RetroAchievements is proud to announce support for its 51st console, the Neo Geo CD!

Neo Geo CD supports the NeoCD core. In order to access this core in RALibretro, you may need to remove the

"platforms": "none"

line from NeoCD section of your cores.json to have the proper core show up. This will be turned on by default in a future release of RALibretro.
Note: The Universe BIOS (unibios) is NOT supported by the achievement sets due to its built in cheat engine. The sets are designed to disable achievements when this bios is detected.

Introduced by SNK as its second home console, the Neo Geo CD aimed to bring the allure of their popular arcade games to the home gaming experience. The console was released in late 1994 in Japan and Europe but did not reach North America until early 1996, when player preferences were already starting to shift towards 3D graphics.

The Neo Geo CD library primarily consists of ports from the cartridge-based Neo Geo AES, known for its hefty price tags for games, with some cartridges reaching up to $300. The shift to the CD-ROM format allowed games on the Neo Geo CD to sell for a much more reasonable $50. Despite this affordability, the console struggled to gain traction, selling only around 570,000 units. This was attributed to various issues, including a lackluster marketing campaign and the drawback of a 1x read CD-ROM drive, resulting in long loading times.

Fortunately, with the power of emulation, these loading times are no longer an issue, so let’s dive in and see what’s available to play!

Thanks to the following rollout team members for their efforts managing the launch: Snow, televandalist, AuburnRDM, and TheMysticalOne. The Neo Geo CD icon was made by oddgoo.

Twenty-three achievement sets are ready to be played today, including:

 Crossed Swords (Neo Geo CD)         by Snow
 Bang² Busters (Neo Geo CD)                        Unlicensed                 by DoctorV
 King of Fighters '97, The (Neo Geo CD)         by clymax
 Pleasure Goal: 5 on 5 Mini Soccer | Futsal: 5 on 5 Mini Soccer (Neo Geo CD)         by Excessiveiser
 World Heroes Perfect (Neo Geo CD)         by Hexadigital
 Super Sidekicks 3: The Next Glory | Tokuten-ou 3: Eikou e no Chousen (Neo Geo CD)         by Chr0x
 Super Sidekicks 3: The Next Glory (Neo Geo CD)                            Subset                        Post '98 Champions             by Chr0x
 Pulstar (Neo Geo CD)         by tomojin
 Neo Drift Out: New Technology (Neo Geo CD)         by Amir96lx & DarkyAndreas
 Far East of Eden: Tengai Makyou Shinden | Far East of Eden: Kabuki Klash (Neo Geo CD)         by Schengo
 ADK World (Neo Geo CD)         by Bl4h8L4hBl4h
 Savage Reign | Fu'un Mokushiroku: Kakutou Sousei (Neo Geo CD)         by LordAndrew
 Puzzle Bobble ~ Bust-A-Move (Neo Geo CD)         by MaddieKittyTV
 Top Hunter: Roddy & Cathy (Neo Geo CD)         by TheJediSonic
 Mutation Nation (Neo Geo CD)         by TheMysticalOne
 Mutation Nation (Neo Geo CD)                            Subset                        Multi             by TheMysticalOne
 Double Dragon (Neo Geo CD)         by siouxerskate
 Ironclad: Tesshou Rusha | Choutetsu Brikin'ger (Neo Geo CD)         by ThatAmericanSlacker
 Xeno Crisis (Neo Geo CD)                        Homebrew                 by Sutarion
 Crossed Swords II (Neo Geo CD)         by LogicalFallacy
 Twinkle Star Sprites (Neo Geo CD)         by ladynadiad
 Neo Turf Masters | Big Tournament Golf (Neo Geo CD)         by Sines
 Rally Chase | Thrash Rally (Neo Geo CD)         by BoomEX & ZamArch

... and more are on the way!

2023 Launch Pipeline
✔️ Nintendo DSi
✔️ Jaguar CD
✔️ Interton VC 4000 | ✔️ Elektor TV Games Computer | ✔️ Arcadia 2001
✔️ Uzebox
👀 NeoGeo CD ⬅️ You are here

2024 Launch Pipeline
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Writeup by Sutarion.

Oh yeah, I saw a video from Sega Lord X about the Neo Geo CD, and the long load times were especially bad for the later fighting games, like the aforementioned KoF '97. Earlier games, like Magician Lord and Blue's Journey, just needed to load once, then it was like playing the cartridge versions.

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Great job! That's a pretty cool system! I still haven't finished playing all the uzebox games that I wanted to play, I'm so far behind!

Did we skip the TI-83 system then? Whatever that was?

Then, is it still Commodore 64 the next one or is that one being skiped as well? I mean, which one is the next one? :v

Awesome! I can picture so many good multi sets with all the beat-em-ups and games like Crossed Swords.

I am a little confused though with getting it to work. I updated and have been loading some games into Retroarch with the NeoCD core but nothing seems to be recognized. Is there a specific bios that needs to be used? My only other guess is that I have them everything in .chd format instead of bin/iso but usually that isn't an issue.

TI-83 has some hashing issues we need to work out before we can do that one.

I think you need .cue/.bin format with NeoCD. I just tried a .chd and it didn't work for me either.

What emulator do we use to play Neo-Geo CD games?

You can use the NeoCD core in RetroArch. I don't think BizHawk supports Neo Geo CD.

Niiiiiiiceeee i can't wait for play kof games for NGCD

I have a problem. I can get the BIOS to show and the games to run, but they show up as "Unknown Game" in the Achievements menu. What am I doing wrong? I am using version 1.12.0. Is my version too old? Thanks!

Edit: Nevermind. My version was too old. Booted up the achievements for Neo Drift Out right away on Retroarch 1.1.6. Thanks again!

What core to use for RALibRetro? I prefer to use RALibRetro.

EDIT: Found out, you use FinalBurn Neo

Please note that the Universe BIOS (unibios) is NOT supported by the achievement sets due to its built in cheat engine. The sets are designed to disable achievements when this bios is detected.

Great job! i wanna play King of fighters

So what Neo Geo CD Bios do we use?