Legend of Success Joe | It's Bad!

[00:00:00] Hey, I have an idea. You ready? You ready? Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. Legend of Success Aaron. Oh, that was more like Legend of Suck Ass Aaron. On Neo Geo Go!.

[00:00:25] Here we are. I'm not sure we're glad to be here this time, but we're here anyway to talk about this game, Aaron. This one sure was a game. Yeah, Legend of Success Joe. I would love to tell you when this game came out, but I'm not really sure, Aaron. Because here's the thing. The list of Neo Geo games on Wikipedia simply lists it as 1991.

[00:00:54] That's it. All we have is the year. And if you go to the actual wiki page for Legend of Success Joe, it says it came out in Japan in July 1991, and then Europe again in 1991 with no month listed. I'm just going to guess that this didn't come out in America. I don't remember seeing it, but that doesn't mean that it didn't come out here. But I never have seen it in any arcade ever.

[00:01:22] So I don't know its exact release date other than we are now in 1991 nebulously. That's why I put this up front now that we're in 1991, because I don't know when it came out. So that's it. Anyway, it was developed by Wave and published by SNK and Wave. And Legend of Success Joe is a boxing game based on Ashita no Joe, the boxing manga from the 70s, which I'm sure some people have heard of.

[00:01:49] I have, but I don't know anything about it. I've never read it. But Legend of Success Joe, I guess, is its very awkward English name, even though that's not what Ashita no Joe mean. Ashita means tomorrow. So Joe of tomorrow or something? I don't know, man. Anyway, this game sucks ass, Aaron. I'm saying all that to say this game sucks.

[00:02:17] Yeah, I mean, it has like some cool things to it, but it's one of those ones where the bad absolutely outweighs any kind of good things that I got from it. Like for one, I like the cool. I like that. Like when a character takes damage, like the more damage they take, the bloodier their little like icon or avatar becomes on the top left or top right. That's kind of cool. That is cool.

[00:02:46] There was a title game named violence fight that did that as well. It's like you saw your care. Yeah. Violence fight where you saw your character get more and more decrepit as the fight went on. So like, yeah. Anyway, the the other cool thing I liked was like when you lose a match and it like pans up to the big screen and you see your trainer's faces. He's like, he's like, Joe. Yeah. Well, that was really funny. I like that.

[00:03:14] And then like they pan up to the boxing arena screen to show you like the continue 987 like that. That is a nice little touch. Other than that, everything about this game is just not very good. Like and I I should also clarify. It's not only that I never saw this game at the arcade. I have never heard of it before until we started doing research for this show.

[00:03:41] Like I I've just never heard of this at all, which is rare for a Neo Geo game. Even if I haven't played it, I've at least heard of it. Never heard of this one. So the how to play section as every Neo Geo game mandates that they have. That shit had me sweating before the game even started because the game uses only like two buttons.

[00:04:01] But using one or both of those buttons in conjunction with like stick directions is how you do everything from like uppercuts to blocking to body blows. And it was like, oh, man, am I going to remember all this spoiler? I didn't remember any of this shit. I just got in there and I just started pressing buttons, which seemed to be effective enough. I mean, I could not remember what they're trying to tell me.

[00:04:25] No, the only one I knew for sure, like 100% of the time, all the time is the one where you hit A and B together. And he does the he does like the long punch. And I use that like all the fucking time. Yeah, I didn't get very far, but I used it a lot. The big uppercut seemed to do some some good as well. And then like blocking, I guess also. But like, man, it's just like, I don't know. Your punch selection feels a bit incidental.

[00:04:52] And half the time, it doesn't even really feel like I'm blocking the computer's punches. I feel like there even though I definitely am blocking, I am in that stance and they just kind of hit me through it. They're not body blowing me or hitting me low. So I like I don't know. Maybe I'm doing maybe I'm doing something wrong or this game is really that jacked. But it just felt like nothing about this game felt good. It has terrible game feel. And the fucking in the Neo Geo cabinets have four buttons.

[00:05:19] Why couldn't they map more of the like more punches or moves or whatever to the other two buttons? Why? Like, man, it just it doesn't feel good to play. Like when you're when you're playing a boxing game instinctively, you would want to move around, you know, move this way that way fucking bob and weave and whatever. But nope, God forbid you lightly press on up and then you hit the punch button and do an uppercut instead of trying to do like a forward punch.

[00:05:49] Like, yeah, that shit's just it's it's annoying as shit. It's really awkward for no particular reason. It just didn't have to be built built this way. Like you said, we have four buttons there. I feel like we can use them. I just I don't know. I wouldn't have been too confusing. I would have much appreciated. Hey, this is the button you do uppercuts with. Yes, dude. Yeah.

[00:06:12] Button for uppercuts, a button for like like hooks and then a button for like just a straight punch. I don't know what you would call it, but like a straight punch. And then, yeah, I think B was for body blow, body blow. There you go. Yeah. And then like there was a button for just like like leaning back or whatever. I forget what or maybe that wasn't. But I don't know. Anyway, no, no.

[00:06:36] Yeah, there was a there was like a bob and weave option, but it's like, bro, just I don't know, man. I feel like this could have been thought out a lot better, at least three buttons and then like some other some other stuff. But like I do. OK, I will say one good thing. I do like the idea of them telling his life story through the fights and they don't all take place in the boxing ring because like when you first start, you're almost doing like a short beat him up stage because he's like in high school. He's like a delinquent or something.

[00:07:04] And he's wearing like, you know, the delinquent outfit. And he's like fighting a few guys at school or something like that's cool. And then there's like some text saying after that, Joe, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then they explain a few things. And then he's in the boxing ring for the first time. So like I think that's cool, right? Because it's like you get some different flavors. It's not just boxing in the ring. But it is cool. It feels so bad to play that it's just invalidated, unfortunately.

[00:07:31] And those little beat him up parts are super fucking short. Like we're talking about like maybe three or four dudes you can take out with one hit and then like one final guy that takes maybe like what? Five, six hits and then bam, you're back in the ring. Yeah. It would be cool if there's more beat him up parts because like my favorite one is after you beat the second dude in the ring.

[00:07:57] It's like, oh, Joe was so pissed and upset because he accidentally killed that guy in the ring. So we went to go take it out on some dudes in an alley. I was like, holy shit. I mean, I get it, but okay. Yeah. I killed some dude. Now I want to beat up more guys because I want to assault more men because I killed that guy. Yeah. Just just awful. The audio did not help either. The audio in this game is so bad trash.

[00:08:25] And that's like, that might be the first time we've said this on the show. Usually Neo Geo sound effects and music are pretty top notch. Not this time. It's Genesis as fuck, dude. It's twangy and bloppy like you would expect from a very early Genesis game. It's. And if you know anything about me, I hate Genesis twang. Oh my God. I can't stand that shit. So yuck. Aaron, I think this game, I'm not going to give it an F.

[00:08:54] It's not completely irredeemable. I am going to give it a D minus though. Yep. I also gave it a D minus. Like the only other cool thing, semi cool thing about it is that when you, when you lose during a fight and you continue, you'll, you'll be right back at full health against that. The enemy you were fighting, but then wherever the enemy's health at, it'll be the exact same from where you left off. So that's cool, but I still don't want to play it. So D minus.

[00:09:23] Okay. I'm glad we agree. We've been agreeing on the grades lately. Interesting. All right. Let's, let's get out of here. What are we playing next time on Neo Geo Go? Next time on Neo Geo Go, it's Ghost Pilots. Ooh, sexy. See you then. Until next time, Neo Geo Ghostbusters.