For those wanting a quick review: If you like the classic Neo Geo fighting games, shooters and others, this system includes 20 classics (+1 if you score Ninja Masters) in a hand held package. It really is just an emulator in a hand held video game system, but does a near perfect emulation of the classic system. You are limited to USA Neo Geo home console (AES) restrictions of 5 continues and no blood in most games, but the games are fun regardless of the stupid 90s censorship. RECOMMENDED for fans of "retro" game systems.
For the longer review:
Unboxing:
Unboxing the Neo Geo X is pretty simple. The main display box contains two smaller white boxes of approximately the same size. Each one, in a very cool touch, has a Neo Geo logo sticker on it to indicate whether it has been opened or not. They could have put a simple piece of tape over the box, so this is a nice little flourish.
The hand held console, the faux console docking station and instructions are in one box, while the power adapter, RCA cable, Neo Geo stick and, if you get the LE version, Ninja Masters SD card, are in the other. Also included with the instructions is an HDMI mini to HDMI cable. This is a nice touch, as most systems these days seem to want to let you fend for yourself when it comes to HDMI cables in the box.
They are well packaged and nicely shielded from any possible damage.
Hand Held:
Powering on the system from power off to game selection screen takes 25-30 seconds total. Not horrible, but not instant on that some people might expect given other digital devices feel or are "instant on." The power switch is responsive and just a simple switch.
Volume is controlled through button on the bottom of the device. The speakers on the system are... anemic. I connected headphones (and a FiiO headphone amp if you care) to the system and headphones sound great coming out of the hand held. As far as I can tell, this is MVS/AES perfect sound. On screen display shows the volume level when you press the buttons.
The face buttons, the ABCD buttons, are in the Neo Geo CD gamepad configuration and pretty easy to get used to. The L1/L2 and R1/R2 buttons, well, I'm not really sure why they are on the system. Sure, the L1/L2 buttons control the aspect ratio on the handheld, but outside of that functionality, the buttons serve no purpose. Perhaps a firmware update will allow you to map say, multiple buttons to one of the shoulder buttons to make special moves easier? I'm not sure.
Brightness, also along the bottom like the volume, is controlled via an up and down button. The control was responsive and you have a clear indicator of the brightness on screen.
The Menu and start buttons are kind of small, but easy enough to get to and easy enough to press.
Booting a game from the menu to the Neo Geo splash screen takes 8-12 seconds. Samurai Shodown was 8 seconds while Fatal Fury took me 12. On subsequent load of Fatal Fury it was in the 8-9 second range, so this should be taken with a little skepticism. I would say to expect about 10 seconds average for loading a game, so 45 seconds from power on to the point of a game starting. Not bad, not amazing.
The joystick on the hand held is a joy to use. It reminds me of the Neo Geo Pocket Color stick. It clicks when you move it left/right/up/down and it registers quickly and easily in game. Very nice.
The screen is high quality as well. One thing that you will note is that the screen is widescreen, though the games were originally done in the 4:3 standard of the 90s. The nice part is you can press one of the shoulder buttons to go from widescreen to standard. The only problem I have with this is that it is reset after every single game. Why can't I have an option to just tell the system to default to 4:3 for everything? Hopefully a firmware update will correct this. It should be noted that when you put the system into 4:3 mode there will be big bars on the left and right in black, and also a few pixels deep of black on the top and bottom to maintain the original aspect ratio.
The screen is glass, and as such is a massive finger grease magnet. Be prepared to wipe it off frequently.
The hand held is fairly light weight and feels like a quality device. The back is rubberized with a really cool SNK silver logo embedded in it.
It's easy to hold and easy to use.
Some have wondered if there is the ability to display "scan lines." For those not "in the know" this is the method of putting lines in the video to make it appear as though you are playing on an old school CRT TV. The quick answer here is no, there is no way that I've found to display scan lines on the system, neither on the hand held nor on an external display.
Overall I am impressed with the quality of the buttons, the screen and the feel of the hand held.
One thing to note is that there is NO CAPABILITY TO SAVE GAMES. For games like Magician Lord this is potential video game company brutality on its customers. The original home console could read memory cards and pre-release hope was that since they are doing simple emulation with this system that save states would be utilized. This is NOT the case.
EDIT- it should also be noted that the system does NOT save high score information either. This is also annoying, but not so much as not having save capability in game.
Battery life seems a little limited to me, especially since you have to consider you will need to carry the dock in order to charge this. 5 hours is what I pulled off on a full charge, though that wasn't me playing the entire time. I left it powered on while sitting on the table between plays before the battery indicator turned red. So you might ask, why not just charge via USB like other devices? It's plastered all over the hand held's screen protector and in the manual "only charge with the dock." The Neo Geo X website says the same thing. The official unboxing video I saw makes the comment as well. What will happen if you charge via USB? I don't know, but having paid for this and not wanting to damage it, I am following their advice. No idea what they will do when they release just the hand held on its own without the dock/controller...
Also of note is that the BIOS on this system is US based. This means: no blood. No Mai "bounce." It also means 5 continues (except for games with special codes, I guess) per game. I'm hoping someone can hack the system to allow us to use, if nothing else, the European BIOS settings that allow for the violence and bounce, while also being in English. The ultimate would be Unibios capability, but that most likely would only happen through a user based hack, if it ever does happen. If you don't know what the Unibios is, do a search on the 'net for it. It's a great "homebrew" BIOS that allows a user to perform all kinds of cool functions, including cheats of a sort.
The Dock and Playing on a TV:
Where I think the set falls down a little is the docking station. The dock itself looks like an original AES (Neo Geo Home) console, which is neat. It is supposedly 20% smaller than the original console.
The problem is, overall it feels like cheap plastic. It is very light weight, which is nice since you can only charge the hand held using the dock (more on that above), but the way it is hinged you press the open slider and it opens half way. That's OK, but then you open the lid completely and let go and... it closes a little. It's nothing that would keep me from buying the system, it just seems to cheapen the experience. The other problem is closing the lid. You almost have to slam it, unless you ensure you ALWAYS firmly press it closed. Once you find a good spot to just press it, so you don't have to slam it, this doesn't become an issue.
You have 2 options for displaying this on your TV. You can go completely "old school" and use the AV out (red/white/yellow), which will work well on a CRT for the original look of the games. I tried this out and it works pretty well. No complaints there.
The other option, the one I will be using because I have an HD TV where I want to use this system, is HDMI. One thing I've noticed on my HDTV is screen tearing is present. I don't know if this has to do with up scaling to 480p to 720p of the native resolution of the TV, or if it is an issue with emulation. I tend towards if being my TV because I didn't see this when connecting via the AV cables to a CRT.
Video out from both AV and HDMI is in standard 4:3 format, NOT 16x9/widescreen. If you want the games to fill your HDTV, you will need to set your TV up for stretch mode. I prefer this as I prefer playing the games int he original aspect ratio. Your mileage may vary here though, so keep that in mind.
The AES style controller if flawless. The micro switches, casing and parts are all using the same setups as the original home console sticks. It just FEELS right to be using these controllers.
Game selection:
The system comes with 20 games built in, with the ability to put future games in via the card slot on the hand held. The cards are actually just SD cards, but the NGX doesn't seem to read a standard card, so unless someone hacks this, you can't just load up a ROM from the Internet and play.
The 20 games included cover much of all the games previously released for Wii Virtual Console, XBox Live and PSN/Neo Geo Station. Multiple genres are covered, from fighting to sports to side scrolling shooters.
Tommo/SNK Playmore have claimed more games are coming, however there is no announcement at this time about what these plans might include.
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