I finally joined the Neo Geo AES community...

[xtronix620]

That's my new baby, thanks to tax returns. I over-payed for her, but she's low-serial (under 20,000) and the U.S. version, which I assume is good. I certainly paid enough money for it to be fantastic! I've never owned a system aside from the main stream Nintendo/Sega/Sony stuff, so I'm pretty excited.

What games are must haves for this beast? What price am I typically going to be spending for decent games on ebay? I tried to find a few on my own, but so many NG Pocket and NGCD games popped up that I gave up for now.

Any information and help getting me into the NeoGeo AES community would be awesome!

[Ack]

Oh, yeah, you just bought yourself the console equivalent of a Porsche. Very nice. Unfortunately many of the best games can get expensive as well, but there are a lot of quality titles on the console. If you're a big fan of SNK, you've got it made. The King of Fighters and Samurai Shodown titles would be must buys for me, along with the Metal Slug games...though don't expect them to be cheap.

[xtronix620]

Well that's good to hear; makes me feel a little better about the price. However, I'm still having a hard time finding any cartridges that are English. Do all Japanese carts play on the system?

[Ack]

Well that's good to hear; makes me feel a little better about the price. However, I'm still having a hard time finding any cartridges that are English. Do all Japanese carts play on the system?

Unfortunately I can't help you much there, as my overall knowledge of the AES is pretty limited(my Neo Geo is an MVS). I'm pretty sure the US console can handle NTSC-J games, but don't quote me on it. But stick around, I'm willing to bet someone here will know. And there's always the forums at the Neo Geo website.

[dedalusdedalus]

The Neo Geo is region free, and you'll be able to play JPN games on your console. The default language settings are set by the BIOS in the console, not the games themselves.

Neo Geo is an expensive proposition. Just started collecting AES in December. The lower tier games will cost you about $20, it just goes up from there. Also, US games are much harder to find than JPN games.

If you're interested in NAM-75, I have a spare copy to sell...

[xtronix620]

Thanks but I got a Nam 75, Baseball Stars, and Magician's Lord with the system. I'm watching a few ebay auctions to get some of the bigger titles, but I'm afraid they'll have to wait until my next paycheck So if I play a Japanese game on my console set to English, will the words display as English then? That would be fantastic!

[Inazuma]

I just got a Neo Geo AES myself, 3 days ago. However, the RGB cable is in the mail so I haven't actually played it yet. From what I've read, all regions of the game cartridges have every region of the game in them, and the region of your Neo Geo AES console will determine which region gets played. So for example, if you bought a Japanese region game, it would play the USA version for you, because you have an American machine. My Neo Geo is Japanese, so all the games will play in Japanese.

As for searching on Ebay (or any other search engine for that matter), you can use the - symbol as a filter, to help you find AES carts specifically. I did a search for "Neo Geo AES" and didn't see any CD or NGPC games in the results but to make sure you can search for something like "Neo Geo AES -CD -NGPC -Pocket" and it will filter out the stuff you don't want to see. This trick has really come in handy when I'm searching for portable systems. I add "-protector -case" to filter out all the screen protectors and cases that plague the search results.

[Devezu]

As previously said, you bought yourself a Porsche. However, unlike the actual car, you can put more, "commoner", parts in it. The AES games will not be cheap, but if you find an adapter, you can play the MVS games. The arcade and home games/consoles are ALL the same things - same hardware, same everything except for physical differences. As for your region question, use this simple equation:

region/language of console = region/language of game in it

[diesel_dan]

Nice find! I'm totally jealous. What games are you looking for?

Did you get it off of ebay? Craigslist?

[xtronix620]

On ebay. Must've been in a bidding war, but I didn't see another US one ending anytime soon so I had to get it. I'm looking for the games previously mentioned in this thread, but I'll wait until the system arrives to really do some digging. Thanks for all the information guys - I really want that MVS thing if it works like that.