Your Neo Guilty Pleasure Games?

[yagamikun]

Tarma's recent "games you don't rate" post got me thinking about this as I looked over my library. What's your guilty pleasure game(s) that you know may not be universally well-liked but you really dig regardless?

Mine is definitely Galaxy Fight. It's not a good fighting game, but it does have a number of unique traits that I've always enjoyed: infinite scrolling backgrounds, beautiful use of parallax scrolling sprites in the backgrounds, an excellent Sunsoft soundtrack, and really fun mobility mechanics that lead to some fast fights once you get the hang of it. It's not a serious or competitive fighter, but I've always enjoyed what Sunsoft was trying to do here even if it's a bit rough.

Andro Dunos and Zed Blade are also some guilty pleasure favorites - neither game is particularly innovative, but they are both approachable horizontal shooters with solid mechanics and good soundtracks...without the incredible difficulty of some other STGs on the hardware.

 

[city41]

Art of Fighting. I think of it more like a series of boss fights. I just love the atmosphere, the graphics are excellent for their time, and so is the music.

 

[LoneSage]

This is a literal guilty pleasure for me:

Spoiler:

 

[BeefJerky]

+1 for Galaxy Fight

Blue's Journey is another. It's not great, but I love the style and sounds. It's just dumb fun.

 

[herb]

Mine is Top Hunter. I find it way more fun than it should be.

 

[GutsDozer]

Why do I love this game so much?

 

[Johnny16Bit]

Why do I love this game so much?
View attachment 76522View attachment 76523

Because it's truly awesome

These topics about not-so-good games say a lot about the quality of arcade production at the time imo - many of the games that are generally graded as "B" or "C" are crazy displays of talent. Among the Neo fighters, the only one I have not managed to enjoy (yet?) is Ragnagard...
Karnov, Double Dragon, World Heroes, Savage Reign... Hell, even Gowcaizer can be a lot of fun.

On topic, Cyber-Lip is what comes to mind first as a guilty pleasure, probably because of the whole terminalienxploitation theme. Then Fight Fever, though it does require booze & friends to be enjoyable.

 

[Neo Alec]

Metal Slug 4 - I love the first stage theme music and riding the bikes. I don't care if the graphica are reused.

I think a lot of us already registered SVC Chaos as a guilty pleasure in the other thread.

 

[yagamikun]

Because it's truly awesome

These topics about not-so-good games say a lot about the quality of arcade production at the time imo - many of the games that are generally graded as "B" or "C" are crazy displays of talent. Among the Neo fighters, the only one I have not managed to enjoy (yet?) is Ragnagard...
Karnov, Double Dragon, World Heroes, Savage Reign... Hell, even Gowcaizer can be a lot of fun.

On topic, Cyber-Lip is what comes to mind first as a guilty pleasure, probably because of the whole terminalienxploitation theme. Then Fight Fever, though it does require booze & friends to be enjoyable.

Karnov's is a wonderfully bad game - it's the epitome of "so bad it's good" - such a good time, especially with friends!

 

[pixeljunkie]

Ghost Pilots (with rapid fire)

 

[douglas]

Prehistoric Isle 2 for me. Sometimes it's nice to turn my brain off and kill some dinos yo.

 

[NeoSneth]

Stakes Winner 2
I will race them horses all damn day if I had the time.

 

[max 330 megafartz]

Cat shit sandwich in the AES slot.

Actual answer: 8 man. It sucks but has kick ass music on a few mid stages.

 

[HeavyMachineGoob]

Top Player's Golf, Ninja Combat, Riding Hero, The Super Spy, Metal Slug 4, SVC Chaos, Art of Fighting 2, World Heroes 1 and 2.

 

[Tron]

Crossed Swords,granted it can get repetitive and the game could of used more variety for the enemies instead of just stronger versions. Cyberlip it's no metal slug but i enjoyed it.

 

[max 330 megafartz]

Crossed Swords,granted it can get repetitive and the game could of used more variety for the enemies instead of just stronger versions. Cyberlip it's no metal slug but i enjoyed it.

Shut your hot dog turnstile, cyber-lip rules.

 

[Heinz]

Nam-1975

I feel guilty for not saving the world because the fucking game doesn't let you credit feed the last boss

 

[LoneSage]

Here are two previous threads on the topic, to see more opinions:
2016: https://neo-geo.com/forums/index.php?threads/guilty-pleasure-games.249678/
2013: https://neo-geo.com/forums/index.php?threads/what-is-your-guilty-pleasure-neo-geo-game.229153/

This topic is a bit hard to answer. Guilty pleasure games are games that are bad, but you still enjoy playing. Johnny16bit is 100% right, games we thought were bad as kids still take a huge amount of talent and skill to make.

That said, I don't feel guilty for liking these games. They're genuinely good fun.

World Heroes - ever since I made that thread back in 2022, I must have 1CC'd this game at least, at the very least, 20 times. I've played it more now than when I owned it on MVS. I thought it was lame as hell back then but something snapped in me and I think it's brilliant now. Easily my favorite in the series. The absolute broken-ness of spamming the crouching light kick is hilarious.

Eightman - none of this game makes sense, none of it. It doesn't follow the original manga or anime. It doesn't follow the live action movie or the OVA that came out in the 90s. It is its own insanity, filled with test-tube Predators, zombies, biomechanical armadillo horrors, an absolutely and utterly SHAMELESS ripoff of the War God boss from Forgotten Worlds, and the Grim Reaper himself inexplicably as the final boss. Fittingly, nothing is explained, and as soon as Death is killed the credits roll over a digitized Shinkiro artwork of Eightman. Magnifique. The sound effects are legit great too.

Ninja Combat - not as goofy as Eightman, but it gets close. The women shrieking for help and then turning into masked kuniochi, the main ninja characters being two white dudes with mullets, the bosses exploding hilariously, Gembu's voice actor sounding straight outta Of Mice and Men's Lenny, etc. I know lots of people hate it, and I remember one guy here actually bought the game on release and was pissed. He beat it in 30 minutes and drove back to the store and returned it. But I still legit think it's a fun beat 'em up, and it's a good idea that the faster you tap the attack the stronger it gets. That one boss stopping the subway train with his hands is a legit badass scene though.

Actually, all of the Neo beat 'em ups are guilty pleasures of mine. They are the B-grade, low budget foils to Capcom's A-class, well-produced beat 'em ups.

 

[Fygee]

Fatal Fury 1 and Art of Fighting 1 for sure. They've aged horribly and play super wonky, but I still love the hell out of them because of how janky they are. It's the kind of "we're still figuring this whole fighting game thing out" jank that, for whatever reason, is really enjoyable to me. Plus it gives me big time retro nostalgia feels as I remember seeing them in cabs when they were new. Maybe it's my age too but I also like how simple the gameplay is. There aren't a ton of systems with super tight windowed mega-combos, which is refreshing.

Sengoku is another for the same reasons above, as it's the very first Neo-Geo game I ever played back in 1991. I have vivid memories of my 10 year old mind being blown/confused with all the freaky Japanese iconography, large zooming sprites, and playing a blue and purple cowboy. Beating up a giant skull using a wooden spoon in the clouds as samurai watch you to traditional Japanese music is one of those things you never forget. It just wasn't something you ever saw or heard as a young American kid in the very early 90s.

Ninja Combat for the same reasons LoneSage mentioned. It's absolutely goofy as shit across the board. The voice acting that sounds like it was recorded with the microphone in their mouths, the very silly animations, the utterly useless pick-up weapons, the absolutely obscene difficulty spike after level two. ADK at it's peak weird, cheesy "ADKness".

 

[SouthtownKid]

+1 for Galaxy Fight

Thirded. And lately, I've been playing a lot of League Bowling on my phone.

 

[SouthtownKid]

Fatal Fury 1 and Art of Fighting 1 for sure.

Fatal Fury 1 for me as well. I still have fun with it and I like the atmosphere. Good memories of playing it at the 7-11.

I don't really think of AoF 1 as a guilty pleasure because I think it's legit a solid enough game.

 

[vaillian]

The Super Spy. There is something that always makes me beat it at least every 5 years or so.

 

[Fygee]

Fatal Fury 1 for me as well. I still have fun with it and I like the atmosphere. Good memories of playing it at the 7-11.

I don't really think of AoF 1 as a guilty pleasure because I think it's legit a solid enough game.

AoF 1 definitely is for me. The hit detection is very sus, the inputs for special moves are unreliable, normal and special moves can have some odd lag, all of that delightful early fighter jank. Weirdly FF1 is better at all of the above things, while still being far from perfect.

 

[Tron]

Shut your hot dog turnstile, cyber-lip rules.

Of course cyberlip rules

 

[Catoblepa]

Guess I've got a real dark horse as a guilty pleasure... Puzzled (Joy Joy Kid). Didn't think much of it before findin' a MVS cart, and I suck at Tetris, but when I tried it I couldn't stop playing. The twist on the Tetris mechanics is very clever, and every stage is a completely different challenge (and there's a ton of them). Of course the gameplay is a little clunky and it's such a quarter-muncher I'd never play it "on location", but at home I really enjoy it.