Power of Neo geo

[Tarma]

The neo-geo is dead ffs. Just enjoy its legacy library of games or move on.

Comparisons of its technology compared with its contemporary peers were done when it was all current. It might shock some of you to know tech has moved on a bit since 1990.

 

[sirlynxalot]

Oh my get the pillows out

I don't understand. Can you explain this to me?

 

[kernow]

I don't understand. Can you explain this to me?

Waifu animation

 

[SignOfGoob]

You don’t need “2D hardware” anymore when you have a decent PC…from 15 years ago. You can do whatever you want in software. Lack of human artistic power is then the bottleneck.

 

[SignOfGoob]

I think the graphical limits of the Neo were a good thing, because they forced the developers to make the graphics/gameplay as good as they could. But in the end the Neo's limits ended up being just a handicap.
The Atomiswave had (technically) better graphics, but the system didn't last as long. With games like Metal Slug 6, it's obvious there wasn't as much work put into the graphics (backgrounds) as the earlier Slugs.
As far as 2D fighters, you could say that the CPSIII was the successor to the Neo Geo.

Not even. The CPS3 wasn’t even a proper sequel to the CPS2. It died in the 90s whereas the 16-bit boards lived longer into the 2000s.

(See: Volvo 240)

 

[madmanjock]

You don’t need “2D hardware” anymore when you have a decent PC…from 15 years ago. You can do whatever you want in software. Lack of human artistic power is then the bottleneck.

By the time you could get 1 Ghz Processors you could run any 2D game in MAME without needing to use frame-skip. Dedicated 2D hardware has been a academic curiosity for sometime now.

 

[joe8]

You don’t need “2D hardware” anymore when you have a decent PC…from 15 years ago. You can do whatever you want in software. Lack of human artistic power is then the bottleneck.

Even during the later period of it's 14 year lifetime, the Neo Geo was underpowered for 2D, compared to other arcade systems. But it also depends on how much work/effort is put into making the game. The graphical limitations of the Neo probably led to better games in some cases, because they knew the gameplay had to be good. An example of that is Metal Slug, which looked as good as any other run n' gun, despite being on an outdated system.

Metal Slug 6 was on a more advanced system, but it didn't have the detailed backgrounds (with destructible items) that earlier Metal Slugs had. They could have included that feature, if they wanted to. But they probably just wanted to "modernise" the look of the game. All the games they programmed for the Neo (in the later years) were forced to have a somewhat "retro" look (low res).

 

[kernow]

What other arcade systems are you comparing it to at the time?

 

[madmanjock]

Yeah the Neo Geo 2D games looked better than anything 2D on say the Playstation, Saturn or N64. That’s pretty impressive for late 80s hardware.

 

[Heinz]

Yeah the Neo Geo 2D games looked better than anything 2D on say the Playstation, Saturn or N64. That’s pretty impressive for late 80s hardware.

Impressive but only because the first generation of 3D console hardware was focusing on different things and struggled with format transition.

A good fat cartidge in the slot does wonders aye.

 

[Catoblepa]

PGM is a Neo Geo clone, not a successor. The scant improvements are just because it's so much newer.

If you consider the MVS multi-slot feature one of the defining characteristics of the Neo, I guess it never had a proper successor; but leaving PGM aside, I feel the closest thing to a Neo Geo 2 has been the Taito F3. It worked with carts (well, if you want to call "carts" those huge red bricks that no arcade operator ever bothered to swap), it was a 2D only powerhouse and it even shared a game with the Neo library, Puzzle Bobble 2. That's pretty unusual for those times! Another semi-official, ill-fated heir was Brezzasoft's Crystal System, 'cause it was created by ex SNK employees.

 

[joe8]

Impressive but only because the first generation of 3D console hardware was focusing on different things and struggled with format transition.

A good fat cartidge in the slot does wonders aye.

At least for the Playstation, Sony didn't want to focus on 2D games, even though it could do them well. I think on some of the PSX ports, there were load times, and some of sprites weren't as big as the Neo Geo ones.
Just about as soon as 3D games/systems came out, it seemed like all the games dropped all their coverage of 2D games, or disparaged game series that were still 2D. So, 3D must have been where the money was- games magazines were largely just promotional vehicles, to get people to buy systems & games.

Yeah the Neo Geo 2D games looked better than anything 2D on say the Playstation, Saturn or N64. That’s pretty impressive for late 80s hardware.

The Neo in the arcade was always RGB/60Hz, but when we played Playstation (in Australia) it was composite video (at best), and I'm not sure whether we even played it in 60Hz.

 

[madmanjock]

The Neo in the arcade was always RGB/60Hz, but when we played Playstation (in Australia) it was composite video (at best), and I'm not sure whether we even played it in 60Hz.

It’s probably more due to the piddly little RAM the Playstation had if you’ve experienced the chance to play a Neo Geo port and see all the cut frames of animation.

Those Neo Geo fuck off carts allowed for super fast loading of ROM data which CD couldn’t compete with.

I guess the N64 could do similar to the Neo Geo or better but apart from Paper Mario and Yoshi’s Story I can’t think of many games to highlight 2D on the N64. And those games looked a bit like ass.

 

[Catoblepa]

I guess the N64 could do similar to the Neo Geo or better but apart from Paper Mario and Yoshi’s Story I can’t think of many games to highlight 2D on the N64. And those games looked a bit like ass.

Mostly thanks to N64's patented Blurry Vision, that hideous mandatory bilinear filtering that destroyed even decent looking games and made you feel like you were playing in a sauna. It was bad for 3D, but 2D suffered the most.
The Playstation made up for its lack in RAM with all sorts of tricks, and its bitmap graphics worked in a completely different way than the Neo: some 2D assets weren't sprites, but textures applied to transparent polygons (rectangles). That helped with all sorts of effects that suddenly became incredibly easy to process, and I think Castlevania Symphony of the Night is an excellent example of that (there's some great video on Youtube about it). But when you had to port a game from the Neo, without rebuilding it from scratch, RAM became essential.

 

[Burning Fight!!]

I think by the point the PS1/Satan came around every dev worth their salt already knew about the huge tradeoff CDs had against cartridges of the time. One of the guys at Hudson that helped with the CDROM2 and the first Far East of Eden described it best: CDs felt like trying to scoop up the ocean with a paper cup (64k of RAM means you can only look at 64k at a time from a massive 650mb). It took a long while for the paper cup problem to go away (and the PS3 brought it back for another gen with its abysmally slow bd drive).

The Neo Geo CD specs were pretty damn respectable for the time but the massive ROM sizes of actual Neo-Geo games forced the poor thing into frequent long loading times -- the paper cup analogy fits it very well. There was just no way for PS1 ports to be able to compete with the neo without loss of quality, and the Satan could barely match it acceptably by having a RAM expansion.

 

[kernow]

I think by the point the PS1/Satan came around every dev worth their salt already knew about the huge tradeoff CDs had against cartridges of the time. One of the guys at Hudson that helped with the CDROM2 and the first Far East of Eden described it best: CDs felt like trying to scoop up the ocean with a paper cup (64k of RAM means you can only look at 64k at a time from a massive 650mb). It took a long while for the paper cup problem to go away (and the PS3 brought it back for another gen with its abysmally slow bd drive).

The Neo Geo CD specs were pretty damn respectable for the time but the massive ROM sizes of actual Neo-Geo games forced the poor thing into frequent long loading times -- the paper cup analogy fits it very well. There was just no way for PS1 ports to be able to compete with the neo without loss of quality, and the Satan could barely match it acceptably by having a RAM expansion.

Sigh

 

[Burning Fight!!]

yes that's what playstation owners did

 

[kernow]

Ho boy

 

[madmanjock]

Y call Saturn Satan?

Sounds like a playground dis

 

[Burning Fight!!]

Y call Saturn Satan?

Sounds like a playground dis

It's just dumb wordplay that sounds slightly funnier in my own language (I'm retarded). Saturn aged much better than the PS on a lot of stuff.

 

[Neo Alec]

I guess the N64 could do similar to the Neo Geo or better but apart from Paper Mario and Yoshi’s Story I can’t think of many games to highlight 2D on the N64. And those games looked a bit like ass.

Mischief Makers, Wonder Project J2. Mortal Kombat Trilogoy and Killer Instinct exist, for fighting games. RakugaKids is interesting.

 

[Neo Alec]

The attempts at finding a Neo Geo successor in this thread are funny, because the only true successor of course was Hyper Neo Geo 64. It just wasn't successful.

If you want to get abstract, it would be Atomiswave, since that's where SNKP moved after ditching the MVS hardware.

 

[Catoblepa]

The attempts at finding a Neo Geo successor in this thread are funny, because the only true successor of course was Hyper Neo Geo 64. It just wasn't successful.

If you want to get abstract, it would be Atomiswave, since that's where SNKP moved after ditching the MVS hardware.

Let's say "spiritual successor"... the Hyper Neo Geo 64 was anything but that, unfortunately

 

[Neo Alec]

Let's say "spiritual successor"... the Hyper Neo Geo 64 was anything but that, unfortunately

Yeah I know. But it's going to just be something different for everyone (people who think Capcom took the reigns with CPS, etc). I say "meh" to that whole conversation. Atomiswave is a choice based on facts at least.

 

[Catoblepa]

Yeah I know. But it's going to just be something different for everyone (people who think Capcom took the reigns with CPS, etc). I say "meh" to that whole conversation. Atomiswave is a choice based on facts at least.

Yep, the whole conversation is pretty much an exercise in futility... and the Atomiswave is clearly the big successor, if you look at the SNKP support; still, I can't forget that it's basically just a Dreamcast with a red coat of paint, so I look at 2D-only machines to find the Neo Geo 2.0