Legend of Success Joe is a notorious game. Its usually listed as one of the worst games on the NeoGeo. Its actually based on an old Manga, Tomorrow's Joe (Ashita no Joe), or Rocky Joe.
I myself have never played this. (lucky?) So I don't have much to say. ^^:
Legend of Succes Joe
Genre: Beat 'em up Players: 2 Size: 50 megs Released on: AES, MVS
Brief Description:
Legend of Success Joe is a boxing video game created by Wave Corp. and released for the Neo-Geo arcade and home system. he player stars as Joe Yabuki, an aspiring boxer, as he goes from an unknown kid from the rough side of town to a boxing champion. The game follows the traditional beat 'em up format, with some portions taking place inside a boxing ring and others taking place in the back alleyways, as Joe trains, fights bullies, and then fights in the boxing ring.
I havent played this for ages but i just watched the video and it does look terrible. lol I dont think they have made the fighting system that great. Even though its obviously a boxing game and so uses fists, the fighting is all a bit wooden looking without much dynamism. I think this is based on an Anime/Manga. i must say the in-game story is very exciting *cough*.
When i first got this i did play and it and thought it wasnt as bad as people said. Its funny that they have altered the rules of boxing and that when one of the fighters gets knocked down the refree raises the other's guys hand for no apparent reason and there's no 10 count either. I do think this is quite an amusing game, and not quite as terrible as people say.
"There's a guy on Geometry Wars. I can't remember his Gamertag, but his score is far above anyone else in the world, and it makes me think this person doesn't have a life, doesn't work, and is completely and sickly addicted to this one game."
Ask yourself why do we own NGs regardless of MVS/AES/CD and love SNK games. Quality of software is the reply I would expect and certainly if you were to compare quality of software to every other console ever released regardless of the NGs small library on a ratio based pound for pound basis I would be confident that the NG would have the smallest ratio of stinkers compared to other consoles.
Some games considered average or poor on the NG tend to be older titles ( Ninja Combat, AODK, 8 MAN, KOM) they maybe aren't great games but at the time were very impressive and still have fans today.
As for absolute stinkers I really struggle to think of more than about 3/4 at time of writing which aint bad from a selection of 150+ titles. LOSJ is one of the first titles that springs to mind when touching the subject. Having played it briefly on emu I found it to be very poor even for 1991 standards with no real redeeming features, yet if this had been on maybe the MD or Snes it would probably be classed as poor to below average as opposed to shit on the NG but not so shit that it does not have a few cult fans which I suspect may well comment on this thread (hey Riko) .
Just for the record I really like Ninja Combat which is often considered a poor NG game. LOSJ gets my vote as a bad game.
Edited by STE C on 09. March 2010 13:59
There's no doubt that Legend of Success is a terrible game but it's so bad that it's worth playing every so often just for a laugh. Graphically it looks quite poor and the gameplay is slow, extremely dull and frustrating. I guess you could give them a little bit of credit for trying to do something different by creating a hybrid of a beat 'em up and a boxing game and it seems like they put some effort into the storyline too.
I don't think this is actually the worst game on the Neo Geo. It's obviously one of the worst but I think it does have some degree of playability unlike the abomination known as Power Spikes 2. I agree with STE that the Neo Geo actually has, thankfully, very few genuinely bad games.
I could not argue or disagree that the quality is purely terrible. Makes you think the HSC Hall of Fame is gonna be empty for quite a while if not forever. I believe I can understand the many reasons for the underrating of the game. The characters and objects in the game have quite a bloated scale compared to the optimum scale Burning Fight has. The colour scheme of the graphics I find quite sickly looking compared to later games. The animation of the characters are very sluggish and chunky, you'd get the impression Success Joe is a weak character and gives Joe Higashi a bad name. Pretty boastful name Success Joe when he has no super powers or cool moves, fighters from other games have. The plotline seems a little lame until you get to the part where Joe commits manslaughter on his rival. The gameplay is a teensy bit creative and original, because it has a completely different style of beat em' up mode, probably a primitive version of 3 Count Bout/Aggressors of Dark Kombat crossed with Burning Fight. This game ought to be released as both freeware and abandonware in the underrated state its in.
I wish I could see a deluxe times hundred version of this game focused on Terry Bogard and entitled "Legend of the Reluctant Wolf", which shows the deleted scenes of the Fatal Fury series such as his childhood and teenage training and competitions. This oughtta show everyone how an SNK hero is born.
Edited by Will on 10. March 2010 13:56
ive never understood what the fuss is about.
comapred to other neo.geo games its bad but compared to the whole gaming industry in that time period, its ok.
i enjoy playing this game
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