Bringing the Arcade Experience Home
When we arrived home I begged my mom for this new system. I explained away the $200 cost per game with simple undeniable logic... "But mom, they're real arcade games, it's different!" Then I implemented the same strategy that I used to convince her to buy me other niche systems such as the Commodore Amiga 500. That strategy was an all out assault, talking about the system every minute of every day until the system was mine. If that didn't work, I could always guilt her by reminding her that she bought me the Coleco ADAM for Christmas '85.
In the end, it worked out. One glorious day, my brother and I walked into the Electronics Boutique at the Phillipsburg Mall and asked for the Neo Geo Home System! The manager (Frank) who we dealt with so many times over the years, was in shock. He hadn't sold a Neo Geo system or game yet. He promptly went in the back room and brought the system to the front of the store. I began to drool. He then explained to us that you got one free game with the system -- either Magician Lord, Baseball Stars, or Nam 75. Magician Lord was the game we chose, however we also purchased Baseball Stars Professional. My brother and I walked out of the store and mall like pimp daddy's, with the Neo Geo system box in plain view, carrying it by the handle, showing off to everyone. When we arrived home, the first game we booted up was Magician Lord. It was the most hyped and well reviewed game on the system, and for good reason. The game was awesome, combining Incredible graphics, music, control and game play. It looked and felt far superior to anything the Genesis or Super Nintendo had to offer. We couldn't stock thinking to ourselves that it was the exact game we just played in the arcade... now in our home. When I showed my friends the system, we always played Magician Lord. When you talked about the Neo Geo, you talked about Magician Lord. For this reason, Magician Lord will forever be synonymous with the Neo Geo system. It defines the system like no other game, especially for the early adopters (pre Fatal Fury/Art of Fighting/Samurai Shodown) of the system.