Neo Rank Masters Discussion Thread - EVERY Neo-Geo game ranked (LordBBH)

[Gremlin]

Wanted to start a community discussion thread for the quarter boy's new series: @BBH will be going through every Neo-Geo game in order of release (actually NGH product number) and have them ranked by his viewers LIVE, which should eventually give birth to the DEFINITIVE*, UNCONTROVERSIAL** and INARGUABLE*** ranked list of the best and worst Neo-Geo games that sweaty youtubers, smelly redditors, ebay scumbags and clickbait articles will reference and steal for years to come.

LordBBH's:
Twitch Channel
Youtube Channel

Click here for an up-to-date spreadsheet of the current rankings

Here's an introduction video to the concept:

Will update the thread as episodes are released

* Ranking is entirely subjective based on the polled viewers

 

[Gremlin]

THE FACTS****
(As of: 2022-03-15)

10 8 best games on the Neo-Geo:

1. NAM-1975
2. Magician Lord
3. Cyber-Lip
4. King of the Monsters
5. The Super Spy
6. Blue's Journey
7. League Bowling
8. Baseball Stars Professional

10 8 worst games on the Neo-Geo:

1. Riding Hero
2. Puzzled/Joy-Joy Kid
3. Top Players Golf
4. Ghost Pilots
5. Sengoku
6. Alpha Mission II
7. Burning Fight
8. Ninja Combat

2 > X: TBD

**** Not actually facts or to be taken seriously

 

[Tarma]

which should eventually give birth to the DEFINITIVE, UNCONTROVERSIAL and INARGUABLE ranked list of the best and worst Neo-Geo games that sweaty youtubers, smelly redditors, ebay scumbags and clickbait articles will reference and steal for years to come....

Doubtful. Opinion of any videogame is highly subjective. I already disagree with that list and you've barely scratched the surface of the library.

I'll take Baseball Stars Pro over Magician Lord any day of the week.

You may end up with the "common denominators relatively acurate ranked list of best to worst", but it won't be definitive.

 

[Gremlin]

Opinions of the first "episode": Pretty uncontroversial lol

Neither Top Players Golf or Baseball Stars Professional are bad at all in isolation, but both have been made completely obsolete by their "sequels" and there's little reason to go back to them much beyond curiosity. Meanwhile, launch titles NAM-1975 and Magician Lord end up being pretty unique experiences and end up standing out when compared to the entire Neo-Geo library. I also feel like they both hold up well technically to later Neo-Geo releases, which is pretty impressive for launch titles. In contrast, the sports titles definitely show their age visually, especially Top Players Golf

An interesting comparison for sure, good way to start off a series

Doubtful. Opinion of any videogame is highly subjective. I already disagree with that list and you've barely scratched the surface of the library.

I'll take Baseball Stars Pro over Magician Lord any day of the week.

You may end up with thre common denominators relatively acurate ranked list of best to worst, but it won't be definitive.

It was a gag lol.
It's not even BBH's opinion, it's whoever's in the chat each episode.

I'm hoping this thread will lead to some discussion on the choices of said viewers and how we agree, disagree etc.

 

[Tarma]

Opinions of the first "episode": Pretty uncontroversial lol

Neither Top Players Golf or Baseball Stars Professional are bad at all in isolation, but both have been made completely obsolete by their "sequels" and there's little reason to go back to them much beyond curiosity. Meanwhile, launch titles NAM-1975 and Magician Lord end up being pretty unique experiences and end up standing out when compared to the entire Neo-Geo library. I also feel like they both hold up well technically to later Neo-Geo releases, which is pretty impressive for launch titles. In contrast, the sports titles definitely show their age visually, especially Top Players Golf

An interesting comparison for sure, good way to start off a series



It was a gag lol.
It's not even BBH's opinion, it's whoever's in the chat each episode.

I'm hoping this thread will lead to some discussion on the choices of said viewers and how we agree, disagree etc.

Sorry, coffee not kicked in yet... I missed the irony of your post, I guess.

I'll tell you how this'll end:

Disillusioned rants.
Shots fired.
Plane tickets bought.

 

[Neodogg]

I glad we agree on 2>X

 

[Burning Fight!!]

Magician Lord comes real close to being the best Neo game, completely right, also 1 > 2 > X

 

[city41]

also 1 > 2 > X

Really 1 > all other slugs

 

[BBH]

oh right I probably should have made a thread here lmao

it's nothing serious, people are always going to find faults with any list of this nature. If you like Baseball Stars Professional better than Magician Lord, you're certainly entitled to that opinion, but the majority is deciding, and I'm doing this all on stream so if you're not there then it's hard to make a case for it. Hell, people were practically split down the middle on whether NAM-1975 was better than Magician Lord, so a lot of people will already disagree with it. It's to be expected. All of this is really just an excuse for me to stream every Neo-Geo game because I just like playing Neo-Geo games a lot

on Monday I'll be looking at Riding Hero, Ninja Combat, and The Super Spy, so... yeah, all the heavy hitters.

 

[slugger_dan]

The even split between NAM/Magician Lord sounds about right to me. They’re two of the better 1990 titles, both are difficult but not to the point of unfairness (not counting level 8 here), neither are too hard to 1cc with a bit of persistence, both provide some sense of accomplishment when you finally do get the clear. Compared to the other 1990 games though, I think they’re a lot more demanding in execution than a game like CyberLip where you can just breeze through it on level 8 with a bit of pattern memorisation.

 

[Gremlin]

Catching up to this week:

Riding Hero has (rightfully) taken the crown as the current worst Neo Geo game, and The Super Spy slides in below Magician Lord and above Baseball Stars as the 3rd current best game. Ninja Combat lands short of the mid-range ends up in the lower half at 5, above Top Player's Golf

My take:

The Super Spy: I'd have ranked it below Baseball Stars but it's in the right ballpark for the current list.
I respect what it's trying to do, but certain aspects aren't explained at all and it's pretty repetitive. Also it's so damn long. That being said, it's pretty ahead of it's time and the actual Punch-Out game play is still entertaining and it's got good production value. The OST is solid too (gotta love that Neo-Geo slap bass). I wish they made a second one with more variety.

Ninja Combat: I think it's in around the right spot, although I'd play it over The Super Spy personally.
Another game I wanted to like, but it's just kinda meh. Compared to the others in this episode it feels the most dated visually, but I personally think all early ADK games are kinda ugly. I like the sound effect design though and the gameplay isn't bad.

Riding Hero: God did I want to like this game. Like Super Spy, I respect it. A racing game with a story mode is an really cool idea and you can tell that there was SOME care put into the "plot", but man it's just not that fun to play. It's neat to see that style of game on the Neo hardware but after 3 minutes you've seen everything. Maybe it was doomed from the start being on the Neo Geo, as I can't really think of many Pole Position or Outrun style games that didn't have a steering wheel or handlebar controls. Maybe SNK thought the same, because they didn't try at all to make any more racing games that weren't a top-down affair like Overtop or Thrash Rally.

Random fun-fact: Riding Hero shows up in an episode of High Score Girl for some reason, with the main character playing it as "training" to learn how to drive a scooter. I'm 100% sure it's because it was the only arcade racing game they could think of that would be playable on a normal candy cab, so that they wouldn't have to model and illustrate a new arcade machine and they could re-use the Astro model they already have

 

[BBH]

to be fair I've streamed The Super Spy way too much so I think my audience is biased towards it at this point, lol. I can completely understand an argument to put Ninja Combat ahead of The Super Spy, it's a much more accessible game (although still not a GREAT game). I will forever defend The Super Spy for actually becoming somewhat fun once you understand how to play it on 1 credit, the problem of course being that it's not completely obvious how the game should be played at first glance. Also there's the whole needing to know where to go on each floor, with a lot of rooms just there to waste your time with enemy ambushes. I love the game more than most people but I will fully admit it's got a lot of problems and certainly isn't a very accessible game for the average player. I don't know if it should have ranked that high but eh, it'll get knocked down soon enough

 

[Gremlin]

Updated the rankings a couple days ago. Bumping with my smelly thoughts:

• #4: - King of the Monsters: Love this game - wrasslin' Kaijus is a brilliant combo. It's a real highlight of the MVS and SNK in general IMO. If there was a Six Slot MVS "Mount Rushmore" then King of the Monsters would be on it. Well, maybe on a slightly smaller, second MVS Rushmore below the first one. I'd put it above Cyber Lip for sure, maybe even above Magician Lord on some days personally.
  
  I've had fun whenever I've played it I always felt like the A.I. was unfair, but watching BBH play it again makes me want to try and 1-ALL it for myself
  
  
• #6 - Blue's Journey: never clicked it me whenever I played it, but I think it's ranked fairly. Not a terrible game at all, and another scrolling platformer is nice to have in the library since there won't be too many more in the future. Really feels like a console game. Would rank it above Super Spy lol
  
  
• #10 - Burning Fight: Man, I wanted to like this game so bad when I first got into MVS games because I really wanted a Final Fight experience. This is Walmart "Great Value" Final Fight. Closer to Dollar Tree Final Fight. Was really disappointed in it at the time, but I guess it's sorta playable. I'd rank it lower personally
  
  
• #11 - Alpha Mission 2: pretty damn ho-hum. The first stage music tricks me everytime into thinking it's going to be better than it ends up being. Still, not a bad game. Collecting parts of an upgrade sounds more interesting than it ends up being. Infinitely better than Ghost Pilots. Ranked fairly I guess, although I'd put it above Burning Fight for sure
  
  
• #12 - Sengoku: I guess Burning Fight seems less bullshit than Sengoku but I feel like the uniqueness of the setting and variety of settings/transitions makes it "better" in my eyes than oatmeal-ass Burning Fight
  
  
• #13 - Ghost Pilots: I fucking hate Ghost Pilots. I'd straight up put it below Riding Hero at dead last. At least Riding Hero TRIED to do something and failed, Ghosts Pilots is just things lifted from other contemporary shmups but done worse in almost every way. I guess the graphics are nice sorta
  
  
• #15 - Puzzled: I feel like this game gets too much hate. I think it's perfectly fine as a Tetris Plus kinda thing. Should have just been sped up more maybe. and not be a Ben-Hur length game

Overall, I mostly agree with the current standings. Super Spy is definitely too high, but that's just the "House Edge" at work