Bigger, Badder, Better - The POWER of the Neo Geo

We look at the Neo Geo over the course of its life and many of its very best games.

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Opening "Sega" jingle is from Astal for the Sega Saturn.

Ending Music during the credits is from Batman for the Sega Genesis.

SLX Logo
By: Jan Neves

Intro by Evan S.

Episode Notes:

1. I used a combination of real MVS hardware and MAME emulation to do this episode.

2. There were a number of unique releases to each of the Neo Geo platforms(AES/MVS/CD).

3. SNK also had a handheld called the Neo Geo Pocket.

4. SNK tried its hand with a polygon successor to the Neo Geo called the Hyper Neo Geo 64. Expensive to make and rejected by 3rd parties, it failed miserably after only a small number of releases.

5. SNK has reissued the Neo Geo a number of times via emulated products. There is no shortage of ways to play many of these titles.

6. I consolized my first MVS in the early 2000s when such a thing didn't have easy-to-follow guides. It was ugly but got the job done. I still have it and it still works to this very day.

7. The first Neo Geo home product I actually touched was a Neo Geo CD in 1996. My best bud Nathan owned it for awhile.

8. Collecting for the Neo Geo isn't just expensive, it's riddled with countless bootlegs and fake game cartridges. The Neo Geo was heavily pirated in many parts of the world and those games and boards are everywhere.

[xenonronin]

As a Nintendo kid I dreamed of having a Neo Geo ! Back then the Neo Geo console was a mythical legend to us poor Nintendo and Sega kids ! Yes I do mean I actually DREAMED of having this godlike game console for years back in the early 90s.

[skeggjoldgunnr]

I got the AES Gold system. A couple memory cards. A 33" Wells Garner RGB monitor in a cabinet made by Thao Nguyen of Multi Arcade Systems. He also made the glorious big heavy cherry switch / happco controllers we used on the Neo-Geo. KOF '95, Samurai Spirits 2, Pulstar, Real Bout Fatal Fury Special, King of the Monsters 1 & 2, Metal Slug, Mutation Nation, Burning Fight. My wife beat me on every game and I was suppoda be the in-house vidiot. Turns out: She just ADORED the system and while I was out of state on iron working jobs - she was honing her skills. That made me happy. She had the fridge stocked with Heineken for me awaiting my return so she could WHOOP on me in my own games.

[driftoff]

The Neo Geo was that game system that everybody dreamed of and wanted, but very few can afford. I didn't know anybody personally who owned one and it was almost like a mystical entity that we all knew existed, but very few of us laid eyes on.

[RickyIcecubes]

Kids these days will never know just how mindblowing this was back in the early 90s

[Hchris]

Gotta love the consistency of this channel

[trevor_mounts_music]

I remember being a little kid in the 90's and getting absolutely blown AWAY the first time I put a quarter into an MVS cabinet. It really was just that good. Still play Neo Geo on the regular 25+ years later....

[NateyCat]

Neo-Geo is still friggin gorgeous. Especially considering it lasted until the early 2000’s. Great Video of course.

[FreezeInfinite]

It's incredible how well the Neo Geo library holds up even today. The art style and production value were so high that it still looks fluid and plays well. The library is so diverse and so many games are really good. Other systems had a few good games but a lot of crap, but SNK really kept the quality control tight.
The home system was so expensive but you got a really good quality selection of games to choose from.

[duckhive]

Thank you for the 1 hour run-time. Your videos are very uplifting.

[johnellis]

An almost hour long SLX video?! Hell yeah boys we're in for a treat!

[JabroniSausage]

Man, I remember seeing the Neo Geo AES home system only being sold in Service Merchandise stores back in the days. I would always see it in their big, thick catalog book and always wanting one but the price was way too much, especially when I was only 5 years old, haha. What a time to be alive.

[aceofhearts]

Nice, this was uploaded 13 min ago. Just got back from running and I can relax on the floor and watch this.

[syncmonism]

Originally the AES home console version was only intended as a rental unit, but there were so many people asking them if they could buy one that they realized they needed to start making them available for sale to consumers.

They knew they were never going to get a big chunk of the console market because of the high cost of making the consoles AND the cartridges as well, but they priced things accordingly and it was a commercial success for them.

It's a very unique console because it was a commercial success despite never gaining a large chunk of the console market. It's a good example of how it's not always worthwhile to go directly after your competitors. It can be a very good strategy to just focus on a niche of the market and then you don't even have to compete directly.

[Dorelaxen]

The Neo-Geo truly has a special place in my heart. I'll never forget the night I graduated from high school. Me and a couple of friends went to a truck stop just outside of the small town I lived in. They had a fairly big arcade set up in the back, and they kept up to date games in it, too. They had World Heroes 2, so we spent the entire night tossing quarters into it and eating phenomenal greasy burgers. Damn good times.

[Astfgl]

The Neo Geo for me is mostly associated with holidays to France. You'd see those arcade cabinets everywhere there. I remember falling in love with Fatal Fury 2 and Metal Slug the instant I saw them on display. Owning a Neo Geo has always been a dream, it's the holy grail of gaming platforms. I could probably afford to get a consolized MVS these days, but even today Neo Geo ownership is quite the commitment.

[MikeD]

I play your channel when my Wife goes to sleep, and im half n half. I always wanted a Neo Geo. Never had a friend or known anyone back then who had a Turbo Grafx16.

[johnofthewired]

honestly my love for SNK and the neo only strengthened when every other system started going polygon and they stuck with 2D, and they did it so well
and i LOVED the KOF games to this day

[pooksthepossum]

Yes!!! My night got so much better! SLX never disappoints.

[DoctorFuu]

In the common systems everything was sadly limited by storage of the cartridge (8Mb/16Mb tops); Here with this raw beast power and no limitations of memory everything just flew to the moon. They called it the Rolls Royce of consoles and it cannot be described otherwise.

The games being so colorful and with PCM sampled music gave you the inmersion. I would like to vindicate games of the system like Robo Army considered "not that good". I enjoyed it inmensely because it gave you the chance of controlling giant sprites that grabbed cars against enemy robots destroying them with dozens of pieces bouncing on the floor with the CPU not slowing down a hair. What spectacle were those games. And what to say with Cyber Lip, Magician Lord, Shengoku....

In arcades the 5 second short clip in demo mode "Neo Geo 330 Meg Pro Gear Spec", when that short music sounded that was magical. And I was lucky to have lived that age.

[rockhyde]

“It’s bigger, it’s badder, too much for Mr. Incredible!” - Syndrome from the incredible movie “The Incredibles”.