Does the NeoGeo AES have the most consistent high quality library in console gaming?

[giallo]

I was going through my NeoGeo collection on my Switch the other day, and it dawned on me that SNK's extremely expensive console from 1990 might have the most consistent library of games quality-wise. While the latter half of the console's life lacked diversity in a big way (it became the de facto fighting game machine), that didn't take away from the quality of those titles. So much of what it did do in other genres was good to fantastic. It really doesn't have much shovelware/bad games.

I think the best word to describe the quality of the AES'' library: fun.

Here's just a taster-choice of some of the great games of the system.

Metal Slug

Magical Drop

King of Fighters 2002

Cyber-Lip

Neo Turf Masters

Last Resort

Windjammers

Fatal Fury Special

King of Fighter '98

Magician Lord

Shock Troopers

Samurai Showdown

Aero Fighters 2

Garou: Mark of the Wolves

The Super Spy

Robo Army

League Bowling

Baseball Stars 2

So what do you think? Is there an argument to be had about the MVS' library being the most consistent? If not, what's your pick?

 

[retroman]

Yeah, while there's not that much variety genre-wise, I think the quality of the Neo Geo library is quite high.

 

[100mega]

It's a dream. You'll be prying my MVS carts out of my cold dead hands.

 

[emperor bohe]

I think so, it's really hard to find a bad neo geo game. Also impressive is that it lasted for over a decade.

 

[senj]

I feel like it has a very high quality average for the set of games in its library, but its library also lacks many high quality entries in various genres, so the answer is kind of "yes but also no".

 

[klee123]

It's missing a lot of good beat em ups, but yeah, for the library size, it's pretty darn good.

That said, I think I prefer the CPS2 hardware more.

 

[Deleted member 8752]

It's kind of cheating since it really was an arcade system first and console second. But yea, nearly all of its games are at least decent, and some are up there as the best of their genre.

But it's not the type of system that was at all conducive to shovel ware or low quality games due to the niche focus on the arcade. Remember, the AES was originally designed as a rental system for hotels, bars, and restaurants. So most developers who made poor quality games had zero incentive to focus on it. The audience was arcade enthusiasts so the games HAD to be good.

 

[Metal Gear?!]

Capcom CPS Changer beats it handily

 

[giallo]

It's kind of cheating since it really was an arcade system first and console second. But yea, nearly all of its games are at least decent, and some are up there as the best of their genre.

But it's not the type of system that was at all conducive to shovel ware or low quality games due to the niche focus on the arcade. Remember, the AES was originally designed as a rental system for hotels, bars, and restaurants. So most developers who made poor quality games had zero incentive to focus on it. The audience was arcade enthusiasts so the games HAD to be good.

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That's a good point, and something I was thinking as well. Due to its arcade focus, you needed proper cheese to lure the arcade rats, so shovelware wasn't going to fly.

 

[kubev]

Not sure if the ratio is quite as good, but I'd almost put Dreamcast in this contest. Dreamcast has a hell of a lot of great games, and the "bad" ones are generally the lazy PlayStation ports.

 

[RomanticHeroX]

SNK fighters do nothing for me so personally not even close.

 

[JusDoIt]

Yes. It's not the most varied console library, but that's a HUGE library of quality first party titles. Like it rarely hits the heights of other great consoles, but it has almost NONE of the abysmal lows even the greatest consoles have. Most of the worst games still be 7/10.

 

[GameOver]

At the beginning yes but them Saturn showed up with good quality SNK ports plus Capcom amazing near arcade perfect ports of Street Fighterand the VS series and then Dreamcast by the tail end of the life of the console.

 

[Deleted member 17210]

Vectrex is up there, too, but it had a much shorter lifespan with a lot less games.

 

[StrangeRoboMemory]

It's kind of cheating since it really was an arcade system first and console second. But yea, nearly all of its games are at least decent, and some are up there as the best of their genre.

But it's not the type of system that was at all conducive to shovel ware or low quality games due to the niche focus on the arcade. Remember, the AES was originally designed as a rental system for hotels, bars, and restaurants. So most developers who made poor quality games had zero incentive to focus on it. The audience was arcade enthusiasts so the games HAD to be good.

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Good post.

It's missing a lot of good beat em ups

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Sengoku 3 is a godly beat em up that gets slept on, check it out.

 

[andymcc]

It's an incredibly high quality library but also a much different sort of demographic and library focus that you got on consoles. It definitely has the highest good game to bad game ratio of any console, but there are lots of other console's overall libraries i'd prefer over it.

 

[squeakywheel]

I'm still partial to the Dreamcast. The Neo Geo was a pipe dream for so many as it was unaffordable.

 

[klee123]

Good post.



Sengoku 3 is a godly beat em up that gets slept on, check it out.

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I own it and I reckon it's the best beat em up on the system, but I still feel it pales in compariaon to AVP and D&D personally which both are within in the top 5 of all time for me.

 

[Outrun]

Didn't Last Resort have a shit ton of slow down?

 

[PepsimanVsJoe]

That's one of the perks of having a library that's made up entirely of arcade games. You're guaranteed a wealth of consistent and entertaining content.

The Super Spy though...oh boy. That game did not need to be 2 hours long.

 

[mopinks]

I can't go to bat for Magician Lord

 

[TΛPIVVΛ]

This and cps 1 -3 are some of my favourite and will end up collecting when I have a place big enough was and still is an amazing system

 

[entremet]

I can't go to bat for Magician Lord

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Why not?

 

[mopinks]

Why not?

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I prefer fun games

 

[PepsimanVsJoe]

AGAIN CHANGES TO HELL

Yeah I can understand disliking Magician Lord. Those immortal words above are engraved upon my skull.

 

[StrangeRoboMemory]

I own it and I reckon it's the best beat em up on the system, but I still feel it pales in compariaon to AVP and D&D personally which both are within in the top 5 of all time for me.

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Yeah, can't argue there, those are the cream of the crop.

 

[Lakeside]

I went to Incredible Universe in Dallas in the 90s and saw an entire shelf of close-out AES games. I didn't buy anything and I'll never forget.

 

[bionic77]

I mean what is the argument against it?

No other console that I can think of was half as consistent as the Neo Geo.

It didn't have the most varied library or a diverse genre but imagine your chances of picking a good game if you tried it at random with any other console other than Neo Geo.

 

[woodypop]

I prefer fun games

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I'm glad I enjoy playing the first few levels over and over. I really like the music and transformation mechanic, as well as the general aesthetic of Magician Lord. But GOOD GOD does it get too difficult for its own good. I either get overwhelmed by the trident-wielding frogmen, or the flying skeleton fish. But I do have fun until then lol

 

[Taco_Human]

Using a neo sd pro and I can definitely say there are lots of good stuff, and plenty of junk as well.

 

[andymcc]

Using a neo sd pro and I can definitely say there are lots of good stuff, and plenty of junk as well.

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i mean, this does describe just about every game console lol

 

[D.Lo]

It's kind of cheating since it really was an arcade system first and console second. But yea, nearly all of its games are at least decent, and some are up there as the best of their genre.

But it's not the type of system that was at all conducive to shovel ware or low quality games due to the niche focus on the arcade. Remember, the AES was originally designed as a rental system for hotels, bars, and restaurants. So most developers who made poor quality games had zero incentive to focus on it. The audience was arcade enthusiasts so the games HAD to be good.

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Yep this. Even the AES wasn't originally designed as a consumer system.

 

[Glimlocker]

Hm, not growing up playing Neo-Geo games and only really digging into them in the past 7-8 years, I don't think this assumption is entirely accurate.

I do think you may be right on the general overall quality of the games. Many of the games - probably 70% percent - are good to great games.

But, yet, I'd choose many other consoles over it for better library, and I can't quite explain why. I think it's because it doesn't have any absolute best games of the generation(s). I may be wrong here, since I'm so new to the library, but being limited to only arcade-style games makes it a tougher sell for me.

But yea, nearly all of its games are at least decent, and some are up there as the best of their genre.

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I am actually interested in learning more about the best (or excellent) games of the respective genres on the NeoGeo.
I've probably played them. My personal favorite fighting game - Mark of the Wolves - is obviously on NeoGeo.
In fact, I think I greatly prefer the NeoGeo fighting games to any Capcom fighter.

For almost every other arcade genre, though (beat em ups, shmups, run n guns) I prefer Capcom games.

 

[Futaleufu]

I believe this could be proven with math. From 158 officially released games less than 10 can be considered bad games, thats less than 10% of its library. I'm sure any other system has way more than 10% of bad games.

 

[leder]

There's another Neo Geo with an even higher quality title ratio.

Neo Geo Pocket Color. Almost everything released for it is worth playing.

 

[halcali]

9 out of 10 games are worth playing still today!

My sentimental favorite:

KOF'96

 

[Teenage Fansub]

You'd have to assume the audience was too discerning to try and publish too much crap.
There aren't many confused mums buying their kids $200 shovelware.

 

[L Thammy]

I feel like the most significant aspect to this is the amount of weight that SNK is personally pulling with the library.

Not to say that SNK was bad or anything, but imagine the consistency you'd get if you took a Nintendo console and got rid of almost anything that wasn't Nintendo.

That said, Breakers Revenge and Twinkle Star Sprites are rad.

 

[giallo]

9 out of 10 games are worth playing still today!

My sentimental favorite:

KOF'96

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A quick aside:

I just bought the KOF Collection: The Orochi Saga (which has KOF '96), and the collection straight up don't work on the PS5. You can get to the 'press start' screen, but no button input works after that.

 

[MikeProtagonist]

Probably, if nothing else simply because SNK published a ton of really solid games and there was a huge risk to put out a bad game on those expensive carts. But there are a lot of games that are quite average.

 

[Scarlet Death]

they won the console wars of that decade as far as cool factor, i'll tell you that much.

 

[Timu]

It's kind of cheating since it really was an arcade system first and console second. But yea, nearly all of its games are at least decent, and some are up there as the best of their genre.

But it's not the type of system that was at all conducive to shovel ware or low quality games due to the niche focus on the arcade. Remember, the AES was originally designed as a rental system for hotels, bars, and restaurants. So most developers who made poor quality games had zero incentive to focus on it. The audience was arcade enthusiasts so the games HAD to be good.

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I agree with everything you said!

 

[Thrill_house]

Yeah bit it was literally an home arcade set up. I only knew one person that had a neogeo, if I remember correctly the games were super expensive. It was really cool but hard to compare to other systems at the time...it felt untouchable to most of my crew due to the costs

 

[AgeEighty]

Neo Geo was one of those consoles alongside stuff like 3DO and Philips CD-i that my friends and I never considered seriously because they were for rich kids whose parents would buy them anything they asked for, i.e. not us.

 

[ShinUltramanJ]

Eh…depends.

They obviously did pretty good fighting games, but beyond that I found their beat 'em ups to be mediocre. Games like Cyberlip and Magician Lord were just okay. Shooters were okay, but not among the best in the industry.

I guess you could say it had a higher quality overall since it had very little support.

Game for game it'd come in last place among that generation's consoles, for me. And I say this as a former AES owner back in the day.

 

[Gusy]

a great library all around..

My only issue is that I feel like a lot of games for the MVS were difficult in a "cheap" way.. like they were primarily designed to function as arcade games that were made to suck cash out of players.

 

[giallo]

Yeah bit it was literally an home arcade set up. I only knew one person that had a neogeo, if I remember correctly the games were super expensive. It was really cool but hard to compare to other systems at the time...it felt untouchable to most of my crew due to the costs

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I never knew anyone who owned a NeoGeo back in the day. I'm ashamed to say that if young me did find out someone had one, I would have befriended him solely to play it.

 

[DrFunk]

I cannot sanction Legend of Success Joe

 

[Mg.]

Fair assessment, I think. Its biggest weakness were probably the 2 or 3 racing games. Those were pretty butt.

Also visually speaking plenty of games looking timelessly beautiful.

 

[Dodongo]

I'm such a sucker for SNK games. They're so beautiful.