SNK's powerful-for-1990 arcade platform with a mostly identical, ridiculously expensive home counterpart, and a later CD-based version with games that took approximately seven lunar cycles to load anything. Despite bankruptcy and the soiling of several key franchises by some hack Korean developers, the Neo retained official support for a staggering 14 years. Home to more fighting games than you can shake a QCF + P at.

• Blazing Star
  • Rudie: I love this shooter until it gets god damn impossible.

• Garou: Mark of the Wolves
  • Sniper Honeyviper: SNK's answer to Street Fighter III, which means it's the second best fighting game of all time.

• The King of Fighters '98:The Slugfest
  • Sniper Honeyviper: The definitive KOF. I still prefer '97 and 2000 though.

• The King of Fighters 2003

• Kizuna Encounter: Super Tag Battle
  • Loki Laufeyson: One of the first tag-team fighting games. Has a secondary gimmick in that it's also a weapons fighter. Pretty great character designs, and some of the best looking stages in 90s fighting games.
  • Sniper Honeyviper: The music in the slums stage is the best grunge rock track in a videogame.

• The Last Blade 2
  • Rudie: I always found Samurai Shodown too slow for me. This is a quicker based weapons fighter that takes place when Japan finally opened it's doors to the world.
  • Loki Laufeyson: The counter button adds both a lot of fun, and a metric ton of tension.

• Metal Slug X
  • Rudie: X is a remixed version of 2 and is my favorite Metal Slug. My problem with 3 (popular favorite) is the enemies eventually take too much damage and it just gets too hard to stay alive.

• Metal Slug 4 and 5
  • Rudie: Metal Slug again and again and again.
  • Sniper Honeyviper: Don't bother with 4, it's basically an officially licensed doujin game with a depressing amount of recycled assets. 5 has some major problems, but the headbangin' soundtrack and Slug mecha make up for it.

• Money Idol Exchanger

• Neo Turf Masters
  • Rudie: Fantastic Arcade Golf!

• Pulstar
  • T.: I'm one of like three people whose favorite sort of stg are brutally difficult hori memorizers, so this is an obvious favorite. It helps that unlike Rayxanber 2 or Rezon it's absurdly gorgeous. Time it took to beat (playing a few credits daily): a bit over 2 months.

• Sengoku - on Large Prime Numbers

• Twinkle Star Sprites (also on: Dreamcast; Saturn)
  • Rudie: A versus puzzle/shooter. Playing it once sets your mind on fire, and immediately makes you hardcore.
  • The Blueberry Hill: I prefer the Saturn version, for its extra modes, but any is more than fine. It's wonderful, frantic, wonderful, and wonderful.

• Neo Geo CD Wikipedia Article