Worst Neo Geo games

[Yukio]

So far this is what we got for bad NeoGeo games it seems

Neo Geo
Cyber-Lip
Ghost Pilots
King of Kings (fight fever)
Legend of Success Joe
Ninja Combat
Ragnagard
Robo Army
Sengoku
The Super Spy



Neo Geo CD
Joy Joy Kid
Gangan


Anything else ?

I liked Ragnagard and Robo Army.

Also some games like Fatal Fury The King of Fighters and Art of Fighting have some merits.
Fatal Fury was one of the first games to feature a two players cooperative mode (2 players against CPU) and later a duel mode to choose who would be the winner. Art of Fighting was one of the first games to have a KI bar and special moves, I believe that there was a contest to find who would be the first player able to submit the correct secret move. The early games from S.N.K. also had characters that would improve upon gaming, learning new moves on the go.

[savageone]

Games like The Super Spy, Ghost Pilots, Cyber Lip (seriously?), Robo Army, and Sengoku really don't deserve to be on that list. These games are bad? Compared to what? Mark of the Wolves? Last Blade? Metal Slug? Those would be very unfair comparisons. That is kind of like saying Top Player's Golf is worse than it is (it's pretty standard for golf games of the time, hasn't aged real well) because Neo Turf Masters (secretly the best golf game ever, great to this day) is on the same system.

Even the mediocre Neo Geo games have some kind of "X factor" to them that many other games from the same time period simply do not have. Maybe it's because they were produced with arcades in mind. Maybe I'm just a softy for the Neo.

For me, there are really only 2 games that come immediately to mind and they've been mentioned:
Fight Fever (never released on the AES, for good reason)
Legend of Success Joe (one of the only non-quiz/non-mahjong games from that time period to not get released in english format on AES, for good reason)

[Nescollector]

Robo Army was a good game, and Sengoku is one of my favorite games on the Neo Geo. I use to play through the game all the time (using player two after running out of continues on player one) very good music.

[Tron 2.0]

Nam 1975 was great up until the last boss - then it became the suckiest, hardest game ever.

The boss at the end of,Nam 1975 is very cheap but there is a pattern to it.It's just a matter of getting into the rhythm to finsh the last boss off.

I know it sounds impossible untile i saw a member at neo-geo.com do a 1cc of it.

Wich even shocked me

[bangtango]

Not that it means anything but I remember back in the day that 2-3 of the gaming magazines said Burning Fight sucked. Of course they made this claim primarily because they thought it was a Final Fight/Streets of Rage clone. This was back during the era when any company doing a Sonic style platform game or a SFII style fighting game would get a 4 or 5 out of 10 from most gaming magazines.

I haven't played the original Fatal Fury for over 10 years, since I only ever tried it in the arcades. Did the Neo Geo version also have that dumb feature, like the SNES/Genesis versions, in which you could only select three characters in the 1-player game and were only able to use the other guys in a two player bout? I hated that.

[Kitsune Sniper]

Not that it means anything but I remember back in the day that 2-3 of the gaming magazines said Burning Fight sucked. Of course they made this claim primarily because they thought it was a Final Fight/Streets of Rage clone. This was back during the era when any company doing a Sonic style platform game or a SFII style fighting game would get a 4 or 5 out of 10 from most gaming magazines.

I haven't played the original Fatal Fury for over 10 years, since I only ever tried it in the arcades. Did the Neo Geo version also have that dumb feature, like the SNES/Genesis versions, in which you could only select three characters in the 1-player game and were only able to use the other guys in a two player bout? I hated that.

Well, to be frank, Burning Fight IS a badly designed game. It's fun, but it can get very cheap at times. I'll be punching enemies and they can get two or three hits in anyway.

And Fatal Fury... you could only play as the three main characters. You couldn't play as the bosses. That was added in the console versions.

[mrmark0673]

Considering the price of Neo Geo software, I tend to make sure that it's a definate 100% worthwhile purchase before spending the cash.

I think the most mediocre games I've played were Aero Fighters 2 and Top Hunter. I'd also stay far away from Ghost Pilots too; that really is crap.

Now go play some Last Blade or Garou and marvel in the wonders of SNK at it's very best.

Out of all the Neo games I have on my MVS (Ms 1-5 and X, Super Dodgeball, Blazing Star, a slew of others) Aerofighters 2 sees about 10x the play time as anything else. Great Shooter, crazy to call that game mediocre.

[Kid Fenris]

Games like The Super Spy, Ghost Pilots, Cyber Lip (seriously?), Robo Army, and Sengoku really don't deserve to be on that list. These games are bad? Compared to what? Mark of the Wolves? Last Blade? Metal Slug? Those would be very unfair comparisons. That is kind of like saying Top Player's Golf is worse than it is (it's pretty standard for golf games of the time, hasn't aged real well) because Neo Turf Masters (secretly the best golf game ever, great to this day) is on the same system.

Yes, it's terribly unfair to compare mediocre games to good ones.

Seriously, average Neo Geo titles are judged as such against similar games of their day. Ghost Pilots is terrible compared to Raiden II or MUSHA. Nam 1975 is awful next to Wild Guns or Pirates or similar Cabal-esque games. Cyber-Lip is thoroughly unremarkable (aside from the ending) up against Contra III, Gunstar Heroes, or any other action-shooter with decent level design and diagonal firing. If these games had been released for any system but the Neo Geo, they'd be long forgotten by now.

Of course, they're not the worst that the system has to offer, but the problem is that many devoted Neo Geo fans are so besotted with their system's library that they'll refuse to admit that any of its games are unsatisfying. We've already seen someone claiming they like Ragnagard, and I wouldn't be surprised if another poster pops up to say that they play Success Joe every day because it's really THAT GOOD.

[CosmicMonkey]

Out of all the Neo games I have on my MVS (Ms 1-5 and X, Super Dodgeball, Blazing Star, a slew of others) Aerofighters 2 sees about 10x the play time as anything else. Great Shooter, crazy to call that game mediocre.

Sonic Wings is a TATE game. The Neo version is an odd TATE to YOKO hybrid from a drunken one night stand. If I want to play Sonic Wings/Aero Fighters I'd like to play it free from the Neo's limitations, with the screen turned on it's side how it should be.

Fair enough if you like it though.

When all is said and done, there's really only about 15 AAA+ titles on the Ne Geo that are really worth keeping.

[Aussie2B]

I think it's the AES that really skews a lot of opinions on Neo Geo games. People either worship every game they buy, even the lousy stuff, just because of how dang much they paid for them, or it'll go the other way and they'll scrutinize the game based off of standards they would hold no other system's library to because they won't think the games are worth paying for unless they're the best of the best.

Personally, I think the MVS is the best way to experience the Neo Geo. Just about everything is reasonably priced, and the stuff that tends to be more expensive is that way because of quality and thusly demand. Without the prohibitive AES prices getting in the way, you can look at them for what they are (some may suggest ROMS, but I think that just encourages people to quickly brush off games that don't immediately hook them).

[TurboGenesis]

Sonic Wings is a TATE game. The Neo version is an odd TATE to YOKO hybrid from a drunken one night stand. If I want to play Sonic Wings/Aero Fighters I'd like to play it free from the Neo's limitations, with the screen turned on it's side how it should be.

Fair enough if you like it though.

When all is said and done, there's really only about 15 AAA+ titles on the Ne Geo that are really worth keeping.

I am not familiar with the first Sonic Wings, but Sonic Wings 2/Aero Fighters 2 and Sonic Wings 3/Aero Fighters 3 are yoko game. All Neo Geo game were design to be play in yoko monitor since that many Neo cab have multiple game to switch from. Strikers 1945+ is also a native yoko game as it was to be play on Neo MVS hardware.

For topic of worst Neo Geo game:
My personal undesirables:
Super Spy (just don't like it )
Legend of Success Joe (played in emulation and it bad as they say)
Nam 1975 (I do not care for this style of game much)
Ghost Pilots (poor design for shooter and very long game!)


In reference to Top Player Golf, its is average game but when you are to play Neo Turf Masters, you can never go back… Neo Turf Masters is indeed my favorite golf game ever! My friend and I use to play match play in arcade and now we are able to finally play at home with the PS2 port!

[Tron 2.0]

Cyber-Lip is awesome. o_O I just wish the ending didn't terrify me so much.

I just wish it had a sequel since the ending in the original gives,you that to be continue vibe.

Other reason being i think the ms serise needs a break for a while.

[XianXi]

Super Bubble Pop, I literally owned it for 10 minutes then sold it.

But like the others have said,

LOSJ
Puzzled(Joy Joy Kid)
Fight Fever

[Adol]

Super Bubble Pop, I literally owned it for 10 minutes then sold it.

Is it a Neo geo game..?

[CosmicMonkey]

Yep, it's a homebrew game from Vektorlogic. It's only on MVS format, as the chap designed his own non-SNK copyrighted PCBs to publish games on.

[Sotenga]

No mention of 3 Count Bout? For what is, AFAIK, the only wrestling game for the Neo Geo, it sure does unfortunately blow. The AI is unfair, the fights really just come down to button mash-fests, some character designs are recycled, and the whole game just feels overall sloppy. I would have loved to see another full-fledged wrestling title on the NG that was worth a damn, but the closest we can get is playing as Big Bear in FF2/Special and Tizoc/Griffon Mask in Mark of the Wolves.

At the least, there is a supposedly awesome wrestler for the NGPC known as Big Bang Pro Wrestling. It's import only, but I think most of it is in English, so I should pick it up... but I digress. I agree the original FF has aged not well, I never beat The Super Spy because I just got freaking lost trying to navigate the horribly-designed building, Legend of Success Joe is just overall bad, Sengoku and Ninja Combat are two dry beat-em-ups, and there was this one horrible generic fighter that was as derivative as could be. I think it was called "Fight Fever?" It was just so... blah. And... bad. >_<

[Adol]

Yep, it's a homebrew game from Vektorlogic. It's only on MVS format, as the chap designed his own non-SNK copyrighted PCBs to publish games on.

Like Neo Digger Man?

[CosmicMonkey]

Like Neo Digger Man?

I think NDM is only available as a conversion cart, using an SNK PCB from another game. But whatever, you wouldn't want to waste your money on either of them.

Last Hope really is the only really competent homebrew release specifically* for the Neo Geo system, and even that was a short run of converted home carts (Fatal Fury 3s iirc?).

The Vektorlogic boards are a new design and free of any SNK copyright. However, they're MVS-only, with Neo Bubble Pop as it's only game. If someone could come up with a similar design for home cart PCBs that would be good. I'd really love to see the Neo Geo pushed to it's absolute limits to see what the system really could do. I'm certainly looking forward to the next release from NG: Dev Team. However, the only Neo Geo development tools I've seen are those from Jeff Kurtz, which seem to be quite limited. The only pictures I've seen of actual development hardware came from NGF, unfortunately.



* Respect to Charles and his multi-platform Frog Feast. If anyone actually has a Frog Feast converted MVS/AES cart I'd love to see a picture.

[gameofyou]

I've liked most of the NEO games that I've played so far (including Cyberlip). One of the few games that I sold back was Riding Hero. Just a bad game, IMO.

[smork]

I've liked most of the NEO games that I've played so far (including Cyberlip). One of the few games that I sold back was Riding Hero. Just a bad game, IMO.

Riding Hero is terrible. I don't care what people say about Top Player Golf -- it's no good either. I understand the design of the times, but I lived through those times and played much, much better golf games on the PC prior to its release.

I've played 80% of the Neo CD library and a few more that are cart only.

Where's the hatred for Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer? It's horribly cheesy, the definition of cheap -- and I think completely unbeatable.

They're not bad games, but Magician Lord and Viewpoint are both damn near unbeatable (I've never beaten Viewpoint, and never Magician Lord w/o insane credit feeding).

I don't like Last Resort very much either, nor Super Spy. Power Spikes II sucks bad.

I like Cyber-Lip OK, and I like the Sengoku series, though 1 is the red headed stepchild of the family.

There are so-o-o-o many great games for the Neo, though, that one can overlook some bad apples.