Was the Neo Geo CD Really That Bad?!?

Рет қаралды 144,828

Жыл бұрын

We take a look at the performance of the front-loading Neo Geo CD and its follow-up the top-loading model that was released worldwide.
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Opening "Sega" jingle is from Astal for the Sega Saturn.
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By: Jan Neves
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Intro by Evan S.
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Episode Notes:
1. All footage from real hardware.
2. The CDZ can improve upon these load times by quite a lot, but it does depend on the game and situation. The later fighting games still load often and long, however.
3. The USofA was the last major market to receive the Neo geo CD.
4. The Neo Geo CD did not have any real copy protection. You can burn games all day long.
5. Game sizes are given as their original cartridge sizes just to give you an idea of what the Neo Geo CD had to work with.
6. I wanted to highlight many more of the games that are actually quite playable on the Neo Geo CD without major load times. That's why I didn't focus on a ton of the larger games.
7. I did this as if I had just been exposed to the Neo Geo CD today. In reality, I have owned a Neo Geo CD since about 2000.
5. The Neo Geo CD SD Loader retails for a bit over 100 bucks. It's a game-changer.
6. Honestly, the Neo Geo CD is still a viable entry point for the library. It's true you don't get every game, but you do get quite a few good ones nonetheless. The ability to burn your own games at no extra cost is a huge plus.

Пікірлер: 744

@giddra69 Жыл бұрын

Just want to say I'm glad you branched out from SEGA content. I loved your SEGA content, but I knew you had more range for other stuff. Really enjoying all of it!

@SegaLordX Жыл бұрын

I appreciate that! Thanks for the comment.

@briantaylorcloe7725 Жыл бұрын

Saturn stuff will always be my favorite topic, but am always interested in NEC & SNK ... Look forward to some CDi roasts and 3DO RPG coverage as well ~

@spaceghostcqc2137 Жыл бұрын

Yeah SLX has great presentation for retro game content, it's all welcome.

@mulliganxable Жыл бұрын

Same! Keep it fresh SLX!

@LuciferHunter-kt7pm Жыл бұрын

@@briantaylorcloe7725I mowed lawns all summer to buy a 3DO! Lol then the next summer I mowed again for the PlayStation. I really wish I kept my 3DO

@Retro-Fez Жыл бұрын

I turned 50 last month and am at long last the proud owner of a top loader neo geo cd console, i have 1 game am only waiting for my controller to arrive am really excited. Load times are nothing to me i grew up with spectrum 128k which took cassettes nearly 30 mins to load and you could die in minutes and start all over again ah great days

@registereduser Жыл бұрын

When I was a youngster (late 80s then the 90s) the NG was this almost mythical thing, the privilege of those extremely well off and no plaything for me and the mere mortals I knew. No one I knew ever had one and based off the gaming magazines we had we all wanted one badly.

@Cruor34 Жыл бұрын

To put it in perspective, my dad and most of the kids in my schools parents were all well off. I'd say the average family income for my school was at least 200k/year (in the 90s) and nobody had a Neo Geo, not even the spoiled kids. We had a kid who's dad owned a whole super market chain in NYC, even he didn't have it. It was a thing of myths, nobody was getting a $700 console when SNES and Genesis were like $150. I'm actually shocked by how many people in the comments either had it or had a friend with one.

@chazmcdaniels6173 Жыл бұрын

you're in my age range and I share your sentiment. It's been fun trying these games on emulator (who can afford these systems even now!?!) and reminiscing with friends. Our hi-score sheet isn't the score you get for say Magician Lord but how much money (i.e. credits) did you spend to beat it as we had an arcade machine at a local gas station growing up.

@AngryCalvin Жыл бұрын

Yeah my jaw dropped seeing these games in the arcade. The fact the price WAS way too high is why I have collected these games digitally

@sheppeyfishtales 11 ай бұрын

True 😎

@ThePoorMansRetroGameRoom Жыл бұрын

That was one of the best, in-depth look at the NG CD I have ever seen. I just got the top loader and have been extremely pleased with it. I agree a 100% with your analysis.

@SegaLordX Жыл бұрын

Appreciate the comment and kind words. Thank you.

@e.e.-tv1683 Жыл бұрын

I concur.

@AnthonyRiddle Жыл бұрын

Neo Geo sports games will always have a place in my heart. To this day they are still beautiful and play really dang good

@waynesworld1655 Жыл бұрын

Baseball stars 2 is still my top 5 sports games of all time

@caseyhayes4590 Жыл бұрын

For Soccer, Golf and Baseball it's hard to beat.

@AnthonyRiddle Жыл бұрын

@@caseyhayes4590 Especially Baseball. Between Super Baseball 2020 and Baseball Stars, it doesn’t get much better than that.

@caseyhayes4590 Жыл бұрын

@@AnthonyRiddle yeah I play 2020 and Baseball Stars 2 all the time. I wish it had online play somehow because I’ve kind of mastered vs the AI.

@AnthonyRiddle Жыл бұрын

@@caseyhayes4590 can you teach me how to master it? I still strike out more than I hit and the cpu hits plenty of home-runs from my pitching

@Chris-Courage Жыл бұрын

I agree that the load times really aren't all that bad with most games. It's really just a number of the later released games that are larger in size that just drag while loading. Nowadays, the speed of the NeoSd Loader fixes those long load times for the larger games and even removes small breaks when music tracks change.

@joesshows6793 Жыл бұрын

I disagree as I couldn’t stand the early CD roms due to their horrid loading. GameCube was my first disk based system and the load times on that system were almost nonexistent

@roberto1519 Жыл бұрын

@@joesshows6793 You are too young and in this case, it's not necessarily a compliment. The 128-bit era was a different beast entirely and the Xbox was the best hardware, stomping the GameCube, faster CPU, DVD and much more RAM. Yes the GameCube masked loadings, as did the PS2 and specially the Xbox which could run most games from the HDD as well. If you weren't too young, you would know hundreds of 32-bit era games also have virtually no loadings, not only those using expanded RAM carts on the Saturn, but normal CD games like Shining Force III and many more.

@shaneb1982 Жыл бұрын

@@roberto1519 Totally agree with you and @turbografxfan has it correct with saying its really just the later 250Meg+ games that are a bit of a pain. But the NeoSD Loader fixes that AND you get the BEAUTIFUL CD Quality arranged soundtracks, like Last Blade 1/2, KOF 98/99, etc. @joesshows6793 not sure you comparing your 'First' disc based system in 2001 (Which was a DVD system) means you're able have anything constructive to say about the Neo Geo CD, you probably weren't even a twinkle in your dads eye yet. I know your generation is told youre special snowflakes, but you ain't.

@joesshows6793 Жыл бұрын

@@roberto1519 I’m almost 50

@roberto1519 Жыл бұрын

@@joesshows6793 ha! You're a young soul then!

@thomaselers7416 Жыл бұрын

I don't think the Neo Geo CD was bad at all, I just think it was considered "bad" when people compared its performance, to its relatively high price tag for that time. Great content as usual SLX, thanks very much.

@airthrowDBT Жыл бұрын

Back in the day literally the only thing people complained about it was the loading times. It's a fantastic and economical alternative to the AES and even offers some advantages in arranged soundtracks. But the loading times can be agony

@caseyhayes4590 Жыл бұрын

If it could've been 200-300ish 2x CDZ right form the start with a huge library of old (but great) games for $20-30 it might have got some US traction. It was tough for a small company. The Neo Geo Pocket color was amazing with pretty much all great games and also struggled. There's a reason smaller software oriented companies don't even try consoles anymore.

@capcomfan82 Жыл бұрын

You had to go to private shops to get stuff like that. The only big box store i seen any neo geo anything was toys r us back in the early 90s. Nobody would have bought it here because they wouldn’t know it existed.

@Planag7 Жыл бұрын

Oh yeah I remember certain places you could special order them back in the day. And actually only recently that I find shops that actually had these CD games as well as neo Geo pocket things! Also had a turbo graphix game which I very rarely see.

@roberto1519 Жыл бұрын

People wondered and I was one of them, why SNK, which was known as being a Company with state-of-the-art hardware and later, games that arguably left Capcom eating dust in the 2D front, released the NEO GEO Pocket, and while I don't hate the handheld or anything, it's debatable that it wasn't special in any meaningful way. I played the Game Gear in the early 90's and THAT was something else for the time, the original Game Boy has a good chunk of NEO GEO fighters like KOF 95, 96, Real Bout Fatal Fury Special and Samurai Shodown and they all play great considering the hardware, and they don't look that much inferior to what the NGP received much later, I'm talking about a 1989 device. While I understand SNK was in dire straights and they couldn't do better, people would expect, by SNK's standards in people's minds, maybe something a-la GBA. The simplified games play well enough and they are fun for what they are, but honestly, the 1990 Game Gear could do the same and even had TV. A 2 button, 8-bit like handheld by SNK in the late 90's, hard to believe it got though the planning stages.

@videogameobsession Жыл бұрын

I managed a Babbage's store in 1999, and we carried and promoted the Neo•Geo Pocket Color about as much as we could have. Being an owner of the AES since 1990 I personally tried my absolute best to sell people on the NGPC, but the lineup of games was just not what people were looking for. It had a tiny space of games sitting next to three walls of Game Boy and GBC boxes! In 1999 if it didn't have Pokémon on it they didn't want it. I managed to sell a handful of NGPC systems around holiday 1999, and most of them were returned after XMAS.

@Boogie_the_cat Жыл бұрын

Well, that's the problem with hindsight. Maybe they could have reduced the price, OR gone with a 2X CD drive, but not both. I know its shocking nowadays, but the price of a double speed drive compared to a single speed was about $75 more in 1995.

@llpBR Жыл бұрын

A friend of mine had one. It was incredible, but loading was really hard as we were used to cartridge games

@mr.nihilistic Жыл бұрын

What about Sega CD?

@llpBR Жыл бұрын

@@mr.nihilistic well, i've never seen the sega cd working. The first experience I had with CDs was the Grolier Encyclopedia on the PC. I remember the loading time for the Hindenburg crash video it had. Even being on a very small resolution, it took like 20 minutes to play it. Those single speed drives were traumatic.

@tonberrymasta Жыл бұрын

Thank you so much for this! I remember reading a magazine writer complaining about the "juggling monkeys" on the Neo CD way back when, but I never actually saw what it looked like live until now (when I asked people about the juggling monkeys, nobody knew what I was talking about). Now having seen this I can finally put my 30 year old curiosity about it to rest.

@MrCoffeeMrRadar Жыл бұрын

As someone who actually owned one when it came out yes and no. It was great to be able to buy my favorite NeoGeo games for a fraction of the cost compared to a cart. But that loading was real brutal, I laugh today when people complain they have to wait like 30secs for a screen to boat up. Gamers today really are spoiled compared to what we had to live through back in the day.

@chrissymc886 Жыл бұрын

It's amazing that a PS5 has essentially zero load times. Could never have imagined it back in the day.

@jamiec2023 Жыл бұрын

C64 tape drive enters the chat

@DaveVoyles Жыл бұрын

Exactly. I also have one, and the cost savings was the selling point for me.

@Sinn0100 Жыл бұрын

I grew up during the 3rd and 4th generations. I know what you mean my friend. However...30 seconds of load time, ouch. I'm complaining after 8 seconds. Both our Series X and PS5 load almost instantaneously. I never in a million years though we would see a disc based system that is as fast as a cart system...crazy. ;)

@rgm4646 Жыл бұрын

Aint that the truth. Back in the day we didnt even have internal SAVING on lots of games. You had a long a$ password that you better write down correctly or I just left the system on all day while I was at school (paused) lol

@roberto1519 Жыл бұрын

My older brother borrowed the NEO CD around 1995, I remember clearly we played at least 3 games, maybe more, two of them were Last Resort and King of Fighters '94. KOF 94 loads all battles at once, once both sides choose their teams, the loading begins and it's a loooooooong one. At least, after that the rounds flow like the cartridge release, but in the next team, there comes your coffee break again. One thing to keep in mind is that, at least in my eyes as a kid who was an arcade nut, and we were much more tolerable back then, these loadings weren't the end of the world like people make it seem today, CD technology was exciting at the time, games with more than one CD and loadings were seen as technology advancement, at least it seemed like it to most of us. You mention the NEOCD received the lesser portion of the KOF games, but it actually got KOF '94 up to '99, which was the last official SNK KOF, since 2000 onwards started the Playmore era, counting up to 2003, the NEO CD got 5 KOF titles. These are the ones that matter to me, though as even as a kid KOF 2000, 2001 and later iterations didn't feel the same to me.

@snkfan7506 Жыл бұрын

Excellent video! While I was in college, I got my Neo CD system in March 1999 directly from SNK of America. They were clearing them out right before they closed up shop here in the US. This was my first Neo Geo system. I paid around $229 (still have my invoice), and they gave me the choice of a free game, in which I picked Magician Lord. You are correct that the early titles run wonderfully on the console. Once they are loaded into RAM, it's great. The fighting games are dreadful, but, at the time, I didn't complain as I was a broke college student. It was the closest that I got to a real Neo Geo experience until I got my AES a couple of years later (followed by an MVS 1-slot board). But, I still have my CD system to this day. The only issue is that I've had to replace the lens a few times over the years.

@jamesnelson5618 Жыл бұрын

What is your Favorite game you play on Neo Geo?

@HappyCodingZX Жыл бұрын

Great video. For me the worst offender was The Last Blade 1 and especially 2. Brought back memories of loading games from cassette on 8-bit micros. On the plus side the console is quite easy to region mod and there is no copy protection at all, allowing you to try games out and test load times before you spend the big money on the originals.

@FinalManaTrigger Жыл бұрын

Don't forget, ont op of that bad loading times, that much of the animation was missing from the backgrounds too in those later titles. That's really what killed it for me.

@JJKoester Жыл бұрын

A cartoon monkey staring you in the eye and juggling just feels like they're adding insult to the injury of long load times.

@8bitsnkboy472 Жыл бұрын

This video perfectly encapsulates the Neo Geo CD experience, as does the systems logo - A bright, smiling, happy face beside a sad, blue and anguished looking face - That's the face you'll have, if you try to play something like the Last Blade on your NGCD!! I do LOVE my top-loader and it's served me well over the years. But my Neo Geo collection is firmly divided between VS fighting games on my AES system and everything else on NGCD, bar the odd bargain I've picked up on cartridge.

@timecop808 Жыл бұрын

Sound sample memory: 1 MB

@googleboughtmee Жыл бұрын

Don't forget some games had the graphics cut slightly. Less animation frames, missing background elements. Also on the plus side Neo Turf Masters got an exclusive course.

@jeremygregorio7472 Жыл бұрын

They should have put a cartridge ports on it so they could add ram like this Saturn

@BasementBrothers Жыл бұрын

The cartridge memory bus costs money too. The system already had more ram than other consoles at the time, giving it the hefty price tag.

@herbaldragon7646 Жыл бұрын

the load screens.. such a 90's feel to em :)

@appdirect Жыл бұрын

SNK should have released a Neo-Geo Duo that could play both CD games and AES cartridges

@BasementBrothers Жыл бұрын

I think I just felt my wallet die.

@Konuvis 9 ай бұрын

Ah the early CD consoles. I never had a Neo Geo CD but I remember the load times for Blood Omen on PSX were rough.

@jeffmccarthy9073 Жыл бұрын

I got a Neo Geo CD when they were unloading a bunch of "new old stock". The load times sent me straight into the MVS scene.

@fordf150 Жыл бұрын

Good work on the video, appreciate the time you took on testing all the games!

@dtzero0 Жыл бұрын

I remember I almost imported a Neo Geo CD as a present from my mom for my 8th grade graduation. I then switched to 3DO. When I went to babbages on graduation day to get the 3DO, I switched at the last minute and purchased a Sega Saturn. I never regretted my purchase. I had some great times with my Saturn.

@pooksthepossum Жыл бұрын

Glad to see this beast get a proper analysis. The good and the bad. As always, great video from SLX.

@SegaLordX Жыл бұрын

Much appreciated. Thank you.

@hanzobi1926 3 ай бұрын

Just installed a Furrtek SD loader this week in my NEO GEO CD and the load times are so very good now.

@harrymasonsm Жыл бұрын

One thing i noticed about the memory limit Neo Geo CDz when compared to arcade was with kof 99. I actually saw for the first time that the arcade had more animation than what the Neo Cd was even capable of loading for 2 fighters. This might have been to reduce load times, but I'm not certain. Still overall i was happy with my Neo Geo CDz. I just wish it didnt break so now i have to place it at an angle just to keep it loading properly.

@BERSERKERDEMON1 Жыл бұрын

does it accept burnt CD roms from a PC? (i mean for unrealesed games)

@samhain1914 Жыл бұрын

I got this on release then the cdz. Your reviews are top notch. Very well done!

@Animated__Freak Жыл бұрын

I LOVE the NeoGeo CD. It was the way I experienced a lot of these legendary arcade titles and the system holds a special spot in my heart. That being said, the load times can be ridiculous. A lot of people say it's because of the single speed CD drive. And that definitely doesn't help however it's a bit more complicated than that. The Neo Geo carts would have additional ram in them, something that became way more common in the later years of the hardware . The Neo Geo CD does have additional ram to make up for this but that just means more data has to be loaded before the game can start. Even the Sega Saturn (without the ram cart) and Playstation had to cut out frames of animation in order to play these games, in theory you should be able to do this on the NeoGeo CD to improve loading times, but then whats the point? Just get a Saturn or PlayStation.

@jeremygregorio7472 Жыл бұрын

But I think the problem was the price. $500 was way too much for the load times you were facing. I don't think neogeo hardware was ever designed to be cost reduced so I'm not sure they could have done anything.

@nightstar11801 Жыл бұрын

Agreed

@youuuuuuuuuuutube Жыл бұрын

That's certainly because of the 7MB of RAM. At the time it was huge. The PSX that came out later had only 2MB of RAM, for reference.

@johnjay6370 Жыл бұрын

@@youuuuuuuuuuutube Yep!!! Ram was a killer for cost, but the large Ram is what made the NeoGeo cd possible. Those NeoGeo Carts were HUGE just HUGE. Without Ram the games would not be possible, Sega CD only has 640k.. it was not until Dreamcast came out before home systems had more ram.

@Americansikkunt Жыл бұрын

Wtf?! $500???? That’s like $750 in today’s money….

@krazyd0nut404 Жыл бұрын

@@Americansikkunt yea it’s like $1100 now. Also $500 could buy u a decent beater car in that day and it would get u around.

@Rockhead84 Жыл бұрын

Very cool in depth review of this system. Never saw one of these in the wild so it was cool to learn more about it. Excellent work.

@profholt82 Жыл бұрын

It is worth noting that the CD version of Neo Turf Masters includes the exclusive Scottish course which was not found on the arcade or home cart.

@RetroMoments Жыл бұрын

Woah the loading times are even worse than what I expected haha. Glad I have an AES! Great video as always!

@evenoddprime Жыл бұрын

Editing/production. You 100% made the right call by actually including the actual entire load time for about half of those screens. Anyone can say “it’s a 6 or 10 second load time between each level/death.” But until you actually go through it, like in this video I don’t think people fully grasp the complaint until they experience it. If anyone feels like this is a gripe about the attention span or need for instant gratification by “a generation” so be it but I’m in this camp and guilty 🤚 as well. Excellent video. Subbed.

@Yuuretsu Жыл бұрын

Glad to see this get coverage on your channel. I used to own one about a decade ago. The combination of long and frequent load times for the bigger fighting games and the system lacking many AES top titles meant I never really grew in love with it and sold it a few years ago. Those controllers with micro switches were a stroke of genius though and I wish other consoles at the time would have had similar controllers available for their arcade conversions.

@chrismaddock5790 Жыл бұрын

The sad truth is, most of those polygon games (not all, mind, just most) from the 90's haven't aged that well in terms of visuals, whilst 2-d sprite-based games that were often overlooked by gamers in favour of the polygon releases have actually aged beautifully, both in gameplay AND in visuals.

@joaocardoletto Ай бұрын

This perception is changing, people are starting to see 32 bit 3d graphics as an aesthetic choice, it looks interesting on indie games, especially horror.

@GamerGee Жыл бұрын

20:11 they were going to do a blazing star cd with cinematic bios and all but it got cut. We never got a 44khz stereo soundtrack either. The cd is straight console audio.

@piccolo1976 Жыл бұрын

Always loved the look of the first console with its textured top surface and shinny NeoGeo CD badge, looked like a solid piece of SNK machinery worthy to the AES. Bought one back in 2001 but it always used to reset to the consoles title screen after an hour or so of play and I never did find out why. The pads were also a bit ropey! Nice review of this system.

@sonnyandreotte5721 Жыл бұрын

That intro Never gets Old.

@darktetsuya Жыл бұрын

I'd heard the load times were pretty bad on NGCD (especially the 1st gen systems) but I know some games had a trade-off like maybe a re-arranged soundtrack or an extra bonus, like Neo Turf Masters has a new harder exclusive course not found on the arcade/MVS versions.

@SomeOrangeCat Жыл бұрын

Ah good! Some content about a system I haven't heard a lot about.

@discinfiltrator Жыл бұрын

I definitely think is the best way to experience Neo Turf Masters, because of the extra modes and the Scotland course

@cartmann94 Жыл бұрын

As a funfact, the arranged CD soundtrack of most NGCD games became the de facto soundtrack of their ports to the PS1 and the Sega Saturn.

@brandonfarfan1978 Жыл бұрын

I was always interested in the history, and good and bads of this game system, and watching this vid, was really interesting. Definitely alot of research went into it. So thanks for this vid SLX.👍

@RyuAkiga 20 күн бұрын

Awesome video! Great content! I love your take on Sega content this is also awesome! The neo geo CD is something I never knew about and it seemed like a cool console! Thanks SLX!

@mukiex4413 Жыл бұрын

If I recall correctly from magazines back in the day, the Neo Geo CD had 56 megabits of RAM. So that definitely plays into your observation about cart size.

@namelesssoul8098 Жыл бұрын

I have one in my closet. I just need to buy some games. I moved to Florida from Pennsylvania 20 years ago and my games are up north. Lol

@Llukario 10 ай бұрын

Awesome video! I never knew about the neo geo CD! The controller looks different and I saw 8 bit do did a similar one. I was wondering if the neo geo controller was an arcade accurate controller? Great video SLX!

@aquamich129 Жыл бұрын

Thanks for the SNK content. I had the neo cd Z in France and the loading was twice faster as the normal neo cd. Which for some games makes it acceptable. KOF remains a pain. You should do ccontent around PS1/PS2/Saturn 2D games which are quite related to 16 bit era!

@TheBigExclusive Жыл бұрын

Nice work. Will you do a video on the Neo Geo CDZ to see the difference in load speed?

@goralski21 Жыл бұрын

Another issue was Art of Fighting 3: the cd version had smaller sprites than the MVS/AES version. I guess the neo geo cd ram was adequate for most games coming from the MVS, but not enough for Art of Fighting 3

@DoobieDoctor5000 Жыл бұрын

Here's an anecdote that may be food for thought: Neo Geo visibility was low in the home market for someone like me, whose parents were plagued with financial difficulty. They spoiled us, sure, but we got the standard NES, SNES, Genesis, Sega CD, Saturn (but NOT PSX until much later), and N64. By the time Gamecube and PS2 were out I was an adult. Neo Geo was well-known for being an insanely expensive console with insanely expensive games. It was something I definitely wanted (especially since I adored their arcade games so much), but always felt out-of-reach to the point where I wouldn't even dare ask my parents to get it for me. As a result, it was left on my visibility backburner, to the point where I didn't even know the Neo Geo CD existed until I watched this video today. Same can be said for Turbo GrafX/Turbo CD, though I found out about the Turbo CD a couple years ago. On top of all of this, the way Sega handled Sega CD, if I HAD heard about the Neo Geo CD, I would have assumed it was an extension to the Neo Geo, which again was forever deemed out-of-reach. So from my perspective, there are probably more potential customers in my base just because there are more people struggling with money than not. Even the games we had we saw as expensive. Making it more expensive than that made it seem like some sort of ultra-luxurious item. This was reinforced by the fact that people who we knew that owned Neo Geo or Turbo Grafx were always the kids of some sort of business owner.

@briantaylorcloe7725 Жыл бұрын

Wonderful comment! I also have a similar gaming upbringing .... Someone in sixth grade told us on the playground about having a NeoGeo and a 3DO and a CDi (didn't believe it at all, but I don't think anyone wanted to call out the scary classmate... LoL) Read briefly about the NeoCD in the back of gaming mags, in those mail•order lists that you basically need to use a magnifying glass on .... Disregarded it as a TurboDuo/ MegaCD type of add-on as you did ... Would mos def love to have one of these, with a nice collection featuring some RPGs, sports and action titles ~

@starpier Жыл бұрын

Useful in-depth analysis! I was guessing it had something to do with the size on disc, now I have a confirmation. Still it is not a trivial task these days to get a top loader or a CD-Z unit here in Europe or even to find a working one in Japan, it is a more sensible option to simply buy those games from digital stores.

@worldofretrogameplay6963 Жыл бұрын

This is why I bought the double-speed NeoGeo CDZ; load times are better.

@juliusnielsen7122 Ай бұрын

Hate to be a smartass here but the CDZ does not feature a 2x-drive. It runs a Single speed drive, just like it's predecessor while it codes with a double amount of chace memory.

@hugo-garcia Жыл бұрын

On the next years with PlayStation and Saturn many clever programmers created tricks to reduce loading times. This was something new at the time so developers haven't yet figure out a way to overcome this problem. Even today there are still new tricks on game engines to improve load times

@thebizzle413 Жыл бұрын

Should have added CD sounds during the loading screens. Such nostalgia.

@10p6 Жыл бұрын

At that time NGCD should have had a 68020 / 68030 in it, that way it could have done some much faster decompression whilst staying compatible. Also, they should have used Streaming CD audio for Music in the game, as that would have saved a tiny bit of loading time too, not forgetting a double speed CD drive.

@maroon9273 Жыл бұрын

Definitely should've add on the cdz model.

@joesshows6793 Жыл бұрын

Good stuff. I say you were being very generous with being able to deal with the loading. It was literally why I went N64. I just couldn’t deal with the nonsense loading. I mean there is even a pause for many seconds before the loading screen shows up! A load screen before the load screen. And we didn’t get to see this initial load time would could be 1-2min!!!

@SoftBank47 Жыл бұрын

I won a Neo Geo CD controller off Yahoo Auctions, and I regularly get on my knees and beg for SNK to re-release that controller with microswitches. They’ve made recreations before, but not with the microswitches.

@brendanroberts1310 Жыл бұрын

That's one of the reasons I didn't get the mini.

@_TheElMan Жыл бұрын

It speaks to the quality of SLX that I watch a video about loading times haha. I think a lot of it was down to lack of optimisation. As CD tech was so new at the time, they seemed not to tailor the games and just dump the ROM in sections (simplified explanation I know)

@alfredocanas6802 Жыл бұрын

great video!, Just in time for the new neogeo cd MiSTer core!

@teddym2808 Жыл бұрын

NeoGeo is my favourite retro system of all time, so the recent episode on that and now the CD is all very exciting to me, thank you.

@xChris_Kentx Жыл бұрын

Awesome as always!

@gabrieltouw6034 Жыл бұрын

Upmost respect for keeping it up all these years wouldn't want to lose another good youtuber like we did with CGR and the undertow

@ZarlorMercenary Жыл бұрын

I actually preferred the chip based music in some cases, but the exclusive extra course for the CD version of Neo Turf Masters was awesome. Also maybe one day there will be an English translation of that CD exclusive Samurai Showdown RPG.

@mmpsp693 Жыл бұрын

I just checked today, they are still working on it!

@bigshorty4855 Жыл бұрын

@@mmpsp693the Samurai shodown rpg? Seriously? Awesome. Some guy on neo geo forums had it almost finished bit didn't finish and release it. He just was cockteasing his creation. I'll definitely burn it onto a cd if it's ever released in English.

@freddyvidz Жыл бұрын

Never heard of this one, but you did a fantastic job.

@SegaLordX Жыл бұрын

Good to hear you enjoyed it.

@yagami781 Жыл бұрын

Awesome video as always😊

@LuciferHunter-kt7pm Жыл бұрын

I remember playing Fatal Fury Special on my Sega CD and load times were awful. I couldn’t even ‘Pretend’ I was at the arcade

@VictorCaro Жыл бұрын

There is an ode for some models and it helps load times noticeably. It even let's you keep the cd drive active. Sure, this means nothing towards the system fron launch until a could of years back, but makes a huge difference now with loading times as well as homebrew.

@mjdf122 Жыл бұрын

The Neo Geo And Neo Geo CD Are Awesome Poweful Amazing Looking Back Then And Now People Should Show More Love For The Turbo Grafx Neo Geo And 3DO Thank You For All Your Work Sega Lord X

@theconsolekiller7113 Жыл бұрын

Great video. Emulation somewhat fixes this issue with the ability to fast forward during loading screens.

@GustavoBhr Жыл бұрын

Not only it fixes but there’s an option to completely skip load screens! I rather playing NGCD versions of few games because the rearranged OST.

@theconsolekiller7113 Жыл бұрын

@@GustavoBhr Very nice. Only messed with NGCD a few times on emulation, as I beat alot of the games in different forms. Emulation is amazing though. I got into making a dedicated emulation machine probably back in 1999 or 2000. Sold my retro games and consoles and embraced it back then. It just keeps getting better. Rearranged OST sounds nice. Good shit. Would have blown my fuckin balls off back then to own a Neo Geo (cart vers). Would have never been able to get any games though, ha ha.

@humanhouse2426 Жыл бұрын

It’s pretty sad that all the arranged red book music hasn’t been ported to other systems - every time a neogeo game gets ported, they always have the MVS music

@shiondubois7142 Жыл бұрын

I had one, the music was awesome, could never play cartridge after hearing that.

@metalfacemark Жыл бұрын

Great time to drop this video with the Mister Neo Geo core getting updated yesterday!

@stonerdemon Жыл бұрын

Loading times aside, damn the NeoGeo consoles were so beautiful. Even the cheaper, final model of the NeoGeo CD looks so classy and well built.

@FinalManaTrigger Жыл бұрын

The loading times were brutal on some later titles, but that wasn't the deal breaker for me... what really hurt the system was that it didn't have enough ram to fully load in all of the graphics of the stages for games like Ninja Master's and Last Blade 1/2. Most or all of the background animation was missing those games and it really hurt them in my eyes. Otherwise the system was great for older/smaller titles.

@alexojideagu Жыл бұрын

Yes many are forgetting it wasn't just load times, but they had to cut some animation to further reduce load times, which also damaged its appeal.

@bigshorty4855 Жыл бұрын

Along with the load times, the biggest flaw of the system. As someone who still owns the cdz completely agreed.

@TheMrCHELL 9 ай бұрын

Art of Fighting 3 CD had problems with the zoom, making the characters smaller.

@copykat829 Жыл бұрын

Great great video. I always wanted to know what happened to beogeo. I remembered their games looking amazing but very expensive. Thankx lord x.

@elementox123x Жыл бұрын

Excellent video. Art of Fighting 3 (even with a sensational special edition with Robert's coin), had big losses in the size of the sprites and a few frames less in the animations. These changes could be an indication of what other games would have, such as KoF 99 onwards if the console continued to receive AES games.

@MrBroken030 Жыл бұрын

Playing the neo geo cd on mister with 4x disc read speed is a treat! Love the cd audio quality soundtracks, they really add to the cinematic feel of games like Samurai Shodown or Last Blade 2.

@DavideNastri Жыл бұрын

Neo geo cd was and is awesome. Today you can install a neo SD loader (by the genius Furrtek) and you can REALLY enjoy neo geo cd awesomeness keeping the original CD working but also having sd card with blazing fast loading speeds and whole library. Laser bear industries offers perfect fix for the original gamepad too, what a time to be alive!

@ZOMBGiEFart Жыл бұрын

My buddy picked up a Neo Geo CD circa 1997 or 98 and played the hell out of it. We mainly played Samurai Showdown 2 and King of Fighters 96. The load times were annoying for sure, in KoF we got around it usually by playing mirror matches, if you already had loaded the characters prior, it would load much faster. The biggest problem with the system was their decision to make the optical drive a single speed cd-rom, by then we had 2x if not higher. Despite the problems, we enjoyed it but it didn't last long. Playing on the Saturn with Ram Cart expansions made the games arcade perfect for the most part.

@mdsuave13 Жыл бұрын

I knew one guy that had it when we were in middle school... This was back when it was new. Nobody had the money for them. Compared to a cartridge system, all CD systems took forever to load up back in the day.

@MKKTeam Жыл бұрын

Lord! I LOVED this episode! Idk if you are aware of the NeoCD emu for Dreamcast? It has decent compatibility, and most of the games run 100% speed. I did some tests videos back then, and it even works with the original disks!

@NewportBox100s Жыл бұрын

Another great video, as always. 😀

@michaelmercury1297 Жыл бұрын

As a kid in the ninety's I always wanted a Neo Geo. It was too expensive though.

@psyhodelik Жыл бұрын

Love your stuff

@blooddumpster3427 Жыл бұрын

Crossed swords 2 had an arcade release. Great video!

@videosfromroysvault Жыл бұрын

I enjoyed almost all the titles on my sega dreamcast neo geo cd emulator.. I though back in the days, that the mid level pause was a slowdown because of emulation, here in my country... never got a chance of saw these neo geo consoles, the closest was playing the neo geo arcade system, and in the begining of the 2000's, the neoragex emulator on pcs, these games are awesome still to today, love all the SNK, NeoGeo stuffs =)!

@CarlosXPhone Жыл бұрын

I almost bought this, too. I was used to CD tech, but I was like many, who was occupied with N64 and PSX. Sad, SNK couldn't catch a break after arcades died.

@Bubsy_Mods Жыл бұрын

When I first had the Neo Geo CD top loading unit and when I saw the loading screen I was like what the heck, but once witnessing the Neo Geo games at home and listening to the arrange tracks of each stage and level or round whether Art of Fighting 2 to King of Fighters Fatal Fury Special King of the Monsters 2 and I could go on, it was really a treat. Unfortunately the company made mistakes they should have included a two times or four times speed optical drive but unfortunately that's how the system went down. If they released the CDZ in '94 I think it would have done better. But now I have all the Neo Geo CD games on my PSP on the go I could turn on the loading screens or turn it off and instantly play the games with no hiccups😊 Man it's unbelievable how times have changed.

@marcusgreene8434 Жыл бұрын

I wish I had the opportunity to get one back in the day. That price tag was brutal

@Ish0tJR Жыл бұрын

Great video. It wasn’t just long load times, once games like KOF 97 came along they had to actually cut frames of animation to get some of those later games to work. I think most if not all the Saturn ports were based on the Neo Geo CD versions and not the AES/MVS versions because the Saturn ports are missing the same frames.

@SegaLordX Жыл бұрын

Fortunately that didn't happen with very many games. Only the very late stuff.

@ahok1937 Жыл бұрын

What's the best version of the game for you? I don't know a lot about it, but i always assumed the Neo Geo CD to be better because of the music

@shiningphantasy1393 Жыл бұрын

The main benefits of the Neo-Geo CD was in the case of a few select games the outstanding arranged CD quality OST's which would really elevate the package, and in a few cases like the Metal Slug games and Neo Turf Masters there was extra content not found in the cartridge. It would have been nice to see more of this as many of the games were straight ports with some of them having the illustrated and burdensome loading times. As the games became bigger and more ambitious some other compromises were being made such as lost frames of animation and sprite sizes having to be diminished from the cartridge versions. Had they tried to make the really big games on the Neo Geo CD like Garou: MOTW the downsizing would have become increasingly noticeable. But there are a smattering of exclusives like Crossed Swords 2, Samurai Showdown RPG, and Ironclad. It's easy to see why the console didn't move units; for one I could barely find one in stores. Only the small specialty places would carry it for sale. The system was also a tweener with the Neo-Geo not having the new product generation excitement of the Saturn, PSX, and the upcoming "Ultra 64". The imbalance of genres hurt the sales also; mainly twitch arcade games and one-on-one fighters; nothing wrong with those but consumers also want great platformers, role-playing games, more realistic sports games, and all of the other options out there, so at best the platform could only be a second console for those with the extra funds to invest.

@user-fi7ed7mi6u Жыл бұрын

The redbook audio on these neo geo cd games (those made since the unit came out) was phenomenal with full band setups. Aeons ahead of the highly compressed cartridge soundtracks. Sounded great in the Discman, just remember to skip track one

@Captofthisship Жыл бұрын

I literally just nodded out on the metal slug loading screen hahaha

@cajunotaku3256 Жыл бұрын

I just paid $650 for a CDZ, and it was money well spent. It loads so much faster than my regular Neo Geo CD. It’s such an underrated console.

@brendanroberts1310 Жыл бұрын

You could get a AES for less than that or a consolised mvs but if you already had a decent game library I suppose it would make sense.

@cajunotaku3256 Жыл бұрын

@@brendanroberts1310 I have a huge Neo Geo CD collection though. I can’t afford to buy AES carts. MVS carts are a little more reasonable though. I may get a consolized MVS someday.

@Choralone422 Жыл бұрын

The Neo Geo CD was not bad but it should have had a 2x CD-ROM from the very start. Plus, it was released so late in the US the Playstation with its 2X CD-ROM already had a massive lead and was riding the wave of 3D games. Had the Neo Geo CD been released in late 93 or early 94 it would have done so much better IMO.

@johnjay6370 Жыл бұрын

As awesome as the neogeo was , it was to weak to compete with even the 3do. It needed to come out at the latest early 1993 and with a 2x CD rom for 299. It could not run a game like doom, but Wolfenstein should have been possible, but barely. NEC should have teamed up with SNK and ported BONK and other games, but with huge upgrades.. what made the Neogeo so powerful was not just its gpu, it was also its RAM Size and addressing ability. Ram was still expensive in the earlt/mid 90s. Neogeo games even looked and ran better on the neo gel over the saturn without the 4mb ram expansion ...

@youuuuuuuuuuutube Жыл бұрын

Even the Amiga CD-32 released in 1993 had a 2X CD-ROM drive. There is really no excuse for having only 1X in 1994.

@johnjay6370 Жыл бұрын

@@youuuuuuuuuuutube Yep! and it was 400 in the states! Sega Saturn was 299.

@jayesun3420 Жыл бұрын

Love the show brother,🎉

@SegaLordX Жыл бұрын

Glad to hear it. Thank you.

@fonsie3029 Жыл бұрын

Great timing, as of yesterday NeoGeoCD is supported on the MiSTer FPGA system

@gfear24 Жыл бұрын

The NEO-GEO was sold in Canada. It was a little too expensive a console when compared to the competition. But having played some games on it at my local Radio Shack, it was a good system. Just not worth the cost.