{"id":240025,"date":"2018-11-24T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-11-24T19:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jbsgame.com\/neo-geo-mini-outshines-the-ps1-classic-could-pave-the-way-for-a-gba-mini\/"},"modified":"2018-11-24T14:00:00","modified_gmt":"2018-11-24T19:00:00","slug":"neo-geo-mini-outshines-the-ps1-classic-could-pave-the-way-for-a-gba-mini","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jbsgame.com\/neo-geo-mini-outshines-the-ps1-classic-could-pave-the-way-for-a-gba-mini\/","title":{"rendered":"Neo Geo Mini outshines the PS1 Classic, could pave the way for a GBA Mini"},"content":{"rendered":"
I don’t know what’s going on with the Neo Geo Mini. Shortly after I got my hands on one, SNK announced that an upgraded Holiday version of the hardware<\/a> would be going up for pre-order in the coming days. That’s not a good sign. I have to guess that the initial SKU failed to sell as well as SNK had expected, leaving them scrambling to rework the units they already produced into a more marketable package. Their apparent lack of confidence in their product leaves me pessimistic about this weird little machine’s future. <\/p> It’s a shame too, because this is by far my favorite plug-and-play mini console to date, at least in terms of its library. I bought the NES and SNES Classics day one, and I love them to “bits”, but there’s no denying that nearly all the games on each system are outdated. That’s the point of the nostalgia-powered novelty collections though, right? To take a trip in your mind back in time? <\/p> If so, then that’s probably why the Neo Geo Mini isn’t selling. These are not the games that many grew up loving. These are the games that most of us could only afford to play for ten minutes a week at the local arcade, before going home and sinking hours into The Legend of Zelda<\/em> or Sonic the Hedgehog<\/em>. That said. there are several games on the console that stand up to the best that 2018 has to offer in their respective genres. Garou: Mark of the Wolves<\/em> looks and plays better than 99% of today’s fighting games. Metal Slug 3<\/em> is still the best looking 2D run-and-gun action game I’ve ever played. There are also plenty of quality games on here that I’d never heard of before. For instance, if you told me that Ninja Masters<\/em> was as all new indie fighter, and not a Neo Geo title from the ’90’s, not only would I have believed you, but I would have been more than happy to pay $15 for it.<\/p> That’s why, despite my love of Jumping Flash<\/em> and Super Puzzle Fighter<\/em>, the Neo Geo Mini beats out the PS1 Classic for me this holiday season. It’s also why I am more optimistic than ever that Nintendo will skip the N64 when it rolls out its next Classic console, and will instead jump straight to the Game Boy family of systems. I’ve already taken my Neo Geo Mini on the go with me a few times, and I’m sure people would love to do the same with a similarly versatile handheld\/home console pre-loaded with games from Nintendo pre-DS portable generation. The Neo Geo Mini has issues, but its definitely worth looking into once Black Friday rolls around. <\/p> <\/iframe><\/p> The Setup <\/strong><\/p> The Neo Geo Mini is a better handheld than it is a home console. I have fairly large hands, but I’ve had no problems with the stick and buttons on the console itself. The screen is also bright and clear. The console doesn’t take batteries, and instead runs off of a USB port, similar to most cell phones. I’ve played it running off my car’s cigarette lighter USB adapter, a mobile cell phone battery, and hooked up to my laptop on the train, and as of yet I’ve had no problem with power supplies, or pulling off special moves in KoF 2002<\/em> while on the move.<\/p> The optional control pads (sold separately) aren’t nearly as nice. The control stick is loose and the buttons are loud and clicky. They aren’t impossible to get used to, but its strange that they are such a downgrade from the stick built into the console itself.<\/p> In some misguided attempt to replicate the arcade experience, all the games are programmed to have a set amount of tokens for both players, You can tone down the difficulty ,or increase the amount of default lives you have for most of the games, but your starting token count never changes.<\/p> These are not arcade original roms though. Most have been altered for the home market to let you save then restart from whatever stage you last made it to. You can also open up the emulator’s menu and activate save states. It’s a pretty weird system that is cumbersome and confusing at first, but that’s easy to forget once you acclimate.<\/p> The emulator also has some real bare-bones features, like the ability to turn on pixel smoothing and stretching. It’s extremely small-time stuff, and for the most part, will make each game look different or worse, but never better. With the correct aspect ratio and smoothing off, the games look about as good as they do on the Switch or PS4, at least to me. I haven’t had my eyes checked this year, so maybe I’m missing something, but pressed my face up right up to the screen to look for artifacting, and my 41-year-old eyes didn’t detect any. So that’s good news. The bad news is, the only extras here are a couple of stickers. No in-menu history section, no bonuses, nothing but a instruction booklet for the hardware itself. <\/p> <\/p> The Games<\/strong><\/p> There are 40 games on the Neo Geo Mini. The console costs about $110, so you’re getting each one for less than $3, about $5 less than what they might go for on digital storefronts, assuming they are available anywhere else at all. They fall under the genres of fighters, wrestling games, run and gun, shmups, beat ’em ups, sports games and unnerving Tetris<\/em> knock offs. There’s actually only one of these here, but it’s worth mentioning for how bad it made me feel. <\/p> The range of quality here is pretty enormous. Some of these games are a sincere waste of time unless you go in strictly to marvel at how much gaming has changed over the past 20 years. Others are games that I sincerely believe are some of the best ever made. I’ll break them up into three categories (Oddballs, Mid-tier and Classics) and do my best to describe them for you. <\/p> <\/p>