Something I've learned playing Neo Geo games this week

edd_jedi

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This may be obvious to some people, but having come from home games consoles to the Neo Geo, I've noticed something which is quite annoying about some of the games.

These are not home computer games, they are arcade games. The point of (good) home console games is to keep you playing and enable you to improve, however the sole purpose of an arcade game is to eat as much of your money as quickly as possible.

Example - Neo Turf Masters. I've played it quite a bit over the last week, and although I really enjoy it, it is sometimes completely unfair. For no apparent reason your putt can come up short, bend off target, your drive can be 50 yards shorter than it should be, etc.

Now this makes complete sense for an arcade game. NTM only wants you to play 3 holes at a time before you have to spend more money. But it does slightly take the fun out of it when you are trying to improve at the game.

I noticed Puzzle Bobble has an 'MVS' difficulty setting which I can only imagine means completely unfair, I haven't tried it yet. Perhaps more NG games should have had both 'home' and MVS modes.
 

Raiden328i

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I saw a video on youtube and a collector said the home games tend to be harder to challenge the owner more. This was because SNK didn't want customers getting the hump spending loads of money on games and finding they finish them so quickly
 

edd_jedi

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I think there's a big difference between games being hard and games being unfair. I have played lots of very hard games, I recently completed Zelda Breath of the Wild which was very difficult in places, but difficult because I had to learn a technique or have super accurate timing. Unfair is none of those things - unfair is, like my example above, you are 10 feet away from a hole on the green, the map says it is completely flat, yet for no reason at all the ball goes 2 feet wide of the hole. That has nothing to do with skill or timing etc, it's the game deciding it wants you to put another credit in.
 

Heinz

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It took you a week to figure out that Neo Geo games are arcade games? oh boy.
 

edd_jedi

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It might sound silly, but if you think about it, the Neo Geo was the ONLY console that allowed you to play ACTUAL arcade games at home. Back in the 90s I played loads of ports of arcade games on other consoles like the Master System, SNES and Mega Drive, but in all cases the games were re-factored for the home consoles and were very different from the original arcade versions. Often worse in terms of graphics and sound etc, but often enhanced to suit home gamers. So yeah, I've found it pretty weird playing a golf game that tries to make me give up every 3 holes. Try playing something like PGA Tour Golf, that game wants you to sit there for hours, not minutes.
 
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titchgamer

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Lets be honest here, Arcade games are the original pay to win!

Sure they can be 1cc’d but most of them would take a huge amount of practice and effort to do.
 

Niko

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Sometimes games use "LUCK" to determine the outcome of an event. It doesn't mean its unfair, it just makes the events harder to predict thus keeping the game from getting boring. Now if your ingame luck was based on something like playtime / credits played then that would be unfair, at least for a golf game.
 

GohanX

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The putting stat in that game is very important as well. As Niko said it can affect luck, a good putter will nail that shot every time, a bad putter will randomly mess up. Just like real golf!
 

edd_jedi

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The putting stat in that game is very important as well. As Niko said it can affect luck, a good putter will nail that shot every time, a bad putter will randomly mess up. Just like real golf!

Funny you should say that, I've always been using the Japanese character who has full strength putting. It's just weird how sometimes you can get the power perfect, there is no grain, and the surface is flat, yet the ball goes wide/short/too far etc. I agree that is normal in 'real' golf, but that's down to human error. Imagine if in a fighting game the special move only worked 50% of the time even if you pulled it off correctly, that's a frustrating user experience.
 

XxHennersXx

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Have you PLAYED an entire round of NTM? It takes about an hour with two players - you can’t have 2 people hogging a machine for an hour for 1 credit each. In fighting games, if two people are playing - loser pays again. Same as this. If you’re GOOD at NTM and get above par it doesn’t ask for more money. You get +1 hole for every birdie, (eagle, hole in one, etc)if you win longest drive or closest to the pin you can an additional hole.

And if you play it in home mode, it doesn’t pop up with that asking for more money.

Based on your example, it’s not that it’s unfair - you need to get good.


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edd_jedi

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That's exactly what I'm saying - it's not about getting good. It's blind luck. How can I get 'better' than stopping the power gauge on exactly the right spot? How can I hit the ball straighter than right at the hole on a flat surface with no grain? Hence the whole point of this thread. I'm not some retard aiming two feet away from the hole, twice as powerful as it needs to be. If that was the case you're right, I just suck at the game.
 

XxHennersXx

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That's exactly what I'm saying - it's not about getting good. It's blind luck. How can I get 'better' than stopping the power gauge on exactly the right spot? How can I hit the ball straighter than right at the hole on a flat surface with no grain? Hence the whole point of this thread. I'm not some retard aiming two feet away from the hole, twice as powerful as it needs to be. If that was the case you're right, I just suck at the game.

Dude I can clear courses on NTM with one credit consistently. It’s not “random” or “blind luck” you just need to learn the physics of the game and how the grain treats the ball. If the grain is going against you, you need to hit it harder than the designated spot (this is standard in all golf games)

Look in the Los Turfes thread and try to tell us our high scores are blind luck.


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XxHennersXx

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That's exactly what I'm saying - it's not about getting good. It's blind luck. How can I get 'better' than stopping the power gauge on exactly the right spot? How can I hit the ball straighter than right at the hole on a flat surface with no grain? Hence the whole point of this thread. I'm not some retard aiming two feet away from the hole, twice as powerful as it needs to be. If that was the case you're right, I just suck at the game.

I can clear courses in ntm with one credit consistently, look in our Los turfes thread and try to tell us it’s blind luck we score well consistently.

You just need to learn the physics and get good. If you were getting above par, we wouldn’t be having this question (and one of the most popular Neo Geo games would have created more threads whining if it wasn’t just you needed to get good)


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ggallegos1

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What in the hell. Neo Geo games are unfair and hard? Good luck with Art of Fighting 2 softie.
 

edd_jedi

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lol there seems to be some confusion here, physics is EXACTLY what I'm taking about :lol: No grain. 10 ft from hole, hit it exactly 10 feet. Flat surface, hit it straight. Yet ball doesn't go in the hole. What you actually mean is I need to learn how the game tries to fuck you over and counter it, which is something completely different.
 

Gaston

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"Let's make an arcade game that will guarantee each player 30 minutes of playtime on one credit!"
Said no one ever.
 

madman

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Next this guy is going to complain that he can't play Metal Slug for more than 2 minutes without dying and it's totally unfair!
 

wyo

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Neo Geo games were totally rigged by the failing SNK.
 

XxHennersXx

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lol there seems to be some confusion here, physics is EXACTLY what I'm taking about :lol: No grain. 10 ft from hole, hit it exactly 10 feet. Flat surface, hit it straight. Yet ball doesn't go in the hole. What you actually mean is I need to learn how the game tries to fuck you over and counter it, which is something completely different.

Who are you playing as? Are you playing as the guy with low putting skill? Because then you need to over compensate, versus if you play as Robert who has good putting and good accuracy you just need to hit it on the marker


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Almightyburner

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If I spent $200-250 on a brand new NTM cart when it was released, and I mastered it in a week, I would be infuriated.
 

Ip Man

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What in the hell. Neo Geo games are unfair and hard? Good luck with Art of Fighting 2 softie.

yeah, for me the difficulty of art of fighting 2 can be apart of the fun factor. me and friends used to sit around for a couple of hours having turns on art of fighting 2 to see how far we could get. it was very fun when one of us beat an opponent and got to go to the next one.

the whole aim was to get to geese which we was never able to beat.
 

BlackaneseNiNjA

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yeah, for me the difficulty of art of fighting 2 can be apart of the fun factor. me and friends used to sit around for a couple of hours having turns on art of fighting 2 to see how far we could get. it was very fun when one of us beat an opponent and got to go to the next one.

the whole aim was to get to geese which we was never able to beat.

Same here. Figuring out a strategy/exploit for each of the ai opponents was half the fun for me back then. When I was a kid John Crawley seemed pretty much unbeatable until I started taking advantage of holes in his ai routines. Every enemy in AoF2 felt like the kof94 Rugal 2nd round battle lol
 

@M

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I hear that. AoF2 is a beast.
 

herb

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It sounds like OP just needs to git gud
 
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