I've been thinking about picking up a Neo Geo CD but I don't know much about the games for it. Are there any really great must have's or does the console not have any real gems?
Neo Geo CD?
I've been thinking about picking up a Neo Geo CD but I don't know much about the games for it. Are there any really great must have's or does the console not have any real gems?
There are tons of great games. Do you not have much experience with SNK or the Neo Geo? The Neo Geo CD mostly just has CD ports of the Neo Geo arcade games. Basically, the system is designed for gamers who were more on a budget and couldn't afford the insane prices for a Neo Geo AES and its games, which are arcade perfect. The CD games aren't flawless and have a number of differences, but they're generally better than the ports of Neo Geo games to non-SNK systems.
So if you like 90s arcade games, especially fighters, you'd probably like the Neo Geo CD. That said, the system is mostly collected by diehard SNK fans who have to have it all. I don't know if I'd necessarily recommend it to someone completely new to SNK and Neo Geo games. You might want to dip your toes with some ports on the more mainstream systems (or via emulation), and if you really like the games, I'd recommend a consolized MVS for the best combination of affordability and arcade faithfulness.
I know I'm not willing to put down the money that the AES goes for and the CD really isn't priced that bad at all. I knew SNK was huge in the arcade world and that their big thing was their consoles were suppose to be just as good as the arcades. I guess I really don't know how big their library is.
For me it's probably more that I want to collect and play all the major consoles more than anything and the NEO GEO CD and AES are two of the few consoles I haven't picked up yet.
Well, there are basically three ways to going about collecting Neo Geo games. There's the AES, which is ridiculously expensive (not so bad price-wise if you want to restrict yourself to a handful of the earliest, most common releases, but that's a severely limited experience), the Neo Geo CD, which isn't the true arcade experience, or the MVS, which, when consolized still isn't a "real" home console, but you can collect carts just the same and, with universal bios, you can even set the games to "Home" mode which makes the playing experience 100% identical to playing an AES.
The Neo CD is a nice system, but if you're looking to get into Neo Geo, the cheapest and best way to do it is to get an MVS (either an actual arcade cabinet, a consolized motherboard or with a super gun).
Neo CD games have load times, which get really bad for later games on the system, and it has a smaller library than the MVS or home system.
On the other hand, some games have extra content for the CD release. Neo Turfmaster has an extra golf course. Metal Slug 1 and 2 have a combat school mode. Art of Fighting 3 has an additional character, but the sprites are smaller than the cartridge version.
There are a few games exclusive to the Neo CD, like Oshidashi Zintrick, Mahjong Final Romance 2, Neo Geo CD Special, ADK World, and Crossed Swords 2. Iron Clad used to be exclusive to it, but people started making repro homecarts for it after the game popped up on Nintendo's Virtual Console.
It's a mostly nice system, but there are better alternatives if you want to play Neo Geo stuff.
As for good Neo Geo games, a lot of them can be acquired and played via the numerous PS2 collections SNK churned out, although there are some good ones that haven't showed up on those yet, like Windjammers.
Last edited by T.A.P.; 07-29-2013 at 12:05 AM.
Don't a lot of the CD games also have arranged soundtracks? I'm not sure if that means "arranged" as in actually played by people with real instruments or just "arranged" in the sense of rendered with better quality instrument samples, but it seems to come up fairly often – along with the painful load times.
Also note that the "CDZ" is a later version of the console that was slightly faster.
In my opinion, you'll have just as much fun with an emulator, or one of the various legal compilations that have come out over the years, and you'll save yourself a lot of money and a lot of trouble.
"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." --Bertrand Russel (attributed)
Not all have arranged soundtracks, but, yeah, many do and with real instruments. It's the same music as on the retail arrange albums, which I believe were released prior to the CD games.
Screw it, I just bought one off eBay from a seller in Japan. I offered a "Best Offer" price of $90.00 for the complete console in good working order and he accepted it. He has great feedback so I'm not to worried.
Now I need to start picking up some games so I can actually play it.
Theres a shooter game thats exclusive to it, Pulstar. Basically it has a ton of MVS ports. You can get games for good prices too. Just get your favorite MVS games for it.
Pulstar is not exclusive to the Neo Geo CD.Originally Posted by JakeM
You're thinking of Iron Clad.
not many exclusives for the system is my understanding and nothing really special about it (except the controller is nice) part of the fun in playing a neo geo game on original hardware versus an emu is playing with those massive carts and joysticks or on a cab which would be cheaper likely if you can afford to have a machine take up space anyway head over to neogeo.com for more!
Just picked up five games from a seller in Japan. Now hopefully they'll all get here fast so I can try it out.
Yeah, the Neo Geo CD controller is fantastic. I actually prefer to use those over a joystick with my consolized MVS (for those who don't know, MVS boards have built in controller ports).
Speaking of the Neo Geo CD, not sure if the Neo Geo cart-based hardware suffers from this, but my CDZ has audio capacitors that are nearing the end of their lives, just like a lot of other '90s electronics (such as the Game Gear, whose audio & video caps are notorious for this issue). Most of the games I have for my CDZ have mildly distorted sound because of it, and I haven't been able to find info on which caps are the ones to replace, so I can't fix it. The CDZs relative obscurity definitely doesn't help with that issue, so for all y'all who are thinking about snagging a CDZ, just be advised that that's another negative you might have to deal with. Glad I was able to buy mine for just a few bucks when I was stationed in Japan so it's no big deal for me.
And yeah, the controller is Fantastic! It's a real piece of work, definitely one of my favorite d-pads of all time. Wish there was an adapter so I could use it on other systems!
Pulstar is on mvs&aes it's not exclusive to the ngcd.Now ironclad was,until it's rom got dumped then reproductions of it showed up for the mvs.The ngcd does not have every mvs release after KOF99 it stopped,until a few years ago when nci released bang busters for it.
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