I was lucky enough to live in Japan during the early 90s and again the early 00s, and remember the neo Geo and wonderswan fondly. I never owned any, I had a Gameboy, but I had friends with them. Japan’s older games always had a unique charm to them, especially on those consoles, and of course their arcades (all their * mania machines!)

I still have my old AES (2 of them) with all of the controllers and tons of the huge games. One of my favorite gaming memories is with this console.

What in particular did you want to know?

I mostly remember seeing reviews of Neo-Geo games in CVG UK when I was a kid, and remarking at how insanely expensive they were. I think one game was something crazy like 300 pounds of 1990s money, so probably about 10,000 pounds of today’s money. When I moved to Japan I would see the same games on sale used for about 500 yen, which was about 4 pounds at the time.

Neo Geo was one of the first systems I was really into playing on emulators because of how much we all desired them as kids and because they played great even on my ancient Pentium 200 back in 2000 or so.

I bought an AES with controllers, memory card and a few games from an unsuspecting kid in the late 90’ for next to nothing because “2D games are old”, best deal I ever made.

I could never afford “new” games tho, so I bought and superguned a MVS a few years later. Windjammers still is a late-night staple with friends.

I remember them from magazines in the 90’s but they were totally urban legend. Never seen one in real life but it’s been good to experience them emulated. Wind jammers, metal slug, king of fighters, last blade, so many classics. It’s a shame it never went mainstream.

Like everyone else, I mostly remember being amazed by both the graphics and the price. Nobody I knew had one, except one guy who acquired it using money he’d raised through, shall we say, illicit means. As such, he kept it under his bed all the time in case his parents ever found out and nobody saw it. Come to think of it, he may have been making the whole thing up…

As mentioned elsewhere, this was the first system I was enthusiastic about emulating.

Haven’t played it really until recently, but got into the Metal Slug games in emulation and had a wonderful time. Great series of shoot-em-ups with fun visual designs and a looser feel than the Contra games that makes them feel less intimidating (even if I still have to continue a lot.) 3 especially is fantastic.

From there tried out Neo Turf Masters as the other game by Nazca and it clicked in a way golf games haven’t for me in the past and played it for hours on end. Extremely intuitive, pick up and play, and actually good at communicating which clubs to use for what in a way I haven’t seen before.

Never owned one, but the Metal Slug Anthology and the KOF Collections on PS2 showed me how much of a powerhouse it was for the era.

Many fond memories of MVS cabinets being commonplace in the 90s. Lots of hours playing Metal Slug and Bubble Bobble.

Never saw an AES system in person.