1st neo geo game that got you hooked?

World heroes, it was in a local pizzeria and let's face it when your 8 and you can clear any arcade game on 1 credit you'll like it. There was also andro dunos, art of fighting and 2020 baseball.

Spinmaster.

Kinda interessting story behind it.

When I was maybe 7-8 years old me and my family had a summer house outside of the city. One weekend when we where there, we went into a Cafe who had an arcade machine which 2 older guys played.
The game looked soooo awesome through my 7-8year old eyes and the only thing I always remebered was that the last boss was a clown, and that you obviously could play 2 player. And since that day I always tryed to find that game.

From time to time I google searched for the game, asked people, did everything I could, but I could never find it.

fast forward 17-18 years and my daughter is newborn and I sit with her and watch speedruns (not sure if she enjoyed it). Anyway then I saw Spinmaster and I just felt- This gotta be it! So I watched it as a Speedrun and just fell in love with how awesome and beutiful the game was...but I was wrong, it wasnt that game, because the end boss was not a clown. So the search was still on, but since that day it was my dream to get a Neo Geo with Spinmaster (Which I eventually did, and wow, it was such an amazing feeling, I played that game 5-6 times a day).


I kept trying to find the game from my childhood and later on found a game called 3 Wonders, and this time I also thought- hey, this gotta be it.
Nope it wasnt... And finally pretty close to when I found 3 Wonders and Spinmaster did I after 17-18 years finally find the game, it was Chicki Chicki Boys! And it still looked as great as I remembered.
Anyway, the 17 year long search for Chicki Chicki Boys is what got me to find Spinmaster and really get into Neo Geo.

The first Neo-Geo game I played was KOF 95 at the arcade, but it did not grab me right away. The first Metal Slug was the one that really hooked me and quickly became my favorite at the local Arcade.

Art Of Fighting.The zoom in and out got me.Amazing..

A long time ago, puzzle bubble, I think it was as I was so hooked on bubble bobble having the same characters was a major factor pulling me too it.. Not do interested in it anymore, though still hooked on bubble bobble..

For me it was always seeing Slug 1 in action. The art style, animations, music and manic gameplay! It had it all for me!

I remember the first pics of Magician Lord that were printed in EGM. Drooling over what was then something I knew my parents would never be able to afford I still couldn't wait to somehow see the game in person. Finally at Grissom Air Force Base in north central Indiana I spied a Candy Cab with ML, Cyber-Lip, and Burning Fight. I don't remember the other games as I am sure it was a 6-slot.

ML has always been the first game that wowed me on the Neo and will always be special to me. Funnily enough I have more nostalgia to those early EGM screenshots than I do when I actually got to play it. I have a boxed copy now but it lacks a manual and some igit wrote their SSN on the back of the cartridge with a soldering iron.

Metal Slug 2 on a white candy cab sitting on a milk crate in Lucky's Arcade in Seaside Heights. (1998).

First post, hello everyone....and I must say it had to be Samurai Shodown. Had Lots of fun with it! Never gets old to hear the game try and pronounce "Earthquake". Sounds like "Ahhthquick" :P

Nam 1975 was the first Neo game I ever played in my old mall arcade, but it wasn't until 2004ish that I got hooked on Neo and started collecting it. Of all games, it was Neo Turf Masters that did it - the first time I played it, I had to own it.

I only started collecting Neo Geo 2 years ago but the first game i played on my AES was Samurai Shodown 2. It was basicly the reason why i started collecting Neo Geo after seeing gameplay footage and a review by Classic Game Room. The latter has made a huge impact on me as a retro gamer.

Samurai shodown i discovered this game during holidays in greece! Absolutely mind blowing. I spent the whole evening by playing instead of having a dinner with my family good times!

I "blame" Magician Lord for mesmerizing and captivating my younger self. I remember when I first saw the Neo-Geo cabinet. The games I recall seeing were Magician Lord, Nam 1975, Baseball Stars Professional, and The Super Spy. While I enjoyed all of those, Magician Lord was the one that impressed me the most. I was blown away by the ninja and dragon-man transformations!

Because of that game, I've been in the SNK death grip ever since.

Metal slug 1 at my friends house, I used to be such a contra die-hard fan until I played metal slug. Still my favorite run and gun game to date.

Puzzle Bobble - the first Neo Geo game I ever saw - caught my eye. I knew nothing about the platform at the time though.

Metal Slug - 2nd game I saw - really got me hooked though. I just don't know where I saw it first, arcades or emulation. I do recall exactly where I saw it in the arcades. By that time I had learned of the Neo Geo via emulation.

Puzzle Bobble was my first too, the sounds of popping bobbles is forever burnt in to my brain.

Agree

Puzzle bobble gives me the same addictive effect like playing tetris attack great game!

shatterstar78 said:

Puzzle Bobble was my first too, the sounds of popping bobbles is forever burnt in to my brain.

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When the Neo first came out I wasn't that big into fighters (and when I did play them it was always a SFII variant) so I mostly ignored it like an idiot until around 1996 when I noticed a 4-slot at a Fuddruckers my family went to a lot and decided to play. I ended up standing there for like 45 minutes playing the four excellent games in this cab:

KOF 95
Sonic Wings 2
Neo Driftout
Samurai Shodown (1 or 2, can't remember)

It was a very "whoa" moment and I became a Neo fan for life, have owned an absurd AES collection (and then sold it all to buy a car before the current retro bubble so I got lousy money) and now mostly stick to the CD and am slowly getting the games I like that aren't on CD or have lousy loads on MVS carts for whenever I get around to getting a supergun.

EDIT: Some other Neo stories:

1. In my town when I was in high school (late 90's,early 2000s) the place where fighting game fans hung out was the arcade of a local dollar theater which had some Capcom fighters and a MVS 2-slot with SamSho 3 and Puzzle Bobble. Friday nights were huge there and the place was always full of people who knew their shit playing the games. A guy we knew comes running in out of breath and announces "THEY PUT A SAMSHO 4 IN MIAMI SUBS! (local fast food chain)". At this point we were so sick of SS3 and had been playing SS4 emulated for a while now that the place instantly empties out and like 15 people run a few blocks down to Miami Subs and bust in at the same time all cramming into the tiny arcade cubicle. Keep in mind it's all teenage FGC kids, so very loud and obnoxious. We got thrown out instantly and the cab was gone after a week.

2. During the mid 2000s an ex-gf of mine worked at a horse racetrack managing some kiddie rides (for the kids to use while their parents gambled their college fund away). I spent a lot of time there and they had an arcade with nothing but some garbage and a 4-slot that clearly hadn't been updated since the early 90's: Fatal Fury Special, SamSho1, a World Heroes game and I want to say NAM-1975. There were like 10 year old kids whose parents were compulsive gamblers who spent all day in that arcade and were fucking amazing at these ancient fighters. Really, really "hood" kids who would absolutely destroy you in FFS or SS, it was a total blast coming in there and having some kid who can barely see the screen dish out a beating like a pro.

thanks for the stories dosdemon, good read. I whish I had been around in those days... fucking Germany.

I walked into the local gaming store and they had Art of Fighting on the big screen. The characters walked towards each other and the camera ZOOMED IN. Blew my god damn mind. A while later I played Samurai Shodown at the arcade and again, the camera ZOOMED IN. Later I rented Fatal Fury on Sega Genesis, and then I was pretty much hooked.

The first game that made me want to buy a home system was The King of Fighters '95. I borrowed it from a friend on Playstation and enjoyed the hell out of it. The long loading didn't turn me off. I remember playing it every day just to get a bit better at playing against the AI.

I just plugged in the game again. So many good memories. It's still a fantastic game.

It wasn't the first one I played but metal slug 2 got me hooked, loved it. Still do.

The Art of Fighting. The zooming blew me away, and also the art direction was so badass compared with SF2. Also having story developing between fights was really cool!

Super sidekicks was mine! The graphics on that game were so good! The sprites were just incredible. Then on the same day I saw a Fatal Fury (not sure which one) then somewhere near there was a Samurai Showdown game! Thank goodness for Skegness Arcades! UK holiday destinations where the only place for me to play NEO games! Holiday pocket money didn't last very long, I was shit at the games. The good old days.

Fatal Fury Special. To this day, that game is still my most favorite title. It might as well be super glued into my aes, because I love it. I will never stop loving FFS. It was the first neo game I ever bought and it was for the CD. I got it from gameland in the 90's. Then it became my first home cart also. I own it on all three formats, as with some of my more loved titles.

Art of Fighting, it was quite amazing, specially when you were used to Street Fighter then you see those big sprites.
That's where it all started for me as a Neo-Geo fan