Neo Geo Online Collection??
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lordnikon
Another Striker
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It all depends on which compilations you decide to buy. So far the very worst one is King of Fighters NESTS. Do not buy this one. I am a big fan of the NESTS series so this compilation really dissapointed me. The most glaring problem is that for a "NeoGeo" compilation it has the Dreamcast version of King of Fighters 99 Evolution, with 3D backgrounds. Actual polygons. Which we all know the NeoGeo cannot do. This compilation features ports of the DC/PS2 versions of these games, and then alternate slapped together rom emulations which have brutal contrast and sprite flicker issues.
The compilations you want to buy are the ones that looks exactly, and I do mean EXACTLY like their NeoGeo AES counterparts, complete with NEO intro chime, full scan lines and no sprite flicker. These include:
NeoGeo Online Vol. 4: Ryuuko no Ken: Ten-Chi-Jin
NeoGeo Online Vol. 5: Garou Densetsu Battle Archives 1
NeoGeo Online Vol. 6: Garou Densetsu Battle Archives 2
NeoGeo Online Vol. 8: Fu'un Super Combo
Now, I am pretty sure the new World Heroes Gorgeous compilation is on par with the quality of the above 4 releases. However I can't confirm for sure as I still have to order it. I own all of the other compilations though so this information I am providing is coming from experience and not just what I read somewhere.
You can actually buy Vol 4 & 5 in the US as they were released as Art of Fighting and Fatal Fury collections, for $14.95. Whether you want to mix and match imports and domestic is up to you though.
New games coming out in the NeoGeo Collection series include Sunsoft Collection (Waku Waku 7, Galaxy Fight), and Samurai Shodown Collection.
One can only hope SNK has the same emulation team working on the Samurai Shodown collection that did the above releases. Because as I have already stated, they are as close to the NeoGeo as you are going to get.
The compilations you want to buy are the ones that looks exactly, and I do mean EXACTLY like their NeoGeo AES counterparts, complete with NEO intro chime, full scan lines and no sprite flicker. These include:
NeoGeo Online Vol. 4: Ryuuko no Ken: Ten-Chi-Jin
NeoGeo Online Vol. 5: Garou Densetsu Battle Archives 1
NeoGeo Online Vol. 6: Garou Densetsu Battle Archives 2
NeoGeo Online Vol. 8: Fu'un Super Combo
Now, I am pretty sure the new World Heroes Gorgeous compilation is on par with the quality of the above 4 releases. However I can't confirm for sure as I still have to order it. I own all of the other compilations though so this information I am providing is coming from experience and not just what I read somewhere.
You can actually buy Vol 4 & 5 in the US as they were released as Art of Fighting and Fatal Fury collections, for $14.95. Whether you want to mix and match imports and domestic is up to you though.
New games coming out in the NeoGeo Collection series include Sunsoft Collection (Waku Waku 7, Galaxy Fight), and Samurai Shodown Collection.
One can only hope SNK has the same emulation team working on the Samurai Shodown collection that did the above releases. Because as I have already stated, they are as close to the NeoGeo as you are going to get.
Kazuki Dash
Samurai Shodown Swordsmith
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How does the KOF Orochi Collection compare? Are the same issues with contrast and flicker present?lordnikon said:
lordnikon
Another Striker
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I would say Orochi is still worth getting because 95, 96, and 97 were really only circulated on the Saturn/Playstation 1 in Japan. (Although 95 made it out in the US) Also, the games on the Saturn/Playstation were close but from what I have read they had to remove some frames of animation.
Garou, Last Blades, Orochi, and Nests(PS2/DC ports) all have relatively the same level of sprite flicker. However the emulated originals on NESTS are a lot worse than those on Orochi.
As for Garou, Last Blade 2, and NESTS(99,00,01) get those all on Dreamcast as imports. If you combine the superb NEO ports on the Dreamcast, with those on the PS2 you can cover a lot of ground.
One thing I want to make perfectly clear is that the games that do have sprite flicker, don't have scan lines, and thus, look jaggy. The way to effectivly make a game look better and more complete is to use scan lines. Unfortunatly a lot of companies use crappy blur techniques, and stupid pixel smoothing to get rid of pixelation instead. Remember pixels are not a bad thing, and I don't understand why people feel the need to get rid of them. (As a side note: most games that do not have scan lines, tend to have sprite flicker.)
One such example would be the travesty that is KOF2001 (US/PS2) release. Where they took all of the background sprites, blurred them out and recolored them. Some dumb people seem to thing this "fixed" a flaw, which some people seem to insanely think are pixels. All it did was trash and ruin the games background art. The funny thing is you get to see what the game should have looked like when you pop in the KOF2000 disc which has proper scanlines, no sprite flicker, and backgrounds that were not tampered with.
I am actually not 100% sure what port version the NESTS 00/01 are. They might be DC versions running on the PS2 with fake low res (which is a prime cause of sprite flicker where they scale the graphics slightly to a resolution which they didn't originally support). These also may be the original Japanese PS2 ports, which I don't own to compare. What I can confirm is that the 3 primary games on NESTS are not NeoGeo originals and KOF99 is 100% for sure the DC version because of its 3D backgrounds.
In some cases you would want to choose a game with sprite flicker over another game for this very reason. One such example is SVC Chaos on the PS2 vs the Xbox. The japanese PS2 import is very crisp, and pixel precise. However there are no scanlines so it suffers from some sprite flicker. The xbox version doesn't have sprite flicker, but the developers BLURRED out all of the textures in the game, and it basically raped all of the backgrounds because of it. This is noticable when running both games, on each system, pausing them and then bouncing back and forth via an s-video switch box.
Garou, Last Blades, Orochi, and Nests(PS2/DC ports) all have relatively the same level of sprite flicker. However the emulated originals on NESTS are a lot worse than those on Orochi.
As for Garou, Last Blade 2, and NESTS(99,00,01) get those all on Dreamcast as imports. If you combine the superb NEO ports on the Dreamcast, with those on the PS2 you can cover a lot of ground.
One thing I want to make perfectly clear is that the games that do have sprite flicker, don't have scan lines, and thus, look jaggy. The way to effectivly make a game look better and more complete is to use scan lines. Unfortunatly a lot of companies use crappy blur techniques, and stupid pixel smoothing to get rid of pixelation instead. Remember pixels are not a bad thing, and I don't understand why people feel the need to get rid of them. (As a side note: most games that do not have scan lines, tend to have sprite flicker.)
One such example would be the travesty that is KOF2001 (US/PS2) release. Where they took all of the background sprites, blurred them out and recolored them. Some dumb people seem to thing this "fixed" a flaw, which some people seem to insanely think are pixels. All it did was trash and ruin the games background art. The funny thing is you get to see what the game should have looked like when you pop in the KOF2000 disc which has proper scanlines, no sprite flicker, and backgrounds that were not tampered with.
I am actually not 100% sure what port version the NESTS 00/01 are. They might be DC versions running on the PS2 with fake low res (which is a prime cause of sprite flicker where they scale the graphics slightly to a resolution which they didn't originally support). These also may be the original Japanese PS2 ports, which I don't own to compare. What I can confirm is that the 3 primary games on NESTS are not NeoGeo originals and KOF99 is 100% for sure the DC version because of its 3D backgrounds.
In some cases you would want to choose a game with sprite flicker over another game for this very reason. One such example is SVC Chaos on the PS2 vs the Xbox. The japanese PS2 import is very crisp, and pixel precise. However there are no scanlines so it suffers from some sprite flicker. The xbox version doesn't have sprite flicker, but the developers BLURRED out all of the textures in the game, and it basically raped all of the backgrounds because of it. This is noticable when running both games, on each system, pausing them and then bouncing back and forth via an s-video switch box.