Are there any ports of Neo-Geo games that are as good or better than on the Neo-Geo?

[courtesi96]

Title says all.

I know some games like Mark of the Wolves come very close on the DC ; but are unfortunately plagued with audio problems.

[Mobius]

A few Neo-Geo games got ported to the TurboGrafx-16 and used the Arcade Card memory expansion. Just going off of second hand information, since I've never played them myself, but they're apparently top-notch ports. Import only, though.

[otaku]

Yeah sega ports were best. Saturn with Ram carts were pretty good and DC is pretty much the closest I've seen.

[XYXZYZ]

I haven't actually played it yet, but I hear the Xbox port of SvC Chaos is really close. Then there are those PS2 KOF2000+ ports which I also haven't played. Those must be alright. And then we have all those Metal Slug ports on PS2 and Wii, etc. How are those?

[Darren870]

No..

Some close ones ...but none exact or better.

Well maybe the metal slug 2 slow down was fixed in anthologies, but I've never played any of them to tell you.

[roushimsx]

Metal Slug Anthologies for slightly better versions of the Metal Slug games (resolution, loading, speed, colors). Metal Slug 3 (import PS2/domestic Xbox) for a superior version of just that game (shorter load times, extra content, snazzy menu system, etc).

King of Fighters 98 and 99 on Dreamcast (snazzy high quality 3d backgrounds)

That's all that I can think of that I've played. Perhaps Twinkle Star Sprites on Saturn and Dreamcast? Haven't played either port and I recall hearing that the DC version wasn't as good as the Saturn (lacked all of the extras from the Saturn version), but the Dreamcast version had an option for either retaining the slowdown or removing it entirely and it didn't have any load times.

Either way, both sound better than the Neo Geo version.

[Cinder6]

Uh, since when do the Neo Geo versions of Metal Slug have loading issues? Or are we talking about the NGCD and not the AES/MVS?

[Kitsune Sniper]

Uh, since when do the Neo Geo versions of Metal Slug have loading issues? Or are we talking about the NGCD and not the AES/MVS?

Didn't one of the anthologies feature in-game loading time? Or so I heard.

[Steven]

Saturn World Heroes Perfect. It had an art section for all 4 WH games, bosses immediately selectable in 2P mode (including the "hidden" character Son-Gokuu) and the Saturn's 6 button pad allowed players to assign a button to all 6 punch/kick strengths.

Loading time is also surprisingly quick... 1.5-3 seconds. It's a great port. Probably as great as the NG port, or maybe a scotch better, too.

[smork]

Uh, since when do the Neo Geo versions of Metal Slug have loading issues? Or are we talking about the NGCD and not the AES/MVS?

I don't think either MS1 or 2 on the NGCD have that much of a loading time issue. Certainly not compared to many of the later titles.

[roushimsx]

Uh, since when do the Neo Geo versions of Metal Slug have loading issues? Or are we talking about the NGCD and not the AES/MVS?

Honestly, I never noticed the delay between switching scenes in Metal Slug 3 until I played it on the PS2. It's a noticeable difference in time between the PS2 version and the Neo Geo version (with the PS2 version being quicker).

I would never even think of dragging the ungodly load times of the NeoCD games into the conversation. That's one system I couldn't fucking stand to play...though I did pick up some stuff on the super-cheap just for the music.

[Jorpho]

Perhaps Twinkle Star Sprites on Saturn and Dreamcast? Haven't played either port and I recall hearing that the DC version wasn't as good as the Saturn (lacked all of the extras from the Saturn version), but the Dreamcast version had an option for either retaining the slowdown or removing it entirely and it didn't have any load times.

Either way, both sound better than the Neo Geo version.

And the Saturn version has a character which neither of the other two versions have.
http://www.hg101.classicgaming.games...winklestar.htm

[Cinder6]

Okay, I'm having an incredibly hard time believing that a disc is beating a cartridge in load times, here. Then again, MS3 is one of the relatively few 708Mb games; more memory means it takes longer to read it all. Maybe the carts weren't advanced enough for the time to benefit from the no-load-time that smaller carts enjoy.

Or maybe you guys are just crazy

[roushimsx]

Okay, I'm having an incredibly hard time believing that a disc is beating a cartridge in load times, here. Then again, MS3 is one of the relatively few 708Mb games; more memory means it takes longer to read it all. Maybe the carts weren't advanced enough for the time to benefit from the no-load-time that smaller carts enjoy.

Or maybe you guys are just crazy

I'm suspecting it has something to do with the amount of time spent decompressing graphics tiles and such.

[smokehouse]

It’s funny how modern systems still have problems with 100% accurate Neo ports…

It just goes to show you how great the Neo really was…what an amazing machine….too bad it was mostly fighters.

[XxHennersXx]

No.

For everyone saying Anthologies and shit have better load times for Metal Slug then the Neo-Geo. You're talking about the CD Neo Geo right?

i'm pretty sure my cartridge with no load times surely has better loadtimes than your PS2 disc

[Neo Rasa]

As far as VERY close ports go though, the NeoGeo Online Collection on the PS2 are excellent. Definitely the best non-Neo Geo versions of the games available in almost every case. The Dreamcast ports of KoF 2000, 2001 and 2002 are extremely good, with load times being their only flaw, though they're not worth playing without a stick. Somehow King of Fighters Evolution (DC port of '99) has extremely good controls on the DC digital pad though.

Fatal Fury Special on the XBox 360 Live Arcade is GREAT. There's a two or three second load times when you initially start the game and then it's about as close as I've ever seen, even better than the Turbo CD port. There's some lag when the character select screen first loads up when playing online but most of my matches have been pretty smooth so far.

Twinkle Star Sprites, as was stated before is something of a special case. The Saturn version comes with a second disk and has tons of extras (including a unique extra character). The Dreamcast version lets you dictate what processor is emulated, altering how much slowdown there will be in the game. This is another case where the ports are good enough.


All other ports besides those either fall short, or they fall short while having some other unique aspect the Neo doesn't have. No other recent releases else replicates the experience exactly because they either fall prey to load times or were actually ported from the Neo CD versions of the games rather than the originals.

The Saturn/PSX King of Fighters/Fatal Fury ports are decent but are definitely based on the Neo CD versions of the games in most cases. They are very good ports but are subject to load times and less animation overall. Also watch out for Fatal Fury 3 Saturn. This port came out before the RAM cart came out, really rough animation and glitchy controls. Even the PC FF3 port is better.

Samurai Shodown's another franchise where nothing beats the Neo. I'd refer to the ports of the original as Samurai Slowdown and left at that. Samurai Shodown 2, despite being absurdly popular, only ever got ported to the PSX via the Samurai Shodown 1+2 compilation. They're playable but the usual drawbacks are present. SSIII's ports are a joke. SSIV on the Saturn is very good, and even has Cham Cham as an unlockable character. It makes good use of the RAM cardtridge but still isn't quite there.

[BocoDragon]

We should expect the Wii VC versions to be pretty much perfect, right?

[Cinder6]

We should expect the Wii VC versions to be pretty much perfect, right?

Hmm, hadn't thought of that. So long as the Wii can handle the Neo Geo emulator fine, they should be. After all, MAME and Kawacks handle them perfectly--on the other hand, though, the Wii is anything but a multi-GHz system with gigabytes of RAM. Still, correctly optimized (and I'd be shocked if it weren't actually), it should be great for those that don't have access to the original hardware/games.

It just occurred to me, though: haven't the Neo Geo VC titles been delayed for a while now? What if they are having a hard time getting them up to spec?

[Neo Rasa]

Not so, Nintendo has very recently confirmed Magician Lord, Fatal Fury and World Heroes for the Japanese VC. They should start coming out in about a week or so. End of summer/early fall is always exactly when they said the games would first appear, so they're right on schedule.