That poorly-written response about them being 'too difficult' manufacture was regarding the $25 external controllers, at least that's my understanding of what happened ;-}
bizz local He’s a reviewer. His job is to give his honest opinion & he gave it. Should he pussy up & kiss SNK’s ass for their flaws, he would’ve been just as unreliable as those corrupt Game Journalists.
no one was happy with it it seems, I don't understand why they went with this format.. it's not portable because there's a screen on it, it's just bulky.
I got mine. $59.99 ! I love it. It looks great on my 50 inch tv. I always wished I had a NeoGeo home console in the 90s. Played a lot of SNK NeoGeo at the arcades. It’s on my game shelf next to my other minis nes, snes, sega gen, and the Turbo Grafx 16 !
Good review but your only complaints were that the games on your HD television weren't "as sharp as could be" (to me it almost looks exactly the same as on the switch) and that the new controller did not have microswitches and had its button layout slightly changed. On the other hand you did not complain about the selection of games, the amount of games, the way they played (I guess they play smoothly). You liked the joystick controller on the mini console and you thought the screen on the mini console was excellent. You even mentioned that the new external controller was good. This sounds more like a positive review with some remarks of things that could have been better.
I watched the video and was thinking the exact same thing. I was going to make basically the same comment as you but then you beat me to it. It's like the title is misleading I guess. It seems like overall the system is pretty darn good...? But the thumbnail for his video has a big "NOPE" on it. A bit confusing...
jwdonal MJR has been really at it with childish clickbait thumbnails lately and maybe since he always puts out positive reviews, he needed this to balance things out and say "hey look I'm not a paid advertiser this thing sucks despite only having minor complaints. I can be critical too!" If slightly blurry visuals never meant to be displayed in HD to begin with and a lack of micro switches are the primary complaints then I don't see how the disappointment and pessimism can be justified. He even tried to put a negative spin on this by plugging the switch seemingly at random and saying "most of these games are already on the switch." This is $110 with 40 games already included. The switch is $300 alone with no games. What the hell is that comparison? He never even touched on the list of games included. Perhaps that would be too positive? What the hell even is this review? It seems like one of the better classic/mini consoles and that nope thumbnail, considering his complaints, is ridiculous.
I've never played either or give a shit about both. That said, it's clear to me that the mini version's video was much softer and not as crisp. The colors are even flatter and not as saturated. Also giving you a usb cable and nothing to plug it into is pretty funny. USB chargers can be found at liquor stores for what 3 bucks? So that means they get them for maybe a dollar.
😂 Yes sir if I still had the original. I didn’t know the “Immortal” rule like 19 years ago. I had the original Neo Geo with about 14 games, and I sold it. Regret #4.😭 If I knew you then you would have told me dude , don’t do it !!
“Clicky Thumb sticks is very hard to make.” 😆 I’m translation, that means they didn’t want to spend the money to get those micro switches. Sold review jason. Even the Neo Geo X had micro switches.
Makes sense, cause in a bulk order a micro switch might be, like, more than 10 cents a piece! and they need FOUR per controller. that's just not doable.
Fair enough. But I'm guessing they don't make much profit with the console even though it costs a 100 dollars. They just decided to cut some manufacturing costs with the controller. But neverthess, when you make something like this it's best to go all out, not to compromise. And alas, they did the latter.
I could picture them turning it into a song. More of a '50's doo-wop vibe to it. Add a few young and old Japanese models singing the tune. lol. SNK's farewell ad in response to final bankruptcy.
Switch has a shocking amount of the most desirable Neo Geo games for $8 each. Game changer. Every other option is obsolete IMO unless you have $70,000 or so in disposable income laying around. www.nintendolife.com/news/2020/06/guide_every_aca_neo_geo_game_on_nintendo_switch_plus_our_top_picks
Metal Slug on the Switch runs and looks perfect. Please ignore MJR's apparent ignorance. As someone who owns a dedicated Neo Geo 6 slot arcade with Metal Slug 1, 2, X, and 3, all the ACA ports are fantastic and look gorgeous with crisp pixel perfect image quality.
Which is why nobody could afford them. When they came out the games were 200 dollars A PIECE. The first time I saw them I knew immediately i'd never get to own or even lay them. Still cool though. This is a cheaper option for people who aren't loaded.
youtubasoarus An even cheaper option is to grab one of their compilation discs or emulated ports available on other platforms & their respective online stores.
Neo Geo Pocket Color was a real SNK product, this is some asshole in a boardroom trying to make money using the SNK zombie corpse name so he can buy more cocaine and hookers.
That's not an analog stick, it's very much digital, just doesn't have microswitches. In the same way the NES pad doesn't have them. Analog is something else, it's when the stick outputs its current position along two axes instead of just a digital 1/0. But that would be pointless for the Neo Geo since neither the hardware nor the games know what to do with analog input.
I would bet the emulator reads out analog Inputs and then translates it into digital ones. I don't know if someone opened one of the controllers to check what kind of stick they use tho
It isn't an analog stick, its just a floaty D-pad. Its made SOLELY to play retro games with no analog support on an emulator with no analog support and nothing else, of course they didn't spend the extra money it would take to make the pads analog and the extra time to program an analog to digital emulation front-end that converts them to run on the ONLY THING IN THE WORLD they were created to be used with.
@@hybridvigga I bet getting standardized and mass produced cheap analog sticks from some cheap manufacturer is way more logical than to think they made their own digital stick. so my bet is till that's it's a cheap analog stick that they put in there. edit: just googled it, and I was right... at least in the main system that stick is a bock standard analog stick in there. which makes it only logical that they used the same stick in the controllers to save money
They will just be digital sticks, they would be cheaper than analog ones not more expensive, that is why SONY are only using digital on the Playstation Classic, to save the extra money that making analog pads would cost. They are a more advanced, more intricate technology with more components and moving parts, just the sixteen metal contacts versus four metal contacts is saving 75% on the contacts production cost, then you take into account that you don't need to put technology or components to read the amount the stick is moved by, its just on or off when it touches the contact. Plus there are tons of companies in Japan and China still mass producing, standardised, cheaper-than-analog controllers with floaty D-pads for clone consoles and other knock-offs for them to buy in.
"Clicky thumb sticks is very hard to make" - LOL! They have the original patent, designs and stuff all related to THEIR controller with microswitched stick. Lazy of them imo, and perhaps saved them a few cents on manufacture. Great review - there's no competition to the original Neo Geo imo. Regards the video, it looks like added a filter on the output - kind of making it a bit blurry. It looked like composite at various points.
Microswitches are like 0.50-1.00 each. x8 that's about 8 bucks to the cost of the controller and for no actual benefit (micro switches are not true analog -- they're still switches). Mind they'd get them in quantity but still. A comparable analog stick is like 2.50 total.
Nah, they aren't when you order 100,000 of them straight from the factory! They are if you try buy small quantities from places like digikey or mouser etc. Even still, would you pay $8 more for a clicky one - I would lol. I would pay $20 more for a clicky one, because I could hack it for use with the MVS and AES lol.
+youtubasoarus And thinking about it, the old pads had 4 switches (to get 8 directions ), not 8. The buttons are the same on the new controller as the old was - silicone pads.
One switch for Up, Down, Left and Right. When you push up and left, both the left and up are pressed. You can see how the original worked on my tear down video here:- ua-cam.com/video/B8okmnwCB1M/v-deo.html
Irony: To make the pixels sharp and crisp with no aliasing instead of blurry like they are here takes no effort from a coding standpoint. All you do is take the final render of each frame at original resolution and make it two or three times bigger with a "nearest neighbour" stretch, often referred to in the emulation communities as "pre-scaling". This literally takes only a few lines of code and there's no excuse for it to be missing from ANY of these mini-console things.
+Lassi Kinnunen That would produce aliasing if you just did a nearest neighbour stretch straight to the screen, as not all pixels would be the same size given that 720 and 1080 are not multiples of 224, the NeoGeo's vertical screen resolution. Pre-scaling to an exact multiple and then stretching to the screen with bilinear filtering provides crisp pixels and eliminates aliasing. ;)
I prefer prescaling in a microdigitizational platformography at 4gigabytes GeoRAM but for this it would be best to quadruple the aspectography of the miscarriagometer with the visual graphic rx nightshade element.
+Tim Tompkins ...yes, I get it, what I was saying sounds like gibberish, but the ultimate point was that fixing the blurry pixels simply would've taken a single programmer under 5 minutes. ;)
Pixelmusement You have to remember not to solely think digitally, as well. To properly scale the image you have to use analog multiples from how the hardware assumes an image will be viewed.The Neo Geo internally processes the image at 224 pixels, but the output to a CRT display is always at 240 progressive lines. Therefore a 3x scale to 720p would be perfect, and higher resolutions should always be done at further proper multiples of 240p, so long as the image is not a 480 line interlaced signal.
Well, the matter is about the content of the original ROM. Don't get me wrong, i think you are right: any revival console that runs with... literally thousands of times the RAM, computing power, and hundreds of times the clock speed of the system they emulate should offer (optional) interlaced mode and a couple of edge enhancement real time algorithms, alongside with the original mode. But how it is phrased in the video one may understand that the games we see in this video have lower quality than original NEOGEO. From what i see in this video i'd say they are faithful. NEO GEO was indeed the best gaming system (for arcade games, for historical reasons it has only arcade games) of it's time. NEO GEO had 224 lines of resolution, allowed 16 colors on each sprite, 4096 colors on screen and no transparency at all. So in my humble opinion it doesn't make sense to complain about the fact the original rom perfectly represented on a modern TV looks like the game looked in an arcade land on a monitor the same size.
Been using my New Geo mini on and off for years now. Love love love it. Arcade games that I could only read about as a kid, now sat in a mini console on my office desk...best thing ever!!!
so you do want it? haha no beef, man. would be nice to find one there but that probably wont happen. if this system was 100% legit by some people's seemingly high standards then it would triple in cost. it's a pretty great piece of garbage for my uses. cheers
I’ve really been enjoying my Neo Geo Mini, the controllers are super nice and feel very high quality...I do wish it had a battery but then it’d cost more. I love neo Geo and have for 30+ years and I am happy to have the new mini
I agree man this is quite an achievement in videogame history. For them to even come out like this different adding a screen on this glorious unit is stunning to remind people of the 90's dominated by arcades. Of course it's not perfect but for the price give Snk Credit.
I never knew about the Neo Geo console as a kid growing up. And knowing the price point it sold at I see why I didn't hear about it. So with this system coming out and having so many classic games on it. This is a great option and I can't wait until mine gets delivered!!
Fair review. Thank you for providing your opinion in the title and then backing it up in your review. I feel like I now know what to expect from this product
Love this system! Totally worth it. There's a few games I could do without and a few I would add. If you're on the fence, you better grab one before the price goes through the roof. Picture quality on a CRT tv looks fantastic, if you have the means.
@@SameNameDifferentGame The problem is it uses all off the shelf components with the PCB and plastic moulding being easy and cheap to do, but a micro switched stick would have to be built from scratch and would be more expensive than you think unless they could sell these in the millions.
@@michaelparker2449 They did it for a Japanese only PS2 controller (which included making new molds, because the button layout was different than the original NGCD controller). Beyond that, it's what the controller is known for, and not having the microswitches makes it look like they went for the cheap option at the cost of authenticity.
I've been following your channel for some time now, and I love the fact that your reviews are pretty honest, even if you are given gifts from the companies to review like in this case. You are not paying them any favors back and I appreciate your honesty. I might still get this thing, it looks cool and I never got the chance to get a real Neo Geo because of its ridiculously high price. You got a new subscriber today man. Cheers, and keep up the good work!
Mine just came in the other day for considerably cheaper... and I love it. I am not as hardcore as some of you fans out there but I do get it. I have been upset about cheaper routes taken when it comes to reissuing other things that I am hard-core about. The best mini arcade collection I have seen...so far.
@@mellohi6175 my comment is two years old...time flies. It's still sitting on the shelf with a couple other mini arcade machines. Two years? 24 months? Feels more like 22 months. Hmmmm
I have spent a lot more time with the neo geo mini, and I'm even more convinced that this review could not be more off base. This little unit is absolutely fantastic. The video out is great! Pop it into 4:3 and image optimization and these games are beautiful. The framerates are rock solid. The game play emulation is perfect. At least compared to the cabinet games I've played through the years. I never had an avs so I'm not as in love with the clicky switches as you seem to be, but I have had a ngpc for 20 years since new. The clicks are nice but not a deal breaker. You're even touting how the games are better on the switch, but that has analog controls and you don't even bat an eye! I play this way more than the Nintendo classic consoles. This neo geo blows the Nintendo out of the water. The games are arcade classics. It has a screen!! It includes 40 games that retailed for 200 a piece when new in the 90s.It's almost unfair to even compare them as competing products. I think you need to spend some more time with with the neo geo and revise your review. I'm not really sure what you expected here...
Good news dude because I just bought one myself. It's a much cheaper alternative and with 40 classic games and TV capabilities. Nothing to complain about. Besides some of the Neo Geo games listed on the device costs over $1,000 for the original game.
This thing looks awesome but I haven't picked one up yet. I wish they had just made it as a mini console instead of the mini arcade because I'd rather just have it hooked up to the TV with legit controllers anyways. I'm not sure what MJR main problem is to be this disappointed because everything in the video is nit picky.
@@fordxbgtfalcon I’ve just purchased one and I think it’s a great mini console maybe one of the best... it does look great with smoothing on.. think metal Jesus was a little harsh on his review tbh.
Yeah it reminded me of your channel Lon. Really Like the disclosure you give as you're being very open and honest to your viewers. Definitely makes guys like you more credible in my eyes. There's alot of content creators on YT who keep these details hidden. Keep up the good work guys.
Unfortunate. I was kinda hoping for "clicky sticks" (which, apparently "is hard to make") and batteries. Also, I'm pretty sure, that the video smoothing is optional on the Neo Geo titles available on the Switch. At least, that's the case for Samurai Shodown IV and V.
I can remember when NEO-GEO was the most amazing console. I remember going to Babages and seeing it on the shelf. At 10 years old it seemed like it was $1,000.00. I only knew one really rich kid who had one and would play on his big rear projection TV. Metal slug was Soo fucking badass
They're expecting you to plug in external batteries using the USB port. The same batteries a lot of people have now to charge their phones. So yes, it's portable. What they mean by "hard to make" is that it would probably require some manual labor to assemble the controller (or special machining) which means it would not be a $25 controller. I can't imagine too many people would want to pay $50 per controller when the console itself is about $100. Back when it was released the NEO GEO was $649 ($1255 in today's dollars) and the games were $200 each (about $400 in today's dollars). I bought one because I always wanted a NEO GEO and now it's affordable. These aren't intended to be much more than novelty devices to commemorate gaming history. They're great for kids who want to be game programmers but don't know where to begin. These classic games are a great starting point for learning how to make games as they are far simpler in their controls, graphics and rules of play.
I don't mind bilinear filtering so it doesn't bother me. But they could add a software update to turn it off for people who don't like it. Likewise they should make aspect ratio stretching optional as well.
Im delighted your review of this console is a no Bullshit hands on honest opinion instead of some people who get free stuff { Boogie2988 } from developers only to give a good review just to continue to get free stuff. This is why i love your reviews. Thanks for this review. Much appreciated.
Your input on things really matters to me. You really know what to look for and I really enjoy your review videos. People are aware of you and your opinion matter in the video game world here in Mississippi. I was hesitant to pick one up after watching your review on this but I went ahead and pulled the trigger today. I think I’ll be happy with it because the only Neo Geo I ever played was in arcades as a kid in California so the controller issues you pointed out won’t be a deal for me but as a gamer I do understand the disappointment in them not having the micro switches. Thanks for all of the great info you put out.
WAAAAH THE THUMBSTICK DOESNT CLICK It’s $100 for 40 games which are difficult to get. You’d have to buy a switch and spend $600 to get all this, or you can just buy this for $100.
It's emulation, so no, you can get all this for free. They need to throw you some sort of bone when you're paying this kind of money for a raspberry pi in a fancy shell.
I'd probably buy one if it could get it for a cheap price, but I'm certainly would never have paid full price for it. even the Neo Geo Pocket had microswitches for fuck sake. I mean it's not nearly as disappointing as the PS Classic, but it's still not worth that much money
My dude.....you're so gonna regret doing that. I LOVE the Neo Geo mini to no ends I practice my KoF on this thing Get a Mayflash Controller adapter Type C, you can use a .PS4 controller on it
Much better review than Spawn Wave. You have put some effort into it. Still definitely going to buy this. I think it looks awesome and definitely has a good old retro feel to it; also to how it views on a television.
The no battery support sucks. I wanted to be able to take this on long train rides or plane trips. Now i have to make sure there are going to be outlets in the cabin before i decide to bring it or not.
So I bought the Japanese version when it came out here (I live in Japan) and I really like it. It looks really crisp on my TV, but the colors seem slightly muted. I know what you mean about the lack of microswitches, but c'est la vie. This is coming from someone who never had a NeoGeo or a NeoGeo CD, so I can totally see why purists and collectors are disappointed. That said, I think it's a really good value for the price (especially the US version, which doesn't have the 25 (!!!!!) fighting games that the JP version has) and freaking miles better than the NeoGeo X Gold.
Microswitches are known to fail over time. Moving the A and B and C and D buttons are a little strange but I didn't have any issues with it. I believe this unit is a hell of a lot better than the neogeo x gold. It's a good option if you can't afford an AVS or consolized MVS. I really don't understand the uproar people are having over the new controllers though, they work great and feel solid. The emulation and graphics in hd are just as good as the nintendo switch aca versions. Switch versions of these games are $7.99 per title too so thinking this is expensive for neogeo games is pretty amusing. You can find some older SNK collections but even the newer SKN Collection coming out doesn't include most of the games on the mini.
Which again, are known to fail. Microswitches =/= forever. True analogue maybe. I've owned broken CD controllers. I own working remade MVS joysticks from analogue, which was all original hardware. Knocking this thing for lack of microswitches is stupid at best.
The controllers work way better than MJ and lots of other sefproclaimed peeps make you think they do. It's not clicky. The AES has a non clicky joystick, lets bash on that too than. The Neo-Geo Mini is a nice piece of machinery and for what it should do, it does good. Bring lots of fun and joy, with an option to enjoy that with a friend. You should buy an arcade cabinet if you want the purest of experience. HDMI in it self isn't pure and should have been RGB than, but then nobody would have liked that. Time to write a piece about the Neo-Geo Mini our selfs.
Every mechanical component is known to fail over time. There's what looks like a Polyshine analogue stick in there - about as good as cheap analogue sticks out of China get, pretty high quality, but even ALPS and Mitsumi don't necessarily last for more than a few years of regular use. The toughest mass-market analogue joystick so far would have to be a contactless Hall effect sensor used in Saturn 3D pad and on Dreamcast, though the lubricant gels or contaminates over time, but you can disassemble, clean, re-lubricate, can be good for decades like that. Also the assembly is made from Polyamide which needs to be conditioned with water every 10 years or so, so it doesn't become brittle, and fundamentally the return spring can probably burrow into the holding plate, though i haven't heard of that actually happening, it seems to hold up well.
This thing would look good displayed on the back of a toilet in a bathroom. Kinda reminds me of the Neo Geo X Gold. It was cheaply made and disappointing as well, but then shot up in value.
I'd argue about the neo geo gold being cheaply made, they just didn't expect to get called out on the disappointing internal software that stretched the output to widescreen and less than optimal emulation, which they all but fixed in the firmware. The hardware itself was mostly great, especially for the time and cost. Tommo even made sure to have a good clicky stick in it... It's kinda funny that SNK said the X wasn't good enough and then went on to make this years later...
I've never seen an MJ review I've disagreed with more. It's by far the best mini system I've owned. This is coming from a person that grew up owning a Neo Geo AES.
Proscriptus exactly. This “Mini/Classic/Flashback” trend is just to milk the nostalgia out of us. Plus more companies are doing it because “Nintendo did it, so can we!” After the NES and SNES Classics sold so much that these companies are copying a “fad” for money.
I love this thing. The games look Very good on my 40” hd tv. The controllers are very good quality. I got mine used for 50 bucks with the 2 controllers and hdmi cable. Shock troopers, metal slug, samurai showdown, top hunter, and so much more… im a big collector. I may not even bother buying a neo geo cd console.
Oh man very minor complaints. Ordered mine today and it came with 2 controllers and hdmi cable for $77! I can't wait to get it. And 40 games is 40 more games than I ever had on the neo geo!! 😆
The video out looks fine to me. The SNES Classic looks similar to playing an emulator on a computer monitor with no filters. The Mini Neo Geo looks like it has some smoothing/blurring to simulate a CRT TV.
Maybe if you plugged it in with composite wires sure then the blurry look is fine I guess, I run my older consoles to my crt tv though an scart to component converter box and they don't look that blurry not even close, hell even s-video is debatably sharper. If the idea was to actually simulate a CRT then I'd suggest for SNK to look up sonic mania and look at their CRT soft filter or download retroarch and look at the CRT royale shader to understand how a CRT filter should look like. Honestly though I don't even know why I brought this up, really there would be one easy solution SNK could have done to fix this, the option to turn the filtering off, and then have scanlines drawn over the image to simulate a RGB PVM or a good consumer grade CRT TV.
SNK did this not for Fans, they just throw that thing on the Market and hope that also causals will buy it... At the end it was maybe a bad idea to make a "mini Arcade" out of it, better let it looks like a Neo Geo Mini Console and save money on the Display. (and use the money for accurate Controllers, like the originals) I hope at least Sony does it like Nintendo :P
The PS Classic even makes this system look like the SNES Classic in comparison. What a shit system it is. The Genesis Mini looks like it's shaping up to be pretty damn good though. I hope they don't fuck it up
it almost looks like the original 240p image is being upscaled to 720p using bilinear filtering, rather than using nearest neighbour scaling with a 3x integer scale to maintain absolute sharpness. The image looks a little noisy, like it's using low quality components or something. Really unfortunate product here.
Mad respect for staying true and real and tell it like it is! You are 100% right on all points. As for the clicky stick, they would have to make it from scratch. They don't care at all. When I found out they were using analog sticks, I got really upset. This is just NUTS and thank you for warning everyone about this. Another downside is that it is not compatible with anything other then their own bs pads
It is not at all in fact. Each one of us could make something 100 times better with a decent 3d printer. Hell, that might even become a thing in the future
Picked it up for $30 on Amazon. I think its pretty cool little thing and a nice little display piece. Not really concerned with the lack of the clicky.
@@johnnyalias9596 it was an Amazon Lightning Deal several weeks ago but it has been in a few lightning deals since. Keep an eye out on the CheapAssGamer twitter for a heads up (@videogamedeals)
@@timhouston8007 yup and this will be sharp af on a crt too. Why because it has hardly any resolution... And like mjr said it looks really super good on that small screen.
I imported the Japanese version when it came out. My general impressions were, it's incredibly small and it had a tendency to slide around in "portable mode". I thought the screen looked nice and crips, but I also wondered why they bothered with a screen. All I really wanted was a small shell that looked like an AES that I could plug into my TV. It seems kinda over designed for the niche it fills to me.
What's so bad about the lack of microswitches in the controller? I get the problem with the button rearrangement but what's the big deal with the thumbstick?
triggering omron switches gives a reaction to the user. that tick sound let's you have rhythm and better decision making, knowing it initiated as you please (the tick sound)
Looks like they used the simple bilinear scaler (with smoothing! -- perhaps someone thought it looks "better" that way). Whereas what you expect, and I would prefer the same, is just crisp sharp pixels the SNES Mini has. At the very least, smoothing should be an option.
I think you have some valid points but at the same time I don't know what your talking about. I recently got the international version 2 weeks ago and I love it. Easily the best money I've spent in that price range. I haven't had a chance to get an hdmi cable yet but playing games with the controls on the console or with a remote are both great. The console controls are tight like a tiger. I never had a neo geo cd, soI never had a clicky remote but I find nothing to complain about with the analogue stick. Having said that I realize that it's an aesthetic quality and also a tactile feeling you get from using such a remote. I like many others like me were never fortunate enough to own a neo geo. This is the first for me and probably many other people. I remember seeing them in the glass case at toys r us when I was a kid and they were just unattainable. I think you should have a greater appreciation for what it is and not what it isn't. With regards to your graphics comparison, I find that there was no negligible difference. I'm not one who has ever been impressed by graphics resolution but I'm also viewing your vids on a Retina display and I'm not really seeing anything to complain about. Sorry if I don't know what I'm talking about or the rest of you disagree. These are just my opinions and I feel very satisfied with the product.
I don’t really get what you’re talking about with the quality… Could be because I’m watching this in portrait mode on my iPhone but I’m not noticing much of a difference. It’s all pretty much pixelated the same. I kind of chalked up any “Bad “to just not being played on a CRT
Dropped in to say that I freaking LOVE the thumbnail. It's so on point, I wish I could just use that as a response to about 75% of the crap I deal with at work every day. Oh, and the review was good too. :p
Switch version of Metal Slug doesn't look much better, but it does look better. Honestly, I was really hyped about this thing when they announced it, but there's so many things that are putting me off from buying one. Games being locked to different regions(why are Twinkle Star Sprites and Metal Slugs on different regions), image quality being pretty bad, controllers not being authentic and menu just looking... cheap. I can't think of better way to put last one, and it's not that big of a deal, but combined with everything else this whole thing feels just kind of sloppy. SNK just can't seem to catch a break with reproductions of their systems, which is sad.
Guess what my nephew is getting for his 5th Birthday. I think it's great for a mini arcade, you were a bit critical on it. The TV output is just a bonus if you ask me, most people buying these will end up playing them on the actual mini arcade and use the actual console for full console experience on TV. The clicky directional stick is more for us old timers, I don't think this new generation will take the clicky noise too fondly, that's why they may have taken it off. At least game selection is good and it does function the way it should. Based on the price, it doesn't seem like a complete disappointment.
I think you would be better off buying the Neo Geo X. Ya the output isn't great but you can get around that. It's lovely in handheld mode and it's amazing that the have the clicky stick on it. It also comes with an original mold of the Neo Geo stick which is amazing especially as you can hook it up to you PC.
@@galegirlygamer1847 yup. In fact if you play the NGX through a CRT it's pretty great. And the team did put an update out before SNK pulled the plug, which I never understood. SNK should have stuck with the X. It could have been a great platform, they could have release SNK maker, kind of like Mario Maker 😂🤘
@@MrLeafstaagreed. When I worked at XBOX we had one hooked up to a CRt and it was great. One of my coders even managed to get the stick working on the XBOXONE! That was awesome. 🤘😁🤘
Good honest review, you and Ashens have killed this off for me unfortunately. Shame the Neo Geo X died off. One minor thing, I can see why the power is just the cable if the international version is for the European, US and UK markets, as they all have different sockets.
This review was so helpful, Got one for $70 with two white controllers. my review is it's brilliant. 8/10 , Just wished it could add more credits while playing. Edit: it's the only system you can play during a zombie apocalypse. All you need is a external battery preferred solar powered.
"Clicky switches is hard to make." Yeah, well $110 is hard to spend.
Lol
Lol!🤣 Ikr!
well said.
That poorly-written response about them being 'too difficult' manufacture was regarding the $25 external controllers, at least that's my understanding of what happened ;-}
LMFAO good one
And this will be your last free SNK review unit.
Lol so true I was thinking the same thing I know snk is thinking why da hell did we choose this guy for a review. He could have been a little nicer.
Ashens wasnt too happy with his review unit either
bizz local He’s a reviewer. His job is to give his honest opinion & he gave it. Should he pussy up & kiss SNK’s ass for their flaws, he would’ve been just as unreliable as those corrupt Game Journalists.
no one was happy with it it seems, I don't understand why they went with this format.. it's not portable because there's a screen on it, it's just bulky.
It'll be the last of SNK too if they keep selling shit like this.
I actually don't like the arcade design at all. I would have preferred it to look like a mini AES console.
Ohh, you mean like the Neo Geo X
(which I find is even worse than the
Neo Geo Mini)?
I got mine. $59.99 ! I love it. It looks great on my 50 inch tv. I always wished I had a NeoGeo home console in the 90s. Played a lot of SNK NeoGeo at the arcades. It’s on my game shelf next to my other minis nes, snes, sega gen, and the Turbo Grafx 16 !
I just wish the Neo Geo and it's carts weren't so dang expensive today.
@@kassfoss3210 you and millions of other collectors...which is why they stay expensive. Everyone wants it!
Good review but your only complaints were that the games on your HD television weren't "as sharp as could be" (to me it almost looks exactly the same as on the switch) and that the new controller did not have microswitches and had its button layout slightly changed. On the other hand you did not complain about the selection of games, the amount of games, the way they played (I guess they play smoothly). You liked the joystick controller on the mini console and you thought the screen on the mini console was excellent. You even mentioned that the new external controller was good. This sounds more like a positive review with some remarks of things that could have been better.
I watched the video and was thinking the exact same thing. I was going to make basically the same comment as you but then you beat me to it. It's like the title is misleading I guess. It seems like overall the system is pretty darn good...? But the thumbnail for his video has a big "NOPE" on it. A bit confusing...
jwdonal MJR has been really at it with childish clickbait thumbnails lately and maybe since he always puts out positive reviews, he needed this to balance things out and say "hey look I'm not a paid advertiser this thing sucks despite only having minor complaints. I can be critical too!"
If slightly blurry visuals never meant to be displayed in HD to begin with and a lack of micro switches are the primary complaints then I don't see how the disappointment and pessimism can be justified. He even tried to put a negative spin on this by plugging the switch seemingly at random and saying "most of these games are already on the switch." This is $110 with 40 games already included. The switch is $300 alone with no games. What the hell is that comparison? He never even touched on the list of games included. Perhaps that would be too positive? What the hell even is this review? It seems like one of the better classic/mini consoles and that nope thumbnail, considering his complaints, is ridiculous.
I've never played either or give a shit about both. That said, it's clear to me that the mini version's video was much softer and not as crisp. The colors are even flatter and not as saturated. Also giving you a usb cable and nothing to plug it into is pretty funny. USB chargers can be found at liquor stores for what 3 bucks? So that means they get them for maybe a dollar.
Sad to hear. Back to playing the original.
Haha you would got all the originals if u real John Hancock
@@mysterylittlebhoy1482 he is though
😂
Yes sir if I still had the original.
I didn’t know the “Immortal” rule like 19 years ago. I had the original Neo Geo with about 14 games, and I sold it. Regret #4.😭 If I knew you then you would have told me dude , don’t do it !!
No need to own all of the originals. Just get a Neo•Geo AES flashcart. Or emulate.
Why ur barbudo? Parece o Lula esse vadeo kkkkk kkkkk
“Clicky Thumb sticks is very hard to make.” 😆 I’m translation, that means they didn’t want to spend the money to get those micro switches. Sold review jason. Even the Neo Geo X had micro switches.
Makes sense, cause in a bulk order a micro switch might be, like, more than 10 cents a piece! and they need FOUR per controller. that's just not doable.
1. Make controller production cheaper by 50 cents. 2. Get bad reviews. 3. Sit on milliions of unsold units. 4. ??? 5. Profit!! :-)
Fair enough. But I'm guessing they don't make much profit with the console even though it costs a 100 dollars. They just decided to cut some manufacturing costs with the controller. But neverthess, when you make something like this it's best to go all out, not to compromise. And alas, they did the latter.
@ch282 Didn't know that. Thanx for the neo-geo nugget, doc
I could picture them turning it into a song. More of a '50's doo-wop vibe to it. Add a few young and old Japanese models singing the tune. lol. SNK's farewell ad in response to final bankruptcy.
You know something is bad if Metal Jesus is complaining about it, the dude's about the most optimistic positive force in the entire universe.
This
Ikr
DaGleese i agree.
Still want one, NeoGeo was expansive back in the day.
Expansive? :)
Switch has a shocking amount of the most desirable Neo Geo games for $8 each. Game changer. Every other option is obsolete IMO unless you have $70,000 or so in disposable income laying around. www.nintendolife.com/news/2020/06/guide_every_aca_neo_geo_game_on_nintendo_switch_plus_our_top_picks
Metal Slug on the Switch runs and looks perfect. Please ignore MJR's apparent ignorance.
As someone who owns a dedicated Neo Geo 6 slot arcade with Metal Slug 1, 2, X, and 3, all the ACA ports are fantastic and look gorgeous with crisp pixel perfect image quality.
clicky thumbsticks is very hard to make!
I died
It's all about $$
So hard
It's a shame as it seems this is the result of cost cutting. Most people into Neo Geo except paying a higher price for a high quality product.
Which is why nobody could afford them. When they came out the games were 200 dollars A PIECE. The first time I saw them I knew immediately i'd never get to own or even lay them. Still cool though. This is a cheaper option for people who aren't loaded.
youtubasoarus An even cheaper option is to grab one of their compilation discs or emulated ports available on other platforms & their respective online stores.
Lol even neo geo pocket color has a clicky stick
Even the stock retron 5 controller has a clicky thumbstick. Good grief!
Neo Geo Pocket Color was a real SNK product, this is some asshole in a boardroom trying to make money using the SNK zombie corpse name so he can buy more cocaine and hookers.
ua-cam.com/video/3XjuuTcMaMQ/v-deo.html someone made it.
even Neo Geo X Gold has a clicky stick
That's not an analog stick, it's very much digital, just doesn't have microswitches. In the same way the NES pad doesn't have them. Analog is something else, it's when the stick outputs its current position along two axes instead of just a digital 1/0. But that would be pointless for the Neo Geo since neither the hardware nor the games know what to do with analog input.
Finally someone whom knows the difference
I would bet the emulator reads out analog Inputs and then translates it into digital ones.
I don't know if someone opened one of the controllers to check what kind of stick they use tho
It isn't an analog stick, its just a floaty D-pad. Its made SOLELY to play retro games with no analog support on an emulator with no analog support and nothing else, of course they didn't spend the extra money it would take to make the pads analog and the extra time to program an analog to digital emulation front-end that converts them to run on the ONLY THING IN THE WORLD they were created to be used with.
@@hybridvigga I bet getting standardized and mass produced cheap analog sticks from some cheap manufacturer is way more logical than to think they made their own digital stick.
so my bet is till that's it's a cheap analog stick that they put in there.
edit: just googled it, and I was right... at least in the main system that stick is a bock standard analog stick in there.
which makes it only logical that they used the same stick in the controllers to save money
They will just be digital sticks, they would be cheaper than analog ones not more expensive, that is why SONY are only using digital on the Playstation Classic, to save the extra money that making analog pads would cost.
They are a more advanced, more intricate technology with more components and moving parts, just the sixteen metal contacts versus four metal contacts is saving 75% on the contacts production cost, then you take into account that you don't need to put technology or components to read the amount the stick is moved by, its just on or off when it touches the contact. Plus there are tons of companies in Japan and China still mass producing, standardised, cheaper-than-analog controllers with floaty D-pads for clone consoles and other knock-offs for them to buy in.
Thank you for your honesty and not letting your review be bought and sold.
"Clicky thumb sticks is very hard to make" - LOL! They have the original patent, designs and stuff all related to THEIR controller with microswitched stick. Lazy of them imo, and perhaps saved them a few cents on manufacture. Great review - there's no competition to the original Neo Geo imo. Regards the video, it looks like added a filter on the output - kind of making it a bit blurry. It looked like composite at various points.
Microswitches are like 0.50-1.00 each. x8 that's about 8 bucks to the cost of the controller and for no actual benefit (micro switches are not true analog -- they're still switches). Mind they'd get them in quantity but still. A comparable analog stick is like 2.50 total.
Nah, they aren't when you order 100,000 of them straight from the factory! They are if you try buy small quantities from places like digikey or mouser etc. Even still, would you pay $8 more for a clicky one - I would lol. I would pay $20 more for a clicky one, because I could hack it for use with the MVS and AES lol.
+youtubasoarus And thinking about it, the old pads had 4 switches (to get 8 directions ), not 8. The buttons are the same on the new controller as the old was - silicone pads.
GadgetUK164 - Retro Gaming Repairs & Mods - How do you get 8 directions with only 4 switches? O___o What kind of sorcery is this?
One switch for Up, Down, Left and Right. When you push up and left, both the left and up are pressed. You can see how the original worked on my tear down video here:- ua-cam.com/video/B8okmnwCB1M/v-deo.html
Irony: To make the pixels sharp and crisp with no aliasing instead of blurry like they are here takes no effort from a coding standpoint. All you do is take the final render of each frame at original resolution and make it two or three times bigger with a "nearest neighbour" stretch, often referred to in the emulation communities as "pre-scaling". This literally takes only a few lines of code and there's no excuse for it to be missing from ANY of these mini-console things.
+Lassi
Kinnunen That would produce aliasing if you just did a nearest neighbour stretch straight to the screen, as not all pixels would be the same size given that 720 and 1080 are not multiples of 224, the NeoGeo's vertical screen resolution. Pre-scaling to an exact multiple and then stretching to the screen with bilinear filtering provides crisp pixels and eliminates aliasing. ;)
I prefer prescaling in a microdigitizational platformography at 4gigabytes GeoRAM but for this it would be best to quadruple the aspectography of the miscarriagometer with the visual graphic rx nightshade element.
+Tim Tompkins ...yes, I get it, what I was saying sounds like gibberish, but the ultimate point was that fixing the blurry pixels simply would've taken a single programmer under 5 minutes. ;)
Pixelmusement You have to remember not to solely think digitally, as well. To properly scale the image you have to use analog multiples from how the hardware assumes an image will be viewed.The Neo Geo internally processes the image at 224 pixels, but the output to a CRT display is always at 240 progressive lines. Therefore a 3x scale to 720p would be perfect, and higher resolutions should always be done at further proper multiples of 240p, so long as the image is not a 480 line interlaced signal.
Well, the matter is about the content of the original ROM.
Don't get me wrong, i think you are right: any revival console that runs with... literally thousands of times the RAM, computing power, and hundreds of times the clock speed of the system they emulate should offer (optional) interlaced mode and a couple of edge enhancement real time algorithms, alongside with the original mode.
But how it is phrased in the video one may understand that the games we see in this video have lower quality than original NEOGEO.
From what i see in this video i'd say they are faithful.
NEO GEO was indeed the best gaming system (for arcade games, for historical reasons it has only arcade games) of it's time.
NEO GEO had 224 lines of resolution, allowed 16 colors on each sprite, 4096 colors on screen and no transparency at all.
So in my humble opinion it doesn't make sense to complain about the fact the original rom perfectly represented on a modern TV looks like the game looked in an arcade land on a monitor the same size.
Thanks for being honest.
Been using my New Geo mini on and off for years now. Love love love it. Arcade games that I could only read about as a kid, now sat in a mini console on my office desk...best thing ever!!!
You were expecting too much from this thing...
Hopefully I can find it at Bargain Hunt one day!
That is a good idea. Goodwill might have them couple years from now..
good luck.
One of the few places where I would pay money for this garbage.
so you do want it? haha no beef, man. would be nice to find one there but that probably wont happen. if this system was 100% legit by some people's seemingly high standards then it would triple in cost. it's a pretty great piece of garbage for my uses. cheers
Maybe a firmware update can fix the up-scaling issues?
Looks cool, but I would want something bigger and with a retropie in it.
imagine having this in 1996 or 2000 even. Would have been groundbreaking. In 2020 not so much.
I’ve really been enjoying my Neo Geo Mini, the controllers are super nice and feel very high quality...I do wish it had a battery but then it’d cost more. I love neo Geo and have for 30+ years and I am happy to have the new mini
Same, bought the Christmas edition and ive been playing it a lot
I agree man this is quite an achievement in videogame history. For them to even come out like this different adding a screen on this glorious unit is stunning to remind people of the 90's dominated by arcades. Of course it's not perfect but for the price give Snk Credit.
I never knew about the Neo Geo console as a kid growing up. And knowing the price point it sold at I see why I didn't hear about it. So with this system coming out and having so many classic games on it. This is a great option and I can't wait until mine gets delivered!!
Fair review. Thank you for providing your opinion in the title and then backing it up in your review. I feel like I now know what to expect from this product
Nothing it’s garbage
Love this system! Totally worth it. There's a few games I could do without and a few I would add.
If you're on the fence, you better grab one before the price goes through the roof. Picture quality on a CRT tv looks fantastic, if you have the means.
"Clicky thumbsticks is very hard to make"? GTFO with that nonsense.
It would be hard to do at a low price if they can't sell a lot.
At $25 a pop, they could bump the cost to $30 for them and add the microswitches.
@@SameNameDifferentGame The problem is it uses all off the shelf components with the PCB and plastic moulding being easy and cheap to do, but a micro switched stick would have to be built from scratch and would be more expensive than you think unless they could sell these in the millions.
@@michaelparker2449 They did it for a Japanese only PS2 controller (which included making new molds, because the button layout was different than the original NGCD controller). Beyond that, it's what the controller is known for, and not having the microswitches makes it look like they went for the cheap option at the cost of authenticity.
If you think adding microswitches to a controller would only be a mere $5 price increase, you have no idea what you're talking about.
bet they regret sending him this LOL
JmetalR what do you mean?
I've been following your channel for some time now, and I love the fact that your reviews are pretty honest, even if you are given gifts from the companies to review like in this case. You are not paying them any favors back and I appreciate your honesty. I might still get this thing, it looks cool and I never got the chance to get a real Neo Geo because of its ridiculously high price. You got a new subscriber today man. Cheers, and keep up the good work!
Mine just came in the other day for considerably cheaper... and I love it. I am not as hardcore as some of you fans out there but I do get it. I have been upset about cheaper routes taken when it comes to reissuing other things that I am hard-core about. The best mini arcade collection I have seen...so far.
@@mellohi6175 my comment is two years old...time flies. It's still sitting on the shelf with a couple other mini arcade machines. Two years? 24 months? Feels more like 22 months. Hmmmm
I have spent a lot more time with the neo geo mini, and I'm even more convinced that this review could not be more off base. This little unit is absolutely fantastic. The video out is great! Pop it into 4:3 and image optimization and these games are beautiful. The framerates are rock solid. The game play emulation is perfect. At least compared to the cabinet games I've played through the years. I never had an avs so I'm not as in love with the clicky switches as you seem to be, but I have had a ngpc for 20 years since new. The clicks are nice but not a deal breaker. You're even touting how the games are better on the switch, but that has analog controls and you don't even bat an eye! I play this way more than the Nintendo classic consoles. This neo geo blows the Nintendo out of the water. The games are arcade classics. It has a screen!! It includes 40 games that retailed for 200 a piece when new in the 90s.It's almost unfair to even compare them as competing products. I think you need to spend some more time with with the neo geo and revise your review. I'm not really sure what you expected here...
Good news dude because I just bought one myself. It's a much cheaper alternative and with 40 classic games and TV capabilities. Nothing to complain about. Besides some of the Neo Geo games listed on the device costs over $1,000 for the original game.
My thoughts exactly
This thing looks awesome but I haven't picked one up yet. I wish they had just made it as a mini console instead of the mini arcade because I'd rather just have it hooked up to the TV with legit controllers anyways.
I'm not sure what MJR main problem is to be this disappointed because everything in the video is nit picky.
You can adjust the video settings on the Switch version to make it look as sharp as the SNES Classic.
Wish you showed the HDMI video output with smoothing on and off
It makes a huge difference , I have both versions, international and Japanese. smoothing on makes it look perfect on my tv's.
@@fordxbgtfalcon I’ve just purchased one and I think it’s a great mini console maybe one of the best... it does look great with smoothing on.. think metal Jesus was a little harsh on his review tbh.
Love your disclaimer ! :)
You are the inspiration, my friend ;)
Hahaha I thought I had heard it before!!!
Yeah it reminded me of your channel Lon. Really Like the disclosure you give as you're being very open and honest to your viewers. Definitely makes guys like you more credible in my eyes. There's alot of content creators on YT who keep these details hidden. Keep up the good work guys.
I knew it is lon !
Sounded very familiar lol
Unfortunate. I was kinda hoping for "clicky sticks" (which, apparently "is hard to make") and batteries.
Also, I'm pretty sure, that the video smoothing is optional on the Neo Geo titles available on the Switch. At least, that's the case for Samurai Shodown IV and V.
This channel rocks. Always getting an informed, fair, and honest opinion.
I can always come here for the most honest opinion grateful for your high expectations for old school products
I can remember when NEO-GEO was the most amazing console. I remember going to Babages and seeing it on the shelf. At 10 years old it seemed like it was $1,000.00. I only knew one really rich kid who had one and would play on his big rear projection TV. Metal slug was Soo fucking badass
"Clicky thumbsticks is hard to make."
Boss: Larry your fired.
SNK: Clicky thumbsticks are hard to make.
New Wave Toys: Hold My Beer (mini controller for 1942 and 1943 is microswitched, and quite impressive.)
They're expecting you to plug in external batteries using the USB port. The same batteries a lot of people have now to charge their phones. So yes, it's portable. What they mean by "hard to make" is that it would probably require some manual labor to assemble the controller (or special machining) which means it would not be a $25 controller. I can't imagine too many people would want to pay $50 per controller when the console itself is about $100.
Back when it was released the NEO GEO was $649 ($1255 in today's dollars) and the games were $200 each (about $400 in today's dollars). I bought one because I always wanted a NEO GEO and now it's affordable. These aren't intended to be much more than novelty devices to commemorate gaming history. They're great for kids who want to be game programmers but don't know where to begin. These classic games are a great starting point for learning how to make games as they are far simpler in their controls, graphics and rules of play.
7:47 that lovely sound of clicks..
They turned on bilinear filtering in their emulation settings. That's the issue you are having. Too bad you can't turn it off.
I don't mind bilinear filtering so it doesn't bother me. But they could add a software update to turn it off for people who don't like it. Likewise they should make aspect ratio stretching optional as well.
I noticed that right away too! I also prefer BL filtering but too bad there’s no option turn it off for those that want a pure output
Im delighted your review of this console is a no Bullshit hands on honest opinion instead of some people who get free stuff { Boogie2988 } from developers only to give a good review just to continue to get free stuff. This is why i love your reviews. Thanks for this review. Much appreciated.
I agree, I'm kinda going back and forth on my preorder now.
I still dont understand why you dont have 1 mil subs yet. your content rocks
Your input on things really matters to me. You really know what to look for and I really enjoy your review videos. People are aware of you and your opinion matter in the video game world here in Mississippi. I was hesitant to pick one up after watching your review on this but I went ahead and pulled the trigger today. I think I’ll be happy with it because the only Neo Geo I ever played was in arcades as a kid in California so the controller issues you pointed out won’t be a deal for me but as a gamer I do understand the disappointment in them not having the micro switches. Thanks for all of the great info you put out.
WAAAAH THE THUMBSTICK DOESNT CLICK
It’s $100 for 40 games which are difficult to get. You’d have to buy a switch and spend $600 to get all this, or you can just buy this for $100.
It's emulation, so no, you can get all this for free. They need to throw you some sort of bone when you're paying this kind of money for a raspberry pi in a fancy shell.
I need my clicky thumbsticks! Great non-biased coverage, MJR. Huge thumbs up man!
Smash JT but they are very hard to make.
Hahahaha RIIIIIGHT
Thank you for this honest review. I just canceled my order. You're the man.
Lol, damn (i understand why though).
I'd probably buy one if it could get it for a cheap price, but I'm certainly would never have paid full price for it. even the Neo Geo Pocket had microswitches for fuck sake.
I mean it's not nearly as disappointing as the PS Classic, but it's still not worth that much money
@@lordevyl8317 ps classic is way better than this especially now
@@gv2212 i love my playstation classic, and the price is impossible to beat for legitimate mini consoles!
My dude.....you're so gonna regret doing that. I LOVE the Neo Geo mini to no ends
I practice my KoF on this thing
Get a Mayflash Controller adapter Type C, you can use a .PS4 controller on it
I picked up one on clearance from my local GameStop and I enjoy it thus far. Metal Slug plays great.
Much better review than Spawn Wave. You have put some effort into it.
Still definitely going to buy this. I think it looks awesome and definitely has a good old retro feel to it; also to how it views on a television.
The no battery support sucks. I wanted to be able to take this on long train rides or plane trips. Now i have to make sure there are going to be outlets in the cabin before i decide to bring it or not.
I would venture to guess that since it uses USB power you can use it with a USB powerbank.
You can run usb-c to micro usb cable to a portable power bank. I’ve played it like that on a trip. It last a few hours
You can run usb-c to micro usb cable to a portable power bank. I’ve played it like that on a trip. It last a few hours
You can run usb-c to micro usb cable to a portable power bank. I’ve played it like that on a trip. It last a few hours
i had no idea about powerbanks. thank you for the info guys.
I guess a portable battery pack with usb-c cable would work??
´true but that would mean spending extra, same goes with the power adapter but good point
And batteries cost too.
Built in battery is very hard to make 😜
So I bought the Japanese version when it came out here (I live in Japan) and I really like it. It looks really crisp on my TV, but the colors seem slightly muted. I know what you mean about the lack of microswitches, but c'est la vie. This is coming from someone who never had a NeoGeo or a NeoGeo CD, so I can totally see why purists and collectors are disappointed. That said, I think it's a really good value for the price (especially the US version, which doesn't have the 25 (!!!!!) fighting games that the JP version has) and freaking miles better than the NeoGeo X Gold.
Yeah, I have to agree. Just get either the PS2/Wii SNK Collections or just the games individually for $7.99 each.
Microswitches are known to fail over time. Moving the A and B and C and D buttons are a little strange but I didn't have any issues with it. I believe this unit is a hell of a lot better than the neogeo x gold. It's a good option if you can't afford an AVS or consolized MVS. I really don't understand the uproar people are having over the new controllers though, they work great and feel solid. The emulation and graphics in hd are just as good as the nintendo switch aca versions. Switch versions of these games are $7.99 per title too so thinking this is expensive for neogeo games is pretty amusing. You can find some older SNK collections but even the newer SKN Collection coming out doesn't include most of the games on the mini.
Neo Geo X Gold after the firmware update was fine and had clicky joysticks on everything
Which again, are known to fail. Microswitches =/= forever. True analogue maybe. I've owned broken CD controllers. I own working remade MVS joysticks from analogue, which was all original hardware. Knocking this thing for lack of microswitches is stupid at best.
The controllers work way better than MJ and lots of other sefproclaimed peeps make you think they do. It's not clicky. The AES has a non clicky joystick, lets bash on that too than. The Neo-Geo Mini is a nice piece of machinery and for what it should do, it does good. Bring lots of fun and joy, with an option to enjoy that with a friend. You should buy an arcade cabinet if you want the purest of experience. HDMI in it self isn't pure and should have been RGB than, but then nobody would have liked that. Time to write a piece about the Neo-Geo Mini our selfs.
Every mechanical component is known to fail over time. There's what looks like a Polyshine analogue stick in there - about as good as cheap analogue sticks out of China get, pretty high quality, but even ALPS and Mitsumi don't necessarily last for more than a few years of regular use.
The toughest mass-market analogue joystick so far would have to be a contactless Hall effect sensor used in Saturn 3D pad and on Dreamcast, though the lubricant gels or contaminates over time, but you can disassemble, clean, re-lubricate, can be good for decades like that. Also the assembly is made from Polyamide which needs to be conditioned with water every 10 years or so, so it doesn't become brittle, and fundamentally the return spring can probably burrow into the holding plate, though i haven't heard of that actually happening, it seems to hold up well.
A microswitch can be replaced quite easy... Plus some brands like cherry are rated for 10.000.000 press
Ehhh STILL buying it
yep. Slave to SNK for life.
Probably why they sold a shitty controller. People buy it anyway.
8:10 Laughed out loud! 😂😂😂 Loved the editing and the reaction...
This thing would look good displayed on the back of a toilet in a bathroom. Kinda reminds me of the Neo Geo X Gold. It was cheaply made and disappointing as well, but then shot up in value.
Retro Game Players Marcus!
This thing ya slightly better than a model 1 sega cd 💿 😆
Radical Reggie Dude that stupid laser is not easy to adjust lol
I'd argue about the neo geo gold being cheaply made, they just didn't expect to get called out on the disappointing internal software that stretched the output to widescreen and less than optimal emulation, which they all but fixed in the firmware. The hardware itself was mostly great, especially for the time and cost. Tommo even made sure to have a good clicky stick in it... It's kinda funny that SNK said the X wasn't good enough and then went on to make this years later...
I bought the international version with 2 joy pads for less than £110 from Amazon UK really pleased with it and love playing it on the h d television
“harder to make” actually means “harder to pay for”
It actually is harder to make. It would probably make the system more expensive.
I've never seen an MJ review I've disagreed with more. It's by far the best mini system I've owned. This is coming from a person that grew up owning a Neo Geo AES.
Even a raspberry pi with a emulator looks better
'Even'? Is there a better option?
Odroid C2 is even faster than a Pi3 B+ So yeah there is even a better option
WTF you talking about???
Proscriptus exactly. This “Mini/Classic/Flashback” trend is just to milk the nostalgia out of us. Plus more companies are doing it because “Nintendo did it, so can we!” After the NES and SNES Classics sold so much that these companies are copying a “fad” for money.
thats why I use scanlines were possible if not on a CRT
I love this thing. The games look
Very good on my 40” hd tv. The controllers are very good quality. I got mine used for 50 bucks with the 2 controllers and hdmi cable. Shock troopers, metal slug, samurai showdown, top hunter, and so much more… im a big collector. I may not even bother buying a neo geo cd console.
Loved how your review was honest and you didn’t take sides you know
Oh man very minor complaints. Ordered mine today and it came with 2 controllers and hdmi cable for $77! I can't wait to get it. And 40 games is 40 more games than I ever had on the neo geo!! 😆
They should've made a quality classic console like Nintendo and Sony and forget the tiny screen and crappy joystick.
Sony lags a bit from time to time and it looks like the SNES classic runs better. At least from what I've seen as far as reviews go
The video out looks fine to me.
The SNES Classic looks similar to playing an emulator on a computer monitor with no filters. The Mini Neo Geo looks like it has some smoothing/blurring to simulate a CRT TV.
Maybe if you plugged it in with composite wires sure then the blurry look is fine I guess, I run my older consoles to my crt tv though an scart to component converter box and they don't look that blurry not even close, hell even s-video is debatably sharper. If the idea was to actually simulate a CRT then I'd suggest for SNK to look up sonic mania and look at their CRT soft filter or download retroarch and look at the CRT royale shader to understand how a CRT filter should look like. Honestly though I don't even know why I brought this up, really there would be one easy solution SNK could have done to fix this, the option to turn the filtering off, and then have scanlines drawn over the image to simulate a RGB PVM or a good consumer grade CRT TV.
Not sold at Castlemania so it gets a real review.
Nice review, and I'm really diggin' the shirt! All Hail Ghost!!!
Good review! Going to watch more of your videos from now on.
How come they didn’t make it look like an original NEO-GEO console?
That already happened before. The Neo Geo X system, however, that didn't last long when it came out.
that was tommo, buy this version that way SNK will be motivated for them to release their version of the mvs mini again.
SNK did this not for Fans, they just throw that thing on the Market and hope that also causals will buy it...
At the end it was maybe a bad idea to make a "mini Arcade" out of it, better let it looks like a Neo Geo Mini Console and save money on the Display. (and use the money for accurate Controllers, like the originals)
I hope at least Sony does it like Nintendo :P
Lmao at sony
Those hopes, lol
"I hope at least Sony does it like Nintendo :P"
Oof. Do you really want to know how that went down?
The PS Classic even makes this system look like the SNES Classic in comparison. What a shit system it is. The Genesis Mini looks like it's shaping up to be pretty damn good though. I hope they don't fuck it up
I love how it could hook up to a tv. I'm also impressed by the way the graphics look. I have to say it's very cool I will most definitely pick one up.
Awesome review, you ROCK!😄
I applaud you for being honest regardless of the free device. You are truly an honest reviewer.
it almost looks like the original 240p image is being upscaled to 720p using bilinear filtering, rather than using nearest neighbour scaling with a 3x integer scale to maintain absolute sharpness. The image looks a little noisy, like it's using low quality components or something. Really unfortunate product here.
That is exactly what is going on here
Mad respect for staying true and real and tell it like it is!
You are 100% right on all points.
As for the clicky stick, they would have to make it from scratch. They don't care at all.
When I found out they were using analog sticks, I got really upset.
This is just NUTS and thank you for warning everyone about this.
Another downside is that it is not compatible with anything other then their own bs pads
Looks like good system is very hard to make.
*systems is
It is not at all in fact. Each one of us could make something 100 times better with a decent 3d printer.
Hell, that might even become a thing in the future
I was making fun of the letter he received from SNK. About clicky thumbsticks is very hard to make.
Picked it up for $30 on Amazon. I think its pretty cool little thing and a nice little display piece. Not really concerned with the lack of the clicky.
Yes the joystick and buttons are not clicky like the old Neo Geo ones, but also they don't break like the old Neo Geo ones.
Sure glad I canceled my preorder and waited since I got mine on deep discount on Amazon recently with 2 controllers for about sixty bucks.
Got a link to that deal? I’d pay $60 for sure, but the full asking price is ridiculous on this.
@@johnnyalias9596 it was an Amazon Lightning Deal several weeks ago but it has been in a few lightning deals since. Keep an eye out on the CheapAssGamer twitter for a heads up (@videogamedeals)
It just has a bilinear filter by default, looks blurry bur if you compare it with a CRT it looks closer to itthan sharp pixels.
Yeah so they made actually a very good old retro look and feel machine.
Maybe if you have a shitty CRT. I own a Neo and many games... it's sharp AF on a CRT with RGB.
@@timhouston8007 yup and this will be sharp af on a crt too. Why because it has hardly any resolution... And like mjr said it looks really super good on that small screen.
5:50 Turn off bilinear filtering on Hamster's Switch releases if you want sharp pixels.
Simple..
Awesome Review Metal Jesus Rocks! I just ordered one. I’ll be doing a review next week on my channel when it comes in the mail.
I just noticed your comment 5 years later😅
I imported the Japanese version when it came out. My general impressions were, it's incredibly small and it had a tendency to slide around in "portable mode". I thought the screen looked nice and crips, but I also wondered why they bothered with a screen. All I really wanted was a small shell that looked like an AES that I could plug into my TV. It seems kinda over designed for the niche it fills to me.
It’s pretty funny that we expect games that originally ran at less than 340p and we are dissatisfied by anything less than 1080 lol
What's so bad about the lack of microswitches in the controller? I get the problem with the button rearrangement but what's the big deal with the thumbstick?
triggering omron switches gives a reaction to the user. that tick sound let's you have rhythm and better decision making, knowing it initiated as you please (the tick sound)
@@ayergutierrez3380 well that isn't a huge deal to mr
Response time.
Looks like they used the simple bilinear scaler (with smoothing! -- perhaps someone thought it looks "better" that way). Whereas what you expect, and I would prefer the same, is just crisp sharp pixels the SNES Mini has. At the very least, smoothing should be an option.
I wonder if the other scaling options are in there. I wish someone would hack an look for it.
I think you have some valid points but at the same time I don't know what your talking about. I recently got the international version 2 weeks ago and I love it. Easily the best money I've spent in that price range. I haven't had a chance to get an hdmi cable yet but playing games with the controls on the console or with a remote are both great. The console controls are tight like a tiger. I never had a neo geo cd, soI never had a clicky remote but I find nothing to complain about with the analogue stick. Having said that I realize that it's an aesthetic quality and also a tactile feeling you get from using such a remote. I like many others like me were never fortunate enough to own a neo geo. This is the first for me and probably many other people. I remember seeing them in the glass case at toys r us when I was a kid and they were just unattainable. I think you should have a greater appreciation for what it is and not what it isn't. With regards to your graphics comparison, I find that there was no negligible difference. I'm not one who has ever been impressed by graphics resolution but I'm also viewing your vids on a Retina display and I'm not really seeing anything to complain about. Sorry if I don't know what I'm talking about or the rest of you disagree. These are just my opinions and I feel very satisfied with the product.
I don’t really get what you’re talking about with the quality… Could be because I’m watching this in portrait mode on my iPhone but I’m not noticing much of a difference. It’s all pretty much pixelated the same. I kind of chalked up any “Bad “to just not being played on a CRT
Dropped in to say that I freaking LOVE the thumbnail. It's so on point, I wish I could just use that as a response to about 75% of the crap I deal with at work every day.
Oh, and the review was good too. :p
Clicky thumbsticks is very hard to make... LOL... All your base is belong to us.....
ua-cam.com/video/3XjuuTcMaMQ/v-deo.html someone made it
even ben made some
ua-cam.com/video/lJomuuq4QZ4/v-deo.html
Switch version of Metal Slug doesn't look much better, but it does look better.
Honestly, I was really hyped about this thing when they announced it, but there's so many things that are putting me off from buying one. Games being locked to different regions(why are Twinkle Star Sprites and Metal Slugs on different regions), image quality being pretty bad, controllers not being authentic and menu just looking... cheap. I can't think of better way to put last one, and it's not that big of a deal, but combined with everything else this whole thing feels just kind of sloppy.
SNK just can't seem to catch a break with reproductions of their systems, which is sad.
Guess what my nephew is getting for his 5th Birthday. I think it's great for a mini arcade, you were a bit critical on it. The TV output is just a bonus if you ask me, most people buying these will end up playing them on the actual mini arcade and use the actual console for full console experience on TV. The clicky directional stick is more for us old timers, I don't think this new generation will take the clicky noise too fondly, that's why they may have taken it off. At least game selection is good and it does function the way it should. Based on the price, it doesn't seem like a complete disappointment.
Thanks for the great review. Cheers from Italy :)
The Neo•Geo emulator on the PSP is excellent.
I think you would be better off buying the Neo Geo X. Ya the output isn't great but you can get around that. It's lovely in handheld mode and it's amazing that the have the clicky stick on it. It also comes with an original mold of the Neo Geo stick which is amazing especially as you can hook it up to you PC.
👍
Ya retro Gamer Boy, completely agree. The X isn't perfect l, but if you can't get an original then the X is great.
@@galegirlygamer1847 yup. In fact if you play the NGX through a CRT it's pretty great. And the team did put an update out before SNK pulled the plug, which I never understood. SNK should have stuck with the X. It could have been a great platform, they could have release SNK maker, kind of like Mario Maker 😂🤘
@@RetroGamerBoy I agree,the neogeo X its spot on with a CRT, since the update.
@@MrLeafstaagreed. When I worked at XBOX we had one hooked up to a CRt and it was great. One of my coders even managed to get the stick working on the XBOXONE! That was awesome. 🤘😁🤘
Good honest review, you and Ashens have killed this off for me unfortunately. Shame the Neo Geo X died off.
One minor thing, I can see why the power is just the cable if the international version is for the European, US and UK markets, as they all have different sockets.
The clicky thumb stick part had me rolling LMAO!
They is so hard....
This review was so helpful,
Got one for $70 with two white controllers.
my review is it's brilliant.
8/10 ,
Just wished it could add more credits while playing.
Edit: it's the only system you can play during a zombie apocalypse.
All you need is a external battery preferred solar powered.