1st neo geo game that got you hooked?

Salvio007

Mr. Big's Thug
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Living in italy a few years exposed me to amazing Arcades and Amiga 500. Soccer Brawl and Fatal Fury were so popular back then, i went out and got a used Amiga 500 just to play the huge amount of NG games ported to it.
Even though, all of my lunch money went to the actual arcade games after school.
 

BlackaneseNiNjA

The Fatal Fury Disciple
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Playing the original Fatal Fury in a local arcade was my first exposure, but there was something about the release of kof95 that stood out from everything else to me. From gameplay to design, kof95 is saturated with an approach that I would come to recognize as being unique to SNK. I've been hooked ever since lol
 

bigapple3am

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I had seen the Fatal Fury anime movies and that led me to the 3-D Fatal Fury: Wild Ambition on PS1. A few years later I played KOF 98 and it blew my mind that the dudes from Fatal Fury were in it! I also got to play Samurai Shodown 3 at the Kenwood Mall and it blew me away. I've loved SNK since.
 

MackAttack

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It was three different games for me. There was a mall near our house that had a 4 slot and my brother and I would play Baseball Stars Professional, the machine had other games but we’d just stick with Baseball. There was a Lionel Playworld Toy store that had a NEO GEO system with Magician Lord that we would just drool over the gameplay demo. The third would be King of the Monsters, you could actually destroy buildings and they stayed destroyed, and we thought the graphics were amazing!


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oliverclaude

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It was three different games for me. There was a mall near our house that had a 4 slot and my brother and I would play Baseball Stars Professional, the machine had other games but we’d just stick with Baseball. There was a Lionel Playworld Toy store that had a NEO GEO system with Magician Lord that we would just drool over the gameplay demo. The third would be King of the Monsters, you could actually destroy buildings and they stayed destroyed, and we thought the graphics were amazing!


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This is a lovely story and reminds me how cool it would have been to experience more games back then, in the exact same way as you did. They taste so different, far more different then those you played just recently for the first time. Those you played without childhood to exfiltrate your adult observatory skills and/or cynicism.


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powerflower

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Getting older sucks :( There's nothing left in gaming where you are lost for words. Neo delivered!
 
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NeoField

Rugal's Thug
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Metal Slug as well for me, game blew my mind when I first saw at the movie theatre, my friends and I purchased a ticket to Flubber just to play Metal Slug... didn't even see Flubber :-(
 

J-P

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The first Neo game that got me hooked? The first game I played was Samurai Shodown, I remember playing the shit out of Street Fighter II and TMNT back in the day. And Samurai Shodown blew my mind in terms of visuals back then. I think the first real game that hooked me into 'the system' and made me spend all my money (literally ALL my money, I had a paper delivery route back then and did odd jobs over several holidays to save up) on the AES was Metal Slug and KOF 95. It was a hell of a ride back then being one of the very few AES owners (I imported a Japanese one); I remember being floored by how absolutely gorgeous Last Blade was too... and I imported that cart on release. Miss those times :B ... I was addicted to Shock Troopers for a while in the arcade too.
 

Ip Man

BBLLOOOO__HHAARRDDDDDD!!!!,
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shock troopers is a good game to be addicted to.
 

8bitForLife

Crazed MVS Addict
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Was ether sengoku samurai shodown or king of the monsters its hard remembering that far back
 

sadelape

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Fatal Fury 2! I remember thinking wow the fat guy has magic on his hands! I don't even have to learn special moves because his normal punches have the power!
Samurai Showdown 1 +2 had a huge impact in my arcades.
Puzzle Bobble/Bust-a-move was the coolest game plus the 90s girls loved it. Still a go to date night game.
Also worth a mention was World Heroes 2 Jet. Man that game had line ups all around it to play for some reason. It even had the big projection screen cabinet at my local arcade.
 

Fuckwit1200

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great question. :D
not strictly neo-geo in the mvs sense, it was prehistoric isle and ASO.
later on mvs, it was blazing star, zed blade and the metal slug series.
all else was sheer bonuses.
 

madman

Blame madman, You Know You Want To.,
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not strictly neo-geo in the mvs sense, it was prehistoric isle and ASO.
Those aren't Neo-Geo in any sense. They're SNK games.

DESTROYED. Try to rebut my points. You cannot.
 

Fuckwit1200

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prick!
they were the first of the line that got me hooked before neo-geo was a thing.
fial. :p
 

chromesphere

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Local video shop had 2 arcade machines out the front, TMNT 4 player and a 4 slot MVS big red. The games used to rotate but the first one that hooked me was magician lord. The graphics, the art style, the rather mature demonic theme, like nothing I had ever seen before. Some others on that cabinet that I really liked were king of the monsters, senguko, cyber lip, blues journey, cross swords and ghost pilots.

Being very young (maybe 8 or 9) my disposable income was limited / non-existent and my weekly $1 didn't last very long. I remember one time the arcade machine owner was swapping cartridges and saw me standing there watching him. He goes "hey kid want to have a go?" of course I said yes, he hit the credit button at least 20 times, locked the cabinet. "Have fun!". It was like xmas...Pretty generous of him to do that.

Although it was only a small shopping center some of the shops had some pretty cool arcade games. Captain commando, snow brothers, sunset riders, amongst others
 

Catoblepa

King's Dry Cleaner
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I've always drooled over Neo Geo games, but my parents were a bit weary of arcades (and they had a point... most of the arcades in my city were dark, smoky and frequented by pushers and assorted criminals), so I had to stick with my Amiga 500 and keep dreaming of all the wonders I saw in the gaming magazines. When I got sixteen-seventeen I started my real "arcade renaissance", but at that time the first Namco and Sega polygonal games were all the rage. A friend of mine was obsessed with Virtua Striker and he'd keep playing for hours with a single token (lots of naive kids challenged him and got destroyed, then came back for more pain), so I had to find something else to play. That's been a blessing in disguise, 'cause two things got my attention: a new Bally Williams pinball machine (Who Dunnit, the start of my insane love for pinball) and THE best arcade golf game ever, Neo Turf Masters. So, yeah, that was the first Neo Geo game that got me hooked, and I still play it to this day ;)
 
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For me it was watching a kid I knew from school playing Art of Fighting at an Ice Rink. The way the sprites scaled to give it that "zoom in" and out effect. It fascinated me. I don't know why. I wasn't brave enough to play it because I was bad at fighting games. I'd seen the AES featured in CVG and watched people play Fatal Fury in the arcades but Art of Fighting was was what finally got me interested in Neo Geo.

The first game I played was Samurai Showdown. We used to travel by ferry for family holidays and the walk ways would be lined with CPS1 and MVS cabs. I'd got over my anxiety about playing fighters in public by this point. Samurai Showdown was similar enough to Street Fighter 2 to get me playing and different enough to have me hooked - I loved the button mashing at the start of each bout and how it was possible to loose your sword. The design aesthetic was a massive draw too. The series is still my favourite fighter to look at.

Then Metal Slug came along and, well, it's in a class of it's own isn't it. Still the best sprite art I have ever seen. Still my favourite run and gun game series (eat THAT Contra!).

So a fairly generic list of games for me but that's my story.

Long Live the MVS!
 

Missile

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Same with me. Me and a friend used to play on a pool table that was surrounded by a MVS cab with Art of Fighting 1. Also Rad Mobile was there. While I was waiting for my shot my jaw would be dropping. I couldn't work out how the AOF scaling wasnt pixellated. At the time I decided that Neo Geo had so much memory that it just prescaled everything! Which would be crazy. Only years later did I find out it was shrinking the sprites.

When I first got my AES I only played MVS carts on it. And MOTW was one of the first. I was addicted. Just so much style, excellent music and animation. I loved it. My most played cart for that first year
 

Lastblade

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I remember reading about SNK releasing the MVS and AES in EGM prior to release. I savored those pictures and drooled over them for years. I can't remember the first game that I saw in the arcade, but it was probably either Magician Lord or Cyberlip. I remember one particular Babbages in a high end mall had a wall of AES games (For those in Boston, this was the Atrium at Chestnut Hill). It was glorious (and I ran into Dee Brown of Celtics there as well). I couldn't afford it back then until I found a used AES system in a flea market-esque store for $100.
 

oliverclaude

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I remember reading about SNK releasing the MVS and AES in EGM prior to release. I savored those pictures and drooled over them for years. I can't remember the first game that I saw in the arcade, but it was probably either Magician Lord or Cyberlip. I remember one particular Babbages in a high end mall had a wall of AES games (For those in Boston, this was the Atrium at Chestnut Hill). It was glorious (and I ran into Dee Brown of Celtics there as well).

These are damn sweet memories, a whole generation drooling over screenshots, us Krauts were no different -- and I'm the one to know ;).

I couldn't afford it back then until I found a used AES system in a flea market-esque store for $100.

Do you still remember which year that was?
 

Totino

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Apr 17, 2018
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I can't say I have a specific game, although probably the fighter genre. But when I was in Asia, candy cabs are obviously everywhere. When I'm back in the states it actually makese kinda sad we don't have anything similar. You find arcades everywhere in Asia, trains, random alleys, entire floors of malls, etc. And it seems there's always a line. I just enjoy everything about the cabs, how they look, the vibe, and the feeling you get playing on them. The arcade nostalgia of yesteryear is real!
 
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Tech&Music

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Puzzle Bobble and one of the Metal Slug games. Years ago on a school trip, we went to this tiny amusement park, because it was the closest nearby my school and it probably was the cheapest as well. The park's really only fun when you're a little kid, given most of the rides are aimed at those, and only like two or three are actually fun for over-12 year olds. They did have a small arcade next to the restaurant, and in between the SEGA Rally cab and pinball machines (which were a blast too), was a multi-game Big Red. Had some cash on me and all of it was gone at the end of the day. It wouldn't be until quite a bunch of years later that I came across Neo Geo on the 'net and remembered playing on one, though, that's when I figured I should look into getting some NG system myself, as I really did enjoy those games.
 
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