I can talk about SNK-produced fighting games until I'm blue in the face. Or type about them until I'm numb in the fingers, in this instance. However, there's much that can be said about their sports games, which are very interesting to me. If I put aside Windjammers (co-produced by Data East), Neo Turf Masters was the first sports game I played at an arcade cabinet. yeah, beating NBA Jam, which I feared I would've been terrible at trying on a stand-up.

Developed by Nazca (who also worked on Metal Slug and the Irem game GunForce), Neo Turf Masters is a rapid fire arcade golf game that can be played single player or 2 player Vs. Being an arcade game it's naturally incredibly straightforward and to the point, without foregoing the fascinating meta to it. There might not be much to say about its gameplay, it's not heavily technical; you have a decent amount of seconds to select your club, observe the course, get a read on your shot, and fire. The speed caught me off guard back in the day, and since I never really got into the Tiger Woods golf series by Electronic Arts, the most complex golf title I indulged in was Microsoft Golf on Windows 95 (hell, that might be a review itself, I loved that game). 

I gotta say, even when getting a proper grasp of the speed, the five courses are incredibly brutal. The water hazards are placed in JUST the right areas to make my hair turn grey, and I can be magnetically drawn to sand bunkers to the point that a string of expletives must be uttered. They're very snug, meaning my attempts to blast one right off the tee to position myself on the green is likely to land out of bounds. Glad to know I'm as good at video game golf as I am at the real thing. 

The music and SFX, god, I can listen to BGM coming from Neo Geo hardware for hours. I feel like the composition matches the speedy gameplay, so toe-tapping isn't the right word. It carries a fanfare and air about it that's infectious, and the audio clips get a laugh out of me, just one of those things that's so indicative of the time. 

Neo Turf Masters' sprite work is pretty sharp and stands out, even when I compare it to most games under the brand around the time. There's no slowdown or clipping, the golfers have a neat dynamic shading to them that gives off a photorealistic look. Given the speed of the game, the HUD can seem a little bit confusing, but even back when I first played it, it didn't take long to grasp the layout and functionality. 

Quick and accessible, Neo Turf Masters was a fun take on some fast-paced golf. It may not withstand the test of time like to other arcadey games of the same sport that's come out over the decades like Hot Shots, Outlaw Golf, and Ribbit King, and lacks the outlandish quality of Neo Geo's other sports entries like Super Sidekicks or 3 Count Bout, but it was quite the experience.