There are loads between stages, but you get a nice map showing your progress, there is no in-level loading, and there are other exclusive bonuses such as the Combat School.īonus material like this, is definitely one of the Neo The original Metal Slug is eminently playable, largely, due to the fact the game is under 200 Megs. Geo CD, with relatively quick loads between stages, making it, arguably, one of the best brawlers for the CD system.Real Bout Fatal Fury 2: The Newcomers is more than playable on Neo Some late games are not as bad as you would perhaps think. Single play is just about tolerable, but King of Fighters is not supposed to be pure 1-on-1 fighting, it’s all about the team play! Each bout is broken up by loading the next character, and the loading on KoF ’99 is really excruciating due its huge meg count. The King of Fighters ’95 through to ’99, inclusive, are almost unplayable as SNK intended. It’s a real shame too, as, from what I can see, it’s identical to the ROM cart versions, with the bonus of CD quality audio. A good example would be Metal Slug 2, whereby there is at least one-mid-level load per stage (excluding the first stage). These games are usually post ’96 releases with high meg counts. Sadly, some of the later releases are just not worth bothering with, as the loading times completely ruin the flow of the gameplay. Some of the earlier games load in one hit, making loading times moot, and many of the later games with relatively modest meg counts carry, fairly, unobtrusive loads between stages. So, are the loading times so appalling that the Neo
Some hardware improvements saw loading times speed up, but there was still no progress in improving the way the system handled in-game data delivery of the King of Fighters series or others with large meg counts. A major mistake was fitting a single-speed CD drive to the unit, and the late 1995 release of the Neo
The cost was due in part to the use of ROM chips, which were expensive to produce back then, and the fact you were basically buying a full and proper arcade game for your home.
The story was the same in the USA and Japan where the AES had the bulk of its modest sales success. In the UK, new AES releases would run anywhere between £200 – £300, and in the early 1990’s that was a huge amount of money to pay for any videogame.