Video length: 23:05

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Difficulty level: 4 out of 5

Playthrough with Robert Garcia. The way this game works is that you have a spirit bar, which will decrease when you use special moves. The higher the spirit gauge is when you do a move, the more damage the move will do. You can recharge the spirit bar by holding down the punch or kick button.

This series is well known for being one of the most difficult SNK has ever made. The first six opponents can be hard, and it almost seems random to how aggressive the CPU will be.

The game has two bosses. The first is Mr. Big, who is the more difficult of the two. The way to win is something I found out whilst trying to beat this game: just hold back. Hold back, never jump, and let him waste all of his spirit gauge. If he uses his cross diving move, block it and then quickly hit him before he recovers. It can still be hard to beat him though, as if he keeps using his forward roll move on you, you can't do much about it.

The final boss, Mr. Karate, is much more random. Sometimes he'll go berserk (such as throwing three or four fireballs in a row at you) and then other times he'll just stand there, and he won't even block fireballs thrown at him. Whenever he jumps towards you, a standing kick is usually all it takes to knock him out of the air.

Video length: 37:06

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Difficulty level: 5 out of 5

Here's what many people claim to be the most difficult fighting game ever made. The CPU opponents have usually got some kind of weakness you can exploit, such as Temjin -just jumping straight up and kicking repeatedly actually works fairly well against him.

That said, even with the exploits this is still a very difficult game to play through. And the extra challenge is to not lose any rounds -if you manage this you get to fight Geese Howard at the end of the game, and unsurprisingly, he's the hardest opponent. But oddly he really seems to fall for Robert's hien shippuu kyaku and hien ryuujin kyaku special moves.

Video length: See below

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Difficulty level: 4 out of 5

The Neo Geo CD version is a good example of how long and numerous the loading times could be for this console, and whilst the game isn't as hard as the second one, it's still pretty rough. To get the absolute best ending you need to not only win without using a continue, you also need to win without losing any rounds. Doing this gets you a bonus picture of your character at the end.

One thing I don't like about this game is how easy it is to get knocked down. I don't think it's right for a simple jab punch to knock you over, plus several characters have moves that launch their opponents several feet straight up into the air, which look goofy -like Robert's back fist move. Constantly getting knocked over really disrupts the flow of the fight.

The CD version also adds endings for the boss characters, so I did a playthrough with Wyler since nobody had done a video of the CD version at the time.

Wyler playthrough (19:46)

Video length: 17:53

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Difficulty level: 2 out of 5

Playthrough with Andy. This game is one of the easiest Neo Geo CD fighting games you can play, as it's much like the first Street Fighter: the special moves are the key to victory. The responsiveness of the controls are far better in this than in SF1 though so using the special moves is easy. I've always found it a bit harder to beat this game with Andy than the other two characters, as his zan ei ken move doesn't quite work against the CPU as well as Terry's burn knuckle or Joe's slash kick. But even so, this is still an easy game.

Video length: 32:15

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Difficulty level: 4 out of 5

Playthrough with Terry Bogard. Whilst Fatal Fury 2 is a harder game than the first one, it isn't that bad until you get up to the four boss characters. Billy can be annoying, although one good strat with Terry is to keep throwing out light punch power waves at him. Krauser is pretty difficult, although I learnt that spamming Terry's rising tackle can work well against him.

Video length: 36:05

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Difficulty level: 5 out of 5

This game's difficulty is far too hard, thankfully SNK seemed to realize this as the next games in the series featured easier CPU opponents. However, Terry has a very easy to do infinite combo which makes taking down most enemies a piece of cake. If you can land a strong kick crack shot, then immediately do a crouching strong punch, you're good to go. Just keep repeating this to beat almost everybody. The only characters it doesn't seem to work that well on are the Jin twins.

This version of the game also has a strange quirk where the screen will briefly flash black when a round ends or when you pause. I'm not sure why this happens, but I know it isn't just my copy.

Video length: 39:57

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Difficulty level: 5 out of 5

I never thought I'd ever be able to beat this game with anyone other than Ryo. So I'd like to give a shout-out to Zetuei Retro Games for recommending using Mai. Her backdash sends her back quite a bit, and several opponents fall for a simple tactic where you throw a fan at them, and then hit them with a ryu en bu when they jump towards you. There are a few other strats on certain characters that make it easy to win (Geese is really simple to beat with Mai) but it's still pretty tough -I really think you shouldn't have to fight every character in the game, it goes on for too long.

Making this playthrough harder is that if you want to fight the secret boss, you have to beat the game without losing a single round. I managed to do this, but only after several attempts.

Video length: 31:21

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Difficulty level: 4 out of 5

The first game in the series could be seen as the best one for the Neo Geo CD, in terms of load times. The reason for this is because this game is the only one not to feature load times between rounds.

The further you get into the game, the more difficult it gets. The boss of this game is Rugal, who has two forms. His first form has no special attacks, although his normal punches and kicks are strong, and also cause chip-damage if blocked. If you beat him, his last form is where he goes crazy, as he now has several powerful special attacks and is a nightmare to beat.

I used the Art of Fighting team, since they're my favorite characters, plus they've all got some easy tactics and combos you can use to beat the CPU.

Video length: 33:48

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Difficulty level: 4 out of 5

Playthrough with the Psycho Soldier team. KoF '95 got rid of the sports team and introduced Iori Yagami, who is teamed up with Billy Kane (from Fatal Fury) and Eiji (from Art of Fighting 2). The one thing I have to say about this game is how much damage everything seems to do -when even I'm managing to pull of combos that do 70% damage, it's time to panic.

I'd say the CPU has been made slightly easier, but only for the standard teams. The bosses are another matter entirely. There are two bosses: Saisyu Kusanagi and Omega Rugal. Both of these guys have fast and cheap attacks, along with doing a ton of damage with seemingly every move they hit you with.

Chin is a really good character as a lot of opponents will get hit by his strong punch. But it's his super move which is the best, is does a lot of damage even if blocked. I really wanted to use this team because they have a special extra for the CD version: Athena sings a song during the credits, whilst Kensou and Chin are her band.

Video length: 46:42

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Difficulty level: 2 out of 5

Playthrough with Kyo, Chizuru and Iori. KoF '96 was a major shake-up in the series, getting rid of several characters and introducing a few new ones.

Chizuru is a boss character, so she's really overpowered in this game and you could easily beat the entire thing just by using her and her dragon punch style move. This game has multiple bosses, and Goenitz is one of the cheapest in the series, but with Chizuru he's easy to beat.

Video length: 1:32:39

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Difficulty level: 0 out of 5

This isn't exactly a game, but more of an encyclopedia of game lore, featuring several different modes. The main draw is the character profile -here you can ask any of the game's 29 characters about various things. It's all fully voice acted and features almost every cast member returning to reprise their roles. Make sure to have the subtitles on, and also check out my shrine about it!

Video length: 52:41

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Difficulty level: 4 out of 5

KoF '97 finishes the Orochi saga. I used the Art of Fighting team, and also used the "extra" system. This was the first game which let you choose between two different gameplay styles. You can select between advanced and extra. I used extra mainly because it lets you use super moves whenever you health is low, which is extremely useful against the CPU (advanced mode is the superior mode otherwise).

This game also has a lot of bosses. You'll face the Orochi controlled versions of either Iori or Leona first, then the Orochi team (Yashiro, Shermie and Chris) and then finally Orochi himself. Orochi is the absolute worst of them all, as he's the first boss in the series to have a screen filling super attack, and most of his special moves are fast and hit hard.

Video length: 36:59

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Difficulty level: 3 out of 5

This game is the first "dream match", so it doesn't have a story line. I used the Art of Fighting team again, selecting their "EX" versions -certain characters have alternate versions which change their move sets. For example, the AoF team's extra versions let them throw fireballs which travel the entire distance of the screen. I again used the extra system as opposed to the advanced system, for the same reasons I did in my KoF '97 video.

I've always thought that the controls were made slightly "stiffer" for '98, as in it's actually a little harder to do special and super moves, but maybe that's just me. The CPU also seems to have been made more difficult and as usual there is a cheap boss to beat.

Video length: 31:36

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Difficulty level: 3 out of 5

KoF '99 was the last game in the series to be released on the Neo Geo CD. It has a bad reputation for having terrible load times, but I really don't think they're that awful compared to some other games. The game was also another series shake-up, as it now had teams of four -one character is your "striker", who can be called on a limited amount of times to perform an attack or other technique.

I used the Art of Fighting team for this video, which now includes Takuma. The boss for this game, Krizalid, has two forms, the second one is really annoying because he uses several powerful special moves.

Video length: 42:27

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Difficulty level: 4 out of 5

Playthrough with Moriya. For the most part this game isn't too bad difficulty wise (as far as Neo Geo games go), the bosses can be quite tough but that's SNK boss syndrome for you. What's more annoying is the ridiculous amount of loading this port has to do for everything, such as a load time just to load the character's intro poses, then another load time before the actual fight begins, then another load time between rounds!

Video length: 32:00

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Difficulty level: 4 out of 5

Playthrough with Moriya. This game, in some ways, is easier than the first one because it's not as long (which also means less loading, hooray) and only has one boss. But it makes up for it as the boss of this game, Kouryu, is very difficult and cheap. Using Moriya's rekka chain at full screen often works, the boss tends to let himself get hit by that a lot. If low on health you can always try spamming your super move.

Video length: 31:25

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Difficulty level: 4 out of 5

The original Metal Slug isn't that difficult to beat on one credit. Overall none of the missions are too hard other than the last one, a few of them have a few tricky parts (like the beginning of mission three and parts of mission five).

Near the very end of the game I had the second player join in just so I'd get the alternate ending, which features a different song.

Video length: 27:18

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Difficulty level: 3 out of 5

Playthrough with Mai Shiranui. Compared to Fatal Fury 3 this game is a lot easier, only really toughening up when you get to the bosses. Billy can be difficult, but Geese is the real problem. He's the final boss, and he's quite good at using his counter moves to get you.

There is a method that oftem works: jump towards him and do a punch or kick in the air. Hopefully Geese will try and use one of his counter moves to stop you, but he'll miss, so you can then hit him when you land.

Video length: 22:01

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Difficulty level: 4 out of 5

Playthrough with Andy Bogard. I don't think this game is as good as the previous Real Bouts, it made a lot of changes to certain moves that I don't like, plus the controls don't seem as smooth or responsive. The CPU has have been made tougher too. I did manage to get the extra boss battle against Alfred though, to get him to appear you need to connect with several super moves whilst also not losing any rounds or using a continue.

Video length: 39:34

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Difficulty level: 3 out of 5

The easiest game in the series after the first one. I used Mai again, and she has a new move where you can keep inputting the motion to do more hits and damage, which comes in handy. It makes it very easy to break the stage with her -each stage has a hazard at the far left and right which, if an opponent is smashed into a few times, will break, stunning the opponent.

Geese Howard can be fought as a secret boss after Krauser, and I fight him in this playthrough. The game ends with "Blue Mary's Blues", which is an unskippable music video shown after the credits.

Video length: 24:33

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Difficulty level: 3 out of 5

Playthrough with Neo Dio. I used the "CD" mode, which lets you use the bosses without having to use a cheat code. Neo Dio is great for beating the CPU with, opponents often seem to let themselves get hit by his desperation move as well. So if you're playing as Neo Dio this game is fairly easy, using a regular character is a lot more difficult though, as the CPU is really in your face a lot.

I also got Son Gokuu to challenge me. If you beat opponents in certain ways, you can get special background animations to play, doing three of these will make him appear to fight you. Read the video description for more details.