. Keep up the great work and keep on doing your best. I plan on building up my retro video game collection thanks to your awesome videos there are some games I want to try now. 😎
I'd say Nam 75 was closer to Cabal than Operation Wolf. Also I remember seeing ad images for The Super Spy and being amazed at how good it looked, and wishing I could play it as an evolution of the first person sections from the NES' Golgo 13: The Mafat Conspiracy.
