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Sega Genesis Game Opininion Summaries - Work In Progress - A Black Falcon - 8th November 2015
Sega Genesis Game Opinion Summaries, part one: summaries for the 28 Genesis games I have starting with the letters A and B. I have 203 Genesis games, the first 28 of which are covered in this post. A full list of games I have for the system is also below. I will continue working on this list, but I don't have any more written yet so it'll take a while.
Intro
The Genesis is one of the best systems ever! Sega released the Genesis in August 1989. It initially did okay, and Sega did outpace semi-incompetent NEC's Turbografx-16, but the NES still reigned supreme. However, in 1991 that all changed with the release of Sonic the Hedgehog, Sega's legendary classic. While I probably had heard of the Genesis before Sonic, it was Sonic that made me, along with a lot of other kids, pay attention to Sega for pretty much the first time; I have no memories of even remembering about the existence of the Master System, in the '80s... but a lot for the Genesis in the '90s. Behind Sonic's success in the West, Sega rapidly expanded, and in 1993 was #1 in the US home console market. Sadly, after that Sega started making mistakes which, combined with their smaller size compared to the competition, would eventually drive them out of the market. But before that they had a lot of success, and the Genesis was their peak. The Genesis is Sega's best and most successful system, and I like it a lot. That's part of why this list took so long -- it's a list I've wanted to make for quite some time now, but I kept putting it off in favor of easier lists for systems I don't like quite as much as the Genesis. I'm glad to finally be posting the first part of the list, even if it is just a part.
During the '90s, I had more personal experiences with the Genesis than the other 4th-gen home consoles. I love all three of the major 4th-gen consoles, the SNES, Genesis, and Turbografx, but the Genesis is the one of them I have the most nostalgia for, certainly. While I did not own any home consoles until I got an N64 in 1999, the NES, Genesis, and N64 are the systems I played the most at friends' houses back in the late '80s and through the '90s. So, I have a lot of nostalgia for the Genesis, more so than I do for the SNES. Sure, I read Nintendo Power and got a Game Boy in 1993, but the Genesis, not the SNES, is the system I played a lot more of. While I've always liked Nintendo the most, for console-game developers, I always liked Sega as well; in the SNES vs. Genesis console war I didn't dislike either one. It was only when Sony entered the industry that there was (and still is) a major player I couldn't stand. On top of that, the Genesis is, on my list, Sega's best console. Both systems are great, and I can't choose which one I like more; I always just say that they're tied overall, and for me it really is true. Looking up the numbers I've put next to games in my game-collection spreadsheet, the Genesis has more games I've given a 9 or higher to, and this advantage gets bigger if you include its addons the Sega CD and 32X, but the SNES has a slightly higher average score.
Notable Game Lists
My favorite games (the order is NOT certain, these could be in almost any order, other than S3&K definitely being the best.):
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1. Sonic 3 & Knuckles
2. Sonic the Hedgehog 2
3. Sonic the Hedgehog
4. Mega Turrican
5. Outrun 2019
6. Aladdin
7. Adventures of Batman & Robin
8. Landstalker: The Treasures of King Nole
9. Streets of Rage 2
10. Lightening Force: Quest for the Darkstar
Honorable Mentions: Shadow Dancer: The Secret of Shinobi, Ranger-X, Contra: Hard Corps, Vectorman, Golden Axe, Alisia Dragoon, Hardball III, Rocket Knight Adventures, Wonder Boy in Monster World, The Lost Vikings, Rolling Thunder 2, Universal Soldier, Golden Axe II, Truxton, Gauntlet IV, Warsong, Phelios, Micro Machines, Viewpoint, Blades of Vengeance, Comix Zone, Street Fighter II: Special Champion Edition, Sub-Terrania, Beyond Oasis, Roadblasters, Warsong, The Lost Vikings, Crusader of Centy, and many more! (see full Genesis list for more)
My 10 least favorite Genesis games I have (in alphabetical order, not prioritized)
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Battle Squadron, Combat Cars, DJ Boy, Fun 'N Games, Instruments of Chaos starring Young Indiana Jones, Mallet Legend's Whac-A-Critter, Rastan Saga II, Super Battleship, Technocop, Quad Challenge. Dishonorable Mentions: Taz-Mania, Mario Andretti Racing
Special Awards
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Best Music and Best Overall Audio-visual presentation: The Adventures of Batman & Robin
Most Impressive Technical Graphical Achievement: Red Zone
Most Important Game: Sonic the Hedgehog
Best Addon: Sega CD
Sega Genesis Game Opinion Summaries
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28 summaries are in this update: Adventures of Batman & Robin, The, Air Diver, Al Michael Announces HardBall III, Aladdin, Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle, Alien Storm, Alisia Dragoon, Altered Beast, Animaniacs, Arcus Odyssey, Arrow Flash, Asterix and the Great Rescue, Atomic Runner, Batman: Revenge of the Joker, Battlemaster, Battle Squadron, Battletoads / Double Dragon: The Ultimate Team, Beauty and the Beast: Belle's Quest, Beauty and the Beast: Roar of the Beast, Beyond Oasis, Bio-Hazard Battle, Blades of Vengeance, Blockout, Boogerman: A Pick & Flick Adventure, Bubba 'n' Stix, Bubsy II, Bugs Bunny in Double Trouble, Burning Force.
Best Games This Update: Aladdin, Adventures of Batman & Robin, Alisia Dragoon, Blades of Vengeance, Beyond Oasis.
Adventures of Batman & Robin, The - 1-2 player simultaneous. The Adventures of Batman & Robin, by Clockwork Tortoise and published by Sega, is a fantastic run & gun action game, and is my favorite game in the genre on the Genesis. I know that most people's favorite is Gunstar Heroes, but I much prefer this game myself; I'd put that game third, behind this and also Contra Hard Corps. Yes, this licensed game is that great! With outstanding graphics that show off the power of the Genesis, an exceptional techno soundtrack, two player co-op play, and lots of action, this game is a must-have classic. In the game you can play as Batman and/or Robin, and have to make your way through some long levels, as you defeat the various enemies from the show. The levels are few, but each one is extremely long and has multiple areas and miniboss fights before you get to the final, stage-end boss. The end bosses are always impressive. There are several weapons to pick up, all projectiles -- this is a run & gun, so it's a shooting game. The enemies will shoot a lot of bullets at you, so do your best to dodge! You do have health in this game, shown by a ring of health blocks around your life counter in a corner of the screen, but while dying will not be immediate, it will come frequently thanks to the volume of enemies, and enemy attacks, you will face. Either characters' basic weapon is a boomerang, but better ones are available, including a stronger straight shot, and a spread shot. You CAN fire diagonally in this game, thankfully! It's very much appreciated. Holding down fire does a strong attack. Make sure to collect the weapon powerups, because they're important! With only the basic attack power, you're in trouble. You lose weapon powerups when you die, so stay alive too. Make sure to collect all the health-refilling hearts you can! In addition to your standard ranged attacks, you also have a few melee attacks, and these don't lose power. You have a slide, jump-kick, and a punch. The slide is great, but won't make you invincible like the Contra Hard Corps slide. The punch and jump kick are powerful, but only works at close range of course. Still, they're great moves, very useful.
So, this is a great game, with a constant stream of cool encounters to face. The game does have two issues, though. First, it's incredibly hard. The Adventures of Batman & Robin has only a handful of levels, but they are all extremely long multipart stages with several bosses in each one. Actually beating this game will take a SERIOUS effort; you have limited continues and lives, and there's no saving of course. The levels can be tough, and bosses have a lot of health and take quite some time to take down. Fortunately bosses do have health percentages shown on screen. I've gotten maybe 2/3rds of the way through the game, but not any farther. The game gets harder and harder and harder as you go along. This game requires a huge amount of memorization, but with effort you will slowly get farther. I just wish that I didn't have to go back to the beginning of the game so often, because having to go back to the beginning every time I run out of continues is frustrating. Also, within each area, the game has very limited graphical variety. In the first stage for instance, you're looking at the same couple of buildings again and again. Get used to the repetition. There are only a few enemy types in each stage, too, so you'll see each one a lot. This isn't uncommon for a 4th gen game, of course, but it is noticeable. The cool graphical effects are also noticeable, though. The screen warps around, they pull off scaling effects such as wrecking balls zooming in and out of the screen or bosses twisting around, characters are fairly well-animated and look great, and more!
In addition to the platformer levels, there is also one fairly long shmup level in the middle of the game. It's even more repetitive than the platformer levels, with basically only one background you're flying over for the whole long thing, but I think it's pretty fun. The sense of depth is impressive, too -- it's not just parallax scrolling here, it really looks like those buildings are moving by below you! Really cool effect there. Shmups are fun, and while this isn't a great shmup, it is a good one. Overall, with action this furious, against numerous enemies with projectiles all over the screen and with no slowdown in sight, these faults are forgivable. The backgrounds may repeat, but they're visually impressive all the same, and the constant action never stops! There is lots of variety between levels, also. The amazing music helps as well, certainly; this game has one of the best, most technically impressive soundtracks on the Genesis, hands down. The composer, Jesper Kyd, did some of his finest work here! It's all fast, up-tempo techno, and the pounding beats are perfect for the chunky electronic sounds of the Genesis sound chip. The music tracks are long, too. The title-screen track is over nine minutes long! This is one of the best soundtracks on the Genesis. Overall, in graphics, music, gameplay, level designs, boss fights, and everything else, The Adventures of Batman & Robin is absolutely exceptional, easily one of the best run & gun games of all time. It's not quite as great as the Metal Slug games on my list, and it's so hard that I don't know if I will ever manage to finish this game, but it's one of the best after the Metal Slug games. Buy this game, absolutely no question. There are Adventures of Batman & Robin games on other platforms, but this one is Genesis-exclusive -- the SNES, Game Gear, and Sega CD games of the same name are entirely different titles. Clockwork Tortoise did also make the Sega CD game, but it's completely different from this one! It's a scaler-style driving combat game. It's absolutely INSANELY hard, but pretty great as well! See my review in the SCD thread.
Air Diver - 1 player. Air Diver is a mediocre first-person rail shooter-style game, in the vein of Sega's G-LOC but much worse. After getting this game it immediately disappointed me, and my opinion on it hasn't changed. Air Diver clearly wants to be a harder version of G-LOC, but the problem is that they made it far too difficult! This is a very challenging, frustrating game, and the Genesis hardware holds it back as well; this game needed hardware sprite scaling and rotation, but this system doesn't have that. The game seems to have a sci-fi setting, and you're in a futuristic fighter plane, saving the world from the enemy forces, but the enemies are mostly in fairly normal-looking jets, except for the massive sci-fi spaceship bosses. Visually, this is a rail shooter with an inside-the-cockpit view. The cockpit takes up far too much of the screen, leaving only a relatively small amount of the screen for the actual game. Despite this the scaling is very choppy as I said, and following enemies as they fly around is difficult. The radar is key, but even there it's tricky. For controls, one button is for guns, one for missiles, and one for maneuvers such as loop-the-loops, with a direction. As usual in the genre, in each stage you fly along a set path, and have to kill the enemy planes along the way. Once you take out the tough miniboss at the end, you fly up into space and take on the real boss. The key for minibosses is to use loops to get behind them once they fly behind you; otherwise they will kill you every time. Try Up+C, that might be the right command. following a set path killing the enemies, and then fight a large boss at the end of the stage. The regular enemies aren't too bad with practice, though you will have many random deaths from their nearly-impossible-to-track missiles, but the minibosses and main bosses are kind of ridiculous! This game really is too hard for its own good. It's hard enough to dodge the missiles in After Burner and G-LOC games, but it's even harder here, and the game punishes you more by setting you back a good ways each time you die. The dying gets old fast, and I've never gotten far into this game at all. I admit that G-LOC is a bit easy, so maybe there is a place for people who really want something like that but hard, but they went too far the other way on hardwre that can't quite do this kind of game well, or at least it doesn't here. G-LOC for Genesis runs a lot better than this game does, and it's much more fun too. Just stick to that one, though hard game fans might want to check Air Diver out. For me, though, when I played this game again for this summary I liked the game slightly more than I thought I would, but it still is kind of bad. Air Diver is for masochists only.
Al Michael Announces HardBall III - 1-2 player simultaneous, battery save (can save a game in progress as well as a season). Hardball III is my favorite baseball game ever made! It's true. Well, the original PC version of this game is. This Genesis port isn't quite the equal of the PC game, thanks to its downgraded graphics and absent real-players option, but otherwise this is a great, great game I highly recommend at least trying. Yes, the players in this game are made up, and the teams are just named for their cities; there is no license here. However, the game does have every single one of the real baseball stadiums from 1992 in the game! How many cart-based baseball games from this generation have that? They're good representations, too, they look just like they should. Being able to play in Fenway Park instead of Generic Stadium 3 makes a huge difference, even if the players aren't real. The Hardball series was very popular on computers from the mid '80s to mid '90s, and it's a bit more simmish than most console baseball games of the time. Instead of being one of those NES-style games where you view the field from a zoomed-in view, Hardball III's field view shows the whole field on one screen, or at least, it goes to the outfield in one screen; there are three angles, for left, center, or right field focus, but you can always see everything you need to on one screen. This makes for a dramatic difference from your usual 8 or 16-bit baseball game with their suffocatingly close-in cameras; in Hardball III, you can actually field like you should be able to! For one example of this, I never, ever play this game with the optional ball target markers on. You can tell where a ball is going to go based on watching the ball and its shadow, and the arcadey crutch of "go here to catch the ball" target circles is entirely unnecessary and, for me at least, unwanted. Hardball III's graphics are a bit small, but they're good. It's much lower resolution than the PC game, but that can't be helped. The game does have some good sound and music, including voiced announcing and several nice music tracks.
The field view isn't the only unique thing about Hardball III, either. The batting/pitching mechanic is also somewhat unique, and so is the impressively full-featured feature set! First I'll talk about the batting view. Hardball III has two options for this, a behind-the-pitcher view or a behind-the-batter view. I generally much prefer the batter view, and almost always play exclusively with that view. In the classic Hardball games, the game works with just a stick/pad and one button. And yes, it works great this way! Simple menus appear for the pitcher and batter before each pitch. From here the pitcher selects a pitch, and the batter a swing type, Normal or Power. Power will hit the ball harder, but the sweet spot is smaller, so it'll be harder to get a hit. Pitchers have two to four pitch types each, from a selection of six or so pitches in the game. Batters can also choose to steal or hit-and-run here, and the pitcher can change defensive player alignments (to do a shift, for instance), or try to throw out a player on base. After choosing a pitch, you then can sort of aim it; this isn't one of those silly games whre you make a curveball by waving the ball around in the air with the d-pad, but pressing the directions after selecting a pitch will aim your pitch towards that area. Hitting is HARD in this game, and getting used to the batting is very, very challenging. You can move around in the box, and holding a pad direction will angle your swing. Good luck getting hits, you'll need it! You'll lose a lot at this game before finally starting to get used to it. For those without the patience, this might be the games' biggest flaw, because there are NO difficulty settings to be found here -- you've just got to get used to it and try to figure out how to actually get hits. Of course, players all have a bunch of stats. Pitchers get tired, too, so warm up relievers when your starter tires.
Of course, as the name suggests, this game is also fully voiced with voice samples by the very well-known sports announcer Al Michaels, who actually is still around as an announcer, mostly for football I believe. It's very pasted-together stuff, with lots of silly broken sound bits, but it's classic stuff and I love it. "Next up, the THIRD baseman, number SIX ty Four"... :D Just getting this much voice into a Genesis game is impressive, really! The save features are impressive too. When I got this, I was NOT expecting the PC games' save-game feature to be present here -- the idea of a console baseball game where you can actually save a game in progress was still near-unthinkable two or three generations AFTER this game! And yet, as I said earlier, it's here. You can pause a game in progress and save it. You can save your season progress too, which is great. There are various season length options, from 30-something games to a full 162. You can play as several different teams in the same season, interestingly, if you want. One thing to note, though -- this game uses the 1992 season, so there are only two divisions per league, East and West, and there are only 26 teams total. That's how it was when the game came out. The game also has a batting-practice mode, and a home run derby mode. You can also play a single game of course. You can watch an AI-versus-AI game too, amusingly. The game also lets you fully edit the league and league championship names and the logos for all of the teams, if you want to draw in the real names and logos. You can also edit all the players, though just buying the PC version with the real-players expansion would be a lot easier than inserting them all yourself! Sure it's the 1992 players, but as this is two-divisions anyway, it fits. Overall, I've been a huge fan of Hardball III ever since I first played the game for PC somewhere around 1995, and I still am. It's a hard, hard game, but is truly great! It may be partially nostalgia, but on either PC or Genesis, in my opinion Hardball III is the best baseball game ever made. Play it. Also on PC. Thre is a Super Nintendo game called "Hardball III", but it is NOT in fact a port of Hardball III; instead, it's a port of the downgraded Genesis sequel, Hardball '94. The Genesis version of that game is reviewed below, but on SNES, it's even worse: they cut out the battery save, shamefully! Just awful. Skip that and get the Genesis games, Hardball III and '95 particularly. Hardball III for PC and Genesis is the best baseball game ever made. Play it.
Aladdin - 1 player. Aladdin was one of the most popular Genesis games during the system's life, and it's very easy to see why! Genesis Aladdin is a game I did play during the system's life, and I thought it was pretty amazing. Aladdin is my favorite Disney movie, which I'm sure helps, but Aladdin is a fantastic game which holds up great. It has a few issues, but is very good overall; Aladdin the Genesis game is almost as great as the movie is. This game is a platformer, and unlike the inferior SNES game, you get a sword in this one. You can throw apples at enemies in both games, but on the SNES you're relegated to just jumping on heads. The Genesis game is better. :) The game was directed by Dave Perry, and while Earthworm Jim might be his most popular game, Aladdin is my favorite one of his games and the only one of his platformers I love. This game was developed by Virgin while Perry still worked there, but Disney was brought in to help out, and actual Disney animators did the art used for the sprites in the game. It shows, as the animation in this game is some of the best of the generation! Virgin's games had great animation even without Disney, but with them the results are very impressive. The level graphics are also fantastic; this game is incredible looking all around.
Aladdin isn't just about great graphics, though. The game also has great gameplay and level designs, too. Generally I am not a big fan of highly-animated platformers like Prince of Persia, or the gameplay of other Dave Perry Genesis platformers, but Aladdin plays better than those other games. This is sort of in that style, so you do need to get used to how Aladdin moves and jumps, He has momentum, so the goal is fast and fluid movement. Aladdin should be in motion most of the time. One nice thing is that while this is a challenging game, Aladdin has a very well-designed difficulty curve. At first even the first level may seem hard, but once you get used to the controls and how Aladdin moves, it's easy. For instance, it's not until some levels in, in the Cave of Wonders, that you finally have to deal with instant-death pits. It's there that the game gets hard, and indeed I have never managed to beat this game, sadly enough. I've played the game enough over the years that the levels up until the Cave of Wonders aren't much of a problem, but The Cave of Wonders levels are tough, and you have limited continues and no saving. This game rewards practice and repeat play, and it is fun enough that I'll keep trying to finish this. Aladdin is mostly a straightforward game where your goal is to reach the end of the level and maybe also get some key items. There are some other things to collect along the way, though, including health items, gems to spend in the hidden stores for lives and continues, and access to the bonus minigames. There are two minigames, a wheel of chance which can give you stuff, and a bonus game where you play as Apu the monkey, and have to grab good items and avoid bad ones. The Abu minigame is fun, but the wheel is just random luck.
But again, one of the best things about Aladdin are the level designs. Levels are good-sized and complex, and exploration is always important. Exploring the levels is quite fun. They are full of enemies, ropes to climb on, platforms, and collectables. I already mentioned teh absence of death pits until well into the game, but another great thing about Aladdin is that unlike some other Dave Perry games on the Genesis, most notably Global Gladiators and Cool Spot, Aladdin has very, very few blind jumps. For me at least, this makes a HUGE difference! Blind jumps are extremely frustrating, and I really don't like them much because of it. Aladdin doesn't have that problem, thankfully. The game can be tough, but it's not unfair about it. Sure, sometimes I find the disappearing platforms or the flying section in the Cave of Wonders frustrating, but the game makes me want to keep coming back until I get better. The game has a great variety of enemies for the time, too, and they're all animated well. Each level both looks and plays differently. From the city to the dungeon to the cave of wonders and beyond, Aladdin is a great, great game, one of the best on the Genesis. Anyone with a Genesis should definitely have Aladdin! Also on Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and DOS PC. The Game Boy ports aren't anywhere near as great as the original game. (Game Boy Advance Aladdin is a port of the SNES game.)
Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle - 1 player. Alex Kidd's only Genesis game isn't that great, unfortunately. I haven't spent much time with most of his Master System games, though the first one seems decent but hard, and The Lost Stars is okay until you beat it a few minutes later. The series kept changing in gameplay, but this game tried to get back to the style of the original game. It's just too bad that it doesn't look and play better. Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle isn't a great looking game for the Genesis, and it's very frustrating and has design problems, too. This game is way too hard, for one. And not only is it hard, but it's sometimes random as well. The game has regular rock-paper-scissors battles, and they're pure guessing games. Guess right, you win; guess wrong, you lose a life. It's an absolutely absurd mechanic to put into a tough platformer like this one! This is one of the games' bigger problems, but the platforming isn't the greatest either. This game doesn't control nearly as well as a good platformer would. The levels are good-sized and full of stuff to collect, but it's too frustrating to play for me to want to actually stick with this one. I got the game hoping it would be okay, but it's a disappointment for sure. Probably skip it. This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega's Genesis games.
Alien Storm - 2 player simultaneous. Alien Storm is an isometric beat 'em up. It's very much like any of Sega's other beat 'em ups of the era, such as Streets of Rage and Golden Axe, except it's got a sci-fi theme, unlike the others. Sega's beat 'em ups were some of the best in the genre, so it's great to have another one! I didn't play this game as a kid, unlike Streets or Rage or Golden Axe, though, and don't like it nearly as much as those games. Still, it's a quality game, and the core action is very well done, as always in Sega beat 'em ups. You play as one of three characters, but even though they have guns, they only shoot a few inches, so as to make this like a traditional beat 'em up instead of a shooting game. This is kind of annoying; I have a gun, why can't I shoot it more than an inch? Ah well.
As for the actual game, it's okay, but pretty average stuff. Alien Storm is one of Sega's earlier beat 'em ups on the Genesis, and it's one of their weaker ones. Walk to the right, attack the aliens, and repeat. Most of the game is like this, but the game does have a little more variety than most beat 'em ups -- once in a while the game mixes things up with some target-shooting-style segments. Here, you move a cursor around the screen, shooting at aliens and the environment. These segments are moderately amusing, but aren't anything special, and I don't think they add that much to the game. They do add even more to the 'but why can't I shoot far the rest of the time?' question, though. I know, the answer is "it's a beat em up, that's how they are!", but some later Sega beat 'em ups manage to include guns; Die Hard Arcade, Dynamite Cop!, and especially Zombie Revenge have them. It would have been nice if this game was more like a 16-bit version of that. It'd have made it stand out a little, which as it is the game does not do. This really is just a generic Sega beat 'em up, with alien enemies instead of thugs or medieval warriors.
Graphically, the game looks okay. It has that classic '80s Sega look, which is great, but it's a bit too familiar, as the art design is a lot like other, better Sega games. Despite all the problems I have with it, though, overall, Alien Storm is a good game. The good core beat 'em up gameplay makes up for a lot, and it's great that it does have two player co-op too; Sega's all do, but third-party 4th gen beat 'em ups didn't always. And the art design is good; the aliens have that classic Sega style. Even so though, overall this game is just above average, and isn't as great as Sega's two main Genesis beat 'em up franchises. It's worth a play sometime, though, if you like the genre. Arcade port. This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega's Genesis games.
Alisia Dragoon - 1 player. Alisia Dragoon is a pretty fantastic side-scrolling platform-action game with design from the anime studio Gainax and developed by Game Arts. One of Game Arts' only cartridge games on the Genesis (they mostly worked on the Sega CD), this game is pretty fantastic! Alisia Dragoon is one of the best games like this around, and it's got some unique design elements as well that make it unlike anything else. In the game, you play as female mage Alisia, who has to save the world from evil. It starts out in a fantasy world, but gets weirder later on. There's some great variety of settings and enemies in this game! It's always throwing new things at you. Alisia Dragoon is designed extremely well, but it is a really tough game. This is one of those short but super-hard games that were popular back in the 3rd and 4th generations; there are only eight levels, but getting through all of them will be a serious challenge! Alisia Dragoon looks and sounds good, as well. The game isn't one of the system's best-looking games, and definitely has that color-poor Genesis look to it, but the art design is great, and spritework pretty good overall. The music is catchy and high-quality as well.
The best thing about the game is its gameplay, though. Instead of your average melee-range attack, or a normal gun, Alisia shoots lightning out of her hands! This lightning automatically attacks every enemy on screen in the direction you are facing, so when facing right you shoot all enemies to your right, and facing left you shoot all to your left. There is a magical charge meter on screen, so you can't just hold the button down; if it runs out you have to stop shooting until it refills. If you wait for the meter to fill up all the way, you'll do a 'bomb' type attack that damages all enemies on screen some. Alisia has four helper summon animals as well. You can switch between them anytime if you pause the game. These summons fly behind you and shoot at the enemies as well. There's a small dragon, a dragonfly, a fire wheel thing, and one other one. The summons will level up as you use them, too, until they max out at third level. Each level up increases their power and gives them more health. There are also pickups to add to Alisia's health bar, and you can also find hidden continue statues. Explore every level thoroughly looking for secrets! There are plenty to find. All of this might make it sound like the game isn't that tough, but it is! Enemies can come at you from any direction, and it's often hard to avoid them. Enemies are numerous and avoiding damage is often near-impossible. The games' many bosses also can be fairly tough, as well, and can deal out plenty of damage if you get hit. The boss fights are another standout element of this game; you face everything from mages to dragons to aliens, and more! So yeah, this is a hard game. Making it harder, while Alisia and the summons have health bars, and the four summons actually each have separate health, if you die, unless you've gotten a continue, that's it; there are no continues by default, and there's no save system of course. Harsh! Of course I wish it had a save system, I almost always do in games which don't save, but this is a fantastic, addictive game, and it's kept me coming back again and again. The game rewards memorization and exploration, and the controls are fantastic. The games' graphical design is also great, and the music is good. Alisia Dragoon is an outstanding game, play it!
Altered Beast - 2 player simultaneous. Altered Beast was a launch title for the Genesis, and it was the original pack-in game with the system in the US. I don't have much of a memory of this game from the time, though, and looking at it more recently, it's not very good. Honestly, as much as people like to criticize the first Turbografx-16 packin, Keith Courage, I like that game a lot more than I do this one! Altered Beast may have better graphics than Keith Courage, but in gameplay it's subpar at best. The two are quite different kinds of games, but still, Altered Beast is not that good. Altered Beast is a side-scrolling beat 'em up, essentially. The game has some platforming, but for the most part you just beat up the enemies as they come at you. If you collect the powerups, which you need to, after a while you will power up and turn into an animal form, as the games' name suggests. These beast forms are much stronger, but you lose them after finishing each level, of course. Argh. As in many side-scrolling beat 'em ups, Altered Beast is an extremely simplistic game. Beat 'em ups really benefit from moving to that isometric perspective, because being able to move in another dimension adds a lot to the games! Here, there just isn't enough to it. Worse, what is here isn't that good. I dislike side-scrolling beat 'em ups in general, but the better ones are a lot better than this. In Altered Beast levels are short, the challenge level uneven, level designs bland, and enemies repetitive. Other than the admittedly nice '80s Sega artwork and the two-player co-op mode, there's not too much good to say about this game, honestly. I know some people like it, but I don't at all. Altered Beast gets boring very quickly. It's blandly designed and not much fun to play. Altered Beast is not one of the worst Genesis games, but it is below average for sure. Arcade port, also on Sega Master System, PC Engine (TG16), and PC Engine CD (TG CD), and on various computer platforms as well. This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega's Genesis games.
Animaniacs - 1 player. Animaniacs for the Genesis is a puzzle-platformer based on a '90s Disney cartoon that I didn't watch much back then. You control all three of the Animaniacs as you go through levels, beating enemies and solving puzzles. In gameplay, it's sort of like a second-rate The Lost Vikings. Unfortunately, "second-rate" is just as important as "Lost Vikings" is. I'm a big fan of The Lost Vikings, and have loved the game ever since I got it as a kid, but this game is nowhere near its quality. Animaniacs isn't bad, but for a game from Konami, I was expecting better! This game is okay but somewhat disappointing all around. Graphically the game looks okay, but not great. The system can do a lot better than this. Sure, the Genesis's 64 color limit is a problem, but other games manage with it a lot better than this one does, and the sprite work isn't anything special either. The music is mostly forgettable as well. Things don't improve much when you start playing. Animaniacs is an average game, nothing more. Each of the three Animaniacs has a different ability which you will have to use in certain places in order to get past the puzzles and obstacles and progress. All three move together, but you can switch which one you're playing as with a button. The games' puzzles are generally simplistic and easy to figure out, sadly. Controls are serviceable, but not the best. This makes the game more of a traditional platformer than The Lost Vikings, since you're not controlling each one separately -- the other two will just follow the one you're controlling around. This is good, because a lot of this game is comprised of fairly standard platforming, it's not all puzzles. However, this also means that the game isn't nearly as unique as The Lost Vikings is; it's more much generic, and a lot less interesting. The game does present some challenge, though, so it's not all easy; it's easy to die, and finishing a whole Scene (chapter) is tough. The game sends you back a bit too far if you die, and continues mean restarting the whole scene. The game is made up of four Scenes, each broken up into a bunch of stages. The game does have passwords, but only for the Scenes; if you get a game over near the end of one, it's back to the beginning with you. This gets quite frustrating, as the levels can take a while to get through, and the controls could be better as well. This is a short game, but I lost patience with it long before the end. Overall, Animaniacs is okay. This is an average game, and can be some fun, but isn't nearly as good as Konami's better platformers. Fans of the show might like it more, though. Konami also made Animaniacs games on other platforms, but they are entirely different from this one; it's Genesis-exclusive.
Arcus Odyssey - 2 player simultaneous, password save. Arcus Odyssey is an isometric action-RPG from Telenet's Wolfteam studio that feels a bit like a Gauntlet game, but Japanese and without monster generators. This is a fairly good game with some flaws that make it hard to finish. This game has four playable characters, each quite different. The game has only eight levels, but they are reasonably long, and get longer as the game progresses, so this game is not short unless you are quite good at it. The action is fun at first, as you go around, kill enemies, and explore the stages. The game controls well and looks decent, though this is a Telenet game so it doesn't look great. There is a decent variety of enemies, but they do respawn, and that is one of the games' issues. The main problem here are the stage designs, which quickly get frustratingly mazelike. Unfortunately this game has a somewhat close zoom, large, mazelike levels, and respawning enemies, and these factors combine to create frustration. Sure, you do get a password after each level for your progress and character, and that's great, but that requires actually finishing levels to get, and I've only ever managed to get halfway through this game, as much as I do like it. It just gets too hard. If the game had had a map I think I'd stick with this a lot more, but without one I like this less than I perhaps should. Overall though, Arcus Odyssey is worth a look. Genre fans probably should pick it up if you find it cheap. Even if they are usually flawed, Telenet games are at least interesting. This is a Genesis exclusive in the US. The game originally was also going to release on SNES in the US, but that version was cancelled when Sega bought Renovation, Telenet's US branch, when Telenet gave up on publishing games itself outside of Japan, perhaps Telenet's first step towards their falling apart; Telenet was mostly dead by 1995. At least we did get this Genesis version. In Japan there is also an Arcus series of first-person dungeon-crawler RPGs, on Japanese computers and collected on Sega CD, which I believe this game is an action-RPG spinoff of. This is the only game in the series with a Western release.
Arrow Flash - 1 player. Arrow Flash is a bland and average horizontal space shooter from ITL which was published by Sega in Japan and Europe. It is an okay game with some strengths, but I've never liked it much. This was one of the first shmups I got for the Genesis after buying the console in 2006, and it immediately disappointed me with its average graphics and tedious, subpar gameplay. Arrow Flash is decent, but it's far from great, and there are much better shmups on the Genesis than this. Sega of America must not have thought too much of this game, because they didn't publish it themselves and instead let the third-party publisher Renovation release the game in the US. This is something Sega of America did sometimes between the late '80s and mid' 90s, but while sometimes it's hard to tell why they did it because the externally-published first-party titles are good, such as OutRunners or Columns III on Genesis, in this case my guess would be that they just didn't think this one was good enough to release. That shmups were one of the most popular genres in Japan into the early '90s but didn't quite hit that level of popularity in the US also could be a factor.
I should discuss the game itself, though. For positives, Arrow Flash has okay graphics with some interesting stage backgrounds, good music, a female protagonist, and plenty of challenge. Playing the game again for this summary, I really noticed the music, I had forgotten how good it is. And while a fair number of shmups do have female protagonists, it still is a nice thing to see. The game can be frustrating, though, as whenever you die you lose all your powerups and reset to the most basic weapon with no speed powerups. It's painful stuff and makes the game very challenging. There is a shield powerup, but if you get hit too many times or get hit without one, you lose everything. This is one of those games where yo ucan be cruising along killing the enemies no problem, but when you die, you will soon die a lot more times in a hurry. Bullets and enemies are often fast and very hard to avoid, adding to the frustration; the level designs here are not great. And the game has limited continues, so you will need to play well in order to finish this game. I haven't managed that yet, this game is challenging. The art design is fairly bland as well; some shmups have better ship designs than others, and this isn't one of the better ones. So, overall, Arrow Flash has bland visuals only spiced up with some wavy backgrounds, a good soundtrack, mediocre and sometimes frustrating level designs, and average-at-best visuals. The game has a few high points, but it's definitely more bad than good. Only play it if you really like shmups or find it for really cheap. This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega's Genesis games.
Asterix and the Great Rescue - 1 player, password save. Asterix and the Great Rescue is an average-at-best platformer published by Sega. I liked the Asterix comics quite a bit as a kid, and have some of them I got as a kid in the late '80s and the '90s, but because of its general unpopularity in the US, very few Asterix games have released here. Unfortunately, this isn't one of the better ones. It isn't the worst either, but for the only Asterix game I own and one of the only ones with a US release, I was hoping for better. But no, this is just one of Sega's many average Western-made licensed platformers they released this generation. It isn't the worst of them, but is far from the best, either. On the positive side, Asterix and the Great Rescue has decent graphics, you can play as either Asterix or Obelix, and the gameplay is sometimes okay. I also like that it retells the story of one of the Asterix comic books. It's just bland and sometimes frustrating, as this game gets hard fast. You need to attack enemies, not jump on them, to hurt them, and your attacks have very little range. The controls needed work. The level designs aren't the best either; this is a European-developed game, and it shows in the game design. While your goal in each level is to reach the magic potion at the end of the stage, there are some puzzle elements here to mix up the usual jumping and hitting. You have to use magic powers in certain places in order to progress. You'll just need to figure this out, the game doesn't give any hints about what you should do. Up+C switches powers, and then C uses one; this is important to know. It'd have been nice to see something introducing the powers and such, as a more modern game would do. Otherwise, the level designs here are bland and generic. The backgrounds and enemies are inspired by the comic, but the game looks only okay, visually. It's average stuff, overall. The game is also kind of slow and boring, as Asterix and Obelix move slowly and you can't run. I do like that the game has a password system, though, it does have that going for it at least. The sprite work is also nice and looks like the cartoon, and the game does provide at some challenge at times. But even as an Asterix and Genesis fan, I can't recommend Asterix and the Great Rescue; it just isn't all that fun, and seems to have been made on a budget. This is a below-average platformer I can't really recommend except maybe to series fans, and even there, you can do better. This is far from an awful game and can be moderately entertaining as you try to figure out how to get through each stage, memorize the obstacles and jumps, and learn where to use the powers, but still, you can do much better and I lost interest a few levels in to the game and never went back.
Atomic Runner - 1 player. Atomic Runner is a pretty good Data East game based on the arcade game Chelnov. I did a review of this game several years back, and it's quite good! Atomic Runner is pretty much an auto-scrolling run & gun, so it feels part platform-shooter like Contra, and part shmup because the screen is always moving. The game takes a bit of getting used to, but the mix works well with a bit of practice. The game controls quite well, looks good, and plays great. This is a high-intensity game with nice, varied visuals, lots of enemies and challenges to face, and a good difficulty curve that is challenging but not too difficult, with practice. I did eventually finish this game, and had great fun doing so. Visually this Genesis version is in some ways improved over the arcade original thanks to some improved backgrounds. I would say more, but just go read my full review! This game shows how a platformer/shmup hybrid can work very well. Atomic Runner is a great game I highly recommend. Arcade port.
Batman: Revenge of the Joker - 1 player, password save. Batman: Revenge of the Joker is a port of Sunsoft's second NES Batman game, Batman: Return of the Joker. Despite the name change, beyond a visual upgrade, not much of the actual game has changed. Not only has not much changed, but in fact many people prefer the NES version of this game over the Genesis, though I only have this Genesis version myself. This game is an okay platformer, average or a bit above average overall. Maybe I like this game more than most, but I do like Revenge of the Joker. This isn't one of the best Batman games, for sure, but it isn't bad either. In the game you play as Batman of course, saving the day yet again. The game is moderately long and pretty tough, so the password system is welcome and a big help. I strongly prefer it when games don't require you to replay the game from the beginning every time, so I like this. The game has big graphics with large, well-defined characters, and looks good, though some signs of its NES roots do show in the game and level designs. This is a straightforward game and your goal in every level is simply to move to the right along a fairly flat path until the level is over. NES platformers more often than not only scroll in a single direction at a time because of hardware limitations, and this one is no exception. Still, the game has solid, responsive controls, interesting challenges to work your way past, a solid difficulty level that challenges you as much as expected from a Sunsoft game, and some decent graphics and music even if they aren't among the system's best. If you find the game for a reasonable price, absolutely pick it up. Enhanced (?) port of the NES game Batman: Return of the Joker.
Battlemaster - 1 player, password save. Battlemaster (aka Battle Master) is a somewhat complex action-RPG that I don't know if I can recommend to anyone not playing the game in an emulator, because the passwords are up to 78, yes, seventy-eight, characters long. That's insane. Besides that big problem though, there are some interesting things going on here. This is a quite obscure and flawed game and I got it knowing nothing about the game. Battlemaster is clearly a port of a computer game, and I'm sure the computer version is better; it probably doesn't have 78-character passwords for a save file, and the framerate is surely higher than the unacceptably low, single-digit-framerate slog of the Genesis version. This is an ambitious game and I want to like it, but it's just so flawed on consoles that I can't quite. Still, Battlemaster is an interesting game with some strengths. The game is a top-down action-RPG. You are on a quest to save the land from evil, of course. First, you choose a class, either fighter, mage, thief, or merchant. You can also choose a race, human, elf, dwarf, or orc. Each race and class combo is a preset character (and they are all male), but still, you can choose which one you want. Each class does play differently, so your choice matters. Fighter class characters start out alone, but the other three will have AI-controlled companions along with you, for instance. All classes will get more followers as you progress, though. Stats and abilities vary as well, though all classes have the same basic controls, with melee and ranged attack buttons for your hero. Your quest will be long and I've never gotten too far into it, but there is a large world to explore as you progress. The game is made up of a long sequence of areas in a larger world. As you reach new areas you can travel between them from the pause menu if you want, or need, to revisit earlier parts of the game.
Survival will be difficult and unlikely, however, because the levels are full of powerful monsters and more than a few traps, and you can't easily save your progress. Getting anywhere in this game will require a lot of memorization and skill; you'll die over and over and be sent back to the start again and again. Enemies are tough and can be numerous, those traps will kill, and your AI companions, if you have them, are hopelessly stupid. and are often nearly useless, if you can even keep them on screen. There are formation options, but they get stuck on things CONSTANTLY. Pathfinding is a huge problem here. The graphics aren't the best either, because you play the game in a fairly small window. I like the graphics and art design, it's got nice-looking fantasy art, but everything is small and the game runs incredibly slowly. Also, there is a large border around the screen, and a good 40% of the right side is taken up with a large interface showing your characters' health, mana, inventory, and such. I really wish I could see farther, it'd be great. The game also gives you no direction about where you should be going in each of the levels, leading to a lot of aimless meandering in monster-filled wilderness. While I like action-RPGs, I don't like randomly wandering around in games not knowing what I should be doing, and this game has a lot of that. The high difficulty level and frustrating party manipulation are big problems as well. This game has a large initial learning curve that I haven't gotten over yet, though I do kind of want to someday. Few people online seem to have given this game much of a chance, and with its extreme challenge, awful pathfinding, 78-character passwords to save your progress, and slow gameplay it's not hard to see why. Still, with time perhaps this game gets good; I'll have to give it a more serious try sometime. There is a very nice guide to the game on GameFAQs that really is required reading for anyone who wants to figure out this game. Despite everything, I like some of what I see while playing the game. Amiga port also available on Atari ST and DOS PC. Any of the computer versions are probably much better than this one.
Battle Squadron - 2 player simultaneous. Battle Squadron is a bad vertical-scrolling shmup. This EA release is a port of a European Amiga game, and its European computer roots are clear as soon as you look at the game. That isn't the problem, though; Euro-shmups aren't always great, but some are very good, such as Firepower 2000/Mega SWIV. This game, sadly, is not any good at all. Battle Squadron looks okay in that classic European Amiga style, but the graphics are drab and mediocre. The controls have issues too, with sometimes questionable hit detection and a too-slow ship speed. The game also has an obnoxiously high difficulty level, invisible enemies at times, and more. Yes, Battle Squadron makes a bad first impression, and it doesn't get better with time. People who like overly difficult shmups might like this, but they could just play a better game instead, so I don't know if this game is for anyone other than huge Euroshmup fans. This game has a lot of issues that make it as bad as it is. Again your ship is too slow; obstacles (those walls in the sub-levels particularly) can be hard to predict and avoid, and enemies can shoot at you from behing you off the screen after they have flown past so you will constantly die from bullets you never saw if you are near the bottom of the screen; you die in one hit and dodging the bullets, even at the easiest setting, is difficult when enemies and bullets always fly straight at you without any hint of bullet-patterns to dodge; enemies take many hits to kill particualrly on lower weapon-power levels and, of course, you lose a weapon power level when you die, of course while, again, you die in one hit; there is only one music track that plays during gameplay and it's only average; and more. It's bad.
For positives the game does have two player co-op and difficulty settings, but it isn't any better with two people than it is with one, so just play a better game instead. Oddly, instead of regular difficulty settings, in Battle Squadron you can choose your lives and continues and how many and how fast enemy bullets are. Normal difficulty settings might have been better, this feels like they couldn't decide how to make the game -- fast bullets, or slow? Who knows, just put it in the options... it doesn't really work. It's a very hard game on any setting, though; even on the easiest setting I've never gotten too far into this somewhat short game. Oh, the game does have a somewhat unique level setup. There is one main level, with multiple sub-levels scattered along it. The main level will loop if you get far enough, but you'll need to go into those sub-levels to beat the game and they are tough. It's really not worth it. Overall, Battle Squadron is a bad game that only masochistic Euroshmup fans might enjoy. I'm not one; Battle Squadron is probably one of the worst Genesis games I own, in my opinion. Amiga port; apparently the Amiga version is a bit better, with mouse controls and better visuals.
Battletoads / Double Dragon: The Ultimate Team - 2 player simultaneous. Battletoads Double Dragon is, really, the second full Battletoads game. Developed by Rare, the same team as the Battletoads games, the "Double Dragon" side of this game really amounts to only some cameos. I don't mind this myself, as I like Rare's games a lot more than Technos's Double Dragon series. The first Battletoads is a great classic, stratospheric difficulty level or no. This sequel is still pretty good, but I think I like the first game more. Battletoads Double Dragon is a beat 'em up. The Toads, along with Billy and Jimmy, are off to stop the Dark Queen and the Double Dragon villains, who have teamed up. The five heroes set off for the Dark Queen's spaceship, to destroy it from the inside, and once they arrive the game begins. The first Battletoads has a great deal of level variety, but this sequel has much less; most stages are about you beating things up, usually from an isometric perspective but sometimes side-scrolling. It's disappointing that Battletoads' interesting variety of stages has been replaced with a much more traditional beat 'em up style, but the first two levels of Battletoads were surely the most popular ones, so Rare probably decided to focus the sequel more on that. It was an understandable choice, but it does result in a somewhat less interesting and unique game. At least the beat 'em up action keeps changing settings and styles, so for a beat 'em up it is pretty good, but the first game was more.
This game has a lot fewer levels than the first game as well, and a much lower difficulty level. The game is entirely set on a large spaceship, so there isn't as much setting variety as in the first game either. This is still a hard game, make no mistake, and I haven't finished it, but I have gotten farther in this game than I have in NES Battletoads. The one Turbo Tunnel-style dodging stage is a LOT easier than the levels of this style in the NES game, for better or worse, and afterwards the game returns to more beat 'em up action. This is a fun beat 'em up though, with similar gameplay to the first level of Battletoads, but with some new additions and a lot more game like that to play. The enemies come from both franchises, and there are plenty of amusing touches thrown in as you progress; Rare's sense of humor is present in this game, and it can be amusing. The Toads' reaction faces are great, for example. Visually, though, the game looks only okay. Despite releasing in 1993 Battletoads Double Dragon was a NES game first, you see, and the SNES and Genesis versions are just ports. As a result the sprites are quite small and unimpressive compared to those in most Genesis or SNES-exclusive beat 'em ups. The last SNES Battletoads game looks a lot better than this one, for example, because it wasn't first designed for a last-gen system. Despite these issues though, Battletoads Double Dragon is a pretty good game. This was the first Battletoads game I actually owned; I didn't own the Game Boy Battletoads games in the '90s, never have had either for SNES, and got this game in '06 or '07 not too long after I got a Genesis. Battletoads Double Dragon is not the Battletoads game most people think of when they think of the franchise, but it is a good, fun beat 'em up with some varied action, fun combat, a fair challenge, and good two player co-op action. This is a good game worth playing. Also on NES and SNES; I think the SNES version might be the most highly regarded? This version looks fine as well, though, so get any version really. Note that probably thanks to licensing reasons this game has never been re-released for digital download on any platform, so if you want it you need to buy the now somewhat overpriced cart releases.
Beauty and the Beast: Belle's Quest - 1 player. Beauty and the Beast: Belle's Quest is a below average platformer with some simple adventure game elements. Sunsoft may have been one of the greats of the NES era, but they fell fast after that, and this not-so-good Western-developed licensed platformer that they published is an example of that. This game has good, well-drawn graphics that look a lot like the movie, but the gameplay isn't as good as the visuals. Belle's Quest is a bit interesting as a Disney-licensed platformer where you actually play as the female lead from the movie, a quite rare thing before the '00s outside of The Little Mermaid and Pocahontas games, but the tedious, bland gameplay more than makes up for that, unfortunately. Belle's Quest is a short game, but most players probably won't keep playing through to the end, and they aren't missing much. The controls are only okay, and I'm never sure when I'm going to take a hit or avoid it, for one. So, in Belle's Quest, you play as Belle. There are four levels in this game that bring you through some parts of the movie, with a few minigames along the way. Naturally everything is expanded on versus the film; even a game this short can't just retell the movie just as it was. A good chunk of this game occurs in the earlier parts of the movie, from before Belle meets the Beast, though some is later. Combine this game with the below Beast game and you get a videogame retelling of most of the film, albeit a very mediocre one; it really feels like the two should be one game, but they were split in two in order to make more money by selling the game twice. Still, the game does have good graphics. The cutscenes, both between levels and occasionally during them, look great, as close to the movie as the Genesis can do, and the ingame graphics are well drawn. They repeat constantly in most levels, but what little there is looks good. On the subject of repetition, though, both games reuse a LOT of the same background and enemy sprites, and the soundtrack is also mostly identical in both games, so expect very little difference between the two.
The main difference between the two games is that Belle's game is more of a simple adventure/exploration game, while Beasts's is an action-platformer. Belle cannot attack, so you just have to jump or duck to avoid enemies when you see them. It's not much fun, though there aren't huge numbers of enemies at once so it is doable. Belle has eight health per life, and it's plenty. This game is only moderately challenging at best, but the designers tried to make up for how rarely you will die most of the time with things like annoying mazes and poorly-explained (though very simple) puzzles. Of the fours levels, the first is the best; it's set in Belle's home village. This level has some conversations with the villagers, a simple stealth mechanic as you avoid Gaston, a minigame, and some simple conversation puzzles. It's somewhat fun. The rest of the game isn't as good, sadly. The second level is an annoying maze in the forest; the third, a long and somewhat tedious level where you explore the Beast's mansion; and the last, a short butt tough trip through a snowy forest on horseback. Several more minigames are scattered through the game. At the end there is no final boss fight against Gaston, play the other game for that. This game does have the more complete ending, though. Overall, Belle's Quest is below average but not awful. The game is far too simple and repetitive; after the first level most of the adventure elements are lost in favor of maze-wandering and the final action sequence; you can't fight back against enemies; and the third level drags on for longer than it should. The repetitive and boring stages are a big problem in both of these games. Still, playing a classic Disney-license action game where you play as Belle is interesting; this is the only such game from the '90s. But sadly, that and the visuals really are the only positives here. I can't really recommend Belle's Quest, though big Disney fans might want to check it out. Just don't expect it to be all that good, or fun.
Beauty and the Beast: Roar of the Beast - 1 player. This is the other one of Sunsoft's two Genesis-exclusive Beauty and the Beast games. This time you play as the Beast, and gameplay is much more actioney. This might sound better than the slow and boring Belle game, but actually this game is probably even worse, with its too-high difficulty level the biggest issue. First, the visuals and sound mostly are the same as the other game. Backgrounds are again unbelievably repetitive. The first hallway goes on for minutes, looping the same 1 1/2 screens worth of background over and over and over! Little is new here, it's just rearranged for the new game style. Yes, that first-area background is also seen in Belle's game. It's nicely drawn, but kind of awful when it's all you are looking at it for so long. Now, the Beast can actually attack, so this is a faster-paced game with plenty of enemies to fight. It's got combat, instead o...
Sega Genesis Game Opininion Summaries - Work In Progress - Dark Jaguar - 9th November 2015
Jasmine: I can't believe he would lie about who he is with magic to try and woo me. Can you believe that?
Cinderella & Ariel: Shhhuuut uuuup...
Anyway, I've been trying to get more Genesis classics, and it's been surprising to find out just how many so-called "multiplatform" games were actually completely different between SNES and Genesis. I LOVE Aladdin on SNES, but I've seen a lot about the Genesis version, and now feel obligated to pick that one up. It's odd to me that Lion King never got a Capcom release (Lion King being my favorite Disney movie from that era), but at least with that one you're comparing the same basic game between consoles. (I prefer the SNES one, I just prefer the MIDI style music over the digital SFX.) It's become clear I'll need to pick up both the SNES and Genesis Rocket Knight games as well. (I've got the first Genesis one, and it's good.)
I have to agree with you that Sonic 3 & Knuckles is the best of the Sonic games. Many prefer Sonic 2, and I can't fault that, because it is a very solid game (which thanks to S&K has the same 3 characters to pick from as Sonic 3), but Sonic 3's got my favorite bonus level design, and some of my favorite level mechanics. I will concede that a few of Sonic 2's levels simply have some of the best "speed run" designs though (such as the oil plant). There's also the small matter of the additional moves each character has. Mainly, Tails can actually fly. Sonic 1, well, it's a classic, and a decent platformer, but that game's level design gets in the way of it's own "speed" premise, constantly forcing you to slow down to a crawl for large sections of every single level.
Have you tried Scooby Doo Mystery on Genesis? I understand that game's a surprisingly good Lucasarts style adventure game, although without mouse support so you're dragging that cursor around using a d-pad (which, as I can attest to from the NES game Nightshade, is pretty tedious, but workable on a slow paced game like that so long as the rest of the design is good). The SNES game is a more traditional platformer and isn't nearly as good. That's a shame, considering the SNES mouse existed and all it should have been the other way around.
Sega Genesis Game Opininion Summaries - Work In Progress - A Black Falcon - 9th November 2015
Dark Jaguar Wrote:Jasmine: I can't believe he would lie about who he is with magic to try and woo me. Can you believe that?Haha... you're right, aren't you. Definitely opposites there. :)
Cinderella & Ariel: Shhhuuut uuuup...
Quote:Anyway, I've been trying to get more Genesis classics, and it's been surprising to find out just how many so-called "multiplatform" games were actually completely different between SNES and Genesis.That's how it often was back then, yes, particularly for games from Japan. You didn't know that? Well, if you weren't playing both systems it's understandable I guess.
Quote:I LOVE Aladdin on SNES, but I've seen a lot about the Genesis version, and now feel obligated to pick that one up. It's odd to me that Lion King never got a Capcom release (Lion King being my favorite Disney movie from that era), but at least with that one you're comparing the same basic game between consoles. (I prefer the SNES one, I just prefer the MIDI style music over the digital SFX.) It's become clear I'll need to pick up both the SNES and Genesis Rocket Knight games as well. (I've got the first Genesis one, and it's good.)Heh... my experience with Aladdin is kind of the opposite of what you say here -- I have no memory of ever playing SNES Aladdin in the '90s, while I played the Genesis version a fair number of times and liked it a lot. I did eventually get SNES Aladdin sometime in the later '00s, but only played a few levels of it before quitting. I like the Genesis game more. I haven't really gone back to SNES Aladdin much since, either...
Quote:I have to agree with you that Sonic 3 & Knuckles is the best of the Sonic games. Many prefer Sonic 2, and I can't fault that, because it is a very solid game (which thanks to S&K has the same 3 characters to pick from as Sonic 3), but Sonic 3's got my favorite bonus level design, and some of my favorite level mechanics. I will concede that a few of Sonic 2's levels simply have some of the best "speed run" designs though (such as the oil plant). There's also the small matter of the additional moves each character has. Mainly, Tails can actually fly.Between Sonic 2 and Sonic 3, I have gone back and forth over time. At one point I decided that Sonic 2 & Knuckles was my favorite Sonic game, for instance... :) But yeah, now I like S3&K the most. It is the largest of the Genesis Sonic games, and the only one with saving, and it's also the first one I owned -- I got the PC version of S3&K sometime in the late '90s. Both games are really great, but 3&K does have some advantages over 2. I do like 2 more than Sonic 3 or Sonic & Knuckles as standalone games, though. Those two are better combined than either one is on its own.
Quote:Sonic 1, well, it's a classic, and a decent platformer, but that game's level design gets in the way of it's own "speed" premise, constantly forcing you to slow down to a crawl for large sections of every single level.This is a fairly common opinion, but I think Sonic 1 is still a fantastic game. Yeah, the sequels are even better, but Sonic 1 holds up really well, I still love it! I don't mind the slower stages... well, the above-water slower stages. The water level is the worst part of Sonic 1 for me, it's not that fun. The later games' water levels aren't all better, either... but apart from that Sonic 1 is really good. Yes, they were still working out what worked in a Sonic game and would not again try one with segments as slow as the second world of Sonic 1, but that's part of what makes the game interesting. It's different from the other games, and I like world 2, block-pushing and all.
As for Lion King, I have that one for SNES, Game Boy, and Game Gear. I've disliked the game since the mid '90s because I got the GB version back then and its controls are ... not good. Good graphics, great music, bad and frustrating controls and subpar gameplay, that's GB Lion King. Oh, between those three versions, the GB version is like a downscaled version of the SNES game, in that it has different levels (fitting the different hardware) but the same basic concepts in levels that were brought over, but some of the levels in the GG game are much more different. It's also obnoxiously difficult -- no continues or saving allowed. That's no fun. I think it is still inspired by the SNES/Genesis game, but it's even farther from it than the GB game is, I think. Or maybe not, later in, I didn't get too far... The Lion King on any platform is probably below average gameplay-wise, they just look really nice.
Quote:Have you tried Scooby Doo Mystery on Genesis? I understand that game's a surprisingly good Lucasarts style adventure game, although without mouse support so you're dragging that cursor around using a d-pad (which, as I can attest to from the NES game Nightshade, is pretty tedious, but workable on a slow paced game like that so long as the rest of the design is good). The SNES game is a more traditional platformer and isn't nearly as good. That's a shame, considering the SNES mouse existed and all it should have been the other way around.I haven't played Scooby-Doo for genesis, apart from maybe in an emulator once. It is a game I've been interested in getting for a long time now, but it's uncommon and/or a bit overpriced in the few times I've seen it, so I haven't gotten it. I definitely would like to pick it up; I like adventure games and Scooby-Doo, and like the N64 and GBC Scooby-Doo adventure games that most people seem to dislike, so I probably would find it interesting.
I do have the SNES Scooby-Doo game, got it not that long ago (this year I think?), but that's just an average platformer for the most part. It's alright, but I actually like those N64 and GBC Scooby-Doo adventure games more.
Sega Genesis Game Opininion Summaries - Work In Progress - Dark Jaguar - 10th November 2015
You really should try the SNES or Genesis version before writing off Lion King completely. It's got a password system at least, and I found it really fun. That is, not just because it looks and sounds nice, but because it plays nice too. The controls work better on a controller with more buttons, as you might imagine.
That said, the levels get tough as it goes on. It can get pretty unforgiving. Still, I beat it in one rental as a kid, so it's not THAT tough, and you can steadily increase your life bar and power bar with hidden items.
Sega Genesis Game Opininion Summaries - Work In Progress - Weltall - 10th November 2015
Can't wait to see your Kid Chameleon take. It's one of my very favorite games ever.
Sega Genesis Game Opininion Summaries - Work In Progress - Dark Jaguar - 10th November 2015
I finally found out the name of the chameleon related game I coulda sworn was called Kid Chameleon or Chameleon Twist or something.
It's called "Totally Rad" and it's about a kid who can turn into weird animals and stuff, one of which I thought was a chameleon but I think it was just a generic lizard. Also, it apparently had a completely insane localization process.
Sega Genesis Game Opininion Summaries - Work In Progress - A Black Falcon - 16th November 2015
Kid Chameleon is a decently good platformer kind of broken because it's way too long for a game with no saving... but the Genesis is loaded with very hard games with no saving, so so that alone doesn't ruin it. It's a fine game, sure, but I haven't played it anywhere near as much as you surely have Weltall...
So, this time, 13 summaries of the games that start with the letter C. There are a lot of very difficult games in this update. Some are pretty good, others not as great, so it’s a nice mix of quality… but in terms of challenge, only a few games here aren’t hard. That’s okay though, the Genesis has a lot of good but hard games, and games like Comix Zone and Contra Hard Corps are great examples of that!
Update Contents
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Cadash
Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse
Castlevania: Bloodlines
Chakan
Championship Pro-Am
Columns III: Revenge of Columns
Combat Cars
Comix Zone
Contra: Hard Corps
Cool Spot
Cosmic Spacehead
Crack Down
Crusader of Centy
Cyborg Justice
Genesis Game Opinion Summaries, Letter C
Cadash – 2 player simultaneous. Cadash is an okay side-scrolling action-RPG by Taito. This is a port of the arcade game of the same name. The graphics and gameplay are very similar to the arcade version, but there are a few missing features in this Genesis version that really do hurt the game when compared to the arcade or Turbografx-16 versions. But first, the game. In this game you can choose two playable characters, the Warrior or the Mage. In two player, one person plays as each one. This is a sidescrolling fantasy action-RPG where you walk around killing endlessly respawning monsters as you train yourself up enough to be able to fight each areas’ boss. The graphics and sound are okay, but not great. Levels are reasonably well designed, and while this is a linear game with a clear path to follow, yo uaren’t just always walking to the right, level designs are a bit more involved than that. There are also some tricky jumping puzzles at times, to add some variety. The two player co-op mode is great and is defnitely the way to play the game, if you have someone else good at this kind of game and with a lot of time, that is. Cadash does not have any saving on any platform, so you’ve got to play the whole game in one sitting. Unless you use cheatcodes you have limited continues as well. This is a real problem; this is a tough game, particularly at the beginning, and having to either cheat or constantly start over isn’t fun. Probably the best thing to do is grind up some levels right at the beginning of the game. That isn’t fun either, but at least you’ll be able to make it through the first area.
After the first boss you then finally reach a town where you can heal and buy items. It would have been better if you could do this at the starting castle as well, the game is probably a bit too hard right at the start, but you can’t. And then I eventually get game over and it’s back to the beginning of the game unless I cheat. Seriously, this is why almost all action-RPGs have save systems, they’re needed in this kind of thing! Still, Cadash is an okay to good game. On the good side the visuals are decent enough, there is some variety, two player co-op is nice, and the game will certainly present more than enough challenge. However, the graphics aren’t great, the game essentially requires grinding in order to progress, it should have had a save system, and two of the playable characters from the other versions have been removed in this Genesis release. That is the main cut I referred to earlier; the Ninja and Priestess, probably the more interesting and better two characters from the arcade and TG16 game, aren’t in this one. I don’t know why they cut them, but it was an unfortunate decision which hurts the game. Still, despite all its flaws, Cadash can be some fun. If you find it cheap pick it up. It is an average game for the genre overall, though. Arcade port, also on TurboGrafx-16. The TG16 version is the way to go, though it also has no saving and requires cheats if you want to continue.
Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse – 1 player. One of the Genesis’s first great platformers, Castle of Illusion helped show off some of the capabilities of the Genesis, and it’s a pretty good game as well. Castle of Illusion predates Sonic, and definitely doesn’t have Sonic’s speed as this is a somewhat slow-paced game, and as usual from Sega at the time the difficulty is high, but the great level designs, variety, puzzle elements, graphics, and music all combine to make this a quite good game. As the name suggests, in this game you play as Mickey Mouse, and as usual in videogames you have to rescue the girl; Minnie was kidnapped by your requisite evil witch. So yeah, the story is sexist unfortunately, but the game is good. Castle of Illusion is made up of only five levels, but each has several stages and won’t be too easy to finish. This is one of many Sega games on the Genesis that I haven’t managed to finish. Castle of Illusion is an approachable challenge, but it will take practice and quite a bit of repeat play to get through. You have limited continues, so you will have to regularly start the game over, and that’s where I get frustrated and quit; I really do strongly prefer to not have to redo things I’ve beaten before in games. This game isn’t easy unless you have it all memorized, and I don’t.
This game is more than good enough to be worth that effort, though. Castle of Illusion controls well, though the controls are a bit weird. Mickey walks, runs, and jumps as usual, but you have to hit jump again before landing on an enemy to do a butt-stomp or you will take damage. This is a bit annoying even once you do get used to it. You also need to be careful to land on enemies on the top, not the sides, even with a stomp. Mickey can also throw projectiles, though these are limited. You only have one walk speed, however: slow. The visuals along the way look good, though. Castle of Illusion has bright, colorful graphics, and each area is different looking. There is a good amount of enemy variety as well. Enemies fit to each setting, from the toyland world to the dark forest. Later Genesis games look even better than this one, particularly in spritework, but for an earlier release this looks great. The parallax scrolling backgrounds are nice as well. More importantly, the game keeps mixing things up as you go forwards. This is a platformer, but the game does have exploration and puzzle elements to it. Later games in this series would emphasize this side of things more, but even this first game has some mazelike stage layouts, tricky bosses that take practice to figure out, secrets to find, and more. I really like the stage variety. Sometimes you go right, other times up, other times multiple directions. Sometimes you are on solid ground, and other times you’re jumping on platforms in the sky. There is a lot to see here. It is possible to be stuck sometimes and not know what to do to progress, but still, overall there is a lot more to like than dislike about the level designs. The music is good as well. The Genesis soundchip can do more than this, but Castle of Illusion’s tunes sound good and have a cheerful tone that fits Mickey’s character well.
Overall, Castle of Illusion might be the Genesis’s best platformer released before Sonic the Hedgehog. The game is challenging, the graphics, while good, don’t quite match up to later releases for the system, the pace is slow, and I really wish you had passwords, but otherwise this is a great game which deserves most of the praise it gets. With good graphics, varied levels, lots to see, and more, Castle of Illusion is a classic. There is also a Saturn port of this game that was only released in Japan. Sega also made a Game Gear/Master System game of the same name, but it’s a different game with the same concept.
Castlevania: Bloodlines – 1 player, password save. Castlevania Bloodlines is a good, but somewhat disappointing, game in Konami’s iconic platform-action series. I have, in the past, frequently been critical of Bloodlines. It’s a pretty good, B-grade game for sure, but it followed up two of the best action-platformers of the generation, Super Castlevania IV and Castlevania X: Rondo of Blood, and isn’t nearly as great as either one. This game feels more like a followup to the NES Castlevania games than either of its predecessors. Some people like it for that, but I don’t. Worse, though, as with Contra below, Konami made this game harder for its Western release… and again just like Contra, they made it far too hard. What they did to the continue and save system in this game is unforgivable and kind of breaks the game.
First though, the good. Castlevania Bloodlines is a sidescrolling platformer that plays a lot like a NES Castlevania game with a few elements of Super Castlevania IV tossed in. The game has two playable characters, John Morris or Eric Lecarde. One has a whip, and the other a spear. Each can access a few areas that the other can’t, which is nice. One can attack diagonally while on the ground but not while jumping, while the other can attack diagonally while in the air but not while on the ground. The controls are good and responsive as usual in the series, but that is an incredibly annoying limitation that shouldn’t have happened; Super Castlevania IV got it right in letting you attack diagonally at any time, this limitation was a bad idea. But at least you have SOME diagonal attacks. The game has only six levels, but each one is long; this design, of having few long levels, is common in many (though not all!) of Konami’s Genesis games, perhaps to save money on a platform Konami clearly considered secondary by not having to design as many areas as they would in a SNES game. The story mixes in elements of the Dracula movie mythos, most notably the Bram Stoker’s Dracula story, into Castlevania. Unlike the usual castle-based setting, in this game you travel all over Europe; each stage is in a new place. I like the variety. Visually, the game looks okay, but lacks the polish of its SNES and Turbo CD predecessors. This game clearly had a smaller budget than either of those games, that’s for sure. Still, there is a reasonable amount of variety within each stage. Each level is made up of several parts, often with different settings, and there are usually minibosses in each level. The stages have variety, and some have nice visual effects, most notably the reflective water and the spinning Leaning Tower of Pisa. The music is also great. It doesn’t match the music in its two predecessors, perhaps because the SNES sound chip and CD audio are more suited for orchestral-style scores than the more techno-suited Genesis chip, but still, Bloodlines does sound good to great.
Apart from the cheaper feel compared to its console predecessors, though, my main issue with Bloodlines are the ways Konami messed with the game for its Western release. In Japan, Bloodlines gives you a password when you get game over that lets you continue from the beginning of the level you died in. You get two continues per game before you reach that game over and get a password. Passwords start you with a full load of lives and continues, so you can keep trying on each level as long as you want with no punishment, once you have reached it. Dying definitely punishes you, because levels are long, but it’s a doable challenge and I very much want this version of the game. In the West, however, the game is an insanely annoying punishing challenge. Konami changed things so that now you get a password only after beating a level, and the password saves your lives and continues into the password! Now, when you get game over, that’s it, start again from your last password. This transforms the game into an extremely frustrating game where you need to repeatedly replay levels over and over, trying to die fewer times so as to save some of those precious lives and continues. Any death means a life permanently lost, unless you find a 1-up. This is utterly unlike the continue system in every single other TV console Castlevania game ever made; all other console Castlevania games, and almost all of the handheld games, have infinite continues from the beginning of the level you are currently on. Almost all also allow you to save your progress by password or save file. The Western version of Bloodlines is the only Castlevania game ever to have both passwords AND limited continues that are saved to the password, and it was a terrible design decision that really hurts the game. Overall, though, Castlevania Bloodlines is a good game despite its faults. The game looks decently nice, plays well, has some nice variety and good level settings, and sounds good. Despite all my complaints I do like the game overall, even in its frustrating Western incarnation. Bloodlines is no Rondo of Blood, and that is a negative, but it is a good game. If it wasn’t getting a bit overpriced now I would certainly recommend it. Get the Japanese import version if you want to have fun; I’ll need to do that for sure, someday!
Chakan – 1 player. Chakan is a super-difficult platformer that seems to have been designed mostly to make, well, a super-difficult platform-action game. The game is based on a comic book license, and has a dark tone with brooding music and a dark color palette. It fits the ‘edgy’ style of a lot of Genesis games well. You play as Chakan, an immortal, and unhappy, warrior. You’ve got to destroy all evil if you ever want to rest. Good luck with that, I’ll never see the end of this game and nor will most players. Chakan may be immortal, so you can keep trying as many times as you like without ever seeing a Game Over screen, but when a game is this hard that’s not much of a help. The game has four levels you can play at the start, with many more levels after that that if you somehow manage to beat all of the first four. Chakan is longer than many platformers of its time, apparently; the shortest longplay on Youtube is an hour and a half long. You can’t save either, of course, as usual from a Sega game. Thanks. Apparently the game has two endings, one normal and another if you beat the insanely hard final boss, but there’s next to no reward at all if you beat it; the designers must have presumed no one would.
Visually, Chakan is a decent-looking game. The graphics and art design are well designed, but are a bit average for the system. The music is similarly good but not great. Chakan is a large character, which looks good visually, but this makes gameplay harder because things come at you from just off screen far too often; you don’t have much draw distance with sprites this big. Blind jumps are, as a result, a big problem in this game. If you fall in a pit that counts as a death, it’s back to the main level-select area with you, and this will happen often with pits you couldn’t see. Stronger enemies can take a ridiculous numbr of hits to defeat, as well, and if you run out of health, it’s back to the level select. I’ve never gotten very far at all into this game; I kind of like the style and visuals, but the game is unapproachably hard, and I don’t like blind jumps. Overall, I’d call Chakan a below average game, though fans of very hard games will surely like it more. Maybe check it out if you find it for cheap, though; Chakan is interesting, regardless of its issues.
Championship Pro-Am – 1 player. Championship Pro-Am is a port of Rare’s popular NES racing game R.C. Pro-Am. This is one of four NES games that Rare ported over to the Genesis, before they were bought by Nintendo. I covered another one earlier, Battletoads Double Dragon. R.C. Pro-Am was a very popular racing game on the NES, and it’s still great fun here! This game has okay graphics and fun but very simple gameplay. You race an RC car along walled-in tracks. The controls are skiddy, but you quickly get used to them. It controls just like the other games in the series. When you hit a wall you bounce off it, angling into the road, so you will eventually finish even if you don’t turn. Still, this is a tough game and skill and memorization will be required in order to get deep into it. You move on if you finish in the top three in each race, and fail if you finish below that. You only get three continues. I like the gameplay in this series a lot, and this game is as good as any of them there. RC Pro-Am games are very simple, but lots of fun. This is a fast game with a nice sense of speed. You zoom along, make the turns with the help of the on-screen map, and try to pick up as many of the powerups and weapons as you can that are scattered around the track. There are tire, acceleration, and top speed upgrades, along with bomb or missile weapons. You can only have one weapon or the other at a time, as always in the series. Stars add ammo for your current weapon.
The problem is that enhanced visuals and music aside, absolutely nothing here is new. This game is essentially the same exact game that released on the NES four years earlier, but with better graphics and music. I do like the visual and aural upgrade, and the sense of speed is probably improved here, but because of its simple design originally, the game feels dated compared to other Genesis racing games. None of the added features found in R.C. Pro-Am’s sequel on the Game Boy, which released before this game, or its sequel on the NES which released soon after are present here, so there is no multiplayer, no choices in the upgrade system, and the game still is an endless title that goes on until you lose, instead of having an ending as the sequels have. There is a limited number of tracks, but they will repeat if you manage to finish them all. All Rare did here was port over an old game, upgrade the graphics, and replace the NINTENDO letters you can collect in the game with CHAMPION ones. I wish that they had at least put in multiplayer, that would have been fantastic. For what it is, though, Championship Pro-Am is great fun. RC Pro-Am is a simple series, and I do prefer Micro Machines in part because those games are harder and require a lot more skill to be successful at because unlike this series the raceway is not walled in in Micro Machines and bumping into things doesn’t knock you ahead, but this is a fun little game that’s fun to race around in once in a while. There is challenge too, if you want to get through all the tracks and loop the game, so it isn’t easy, just simple to learn. I like Championship Pro-Am, it’s a good game. I just wish that they had made a new game instead of a feature-unaltered NES port. This version is better than the original, but the sequels on GB and NES are, overall, the better games.
Columns III: Revenge of Columns – 1-5 player simultaneous (with Sega multitap). Columns III is, of course, the second and final Columns game on the Genesis. There was another arcade game in between the first one and this, to explain the name, but I’ve never played it. Anyway, this is a puzzle game in Sega’s long-running Columns block-dropping puzzle game series. This time the game is Egyptian themed, instead of the supposed Phoenecian theme of the original Columns. Columns III is one of their first-party games Sega allowed other publishers to publish in the US, and I can sort of see why; this is an okay game, but not great. Columns III is a fairly bare-bones game, particularly if you are playing alone. This game is heavily focused on multiplayer, that’s for sure. The only modes here are a single player vs. CPU quest with three difficulties or multiplayer modes for two to five players. There is no endless mode, oddly enough, even though the original Columns was all about endless play and this game adds a few new features. In single player, you will only ever see one bland stone-block background and one music track; other backgrounds and music are exclusive to the multiplayer modes, annoyingly enough. There are sprites of your opponent in single player, but they are very simply drawn and have minimal animation. Overall this is not good design, don’t lock so much out of single player! There should be a music selection, at least. There are three difficulty levels to choose in the single player game, but that’s the only option, and if you know how to play Columns even Hard isn’t too tough to beat.
In terms of gameplay, Columns III is very similar to the original game, but with some additions to the multiplayer. As before, stacks of three gems drop from above. You can rotate the order of the gems, but cannot turn the blocks, so all pieces you drop will be three vertically-stacked titles. Your goal is to match 3 gems of the same type in a row. It’s simple, but works. Columns is no match for the best block-dropping puzzle games, but it is a fun little amusement here and there. It’s a bit easier to play than some other puzzle games, and that isn’t all bad. The game now has a display showing the next piece you will get, and a counter for special attacks as well. This is the number below the next-piece display. 3 points add to this meter when you make a 3-in-a-row match, 6 points for a 4-in-a-row, and 12 points for a 5-in-a-row. The counter maxes at 30, so pay attention to it; there is no indicator when it’s full. Hitting a button uses meter, with a minimum use of 10. 10, 20, and 30 each use a different ability, lowering your block field and raising the enemies’. Some powerups also can raise your blocks or lower the other players’. You also get a special powerup for each match you win that you can use at any time in the pause menu. I like the added strategy that having to deal with an opponent brings, it’s a nice challenge. Still, as a single player game, Columns III is lacking. The single background and music track get old, and there is no gameplay variety. The multiplayer options are better, and this is probably your best option for 3-plus player Columns on a home system, though, so it is well worth getting for that, if you have the right multitap. But as a single player game Columns III is strictly average. I like it because I like this genre, but non-fans can skip this without missing too much. This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega’s Genesis games.
Combat Cars – 1-2 player simultaneous. Combat Cars is Accolade’s take on RC Pro-Am, pretty much. This is a top-down sci-fi combat racing game. Unfortunately, while I want to like it, the game has some critical design flaws which mostly ruin the game.. Combat Cars is unbalanced, has poor controls, and is absurdly difficult. As a result, it’s not nearly as much fun as it should be even for someone who likes top-down racing games as much as I do. To start with the worst thing about this game, you have, effectively, one life and no continues in the main championship mode here. No continues, no extra lives, no saving. Finish out of the top three positions on any race in the game and you lose, try again from race one. There isn’t even a ‘Game Over’ screen, you’re just dumped to the high-score entry screen and then back to the title. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the like in a game like this. Of course, this game demands memorization to succeed at; you won’t beat races after the first few on your first try. Combat Cars is a fast game with skiddy controls that are hard to get used to and tracks loaded with sharp turns and obstacles that will slow you down if you don’t get turns just right. Memorization is the only way to proceed, but with the game kicking you back to the start after every single failure, it’s not worth the hassle. There isn’t a course map on screen during play, either; it’d be nice if there was. This is an awful combination. Thankfully there are some cheat codes that make the game more playable, though really emulators probably are the best way, sadly enough. Even with them, however, this is a flawed game that only the dedicated will get far in due to the super-skiddy controls. There is a two player splitscreen co-op mode, which is nice, but why play this when you could play Micro Machines instead?
Presentation-wise the game is better, but does have issues. In this game you can play as eight different futuristic combat racers. However, the only ones worth using are the ones with homing missiles; the rest are near-worthless, pretty much. Don’t pick them. Visually Combat Cars looks nice, but not great. This game is about on par with the first Micro Machines game, visually. This is a strictly top-down game which doesn’t really push the hardware, but it does *look nice enough for the time. There is a nice variety of track settings as well, which is nice. The music is okay but not too memorable, but does have some decent tunes. This should have been at least an average game, and with better controls and a continue system it could have been… but it was not to be, sadly. I love futuristic racing games and top-down racers, but I can’t defend this one. Combat Cars is a bad game and while I like some things about it, it’s probably is the worst racing game I have for the Genesis. Accolade came close here, but their mistakes are sadly crippling.
Comix Zone – 1 player, 6-button controller supported. Comix Zone is a very good side-scrolling beat ’em up from STI and published by Sega that released in 1995. This is a game I noticed at the time, and I thought it was really cool! Comix Zone and Vectorman are probably the two Genesis games from ’95 that I remember best, and the game is indeed very good. Comix Zone didn’t sell nearly as well as Sega hoped, but it is a great game I highly recommend, even if it’s excessively difficult as some Genesis games tend to be. I don’t mind that, it’s really great regardless of that I’ve never gotten past halfway through the game, Comix Zone is almost certainly my favorite side-scrolling beat ’em up ever! So, Comix Zone is a side-scrolling beat ’em up, but it is an unconventional one with puzzle and adventure elements as well as platforming. It also has a very unique visual style. You are Sketch Turner, a somewhat implausibly buff comic book artist, and the supervillain from your comic has come alive, warped you into your own comic, and is drawing new pages as well! The game sticks with the comic-book theme throughout, as each level is called a “Page”, and all game play areas look like panels from a comic book. I love the look of the game, the panels are a unique mechanic and look great. The graphics in general look great, actually. Comix Zone is a later release for the Genesis, and it really shows; this game has fantastic, very well drawn visuals that get the most out of the Genesis’s limited color palette. The game does have some slowdown when a lot is going on on screen, but mostly it runs well, and it always looks very good. The game has a great synth-rock-style soundtrack, also. While not the absolute best, it’s probably one of the better soundtracks on the system. Presentation-wise, Comix Zone is fantastic and is a real showcase for what the Genesis can do.
The gameplay is very good as well, difficulty aside. While there are only six pages (levels) in this game, each one is reasonably long. This game is made up of many single-screen panels, so there isn’t a lot of scrolling except between panels. This works fine, and serves to focus you on the current area. The game has branching paths in each page; though they all lead to the same places in the end, which ones you choose does matter. Comix Zone has an inventory system, you see; this isn’t just a brawler. A six button controller is highly recommended for this game, it gives you quick access to your inventory — X, Y, and Z each use the item in that slot on screen. You can only have three items at once, so sometimes you will need to choose what is more important. Memorization will be key here, because sometimes you don’t know what you’ll need until you go to the next panel, and you cannot go back to a previous panel once you have advanced. It’s important to search each panel, both as Sketch, and by letting out your rat companion from its space in the inventory. Your pet will turn off traps, find hidden items, and more! It really is essential stuff. When faced by a wall of barrels, you do NOT want to have to break them down with your fists, as each punch drains some health and it will take many hits to destroy them. Instead, just use that dynamite that your rat found hidden behind the panel earlier in the page! So yes, memorization is key here, and I very much wish that the game had a save or password system between pages, but the game is rewarding as you figure out what to do to progress past each puzzle or action challenge.
As for the combat, it isn’t too complex, but does have a bit of depth. You have only one button for fighting, items aside. You can do attacks at different heights by pressing up or down along with the button, though, powerful attacks with a combo of punches, and jumping attacks, though, so there is a reasonable variety. Some items also can act as weapons, knives in particular. Generally don’t use dynamite on enemies though, save that for key obstacles. You also have a strong attack that drains health (hold down attack to use it), but this should be avoided because health is precious. Enemies often will block, so you need to use a mixed variety of attacks in order to get hits through. Sometimes there are scripted sequences such as the one at the end of the first page where you punch a guy through several panel borders, tearing open the page; that’s pretty cool. There’s never been a comic book game that more feels like it really is taking place in a comic book than this one! The game is hard, though. Enemies can be tough, and the game is unforgiving — health it does not refill between pages, only if you use one of the very few healing items, and you get only one life per continue and start with zero continues. You do get a single continue each time after beating the bosses on pages 2 and 4, but the one added chance won’t keep you alive for long. Comix Zone demands a lot of repetition, and I keep dying in page 3 or, at the best, 4. There is a stage-select cheat, but I’ve always wanted to try to beat this game legit, so I haven’t used it… ah well, I don’t mind; what I have seen in this game is amazing. If it was easy it probably wouldn’t be as fun, the challenge keeps you coming back again and again for more! And that code does exist. Overall, Comix Zone is a fantastic game, and it’s probably a bit under-rated as well. The game has very good graphics and music, a great sense of style, is unmatched at sticking to its comic-book theme, has branching paths and some depth to its combat system, and has puzzles along the way to keep things varied. Your usual side-scrolling beat ’em up is a tediously simplistic affair, but this is about as far from that as you can get, and so while not perfect, this is the best game in its genre on any platform. Comix Zone is really great, play it! Also available for Windows 3.1/95 PC and, in Europe only, Game Boy Advance. This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega’s Genesis games.
Contra: Hard Corps – 2 player simultaneous, 6-button controller supported. Contra: Hard Corps is another one of the Genesis’s amazing, but incredibly difficult, games. This game is a side-scrolling run & gun game in the popular Contra series. Despite its excessive difficulty, Contra: Hard Corps is easily my favorite Contra game. As with Castlevania Bloodlines Konami messed with the game in negative ways for its Western release, but even if I’ll probably never beat the US version of this game, it’s really amazing. What makes this game so great, then? Everything, really! Contra: Hard Corps has fantastic graphics, lots of great visual effects, an outstanding soundtrack that is ideal for the Genesis’s sound hardware, great, extremely responsive controls, lots of awesome bosses to fight, branching paths with a total of 14 levels between all of them, an actual story for the first time in the Contra series, four playable characters including the series’ first female playable character, constant high-tempo action, good level designs and challenges, and more! Contra: Hard Corps really is the complete package, and difficulty aside I don’t have much of anything bad to say about this game, except that it IS still a Contra game, and while Contra games are fun, personally I like the Metal Slug series more. But of the Contra games this is the one I like best and have played the most; it’s the only Contra game that gives the Metal Slug series a run for its money, for me. Some series fans dislike this game because it is different from previous games, with a more Gunstar Heroes-inspired focus on boss fights and flashy visuals, but I think this style works better than classic Contra, myself. It surely also helps that I probably have more nostalgia for this game than most any other Contra game, admittedly, but regardless, it’s great.
This game is a sequel to Contra III: The Alien Wars for SNES. The story is told over the course of those 14 missions, and there are multiple endings so you will not see the whole story even if you do manage to play great enough to reach one of the endings. The levels have a huge amount of variety and the game is constantly throwing new challenges and obstacles at you. This is a beautiful game with lots of sprite scaling and rotation, showing off how well Konami could program for the Genesis when they pushed it hard. This is easily Konami’s most technically impressive Genesis game. If it is a response to Treasure’s Gunstar Heroes, well, Konami outdid Treasure for sure in my book! The level designs are as varied as the graphics, too. Rarely will you just be walking to the right and shooting; instead, flying stages, many boss fights, vertical sections, and more keep the game interesting. This is an incredibly fast-paced game which is constantly changing. Each route through the game is very different as far as I have managed to get, and I’m sure it keeps that up to the end in each path. The soundtrack is almost as great as the graphics, and has just as fast a tempo as the gameplay. The music almost seems sped-up at times, but no, this is how it is supposed to be. The game controls great, too. You can run and shoot with the buttons, and with a 6-button pad, X through Z or pressing A while holding B will switch between two firing modes, one where you can move freely and the other where you stand in place and fire in any direction. A 6-button controller isn’t essential, but it s nice to have the command on a single button. One key move is the slide. Press down and jump and you slide, and while sliding you are invincible. Mastering the use of this is essentially the only way to finish the Western version of this game, but it is great that it is here. Awesome work all around, in graphics, design, and gameplay.
Really the only downside to this game are the changes Konami made for the Western release. As with Castlevania on the Genesis, this game also was made far harder than it was originally intended. In Japan, this game gives you three hit points per life and you get infinite continues. It is a very hard game, but with patience you will finish it. Someday I will definitely get a region-modded or import Genesis so that I can play this version of the game; I’d miss out on understanding the story, sure, but at least I’d be able to get to the end! In the US version that is unlikely. Here, you die in one hit and have only 5 continues. This makes the game exponentially harder, and forces you to start the game over constantly as you run out of continues. Sure, eventually you will get a bit farther in as you learn the next bit of the game, and the game is rewarding in that regard, but I hate having to start over because I don’t know what to do in some boss in level three or four, it’s frustrating! The Japanese version is better designed. This is a memorization-heavy game where learning enemy and boss patterns is absolutely key, and sending you back to the start frequently is kind of unfair; you can’t get through this on your first try, you need to die a bunch to learn what to do in each area. It’d ahve been better if they had 1 or 3 hitpoints and infinite or limited continues as options you could choose between; that would be ideal to satisfy both those of us who want to have fun with the game, and masochistic types who are great at this kind of game and want a serious challenge. Even so, though, as it is Contra: Hard Corps is an amazing game. It may be too hard, but with fantastic graphics and sound, great level designs full of constant action and technically impressive bosses, great controls, and more, Contra: Hard Corps is a must-have classic that I can’t recommend enough. It really shows of what Konami could do with the Genesis when they seriously tried! For me, this is as good as Contra games get. Buy it. Sadly the Japanese version is region-locked, but if you can play that, play it instead (or also).
Cool Spot – 1 player. Cool Spot is a platformer from Virgin. This is a licensed platform-action game starring the 7-Up Spot, the lemon-lime soda 7-Up’s 1990s cartoon mascot. 7-Up soda was more popular then because Pepsi did not introduce its own lemon-lime soda, Sierra Mist, until 1999; before that many restaurants serving Pepsi sodas had 7 Up who now would have Sierra Mist instead. Spot is a round red circle with legs, arms, and, of course, some ‘cool’ shades to have some of that ’90s attitude. He’s got a good design which fits the mid ’90s very well. This is a nice-looking but average game. The game looks a lot like Virgin’s other Genesis platformers such as Global Gladiators or Aladdin, but plays a lot more like the former of those two games than the latter, unfortunately. Cool Spot has good graphics and animation, as expected from the developer, but the game has some design issues. Though it is an okay game, Cool Spot doesn’t play as well as it looks.
This is an exploration-based platform-action game. You need to collect a minimum percent of the red dots on each stage, then find the cage holding a jailed spot, and only then can you progress. Levels are, as a result, large, open, and exploration-heavy. Fortunately at the start there aren’t too many death pits, but that will gradually change as you progress. Enemies are numerous and fast-moving. Spot moves quickly as well, so enemies often hit you before you even saw them coming, and those death pits can be impossible to avoid. You shoot in this game to kill enemies, instead of jumping on heads, but because of the speed, and Spot’s loose, slippery controls, many hits are inevitable. Fortunately you do have a life meter, so the game doesn’t have one-hit kills, but still this is a frustrating game. Making things worse, you have no continues at all unless you find them in the game, so you’ll be starting this one over from the beginning a LOT. I don’t like that, of course. This game may not be quite as ruined by blind jumps as Global Gladiators is, but the numerous fast enemies help make up for that gap.
Despite its problems Cool Spot can be fun to play. This is a somewhat fun game to play, but the slippery controls, high speeds, death pits, and somewhat aimless levels drag the game down. Blind jumps over death pits are bad design, particularly. They pretty much ruin Global Gladiators and Taz-Mania, and this game is worse because of them as well. An element of chance in a game is fine, but forcing players to take that kind of chance, in a game with limited lives and no continues or saving, is not fun. Trying to creep through the levels slowly enough to shoot enemies before they hit you also isn’t fun, not when Spot’s natural pace is quite quick. I also would probably prefer a more focused game overs the large, sprawling, collection-focused levels in this game. Still, there are things to like about Cool Spot. The game has very nice graphics and production values, decent music, a different setting in each level, lots of stuff in each level to find, and some okay level concepts. Still, overall Cool Spot is an average game. I had hopes for Cool Spot when I got it some years ago, but didn’t like it as much as I hoped, and I never have played this game much, I don’t have enough fun to want to face trying to memorize the game. I do like the art design both in the game and in the manual, though. Only get this if you like the Virgin school of platformers beyond Aladdin. Also on SNES, PC, Amiga, Game Boy, Game Gear, and Master System. The game was successful and has a sequel, Spot goes to Hollywood. That game is an isometric action-platformer, so it’s a different kind of game from this one, but I’ve never played it.
Cosmic Spacehead – 2 player simultaneous (minigame only, main game is 1 player), password save. Cosmic Spacehead is a platform/adventure game from Codemasters. This is one of only two games Codemasters published for the Genesis in the US, along with Micro Machines; I have both. Their other games only released in Europe. This is a comedy space adventure game, and it’s amusing stuff. The game is a sequel to Linus Spacehead, a somewhat similar game for the NES. I haven’t played that one, only this. Cosmic Spacehead has a nice cartoony art style with reasonably well-drawn graphics. You are Cosmic Spacehead, a boy in a superhero-style costume with a “C” on the chest, and are on an adventure in a somewhat Looney Tunes-esque retro-future world. I love the look of the backgrounds. Those background graphics are great, but the sprites are only okay; they look a bit amateur at times, and don’t match up to the environments. The game starts out as a traditional adventure game. You walk around, collect items, and try to figure out where to use them, and such. You control your character directly, but also can move a cursor around the screen. Pressing a button switches between controlling the two. Here you have five commands, Look, Pick Up, Talk, Give, and Use. As a console game on cartridge this game does not have nearly the volume of text that a PC game of the time probably would have, but there is a fair amount of it, and with dialog options along the way as well. This is an amusing game with a decent sense of humor.
As you figure out what to pick up and where to go, you will play side-scrolling platformer segments in between adventure areas. Codemasters was probably trying to make the game more interesting for kids than just a straight adventure game would be, but the mix is a little odd. The platformer is decent, but it’s nothing special, visuals aside. You just walk to the right, avoiding enemies as you go because you can’t attack them; it’s average stuff at best. The platformer stages are short, as well. Fortunately most of the game is in the adventure portion, so this is mostly an adventure game, but perhaps it should have been only an adventure game, though I guess some variety to mix up the usual item-based puzzle-solving is okay. The game has some tricky puzzles and difficult platforming at times, so while the game isn’t too long, it is challenging. Linus Spacehead isn’t a great game, and it never did hold my interest long enough to finish the game, but it is a fun little game worth a look. It’s definitely something I will return to sometime to play more of. Also on PC, Amiga, Master System (Europe only), and Game Gear; this is a remake of Linus Spacehead’s Cosmic Crusade for the NES. (The first game is Linus Spacehead for the NES.)
Crack Down – 2 player simultaneous. Crack Down is a good top-down action game for the Genesis from Sega. I have finished this game; it’s not particularly difficult, surprisingly enough, even in single player. The game has ugly, basic graphics in a small window, but the good stealth-action gameplay makes up for any visual shortcomings. You have to kill the enemies in each level, get to certain points to deal with bombs, and get to the exit. You will attach to walls when you get near them, something fairly original at the time. Just running around and shooting will get you killed, so you need to take it slow. With a little practice it’s not too hard, but it is a lot of fun; this game is good fun regardless of its visuals. I did a full review of this game several years ago, so go look that up, it’s better than something I can write in the more limited space I have here. This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega’s Genesis games.
Crusader of Centy – 1 player, battery save to cartridge. Crusader of Centy is one of the three great top-down action-RPGs on the Genesis. The game was developed by NexTech, and while Sega published it in Japan and Europe, they didn’t release it here, and Atlus brought it over instead. This game is the most expensive of the three today, but unfortunately for your wallet, it’s also a very good game that anyone who likes the genre definitely should play! I do like Landstalker a bit more than this game, but Crusader of Centy is also great. Right from the first moment, Crusader of Centy’s main inspiration is obvious: it’s The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. The visual look of this game is about as close to LttP as you can get on the Genesis. particularly in the environments; sprites have an anime-style look that is a bit different from . The game is colorful and very well drawn; it’s impressive stuff for the Genesis, though Beyond Oasis does outdo it visually. Aurally, the game sounds good, but not amazing. Centy doesn’t match a Zelda games’ incredible soundtrack. The sprite work probably doesn’t match a Zelda game either, though I have my issuees with LttP’s sprite work as well. Either way though, this is a good-looking game which impresses, though the music isn’t quite as good as the visuals.
Crusader of Centy has a large world to explore. While it isn’t exactly the same as Zelda, this game plays even more like Zelda than Beyond Oasis or Landstalker do. This is definitely the most directly Zelda-like game on the Genesis. The story is one of the ways this game distinguishes itself from Zelda. Centy has a surprisingly interesting and weird story. You play as a somewhat generic teenage boy hero, but while the game doesn’t have a lot of text there is a fair amount, and the plot is unique. Your hero can talk to animals, and in fact, through most of the game you can ONLY talk to animals, not other humans. Yeah, the story is a bit odd and unique. You do do a lot of basic help-the-animal quests, but that’s fine. The gameplay is what matters most in games, not the story. But I do like that the story isn’t just a standard heroic journey, it has a unique twist.
And in that gameplay, Crusader of Centy is a pretty good game. The game doesn’t quite match Zelda’s quality, and it really is a blatant clone, but still, it’s good. This game is broken up into areas, so unlike Zelda, but more like Beyond Oasis but with bigger levels, it doesn’t have one contiguous overworld. The style works fine. Each area in the game looks different, and you can travel between them from an area-select map screen. In town areas you will find some minigames, to mix things up a bit. That’s always nice to see. In exploration areas you walk around, kill monsters, and try to figure out puzzles. Combat is simple, as you just hit a button to swing your sword, but works well enough. You can jump, nicely, with the right ability; that’s nice, though Zelda did it first, as this game released after Link’s Awakening. You’ll hop between platforms, push blocks, find switches, kill monsters to open paths, and such. Some puzzles that use the special abilities you have equipped… or rather, the animals you have following you. As you progress you will get various animal companions, and each will give you different powers. You can have two following you at a time, so this works a lot like items in Zelda. As you might expect, you get them from beating bosses, generally. This game never gets really hard, but I’m fine with that because it’s fun along the way. You wander around, fighting enemies and solving puzzles for animals, with the help of your animal companions. The game looks nice and sounds okay. This is a very good game overall. However, it gameplay is VERY similar to a Zelda game, and Zelda does this slightly better. Also, this game is highly overpriced now, and perhaps hard to justify at its currently inflated prices. Still, if you can afford it, definitely get Crusader of Centy. It’s a pretty good game well worth playing.
Cyborg Justice – 2 player simultaneous. Cyborg Justice is an isometric beat ’em up made by Novotrade and published by Sega. This is a cool-looking game with a great concept and lots of moves, but also flawed, incredibly repetitive gameplay and design. Overall this game is average to below average, but it’s the fun kind of average. Cyborg Justice may not actually be good, but it’s good stuff anyway! In this very Genesis-ey concept, you play as a robot and have to defeat an army of enemy robots. You can create your robot at the start, which is cool; there are at least a half-dozen parts each for your arm, leg, and torso slots, and your choice does affect how the game plays. This is a fairly standard isometric beat ’em up, but instead of just button-mashing you do have moves to learn in this game. If you want to succeed at Cyborg Justice, reading a guide to learn how to do the moves, the rip-apart-the-enemy moves in particular, is highly recommended. The old staple of the genre, the jump-attack, is also effective and does quite a bit of damage, though actually hitting enemies with it can be tricky because you need to jump from just the right spot in front of an enemy to hit them. The gameplay and controls are somewhat slow and clunky and hard to get used to, but it is nice that there are moves to learn. Still, I wish the game played better. The game is playable once you learn what to do, but there is no flow in this games’ combat, and moves may or may not work when you try to do them. Different robot types have different moves, too, interestingly.
The game has good graphical design as well, with some nice-looking robots and decently well drawn backdrops. However, everything is extremely repetitive. There are three stages in each location, and all three are just palette-swaps of the same exact environment. Each stage is just a straight walk to the right with absolutely no variation; don’t expect any kind of interesting level design here, you won’t find it. There are probably only a couple of screens worth of actual background to see in each location, repeated far too much. Along the way you will fight enemies, but the only other things that appear are occasional pit or magnet-freeze trap circles. The pits must be jumped over, and this can be tricky because of the somewhat clumsy controls, while the circles are just spots to avoid. Otherwise, you just walk to the right. There is no more variation in enemies than there is in backgrounds, either, as most everything you fight also seems to come straight out of that same character creator you used at the start. Yes, it creates a fair number of robot variants, but you’ll see the same designs over and over and over as you play, with little new added. Cyborg Justice is a tough game, too. There are five difficulty levels and they definitely affect the games’ challenge level, and you can select whether you get 1 to 5 health bars per life, but enemies can do the same moves you can, and some bosses will use those instant-kill tear-apart moves on YOU! These mean an instant game over no matter how many health bars you have left, and you only get two continues per game. And with how repetitive and bland the game is, it’s hard for me to want to keep playing this game enough to get deep into it. I do like some things about this game, the graphical design and concept most importantly, but the gameplay is sadly lacking. Overall, Cyborg Justice is average at best, and could have been a lot better. It’s too bad. Still, the game can be amusing, so give it a try if you find it cheap and like beat ’em ups. Plodding along ripping apart or jumping on robots is fun, once in a while, until the frustration and repetition set in.
Sega Genesis Game Opininion Summaries - Work In Progress - Dark Jaguar - 16th November 2015
Weird how American ports had that reputation for being "dumbed down", but all too often the games were actually made HARDER for their US release. I'm thinking of games like Double Dragon 3 as well as Hard Corps. Even Super Mario Bros. 2 (Dream Factory: Doki Doki Panic) got harder for the US release. Not only does it lack a save system, they made the bizarre decision to add limited continues to the game (2 of them). It's the only Mario game that has limited continues, in fact.
Sega Genesis Game Opininion Summaries - Work In Progress - A Black Falcon - 18th November 2015
Double Dragon 3? I don't know much about that one, other than that people say it's not good. Not sure if I've ever played it myself.
As for Mario 2, though, while I do agree with you that they made it harder, the original game makes you beat the game with all four characters, while the Mario 2 version only has you beat it once. Still, removing saving and replacing it with only 2 continues makes more of a difference, so yeah, it's harder than the Japanese version. But at least you don't need to beat it four times.
I actually didn't know about Castlevania Bloodlines' difficulty changes until recently, or at least I had forgotten entirely about them, so I'm glad I didn't do this until now... the Bloodlines summary is better than it would have been otherwise as a result. I've known for a long time about how they changed Contra Hard Corps, but didn't remember about how Bloodlines was similarly messed up. I want the Japanese versions of both games now, so I can play versions of the games I could actually finish... so of course they are region-locked carts, so I'd need a modded or Japanese system to play them. Bah.
Sega Genesis Game Opininion Summaries - Work In Progress - A Black Falcon - 21st November 2015
Covered in this update: D and E games, and a game I forgot from C from the Genesis 6-Pak
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Columns (from Genesis 6-Pak)
Death Duel
Decap Attack
Desert Demolition Starring Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote
Desert Strike: Return to the Gulf
Devilish: The Next Possession
DJ Boy
Duel, The: Test Drive II
Dynamite Headdy
El Viento
ESWAT: City Under Siege
Eternal Champions
Ex-Mutants
Columns (from Genesis 6-Pak) - 2 player simultaneous. Columns is Sega's first major puzzle game. This game was released in the wake of Tetris's smash-hit success, and filled the need for a puzzle game from Sega. Columns is no Tetris, but it is a decent game that can be entertaining to play, even if it isn't as great as the best block-dropping puzzle games. Columns has three modes, 1 player endless, 1 player Flash mode, or two player versus. In Flash mode you have to clear a certain flashing tile to progress to the next screen, while the others are self-explanatory. In any mode, blocks drop as vertical stacks of three gems. In Columns the blocks are always a three-tall pile of pieces, that is the games' main distinction. Gems disappear when three or more of the same kind touch, either vertically, horizontally, or diagonally. So, Columns is simple, but there is some strategy to it. You have to always keep in mind when dropping a piece how it'll line up three-in-a-row connections. The field is not huge, so you need to keep making a steady stream of matches in order to keep going. Fortunately that's not too hard, and sometimes in Columns massive combos will empty big chunks of the playfield without your even trying. The game eventually does get challenging, but I don't find Columns as hard as, say, Puyo Puyo or Tetris, and it's not quite as fun as those games either. The vertical-only orientation may be distinctive, but it is also restricting; sometimes I wish I could rotate pieces horizontally. I know a few later Columns games do allow that, but this first one did not, and nor does Columns III on Genesis. As for the graphics and sound, Columns looks and sounds okay, but that's about all. This is a very early Genesis game, and it looks it. Still, overall, Columns is a decently fun little puzzle game worth playing once in a while. I like puzzle games, and though Columns does have some flaws, overall it is above average and well worth having in some form. I've got it in the Sega 6-Pak, Sega's great collection of six early Genesis games. It is also available individually. Arcade port, also on the Master System, TurboGrafx-16, Game Gear, and more. This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega’s Genesis games.
Death Duel - 1 player. Note that with a 6-button controller you need to hold Mode down on power on with this game for the controls to work correctly. Death Duel is a somewhat odd first person robot fighting game from Razor Soft. This is an 'edgy' game for the time, with a tough name and a bit of blood and sexuality. Death Duel is no Mortal Kombat, though; this game is about giant robots and monsters shooting at eachother, and the violence is somewhat tame today. Still, you'd never see this game on the Super Nintendo, though it's not that good either. The story is that in order to save the Federation from rival powers, you need to fight ten duels to the death. If you win, glory; if you lose, the game over screen explains how people now revile your memory while looking at your (unseen) corpse. Yeah. Winning won't be easy until you know what to do against each foe, though. This is a shooting game, but it's as much puzzle as it is shooter because you must use the correct loadout of weapons against each enemy in order to win, and you won't know what that is unless you look up a guide or guess correctly. Good luck. The game has a first person view. There are two aiming modes. In movement mode you move left or right with the dpad, but the cursor is locked to the center of the screen. By hitting Start you switch to aiming mode, and now you can't move your robot but can move the cursor around the screen. Enemies are moving all the time, though, so aiming mode is mostly useful for adjusting cursor location, not for actual combat. The enemy robot moves left and right in front of you, and there are some breakable shields in between the two of you that either can destroy with weaponfire. Each enemy robot is made up of numerous parts which you will have to independently destroy, because enemies are only destroyed once all of their parts are blown up. You automatically lose if you run out of health or ammo, or if your robot's parts are too damaged to continue. Between levels you buy weapons from a shop.
It's a decent system, but the game is more frustrating than it could be. In order to make this short game longer, unless you know the exact right weapon loadouts to use you have no hope of winning after the first match or two. You can only sometimes change weapons after losing and the game punishes you by carrying over damage incurred in your failed attempt so you can't just buy a full set of weapons the next time if you do go back, annoyingly, so sometimes just starting the game over is easier than continuing. That's just not right. I don't find the puzzle element of this game fun, the game punishes you too much for guessing wrong. Your ammo runs out very quickly and does not carry over between missions, so you really need to know what weapons to equip against each foe to have a chance. Trying to get the most points possible to spend in the shop for the next enemy is also critical, both during battles and in the shooting-gallery minigame between each stage. Sure, conceptually it's nice that the game isn't just a mindless, simplistic light-gun-style shooting game, but this isn't really better, not with as annoying as it can be to play. Visually the game is only average, also. The robots do look decent, but graphics are, for the most part, not too great, and the music is average chunky Genesis techno. I do kind of like the soundtrack, but it's not too memorable. Overall, Death Duel is an interesting, but not that great, game. If prices in the store were cheaper, so you could afford to buy more stuff, and the game let you respec after each failure with no punishment maybe it'd be better, but the core gameplay isn't anything special either. Tracking enemies can be annoying because they move around quickly, causing you to waste ammo firing at enemies who have moved by the time the shots get to where the enemy is. Their movements are not predictable either, so luck plays a bit too large of a factor here, though skill matters as well, certainly. Of course teh game also punishes you too much for failing to guess what weapon you need, so as to force you to restart the game over and over to make this maybe 15-minute game take much longer to finish. Overall, Death Duel isn't that good. The game is amusing in short bursts, but isn't fun or engaging enough to really be worth playing.
Decap Attack - 1 player. Decap Attack, or DecapAttack, is an average-at-best platformer with a comical horror theme to it. This game is from the same developers of, and plays very much like, Kid Kool on the NES and Psycho Fox on the Master System; gameplay-wise, the three games are sort of a trilogy. DecapAttack is one of the first games I got for the Genesis after getting the system in 2006, but it's not a game I had played before that. The game started boring me almost immediately, and I'm not sure if it was actually worth getting. I know some people like this game, but I don't at all. This is a fairly quick-moving game, and you often have to make blind jumps, and memorize segments in order to make it through jumping puzzles because of the games' momentum system. This is really annoying and not good. Also, Decap Attack, like those other two games, has a weird attack system where you attack with an extremely short-range punch. In this case, it comes from a weird creature living in your torso, fitting the undead-monsters theme of the game. You can also throw this thing at enemies, but it doesn't come back automatically, which is a problem; you have to go pick it up. And no, you can't jump on enemies, that hurts you. Attacking enemies in all three of these games is sometimes frustrating and poorly designed. Levels are not fun to play, either; they are too long and tedious, on top of the poor mechanics and frustrating jumps. Visually the game looks decent to good, and I like some of the graphics, but the gameplay just isn't any fun at all and the few times I've played this game I usually turn it off even before getting game over just bcause of how frustrating and boring it is. Don't bother with this bad game, it's one of the worst Japanese-made Sega platformers on the Genesis in my book. This game doesn't quite make my bottom-10 Genesis games list, but it's close. Note that the Japanese version of the game plays the same, but has entirely different graphics with a different theme based on a licensed anime; it was redrawn for the West to remove the license and presumably fit the market better, I guess. I haven't played the Japanese version but imagine it's mostly the same, visuals aside.
Desert Demolition Starring Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote - 1 player. Desert Demolition is one of the Looney Tunes-licensed platformers Sega of America published on the Genesis. This quite nice-looking game was made by Blue Sky, the same team as the Jurassic Park and Vectorman platformers, and is in between those two in quality. While Taz-Mania was far and away the most popular of Sega's four Looney Tunes games, it's also the worst of them. This game, on the other hand, might be the best. It's no Vectorman, but it is a good little game. For Sega's best Genesis Looney Tunes game it's either this or Taz: Escape from Mars, but I think I might like this game more. Some of that might be that I always loved Road Runner, while I didn't care about or watch the '90s Taz cartoon. This is the best Road Runner game I have played; other Road Runner platformers are usually too fast for their own good and are ruined by slippery controls and mountains of blind jumps, but though this game is fast and you do have blind jumps when playing as the Road Runner, the game is great fun despite that thanks to good design.
Desert Demolition distinguishes itself from other Road Runner games not only with its good graphics and solid design, but also its faithfulness to the cartoon, variety, and ability to play as Wile E. Coyote instead of the Road Runner in two separate routes through the game. This is a short game with only maybe five levels per character, but the high replay value makes up for that. Each character plays very differently and plays the levels in a different order, so playing as both is strongly encouraged. As the Road Runner, you move around very quickly as usual in Road Runner games. However, it works here because you won't find much in the way of death pits in this game, so you can explore around without constantly dying. Levels are large and well thought through, and are fun to explore. Desert Demolition is a Western platformer, so like many of the time levels are large and open, and exploration is important. Your goal is to get to the end, but there are multiple routes along the way. The level designs are decent to good, and the levels are nicely large. The Road Runner is trying to reach the end of each stage without getting caught by Wile, while picking up lots of powerups along the way. As either character you have only a one minute timer at the start for each stage, so as the Road Runner you need to pick up time-extend powerups and keep moving in order to not die. Wile will appear from ACME boxes and various other trap locations as you move around each stage, while other pickups give you points and hourglasses give you time.
As Wile E Coyote, though, the game is slower and more deliberate. Wile doesn't zoom around, so you can take your time more as him. You do have a run button, but even there you are under control. In order to keep that timer from running out, Wile must catch the Road Runner regularly; that is how you get those hourglasses. So, you've got to chase that roadrunner and do your best to leap on him with your leap attack! It's a different playstyle from the Road Runner, and might actually be even more fun thanks to the slower pace and chase-focused gameplay. You almost never can play as Wile E. Coyote in Road Runner games, and it's awesome that you can in this one. The animations are just great as well, and really add to the game every bit as much as the very nice backgrounds do. Since this is a Road Runner game it is set in the American deserts, of course. The visuals are all very well drawn and look great; this game does a good job pushing the Genesis hardware, visually. This is one of those later releases for the system that shows what it can do. The audio is cool too -- instead of a normal soundtrack, the game plays music while your character is moving, and it changes tempo based on your speed. It's cool stuff which fits the series great. Overall, Desert Demolition looks great, plays well, and has a nice amount of variety with two very different characters to play as. Exploring levels is fun, and running away from or chasing the other character while also looking for items is a nice challenge. This isn't a long or particularly hard game, though the tight timers can be tricky sometimes, but it's a fun one that many people overlook. This is a good game that I like, and it's well worth playing. Pick it up!
Desert Strike: Return to the Gulf - 1 player, password save. Desert Strike is an overhead-isometric flight combat game from EA. It's part shooter, and part sim, making for a somewhat unique mix when combined with the perspective. This game was very popular at the time, and its massive success led to a long-running series through the '90s. However, I've never liked this game very much, or the other two 4th-gen Strike games either. Desert Strike isn't a bad game, and for the time it might even be good, I just don't find interesting to play or much fun. I do like the two 5th-gen Strike games slightly better, but still, I've never quite gotten why this game, and series, was so popular. Part of might be that the theme clearly was inspired by the first Gulf War of the early '90s. EA did a good job capitalizing on the war against Iraq with this games very Saddam Hussein-like villain and desert setting. The gameplay has to have kept people interested once they got past the theme, though, and that's where the game loses me. Desert Strike is not a fast-paced shooter, but it is not a simulation game either. It's in between, too boring to be a shooter but not nearly deep enough to be a real sim. The game has only four missions, each on a different map, but each is absolutely huge with many objectives to complete. I've never beaten the first mission, as much because of a lack of interest as anything. There are passwords between missions, but not between objectives, unfortunately. Visually the game looks okay, with reasonably well drawn sprites, but the realistic military theme isn't something I find too exciting and the desert all looks the same. The music is strictly average.
So how does Desert Strike play, then? While the game looks sort of 3d due to the isometric angled perspective, the game is, control-wise, two-dimensional. You can only move around at a set altitude over the ground and cannot control your height. All four subsequent Strike games use this same exact mechanic. It keeps things simple, but sometimes height control would be nice, though it would add complexity as well due to the difficulty of targeting things in 3d. Anyway, enemies can be on two planes, in the air on level with you, or, more commonly, on the ground shooting up at your copter. While moving forward your copter will angle down, because that's how helicopters work, so you can shoot downwards while moving, or straight ahead while standing still. You have several weapons to use, including machine guns and various missiles. All have limited ammo which definitely can run out, so learning where the ammo pickups are on the map is important. If you stop over a pickup, you can use a winch to get the item, whether it is ammo or health. Avoiding damage is impossible, as enemies fire too much to avoid it all, so just try to stay alive. You can't be too cautious, however, because the game also has limited fuel. If you take too long, and run out of fuel and can't find any more refills, you crash and lose a life. If you run out of lives, game over, try the mission over. That will take a while. It's a challenging, somewhat boring, and not particularly fun game, and I'd rather not put the time in to this game it demands. I'm sure some people will really like this game, though, so it is worth checking out, whether or not you like it. For me though, this is an average game at best. Still, Desert Strike was a hit and was EA's best-selling game up to that point when it released in 1992, so they ported it to many platforms. Desert Strike is also on the SNES, Game Boy, Game Gear, DOS PC, Amiga, Macintosh, Master System, Lynx, Game Boy Advance, and PSP (in the EA Replay collection). I don't know which is the best version, but this is the original one -- the game was developed first for the Genesis.
Devilish: The Next Possession - 2 player simultaneous. Devilish is an interesting ball-and-paddle block-breaking game in the style of Arkanoid or Breakout. This is a difficult game with nicely drawn visuals and some original concepts, but poor ball physics and no continues. I do like this game, but it could have been a lot better. You don't get any continues in Devilish, so it will take a while until you're good enough to get far, but the game is reasonably rewarding as you play it more and get a bit farther each time, if you can ever get used to the weird, random ways the ball bounces, that is. In Devilish, you play as a prince and princess who were turned into paddles by a demon named Y. You'll have a fair number of levels to beat here, each with a boss at the end to work through. The bosses are difficult and can kill your ball easily, so practice and memorization are essential, along with some luck as well. Despite their plight, they take off to defeat him as they are, using a magic ball that appeared as their weapon. The game has either one or two player cooperative play, which is great, and does have difficulty settings though it's hard on any of them.
So yes, as that may suggest, you have two paddles in this game, one at the bottom of the screen and one a bit above it. The upper paddle can be rotated either flat, left vertical, or right vertical by hitting a button, and can move all the way up the screen with up and down. It's very useful stuff! The lower paddle, however, is locked to the bottom and can just move left or right, to try to save the ball from going down the bottom. This game scrolls, and sometimes goes sideways instead of just always moving upwards, which is interesting. Making a blockbreaking game with scrolling is somewhat unusual, but for the most part it does work. As the ball bounces around and breaks through things the screen will scroll up along with the ball, to keep it in view, and you can't go back, of course; you lose a life when the ball goes out the bottom, though that is not true for the sides of the screen. The game has a nice variety of blocks, powerups, and enemies to whack the ball with, and because you can move that upper paddle around, you won't have teh usual Arkanoid/Breakout problem of that one block you can't get to in this game, which is great.
Visually, Devilish has detailed art with a dark fantasy visual theme. It's a bit Alien-like, actually, at times. I like the graphical detail, though the game clearly didn't have the biggest budget. The music is okay but not great. Overall, Devilish is a good game with some interesting things that make it worth a look for sure if you like blockbreaking games, but also some drawbacks. The ball physics, tough bosses, and zero continues are its main faults, but with nice visuals, unique gameplay for the genre, decent mechanics most of the time, and some variety, Devilish is more good than bad. I like Arkanoid-style games, and this one is a fun challenge to try playing once in a while. There is also a Game Gear version, though I think it's a bit different. Devilish got a remake many years later on the Nintendo DS from Starfish. Unfortunately, the remake might be worse than the original, though most of Starfish's DS and Wii classic remakes are also worse than the games they follow up so that isn't surprising; Monkey King is a lot worse than Cloud Master, and Heavenly Guardian, while good, isn't quite as good as Pocky & Rocky.
DJ Boy - 1 player. DJ Boy is a bad beat 'em up from Kaneko. This game has poor controls, mediocre design, zero extra lives or continues so if you die once you have to start the entire game over, is single player only in a genre which is far better in multiplayer, and has a racist-stereotype character which they censored for the US release, too (it's the first boss). Kaneko was not known for making great games, and this one is no exception, unfortunately. You play as DJ Boy, a hip urban youth in this game straight out of Japanese stereotypes of America. He's on roller skates, permanently. This means that you slide around with slippery control. This fits the skates, sure, but is kind of annoying. Visually, DJ Boy is an early Genesis release and looks it. The graphics are okay but not above average, and it's hard to understand why there is no two player support, though it's easy enough to just play a better beat 'em up on the system which does. As far as the gameplay goes, this is basic stuff all the way. You just slide around, punch and kick people, and repeat. There is no depth here beyond hitting both attack buttons for a hit to both sides. Considering that you have only one life and no continues, try to avoid taking damage when you can if you want to survive long at all. Really, your only task in this game is to memorize the levels so as to avoid traps and enemy attacks. However, it's not fun, it's far too easy to die, and the controls aren't great. You will do better with practice, and this isn't the worst beat 'em up around, but there isn't much of a reason to put that kind of effort into a game this poor. Skip it. Arcade port.
Duel, The: Test Drive II - 1 player. Test Drive II: The Duel, whichever order you put the title in, is a racing game from Accolade ported over from the PC. This game has sprite-based cars in polygonal 3d worlds, with the single-digit framerate you expect from a 4th-gen title that attempts to use polygons. The first three Test Drive games were popular racing games in the late '80s to early '90s, and this game was the first time the series came over to consoles. There wouldn't be another Test Drive game on consoles until the PS1 version of Test Drive 4 in 1997. For anyone who knows newer Test Drive games, though, this one is a bit different from the style of the series from TD4 and on. While Test Drive II is not a simulator, it tries to be a bit more realistic than other racing games of the time. The 3d graphics are one element of that, as they allow a much more realistic world than you can do with top-down or linescroll graphics, and the slow-paced gameplay also fits that theme. In this game you choose one of three real licensed high-end sports cars and one of three tracks. This game has long, point-to-point races made up of multiple stages each, so three is actually a reasonable number; each one will take a while to finish, if you finish at all. This style, with long multi-stage point-to-point races in a semi-realistic car racing game, is one you also see in EA's later first Need for Speed game. NFS1, particularly the original 3DO version, was probably inspired by Test Drive. Due to the better hardware that is the better game, but Test Drive II does have some things going for it, for car fans particularly. I'm not one, this is probably why I find the game somewhat boring. Still, it's an okay game, framerate aside.
First, you choose a track and car in the menu. Each race is, as the title suggests, a 1-on-1 race of you against an AI opponent car. You only have one opponent, so you'll either win or lose, nothing in between. The games' pace is slow thanks to the slow framerate and realistic speeds, but that doesn't mean that it will be easy. There are a lot of civilian traffic cars on the road to avoid, though, so it's not only the two of you alone. Tracks are often quite narrow, and some are on cliffsides and the like, so avoiding the traffic while staying on the road can be difficult; this is a major part of the games' challenge. If you hit anything you lose a life, and you get five lives per race. If you run out of lives it's game over. Your car has limited fuel, so make sure to stop at the periodic gas stations to refill. If you run out you will be returned to the last gas station you passed, losing a bit of time in the process, though you won't lose a life for this, thankfully. Finishing all of the sections of a track without running out of lives will be difficult, but with practice it's surely possible. Is it fun enough to be worth the time, though? Well, I don't regret buying this game, but it's not something I've played a lot of either. It is interesting to see what the Genesis can do polygon-wise, but the low framerate makes enjoying the game difficult. The original PC version, on a more powerful system, is probably better, though I haven't played that myself. That version also would probably save your best times, while here you'll need to write them down if you want them recorded; Accolade didn't put a save chip in the cart, sadly. Also, of course, I strongly prefer less realistic, fast futuristic racing games over this kind of more realistic approach. Still, Test Drive II: The Duel is an okay game worth getting if you see it for a few bucks. PC port also on the Amiga and maybe other computers. The computer versions are better, but this game is okay.
Dynamite Headdy - 1 player. Dynamite Headdy is a platform-action game by Treasure. You play as a robot rejected from the factory who goes through a sequence of quite silly and crazy adventures... if you can survive them. While Treasure's shmups are usually exceptional and three of them are among the best ever in the genre, their record with platformers is more mixed. They've made some good ones like Mischief Makers, but also some that aren't as good, like Stretch Panic. This game is pretty good, but I don't love it quite as much as some. Treasure games usually have some kind of gimmick that the game is designed around. Dynamite Headdy is for the most part a standard platformer, but its unique element is suggested by the title -- your cute cartoony robot guy can throw his head around. You attack enemies that way, so you use projectiles to attack in this game and not jumping. You also can use your head to can grab on to certain points to vault up to higher platforms. You also can find a wide variety of alternate heads which give you different powers, including homing attacks, higher jumps, shrunken size to fit in narrow passages, and many more. The game has great graphics with bright, colorful designs and some nice visual effects that show off how well Treasure knew the Genesis hardware. The rotating 2d/3d platforms in one stage a bit into the game are particularly awesome looking. The bright and colorful look has to have been inspired by Sonic the Hedgehog but with a different, toys-and-robots aesthetic, but it does look good.
This game can be great, crazy fun as you fight off the many robot enemies. While the game is supposedly a platformer, with how much shooting you do and the constant barrage of bosses sometimes it feels as much like a run & gun game as a platformer. I'm sure Gunstar Heroes fans love this game, there are definite similarities between the two games even if this isn't always as fast-paced as that game is. I like both games, but they do get a bit crazy; sometimes it's hard to follow what is going on on screen, as you spin around attached to a cat-slinky-robot thing for example. Fortunately you can take a lot of hits, but the health meter is just a colored light in the upper corner of the screen, not a meter. I wish there was a health meter to make it clearer about exactly how much health you have left. And on that note, this is a very hard game. The Japanese version is a lot easier, but the Western version of Dynamite Headdy is unforgivingly difficult, and you don't get any continues either; one game over and it's back to the start of the game. I haven't finished it yet. I'd kind of like to try the Japanese version, it'd be fun to play a version of this game that isn't super hard. You really would need to memorize everything in this not-short-for-the-time game to have any chance of winning the Western version. There is a level-select cheat at least, if you want to use it. Apparently some cutscenes were cut back on in the Western version too, disappointingly, though some do remain. The game has a good sense of humor, so they are missed. I like the game, and it is worth playing to get better at, but I wish that they had put in both difficulties as options, instead of just making everything a lot harder. Also, this game has many Secret Bonus Points scattered around the game, but apparently collecting them does nothing, so there isn't much of a reason to go back and play this again if you finish it other than to just experience it again, or get those secret bonus points for no reason other than to get them. Mischief Makers' system, which unlocks more of the ending based on how many of the major collectibles you've gotten, is better.
El Viento - 1 player. El Viento is a good platformer from Telenet, published here by their US division Renovation. As with all Telenet games the game has issues, as Telenet never released a game without at least some problems, but the good is more than the bad, here, for sure. This is a very anime-esque game set in 1920s America. You play as Annet, a mysterious girl from Peru, on a quest to stop some badguys from resurrecting a demon and conquering or destroying the world with it. Naturally, she wears a skimpy, and somewhat odd-looking, outfit, but it's rare to find a 4th-gen console game with a female protagonist and Annet is a reasonably strong character despite her costume. The game has cutscenes between each level telling the story. The plot doesn't entirely make sense, but that's okay, it is better than nothing. Ingame, the game has average graphics, decent but not great music, and solid level designs and gameplay. Annet controls okay, with your usual run and jump, and attacks with projectiles. She can run fairly quickly, but this game isn't Sonic fast. The pace is just about right. As you progress through the game you will get magic spells to use, which you use by holding down the attack button to charge up for them. Using these is a bit clumsy, as you can't move while charging but often will want to use spells in bossfights, so you'll have to try anyway. This game isn't polished, but it is fun. Each level is different, and it's amusing to see this games' quite stereotyped version of 1920s America. '20s America means gangsters of course, so one level is in a gangster-infested warehouse in Chicago. You also go to the Grand Canyon, among other places. Each level is different, and the level designs are good. The game does slow down a lot when Telenet shows off their attempts at getting things like sprite scaling and rotation working on the Genesis, but it's nice that they tried, and there aren't many such parts. The game keeps mixing it up with new challenges. You'll fight people on motorcycles, tanks, demon-worshiping magic-users, and more, and each level has an entirely different setting as you chase the villains and try to stop their plot to destroy the world. Yeah, this is an amusingly weird game, though the story gets dark as you get farther in. This is a challenging game and finishing it won't be easy, but it is rewarding and you should get farther each time. El Viento is a good game well worth playing, and it's probably one of my favorite Telenet games. They made two more games in the franchise, Earnest Evans (Genesis, also Sega CD in Japan) and Annet Again (Sega CD, Japan only), but this is the best one.
ESWAT: City Under Siege - 1 player. ESWAT is a side-scrolling platform-action game by Sega. This is an earlier release for the Genesis, and definitely looks it; the graphics here are not great. Gameplay is a little better than the visuals, but the game has some issues there as well. ESWAT for the Genesis was clearly inspired by the original Shinobi, except with a character with a jetpack and a variety of weapons. I love jetpacks in games and like Shinobi, so the core design here is good. You play as a police officer. For the first two levels you're just a normal guy, but after level two you get a power-armor suit, complete with jetpack. The game gets even harder at this point. Throughout, you move very slowly, and turn around slowly as well. You can shoot left, right, or straight up, but not at diagonals. Because of your slow, frustrating controls, hitting an enemy straight above you can be hard; you'll need to fire up, miss slightly, turn around, edge back a bit, try to aim up again, fire up... it's not great. The game should have had diagonal attacks and better movement control. Visually, each of the eight levels has a new setting, but there are only so many enemies, and the graphics are pretty mediocre compared to a lot of other first-party Sega titles on the system. The music isn't too great either. Playing this game again now for this summary I liked it more than my mostly negative memories of what I thought of the game from when I got this game in the late '00s, but it's still a flawed game. Still, I like Shinobi and Rolling Thunder enough to want to play this game even though ESWAT isn't as good as any classic Shinobi or Rolling Thunder game.
This is a hard game for quite a few reasons. ESWAT has some difficulty and lives-per-continue options, but it's hard on any of them. You do have three continues, but only in the Western version; the Japanese version has no continues at all. Beyond that the controls are, as described above, slow and not great, so avoiding enemy fire can be hard. And worse, you have absolutely no invincibility after being hit, so if an enemy gets on top of your sprite, or if you are hit by a wave of fire, you'll lose hit points FAST, and you do not have many of them to lose. It's very easy to go from full health to almost dead in a second, and health refills are few and far between. Memorizing enemy locations is absolutely critical if you want any kind of chance in this game, and it gets frustrating starting from level two. Bosses also are difficult and require a lot of memorization to get past, if you don't just give up or go look up what to do online. That's not all, though; ESWAT punishes you further for dying, as if you have a weapon other than the default one equipped when you die, you lose it. And since there are not weapons in boss rooms, if you die at a boss, that weapon is gone until your next continue, if you have any left. It's really frustrating stuff; I understand punishing players for losing, but making boss fights essentially impossible just because you died once is not fair, and yet that's exactly how this game works! Without the charge-shot attack many bosses will be ridiculously hard, but one death with it and it's gone. It's really frustrating stuff. After dying on a boss once it's basically over, just give up and try again next continue or game. Playing the game for this summary I got to the end of level three, which is as far as I've ever gotten into the game I believe, but all the problems I just described made me not really want to keep trying, after getting stuck there. ESWAT is an okay game and there are some good things about it, but with mediocre visuals, bad controls, no invincibility on hit, and more, overall ESWAT is a disappointment. Sega could make great platform-action games, but though I like some things about it ESWAT isn't one of their better ones. This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega’s Genesis games.
Eternal Champions - 2 player simultaneous, 6-button controller supported (and very highly recommended). Eternal Champions is a fighting game by Sega of America, and this was a popular and highly-marketed game. The game is basically comic books crossed with Mortal Kombat, but not quite as good. Eternal Champions is, literally, a difficult game to like, though; this game is HARD, and the AI will wipe the floor with you unless you have practiced a lot and can do the moves. Make sure to have the manual or a good guide before playing this game, you need it. The game plays okay, but it's not Capcom or SNK-caliber. This is a standard, special moves-based fighting game, but it doesn't have quite the near-perfection of controls and moves you'd find in those games. Oh, do have a 6-button controller, you do NOT want to try to play this with only three buttons. The game uses a Street Fighter-style six button layout. The modes here are only the usuals for a fighting game of the time -- a championship where you fight against the others and then the boss, a versus mode, training, and options. The story here is that a group of people good at fighting who were just killed at various points in history have been pulled into a fighting tournament by the master, or something like that. Only the winner will be rewarded with life; all the others die. The game has decent comic book-style art design, and the character designs are good. The graphics are extremely dithered, which doesn't look great on modern pixel-perfect TVs, but that is common in 4th-gen games. Overall Eternal Champions is okay, but I just don't find it very fun to play. The game is unapproachably difficult, decent but not great looking, and only okay mechanically. It plays well enough, and I don't really dislike Eternal Champions, but I've never tried to get good enough at this game to beat the story mode, either. The game has a sequel on Sega CD that I don't have because of how I don't like this game too much, and two spinoffs -- X-Perts for Genesis and Chicago Syndicate for Game Gear, each starring a character from this game. This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega’s Genesis games.
Ex-Mutants - 1 player. Ex-Mutants is an okay platform-action game based on a comic book, developed by Malibu, a mid '90s comic and videogame company, and published by Sega. The game is based on a comic which I know nothing about by Malibu's comic book arm. The game highlights a team of six mutants, but you can only play as two of them, one male and one female; you need to rescue the other four. Some ex-Malibu developers would go on to make The Adventures of Batman & Robin, but this game isn't quite on that ones' level. It is better than Malibu's Batman Returns game for the Genesis, however. The name clearly was "inspired" by X-Men, but the concept here is sort of the reverse of that series -- this game is set in a post-apocalyptic world, and everyone else are mutants while your characters are among the few humans. The game has a story which is told between missions. A lot of the mutants are evil, though not all. There sure are plenty of them for you to fight, though. These characters aren't as memorable as Wolverine and co. so I can see why it didn't take off, and the character art for the humans in this game particularly isn't great. The environments are average looking at least, though, and the game is a quality, fun game even if the visuals are only average. In addition to some environments, I also like the voice samples; both playable characters have some voice quips they'll say during the game. They will also encourage you in text form sometimes when you die. That's nice. The game does have limited continues, so it'll take practice to finish despite having only six levels. You get a lot of continues, but it's easy to lose lives, particularly in levels such as the quite frustrating mine-cart stage. This isn't the hardest game, but it isn't easy either. The mine cart stage aside the difficulty here is reasonably well balanced.
This game is heavy on shooting and exploration. As in many Western platformers of the day you have good-sized levels to explore. There is always one path forward, but there are often multiple routes and lots of secret areas to find full of weapons and other powerups. You can only hold one sub-weapon at a time, and these have limited ammo, so you will need to make choices about which one to take with you. Some of the many powerups just get you points, but the health and weapon powerups are vital, and there are 1-ups as well. Exploration is worthwhile; try attacking or blowing up suspect walls, sometimes hidden areas are behind them. The game has a nice variety of challenges to overcome, and there are quite a few different enemy and trap types. Most enemies are exclusive to one level, so you're not facing the same exact foes throughout. Traversing the levels is a fun challenge, as you try to avoid lava fountains, swinging axes, guns in the walls shooting you as you travel on ladders, and more. There are also bosses every other level, and they do have on-screen health bars, which is great. Overall, Ex-Mutants has only average graphics and fairly standard gameplay, but it's a fun, reasonably well-designed game, and I like it. That mine-cart level is a pain, but otherwise this game is good.
Sega Genesis Game Opininion Summaries - Work In Progress - A Black Falcon - 30th November 2015
18 games covered in this update
--
Faery Tale Adventure
Fatal Rewind
Fire Shark
Forgotten Worlds
Fun 'N' Games
Gadget Twins
Gaiares
Garfield: Caught in the Act
Gargoyles
Gauntlet IV
General Chaos
Genesis 6-Pak
Ghouls 'N Ghosts
G-LOC: Air Battle
Golden Axe
Golden Axe II
[Golden Axe III - have in collections only]
Greendog: The Beached Surfer Dude
Gunstar Heroes
Best games in this update: Golden Axe, Golden Axe II, Gauntlet IV
Faery Tale Adventure - 1 player, password save (36 character password to save). Faery Tale Adventure is a top-down Western RPG by New World Computing and published by EA. You play as a prince or three, having to save the world from evil or something. I can't really say too much about this game because it's not a kind of game I have ever liked, but I can tell a few things about it. First, the game is not great on consoles; the game was designed for computers, and was compromised in the porting process. This is a big game with a large world to explore and action combat. This is a somewhat non-linear game, and the game tells you essentially nothing about what you should be doing when you start; this is a big issue for me, as while I know a lot of people love them, I do not enjoy these open-world games where you're just supposed to randomly wander around until you figure out what to do, where you can go, and where you will die. The visual look is probably inspired by Ultimas V-VII, though I haven't played either those games or the PC Faery Tale Adventure games so I don't know how well this game compares. The overlong passwords do not make me want to try too hard to figure out this game. The controls are not very good either. The game was originally designed for a mouse, and playing it with a gamepad just doesn't quite work. You move around with the pad as usual, but there is a menu of options in the status bar that you access with B. You will be using this clumsy menu CONSTANTLY as you have to switch between talk, pick up, buy/sell, inventory, pause, equipment, and more. Yes, all of those options require hitting B to pause the game, selecting the one you want in the box in the corner of the screen, hitting C to select that option, and often then hitting C again to use that option. Then hit B five seconds later to switch to another option. Then somebody kills you, try again. With a mouse this control system would be tolerable, but with a gamepad it's horribly annoying. The game does have okay music and somewhat nice graphics with decent art design and better visuals than some early Genesis RPGs, but I don't like this game at all. With save files and a mouse I'd probably play the game a bit more, but the basic gameplay of wandering around lost and not knowing where to go while dying constantly whenever I try to go anywhere is not fun at all. Even on PC I never wanted to play games like this, and playing this downgraded port does not change my mind on that. Play the original computer versions if you want to try The Faery Tale Adventure. The game also has a computer-only sequel. Or better yet, stick to New World Computing's best series, Heroes of Might & Magic for PC; those games are fantastic! Port of a PC and Amiga game.
Fatal Rewind - 1-2 player simultaneous. Fatal Rewind is a pretty cool but very frustrating puzzle-platform-action game published by EA. This is a port of a European computer game. EA ported a lot of PC games to the Genesis in their first few years of support for the system, and this is probably one of the better ones, if you can tolerate maze-heavy games. In this game you are a person in a robot suit, and are a participant in one of those futuristic death games popular in fiction. This is a one or two player game; it's pretty cool that this game has two player co-op support. You can jump with Up (common in European computer games) or C, fire with B, and use items... by hitting jump, or a button combo, or something. You can walk on horizontal walls if you jump at them; that's pretty cool. Hit down to grab items, of which there are many. There are a variety of weapons to collect, health powerups, and shapes that act as keys. This is a fast-paced game, and your robot zips along nicely. You will need that, though, as death is following you only a moment away! Your goal in each stage is to get to the top before the rising liquid below reaches you; fall in the water and you're dead. The levels are made up of thin platforms, mostly horizontal but occasionally vertical; there are no diagonal-angle platforms in this game, and all platforms are thin. There are some nice parallax backgrounds in the stages, though. The graphics are good for an early-ish Genesis game, and the music is great. Fatal Rewind has some very good electronic music that helps encourage you to keep trying, important in a game this reliant on replaying again and again.
And you will be replaying the game again and again, as this is, at its core, a maze game. The path to the top is not obvious and levels loop around horizontally so you will never reach a left or right edge. Levels are designed to make use of this fact; stages aren't too big, but can take a while to finish because of how often you'll be going back and forth. You wander around, explore, and figure out which keys go in which doors, because keys and doors are a big part of this game. If you take the wrong route you will die for certain as the water will catch you, or you will jump or fall into it, try again. And of course, you have limited lives and continues to figure all this out in, so success at this game will only come with a whole lot of memorization. You'll need to keep straight which route to take in each level, which key to pick up first, and where each one goes, and then will need to execute on that while avoiding the enemies. Enemies are another unique element of this game, on that note; there are no enemy robots on the paths you explore. Instead, enemies are all flying objects that zip around the screen in formation irregardless of where the platforms are. They can really get in your way, but if you kill all enemies in a wave a small health powerup will float up out of the last one, which is nice if you can jump and get it. Playing Fatal Rewind is, overall, fun but frustrating. I like the graphics and really like the soundtrack, and the game controls well and can be fun to play, but the grind of having to memorize everything in every single stage in order to have a chance of finishing the game is daunting, and while I definitely like this game, I never have gotten anywhere near the end. With passwords every few stages or something this would be a much more fun game; it is impossible to beat this game on the first try, what you need to do in each stage takes a while and that wall of water following you up the screen moves quickly so you can't make many wrong moves and survive. This game is not fair, but it's still fun most of the time despite that. Despite its faults, Fatal Rewind is a good game worth playing. Amiga port also on Atari ST, but this kind of game probably plays better with the Genesis's multi-button controller than it would on the Amiga. In Europe this game is known as "The Killing Game Show".
Fire Shark - 1 player. Fire Shark is a great vertical shmup from Toaplan, one of the top shmup developers of the day. Fire Shark doesn't get quite the attention of some other Toaplan shmups of the time such as Truxton or Twin Cobra, but while those games may be better, this game is very good as well. From Tiger-Heli to Truxton II, most of Toaplan's vertical shmups are very similar in a lot of ways, and Fire Shark is no exception. This game is very much Toaplan, and anyone familiar with their shooters will immediately be at home with Fire Shark. When I got this game I wasn't expecting too much, because when I got this in 2011 the only Toaplan games I had were the mediocre Tiger Heli for NES and the subpar Genesis port of Twin Cobra, but this one is great. The basic concept is similar to those games, but it's a bit faster and easier here, and it isn't broken like the Genesis version of Twin Cobra. Toaplan was a great shmup developer, and this game is a fine example of why. The game has good controls, first. Toaplan shmups always control well, though often ship movement is a bit slow. It is like that here, but the speed is manageable, this isn't Tiger-Heli slow. You've got a couple of weapons to choose from, including a forward gun, a flame laser shot, and a straight laser. The weapons here are clearly fantastic, more so than the machine-guns-only weapons of Daisenpuu, for example, though the general gameplay of the two titles is very similar. The game has your typical Toaplan graphics and sound, with okay but not great graphics and sound. The game has a large status bar on the left side, a feature all Toaplan vertical shooters on the Genesis share. Their Turbografx shmups don't have that, presumably for screen-resolution reasons -- the Genesis usually runs at a higher resolution than the SNES or TG16. The music is classic crunchy Genesis electronic music. It's good, well composed stuff. The game looks decent and sounds nice, but never will really impress in either respect.
This game is different from Truxton or Twin Cobra in difficulty, though -- while those two games are extremely difficult, Fire Shark is a conquerable challenge. This is the sequel to Sky Shark, an arcade game that got a mediocre NES port. You play as a time-travelling World War II pilot defeating an evil superpower which has taken over the world in the future, not that the game itself ever tells you this. The plot is a bit weird, but you'll see next to none of it in the game, which is just fine; the game's about shooting stuff, not story. And the shooting is great. Unoriginal or no, the game has great gameplay with very well designed enemy patterns, a good weapon selection, decently nice graphics and sound, and very good controls. Toaplan's greatest skill is at level design and game flow. Enemy patterns are all well thought through and varied, and the game is great fun to play. There is a boss at the end of each of the ten stages, and they are all fun challenges. And while beating loop one on easy isn't too hard, and in fact I have beaten a loop of this game, something I have not yet accomplished in any of Toaplan's other vertical shmups (I have also beaten Zero Wing for Turbo CD, but that's horizontal), but I don't mind that there is a Toaplan shmup I can finish. I've come close to finishing in Daisenpuu Custom for Turbo CD, another one of Toaplan's easier shmups, but haven't quite beaten the game... but I did better at this one. I didn't beat Hard mode, though, and the game does loop over into each higher difficulty setting after you finish one, so if you keep going it'll get plenty hard. There is also a slight addition to the ending if you finish it on Hard, sort of like the Genesis version of Truxton. Overall, Fire Shark is a very fun shooter. All you need to do is fly up while shooting the enemy tanks, planes, and ships before they can shoot you, but that will be a challenge... a fun challenge. With three powerful weapons at your disposal you stand a chance, so long as you can stay alive. Eventually you will be able to, at least on Easy. It's a rewarding game you will get better at, and a great starting point for those inerested in getting into Toaplan shooters. Highly recommended! Arcade port.
Forgotten Worlds - 1-2 player simultaneous. Note that with 6-button controllers you must hold Mode and cannot use a 6-button controller at all if you're using a controller extension cable, it will not work. I use both an extension cable and 6-button controller, so I've got to get out my 3-button controller for this game, annoyingly. The 3-button controller just isn't quite as responsive or comfortable as Sega's 6-button pad is... ah well. The game is worth it, though, because it's good. Forgotten Worlds is a horizontal shmup, originally by Capcom in the arcades but this Genesis port is by Sega. You play as a pair of flying muscled guys; they don't have jetpacks, they just fly because it's cooler like that. This is a very early Genesis game and you can tell, but the game plays well despite some issues. I don't like this game quite as much as its great spiritual predecessor Hyperdyne Sidearms, which was released on arcades and on the Turbografx, but it is a good, well-made game. Both games, and Sector Z before them, allow you to fire multiple directions in order to hit enemies coming at you from both directions. In Sidearms you had separate fire buttons for left and right, a simple setup that works well, but this time the game uses two buttons to rotate your character, while the third fires. This allows you to fire in any direction, but it makes for more complex controls than Sidearms, as you will be frequently rotating to the direction you need, instead of just tapping the other button to instantly fire the other way. While it is nice to shoot any way, the clumsier controls are a drawback for me, versus its predecessors. There is an autofire option where you shoot all the time and only need to worry about rotating, but the game does autofire if you hold B, so it's not essential even if it can be nice sometimes. Another thing I prefer about TG16 Sidearms over Genesis Forgotten Worlds is that this game has absolutely no continues; when you die without a health refill item, it's game over, start again from the beginning. That's no fun, having a couple of continues really would have made the game better.
During play, you move your burly flying muscleman around, shooting at the enemies who attack from all sides. The game has good level designs with some variety, obstacles to shoot or avoid in some stages, plenty of enemy types, and more. There are also some decent parallax-scrolling backgrounds. There is slowdown far too often, though, one of the signs of the games' early release date, and while this game looks decently good, later Genesis games look a lot better. The music is also average at best. This is a tough game too, particularly thanks to the absence of continues. Bosses can be tricky, as well, unless you learn their patterns well. To help you out, early in each stage there is a shop you can, and should, enter. Here you can buy powerups, an extra life, helper orbs that add to your firepower Gradius-style, and more. Buy everything you can, it's essential, and shops only appear once a stage so you won't get another chance soon! You can also buy a cryptic hint for how to fight the next boss here, but using a guide might be more helpful if you're stuck. Overall Forgotten Worlds is a good game, but it's not great. The slowdown, sometimes average graphics and sound, clumsy controls, and lack of continues all hold the game back, as does its unfortunate incompatibility with 6-button controllers on controller extension cables. Still, if you find it affordably, pick it up; the game can be good stuff, particularly with a friend. Arcade port, also on TurboGrafx CD. The arcade version is in various Capcom arcade collections for newer systems. The Turbo CD version has no parallax and is one player only (unless you use a code that just lets a second player control your 'bit' helper orb), but has much better music and more detailed graphics than the Genesis one, so each has advantages over the other.
Fun 'N' Games - 1 player. Fun 'N' Games is bad Mario Paint-inspired minigame collection. The game has three main modes, creation, games, and some little toy things. None are very good. For creation, there is painting and music composition. The painting mode is decent, with a nice variety of colors and patterns you can draw on the screen with. There are also a bunch of black and white outlines of pictures to fill in if you wish. There's only one brush width, though, and no mouse or saving support, so drawing is a bit clumsy compard to any game on a computer or with mouse support such as that in Mario Paint, the game this one obviously tries to copy. Worse, you cannot save anything in this game as there isn't a save chip in the cart, so you'd better take a photo of the screen if you don't want to lose your creation. Or better, use virtually any drawing program for any computer ever, they are all better than this. The music program is even more pointless; it's a fairly simple thing and doesn't match Mario Paint's. And again, no saving your creation.
The 'games' side has three bad minigames to try. First is Mouse Maze; this is the best thing on this cart, and it's not great. Mouse Maze is a Pac-Man knockoff, only with small mazes and maybe ten dots per stage. Enemy AI is pretty terrible, and this game is not exactly the next Pac-Man to say the least, but it's not utterly horrible, which makes it better than the other two games. Second is a terrible light-gun-style space shooting game. You use the controller and not a gun, of course, and move a target cursor around the screen, pointing at enemy robot things as they fly around and trying to hit all of them. With bad graphics, no variety, no way to avoid taking damage, and more, this is a terrible, horribly unfun game. And last is a subpar whack-a-mole minigame. It might be amusing for five seconds... probably not, though. And last, the game has two little software toys which let you mix and match people and scenes. Ha ha, I can make a person with a head, body, and legs that don't match! I'm sure little kids might be amused by these for a few minutes, but I doubt it'll last much longer than that and there is nothing here for people over age five or six. In conclusion, Fun 'N' Games is a terrible waste of time and space. While when it released I could see getting this for a young child who did not have a computer or a Super Nintendo (PCs were expensive back in the early '90s!), today there is absolutely no reason to even consider wasting your time or money with this debacle. Fun n Games is awful and one of the worst Genesis games I own. Also on SNES and 3DO; I've never played the other versions, but they're probably just as bad. If the 3DO version lets you save your creations it'd be better than the others, but I don't know if it does. I don't think any of the three have mouse support, even though mice do exist for all three platforms.
Gadget Twins - 1 player. Gadget Twins is a weird ... shmup, I guess... from Europe that was published by GameTek. This is a horizontal game. As in most shooters, you control a plane and fly to the right, but you can't shoot. Instead, you punch with a short-range boxing glove attack. The game has a money system and shops where you can buy powerups as well, money is in chests as well as enemies, and you'll need to break through walls and such to progress, so this is a quite nonstandard 'shooter', or puncher I guess. So, this game is unique, but is it good? Well, it's okay, but not great. T his is a difficult game which shares some common flaws of European games of its day, including no invincibility on hit and no saving. The absence of hit invincibility means that if an enemy touches you you will lose health until you get away, so while you have a health bar, it'll drain fast if you mess up. And since you have to get very close to enemies to hit them, you WILL mess up unless you are very good at this game. You attack with one button, and switch attack directions with a second. The third button enters shops. There is only one rotation button, so to you'll need to hit that button three times to attack an enemy behind you if you are currently aiming down, for example. This is a real problem and makes an already difficult game harder. The game does look nice, though. The game has a good cartoony art style with an underwater theme, and nice parallax backgrounds as well. The European-cartoon look works great and makes the game fun to look at. I like the various silly enemies, including various fishes, crabs, robots, and more. The two player co-op play support is pretty nice as well. The music is decent, but forgettable, stuff, though, but overall the presentation is pretty good. The gameplay doesn't quite match up, though.
The biggest problem with this game is the difficulty, with the bosses, controls, and that health system as major culprits. Having to get up very close to enemies in order to attack them can make for some tricky situations, and the boss fights in this game are a bit too hard. Those controls, with the clumsy single-button rotation system, make this worse. Bosses take a lot of hits to kill and can damage you quickly with cheap attacks you can't avoid because of how close you have to get; the first boss is way harder than a first boss should be, and it only gets harder after that. You only get three lives per continue and three continues until it's Game Over, start again from the beginning, if you even beat a level; levels are long, so this may or may not happen. I like the various weapons you can buy, though. You start out with only small fists to attack with, but as you progress the periodic shops will give you access to better weapons, and it's a good idea to buy them if you can afford it. When you die and it's not a game over you respawn where you died, and here you do have a moment of invincibility. You drop a weapon when you die, so make sure to pick it up if you can or else you'll lose it. Despite the games issues playing Gadget Twins can be fun, particularly in co-op. The nice graphics and game variety add to the game, even if it'll be a struggle to see much of it. Overall, though, Gadget Twins is an average game. It might be worth trying if you see it cheap and you have some tolerance for European games of this era. It's also Genesis-exclusive, I don't think it's a port of some computer game.
Gaiares - 1 player. Gaiares is a very difficult, but popular, shmup from Telenet, published here by their US division Renovation. I've heard a lot about how good this game is, but it's not one I had played much of until a few years ago. Once I did, though, I quickly found that its reputation for difficulty is very well earned. Gaiares reminds me a bit of Valis games or their extremely unpopular Turbo CD shmup Legion, in that enemies come at you very quickly and from all directions, making the game as much of a trial of frustrating memorization as it is anything else. I've never liked this style of Telenet game, and I don't care for Gaiares either. Hard games can be fun, but this one isn't, it's just frustrating. The game does have some good points, though. The graphics are decent, with better visuals than many early Genesis releases. Still, compared to later Genesis games, Gaiares looks only okay. It does have parallax scrolling and some decent ship designs, but it's nothing special either. The art design is decent, but not great, as usual from Telenet. The music is decent to good. It has some good compositions, but isn't anything I find memorable. The game does have a surprisingly long intro cutscene, though the story is extremely generic and not that good. The evil female pirate ZZ Badnusty is threatening Earth, and you, male hero, and your prototype fighter are the only hope for the survival of the human species! With a game this hard humanity is probably doomed, sadly, though the whole 'guy saves the day from the evil woman' plot is definitely questionable. Gaiares has eight levels, all fairly long and difficult. At almost an hour for a longplay video, Gaiares is probably a bit above average for the time in length, among shmups. I've never gotten past level two or three, though; you have limited lives and continues here, of course.
In game design, this is mostly a conventional shooter, though you feel a bit under-powered, particularly if you aren't powered up -- and losing power is very easy. The game does have one unique feature here, though -- Gaiares doesn't have your usual weapon powerups. Instead, you have a special gun which takes the power of the enemy you shoot it into. As you shoot more enemies, or one enemy multiple times, the weapon will level up and increase your weapons' power. You can get a shield and some helpers, but otherwise your powerups come from the enemies. It's a good concept, thouhg you get de-leveled a bit too easily when you hit anything, and even with the stronger weapons your ship feels a bit weak. That's fitting with the game in general, though. Gaiares is a punishing game. You get sent back to the last checkpoint when you die, and checkpoints are a bit far apart at times and it's easy to lose weapon power as enemies zoom in at you fast and are hard to dodge at times. Still, the game can be fun to play; this is an okay game. Even so, I was hoping that I'd really like Gaiares, but I don't. Maybe in 1990 this game was impressive, but later on the Genesis got many shmups far better than this one, that are actually fun to play, have better graphics and art design and even better music, and are just much better balanced all around. There is enough decent shooting action here that Gaiares is an average game overall that some people overrate. Fans of masochistically-hard shooters absolutely should check out Gaiares if they haven't already, though others will probably want to stay away. Arcade port.
Garfield: Caught in the Act - 1 player, password save. Garfield: Caught in the Act is a platformer by Novotrade that was published by Sega in 1995. As a late release for the system you might expect well-polished visuals, and the game delivers. The gameplay isn't nearly as good as the graphics are, but this game does look very, very good. This game may not be one of Sega's better-known licensed Genesis releases, but it is a very nice-looking game with some beautiful visuals that captures the style of the comic strip well. I have always liked the comic strip Garfield even if it repeats the same few jokes endlessly, and this came captures the look of the series well. In this game Garfield broke his TV, and in his failed attempt to repair it created a monster machine which has warped him into his television! So, you've got to work your way out by collecting the TV remote at the end of each stage. The setup reminds me a bit of Gex, though this game isn't as expansive as that one is. The game has fantastic use of color, and makes use of the Genesis's rarely-used hardware shadow capabilities that allow the system to display more colors on screen than you usually see. I have no idea why more games didn't use this function, but this game does at points and it looks great. Garfield is also very well animated, and looks different in each of the games' six levels, fitting the theme of the stage, so he wears a pirate hat and uses a wooden sword in the pirate level, a vampire cape and shirt in the horror level, and such. It's a nice touch.
However, things start going downhill as soon as you stop looking at the screen and start playing the game. Garfield's controls are not precise; this game is slippery and frustrating to control. Garfield will constantly slip off of the edges of platforms you think you're on, get hit by things that probably should have missed you, and such. This makes platforming kind of annoying. It also can sometimes be hard to tell what you can jump on and what you can't, making jumping something of a guessing game at times. Fortunately the game doesn't have much in the way of instant-death pits, but still, it is an issue. Your main attack is very short-ranged, as well, so it's easy to get hit while trying to hit enemies. You can take ten hits before you lose a life, but running out isn't hard with controls this hard to get used to. On top of that, the difficulty is unbalanced. The first level of this game is a somewhat frustrating one with some mazelike qualities to it, and the first boss isn't easy either, and there is a puzzle element to the bossfight that is not obvious. Oddly, the second level and boss are quite a bit easier and more straightforward than the first, so if you can manage to keep playing past the bad first impression the game makes it does get easier, though it doesn't get much more fun. In between levels are some amusing little bonus stages, and also a hub-world stage inside the television where you go from level to level.
It is great that the game has passwords, though; having any kind of save system is a somewhat uncommon thing in Genesis platformers. It'd have been nice if the game gave you passwords after each stage instead of only after you get game over, but having them at all is fantastic. Even so though, Garfield: Caught in the Act isn't a very good game. With only six not-too-long levels, this is a very short game, first. If you don't quit in irritation, this game won't take long to finish. The game is also unbalanced and has some control problems. However, the game is beautiful to look at, and for Garfield fans it may be worth sticking with just to see what's going to come next. The Vampire-Odie and Dino-Odie bosses are particularly clever. And though it is sometimes frustrating, it is nice that there is more to this game than just walking to the right and hitting things. Still, overall this game is disappointing. Only graphics and Garfield fans should check it out. Maybe watch a video of the game, it does look good.
Gargoyles - 1 player. Gargoyles for the Genesis was Disney's first attempt at making a game itself, and not just farming out its licenses to external studios. They chose to make a Genesis-exclusive platform-action game, based on the pretty good TV series of the same name. Gargoyles was an interesting show with a darker tone than most Disney work, and I did like it at the time, though I didn't play much of this game back then. You play as Goliath, the lead Gargoyle. The game is okay, but flawed. Somewhat similarly to other Disney games of the day such as Virgin's The Lion King, the game has beautiful, impressive graphics, but iffy gameplay with poor combat and sometimes frustrating controls. And that's really the contrast here, between the very good visuals and the often not-great gameplay. Copying Sonic much like a lot of platformers of the day, there are three levels in each setting, followed by a boss fight. Levels are usually fairly large, also, and take some time to traverse. This means that while the game looks great, you will be seeing a lot of each setting. Even if the environments repeat, though, the work done on environment and sprite design in this game is very impressive for the time. Characters also animate very well.
For the most part, graphics aside Gargoyles is a conventional Western platformer. The game has big levels, exploration, stuff to collect, platforms to jump between, and enemies to fight along the way. As you are a gargoyle, you have some great mobility in this game. Goliath can attach to and crawl along any non-spiky wall or ceiling surface, do a nice gliding double jump that adds a lot of distance, do a charge attack (run and then hit B), do a ground-strike (hit A while in the air), and more. While the controls are a bit frustratingly loose at times, I like the platform jumping, and the verticality in levels that your wall-climbing allows is great. However, combat here is pretty bad. While fighting B is your regular attack, and A plus a direction close to an enemy will grab and throw them. Regular enemies aren't too hard to beat, though they can be annoying at times, but bosses are much harder, unless you find repeatable patterns you can get them in or exploit glitches. I beat the second boss by ducking right in front of him and then hitting B until he died, for instance... yeah. It took a while, but that's much easier than the 'real' fight; that kind of bug should have been fixed. Fighting is this games' biggest weakness, and there is a lot of it in the game. Still, I like some of the platforming challenges here. While levels are linear, you will often need to figure out some simple puzzles along the way, to find walls you need to break through with a charge, pull-chains that act as switches to turn on or off things you will need to progress, and such. I like some of the levels here, and figuring out each stage is fun, when the controls aren't getting in your way. Overall, Gargoyles is an average game with great graphics but poor controls. There is enough to like here that it may be worth playing, both to see the various environments and for the platforming part of the game. Note that Gargoyles won't work on a Genesis 3 system, and often doesn't work on clone Genesis consoles, because it was programmed to use some hardware glitches that those systems fix.
Gauntlet IV - 1-4 player simultaneous (with multitap), password save (30-digit password for saving each character plus 10 digits for progress in the current dungeon). Gauntlet IV is a top-down multiplayer action-RPG in the great Gauntlet franchise. This Genesis version was made in Japan by M2 for Tengen, Atari Games' console division. I've loved the Gauntlet games ever since I played the first game in an arcade, and it's still a favorite series of mine. This Genesis Gauntlet release is an interesting, and sometimes overlooked, one. The game has four modes, Arcade, Quest, Battle, and Record. The game is one part upgraded port of the original arcade game, and one part all-new Gauntlet game with more RPG elements than any Gauntlet game before it. In Japan this game actually was just called Gauntlet, but they added the "IV" to the title for the US because the last Gauntlet release before this one here was "Gauntlet III" for the Lynx. This is a great game with good graphics and a fantastic soundtrack, and it's a real under-rated classic of the Genesis library! It's also interesting for being the only Japanese-made Gauntlet game, all others are American. The long passwords are kind of a pain, but they are one of the few problems with this great game. This is a Gauntlet game, so there are, as usual, four classes to choose from: Warrior, Wizard, Valkyrie, or Elf. They look and sound similar to the first game, but with better visuals than the NES versions, of course. Gauntlet IV looks good but not great. Arcus Odyssey and Dungeon Explorer for Sega CD both probably look better, but this is a decently nice looking game, and it plays fast, without slowdown. Each of the five areas does look different, which is nice. There are also voice clips for each character, just like the arcade original; this is something that the NES games didn't have. The soundtrack is better, and really is a standout feature in the game.
The gameplay is standard Gauntlet action-RPG fun. You walk around exploring mazelike levels while killing the numerous enemies that spawn from monster generators as you look for exits. Shooting the generators levels them down, weakening the enemies which spawn from it, until finally they are destroyed. You start with a lot of health, but your health steadily drains, so you need to keep moving in order to not die. Gauntlet Legends' home ports would finally get rid of this, and that was for the best, but this game does use it, unfortunately; it's a feature put in to keep people pouring quarters into the machine that a home game didn't need. At least you can buy health from the store; this isn't something all Gauntlet Legends home ports let you do. Levels also have keys and magic potions. Using a potion kills the enemies on screen, and each key can open one door. There are multiple routes through each dungeon, so sometimes your choices for which doors to open do matter. That's Gauntlet, and it's a fantastic formula which is as great now as it ever has been. The main additions here are experience points and a money system, with a larger inventory beyond just magic potions. The NES version of Gauntlet also added in some RPG elements, but this game goes much farther with it. Fortunately it was well thought through here; the leveling system in this game is well-designed, unlike, say, Dungeon Explorer for Sega CD and its somewhat busted system. I like the addition of more items to buy too. Levels, and items you can buy from a store in the hub area, are ideas that Gauntlet Legends would pick up and expand on, but within the Gauntlet series they were here first.
While the version of arcade Gauntlet is pretty good and has a bunch of nice options including difficulty, continues, and more, I have barely touched the arcade side of this game; the main feature here is the original quest mode, and it's great. In Quest mode, as in the main game each player chooses a character, or enters their 20-character password. The game has a hub area you start in, with four dungeons to play through and two shops to buy items from. Each dungeon has 20 levels and then a boss at the end. After you beat all four, then the fifth and final one unlocks, to go to the final boss, for a total of 100 stages. It's a good-length game, but each stage doesn't take too long, so this game probably isn't too different in length from the later Gauntlet Legends games even though it has far more stages. If you can't finish an entire dungeon in one sitting, you can get your password for the current dungeon; these are the 10-digit passwords. I guess you could have one for each dungeon if you're working on all of them at the same time, but it's a better idea to focus on one at a time. Your main character password will save if you've beaten a boss, but not progress in a dungeon. It's better this way, 20 digits is long enough. As for the other two modes, the battle mode is a versus arena where players can fight eachother. It's kind of pointless. Record mode is a bit more interesting, though. It's basically the arcade game, but with passwords added, and you can't die -- instead you lose points when you lose health, which matters in this score-based mode. Remember that arcade Gauntlet is endless and just loops around to the start when you finish it, so score is the main reason to play it anyway. I like games to have endings, so this is one reason I prefer Quest mode, or NES Gauntlet 1, which also has bosses, passwords, and an ending.
In conclusion, Gauntlet IV is fantastic. I'll get the flaws out of the way first: the passwords are long, graphics aren't improved over the by-1993-dated original arcade game, and they kept the health-drain system. None are major problems. With either one player or four, Gauntlet IV is great fun. Of course, as with all Gauntlet games the game gets better with more players to work together with, but it is fun even by yourself. This game is a good reason to get a Genesis multitap, though. Exploring levels looking for hidden breakaway walls, fighting the enemies, collecting gold, magic, and keys, and upgrading in the shop all are great fun features. The soundtrack deserves the high praise it gets, also. The original Gauntlet was a brilliant game, and this collection here includes both a great port of the original game, a new spin on it in Record mode, and a fantastic RPG-ish Quest mode, all in one! This really is a must-have game and is one of the best action-RPGs of the 4th generation. The Gauntlet arcade game portion of this game is available on innumerable platforms in various forms, but this version, with all of the new added modes, is not available on any other platform so get it for the Genesis for sure.
General Chaos - 1-4 player simultaneous (with multitap). General Chaos is a combat-only action-real time strategy game published by EA. This is a unique and original game for the time, and seems to have been fairly popular. The game has a definite learning curve, but once you get used to it it's pretty amusing. This is a short little game designed for replay and multiplayer more than anything, and it works as such. This game would be more fun with a mouse, but it is alright with a d-pad. The game has a handful of different maps, and in the main campaign mode you will see most of them as you try to conquer the other sides' base. This game has no explanation for its war; Generals Chaos and Havok want to wipe eachother out. This is a cartoony game filled with silly graphics and animations. The game certainly doesn't take itself seriously, which is a good thing. Each level is a single screen, which is great because you can see the whole area at once. Sprites are moderate-size, so General Chaos maps are pretty small. Still, each has a good amount of detail with various buildings, rivers, trees, and more to provide obstacles, and cover.
Most of the time this is a 5-vs-5 game. There are several different types of guys, each with different weapons. You control a cursor with which you control your team. A tells the team to start shooting at the nearest enemy, B tells the currently selected person to move to the point selected, and C switches team member. You can also call in medics to heal injured team members. If someone takes too much damage they will die, but unfortunately there are not visible damage meters displayed. You also can fist-fight enemies if you get close. The fist-fights can be difficult to win against the AI. The different weapons really are different, so you need to get used to how the machine gun, rocket launcher, grenades, and such each control. Fortunately there is a training mode in the main menu to help players learn how to play the game; make use of it, it's very helpful. I should note, there is also one mode which gives you direct control of your characters, if you play as the Commandos team, but this team has only two guys, so winning will be tough. Still, it is a nice option.
A game of General Chaos can seem, well, chaotic, as the ten guys on screen run around and shoot eachother, but there is method to the madness. Once you get the hang of it, General Chaos is a fun little strategy game. There are a lot of much better real-time strategy games out there on the PC, particularly, but for a Genesis game this simple, combat-focused design works well. This game really gets good in multiplayer, though; in single player it'll probably get old after a few games. But if you can play this game with others, it's worth taking the time for everyone to learn the controls, it'll be fun stuff. The two player mode allows for full strategy battles, or in 3 or 4 player mode (or 2 player co-op) all human players play as Commando teams. This restriction is perhaps unfortunate, but it is understandable; these maps are barely large enough for 10 players, they could not fit the 20 players 4 full teams would require. So yeah, pick up General Chaos if you see it cheap, or want to play a unique RTS-action hybrid title. You can't play it anywhere other than on the Genesis, either; EA has never ported or re-released the game.
Genesis 6-Pak - 1 player or 1-2 player depending on game. One game has saving. The Genesis 6-pak is a 6-in-1 cartridge Sega released in the US. The cart includes Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, Columns, Sonic the Hedgehog, Revenge of Shinobi, and Super Hang-On. I review each of the six games separately, at their places in the alphabet; I decided to count them as separate games in my collection, even though I only have most of them in this collection; I do have a Sonic 1 cart, but not the others. This is an absolutely fantastic collection of early first-party Genesis games that all Genesis owners should definitely own! It's an easy, and cheap, way to get a whole bunch of mostly very good games. Of the six games here, only one, Super Hang-On, isn't that good; the other five are great at minimum. Definitely pick up this fantastic collection of some of the best early Genesis games. Sonic the Hedgehog and Golden Axe are my favorites here, and both are among the better games on the Genesis, too. The first Sonic the Hedgehog is a bit of an under-rated game, today; it's still really good, I don't agree with the critics at all! This specific collection isn't available elsewhere, but all of the included games have been included in various collections and digital re-relases of Genesis games.
Ghouls 'N Ghosts - 1-2 player alternating. Ghouls n Ghosts, originally released in arcades by Capcom and ported to the Genesis by Sega, is the sequel to Ghosts n Goblins for the arcade and NES. This game is the second game in this somewhat long-running series, and it is fairly well remembered. Ghouls n Ghosts is a cartoony-horror-themed platform-action game. This was an early release for the Genesis, releasing in 1989, and it is one of the few 1989 Genesis releases that legitimately is a great game. The Genesis has a great library, but its first year had only a few hits, including this, Truxton, and Golden Axe. As always in the main series you play as Arthur, a knight in armor who must rescue his kidnapped girlfriend Princess Prinprin from the demon armies who keep taking her. As always Arthur can't control his movement while jumping, so jumps are harder here than in most platformers. You do have a double jump, but be careful because it's easy to accidentally double jump into an enemy or pit. Enemies will often rise up out of the ground in front of you, so be careful as you move around.
This series is infamous for its extreme challenge, but this Genesis version of Ghouls n Ghosts is as easy as a game in this series gets; indeed, I beat this game on the easier difficulty in a couple of days without too much trouble, even though I've never even finished level two of the third game in this series, Super Ghouls n Ghosts on the SNES, despie many attempts! It really is that much easier, and more fun, than that game. There are several reasons why. First, you have infinite continues in this game, and always continue from the last checkpoint even after getting a game over, so you will never have to replay levels from the start. This is fantastic and makes the game more fun than the first or third games, which aren't so kind. This game also has fewer levels than Super G&G, so though as with all games in the series you need to play through the game twice to win, it won't take as long. I don't mind the shorter length. The levels also aren't quite as crazy-hard as some stages in SG&G. And last, in this game you can attack up and down as well as left or right. That sure would have been nice to have in Ghosts n Goblins and SG&G! There is plenty of challenge to be wfound here though, particularly in the harder difficulty setting, but for me this game is an approachable challenge, while SG&G is just near-impossibly frustrating.
Visually, Ghouls & Ghosts looks good, but not great. This is an early release, and while the game is a reasonably good approximation of the arcade original, it is a bit downgraded visually versus the arcade. There are a nice variety of enemies, and lots of obstacles to face. The music is good as well, and fits the series well. On the whole, Ghouls & Ghosts is a pretty good game. This game surprised me, after playing its SNES sequel I was not expecting to like this game at all, but I do. Of the main-series G&G titles, the Genesis version of Ghouls n Ghosts is my favorite. The game looks okay and plays quite well, and has some design choices that make it a more approachable and fun game than the others. The difficulty is balanced perfectly, with an easier default setting and much tougher hard mode available. Ghouls & Ghosts is short but fun. I'd definitely recommend this game to anyone who likes platformers, Ghosts n Goblins-series fan or not. Arcade port. There is also a PC Engine SuperGrafx version of this game from Hudson under its Japanese title, Daimakaimura. The SuperGrafx version was only released in Japan, since that system only released there, but it has better, more detailed graphics than the Genesis game. The core game is the same, though. The arcade version is also available in some collections of Capcom arcade games.
G-LOC: Air Battle - 1 player. G-LOC is a port of the Sega arcade rail shooter game of the same name. This is a jet-fighter game and effectively is a spiritual sequel to Sega's earlier classic jet-fighter rail shooter After Burner. I remember playing the arcade game back in the early '90s. I did not have many experiences in arcades playing After Burner, or at least I don't remember it if I did, but I definitely played G-LOC. I thought arcade G-LOC was a pretty good game, but hadn't played much of this Genesis port until not all that long ago. When I finally bought a copy of the cart earlier this year I was not expecting good things, but the game very pleasantly surprised me. G-LOC is not perfect, but it is about as good as a Sega super scaler arcade game to Genesis port could be. Yes, I think this game, on the Genesis, is pretty good! G-LOC is now easily my favorite first-party rail shooter on the Genesis, though it isn't an A-grade game, none of the Sega rail shooters that gen are because of the compromises versus the arcade originals. G-LOC is a simple game. You are a fighter pilot, and have to take down huge numbers of incoming enemy fighters. You fly along automatically, dodge a bit, and shoot at the enemy planes, but it's good, exciting fun. The software scaling here is jerky, but looks a lot better than the awful, eye-pain-inducing hideousness of Sega's early "scaler" Genesis games such as Super Thunder Blade, Space Harrier II, or Outrun. This is a midlife title for the Genesis, and it benefits from its later release. The game has some low-flying 'bombing' missions mixed in with the regular air combat. They have some choppy-looking walls on the sides, but still nothing is as bad as the framerate in those aforementioned games. The sprites and backgrounds all look pretty nice and a lot like the arcade game. The pilots and ground scenes are drawn in a realistic style, so though this is a port of a Japanese arcade game it doesn't look it. The style looks good here, though like After Burner it probably was inspired by Top Gun.
This game distinguishes itself from After Burner in its perspective. While that game is mostly behind-the-plane, G-LOC largely takes place inside the cockpit. In in-cockpit sections you cannot freely fly around the screen, but instead can only sort of dodge a bit in any direction with the d-pad, as you move the cursor. Dodging is critical, though, as you need to stay out of the way of incoming enemy missiles! Either shoot them or dodge them, one or the other. Enemies come in waves, and this game breaks things up into short timed segments. That is probably G-LOC's most distinguishing element, and I like it because it keeps the pace up. You're always facing new waves and new challenges in this game. In each wave, you need to shoot down a set number of enemy planes or ground targets, and have a very limited amount of time to do it in. You have two weapons, a machine gun with unlimited ammo, and a limited quantity of missiles. Missiles will lock on automatically to enemies in the targeting box in the center of the screen. It's best to use the gun when you can to conserve missile ammo, but hitting enemies with it can be tricky, so you'll need to use both weapons to succeed. If you succeed at hitting the required amount, time is added to the clock and it's on to the next wave. If you don't, you will have to try again, and if time runs out it's Game Over. You do get a couple of continues, but they are limited, so even though this is a short game it will take practice to beat. The game has several main missions, and between missions you go to a briefing room where you can buy missiles, ammo, and armor for your plane. It's best to take as much ammo and armor as you can, generally. You 'spend' your score as currency, here; it's a simple system that works. And then it's on to the next mission and some more high-tempo blasting. G-LOC is a good game, and I was relieved to see that the Genesis port is good. I'd been kind of afraid to try the Genesis version of this for years because of my good memories of the arcade game compared to how poor Sega's earlier scaler rail shooters are on this system, but it's a good B-grade game that looks and plays great. G-LOC absolutely is a must-play game for rail shooter fans. Arcade port. There is also a Game Gear version of G-LOC, which is far better than you might think a GG version of G-LOC possibly could be. Some people even like that version more than this one, though I do prefer the Genesis game. Both are well worth playing, though.
Golden Axe - 1-2 player simultaneous. I have this in the Genesis 6-Pak collection. Sega's Golden Axe is one of the greatest classic arcade beat 'em ups of the 1980s. This is a side-view isometric beat 'em up, and it's a very good one. I have loved this game ever since I first played it, and still think it's a great game and one of the best beat 'em ups ever. Golden Axe is a somewhat dark fantasy game set in a world of magic and monsters. The games' world is interesting and unique. You will ride small dinosaur-like creatures, travel in giant animals across the sea, and fight innumerable hordes of orc, lizardman, and skeleton enemies, among others. The game has fantastic art design, with that classic late '80s Sega look. The art design here is similar to Altered Beast, except here the game is actually good. You can play as three characters in Golden Axe: Ax Battler, Tyris Flare, or Gillius Thunderhead. Despite his name, Ax Battler uses a sword, oddly enough. Ax and Tyris are barbarian-styled characters like something out of Conan, while Gillius is a fairly stereotypical dwarf. Each character plays a bit differently, and has different magic as well. Magic is collected as a pickup, and fills a meter. When you use magic, you will get the spell of the level the meter is full up to, but it will drain empty. The sequels add the ability to use only some magic, but in this first game you have to use it all. You do more damage the more magic you use. Each character plays about as expected from their character types -- Gillius is slow and has weak magic, but has strong attacks, Ax is in the middle, and Tyris is fast and has stronger magic but weaker attacks. Visually Genesis Golden Axe can't match the arcade game, of course, but it does about as well as a 1989 Genesis game could have. The low game-size does show, but still, it's a great version of the game, and looks far better than the Turbo CD version of Golden Axe. The music is great as well, and is a very good recreation of the classic arcade soundtrack.
The gameplay is simple, but works well. You can attack and jump, as usual in this genre. The running charge attacks are key to survival, as enemies will often come at you from both sides. One thing that makes combat a bit more interesting in this game than some beat 'em ups are the level designs. Golden Axe isn't like one of those Capcom beat 'em ups where you just follow a straight path to the right; no, it's got interesting, twisting levels, among the better in the genre. There are many pits to avoid and jump over, multi-level areas to navigate, and more. You can often exploit the levels to lure enemies into pits and such, which is always great fun when you can manage it. The AI will usually come straight at you, so use this to your advantage. Unfortunately boss rooms never have pits... ah well. I strongly prefer the more varied, multi-level, twisting levels found in games like this series or TMNT III for the NES over those bland just-walk-to-the-right levels of too many other games in this genre. The levels tie in to the story in interesting ways, too. "Turtle Village" is more than just a name, in a pretty cool way. Everything from the arcade game is here, and a new final level has been added to the end, too, to add a bit more to the game. There is also a somewhat pointless two player versus mode added, though as usual with such things in beat 'em ups it's not very fun; these games aren't designed for that kind of fight. Golden Axe is not a long game, but it is quite difficult, and I have only ever managed to beat the shortened Easy mode; I have gotten to the real final boss on Normal, the first difficulty that allows you to play that new final level, but he's crazy-hard and always kills me. It's a fun challenge though, and I will keep trying for sure. You get a couple of continues, but not infinite.
Overall Golden Axe is a game I've loved ever since the late '80s, and it still holds up very well today. This is a simple game, as you walk around hitting baddies and trying to lure them into pits without falling in yourself, but with great art design, good gameplay, some of the better level designs in the genre, and good music, Golden Axe is still fantastic with either one or two players. I know most people don't like this game quite as much as I do, but this is absolutely an A-grade classic in my book. Absolute must-have stuff. Arcade port. This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega’s Genesis games, and it is usually the Genesis version Sega ports and not the arcade original. Golden Axe was also ported to many other platforms by various developers -- the game is on Turbo CD (done incredibly badly by Telenet, do not buy this), Sega Master System (okay for the SMS, but far worse than on Genesis, and you can only play as Ax), and a bunch of computers -- Amiga, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, PC (DOS), Atari ST, and ZX Spectrum. Some of the computer versions are Europe-only. Neither the Turbo CD nor SMS versions have multiplayer, so get this Genesis version for sure.
Golden Axe II - 1-2 player simultaneous. Note that you need to hold down the 6-button controllers' Mode on power on if you want to use 6-button controllers with this game. Golden Axe II is, basically, more Golden Axe. This game plays a lot like the first game I love, but with new levels, new enemies, some new features, and new graphics and music. Again Ax, Tyris, and Gillius are off to defeat an evil demon lord and his legion of skeleton and monster followers. Golden Axe II is a Genesis original, not an arcade port, and doesn't change much versus the arcade version, but I am okay with that; the base formula was fantastic, so why change it? The few changes that are made here are improvements, though. First, the graphics are a bit better than the Genesis version of the first game. Golden Axe II has a larger cart size, and it does show. The first game still looks great, but there is a bit more detail this time. The music is just as good as before, and I like the new tracks. In gameplay, for the most part everything is the same. The biggest change is the improved magic system. Now you can choose to use only some magic in your meter, instead of having to use it all any time you press the button; just hold the button down to select what spell power to unleash. It's a nice improvement which does make a difference sometimes. The new levels are in new settings, but the general design styles are the same as the first game, with stages full of variety, including pits, paths in various directions, and more. Enemy AI is about the same as before, so it's still not hard to lure enemies into pits. Yes, I like this even if some don't. It is a bit disappointing that no levels have stage concepts as cool as the turtle or eagle levels from the first game, but otherwise this game has great level designs, as expected from a Golden Axe game. Just as before thre are three difficulties, and the easy one doesn't let you play the final stage. I wish they let you play the whole game in any setting, but oh well, it works as it is. Overall game difficulty is very similar to the first game, so it's well balanced between fun and challenge. This game is just as much fun to play as the first game is, and I like playing it a lot. But that's pretty much it; Golden Axe II is, overall, a sequel very similar to its predecessor. If you like Golden Axe as I do, it's an absolute, definite must-own classic, but if you don't, this won't change your mind. This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega's Genesis games.
[Golden Axe III - 1-2 player simultaneous. I do not have this game for Genesis, but do have it in several Genesis classic collections, for Xbox 360 and PSP, so I guess I should mention it. I won't mention other games I only have in those collections, so far at least, but have to say a bit about this one. Golden Axe III is a somewhat controversial game. This game has a poor reputation, but it's a bit undeserved. This game wasn't released in the US on cartridge, sadly; it was one of Sega's Sega Channel download service-exclusive games, along with some other great games such as Pulseman, Alien Soldier, and others. The game has a new cast to play as, a new look that sets it apart from the first two game, and some gameplay changes, but it is still recognizable as a Golden Axe game. I like the level designs, which if anything are even bigger and more varied than before. The new player characters are similar to the originals, but fit in well. This is a pretty good, misunderstood beat 'em up that is a lot better than some people give it credit for. The original Golden Axe probably always will be my favorite, but both of its sequels on the Genesis are great games as well. Japan-exclusive on Genesis as a physical cart, only released in the West in the Sega Channel digital-download service for Genesis (and thus inaccessible since you could not save things there, only play them while power is on) and in digital re-release collections of Genesis games on newer platforms.]
Greendog: The Beached Surfer Dude - 1 player. Greendog is a decent little platformer published by Sega and made by an American team. In this Carribean-themed game you play as Greendog, a surfer in a red knee-length bathing suit who has lost his ability to surf because he picked up a cursed talisman. Oh, and when near people, they freak out because of the talismans' powers, but he cares more about the no-surfing part. Greendog can skateboard and rollerblade just fine, though; only surfing was affected, for whatever reason. You're off on a quest through six Caribbean islands, visiting various local sites and ancient Aztec ruins, to collect the six parts needed to remove the talisman's curse. Conveniently someone (his girlfriend?) knows exactly what he needs to do to get rid of this awful curse... that sure was convenient. :p As a kid, I disliked this games' cover art; I thought the art style looked ugly. I didn't play too much of the game as a result. When I finally got the game several years ago, though, I found that the game is better than I gave it credit for back then. That cover art is kind of bad, and I still don't love Greendog's look, but the game itself is a fun, competent platformer. Greendog is a slow-paced game, and isn't anything great, but it is at least average, and I like seeing the various environments as you progress through the game. Each of the six islands is broken up into three parts. First is a level or two on the island. Each island has a different theme here, whether it is on the beach, in a city, underwater, or more. Second, you go through an Aztec temple stage, to find the islands' piece of the talisman. Some of the temples have boss fights against stone totem-like foes. And last, there is a silly pedal-copter flight to the next island, as Greendog flies himself from island to island by foot power. Heh. The game repeats this formula to the end, but there is enough variety between stages that the game stays fun, even if every island has some similar backgrounds. You have two continues before you have to start the game over.
The game has a cartoony art style, and I don't particularly like the look of the characters, but the visuals are okay overall. The background graphics are somewhat realistic, in contrast to the cartoony sprites. The backgrounds are reasonably well drawn, though there is a lot of dithering. The music tries to sound like steel-drum music, and such; it's nice and fits the setting well. The game does use that unpopular GEMS music-creation system, but while the Genesis can do far more complex audio than this, I like the results here. In terms of gameplay, Greendog has okay but slow controls. Perhaps the slow pace is designed to fit the stereotype of Caribbean island life, or perhaps it's just to fit the gameplay, but either way, Greendog walks sl...
Sega Genesis Game Opininion Summaries - Work In Progress - A Black Falcon - 7th December 2015
Games in this update
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HardBall!
HardBall '94
Haunting Starring Polterguy
Instruments of Chaos starring Young Indiana Jones
Izzy's Quest for the Olympic Rings
James Pond 3: Operation Starfish
James Pond II: Codename RoboCod
James Pond: Underwater Agent
Jewel Master
Junction
Jungle Book, The
Jurassic Park
Kid Chameleon
King of the Monsters 2
HardBall! - 1-2 player simultaneous, password save. Hardball! was Accolade's first attempt at a console baseball game, and their inexperience sadly shows. If you compare this game to its incredible followup Hardball III, it's kind of amazing how much they improved things from this game to that one. As great as Hardball III is, I really cannot recommend Hardball!; it's just not good. I don't think there is much of an audience for this game, really. It's a massive downgrade from the computer Hardball games of the '90s, so fans of the PC games won't love this one, but it also isn't quite RBI Baseball or something, so console fans of those games won't be happy either. So, where did this game go wrong? The PC Hardball games are amazing, after all! But first, I shoud say the few good things abiout the game. Hardball! plays okay, and looks reasonably nice. That's about it. As for the problems, though, first, the feature set is minimal. This is the only one of the four Genesis Hardball games that doesn't have battery save, but it gets worse -- the game doesn't even have a season mode! All you can do here is play single games, play a World Series between teams of your choice, or... well, that's about it. There is a password option to save a world series in progress, but that's about it for modes. The game also has only one stadium, a generic made-up arena, and doesn't have real players either. And of course, since this game doesn't have a battery, there is no way to change the players names, stats, etc. as you can do in Hardball III. All of the other Genesis Hardball games have all of the real stadiums, and the latter two have the real players as well. All have battery save, full season modes with multiple season length options, logos for the teams, and more. This game has none of that. And don't expect much vocal speech, either; there isn't much.
But it gets worse -- the gameplay itself isn't as good as it is in other Hardball games. This is still a mostly-one-button game, but it's compromised in the shift to consoles in ways that damage the game. Thankfully they undid these changes in the sequel. They made two major changes here which do not work well. First, the game has only one pitcher/batter view, a behind-the-pitcher viewpoint. The other Hardball games all have both behind-the-pitcher and behind-the-batter views. I have always thought that it's nearly impossible to bat well from the behind-the-pitcher view, so it's awful that that is the only view available here. I always play the other Hardball games only ever using the behind-the-batter view, and it's hard to get used to this games' opposite viewpoint. I know that Hardball 1 for computers is like this, but I've never played it, and this game released a year after Hardball II released for PCs, but this game has none of its improvements. Controls are also simplified. In this game, the pitcher gets a pitch-selection indicator, similar to the one in Hardball III. Pitchers all seem to have the same five pitches, massively dumbing down a major element of strategy from the other, better Hardball games where different pitchers have different pitches. If you press a direction while throwing you'll throw to that part of the plate, so the pitching is classic Hardball. The batter, however, does not get an indicator; instead you hit one button for a regular swing, or another for a bunt, and if you press the button with a direction you'll swing to that part of the strikezone. There is no Power swing option, and no indicator showing where you are swinging; you'll just have to try to guess where the ball is going from that awkward viewpoint that makes determining that overly difficult. As you might guess, batting is very hard in this game, and the AI has a huge advantage.
And once a ball goes into play, you see the other change veruss other Hardball games -- you can't see a full field view at once. Instead, the game has a more zoomed-in look, and will scroll as the ball moves. It's not quite as zoomed in as some console baseball games, but it's too close for me. There is no ball indicator or fielder markers in the minimap; instead it only shows baserunner locations. So, you have to catch balls by tracking the ball and shadow, as usual in the series. This is easier to do when you can actually see the whole field, so catching balls requires running towards the location before your fielder is even on screen. It's not great. So, overall, Hardball! is a below-average baseball game, and a big disappointment for me considering how much I love the Hardball series. By changing this game to make it less Hardball they messed it up, and by cheaping out on the featureset they make the game somewhat irrelevant. There is no reason to buy this game; get Hardball III or '95 instead. This is basically a Genesis remake of the original Hardball game which was released on a lot of computer platforms.
HardBall '94 - 1-2 player simultaneous, battery save. Hardball '94 is a console-exclusive followup to the incredible Hardball III. This game has the same basic gameplay as Hardball III, so just read that summary for how this game plays because it's the same. On the positive side, Hardball '94 has slightly improved graphics with redrawn sprites, the real MLB players with full rosters from the 1993 season, and the Marlins and Rockies expansion teams and their stadiums. On the negative side, though, most of the voiced announcing is gone. This game has almost as little speech as Hardball! above, sadly. I miss Al Michaels' choppy speech bytes here. I also miss the Hardball III visuals, actually; yes, this game has better visuals, but I love the look of Hardball III, so this 'better' look isn't really a positive for me. I do like that the game has the real players, though. Hardball III on PC has an addon that I have to give you the real players, but you can't get that on Genesis. And the gameplay itself is more of the great same as Hardball III. You've still got single game, full season, and home run derby modes; the classic one-button-with-menus gameplay which works so well; those great zoomed-out field views that let you see all the way from home plate to the outfield in the direction the ball is going; pitchers each with their own specific set of pitches; you can save a game in progress at any time if you don't have the time to finish a whole game in one sitting; and everything else. It's a great game. However, is there much reason to get Hardball '94 in specific? The problem is, while I don't own it for some stupid reason, there is also a final Genesis Hardball game: Hardball '95. That game also has the real players, but it's also got graphics which have been improved yet again, and full voice announcing from Al Michaels returns! Really, just get Hardball III and Hardball '95, those are the console Hardball games to buy. On PC, Hardballs III (with the MLB Players Disk), 4, and 5 are the best ones.
Haunting Starring Polterguy - 1 player. Haunting starring Polterguy is a weird game from EA. This is a ... uh, action-adventure? game where you play as a ghost boy and have to scare a family out of a series of houses. You were a cool guy you see, but died because of this uncaring jerk, so it's time to get revenge! You don't hurt anyone, just scare them, but still, taking out your unhappiness on people who didn't directly cause anything doesn't seem right. So, you are a ghost, though you're green so you sort of look like a zombie. You move around the house, trying to scare the four family members by possessing objects in the rooms and making creepy things happen. Lots of things can be posessed, but eventually they will start to repeat, and scaring people is most all you do in this game. Once you enter something you can possess you've set your trap; this uses a bit of ghost energy. You can possess a cabinet and make the drawers move, possess vacuum cleaners and turn them on, and more. Once scared enough the victim will run to another room, and your goal is to keep scaring them until they flee the house. When they flee a room they drop some ghost energy powerups. It's not as easy as it sounds, though, because peoples' scare level will slowly decrease over time, and you never know exactly what they are going to do; you can't control the family members, after all. You never know which way people will flee so there's no guarantee of getting them to run into locations you have trapped or can get to in time, and there's that always-depleting ghost-energy meter to worry about as well. If you take too long without getting scares and it empties, you will be dropped into the underworld. Here you have to run around collecting items while avoiding or fighting off some enemies. This is the only place in the game where you actually fight. You can only lose for good if you fail to get out of the underworld, so you don't have limited chances, but it is an additional challenge and I think it gets harder if you get sent there more. On the whole, Haunting starring Polderguy has an interesting and original premise, but the gameplay gets repetitive. The game is funny, and fun, at first, and watching the familys' reactions to your scares can be pretty amusing. However, the game doesn't have much variety. There are four houses to get through, but by the time you finish the first one, you've seen most everything there is to see in this game. The core gameplay is a simple repeat of scare-scare-scare, and while the game is original and I like that this is a (mostly) non-violent game, it does get old. The game also won't be easy, as the people get harder to scare out of the house as you progress. Still, despite the repetition, Haunting is a unique game that can be fun. It's definitely worth a try.
Instruments of Chaos starring Young Indiana Jones - 1 player, 6-button controller supported (and recommended). Instruments of Chaos might seem promising. This is an Indiana Jones platformer published by Sega for the Genesis, after all! It's got to be good, right? Wrong. This game is by Brian A. Rice, Inc., with art from Waterman Designs. The former studio didn't release a game after the year this game was published and shut down some time shortly afterwards, and the latter only ever worked on this one game. Yeah, that's not promising, but the game is worse. In fact, this is one of the worst games I have played for the Genesis. Everything that can go wrong with a Western platformer does, here. The game has okay graphics, but the controls and gameplay go so horribly wrong that it doesn't matter. You are Indiana Jones, so you have a whip, of course. Unfortunately, it's seriously underpowered and is hard to control. You have separate buttons for jumping and each of your three weapons. You press and hold the whip button to take it out, then use teh d-pad to wave it around. You cannot move while using the whip; the pad now swings it. You have to swing the whip back then forth to hit, so first hit left then right in order to attack with it to the right. It's a decent system which tries to simulate actually swinging around a whip, sort of like the whip controls in Super Castlevania IV for the SNES but more complex and much worse. In that game whip controls are good and accurate, but here they are frustrating, both because it takes too many hits to kill things with the whip, and because the back-and-forth motions required take quite a while; actually hitting things isn't as easy as it should be. And of course, you're standing there unmoving while doing this, while enemies surely attack you. And the game has lots of enemies swarming you constantly. Your jumping controls are not great either; Indy does not control well, movement is far too stiff and imprecise. He'll often go randomly bouncing around in directions you didn't mean.
Your other two weapons are a gun and grenades. These both have very limited ammo, and aren't always useful -- lots of enemies are small and you can't aim down to shoot them with your gun, for example. And that's all you've got. Good luck; defeating the enemies in this game won't be easy, or worth your time. Levels are large and open, and as in a lot of Western platforms you'll be wandering all over looking for stuff. The game has five huge levels to complete, and you can do the first four in any order. You have objectives in each, so you don't just go to the right. This isn't great because the levels are far too large and annoying to traverse to make that exploration any fun at all. There are some puzzles to figure out here and there, but there are a lot more unfair traps, irritating jumps, difficult whip-jumps over things which can hurt you, and more, always while being swarmed by baddies. And all that while dealing with your seriously underpowered arsenal and weak, slow-to-control whip! It's a bad combination. I like the concept of a whip in an Indy game with more realistic controls, but this game perhaps shows why that hasn't happened -- it doesn't work well. And that's only the start of the problems. The game does have decently-drawn graphics and okay music, but the awful controls and bad level designs ruin the game. Instruments of Chaos seems to have been designed to annoy. I got this game hoping it wouldn't be as bad as its reputation suggests, but sadly, it is. Skip this one! It's one of the worst games Sega published for the Genesis.
Izzy's Quest for the Olympic Rings - 1 player. Izzy's Quest for the Olympic Rings is an average, or slightly below average, licensed platformer from US Gold. Here you play as the mascot for the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, Izzy. He's a blue rectangle, or something like that, with eyes and feet. US Gold was, despite the name, a British company, so this is a euro-platformer. The game looks nice and makes a decent first impression, but the gameplay doesn't match up to the visuals. Your goal is to reach the end of each stage, but along the way you've got to collect lots and lots of medals, gems, torches, checkpoints, limited-use powerups, and more as you explore some good-sized, and sometimes boring, levels. As usual there are three levels in each environment followed by a boss fight. You only get two continues and there is no saving, so beating the game will be a challenge that requires a lot of repeat play and memorization; this isn't a really hard game, but it is fairly easy to die sometimes and you do have those limited continues. Izzy defeats enemies by jumping on them. You have two different jump buttons, one for a slightly shorter-range jump which will kill enemies without damaging you, and the other for a longer-range jump which will hurt you if you touch an enemy while using it. It's a bit odd, but you do get used to it. The game also has a momentum system, and those medals work sort of like Sonic rings in that if you get three you will lose them instead of dying the next time you get hit, so the game clearly took some inspiration from Sonic. At specific points in levels, you will get a variety of different powerups, each based on some real sport. Izzy can get a hang-glider, baseball bat, bow and arrows, and more. Unfortunately, you cannot use these freely, but only within a small, confined area marked out by red flags. Leave the specified area, or reach the end of the hang-glider route, and you lose the ability and are back to normal. With weapons like the bat or bow you cannot jump while using them, either; all of your jump buttons are replaced with weapon-use buttons. I like the concept of powers, and it's great how Izzy looks and animates differently for each one, but it is a bit frustrating that you can only use them in these very confined areas.
Gameplay in Izzy's Quest is simple. Just walk along, searching the level for secrets and platforms while you grab all the stuff you can. Getting three medals so that you can take a hit is essential, but many of the rest are just there for points, or to give you access to the between-levels bonus stages you can get if you get enough medals. The game has few to no bottomless pits and no blind jumps, which is great. The controls are average, with some control issues thanks to the not-great momentum system. In the levels, secret stuff is absolutely everywhere, It is a bit satisfying to find things at first, but after a while constantly getting random stuff from every corner of the stage can get repetitive. The only real variety here are in those power-up sections, and they are usually short. There is one long hang-gliding section in the second stage, but otherwise the first world is all standard platforming, and the formula continues after that. Overall, this is an okay but unexciting game. The game does have nice and nicely animated graphics, though they're not among the best on the system, but the gameplay is extremely generic exploration-focused platforming of a kind you can find in a lot of games on this system, often done better than it is here. Still, you can do worse than Izzy's Quest for the Olympic Rings; the game does look and play okay. I don't particularly like this game, and it probably is a bit below average, but it's not that bad either. Playing it for this summary I did have some fun. Perhaps try the game if you like this kind of platformer. Also on SNES.
James Pond: Underwater Agent - 1 player. James Pond: Underwater Agent is the first game in what would become a popular platformer series, at least in its home region of Europe. The game, and its sequels, was developed by Millenium and published by EA. In America James Pond never was as popular, though we did get the three Genesis games and some of the SNES ones. This first game is visually simple compared to its sequels, but might be the most fun of the three, for me; it's a bit more original than the sequels, and the core gameplay is fun. You are James Pond, comedy fish James Bond knockoff. Yes, this series is full of comic James Bond references. I haven't watched enough Bond to get most of them, but still, they can be amusing sometimes. While its two sequels are more standard platformers, this game isn't; instead, you swim around in this game. You can shoot, though, so it's not just like playing only water levels in a 3d platformer. You shoot bubbles, specifically. Shot enemies get captured in the bubbles, then if you touch them they will die and drop an item. You shoot and pick up items each with a separate button, and the game controls fine. You can swim around freely, though this doesn't have awesome swimming controls like Ecco; instead it's just average move-as-you-press stuff. If you go up out of the water you will bounce endlessly, and die ify ou stay out of the water for too long, though sometimes you have to go up there anyway, for a while. Enemies aren't too hard to deal with generally and you do have a health bar, but it's hard to avoid hits sometimes, as often was true in Western games then, so this game is harder than it may initially seem. If you die you start the level over, and you get only two continues once you run out of lives. That ensures that you'll need to replay this game a lot to get through it, and I rarely enjoy that kind of design.
The game is fun to play, though. As this is a European game, exploration and collecting stuff are your main tasks. The game is loaded with stuff to collect, that's for sure. Some is optional stuff for points, but some is required. Levels are large and fairly open, and your goal is not to reach the end but instead is to complete the stated objective. In the first level you have to pick up keys and then use them to rescue some captured ally fish. Then in level two, you have to pick up bags of stuff scattered around the level and drop them off above the waters' surface for this 'beach bum' guy to pick up. I like that there is some variety. Levels are full of not only walls but also switches and teleporters from early on. Each level is made up of several multi-screen scrolling areas, connected with passages. Level designs are not great, but they are somewhat interesting and varied, though the game could use more environments. Visually the game looks like the average-looking Amiga port that it is. Audio is also okay but not amazing. Overall James Pond 1 is a decent side-view platformer-ish action-adventure game. You swim around, shooting bubbles at baddies, while finding the items you need for the current stage, then bringing them where they need to go. It's moderately fun stuff. Amiga port, also on Atari ST and Acorn Archimedes. All of the computer versions are Europe-only releases.
James Pond II: Codename RoboCod - 1 player. James Pond II: Robocod is the most popular game in this series by far. While the other James Pond games were mostly forgotten, this one has multiple ports to newer platforms, and I think it's thought of positively in the UK, where it's from. I think that the game is good, but not great. With the second game, James Pond shifts over to being a more traditional platformer, and the graphics get a lot better. This is an average to above average platformer with some decently nice cartoony graphics, okay controls with a unique mechanic, large levels with huge amounts of stuff to collect, and a kind of long game for something without saving. You can walk and jump around, but there is also one unique mechanic here: James can do a weird upwards-stretching move which allows you to move to platforms at any height directly above you. If you attach to a ceiling you can move around on the ceiling if you want, as well, and drop down anywhere you like. Otherwise this is a standard item-collection-focused Euro-platformer. James Pond is in Antarctica now and has to stop some penguins which, for some reason, are evil. I presume it's a reference to some James Bond movie, but I don't know which. The game is set in a giant castle which serves as a hub level. Only that is in the snow, while the levels you enter from there have a variety of settings, first a candy-themed world.
In each level your goal is to find the end goalpost. So, you don't have mission objectives, unlike the first game, but instead just need to find the exit. You don't just go to the right, though; instead exits can be anywhere, and you will need to explore to find them. Levels always scroll in all four directions, and yes, there are a lot of pickups to collect, if you care about points. The infinite-upward-stretch move is interesting and allows for some different level designs, but you do need to watch out -- if enemies run into you while stretching up you will be forced back down. Fortunately you don't seem to take damage from that, at least, which is nice. Also you can drop through some platforms, but not others. Being able to stretch up and walk on ceilings allows a lot of mobility, but the game still has plenty of tricky platform jumping, and, of course, blind jumps. You don't move too fast in this game, just average speed, but still you will need to make blind jumps, unfortunately. And just like the first game, you still have a two-continue limit in this game, which is a real problem. With a save system this game definitely would be better. Still, James Pond II is a fun game, and I can see why it was popular. Yes, the near-unavoidable hits can be annoying and the continue limit isn't great, but the game is more good than bad. James Pond II has nice graphics, some interesting game mechanics, and plenty of levels to work through. Amiga port. James Pond II has been released on many platforms over the years -- Atari ST, SNES, Game Boy, Amiga CD32, Acorn Archimedes, Commodore 64, PC, Game Gear, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, Playstation, Playstation 2, and Sega Master System. Most of those are Europe-only, but the US did get the SNES, GBA, and DS versions. On SNES and GB the game is called "Super James Pond", and the GBA and DS remakes are titled "James Pond: Codename Robocod". If the GBA or DS versions add save systems, they'd probably be the best ones, but I only have this version.
James Pond 3: Operation Starfish - 1 player, password save (~30 characters long). James Pond 3 takes a more sci-fi approach to the series. This is another platformer, but it's different from the previous game. This time you move MUCH faster, with Sonic-esque speed. Your infinite-upward-stretch move is gone as well. Instead you've got various items scattered around the levels to pick up and use. You can only have one item at a time, though, so experimentation and puzzle-solving will be important here, more like in the first James Pond game. That's fine, and I like the nice cartoony space-themed graphics, but the game is a barely playable mess thanks to the very high speeds you move at. I want to like this game, but just can't. But yes, our fish hero is now an astro-fish and is on a weird alien world, or something like that. This is a bigger game than its predecessors -- there are apparently over 100 levels! The graphics are better than either previous game by a good margin this time, and the game finally adds a save system as well, with passwords. It's really too bad that the game is so frustrating and unfun. You just move too fast in this game; it's impossible to know what's coming as you zoom around, and you will inevitably run into deathtraps over and over again. And you can't always move at a crawl to see what's coming, either -- there are many angled slopes that you must be running at to clear... followed by pits. Argh! Also, while the game has passwords, and long ones too, you need to beat multiple levels before you get far enough to get one, and that's kind of hard in a game this fast and full of instant-death pits. James Pond 3 has a momentum system, fast movement, slippery controls, somewhat long levels, and instant death pits; it's not a great combination.
The game initially seems fun to play, though, as you look at the nice graphics, explore the first level or two, look for stuff to collect, and figure out the challenges and puzzles. There is a lot of stuff to collect, of course, for points as well as those items you can pick up and use as weapons or to solve puzzles, and again I do like this element of the game. Levels are large and full of secrets, and when you're not dying constantly it can be fun to explore them. This is an impressively large game in scope, and even if the passwords are irritatingly long, it's great that it has them because they allow for a bigger game than you'll find in the first two. However, overall the game is just too hard. The speed and level designs in this game do not mix well. It's bad design to have so many spike-filled pits and random enemies in the way that will hurt you in a game where you're often moving at almost uncontrollable speeds! That makes this a very memorization-heavy game, and that's not very fun. And that's really the issue here. Some people don't mind this kind of design, and this is surely a great game for them, but fast-moving games full of blind jumps are not something I find fun. The Sonic games on the Genesis balance this brilliantly, with high speeds but good level designs and not very many unfair traps. This game has far, far more of them, and it's not as good because of it. With lots of content, good graphics, plenty of variety, saving, and some interesting challenges James Pond 3: Operation Starfish is a good game if you can memorize what to do, I have no doubt of that, but the barrier to entry is high. This game was only released on the Genesis in the US, but in Europe it is also on Amiga, Atari ST, and SNES.
Jewel Master - 1 player. Jewel Master is a good platform-action game by Sega. From 1991 this is an earlier release for the system, and you can tell; the graphics, while I do like some of the sprite art, aren't the best. Backgrounds are average at best, and the enemies and your character are a mixed bag. For the other negatives, the game only has one life per continue, no checkpoints in levels so die and you start the stage over, and you only get three continues per game. You do have a health bar, but you can only die a couple of times before you're starting the game over. However, this game is much more good than bad. I like the concept here quite a bit, first. You are a mage guy, and are off on a quest to save the realm, or something. You use magic rings to cast spells, and can equip up to two rings on each hand. You fight only with magic; you don't have a weapon attack. That's great. The best control option isn't the default; switch to the one where B is jump and A and C use the ring(s) on each hand. At the start you have only two rings, one fire and one water, but you will get 12 rings in total as you progress through the game. Each different combination of rings will give you a different spell, or none at all. There are a lot of spells to find and use, which is pretty cool. In addition to rings, there are also health items and healthbar-expanding items to find in the levels. These are critical, as your healthbar will not refill between levels, and you start out with only two health jewels. Make sure to look for refill and health-expanding items, you need them! They are easy to find at first, fortunately. There aren't nearly enough sidescrollers where you play as a mage, so it's cool that you do in this game.
The rings system is a good idea as well. The strategy of dealing with the rings, choosing spells, trying out each new ring you get with the others to see what they will do, and such is fun. There is a cost, though: you will constantly be pausing the game to switch rings. Two buttons use the two equipped pairs of rings, and the other jumps, so you have to pause to switch equipment. Your spells include a variety of melee and ranged attacks, a shield, high jump, faster movement, and more. The better rings you get later on allow for more powerful versions of spells. The spells here aren't amazingly original, it's mostly a fairly conventional array of fireballs, waves, and such, but still there are some nice options. Different spells will be better in different stages, so experimentation really is key. Levels are reasonable-length, and each one has a boss at the end. I like the level designs here; you don't just walk to the right all the time. While you do do some of that, other levels have some larger and more open designs. Sometimes you will need to use specific spells to proceed, which keeps things interesting. Some enemies are also more vulnerable against specific spells than others, so there experiment with your attacks instead of just always sticking with one. The game has quite a few different enemies to fight, with new enemies in each stage, and they have different attack patterns as well. Bosses are also unique and interesting, and some levels have minibosses as well. The skeleton miniboss a few levels in which flies apart as you shoot him is a fun one. Your hero isn't too mobile, so it can sometimes be hard to avoid taking hits, but you do have that health bar. Overall Jewel Master is a fun little game. It's nothing amazing and there certainly are better platform-action games on the Genesis, and the constant pausing to switch rings and limited continues can be annoying, but I like the concept, spells, and gameplay. Exploring the levels blasting baddies and looking for secrets is quite fun, as is trying out the spells and deciding which two to use at each point in your adventure. Keep an eye out for Jewel Master, and do pick it up if you find it affordably.
Junction - 1-2 player simultaneous. Junction is a puzzle game inspired by Pipe Dream. Pipe Dream is sometehing of a classic, but it's a classic I have always found maybe more frustrating than fun. As in Pipe Dream, each stage is a single-screen top-view challenge. The screen is full of blocks with various lines on them. Unlike Pipe Dream, though, here you aren't trying to connect two points with a connected pipeline; instead, here you need to make a red ball, which follows along the track-line, go around all of the curving paths which are around the edges of the rectangular main field. These curving paths around the edges of the field cannot be moved. Instead, you shift around blocks inside the field. So, you aren't placing lines here; instead, you move them around as in a block-puzzle game, trying to line them up so as to make the ball go around the stage until it has gone around each of those outside paths once. Once the ball has gone around one it will disappear, and once all are gone, you win. That will be a serious challenge, but it can be a fun one. The game has 50 puzzles, and while you can't save your progress, instead the game simply allows you to start from any level in the options menu. So yeah, you can skip straight to level 50 if you want. It's a bit odd, but I'll take it! You can also set your lives per game, but this only matters if you're writing down scores or something. Junction has decent graphics with some nice backgrounds which shift every so often as you progress, or skip through levels in the menu. The music is fine as well. This is a simple game in scope and clearly didn't have a big budget, but they did a solid job creating a very tough, and somewhat original, puzzle game. I've rarely managed to get more than a few puzzles in before I quit in frustration -- block-swapping block puzzle games have never been something I've care for -- but this is a good game for the genre, and the Pipe Dream / block puzzle cross is an interesting idea. There is also a Game Gear version I haven't played.
Jungle Book, The - 1 player. The Jungle Book is a platformer from Virgin. Released the year after Aladdin this game is very much in the Dave Perry style, but Perry himself left Virgin partway through development of this game, and honestly it shows; The Jungle Book is no Aladdin, not even close. This game is a collection-heavy platformer with very nice graphics, but average gameplay. I'm sure that fans of the movie, particularly, will like it, but I think it's only okay. For some reason I don't think I ever saw The Jungle Book though, or at least i don't remember seeing it, unlike most of Disney's other major animated films, so the theme doesn't do much for me. You play as Mowgli, a boy living in the jungles of India. As always from Virgin the game has great graphics and animation. In each level you must find gems. There are 15 hidden in each level, and the number you need varies based on the difficulty you choose -- in easy you need 5, in normal 10, and in hard all 15. I don't think I'd want to pla ythe game in hard; finding 10 is more than enough. There are also lots of other things to collect, including a variety of items which give you points, some which refill your health, and various projectiles. Mowgli will hurt enemies by jumping on them, or at least he usually will -- bosses often require projectiles only -- so collecting projectile ammo is important. Once you have found ten of the gems, you need to go to the end of the level, generally on the right side somewhere, either high or low. Until you get enough even if you reach the end you'll have to go backtrack. Fortunately enemies you've killed do stay dead, so there is at least that. Still, the constant backtracking and collecting is a bit tedious sometimes. The controls are also only okay. You will definitely take a lot of unavoidable hits in this game. You do have health, but losing lives is inevitable, particularly in boss levels which seem to happen about at the usual place, every three stages. The game is loaded with bottomless pits as well, and with the blind-jump-encouraging level designs and camera this game has, every missed jump or leap into the unknown is a possible death. Blind-jump deaths are a huge problem in this game, and you have limited lives and continues in this game, and no saving of course. Bah. You can often see where you are going, but not always. Still, wandering around levels jumping on or shooting enemies while collecting stuff is sometimes fun. The Jungle Book is an average game on the whole, but platformer fans might want to give it a look anyway. It does look nice, and the gameplay is okay.
Jurassic Park - 1 player, password save. Jurassic Park is an average platform-action game from Blue Sky Software and published by Sega. Blue Sky would later go on to make one of the Genesis's best action games in Vectorman, but before that their games were nowhere near that level, and you see that here. This is an okay game with some nice visuals, but the gameplay has some issues. Based on the hit dinosaurs-come-to-life movie of the same name, Jurassic Park allows you to play as two characters, main character Alan Grant or a Velociraptor. Yes, you can play as a raptor, which is pretty cool. Each character has their own set of levels to play through. Each quest isn't all that long, but it'll be reasonably challenging along the way. Thankfully the game does have a password system, unlike most Genesis platformers, so you don't need to play the whole thing in one sitting. That's awesome. The game has okay but not great controls. The game feels slightly Prince of Persia-inspired, so you move somewhat stiffly and cannot control yourself in the air while jumping very much, particularly as Grant. The Raptor can jump more than a screen into the air so you can move around in the air a bit more there, but still it's largely determined by the direction you hit before you leave the ground. I don;t like the somewhat restrictive controls; freer movement controls would be great. Even though this game isn't full PoP, it's a hybrid, I've never cared for Prince of Persia's control style in general and don't love how this game controls either. Blind jumps are also a huge problem, particularly with that raptor and its multi-screens-high jumps. The game doesn't throw lots of blind pits at your right from the start, but there are some here and there from early on and it is far too easy to accidentally jump into one. At least you have those passwords to help out, so you don't need to restart the game after doing so as you would in most other Genesis platformers; that's nice.
As Grant, you have a bunch of guns to use to take down the dinosaurs with, but move at only a moderate speed. You will collect a bunch of different weapons, and finding ammo is important. You've got a stun-gun, grenades, taser, and more. It's a nice arsenal, though sometimes you can feel underpowered, and ammo is limited. Grant has one fire button and one switch-weapons button. As the Raptor you only have your fangs and claws, but you move pretty fast. The Raptor has separate buttons for claws and biting. It's probably more fun to play as the Raptor -- any regular enemy will die instantly if you jump on them, and running around tearing apart humans and dinosaurs is fun stuff. Get revenge on those humans! Heh. I like the two different routes through the game; sort of like in Desert Demolition the two really are different. Both routes go through mostly the same environments, but they aren't all in the same order and the actual levels are different. The background graphics are very good in this game. The green jungle in the first stage is particularly impressive. Sprites are very dithered, but I don't mind; I think the game looks pretty good. Still, actually playing the game isn't quite as fun as I'd like, thanks in part to the not-great controls and also the level designs. This is not a straightforward action game; instead, levels often require you to jump from specific places in order to progress, and you'll have to find those places. It can be annoying from early on. Those blind jumps don't help either. It also can be hard to avoid taking damage sometimes, and health powerups aren't as common as perhaps they should be.
Still, Jurassic Park is an okay game which can be fun. I came into the game with somewhat low expectations because it's not a game I have lots of nostalgia for or often hear is really great. The game didn't disappoint, but isn't amazing either. The graphics are probably a bit better than I was expecting and that's nice, but the gameplay is about as flawed as I expected, unfortunately. Still, this is a decent game and it is at average, anyway. It's pretty cool that you can play as a Raptor as well as a human, though it is so fast that staying out of danger is difficult. Still, it really is fun to play as the raptor. The level designs in this game can be an issue, though, thanks to the unclear paths and blind jumps. Still, the game's alright. Don't spend much for this one unless you are a big series fan, though. For the $3 I paid for a complete copy it was absolutely worth getting; there is enough of interest here that platformer fans might want to consider the game if you find it cheap. Blue Sky made a sequel to this game, Jurassic Park: Rampage Edition. That game has a much stronger focus on shooting and action and less on frustrating exploration, and is supposed to be much better as a result. I haven't played it, though.
Kid Chameleon - 1 player. Kid Chameleon is a platformer from Sega from 1992, developed by some people in Sega of America who soon would be called Sega Technical Institute. This game predates the name, but it is considered a STI game. You are Kid Chameleon, a cool '90s guy who has been sucked in to a VR arcade game gone wrong! You're '90s cool though, so the boss won't beat you, unlike those other kids... well, hopefully; that will be difficult. This game is a huge, expansive platformer. With over a hundred levels, good controls, plenty of settings to explore, various costumes to find and wear to get added powers, secret exits that lead to multiple routes thorugh the game, and more, this game is impressive on many levels. The graphics aren't one of them, though. While STI's later games often impress visually, this game has average-at-best graphics. Backgrounds are decently drawn but not amazing, and sprites are smaller than usual for a Genesis game and are artistically average. Kid Chameleon and his enemies are kind of small in this game. This allows for larger levels and good visibility, so you won't have as many blind-jump problems in this game as in many other Genesis platformers, but it doesn't look as nice. The game also has a lot of blocks to break, Mario-style. Some are just generic blocks, others have items in them. You'll be doing a lot of jumping at blocks in this game. Between that and the smaller characters, this game is a bit more Mario-like than most of Sega's Genesis games. Kid Chameleon has different outfits too, which drop from blocks, a bit like Mario. The Samurai outfit gets you a sword, the helmet-knight a hard helmet, and many more. Each one slightly changes the way the game plays.
This is a Western platformer, though, so it's not Mario. You have a health bar in this game, levels are a bit less straightforward than they usually would be in a Mario game, and the controls, while good, aren't quite Mario or Sonic-great. Kid Chameleon feels a little loose to control, though it's fine as it is. Levels are intricately designed and always interesting. I like the levels here, though the game does get difficulty in a hurry. Thanks to the zoomed-out view you can see a good way, but there is the occasional blind jump. Thankfully the game doesn't have many death pits, but still taking damage can be bad; you only have a few hit points per costume. I like the varied level designs though, they are a strength of the game. There are always secrets to look for and lots of stuff to find as you explore. Yes, most are blocks to break with gems in them that only give you points, but sometimes they drop nice new costumes, so that's fine. One part had me stuck for a while before I figured out how to climb up vertical walls, but once I got the hang of it it added to the game. Really, in a lot of ways the game plays more like an early '90s PC shareware game than most of Sega's platformers for the Genesis do, and that's great; PC shareware games were the games I grew up on. So the game is mostly good, but it has one problem. Unfortunately, it's a big one. The main problem with the game is its length and difficulty. While most paths through Kid Chameleon go thorugh a lot less than 100 levels, but still this is a long game, far too long for something with no saving and, as usual on the Genesis, irritatingly limited continues. Seriously, the Genesis is one of my favorite systems, but it'd be even better if more of the games had saving. Even passwords would be great in a game like this. Though Kid Chameleon is a good game for sure, I've never gotten deep in to it thanks to the save/continue system. This is a difficult game that will take quite some time to get through, if you ever do, but the quality shows through regardless. The exploration element is fun as you look for the many routes through the game, the level designs are good to great, and the core gameplay is solid. Kid Chameleon isn't one of the best Genesis platformers, but it is a good B-grade title well worth playing. This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega's Genesis games.
King of the Monsters 2 - 1-2 player simultaneous, 6 button controller supported. King of the Monsters 2 is a 1-on-1 isometric fighting/wrestling game from Takara. While not one of SNK's better-known franchises, King of the Monsters is a fun Godzilla-inspired series. While this game has the same name as SNK's Neo-Geo and SNES game of the same name, this is a simpler game than those. While that game is a beat 'em up slash monster fighting/wrestling game, this one ditches the long scrolling levels and beat 'em up elements in favor of straight 1-on-1 fights only. This game has a conventional fighting game framework, so matches are best-of-three-rounds, and arenas are limited in size. This is still a good game, but I like the original game more. Takara published both this and the SNES game, so I don't know why they decided to make that one a good port of the arcade original, while this one is a scaled-back fighter only. It's unfortunate that they did. Still, the fights play just like they should, which is good. The game also does have one interesting feature, you can play as the enemy bosses! There are nine playable characters in this game, including the three protagonists from the Neo-Geo/SNES game, or six of the bosses from that game. You can only play as the three 'good' monsters in the original game, so it is kind of cool to be able to play as the bosses. It's just a 1-on-1 game so it makes sense to let you play as the whole roster, but it is fun to play as the various bosses from that game. This is a cut-rate game presentation-wise, though. There isn't a final boss, for instance; you just fight a harder version of your current character in the last stage of the game. That's disappointing. No depth was added to make up for the lost beat 'em up sections, either; this is still a very basic button-masher. And the ten arenas, while nice looking, are only a fraction of the amount of content from the original game. The graphics are good and are translated over well from the Neo-Geo, but the music's not great, unfortunately. At least the nine monsters do look good though. The game does have eight difficulty options, and you can choose how many continues you get as well, though just choosing Infinite makes the most sense; it is an option.
Even if it has no depth though, the game is fun to play. This is an isometric game, so you move around in all four directions. You are a giant monster, so while fighting your rivals, you can also destroy the scenery. Levels usually have a bunch of small buildings to destroy. Stomping the smaller buildings and crushing the larger ones is fun stuff. This game is no Rampage, it's mostly focused on the monster fighting, but the city-destroying bits are amusing. Despite the small-ish arenas there thankfully are still a good amount of things to destroy here. You have three actions, jump and two attacks. Characters do have a few special moves, but they're only very basic motions and aren't necessary. The game is, for the most part, a button masher. In addition to the normal attacks, when the two monsters get close, they grapple. This is the wrestling component, though it really is just a pure button masher. Wiggle that stick and hit the main button repeatedly and you'll probably win; that's all there is to it. Whoever wins will throw the other for a bit of damage. It gets repetitive, but it works. The game also has powerups that spawn from some destroyed buildings, and also from certain little vehicles and such that move around each stage. These can power you up, refill some health, and more, so collecting them is important. This is hardly a complex or deep fighting game, as there isn't much depth and button-mashing is central to the game, but it is fun and entertaining, On the default difficulty this game isn't very difficult, though a few monsters may give you trouble. In multiplayer or the harder settings it will last a bit longer, but still this is a short game. Overall, King of the MOnsters 2 is okay. Visually the game looks good and is a solid conversion of the arcade game, and the gameplay is just like the arcade and SNES game. However, the limited design of this version really holds it back. It's an okay game, but the original arcade/SNES KotM2 game, with the beat 'em up side of the game intact, is better. This game might be worth getting if you are a series fan and want to play as the bosses from Kind of the Monsters 2, and the game is the best versus mode in the series, but otherwise just stick to regular King of the Monsters 2 for Neo-Geo or SNES. The Neo-Geo version is available in various Neo-Geo collections and digital re-releases. This one may have the same name, but it's a lower-budget, smaller affair. It's an entertaining game that is brainless fun, but the lacking depth means that you probably won't be playing this long-term. Still, this is a fun little game to play once in a while. I like SNK so I had to get this game, and I do like it enough to make it probably be worth getting, but non-fans probably should pass on this one.
Sega Genesis Game Opininion Summaries - Work In Progress - Weltall - 8th December 2015
Quote:Kid Chameleon and his enemies are kind of small in this game. This allows for larger levels and good visibility, so you won't have as many blind-jump problems in this game as in many other Genesis platformers, but it doesn't look as nice.
A necessary tradeoff, though. I don't know how many times I played 16 bit platformers with large, detailed player character sprites that were extremely frustrating because I see too much of my character and not enough of the environment.
If you didn't know (and it's totally understandable), the gems you pick up are used to activate special powers which are specific to your current outfit. The reason it's totally understandable if you didn't know this is because most of these special powers are either useless, or not useful enough for the number of gems you have to spend. The knight can use 50 to add an extra hit point (which you get to keep until you lose your current life), and the Maniaxe can use 50 to get an extra life (which is where I use my gems when I play).
Sega Genesis Game Opininion Summaries - Work In Progress - A Black Falcon - 8th December 2015
Oh really, it has special abilities? No, I didn't know about that, or at least I don't remember anything about it. I don't have a manual for the game, so I just played the cart... that extra life one sounds pretty useful though!
Sega Genesis Game Opininion Summaries - Work In Progress - A Black Falcon - 14th December 2015
Only eight this week (it’s been a busy week…), but several are among the system’s best games, so enjoy!
Games this update
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Landstalker: The Treasures of King Nole
Lethal Enforcers II: Gun Fighters
Light Crusader
Lightening Force: Quest for the Darkstar
Lost Vikings, The
Lost World, The: Jurassic Park
Lotus Turbo Challenge
Lotus Turbo Challenge II: RECS
Landstalker: The Treasures of King Nole – 1 player, battery save to cartridge. Landstalker, made by Climax Entertainment and published by Sega, is an amazing action-adventure game, and my favorite game like this on the Genesis. This game is one part Zelda and one part isometric platform-action game, essentially. The isometric view is divisive, but it works better here than in almost any other game I have played. I found it fairly easy to get used to the controls in Landstalker. There are times when you’ll miss jumps because judging distance in isometric 3d is difficult, but the game won’t kill you for it, you’ll just fall down to a lower area and such. This helps make the game less frustrating than some other isometric games, such as Light Crusader below. Landstalker has great graphics, a nice anime-cartoony art style with a good look to it, good music, a large world to explore, and a somewhat lengthy quest to take on. This is a big game, and it isn’t as straightforward as Beyond Oasis, either; you will often be wandering around the game world trying to figure out where you’re supposed to go next. This can be frustrating at times, but do stick with it — the game is well worth the effort! You play as Nigel, an elf adventurer off to find a great treasure with the help of a fairy who supposedly knows where it is. The story is fairly light in tone, fitting the cartoony art style, though some serious things do happen. Still, this game can be amusing at times, and shows it right from the start. Landstalker doesn’t have a great story, but it is an amusing one and helps keep you going through the game as you try to figure out what to do next, or how to beat the next challenge.
This is an isometric game, so you move at an angle. All areas of this game are broken up into areas that are a few screens large, and connect to the next area via connecting ‘doors’ that are generally in the middle of the side. The general concept is similar to how Zelda: A Link to the Past, Beyond Oasis, and others work, except for that Landstalker uses clearly-marked connecting doors, instead of just ‘walk off the edge to scroll the screen’. I like this style, and it works great. The broken-up world helps keep you focused on the current area, and makes each one different. This is an action-adventure game in the Zelda vein, though, so you don’t just explore a world; there are also a lot of monsters to fight and puzzles to solve. Landstalker has a unique feel to it, though, as the Zelda/isometric platform game hybrid is interesting and makes this game feel different from any other. Landstalker’s puzzles are not like Zelda puzzles, either. While in Zelda or Crusader of Centy puzzles usually focus on using the items/helpers you have collected in the right ways, Nigel here mostly just fights with his sword. You will get inventory items, but your sword will always be your main equipment. There are some block-pushing puzzles of course, ‘kill the enemies’ puzzles, jumping puzzles, and many switch-hitting puzzles, but the game has some logic puzzles as well, rarely for this genre! Landstalker is mostly focused on platforming and action, but the variety of challenges helps keep the game interesting. Nigel’s sword has a pretty good range and this game controls great, so combat is easy and fun. Compare this to Light Crusader below where your character David’s starting attack range is far too short for a nice comparison of good versus sort-of-bad isometric game design. Landstalker is a challenging game for sure, though. If you die and don’t have a resurrection item or something, you go back to the main menu and have to load your last save; your progress is lost. This can be pretty harsh, as save points are mostly at towns, not in dungeons. So yeah, try not to die at bosses, getting back there can be a pain, and bosses will often take some practice to beat. Some of those jumping puzzles can be tricky as well, and I wish that the game gave you better clues about what you should be doing sometimes; wandering around lost is never fun. Still, the game is mostly great and is worth the effort.
Visually, Landstalker looks quite good, though Beyond Oasis looks even better. That game did release a few years after this one, though, and Landstalker still holds up very well. Environments are static and do not animate, but that’s normal for the time, and the art design and detail is impressive. Areas are well-designed and complex. The level designs here definitely take a lot from isometric action-platformer designs, but it’s all made more accessible than those games often were — think of Solstice for the NES for example, for a particularly harsh one. And again, I really like the games’ art design. Overall Landstalker is a fantastic game, and easily one of the best RPG-ish action-adventure games of the generation. It’s probably #3 on my list for the generation, after only Zelda: Link’s Awakening for the GB and Illusion of Gaia for SNES. The sometimes unclear objectives and harsh penalty for dying are minor complaints compared to the games’ many strengths. Landstalker has good graphics and music, great level designs, highly polished gameplay, very good, responsive controls, a sometimes amusing story, fun if simple combat, some intresting puzzles with a fair amount of variety, and more! This is a really outstanding must-play game. The isometric perspective may take a few minutes to get used to, but don’t let you stop you from playing this classic. Climax made several more isometric games after Landstalker, including Lady Stalker for SNES, Dark Savior for Saturn, and Time Stalkers for Dreamcast, but none quite recapture the magic of the original. This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega’s Genesis games. Since cart copes do have now very old batteries in them which are starting to fail, unless you can switch out those batteries yourself maybe a digital copy on a modern system might be a good idea…
Lethal Enforcers II: Gun Fighters – 1-2 player simultaneous, Justifier light gun supported. Lethal Enforcers II is the sequel to the then-popular light-gun shooter Lethal Enforcers. I have the first one on Sega CD, and this one on cart, so see my Sega CD list for my thoughts on that game. While the first game was something of a hit, this Genesis/Sega CD sequel didn’t do quite as well, though the gameplay is just as good. The gameplay is more of the same, but the setting has changed; while the first Lethal Enforcers was set in the present day, as the title suggests this game takes place in the Wild West. I like the new setting, it fits very well for a light gun game. As with the first one, this is a very, very simple game: You simply need to shoot all badguys as they appear on screen, without hitting the innocents who like to run right into your sights. You can play with either a Justifier light gun (if you are playing on a CRT TV) or with the gamepad. The game controls better and is more fun with lightguns, of course, but it is playable with a pad. This is a very simple game. Just shoot the baddies, shoot some more badguys, then shoot some more. Every so often you will move to a new environment chasing the badguys around, but most areas are static screens. As with the first game though sometimes you will be on a moving vehicle, here carriages instead of cars of course, as a background loop scrolls past. This game has decent graphics with the same digitized-actors look that the first game used. At the time digitized people in games was considered really awesome stuff, but it has aged since; this game looks okay, but looking back the visuals are nothing special. The gameplay has no depth either, and isn’t quite as fun or varied as, say, T2: The Arcade Game is. Still, Lethal Enforcers 2 is a fun little lightgun game, worth getting for a few bucks if you like this genre. This game has aged much worse than many of the other popular Genesis games, but there is still some fun to be had. Arcade port, also on Sega cD. The SCD versions of the Lethal Enforcers games have improved audio and maybe also graphics, but mostly seems to be the same as the cart releases.
Light Crusader – 1 player, battery save to cartridge. Light Crusader is an isometric action-adventure dungeon-crawler game from Treasure. Treasure is famous for their great games like Dynamite Headdy or Gunstar Heroes, but also has a history of making … more average … games as well, and this is one of the latter type, unfortunately. Light Crusader is not a bad game, but it’s not all that good, either. This is a simple, small-scale game. The game has a very Western art style, an interesting choice for a Japanese game. The game looks okay to good, but isn’t really impressive looking, particularly for a 1995 release; Treasure could do better. You are Sir David, and need to save the kingdom from evil by going through a six-floor dungeon. Yes, this one dungeon with town above is the whole game. It will be a challenging journey, and I lost interest somewhere around floor two of the dungeon, but the scale of the game is limited. As with most isometric games of the time — Solstice, those numerous ’80s European computer games, etc.– the world is broken up into screens, each a separate challenge. You have a map on the pause menu, thankfully, to help you navigate the maze of rooms. This game really is Treasure’s attempt at a game like Solstice and such, and it shows throughout, from that Western art style, to the kinds of puzzles and challenges you will face in the rooms, to the general look and feel of the game. I don’t like Solstice all that much, though, and don’t care for this game either. Of the isometric games I have for the Genesis, Landstalker and Sonic 3D Blast are the good ones, while this is well behind in third.
Ingame, you explore around the dungeon. Levels have blocks to push, switches to hit, treasures and items to collect or buy, enemies to kill, and tricky jumping puzzles to solve. Unfortunately, it can be hard to tell the perspective in this game, so jumping puzzles are harder than they should be. I have much less trouble making jumps in Landstalker than I do here, it’s just a little easier to see where you are there. Combat is also worse than Landstalker, as your attack range is far too short. Your sword barely hits beyond your sprite, so you’re going to take hits all the time while trying to fight the enemies. It’s frustrating stuff. I do like some of the puzzles, though, and the game will make you think as you explore around and try to figure out what you can do — where can I push that block? What is that pillar emitting a beam for? Etc. Puzzles start easy, but get harder as you progress in a reasonable curve. There are also occasional bosses along the way, and these can be tough, particularly with your short attack range. I’m not sure if it’s worth the hassle; sure, with enough tries you can probably beat them and you can save your game at save rooms so you don’t have to start over from the start after dying (as long as the cart battery lasts, that is), but I just don’t find this game very fun to play. I’ve never gotten past floor two, and when trying the game again for this summary I was happy to quit after dying at the first boss; it meant I didn’t have to play the game anymore. Light Crusader is an average game for its genre, overall — it’s better than some, but worse than others. The game has okay graphics and some decent puzzles, but the frustrating jumping, unfun combat, and limited scale of the game all hold it back. Probably don’t bother with this one unless you like this kind of game, or really want to play all of Treasure’s games. This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega’s Genesis games.
Lightening Force: Quest for the Darkstar – 1 player. Lightening Force, also known as Thunder Force IV, is Techno Soft’s last and best Genesis shmup. This game released in 1992, the year the shmup genre peaked in game releases in Japan. This is an absolutely incredible game, easily among the best shmups of the generation in both graphics and gameplay. The game begins with LIGHTENING FORCE scrolling by interspersed with scenes of your ship, as the games great opening fanfare plays, and it just gets better from there! Visually Lightening Force might be the Genesis’s best-looking shooter. The story is somewhat depressing apparently, going by the ending; there is no story before the end, just as it should be in this genre, but the end is a bit dark. There are ten levels here, average for the genre, with a boss at the end of each one. You can play the first four levels in any order, which is interesting, but after finishing them the second half of the levels are played in order. The default first level is particularly amazing looking with its numerous layers of parallax scrolling. All levels in this game are several screens tall, more than usual for the genre, and have multiple layers of parallax of both the strip-parallax and full parallax layer varieties. This game has maybe the best parallax scrolling of any game in the 4th generation. The sprite graphics and art design are also fantastic and very well drawn. This game gets about as much out of the Genesis as it can, and the results are impressive. Oh, and the music is great too! Lightening Force has a really great electronic techno/rock soundtrack that adds a lot to the intensity of this already-intense game. The soundtrack is one of the better ones on the system. This game both looks and sounds incredible. It is perhaps an issue that the first level is probably the best looking, but many later stages also look really great as well, and almost all have many layers of parallax. The only issue with this game visually is that it does have slowdown, but with this much action on screen it was probably inevitable even on the Genesis. Lightening Force pushes the Genesis hard.
And behind all of the awesome presentation is a fantastic, rock-solid game with great, extremely responsive controls, a nice variety of weapons that are both powerful and fun to use, and a huge number of enemies to shoot. Enemies come from the front, back, above, and below, and you always need to remember that there are going to be enemies above and below you. Unless you have a shield you die in one hit of course, so you need to be careful. There are five weapons to get though, and each can be upgraded to a more powerful form if you can stay alive. My favorite weapon is the Blade weapon, but all have their uses, and you will switch between them regularly, particularly for when enemies attack from behind and you switch to weapons better at dealing with that. This is easy enough, though, thankfully, if you know what to do; memorization is important here, as always in this genre. If you die you respawn where you died, until you run out of lives and continues of course, though you do lose your currently-equipped weapon, so try not to die with the better ones if you can. At the end of each level there is a boss of course, and they are varied, cool looking, and often tough. Each one has a different way of coming at you, and some have cool visual elements as well. Levels are just the right length here, and so is the game; at about 40 minutes if you don’t die this game is in the middle between the short 20-minute shmups, and the long (for this genre) hour-plus games. The length is just right; those 20-minute shmups can be great fun, but it’s nice that this game has a bit more to it.
So yes, this is a hard game, and it is constantly challenging you with new enemy types and fire patterns to deal with, but there is something which can help: a 100-lives cheat. All you need to do is go into the options menu before starting a game (it’s kind of hidden, but just hit the right button at the start screen), set lives-per-continue to zero, and presto, you now actually have 100 lives per continue, not zero! On this options menu you can also change the difficulty and such; though the game is tough on any setting it is easier on easy than hard, at least. I have finished this game with the 100-lives code, but not without it, sadly; it is very easy to die, and you do have limited continues. Losing your current weapon upon death is also a huge issue, as when you lose good weapons it can be hard to recover and not lose a lot of lives in a hurry. That is a classic, time-tested shmup design idea commonly seen in Gradius and R-Type games, for example, and I don’t mind it, but it does mean that to win without that code you will need to practice this game a LOT. With as great as this game is that is probably worth it, though, if you have the skill. Overall, Lightening Force is an absolutely exceptional masterpiece. This game has some of the best graphics, music, and gameplay of the generation! This is my favorite game by Technosoft, and my favorite shmup on the Genesis as well. Lightneing Force, or Thunder Force IV, is an absolute must-buy. It’s not cheap anymore sadly, but get it for sure. I know some people like Thunder Force III more, but I think this one is probably better. (Yes, I don’t have TFIII, though I do have II, IV, and Thunder Spirits for SNES. I have played the game, though.)
Lost Vikings, The – 1-3 players (with Sega multitap), password save, 6 button controller supported (and highly recommended). The Lost Vikings is a really great game I have a lot of nostalgia for. This side-scrolling puzzle-platformer from 1993 was developed by Blizzard under their original name “Silicon & Synapse” and published by Interplay. The original concept apparently was a more platformer-styled Lemmings-type game, and it is that and more. The game has great cartoony art in what would become that classic Blizzard style and fantastic, highly-polished gameplay that is as much about solving puzzles as it is about fighting enemies. I got the PC version for Christmas in 1993, and while I did not know the Blizzard name yet, a few years later I would, and in retrospect it was a step towards my later love for Blizzard games. This was the first Blizzard game I played, and it while it’s nothing like their most popular games such as Warcraft or Diablo, it is a very good game for its genre. I mostly know The Lost Vikings as the PC game I played in the ’90s, but this Genesis version is also great. The graphics aren’t quite as good as the PC or SNES versions, unfortunately. The game looks pretty good and I like the cartoony graphics; they look like a predecessor to Warcraft’s style. Even though this version does look worse than the SNES or PC versions but it still looks pretty good and close to the original. I love the graphics and animations in this game, they’re funny stuff. The music is good as well, and certainly is better than the almost nothing I had back in 1993, since our computer only had a PC Speaker and not a sound card; with PC Speaker audio the PC version has a main-menu theme, but that’s it for music. but it makes up for it with several Genesis-exclusive levels and a Genesis-only 3-player-simultaneous mode; other versions are either one player only, as I think it is on PC, or two player max, as it is on SNES. The exclusive levels particularly make this version worth getting, as no other version has exclusive levels, so this is the only way to play every level of The Lost Vikings, and you’ll want to! With good graphics, gameplay, level designs, and writing, the game is great.
The game is funny, too. I love the writing in this game, there are frequent amusing comedy moments. The interactions between the Vikings are great, as they see things completely beyond anything they can understand, from spaceships full of laser traps to ancient Egypt, the age of the dinosaurs, and more. The Lost Vikings is the comic story of three medieval vikings, Erik, Olaf, and Baleog who get kidnapped by a time-travelling villain called Tomator. They have to escape, travel through time to find home, and defeat Tomator along the way. Each one has two abilities, and there is little overlap between the three. You will need to use all three together to proceed, and this division really is the core of what makes The Lost Vikings such a great game. Only Erik can jump and charge, only Baleog can fight with sword and bow (excepting Erik’s head-bash move which is more useful for walls than enemies), and only Olaf can guard against enemy attacks and float. In the sequel (not available for Genesis) there is a lot more overlap between the characters’ abilities, and I really think it hurts the game; this first game is better because The Lost Vikings should be about having to use all three characters to solve puzzles. When they decided to put in characters that can both attack AND jump, it kind of broke the concept. The purity of the concept in this first game is far, far better — each Viking is necessary for their tasks, and useless for the others, demanding cooperation and thinking. Each Viking has a separate health bar, with 3 hits by default, and if any one of the three dies you get an immediate Game Over. Thankfully there are passwords for every level and you have infinite continues, so you aren’t set back far. There aren’t checkpoints in stages, but that’s okay; levels are reasonably sized, and are usually fun to keep trying until you get them right. If you die enough times in a stage, the Vikings will have some amusing comments… heh. You will need to carefully proceed through each level, looking for enemies, switches, and obstacles. You will often need to block enemies, lasers, of what have you with Olaf, then switch to Baleog to fight them. Baleog has separate buttons for his two weapons, which is useful. You also have an inventory; each Viking can hold four items. You can also switch which inventory item is currently selected, use an item, give the item to a different Viking, or drop (throw away) an item. You also have button(s) to switch between the three Vikings, of course; unless you are playing in multiplayer, you can only control one at a time, and the others will just stand where you last left them. All these functions are why why the 6-button controller really is essential, the 3-button pad does not have nearly enough buttons for this game. With the right controller though the game plays great.
Overall, The Lost Vikings is a great game. I’ve liked it a lot ever since I first got the game, and it still holds up very well. The game is a challenging game full of tricky puzzles, but that’s how it should be! This game is all about the puzzles so they need to be challenging for the game to stay fun, and they are. Levels are complex and multi-layered, and you’ll need to keep your eye out for items hidden everywhere. Many will be important. If you think you might be able to get somewhere, use your Vikings together to get there! Olaf’s shield can work as a platform to help Erik reach higher areas as you search around, Baleog’s bow allows him to hit distant switches, and Olaf can float slowly to the ground in areas where the other two would fall to their deaths; make use of these abilities. With great level designs, good graphics and sound, good controls if you have 6-button controllers, exclusive levels and an exclusive 3-player mode, and more, The Lost Vikings is a fantastic game I’ve liked a lot for a long time now. The game isn’t one of the all-time greats, but it is a pretty good little B-grade game and it’s absolutely worth getting. This Genesis version is a must-have for fans of the game to see those levels you won’t see anywhere else. The Lost Vikings was originally made for PC, Amiga, Atari ST, and SNES; this Genesis version came a little later. The SNES version has seen multiple ports and re-releases, including on the Game Boy Advance and for free download on Blizzard’s website, but this Genesis version is exclusive to the platform.
Lost World, The: Jurassic Park – 1-2 player simultaneous, password save. The Lost World is the third and final Genesis Jurassic Park game, and it’s different from the others. By Appaloosa, this 1997 release is also the last non-sports Genesis game released by Sega in the US. While this game isn’t great, at least Sega went out with a pretty decent game. The Lost World is based on the movie of the same name, but you do not play as one of the major characters from the film. Instead, you play as a generic bounty hunter, out to do missions on this island full of dinosaurs. It’s odd you don’t play as the movie characters, but I don’t mind; this works. This is a top-down action game, so it’s a bit more like the NES and first SNES Jurassic Park game than the previous two Genesis Jurassic Park games, both of which are sidescrollers. The game has good graphics and decent gameplay. I’ve never quite found this game engaging enough to want to play deep into the game, but it is a decently fun game with some good ideas. The game definitely looks quite nice. The dinosaurs are very well drawn and look great, and have a good number of frames of animation as well. People and vehicles also look very good. This definitely looks like the late release that it is. Some are more threatening than others, and since this game is top-down you don’t have to kill them all if you don’t want; you can often avoid them, if they aren’t your objective or attacking you. That’s good. The backgrounds also look really nice, as expected from the studio which made the Ecco games and Kolibri. The audio is nice as well, decent atmospheric stuff. It’s no Ecco CD soundtrack, but it fits.
This is a mission-based game, and it has a nice amount of variety. Sort of like in the other Genesis JP games, you have quite a nice arsenal of weapons to collect, lots of dinos to fight, and plenty of territory to explore. The game world is fairly open, and you often will have several different missions to choose from, with a hub level in the middle and missions off to various sides. Levels are large, but thankfully there is a very useful map on the pause menu. You will often be pausing to go look at it. The pause menu also has a dino encyclopedia with information about the ones you can face in the area and also a mission-objective screen telling you what to do; this is also very useful. The game has okay controls, but they aren’t as tight as they are in the best games like this. Hit detection is also probably not perfect, though you do have a sizable health meter so it works. Running around shooting dinosaurs is fun, and you’ll do plenty of that in this game! There are even some vehicles to control, which is pretty cool. There is a nice variety of missions. Sometimes you’ll just have to kill things, but other times you will have to lure dinosaurs into giant traps, or other such things. I like that there is more to this game than just basic shooting. It’s also great that the game has passwords, not enough Genesis games have those. Still, after a while the game does get repetitive. All you really can do in this game is walk around, shoot, switch weapons, and activate things; that’s it. There are puzzle elements to the game, such as figuring out how to lure dinosaurs where you need them, avoiding mines, navigating the large and mazelike levels, and more but it’s mostly relatively straightforward. Some occasional areas do mix things up with things like some pretty nice software-scaler driving levels for instance, but most of the game plays in top-down jungles and the like. And this game is long for the platform, too — it will take multiple hours at the minimum, more if you get lost, which you certainly will. The game does have a nice co-op mode, but still, it’ll take a while. The shortest Youtube longplay video is 3 1/2 hours long, for instance. While this game is good, it hasn’t held my interest long enough to get anywhere near the end. Still, The Lost World is a good game and it is worth considering. Maybe pick it up. There are other games with this same name on other systems, but this game is Genesis-exclusive. Do avoid the Game Gear Lost World game, though! It’s a terrible, half-hour-long joke of a game, sadly.
Lotus Turbo Challenge – 1-2 player simultaneous, password save. Lotus Turbo Challenge is a simple but fun driving game from Gremlin and published by EA. Gremlin is perhaps more famous for making the three Top Gear games for the Super Nintendo (and Genesis, for Top Gear 2), but this one is a simpler game than those. And that’s where the problems lie; while Lotus Turbo Challenge is a good game, it released on Genesis at the same time or after after the first Top Gear for SNES, but full-screen support excepted isn’t as good of a game. This is a simpler game than Top Gear. Visually, this game looks like a Gremlin racing game. It’s got that distinctive look that the SNES Top Gear games also share, and the software scaling is quite good. The game plays fairly smoothly and runs fast, which is great. The art design is only average, but it looks nice enough. Aurally the game isn’t as good, though. Unfortunately, unlike their SNES games, on the Genesis Gremlin somehow managed to never figure out how to have sound and music at the same time, so while all three SNES games have both sound effects and music at once, here on the Genesis all three of their games have either one or the other but not both. It’s really disappointing, they could have done better; most Genesis racers have both sound and music, there is no excuse for this! As with the first SNES Top Gear games there are only four songs in this game, but they aren’t quite as great as the music is in that game. Forced splitscreen in Top Gear 1 aside that game looks better as well, and Top Gear 2 and 3000 look a lot better, though those did release later. It is nice that this game has full-screen support in single player, but that doesn’t make up for the lacking audio or not-quite-as-good graphical detail, compared to that game.
In gameplay, despite the issues above, Lotus IS quite fun to play, and to its credit it runs better than a lot of Genesis racing games. Gameplay matters t he most in a game, and this game plays well. This is a simpler game than Top Gear, though. Instead of being a sequence of lap-based races, this is a point-to-point game. The game is broken up into several tracks, each with a different setting. Each track has eight checkpointed sections, and you need to reach the end before time runs out. Unlike Lotus 2 or Top Gear, there is no fuel system here and no lap races, only point-to-point driving. Your only opponent is the clock, too; the other cars on the road are just obstacles you need to avoid, not real opposition. The clock is tight though, and by the third track the game gets very difficult. It is fun to challenge it though, and you get a password each time you reach the next track so you can save your progress. This is the simplest of Gremlin’s 4th-gen console racing games, but it is fun. Challenging the tracks and trying to get farther in the game is great fun here, just like it is in Top Gear, but that game is a bit more complex than this one, and does play slightly better. Still, this game is good as well. It controls well, looks okay and runs very well for the time, has one and two player play, has several cars to drive, has plenty of content considering how hard it will be to finish, and is a good fun time all around. It’s just very similar to Top Gear, but not quite as great. I really love Top Gear for SNES, though, so it’s awesome to have this game as well! This may not be an A-grade classic, but it is a good B-grade game well worth getting. This game is adapted from an Amiga series of the same name, but I don’t think it’s a straight port.
Lotus Turbo Challenge II: R.E.C.S. – 1-2 player simultaneous, passwords (for creation mode only, you can't save circuit progress). Lotus II is a game which is both good, and also frustratingly flawed. This game has ambitious ideas, but can’t quite execute on them, sadly. Released in 1993, the same year as Top Gear 2 for SNES, Lotus II is bigger and more content-rich than the first game, but still lags behind its SNES counterpart. Sadly, the audio limitation returns — once again, sadly, you can only have music or engine sounds, and not both. Otherwise it’s better, though. Visually the game looks similar to the first Lotus, but with some minor graphical improvements and with more settings to drive through. This time you can do both circuit or point-to-point races, for example, and the game also introduces the somewhat interesting R.E.C.S. mode, where you can customize your own course. You can’t actually directly design the course, but you can adjust a lot of slider bars which determine what will be found on the track and in what quantity. Once you have generated a track to your liking you can test it, and also save it via a password you’ll have to write down. The passwords aren’t too long, thankfully, only 10-ish digits. I like that they tried something different here; I haven’t seen something like this in any other linescroll racing game. Still, while it is a cool option, the editor is limited in features; you can sort of make your own track, but doesn’t add as much to the game as it would have with a Mach Rider-style track creator.
Gameplay-wise, little has changed. This game does add a fuel system like in Top Gear, you can race against people instead of only the clock, and there are more places to race in and slightly better graphics, but otherwise it is the same as before. Gremlin’s 5th-gen racers all play great, so that’s okay, but Top Gear 2 has more added gameplay features than this one. This game runs just as well as the first one, thankfully; if only Outrun on the Genesis was as playable as these games are! The controls are good as always. This game has a major problem in its circuit design, however. The clock is still your main opponent; if you run out of time it’s an instant Game Over. And once you get Game Over, this games’ biggest flaw is revealed: you get no continues in this game, and there is no saving your progress in championships, either! Unlike the first game or any Top Gear game, this game does not have progression. Instead, you can choose the length and difficulty of the circuit you wish to attempt from the main menu. Circuits are made up of multiple tracks, and tracks vary in length; some are shorter three-lap or three-segment affairs, but others can be up to eight segments. It’s not reasonable to expect people to play through ten tracks of five to eight segments each without allowing saving at any point, in a game where running out of time once at any time in the game means you have to start the entire circuit over from the beginning! There are passwords on each level-info screen, but those just let you play that layout in the RECS mode; there is no way to save your progress in a championship and you get no continues. If the time limits weren’t so easy to fail this wouldn’t be as bad, but running out of time isn’t just likely, it’s inevitable. The frustration of getting game over midway through circuits is my main impression of this otherwise-good game. With a reasonable continue system within the circuits and perhaps also a better progression system instead of just ‘play anything from the menu’ this game could have been good, but instead it’s very frustrating and quickly stops being fun.
Overall, Lotus II is an average-at-best game with some good points and some flaws. Visually this game runs well, but doesn’t look anywhere near as good as Top Gear 2 for SNES, and the music and sounds still can’t play at the same time, unlike Gremlin’s SNES racers. In gameplay, the game plays well, but doesn’t quite have Top Gear’s balance; this game is a bit harder, and the inability to save makes it too frustrating for its own good. The lack of any progression is also a problem; there is less of a sense of accomplishment when winning just dumps you back at the menu and you can play the circuits in any order, if you can manage to win at all that is. Randomly generating courses and playing them can be amusing, but still, I’d rather play any of the SNES Top Gear games; they are better all-around. I don’t have Gremlin’s last Genesis racer, a Genesis port of Top Gear 2, but as with these two games it apparently still has no way to play music and sound at once, and has graphics significantly downgraded from the SNES. Gremlin got their Genesis games running fast, but never could manage great Genesis graphics or audio mixing, unfortunately, and it holds their games on this platform back. I’d recommend the first Genesis Lotus game over this one. This game is an altered port of Lotus III for the Amiga. This game, though, is mostly for people who like hard games or the idea or RECS editing.
Sega Genesis Game Opininion Summaries - Work In Progress - A Black Falcon - 22nd December 2015
List of games in this update
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Mallet Legend's Whac-A-Critter
Mario Andretti Racing
Marsupilami
Marvel Land
Mazin Saga: Mutant Fighter
Mega Turrican
MERCS
Mick & Mack: Global Gladiators
Micro Machines
Mallet Legend’s Whac-A-Critter – 1 player, supports the very rare Smash Controller made just for this game. Note that this game is NOT compatible with the 32X, so you’ll need to remove it to play the game. I recommend keeping the 32X attached and not playing this. Mallet Legend’s Whac-A-Critter, or Mallet Legend as it says on the title screen, is an unlicensed Genesis game from Realtec. This absolutely horrendously terrible game is probably the worst, least fun to play game I own for the Genesis; it’s easy to see why they didn’t bother trying to get a license, considering how bad this game is. Whac-A-Critter is a Whack-a-mole game. As usual for whackamole, you hit things coming out of holes in a nine-hole grid. Here hitting the hit button hits the center space, and hitting a d-pad direction plus the pad hits that space. Various creatures will pop out of these holes in the ground, and you hit them with a mallet. The idea is an arcade classic, but it’s not something which works well at all at home; it’s far too simple to make a good videogame. To mix things up a bit, this game has more animals than just the usual moles to whack and multiple levels, but the game really is just whac-a-mole, the videogame. You just whack creatures, and that’s about it. Unfortunately, they did a terrible job of it here. This game has a lot of problems. First the concept is really simplistic and has zero depth, but worse the difficulty is completely out of balance — this game is impossible! There is progression in this game, with multiple levels and a world map showing which stage you are on, but the game very quickly gets impossibly difficult. You’ve got to hit a target percentage of the creatures in each stage, but by level two or three, you won’t; the game doesn’t give you enough time to have a chance in a videogame where you can only hit one space at a time while half of the board is covered in enemies popping out of holes, most of which you’ll never be able to get to. There IS that super-rare special controller for this game which I do not have. It looks like a set of nine buttons, pretty much, emulating a whack-a-mole game board. It may make the game a little bit more playable, but I don’t have it so I can’t say for sure. People who have used it who do have it say that the game is still insanely difficult even with it. This game just wasn’t very well made, unfortunately. There are not many unlicensed Genesis games which got released in the US during its life from companies that never released a licensed game, so it is interesting to have this, but overall Mallet Legend’s Whac-A-Critter is utterly abysmal. The broken difficulty level is the worst problem and kept me, and most other people going by what I hear about this game online, from getting past something like the second level of the game, but even without that the overly simplistic gameplay does not hold up at all as a home console game. Whack-a-mole is okay for a minute in an arcade, but at home, on a console? It feels like a one-minigame minigame not-collection, with no other content. And that minigame is so broken it’s barely playable. Don’t buy this!
Magical Taruruuto-kun (J) – 1 player. Magical Taruruuto-kun is a platformer made by Game Freak and published by Sega. Yes, this is a platformer from the team that would go on to make Pokemon. This is a licensed platformer based on the early ’90s childrens’ anime series of the same name. Because of the soon-to-be-successful developer this is easily the best-known Taruruuto-kun game, but I got several others first, namely the first NES game, the SNES game, and the Game Gear game. The NES and SNES games, which were published by __ and I think were actually made by TOSE, are good but extremely difficult platformers with an interesting block-licking mechanic, battery save, a fair amount of story text between levels, and more. I like them, but they are kind of crazy-hard for something supposedly for kids. The Game Gear game, also published by Sega but not made by a team anywhere near as good as Game Freak, is a shmup. You fly to the right as Taruruuto-kun, shooting baddies as they approach. It’s a short and very easy game and isn’t worth much of your time. It is interesting how different the games based on Taruruuto-kun are. This one has a magic staff which you possess blocks with to throw them around, entirely unlike the Nintendo games. The Nintendo ones are harder than this game, too, even though they have saving while this one doesn’t. The NES game particularly is really hard. I’m not sure which one I like more; the NES, SNES, and Genesis games are all interesting and worth a try.
So how does this game compare to those others? Well, the Genesis game here is fun but simple. This is a straightforward platformer. You walk to the right at Taruruuto-kun, run and jump on platforms, and have a magic staff as a weapon. You can’t jump on enemies to hurt them; instead you have to hit them with your stick, or throw things at them. You see, if you hit various objects in the world, you will grab them and carry them around. Then you can throw those objects forward, taking out enemies in front of you. It’s fun stuff, particularly because of the cute cartoon eyes that appear on objects as you carry them around. YOu also have a somewhat Sonic-like momentum system, so you’ll run slower up hills, jump farther when you are running, and such. You can also glide after jumping, though gliding is floaty and somewhat hard to control; while this game is good, the controls could be a bit better. It controls okay, but not quite as well as a Mario or Sonic game. While there is definite challenge here thanks to the usual Genesis design of limited continues and no saving, compared to the NES and SNES games this feels much more like what you’d expect from a kids’ game. This is a fun, fairly simple game and the idea is easy to understand. Level designs are simple, and the game has a nice difficulty curve which makes you want to keep coming back for more, to see the next part of the game next time. Levels do get more complex as you progress, so while the first level has no instant-death pits, they do start appearing in level two. Bosses often require skilled use of your throwing-stuff mechanic, which is nice.
This game starts out with a setting based on the school from the show. I like that this game tries to follow the series’ settings better than the entirely videogame-level-themed NES and SNES games. The graphics here are pretty good. It’s interesting how much this game looks like Game Freak’s later work on the Pokemon series; you can tell that this is a game Freak game, particularly thanks to the look of the sprites and enemies. They have that distinctive Pokemon style and must have been drawn by the same artist who would later go on to design the Pokemon. I’m sure a lot of people will like that, and they do look nice. The backgrounds and main character art is mostly inspired by the series, but it’s all done with a Game Freak style. Even though I’m a Nintendo fan I’ve never cared for Pokemon at all, so this isn’t a big plus for me, but the art is pretty good; the graphics here look nice. Each level has a new setting, and all look good. This is definitely an above-average-looking game for the Genesis, visually. The music is good enough too, though the graphics are probably better.
On the whole, Magical Taruruuto-kun is a good but not great platformer. It’s fun to play, but isn’t anything special or overly original. It is a simpler and shorter game than the NES/SNES games, and I do wish it had battery save like those do, or passwords either. Still, with good graphics, good level designs, and some nice challenges as you progress. Those graphics are pretty good, and Pokemon fans particularly will like them. This is an above-average game overall, but it could be better. While this is a good game, I don’t love it; the game has little depth. It’s just a decently fun licensed game, but it is good for a licensed game. As for the other games based on this license, Bandai’s NES (Famicom) games are the most interesting; they’re hard, but fun and well made. But more important than the license is the developer. Game Freak has mostly made RPGs of course in their ultra-popular Pokemon series, but the have made a few platformers. I know of three — this, Pulseman (Genesis), and Drill Dozer (Game Boy Advance). I haven’t played much of Pulseman though it looks pretty good, but Drill Dozer is fun, though I don’t like the game nearly as much as some; the shoulder-button-based drill controls are quite annoying, and not as responsive as face buttons would be. Anyway, Taruruuto-kun for the Genesis, or Megadrive rather, is a decent, fun game well worth a look, if you can find a copy. It is import-only, but isn’t region-locked so it will play on a US system, if you have a way of plugging in the carts — Japanese carts are a different shape from Western ones. I can fit Japanese carts into my 32X, so I use that, but for a regular Genesis you may need to cut the corners off of the cart port on top of the case.
Mario Andretti Racing – 1-2 player simultaneous, password save. Mario Andretti Racing is a linescroll racing game from EA. You can race three different cars, and they are different. This game is far from their arcadey Road Rash games on the Genesis, though; Mario Andretti Racing tries to be slightly more simmish, though as a 4th-gen console game the actual sim elements are limited — these consoles aren’t powerful enough to do a real car sim, that wouldn’t be seen on consoles until at least the Sega CD; F1 Beyond the Limit for SCD is very impressive! Instead this game has fairly arcadey driving, except with a bit skiddier driving model than you’d see in a better Genesis racing game. Mario Andretti Racing isn’t awful, it’s just really boring. I don’t find this game at all interesting to play. I’m sure there is an audience for this game, but I am definitely not it; “boring” is the first word I think of when I think of this game. The game has some good points, though. There is decent presentation in the menus, the ingame graphics are solid for the system and I like the pseudo-3d trackside wall, you have a career mode to try to complete and can save your progress there with passwords, the three types of cars each handle differently, and the game has 15 tracks, a reasonable number. The splitscreen multiplayer is nice too; not all racing games of the era have it. However, the game has more problems than strengths. While technically the game is kind of good, artistically the game is very bland and average. The cars aren’t great looking. The game is designed for split-screen play, too.l While you can switch to a full-screen view, the top half of the screen is just empty sky so there’s no point. Instead, I’d recommend playing with the track map on the top half of the screen, in one player mode; it is useful. Fullscreen-optimized visuals would be better, though, with a small minimap added preferably. The game has absolutely no ingame music, either, just engine sound. The menu music’s nice, but you get into a race and it’s just a droning silence. This really makes teh game feel dull and uninteresting; yes, many 4th-gen F1 games are similar, but it’s bad there also.
The core racing is flawed, too. Of the three car types, only one, the open-wheel car (F1/IndyCar-style), controls well. The first, the Sprint Car, controls terribly, with horribly skiddy controls; it’s very hard to avoid constantly hitting the walls in Sprint Car races. The Stock Car is in between the other two, so it doesn’t control well, but isn’t as bad as the Sprint car. And those 15 tracks? It’s broken up into five tracks for each car, and you cannot race on the other vehicles’ tracks with the wrong car type. Come on, that’s not a nice restriction! The sprint cars have five ovals, the stock car three ovals and two road courses, and the F1/Indycar car five road courses. The bad controls make the main game mode very hard to play, too. In the campaign, you start in sprint cars, and have to work your way up… but you probably won’t want to, not after seeing how annoying they are to drive! Single races in the open-wheel car are better, but I want more than just single races. The thick manual does try to help you learn how to play the game, and there is an ingame mode where Mario Andretti himself (supposedly) gives you hints for each track, but overall I’d much rather play a better game instead. Mario Andretti Racing is a boring, below-average game I can’t recommend to anyone except diehard car-racing game fans who absolutely must play a Genesis game of that kind of racing. Really though, stick with arcade racing games on 4th-gen consoles, and don’t bother with this.
Marsupilami – 1 player, password save, 6 button controller supported. Marsupilami is an okay puzzle-platformer from Sega. This 1996 game is a late release, and it does have good graphics, but the gameplay is frustrating. This game is based on a not-too-popular Disney cartoon of the same name. I do remember the character, but didn’t watch the show much, though I did read a few comics starring Marsupilami. You are the eponymous Marsupilami, a furry creature with a very long tail. That long tail is Marsupilami’s main unique feature and a lot of the comedy in the series centered around Marsupilami doing silly things with his tail, but here it’s your tool to solve the puzzles in each level, and beat the enemies as well. This game is fairly nicely animated and has good graphics, though it doesn’t look great, as the backgrounds are somewhat average and sprites aren’t up to the level of the best Genesis games. The visuals and sound are fine, though, and I like the way the tail animates, which is important when you’ve got a half-screen-long tail on screen all the time. The issues lie in the gameplay.
So, this game is as much about puzzles as it is platforming. Your goal in each level is not to reach the end yourself, but to help your elephant friend escape each stage. So yeah, the entire game is an escort mission… that’s not good. Fortunately the elephant can’t take damage, but still, the game gets frustrating fast. You’ve got a tight time limit to deal with, lots of enemies, and some obtuse puzzles to figure out — and if you die a few times it’s back to the beginning of the world. Yes, there are passwords thankfully, but only between multi-level worlds, not after each stage. With passwords after each stage this would be a much more fun game, but as it is it’s frustrating. Anyway, without your help the poor elephant will just walk back and forth, so you’ve got to use your tail to make stairs, to scare the elephant into going the direction you want, to fight off the enemies, and more. You can hold up to four different tail actions at a time, and switch between them with X and Z or on the pause screen (for 3-button controllers). Yes, the game is a lot more fun with a 6-button pad, much less pausing. A attacks, B jumps, and C uses your current tail action. The most common one is using the tail as stairs, to help the elephant get over boxes. You’ve got to stand right at the edge of the TOP of the box then hit C; you can’t make stairs from the ground, or from too far from the edge. It’s context-sensitive and there are no indicators of where you can use it, so it can be frustrating at times.
Also frustrating is the elephant itself. He walks slowly, and will just walk back and forth endlessly, so you often have to wait for him to catch up… but oops, you didn’t make those tail-stairs in time, he turned around and is going the other way! Do you want to wait for him to walk over and come back, or go over, hit him to turn him around, then hope you have the time to jump back on the box and create the stairs in time? Either way, you just lost some precious time. I like puzzle games plenty well enough, but making an entire game a long escort mission was a mistake, I think. Hit detection is a bit iffy at times too — landing on the elephant’s back requires more precision than I would like. Still, it is rewarding when you figure out what to do in a stage and go on to the next one. I only wish I wasn’t being sent back to the first one so often because of harder stages three or four levels in, before I’ve gotten to the next password. Overall, Marsupilami is an average puzzle-platform game. It might be worth a try if you like this kind of game, but isn’t something to look too hard for.
Marvel Land – 1 player, password save. Marvel Land is a platformer from Namco. The first Klonoa (PS1/Wii) aside Namco has never been known for great platformers, but this game can be good. Unfortunately, it also has its bad side as well, but overall it is above average at least. Despite its issues, the terrible framerate most importantly, this game is probably under-rated, since it’s usually totally ignored but it is interesting. The game has a very basic, cliche story — you are an part-dragon boy who has to save the kidnapped princess in this fantasy land. Original. The setting is a bit better, though, as Marvel Land has a theme-park aesthetic. The “Marvel Land” of the title is a theme park in this fantasy kingdom, and you’ve got to travel through all of it on your quest. This isn’t a fast-paced game like Sonic, it’s a more NES-like platformer. You run, jump, collect powerups for points, high jumping, an actual attack beyond “jump on heads”, and more, navigate tricky platform-jumping-heavy levels, and try to stay alive. That may be difficult, but it can be fun. The actual levels are your usual assortment of themed areas, so there’s the theme-park area, the water area, the fire area, etc., but still, I like the concept. The main character has that short-tunic-and-no-pants look that was common in ’80s to early ’90s male fantasy characters, but you are a guy, though it is kind of hard to tell what gender he is in the ingame sprite. This game has small sprites, you see. Marvel Land looks okay, but the graphics are all on the small size, and distinguishing details can be difficult. Environments are only okay looking at best. Sprite size here is much closer to Kid Chameleon than Sonic the Hedgehog, as a comparison, though both are better games than this. The smaller size does give you decent visibility around you, though, and the graphics are at least somewhat varied. The music is similarly okay but not great.
That’s fine, but it has some issues, game speed and controls most importantly. Yes, this game has TERRIBLE slowdown, maybe the worst I have seen in a Genesis game. This game will jump back and forth between average speed and terrible slowdown in a hurry. Namco tries to pull off some sprite-rotation effects, but they make the framerate go so low the game almost stops sometimes. Just having a couple of moving platforms and two enemies will also cause the framerate to drop through the floor. This game is on the same console as Sonic the Hedgehog, really? You can’t tell, sadly, that’s for sure! Namco seriously needed to work on the programming in this game, the awful slowdown really hurts it. Almost as bad are the controls. Most of the time, you attack by jumping on your enemies. You can get a limited-used powerup that lets you attack in a circle around you, but you’ll do a lot of jumping on heads here, and you need pixel-perfect accuracy to not die, which is difficult thanks to this games’ slippery controls. This game is all about jumping puzzles over death pits while enemies you may or may not be able to kill either stand in your way or attack you, and the skiddy controls make your task more difficult. This game is fun at first, but by the later levels it’s a frustrating pain. The game has lots of secrets to find if you stick with it, though, including warps that send you either forward or backward in the game. Every level does have a password, thankfully; just get game over to see it. This really helps take the sting off of falling for a “warp back to level 1-1” trap, and some warps will send you forwards so doors are worth checking out. In conclusion, Marvel Land is an above-average game. The awful framerate dips and slippery controls are annoying, and the game gets hard later on in ways that wouldn’t be quite as bad if you had a more reliable attack and more precise jumping controls, but it’s an interesting game despite its problems. The Genesis doesn’t have too many of these more 3rd-gen styled platformers, so this one is nice to see and it does mostly play well. The bright and colorful graphics, variety, varied level designs full of enemies, traps, and obstacles to figure out how to get past, numerous secrets to look for, and the games’ challenge will keep you coming back, if the flaws don’t drive you away. Overall Marvel Land isn’t perfect, but definitely is worth playing if you’re a platformer fan. Arcade port.
Mazin Saga: Mutant Fighter – 1 player. Mazin Saga is a mediocre licensed beat em up with fighting game elements by Almanic, and published by Sega in Japan and Europe and Vic Tokai in the US. Yes, this is one of those games Sega outsourced to an external publisher in the US. And after playing it, it’s not too hard to see why: this game isn’t that great. Mazin Saga is an average beat ’em up with terrible 1-on-1 boss fights at the end of each stage that ruin the game. The game has no multiplayer, average-at-best graphics, only five levels, and not much fun to be had thanks to those awful, and absurdly difficult, 1-on-1 fights. In the levels though, this is an okay beat ’em up. You play as a Mazinger Z, popular anime franchise of the same name. This is one of Sega’s few Japanese licensed games that actually released here in the US, perhaps because they thought the robots-and-monsters theme would work well enough whether or not people knew the license. While that is true, I wish the game was better. At first the game seems decent, maybe even good. The beat ’em up levels are entertaining. They have the usual isometric perspective with depth, which is good; I like this style better than side-scrolling beat ’em ups. The visuals are okay, you have some moves to use, there is a moderate amount of level-design variety, and beating the baddies is decent fun. Sure, the music isn’t too good, but the visuals are better. But then you reach the first boss, and the game completely falls apart. While the idea here is sound — you fight the boss 1-on-1, just like the fights in the TV shows like this or Power Rangers — the execution is awful, with bad controls, absurdly difficult AI, and very limited movement. These fights are side-scrolling and are very zoomed in, and you awkwardly swing your guy’s weapons around as you try to do more damage than you take. It’s not good. I wish the game had just had regular beat ’em up bosses, then it would probably be an average beat ’em up worth a look, but that wasn’t to be. As it is, probably pass on this one unless you’re a big fan of the anime. It’s not fun to play and will only frustrate. The absence of multiplayer, a staple feature in this genre, is also disappointing. Of course you couldn’t have those 1-on-1 fights with two goodguys on screen, but that’s another reason to not have them. Ah well. Overall Mazin Saga: Mutant Fighter is a quite bad game not worth getting.
Mega Turrican – 1 player, 6 button controller supported. Mega Turrican is an amazing platform-action game from Factor 5. This is the third or fourth game in the Turrican series, depending on how you count; Super Turrican and Mega Turrican were developed at about the same time. Super Turrican released first, but I think this game started development earlier. Super and Mega Turrican are both really fantastic games, among my favorite run & gun-ish platformers ever. This series is amazing and incredibly under-rated! Yes, with great graphics, great music, fantastic action, a reasonable-length game to play through, good controls and weapons, good level designs, and more, Mega Turrican is fantastic. Turrican was originally concieved by Rainbow Arts’ Manfred Trenz as a cross between a European platformer, Contra, and Metroid. Your character, Turrican, moves around in large Euro-platformer-like levels, but you have a gun, a large arsenal, and a lot of stuff to shoot like Contra, and a Metroid-like rolling-ball form as well. All games in the series control very well. Factor 5 ported the first two Turrican games to the Amiga, but were not the original developers. Their Amiga versions are the basis for the Genesis ports of both games (to be covered below). After that, Factor 5 took on the series themselves and made three Turrican games, the aforementioned two plus Super Turrican 2 for the SNES. Factor 5’s Turrican games are different from the first two in important ways, so most people prefer one style or the other. This game and the Super Turrican games are much more linear, less open, better-looking, games with better controls and much more consistently paced action than the first two. The Fa ctor 5 games also have much better health systems with hit-flash and invincibility after being hit, instead of the very quickly-draining health meters of the first two games. The improved health systems are one of the best things about these games versus those ones. However, some people prefer the large, sprawling levels and exploration component of the first two games, and there is a lot less of that here than in either previous game, that is true. Mega Turrican has some bigger levels with larger areas to explore and lots of secrets to find, but it also has many very linear stages. Super Turrican is probably even less open, and Super Turrican 2 has almost no exploration and is mostly just a linear path through a constant assault of tough action scenes.
Personally, I like the balance Super and Mega Turrican make. They have enough exploration to be interesting, but have focused, well-designed action encounters in a way the first two games aren’t quite as good at. The level designs here are some of the best in the genre. In some levels you move along a liner path making tricky jumps while trying to stay alive. Other times you go through boss-heavy stages with frequent bossfights between short platforming segments. And other times you will explore large open levels, searching for secrets and the exit before time runs out as you face the opposition. The enemies are varied too, and are different in each area. There are small jumping foes, larger walking or running ones, and others which fly around homing in on you. You’re always seeing something new in this game, and it’s great. Some things do also appear in Super Turrican, but I don’t mind this; the games are quite different, despite their shared mechanics. Super and Mega Turrican aren’t as hard as a Contra or Metal Slug game, either; this is a very beatable game for even average players, if you stick wit hit and replay the game a few times. You do have limited continues and no saving here, but I’ve beaten it, and I think anyone can with a bit of practice. Enemies stay dead once you kill them so you don’t need to worry about respawning enemies, thankfully, unlike some games in this genre. This is no Contra: Hard Corps, difficulty-wise, and it’s better for it. The game has a good difficulty curve from the easy first few levels to the larger and tougher later ones. This game has lots of intense, well-designed action throughout. I like how the game mixes things up versus Super Turrican; while the games share some settings, they aren’t all the same, in interesting ways later on. The first time I got far into this game, I expected it to end at a certain point based on where Super Turrican ended, but this game has several more levels after that, for example. This game is a little longer than Super Turrican and probably is a little tougher than that game, but neither one is really hard. The other three Turrican games are harder, though they aren’t better.
The game mechanics are slightly different, too. All Turrican games only allow you to shoot left or right, but you have some kind of beam as well. In the first two games, you had a beam attack that would activate if you held down fire for long enough while standing still. In Super Turrican, you have a freeze ray, which is quite helpful. Here, however, you have a grappling rope. This will not damage enemies, and instead helps you move around, as you can attach it to almost any wall or ceiling, and then swing around on the rope once attached. Getting used to the rope controls take a bit of practice, but it is very useful at many points in the game. The rope will be essential for finding all of the many hidden items, powerups, and shortcuts in the game. I like it, but I do miss a beam attack. The only thing you have here that can attack up or down are your limited-use bomb attacks (hit X, Y, or Z) and weak homing missiles, if you have picked them up and then not died and lost them. Still, the mobility is interesting. Super Turrican 2 would cover both bases — it has both a grappling hook and a freeze ray. The rope here is more versatile than the very limited angles that the Super Turrican 2 grapple works at, but that’s both good and bad as it means that it will take a bit longer to get used to. Once you figure it out the rope does allow for some interesting maneuvers, though, and I like having it. The game has nice level variety, too. There are several levels in each environment in the game, but each stage is unique and feels different from the others.
So, with fantastic graphics that get a lot out of the system, a really good soundtrack, great levels with a lot of variety in visuals, enemies, and level design concepts, a fair but surmountable challenge, some cool weapons, lots of secrets to find in many stages, and more, Mega Turrican is an amazing game that well deserves its high place in my Genesis top 10! Excepting perhaps the first game, the other four Turrican games really are all definite must-have titles. Factor 5’s Turrican and Star Wars (Rogue Squadron and Battle for Naboo, N64/GC) games are among the best action games of their respective generations, and you see that here. Don’t miss out on this fantastic classic! Amazing stuff. Buy it. Also available on the Amiga as Turrican III, and the Genesis version is available on Wii Virtual Console.
MERCS – 1 player. Mercs is a top-down run & gun shooting game from Capcom, though this Genesis port is by Sega. In this ’80s action movie-style blastfest, you run around as one of several commandos who totally aren’t based on popular action movie heroes and shoot lots of baddies. This game is actually the sequel to Capcom’s mid ’80s arcade game Commando. No relation to the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie that released shortly beforehand though, of course! I’m sure they came up with that name and concept all on their own… yeah. This time the graphics are better, but the gameplay is similar to before. Visually this game looks only okay, and it’sclearly an early Genesis release; Genesis graphics get much better than this. Still, everything is reasonably nicely drawn and looks fine. Gameplay-wise, the game scrolls in multiple directions instead of only upwards as it was in the first game or Ikari Warriors 1, and you have more weapons and multiple commandos to play as, but the basic gameplay is the same: shoot everything that moves. I remember Ikari Warriors well from the late ’80s but not Commando or MERCS, but this game is pretty good and one of the better top-down run & gun shooting games of the generation. It is unfortunate that it is one player only, but otherwise it’s good stuff. You do have a health bar in this game, which is a nice change versus Ikari Warriors or Commando, but it’s still quite tough. Make sure to collect the special weapons, you’ll need them! Bosses are hard too, and each one is quite different. The controls here are fine, but you can only shoot in the direction you are moving; you do not have a firing-lock button, unfortunately, unlike some games in this genre. That is missed, but the game is playable as it is.
The game has two gameplay modes. Arcade mode is a one-player-only recreation of the arcade game, though with limited continues, of course. It’s pretty good, and is short but hard as expected from an arcade game. Levels are all very well laid out, and the action is constant. The other mode is Original mode, and it’s interesting. In original mode you have one starting commando, and only one life; if you die, it’s Game Over, start again from the beginning. Harsh! Yes, this mode is quite hard. As you play, however, you will find other commandos and can switch to them during play. You will also find shops where you can buy health refills from, which is quite important considering you have no continues here. Original mode is a little slower paced than the arcade game, for a different feel. The levels here visually use the same tilesets as the arcade levels, but the actual level layouts are entirely new, so it really is a different game. This mode will take a lot of practice to get good at, but it’s fantastic to have such a deep and lengthy mode added to what otherwise would be a very short game. A lot of arcade ports add little to the arcade game, but Sega made sure that Mercs would not be one of those games. Arcade mode is a fun blast, and Original mode an interesting challenge to keep playing as you try to get better and learn how to stay alive. Overall, Mercs is a good game any action game fan should definitely get. The only real flaws are the early-gen graphics, potentially the difficulty, and the absence of a firing-lock button, but otherwise this game is quite good. With great level designs, lots of enemies to shoot, and more, it’s great fun to walk around, blow everyone away, and try to save the day! The Genesis version is also available on Wii Virtual Console. The game is partially an arcade port; the arcade version is in some collections of Capcom games, and ports of the arcade version were also released in Europe only on the Sega Master System, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, and Atari ST, and in Europe and maybe also the US on Commodore 64 and Amiga.
Mick & Mack: Global Gladiators – 1 player. Global Gladiators is an okay platformer from Virgin. This is a McDonald’s licensed game, but doesn’t have too strong of a fast-food theme, thankfully; for that play McDonald’s Treasureland Adventure for the Genesis, though I don’t have that one. The story here is that Mick and Mack are two boys who like McDonald’s, and after saying that they want adventure Ronald McDonald sends them into a book to undertake a dangerous quest. What a jerk… but you’ve got to take it on now. Mick and Mack were also playable in at least one game before this one, so they weren’t created just for this game, but I don’t think much has been seen of them since. You can play as either one but can’t switch ingame, though the only difference is their color, they don’t play differently. Ingame, the game is a fairly conventional Virgin/Shiny-style platformer, except here your main weapon is a goo-gun instead of jumping on enemies’ heads. Your shots have a curving arc, since you’re not shooting bullets, and this can help hit enemies if you shoot from the right places. The levels are the usual very large, open levels you should expect from this kind of game. Your goal is to reach the end, but paths are not always obvious so you will need to explore around. Secrets can be anywhere. There are of course lots of things to collect in each level, with McDonald’s “M”s being the basic pickup, though there are also rarer extra lives and such as well. Different colors of Ms are worth different point values.
The game is simple but fun, and the game is mostly enjoyable to play. It’s tough, though; those lives won’t last long, and I haven’t been dedicated to the game enough to get past world two yet. The level designs are okay, but can be frustrating. Unfortunately blind jumps are a real problem in this game; you will not always know if there is a pit or not below you, so be careful and just accept that sometimes you will unfairly die. Of course, as usual on the Genesis you can’t save and have limited continues, a pretty bad combination to have in games with blind jumps. Ah well. At least usually you know where you’re going, so this isn’t as bad as Taz-Mania or something. The game looks nice, but not amazing; later Virgin and Shiny games look better than this early-ish one. It doesn’t help that the first world is set in a somewhat dreary swamp, with lots of slime monsters for enemies. The second world is a fantasy forest, and looks better than the first one, but there are at least three big levels in each setting so getting to the second one will take a while. All levels in each setting look similar, and the enemies in each area repeat constantly, so this game is lacking variety. Still, it is reasonably fun to play, and overall Global Gladiators is an average to slightly above-average game with decent graphics with some nice animation, okay controls, solid traditional shooting-and-platforming gameplay, and plenty of challenge. The game does have issues, including blind jumps, sometimes annoying level designs, and repetition, but it’s worth a try for platformer fans overall.
Micro Machines – 1-2 player simultaneous. Micro Machines is a fantastic top-down racing game from Codemasters. You play as a small car based on the toy line of the same name, driving in real-world-inspired settings but in miniature. It’s a fantastic idea, and the game executes it really well. I got the Game Boy version of this game in the ’90s and really loved it, and this Genesis version is pretty much the same thing but in color! Micro Machines is a real classic, and it’s one of the best top-down racing games ever made. Yes, the game has many sequels, both in the Micro Machines series and spiritual sequels with other names (most recently Toybox Turbos), but the original is probably my favorite. Nostalgia is surely part of this, but still, the first game is a really great game for sure, and as much as I love some of the sequels, they are more frustrating than this perfectly-balanced original. Micro Machines is a top-down racing game, but it is different from other games in this genre. Unlike, say, RC Pro-Am, Micro Machines does not take place on a walled-in course. Instead levels are more open, and your challenge is to learn each track well enough to stay on the road. The road is marked with some kind of markers along the sides of the path, and if you stay off of the road for too long, when you go back on it you will explode and respawn back where you last were on the path. There are also many, many pitfalls, such as table edges and such, which you can fall off, and there are also traps, ramps, narrow ‘bridges’ made of pencils or rulers, and more, so memorization is absolutely key! If you mess up you will suffer for it and winning will be difficult. This first game is a bit more forgiving than its sequels, though, because it’s not quite as fast-moving as the later games; in the first Micro Machines at least you can sort of see the turns coming at you. Micro Machines 2 is a faster-moving game where only memorization will see you through it, IF you can get through that game at all. I like the first games’ pace better, personally. The second game is amazing, but it’s just a bit too fast for its own good. This is a hard game and you will need to learn every track in order to beat it, but the slightly lower speeds make that task easier and more fun than in its sequel. I really love the tracks in this game, they are so inventive and well designed! I have beaten this game back in the ’90s on the GB, but never did beat Micro Machines 2 for PC or GBC, the two platforms I got it for.
This game is available on a lot of systems, but this is a very good version of the game. The graphics are good, though they don’t push the hardware, understandably for a game originally released on the NES. All versions of the game are almost the same exact game, platform differences such as resolution or colors aside. The controls are great, and each car handles differently just like they should. Versus the GB version you do have a slightly better viewing distance thanks to the higher resolution screen, though; that’s nice. On the other hand, there is one fewer multiplayer mode, though the one it has is a great one. Micro Machines’ classic multiplayer mode, pioneered by this game, is here. This is a single-screen mode where both racers try to stay on the track. Once one person touches the front end of the screen they get a point on a meter on the side. This meter will go up and down as the two players win points, until one person fills up the meter with only their color. This is a pretty great multiplayer mode, and it returns in every Micro Machines game since. The GB version also has a handheld-exclusive split-screen mode where each player plays on their own screen in normal races where the players don’t need to be on the same screen, but I can understand why that does not appear in any of the computer or TV console versions of the game. MM1 is more limited in multiplayer than its sequels, though. Only eight or nine of the dozens of tracks in this game can be played in multiplayer for some stupid reason, first. This limitation is the same in every version of the game I have seen, and I have no idea why it is but it’s a pain. And second, the game has a two player limit on the Genesis, while many other Micro Machines games support four or eight players. The GB version of this game actually has four player support, if you’ve got a GB multitap and all the systems and copies of the game you’d need, but this doesn’t on either SNES or Genesis. MM2 for Genesis does add a 4-player mode, but sadly that game only released on consoles in Europe; we only got the PC and GBC versions of MM2 here in the US.
Overall, Micro Machines is one of my favorite racing games ever. This is an awesome game on any platform, so if you see this Genesis version for cheap, absolutely get it! The game looks nice, plays really well, and is a great challenge. The game does have limited lives and continues and no saving, but with practice you’ll eventually get through if you stick with it. This is a fast game with some cars, but it’s not as over-the-top as the speeds in the sequels. I think they got the speed balance just right this first time. The tracks here are among my favorites in the whole genre, too. I only wish you could play all of them in multiplayer. Multiplayer always has been a big focus in the Micro Machines series, and that’s as true here as anywhere. The 3 or 4 player mode is missed here, but two player play is great. Definitely pick this one up. There are many more similar games to this on this and newer consoles by the developers Codemasters and Supersonic. In addition to this game, also check out Toybox Turbos for the PC, Circuit Breakers for Playstation, Micro Machines 1 and V3 for the Game Boy and GB Color, and Micro Machines 2 for the PC or European Genesis (Megadrive). Micro Machines was released on a lot of platforms; this game is also available on the NES, PC, and Game Boy, and in Europe only on the CD-i, Game Gear, and Super Nintendo. The game has three sequels on the Genesis as well, all Europe-exclusive releases — Micro Machines 2, Micro Machines ’96, and Micro Machines Military. I’d love to get them and definitely plan to have all three eventually.
Sega Genesis Game Opininion Summaries - Work In Progress - A Black Falcon - 31st December 2015
Yes, this is last weekends’ update. It’s only seven summaries, but was delayed because of the holiday; I just got it done. I’ll try to have another full update this weekend… we’ll see. I have started on it. This time, I cover the four (sort of five) games I have from the letter N, plus two games I got too recently to include in their letters but am covering now, Darwin 4081 and The Lawnmower Man.
Games summarized in this update
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Darwin 4081
The Lawnmower Man
NBA Jam (1994)
Newman Haas’ Indy Car featuring Nigel Mansell
NHL ’94
NHL ’96
NHL ’97
Darwin 4081 (J) – 1 player. Darwin 4081 is a vertical-scrolling shmup is a Sega port of a Data East arcade game. The game is an earlier release for the system, and didn’t release outside of Japan, unfortunately. Darwin 4081 is a visually average game and looks like the early release it is, but the controls and gameplay are solid fun, and there is some nice visual design here as well, particularly in the sprites. The game has a somewhat organic look, and it wouldn’t surprise me if this game helped inspire the visuals in Sega’s work soon afterwards on Sega’s only internally-developed Genesis shmup, Bio Hazard Battle. That is a better game than this, but Darwin 4081 is also good. This game feels a lot like a Toaplan game such as Kyuukyoku Tiger with a bit of Raiden in it, so the formula is good but unoriginal. You fly upwards, shooting badguys as they appear while dodging them and their fire. Much like a Toaplan game your ship’s movement is slow, so you’ll need to really pay attention to dodge the bullets. Unlike Toaplan games, though, here you actually can get speed powerups, though you never move as fast as you can in, say, a Gradius game. Dying resets your speed to default, though, so you’ll need to get used to the slow speed; only the best will be fast most of the time. Easier speed changes would be nice, but you do get used to it.
Now, Darwin 4081 is a simple game, but the game does have a somewhat unique weapon power-up system. As you kill enemies they drop powerups sometimes, as usual, and some of them will upgrade your ship’s power through various evolutions. Depending on the powerup type you get you can evolve to different forms, until you reach one of the final forms. The “Darwin” in the title refers to your ship, which will evolve between different forms as you progress. If you take damage you devolve, until when you get hit at the basic level you die and go back to the last checkpoint. I think there’s also a hidden timer that de-evolves you after staying in your current form for some amount of time, though I could be wrong about that. Regardless, you will be frequently changing weapons in this game. The numerous forms your ship can take are interesting, and progression is not always better — you will need to learn the different ship types in order to do well at this game, or you’ll get something which gives you a weaker weapon and be stuck with it at a boss. That’s not fun. Of the final forms though, the large ship that shoots a lot of bullets forward is a LOT better than the one that can place shots which stay on screen; those shots aren’t easily re-positionable, and enemies can’t be counted on to fly into them. It can be hard to control which form you get, too, because I usually want to just pick up all the powerups which drop, instead of choosing specific types. The powerups all look similar, too. Still, I like the powerup system for the most part. Your ship has more different forms and attack patterns than in most shmups of the day, and seeing the different ones is interesting, even if some are weaker than others.
As with many classic shmups, Darwin 4081 is a difficult game. If you can stay alive at max power with one of the best weapons, picking up powerups regularly to stay in one of the top ship forms while avoiding damage, the game will seem easy… until you die. And it’s easy to die even fully powered up, particularly at boss fights. Boss fights in this game can be hard, and since you get sent back to the last checkpoint when you die with only the basic, very weak weapon and no powerups and the game does have limited continues, this is one of those shooters where one death can doom your entire game no matter how many continues you have left, much like Gradius and such. I don’t mind this design, but it is frustrating when you get stuck at a boss and know you probably could beat the thing with the power you had the first time. The good controls and enemy patterns and sometimes interesting graphics will keep you coming back, though. Darwin 4081 is not one of the great Genesis shmups, since it has only average visuals and the weapon system can be confusing at times, but it is a good game that might be worth getting if you like the genre. Don’t set your expectations too high, but it’s more good than bad. This game isn’t as expensive as many import shmups, either, and the cart isn’t region-locked so it will work on a US Genesis so long as you have a way to get the cart into the system (again I use my 32X for this). Arcade port. The original arcade version is called Darwin 4078; I’m not sure why they added 3 years to the console port’s title. I’ve also heard this game called Super Real Darwin.
The Lawnmower Man – 1-2 player simultaneous. The Lawnmower Man is a surprisingly interesting game. Based on the cyberpunk movie of the same name, The Lawnmower Man is half average run & gun-style platform-action game, and half pretty cool 3d runner. The game starts with a 3d stage. Here, you have a first-person perspective, with your arms on the sides of the screen, and run forwards, dodging scaling objects which come at you. They did an impressive job with the sprite-scaling here, presuming that the game uses scaling and not differently-sized sprites instead; I don’t know which it is. The environment sprites you are dodging are admittedly EXTREMELY low-resolution and appear to be made up of only a handful of giant pixels each, with no textures of course, but still it looks really cool. In some of these stages you just run to the end dodging walls, while in others you have a gun. This isn’t a first-person or rail shooter, though. Instead, in the 3d stages with weapons you will stop periodically for shooting-gallery style gun sections. They work, but shooting galleries aren’t as impressive as real 3d movement in a Genesis game. Still, these 3d levels are cool, a nice technical achievement, and are fun to play. In between the relatively short 3d levels, though, are the majority of the game, which is just a pretty average shooting-heavy platform-action game. You walk to the right, shoot the badguys, and try to avoid incoming fire; that’s about it. It’s somewhat fun, but isn’t as cool as the 3d stages. There are various weapons to pick up along the way, and some basic puzzle elements to solve along the way, though. In these stages your sprite is very small on the screen, a bit too small really. Bigger graphics and more impressive backgrounds would have been nice here. There are two playable characters and you can play these stages in two player simultaneous, but still, compared to the cool 3d stages, these bland-looking and only okay-playing levels are kind of disappointing. They won’t be easy, though! Enemies can take a good number of shots to take down, and bosses can be tricky. I do like that the game pulls off scaling (whether real or simulated with sprites I don’t know) effects in the main game as well, though. One early boss has you facing off against several long tentacle-like plants, and they rotate around the screen nicely. In conclusion, The Lawnmower Man is a good game. I wasn’t expecting much from a licensed game, but it surprised me. Sure, a majority of the game is a decent-but-not-great sidescrolling action game, but it is at least above average, and the cool 3d stages in between platformer levels are very cool. This game is a nice technical achievement, and a reasonably fun game as well. It could have been even better, but as it is it’s an above-average game well worth a try. Also on SNES. Other games based on the license are available on other platforms, such as a Sega CD/PC game, but they aren’t the same thing as this one.
NBA Jam (1994)- 1-4 player simultaneous (with EA multitap), cartridge save (EEPROM). NBA Jam is one of the greatest classic arcade games of the 1990s, and this Genesis port from Acclaim is great! Baseball aside I prefer my sports games arcade-styled, and Midway’s NBA Jam series is the pinnacle of arcade sports gaming. This first NBA Jam game is not my favorite in the series, but still it’s a fantastic game and still one of the most fun sports games around. A lot of older sports games aren’t too much fun to play now, but NBA Jam, at least, is still fantastic fun, particularly with multiple players! NBA Jam is a great single player game, but it’s even better in multiplayer, and the game has four player support with a multitap, which is great. So what is NBA Jam, for those who don’t know? The game is a two-on-two basketball game. It’s got a side-view-isometric game, with a court a couple of screens long that scrolls horizontally. It looks good. As it was originally an arcade game, gameplay is simple and focused on fun. There are no penalties except for goaltending (so don’t try to block shots which are descending towards the hoop), the ball cannot go out of bounds, you can make shots regularly that people almost never could in real life, whacking the other guys to steal away the ball is just fine, and more! It’s great fun stuff, and has a perfect balance of simplicity versus depth; this game may be easy to learn, but there’s a fair amount to master if you want to be good at it. By default you only need to keep track of one player while playing as well, because you can’t control your AI companion’s movement, though hitting the Shoot or Pass buttons while they have the ball will make them shoot, or pass to you. I like this system, and rarely have really wanted to play as my teammate, though the option does exist in this version; turn on Tag mode in the options menu if you want control to switch each time you pass the ball. I prefer Tag mode off, myself, but it is a nice option to have for those who like it; not all later NBA Jam-series games have the feature. The game also has game-time-length and difficulty options, but that’s about it.
Gameplay here is a simplified version of the game of basketball, with all the boring stuff like penalties or confusing things like five players stripped out. Controls are simple. You have a shoot/jump button, a pass/steal button, and a turbo button; the former commands are for when your team has the ball, the latter when the other team does. Holding turbo makes your actions stronger, but drains a turbo meter on screen. You can also fake a shot and do a few more advanced moves, but it’s a simple game. Your meter refills while not holding Turbo down. The control scheme is perfect and really could not be improved on. For modes, there are only two, and for single-player play the two are identical. The two modes either have you play against or with player two, to either compete against eachother or team up against the AI. It’s a nice option to have. For single player just choose either one, then a team. Your goal is to beat all of the NBA teams once each, in order from worst to best based on how good they were in 1993. The game doesn’t save a season in progress, each game is stand-alone and you can always play as a different team each game if you want. Your goal is just to beat all of the teams using the same initials. You enter your initials before each game, and this works as both your name ingame and your save file. Initials files save your stats, including number of NBA teams defeated, win-loss record, and more. The game can hold up to 16 save files (sets of initials), and you can delete them from a sub-menu of the options screen if you want. I love that this game has a chip-only save type, instead of a battery in the cart! No worrying about replacing a battery here, this chip should last a long time. Of course as with all non-battery-based chip saves it has a write limit, but those take a very long time to reach. I wish more 4th-gen games had non-batter chip saves, it’d have been great! Those cart batteries are dying these days, while NBA Jam is still doing fine.
Visually, NBA Jam looks good, though of course it doesn’t come close to the arcade original — there is no sprite scaling here, only several different sprite sizes the game will flip between, sprites are smaller and less colorful than in the arcades, and more. For a Genesis game this looks fine, though. The SNES version looks a bit better mostly thanks to that systems’ larger color palette, but it has no music during games, while on the Genesis there is in-game music, so each has a plus and a minus presentation-wise. The sequel NBA Jam T.E. is the same way, still no music on the SNES version sadly, which I have. There’s really only one arena to play in, but you’re going to be focused on the gameplay anyway, so it doesn’t matter. There really are only two downsides to this great game. First, the AI cheats massively, and will do everything it can to keep games close. This was an arcade game after all, Midway needed to keep you pouring quarters in the machine! If the game is close and the AI team has the ball at the buzzer, they’ll hit that long-distance three for sure. Also, you can’t play as Michael Jordan, the most famous NBA player ever, because his name and likeness would have required a separate license which Midway presumably couldn’t afford, or didn’t want to pay. That really is too bad, it’d have been so awesome to see Jordan in NBA Jam! He isn’t in most of the sequels either, though he is in EA’s Wii/PS3/360 new NBA Jam game. Sure, Scottie Pippen is very good too, but he’s no Jordan. Anyway, most of the other big stars are here, including Ewing, Malone, Olajuwon, etc.
Overall, NBA Jam is a fantastic game, and owning some version of this classic is a definite must! The 32X version of NBA Jam T.E. is probably my favorite console NBA Jam game, but this Genesis version of the first one is great as well. And with how cheap it is, there’s no reason not to pick it up the next time you see it for a dollar. I love this game, it’s outstanding. T.E. is even better, and adds features such as switching players between quarters, three players per team, injury ratings, hot-spots and turbo-speed modes, a rookies team, and more, but the first NBA Jam is still fantastic. It is a very simple game, even simpler than its successor since it doesn’t have the switching or injury components, but it’s brilliant in its simplicity. You won’t find a much more fun sports game than this. It’s great. Arcade port; NBA Jam was also released on the SNES, Game Boy, Game Gear, Sega CD, and more. I also have the Game Gear and Sega CD versions. The GG version isn’t as good (and has passwords for saving instead of on-cart saving), but the SCD version’s nice. It does have real sprite scaling, but otherwise is the same as the Genesis. The question is, though, are the long load times worth that slight advantage? And you lose the chip-only saving too, since it saves to the Sega CD, which uses a (rechargeable) battery.
Newman Haas’ IndyCar featuring Nigel Mansell – 1-2 player simultaneous, password save. Sort of like the Mario Andretti game above but with only open-wheel cars, more 3d elements, and a music option (with no sound effects, of course), Newman-Haas Indy Car featuring Nigel Mansell is an average open-wheel racing game from Gremlin and published by Acclaim. This game has a real IndyCar license, all 15 tracks from the season it’s based on, the real drivers, okay graphics with some nice-for-the-system attempts at polygonal 3d backdrops, and okay gameplay, but I find it far too tediously dull to stick with much like most F1 or IndyCar games. These usually seem to be games made for fans of this kind of racing, which I am not, and not for the average racing-game fan, and this one is no exception. The first of two SNES and Genesis racing games featuring Nigel Mansell, this racing game has sort of a linescroll / 3d hybrid style to it. You play from an in-car view, and the track is mostly smooth, linescroll-style curves, but the trackside environment has polygonal walls, bridges, and buildings. Some linescroll racers have a bit of this stuff, but this one is full of them, particularly here on Genesis; the SNES version isn’t as impressive thanks to the slow SNES CPU. Sure, the buildings are made up of one huge polygon per side, and the framerate is slow and choppy as it is with most all polygonal Genesis games, but still, few Genesis racers attempt real 3d. The game doesn’t feel like a full 3d world like Hard Drivin’, it does have those smooth curves and some alternating bands of color to simulate motion, but it’s more convincing than your average linescroll game is. Aurally, the game has either music or sound effects. As with the Genesis Lotus games, you can’t have both at once, sadly. That’s always an annoying limitation, and there’s no good reason for it either.
Ingame, IndyCar has a fairly simple driving model, but you will need practice to do well, as learning where to brake on the turns is crucial if you want to avoid going off the road and hitting things. The game has both Arcade and Sim modes. Sim mode punishes you more for crashes as you can get injured and have the race immediately end, and has longer races where you will need to pit in to refuel during the race, but the controls are pretty much the same in both, it seems. The game controls okay, but you really will need to brake to not go off the road on many turns. As for the courses, I like that the game has all 15 real tracks, but they feel nearly the same — backgrounds are similar everywhere, trackside objects are the same, and the tracks just don’t look very different. The game does have single race or a championship mode with password saving and some car customization options, so the featureset is good for the platform, but for me at least it doesn’t hold my interest long enough to want to attempt a championship. Overall Newman-Haas IndyCar featuring Nigel Mansell is an okay, average-at-best racing game that only fans of this kind of game are likely to really like. Also on SNES, though this version has better graphics. I have the SNES version of the other Nigel Mansell-licensed racing game; see my SNES list for that one. It’s also very mediocre.
NHL ’94 – … My collection spreadsheet claims I have this game, but if I do I don’t know where it is. I’m not sure if I ever actually had NHL ’94… though I do have the case back for the Sega CD version, but Tomcat Alley was and is the disc in that case. NHL ’94 is probably considered to be the best Genesis NHL game and one of the best hockey games ever, so I should have it… ah well.
NHL ’96 – 1-4 player simultaneous (with EA multitap), battery save. NHL ’96 is a good hockey game from EA. This is the fifth of seven NHL games EA released on the Genesis, and it’s one of the better ones. ’94 is the agreed-on favorite, but this one is good too. I’ve never liked hockey as a sport, and never have played any hockey game a lot, but sure, this seems to be fun. Don’t expect an in-depth summary here, though, I haven’t played this or any hockey game enough to do that. I can say that the game looks okay, plays well, and is sometimes fun to play, though I like other things more. The game lets you play as all of the teams from the 1995 season, and has single game, tournament, and season modes, with battery save to save seasons in progress, stats, and such. All arenas are the same except for the home teams’ logo in the center, but otherwise it’s a full-featured game for the time. The game has a vertically-oriented arena, so one goal is on the top and the other is on the bottom, with a top-down view of the ice. Gameplay is simple; you have a shoot button, a pass/swipe at puck button, and that’s about it. It’s easy to learn and plays well. Gameplay is simple and straightforward, and button-mashing seems to work well when fighting over the ball. This does lead to penalties, which are annoying and too frequent, but you can turn those off if you like. Goalies are hard to score on, though, so games are often tediously low-scoring affairs; I like the arcadey fun of Wayne Gretzky’s 3D Hockey for the N64 more than this more realistic kind of goalie. Still, it is possible to score, just not often. The game has three difficulty settings, and even someone who almost never plays this kind of game like me can regularly win games on the lowest setting, which is nice. Overall, this is a good hockey game, and can be fun particularly in multiplayer, but I don’t like hockey as a sport and always get bored with these games after a couple of games. No hockey game has ever held my interest long-term, but I do like this simple kind of game more than the overly complex ones of today. Having at least one Genesis NHL game is pretty much a must, though, for any Genesis collector; they’re super-common and worth a play, particularly with a friend. There is also a SNES game of the same name, though it’s not the same as this Genesis version. I know the Genesis EA games are mostly regarded as superior, but I don’t know if I’ve ever played the SNES ones.
NHL ’97 – 1-4 player simultaneous (with EA multitap), battery save. NHL ’97 is basically NHL ’96 but with a roster update, a new Skills Challenge mode which lets you play some kind-of-boring hockey skill tests, maybe slightly improved graphics (and I mean slightly!), and that’s about it. Sure, they were working from a good base, but this is one lazy sequel, as sports-game sequels often are. Again this is an okay game, but my dislike of hockey and sparse scoring makes me get bored after a game or two and I haven’t played it beyond a handful of matches. As with everything else, the AI seems to be about the same as the last game. There really isn’t any reason to have both NHL ’96 and this game unless you really love the series or hockey games. NHL ’98 is apparently more of the same. Again there is also a SNES version, though it’s not the same as this game.
Sega Genesis Game Opininion Summaries - Work In Progress - A Black Falcon - 7th January 2016
Sega Genesis Game Opininion Summaries - Work In Progress - Dark Jaguar - 8th January 2016
Do you have the Sega Sonic 3-in-1 pack? It's got Sonic 1 and 2 plus Mean Bean Machine. I only bring it up because I always found it a rather poor substitute for getting the games individually. Namely, there's no way to use Sonic 2 in this pack with Sonic & Knuckles. Maybe if they had released it sooner they could have programmed S&K with logic to detect the pack version and alter it accordingly (perhaps booting directly to Sonic 2 in the pack plus the alterations), but as it stands it's better for a Genesis collector to acquire all 3 games by themselves.
Sega Genesis Game Opininion Summaries - Work In Progress - A Black Falcon - 8th January 2016
I don't have the Sonic 3-in-1 pack, but I do have the Genesis 6-pak, which has Sonic 1 in it, and yeah, that doesn't give you access to Sonic 1 & Knuckles (Blue Spheres), much like how the Sonic pack you talk about doesn't work with S&K as Sonics 1 or 2. I actually saw a boxed copy of that Sonic 3-pack in a used game store today, though, and right there on the back of the box (cardboard box, so '94 or on release), it says in small text at the bottom of the back 'this will not work with Sonic & Knuckles lock-on', or something like that. So people were warned.
From what I've heard, S&K looks at the beginning of the code on the cart locked on to determine what it does, or something like that, so those collections wouldn't start the same way as Sonics 1 or 2 -- they boot to a menu first. I presume that this is the issue.
Sega Genesis Game Opininion Summaries - Work In Progress - Dark Jaguar - 9th January 2016
Yes, though actually it looks at the last two megabits. Oddly, the 3 in 1 pack is seen as "Sonic 1" by the lock-on, so if you want the full "blue sphere" experience, it'll get you there. The Sonic 1 data is located exactly where it needs to be for S&K to read it as Sonic 1. Really though, if given the choice, I wish they'd have placed Sonic 2 in that data space instead. Knuckles in Sonic 2 is far more interesting than nigh-infinite S&K mini-games.
The 6 in one pack doesn't include Sonic 2, so you're not missing out on Knucklified Sonic 2, but then again from what you're saying it doesn't see the pack as Sonic 1 either. Eh, oh well, it's still a pretty good pack.
For my part, I've got what appears to be a rare item. I've got some very late run version of Sonic 1. It's got no "Not for Resale" text on it and seems to be the version with the moving clouds in the first zone. I'm holding onto this one, even though it still hasn't fixed the infinite spike until you die glitch.
Sega Genesis Game Opininion Summaries - Work In Progress - A Black Falcon - 20th January 2016
Yes, this update was delayed. I took a bit of time off after the last update, and this was a tough one, 15 games to cover and most needed a fair amount of detail, and some playtime as well. The next few updates will also probably take a while, I have more games for this system that start with S than any letter. S will be multi-part, but still... haven't started it yet. Anyway, here is R.
Games covered in this update
--
Rambo III
Ranger-X (Ranger X)
Rastan Saga II
Red Zone
Revenge of Shinobi (I have this on the Sega 6-Pak)
Risk
Ristar
Road Rash
Road Rash II
Road Rash 3: Tour de Force
RoadBlasters
Robocop vs. the Terminator
Rocket Knight Adventures
Rolling Thunder 2
Rolling Thunder 3
Rambo III - 1 player. Rambo III is a fairly average top-down run & gun action game from Sega. This game is Sega's second Rambo game with this playstyle, following the pretty good good Rambo: First Blood Part II for the Master System. That game is good, but it's actually an unrelated game that the Rambo name was tacked on to in order to sell a few more copies. This time the game is actually based on the movie, I presume; though I've never seen a Rambo movie, this game does have a basic story that I imagine loosely follows the movie's plot. I do think that this game is a bit disappointing compared to its SMS 'predecessor', as the graphics are unimpressive and gameplay only okay, but this is an alright game once you get into it. Rambo III for the Genesis has unimpressive graphics, levels which are often large and mazelike, infinitely-respawning enemies, no weapons to find beyond the ones you start with, and minimal enemy variety. The game does have some variety, interesting bosses, and some fun action, but it's probably more bad than good. The game starts out easy, but does eventually get challenging, and you do have limited continues, though the game doesn't tell you this, annoyingly. You get a lot of continues, but I did eventually run out. You are Rambo, the action movie hero, and you're on a mission to save some guy who was captured, or something like that. The story isn't told in detail, but there is a bit of text before each mission telling you what to do next. Each level consists of a stage and then usually some kind of boss. You can take three hits per continue.
In stages, your main weapon is a machine gun, on C. It has unlimited ammo and you can fire as you move, so just holding down the fire button most of the time is a good strategy. You can only shoot in the direction you are moving in unfortunately, but the game was designed around this so it's not too bad. You also have three special weapons on B, which you switch between with A: a knife, a bow with explosive arrows, and bombs. The arrows and bombs are limited, and you get ammo for them by blowing towers up with bombs or by killing foes with the knife. Knifing guys will also give you a point bonus for your score, if you care about that, but it's tough to do without getting hit. Arrows take a while to charge up, and once fired will kill regular enemies in the direction you fire, or kill some vehicles such as jeeps. Bombs must be placed, and will blow up a 5-count later. They are mostly used to destroy walls, targets such as ammo dumps, and towers. Levels consist of wandering around, walking past or maybe shooting the enemies while looking for your objective. Yes, levels have objectives beyond just reaching the end, though tye are simple -- either reach a point, reach several points in a stage, or destroy certain targets. There is no map, so you'll just have to wander around and get lost until you learn the layout while the enemies annoyingly keep spawning on top of you. Often just ignoring them is the best strategy, the game doesn't force you to stop and fight very often. Just walking past them is boring but effective. Bosses mostly are played from a close-up third-person view, as you move Rambo left and right, trying to shoot arrows at things such as helicopters or tanks. If you die at a boss you restart the whole level, naturally. They're interesting, but not great. And that's really the game overall. The enemies are nearly all identical soldiers, the levels are annoying to navigate, and you get no new weapons, so there is little gameplay variety beyond the different stages, and the core gameplay is bland and average. Rambo III is okay, but it's not all that fun; Sega could have done a lot better than this, I'm sure. If you want to play a great top-down run & gun shooter on the Genesis, stick to MERCS. [There is also a Master System "Rambo III" game, but it is entirely different -- that one is an Operation Wolf-knockoff light-gun shooter. It is also mediocre.]
Ranger-X (Ranger X) - 1 player, 6 button controller supported (and highly recommended). Ranger-X is a beautiful-looking and great-playing sidescrolling giant robot action-platform game from an obscure and short-lived team, Gau Entertainment, and published by Sega. You pilot the Ranger-X, a transforming robot suit. In addition to the main robot with its multiple weapons and hover-jets, you also control a smaller hovercar-skateboard base unit which follows you around. You can independently control it during play with the 6-button controller, so don't play this game without one! You can also combine the two vehicles into a 'car' form for a lower profile, fast movement, and a different weapon, a very nice aimable gun. Ranger-X is an impressive game in a lot of ways. Visually it gets a lot out of the Genesis. This game puts more colors on screen than most Genesis games, and the art design is fantastic as well. The game is loaded with detail, and has little slowdown despite the often intense action. The art design and sprites all look fantastic. There are even these really cool wireframe-3d cinematics before each stage, showing the route through the level! There are also some nice visual effects in the stages such as some cool scaling effects. The game makes nice use of that rarely-seen hardware shadow capability the Genesis has. The color use in this game is stunning and really shows how much more this system can do than you usually see! Ranger-X is one of the best-looking Genesis games for sure. The soundtrack is pretty good as well. It's an epic cinematic score, Genesis-style.
And fortunately, the substance here is just as great as the style is. The game controls very well, first. The game uses all face buttons and d-pad directions except for the Mode button, so it will take a while to get used to, but with some practice it feels great to play. You move your robot with the pad, and fly around with up. Yes, up 'jumps', though it's hovering, not jumping, so it does feel natural after a while. There's a meter which limits how long you can stay in the air at a time. You shoot left or right with A and C, allowing you to move in one direction and fire in the other. It's handy! Pressing Down enters the sidecar thing to make the combined form. Your regular and combined forms have separate health bars. Up will then exit it, so you can't jump or fly while combined. The sidecar also can't fly, it stays on the ground. It also can't turn around, so when outside it it can only fire to the left. When combined you have a homing shot though, so then it can hit any enemy. When combined, B or Y switch special weapons, while when separated those buttons use that special weapon; these have a meter to limit use. X or Z move the sidecar left or right while not combined. The controls work great once you get used to them.
You have a health bar in this game, which is necessary because avoiding damage is often impossible. I don't mind this, as I think that the health bar makes up for that issue. It is easy to die if you're not paying attention, though, and you only get three continues in the game, so this is a hard game and I haven't finished it yet. It is the kind of game that keeps you coming back to try again, though, so I don't mind this as much as with some games. Levels vary between simple corridors and large areas to explore around in, and you have a mission objective in each stage; you aren't just walking to the end. Fortunately, a radar on screen shows where the targets you need to destroy are. It is very useful, I love that they include this. There are also a few light puzzle elements, particularly in the open second stage. In this level you'll need to destroy some laser controllers, and also lure some enemies into light beams that can destroy them. Making good use of both your main robot and follower is very helpful, you'll struggle if you don't use it. I love how varied this game is. While most mecha action games just involve walking to the right and shooting, here you will need to consider which special weapon and ship form to use, move around your helper robot and maybe hide in it for healing and that altherate weapon, keep your mission objective in mind, and take your time as you explore so as to deal with the many different kinds of enemies.
So, Ranger-X looks amazing, sounds good, has a lot of variety, plays very well, has some great level designs, is a reasonable-length game for its time and presents a solid challenge along the way, and is just generally outstanding in almost every way. What's the downside here? Well, the game does have limited continues and no saving. This means that you won't beat the game without lots of replaying the earlier levels, which gets tedious even in a game this good. Ranger-X is great fun, but it'd be nice to be able to play the later levels more without having to replay early levels again and again. Also, some will dislike the health-bar system and unavoidable hits, though I'm fine with it. Yes, you will take unavoidable hits, but with some strategy and forethoguht most fire can be avoided, or survived. Sometimes switching between the combined and regular forms, to take advantage of the separate health bars, is a good strategy. I like how this game makes you think more than the average platform-shooter, it's great! Really, the continues issue is the only bad thing about this game, and it's relatively minor. Ranger-X is one of the best-looking, and best, action games of the generation. The game didn't quite make my Genesis top 10, but it's very close, and I could see it being a top 10 game on the system for sure. Get this game, you won't regret it. This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega’s Genesis games.
Rastan Saga II - 1 player. Taito's Rastan Saga II is a side-scrolling platform action game, and sadly, it's one of the worst, most disappointing sequels ever made. The original Rastan, for arcades, Sega Master System, and some Taito collections on newer platforms, is a really good fantasy platform-action game. You play as Rastan, a Conan-like barbarian, trying to face off against a formidable lineup of foes. It's very hard but really well-designed and rewarding. For the sequel Taito changed a lot, all for the worse. This time the camera is zoomed in close, to show off the larger sprites possible on newer hardware. The problem is, it's way too close! The large sprites do look nice sometimes, but that's one of the few good things about this game. The backgrounds are kind of ugly too, so the graphics are not that great anyway. Rastan moves at a snails' pace here; this makes up for the very short viewing distance, but makes for a boring game. Level designs are incredibly dull as well. While the first Rastan had good levels full of things to find and fun challenges to overcome, this game is just a straight path left-to-right, that's it. Levels are far less interesting to navigate than in the first one, or than they are in any good game. There are obstacles to jump over and enemies to fight, but it's all very bland and boring. The one thing this game does is that you do have multiple different weapon types to get, but they aren't different enough to matter much.
This game is short, too -- longplays are 16-20 minutes long, versus a half hour for the first game, and it'll take a lot less time to finish since it's a much easier game as well. That isn't all bad, as Rastan is a bit excessively difficult sometimes, but I'd rather play a way-too-hard game that's actually really fun than a moderately challenging one that will bore you almost to sleep with its tedium and mediocrity. Oh, and the music is kind of bad and lacks variety, too. Overall, Rastan Saga II is a bad platform-action game which is not worth your time. The levels are generic and boring and are not that well designed, you move far too slowly, and there is no variety to be found either, just repetion until either you die or beat it. Fortunately it won't take long either way. Even without comparing it to its great predecessor this game is bad; I got this one well before Rastan 1, and thought it waqs awful and not worth my money. And now that I have played the first one, it seems even worse. Arcade port; there is also a Japan-only PC Engine (TurboGrafx) version. Both are accurate ports of the arcade game, though the Genesis one is better since it has parallax scrolling. The problem is the original design, not the port.
Red Zone - 1 player, password save. Red Zone is a technically impressive topdown helicopter combat and run & gun game developed by Zyrinx and published by Sega. The game looks great, but the gameplay is overly difficult and frustrating. This game is Zyrinx's second Genesis game, after Sub-Terannia. That is a better game, but this game does have some things going for it beyond just the extremely impressive graphics, even if ultimately it gets way too hard way too fast. The developers were so proud of what they accomplished here that the first thing you see when you turn on the game is a screen listing a lot of the effects they do in the game, including sprite scaling and rotation, FMV video, polygon rendering for the ground, and some more. The game has a great, pounding techno soundtrack as well from one of the best composers for the system. Well, that's what you get from a developer who originated in the European demoscene. The amazing (for the Genesis) graphics of the copter missions are the most noteworthy thing about this game, though the gameplay is decent as well. Still, this probably is a tech-first game.
The game has two modes, helicopter and on-foot. Controls in both are solid, though slow; dodging can be tricky. Each mission consists of both helicopter and on-foot segments, as you land the copter at certain points to take on some on-foot missions in enemy bases. The helicopter side of the game clearly was inspired by Desert Strike, but missions aren't as long as they are in that game. You have a main machine gun and several sub-weapons you switch with C. All have limited ammo, and you have limited fuel as well. The copter side of the game all takes place on one only moderate-sized map, but has amazing-looking-for-the-system full sprite scaling and rotation of the objects below as you fly around. There are also buildings which have some 3d depth, and pillars made up of stacks of scaling sprites, super-scaler-game style. It looks incredible, there's nothing else quite like it on the system! It is disappointing that there's only one environment in the game and there is no graphical variety, but perhaps with everything they did visually there wasn't room on the cart for more. At least the enemy layout is different in each mission, so it's not always the same. You also will focus on different parts of the map each time. Missions have some optional objectives as well, as you often can take on a side area if you want to make your progress towards the main objective easier. You can land at certain circular landing pads to pick up fuel, ammo, or health refills, though each one can only be gotten once. Make sure not to accidentally blow up the pickups, you easily can! There is a helpful map on the pause screen menu showing all landing pads, enemies, and enemy bases on a nice zoomable map. You can re-read your mission objectives here as well. It's great, but even with the help these missions are very hard, as your health goes down fast and you get only one life. If you blow up, you have to watch the 'you lose' cutscene, then you're dumped back at the main menu and will have to re-enter the password to continue. It's a bit annoying, the game badly needed a quick-continue option with how often you will die.
Once you land at an enemy base you go in on foot. Here the game changes to a topdown run & gun, sort of like an Ikari Warriors or MERCS game. As in the air, it's action-packed and challenging. You've got a nice variety of weapons to use, and three characters to choose from who act like three lives. Yes, you get multiple chances here, unlike in the copter. Killed enemies stay dead for the other characters. Each base has a mission to accomplish, and you've got strict time limits sometimes with little margin for error. It'll take a while in each mission to figure out what to do. Unfortunately you can only shoot in the direction you are moving; a strafe-lock button would have been great. You do get several weapons, though, and you will need to use some thought in these missions, just running and gunning can get you killed. Visually, these levels look nice and do have some 3d depth, with a 'looking down into a 3d room' effect on the walls, and many scaling objects, but it's not as impressive looking as the helicopter side of the game. And just like in the copter, enemies will drain your health fast and it's easy to die, and if all three characters die, you'll go back to the start of the copter part since you only get passwords between whole missions, not in the middle of them. I really like that you get passwords at all though, many games on this system aren't as generous.
Even so, while Red Zone looks great and is somewhat fun to play, by mission three the frustration really set in, and I haven't gotten past that level yet. I think there are only eight missions, so it's not too long a game if you can manage it. Also, the game is a bit repetitive, with no graphical variety, only one map for the helicopter and VERY similar-looking bases on foot, and the same gameplay in each stage. That is unfortunate, but sometimes you have to make tradeoffs, and the game certainly does push the hardware more than probably any other Genesis game. Overall, Red Zone is an impressive tech demo with some decent to good gameplay. However, the gameplay is not well balanced and only all but the best players will probably get frustrated. Still, it's worth trying, at least.
Revenge of Shinobi (I have this on the Sega 6-Pak) - 1 player. Revenge of Shinobi is an early Genesis game, and the second console Shinobi game. This is a popular game which many consider a classic, but I've never liked it very much, and playing it again now did not ingratiate it to me any more than before. Revenge of Shinobi, just like its predecessor, a second-rate Rolling Thunder knockoff without some of the things that made Rolling Thunder so great, such as the highly controlled and predictable movement and doors and such to hide behind. And yes, Rolling Thunder released a year before Shinobi, so it came first. I know that Rolling Thunder was inspired by Elevator Action, so it wasn't an entirely original idea, but it's a big improvement over that game, while Shinobi goes the other way, and I like the first Shinobi more than this one. I know this is an early release, but it has not-great graphics, controls, and level designs. The visuals are bland. Nothing special there. Sprites look okay, but don't really stand out. The gameplay is average at best as well. Maybe if I had the nostalgia for this game some do it'd help, but I don't; this isn't one I played much of back in the early '90s. Once I finally did play it I was not impressed.
The game itself is a side-scrolling platform-action game, sort of like the first one but with a bigger focus on projectiles, double jumps in a game with awful double-jumping controls, and slightly less straightforward level designs. Unfortunately, you can't switch between your throwing weapon and a melee weapon, only use melee attacks sometimes when enemies are close enough, and your ranged ammo is very limited. If you run out, you're probably doomed. Enemies can block your attacks, and often will, so you need to be strategic with your attacks. In this way the game is a bit like Rolling Thunder, but more frustratring because of how easy it is for them to just block your attacks with their weapons. Rolling Thunder enemies can't block, so managing ammo there works better. The double jump is a big problem as well because you have a very tight timing window for it. You've got to hit jump again at exactly the peak of your jump or it doesn't register, and it doesn't always seem to respond as well as it should. Levels over bottomless pits, such as the waterfall stage in level two, are very annoying as a result of this. I never know if I'm going to make a jump or not as much because of the very slow and sometimes unresponsive controls as much as anything else. And as for the levels, they are okay, but unimaginative and sometimes random. Why do some of those blocks in the first level open doors, while others do nothing? Be more consistent. Each level has a boss, and they do require skill and pattern memorization to beat, but beyond that are average. And when you do die, as with most Genesis games you have only a couple of continues so you'll be starting the game over often. Yes, this game is hard. I've never gotten anywhere near the end, and doubt that I'll seriously try anytime soon; Revenge of Shinobi is not very fun to play. Overall, Revenge of Shinobi is average, and at best is maybe slightly above average. I can't really recommend this to anyone who doesn't have nostalgia for the game. Play the far better Shadow Dancer instead, that game is great! This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega’s Genesis games.
Risk - 1-6 player alternating, password save. This is a decent console adaptation of the classic strategy board game of the same name. I do like Risk, though Axis & Allies is better, and this is a fine version of the game. The game has fairly simple graphics, but they're good enough to do. Music is similarly okay, but forgettable. This game has two modes, classic Risk and a mode with arcade-style battles where you fight by shooting a cannon at troops that represent the enemy army. The classic mode is the main game; the new mode is amusing, but not great. Your goal in Risk is to conquer the world. There is only one map, based on the real world circa the age of imperialism. Some later Risk computer and video games have more maps, but not this one. At least there is AI to play against, you can't do that with the board game. There are three AI difficulties, but only the Hard one is challenging to beat. I played a game for this summary and fairly easily beat a bunch of Beginner and Average opponents. You can play with up to six players as usual, with any mix of humans and AIs. The map is broken up into a bunch of territories connected at certain points, and the players start out by claiming territories one at a time. Then you can place armies on your territories, then start the first real turn, though every turn starts with each player placing their new armies first.
Now, Risk is a fairly simple game, in that there's really only one type of troop, the army. You can stack as many armies on a space as you want, so building up a big stack and then going rampaging around the board is a common strategy. You will also get cards as you take spaces, and can use sthese cards for a big infusion of troops at some critical time. When you move troops onto an enemy space a battle st arts. These are essentially luck, and in the board game are based on die rolls. Here, instead of watching digital dice, you watch cannons representing each players' force shoot at eachother. There can be up to three cannons per side that shoot, so each side can take out up to three enemies per round of battle. battle continues until the defender loses, the attacker is down to only 1 soldier which then retreats to the place they came from because all spaces must always have an army on it, or the attacker retreats. The random-number generator can be frustrating at times, of course, and you can lose lots of troops to some smaller force if you're unlucky, but that's the way of Risk. At least with real dice you know it's fair though, while here you never know if the AI cheats. Also, you'll spend a LOT of time in this game watching the AI take its turns, and all battles are unskippable, even between AIs. This makes the game take longer than it should, though it is still a whole lot shorter than the board game. Overall Risk for the Genesis, like Risk the board game, is a good game. However, there are better, more feature-rich versions of Risk available for newer platforms, so there isn't too much reason to play this one unless you want to see how it plays on the Genesis or if you want to play the cannon-shooting mode, but that's not much of a draw; I'd rather play with the luck of the draw than that probably also-rigged mode. It's just a target-shooting game, nothing more, and the AI is good at it. Still, classic mode is just as it should be. If you like strategy game and see this cheap, maybe pick it up. Board game conversion. There are lots of versions of Risk, but this specific version isn't available elsewhere.
Ristar - 1 player. There are passwords, but for cheatcodes only, not progress. Ristar is a good but not great platformer from Sega released in early 1995. You are Ristar, an anthropomorphic star-man with stretchable arms, sort of like a space version of the anthropomorphic animal characters popularized by Sonic. You've got to save your galaxy from evil by grabbing things, as your hands and arms are the central mechanic. The game runs in the Sonic engine, but plays differently. First though, the visuals are outstanding. This game has fantastic, top-tier graphics with great Sonic-style artwork. The game has great art design, use of color and shadows, and visual variety. However, while it is good, the slow-paced puzzle and gimmick-heavy gameplay just isn't as fun, for me, as Sonic (or Mario) are. I know some people really love this game, but when playing it, I can't help but think 'this is good but Sonic is better'. It's great that Ristar is a different kind of game from Sonic, but it doesn't quite match up in fun factor. Ristar is a slow-paced game with a lot of puzzles, not a fast-paced action game. It's not quite as immediately engaging. You can get stuck at puzzles sometimes, as well. I also really dislike the lacking continue system and absence of saving, these are inexcusable mistakes. Saving Ristar's galaxy will be a long and challenging quest, as Ristar is a longer game than any Genesis Sonic game other than Sonic 3 & Knuckles and is as hard or harder than any of the Genesis Sonic games, and you need to do it in one sitting, and with only five continues besides! No game this long should have limited continues and no saving, and yet Ristar does! Sega's early to mid '90s failure to understand that saving was necessary in games like this is very frustrating. If you want to have fun with the game I recommend using the stage-select password. Yes, the game has a Password option in the Options menu, but it's not for actual passwords you get as you progress. Instead it's only for cheat-codes you will have to look up online. Fortunately finding a complete list is easy, and one is a level select. The game should have had saving like Sonic 3 does, but it doesn't, so just use the code. That's preferable to replaying the game over and over, really. The later Game Gear Ristar game adds a full password save system, which was a great move. It doesn't look or play quite as well as this game, though, of course.
This is a good game, though. Ristar has seven planets, or game-worlds, each made up of three stages: two levels and then a boss fight. Levels are good-length, with maybe fewer screens than your average Sonic level but a longer playtime because of the slow pace and frequent stops for fights or puzzles. To encourage thought, there isn't an on-screen timer, just your score and a health bar. Ristar attacks, and interacts with the world, with his hands. His arms can stretch out fairly far, so you can grab things from a decent distance away. You do have limited health in this game, unlike Sonic's rings. Chests can have points or health powerups, but they are finite. This adds to the challenge, versus Sonic. To attack you'll need to first grab, then hit the button again to whack into the enemy and hit or defeat it. Grabbing poles and ladders will let you climb or bounce off of them, as the case may be. I like bouncing off of horizontal walls to slowly get up them, but you can only climb up if there's a grab-bar, you can't bounce up to the top. This feels limiting compared to the game Ristar is often compared to, Bionic Commando; Bionic Commando is a better game than this, though I like this a lot too. It's fun to walk across rows of grab-bars on ceilings and floors, grab walls to climb them and find secrets, and grab poles in sequence in order to reach higher areas of the level. There are spinners to grab on to as well all over the levels, and as you hold down the button while grabbing one you will spin faster and faster. Let go at just the right moment and you'll go flying in the direction you were headed when you let go. Mastering the art of going the way you want on spinners is key, and is a nice challenge. In combat though, grabbing is somewhat frustratingly slow, and slows the game down a lot when combined with Ristar's already-slow walk speed. You can only damage enemies by grabbing and bonking into them, after all, you can't plow through them like in a Sonic game. Also, grabbing can be fun, but it gives the game a somewhat Treasure-esque "gimmicky" feel that you don't see in other Genesis platformers from Sega. Still, it was a good idea to try and is mostly interesting and well-executed.
But yes, the puzzle element is uncommon for a Genesis platformer from Sega. Sonic games do have secrets to find, but are mostly focused on speed and platforming. This game, instead, is about grabbing, both to navigate the level and for puzzles. Each world in the game has a different theme, with puzzles centered around that theme. The first world is simple, you just have to get to the end of the stage, but the game changes as you progress. In one later world you need to get an object from a start point to a guy who blocks your way, for instance, throwing it over pits, keeping it away from enemies, and such. It's a solid concept, though it can be frustrating sometimes when you get hit seemingly unfairly or lose the item, and this can happen.Other stages have similar issues; I particularly dislike the Simon-style miniboss, I'm terrible at that game. The variety is nice, though, and as is common in such games ideas are rarely repeated after their world, so if you dislike one world's playstyle it'll only be there for a few stages. This, along with the great graphics and grabbing-based gameplay, are what makes me think of Treasure games, for good and ill. Boss fights are pretty good. They are tricky and require thought and practice, as bosses are only vulnerable to grabbing at certain moments. Boss fights often have multiple phases and will take a while at first. Overall, though, while Ristar is a good game, it's often over-rated. The game has great graphics, a somewhat original concept built in a familiar engine, variety, and some levels with pretty good puzzles and ideas, but the game is perhaps too slow-paced and grabbing enemies is slow and not nearly as fun as just jumping on them as you do in Sonic, it's too long for a game without regular passwords, and the puzzles and level 'gimmicks' are not all good. Overall Ristar is a good but flawed game; despite my complaints, it is solid B-grade work for sure. It's too bad they never made a sequel. This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega’s Genesis games.
Road Rash - 1-2 player alternating, password save (20 characters long). Road Rash is a motorcycle racing game from EA released in 1992. You're a tough biker, and are out to show you're the best by winning races and beating up the competition along the way. Road Rash was a hit, one of EA's more successful Genesis games along with Madden, NHL, and Desert Strike. This is a behind-the-bike-view game, though it's not a linescroll game -- it uses software scaling instead. That may sound impressive, but it comes at a very serious framerate cost. And that's one of the big problems here, and one of several reasons that I have never liked the Genesis Road Rash games very much: it runs far too slowly. If this game even hits 15 frames per second I'd be surprised! I don't mind 20-something framerates, but the 10-15 or so frames per second you get here are not enough. You WILL sometimes hit things just because you couldn't see them coming thanks to the awful framerate. Of course, pulling off so many scaling objects on the Genesis has to have been difficult, but this series is a good example of why most Genesis racing games didn't try -- as cool an effort as it is, the results are painful to play. Beyond the framerate, Road Rash has okay graphics with decently-drawn sprites, and terrain that rolls up and down nicely. There is a large interface on the bottom of the screen with your speed, milage, health, closest enemys' health, and some rear-view mirrors. It looks okay, but it'd be better with more 'normal' graphics for the time and a decent framerate, I think. The music is a lot better than the visuals. Road Rash has Genesis-synth rock music for a soundtrack, and as much as I dislike rock music, this stuff sounds great. There are five songs, one for each of the five tracks in the game, and they're all pretty good.
Framerate aside, Road Rash's gameplay is also flawed, in my opinion. Races in this game are long point-to-point affairs. You race against 15-odd competitors, trying to reach the end first. Races are measured in miles, and the game says how long the race will be before it starts. Once in the race, though, there is no indicator of how much distance is left, only a milage indicator showing how far you've driven in the race, so you'll just have to remember how long the race is. This is annoying, and bizarrely isn't fixed in either sequel. This game doesn't tell you what place you are in most of the time either; it only flashes your position on screen for a moment when you pass or are passed by someone. This the sequels do fix, and add a position indicator. As you drive, try your best to stay on your bike! If you hit anything you're sent FLYING, and will then have to slowly walk all the way back to your bike, wherever it is. Try to remember that as you fly, so you minimize the amount of time lost. Really though, even one crash often means the end of your chances of victory, as your opponents won't mess up often. Combine this with the overly-long races and bad framerate and you've got a recipe for frustration. These three factors combined are the core of why I do not like the Road Rash games much. If you do keep playing things get even worse, as you win money based on your finishing position and can spend this money on better bikes. If you finish in the top few in each of the five tracks you'll unlock the next set, which are the same tracks but with longer races this time, and more obstacles such as cars you can run into. The faster bikes make the game even harder, as seeing what's in front of you gets even more difficult. I gave up early in the second round of this game, and haven't gotten any farther in the sequels. For some more issues, those 20-character passwords are a bit long, and it's too bad that the multiplayer is alternating and not splitscreen. Road Rash does have some interesting tech behind it, good music, and it can be fun to play for a little while, but it's not a particularly good game and I can't recommend it. The game was interesting back in the early '90s, but has aged a lot since, particularly thanks to the framerate. Road Rash was ported on the PSP in the EA Replay collection. There's also an Amiga version, but I don't know how faithful it is to the original here. Other versions of Road Rash are available for the Game Gear and Master System, but those are significantly downgraded and really aren't the same thing as this game.
Road Rash II - 1-2 player simultaneous, password save. Road Rash II, from 1993, is Road Rash, but with thankfully much shorter 8 character passwords instead of 20 and a split-screen mode added. Otherwise, it's the same exact thing as before. Sure, the tracks are new, the onscreen interface has been redrawn, and perhaps the graphics are minutely better than in the first one, but really it's the same exact thing. Once again you've got five environments to race in, some nice electronic rock music, a terrible framerate, and all the rest. Gameplay is exactly the same as before, with no changes, and the bikes look the same but maybe a tiny bit more detailed. This is one of those we-changed-almost-nothing sequels, made because the first game was successful. It's an okay game if you like Road Rash, but unless you're a big series fan I don't know if it's actually worth having both this and the first one. It's not better, and as with the first game it's a slightly-below-average game, playable but not all that fun. Also available in EA Replay on the PSP.
Road Rash 3: Tour de Force - 1-2 player simultaneous, password save. Road Rash 3 relased a few years after the second game, but isn't much different. In between the second and third Genesis games EA released Road Rash for the 3DO. This popular classic is widely regarded as the best Road Rash game, and while I don't love that game, it is a whole lot better than any of the Genesis ones. This third Genesis game, though, goes right back to the Genesis formula. The engine is the same as ever, with the usual terrible framerate and everything. In this game, though, fitting with the times, the sprites are now digitized actors, instead of drawings. The graphics are overall a bit better than before, but the framerate is the same and the game isn't any more fun to play. The music is good as usual, though the first game might be my favorite aurally. In gameplay, well, see the first games' review, they changed almost nothing. There may be some minor gameplay and control changes, but I didn't notice them. The two player splitscreen mode and 8-character passwords from the second game return, but otherwise, it's Road Rash again. Also available in EA Replay on the PSP.
RoadBlasters - 1 player. RoadBlasters is a great arcade racing game from classic arcade powerhouse Atari Games, also known as Tengen on home consoles. This is a fast and action-packed linescroll futuristic combat racing game. You have guns on your car in this game, and while your goal is to reach the finish line on each long and entirely linear track, along the way you will have a lot of enemies to shoot at, and they'll be shooting back at you as well. RoadBlasters is a scaler arcade game, but the game runs extremely well on the Genesis despite its early release date. This is a much better-playing game than the original Genesis Outrun release, and it's too bad that Tengen did not continue to release software-scaler games on the Genesis considering how great a job they did with this one. When I got RoadBlasters I did not have high expectations despite really liking the arcade game because of the usual problems of scaler games on consoles which do not have hardware scaling support, but it played a lot better than I thought. The graphics are downgraded versus the arcade, and you can tell that there isn't any real software scaling here but instead the usual different-sized-sprites, but it looks like an Atari Games arcade game in style, and plays really well as well. Audio is close to the arcade original as well. RoadBlasters on Genesis is fast, fun, and challenging. It's awesome stuff.
Getting to the end of each race will be difficult because you aren't only facing waves of enemy gun turrets and cars, you also have to deal with a fuel meter. Fuel is effectively your health in this game. It drains as you drive, of course, and also each time you get blown up you lose some fuel. If the fuel meter runs out, you lose. First though, there is a reserve tank, which will drain once the main fuel meter runs out. This meter is a one-time thing, and while after a race your main tank will be refilled back to the level it was at at the start of the race, the reserve fuel is gone once used, it never recovers. So, if you do badly and barely make it through, you will suffer for it later when you needed that fuel. It's a tough system that was probably designed to eat your quarters, but it does work here, you just need to put in some time with the game to learn the tracks and how to play better. You get a couple of continues but not many, and there are several dozen races in the game, so it's a quite difficult game. There are some fuel pickups on the tracks which give you different amounts of fuel, and sometimes you will need to memorize where they are to get through a track.
The weapon system is interesting as well. When you hit an enemy you get points, and as you keep hitting without missing any shots, you will build up a bonus multiplier. If you miss, though, your score multiplier resets, and this is bad because you want as many points as possible in order to get more fuel recovery between races. This really encourages thoughtful shooting, and not just driving down the road holding down fire; that is not a good strategy, you need to try to not miss. There are also weapon powerups that drop from helicopters. These can give you a strong gun and more, but the gun is maybe the best because missing with it won't affect your multiplier! It's fun to sometimes be able to shoot without needing to carefully consider if you'll hit, not an easy challenge when you're moving as fast as you do in this game. So yeah, try to remember where the copters are and get those powerups, you'll need them. And that's RoadBlasters. Drive, shoot, build your multiplier, and learn the tracks through repeat play, trying to do better each time. It's a very good arcade game, and it's just as good here. RoadBlasters is an impressive port of a good game, and I highly recommend it. Pick it up! It shouldn't cost too much. Arcade port. Also available on the NES, Atari Lynx, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amiga, and Atari ST (some of those computer ports are available only in Europe). The arcade version is in some emulation collections as well, including Arcade's Greatest Hits: The Atari Collection 2 for PC and PS1 and Midway Arcade Treasures 1 for the PC, PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube, because Midway bought Atari Games in 1996.
Robocop vs. the Terminator - 1 player. Robocop vs. the Terminator is a good sidescrolling platform-shooting game from Virgin Interactive. I've never cared much about Robocop and remember almost nothing about the movie if I have even seen it, but I do like the Terminator movies I have seen, 2, 3, and Salvation. T2 is one of the all-time great action movies. In this game, though, you play as Robocop and have to stop Terminators who are trying to take over the world as usual. So yes, it's a crossover. The game has good graphics and music, decent level designs, quality gameplay, and a high difficulty level with limited continues. This game has good graphics and sound, a lot of impressively clear-sounding voice samples, various different weapons to collect, and large levels to explore. The game is very bloody for the time as well, something which really got the game noticed back when it first released. Not many 4th-gen games have enemies that explode bloodily when killed, but this game does. Of course it's just a death animation, not persistent. The game is also well-drawn, with large, high-quality sprites and nice-looking backgrounds. This isn't one of the best-looking Genesis games, but it does look good. Each level has a new setting as well, with some new enemies and obstacles to face. This is a hard game, though. While you do have a health bar, you have no hitflash and your health bar drains fast, so you can and will die in an instant if touched by a boss, for example. And when you die, you lose your current weapon and it reverts back to the seriously underpowered default pistol. You can carry two weapons at once, and only the equipped one is lost when you die as in Thunder Force, but still, this is harsh. Bosses take forever to kill as well, you will have to shoot them seemingly a million times before they go down, while you lose lives every time they touch you. And sometimes one death is pretty much game over, for that continue at least, if you lose a key weapon during a boss fight where the default gun is near-useless. You do respawn where you died so long as you have lives left in the current continue, but continues send you back to the beginning of the stage, and you only get a few before you have to start the game over. There are difficulty options, but this is a very tough game on any setting.
Bosses aside I like the levels in this game, but they could be tighter and more focused. Levels are sprawling and often have side paths with powerups in them, and that's good, but the graphics and enemies in each stage repeat a lot so they can get repetitive before they end. Enemy bullets can be tricky to avoid as well, as Robocop is not incredibly mobile; you just have to try to duck or jump to try to get through the patterns. Holding up+jump will jump slightly higher, but the normal jump isn't too high. You'll need to hold diagonal up+jump to get over some instant-kill obstacles, that can be tricky. Robocop vs. The Terminator is a lot of fun at first, but a couple of levels in the frustration starts to take hold. This game will take a lot of replay, memorization, and probably also luck to get deep in, and I got this game fairly recently so I haven't spent that time yet. Still, despite its issues this is a good game. The graphics are detailed and look good, the music is above-average for the system and those voice samples sound great, the levels can be fun to explore and figure the secrets in, and I like the different weapons, such as the unique gun which shoots out bullets you can then move around the screen while you walk. You don't have a firing-lock button, so you can only shoot in the direction you're moving, but you can shoot while holding onto a ladder or pole, which is great. Overall Robocop vs. The Terminator is a fast-action game full of blood, shooting, and frustration. It is a good game despite some flaws, and is worth playing overall. There is also a SNES game of the same name, but while both are platform-action games, the two are entirely different games from different teams. I haven't played that one. I know it has passwords to save your progress, but other design flaws that make it maybe even more frustrating than this one.
Rocket Knight Adventures - 1 player. Rocket Knight Adventures is a great platformer from Konami. This game is a popular classic, and is one of Konami's best platformers of the generation, right up there with Super Castlevania IV, Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, and Goemons 2 and 4. This is a cartoony platformer, inspired by Sonic but quite different. This game has a weird cartoon-fantasy-medieval-steampunk aesthetic which looks pretty cool. You play as a humanoid animal in the Sonic vein, a possum-knight in this case, but the gameplay is different: in addition to jumping and a ranged projectile your sword shoots out, you also have a jetpack. You do have a health bar in this game as well, thankfully. You charge the jetpack by holding down the attack button, then letting it go while tapping a direction on the pad will send you flying in the direction you press. Jumping and shooting at enemies are important, but the jetpack is key to the game. The game controls are very responsive and precise, importantly. Learning the jetpack will take a little while, but where you go is predictable and not random once you learn the system. You'll bounce off of walls and fly over obstacles to get through stages, and also damage enemies when you run into them while jetting around. The game has a lot of enemies to fight, of course, in the evil army of cartoon pigs.
The level designs in this game are very good and have a lot of variety, and there are many, often long, bossfights. During stages, levels have many bars and poles to hang from, but otherwise the game is extremely varied and interesting. From early in the game bosses have multiple forms, and levels all have multiple bosses. The game does have a moderate number of long levels, a design shared with most Konami Genesis games (Contra and Tiny Toons aside), but each stage has a lot of variety, so it doesn't feel like a game like TMNT: Hyperstone Heist or Sunset Riders, where the small number of levels is probably there to save money on graphics. Here it just feels like the best design. The constant scene changes and bossfights help keep the variety up, and levels feel just the right length. You will need to use the jetpack regularly, and levels feel designed around it in a good way. This game doesn't feel gimmicky at all, unlike some games with a unique mechanic, just extremely fun, challenging, and well-designed. Those boss fights may be long and difficult, but it is very rewarding when you finally get past one and move on to the next section. While I wish the game had saving and infinite continues, it is nice that when you die you start from the last checkpoint, not the beginning of the level, and this applies to using continues as well as regular deaths, so you won't be sent back. On that note, there are four difficulty levels here, and they really affect the game. In the easier settings not only is the game easier, but you get a lot more lives and continues than you do on the hard ones. Play the game on easy at first, I think. It's a tough game on any setting.
The game looks and sounds great, too. The game has good music with a nice, peppy main theme that fits the game great and very good music in the levels as well. Konami were one of the top masters of game audio back in the 3rd and 4th generations, and this game is a good example of that. And visually, Rocket Knight Adventures is a bright, colorful game, and the art design is very good. It's mostly a straightforward platformer, but there are some parts with nice graphical effects such as a section with a reflective water surface that moves up and down beneath you. Castlevania Bloodlines does something similar, but it looks great here. Your little possum knight is a cute looking little guy, too. Since you are an opossum, you grab on with your tail instead of your arms; it's just a graphical thing, but it is a nice touch. The enemies are similarly silly-looking, and aren't especially threatening despite the games' substantial difficulty. As with many Genesis games, this game has limited continues and no saving, and unlike Contra Hard Corps and Castlevania Bloodlines, as far as I know this game wasn't made harder for the West; it just always was difficult. I really like the art design here, there's always something new to see, new situations to work your way through, and new enemies and enemy contraptions to fight against. The multi-phase giant steam-robot boss in the mine-cart stage is particularly cool, for example. I would say more about the stages and encounters here, but it'd be best to play the game for yourself and be surprised! It's worth the effort. There are also some short shmup segments a few times during the game. They're quite fun, but make me wish that Konami had made some shmups for the Genesis. Konami's 4th-gen shmups are my favorites ever, and it's too bad the Genesis didn't get any of them. Ah well. At least they did make some good Genesis games such as this one.
There is only one other downside to this game maybe worth mentioning, that Rocket Knight is a linear game with no collection elements beyond finding life-ups and extra lives, so the game may not have the replay value of some platformers if you do manage to beat it. However, between the new ideas in both the jetpack and in level designs, very well-designed stages full of variety and challenge, good controls, great graphics, good music as usual from Konami, and more, Rocket Knight Adventures is a great game. Really the only negatives are that it does have limited continues with no saving in a game that is not short, and the straightforward design may hurt replay value for some, but overall Rocket Knight Adventures is a great classic platformer that well deserves all the popularity it has received and more. This is Konami's second-best Genesis game after only Contra: Hard Corps. This game was successful and has three sequels, one on SNES, a second on Genesis (and yes, these two are entirely different despite both being titled "Sparkster"), and a modern one, Rocket Knight, on PC, Xbox 360, and PS3. They are all fun games, but none quite match up to this games' level. The SNES game plays like this one but not quite as good, while the second Genesis game changes things up. I don't actually own either one unfortunately, and they are getting up there in price now. The modern game got something of a mixed reception, but I do like it. It's worth a look.
Rolling Thunder 2 - 1-2 player simultaneous, password save. Rolling Thunder 2 is a really great side-scrolling action game from Namco. This is an enhanced arcade port. The sequel to my favorite Namco game ever, Rolling Thunder, this game is also fantastic even if I do like the first one a little bit more. You play as agents Albatross and Leila, though I'm not sure if this is the same Albatross from the first game, since that game has a 1960s aesthetic while this one looks 1990s. Regardless though, you are a pair of James Bond-style secret agents, and have to stop another evil organization from taking over the world. This time you can play as the female character too, instead of her just being someone to rescue; that's great. The two player co-op support is also really nice, that's something you won't find in either of the other Rolling Thunder games. With two players the game is definitely easier, if both players know what they're doing at least. This game has good but not great graphics and sound. It's a bit downgraded from the arcade game, but it's close; the game just isn't trying to push this hardware. The art design is solid, and I like the variety of settings from Miami to some new evil-organization bases, but the original games' stylish 1960s look is probably better. Still, the game looks nice enough and is definitely recognizable as a Rolling Thunder game visually, and there is a decent variety of enemies to fight. Again a lot of them are hooded evil thugs, though there is some more variety this time than before. There are many more bosses than the first game, as well, some Genesis-original as the arcade version had few bossfights again, like the first game. I like the added boss fights and levels this home version has, it makes it the definitive version of the game -- the graphics are good enough, and the content is expanded. The password system returns from the NES version of the first game, as well, which is fantastic. And this time you get a password for every level throughout, thankfully.
As before, Rolling Thunder 2 is a slow-paced shooter with many doors to go in along the way. You and your enmeies both move in predictable ways. This game is similar, but it is a little easier and fairer this time, as Rolling Thunder 2 eases up on some of Rolling Thunder's most frustrating design decisions. You have three hit points, one more than the previous game, and simply touching enemies doesn't hurt you anymore, unlike in the first game. Howver, you still die in one hit if shot, so though it is easier than before you you need to be careful. Ducking, jumping, and hiding behind doors to avoid bullets is the name of the game here, and it's great once you get into it. You have limited ammo as well. Some people dislike the pacing, but I think it's perfect; fast-paced, more Contra-esque Rolling Thunder just wouldn't be the same, as Rolling Thunder 3 shows. Each Rolling Thunder game is a little easier than the one before it. Now, Rolling Thunder doesn't let you control your jump in the air. So, where you land depends on where you jumped from. This means that pixel-perfect positioning is sometimes required, if you want to end up in the right place. On top of this, the first game has some segments with difficult jumps over bottomless pits. This game does have a level with pits, but the jumps are MUCH easier to make this time. Similarly, the first game had many points where random luck was a major factor. You'll often have to drop down, but if you drop too close to enemies they will shoot you dead before you can react. So, you'd have to wait, or move back and forth to hope that you can get them in a position you can actually get by. I like that challenge, but it can be annoying. This time, that element of the game is gone. You will often have to deal with enemies above or below you, and will have to go up or down a level, but the parts so reliant on luck as well as skill have been removed in favor of situations you can get through with skill alone. As with the first game you do go back to the last checkpoint if you die. This makes the game easier, and somehow I miss the original games' cruelness even if this probably is the better design. Either way on that, the game has many great encounters along the way. There may be fewer times where you go up or down a screen than in the first game, but many areas still have two levels of platforms, allowing for good strategy, and there are elevator sections, a level with moving platforms over pits, and more. It's really great work, in a lot of ways this is the peak of the series as far as level designs go.
For weapons, again your main gun is a pistol with limited ammo. You can find ammo for it behind some of the doors. Other doors have a machine gun, some other special weapons, or rare health-ups. In the first game, if you ran out of ammo that's it, you could not attack. This time, though, you do have a knife you can use at zero ammo. It's handy, but again eases up on the difficulty slightly. Still, in all Rolling Thunder games, if you're playing the game well you should never run out of ammo, so this is minor. I do like the new special weapons, they add variety and are good for some bossfights. They aren't as common as in the third game, thankfully. There is also a Hard mode you unlock after beating the game on Normal. Nice. Unlike the first game it has no new content, so it's just an optional difficulty and not another part of the main game, but it's great to have, once you've beaten the game on Normal. It does have a a slightly different ending, at least, even if the game is the same thing but tougher. Progressing through the game, hiding behind doors, slowly figuring out how to get past each enemy pattern or boss, and then overcoming them is extremely rewarding. Rolling Thunder 2 is a fantastically fun game, I love it! This is probably a love-or-hate series, but I really love this series' style of methodical, strategic shooting. Rolling Thunder 2 is one of the best sidescrolling action games of the generation, hands-down, and this is the best version of the game. Yes, I probably do like Contra: Hard Corps and The Adventures of Batman & Robin even more, but on the other hand, I've beaten this game but not those, so in some ways I like it more. Save systems are great! This is a really awesome game and I certainly recommend giving it a serious try. Arcade port. This Genesis version of the game is available on the Wii Virtual Console.
Rolling Thunder 3 - 1 player, password save. The final game in the Rolling Thunder series, Rolling Thunder 3 is a Genesis-exclusive, and US-exclusive, sidescrolling action game from Namco. I did a full review of this game several years ago, so go look that up. This is a pretty good game, but it changes some things from the first two games in an attempt to make a faster-paced, more action-packed game. They did that, but it lost some of what makes Rolling Thunder so great in the process, unfortunately. Rolling Thunder 3 has fewer areas with multiple levels of platforms, more powerful special weapons for your character available at all times, no two player co-op, story cutscenes between levels, no playable female character by default (though there is a password to play as one, she has no cutscenes of her own, it just plays the guys' as usual), many fewer doors, a faster pace, an added diagonal shot to allow you to hit enemies above you at an angle, three hit points and getting shot only takes away two so this time you can actually take a bullet and not die, unlike the previous games, lets you continue from where you died instead of sending you back to the last checkpoint, and has a very slow-firing bullet as your weapon if you run out of ammo, so you'll never truly be without bullets. All of these changes either are downgrades, or serve to make the game easier. People who dislike how hard and slow-paced the previous games are probably love most of the changes, the removal of two player co-op aside, but as a fan of the first two games this one disappoints me. There is still enough of Rolling Thunder here to make this a good game, make no mistake. Rolling Thunder 3 IS a good game. It has decent level designs, some pretty cool encounters, much better graphics than either previous console Rolling Thunder game, a better story with actual cutscenes even if it is once again a James Bond knockoff, good controls as always, and you do still need to think about what you're doing and move somewhat slowly; this isn't a fast-paced run & gun like Contra, despite all the changes. And that's possibly one of the issues here -- this game isn't deliberate enough for a classic Rolling Thunder fan like me, but isn't going to satisfy Contra fans either. It's in the middle ground between them, and suffers for it. As for me, I wish that more levels were like the last one, that's the best level in the game and the one most like classic Rolling Thunder, and it's not as good as the final levels in either previous game. At least there is, again, a Hard mode to unlock after you beat the game, but that doesn't fix all of the games' problems. Overall though, even this B-grade Rolling Thunder game is still pretty good, and I definitely like Rolling Thunder 3. Get it if you find a reasonably-priced copy. While the game has issues, it's still quite fun to play. It's too bad that this game never released in Europe, Japan, or any Namco collection or Virtual Console service, and tha the series died with this game, it'd have been great to see more Rolling Thunder games. It'd be a perfect franchise for a modern 2d re-imagining, too!
Sega Genesis Game Opininion Summaries - Work In Progress - A Black Falcon - 20th January 2016
Yes, this update was delayed. I took a bit of time off after the last update, and this was a tough one, 15 games to cover and most needed a fair amount of detail, and some playtime as well. The next few updates will also probably take a while, I have more games for this system that start with S than any letter. S will be multi-part, but still... haven't started it yet. Anyway, here is R.
Games covered in this update
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Rambo III
Ranger-X (Ranger X)
Rastan Saga II
Red Zone
Revenge of Shinobi (I have this on the Sega 6-Pak)
Risk
Ristar
Road Rash
Road Rash II
Road Rash 3: Tour de Force
RoadBlasters
Robocop vs. the Terminator
Rocket Knight Adventures
Rolling Thunder 2
Rolling Thunder 3
Rambo III - 1 player. Rambo III is a fairly average top-down run & gun action game from Sega. This game is Sega's second Rambo game with this playstyle, following the pretty good good Rambo: First Blood Part II for the Master System. That game is good, but it's actually an unrelated game that the Rambo name was tacked on to in order to sell a few more copies. This time the game is actually based on the movie, I presume; though I've never seen a Rambo movie, this game does have a basic story that I imagine loosely follows the movie's plot. I do think that this game is a bit disappointing compared to its SMS 'predecessor', as the graphics are unimpressive and gameplay only okay, but this is an alright game once you get into it. Rambo III for the Genesis has unimpressive graphics, levels which are often large and mazelike, infinitely-respawning enemies, no weapons to find beyond the ones you start with, and minimal enemy variety. The game does have some variety, interesting bosses, and some fun action, but it's probably more bad than good. The game starts out easy, but does eventually get challenging, and you do have limited continues, though the game doesn't tell you this, annoyingly. You get a lot of continues, but I did eventually run out. You are Rambo, the action movie hero, and you're on a mission to save some guy who was captured, or something like that. The story isn't told in detail, but there is a bit of text before each mission telling you what to do next. Each level consists of a stage and then usually some kind of boss. You can take three hits per continue.
In stages, your main weapon is a machine gun, on C. It has unlimited ammo and you can fire as you move, so just holding down the fire button most of the time is a good strategy. You can only shoot in the direction you are moving in unfortunately, but the game was designed around this so it's not too bad. You also have three special weapons on B, which you switch between with A: a knife, a bow with explosive arrows, and bombs. The arrows and bombs are limited, and you get ammo for them by blowing towers up with bombs or by killing foes with the knife. Knifing guys will also give you a point bonus for your score, if you care about that, but it's tough to do without getting hit. Arrows take a while to charge up, and once fired will kill regular enemies in the direction you fire, or kill some vehicles such as jeeps. Bombs must be placed, and will blow up a 5-count later. They are mostly used to destroy walls, targets such as ammo dumps, and towers. Levels consist of wandering around, walking past or maybe shooting the enemies while looking for your objective. Yes, levels have objectives beyond just reaching the end, though tye are simple -- either reach a point, reach several points in a stage, or destroy certain targets. There is no map, so you'll just have to wander around and get lost until you learn the layout while the enemies annoyingly keep spawning on top of you. Often just ignoring them is the best strategy, the game doesn't force you to stop and fight very often. Just walking past them is boring but effective. Bosses mostly are played from a close-up third-person view, as you move Rambo left and right, trying to shoot arrows at things such as helicopters or tanks. If you die at a boss you restart the whole level, naturally. They're interesting, but not great. And that's really the game overall. The enemies are nearly all identical soldiers, the levels are annoying to navigate, and you get no new weapons, so there is little gameplay variety beyond the different stages, and the core gameplay is bland and average. Rambo III is okay, but it's not all that fun; Sega could have done a lot better than this, I'm sure. If you want to play a great top-down run & gun shooter on the Genesis, stick to MERCS. [There is also a Master System "Rambo III" game, but it is entirely different -- that one is an Operation Wolf-knockoff light-gun shooter. It is also mediocre.]
Ranger-X (Ranger X) - 1 player, 6 button controller supported (and highly recommended). Ranger-X is a beautiful-looking and great-playing sidescrolling giant robot action-platform game from an obscure and short-lived team, Gau Entertainment, and published by Sega. You pilot the Ranger-X, a transforming robot suit. In addition to the main robot with its multiple weapons and hover-jets, you also control a smaller hovercar-skateboard base unit which follows you around. You can independently control it during play with the 6-button controller, so don't play this game without one! You can also combine the two vehicles into a 'car' form for a lower profile, fast movement, and a different weapon, a very nice aimable gun. Ranger-X is an impressive game in a lot of ways. Visually it gets a lot out of the Genesis. This game puts more colors on screen than most Genesis games, and the art design is fantastic as well. The game is loaded with detail, and has little slowdown despite the often intense action. The art design and sprites all look fantastic. There are even these really cool wireframe-3d cinematics before each stage, showing the route through the level! There are also some nice visual effects in the stages such as some cool scaling effects. The game makes nice use of that rarely-seen hardware shadow capability the Genesis has. The color use in this game is stunning and really shows how much more this system can do than you usually see! Ranger-X is one of the best-looking Genesis games for sure. The soundtrack is pretty good as well. It's an epic cinematic score, Genesis-style.
And fortunately, the substance here is just as great as the style is. The game controls very well, first. The game uses all face buttons and d-pad directions except for the Mode button, so it will take a while to get used to, but with some practice it feels great to play. You move your robot with the pad, and fly around with up. Yes, up 'jumps', though it's hovering, not jumping, so it does feel natural after a while. There's a meter which limits how long you can stay in the air at a time. You shoot left or right with A and C, allowing you to move in one direction and fire in the other. It's handy! Pressing Down enters the sidecar thing to make the combined form. Your regular and combined forms have separate health bars. Up will then exit it, so you can't jump or fly while combined. The sidecar also can't fly, it stays on the ground. It also can't turn around, so when outside it it can only fire to the left. When combined you have a homing shot though, so then it can hit any enemy. When combined, B or Y switch special weapons, while when separated those buttons use that special weapon; these have a meter to limit use. X or Z move the sidecar left or right while not combined. The controls work great once you get used to them.
You have a health bar in this game, which is necessary because avoiding damage is often impossible. I don't mind this, as I think that the health bar makes up for that issue. It is easy to die if you're not paying attention, though, and you only get three continues in the game, so this is a hard game and I haven't finished it yet. It is the kind of game that keeps you coming back to try again, though, so I don't mind this as much as with some games. Levels vary between simple corridors and large areas to explore around in, and you have a mission objective in each stage; you aren't just walking to the end. Fortunately, a radar on screen shows where the targets you need to destroy are. It is very useful, I love that they include this. There are also a few light puzzle elements, particularly in the open second stage. In this level you'll need to destroy some laser controllers, and also lure some enemies into light beams that can destroy them. Making good use of both your main robot and follower is very helpful, you'll struggle if you don't use it. I love how varied this game is. While most mecha action games just involve walking to the right and shooting, here you will need to consider which special weapon and ship form to use, move around your helper robot and maybe hide in it for healing and that altherate weapon, keep your mission objective in mind, and take your time as you explore so as to deal with the many different kinds of enemies.
So, Ranger-X looks amazing, sounds good, has a lot of variety, plays very well, has some great level designs, is a reasonable-length game for its time and presents a solid challenge along the way, and is just generally outstanding in almost every way. What's the downside here? Well, the game does have limited continues and no saving. This means that you won't beat the game without lots of replaying the earlier levels, which gets tedious even in a game this good. Ranger-X is great fun, but it'd be nice to be able to play the later levels more without having to replay early levels again and again. Also, some will dislike the health-bar system and unavoidable hits, though I'm fine with it. Yes, you will take unavoidable hits, but with some strategy and forethoguht most fire can be avoided, or survived. Sometimes switching between the combined and regular forms, to take advantage of the separate health bars, is a good strategy. I like how this game makes you think more than the average platform-shooter, it's great! Really, the continues issue is the only bad thing about this game, and it's relatively minor. Ranger-X is one of the best-looking, and best, action games of the generation. The game didn't quite make my Genesis top 10, but it's very close, and I could see it being a top 10 game on the system for sure. Get this game, you won't regret it. This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega’s Genesis games.
Rastan Saga II - 1 player. Taito's Rastan Saga II is a side-scrolling platform action game, and sadly, it's one of the worst, most disappointing sequels ever made. The original Rastan, for arcades, Sega Master System, and some Taito collections on newer platforms, is a really good fantasy platform-action game. You play as Rastan, a Conan-like barbarian, trying to face off against a formidable lineup of foes. It's very hard but really well-designed and rewarding. For the sequel Taito changed a lot, all for the worse. This time the camera is zoomed in close, to show off the larger sprites possible on newer hardware. The problem is, it's way too close! The large sprites do look nice sometimes, but that's one of the few good things about this game. The backgrounds are kind of ugly too, so the graphics are not that great anyway. Rastan moves at a snails' pace here; this makes up for the very short viewing distance, but makes for a boring game. Level designs are incredibly dull as well. While the first Rastan had good levels full of things to find and fun challenges to overcome, this game is just a straight path left-to-right, that's it. Levels are far less interesting to navigate than in the first one, or than they are in any good game. There are obstacles to jump over and enemies to fight, but it's all very bland and boring. The one thing this game does is that you do have multiple different weapon types to get, but they aren't different enough to matter much.
This game is short, too -- longplays are 16-20 minutes long, versus a half hour for the first game, and it'll take a lot less time to finish since it's a much easier game as well. That isn't all bad, as Rastan is a bit excessively difficult sometimes, but I'd rather play a way-too-hard game that's actually really fun than a moderately challenging one that will bore you almost to sleep with its tedium and mediocrity. Oh, and the music is kind of bad and lacks variety, too. Overall, Rastan Saga II is a bad platform-action game which is not worth your time. The levels are generic and boring and are not that well designed, you move far too slowly, and there is no variety to be found either, just repetion until either you die or beat it. Fortunately it won't take long either way. Even without comparing it to its great predecessor this game is bad; I got this one well before Rastan 1, and thought it waqs awful and not worth my money. And now that I have played the first one, it seems even worse. Arcade port; there is also a Japan-only PC Engine (TurboGrafx) version. Both are accurate ports of the arcade game, though the Genesis one is better since it has parallax scrolling. The problem is the original design, not the port.
Red Zone - 1 player, password save. Red Zone is a technically impressive topdown helicopter combat and run & gun game developed by Zyrinx and published by Sega. The game looks great, but the gameplay is overly difficult and frustrating. This game is Zyrinx's second Genesis game, after Sub-Terannia. That is a better game, but this game does have some things going for it beyond just the extremely impressive graphics, even if ultimately it gets way too hard way too fast. The developers were so proud of what they accomplished here that the first thing you see when you turn on the game is a screen listing a lot of the effects they do in the game, including sprite scaling and rotation, FMV video, polygon rendering for the ground, and some more. The game has a great, pounding techno soundtrack as well from one of the best composers for the system. Well, that's what you get from a developer who originated in the European demoscene. The amazing (for the Genesis) graphics of the copter missions are the most noteworthy thing about this game, though the gameplay is decent as well. Still, this probably is a tech-first game.
The game has two modes, helicopter and on-foot. Controls in both are solid, though slow; dodging can be tricky. Each mission consists of both helicopter and on-foot segments, as you land the copter at certain points to take on some on-foot missions in enemy bases. The helicopter side of the game clearly was inspired by Desert Strike, but missions aren't as long as they are in that game. You have a main machine gun and several sub-weapons you switch with C. All have limited ammo, and you have limited fuel as well. The copter side of the game all takes place on one only moderate-sized map, but has amazing-looking-for-the-system full sprite scaling and rotation of the objects below as you fly around. There are also buildings which have some 3d depth, and pillars made up of stacks of scaling sprites, super-scaler-game style. It looks incredible, there's nothing else quite like it on the system! It is disappointing that there's only one environment in the game and there is no graphical variety, but perhaps with everything they did visually there wasn't room on the cart for more. At least the enemy layout is different in each mission, so it's not always the same. You also will focus on different parts of the map each time. Missions have some optional objectives as well, as you often can take on a side area if you want to make your progress towards the main objective easier. You can land at certain circular landing pads to pick up fuel, ammo, or health refills, though each one can only be gotten once. Make sure not to accidentally blow up the pickups, you easily can! There is a helpful map on the pause screen menu showing all landing pads, enemies, and enemy bases on a nice zoomable map. You can re-read your mission objectives here as well. It's great, but even with the help these missions are very hard, as your health goes down fast and you get only one life. If you blow up, you have to watch the 'you lose' cutscene, then you're dumped back at the main menu and will have to re-enter the password to continue. It's a bit annoying, the game badly needed a quick-continue option with how often you will die.
Once you land at an enemy base you go in on foot. Here the game changes to a topdown run & gun, sort of like an Ikari Warriors or MERCS game. As in the air, it's action-packed and challenging. You've got a nice variety of weapons to use, and three characters to choose from who act like three lives. Yes, you get multiple chances here, unlike in the copter. Killed enemies stay dead for the other characters. Each base has a mission to accomplish, and you've got strict time limits sometimes with little margin for error. It'll take a while in each mission to figure out what to do. Unfortunately you can only shoot in the direction you are moving; a strafe-lock button would have been great. You do get several weapons, though, and you will need to use some thought in these missions, just running and gunning can get you killed. Visually, these levels look nice and do have some 3d depth, with a 'looking down into a 3d room' effect on the walls, and many scaling objects, but it's not as impressive looking as the helicopter side of the game. And just like in the copter, enemies will drain your health fast and it's easy to die, and if all three characters die, you'll go back to the start of the copter part since you only get passwords between whole missions, not in the middle of them. I really like that you get passwords at all though, many games on this system aren't as generous.
Even so, while Red Zone looks great and is somewhat fun to play, by mission three the frustration really set in, and I haven't gotten past that level yet. I think there are only eight missions, so it's not too long a game if you can manage it. Also, the game is a bit repetitive, with no graphical variety, only one map for the helicopter and VERY similar-looking bases on foot, and the same gameplay in each stage. That is unfortunate, but sometimes you have to make tradeoffs, and the game certainly does push the hardware more than probably any other Genesis game. Overall, Red Zone is an impressive tech demo with some decent to good gameplay. However, the gameplay is not well balanced and only all but the best players will probably get frustrated. Still, it's worth trying, at least.
Revenge of Shinobi (I have this on the Sega 6-Pak) - 1 player. Revenge of Shinobi is an early Genesis game, and the second console Shinobi game. This is a popular game which many consider a classic, but I've never liked it very much, and playing it again now did not ingratiate it to me any more than before. Revenge of Shinobi, just like its predecessor, a second-rate Rolling Thunder knockoff without some of the things that made Rolling Thunder so great, such as the highly controlled and predictable movement and doors and such to hide behind. And yes, Rolling Thunder released a year before Shinobi, so it came first. I know that Rolling Thunder was inspired by Elevator Action, so it wasn't an entirely original idea, but it's a big improvement over that game, while Shinobi goes the other way, and I like the first Shinobi more than this one. I know this is an early release, but it has not-great graphics, controls, and level designs. The visuals are bland. Nothing special there. Sprites look okay, but don't really stand out. The gameplay is average at best as well. Maybe if I had the nostalgia for this game some do it'd help, but I don't; this isn't one I played much of back in the early '90s. Once I finally did play it I was not impressed.
The game itself is a side-scrolling platform-action game, sort of like the first one but with a bigger focus on projectiles, double jumps in a game with awful double-jumping controls, and slightly less straightforward level designs. Unfortunately, you can't switch between your throwing weapon and a melee weapon, only use melee attacks sometimes when enemies are close enough, and your ranged ammo is very limited. If you run out, you're probably doomed. Enemies can block your attacks, and often will, so you need to be strategic with your attacks. In this way the game is a bit like Rolling Thunder, but more frustratring because of how easy it is for them to just block your attacks with their weapons. Rolling Thunder enemies can't block, so managing ammo there works better. The double jump is a big problem as well because you have a very tight timing window for it. You've got to hit jump again at exactly the peak of your jump or it doesn't register, and it doesn't always seem to respond as well as it should. Levels over bottomless pits, such as the waterfall stage in level two, are very annoying as a result of this. I never know if I'm going to make a jump or not as much because of the very slow and sometimes unresponsive controls as much as anything else. And as for the levels, they are okay, but unimaginative and sometimes random. Why do some of those blocks in the first level open doors, while others do nothing? Be more consistent. Each level has a boss, and they do require skill and pattern memorization to beat, but beyond that are average. And when you do die, as with most Genesis games you have only a couple of continues so you'll be starting the game over often. Yes, this game is hard. I've never gotten anywhere near the end, and doubt that I'll seriously try anytime soon; Revenge of Shinobi is not very fun to play. Overall, Revenge of Shinobi is average, and at best is maybe slightly above average. I can't really recommend this to anyone who doesn't have nostalgia for the game. Play the far better Shadow Dancer instead, that game is great! This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega’s Genesis games.
Risk - 1-6 player alternating, password save. This is a decent console adaptation of the classic strategy board game of the same name. I do like Risk, though Axis & Allies is better, and this is a fine version of the game. The game has fairly simple graphics, but they're good enough to do. Music is similarly okay, but forgettable. This game has two modes, classic Risk and a mode with arcade-style battles where you fight by shooting a cannon at troops that represent the enemy army. The classic mode is the main game; the new mode is amusing, but not great. Your goal in Risk is to conquer the world. There is only one map, based on the real world circa the age of imperialism. Some later Risk computer and video games have more maps, but not this one. At least there is AI to play against, you can't do that with the board game. There are three AI difficulties, but only the Hard one is challenging to beat. I played a game for this summary and fairly easily beat a bunch of Beginner and Average opponents. You can play with up to six players as usual, with any mix of humans and AIs. The map is broken up into a bunch of territories connected at certain points, and the players start out by claiming territories one at a time. Then you can place armies on your territories, then start the first real turn, though every turn starts with each player placing their new armies first.
Now, Risk is a fairly simple game, in that there's really only one type of troop, the army. You can stack as many armies on a space as you want, so building up a big stack and then going rampaging around the board is a common strategy. You will also get cards as you take spaces, and can use sthese cards for a big infusion of troops at some critical time. When you move troops onto an enemy space a battle st arts. These are essentially luck, and in the board game are based on die rolls. Here, instead of watching digital dice, you watch cannons representing each players' force shoot at eachother. There can be up to three cannons per side that shoot, so each side can take out up to three enemies per round of battle. battle continues until the defender loses, the attacker is down to only 1 soldier which then retreats to the place they came from because all spaces must always have an army on it, or the attacker retreats. The random-number generator can be frustrating at times, of course, and you can lose lots of troops to some smaller force if you're unlucky, but that's the way of Risk. At least with real dice you know it's fair though, while here you never know if the AI cheats. Also, you'll spend a LOT of time in this game watching the AI take its turns, and all battles are unskippable, even between AIs. This makes the game take longer than it should, though it is still a whole lot shorter than the board game. Overall Risk for the Genesis, like Risk the board game, is a good game. However, there are better, more feature-rich versions of Risk available for newer platforms, so there isn't too much reason to play this one unless you want to see how it plays on the Genesis or if you want to play the cannon-shooting mode, but that's not much of a draw; I'd rather play with the luck of the draw than that probably also-rigged mode. It's just a target-shooting game, nothing more, and the AI is good at it. Still, classic mode is just as it should be. If you like strategy game and see this cheap, maybe pick it up. Board game conversion. There are lots of versions of Risk, but this specific version isn't available elsewhere.
Ristar - 1 player. There are passwords, but for cheatcodes only, not progress. Ristar is a good but not great platformer from Sega released in early 1995. You are Ristar, an anthropomorphic star-man with stretchable arms, sort of like a space version of the anthropomorphic animal characters popularized by Sonic. You've got to save your galaxy from evil by grabbing things, as your hands and arms are the central mechanic. The game runs in the Sonic engine, but plays differently. First though, the visuals are outstanding. This game has fantastic, top-tier graphics with great Sonic-style artwork. The game has great art design, use of color and shadows, and visual variety. However, while it is good, the slow-paced puzzle and gimmick-heavy gameplay just isn't as fun, for me, as Sonic (or Mario) are. I know some people really love this game, but when playing it, I can't help but think 'this is good but Sonic is better'. It's great that Ristar is a different kind of game from Sonic, but it doesn't quite match up in fun factor. Ristar is a slow-paced game with a lot of puzzles, not a fast-paced action game. It's not quite as immediately engaging. You can get stuck at puzzles sometimes, as well. I also really dislike the lacking continue system and absence of saving, these are inexcusable mistakes. Saving Ristar's galaxy will be a long and challenging quest, as Ristar is a longer game than any Genesis Sonic game other than Sonic 3 & Knuckles and is as hard or harder than any of the Genesis Sonic games, and you need to do it in one sitting, and with only five continues besides! No game this long should have limited continues and no saving, and yet Ristar does! Sega's early to mid '90s failure to understand that saving was necessary in games like this is very frustrating. If you want to have fun with the game I recommend using the stage-select password. Yes, the game has a Password option in the Options menu, but it's not for actual passwords you get as you progress. Instead it's only for cheat-codes you will have to look up online. Fortunately finding a complete list is easy, and one is a level select. The game should have had saving like Sonic 3 does, but it doesn't, so just use the code. That's preferable to replaying the game over and over, really. The later Game Gear Ristar game adds a full password save system, which was a great move. It doesn't look or play quite as well as this game, though, of course.
This is a good game, though. Ristar has seven planets, or game-worlds, each made up of three stages: two levels and then a boss fight. Levels are good-length, with maybe fewer screens than your average Sonic level but a longer playtime because of the slow pace and frequent stops for fights or puzzles. To encourage thought, there isn't an on-screen timer, just your score and a health bar. Ristar attacks, and interacts with the world, with his hands. His arms can stretch out fairly far, so you can grab things from a decent distance away. You do have limited health in this game, unlike Sonic's rings. Chests can have points or health powerups, but they are finite. This adds to the challenge, versus Sonic. To attack you'll need to first grab, then hit the button again to whack into the enemy and hit or defeat it. Grabbing poles and ladders will let you climb or bounce off of them, as the case may be. I like bouncing off of horizontal walls to slowly get up them, but you can only climb up if there's a grab-bar, you can't bounce up to the top. This feels limiting compared to the game Ristar is often compared to, Bionic Commando; Bionic Commando is a better game than this, though I like this a lot too. It's fun to walk across rows of grab-bars on ceilings and floors, grab walls to climb them and find secrets, and grab poles in sequence in order to reach higher areas of the level. There are spinners to grab on to as well all over the levels, and as you hold down the button while grabbing one you will spin faster and faster. Let go at just the right moment and you'll go flying in the direction you were headed when you let go. Mastering the art of going the way you want on spinners is key, and is a nice challenge. In combat though, grabbing is somewhat frustratingly slow, and slows the game down a lot when combined with Ristar's already-slow walk speed. You can only damage enemies by grabbing and bonking into them, after all, you can't plow through them like in a Sonic game. Also, grabbing can be fun, but it gives the game a somewhat Treasure-esque "gimmicky" feel that you don't see in other Genesis platformers from Sega. Still, it was a good idea to try and is mostly interesting and well-executed.
But yes, the puzzle element is uncommon for a Genesis platformer from Sega. Sonic games do have secrets to find, but are mostly focused on speed and platforming. This game, instead, is about grabbing, both to navigate the level and for puzzles. Each world in the game has a different theme, with puzzles centered around that theme. The first world is simple, you just have to get to the end of the stage, but the game changes as you progress. In one later world you need to get an object from a start point to a guy who blocks your way, for instance, throwing it over pits, keeping it away from enemies, and such. It's a solid concept, though it can be frustrating sometimes when you get hit seemingly unfairly or lose the item, and this can happen.Other stages have similar issues; I particularly dislike the Simon-style miniboss, I'm terrible at that game. The variety is nice, though, and as is common in such games ideas are rarely repeated after their world, so if you dislike one world's playstyle it'll only be there for a few stages. This, along with the great graphics and grabbing-based gameplay, are what makes me think of Treasure games, for good and ill. Boss fights are pretty good. They are tricky and require thought and practice, as bosses are only vulnerable to grabbing at certain moments. Boss fights often have multiple phases and will take a while at first. Overall, though, while Ristar is a good game, it's often over-rated. The game has great graphics, a somewhat original concept built in a familiar engine, variety, and some levels with pretty good puzzles and ideas, but the game is perhaps too slow-paced and grabbing enemies is slow and not nearly as fun as just jumping on them as you do in Sonic, it's too long for a game without regular passwords, and the puzzles and level 'gimmicks' are not all good. Overall Ristar is a good but flawed game; despite my complaints, it is solid B-grade work for sure. It's too bad they never made a sequel. This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega’s Genesis games.
Road Rash - 1-2 player alternating, password save (20 characters long). Road Rash is a motorcycle racing game from EA released in 1992. You're a tough biker, and are out to show you're the best by winning races and beating up the competition along the way. Road Rash was a hit, one of EA's more successful Genesis games along with Madden, NHL, and Desert Strike. This is a behind-the-bike-view game, though it's not a linescroll game -- it uses software scaling instead. That may sound impressive, but it comes at a very serious framerate cost. And that's one of the big problems here, and one of several reasons that I have never liked the Genesis Road Rash games very much: it runs far too slowly. If this game even hits 15 frames per second I'd be surprised! I don't mind 20-something framerates, but the 10-15 or so frames per second you get here are not enough. You WILL sometimes hit things just because you couldn't see them coming thanks to the awful framerate. Of course, pulling off so many scaling objects on the Genesis has to have been difficult, but this series is a good example of why most Genesis racing games didn't try -- as cool an effort as it is, the results are painful to play. Beyond the framerate, Road Rash has okay graphics with decently-drawn sprites, and terrain that rolls up and down nicely. There is a large interface on the bottom of the screen with your speed, milage, health, closest enemys' health, and some rear-view mirrors. It looks okay, but it'd be better with more 'normal' graphics for the time and a decent framerate, I think. The music is a lot better than the visuals. Road Rash has Genesis-synth rock music for a soundtrack, and as much as I dislike rock music, this stuff sounds great. There are five songs, one for each of the five tracks in the game, and they're all pretty good.
Framerate aside, Road Rash's gameplay is also flawed, in my opinion. Races in this game are long point-to-point affairs. You race against 15-odd competitors, trying to reach the end first. Races are measured in miles, and the game says how long the race will be before it starts. Once in the race, though, there is no indicator of how much distance is left, only a milage indicator showing how far you've driven in the race, so you'll just have to remember how long the race is. This is annoying, and bizarrely isn't fixed in either sequel. This game doesn't tell you what place you are in most of the time either; it only flashes your position on screen for a moment when you pass or are passed by someone. This the sequels do fix, and add a position indicator. As you drive, try your best to stay on your bike! If you hit anything you're sent FLYING, and will then have to slowly walk all the way back to your bike, wherever it is. Try to remember that as you fly, so you minimize the amount of time lost. Really though, even one crash often means the end of your chances of victory, as your opponents won't mess up often. Combine this with the overly-long races and bad framerate and you've got a recipe for frustration. These three factors combined are the core of why I do not like the Road Rash games much. If you do keep playing things get even worse, as you win money based on your finishing position and can spend this money on better bikes. If you finish in the top few in each of the five tracks you'll unlock the next set, which are the same tracks but with longer races this time, and more obstacles such as cars you can run into. The faster bikes make the game even harder, as seeing what's in front of you gets even more difficult. I gave up early in the second round of this game, and haven't gotten any farther in the sequels. For some more issues, those 20-character passwords are a bit long, and it's too bad that the multiplayer is alternating and not splitscreen. Road Rash does have some interesting tech behind it, good music, and it can be fun to play for a little while, but it's not a particularly good game and I can't recommend it. The game was interesting back in the early '90s, but has aged a lot since, particularly thanks to the framerate. Road Rash was ported on the PSP in the EA Replay collection. There's also an Amiga version, but I don't know how faithful it is to the original here. Other versions of Road Rash are available for the Game Gear and Master System, but those are significantly downgraded and really aren't the same thing as this game.
Road Rash II - 1-2 player simultaneous, password save. Road Rash II, from 1993, is Road Rash, but with thankfully much shorter 8 character passwords instead of 20 and a split-screen mode added. Otherwise, it's the same exact thing as before. Sure, the tracks are new, the onscreen interface has been redrawn, and perhaps the graphics are minutely better than in the first one, but really it's the same exact thing. Once again you've got five environments to race in, some nice electronic rock music, a terrible framerate, and all the rest. Gameplay is exactly the same as before, with no changes, and the bikes look the same but maybe a tiny bit more detailed. This is one of those we-changed-almost-nothing sequels, made because the first game was successful. It's an okay game if you like Road Rash, but unless you're a big series fan I don't know if it's actually worth having both this and the first one. It's not better, and as with the first game it's a slightly-below-average game, playable but not all that fun. Also available in EA Replay on the PSP.
Road Rash 3: Tour de Force - 1-2 player simultaneous, password save. Road Rash 3 relased a few years after the second game, but isn't much different. In between the second and third Genesis games EA released Road Rash for the 3DO. This popular classic is widely regarded as the best Road Rash game, and while I don't love that game, it is a whole lot better than any of the Genesis ones. This third Genesis game, though, goes right back to the Genesis formula. The engine is the same as ever, with the usual terrible framerate and everything. In this game, though, fitting with the times, the sprites are now digitized actors, instead of drawings. The graphics are overall a bit better than before, but the framerate is the same and the game isn't any more fun to play. The music is good as usual, though the first game might be my favorite aurally. In gameplay, well, see the first games' review, they changed almost nothing. There may be some minor gameplay and control changes, but I didn't notice them. The two player splitscreen mode and 8-character passwords from the second game return, but otherwise, it's Road Rash again. Also available in EA Replay on the PSP.
RoadBlasters - 1 player. RoadBlasters is a great arcade racing game from classic arcade powerhouse Atari Games, also known as Tengen on home consoles. This is a fast and action-packed linescroll futuristic combat racing game. You have guns on your car in this game, and while your goal is to reach the finish line on each long and entirely linear track, along the way you will have a lot of enemies to shoot at, and they'll be shooting back at you as well. RoadBlasters is a scaler arcade game, but the game runs extremely well on the Genesis despite its early release date. This is a much better-playing game than the original Genesis Outrun release, and it's too bad that Tengen did not continue to release software-scaler games on the Genesis considering how great a job they did with this one. When I got RoadBlasters I did not have high expectations despite really liking the arcade game because of the usual problems of scaler games on consoles which do not have hardware scaling support, but it played a lot better than I thought. The graphics are downgraded versus the arcade, and you can tell that there isn't any real software scaling here but instead the usual different-sized-sprites, but it looks like an Atari Games arcade game in style, and plays really well as well. Audio is close to the arcade original as well. RoadBlasters on Genesis is fast, fun, and challenging. It's awesome stuff.
Getting to the end of each race will be difficult because you aren't only facing waves of enemy gun turrets and cars, you also have to deal with a fuel meter. Fuel is effectively your health in this game. It drains as you drive, of course, and also each time you get blown up you lose some fuel. If the fuel meter runs out, you lose. First though, there is a reserve tank, which will drain once the main fuel meter runs out. This meter is a one-time thing, and while after a race your main tank will be refilled back to the level it was at at the start of the race, the reserve fuel is gone once used, it never recovers. So, if you do badly and barely make it through, you will suffer for it later when you needed that fuel. It's a tough system that was probably designed to eat your quarters, but it does work here, you just need to put in some time with the game to learn the tracks and how to play better. You get a couple of continues but not many, and there are several dozen races in the game, so it's a quite difficult game. There are some fuel pickups on the tracks which give you different amounts of fuel, and sometimes you will need to memorize where they are to get through a track.
The weapon system is interesting as well. When you hit an enemy you get points, and as you keep hitting without missing any shots, you will build up a bonus multiplier. If you miss, though, your score multiplier resets, and this is bad because you want as many points as possible in order to get more fuel recovery between races. This really encourages thoughtful shooting, and not just driving down the road holding down fire; that is not a good strategy, you need to try to not miss. There are also weapon powerups that drop from helicopters. These can give you a strong gun and more, but the gun is maybe the best because missing with it won't affect your multiplier! It's fun to sometimes be able to shoot without needing to carefully consider if you'll hit, not an easy challenge when you're moving as fast as you do in this game. So yeah, try to remember where the copters are and get those powerups, you'll need them. And that's RoadBlasters. Drive, shoot, build your multiplier, and learn the tracks through repeat play, trying to do better each time. It's a very good arcade game, and it's just as good here. RoadBlasters is an impressive port of a good game, and I highly recommend it. Pick it up! It shouldn't cost too much. Arcade port. Also available on the NES, Atari Lynx, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amiga, and Atari ST (some of those computer ports are available only in Europe). The arcade version is in some emulation collections as well, including Arcade's Greatest Hits: The Atari Collection 2 for PC and PS1 and Midway Arcade Treasures 1 for the PC, PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube, because Midway bought Atari Games in 1996.
Robocop vs. the Terminator - 1 player. Robocop vs. the Terminator is a good sidescrolling platform-shooting game from Virgin Interactive. I've never cared much about Robocop and remember almost nothing about the movie if I have even seen it, but I do like the Terminator movies I have seen, 2, 3, and Salvation. T2 is one of the all-time great action movies. In this game, though, you play as Robocop and have to stop Terminators who are trying to take over the world as usual. So yes, it's a crossover. The game has good graphics and music, decent level designs, quality gameplay, and a high difficulty level with limited continues. This game has good graphics and sound, a lot of impressively clear-sounding voice samples, various different weapons to collect, and large levels to explore. The game is very bloody for the time as well, something which really got the game noticed back when it first released. Not many 4th-gen games have enemies that explode bloodily when killed, but this game does. Of course it's just a death animation, not persistent. The game is also well-drawn, with large, high-quality sprites and nice-looking backgrounds. This isn't one of the best-looking Genesis games, but it does look good. Each level has a new setting as well, with some new enemies and obstacles to face. This is a hard game, though. While you do have a health bar, you have no hitflash and your health bar drains fast, so you can and will die in an instant if touched by a boss, for example. And when you die, you lose your current weapon and it reverts back to the seriously underpowered default pistol. You can carry two weapons at once, and only the equipped one is lost when you die as in Thunder Force, but still, this is harsh. Bosses take forever to kill as well, you will have to shoot them seemingly a million times before they go down, while you lose lives every time they touch you. And sometimes one death is pretty much game over, for that continue at least, if you lose a key weapon during a boss fight where the default gun is near-useless. You do respawn where you died so long as you have lives left in the current continue, but continues send you back to the beginning of the stage, and you only get a few before you have to start the game over. There are difficulty options, but this is a very tough game on any setting.
Bosses aside I like the levels in this game, but they could be tighter and more focused. Levels are sprawling and often have side paths with powerups in them, and that's good, but the graphics and enemies in each stage repeat a lot so they can get repetitive before they end. Enemy bullets can be tricky to avoid as well, as Robocop is not incredibly mobile; you just have to try to duck or jump to try to get through the patterns. Holding up+jump will jump slightly higher, but the normal jump isn't too high. You'll need to hold diagonal up+jump to get over some instant-kill obstacles, that can be tricky. Robocop vs. The Terminator is a lot of fun at first, but a couple of levels in the frustration starts to take hold. This game will take a lot of replay, memorization, and probably also luck to get deep in, and I got this game fairly recently so I haven't spent that time yet. Still, despite its issues this is a good game. The graphics are detailed and look good, the music is above-average for the system and those voice samples sound great, the levels can be fun to explore and figure the secrets in, and I like the different weapons, such as the unique gun which shoots out bullets you can then move around the screen while you walk. You don't have a firing-lock button, so you can only shoot in the direction you're moving, but you can shoot while holding onto a ladder or pole, which is great. Overall Robocop vs. The Terminator is a fast-action game full of blood, shooting, and frustration. It is a good game despite some flaws, and is worth playing overall. There is also a SNES game of the same name, but while both are platform-action games, the two are entirely different games from different teams. I haven't played that one. I know it has passwords to save your progress, but other design flaws that make it maybe even more frustrating than this one.
Rocket Knight Adventures - 1 player. Rocket Knight Adventures is a great platformer from Konami. This game is a popular classic, and is one of Konami's best platformers of the generation, right up there with Super Castlevania IV, Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, and Goemons 2 and 4. This is a cartoony platformer, inspired by Sonic but quite different. This game has a weird cartoon-fantasy-medieval-steampunk aesthetic which looks pretty cool. You play as a humanoid animal in the Sonic vein, a possum-knight in this case, but the gameplay is different: in addition to jumping and a ranged projectile your sword shoots out, you also have a jetpack. You do have a health bar in this game as well, thankfully. You charge the jetpack by holding down the attack button, then letting it go while tapping a direction on the pad will send you flying in the direction you press. Jumping and shooting at enemies are important, but the jetpack is key to the game. The game controls are very responsive and precise, importantly. Learning the jetpack will take a little while, but where you go is predictable and not random once you learn the system. You'll bounce off of walls and fly over obstacles to get through stages, and also damage enemies when you run into them while jetting around. The game has a lot of enemies to fight, of course, in the evil army of cartoon pigs.
The level designs in this game are very good and have a lot of variety, and there are many, often long, bossfights. During stages, levels have many bars and poles to hang from, but otherwise the game is extremely varied and interesting. From early in the game bosses have multiple forms, and levels all have multiple bosses. The game does have a moderate number of long levels, a design shared with most Konami Genesis games (Contra and Tiny Toons aside), but each stage has a lot of variety, so it doesn't feel like a game like TMNT: Hyperstone Heist or Sunset Riders, where the small number of levels is probably there to save money on graphics. Here it just feels like the best design. The constant scene changes and bossfights help keep the variety up, and levels feel just the right length. You will need to use the jetpack regularly, and levels feel designed around it in a good way. This game doesn't feel gimmicky at all, unlike some games with a unique mechanic, just extremely fun, challenging, and well-designed. Those boss fights may be long and difficult, but it is very rewarding when you finally get past one and move on to the next section. While I wish the game had saving and infinite continues, it is nice that when you die you start from the last checkpoint, not the beginning of the level, and this applies to using continues as well as regular deaths, so you won't be sent back. On that note, there are four difficulty levels here, and they really affect the game. In the easier settings not only is the game easier, but you get a lot more lives and continues than you do on the hard ones. Play the game on easy at first, I think. It's a tough game on any setting.
The game looks and sounds great, too. The game has good music with a nice, peppy main theme that fits the game great and very good music in the levels as well. Konami were one of the top masters of game audio back in the 3rd and 4th generations, and this game is a good example of that. And visually, Rocket Knight Adventures is a bright, colorful game, and the art design is very good. It's mostly a straightforward platformer, but there are some parts with nice graphical effects such as a section with a reflective water surface that moves up and down beneath you. Castlevania Bloodlines does something similar, but it looks great here. Your little possum knight is a cute looking little guy, too. Since you are an opossum, you grab on with your tail instead of your arms; it's just a graphical thing, but it is a nice touch. The enemies are similarly silly-looking, and aren't especially threatening despite the games' substantial difficulty. As with many Genesis games, this game has limited continues and no saving, and unlike Contra Hard Corps and Castlevania Bloodlines, as far as I know this game wasn't made harder for the West; it just always was difficult. I really like the art design here, there's always something new to see, new situations to work your way through, and new enemies and enemy contraptions to fight against. The multi-phase giant steam-robot boss in the mine-cart stage is particularly cool, for example. I would say more about the stages and encounters here, but it'd be best to play the game for yourself and be surprised! It's worth the effort. There are also some short shmup segments a few times during the game. They're quite fun, but make me wish that Konami had made some shmups for the Genesis. Konami's 4th-gen shmups are my favorites ever, and it's too bad the Genesis didn't get any of them. Ah well. At least they did make some good Genesis games such as this one.
There is only one other downside to this game maybe worth mentioning, that Rocket Knight is a linear game with no collection elements beyond finding life-ups and extra lives, so the game may not have the replay value of some platformers if you do manage to beat it. However, between the new ideas in both the jetpack and in level designs, very well-designed stages full of variety and challenge, good controls, great graphics, good music as usual from Konami, and more, Rocket Knight Adventures is a great game. Really the only negatives are that it does have limited continues with no saving in a game that is not short, and the straightforward design may hurt replay value for some, but overall Rocket Knight Adventures is a great classic platformer that well deserves all the popularity it has received and more. This is Konami's second-best Genesis game after only Contra: Hard Corps. This game was successful and has three sequels, one on SNES, a second on Genesis (and yes, these two are entirely different despite both being titled "Sparkster"), and a modern one, Rocket Knight, on PC, Xbox 360, and PS3. They are all fun games, but none quite match up to this games' level. The SNES game plays like this one but not quite as good, while the second Genesis game changes things up. I don't actually own either one unfortunately, and they are getting up there in price now. The modern game got something of a mixed reception, but I do like it. It's worth a look.
Rolling Thunder 2 - 1-2 player simultaneous, password save. Rolling Thunder 2 is a really great side-scrolling action game from Namco. This is an enhanced arcade port. The sequel to my favorite Namco game ever, Rolling Thunder, this game is also fantastic even if I do like the first one a little bit more. You play as agents Albatross and Leila, though I'm not sure if this is the same Albatross from the first game, since that game has a 1960s aesthetic while this one looks 1990s. Regardless though, you are a pair of James Bond-style secret agents, and have to stop another evil organization from taking over the world. This time you can play as the female character too, instead of her just being someone to rescue; that's great. The two player co-op support is also really nice, that's something you won't find in either of the other Rolling Thunder games. With two players the game is definitely easier, if both players know what they're doing at least. This game has good but not great graphics and sound. It's a bit downgraded from the arcade game, but it's close; the game just isn't trying to push this hardware. The art design is solid, and I like the variety of settings from Miami to some new evil-organization bases, but the original games' stylish 1960s look is probably better. Still, the game looks nice enough and is definitely recognizable as a Rolling Thunder game visually, and there is a decent variety of enemies to fight. Again a lot of them are hooded evil thugs, though there is some more variety this time than before. There are many more bosses than the first game, as well, some Genesis-original as the arcade version had few bossfights again, like the first game. I like the added boss fights and levels this home version has, it makes it the definitive version of the game -- the graphics are good enough, and the content is expanded. The password system returns from the NES version of the first game, as well, which is fantastic. And this time you get a password for every level throughout, thankfully.
As before, Rolling Thunder 2 is a slow-paced shooter with many doors to go in along the way. You and your enmeies both move in predictable ways. This game is similar, but it is a little easier and fairer this time, as Rolling Thunder 2 eases up on some of Rolling Thunder's most frustrating design decisions. You have three hit points, one more than the previous game, and simply touching enemies doesn't hurt you anymore, unlike in the first game. Howver, you still die in one hit if shot, so though it is easier than before you you need to be careful. Ducking, jumping, and hiding behind doors to avoid bullets is the name of the game here, and it's great once you get into it. You have limited ammo as well. Some people dislike the pacing, but I think it's perfect; fast-paced, more Contra-esque Rolling Thunder just wouldn't be the same, as Rolling Thunder 3 shows. Each Rolling Thunder game is a little easier than the one before it. Now, Rolling Thunder doesn't let you control your jump in the air. So, where you land depends on where you jumped from. This means that pixel-perfect positioning is sometimes required, if you want to end up in the right place. On top of this, the first game has some segments with difficult jumps over bottomless pits. This game does have a level with pits, but the jumps are MUCH easier to make this time. Similarly, the first game had many points where random luck was a major factor. You'll often have to drop down, but if you drop too close to enemies they will shoot you dead before you can react. So, you'd have to wait, or move back and forth to hope that you can get them in a position you can actually get by. I like that challenge, but it can be annoying. This time, that element of the game is gone. You will often have to deal with enemies above or below you, and will have to go up or down a level, but the parts so reliant on luck as well as skill have been removed in favor of situations you can get through with skill alone. As with the first game you do go back to the last checkpoint if you die. This makes the game easier, and somehow I miss the original games' cruelness even if this probably is the better design. Either way on that, the game has many great encounters along the way. There may be fewer times where you go up or down a screen than in the first game, but many areas still have two levels of platforms, allowing for good strategy, and there are elevator sections, a level with moving platforms over pits, and more. It's really great work, in a lot of ways this is the peak of the series as far as level designs go.
For weapons, again your main gun is a pistol with limited ammo. You can find ammo for it behind some of the doors. Other doors have a machine gun, some other special weapons, or rare health-ups. In the first game, if you ran out of ammo that's it, you could not attack. This time, though, you do have a knife you can use at zero ammo. It's handy, but again eases up on the difficulty slightly. Still, in all Rolling Thunder games, if you're playing the game well you should never run out of ammo, so this is minor. I do like the new special weapons, they add variety and are good for some bossfights. They aren't as common as in the third game, thankfully. There is also a Hard mode you unlock after beating the game on Normal. Nice. Unlike the first game it has no new content, so it's just an optional difficulty and not another part of the main game, but it's great to have, once you've beaten the game on Normal. It does have a a slightly different ending, at least, even if the game is the same thing but tougher. Progressing through the game, hiding behind doors, slowly figuring out how to get past each enemy pattern or boss, and then overcoming them is extremely rewarding. Rolling Thunder 2 is a fantastically fun game, I love it! This is probably a love-or-hate series, but I really love this series' style of methodical, strategic shooting. Rolling Thunder 2 is one of the best sidescrolling action games of the generation, hands-down, and this is the best version of the game. Yes, I probably do like Contra: Hard Corps and The Adventures of Batman & Robin even more, but on the other hand, I've beaten this game but not those, so in some ways I like it more. Save systems are great! This is a really awesome game and I certainly recommend giving it a serious try. Arcade port. This Genesis version of the game is available on the Wii Virtual Console.
Rolling Thunder 3 - 1 player, password save. The final game in the Rolling Thunder series, Rolling Thunder 3 is a Genesis-exclusive, and US-exclusive, sidescrolling action game from Namco. I did a full review of this game several years ago, so go look that up. This is a pretty good game, but it changes some things from the first two games in an attempt to make a faster-paced, more action-packed game. They did that, but it lost some of what makes Rolling Thunder so great in the process, unfortunately. Rolling Thunder 3 has fewer areas with multiple levels of platforms, more powerful special weapons for your character available at all times, no two player co-op, story cutscenes between levels, no playable female character by default (though there is a password to play as one, she has no cutscenes of her own, it just plays the guys' as usual), many fewer doors, a faster pace, an added diagonal shot to allow you to hit enemies above you at an angle, three hit points and getting shot only takes away two so this time you can actually take a bullet and not die, unlike the previous games, lets you continue from where you died instead of sending you back to the last checkpoint, and has a very slow-firing bullet as your weapon if you run out of ammo, so you'll never truly be without bullets. All of these changes either are downgrades, or serve to make the game easier. People who dislike how hard and slow-paced the previous games are probably love most of the changes, the removal of two player co-op aside, but as a fan of the first two games this one disappoints me. There is still enough of Rolling Thunder here to make this a good game, make no mistake. Rolling Thunder 3 IS a good game. It has decent level designs, some pretty cool encounters, much better graphics than either previous console Rolling Thunder game, a better story with actual cutscenes even if it is once again a James Bond knockoff, good controls as always, and you do still need to think about what you're doing and move somewhat slowly; this isn't a fast-paced run & gun like Contra, despite all the changes. And that's possibly one of the issues here -- this game isn't deliberate enough for a classic Rolling Thunder fan like me, but isn't going to satisfy Contra fans either. It's in the middle ground between them, and suffers for it. As for me, I wish that more levels were like the last one, that's the best level in the game and the one most like classic Rolling Thunder, and it's not as good as the final levels in either previous game. At least there is, again, a Hard mode to unlock after you beat the game, but that doesn't fix all of the games' problems. Overall though, even this B-grade Rolling Thunder game is still pretty good, and I definitely like Rolling Thunder 3. Get it if you find a reasonably-priced copy. While the game has issues, it's still quite fun to play. It's too bad that this game never released in Europe, Japan, or any Namco collection or Virtual Console service, and tha the series died with this game, it'd have been great to see more Rolling Thunder games. It'd be a perfect franchise for a modern 2d re-imagining, too!
Sega Genesis Game Opininion Summaries - Work In Progress - A Black Falcon - 3rd February 2016
Finally, got another one done. Don't expect much from the Shadowrun summary, though; I didn't get far into it. The other 12 summaries here should be better.
Games covered in this summary
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Samurai Shodown
Shadow Blasters
Shadow Dancer: The Secret of Shinobi
Shadowrun (1993)
Shining Force
Shining Force II
Shining in the Darkness
Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master
Socket
Soldiers of Fortune
Sonic the Hedgehog (1991)
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Sonic 2 & Knuckles
Sonic Spinball
Samurai Shodown - 1-2 player simultaneous, 6 button controller supported. Samurai Shodown is a fighting game from Takara, a port of SNK’s great arcade classic of the same name. The arcade original was one of the first weapon-based fighters, and is a pretty great game with great graphics, design, and gameplay. I like SNK a lot, and this game started one of their best series. The game is set in an anime-styled version of 18th century Japan, and there are 12 characters to play as. The cast is interesting and varied, and is a strength of the game. The game is slower-paced than Street Fighter II, but still moves at a good clip in the arcades. Characters have three punch/kick and three weapon-swing attacks, and each character has several special moves. It’s a fantastic classic! This Genesis version is similar, but is downgraded all around. First, one character has been cut, Earthquake. His sprite is just too big to manage to fit on the Genesis. That’s too bad, and it’s unfortunate that nothing replaces him. Also the sprite scaling is removed, as in the arcades the game will zoom in or out depending on how far the characters are from eachother while here there is just one zoom level, but that is to be expected on a system without hardware scaling. This Genesis version looks a bit zoomed-out compared to the arcade version and sprites look smaller, but you do get used to it. They are at least larger than the sprites in the SNES version.
Those changes are understandable, though the missing character is in the SNES version, but there is more. The graphics lose a lot of animation, sound isn’t as good and the music often just stops resulting in matches fought mostly in silence, the controls and move activations are okay but Neo-Geo caliber, and the game has slowdown. This all results in a good game, but one that’s a huge step down from the awesome arcade title. Sure, none of the other 4th-gen home consoles could get close to the Neo-Geo in most of those respects, but still, Takara wasn’t SNK, and their ports never were as good as they could have been. This is no exception. The Genesis version of Samurai Shodown is still a good game, but first, that slowdown really hurts. And it’s not only slowdown, the whole game plays a lot slower than the Neo-Geo version does. Play one and then the other and the difference is obvious. This makes this version less fun than the original. The slowdown also makes it harder to pull off your moves right, and some moves seem harder to activate here than in the Neo-Geo while others are fine. I’m not sure about the hit detection all of the time, either, it may have someissues. And that long stretches with no music is bad, but worse not all of the speech samples for special moves are here, only some of them.
The result of all those changes is that while this game may be slightly easier than the Neo-Geo game, it’s still very hard, and feels slow and not as fair, more than negating any possible easing of the intense challenge. Overall, I wish that SNK had made their own home ports, I’m sure they would be much better and more accurate than Takara’s always-flawed work. But as they are, the early-’90s home ports of Neo-Geo games are never quite the same as the real thing, and now you can play arcade-perfect versions of Samurai Shodown on newer platforms. The best ports of Neo-Geo games to the other 4th-gen consoles are probably Hudson’s four TurboGrafx (PC Engine) Arcade CD titles, though even they don’t match the Neo-Geo for sure, but sadly Samurai Shodown didn’t get a release there. I wish it had, that’d have been great. So, as good a game as this is, this Genesis version might not really be worth getting. I like Samurai Shodown a lot, it’s kind of amazing on the Neo-Geo… but why play this specific version, and not a better one? There isn’t really a reason. Play this for the Neo-Geo or a near-perfect port of that version. Arcade port. The arcade game was ported to many platforms — the Game Boy, Game Gear, 3DO, SNES, and Sega CD all have versions, as do many newer systems in compilations (PS1, PS2, Wii, etc.). This version is better than the GB or GG versions, but not as good as the PS1 or 3DO. The Sega CD version may be slightly better, but I haven’t played it myself.
Shadow Blasters - 1-2 player simultaneous. Shadow Blasters is a decent but unspectacular sidescrolling action game. You play as a team of four warriors on a short and easy quest to save the world from evil forces. The game is kind of fun while it lasts, but is a below-average title which is over far too soon. At the start you can play the first six levels in any order, then the last two stages are played sequentially after you beat the initial six. There are two difficulty settings, but both are easy. On the harder one you will die and get some game overs, but you have infinite continues and levels are short, so even on "hard" the game is easy. Ingame, you can walk slowly, jump a bit, attack with a ranged shot, and use a superbomb. Holding fire will charge up your shot, and the many powerups will boost your health, weapon power so you start with higher levels of the shot without having to hold down the button, and character speed and jumping, though these two are barely noticeable. All are character-specific, and you can swap characters at any time by pausing. Characters are slow and not maneuverable. A run or slide move would have helped a lot, here; some bosses can be hard to avoid because they move faster than you do. What you need to do is get to the boss with a lot of health in all four characters, and then switch during battle to keep people alive. This will work well.
However, the blandly-designed stages and generic bosses make it hard to get too engaged with this game. Stages are brief and a few screens high, and enemies run out at you constantly as you move, which can be annoying. They die quickly, but exploring isn't all that fun. The graphics are pretty bad, too; this is one of the worse-looking Genesis games I have. Sprites are amateurish, backgrounds basic, and there is almost no parallax scrolling to be found; almost all backgrounds are static. The music is a bit better, but it's average overall. The game does keep up a decent pace, as the short-ish stage lengths and varied environments and bosses keep things moving, but this game is not great. I do like the two two player co-op support, though, that's a great feature to have. I also like the four different characters each with their own unique attacks. Still, overall, Shadow Blasters isn't that good. The subpar visuals won't hold your interest for long, and the game is way too short and easy for its own good. Most anyone should be able to beat this game in their first sitting if they don't turn it off. It is fun enough to stick with to the end, though, so there is that. It just won't take long to finish, and "hard" is not much harder. Overall, though, Shadow Blasters is an okay but below-average game. If you like this kind of game maybe consider it if you find it cheap. Or skip it, that'd be fine too.
Shadow Dancer: The Secret of Shinobi - 1 player. The second of the three Shinobi games on the Genesis, this 1990 Sega release is one of my favorite Sega action-platformers ever and the only Shinobi game I unreservedly love. Shadow Dancer is a fantastic sidescrolling action game. Unlike the other Genesis Shinobi games you die in one hit in this one, so you'll need to be careful and take your time in each stage until you learn what to do. Unlike Shinobi III you aren't very mobile in this game; all you can do is walk left or right, jump, and attack. Up or Down plus jump move you to the next level of platforms above or below you, as in Rolling Thunder. Interestingly, touching enemies is not instant death unless they are brandishing a weapon. So, touching enemies is often non-fatal, but you do get knocked back a bit, and in the few levels with death pits this can mean being knocked into a pit. The game has very good, responsive controls though, and pits are easily avoided once you learn the levels. Again you have a sword and shurikens, both on the same button depending on the distance enemies are from you, but in this game you have infinite shurikens, thankfully. It's a great design decision that I wish the other two Genesis Shinobi games shared, it'd make them better games as with infinite shurikens you can't get stuck in no-win situations as you can in those games; your sword is not always a viable option. In the options menu you can turn on limited shurikens, but I never will. There are also some difficulty levels, but the game is challenging on any setting. This is not a really hard game, but it isn't easy either; I'd call it well-balanced, difficulty wise. You do get only two continues, so you'll be starting the game over often; this can be annoying, but this game is short enough to be fun to replay. In each level, you need to rescue some prisoners and then find your way to the exit. Many prisoners are guarded by special enemies with these green shield things they will throw. Interestingly, the game will remmeber which prisoners you have rescued between lives if you die in a level so long as it wasn't a Game Over, and the green-shield guard guys will not appear so long as their prisoners don't either. All other enemies will still be there, but still, this makes stages slightly easier the next time. All levels are straightorward, so you'll never be wandering around lost; the enemies are the challenge, not mazelike levels. The game is balanced very well in that regard. The graphics are only okay, but I like the art design. Similarly the music is good, but not too memorable.
Still, Shadow Dancer is a short game. There are only 5 levels, each made up of several stages and then a boss. The first four levels have two not-too-long platforming levels and then a bossfight in a third stage, while the last level has four shorter platforming challenges and then the quite hard final boss. The first four bosses are surprisingly easy, and actually the first boss is harder than the second through fourth ones because the rocks he drops from the ceiling can be tough to dodge. Through the first four levels, the first boss and some of the stages, particularly in level 4, are harder than most of the bossfights. Because you die in one hit and are sent back to the start of the stage if you die, though, those stages can be tricky even with the help of those special baddies that don't appear again if you die in the level so long as you've rescued the prisoner they were guarding. Each enemy type in this game has specific patterns it follows, and you'll need to learn them and learn how to exploit them to succeed. The jumping ninja enemies are particularly difficult to avoid sometimes, particularly in the mostly-dark level where you can only see in certain spotlit areas and not the rest of the screen. That is a pretty cool stage though, I like the different approach that the dark screen requires. The levels here have a great degree of variety, more so than many games in this genre; every level is different in design as well as in environment. The stages are not flat, but there aren't many instant-death pits either until the later stages. It's all very well thought through, Shadow Dancer has fantastic level designs among the best in the genre. The first stage is a great introduction to how to play the game, and each level afterwards adds some new things. The levels here are great from the city to the warehouse to that dark cave and beyond. It's a lot of fun to slowly explore each level, learning where the enemies will appear from so that you can start to learn what to do in the stage. Sort of like in Rolling Thunder, memorization and deliberate, controlled actions are the order of the day here, and I love it this way; the other two Genesis Shinobi games don't play like this, to their detriment in my opinion.
In between levels, you play a bonus game where you fall from a tall building, trying to hit as many of the 50 ninjas that you pass along the way as you can. If you get 48 or more you get extra live(s), so try to get them all! It's difficult, but can be done with practice, as the enemy patterns are the same each time. That's it for extras here, though. This is mostly a great game, but there are a few downsides, first that the game has no secrets to find beyond a few hidden 1-ups. Some also will dislike how predictable the game is since enemies always appear in the same places every time. The graphics are also clearly early-gen; as much as I like the variety of settings, the actual graphics are nothing special, and the game doesn't do anything to push the hardware. It's short, too, with only those 5 stages. Also, the final boss is frustratingly hard. I keep getting to the last boss with plenty of lives left, only to die over and over there. Ah well, at least something in this game is hard! That's probably better than it all being easy. Overall, Shadow Dancer: The Secret of Shinobi is a fantastic game. Shadow Dancer looks good enough, and plays better than most games. With good controls, variety, fun and varied bosses, a great difficulty curve, unlimited shurikens, and enemies that it's great fun to fight against, Shadow Dancer is one of the best on this system. This is a must-have. There are also arcade and Sega Master System (Europe only) Shadow Dancer games, but they are apparently different from this Genesis game. I've never played either one, so I don't know if they are good. This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega’s Genesis games.
Shadowrun (1993) - 1 player, battery save to cartridge. Shadowrun is a cyberpunk series, designed back in the '80s when the Japanese economy seemed unstoppable, so while set in Seattle, the money here is the New Yen and such. It was originally a pen and paper RPG, but I've never really played or read anything Shadowrun. This is a top-down RPG that I never have put much of any time into since buying. I have both the SNES and Genesis Shadowrun games, which are entirely different, but haven't really played either one much; both seem a bit intimidating at the start, and I haven't gotten past the initial learning curve. I did try to play the game again for this, but after dying again and again against the first enemy I could fight, I gave up. There must be some trick to this game I'm missing. Shadowrun does have nice graphics, okay music, and a somewhat ambitious design. The game is well-drawn and has some background animation, which is cool. The isometric SNES game might look better, but this has pretty good art design too, so really it's close between the two. The music is conventional Western Genesis stuff, but it's good enough. For gameplay, you walk around, talking to people, getting quests, and fighting things with your guns. With the buttons you can change who you are targeting, change weapons, and shoot. Enemies take about as many hits to kill as I have health though, come in numbers, and you move somewhat slowly, so surviving seems difficult. You have stats, and can choose three classes at the beginning, for a more combat or magic focus. The pause menu has your inventory, skills, stats, and a (text-only) questlog, though there is no map for some stupid reason. Sure, the first area isn't TOO hard to get used to, though learning what is where does require some tedious trial and error, but this is a big game, and badly needs an ingame map system. 16-bit RPGs often don't have one, but that's one thing I dislike about them. Better RPGs have maps. And when you're told "go to [placename X] and then go to [placename Y]" as a quest but aren't given any clues about where either place is and just have to wander around until you memorize the maps, that's annoying. Worse is that I keep dying against the first or second enemy, though, and it doesn't seem close. I'll try to revisit this one again. There are other Shadowrun games, but this game is Genesis-exclusive.
Shining in the Darkness - 1 player, battery save to cartridge. The first game in what would become one of Sega's longest-running series, Shining in the Darkness is a first-person dungeon-crawler RPG made by Camelot. This is a very traditional game, and that means grinding. Basically the gameplay here consists entirely of grinding. You can see maybe two spaces forward in the dungeon and that's it, also. There isn't an ingame map, of course, so draw your own or download one from the internet. Don't play the game without some kind of map, it is absolutely essential; everything looks the same as there are only a handful of different backgrounds to be seen and the dungeon is a big maze. In the dungeon there are some simple puzzles to solve, but it's mostly about grinding levels against the monsters. The encounter rate is very high, and monsters get harder the deeper you go into the dungeon. There is only one dungeon in the game and it isn't as big as some in this genre, but there are multiple floors to explore. That will take a while, though. At the start of the game, you need to grind several levels right at the front entrance of the dungeon, regularly returning to town when you need to heal. You start the game with only one character in your party, your generic hero guy who's off to save the country from evil. If you get far enough you will eventually get some party members, first a female elf mage, but that's some hours into the game. Gameplay is simple and extremely repetitive, and the battle system has little depth: as usual in JRPGs, you just attack, use magic, or use items, and item and magic management are the only real strategies here beyond 'try to not get lost'. Western first-person dungeon crawlers of the day are also often overly hard grindfests, but at least they have more puzzles in the dungeons than you will find here. This game does have some, but not many.
The game does have decent sprite art for your characters and the enemies, though. This game is by Camelot, and it has what would become their signature art style and menu and font designs. This isn't a great-looking game, but for the genre it's solid. The music is good as well, and can be catchy. In between trips to the dungeon you can buy stuff in town and save your game, but this is just a menu; there isn't an actual town or overworld to explore, unlike more in-depth first person RPGs. I wish you could save anywhere, but that is sadly rare on console RPGs. This game is simple and focused only on dungeon exploration. I'm okay with that, I like a more focused experience over an open-world game myself. But that really is about all there is to see here. After getting this game a few years ago I played more of it than I thought, and did get to the end of the first floor of the dungeon, but I haven't gone back since. I don't like grinding; skill-free grinding is not something I consider good gameplay. On top of that, the 'item and mana management as strategy' school of RPG design very much most of the time. This game is a pretty bad offender on both scores. Still, Shining in the Darkness is okay, and its simplicity makes it approachable. It can be fun to get deeper into the dungeon and see new enemies as you progress. There are better dungeon crawlers out there than this average effort. I didn't really start to actually like dungeon crawlers until they had in-game map systems, myself, so I'd say just stick to the Etrian Odyssey and Class of Heroes serieses on the DS and PSP, for some pretty good Japanese first-person dungeon crawlers. But if you see this cheap and like the genre, maybe give it a try. This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega’s Genesis games. As this is a battery save game modern compilations might be a good way to play it, if your carts' battery is dead (mine still works).
Shining Force - 1 player, battery save to cartridge. Shining Force is the second Shining game, and with this game the series shifted genres. Again made by Camelot, this game is a strategy game with RPG elements, not a first-person dungeon crawler. Whether you call the game an RPG, strategy game, Strategy-RPG, or what have you -- and all are defensible -- what Shining FOrce is is a great game. Released in 1993, Shining Force was surely at least somewhat influenced by Nintendo's classic Fire Emblem for the NES, but this game is a bit simpler and easier to play than Fire Emblem. There is also an RPG world to run around in, instead of only tactical battles. That's why the game is sort of hard to classify, the battle system is a tactical strategy game, but there is also that overworld to explore, JRPG-style, just without the random battles; instead the strategy-style battles only occur at set points. That's great. I also like that you do fight on the same map you explore on, so battles don't happen on some alternate plane as you see in many games, RPGs especially. The cartoony graphics look great, and the music is even better. This game has a really good soundtrack! But anyway, Shining Force looks good, sounds great, and is a lot of fun to play. The story and interface are really the only significant flaws in the game.
That story isn't great, though. The story is predictable JRPG stuff, as you are a boy knight who will go on to be a hero and save the world from the forces of evil, and the characters are all cliches, but that doesn't matter much. There are some non-human characters, which is interesting. Knights are centaurs instead of humans on horseback, for instance; that's kind of neat. The story and characters are decent enough to serve, and the great strategic gameplay is still really fun. The game is streamlined in several ways versus other games in this genre. First, unlike Fire Emblem, dead characters do come back. You'll need to get to a church to resurrect them to get them back, and sometimes if someone dies you will need to be without them for several battles until you get to one, but you can bring them back. Churches are also where you save, which means yes, you often need to do multiple battles without saving. This isn't good, in a strategy game you should at minimum be able to save after each battle. And in this game you get an immediate game over, go back to the last time you saved, if the main hero ever dies in battle, so be careful with him! This is one of the few issues with this game apart from the story, though. A second way the game is simplified is that each character can only hold four items, and there is only one kind of equipment in the game: weapons. Your weapon will take up one slot, and the other three are for that characters' healing items and the like. Each character has their own inventory and there is no combined storage, so sometimes you will need to consider what you need, but really it's just for healing items, so it isn't anything difficult. It is kind of annoying that you need to use separate menu commands for getting items and talking to people, though, and that there isn't a character list with health and such in the menu. The sequel fixes those two issues.
Combat is also simple. The game takes place on a square grid, and each character moves in turn. You can't move anyone you want; instead there is a turn order in each battle based on their speed I believe, and you can only move that character during their turn. Player and enemy units all mix together, so there aren't separate player and enemy turns. The system works, though sometimes when a character is blocked by another one you'll wish you could move that other one first. Characters each have their own separate stats and experience, and will gain experience points from each action they take during battle. RPG-style levelling is important there, though you can't grind -- the game follows a set path and thre aren't random battles to go back and fight, you'll just need to use better strategy if you get stuck. For attacks, weapon attacks have a one or two space (in any direction) attack range, depending on type, so swords only have melee-range attacks, while bows can shoot two. Spells generally can be used up to two spaces away as well. You start out with a combat mage and also a healer, and both are very useful. Health and magic are refilled between battles automatically, so you don't need to go rest to heal them. You do get money, but it's only for buying weapons or healing items in the shops. You also want to be on the lookout for potential party members, as as you progress your team will get larger and larger. The Shining Force has a base to fill up, and it is fun to see more group members there even if they don't do much other than just stand there and repeat the same one line. Later on, just like in Fire Emblem, you do make choices about who to bring along, and with the RPG levelling system, ones left behind will quickly fall behind so your choices do matter.
Overall, Shining Force is a great game. The game has good, well-drawn graphics, fun gameplay, a good-length quest to play, a reasonable though not Fire Emblem-level challenge along the way, and lots of fun to be had. The main negatives are the cliche story and characters and irritating limitations on where you can save, but for the most part this is a very good classic, and it's easy to see why it was so successful. I love strategy games, but mostly play them on PC and handhelds; the only TV-console strategy game that I've ever really put a lot of time into and finished is Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance for the Gamecube. I've had this one for some time now, but never did pla yit. Well, after starting it for this summary, I want to play a lot more of this, soon. However... the sequel is even better in most respects. This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega’s Genesis games. As usual check those batteries, if you have the cart! I'm sure lots are dead.
Shining Force II - 1 player, battery save to cartridge. Shining Force II is a lot like the first game, but with even better graphics, an improved interface, some gameplay improvements, and a new, though still cliche, story. Get this, you are a warrior hero guy and need to rescue the princess and defeat the forces of evil! That plot's never been done before. So yeah, the story is once again a series of cliches. The characters seem a bit better-written than the the first games' cast, though, and I like the occasional bits of comedy; the first one is a pretty serious game, cartoony art style aside. Some of the plot points along the way are somewhat interesting as well, as far as I've gotten. For the most part though, this game is more of the same. The first game had a great formula, though, so that's just fine. Shining Force II is basically the first game, but better. First, the interface is similar, but now you don't need separate menu commands for Get Ieem and Talk; the game has context-sensitive controls instead, which is appreciated. Also you now can easily see charcter health and a list of your characters in the menu, which you couldn't do in the first one. In most other ways, the game is more like the original. Again the soundtrack is really good, and the graphics are more varied and detailed than in the first game. Gameplay is similar to before, but there is maybe a little more variety. For instance, where in the first game at the beginning mages and healers are near-useless in combat and do only 1 damage, here they can do 3-4 damage in regular combat, which makes them more useful fighters. Several hours into the game actually my healer has the most kills, oddly enough. Gameplay is the same as before, with RPG-style world exploration interspersed with strategic battles at set points. Again you have a Shining Force to build, and choices to make about which characters to take with you in battle. And yes, the interface still has that iconic Camelot style. Unfortunately, you still can only save at those too-far-apart churches, annoyingly enough. This time sometimes you have to heal characters at the church if they run out of health in a battle, but other times they just come back after the battle. I have no idea why it's sometimes one and sometimes the other, it doesn't make much sense. And there is one battle early on with a surprise can't-win scenario, which was interesting, I wasn't expecting that.
For the most part, though, you know what you're getting with Shining Force II: a very good strategy game with RPG levelling, sort of like Fire Emblem but not as brutally difficult. The quest may be generic, but the gameplay along the way is really great. Strategy games are my favorite genre, and these games are the kind of strategy game that works great on a console. The game is simple enough to be very playable with a gamepad, but has enough strategy in character placements and actions that battles are lots of fun. The basics here are standard JRPG stuff, with only Attack, Magic, and Item for actions, and you still can hold only a few items and have only weapons for equipment, but this all works just fine in a strategy game. You have a full party to move around the map, after all, and strategy will definitely be required if you want to keep them alive and win. Again if the main character dies you lose the battle, but instead of being sent back to your last save, now you seem to just have to restart the fight, usually. That's good. Overall, Shining Force II is a fantastic game. In graphics, music, and gameplay, this is top-tier stuff and I like it a lot. Definitely play at least one of the two Genesis Shining Force games, they are classics for a reason! This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega’s Genesis games.
Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master - 1 player. Shinobi III is a popular platform-action game Sega released in 1993. The last of the three Shinobi games on the Genesis, this game has moves and faster action than any Shinobi game before. However, at its core it is a followup to Revenge of Shinobi, and that, along with control issues, are my main problems with the game. It's too bad that the only-okay Revenge of Shinobi got a sequel, instead of the much better Shadow Dancer. Just like Revenge of Shinobi, this game isn't a precise and deliberate game like Shadow Dancer, but is a bit faster-paced and less controlled, and less fun. Still, even if I like this less than most Genesis fans seem to, the game does have some strong good points for sure. First, the game looks great. Shinobi III has very good graphics with great backgrounds that use a lot of parallax, top-quality sprite work for the system, lots of variety in both graphics and stage designs, and some nice effects too. The graphics can be pretty cool, from standard platforming to an early section on horseback to some tricky vertical areas and a confusing but interesting ninja fortress late in the game. Levels are a lot longer than the short Shadow Dancer stages, and you will need to figure out where to go sometimes in this game and solve some basic puzzles. Sometimes that's good, other times bad. I do like the factory level, but not the rock-shaft or last stage, for instance. You often have to use ninja moves to get through, and conceptually that's great. The stage variety in this game is a definite strength. The music is also good. This is also a bit longer than its predecessors, and will put up a good challenge too. You do have difficulty level options, but it just seems to set how many lives you get per continue.
I have a lot of problems with this game, though, and don't enjoy it much overall. As in Revenge of Shinobi, you have a health bar and two weapons, a melee sword and a limited number of ranged throwing daggers. They REALLY should have had the unlimited daggers from Shadow Dancer here, it's not hard to get stuck in a near-unwinnable situation if you run out of daggers and you have limited lives and continues in this game, and no saving. The controls have some major problems, too. Now, you have a bunch of ninja moves in this game -- you can hang from ceilings and pipes (hold Up while jumping), wall-jump off of any wall (hit jump when you touch a wall, with near-perfect timing), slide (down+jump), and double jump (hit jump again at the peak of your jump, again very tight timing is required). Most of the moves work with practice, though having to hold up to hang on things really gets old fast and helps make the last level a lot harder than it should be, but the double jumping is pretty much broken. It's incredibly difficult to pull off double jumps consistently, even after playing the game several times recently I still fail a majority of the time. That is just unacceptable; well-designed games are not this frustrating, and double jumps are not usually this hard to do. And the last two levels absolutely require extremely good double-jumping skills. In the time I got the farthest, playing on Easy, it's a miracle that I beat level six, and the first section of the last level,. 7, is just hopeless with controls this problematic. I lost all remaining lives there. With good controls that section would be pretty cool, but as it is it's frustrating and not any fun. Double jumps in games are usually so simple, why is it so hardhere? An the wall-run, ceiling-grab, etc. can be tricky to use when needed, too; it's not only one move that is a problem. That you move forward a set distance each time you hit forward while hanging from something can get you killed, for instance.
Overall Shinobi III is an okay game. It looks great, each level is pretty different, and has a more agile ninja than most any other Genesis game, but it doesn't control well, and I prefer the more tightly designed, precise challenge of Shadow Dancer of this games' looser, more open style. I just don't have enough fun playing it to make it worth the frustratingly high difficulty. This is a very good game in many ways, I jdon't like the controls and while playing the game, the fun moments are fleeting compared to the frustration. It's no Shadow Dancer, either. Still, probably try Shinobi III; a lot of people like this game much more than I do. This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega’s Genesis games.
Socket - 1 player. Socket is a platformer from Vic Tokai. An incredibly unoriginal platformer, to be specific. This game is one of the most blatant Sonic clones ever! From the graphics to the gameplay, this game is Sonic, just easier and just okay, not amazing. You are Socket aka Time Dominator in Japan, an anthropomorphic, time-travelling time-police duck robot, and need to save time from an evil badguy travelling through time and messing everything up. This is a nice-looking game with bright, often pastel, sprites. The Sonic influence is everywhere, but it does look nice. The music is pretty good as well. Music tracks are short, but catchy and fun. You run and jump, and jumping is a little slippery unfortunately, but unlike Sonic, in this game you attack with a ranged attack on the B button. It stays in the air for a while though, so it's easy to hit enemies with. Importantly, Up plus attack does a vertical attack into the air. This is rarely actually needed, but is absolutely vital on the final boss; it made that otherwise-tough boss a lot easier once I finally figured this move out! You also have a health bar and can take many hits. It does slowly drain over tme, so it is a timer as well as a life meter, but the levels are filled with lightning-bolt powerups, this games' version of Sonic rings, which refill some health when you touch them, so running out of time is rare. The game does have limited continues and no saving, but I've never actually run out of continues; both times I've played the game since buying it, I finished it. You get more continues as you go too, presumably from pickups. Yes, it's easy. The first three worlds out of seven are entirely challenge-free, and the last four are only moderate, not hard. It's good that it does get a bit harder later on, though.
Levels are large, just like Sonic, and the game tries to have a Sonic-like physics system, though it isn't quite as good. I do like that many stages have multiple routes though, it adds something to the game. Running around the levels, exploring and looking for extra lives, continues, challenge doors, and more is often fun even if the game is mostly easy. Levels go all over and are not just straight paths to the right, which is good.exploration to complete; they aren't just straight paths to the right. That's good. There are no bottomless pits in the main levels either, only spikes that just take off a bit of health. In a game this fast-moving, that's nice, though spikes should be more of a threat. Each game world first has a 'speed' stage, then one or more 'labyrinth' stages. The last labyrinth area will have a door to the world's boss. Speed stages are all about fast movement, and require almost no thought or strategy; just run, occasionally attack, and try the various paths, and you'll finish them. They are fun but insubstantial levels, and look too smiliar as all are set in Socket's future as you travel to the next time period. Only the labyrinth stages are actually set in different time periods, and even there the difference is subtle. Enemies are the same robots throughout and the whole game has a consistent look, so the whole time-travel element isn't emphasized nearly as much as it could have been.
Labyrinth stages are the meat of the game, and are fun to explore. Some have dead ends, so you will need to backtrack and check all of the routes sometimes in order to find your way forward. Doors before the last area of a world are sometimes-optional challenge areas on otherwise dead-end paths. These are the only place in the game you will find instant-death bottomless pits, and can be tough. If you die in one you do lose a life and go all the way back to the last checkpoint in the main level, which can be annoying at times. Dying in Sonic special stages doesn't take away a life! It's nice to have something kind of challenging here, and I like that they made them mostly optional so less good players can avoid them. Boss doors look the same as challenge-room doors, oddly, it would be nice if they were different. Bosses are mostly extremely easy, and just hitting attack over and over usually results in a win. The final boss is the only tougher one, and there really all you need is to remember that Up+Attack move for the second form and you should be good. Overall, Socket is an okay, slightly above average platformer. It looks and sounds good, but is extremely derivitive and has no original ideas of its own, it just copies Sonic except with a different attack system and less great quality all around. Still, it's a decent, fun little game worth a try if you like platformers and don't mind it when they are short and easy.
Soldiers of Fortune - 1-2 player simultaneous, password save. Soldiers of Fortune, or The Chaos Engine in Europe, is a European top-down action game released on several systems. This game was inspired by classics like Commando or Ikari Warriors, but is a slower-paced game with larger levels to explore. While it seems to be quite popular with classic-gaming fans in Europe, honestly I don't see why. The game does have nice graphics, with good sprite art in a cartoony steampunk-ish setting, and the music is decent up-tempu stuff as well, but the gameplay isn't nearly as good as the graphics and sound. This is a below-average game and doesn't even match up to Rambo III, much less MERCS. It does have two player co-op, which is nice, but the game is overly difficult, sometimes confusing, and doesn't control that well. It stops being fun too soon as a result. The game isn't all bad, but compared to my expectations, or other games in the genre, it's pretty disappointing. In this game you play as a team of six mercenaries, off on a series of dangerous missions. You can play as any of the six guys, and you always have an AI companion controlling a second character if you aren't playing with another human, so the game is always co-op. Each character is different and has different weapons and stats. Occasionally you will be able to buy stats and such in a shop between some levels. There are also passwords between each of the four worlds, but you need to beat an entire four-level world to get one, and I've never managed that despite more than a few tries, so I haven't gotten one myself.
The first issue here are the controls. All you can do is walk and fire in the direction you are facing; no direction-lock, no twinstick control, and in a game which needs them. Bullets are uninspiring-looking little circles, too, and shooting lacks intensity. Enemies spawn all over as you move, so you really need to either have memorized everything or be paying close attention to not take hits. Not being able to shoot while you move out of the way to dodge bullets is awful, and you will take hits... and you have vERY few hit points per life, and only three lives before it' Game Over. And no, there are no continues at all, beyond that password you may never reach. That's too harsh. The levels themselves can be interesting, but it's way too easy to get hit and the game punishes you too much for it. Level pacing is also mixed; the early levels are fun, but quickly get tedious or frusterating once stages get larger and more confusing a few levels in. As you go you collect keys, which unlock paths, and money for that shop. Some keys open one of several branching options, so there are alternate paths to add a little replay value, though most of each stage is one path. There is the core of a decent game here, but the controls and difficulty ruin it. And worse, once I got stuck in what I'm pretty sure was an impossible-to-progress-past situation, so the game has glitches as well. Since there is no timer in the game, I had to turn it off and start over. Ugh! I still haven't beaten the whole first world in this game, but playing it makes me want to not do so again anytime soon. Overall Soldiers of Fortune is a disappointing, below-average to bad game that I kind of regret buying. The nice graphics and two player co-op are the main positives here, but the gameplay isn't much fun, levels can be long and enemy spawn locations are hard to avoid, the game has glitches, and really this game is just too hard for its own good. Skip this one unless you have nostalgic feelings for it. Also available on Amiga (in Europe only) and SNES, but I only have played this version. Apparently the SNES version has lots of slowdown, so skip it.
Sonic the Hedgehog - 1 player, supports lock-on with Sonic & Knuckles (for a full Sonic 3 & Knuckles bonus-games mode called Blue Spheres, with passwords to access any possible level). Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog released in 1991, and is one of the great, industry-changing titles, the kind of game that only comes along a couple of times a generation at most, and even most of those don't turn into franchises as popular as Sonic's has been. Sega made an incredible game, and then marketed it exceptionally well. The result was a phenomenon that continues to this day, as Sonic is still Sega's mascot. Sonic created the humanoid-animal-mascot trend in character design, changed platformers with its focus on speed and attitude, and is one of the best-selling game of the 4th generation, too. And yes, I at least think that the game is still fantastic today! This game has some critics, but I love Sonic the Hedgehog. It isn't the best platformer of the generation, and I do think that its nemesis Super Mario World is the better game and the best 2d platformer ever, but Sonic 1 is outstanding, and one of the next best 2d platformers, along with its sequels, the Donkey Kong Country trilogy, and a couple of Game Boy games (wario Land 1, Kirby 2). Sonic is just exceptional in almost every way. The graphics are great, the music is iconic, the levels are fantastic beginning to end, the physics engine behind it all was unlike anything seen before in a platformer, and the large levels are a lot of fun to explore, too! The difficulty level is challenging, but it's a fun challenge, not the crushing difficulty of some other Genesis games. This is a hard game and I only beat it for the first time last month, but it's extremely fun whether or not you complete it. It's hard to think of much bad to say about this game, really.
But for the zero people reading this who don't know the game, Sonic is a platformer. Sonic runs and jumps, and rolls in a ball when you jump or hit Down while running. Hitting enemies in normal form hurts you, but hitting them in ball form hurts them. It's a simple but great system, though this first game doesn't have the spin-in-place move that would later become a series staple. Your goal is to go to the right until you reach the end of each stage. Each world has three stages, and the last has a boss in it. Levels are huge, have multiple routes, and are better-designed than most in the genre. The phyics system is great. You slow down as you run up hills, jump off a slope at the opposite angle, and such. This was a rarely-seen thing at the time, and Sonic's physics are very solid and well-programmed. It is one of the cores of the experience. The levels are extremely well-designed as well, and the game has a great balance between exploration and challenge. Levels are designed around the physics, and are absolutely full of challenging jumps to optional areas, alternate paths easier than the main one, and more. There are also TVs with powerups in them, usually rings but sometimes invincibility or a shield. In these open-levels platformers blind jumps are a common issue, and they are an issue here, but the game has few instant-death pits. They are rare enough that usually when you jump into space you have confidence that you'll land on ground... but once in a rare while, you won't, that was a pit. They are not always marked, so this is one issue with the game, until you learn where the few pits are. Most of the time, though, your main obstacles will be spikes, spike-balls, and moving enemies. If Sonic touches any of these, he drops all of the rings he was holding, but if something hits you when you have no rings you die. Up to 20 rings will appear around you after yout get hit, and you need to try to collect at least one before they vanish. It's a good mechanic, and the levels are designed to encourage memorization, but also to reward exploration. Some newer, post-Genesis Sonic gmaes go way too far into the trap-heavy school of level design, an this adds to the challenge, but not the fun. The Genesis games are better-balanced: there are traps, but you don't need to constantly stop in fear of enemies. You do need to be careful, but not inordinately so. Oh, and there are checkpoint posts, for when you die but it isn't a game over. On game over you restart the level, so long as you have continues left of course.
There is one issue people have with the levels in this game, though, and that's that later Sonic games emphasize speed much more than this game. Sonic is fast, but only the first world is entirely built around speed. After that the second world is a slow-paced underground stage, and then after that the game has a mixture of faster and slower elements. The water levels are the slowest, and some of the hardest, stages, as Sonic can drown if you go too long without getting an air bubble. I like good water levels in games, but Sonic's can be frustrating. The water-world's boss climb is one of the hardest parts of the game. Still, though, I like most of the slower parts of this game. The second world's great fun, even if you're not going full-speed most of the time! Maybe it was just including more conventional level-design elements out of uncertainty about how much people would like the speed the game starts with, but I like the results a lot. Each world looks different, and plays differently as well. All are fun. Yes, blasting through the first stage is great, but making your way through the lava pits in world 2 is also great! The one level-design element I will criticize is that you get no rings in the final boss fight, which makes it MUCH harder than it should be. Sadly, both of its sequels on the Genesis, and many of the Game Gear games, copy this particularly annoying design trait. You should not have to fight hard bosses without rings in Sonic, but most of the classic ones force this on you. It'll cause many game overs right at the end of the game.
Your second goal in the game is to get all of the Chaos Emerald collectables, which are in bonus stages. In this game, you get into bonus stages by reaching the end of the first or second stage in each world except for the last one with at least 50 rings, then jumping into the giant ring that appears, you will go into the bonus stage. Bonus stages are a rotating top-view maze, and you need to try to get to the center and get the Chaos Emerald in the middle, without running into an exit. In addition, if you get 50 rings in a bonus stage you get a continue. You start with no continues, so getting them in bonus stages is essential! There are ten opportunities to get into bonus stages in this game, and six chaos emeralds, so if you want to get them all and the special good ending screen, you need to do well. I've never quite managed to get all the emeralds in one run in a Genesis sonic game, but it is a fun challenge. The bonus stages in this game aren't the best in the series, but they are good, and a nice break from the main game. After the first world having to have 50 rings to get in is a real challenge and takes memorization, so it's satisfying once you finally get into a bonus stage in later levels!
Overall Sonic the Hedgehog is a fantastic game. Innovative when it released and still fresh and fun today, the first Sonic game is a fantastic experience. The game has fantastic graphics, a really good, iconic soundtrack, extremely well-polished gameplay, great levels to explore, lots of replay value, fun bonus stages, difficulty that is just about right, and more! The game doesn't have saving, and it is a lot shorter than Super Mario World and there are many fewer levels as well, but what it does have has all been done really well. The game doesn't have Mario's precision, as the speed and physics system makes things trickier, but what it does have is almost as great. Sonic the Hedgehog is one of the all-time great platformers. Its sequels are even better, but the first one is fantastic as well. This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega’s Genesis games. Sonic 1 has lots of ports on newer systems.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Sonic 2 & Knuckles - 1-2 player simultaneous, supports lock-on with Sonic & Knuckles (to play as Knuckles in this game). Basically Sonic the Hedgehog but better, faster, better-looking, and better-sounding, Sonic 2 is a fantastic sequel. It takes everything great about the original Sonic, removes the slower-paced stuff that many didn't like, and improves on everything else while also adding a second character and co-op multiplayer. The result is that Sonic 2 is another one of the great platformers. The engine, physics, graphical style, music, and everything else are all just as before, but better. This is a faster-paced game than the first one, as Sega listened to the critics and didn't include any slow areas like the second world of Sonic 1. It also has two playable characters, as Sonic's friend Tails is added. Tails the fox flies in, and flight is his signature move, but in this game you can't actually fly while playing, oddly. Also, in single player you play as Sonic only while Tails follows you around. Only a second player can play as Tails, but they can take control at any time, which is nice; it's not a separate mode. Tails has infinite lives, but has to stay on the same screen as Sonic, so play centers around Sonic. Still, it's a fun option and it's good they included it. While quite difficult, Sonic 2 is slightly easier than the first game. While Sonic 1 took me many years to finally complete, I finished Sonic 2 not too long after getting it back in 2006 or so. You still do have limited continues and no saving, unfortunately, and the game is probably longer than the first, but most of the game isn't quite as hard as it was before. The difficulty here is balanced well. One other change is that worlds only have two levels now, so there are more, shorter worlds than the first game. Future Sonic games would keep this games' two-levels style over the three-levels-each style of the original.
Beyond the addition of Tails, there are two major changes in Sonic 2 versus the first game. First, the Spin Dash has been added, and it's a move that ever since has been one of Sonic's most important. By hitting Jump while holding Down, you will spin in place, and then zoom off as soon as you let go. You can still spin by running and then hitting down, but this is more useful and makes level traversal easier and more fun. And second, the Chaos Emeralds are now found in new minigames which you access a new way. Instead of getting to the end of a stage with 50 rings, now you just have to reach a checkpoint post with 50 rings. Then a portal will open above the post, and if you jump up into it you go into the bonus stage. This means that now you can go into multiple bonus stages in a single level, though each post can only be used once, checkpoint posts are limited and now are often hidden on side paths, and your rings are reset to zero after leaving a bonus stage so it isn't too easy. The bonus game itself is an into-the-screen running tube. Sonic and Tails run down a tube, collecting rings and avoiding spike balls. You need to get the required number of rings by each of several points along the tube. The first bonus stage is easy, but they quickly get hard after that. While these "3d" tubes were quite impressive back in 1992, in retrospect I probably like them the least compared to Sonic 1 or 3&K's bonus levels. They're probably harder than either other kind of bonus stage, too. Still, they are fun, and it's nice that Sega mixed things up by changing the bonus stages each time. One final lesser change is continues. This time, you get a continue by getting enough bonus points in levels, instead of based on coins in bonus stages. I'm not sure if this makes getting continues easier or harder, it's sort of mixed.
Otherwise, though, Sonic 2 is more of the same. The graphics are very similar, just better. The music is familiar, but with new compositions which are just as great as the originals. The levels are like those in the first game, but bigger. Again the final boss is really tough and you have no rings for the fight, irritatingly. The new bonus stages are also frustrating, but they do look really cool and play okay once you memorize them. Tails is a decent addition, even if he's not nearly as cool-looking as Sonic. You can't play as Tails in single player, unfortunately, bue he's basically a Sonic clone; he does fly into the screen after dying, but otherwise plays just like Sonic. You can even play as Knuckles in this game if you connect it to a Sonic & Knuckles cart! That's really cool. Playing as Knuckles in Sonic 2 is really fun, I like it a lot. At one point Sonic 2 with Knuckles was maybe my favorite Sonic game, in fact, though S3&K really is the best one. Knuckles has a lower jump height, but can glide and climb up walls. He also doesn't lose rings after bonus stages, which is fantastic and makes the game easier. He's great. There is also a splitscreen versus mode, for two-player competitive play. I've never found it all that exciting compared to the main game, but it's nice they added it I guess. The main game is great. Levels are large, multi-pathed, and incredibly fun to explore. Different paths can play very differently and lead to different areas and secrets, and this game encourages exploration more than the first game since not only coins and lives, but also checkpoints with their bonus-warp gates, are scattered around. This game is hard but fun, and will keep you coming back until you beat it. Sonic 2 is a fantastic classic which deserves its place as one of the all-time-great platformers. This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega’s Genesis games.
Sonic Spinball - 1 player. Because Sonic 3 wouldn't be finished until 1994, Sega had its American studio Sega Technical Institute make a Sonic game for the 1993 holiday season. Instead of making a platformer like their previous work Kid Chameleon, this pinball game was the result. This game is a pinball game with a platformer-styled design to it. Sonic is mostly a pinball, but your goal is to get three Chaos Emeralds in each table so that you can move on to the next one, instead of playing for score on a preset table. Here you actually have a time limit, and the tables are gimmicky and are designed around unlocking areas to progress towards the emeralds, instead of more conventional pinball table design. Kirby's Pinball Land for Game Boy, one of the great console pinball games of the generation, also has levels and progression, but it balances things better -- those tables can be beaten, but also are great pinball tables even outside of that. Here, you just don't get that feeling, unfortunately. The physics are also extremely bouncy, so Sonic will go flying all over, without much control. Hitting what you want can be difficult. The controls are also bad -- you use A and B for the flippers, and C for both flippers. Other, better console pinball games of the era use Left on the d-pad for the left flipper and the rightmost button for the right one. That is a far better control scheme than this. You really want a thumb on each flipper, and holding the controller so one thumb is on A and the other on B isn't too comfortable. The game does look pretty nice, though. This clearly isn't a Sonic Team game, and you can tell that it's a Western game, but the graphics are good and each environment is detailed and nice-looking. The music is solid as well, though it's not main-series Sonic caliber stuff.
The game has one other major flaw, though, and it's crippling: this game is incredibly difficult. Sonic Spinball gives you three lives and zero continues. Once you've died three times, it's all the way back to the beginning of the game you go. And after the first table, the which has ball-saver platforms, there is nothing to save a ball if it drains, you just lose a life every time. I did manage to beat the first table while playing the game for this summary, but quickly got game over on the second because of this. In a progression-based game that is this hard, with random deaths inevitable thanks to the physics and genre, having no continues or saving is too cruel. Overall Sonic Spinball is an okay, average game, but it could have been better. The game can be fun to play if you can stay alive, but it has a bunch of issues which hold it back. Pinball and Sonic fans might want to try it, but this definitely isn't a must-play game. Some years after getting this game and finding it way too hard, I got the Game Gear version. The graphics there aren't nearly as good, but the game is much easier and, for me, more fun. I've beaten that game and did like it. This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega’s Genesis games.
Sega Genesis Game Opininion Summaries - Work In Progress - Dark Jaguar - 3rd February 2016
Tonight has been an interesting night. I've got far too many Sega Genesis consoles, but I've managed to make good use of the extras. I ordered a very high quality soldering station which came earlier today. I've got a model 1 (the VA3) which is my go-to system, but I also had two model 2 consoles. Of those, one of them is the rare "VA3" Model 2 with both good sound and a good video chip (a rare variation of this rare revision). The only problem is it has a wobbly power port, which means it can get shut off with the slightest wiggle of the cable. That was the easiest to fix. I added a bit more solder to the connecting circuits and reflowed what was already there, and bam, the system works without issue now.
There's a sad little Sega Genesis Nomad system I found at a local used game store. Helpful people there, but they didn't know what they had. They had the thing placed next to a bunch of modern imitation Genesis handheld systems. I bought it for a pittance (compared to what it would go for on eBay). It had the same issue as that model 2, at first. As time went on, it got worse until even the battery pack stopped working. After some research, someone told me that the battery pack routes through the AC power port, so if that port is damaged it'll kill the battery power too.
I went to work fixing it, but ultimately it was too damaged to be saved by my meager skills. I opted to remove it, which was still tricky as half the solder holding it to the board was on the other side, directly under the port itself. Eventually, I got it off. As a replacement, I found the Genesis 2 ports are exactly the same port as used in the Nomad. My OTHER Genesis 2, the one with the bad sound, was turned into an organ donor. I removed that one's power port (far more easily, though my desoldering braid doesn't work all that well so I may purchase a solder sucker pen at some point) and just soldered it onto the Nomad. Now the Nomad is working better than it ever did. There's no sign of wiggling powerdown issues and the battery pack works fine again too.
On topic, I tested it with Sonic the Hedgehog. It's a great "test" game.
Sega Genesis Game Opininion Summaries - Work In Progress - A Black Falcon - 14th February 2016
14 this time. Getting closer to the end of letter S...
Games in this update
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Sonic the Hedgehog 3
Sonic & Knuckles
Sonic 3 & Knuckles
Sonic 3D Blast
Sorcerian (J)
Space Harrier II
Spider-Man -- X-Men: Arcade's Revenge
Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage
Spider-Man and Venom: Separation Anxiety
Splatterhouse 2
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine -- Crossroads of Time
Street Fighter II: Special Champion Edition
Streets of Rage (Sega 6-Pak)
Streets of Rage 2
Sonic 3 & Knuckles - 1-2 player simultaneous, cartridge save (FRAM in the Sonic 3 cart). Sonic 3 & Knuckles is Sega's best game ever, and one of the great platformers as well. S3&K has great graphics and music, a lot of variety, very good level designs, a long quest for a Genesis platformer, a solid difficulty level, saving so you don't have to start over every time you play with six save slots available, the series' best bonus minigame, and so much more. This game is built on the back of its sequels. The gameplay, including physics, controls, level design concepts, and the rest, is very much like the previous two games, and Sonic 2 in particular, but improved in little ways. The controls are as good as ever, but the characters have more moves now, and there are three characters to play as. The levels are classic Sonic stuff, focused on speed and challenging platforming, but they are bigger and even more fun to explore than before, and there are more secrets to find as well. You now get Chaos Emeralds by finding giant rings which are hidden around each stage. Each level has several, and you'll need to look everywhere, try to walk through seemingly solid walls, and more to find them. Some are obvious, others well-hidden. I really like this; getting rid of the requirement to have 50 rings in order to go into the bonus stages was a very good idea and it improves the game. The Blue Spheres minigame is great, too, better than those in its predecessors. You play from a third-person view behind your character, and navigate a maze of blue, red, and bounce spheres. Your goal is to touch all blue spheres, which turns them red, without touching a red one. If you hit a red sphere you fail the bonus game and are sent back to the main game, but if you turn them all blue, you get an emerald. If you make a square of blue orbs red by going around the outside edge only, the whole square will turn into rings, and you get continues by getting enough points in bonus stages. Continues are useful despite the save system because they let you continue from the checkpoint you died at, instead of the beginning of the zone, so you will have a bit of an easier time at the end of the game if you play the whole long game in one sitting than if you play it in parts. You can get through the last level with practice even without continues, though, so the game works great either way.
This is a long game, and there are 12 zones, two acts per zone in all zones except for some of the last ones, bosses at the end of every act including a miniboss after each first act and a Robotnik fight at the end of each second act, and 14 emeralds to find. Yes, 14; getting the first seven unlocks Super Sonic, and the second seven Hyper Sonic. Getting all 14 in one run would be a real challenge, but fortunately the game does save how many you've gotten. Until you beat the final boss on a save file you are locked to the current stage, but once you win, you unlock a level select. At this point you can go back, get all the emeralds, then come back to the final level and play the real final fight, which requires all emeralds. All that effort is worth it, because it's a great, epic final battle! There are many checkpoints along the way, and like in Sonic 2, if you touch one with enough rings, a warp to a special stage will open. These are not the Emerald stages, though, of course; instead they are three separate games where you can get points, rings, and lives. One is a slot machine in a Sonic 1-style rotating area; the second has you hitting a dial to knock gatcha-style balls out of a machine to get the prizes inside; and the third is a terrible one on these lightning orbs where I always immediately touch the rising line. There is a trick to it, but I've almost never managed to avoid near-instant failure. Ah well, it doesn't matter much. As for the main game, many of the setings along the way are pretty great. This game has more stages which actually change as you progress than before, including areas where sand filling in behind you as you try to escape in the tombs, the ground itself is moving upwards, crushing you if you don't get out of there fast enough, and more. The large levels have some minor puzzle elements as well which you can usually engage with or ignore. One level has these simple elevator-lifts that let you go up a level of platforms, but you can choose to use them or not. In another, you have to stand on a giant spinning, flying top to fly around and find the route forward. This part is pretty cool, flying through the air on a giant top is fun. And there's more.
The game has short cutscenes, as well. Once again Robotnik is doing evil stuff and you need to stop him. In the Sonic 3 half, new character Knuckles works as your main antagonist. He's an Echidna, and guards the Chaos Emeralds, but has been conned by Robotnik into thinking that Sonic is the real villain. After messing with you to make your route longer all game, at the end of Sonic 3, Robotnik's true evil is revealed, and in Sonic & Knuckles, Knuckles became playable for the first time. Of course, in the combined game you can play as Knuckles from the beginning, not only in the second half. As described above in Knuckles in Sonic 2, Knuckles has a shorter jump height, but can glide and climb walls. His powers make playing the game more fun, for me. Tails now can fly anytime, which is great. Tails is sort of 'easy mode' here as a result. Sonic is mostly the same, but does have some new powers: he gets additional abilities from the games' three powerups. In addition to the water-bubble orb from Sonic 2, there are now also lightning and fire orbs. All three characters get the basic function from these, but Sonic gets an exclusive second ability from each as well, such as a double jump from the lightning orb, on top of the basic it-attracts-rings power. There is even a boss fight that plays differently if you have Tails in the game. So, all four play modes, Sonic, Sonic & Tails, Tails, and Knuckles, are distinct and play differently, for additional replay value. This game does multiple characters right, in a way that its 3d sequels would often fail to match.
The game also sounds great. For the Sonic 3 half, the soundtrack was mostly composed by the famous pop artist Michael Jackson and his songwriting team. However, the game released shortly after Jackson's first child sexual assault allegations, which is probably why Jackson's name does not appear in the music credits. His team does, though, and it has been proven that his songs are indeed in the game. I've never been a Michael Jackson fan at all, but it is an interesting story. The Sonic & Knuckles half was composed by the usual Sonic composers, and it's also great. The whole soundtrack is very good, and is more technically impressive than the first two even if the original main theme is probably the most memorable tune from the series. The graphics are similar but a bit more detailed than before, too, and I think that they get slightly better in the second, S&K half of the game; those six months were used well. For negatives about this game, there are few. First, there are still places where you can randomly die for no fair reason because of crushing objects, or impossible-to-avoid obstacles or pits, or such. That stuff is always frustrating even when you have a bunch of lives stocked up. Yes, it's a staple of most all Sonic games, but it is annoying. And second, the final boss once AGAIN has no rings after the final checkpoint. The game doesn't take rings away that you have entering the (first) final fight, oddly, but you only get one chance per game at this boss with rings; die once and it's back to the usual 'fight this really hard boss with no rings'. Things are different in the real final battle, but unless you get all 14 emeralds in one run, beating that 'final' boss may be tough. It is worth the effort, though, and this game isn't as hard as the first one. Overall, Sonic 3 & Knuckles is a classic which holds up extremely well. Sonic Team found a fantastic formula with the original game, and this one shows the concept in its best form. S3&K is not quite the equal of Super Mario World, my favorite platformer ever, but it is high on the list after that game. It's a great, must-play game. Also available on PC. That is the first version of the game I owned, back in the late '90s, and it's also great. This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega’s Genesis games, though it is worth noting that this combined game are often skipped over; only a few platforms, such as Wii WiiWare, actually have the full S3&K experience available.
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 - 1-2 player simultaneous, cartridge save (FRAM). Either because the game was getting too large to reasonably fit on one cartridge or in order to make more money, Sega decided to release their third main-series Sonic game in two parts. First came this game, Sonic 3, in early 1994, and then came Sonic & Knuckles about six months later at the end of the year. That latter game has a cartridge port on top of the cart, allowing other games to be connected to it. This 'lock-on technology' allows for Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles to be combined into one massive game, Sonic 3 & Knuckles. That game is the biggest and best Sonic game of them all. This is the first half of that, so it's a must-have, but not on its own. Sonic 3 is fantastic, as I describe above, and is the only Sonic game with Michael Jackson music for those that care about that, and there are eight save slots available in this game versus the six in S3&K, but alone you have no playable Knuckles, and the game feels a bit short, with a shorter length and no final boss fight as great as the ones in the previous games, or S3&K. On the subject of those save slots, though, the two sets of save slots are separate, but S3&K will remember your progress from Sonic 3, I think, so those slots are copied to the new ones I guess. S3&K progress is not copied back, however, understandably. Sonic 3 is a very good game, but play the full game, not just this half of it. This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega’s Genesis games.
Sonic & Knuckles - 1-2 player simultaneous, has cartridge save when locked on to Sonic 3, via Sonic 3's save chip. Sonic & Knuckles is the second half of Sonic 3. The graphics and gameplay are exactly the same as before, just with new levels. This time, you can play as Sonic or Knuckles. Knuckles was introduced as a rival in Sonic 3, but this time he's playable and on your side. I've always liked playing as Knuckles, he has some great moves Sonic doesn't. When you lock this cart on to Sonics 2 or 3, you can play as Knuckles in Sonic 2 and in Sonic 3 & Knuckles, which is great. Unfortunately they couldn't get Knuckles into Sonic 1 because of engine changes, but still, it's great that it works in Sonic 2. Sonic & Knuckles on its own, however, is a bit disappointing. The game is a bit short, Tails isn't playable without lockon, and you can't save if you don't have Sonic 3 locked on, annoyingly! S&K is great fun, and I like its zones a lot, indeed maybe more than Sonic 3's, but it's the second half of a game, and you want to start from the beginning. There is no better case of 'better combined than separate' than Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles. Both games are pretty good on their own, but individually I don't think I could rank either one above Sonics 1 or 2. Combined, though, they exceed them. S3 and S&K are so much better when put together! This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega’s Genesis games. Sonic & Knuckles is in lots of compilations that do not include Sonic 3, probably because the absence of saving makes it easier to deal with in things such as those licensed Genesis portables from AtGames which don't support any saving and have a bunch of built-in games.
Sonic 3D Blast - 1 player. Sonic 3D Blast is an isometric platformer developed by Eurocom and published by Sega in 1996. This late Genesis release is controversial, but unlike some I do like the game. I have finished this game on the Genesis, and I mostly enjoyed it along the way. The game plays from an overhead angle, and you move Sonic around in three dimensions. Yes, you only play as Sonic in this one. You can jump and spin-dash, though your spin is a lot slower-moving in this game. The slower pace of most of this game is surely one of the things a lot of Sonic fans dislike about it, but I'm fine with the game as it is. Speed is fun, yes, but a slower-paced, more deliberate game can be great too. In each level, your goal is to find all of the Flickies and then bring them to a goal ring. So, yes, the game is a series of collection quests. I don't mind this, myself; both style have a place. Each level is broken up into two parts, and you've got five or so flickies to collect in each part. You'll be wandering around levels, looking for flickies and rings, for quite a while in some stages, until you've learned their locations. Backtracking and exploration are central to this game. Levels are large and non-linear, so the game is not just about getting from point A to point B as it usually is in this series. So yes, this game is very different from previous Sonic games. And yes, it isn't quite as great as the Genesis Sonic games are. While 3D Blast is a good game, it's not an all-time great like those are. Even so, it is a good game and it is fun to play.
The game has pretty good graphics and solid music as well. Aurally, the game has good music, but it isn't as great and memorable as the main series on the Genesis. The graphics are similar, but perhaps better. The game clearly wasn't done by Sonic Team, but the look is Sonic-like, and doesn't look like a generic Euro-platformer or something; the developers clearly were given assets from Sega of Japan to work from. Each world looks different. They are the usual settings, including forest, cave, ice world, and such for locations, but all look pretty good. This is a late release for the system, and it looks it. The flickies make a return from their game Flicky, which I haven't played much of. Sonic has always been saving the small animals that Robotnik uses to power his machines, and you're doing that again here. They follow Sonic around once rescued, which is kind of cute. Sometimes this actually matters in game strategy, as a flicky is rescued if it touches one of your flickies, which can bounce above you on springs for example. In addition to the main game, 3D Blast has a bonus game as well. In order to enter a bonus stage, you have to find characters such as Tails or Knuckles hidden around the levels. If you get to one of them with the required number of rings, you go into a bonus stage. Here you are running towards the screen on a twisting track that stretches in front of you. The perspective here uses some nice graphical tricks, and the bonus stages are fun. They can be tricky, though, as there are raised platforms to jump to, pits and spikes to jump over, and more. Just like the 2d games, I've never gotten all of the rings in a single play through this game.
The level designs in Sonic 3D Blast are good. Levels are designed to be fair, and aware of the challenges of jumping in isometric 3d, this game has few to no instant death pits. There are spikes, but they just make you lose your rings like usual. Instead of pits, you usually just fall to a lower area and have to go around and try the jump again. You can die, but this makes the game much better than it would be if it was loaded with instant-death pits. While the open, exploration-focused stages can be annoying if you can't find that one flicky hiding away somewhere, most of the time finding how to get to all the flickies while staying away from or defeating badguys is fun. Collecting rings and looking for bonus stages also is good fun. The game isn't Sonic-fast, but it is good and well designed. However, it is unfortunate that the game doesn't have saving. While good, and not one of the harder Sonic games, Sonic 3D Blast is a somewhat slow-paced game, and it can get boring after a while. It's really unfortunate that even in 1996 Sega STILL didn't understand that games need to have saving! It's unfortunate, and does hold the game back. Still, overall, Sonic 3D Blast is a good isometric platfromer. The game looks nice, controls well, and is fun to play most of the time. Yes, it isn't 2d Sonic, but anyone who likes some exploration and collection in their games as I do definitely should play this game, it's a fun one. Other people should try it, and see if they like it or not. This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega’s Genesis games. There are also Saturn and PC ports of the game released in the 1990s. They have CD audio music, improved graphics with some quite nice CG-rendered sprites and backgrounds, and new bonus minigames, slightly different but both 3d takes on the tube-running minigame from Sonic 2. The Saturn one is in polygonal 3d, though the main game is of course still sprite-based, while the PC version uses sprites. The PC version also adds a save system, thankfully, though for some insane reason the Saturn one doesn't. However, getting the PC version running on a modern PC might be tricky; it has issues on new OSes. If you can get it to run, though, it's probably the best version of the game, though the Saturn bonus game might be best. Still, the Genesis version is also fun, and it's definitely worth playing. While I have all three versions of the game, this is the only one that I've beaten.
Sorcerian (J) - 1 player, battery save to cartridge. Sorcerian for the Genesis, released in 1990, is a conversion by Sega of the Falcom computer game of the same name. This Genesis version is mostly a port of the computer original, but has some new missions included. Sorcerian is one of several side-scrolling action-RPGs made by Falcom. Originally released in the 1980s, this later port has improved graphics and those new missions, but the graphics are still dated and basic with very small sprites and subpar art design, it's hard to play for the non-Japanese speaker, and I'm not convinced by the gameplay either. Despite this, for some reason I got several Japanese versions of Sorcerian, including this and the Turbo CD version. This games' box-art is great, but the game, not so much. If you are going to play this game, there are guides for the main menu options, but figuring out what to do in some quests may be tricky. At least there is some help for that menu, though; The main menu has a good 12 options, all in Japanese text, and you'll need to use and understand all of them and their submenus.
Sorcerian has two elements, the missions, which is mostly simple and straightforward, and the aforementioned menu system between missions. Here you create characters, buy items and equipment, develop magic towards the games' over a hundred spells, build character stats, and give your party members regular jobs. There are four classes, fighter, wizard, elf, and dwarf, all male or female, available. Now, by "jobs" I do not mean classes, Final Fantasy style; I mean civilian occupations you choose in a menu back at base, in order to make money and build their stats. These jobs are different from the characters' class, and some jobs are gender-specific. As characters do jobs they build stats. So, these are not full-time adventurers like in your usual RPG, they need other work too. This unique system is a centerpiece of Sorcerian's design, and it's kind of odd. Characters will age as you have them work and go on missions, and eventually get too old to continue adventuring.You can always create new characters, though, and you have three save slots in this game and quite a few characters allowed per file. There are a lot of professions available, each with different rewards, and eventually I'm sure this element of the game becomes required in order to progress. Of course, figuring out any of this is difficulty through the language barrier, even with a guide; I haven't gotten deep into this game.
When you choose a team and enter one of the ten available missions, you'll notice how tiny the sprites are. This game was originally an 8-bit computer game, and it shows. While the graphics are improved over the original and the added parallax scrolling is appreciated, Sega had to stick with the small sprites in order for everything you need to see to be visible, but still, the game looks dated and ugly. The music is average; it's nice, but nothing great. Characters do move quickly, though, in that classic Falcom way, so gameplay is fast. For controls, the d-pad moves your whole party, with one leading and the others following; Start is a menu for selecting a spell, quitting the mission, and such; A switches the order of your party; and B and C have all characters use magic and weapon attacks, respectively. Characters of different classes have different attacks, so some have magic while others use melee or ranged weapons. If a character runs out of health they die, though you can resurrect back in town between missions, but if you stand still you will recover health and mana. Enemies spawn at the edges of the screen and attack quickly, so if you're not over-leveled, battles can be tricky even with all the ranged attacks. The fast-paced combat is simplistic, but is probably the best thing about the game. It feels very Falcom-like, similar to something like Ys III but with multiple characters. There are also people to talk to in the missions, so you'll need a guide sometimes to figure out what to do if you can't read Japanese. Your goal is to beat all ten missions, but you can keep going after that if you want.
Overall, Sorceriean is an okay but odd game. While the action can be fun, the game has little depth in-game and gets repetitive quickly. And in town, there is a huge language barrier making doing much of anything a challenge even with a guide. The bland, tiny graphics are not appealing either. Falcom fans who can read Japanese will surely like this, but for the rest of us the getting to the overall-average gameplay may not be worth the hassle. If you want to play the game in English, Sierra did release versions for the PC. It has worse graphics than the Genesis or Turbo CD versions, but at least it's in English. Other versions of Sorcerian in Japanese are available on the Turbo CD, MSX, PC-88/98, and Sharp X1. The later Turbo CD version is similar to this one but with some different missions, no parallax but improved ingame graphics apart from that, and better, CD-quality music. There are also sequels and a remake for the PC and Dreamcast, again in Japan only.
Space Harrier II - 1 player. Space Harrier II is a rail shooter, and a sequel to the great Sega arcade game from several years earlier. This game has gameplay identical to the original, but with new stages to shoot through. You are the Space Harrier, flying forward as you shoot a wide variety of colorful and weird creatures and objects. The original game is a real masterpiece and one of the all-time great rail shooters. The later 32X version is also fantastic. However, this game is kind of bad. Space Harrier II is one of the first games released for the Genesis. That is important to keep in mind, but even so, the horrendously choppy graphics make this game very hard to play. As with Sega's other early scaler-style games on the Genesis, Space Harrier II has horrendous software scaling. As always the game uses differently-sized sprites the system flips between as you get closer to things, but some games are much better than others at making this look smooth. This game, like Super Thunder Blade or Super Hang-On, fails to do this acceptably. The sprites bounce between sizes in a way which looks awful, and gameplay is very choppy even beyond that. Space Harrier II was one of the first games I got for the Genesis when I got the system in '06 and I was hopeful that this followup to an arcade game I love would be good, but it isn't, at all. The sprite-art does look decent to good in still pictures, but as soon as you see it moving it looks awful. Gameplay is much more difficult than it would be with scaling sprites, too, since the lack of smoothness drags everything down. Space Harrier II is a frustrating, ugly-looking game which is not worth playing even for serious series fans. This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega’s Genesis games.
Spider-Man -- X-Men: Arcade's Revenge - 1 player. Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade's Revenge is an extremely difficult platformer from Acclaim. This multiplatform title is a crossover between two major superhero universes, and you play as both Spider-Man and four X-Men: Wolverine, Storm, Gambit, and Cyclops. The game has okay but slightly smallish graphics, average music, and good controls. The game doesn't look great, but I do like the varied settings, and it's reasonably well drawn. "Difficult" is the operating word here, though. The first level in the game is a level where you play as Spiderman and have to disarm some bombs in the correct order before time runs out. It's not difficult with some practice. After beating it you go to a level select where you can choose between all five characters. Each has two levels to try to complete, designed just for them in a unique setting. These stages are all much harder than the intro level, and dying is easy. If you get through all that through some miracle, there's a final level, I believe, where you face the main villain here, Arcade. Each character has their own powers, such as web-swinging and wall-climbing for Spiderman, throwing cards for Gambit, slashing things (including walls, as well as enemies) for Wolverine, eyebeam blasts for Cyclops, and flying for Storm, making each set of levels different, even beyond the different settings. Storm's flight-based stages are the most different, but all characters are distinct in both movement and in combat styles. The game has solid graphics, okay though imperfect controls, and decent music. It can be fun to play. Levels are varied, and are large in that Western platformer style. You usually have an objective beyond just reaching the end, so in the first level Spiderman has to reach a bunch of bombs before they explode, for example. You'll need to play each level a bit to learn what you should do in it and where to go, and the learning process there is fun, and is helped by the good level designs. Levels here are large and open, in that classic Western platformer fashion, but the stages are reasonably fun to explore and are mostly well laid out. Difficulty aside this game is above average.
However, the game has one major flaw: it's absolutely insanely difficult! You get three lives and no continues or saving in this game. That's it. There are no cheat codes to help you out, either. There are some rare extra lives to be found, but with at least a dozen tough levels to get through, Arcade's Revenge is a somewhat stratospheric challenge. It's a shame, too, because based just on the core gameplay, this is probably my favorite of the Spiderman or X-Men games that I have played on the Genesis. I don't find the Sega CD Spiderman game all that fun, and the two Genesis Spiderman beat 'em ups below are average at best as well, and the Genesis X-Men game is okay but also has issues. This game, however, really is good sometimes. Sega's X-Men game has better graphics, but this game controls well, and the combat is good and levels are fun to explore. I like the variety between the different characters too. Searching through the levels looking for stuff and beating enemies is fun. With a password save system and continues, it'd be a pretty good game. Playing a game this difficult with no continues or saving is extremely frustrating. This game is a fun platformer, but beware the difficulty level. Maybe play it in an emulator with savestates, or something. Overall I do like this game, it's good, but beware! Also available on SNES, Game Gear, and Game Boy. I also have the Game Gear version, and it's a downscaled version of this same exact title, just as difficult as it is on the Genesis.
Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage - 1 player, 6 button controller supported. Maximum Carnage is a decent-looking, but subpar, beat 'em up published by Acclaim. In this game you play as Spiderman and Venom, each in separate levels, but not both at the same time, as for some dumb reason the game is single player only. The game has nice-looking comic-book-style cutscenes, but the story feels rushed and confusing. I presume it makes sense for those who know the comicbook storyline, but I've never cared for superhero comics, and just in this game things happen too quickly to make sense. This is a beat 'em up, though, so that's not a big problem; this genre is about hitting people, not following a plot. The game has large sprites, decent but not great graphics with okay backgrounds but somewhat ugly, super-'90s punks for enemies. The art design leaves something to be desired. There are a handful of different enemy types which repeat a lot in different colors, as usual. The music is average, too. Gameplay is also average at best, though it is a bit harder than it reasonably should be. and the controls are much less precise than they are in Sega beat 'em ups. It often feels like you take unfair hits because of the sometimes-iffy controls, though there arej ust enough health-ups to keep you alive if you don't mess up much. If you do, though, it'll be Game Over fast, because you get only one continue for the entire game! The game does have some variety and can be fun to play, and beating it will be a challenge for sure. This game has more negatives than positives, overall, though.
Levels usually just scroll to the right, freezing on each screen until you beat the enemies there as usual in the genre, but sometimes you have to climb buildings instead. You can climb on walls and swing on web-lines in this game, you see. The 6-button controller is useful because the web-swinging function requires a button combination, but with the 6-button pad the Y button lets you use it with one press. The wall-climbing segment in level two is very frustrating and I've lost many lives there, though a sometimes I get lucky and get past it. It is far too easy to be knocked off the wall and back down to the ground! The regular beat 'em up segments are better, but are average at best. You have several moves you can do beyond basic punches and jump-kicks, and with C you can grab enemies long-distance or use a shield, both of which are very useful moves. Those large but badly-drawn enemies constantly attack from both sides, though, and it can be hard to not take damage, and you can't take much damage before you lose a life. The game has no difficulty settings either, and you only get that one continue. You need more than that in a game this hard. Overall, the high difficulty, flawed controls, absence of badly needed co-op play, and frustrating wall-climbing segments hold back an otherwise average game with okay graphics and sometimes-fun action. Spider-man and Venom in Maximum Carnage is below average. Maybe pick this up if you like Spiderman; otherwise pass. The bright red cartridge might be the best thing about this game. Also on SNES.
Spider-Man and Venom: Separation Anxiety - 1-2 player simultaneous, password save, 6 button controller supported. This second Spiderman isometric beat 'em up from Acclaim is a lot like the first one, but with multiplayer, smaller graphics, and passwords between levels. The web-swinging element of the game also seems to be gone, but you can still climb on walls, though. The rest of the game is similar as well, just a bit zoomed out, perhaps to better fit two player characters. A lot of people greatly dislike the graphics of this game compared to the first, and I see their point, but the art design is similar; it's just smaller. This game does look worse than the first one, but enemies look bad in both games, not only this one, and the heroes here don't look too much worse. If this is what it took to get multiplayer in I don't mind much, but both games could have used better graphics. Since this game is co-op, you now can play as either Spiderman or Venom in all levels, which is nice. The story presentation is weaker than before, though, as now the intro is mostly text; the comic-book cutscenes are gone. The story was confusing before, but this is not better.
Ingame, the controls are the same as before, which is not good. You still take damage far too easily, but the enemies feel even more aggressive now, and I take damage even faster than in the first game; this game is absurdly difficult. Indeed, where I've rarely beaten the second level of the first game, I don't think I've ever beaten the FIRST level of this one! And I have tried; it's just unfairly hard thanks to how many enemies attack you from both sides at once. There isn't much you can do in that situation other than take damage, unfortunately, and it's frustrating. If you ever do manage to beat a level at least you will get a password, thankfully -- and that is great, passwords are quite rare in 4th-gen games in this genre -- but getting to that point is harder and less fun than it should be. Versus the first one, putting in a password system helps, but does not entirely fix, the games' somewhat broken difficulty level. Enemy graphics are a bland assortment of nameless thugs, too, as enemy names, present in the first one, have been removed; this game looks and sounds average, and that's it. Some of the songs, such as the intro music, are good, but others are kind of bad. Overall, Separation Anxiety is a below-average disappointment. The game fixes some of the first games' problems, but not enough of them, and introduces some new ones, so it's hard to say which of these two games is better overall. The first one may be for one player, but this one obviously is for two. Better yet, though, play something better, such as the Streets of Rage games below. As with the first one, this game is only for big Spiderman fans, and even they probably will be disappointed. Oh yeah, and the game is in a regular black cartridge too, not the bright red one of the first game. Also on SNES and PC.
Splatterhouse 2 - 1 player, password save. This second game in Namco's horror-themed action series is a side-scrolling beat 'em up with a bit of platforming. Just like in the first game for arcades and TurboGrafx-16, the second Splatterhouse game is a memorization-heavy sidescroller. You walk to the right, hitting enemies or jumping over obstacles as you go, and your goal is to memorize exactly when you have to hit each button to avoid taking damage. Gameplay is simplistic and quickly gets boring; I don't like this game that much. It's not awful, but definitely is not good. You play as Rick, a bulked-up muscleman with a mask on who looks like a horror movie villain but here is the hero, and need to save your girlfriend from a mansion full of monsters. There are new areas and foes to see as you progress, but the game also has a somewhat consistent visual look to it. The graphics and sound are fine, but nothing great; in visuals and music this game is average. I dislike horror movies and never watch them, so all the references to popular horror movies mean little to me, but the overly simplistic and repetitive gameplay definitely means something. As much as I like isometric beat 'em ups, when you flatten them down to a single plane games usually get too simple to stay fun, and this game is no exception. The numerous traps and pits to jump over give this game a much stronger platformer element than most beat 'em ups, but it just adds to the required memorization. You do have a health bar in this game, there are weapons to find as you progress, and if you beat a level the game does give you a password to start from the next stage, and those features are both welcome, but it's still a difficult, and boring, game. I got to the second level back when I bought this game for cheap in 2006 or so, and never have gotten past it, not because it's impossible or something, but because it is just challenging enough for me to not find it worth the effort. Still, Splatterhouse 2 is an okay game. Yes, it's a pure memorizer to a degree beyond most platformers or beat 'em ups and it's pretty difficult, but the game has variety, nicely-drawn graphics, and some conceptually interesting bosses to fight. Overall, though, it's a poor and tedious well-below-average game, and considering that it now goes for a crazy-high price, save your money and don't buy this game, you'd be wasting your money. This is a game a lot of people like more than I do, though, so maybe try it if you think it sounds interesting. I think it's kind of bad, though. The game is available on Wii Virtual Console; if you MUST buy it, get it there.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine -- Crossroads of Time - 1 player, password save. Star Trek DS9: Crossroads of Time is a mediocre and frustrating puzzle-adventure game from Novotrade that was published by Playmates. As much as I love the TV series, this console game is not my thing at all. This game is one part Prince of Persia and one part annoying maze-exploration puzzle game, and I dislike both elements of it. You play as Benjamin Sisko, commander of the space station Deep Space Nine, and questionable things are going on that you'll need to investigate. The game controls very much like Prince of Persia, so C+forward jumps forward a set distance, Up jumps up to grab on to a platform above provided that you are facing the right way and are lined up just right, Down ducks, and hitting down several times will drop down a level, provided you're facing the right way and such. You also have items, and switching between and using them doesn't always work well. The controls are clumsy and frustrating; I've never liked PoP-style game controls. Give me standard Mario or Sonic platformer controls any day! Combat is even worse, if you need to fight with your fists. While the phaser, once you get it, will drop basic foes quickly, trying to fight by punching them controls badly, is no fun, and will result in you taking as many hits as you give out. The graphics here are dark and average looking, but at least the sprites are somewhat recognizable as the characters from the show. The music is fine, but not great. The presentation here is average but decent enough, it's the gameplay that is a problem.
The level designs and gameplay are the worst thing about this game, though, particularly once you get past the station-exploration segments between action missions and get into a mission. Those station exploration parts can be a bit confusing, but just talk to everyone and go everywhere and you'll find your way eventually. In missions, though, you may have a time limit, an overlarge stage to explore, and no clear way to progress. After a while stuck in the first level I gave up and looked at a walkthrough video online; I had missed an invisible phaser that I needed, apparently. After getting stuck again in the much, much larger second level, I gave up on this game. You do get passwords between levels, which is good, but this game needed better level layouts and game design. I could go back to that walkthrough and figure out what I was missing, but playing a game that way isn't rewarding or fun, and and the game doesn't give you enough, or any, clues to help you figure out what you're supposed to be doing on your own. There is no quest-log, no pause menu with info, or anything; just a vague mission, and a level to explore. You do have a tricorder which can can to find certain item types, but good luck actually getting to them. Stations can move moving platforms around which you can then stand on and control, and I'm sure later in the game there will be some quite annoying mazes with these as well. This game feels designed to annoy and confuse the player, and I don't like that. I like mazes, but in a maze you know what to do, the challenge is to get through! Here you don't really know what to do, and with controls and design as subpar as they are in this game I don't want to stick around and figure it out. Star Trek DS9: Crossroads of Time is a subpar disappointment that borders on bad. Pass unless you're a big Prince of Persia fan who likes confusing games with bad controls. Also available on the SNES.
Street Fighter II: Special Champion Edition - 1-2 player simultaneous, 6 button controller supported. Street Fighter II': Special Champion Edition is a port of several versions of Capcom's great classic one-on-one fighting game. This has always been my favorite home port of pre-Super SFII. It's a great game! Some time after Nintendo got its exclusive port of Street Fighter II, in mid 1993 Sega and, in Japan only, NEC also got versions of the game for their platforms for the Genesis and PC Engine (TurboGrafx-16). Nintendo also got a second release on the SNES, SFII Turbo. This Genesis version is the best version of home SFII available at that time, though, in my opinion at least. With good graphics and music, great controls provided that you have some 6-button controllers, fast, accurate gameplay, all twelve playable characters, eight levels of turbo available right on the main menu, two different versions of the game playable, and almost everything from the arcade classics, SFII SCE is fantastic! Really the only issue with this fantastic game is that you need to have six-button controllers, but really, for anyone who doesn't, just buy some. You won't regret it; the Sega version of the 6-button Genesis controller is one of the best and most comfortable controllers ever designed.
The gameplay here is very accurate to the arcade original. There are two modes here, for SFII': Champion Edition and SFII': Hyper Fighting, aka SFII Turbo. Each mode has some different character colors available, though each character only has two colors per mode unfortunately, and some balance changes I believe. More importantly, only the latter has turbo-speed options available. All 12 characters are present in both modes, as Champion Edition added the 4 minibosses as playable characters on top of the 8 characters from the original game. All of the moves are in both modes as well, though there may be slight differences. Characters in this game only have a few moves each, so it's not nearly as difficult to learn a characters' basic moveset as it is in a more modern fighting game, which is nice. The controls are great, and the gameplay is about as fast as it is in the arcade. Indeed, with eight levels of turbo available, this version of SFII can play very quickly indeed! Actually playing the game at max turbo is difficult, but it's am amusing way to play the game for sure. On the SNES you need a code to get over three levels of turbo, and the max is not quite as fast as it is in this game, and all other SFII games on 4th-gen systems don't have even that many levels of turbo, so this is the fastest 4th-gen console version of SFII.
The game really does look nice, too. This is the only 4th-gen console version of SFII with the original SFII arcade intro in the game. It's a very short little scene, but it is cool to see. It's weird no other version had it, but they don't. Ingame, while the graphics have, of course, been simplified from the arcades, the game doesn't feel quite as stripped-down as Samurai Shodown does; SFII holds up better on the Genesis. Some graphics have been simplified, so for instance there are now only two elephants in the background in one stage instead of three and only one or two background laters per stage, but everything important is here. The music is very accurate to the arcade as well, within the limitations of the Genesis of course. Whether the Genesis or SNES music sounds better is a matter of opinion, as both sound great. This verison may sound a bit more like the arcade game than that one, though, which is nice. Overall, SFII Special Champion Edition is a great game. Because of how many versions of SFII there are for so many consoles this game probably isn't a must-have, but it is a great version of the game and one of my personal favorite versions of SFII. Really the only bad thing I can say about it is that I like the characters added in Super SFII, so as much as I like lots of levels of turbo, I like the added characters even more. Still, apart from that SFII SCE is fantastic, and it's certainly a must-play game, at least. Fighting game fans should certainly have it, and anyone else should consider getting the game. It's one of the best versions of a classic this side of the original arcade game. Arcade port. Versions of these games are available on many other cosnoles, including the TG16 for Champion Edition and the SNES for Hyper Fighting (Turbo), though no other version is exactly the same as this one. This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega’s Genesis games.
Streets of Rage (Sega 6-Pak) - 1-2 player simultaneous. Streets of Rage started one of Sega's more popular series on the Genesis, at least among its fans. The game is an isometric beat 'em up with a modern-day street-crime theme, and as with most games in the genre, you move from screen to screen punching everyone out as you try to save the city from thugs led by the evil Mr. X. There are three playable characters, two male and one female, and each has slightly different stats. The game has two player co-op, as you hope for in this genre. Inspired by Capcom's classic Final Fight, Streets of Rage takes that game and improves on it in pretty much every way. While Final Fight is good, Streets of Rage is better. This game has good graphics for an earlier Genesis game, good, precise controls, a fantastic soundtrack that is in the top tier for the system, and decent graphical and enemy variety. The game is mostly great, but it does have a few drawbacks, most notably a very annoying, and hard, boss-rush section in the last level, dated visuals versus its sequel, and mostly straightforward corridors for levels. I've never finished the game due to how tough the final level is. Even so, this game is one of the better beat 'em ups out there. Streets of Rage is a straightforward and repetitive game, as this genre almost always is, but it's one of the more fun beat 'em ups around... or would be, if not for its all-time-classic sequel. This game is a pretty good game, but that one is better. Still, both games are worth playing.
As mentioned this is an earlier Genesis game, and it does look rougher than its sequels visually. Sprites aren't large or as detailed as in the second one, and environments are fairly simple. All stages in this game are either horizontal corridors, excepting only the one elevator level. A few later stages do have traps or pits, to give the game a bit more variety, but its sequel or Golden Axe have far more interesting stage layouts than this game. The basic controls are simple: you can walk, jump, jump-kick, and use a superbomb move which has a backup police car shoot a rocket-launcher at the screen, damaging all enemies present. You can't use that last move in the last level, just to make things even harder. There are a few moves beyond those basics, including a backwards kick on punch+kick and some grab and throw moves to give the game a bit more variety, and that is appreciated. All moves control well, and the fighting action is fun, at least through the second-to-last stage. As with most beat 'em ups, regular enemies come in a handful of constantly-repeating varieties and are mostly easy to beat, while bosses are much harder. The bosses in this game include a tricky guy who breathes fire, a tall guy with some weapons, and many more. Between the hordes of enemies and tricky bosses, you can't win this game just by mashing attack; some strategy is required. I do like that, but sometimes it's a bit frustrating.
Overall, Streets of Rage is a very good game. The game looks nice, sounds fantastic, and plays well. The basic fighting gameplay here is great fun, and is better than classics such as Final Fight or Golden Axe based on the mechanics, even if I love Golden Axe's fantasy setting the most over this. Streets of Rage game is difficult and having to beat bosses without the bomb is annoying, and the level layouts are mostly too much of a straight line, but this is a great game in almost every category. With either one player or two, Streets of Rage is a must-try classic. This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega’s Genesis games.
Streets of Rage 2 - 1-2 player simultaneous. One of the best beat 'em ups ever made, Streets of Rage 2 is one of the all-time classics! This game takes its predecessors' foundation and builds on it. This time the graphics, level designs, gameplay, enemy variety, music, and controls are all improved. Streets of Rage 2 is fantastic in all of those categories, and more besides. Once again, Mr. X is causing trouble. He kidnapped one of the guys from the first game, and the other two characters plus the kidnapped guys' little brother and a big muscleman are off to rescue him, and stop Mr. X as well. It's a simple plot, but it works, and I like that it's not a girl kidnapped like in most games. There are eight levels to fight through, and four difficulty levels available. You only get two continues, but even so, the difficulty levels really make a big difference. On Easy the game isn't hard to finish, but on the higher settings it will take skill and practice to get anywhere near the end. This game is easier than the first one, particularly on Easy, and it's appreciated. It's still plenty tough on the higher settings. This is not a long game, but for the genre, the length is just about right. The game ends just when it should, and every level is fun and very well designed. The controls are also great. They are very responsive and precise, and there are a good number of moves to use beyond the basic ones. Each character has some character-specific special moves. While this game is still repetitive, it has more variety than earlier beat 'em ups. There are also weapons to use, including knives and pipes, for some added fun. The 'bomb' attack from the first game is gone, but the added moves make up for that.
Indeed, I really like the level designs here. While most stages are a path to the right and this game does not have Golden Axe-like pits in the stages, unfortunately, the several elevator segments excepted, there are parts where the screen moves in a diagonal direction, and there are many screen transitions, doors, stairs, and such along the way. The graphics are very good as well, and this really helps keep things interesting. You aren't just looking at the same backgrounds all the time, but instead environments change regularly and each look quite different and very well drawn and detailed. There are some nice surprises too, I was not expecting one of those elevators to be there when I first played the game! There is as much enemy variety here as you'll find in the genre, too. Enemies are more different than in some beat 'em ups. There are little guys, dominatrix women, big fat guys who can breathe fire, guys on motorcycles who zoom in and try to run you over, and more! The game re-uses many bosse as regular enemies too, which really helps with the enemy variety. You have to be constantly on your toes in this game, and can't just get into a basic rhythm because of the different approaches for different enemies. Of course you punch them, but you'll need to jump-kick the motorcycle and flying guys, run from the big guys when they attack and then hit them when you can, use the fantastic 'sweep' attack (press two buttons together) to hit people on both sides of you when surrounded, and more. Enemy AI is good, and enemy placements keep pacing just right. And even though this is a game about fighting modern-day thugs, there is an 'alien' and a 'pirate' area as well, with the excuse that both are rides in an amusement park you travel through. I really like them, they add to the game for sure.
The soundtrack in this game is a legendarily great one, also. The game has a very good videogame-soundtrack score. While this is not my very favorite kind of Genesis soundtrack, techno soundtracks like Adventures of Batman & Robin or such are, it is a very good soundtrack which adds to the game for sure. SoR2 has some memorable music, and it pushes the music chip, too. Overall, Streets of Rage 2 is a very good game in every category. The game is well-balanced, fun, easy on Easy and yet hard on Hard, is just the right length, has varied environments and enemy types, more moves than early beat 'em ups, four playable characters who each play differently, has good graphics and outstanding music, and just generally maybe the best overall gameplay in any beat 'em up ever. I much prefer Golden Axe thematically over this game's sometimes bland modern setting, and that counts for a lot, but I do have to admit that Streets of Rage 2 has the better, more complex, and more evolved gameplay, and is the better game overall. And the best of other developers in the genre, including TMNT III (NES), my favorite Konami beat 'em up, and Shadows over Mystara (Arcade), my favorite Capcom game in the genre, probably don't quite match up to this game. Streets of Rage 2 is a must-play classic for everyone, regardless of if you like beat 'em ups or not. This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega’s Genesis games.
Sega Genesis Game Opininion Summaries - Work In Progress - A Black Falcon - 28th February 2016
The 'controversial' review this time is obvious, it's that I don't like Strider. Beyond that, Summer Challenge is worth mentioning; it's good, and very rarely mentioned. I guess most people probably don't like Summer or Winter Challenge as much as I do, but I do think they're good games.
Games covered in this update
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Strider
Journey from Darkness: Strider Returns
Subterrania
Summer Challenge
Sunset Riders
Super Battleship
Super Hang-On (Sega 6-Pak)
Super Monaco GP
Super Monaco GP II, Arton Senna's
Sword of Vermilion
Syd of Valis
Target Earth
Task Force Harrier EX
Taz-Mania
Strider - 1 player. Strider is a popular classic arcade platform-action game from Capcom. This Genesis port is by Sega, but they did a fairly good job translating over the arcade game. Unfortunately, as much as many people like this game, I don't. This is not a game I remember playing back in the '80s or '90s, and the game has aged pretty badly. Strider on the Genesis has only okay graphics with massive amounts of flicker, very glitchy collision detection, often frustrating controls, only a handful of levels, and an annoyingly high difficulty level. This game isn't even average, much less great. The game is ambitious with its original, very angled level designs and a very mobile character, and I can see why people who played it in 1989-1990 would think highly of it because of that, but it hasn't held up. The Genesis can do vastly better than this, and would as its life went on. Visually the game is also dated. The game has some decent use of parallax, but otherwise the graphics are below average compared to later Genesis games. That flicker particularly gives away its early release.
So, you play as Strider, a ninja. The game is set in a future where the Soviet Union still exists, and is still evil, apparently. The story doesn't matter much though; you've got people to kill. Strider moves fast, and attacks with a big sword-sweep which hits a good distance ahead of you. You can grab onto any wall or ceiling and move along those surfaces, and the game really emphasizes this as levels are full of angled walls, ceilings and walls to grab onto, and more. It is a fast-paced game, and you're usually moving forward and fighting new foes and bosses. The controls are very 'sticky', in that you automatically grab onto any wall, ceiling, or platform you touch. There are plusses and minuses to both this game and Shinobi III's systems, of either auto-attach or manual button-based attach control in games with this much free movement, but while it can be frustrating at times when you're having trouble getting where you want because of something else in the way, I think I like this system more. The jump itself is bad, though -- you have very little air control, so you pretty much just land where you were going to before the jump started. This is not good and makes the game harder. The glitchy graphics, collision-detection issues, and flicker all hurt too, and combine to really hurt this game, and are a major reason I'd call the graphics not so great. Overall, I do not find Strider very fun to play at all. You die fairly easily and have limited continues, so the game is hard, and with controls and visuals this flawed, I've never wanted to seriously try to beat this game. I did get farther than usual when playing for this summary, but I still don't like the game much. Strider is not a bad game, but it is over-rated unless you have nostalgia for it. Maybe the arcade version is better, I don't know and don't think I have ever played that version, but this one is more bad than good. I guess that the very angled levels were unique for the time, as you're rarely just moving along flat ground, but newer games are much better than this in every way, and those nagled platforms cause some of the frustration too, thanks to weird jump and attack angles, collision issues, and more. Arcade port. There is also a Turbo CD (Arcade Card required) port that was only released in Japan. It has a new, exclusive level or two, but has no parallax and runs at a lower framerate. Ports of the arcade version are also available on newer platforms, first on the PS1 included with Strider 2, and also in newer Capcom collections as well.
Journey from Darkness: Strider Returns - 1 player. Strider Returns, by Domark, is a European platform-action game using Capcom's Strider name and license. Most people hate it, but I find this an okay little game. This game has little to do with the original beyond the name, though. This game is bigger, slower-paced, and much more conventional than its Japanese forbear. Strider Returns is just your average European platform-action game, really... but it is a competently made one, and doesn't have most of the major flaws of the first Genesis Strider game. You play as Strider again, and walk around, chopping up enemies with your big sword as you collect powerups and try to find the exit in each level. Now, this game is flat, but levels do have a lot of verticality, and you are often jumping between many higher and lower platforms, tree-limbs, and more. I like that, it keeps things interesting. Enemy placements are also good, and you can kill them before they hit you if you're paying attention and attack them once they appear. The annoying, precontrolled jumps do return, but in this games' more normal-feeling levels, it works better than in the first game, and in places like the level full of laser gates actually is somewhat helpful, as you quickly learn just where to jump from in order to not be hit. Levels are large, and this is a tough game, just as hard as the first one. The levels are at least average in design, and probably are above average. I like most of the stages here, and the game is fun to play and explore. Each level has a different setting, and they're all good. This game has only average graphics, but it doesn't look bad. The music is similarly okay, but not great. Overall though, Strider Returns is an above-average to good game. I like exploring the levels finding secrets and the best path, and I like the large levels as well. By turning Strider into an average Euro-platformer, I (and next to no one else) think that Domark improved on Capcom's game. Yes, it is much less ambitious, original, and unique, but it's a better, more fun to play game. Still, though, I'd only recommend it to those with a degree of tolerance for European games of the era; this game plays quite differently from Japanese or American games, and it shows. I sometimes like and sometimes dislike European action games on the Genesis, but this one is alright. Also on the Amiga.
Sub-Terrania - 1 player. Zyrinx's Sub-Terrania, or Subterrania, is a fantastic gravity shooter, in the vein of Gravitar or Solar Jetman, but better. Indeed, this game is one of the best ever in this genre. In these games, you play as a spaceship in enclosed caverns. The game has gravity, and your ship slowly drops towards the ground unless you hit the forward or back thrusters. You have limited fuel, though, so you need to be careful and plan your moves. You also have health, and lose health when shot, when enemies touch you, or when you hit the ground too hard or touch the ground at anything other than a straight-on landing. Control in this game is a delicate balance of hitting both thruster commands, shooting, and avoiding the walls, while also trying to accomplish your mission objectives. This game has only eight or so levels, but each is large and has multiple objectives to accomplish. Sub-Terrania is, indeed, a very difficult game; I have never finished it, or even gotten close to the end, despite how much I like it. The game has no continues or saving, unfortunately; when you run out of lives, that's it, start over. When you combine that with the tough stages, replay and memorization are really important here. Your health goes down quickly and health and fuel refills are few and limited within each stage, so it is easy to lose lives. You need to be careful if you want to get through. The challenge may be high, but every level is interesting and different in some way. The first two missions are straightforward once you learn them, but the third is a bit tricky; looking up what to do in a walkthrough might be a good idea, if you're stuck. Regardless of the challenge, this game is incredibly fun to play. I really like how much variety there is, and the game controls extremely well once you get used to it. The different weapons are balanced well as well. You can only shoot straight ahead, but each gun feels different. On Easy you keep weapon powerups once collected, but on higher settings you lose a level of weapon power when you die, so the difficulty you choose affects more than just the strength of your enemies. It's great that Easy really is easier, beginning players may need the help.
This game isn't only about gameplay, though; it also looks good and sounds great. Sub-Terrania has a techno soundtrack from Genesis sound-chip master Jesper Kyd, later of Adventures of Batman & Robin fame, and this soundtrack is really good too. It's a definite strong point of the game. The graphics are also pretty good; though all levels are in caverns and many enemies repeat throughout the game, at least the different ones each have different-looking walls and backgrounds, and each boss is unique. The ingame graphics are quite well drawn and detailed, and I like all the little touches added to your surroundings. Sub-Terrania is not quite the technical marvel of Zyrinx's other, later Genesis game Red Zone, but while it does not use fancy graphical techniques, it is a pretty good-looking game for the system anyway. It also has better gameplay than Red Zone, which counts for a lot; that game is interesting but flawed, while this one is just great. Sub-Terrania does have a significant learning curve, as your ship moves quickly and it may seem hard to control at first, but with practice you will get used to it. It is important to remember to use both thrusters, instead of just the forward one; that back thruster is very useful! Also, learning the momentum system is vital. Don't accelerate too much, and get used to rotating quickly to fire at something in a tricky location, then back to straight to land and repeat the process once you take off again. Once you get the controls down, learning each mission is the next step. Even if you use the helpful GameFAQs guide for the basics of what to do in the more complex missions like the third one and its multiple different mirrors you need to reflect a laser with, actually executing on that will be a challenge! Overall, Sub-Terrania is a very good gravity-shooter, probably my favorite game in this little subgenre of the ones I have played. This is a great game that's worth playing for sure. This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega’s Genesis games.
Summer Challenge - 1-10 player alternating, battery save to cartridge. Summer Challenge is the first of two olympic sports games from Accolade. This game doesn't have an official olympic license, but it does have good gameplay and unique design for the time, quite unlike the terrible licensed olympics games on the Genesis. I first got the PC version of this game in the '90s, and thought that it was fun. So, after seeing how great the Genesis port of Hardball III turned out, I decided to pick up this game, and its winter-themed sequel, as well. These games have some issues, most notably the framerate, but are good games despite that. The framerate is an issue because this isn't a 2d game. Instead, your sprite characters are in full, flat-shaded polygonal worlds! It's a very different look from any other games like it on the system, and framerate aside the choice works. I really like that the sports actually look somewhat like the real thing. Sports like cycling or kyaking wouldn't be nearly as good in regular 2d! The game has a somewhat limited selection of only about eight sports to play, and some are similar such as the several track events, but all are solidly done. Aesthetically, this game looks a lot like Hardball III, until you get into the events that is. I like the graphics and art design, they aren't anything great but look good. The sprites are all good-looking and detailed, and those polygon environments work well, visually at least. The menu system is clearly copied right out of that game, which is great. The audio and graphical design are also similar, the 3d graphics in this game aside of course. And again the game has battery save. You can't save during an event, but events are short and the game will save your progress between events while playing a tournament, so that's fine. Most games in this genre didn't have battery save back in the early '90s, so it's a very nice thing to see here. Control-wise, the game has a one-button-plus-a-dpad design, much like Hardball III, but despite this has fairly familiar controls for those used to Track & Field-styled games. As with most such games, in many events you either mash a button, or alternate between pressing two buttons or directions. There's always a lot of button-mashing in this genre, and this game is no exception. The controls are good enough, though, once you learn each event. Multiplayer is alternating only, but it's great that it is present and for up to ten players, and with many of these events it had to be alternating. You can save your stats to individual player files thanks to the battery, if people make good times in events.
There are eight events here. First is Archery. This is a 2d event, without the polygons of most of the rest. You have to shoot at several targets, waiting until the cursor is in the center as it bounces around. Try to hit the button at the right time to win! This is the easiest event, and while it can get old, it is nice to have something not hard to win at. Hurdles will be tougher; the only track event here is 400 meter hurdles. You run by alternating directions, and jump with the button. Getting your timing down is tricky, and if you hit a gate you're eliminated. Javelin is also here. You build up speed with the buttons, then hit throw at just the right timing. it's simple and fun. High Jump is harder. You've got to run and then This event is usually one of hte harder ones in games in this genre, and that is the case here. Definitely practice to get the timing for the multiple jumps down. Pole Vaulting is in the game as well, though the boxart is of a pole-vaulter so it better be, and timing the pole can be tricky. I'd probably have rather seen multiple running races over two jumping ones, but ah well; at least they are better here than in some of these games. Next is Kayaking, a sport almost never seen in '90s olympics games. This sport shows off the 3d graphics well, and also the poor framerate. I highly recommend practicing the course before trying it in tournaments, but it is pretty fun once you do. I like racing games, and it's great to see this slightly more conventional racing game appear in this title. It is unforgiving, though -- just like in a real olympics, miss one gate and you're eliminated. Speed-cycling is also here. You're racing on an angled track in a velodrome, trying to get around the track as quickly as possible. The framerate here is bad, but the gameplay is simple -- just button-mash, while watching your strength gauge. It's alright. And last, this game has Equestrian. Yes, another sport almost never seen in this kind of game is present here. You ride your horse along a course, trying to stay on the course and make all of the jumps along the way. It's tricky, but I do like it, I guess.
Overall, Summer Challenge is a quite interesting game. This game is partially a conventional track & field game, and partially something new, with polygonal graphics and several sports never seen in other games in the genre. I do wish that the framerate was better, it really is down near the single-digits, more sports would have been nice, and in-event music would have been cool, but otherwise I quite like Summer Challenge. The Hardball III-esque Accolade stylings are great, and the actual game is good. This game is no Hardball III, it's only above average to good, but it is one of my favorite track & field games ever, for nostalgia reasons partially I'm sure, but also for its good gameplay and design. Also on PC and Amiga. The PC version is best, with higher-resolution graphics and much better framerates. This Genesis version is pretty good for the hardware, though, and contains all content from the PC original.
Sunset Riders - 1-2 player simultaneous. Konami's arcade Sunset Riders game, also available in slightly modified form on the SNES, is a great run & gun action game. Easier than Contra and with some fantastic wild west themes, the game is a lot of fun! I've liked Sunset Riders ever since first playing it in arcades in the early '90s. It has a cool style to it you didn't often see then. Unfortunately, this is not that game. Instead of porting over the SNES game, Konami decided to make a low-budget, mediocre spinoff title here. This game just screams of the lower budgets of most of Konami's Genesis games, and it hurts it a lot compared to the other Sunset Riders titles. Despite that it is a fun game, but the 'real' Sunset Riders is a lot better. The graphics here are downgraded, the music okay but not as good as on the SNES, the speech samples have mostly been cut from the game, and half of the level settings and bosses are gone as well. Sad stuff. Sunset Riders is a wild-west themed side-scrolling run & gun shooter. You play as two cowboys, Billy or Cormano, and have four bosses to take down in eight levels. Yes, that's down two characters and four bosses from the arcade/SNES game. The levels are all-new as well, and far less well designed. Where in the arcades and SNES Sunset Riders has short, tightly-designed stages that keep the tempo up and are always changing, Genesis Sunset Riders stretches out each of its four locations into two whole levels each, and then has constant repeated graphical elements within each stage. You pass by the same buildings again and again and again in the first couple of stages, for example, it's so repetitive in a way that the original Sunset Riders wasn't at all.
There are lots of enemies to face, and the game controls well and is fun to play, though, so it's not all bad. All major enemy types from the arcade game return, and this game has less censorship than the SNES game too, as Indian regular enemies and scantily-clad women are in this game, but not the one on Nintendo. There is still some censorship, though -- as on the SNES, the female enemy type from the arcade game has been replaced with a guy, and the beer-drinking scenes have been removed from the certain doors that had them. Instead, every single door has a scantily-clad woman, and there are like ten times more doors in this game than the original thanks to all those repeated level elements, so the absence of that other animation is made painfully apparent as you see it again and again. The four bossfights that are here are good and play like they should, though at least one has a location change. As previously mentioned, though, the bosses' voiced catchphrases have been removed, and replaced with just text. Cheap! And that's this game in a nutshell. The missing content, new, somewhat boring, and far too repetious level designs, and downgraded graphics and sound really hold back what is otherwise a good little game. Sunset Riders for the Genesis is a fun game, and I do like it. The game controls great, sounds good, and blasting through waves of wild-west baddies is fun. The game is kind of easy as I have beaten it repeatedly, but it's a fun easy, and there are higher difficulty settings if you want that. The co-op play is good as well. However, the game just has too many major limitations to recommend for anything above a quite low price, and this game is somewhat pricey now. Only get Genesis Sunset Riders if you're lucky and see it cheap; otherwise, save up for the more expensive, but great, SNES game. That game is far better than this.
Super Battleship - 1 player, password save (Super mode only). This terrible, huge disappointment has two modes. First you have classic Battleship, a digital re-creation of the classive board game... for one player only. Because of how Battleship works you can't have two players on the same screen, but still, it is disappointing that you can't play this against a friend somehow. This mode plays just like Battleship: first you place your various ship types on your grid, then fire at the computers' grid trying to guess where their ships are, taking turns along the way. This version has you make three shots per turn instead of one, oddly, but does not have the added alternate shot types of NES Battleship. I also can't get past the absent multiplayer, that flaw kind of makes the whole thing feel pointless. The graphics here are bland and subpar but aren't terrible, and the music, where there even is any, is forgettable. There's really no reason to ever play this game in classic mode; you can find better Battleship games in many places, I am sure. NES Battleship may also be single player only, but at least it has progression, many levels to beat, special weapons, and more. This has nothing beyond the not-so-great feature that you shoot three shots per turn.
There is a second mode here, though, Super Battleship. It tries to be something more... tries, and fails. This mode is a turn-based naval strategy game. You choose one of several scenarios, and have to try to beat an enemy fleet with your own fleet of ships. Each different ship type has different stats and weapons, and movement and firing ranges also. Interestingly, ships can only move like a ship -- that is, forwards and back either straight or at a curving angle only, no sideways moves. That more realistic movement is by far the best thing about this game, but doesn't make up for the otherwise seriously lacking gameplay. Combat is somewhat arcadey, as once two ships engage you move a cursor around and hit the fire button to shoot at the enemy. It's harder to hit enemies than it is for them to hit you, it seems. Naturally. You also have only a limited quantity of each weapon type, so if you miss with one it really does hurt. Scenarios are surprisingly difficult, and getting good enough to actually beat them didn't really seem worth it to me. This is a painfully slow game with bad graphics and little audio, and it takes a lot of turns for ships to get close enough to actually attack... and then I get crushed. If you do stick with it there is a fifteen-plus mission campaign with password save, but I'll probably never see that. With time you may start winning, and it is good that each ship type is quite different, but is a game this slow-paced, boring, and lacking in fun really worth that kind of time? I'd say not, myself; Super Battleship is a bad game that I find unbearably unfun to play. Pass on Super Battleship, it's terrible. Classic mode is kind of irrelevant, and Super mode is tedious and no fun. This game made my 10-worst-Genesis-games-I-own list for a reason. Also on SNES.
Super Hang-On (Sega 6-Pak) - 1 player, password save. One of the first racing games on the system, Super Hang-On is a barely playable mess thanks to some of the choppiest 'scaling' seen on this system. This game is right down there with other early Sega titles like Super Thunder Blade and Space Harrier II in how bad the scaling looks, and it's really unfortunate because this is otherwise a pretty fun game. This game has two modes, a recreation of the arcade game, and an original mode with more progression and features. The basic gameplay is classic linescroll racing, Sega-style, and it's fun but very difficult. The two main issues this game has are the very high difficulty and, worse, the horrible graphics. Lots of games on classic consoles effectively use linescroll graphics to simulate movement, but here the flipping colors as you go fast looks TERRIBLE. I think that playing this game for this summary gave me a headache, because I was feeling fine earlier, but had a headache a while after playing this game -- and I am NOT one to have such issues, even the Virtual Boy usually isn't much of an issue. The way the screen blinks back and forth between two colors is atrocious. This is the most eye-hurting linescrolling I've ever seen. The sprite 'scaling' is pretty bad too, and contributes to the headache-inducing visuals. Flipping between differently-sized sprites is the only way to do scaling on a system like this, but Sega's solution early in the Genesis' life looks pretty bad as the sprites bounce around constantly in an unpleasant fashion. Between this and the linescrolling background, this game looks incredibly choppy. The sprite-work is classic, solid '80s Sega stuff, but your bike aside it's hard to make out many details. The music is average and forgettable, and isn't anywhere near the level of Outrun's classic tunes.
Ignoring the visuals, Super Hang-On has that classic Sega arcade racing gameplay, and it's good, the insanely high difficulty aside. You control a motorcycle, and drive fast as you try to avoid all the obstacles and reach the finish line. When you reach max speed, pressing C will turn on a turbo-booster for additional speed; this is essential. It's tough but fun and can be addictive. There are two modes, Arcade and Original. In arcade mode you take control of a superbike and try to beat all of the circuits in the game. The first has six track segments, the last 16. There are hugely overlong passwords if you manage to beat a circuit, but I haven't managed that yet; between the graphics and the unforgiving gameplay, I always lose. You get only one chance at each circuit, there are no continues here within a circuit, and if you crash even once at any point you well might not finish. Unlike Outrun or beyond this game has no difficulty settings either, so you can't ease up on the super-tight timer. Playing for this summary I almost finished the first circuit in Arcade mode a couple of times, but didn't quite manage it. Original mode takes place on the same tracks, but you start with a weak bike, and have to upgrade or replace it via money you win in circuits. I don't like the starter bike in Original mode, it's not much fun to control. It is nice that they added a mode with some real progression and a money system, though, that's something Sega usually left out of their home racing ports in the '90s. And you can save your progress here with those same too-long passwords. This mode might be even harder than arcade mode, though, and as with arcade mode, I've never gotten far enough to get a password. Given the atrocious graphics issues the game has, I'm fine with that. If you want to play a good version of Super Hang-On, play a port of the arcade game, or play Super Hang-On 3D for the 3DS, a 3d port of the arcade version with added 3d and options. The arcade game and its 3DS port are both good fun stuff, without the serious flaws of this version. This Genesis game, however, is only for the masochistic. It's in the Sega 6-Pak, so it is worth having since the collection is great, but don't waste much time on this version of the game. This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega’s Genesis games.
Super Monaco GP - 1 player, password save. Super Monaco GP is a somewhat average F1 racing game from Sega. While the game has fairly simple controls, the style is more simulation-like. This game is, for the time, somewhere in between arcade and sim. Now it would surely be called an arcade game, but it's trying to be a more 'realistic' one. For example, there is an unfortunate lack of any music during races. That makes the game somewhat dull and less interesting than racing games with music, but the gameplay here is okay. You play from an in-car perspective, presumably also to be more realistic, and your car is visible around you. This means your view is a bit closer in than the usual behind-the-car viewpoints most racing games use, so you have a bit less visibility. Tracks are also named for and have layouts based on real F1 courses, though this style of linescroll racer never looks quite like the real thing; real tracks don't have only smoothly-turning curves with lines of objects by the sides of the road. That's fine, and I have no interest in F1 I have enjoyed some simple linescroll open-wheel racers. It is nice that there are quite a few tracks.
However, despite the simple gameplay, Super Monaco GP is a hard game and has a decent-sized learning curve. You have to learn the braking in order to get around these tracks, and that is a problem because I prefer the kind of racing game where you rarely have to brake, and can have fun instead of playing something more 'realistic' like this. The game looks fine for its time; it does not really impress, but isn't bad-looking either. Versus the above game this game has a slower sense of speed, but maybe partially as a result the image holds together a lot better. It is obvious the system doesn't have hardware sprite scaling, but for a linescroll game this game looks average. The game controls fine as well; you have gas and brakes, and the challenge is learning to use each in the right points on each track. For modes, there's a single-race mode or a championship. The other racers' names are all fictional, but that's okay. You have to qualify for each race before you race it, and if you do well enough you can progress and get a password for the next track. I find this game boring, though, so I've never put the kind of time into it that would be required to not finish last every time. Overall, I prefer a simpler, more arcadey game such as the Game Gear Super Monaco GP game over this more challenging one. This is an average to below-average game and I do not find it fun or much worth playing, but it's not bad. If it sounds like your kind of thing, definitely give it a try; this is a solid game for its time and genre. Enhanced arcade port. There are other ports of the arcade game on lots of systems, but none have this versions' added content, I don't think.
Super Monaco GP II, Arton Senna's - 1 player, battery save to cartridge. Super Monaco GP II is a sequel that does not stray far from its predecessor. Indeed, this game is basically the same as the first game, but with Brazilian F1 star Ayrton Senna's name and likeness all over the menus. Senna talks to you, and did consult with some elements of the games' design. Senna died in a race in the early '90s, sadly, but this game was developed before that. The game has more tracks than before, and the Senna GP is interesting. YOu start out on some tracks Senna himself laid out, apparently for go-karts in the real world though here you only have F1-style cars, and then move on to real F1 tracks if you are successful. I like the addition of battery save; yes, the battery can die on you, but long passwords are annoying. The graphics look similar to the first game, but with some minor improvements here and there. This is at least average-looking for a linescroll game on the Genesis; it's no Outrun 2019, but it's no Super Hang-On either. The audio is, as with the first game, mostly absent; in-race you only hear the car engine. I really wish there was music. There isn't much else to say about this game, though. It is another somewhat simmish arcade racer, with challenging tracks that will take some time to learn the correct gas and brake patterns in and semi-realistic, and thus somewhat boring for me, gameplay and presentation. It's a decent, average game, and is a bit better than the first one, but I can't see myself ever really getting into these games. You might, though, so do give at least one of the Genesis Monaco GP games a try. Both are very cheap.
Sword of Vermilion - 1 player, battery save to cartridge. Sword of Vermilion is an interesting, and solid, action-RPG from Sega released early in the Genesis's life. This game covers multiple perspectives, including overhead, first-person, and side-scrolling, but has some very dated design elements. The core gameplay is good, though. This is a fantasy game in a generic fantasy world. You are a young man whose father just died due because of evil forces. So, you're off to avenge him and stop the badguys. It's a basic plot, but it works. Of course, you start in a small out-of-the-way town and the degree of threat scales up as you progress. This game starts out in town. You explore towns from an overhead view, and towns have various shops, people, houses, and churches where you save your game, like usual for the genre. You have to do everything by a menu on the C button, though, and the interface is archaic. You'll need to open the menu to talk to anyone. It's even worse in dungeons, where you need two separate commands to get items out of treasure chests! And of course, the game closes the menu after the first command. Don't forget to pick up that item after opening the chest, or you won't have it. On that note, when you leave town, the game turns into a first-person, tile-based RPG. In the overworld and dungeons you move from space to space in mazelike worlds. There is a map on the side of the screen, thankfully, but it doesn't fill in as you go. Instead, unless you've talked to someone who gave you a map for that area, you can only see your location and the eight spaces around you, and nothing else. Make sure to talk to everyone in each town to get those maps! And dungeons don't have maps, so you'll just need to learn those layouts. Worse, when you enter a dungeon, you will need to use items which emit light, such as candles or lanterns, or the screen is completely dark. These only last a limited time, however, so you need a lot of them... but you can only have eight inventory items at a time, so good luck with that. Fortunately your equipment doesn't take up space in your item inventory, they are separate, but only eight spaces is not enough when you need both health and light items. Argh. And the encounter rate is very, VERY high, as well. Sometimes you'll fight, turn left, and fight again! Yes, it can be that bad.
So yeah, the game has some issues. Fortunately, though, the combat is fun. When you run into an enemy, the game changes back to a top-down view in a single-screen battle arena. In that way it's a bit like Faria on the NES, though you only ever face one enemy type at a time in this game, there just are often a lot of them. The combat is fast and you can chop thorugh the badguys easily. Your sword will be your main weapon throughout, but once you get deeper into the game you also get some magic spells. You can only equip one at a time, which casts with a button-press in battle, but these fireballs and such are helpful. You have to buy spells from stores, so you get to choose which ones you want, and which to equip. It's nice that there is at least a little choice in this mostly-straightforward game. The game will get repetitive for sure, but it's decent fun even so. If you reach a boss, the game has yet another perspective: side-scrolling battles. These are simple, but do make the game even more varied. Also, perhaps due to the crazy-high encounter rate and fun combat, this game doesn't feel nearly as grindey as other RPGs of the day. If you explore everything, you should be able to handle each new area. It does let you go into areas beyond your level, but follow the townspeoples' suggestions and you should be okay. Your health is filled up when you level up, too, and if you die you aren't dumped back to the main menu, but return to the nearest church minus half the money you had. That's kinder than some games. The game has decent graphics and sound, too. Sure, it looks and sounds like an early release, this is definitely not one of the best-looking Genesis games, but it looks fine. Overall, this is a decent to good action-RPG with okay graphics and sound, variety, and simple but fun, combat. The game is simple and lacks depth, the light system and absence of good mapping in dungeons is a problem, as is the high encounter rate and very dated interface, but it is good overall. Sword of Vermilion is a good game worth a try, but do expect a somewhat dated experience. This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega’s Genesis games.
Syd of Valis - 1 player. Syd of Valis is a superdeformed, or SD, remake of Nippon Telenet's game Valis II. You are once-normal earth schoolgirl Yuuko, or here in the US version "Syd", off on a quest to save a fantasy world from evil yet again. The Valis series was somewhat popular back in the early '90s, particularly on the Turbo CD, but there are also three Valis games on the Genesis, and I have this one. As with all Valis games, it is a frustrating and annoying game that is not much fun to play; I don't like this series much, as I said in my summaries of SNES and Turbo CD Valis IV previously... and those games are both better than this one. So yeah, it's not very good. It isn't terrible either, though, just subpar and at times frustrating. Syd of Valis has nice, cartoony graphics, and I like the SD art style. Levels are varied in both settings and designs, as well. As always in the Valis series, though, enemies attack at high speeds from all directions, so memorization is key. I've always disliked this twitch-bombardment style of level designs you see in Valis games, it's not fun. This time, though, if you fall in a pit you just lose a bit of health and bounce back out, so at least you can't die from falling in pits; that is nice. However, you have NO continues in this game, and unlike the TCD game, there is no saving either. That's really unfortunate, in games as frustrating and twitch-memorization heavy as Valis games saving is essential, I don't want to have to play levels I've finished again. This game has only one playable character, unlike Valis III or IV, but you do get different costumes to wear and weapons to equip as you progress, and can switch between them at any time in the pause menu. Each has different stats, so switching weapons sometimes is a good idea.
The story is similar to the Turbo CD game, just condensed for cartridge form and redone with cuter SD graphics. It's kind of silly at times, which is odd for Valis, but it does work. However, it doesn't have the same impact that the Turbo/PC Engine CD games do, with their voice-acted cutscenes and such. The music is alright, but can't match CD audio of course. Overall, Syd of Valis is a below-average, annoying game. It is playable, and I do play it every once in a long while, but can't really recommend the game. If you could save and continue, instead of having to start the game over every few times you mess up, it'd be slightly better, but even then you'd still have that same not-that-fun core Valis gameplay. So yeah, I'm not sure about this one; Valis is a series worth a try, and if you see this for a few bucks maybe pick it up, but it's not all that great either. Oddly, my cart has an odd issue -- while it works fine when played in my Genesis with 32X attached, if I remove the 32X and then plug the cart in, all I get is a black screen. It's been like this ever since I got the game, and I've never heard of such a bizarre issue; this isn't a 32X game! I imagine no other copies are like this. This game is only on the Genesis, but other Valis II games, with different level layouts and design, are on other platforms, including the Turbo CD and Japanese computers. The TCD version is also not too good, but I've never played the computer original.
Target Earth - 1 player. Target Earth, or Assault Suits Leynos in Japan, from NCS Masaya, is a very good, but very difficult, sidescrolling mecha shooting action-platform game. The eight missions in this game tell a story of an Assault Suit mecha pilot, you, who must save the world. So yeah, teh story is cliche, but there is actual text and conversations during the game, unlike most such games of the time. This makes the world feel more alive. This game is the first game in the Assault Suits series which also includes Cybernator for the SNES and more. I got Cybernator years before this game and found it good but not great, so I didn't have the highest of hopes for this game. However, I like it a lot! Target Earth is indeed extremely difficult, but it is also quite good, and better than Cybernator in my opinion even if its visuals are far worse. Assault Suits Leynos 2 for the Saturn (Japan only title) is probably the best of the three, but this is a good game. The only challenge is, how much of it will you see without that invincibility cheat which thankfully does exist? However far it is, it's worth the effort. Your mission starts on Ganymede, as the base you are defending is attacked. You've got to defeat a large enemy carrier before it gets to your base and destroys it, while dealing with many regular enemies as you go across the rocky landscape towards the boss. Your mech, or assault suit, is small on the screen, but the art design is good and as detailed as the small size allows. Enemies are varied in size, from the small regular foes to big, half-screen-filling bosses. There are a great variety of environments as well, from the rocky first area to outer space to a giant space station. I like the variety, and the stages are very fun to play. Levels often consist of you moving towards a goal while an infinite spawn of basic enemies comes at you, but despite this work great thanks to the good combat and movement.
Indeed, your robot controls well. You can move, jump, and fly in the space mission. You move fast, which is great, and control is precise. You can shoot left, right, or up; the upward shot is very useful, as many enemies are airborne. You have a bunch of weapons to fight the enemies with. You start out with a basic gun with infinite ammo and several other guns with limited ammo that refills between missions, and unlock more based on your score. So, if you play better, you get better weapons; this encourages repeat play, to figure out ways to score more points and get better weapons earlier. All weapons other than the basic gun have limited ammo, and you can only take so many weapons and armor items into each battle, so between missions you'll need to carefully choose what to take. It's a nice strategic element which adds to the game. The game is harsh and unforgiving, though, and even though you have a lifebar it is easy to die, particularly to bosses. And when you do die, you get only a few lives and then it's back to the beginning of the game; no continues or saving here, sadly. If you want that, get the PS4 remake, Assault Suits Leynos. I haven't played it, but it looks good and faithful to the original. I think it's a Japan-only release so far, though, unfortunately. As for this version, though, there is a lot to like about Target Earth. The game has small, simple graphics, but the art design is good, and the game plays quickly and runs well. Levels are varied and fun, and I like that there is an actual plot here, and varied missions. The games' intense challenge relies too much on memorization and replay, and the graphics aren't as good as later games in the series, but even so this is a very good sidescrolling action game I very highly recommend. Use the cheat codes if you want, but don't miss out on Target Earth, it's great! There is also a PS4 remake of this game in Japan.
Task Force Harrier EX - 1 player. Task Force Harrier is a bland-looking and subpar vertical-scrolling shmup from Treco developed by UPL. You fly a plane, presumably a Harrier, on a mission to defeat lots of enemy forces. As in some Namco shmups, this game has separate bombs and bullets, and many ground enemies will only be hit by the bombs. The game starts out over a snowy landscape, and the first few levels are thus near-colorless, with white backgrounds and grey aircraft and vehicles. As much as I love snow, it's an incredibly bland look here. Eventually you have some ocean and city/base missions, but the graphics here are bad and color is limited, the blue water aside. You just move left or right and shoot, there is no real variety or depth to this game. Enemies come at you in basic patterns, shoot them and avoid their fire. The enemy patterns, bullets, movement, graphics, sound, nothing is interesting or great. The gameplay feels inspired by Xevious and Twin Cobra (Kyuukyoku Tiger), but isn't nearly on the latter games' level of quality; the enemies and bosses are more generic in both looks and attacks, the music is worse, and more. The Xevious point is an important one to expand on, though. I have never much cared for the separate ground and air attack bomb-and-bullet systems found in Xevious, Dragon Spirit, and such. I'm fine with multiple weapons, and air and ground targets which are hit by different weapons, but the limited range of your bombs in these games is really annoying! I should be able to hit enemies from anywhere below them, not only halfway up the screen where you're too close to their bullets. So that this game copies that attack system is a definite negative for it. As an aside, the bullet-and-targeting cursor system found in RayForce and its sequels or Soukyugurentai (on Saturn and others) also isn't something I have ever liked all that much; it's not awful, but normal bullets-only shooter design is better.
So, the basic design here isn't for me. Even beyond that, though, while it is not terrible, this game gets boring to play in a hurry. This just isn't a good game, as levels are bland, the difficulty uneven, bosses unimpressive to the point where sometimes I couldn't tell if a boss was a miniboss or final level boss, and the music is forgettable to bad at best. I got this game for cheap, but disappointed me thanks to tedious, repetitious gameplay, unfortunate choice to us the Xevious bomb system, mediocre-at-best level designs, monochromatic white-and-grey or grey-and-blue color palettes for too much of the game, and more. Task Force Harrier EX is a below-average game only worth considering if you really love shmups and want to play all the shmups on the Genesis, love Xevious and such, or like shmups and find it for dirt cheap. If you do get it though, go in with very low expectations. I paid only fifty cents for this game, and I'm still not sure if it was actually worth it; it's kind of bad. Arcade port.
Taz-Mania - 1 player. Taz-Mania is a successful but awful platformer from Sega. This game is based on the early '90s cartoon of the same name starring Taz, the Tazmanian Devil from the Looney Tunes, and his family. The game did well, surely because of the popularity of the show, but of all the Taz games released that generation, this is one of the worst; only the first Game Gear game is definitely worse. Taz-Mania has pretty good graphics with large sprites that look a lot like something out of the Looney Tunes or the Taz cartoon, so it makes a good first impression. Unfortunately, it doesn't hold up at all beyond that. Taz can run fairly quickly, jump a good distance, and spin into a tornado to move even faster and attack enemies. Most enemies stand no chance against your tornado spin! You have a health bar, too, though that won't help with the games' innumerable bottomless pits. Many items are scattered around the levels that you can eat, and some will heal Taz while others will hurt him; you'll need to learn which is which. Walking slowly into an item, or some enemies, will allow Taz to eat it, while spinning into one will blow it away. That's all fine, but the level designs here are among the most frustrating around! Between the skiddy controls and constant frustration due to more blind jumps and random pitfalls than almost anything on this system, Taz-Mania stops being fun somewhere around the middle of the first level. At least in the first stage you can see where you're jumping to, though, even if it's frustrating due to the slippery controls and because it's not always clear where you need to go. Some waterfall spouts send you straight up into a wall of spikes, while another is a vital way forward, and nothing tells you which is which. This is that kind of game. The blind-jump-heavy jumping puzzle in level two is even worse, with multiple long blind jumps to make, but at least it's over solid ground, so as you fall again and again you can keep trying. Later on the game isn't always as kind. You do get three continues in this game, but there's no saving so you'll be redoing the game from scratch often. This is a VERY memorization-heavy game, and it's not the fun kind of memorization. I hate blind jumps! I'm sure I will never get anywhere near the end of this game, it's not remotely worth the effort. Oh yeah, and while the graphics are good, the music is kind of bad. If you could see where you are going and the controls were better this game could have been good, but it isn't. Pass on Taz-Mania; don't replay it and hurt the memories of it you may have of the game from the early '90s. Instead, play the sequel. It is a vastly better game and fixes most of this games' biggest issues.
Sega Genesis Game Opininion Summaries - Work In Progress - Dark Jaguar - 28th February 2016
I'm with you on Taz. The various monsters look like they walked in from some other non-Taz dimension.
I remember liking it as a kid, but in retrospect it was all due to how much I liked the show. (The same goes for that first Simpsons game where Bart has to do things like paint stuff purple.) I do recall Taz being the first game that truly made me frustrated with mine cart levels. I mean, Duck Tales has a couple of sections with a mine cart, but it took Taz to show me just how frustrating they could be. At least it prepared me for DKC's obsession with mine carts.
Sega Genesis Game Opininion Summaries - Work In Progress - A Black Falcon - 21st March 2016
For that last update, it was pretty amusing that I got three comments about Taz (from the places I post this), and none about any other games. It clearly really was successful, good or no. :p
So, here's the missing update. I'm almost done with the next one, should have that up relatively soon (within the next day or two for sure).
Games covered in this update
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Taz in Escape from Mars
Technoclash
Technocop
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Hyperstone Heist
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters
Thunder Force II
Tinhead
Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster's Hidden Treasure
Toki: Going Ape Spit
Tom and Jerry: Frantic Antics
Trouble Shooter
Truxton
Turrican
Twin Cobra
Tyrants: Fight Through Time
Taz in Escape from Mars - 1 player. Taz in Escape from Mars is a decent platformer. It is a somewhat average game, but is a huge improvement over the first Genesis Taz-Mania game, and holds up much better. This game is a lot like the first one, but with some crucial improvements. As before, you play as Taz. He was kidnapped by Marvin the Martian for his zoo, so you start this game in that great classic Looney Tunes "space" setting of Marvin the Martian's Mars. There are six settings in the game, though, some on earth and some in space, and each has two levels then a boss. The graphics are again good, and looks a lot like the first game but with new settings, enemies, and such. I've always really liked the Looney Tunes space stuff, so the setting here is great, though it is odd that a couple of levels are on earth and the others on other planets. The graphics are only a bit improved over the first game, but the large, detailed sprites look great, and the environments look good enough. The music is also improved over the first game; it's at least decent this time, thankfully. As for the gameplay, this game mostly plays just like the original. As before, Taz is huge on the screen, runs around, jumps with an annoyingly floaty jump, spins into a tornado to attack, and has lots of stuff to eat to refil your health bar, some items which heal you or give you a powerup and others that hurt you. Most importantly, blind jumps have been dramatically cut back on. However, the blind jumps over death pits are entirely, 100% gone! Yes, there aren't any bottomless pits this time. Instead you might land on spikes, an earlier part of the level, or a path that leads back to an earlier part of the level. That can be annoying, but it's a vast improvement over the constant unfair deaths of the original! You can look up and down a bit as well, to see platforms a bit below you. Sure, you still can't see far ahead, you'll constantly get hit and lose health, and the controls are slippery, but this is a decently good game.
The levels are, in classic Western platformer fashion, large and mazelike. You need to find and eat the exit sign in each level, and it's usually somewhere at the far right end of the stage, but it'll take plenty of exploration to find the way. Exploring the levels can be fun, and the stages are reasonably well designed. There isn't as much to collect in this game as there is in some, but the 1-ups, health ups if you need health if you need it, but the main goal is to find the end, not collect everything along the way. That's fine. The game may be fairer than its predecessor, but itis still easy to lose lives. This game isn't as hard as the first one, but it is a challenge. First, you have limited continues and no saving. Worse, when you use a continue, you restart the whole world, not just the level. That means get game over at a boss and you go three levels back to the first stage of that environment. That's too cruel! Overall, Taz in Escape from Mars is an average game. The game looks great and the levels can be fun to explore, but the loose controls, the constant damage you'll surely take as you run into enemy or spike after enemy or spike due to how fast you move particularly when spinning, and the harsh game over punishment hold it back. This is an alright game, though, and platformer fans might want to give it a try. After playing the first game I was not expecting much from this one, but it surprised me. Also on Game Gear; that version is very much like this, but with smaller graphics of course.
Technoclash - 1 player, password save, 6 button controller support. Technoclash is an interesting top-down action-adventure game published by EA and developed by Zono Incorporated, the studio that would go on to make the weird Sega Saturn title Mr. Bones. You are a mage, Ronaan, and he and his three male friends are fighting against evil robots and their living henchmen who invaded his world from a machine-ruled Earth. The concept is sort of mages-versus Terminators, and that's kind of cool even if it isn't the most original thing. There are story scenes at the beginning and end of each level, and sometimes during levels as well, telling the continuing plot. I do like the concept here, mages-versus-robots isn't something you see as often as you might think, particularly with the mages as the good guys. In terms of gameplay, this is mostly a top-down action game, though there are also adventure and light RPG elements. The game has a linear, level-based structure, and doesn't have the open world of a Zelda or Shadowrun. I'm fine with that, though; well-designed conventional levels are just fine with me, and for the most part that is what these are. Levels are good-sized and increase in size as you progress through the game, and instead of just getting to an end point, in most stages after the first one you have to accomplish some objective, whether it is finding certain items and taking them to key points or destroying specific targets, for two examples from earlier in the game. You always fight with an AI companion by your side, bringing either your warrior or mage friend along each time. The game has a password save system, and you can alwaqys see your password on the pause screen; though it will start you back from the beginning of the current level, it is great to have it there. You have limited continues for some reason, but thanks to the passwords this doesn't matter much. The game is hard enough that you will die quite a bit, but not so hard that you'll be likely to give up. They are moderately helpful and do automatically attack enemies, but you will do most of the fighting yourself. The game has decent to good graphics; it doesn't look amazing, but has a solid comic-like style. The music is solid, but mostly average.
Now, this is an action-packed game, but that isn't because of your movement speed; Ronaan moves quite slowly, so if you do get lost and have to backtrack it can get tedious. Fortunately on the pause menu you can scroll around the whole level as Ronaan's hawk familiar, a feature whcih can be helpful. It won't necesarially help you find all the objective items, as they are often hidden, but still, it's better than nothing. You spend most of your time in this game wandering around and fighting enemies. Now, touching enemies won't hurt you; only their shots will. This makes combat sometimes a somewhat silly affair, as you and the badguys keep bumping eachother, trying to hit the other. It's fun, but certainly isn't the most polished combat system. When fighting, while you have a staff swing on the A button, like most mages you mostly fight with magic. You've got 9 offensive and 4 defensive spells available, and will need to make effective use of all of them to succeed. You use your currently equipped attack spell with B, and open a quick menu to switch between the 9 with C. Each is represented with only a single letter, so remember which is which. Your basic bolt-shot attack is infinite, but all other spells are limited-use, recharged with pickups that litter the game. The four defensive spells do not have a hotkey, so you need to either have a 6-button controller or pause to use them. The Mode button uses Heal, and X, Y, and Z use teleport, invisible, and float. As with the offensive spells, defensive abilities are limited use and you need to find powerups to refill them, so don't waste heals. You will see all spells from early on, so you don't really unlock more as you go, unlike many action-adventure games. You do get health-expanding powerups after beating level bosses, but that's about it for permanent powerups. The game works as it is, though, and mastering the spells will take time. You also will collect key-cards and some powerups for your companion, but no other items. That's fine though, managing 13 spells is tricky enough! In addition to the basic straight shot, you also get a lightning shot, timed mines, a screen-clearing attack, and more. Due to their limited nature you can't use them all as much as you might like, but this does make you think a bit about what to use, which is good. Overall, Technoclash is a fun, quality action-adventure game. This game is not nearly as polished and brilliant as a Gauntlet IV or Zelda game, as the messy combat, sometimes frustrating wandering-around-lost stuff, tough difficulty level as you get farther into the game, and limited better spells but combat is mostly fun despite that, and I like the spells and story. Technoclash is a good and under-rated game that genre fan should definitely play. Make sure to use a 6-button controller, though.
Technocop - 1 player. Technocop is an awful, but somewhat infamous, sidescrolling action game from Razor Soft, a studio who tried to make their name more on controversy than good gameplay. See, in this game, when you kill people they explode into bloody puddles! Wow! That sure makes up for the bad, frustrating level designs, subpar controls, bad driving segments between action levels, poor audio, and generic action, right? ... No, it really doesn't. So, in each level you explore around increasingly large and mazelike levels, trying to kill or capture all the badguys with your bullets or net-gun, reach the target goal area, beat the boss there, and then get back alive. Yes, you have a non-lethal net gun you can use if you want, but it doesn't matter which you use, it's all the same here. You don't get more weapons, just the few you start with. Mostly due to the awful, annnoying level designs full of annoying respawning enemies as you wander around lost the game gets hard fast, and once you run out of your few lives you don't get any continues. It's not worth it at all.The driving side of the game really is awful, too. It's a very, VERY basic Outrun-style game, except with only one car, only straight roads with no turns, a gun, and few, really bad looking trackside objects. There is no music while driving, only bad car-engine sounds. Overall, this game is pretty awful in every way other than badly-outdated shock value. Don't buy it.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Hyperstone Heist - 1-2 player simultaneous. Konami's TMNT: The Hyperstone Heist is the only Ninja Turtles beat 'em up on a Sega console. It is a good game, but is incredibly unoriginal. The story is a rehash of TMNT III: The Manhattan Project with some slight changes, the levels are reused from previous TMNT beat 'em ups, and the basic gameplay comes straight out of TMNT IV: Turtles in Time, with only a few, very minor, changes. Versus Turtles in Time, this game has slightly less good graphics and doesn't have the throw-at-the-screen move, and there are only five levels in this game, but it does have some strengths as well. This is a fun, classic Konami beat 'em up. It's unoriginal, but is mostly good. Hyperstone Heist has two player co-op, allows four enemies on screen at once, plays very well, looks and sounds good, and is an easy, fun little game to blast through here and there. There's nothing new here, but it plays well.
I have one big problem with this game beyond the almost-entirely-rehashed content, though: the level designs are the worst and least interesting in any of Konami's isometric TMNT beat 'em ups. Unlike either arcade game or TMNT III for the NES, all stages in this game are very basic paths to the right. There are no sections where the stage jogs up or down, almost no areas with multiple terrain heights, and many fewer interesting ways that enemies come onto the screen, too. For instance, in TMNT III, the sewer level has a raised path on the side, and the sewer water below you can also walk in. The level turns up and down, as well. The TMNT IV sewer stage isn't quite as good, but it still has some of those elements. In this game, however, sewer stages are a straight, flat path to the right. Some seem to be full of water, but instead of walking through it like you should, the turtles and enemies walk on water in the sewer and cave areas as if it's just blue ground! It's absurdly stupid. Even dumber, right after one of the walking-on-water stages, the turtles are traveling over the sea... this time on hoverboards. Um, shouldn't they have those in all the water stages, and not just one? Also, in the street stage you can't jump up onto the dumpster, or anything else, in this game. All stages occur on one flat plane, with VERY few obstacles in your path beyond a handful of traps in a few stages. Sure, this game mostly looks good, but it's lazily done. The game has a boss-rush only three levels into the game, too, so you refight the first three bosses midgame instead of playing through new content. Lazy stuff. There are a few traps to avoid in the final level, but apart from that the stages in Hyperstone Heist are basic and incredibly lazy in design and visuals. The music is great classic Konami stuff, but it is pretty much entirely just remixes of Turtles in Time's soundtrack, so there's nothing new here musically. At least it's good, though.
Fortunately the gameplay, at least, is better. This game plays just like the other Konami TMNT beat 'em ups of its time, but with maybe slightly better fighting action. The game runs without slowdown even with a full set of 4 enemies on screen, which is nice. Also, while that throw move was removed, some other minor moves were added. Most of the time you will be whacking or jump-kicking enemies, though; as with most beat 'em ups this is a very repetitive game. For the genre, though, it plays great. The action is fast and fun, hit detection is accurate and the game never feels cheap or unfair, each of the four turtles has a slightly different style, and the variety of enemy weapon types is good too. The good to great gameplay is HH's saving grace, and makes this a pretty good game despite its issues. It is an easy and short game, though. Turtles in Time is also pretty easy and short, unlike the challenging NES games, though. Hyperstone Heist is actually a couple of minutes longer than Turtles in Time, but it feels shorter because TiT has no padding so it stays engaing throughout, while this game is padded with that annoying fight-the-old-bosses-again stage in the middle. As with the SNES game, it's hard to play this game and NOT finish it, unless you play on Hard or reduce the number of lives and credits you get! You can do that, and the game does force you to restart the whole level when you get a Game Over, but still, this game is quite easy. Overall, TMNT: The Hyperstone Heist is a good, but disappointing, game. The game controls well, the combat feels great, and the graphics and music are pretty good, issues above aside, but the lacking stage layouts, complete lack of anything not copied out of the other TMNT beat 'em ups, low difficulty, paucity of stages, and lazy design all hold it back. I like this game overall, it's good even if "blue ground" is the first thing I think of when I think Hyperstone Heist. I like it a little less either arcade game, TMNT III for the NES, or Turtles in Time for the SNES, but it is good. The high price the game sells for now is an issue as well. If you find it affordably absolutely pick this one up if you like the Turtles or beat 'em ups, but for the price it goes for now, maybe pass... it's good, but for that price you can do better.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters - 1-2 player simultaneous. TMNT: Tournament Fighters on the Super Nintendo is a very good fighting game, among the better on that console. So this game is just as good, right? Or at least close? Unfortunately, no. TMNT Tournament Fighters for the Genesis is a somewhat disastrously bad disappointment. As flawed as Hyperstone Heist is, at least the core of the game is great fun. This game, however, is not so lucky. Tournament Fighters on the Genesis has subpar graphics, few characters, AI that is way too hard, limited continues in the story mode, very limited two-buttons-only controls with poor design decisions on top of that, and more. Instead of a great 6-button control scheme like the SNES game or better Genesis fighters, here you get one punch button, one kick button, and that's it. That's pretty bad, but worse, there aren't even really variants of each button! The Neo-Geo Pocket Color has only two buttons, but fighting games on that system play great, and how hard you push the button activates attacks of different strengths. Here, punch does your punch attack, kick does your kick attack, and that's it. You can't even combo attacks together, because they made the bizarre decision to have some invincibility after each hit to block that. The collision detection is poor as well, which doesn't help at all, and helps out the overly-difficult AI. There are special moves in the game, with a random mixture of activations taken from various popular fighting games without much consistency. The gameplay here is a mess, and totally ruins the game. In contrast, the SNES game is pretty much as SFII knockoff, with moves, graphics, and game systems very similar to that classic. It works great together. This game tries for something a little different, but fails badly at it.
The game does at least look good and sound okay, though. TMNT Tournament Fighters has pretty good graphics with a variety of weird sci-fi locations to fight in, eight characters each with a different look, and a cool, dark visual aesthetic. I like the graphics here, everything looks good. It's a different style from the SNES game, and that might look better overall, but it is competitive. The music is solid, though it isn't among Konami's best work on the Genesis. Games like Rocket Knight Adventures or Contra Hard Corps have much better music than this. I don't know if any of the music actually comes from the show, either, which is unfortunate. On another note, as in the SNES game, the character selection is a bit odd. You have the four turtles, April O'Neil and Casey Jones, and two random comic-book characters. The SNES game also has several comic characters filling its roster. Why those and not some of the other more popular characters from the TV show? Did they not have the rights? If so, that was a mistake, it'd have made all of these games better. It's interesting, but odd, that the SNES and Genesis games have different playable side characters, in addition to the Turtles. I do like that April O'Neil and Casey Jones are playable, as this is April's only playable outing in a '90s Turtles game, but it is unfortunate that April is in some random oversexed miniskirt outfit; it doesn't fit her character.I like the idea of playable April, but she should have been in her usual outfit, not this pointlessly oversexed one.
But anyway, the decent graphics and sound can't come even close to saving this disaster. There really isn't much good I can say about this game outside of its visuals; the gameplay is just too badly flawed, with the overly limited moveset, iffy special move selections, absurdly difficult AI that is so hard that until you've gotten good at the game winning even a single ROUND is a challenge, limited continues in a game in a genre which almost never has such a thing, bad collision detection in a genre that demands this be just about flawless, and more. Sure, there are worse Genesis fighting games than this, but I don't own those games myself; of what I have, this is the worst. Overall, TMNT Tournament Fighters for the Genesis is a bad, disappointing game. Don't bother with it unless you're a serious series fan. The NES version of TMNT Tournament Fighters might be even worse, but you wouldn't expect a good fighter from the NES, while the Genesis can do far, far better than this. Play the SNES game instead, it's very good.
Thunder Force II - 1 player. Thunder Force II is a good, but early, shmup from Techno Soft. This game released in 1989 and it looks simple compared to its sequels, but it plays well. Unlike its sequels, this game has two different gameplay styles, top-down open areas to fly and shoot things in, and standard horizontal-scrolling shooter sections. The graphics are early, but solid; this game does not look great, but for an early release it looks fine. Sprites are decently drawn, but somewhat simple; the art design is not nearly as great as it would be in the sequels. Also, the game has only some parallax and few other visual effects. The game looks okay, but does not really impress. I like the look of the top-view stages more than the horizontal ones, perhaps because there the graphics look more dated compared to this games' amazing-looking sequels, which are exclusively side-scrolling. This games' side-scrolling levels look and feel dated compared to its sequels'. I like the gameplay in the top-view levels more than the horizontal ones, for sure, though both sides of the game are good. The music is also good, though the voice samples are comically low-quality and unintelligible.
The top-down levels would not return in later games, but unlike some people I do like them. They remind me of a simpler version of the mid '90s PC game Zone 66, which of course released years after this game, but I played long before this as this isn't a game I remember playing back then. In these levels, you need to destroy a series of bases in a space surrounded by floating walls. You can fly in all directions, but can't stop moving forward in whichever direction you are flying in. The walls will kill you, so you need to destroy ground bases and shoot switches to advance. The game has a Xevious-like ground-attack system in the top-view stages, so you have normal shots for air enemies and bombs that hit a set distance in front of your ship for ground turrets and bases. This works better here than in Xevious, Dragon Spirit, and such because you can fly in all directions, so you can chip away at bases, do hit-and-run attacks, and more. As much as I dislike this system in shmups, here I don't mind it. Plus, it's only in the free-roaming top-view stages; the side-view stages don't have anything like it, thankfully. Anyway, you start with only two basic guns, a double-forward shot or forward and backward shot, but as in its later sequel Lightening Force (aka Thunder Force IV), you can power up weapons and get numerous special weapons from powerups. All weapons are good in their own ways, and I like the variety. However, unlike its sequels, in this game you lose ALL powerups if you die, and return to only the two basic guns. It's very harsh, and that makes this game harder. You also do have limited continues, so finishing this game will take practice for sure. It's a fun challenge, but I haven't beaten the game yet, though I did get farther than usual when playing it for this summary. While you try to destroy the bases and the turrets that guard them, endless waves of air enemies will attack you. You move fairly quickly, so zipping around, picking away at a base until finally you can kill it is fun. Each top-down level plays very differently, too. The first is a series of rooms connected by gates, the second a large open area, the third a narrow, constricting cave with a linear path, and more. I like how differently each of them play. There is always the repetition of having to find and kill four bases in every ground mission, never another kind of target, but there is some nice variety despite that. I quite like this half of the game. For anyone else who likes this side of this game, look up Zone 66 on the PC; it's like this, but expanded.
As for the side-scrolling levels, though, they are more conventional. In each you fly along, avoiding obstacles and killing enemies, until you reach the boss. Beat the boss and you win. These bosses are pretty tough, and it's easy to lose a lot of lives in these levels; they are much harder than the top-view stages. I find most deaths in this game occur in side-view stages. Some stages and bossfights go on a bit too long, too, considering how simple and repetitive each stages' background environments are; this game does not have the variety of its sequels. Still, the levels are mostly well designed, and contain some interesting challenges such as barrages of missiles, closing gates you need to stay ahead of, and more. The levels have some good parts, many of which the sequels improve on. Overall Technosoft was a good shmup developer, and this is a decent game. It is not one of the best in the genre on this shmup-rich console, but it is a good, above-average game that is well worth playing. The main flaws are that it is dated and sometimes frustratingly difficult, particularly in the boss fights, but the top-view missions are pretty good and the shmup sections are mostly fun. Truxton is the best shmup released on the Genesis in 1989, and this game is no Truxton, but it is worth a play. Also available on the Japan-only Sharp X68000 computer; that version is supposed to be a bit better, and has intelligible speech samples too. There is also a Japan-only Saturn version in the Technosoft Gold Pack Vol. 2.
Tinhead - 1 player, password save. Tinhead is a good Sonic-esque platformer from Spectrum HoloByte. Oddly, even though this game was made by a British developer, it only ever released in the US, and only on the Genesis as well. This feels like something that should have been on the Amiga also, but it's not. Tinhead has cartoony graphics in that classic early '90s British style and huge numbers of items to collect as usual in such games. The art design is unoriginal but looks good, and there is good use of strip parallax in the background for multi-layer scaling. You play as the little robot Tinhead, on some quest to save the universe or somesuch. The character design is decent, though not amazing. Enemies are varied as well. The music is also decent. It's not really pushing the hardware, but I do like the tunes, they are well-composed. Overall, presentation-wise Tinhead is not exeptional, but is above-average. The gameplay is similar.
Indeed, Tinhead's gameplay is above-average for sure; this game plays a lot better than any James Pond games, for example! Tinhead mixes its core Sonic influence of fast-paced platforming with shooting, so you kill enemies here by shooting them instead of jumping on them. The controls are good and precise, which is important in this kind of game. The game does have physics, but you'll usually go just where you want. You will automatically keep jumping if you hold the jump button down, so I often found myself accidentally bouncing upon landing, but that's a minor issue. As for your gun, you can fire it three directions: straight, upwards at a diagonal angle, or downwards, bouncing along the ground. The A button switches between the three shot directions, and the other buttons shoot and jump. Having to switch manually, with only one button, is a bit awkward, but you do get used to it. The diagonal-down shot is great for everything other than air enemies, I find. Because of how fast you move it is easy to run into enemies, but the game gives you five hit points per life, levels have plenty of health powerups, there are no instant death pits, and the game has password save with new passwords every couple of levels! Yeah, this game is a lot more forgiving than a lot of Genesis platformers, and I like that. You can just have fun with this one, instead of suffering as much as in some other games in this genre on the system. The game definitely gets harder as you go along, but it's a fun challenge.
As for those levels, they are good-sized, open, and are full of secret paths, alternate routes full of stuff to get for points and powerups, and hidden bonus areas full of even more stuff. There are only four settings, with six levels plus a boss in each one, but all look and sound good and do feel different. There are also lots of enemies and spikes, but again, it's fantastic that this game has no instant-death pits. In a game as fast as this or Sonic they are frustrating, and these designers knew it. As for the volume of stuff in the levels, while I don't always love it, I like collecting if the act of collecting is fun and the game actually rewards you for it. This game does that. Sure, score in a game which doesn't have a battery or such to save a score table doesn't really matter, but the powerups can upgrade your weapon, give special items such as a bouncy-ball you can jump high with, refill your health, give you extra lives, and more. They are worth getting. The fun core gameplay is what makes that fun, of course. Tinhead is a good fun game, as you explore levels, look for powerups, shoot the badguys, and figure out each levels' challenges. Sure, the warp tubes, spikes, speed, and physics are a lot like Sonic, but the weapon system makes this game distinct and works well. Tinhead is a good, often overlooked game that's well worth picking up. It's too bad that it never released in Europe, this is quality stuff.
Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster's Hidden Treasure - 1 player, password save (20 characters). Buster's Hidden Treasure is a conventional side-scrolling platformer from Konami. In this game you walk, run, and jump as Buster, the main character of the Tiny Toon Adventures cartoon from the early '90s. Konami made Tiny Toon Adventures games for the NES, SNES, Genesis, and Game Boy in the early '90s, and this is one of those games. Most are platformers where you play as Buster only, this game included. This is a sizable game with many levels and lots of platforming challenges. When compared to the SNES Tiny Toons platformer, this game is longer and has more levels, the reverse of most Konami Genesis games, but doesn't look nearly as great and feels more conventional. The SNES game has only six stages and doesn't have saving, but its levels use its unique mechanics heavily; see my summary of that game for more. In this game, though, most stages are just normal walk-to-the-right, jump-on-stuff platforming. You can wall-jump, and eventually this is required, but most stages don't use it. Your jumping controls are good and precise, though, thankfully. There is a lot of stuff to collect in each stage, including carrots as your basic pickup, various 'bomb' type powerups, and some other things that must do something or other. If you want to just go straight to the end stages won't take too long, but if you want to collect more stuff they'll take longer. I like that, and I also like that many stages have multiple routes, with a more pickup-heavy but trickier to stay on route above and main, sparser path below. After every three levels there is a boss stage. Bosses are conventional, jump-on-their-head affairs. They're decent enough, though the SNES game has some more inventive bossfights.
Visually, the game has good but not great graphics. The sprites look pretty nice and closely resemble the show's art style, which is great. I like the little touches like cans you can trio over, too. However, the backgrounds are a bit bland looking and don't come close to the SNES game; this definitely looks dated in comparison. Levels repeat graphical elements a lot, too. Between the average gameplay and somewhat bland visuals I wasn't too impressed by this game at first, and I haven't seen much to push it above average, either. The music is similarly good, but not Konami's best. The rendition of the series' main theme is good, but most of the rest of the tunes are original. It's quality Konami work for sure, but they can do even better. I should also comment on the save system. The password system helps reduce tedium by not forcing you to play the whole game in one sitting, but unfortunately you need to get a Game Over to be shown your password, and they are an inexplicably long 20 characters! Why in the world are they so long? That makes no sense. Still, that's better than nothing. Overall, Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster's Hidden Treasure is a fun, average to slightly above-average platformer. I like that this game breaks from Konami's usual "too few levels that are too long" formula, and the gameplay is solid and levels often fun to explore and find stuff in. However, the formula doess start to get old after a few levels, and this game does nothing new or original. It's just another decent but unspectacular mascot platformer, pretty much, better than many licensed games but not as good as the greats of the genre. If you find Buster's Hidden Treasure for cheap, go ahead and pick it up; it's certainly fun enough to be worth a play, particularly for platformer fans. Don't expect anything amazing, though.
Toki: Going Ape Spit - 1 player. Toki is an okay but flawed side-scrolling platform-action game. It's sort of in between a platformer and a run & gun. Based on a Taito arcade game, this Genesis port is a pretty good version of a not-great game. The game has several issues, worst of them the overly high difficulty level and abysmal music that's among the worst on the Genesis, but there are also some things to like here, even if I more dislike than like this game. You are a man who was turned into an ape called Toki. Naturally you have to rescue your girlfriend as well as turn back to a human again. You can walk, jump, and as the name suggests, spit things. Spitting is your main attack, and you can shoot left, right, up, or diagonally up in either direction. Unfortunately you cannot attack downwards or diagonally down, which is a problem in many stages in this game. There are many powerups, most of them time-limited weapons. After a while you'll go back to just your default shot. I wish the powerups weren't limited, it'd be more fun that way. You can kill enemies by bouncing on their heads, but you'll need to be very accurate to kill them without dying yourself. You do have jump control, but your jump distance is short and it's easy to mess up jumps. Grabbing on to swinging ropes is also a lot harder than it should be. Mario this is not, that's for sure, to Toki's detriment. If you get hit even once you start the whole stage over, frustratingly.
Stages are not too long, but still, this adds a lot to the challenge. The one hit kills and frustrating level designs are a real issue here. There are eight levels, each with several stages and then a boss. Some levels are vertical, others horizontal, and others have some movement in both directions; it's a mix. There are some interesting stages, but the gameplay is mostly similar throughout. The one exception is the water level, which is probably the most fun stage in the game, even if it is fairly easy. The game starts out okay, but by midway it's almost too annoying to continue with due to cheap enemy placements killing you out of nowhere, random deaths from when you touch an enemy just barely wrong, the harder bosses, and such. On the default setting this game is quite hard, but you can make it easier. There are four difficulty levels, and you can change the number of lives and continues, though infinite is not an option, and how many points you need for a 1-up. At the easiest setting this game is beatable, and I did finish it that way, but even there it was a pain to finish due to the high frustration factor and stunningly terrible music. I don't want to play this again anytime soon. As for the graphics, they are very average stuff, with mediocre art design and bland backdrops. Some areas look nice, but this is mostly average-at-best stuff. The music is, as I said, atrocious. Exepting only the water level, there is only ONE song that plays during all non-boss stages of the other seven levels, and it's about fifteen seconds long and awful. Even if the arcade game is like this, this is inexcusably annoying, and ruins what little fun factor this game has. The menu, end, water level, and boss themes are tolerably okay, but the main level theme is awful and it's like 95% of what you hear. Overall, Toki is a below average, maybe bad game. It does have some decent moments, but ultimately is more frustrating and aurally atrocious than it is worthwhile. Probably don't bother with this one. Arcade port. Other ports of the game are available on the NES, Lynx, Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari ST, and iOS. There is also a cancelled Atari 7800 version some people have a copy of.
Tom and Jerry: Frantic Antics - 1 player. Tom & Jerry: Frantic Antics is a mediocre licensed platformer. As this game was released by usually-terrible publisher Hi Tech Expressions I expected the game to be awful, but while it is subpar, it isn't the absolute disaster I was expecting. So yeah, that's good, I guess. At least it's better than Sega's abysmal Game Gear game Tom & Jerry: The Movie! This game has some serious flaws, though, the too-high difficulty perhaps chief among them. In Frantic Antics, you play as Tom, and need to cross many difficult levels as you presumably chase Jerry. Unlike that GG game, though, there's no sign of the other character most of the time; even though that game is bad and so short and easy you'll beat it in your first try in maybe fifteen minutes, at least it is a chase game. This is just your average platformer. Your average, excessively difficult platformer, with sometimes-iffy controls, limited lives and continues and no saving. So yeah, it has problems. The graphics are nice, though. the levels are large and full of stuff to collect, level layouts are average, and the controls aren't that bad. Tom is a bit skiddy, but you do get used to it with practice. This game doesn't look amazing, but everything is decently well drawn. Tom looks like Tom and the enemies like characters who maybe could have been in the show. Backgrounds are familiar environments as well, including the backyard, inside the house, and the like. The sprites are a bit large for the screen, and this causes occasional blind-jump problems, but they aren't as frequent as in a Taz-Mania, thankfully; generally you can see where you need to go, the challenge is getting there without dying. While Tom can take multiple hits against normal foes, falling in a pit kills you of course, and only a couple of deaths and you start the whole game over. Levels are long, too; even just beating level two will be quite a task, and I'm not entirely sure if it's worth it. While I did like this game at first, with its nice graphics, large levels to explore, and lots of stuff to collect, but the high difficulty drags it down. If you could save, instead of constantly having to start the game over from the start, this game would be better, but as it is, Tom & Jerry: Frantic Antics is probably best only for series fans or people who like hard games. Also on SNES.
Trouble Shooter - 1 player. Trouble Shooter is a very good horizontal shmup with several original elements to it. This game has good anime-styled artwork with a comic sci-fi-anime theme, good graphics and sound, a pair of female protagonists who you both play as at the same time, a simple story told in between-level cutscenes, multiple hit points (a rarity in Japanese shooters!), a nice difficulty curve as you progress through the game, and multi-direction shooting. In the story, the protagonists are on a mission to rescue a young kidnapped prince. So yeah, in this game the girls save the guy, a reversal from usual. Your two characters each control differently, and move mostly together. Their sprites are large and so is your hitbox, but the hit points and large, slow-moving bullets help a lot. If you're paying attention is is possible to avoid damage. The main character, "Madison" as she was renamed to in the American version, is the one you directly control and the one who can take damage. She can only shoot to the right, and is the only one who can collect powerups and power up her weapon. The second character, "Michelle", follows the main one at a slight delay. She can't collect powerups or directly take damage, but can fire either right or left, and switches directions when you press C. This is very useful, because enemies attack from both sides of the screen. You'll often be switching directions back and forth. You also have a bomb attack, with four different types to choose between.
This is a well-balanced game with good level designs, some interesting boss fights, and as much variety as you'll usually see in the genre. Some level themes are the expected ones, such as a requisite giant-battleship stage that has to have been inspired by R-Type, but in addition to the more standard waves of enemies you also face sections such as a shaft full of spinning blades. The stage designs are great, I really like the varied obstacles and settings. Bosses each have specific weak points, and finding how to fight each one is fun stuff. They're all very well-designed and amusing. The game starts out easy, but it gets tougher as you go as good games do. Try to stay alive! It's easy to build up a lot of hit points early on in the game with the health-ups available there, but if you lose them you'll be in trouble, as the later stages have fewer health-ups, and you get only two continues. In that way this game very much rewards repeat play, but still, it is easier than many Genesis shmups, and is one of the few Genesis shmups I have beaten.
Visually, Trouble Shooter has good, though conventional, graphics. The game has solid graphics with good art design, good use of parallax, and minimal if any slowdown. It doesn't use any hardware-pushing techniques, and does look somewhat dated visually, but that is in part because of the early '90s look of the anime art here, in a game where large character sprites are on screen at all times; the art design is clearly a product of its time. The game also never tries to put a lot of stuff on screen at once, perhaps part of how it avoids slowdown. The large characters and bosses are quite well-drawn, though, and the backgrounds use multiple layers of parallax. The music is also good. It isn't the most memorable stuff, but I do like the music here. Overall, Trouble Shooter is a good game with a lot going for it. I like the gameplay, level designs, challenge level, art design, choice of female protagonists, and more! It is a little dated in some ways, and isn't super hard, but that's fine with me. I wish people today could get it for the couple of bucks I got this game for back in '06, but even for its current prices, the game is absolutely worth getting. This game is one of the more original, and better, shmups on the Genesis. The game also has a sequel, Battle Mania Daiginjou, which sadly did not release in the US.
Truxton - 1 player. Truxton is a popular, and very good, vertical shmup from Toaplan released in 1989. This is one of Toaplan's relatively few space-based shooters; most of their games involved airplanes flying over a planet, but this is a sci-fi game. A popular classic, this early release is the best shmup, and quite possibly the best game, released for the Genesis in '89. The game has decent to good graphics, a fantastic soundtrack that still sounds great, and five big levels to blast through. This game is HARD, though. The Japanese title of this game is "Tatsujun", which means "Expert". And you will need expert skills to get anywhere near the end of this game, particularly above Easy difficulty! You die in one hit in Truxton, and enemies move fast, shoot quickly, and regularly come from behind. Of course your whole ship is vulnerable, and don't ask for a shield; there isn't one. Shields are for games which don't call themselves "Expert", I guess. You'll need to memorize everything to stay alive. You have three different weapons to choose from, a spread shot, a strong straight shot, or a weak homing shot. Each has its uses, but while it takes longer to kill things, at times the homing laser is invaluable against the frequent groups of larger, miniboss-like foes. There are also powerups for superbombs, extra lives, speed-ups, and weapon upgrades. One weapon powerup does nothing, though; you need more. Five weapon-upgrade powerups upgrades your weapon once, and five more upgrades it again. I think that's the last upgrade, but I've never managed to get 15 without dying, so I'm not sure. Each time you get five the meter empties. And when you do die, you get sent back to the last checkpoint. And if you die right at a checkpoint, you may be sent back to the LAST one! This isn't the only Toaplan shmup which does this, but it can be very frustrating. You also lose most powerups, of course: your bombs reset to three, speed to slow, and weapon to the basic gun. You do keep your weapon powerups if you have one to four, though, so that is nice. The controls and hit detection are right on. If you die, it's your fault. Of course the bullets are small and sometimes hard to see, and I'm terrible at reliably dodging waves of small bullets, but it is your fault.
Though later Genesis games would push the hardware more than Truxton, this game does look pretty good. The sprites and backgrounds all look great. This game has very good art design. Your spaceship and the many alien crafts you'll shoot down all look pretty nice. Even if technically it is similar, in terms of art design this game looks a lot better than other Toaplan games like Kyuukyoku Tiger or such! There are only five levels in this game, but each one is very long and varied. Many '80s shmups have a lot of repetition, but Truxton does a great job of mixing things up just enough to make each encounter feel different. The game is hard from the start, so the difficulty curve isn't as pronounced as it is in some shmups, but it does get even harder as you get deeper into it. Miniboss and boss enemies have one small flame appear on their sprite when at 1/3 damage and two flames at 2/3rds, too, which is really helpful for gauging how damaged the tougher enemies are. The soundtrack is also, as mentioned, fantastic. The music here is a good rendition of the music from the arcade game, and sounds great today. It doesn't push the Genesis sound chip like a late release would, but it sounds fantastic regardless.
The game has some nice options, too. There are three difficulty levels, and in Easy you have infinite continues! That's awesome, and makes the game beatable by anyone. There are also fewer bullets to contend with in Easy. Normal is a bit tougher, and more importantly has limited continues, and Hard gives you very few continues. That's a nice curve there to cover most player skill levels. The game has a bunch of loops, too, something not present in other versions of the game. If you keep playing after beating the game, you'll see a new ending each time through a full five loops. Of course, it gets slightly tougher each time. It's great that there are actual rewards for people dedicated enough to get that far. Overall, Truxton is an outstanding shooter and easily is one of the best Genesis shmups. This is a must-have classic. And as hard as it is, the Genesis version is actually the easy version of Truxton! The arcade game is even harder, and the PC Engine (Turbografx) port... oh man, that's just an insane, near-impossible nightmare. On the PCE the enemies shoot much closer to you much more often, making the game incredibly, incredibly difficult. I'm not good enough at bullet dodging to deal with that! If you can beat this game on a higher setting you are indeed an "expert" at shmups, but if you can beat that one you're a master. Myself, I've only beaten this game on Easy, but at least that's something. The PCE version is quite expensive, too. This US-released Genesis game isn't cheap, but it's reasonably priced and is worth the money. Make sure you get it. There is also an arcade and FM Towns-exclusive sequel which is just as good or better than the first game, and has an even more incredible soundtrack. It's really too bad it never got a home port to a more popular platform!
Turrican - 1 player. Turrican is the first game in what would become a moderately successful series. This first game is seriously rough around the edges, but some of the elements that would make the later games great are here. It is, however, the worst Turrican game by a good margin; while I love the four other main Turrican games, this one isn't so great. It is not quite as bad as some say, but it is a flawed game. So, Turrican is one part Euro-platformer, one part Metroid, and one part Contra. You are Turrican, a futuristic space marine type off to save the world or some such; there is no story in the game. You've got a ball form like Samus, arsenal like Contra, and large, collection-heavy levels like a Euro-platformer of the day. You do have a health bar, but it drains quickly and enemies' attacks are often cheap and hard to avoid. You have no hit-flash, sound, or invinciblity while taking hits and your health bar drops fast, so you can lose lives in an instant if you aren't paying close attention. This health system is one of the biggest things Factor 5 improved on in their work on Super and Mega Turrican, but it's an issue here. The game also has blind jumps over death pits, something its sequels get rid of. I'm very glad the later games don't have this, but in this game it is a problem. The game is long at 16 levels, and you have only a couple of continues to beat the game with before you're starting the whole thing over. I've never gotten anywhere near the end, and only the dedicated ever will. This game can be fun while you're alive, but the frustration factor gets high sometimes. Visually Turrican looks okay. It's got nothing on Mega Turrican's beauty or visual effects, but this is an okay-looking port of the computer original. The audio is similarly decent, but downgraded versus the Amiga. This is mostly a solid port, though.
Overall, Turrican is an interesting one. The console ports of this game are generally hated, but the computer original is popular among European gamers who played it on the C64, Amiga, and such. But as much as I do agree that Turrican II (aka Universal Soldier on the Genesis; see below) is a very good game, this one is not nearly on that level. With a too high difficulty level, limited continues with no saving, mediocre graphics and music, blind jumps, and constant deaths due to the health system, Turrican is flawed. Even so, I do like this game overall. Turrican has good controls, a nice variety of weapons, some of that Turrican charm, large levels to explore and find huge amounts of stuff in, and a lot of variety in level designs and bosses. Turrican is a good but flawed game, though its sequels would significantly improve on its formula. I know a lot of people hate this game, but it might be worth a try, if you've got an open mind. Amiga port, also on Commodore 64, Game Boy, and TurboGrafx-16. The other two console ports both have some cut levels, but this version is complete and has better graphics too, so it's by far the best console port of the game.
Twin Cobra - 1 player. Twin Cobra, aka Kyuukyoku Tiger, is a classic late '80s vertical-scrolling shmup from Toaplan. One of Toaplan's most popular games, this game nails the balance between challenge and fun in a way that its predecessor Tiger Heli (arcade, NES) failed to reach. Kyuukyoku Tiger is a great and difficult game, but it plays well and is lots of fun even if it's hard. This version of the game, though, is somewhat unfair, has some odd design decisions, and is not as good as the arcade original or the sadly Japan-only PC Engine (TurboGrafx-16) port of the game. As much as I like this game, I can't really recommend this version, it's kind of broken. The core of the game is the same as other versions, though. You control a helicopter and need to destroy the enemies. This will be an incredibly difficult mission, though, as the game is good-length for its genre, you die in one hit and as in most Toaplan shmups there is no shield, and the enemies are merciless. Toaplan was one of the best shmup developers of their day, and the great enemy patterns, tough but fair if you have memorized everything challenge, and interesting bosses make this game great. The graphics are mediocre at best, but do look like the source; the PCE version looks no better. Sprites are somewhat small, and the backgrounds are basic and don't look great. They look okay, but that's it. Audio is similarly good, but nothing amazing. Toaplan's greatest skill was gameplay, more than graphics or sound. I do like some of their music, including some in this game, but the system can do better.
This version makes one big change from the arcade and PCE versions, though: it zooms in a bit, and makes the powerup-dropping ships incredibly difficult to kill. Now, on the PCE, the powerup-dropping ships are fairly easy to kill. If you start shooting them at a reasonable time, they'll blow up and drop their powerup. On the Genesis, however, if you don't start shooting them immediately after they appear on the screen, you have no hope of destroying them before they desend too low on the screen to still be shot without them getting you first! It's just absurd, and makes the game a lot harder than it should be. There are some other zoom issues with enemies as well, but it's worst with the powerup ships. And this is a big problem because you need a LOT of powerups to reach full power, and lose all powerups and get sent back to the last checkpoint upon death. The game does give you continues, the number of which varies depending on which difficulty you choose, but because you get sent back, it's very hard on any setting. The continue system is really odd, though -- if I'm understanding things right the game gives you more continues, not less, in the higher difficulties, and fewer continues in the easier ones. That doesn't make much sense. Continues are not everything, though. On the PCE you only get two or three continues, far fewer than the dozens in the highest settings in this game, but because that game is a good port and not messed up, it's easier to get farther in that game than it is this one. It's still a very hard game and I haven't gotten anywhere near the end on any system, but that version is a lot more fun to play. Do play Twin Cobra, it's a fun game and, in Japan at least, a great, influential classic... but pass on this version. The graphics are pretty much the same on both platforms, but the closer zoom and busted powerup-ship system makes this game too frustrating for its own good. Stick to that import-only PCE version, or get the easier and simpler, but decently fun, NES version; that does have a US release. Sadly no home port has the co-op multiplayer of the arcade game, so the arcade version is best. Arcade port, also on PC Engine (TurboGrafx-16) and NES.
Tyrants: Fight Through Time - 1 player, password save. Tyrants: Fight Through Time, also known as Mega-Lo-Mania in Europe, is a "god game" style real-time strategy game in the Populous style, but simpler. You control one of four deities, trying to conquer lands through many historical periods. This game was Sculptured Software's attempt to do a game in this genre, and it does work, I just find this kind of thing sort of boring compared to the real-time strategy genre proper as we know it from Dune 2 and on. God games just don't have enough interaction! I've never cared for Populous, and this game has even less to do than that game. Still, this game is okay, and is somewhat original for a Genesis game. So, in this game you play as one of four deities, all trying to conquer a series of maps. You can't directly control your people, though; instead, all you can do is set people into various jobs, including research, building, the army, or such, and drop armies into territories on the map. Map territories are large, like the spaces on the map in a board game like Risk, and even in a battle, all you can do is just put armies in a space and then sit back and watch. The main gameplay here is just adjusting where you use your people, in the various options on the sidebar, and choosing what to prioritize between the weapon types available to research and such. That stuff is a fun part of grand strategy games, but here it's the whole game, unfortunately. You also have to choose how many people to bring with you into each map, though, and this element is kind of interesting. In each stage of the game you have three maps to win, and only 100 people to work with between the three of them... and you can't reuse people once they've been sent to a map, so you need to carefully consider how many are needed on each map. That is kind of interesting. There are passwords to save your progress as well, and thankfully they aren't absurdly long.
The visuals here, however, are fairly basic. The game looks okay, but the sprites are miniscule and telling your and your enemies' people apart is difficult to impossible, during battles. This same developer also made the game Cannon Fodder, and you see that in how small these people are. The art design is average at best. For audio, the music is generic stuff, but the game does have a lot of fairly clear voice samples. The four different deities you can play as all have quite a few lines. This does add to the game. Still, overall, Tyrants is a bit too simplistic. I want to actually set building locations and tell the troops where to go, not only direct research and military operations on the most general level. I didn't really like a Populous game until the third one, which is a fairly traditional RTS, for example. This simpler game probably fits the limitations of 4th-gen consoles better than the console versions of Populous do, but while this game is okay, I don't find it nearly as fun as better, PC-only strategy games are. Strategy game fans might want to give it a try, though, some will like this. There is also a PC version of this game, under the same title here in the US. Overseas only, as Mega-Lo-Mania, the game was released in Europe on the Amiga, and Atari ST and in Japan on the X68000 and FM Towns computers. Europe and Japan both got a SNES version as well.
Sega Genesis Game Opininion Summaries - Work In Progress - A Black Falcon - 25th March 2016
Only 10 this time, and yet once again the update was much-delayed. That's mostly because of Viewpoint, that game is great and totally hooked me until I finally finished it! Next time... the last ten games. It's almost over.
Games covered in this update
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Ultimate Qix
Universal Soldier
Vectorman
Vectorman 2
Viewpoint
Wardner
Warrior of Rome II
Warsong
WeaponLord
Whip Rush
Ultimate Qix - 1 player. Ultimate Qix, known as Volfied in Japan, is a sequel to Taito's early '80s classic arcade game Qix. This time the game has a sci-fi setting and backstory, and you control a small spaceship instead of just a cursor or such, and you're fighting aliens of various kinds instead of lines (the Qix), sparks (Sparx), and the like. The gameplay, however, is classic Qix. you move your ship around the border of the screen, and when you hold down a button you can move into the field. However, until you connect to the edge again you are vulnerable and if an enemy or their shots touch you or the unfinished line behind you, you die and lose a life. However, if you get back to the edge, you are safe, and the edge of the area you just outlined is the new edge of the screen. You win once you cover over a large enough percentage of the screen, with that percentage varying depending on difficulty setting. Unlike the first game, there are no enemies moving along the edges of the screen, but despite that, Ultimate Qix is harder and less fun to play than the original classic. This game does have an ending, unlike the endless original Qix, and it has preset levels you've got to get through. Qix is a classic, and I do like this game, but it gets frustrating quickly, and you get absolutely no continues in this version. You can choose up to 7 lives, and there are 4 difficulty settings and three game modes that further adjust the difficulty, but there's no way to get even one continue, unfortunately. That makes this game very difficult and frustrating, as it's very easy to die and soon have to start over from the beginning again. That gets old fast.
In addition, the game is visually somewhat bland and has very annoying droning sounds for "music". The sound is not quite Xevious bad, but it's bad. If that's supposed to be the sound of the Qix, it fails to match the original's. The graphics are better, but the backgrounds are not great and sprites only average-looking. Perhaps the arcade version looks the same, but this game has only average-at-best graphics and awful "music". Even so, the core here is a good classic-style arcade game, and the originality of the original Qix shines though. This isn't yet another shooter, or your average puzzle game, it's something different. It stays faithful to the Qix formula, but adds new things such as more graphical variety, various bonus items you can surround on the field that give point bonuses, and an actual ending to strive for. Even so, Ultimate Qix isn't quite as great a game as the original, and the steep difficulty level gets frustrating. With enough practice you will get farther, but this game is really only for fans of this genre. Overall Ultimate Qix is average or maybe slightly below average. Arcade port. There is also a Japan-only PC Engine (TurboGrafx) version, and a Playstation version released as Qix Neo in the US and Simple 1500 Series Vol. 80: The Jintori - Volfied in Japan. I haven't played that version, but I would like to get it sometime. It has saving support of some kind; I hope it's actual progress save and not just scores, but I'm not sure. There are also ports of the original arcade game on the Amiga, FM Towns, PC, and Commodore 64 computers, in various regioeview.
Universal Soldier - 1 player, password save. This borderline run & gun action-platformer called "Universal Soldier" is actually the Genesis port of Turrican 2. This game, from Accolade under its Ballistic label and programmed by The Code Monkeys, is a port of Factor 5's Amiga port of Rainbow Arts' Commodore 64 original. Accolade got the rights for the console ports, and decided to use their recently-acquired Universal Soldier license on the game. The film is a Stallone sci-fi action movie, but I haven't seen it; I got this because it's Turrican. Despite the name change, though, this is mostly just Turrican 2. The main and boss sprites replaced with characters from the movie, the title-screen theme is now a song from the movie I believe, and a couple of new platformer levels set in locations from the film replace the now-removed shmup levels the original game had, but otherwise, this is just Turrican 2, but on the Genesis, and with a password save system added. The original Turrican 2 is the most loved game in the series by the games' European fanbase, and after playing it I can see why. Earlier I explained my issues with the first Turrican, but while this game brings back some of that games' issues, including the absence of any invincibility or hitflash while taking damage and the health system, though damage thankfully now happens at the correct, slower rate versus the first Genesis game, in most ways it's hugely improved over the original. Universal Soldier/Turrican 2 has better graphics, better-designed, much more fun to play levels, better music, password save, a much fairer challenge that actually is probably a bit on the easy side now, versus the super-hard first game, almost no instant-death pits and none in trap locations, no required blind jumps, and fixing that health-drain issue really is huge as well. Sure, the graphics and music pale in comparison to the three SNES and Genesis Turrican games made by Factor 5 itself and US doesn't come even close to Mega Turrican's level in either graphics or sound, but The Code Monkies did a good job here and the results are great. Not quite Factor 5-tier work, but great.
Yes, despite its flaws and stupid unnecessary tacked-on license, this is a fantastic game! This version of the game gets far, FAR too much flak from series fans. Universal Soldier may have only a second-tier port of Chris Huelsbecks' incredible Amiga soundtrack, and the redrawn elements of the graphics are silly and don't fit the game at all, but these issues are somewhat minor compared to all the great gameplay and fun to be had here. The basic controls are familiar Turrican stuff and work well, though that fast-draining health system is kind of a pain; stay away from enemies. You can shoot, use a beam attack if you hold down the button, go into ball form, use several kinds of super attacks, and now drop bombs in ball form as well. US/Turrican 2 has absolutely huge levels loaded with enemies, powerups, and extra lives to find. Exploration is fun and rewarding, as points and lives are all over. This game is much more generous with extra lives than the first game, and when combined with the removal of almost all death pits, the change to make required jump points visible on the screen so you don't need to blindly jump into space, the slower rate you take damage, and the passwords, this game is a LOT easier than the first Turrican. I can barely get even a few levels into that game, but this one I can finish no problem. The game does have a difficulty curve and by the last, immense level can be a challenge, but it's the fun kind of challenge you want to keep trying at until you beat it. And thanks to the password system, you should. This game is great beginning to end. So yeah, I don't mind the lowered difficulty at all! Every level in this game is great fun to explore, and I like the variety. You'll traverse alien worlds, fight bosses, swim through caverns, and more. Turrican 2/US's stages are some of the best in the exploration platform-action game category.
The game has other improvements over its predecessor as well. The weapons are improved, and the new scatter-shot ball gun is great and would return again in future Turrican games. You now will drop bombs as your attack in ball form, too, instead of shoot; nice improvement there. Also, for the only time in the series, you can use your ball form at will! Yes, while all other Turrican games have limited uses of Turrican's Samus-like ball form, in this game you can use it as much as you want. Universal Soldier is a great game, and it's easy to understand why Turrican 2 is so popular with those who played it back in the early '90s. The mechanics are great, the level designs huge and yet well-designed and absent of frustration like that in the first game, the difficulty is well-balanced and fun to the point where masochists may prefer the first game since it's so much harder than this one, the addition of password save is fantastic and puts this game above the others in the series in at least this one way, and the new levels are even pretty good, even if the themes do not fit with the rest of the game. Yes, as before Accolade's version here does not look or sound as great as the computer originals and the loss of the shmup stagers is unfortunate, but US looks fine and sounds pretty good. Overall Universal Soldier is a very good A-grade classic which unfairly gets hated on because of the silly license applied to this good version of Turrican 2. Pick it up for sure, this is a great game you can get for very cheap. Also on the Game Boy. The original Turrican 2 version is on Commodore 64, Amiga, and PC.
Vectorman - 1 player. Vectorman is a very good run & gun-ish action-platformer developed by Blue Sky Software and published by Sega. Blue Sky's earlier Genesis games were mixed in quality, but with this one they put everything together and made a game with some of the best graphics on the system, and pretty great gameplay as well. The fantastic graphics are the first thing you'll notice about Vectorman, and really show off the hardware. The game also has great music, good controls and level designs, and lots of great fun action as well, though, so it's about much more than just the visuals! This game has both great graphics and great gameplay, and has greatly impressed me ever since it first released in 1995. The game is difficult and memorization is absolutely key, but even though I still haven't beaten this game, it's really, really good. You are Vectorman, a robot in the future. The Earth is a polluted wasteland, and you're going back to take out the villain Warhead and maybe start the Earth's recovery. So yeah, it's one of the '90s many environmentally-themed games. This is no Captain Planet, though, thankfully; the story is irrelevant to the actual game. But back to those graphics. Visually, Vectorman impresses right from the start. This game released in the wake of 1994's Donkey Kong Country, and uses a somewhat similar CG-rendered art style. Vectorman was probably the Genesis's best answer to DKC on a visual level, and shows off the system's capabilities nicely. Yes, there are fewer colors on screen than a SNES game would have, but the use of color here is great despite that. Every level looks different, and all of the settings are interesting and have quite nicely done backgrounds. The game has plenty of nice visual effects beyond that as well, including lots of software scaling and rotation in some top-down stages, large sprites, fair amounts of stuff on screen, great use of the system's rarely-used hardware shadows feature to add to the number of colors seen, and more. There is also a neat flash when you shoot your gun; sure, it's not actual hardware lighting, but it looks pretty cool. The soundtrack is great too, it's good Genesis techno. I've always loved the cool spinning animation and electronic techno music on the title screen, it's great stuff. From the art design to the technical accomplishments, Vectorman is one of the most visually impressive games on the Genesis, and for me at least was a good answer to Donkey Kong Country on a technical level.
On a gameplay level, however, Vectorman is pure Genesis; it's an action game, not a platformer like DKC. This is an intense action game, and you'll spend most of your time shooting baddies and jumping between platforms. Vectorman can walk, jump and double jump, and shoot. It is sometimes annoying that you can't fire diagonally without moving, but otherwise the controls are great. You can shoot up and diagonally, and also down while you are jumping, and the double-jump activates some jets on your feet that will hurt an enemy below you; it's cool to see a double jump actually explained in the game, and that it does damage too is a nice bonus! You have three hit points at the start, and can get more. The controls are tight and very responsive. You only have one main gun, but can collect many different time-limited weapon powerups for more firepower. The gameplay is almost as well-polished as the graphics. Vectorman's sprite is large on the screen, but visibility is not a problem, as the bottomless pits seen in earlier Blue Sky games on the Genesis are absent here. There are no spike pits either, which is awesome; there's more than enough challenge here from the numerous enemies, unfair death-pits are not also needed. And yes, the game is hard. You start with only a couple of lives and there is no way to get continues, so when you run out you go all the way back to the beginning. There are extra lives, and getting them will be absolutely essential, but some quirks add to the memorization required to maximize your chances of survival. You see, Vectorman has a point multiplier system. Health-ups, healthbar increasing items, extra lives, all give you one of the item if collected normally, but two, five, or even ten if collected while you have a multiplier... and of course multipliers are time-limited items, so if you don't know where to go after getting that great multiplier it'll go to waste. Powerups are hidden in televisions, as well, and all TVs look the same until destroyed so you can't just look at them and know what's in each one; you'll just need to play the game repeatedly and learn the best route, or look something up online. This can be frustrating and is surely a major reason I have not finished the game, but I do like its originality; a bonus multiplier which multiplies the extra lives and health powerups? That's an interesting idea, and Vectorman implements it well. All levels are very well designed, and are large with lots of secrets to find all over the place. You also respawn at certain TVs when you die; it's not marked, so you only find checkpoints by dying, but you do have to have destroyed that TV to respawn there. Other powerups in TVs add to your score and such, or give you those special weapons. On the whole Vectorman very heavily rewards exploration, and it's very fun to play the game, go through each level, and try to find everything. Learning where the bonus multipliers and key powerups the multiplier affects are is centrally important, but even when not maximizing that the game is great fun and feels rewarding to play, as you do a little better each time.
Vectorman has variety, too. This game has 16 levels, and each is different. Action stages each have their own character and style. The first level is open to the sky, the water level feels like climbing out of a pit, the sawmill level has moving platforms to take you between tiers, and more. This is a tough game, so I've never gotten to the end, but it There are also special morph powerups which turn you into a bomb or a drill, and then you need to go to a certain point in the level -- usually nearby, but you'll need to find the place -- to break through a wall to reach some powerups or an alternate route forward. It's one more way that the game emphasizes exploration and makes gameplay fun. The level designs here are great. Each level has a boss as well, and each one is entirely different. You'll need to learn how to fight each one and approach them differently, and they're all good; this game is really good all around. In addition, while most stages in Vectorman are side-scrolling action, the game has a couple of top-down levels as well. These can be tricky, the second one particularly, but are a nice break from the main action. As usual for games from this time Vectorman is not an especially long game, but it more than makes up for that with its difficulty. This game is no Adventures of Batman & Robin or Contra Hard Corps, challenge-wise, but it is a tough game that will take most people quite a while to finish. I don't like having to repeatedly replay content I have finished before many times, and this is probably why I've never finished the game as I don't keep trying as many times as I'd need to, but it's a lot of fun to play so I don't mind this here as much as I would in other games. In conclusion Vectorman looks and sounds fantastic, has good controls with great shooting control and an above-average variety of enemy types to fight, great stages to explore, and a somewhat unique game system centered around bonus multipliers. I don't have much negative to say about this game, either, beyond that I wish it had continues so it'd be a bit easier to finish. I guess people who want a linear, Contra-esque game will not find it here, as while this is a shooting-heavy game there is also a lot of platforming and exploration, so its Western roots show, and people who prefer games designed around 1-hit-deaths instead of Vectorman's hit points system may not love it as much as I do, but damage is avoidable if you play well; you do not often take random unfair hits in this game, when you take damage it was your fault. I don't think these issues hold the game back much at all. Vectorman is one of my favorite action-platformers ever, and it's a definite must-play. This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega’s Genesis games.
Vectorman 2 - 1 player. Released a year after the first game, Vectorman 2 is one of Sega's few major releases for the Genesis in 1996. For the most part, this is a good game very similar to its great predecessor. Unfortunately, while it is a good game, it's not quite as great as Vectorman 1 is, for several reasons. First, the game gets off to a mediocre start, as the awesome start screen from the first game is gone, and replaced with a bland, static image of Vectorman instead. Still, the core gameplay in Vectorman 2 is very familiar, and still good. The controls, TVs (well, pods now), weapons, powerup system, and such are all the same as before. Once again you are Vectorman, off to save the day on horribly polluted future Earth. Vectorman's sprite looks better than ever! This is still a great-looking game, with more animation and better graphics than most games on the console. The music is great electronic stuff as before, and there are more, better-quality voice samples, which is nice. You start out in a swamp this time; it's a somewhat drab environment, worse than any from the first game, and goes on for multiple levels with only slight variation. Still, there is a cool lighting effect, as the swamp lights up each time you fire your gun. Nice. I do find the first environment disappointing and less interesting than any from the first game, though. Also, instead of making almost every level different as in the first one, this time each setting has multiple stages. This is another downgrade from the first game. The levels in each setting are much more similar than any two levels from the original, and some are just the same thing but with new stage layouts. Some levels have traps which can damage you, such as lava on the fire planet, too, which can be an issue in a game with a somewhat close zoom as this one; you do have to make some blind jumps. Thankfully, platforms are usually right where you expect them to be and you can look up and down, so this isn't much of an issue, but it is worth mentioning. There are also fewer bosses, as most levels don't have bosses anymore; instead, the few bosses are in their own stages. The bosses are large and fun to fight, but why are there so few of them? Levels feel different from the first game, too. This game has some very linear stages and some which have more side areas to explore, so there is some nice variety, but overall levels are more linear than they were in the first game. There is less exploration this time than before. That's unfortunate. The game has more levels than the first one, 22 versus 16, but isn't longer; the stages are just shorter. The fastest Vectorman 2 speedrun is actually shorter than the fastest Vectorman 1 one, though the two are not that far apart in length.
Even so, the game is still very fun to play. The action is fast and furious, and you'll face a lot of enemies which can block your fire from one direction, which adds a bit to the mostly straightforward shooting from Vectorman 1. The controls are every bit as good as before too, though there are no new moves and few new special weapons available. Unfortunately there still isn't any way to fire diagonally without moving, but otherwise it controls great. They re-used a lot from the first one, for sure. There are some new morphs, such as a fire-resistant scorpion in the fire levels and a spaceship for the shmup-style bonus stages between levels that you can access, but the timed bombs hiding bonus areas don't seem to be present anymore. And as for those bonus stages, they're kind of disappointingly easy and basic. Adding bonus stages is a potentially good idea, but these aren't as good as they could have been; they're average stuff. The TVs from the first one are now green pods, but they function the same way as before. Because of the simplified level layouts, finding them all in a stage is often easier than it was in Vectorman 1. In fact, the game is a bit easier than the first one, and shouldn't be as hard to finish as the first one is. I haven't beaten it yet, but while playing recently I got to level 11 with 15 lives left, only to have the game crash... argh. But yes, I found it much easier to build up lots of extra lives without needing nearly as much memorization of bonus-multiplier locations as before; I never have 15 lives in Vectorman 1! Overall, this is a good game with great graphics and controls, large levels to explore, find items, and kill evil creatures in, more great visuals to look at particularly after you get past the first few stages, and some pretty cool set-pieces to get past and bosses to fight. However, the game is more linear, not quite as challenging, less varied, and generally not quite as fun as its fantastic predecessor. Vectorman 2 is a pretty good game, and I definitely recommend it, but the first game is the essential one. Still, anyone who likes the first one at all should get this game as well, it's good and won't cost much. This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega’s Genesis games.
Viewpoint - 1-2 player alternating. Another extremely impressive Genesis game, Viewpoint is a port of SNK's Neo-Geo shooter of the same name.This Genesis version was made by Sammy, but for some reason is a US-exclusive release; it did not release in Japan or Europe. They really missed out! Viewpoint is a 3/4ths view isometric shmup, sort of like Zaxxon except on a flat plane. This is a shmup where you control a spaceship flying over a planet, instead of outer space, wiping out hordes of enemies. You can move around, shoot, charge up a power shot, and use superbombs of several types. The game has only one weapon powerup, one that gives you twin option fighters that protect you a bit from above and below and increase your firepower, sort of like in R-Type. That's it, though; you do not have overwhelming firepower in this game, so you will need skill. The game was noteworthy after its release in '93 thanks to its great visuals, style, and design, and it's got solid shooting action as well. I remember Viewpoint and have always thought it looked really cool. The game has fantastic art design, with 2d backdrops and pre-rendered "3d" polygon model ships and enemies. The two styles mix very well and look great together; this is an early example of the CG-rendered sprites style that would quickly gain popularity particularly after Donkey Kong Country's success. The game does interesting things in both visuals and stage layouts. The bosses are all really cool as well, and have a great amount of variety. And fortunately, this Genesis port is amazingly good considering the more limited hardware and smaller cartridge space. Viewpoint for the Genesis has some visual cutbacks and a huge amount of slowdown, indeed it's maybe the slowest-running shmup on this console and it will speed up and slow down as things go on or off screen, but the core game is the same as the Neo-Geo original and that's somewhat incredible. This game may not have quite as good graphics as Sega's fairly similar later 32X title Zaxxon's Motherbase 2000, but despite that this is the better game. Viewpoint is a hard game despite giving you infinite continues, but it's great fun and seeing each new area and figuring out how to get past its enemies and obstacles is a great fun challenge. I really like Viewpoint, it's great!
Now, this game is isometric, so it plays at an angle. This definitely takes getting used to, and you will die sometimes from bullets you barely even noticed due to the camera angle and graphical look of the game. Only bullets and enemies kill you, though; touching the sides of the stage will not. The game regularly uses special types of enemies as obstacles, however, and these will often kill you even with a shield if they touch you, so it is easy to die. I really like the variety and depth of the game, though. The obstacles and enemy types in each level are unique. You start out facing just waves of enemies, but soon you have to deal with spinning floor panels which can kill you if you're on them when they flip, rotating circles of enemies R-Type style, and such. Manage to beat the first boss and you will find each level has even tougher obstacles than the last. Later there is a section with giant worms which come up out of holes in the ground, arcs of flame which pop up out of the lava in the lava level, blocks raising up out of the ground in a land-based segment in the mostly over-water level, centipedes moving around the screen that you can only kill by shooting their heads, and more. Sure, a lot of the Neo Geo versions' background animations are gone, but some, such as the twisting fire in level 5, are still here, and enemies animate and twist around very well. And you're rarely just facing these obstacles, but enemies and sometimes even minibosses at the same time! Enemies can shoot out quite a few bullets, too, and as you move slowly and this game has no speed powerups, if you're in the wrong point on the screen at the wrong time, you will die. You do have infinite continues, but they start you from the beginning of the current level, not from the last checkpoint as a normal death does. So, beating the game will take a lot of practice and effort. I got hooked by this game again while playing it for the summary, and actually finished the game. This is probably the main reason why this update is late, too busy with Viewpoint. :p If you manage to get through without dying Viewpoint is a bit on the short side and the game does pad its length by repeating all the old bosses in the fifth level, but with everything going on here, with the detailed prerendered backgrounds, animations, numerous enemies, additional complexity from the isometric perspective, and more, that is entirely understandable.
The game is not perfect, of course. One issue I need to mention is the camera. That angled perspective can lead to deaths if you're pushing up against the bottom edge of the screen and an enemy or bullet comes at you from behind or to the right off the screen, because the screen only scrolls left if you're touching the edge. It might d be nice if it scrolled a bit away from the edge, so you didn't have to risk death to move over that way. Still, you get used to this and mostly play a bit up and right from the bottom, and due to the camera angle some of the issue is unavoidable, but it is annoying at times. Additionally, sometimes you will die unfairly from a hard-to-see bullet that the angle makes hard to judge the exact location of. Your slow movement speed and taking advantage of the frequent, massive slowdown also take practice to get used to. This game is no too-slow nightmare like Gun Frontier (Arcade), though; it may be slow, but with practice I definitely get better. Overall the slowdown actually helps, as in Gradius III (SNES) where it makes the bullets easier to dodge than they are in other versions. The other issues are minor. The graphics aren't as good as the arcade game, there is less animation, and the game pads its length with repeated boss fights. These are unimportant issues compared to Viewpoint's many strengths. In conclusion, Viewpoint really is the total package. The game has great graphics both artistically and technically, lots of fantastic-looking, highly-animated prerendered CG sprites, an isometric perspective you will not find in many other 4th-gen shmups, unique game design with inventive levels full of not only a wide variety of enemies to shoot at but also interesting and varied environmental hazards you will need to figure out, a high difficulty level balanced with infinite continues and predictable design that greatly rewards practice, reasonable game length, and some pretty decent music, too. This is an amazing game that is really fun to play. Viewpoint is a fantastic top-tier shooter, and is easily one of the best and most under-rated Genesis shmups. Arcade port (on the Neo Geo MVS). Also on Neo-Geo AES, Neo-Geo CD, Playstation (US/EU only), and in Japan only on FM Towns and X68000. That PS1 version is supposed to be pretty bad, but I have not played it myself.
Wardner - 1 player. Wardner is a difficult platformer from Meldac that was clearly inspired by Ghosts n Goblins, though this is not just a clone. The game has mediocre graphics and sound, and isn't particularly original, but it does provide plenty of frustrating platformer fun. You are a young mage guy, and have to rescue your kidnapped girlfriend, as usual in these games. The game controls well, and You die in one hit and are sent back to the last checkpoint when you lose a life, so you need to memorize each section to progress. The game has limited continues, of course, so you will be restarting the game regularly even though you get a lot of lives and continues because of how often you die. The magic element is the main thing that differentiates this game from Ghosts n Goblins and its sequels, but you start out with a standard arcing fireball, and powerups just add more fireballs, so there isn't an interesting magic system like Jewel Master's here. Still, I like mages a lot, they're great and my favorite fantasy class, so it's cool that you are a mage in this game and not a warrior-type. Still, though, this game has bland graphics with not so good art design. Humans like your character are particularly poorly drawn, and environments are simple and amateurish. There is parallax, sometimes, but the visuals look very flat and bland. The music is okay, but it's not anything particularly good or memorable, either.
Even so, the game does have graphical and level-design variety. Each level looks different and has some unique enemies. Each stage plays differently, too, which is good. The first stage is fairly straightforward, the second is loaded with traps to avoid, the one after that has more exploration, and so on; the game does change as you progress through it. This game is more fun to play than it is to look at. Each level has a different setting, from an opening forest, to castles, and such. There are quite a few different types of enemies and traps, and learning all the traps certainly will take a lot of memorization! The constant dying can be frustrating for sure, and starting from the beginning again regularly is annoying, but even so, Wardner is an okay to good game, gameplay-wise. From pits to buzzsaws to other surprises, this game keeps throwing new challenges at you, and figuring them out is fun. There is also money to collect in each level, and a shop between levels. However, you lose all money collected if you get Game Over, so you need to play well to be able to buy powerups. Some powerups are lost upon death, too, which is kind of cruel. Still, if you do get to the store and buy a better weapon, that, at least, is permanent. The other powerups you can buy are one-time-use items, including a shield to absorb a hit and something to protect you from spikes once, but weapons do stick. Choose wisely, though! That one that spins as it moves is no good, it's too hard to hit bosses with. And you cannot switch back once you'[ve bought osmething else. Mostly, though, this is a fairly standard overly-hard side-scrolling action-platformer. Levels are mostly linear, enemies die quickly but can and will kill you just as quickly, and levels are complex and loaded with challenging traps, pits, and optional treasures. Overall, Wardner is a fun but frustrating game. This game is probably too hard for its own good, but even so I kind of like the game. It's above average and I do like this game despite the difficulty and bad graphics, but be prepared before starting this one. Still, it's good and cheap enough that genre fans might want to pick it up. Arcade port.
Warrior of Rome II - 1-2 player simultaneous, on-cart save (battery). Warrior of Rome II is an intresting but seriously flawed real-time strategy game. You are Caesar, and fight a series of battles retelling Roman conquests. This is a game that was surely interesting when it released, but quickly became very, VERY badly dated, and is nearly unplayably boring today. This is an ambitious isometric strategy game, and I like how you can move menus around the screen and resize them; that's very forward-thinking features for a 1993 console game! You can also save anywhere to two save files, which is fantastic. The graphics are good, but very small; it can be hard to make out details, and the two armies blend together far too much. As for audio, there is much, but it's average stuff. The gameplay is the most interesting, but flawed, thing here. Your goal here is to defeat the enemy army on each map. There are 44 maps available for single-map play, a campaign, and even two player splitscreen, so there's a lot here to do for those who can get into it. Each commander starts from a base, and from here you can send your troops out and build more troops. You can also have soldiers build several buildings, including forts, colisseums, and seaports. You can create troops from forward bases. Towns build up around bases over time, and these are your resources -- when you create a soldier some buildings vanish, and you can only create new troops while there are still buildings nearby. There is only one base type of soldier, but they can level up to several different forms if they stay alive and rank up. The player and enemy use the same graphics, just one is red and the other blue. It's a decent, though simple, system.
However, the game is unforgivably, glacially slow. Just waiting for your troops to move across the screen will take minutes, and reaching the enemy even on the smaller maps can take tens of minutes! It's absolutely absurd and ruins what could have been a decent little simplistic early RTS, and RTSes have been one of my favorite genres for a long time so that could have been great. Sadly, as it is WoR II is probably not worth playing due to the incredible tedium of playing each map. There is a speed option, but it barely makes a difference. The game has other flaws, too. When you tell a unit to move, there is no marker telling you where you told it to go, and if you select it again the game won't tell you where it's going; you'll just have to remember, or give a new movement order; annoying. Also, both armies look too similar, with nearly identical soldiers only differentiated by a blue or red thing on their head. When armies are fighting it looks like just a blob of troops, and figuring out what's going on is much harder than it should be. You can access stat screens that show you the health and other stats for any of your troops or buildings, but I don't think you can view any such stats for the enemy, so you never know when they will die. The game isn't entirely balanced, either, and it's hard to defeat people in forts shooting arrows; this can hurt or help you, depending, but when every reinforcement takes multiple minutes to get to the front, if you didn't approach with enough troops you're probably finished anyway. The game starts out fairly easy, but ramps up over time. That's good, but I just don't have the patience for a game this incredibly tedious. Apparently this is a 60 to 100 hour game, and it shouldn't be if units moved at a reasonable speed. There is also a two-player splitscreen mode, but it'd be just as slow as single player, of course, and if you have many menus open with only a half screen it'll quickly get covered, which could be annoying. The game does look somewhat nice and has some good ideas, but the perhaps too-simplistic gameplay and unbelievably slow pace are too much to look past. Overall Warrior of Rome II is a timepiece, something only for the very dedicated who have a lot of time to kill watching units move around in a game where only occasional interaction is required. As much as I like strategy games, this game is too dated to be worthwhile. This game is a series; there is also a first one for the Genesis, and a third one that's a Japan-only SNES game. I haven't played the others.
>Warsong - 1 player, on-cart save (battery). Warsong, also known as the first Langrisser game, is a turn-based strategy game from NCS Masaya. Though they also made some good action games in the early '90s Masaya was best known for its strategy games, and the Langrisser series became their main focus in the mid to later '90s, before they shut down around 2000. Langrisser is a fantasy medieval TBS. The game clearly took a lot of influence from Fire Emblem in particular, as well as other Japanese TBSes of the era as well, but this is much more than just a clone. In this game, you control a force made up of heroes and their troops. Each of your hero units can build expendable regular troops between battles, and then you can use these troops as units during the mission. Each hero can have up to eight troops and you can control each one individually during missions, and you start with several heroes and will eventually get as many as eight, so you control quite a few units right from the start in this game, unlike many of its peers. The game does have a system to make moving all those units easier, though, as the regular units will automatically move towards their hero and move into a formation around them if you don't tell them to move during your turn. Each hero has several stats including health and experience, so this game has RPG elements. Basic troops have their own health, but share their heros' level and their attacks give their leader experience. Heroes also have a range around them in which their basic units are much stronger. You can see this range when you move the cursor over one of your heroes. If a heros' regular units attack someone or are attacked while outside of that range they will be hurt badly and easily killed, so staying within range of the hero is recommended. Sometimes you may need to move them away, but be aware they will die much more easily. Heroes exclusively can also use several other skills, including healing and item use, and can set several attitudes including defensive or offensive-minded for their troops, while regular troops can only move and attack. Battles, much like Military Madness/Nectaris or Famicom/Advance Wars, show the two sides' soldiers attacking eachother, then the damage done to the other. As units lose troops they become less effective. However, regular units can heal up by ending their turn on one of the four spaces directly next to their heroes', which is great. Heroes can also heal themselves, though it costs a turn, and they can't even move if they choose to heal. Also as in Fire Emblem units are strong against certain type(s), and weak against other types, as in FE's 'weapon triangle'. Each type of hero has their own strengths and weaknesses, and their own types of regular troops. Your starting guys are knights, and can choose between infantry, cavalry, or archers as regular troops, each is strong or weak against different foes. You get points based on how many enemies you killed in the previous mission that you can use for troops in the next, and unused points do carry over between missions, though purchased troops do not. Good system. The game has display options, too, including two different camera zoom levels and a useful minimap you can view. You can also save between missions to a permanent file, or even save a mission in progress during the game, to continue later! Those are great features to have in this kind of game. All in all the two-tiered heroes-and-troops system is interesting and original for a game from the early '90s. The range-of-command system is particularly unique, and is an interesting way to emulate the fact that in a real battlefield commanders only could really be effective on those near them. It's a very good game.
So, this game is mostly great, but it does have few design issues worth mentioning. First, the AI is terrible. AI allies suicidally get themselves killed, and enemies are very predictable and frequently move in very stupid ways. The game tries to balance this by giving the enemies larger numbers, but still, it's weird and watching enemies randomly try to move over mountains and the like gets old after a while, as does that equally awful allied-forces AI. Better AI would have been great. Also, unfortunately battle animations are unskippable, which gets old after a while. Ah well. Also, many maps are too large for their own good, and you will spend more turns than you'd like just moving your troops towards the enemies. Sure, since soldiers will auto-move towards the leaders you only need to move a leader then watch the rest follow, but still this takes time. This may be realistic in that real battles involve a lot of maneuvering, but it's not always fun.In addition, and this is sort of good and sort of bad, heroes in your party die for real if they are killed, as in Fire Emblem games, so reset if someone dies! Also, if either an allied or enemy commander dies their troops go with them, so kill troops first if you want the most experience. This only applies to your troops, not allied forces, but it is important and adds to the challenge. Of course, battle outcomes have a random element, so as in Fire Emblem the random element WILL get you killed sometimes in frustrating ways. Ah well. And last, the game has some balance issues between classes. Once characters reach level 10 they can rank up to new classes, but some classes are better than others, and you won't know this unless you look it up online. All in all, though, it's a good system and it is well implemented here. AI aside this is a well-designed game which clearly had some thought put in to it.
All told Warsong is a moderately difficult game, but it's not too hard. The first mission is interesting in that if you stay and fight it is a very hard mission, but if you flee at the start it's easy. Note that in this mission if, or when, the allied troops die they do not die for good, which is nice considering how impossible it is to keep them alive. After that the next few missions are easy, but the game starts ramping up the challenge after that. Moderate or challenging, though, this game is great fun and keeps you coming back again and again to try to beat each mission with everyone alive. Warsong grabbed me right from the start, as good strategy games should, even though the first mission is a bit overwhelming. Choosing the right support troops and using good strategies will be the difference between success and failure, though grinding up levels and choosing the right upgrade classes admittedly does count for a lot as well. The story matches this challenge, as it tells a sometimes dark and somewhat melodramatic story somewhat like those seen in Fire Emblem games, in a way. You are a prince, but of course your kingdom is attacked and crushed right at the start, and your real journey begins from there, once you escape and raise forces to defeat the villains trying to take over the world and such. The story is somewhat generic, but it's good enough. Missions start with a bit of text to try to explain the backstory. Then you go to the screen where you choose what troops you will use in the battle, buying from a point pool for the mission. In-mission there are occasional story converstation scenes, but other parts of the story are told with single blocks of text on the mission-briefing screen. Unfortunately these text blocks are often vague and fail to fully explain the story, and the in-game conversations are poorly translated and can be confusing, so following the story is harder than it should be, but this doesn't matter much, really. The gameplay is the main star here, and it's pretty good.
The graphics and sound are solid too, though they aren't amazing. Warsong looks okay, but the art design is fairly average and sprites are small both on the field and in battle animations. It's no match for Shining Force visually, for sure, though gameplay-wise it's just as great. The music is good and fits the game well, though. Good work there. Overall, Warsong, or Langrisser, is a pretty good game that is among the better strategy games on the Genesis. This under-rated classic is something any strategy fan should pick up for sure! The heroes-and-troops system is a bit different for the time, and the heroes' support-range system is even more interesting. Both RPG levelling and strategy-game strategizing are required here, but thankfully this is much more of a strategy game than it is an RPG. Warsong/Langrisser is a great game I highly recommend! Definitely pick this one up if you find it affordably. It's really too bad that none of the sequels ever had English-language releases, we missed out. The sequels seem even better than this first one. This games' developers later left Masaya, and went on to make the also mostly fantastic Growlanser series for Atlus. Several of those games did get US releases, and Growlanser Generations (PS2) and Growlanser: Wayfarer of Time (PSP) are both fantastic. The latter title might actually be my favorite PSP game. The original Langrisser is not quite on that level, but it is good for an early '90s strategy game, full of fun and challenging gameplay. Also available on PC Engine CD (TurboGrafx CD) in Japan only. I also have that version; it is similar to this, but with CD audio music and some voice acting in the cutscenes. The graphics are also perhaps a little better ingame as well; it did release after the Genesis original, so they had time to work on things. Of course, it's only in Japanese, and while you can figure out the menus, it's more fun in English for sure. And the Genesis version is good enough to hold its own, even if the music isn't CD quality. This game is available in digital re-releases of Sega’s Genesis games.
WeaponLord - 1-2 player simultaneous, 6 button controller supported (and pretty much required if you want to have any fun), password save. WeaponLord is a decent fighting game from Namco, developed by the American team at Visual Concepts. This Conan the Barbarian-inspired fighter is an interesting but flawed one. The game can be good, but I don't like it quite as much as I was hoping I would before I got the game. I like weapon-based fighting games like Samurai Shodown, The Last Blade, and in 3d Soul Calibur, but this is not quite on that level. WeaponLord isn't bad, though. The game has good art design, characters which each look and play differently, plenty of challenge, and some decent to good gameplay. The game has a small cast of only seven characters, but they are different enough that it doesn't feel like too small of a roster, though it is well below average for a game released in fall 1995, late in the generation. The biggest problem I have with this game, though, is the very choppy animation. WeaponLord doesn't run slowly, but the game uses a lot fewer frames of animation than I'd expect, and the resulting look looks... wrong, somehow. The limited-animation gampeplay feels unpleasantly choppy. The game is probably being held back by the by-then-dated systems it's running on. This really hurts the game and makes it hard to get used to. The characters and backdrops here do have a unique and very busy comic-book-like style set in a violent world of half-dressed barbarians, but I wish that the game ran better; you can get used to the slow pace, but it's not ideal. This game looks great in still shots, and I was hoping to really like it, but it doesn't play as well as it looks. This game is also a downgrade from the original SNES version visually, as fewer colors are used on screen and the interface doesn't look as nice. The game still looks good, though, so I don't mind this much.
The complex moveset and often difficult AI are also potential issues here.The difficult AI is also a problem. While the game is not as brutally difficult as Eternal Champions, on the default difficulty this game will absolutely punish you unless you go look up move-lists online and practice for a while! Sure, on the easiest setting the game is easy to beat, but then it insults you for not playing on normal when you win, so it's a hollow victory. You will need to learn the moves to compete on the higher settings, normal included. The move list is not just standard Street Fighter moves, either. Each character has a good 10 moves, and some do use SF motions, but the game also takes inspiration from other fighting games, and has some moves where you hold a button then press directions, others where you just hold a button, some charge moves, and yet others where you do a motion then press a button. So yeah, there is a variety. There is also a combo system. I am hopelessly bad at doing combos in fighting games, but it is good that they have one, some fighting games of the era don't and it does add something. The game displays the number of hits in a combo on screen after you complete one. For those good at combos, you can do long, very high-damage ones, maybe too damaging for good balance. The game does have fatalities, Mortal Kombat style, but I've never tried to learn them.
There also isn't a training mode, so you can't practice your moveset anywhere other than in real matches, unfortunately. Instead, the only modes here are story mode, arcade mode, and 2-player versus. In Story mode you choose any of the seven characters, then fight the other five each in their stage, then you fight all five of them again in a boneyard stage, then the boss. There is story text at the start and end for that character, and the game, interestingly, has a password save system, and gives you passwords at two points, before the boneyard stage and before the final boss. The SNES and Genesis's fighting game libraries virtually never have saving, so this is a nice feature to see. However, there are a few oddities here. First, you do not fight a clone of your character, unlike in most fighting games, just the others. And second, one of the seven playable characters is that final boss, so you can play as the boss if you want and there isn't some super-strong boss to fight at the end. Apparently this game was rushed, and features like these, or training mode, didn't make it. And really, that's my main issue here. On the one hand, WeaponLord is a good-looking fighting game with some varied mechanics, characters who each feel different, and fun gameplay, particularly at the lower settings. But the choppy, limited-animation visuals, lacking featureset, weird mix of special move styles that can be confusing to remember, and steep difficulty at default settings hold the game back. WeaponLord is, overall, average. It could have been better, but it is an okay game that genre fans might want to check out. Also available on SNES. I only have this version, but the SNES version is apparently slightly better, as it is the original version.
Whip Rush - 1 player. Whip Rush is an average-at-best horizontal shmup from Renovation. This game has mediocre graphics with a bit of a visual identicy crisis and bland but acceptable gameplay. You've got to save the Earth from an evil alien invasion, and have only a stubby little fighter to do that with. The game has below-average graphics for a Genesis shooter technically, and in art design as well. In visual design this game seems halfway between a more 'serious' Japanese sci-fi anime look like Gradius or R-Type, and cute 'em up games. Your ship is short and kind of cute-looking, and enemies are a bit cartoonish-looking as well, but this game isn't a full-on cute 'em up. The look is a bit weird really, and I don't care for it. And technically this game is very average. The backgrounds look okay, but too many levels have no or limited parallax, and the art design is not great. The early level with a cloud background looks better than most, but this isn't a game you'll be playing for its visuals, for sure. The music is similarly forgettable. As for the gameplay, you fly to the right and shoot things. This game is average in difficulty, so it's not easy, but isn't a nightmarish challenge like Renovation's Gaiares, either. The difficulty balance is reasonable, but the game lacks excitement far too often.
For weapons you have a basic gun and four different powerups which drop from a specific enemy type. The powerups are a straight laser, two option helpers which stay above and below you and fire up and down only, missiles which can fire forward and back once upgraded, and an aimable shot which shoots in the opposite direction from the way you are moving. I've never liked that last type of weapon at all, and most of the others have limitations -- the first isn't great because many enemies in this game come from behind, the second because you need that upgrade to shoot backwards and the weapon is a bit weak, and the last because the helpers can't shoot forwards or back. Also, if you have no weapon upgrade and get hit you lose a life and respawn where you died so long as it's not Game Over, but if you do have a powerup you'll lose the powerup first, so weapon upgrades serve as a hit point. Unfortunately it won't level-down an upgraded weapon on the first hit, it's just two hits and you die. Still, the additional hit is nice. If you do get Game Over you restart the current level, it must be said. and you have limited continues in this game, but it's nice that other deaths don't set you back.
In terms of design, Whip Rush is a conventional early '90s shmup with bland graphics and enemy patterns and seriously lacking excitement. The levels do turn sometimes, so levels are not all just straight-line paths but instead sometimes you move up or down as well, but the actual stage layouts are boring. Other games do shmup stage layouts much better. Still, there are some interesting challenges, and the game does do more than just toss waves of similar enemies at you; there are also some environmental hazards, and some enemies can be hard to kill without the right powerups so you may need to avoid enemies sometimes instead of shooting them. There is also a boss at the end of each level, and it is satisfying when you beat them. This is a decent game which can be fun to play. Still, with generic stage layouts, graphics which can't decide whether they should be cartoony or serious, no original game design elements anywhere, subpar visuals and music, underwhelming weapons, and gameplay which just is not as good as better shmups, Whip Rush disappointed me. You can definitely do a lot worse than this, but you can do much better too. Still, genre fans and people who want a slightly easier-than-average shmup might want to check it out if you find it cheap; this game isn't awful or something, just visually dated and extremely derivative and bland.
Sega Genesis Game Opininion Summaries - Work In Progress - A Black Falcon - 6th April 2016
Final update! This includes summaries for the last ten games, plus one for a game I just got last week, making for eleven total. It's nice to get this done, though playing all these Genesis games again has been great fun. I'm not sure what I'll do next, but I'm leaning towards something about PC platformers...
Games covered in this update
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Space Invaders '91
Winter Challenge
Wiz 'n' Liz
Wolfchild
Wonder Boy in Monster World
[Monster World IV]
World of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse & Donald Duck
X-Men
Zero Tolerance
Zombies Ate My Neighbors
Zoom!
Space Invaders '91 - 1 player. This good but simple shooter and early-ish Genesis release is one of Taito's many follow-ups to the original Space Invaders. It may say "'91" in the title, but the original Japanese version released in 1990. Oddly, unlike most other classic franchises which keep coming back, Taito has decided to make pretty much all Space Invaders games static-screen shooters. Why not even one scrolling one? That does make this game stand out a bit from most Genesis shmups, though, so that's okay; it's just a bit odd. It has little depth or variety, but this is a fun little game. This game has basic graphics, simple gameplay, and absolutely no options of any kind, but it is plenty of fun. You just move left and right, and shoot up while dodging enemy fire. The enemies can move a bit more to the left and right than you can, frustratingly, so dodging can be difficult sometimes; this is my only issue with the games' design. The controls are very responsive, though, thankfully. There are a full 18 stages, each made up of two waves, so you've got to get through 36 waves of enemies to win, which is a good number. Most stages have a flat plane you move left and right on, but a few have angled pits and such. I wish there were more of those, as your fire shoots diagonally when you're on a slope; nice touch. Each enemy type shoots a different kind of shot at you, and they slowly move downwards. If one reaches the bottom you lose, time to use a continue, if you have any left -- you only get 5 hits per continue and 3 continues. If you hit the faster enemies which move by at the top of the screen a powerup may drop. You'll want these, as they will give you powers such as a shield, homing missiles, a shot which clears an entire row, and more. Very useful stuff. The game has graphics as basic as its gameplay. This game looks dated visually and doesn't get much out of the hardware. You've just got sprites moving over a backdrop, that's about it. The sprite work is okay, though, and I like the music. It's good and fits the game well, even if music tracks repeat often and technically are as underwhelming as the visuals. Better presentation would have helped this game, but the simple fun gameplay shines through regardless, and I do like the variety of backdrops and enemy types.
This game is actually Taito's second Taito's second 4th-gen home console Space Invaders game. The first one is Space Invaders Plus for the PC Engine (TurboGrafx). That game released only in Japan, but I do have it. It's simple, but fun, and has an interesting branching mission structure on top of the traditional shooting gameplay. It also has power-ups. This game is somewhat similar to that game, but they are different. First, this time the game is linear; no branching paths. So, each game of this is longer, but they may have similar amounts of content. This game gives you more hits per game but fewer continues, and given the longer length is probably a bit harder. Gameplay in both is very similar, though. You also still have powerups, though the specific types are different. Both games do have an ending, but this game is a few minutes longer on average; not a huge difference there, but it's something. However, the PCE game also includes a full version of the original Space Invaders arcade game, while this does not, unfortunately. I wish it had been included here too, because it's a great classic. Ah well. As it is, Space Invaders '91 is a good game, and I'm glad I got it. Moving left and right, avoiding enemy fire, and wiping out all the attacking aliens is fun. However, the graphics and sound are very bland, the game has absolutely no options or alternate modes, and everything is the same every time you play. It's a good game, but with better graphics and more content it could have been better. Genre fans should pick this up; for anyone else, maybe get it if you find it cheap. Pick it up if you like shooters and see it for a reasonable price.
Winter Challenge - 1-10 player alternating, on-cart saving (battery). Winter Challenge is Accolade's winter equivalent to Summer Challenge, which I covered above. This game released after that one, and has very similar presentation, but with winter olympics sports instead of summer, of course. Again there are eight events here, and the game has polygonal 3d environments in many events, mixed with sprite characters and some 2d events. The interface looks pretty much the same as Hardball III or Summer Challenge, but with some new graphics in the Summer Challenge opening ceremony, to fit the winter theme. The graphics are good as before, but the framerate is still atrocous. The featureset is the same as before, with 10 player alternating multiplayer and battery save which saves quite a few player names, and your best times for each event. Good stuff. The controls are also similar to before, in that it uses one main button plus the d-pad for all commands. Sure, there's nothing new here in presentation, graphical quality, sound, or features, but the game is built on a good base, so that's fine. Summer Challenge is a very good game for its time, framerate aside, and this is close to as good. That game may be a little better, as this game has less variety and I don't have the nostalgia for this game that I do that one as I did not own this game in the '90s, but still, it is also a good game.
The most important thing here, though, are the events, which are all new. You've got downhill skiing, giant slalom, cross country skiing, biathalon, ski jumping, speed skating (long track only, as short track did not exist yet), bobsled, and luge. Versus Summer Challenge, this game has less event variety; two events have downhill skiing, two are on the sled course, two have cross-country skiing, and two others are stand-alone events. All eight events are good, though. Again, the game uses 3d graphics. The biathalon target-shooting component is 2d, but the rest of this game is 3d. This makes it very different from most other winter sports games of the generation; on 4th-gen consoles, only the Europe-only Winter Gold for the SNES is also polygonal. That game does use a Super FX 2 chip for a better framerate than you'll see in this game, but don't discount Winter Challenge just because it runs slowly, it does play well. The different groups of events each are quite different. The cross-country events are the longest and slowest-paced. You ski along by mashing the button hard but not too hard, as you have a stamina meter and if it goes too low you will slow down. So, moderate your button-tapping sometimes. The course is fully 3d, which is pretty cool for the time, and you will have to actually turn, you aren't on a rail. That's great, it really adds something to this game versus others... just make sure to make those turns; the single-digit framerates occasionally make that tricky. Yes, it's a slow and "boring" event made slower by the very low framerate, and there is almost no audio during races, but I love loves cross-country skiing in real life, so I, at least, find it fun in this game. The other events are faster-paced. The two downhill events are similar to the cross-country ones, except you go in only one direction and need to go through the gates while you go down the hill. That's easy enough in Downhill, but the Giant Slalom is quite difficult; it might be the hardest event here. Learning the course can be fun, though, and it looks nice for the time as usual. This game is probably the first ever home-console polygonal skiing game, and it's a decent first step, though titles on more powerful consoles are of course faster and not as hard. The sledding events are probably the simplest ones here; just turn in the right direction at each turn, and make it down as fast as you can. Unlike the other similar events these two are on the exact same course, so practice for one will help with the other. Speed skating is also simple, just button-mash the whole time and turn at the corners. Ski jumping is trickier, though; look up the commands for that one, it takes practice to not do badly at! Once learned it's not too hard, but figuring out how to land can be tough.
In conclusion, Winter Challenge is a good game. The game has good graphics which really push the limits of non-enhanced 4th-generation hardware, eight events, can be fun to play, and will save your best times, championship in progress, and player names, too. However, while the music is decent, there is no music at all during events, which can get dull. Also, some events can get boring, and the events are much more similar than those in Summer Challenge. I can easily see why most people would dismiss this game as a dated, boring relic, but I would say that it's a decent, above-average game despite its definite issues. Maybe give Summer and/or Winter Challenge a try, they're interesting. Winter Challenge is also available on PC. The PC version has better graphics and framerates, but this is playable.
Wiz 'n' Liz - 1-2 player simultaneous, password save. Wiz 'n' Liz is a somewhat odd collectathon platformer from Psygnosis. It's got a very 'Psygnosis' feel to the menus and style, but the gameplay is original. This game is mostly non-violent, as the only combat in the game is the boss fights; normal stages are exclusively about running around trying to collect all the rabbits, or wabbits as the game calls them, and the powerups that they drop, before time runs out, not about fighting anything. You can play the stages in each game in any order, but it does get harder as you go. In between stages, you go to your house, and can combine pairs of items from the stages you just played in an early crafting system, for various bonuses. You play as Wiz and Liz, two old wizards. You've got mountains of wabbits to collect, but fortunately, despite their age they sure can move! You zip around at a very fast pace in this game, and jump just as quickly. The game has small sprites and only decent graphics. The game has cartoony graphics with a very early '90s European style and some okay music. The game looks okay, but not great. The fast-paced gameplay and constant movement keep things fun, though. This game has three difficulty levels and three sets of stages to play, named similarly to those from Lemmings. The game defaults to the highest difficulty, so I guess that is the expected one, and the others are easy modes. Unlike Lemmings, though, each game of Wiz n Liz is fairly short. It does have some replay value in that you can play the other two sets of stages, but each of the three feel VERY similar, with the same gameplay, the same backrounds, and the same boss at the end. I think the stage layouts change, but the stages in this game are all very similar anyway, so variety is seriously lacking, though the game is fun enough that it's fun to replay regardless.
The core gameplay of Wiz n Liz is of you running left or right in each stage. Each stage is a couple of screens tall and a couple of screens long, so they are small. Wabbits will spawn regularly throughout the stage, and you've got to collect them all as fast as possible. Making things tougher, though, each time you touch one it spawns a powerup which then floats upwards from the wabbit. You'll have to jump to get the powerup, but collecting all of them will take a lot of time, which will definitely be a problem if you're playing on the default (top) difficulty setting! You need to get the first powerups in each stage to spell that stages' magic word, but after that powerups are theoretically optional, though you'll want things such as timer increases for sure, and bonus stars are nice too. The timer isn't just for the current stage, you see; instead it's for the whole game. If you used a lot of time getting every powerup in the early stages, you'll run out of time later on for sure. It's a good system which balances challenge and fun in a quite well-designed way. This game may seem conceptually simplistic, but there's a satisfying amount of challenge here once you get into it. You only have three lives until it's Game Over, but there is a password displayed on the screen after every stage, so you can use those to continue if you wish. It's odd that there are passwords but no way to continue without entering the last password, but that's better than the alternative! For negatives, the main one is that the crafting system is annoying. I almost always dislike crafting in games, and this one is no exception. Each combination of two fruits results in a different thing happening. Some give you nothing, some give you bonus time, some open bonus rooms around the house area you can go in, and more. Things like the bonus and hint rooms are very useful to have, so looking up a list of combinations online, or making one yourself, is advised. And as for that boss, they are not too exciting. Do know that you need to hold down a button to hit them with a magic beam, so something beyond run-and-jump is needed, but not much more. The core gameplay is the best thing here, but the bosses and crafting are mediocre. The visuals are also average. However, Wiz 'n' Liz is a fun, fast-paced game well worth playing. It has one or two player cooperative play support, fast-paced gameplay, and nice, unique design as you decide how many of the items you can afford to jump for and frantically run around looking for wabbits. This is a good game, and I really like that Psygnosis figured out how to make a mostly nonviolent platformer good. Pick up Wiz 'n' Liz if you see it affordably. Also available on the Amiga.
Wolfchild - 1 player. Wolfchild is a solid sidescrolling action-platformer from Core Design. This game looks very much like an Amiga port and has decent but average Euro-platformer graphics and not-great music, but it plays fairly well. You are a man who is a werewolf, and in the game can transform back and forth between human and wolf forms. There is no story in this version of the game; play the Sega CD version if you want an intro. The CD version also added two new levels and makes some other improvements. What's here can be fun, but I do wish I had the disc release. This is a conventional game in that you walk, run, jump, and slash stuff and explore levels as you make your way through to the end. There are bosses after every couple of levels, and most stages have unique settings. I like some of the settings and art, though it is mostly formulaic -- the forest, the airship, the Alien stage, and such. The game is a bit like a Turrican game, but nowhere near Turrican 2/Universal Soldier's level. Maybe my biggest issue is that only one of your forms, wolf form, is fun to play as. Wolf form has a ranged shot, but human does not, and if you get hit a few times you'll drop back to human form... ugh. While you can take a fair amount of hits per life, in human form you can only attack at melee range, which is frustrating and leads to taking many hits unless you are VERY careful. And apparently the Sega CD version lets you fire two shots at once in wolf form, while on the Genesis you can only shoot one while enemies take just as many hits to kill. That would be nice here, though the weak human form is the biggest issue. Sure, the game controls well, but you get knocked back a bit when you take a hit, and facing numerous enemies shooting at you with a guy who can't hit them a lot of the time due to the very short range of your human forms' attacks gets annoying.
Versus the Turrican games, Wolfchild's levels are not as large or open, and there is usually only one main linear path instead of multiple routes through the stage. I'm fine with that, and the stage layouts here are at least average and can be fun to explore. You just need to figure out what the route to the end is; sometimes it is obvious, other times a bit less so. The level designs here can be interesting, and figuring out how to get through the stages is fun. There also aren't any instant-death pits, which is great, but the many enemies and traps will drain health steadily, and health powerups are somewhat infrequent. You have only three continues as well, and there is no saving, but you can choose how many lives you get per continue, up to six, and increase the difficulty if you want, but not decrease it as Easy is default. Overall, Wolfchild is a decent platformer. The game has some interesting stage layouts and challenges, but the average graphics, maybe below-average music, and frustrating human form hold the game back. If you could stay in wolf form the whole time this game would be easier but more fun, but you can't. Ah well. It is an average game, at least, and I can see how some may like it more than that. Get the Sega CD version if you can, though, it's better. Also available on the Sega CD, SNES, Amiga, and Atari ST. There is also a European-exclusive Game Gear and Master System version, but I imagine it's different.
Wonder Boy in Monster World - 1 player, on-cart save (eeprom). Wonder Boy in Monster World is the third game in Westone's Monster Land/World series of side-scrolling action-RPGs. This version was published by Sega. The series started as a spinoff of the basic side-scroller Wonder Boy, aka Adventure Island on the NES, but quickly superseded its originator, as Westone would not make any more games like the first Wonder Boy; instead they moved on to games like these, and the one-off autoscrolling platform/shooter Monster Lair. I love the Monster World and Lair games, but don't like the original Wonder Boy much at all; it's just too simplistic in ways that games like this vastly add to. Monster World is a great series, and this is one of the best of the four Monster World games, too! Wonder Boy in Monster World has good graphics, great art cartoony design, fun action, good music, plenty of challenge, and a good-sized world to explore. You are Wonder Boy, a hero, and need to save the land from evil in this fantasy side-scrolling action-adventure game. Your main weapon is a sword, but you also have limited-use magic and a shield for protection against ranged attacks only, as in some Zelda games. You can get helpers who will follow you around as well, but all they'll do is reveal extra money and such. There are several, each with a different function. None are really important, but I guess they're occasionally helpful. The game does not have experience or levels, but you will find or buy new weapons and armor as you progress, and find heart containers to add to your health bar as well. The game takes place in a large semi-open world, and you travel from area to area killing monsters and helping people out. Monsters all respawn quickly, which can be annoying but is also useful, as you will need the money they drop to buy things. Grinding money from monsters is necessary here at many points, unfortunately, but the combat is fun so it's not too bad. You can only save at inns in towns; though there are special items which will refill your health when it runs out, try to save those for the bosses, you'll need the help! Remember to save when you can, for if you die you're sent back to the games' title screen and go back to your last save. Harsh death penalty there. There is also only one save slot, so don't start a new game if you're playing a current one!
This game is made up of an overworld with towns and dungeons scattered around. Overworld areas mostly scroll only left and right, though some areas, mostly in towns, also have a height element. Different sections of the world each have unique features and enemies, so there is more variety than in some past games in the series. The series came a long way between the constant extreme repetition of the original Wonder Boy and this! The game does reuse area concepts a bit too often in some areas and you can at times feel like you've been on slight variations of the same screen for the past three areas. This is worse in the overworld than in dungeons, though, and most dungeon areas feel unique and interesting, which is great. So dungeons are are interesting, but they are also tougher than the overworld. Bosses in particular are quite hard in the US release; some bosses were made much harder than they are in the original Japanese version in order to make the game harder to finish, to foil renters I presume. That's a bit annoying at times, but this is a great game despite how much harder the boss fights are than the dungeons they are in. Still, everything in this game is fun, even if I wish Sega hadn't made the game harder. Still, the dungeons can be really good. Dungeons are not just complex, bland mazes, but instead have arranged traps, waves of enemies, and occasional branching paths to explore. I like the variety of obstacles, puzzles, and enemies you face in this game, it really keeps things interesting even if the basic mechanics do not change beyond getting a new spell every once in a while. Towns are small but important, since inns and stores are only found there. Each town also has a handful of people to talk to, though not as many as in a full JRPG. Similarly, the story is simple, but there is just enough of it to keep the game going.
The game looks good, too. Wonder Boy in Monster World has a cute, cartoony fantasy-anime theme, though the cuteness of the world hides the high challenge within. I like variety of settings, enemies, and bosses; each area has its own character and enemy types, and they all look good to great. As in all of the Wonder Boy games the art design here is good, and it looks better than ever here probably thanks to this being the first Monster World game designed first for a 4th-gen console, instead of the other way around as with the TurboGrafx versions of the first two games. The game does use parallax scrolling, but more of it would have been nice; there is none in most dungeons, for example. Still, the game looks good to great. Overall, Wonder Boy in Monster World is a great game. This US release is much harder than the Japanese version, or the easier TurboGrafx CD version (where it is titled "The Dynastic Hero"), but it's still great fun. This game looks beautiful with its very well drawn, varied sprites, has a nice world to explore with plenty of hidden secrets and platforming and combat challenges to face, and a good-length quest to challenge. This game might be the most popular Monster World game, and while all four games are great, I can see why this one did so well -- it's outstanding. Definitely pick this game up if you like the genre at all. Look into the other Monster World games too though, for various platforms; they're all very good! This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega’s Genesis games. The game is also available on TurboGrafx CD as The Dynastic Hero. The game is the same (lower difficulty aside), but the sprites have been altered, as usual for the Hudson versions of the first three Monster World games.
[Monster World IV] - 1 player, on-cart save (battery). Monster World IV is a great sidescrolling action-RPG form Westone, and the final game in the Wonder Boy / Monster World series. The game has great graphics, music, controls, dungeons, puzzles, action, and gameplay; it really is very good in all categories. Sadly, however, someone at Sega made an incredibly bad decision back in 1994 and decided not to localize this game, so on the actual Genesis, Monster World IV is Japan-exclusive. And while I would like to get it, I don't have that version. However, while I probably will someday import the real cart, there is something better; an English-language version, released digitally on WiiWare, PS3 PSN, and X360 Xbox Live Arcade! This is one of the only previously Japan-exclusive classic games to get translated for an official release, and it was quite exciting when it was announced. I got the game for WiiWare shortly afterwards. I'm not going to cover every game I have in the X360 Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection but not on a Genesis cartridge, but this game I have to mention, both because I got it as a stand-alone release, because of the translation, and because it is part of a series covered in this list.
Anyway, Monster World IV is fantastic, similar to the previous Monster World games but probably better overall. This time you play as a female character, so the "Wonder Boy" name is absent. I like that they tried something different this time. This isn't the only Wonder Boy game where you can play as a female, as Monster Lair lets you play as one character of either gender, but it is the only one of the six with only a female character. The game has an anime-fantasy-Arabian theme, so the game takes place in a desert kingdom and everyone wears middle eastern-ish dress. The change of setting from the usual anime-medieval fantasy themes of previous games is nice, if probably inspired by Aladdin. The game this time is much more linear than the previous ones. You can still wander around, but the game has a clear structure: there is a main town, and you venture from there to a linear series of areas. Each area is large, though, and the dungeons within those areas can be large and tricky. Fortunately you will get maps for dungeons, which is a huge help. The gameplay is similar to before, but you have a better shield now, as holding down will bring up a shield that blocks enemies as well as arrows. This allows for more strategic combat, which is great. Enemies can have shields too, so you'll need to think about how to approach foes. Combat is fun, and so is exploring the levels and dungeons. I like the level-based approach, it means I'm never wandering around an overworld unsure about what to do but instead can focus on the next challenge. And yes, those challenges can be plenty tough. This game is not as hard as the US version of Wonder Boy in Monster World, but it wasn't made harder unlike that game, so it's more like the challenge these games should be. The dungeons have more puzzles than before too, including things such as statues you have to put into order based on verbal clues. It's great fun stuff.
Anyway, Monster World IV is fantastic, similar to the previous Monster World games but probably better overall. This time you play as a female character, so the "Wonder Boy" name is absent. I like that they tried something different this time. This isn't the only Wonder Boy game where you can play as a female, as Monster Lair lets you play as one character of either gender, but it is the only one of the six with only a female character. The game has an anime-fantasy-Arabian theme, so the game takes place in a desert kingdom and everyone wears middle eastern-ish dress. The change of setting from the usual anime-medieval fantasy themes of previous games is nice, if probably inspired by Aladdin. The game this time is much more linear than the previous ones. You can still wander around, but the game has a clear structure: there is a main town, and you venture from there to a linear series of areas. Each area is large, though, and the dungeons within those areas can be large and tricky. Fortunately you will get maps for dungeons, which is a huge help. The gameplay is similar to before, but you have a better shield now, as holding down will bring up a shield that blocks enemies as well as arrows. This allows for more strategic combat, which is great. Enemies can have shields too, so you'll need to think about how to approach foes. The other addition is your helper-creature Pelepegoo, who you can grab on to. When you grab it (him?) you can't walk, but can jump and will float while jumping. Hitting that button again will double-jump, very useful. You can also throw Pelepegoo, and this can reveal secrets and more. The previous game had helpers ,but this game expands on the concept in nice ways. Combat is fun, and so is exploring the levels and dungeons. I like the level-based approach, it means I'm never wandering around an overworld unsure about what to do but instead can focus on the next challenge. And yes, those challenges can be plenty tough. This game is not as hard as the US version of Wonder Boy in Monster World, but it wasn't made harder unlike that game, so it's more like the challenge these games should be. The dungeons have more puzzles than before too, including things such as statues you have to put into order based on verbal clues. It's great fun stuff.
World of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse & Donald Duck - 1-2 player simultaneous, password save. World of Illusion, from Sega, is the sequel to Castle of Illusion, the classic early Genesis platformer starring Mickey Mouse. This game builds on that title with a second playable character, two player co-op, passwords, and much better graphics. The game may be a bit easier this time than before, but as much of that is because of the more forgiving setup, I think; the first game has limited continues and no saving, remember. This is a pretty good game with very nice graphics and sound, great controls, lots of variety, and good stage designs. World of Illusion is a very good game with a lot going for it, and you see that right from the start. You can play as Mickey, Donald, or both of them in two player mode. They use magical capes to attack, but you can only attack on the ground, and not while jumping. The cape has a nice animation, though. The two are mostly similar, but have some differences that mean that each one will be able to go in some areas the other can't, which is nice and adds replay value, which is good in a game with only five levels and not too long a run time. The game starts out in a fantasy forest level. You bounce on things, magic away baddies with the cape, and such. Every stage has multiple parts each with different settings, and the variety is great. You'll cross spider webs, balance on a trail a spider emits as it moves, swim under the sea in a bubble, and of course do your usual platform-jumping in forests and the like. Again each character will see some different areas, and there are even some exclusive to the two player co-op mode.
I do have a few issues with the game, though. The gameplay is good, but mostly straightforward. There are some minor puzzle elements, but they are, as usual in the series, quite basic. They do add something to the game, but not much. Just make sure you know your characters' moves, such as MIckey's crouch (C plus down), you'll need them. Bosses are also a bit disappointing. The multiple route elements are also mostly minor, though it's great there is something to encourage you to come back to this game. And beyond that, as good as this game, somehow it never grabbed me enough to make me want to write down the passwords and finish the game, despite its moderate length and not-too-hard difficulty. The game is fun, but I haven't been drawn in quite enough to stick with it; not sure why. But still, I do like this game despite that, and I'll play through the rest of it hopefully soon. Despite it issues though, World of Illusion is a good sequel to Castle of Illusion. It is improved over the original in a lot of ways, and I like the better graphics, co-op support, and password save, but despite that I'm not sure which of the two games I like more. I've played more of Castle, but World is great too. Both are better than any of Capcom's three SNES Mickey games, or the Genesis version of the second one, The Great Circus Mystery. Pick World of Illusion up, it's a very good platformer that plays as well as it looks, and it looks very good. There is a Japan-only Saturn port of this game.
X-Men - 1-2 player simultaneous. X-Men is a fun but challenging platformer with beat 'em up elements from Sega. I've never been a big superhero fan, but got this game last year because it's fairly well-known and I wanted to finally give it a try. You can play as four X-Men in this game, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Cyclops, and Gambit. Unfortunately no female characters are playable in this game; there are some, but only in support roles. The game is mostly good, though. You choose your starting character first, then set off. You mostly run, jump, and punch or jump-kick enemies. And there are a lot of enemies to fight, giving the game a somewhat beat 'em up-esque feel at times, though the levels are complex platformer stages. The four characters are similar, but each has some unique properties, including some exclusive attacks and a character-specific special ability: Wolverine can bring out his claws for a stronger attack, Nightcrawler can warp around the screen and go through some walls, Cyclops can shoot eyebeams, and Gambit can throw stuff. You can switch between characters during play, but can only do so a limited number of times per level, so watch out. Each character has a separate health bar, but these do not recover between stages, unfortunately; instead you'll have to find the somewhat uncommon health powerups to heal. There is also some health in the Danger Room area you are in between levels, but this won't be enough to heal even one character up to full, much less several if you took a lot of damage, and the game has no continues at all, so a lot of memorization will be required to make progress here. The four support characters can be called out as well a limited number of times, though powerups will replenish them. The most useful is the one who pulls you up out of pits, so falling in one is not instant death; it just takes off a bit of health, instead. It's a solid system, just a bit overly unforgiving for me; I, of course, dislike that so much memorization is required in a game with such a harsh penalty for dying.
The level designs in this game are decent, though not fantastic. Levels are good-sized and exploration is required. I'm fine with wandering around some, but occasionally I didn't know what to do and it did get frustrating. Still, levels are mostly linear, you just need to figure out what to do to proceed. There are switches you will need to hit, platforms to jump between, and numerous enemies to beat up along the way. I like the stage variety here, as many stages have different environments and obstacles. There are also bosses, which can be tricky. While stages are occasionally confusing, thankfully this game is not nearly as mazelike or frustrating as the Game Gear X-Men game is; I was afraid this game would be like that not very good game, but it isn't, it's much better. In terms of presentation this game is on the good side of average. X-Men has nice graphics with some fine, though not amazing, art design and good variety in stage settings and enemies. The music is good as well, if you like that classic very chunky Genesis sound. Overall X-Men is a good but difficult platformer with sidescrolling beat 'em up-style action and large levels to find your way through. You will walk around, punch things, find the switches and doors, and make your way through the stages. The challenge is to do that while taking the least amount of damage possible, because damage is not easy to refill once lost. I like how you can switch between characters during missions, but more health-ups would be great, and no restrictions on how often you can swap. The level designs are occasionally confusing as well, though it's mostly okay. The action feels good, though; this is a quality game on the whole. The controls are responsive, action fun, levels interesting to explore, and graphics and sound decent if not the best. I am not a superhero fan, but X-Men is a good game worth a look regardless of what you think of the license. There is also a sequel which looks similar but maybe a bit better, but I don't have that one.
Zero Tolerance - 1 player, 2 player system link supported. Zero Tolerance is a first-person shooter on the Genesis from Accolade and developed by Technopop. Yes, a FPS, on this system, without any addon chips. As you might expect, this means that this game has a very low framerate. While something like Summer or Winter Challenge is simple enough to be playable despite a very low framerate, this game is much more complex than that, and the very slow gameplay is hard to get over. There are more issues than that with this game, though it has some good points as well. The game is an admirable attempt at a Wolfenstein 3D-inspired FPS, and it's one of a very few on the Genesis. While the game made a bad first impression with its terrible framerate, small play window, slow controls with a VERY slow turn speed that makes turning around to hit an enemy behind you an agonizingly slow process, and boring, too-open level designs, after playing it again for this summary I liked it more than before. Once you get used to it Zero Tolerance can be fun, at least some of the time. In the game you play as a team of five special operatives trying to save the world. They play more like lives than anything, though, as you can't switch between them as you play, only when one gets killed. Note that dead characters are gone and can't be resurrected, but you are given a password each time you clear a floor, thankfully. That's good, but the game has only a couple of environments, so expect a huge amount of visual repetition. There's the space station, a skyscraper, and that might be about it. On screen you have an area map with radar, the viewscreen, info about your characters' stats, your health, your weapons, and the number of enemies remaining on the current floor. A plus a direction jumps, ducks, or strafes, but none of these are often important in this game; you want enemies dead long before you need to strafe, and the strafing is, like turning, slow anyway. B fires, and C switches weapons. The controls work, apart from that terribly slow turn speed. Visualy, the game looks pretty nice for a 4th-gen FPS that doesn't use any kind of enhancement chip, but the game doesn't have forgiving aim assist like SNES Doom does, so hitting enemies can be frustrating as they move around quickly while you slowly try to keep up. The key is to kill enemies bfore they get close to you; look at htat radar closely if you want to live, close enemies are hard to kill! Don't just rely on the game screen, that radar map is crucial. Many enemies only spawn when you get close enough to them, though, so watch out both ahead and behind. After a few levels I did start enjoying this game some despite its issues.
The level designs themselves are another problem with this game, though. Levels in this game are large, flat, and blandly laid out. The level designs in this game are just so unintresting, and the game makes it worse by requiring that you kill all enemies in a level in order to get a password. Maps are just made up of walls, doors, and enemies, and are very large and open. There are no keycards, no locked doors, and no secrets, all of which would have been very welcome. There are angle walls, so it has that over Wolfenstein, though. I also really like that there is a radar onscreen showing your surroundings and enemies near you. There is also a full-screen map showing a full map of the current stage; this screen also shows your passwords for completed floors. Even so, though, the simplistic, lacking level designs manage to make Wolf 3D look good, despite that games' own extreme level-design repetition in a game full of identical bland corridors. Versus Wolf 3D, only the map saves this game; without it I'd have stopped long before I did. But worse, this game released after not only Wolf 3D, but also Doom! The Genesis could never pull off Doom, but I'm sure it can do better than this. The developers tried, but their inexperience shows. Requiring you to kill all enemies to proceed in a game where many enemies only appear if you get close to their spawn point is also a pain; have fun re-walking around the whole level looking for those last two guys so you can get the next password! Oh, and while you could just run through a floor (stage) and try the next one as there is no gate on the elevators between them just like there isn't on any doors, you can only get the password for the uncleared floor directly after the last cleared floor, so if you skip to two levels down and clear that floor you won't know it or get a password until you clear the floor above. There must have been a much better way of gating progress than something as frustrating as that can be. Overall, though, Zero Tolerance is okay. This game is clearly the team's first attempt at a FPS, and it's amateurish in some frustrating ways including the controls and level designs, and the slow speed is hard to get used to, but still, there is a decently fun core shooter here. Zero Tolerance is an average game overall. Maybe try it if you like the genre and know what you're getting into. Oh, there is also a 2-player versus mode, but it requires a link cable, two systems, and two copies of the game. Needless to say I have not tried it, but it is cool that the game has such a feature. There was also supposed to be a sequel, Beyond Zero Tolerance, but it was cancelled.
Zombies Ate My Neighbors - 1-2 player simultaneous, password save, 6 button controller supported. Zombies Ate my Neighbors is a fairly well-known top-down comic-horror action-adventure game from Lucasarts. In this challenging game, two very '90s-'tude protagonists, one a guy and one a girl, are tasked with trying to keep your ten neighbors alive against an onslaught of zombies across dozens of stages. In each stage, you explore around looking for enemies to fight and weapons to collect to fight them with. You can use a variety of amusing weapons such as the iconic acid-shooting Super Soaker-knockoff water gun, once you collect them, but they all have limited ammo so looking for stuff is important. You have a health bar on screen and can move, shoot and switch weapons, use and switch items, and bring the radar up on screen, but there is no strafing or shooting in a direction other than the one you are moving in, unfortunately. The controls are fine with a 6-button controller, but the game uses more than three button as it was first made for the SNES, so a 6-button controller is highly recommended. Those would have been nice to have. There are different kinds of zombies, and you'll need different strategies for each. Saving key weapons for certain baddies can be useful. You'll also collect items such as traps, keys, crucial health-refill items, and more.
Your main goal in each stage is to rescue all of the neighbors. This is also crucial, for you'll only have the same number of people to rescue in the next stage that you saved in the last one, and when all die it's game over. Oh, and while the game has password save, you only get a password every four levels, and worse, passwords do not save your inventory, they only let you start from that stage, so if you want to do well at this game the best way is to play it in one sitting and don't mess up at all... tough! While it is possible to get neighbors back occasionally, this is a slow process. And of course, keeping them alive won't be easy, as they are scattered all over the map, and levels are complex and full of obstacles, including water pools, walls, and locked doors. Zombies will keep spawning in, so you need to use effective strategy on each stage to keep yourselves, and the neighbors, alive. The clever and unique stages are the main highlight of this game, and they, above anything else, are what makes this game so interesting and worth seeing. Still, it is memorization-heavy. That radar is very helpful, but still, you will need to learn exactly what to do in each stage and then execute well in at least each set of four levels and maybe the whole game in order to succeed. It's a punishing game and I haven't stuck with it enough to get anywhere near the end; the game gets hard after a while. The design is good, though. It's tough, but good.
Visually, Zombies Ate My Neighbors looks pretty good. The cartoony art design looks great, with amusing characters and neighbors and cartoon-scary zombies and other foes. The color depth is reduced versus the SNES, but still, this version looks good too. The main issues with this game are the difficulty and degree of memorization required, downgraded graphics from the SNES, you really need a 6-button controller, and as good as it is it's no match for Lucasarts' PC classics of the early '90s, but the strengths are much more significant. The game has good art design and music, but it's the gameplay that is best. Exploring each level, finding the neighbors and figuring out how to get to them, and collecting the many great weapons and items is great fun. This game is particularly good with two players, for sure. Both do need to stay on the same screen so you need to work together, but good cooperation makes the game easier and more fun. In the end this is a good to great game that I would highly recommend if it wasn't so expensive now. If you can afford it definitely pick the game up for either the SNES or Genesis, but otherwise, get the SNES version for Wii Virtual Console. Lucasarts' best games of the '90s are all PC games and there they made some of the best games ever made. This game is not that, but it is a very good game, deservedly one of Lucararts' most prominent console efforts of the decade. I certainly recommend it. Also available on SNES. The SNES version is also available on Wii Virtual Console, but this version is Genesis-only.
Zoom! - 1-2 player alternating or simultaneous (simultaneous in Competition mode only). Zoom! is a classic arcade-style action game inspired by the early '80s title Amidar. Just like that game, and sort of like another classic arcade game, Crush Roller, you go around a single-screen maze and need to walk along every path, like Pac-Man but with filling in lines instead of collecting stuff. Also, in these games you do need to go over EVERY line in order to win, instead of just collecting specific dots like in a Pac-Man game. As in Amidar but not Crush Roller, each time you surround a box on the screen it colors it in differently, by making it flash in this case. Once all boxes on the screen are flashing, you move on to the next stage. So, even though sometimes certain enemies can erase your lines, if you already surrounded that box that doesn't matter; they can't take away filled boxes. This game differs from its predecessors in its additional movement options, lower difficulty, and isometric perspective. Zoom! is a fun little game and eventually gets tough, but it the difficulty scales up slowly, and the game isn't as punishing as Amidar. The game is a LOT faster than that sluggish classic, though, which is nice. The title is accurate, you really zoom around the screen quickly. I like the fast movement, but sometimes it will kill you as you zip past the point you meant to turn before you can hit the button. You also can shoot backwards with a button, but your shots only knock enemies backwards, not kill them. This makes things tricky when the screen gets crowded with enemies in the later stages. The angled perspective also can make it hard to see exactly where you are sometimes, though usually it's not an issue. And yes, you can only shoot back, not forwards. Still, it's a useful function sometimes, particularly when an unmoving enemy is in a key point you still need to go over. On the good side though, there are also powerups to collect which give you points, invincibility, and more. The game is much more good than bad.
In the game you play as a cute cartoon creature, perhaps a bit Pac-Man inspired but animal-like. The game is comprised of six levels, each broken up into six single-screen stages. You have infinite continues from the beginning of the current level, but not from the current stage so there is some challenge here, as you do die in one hit. Level maps do eventually repeat but with more enemies so there are not new layouts for every stage, and I wish that the game had saving as infinite continues but no saving is one of the most annoying kinds of continue systems, and the graphics and sound are not great, but still, Zoom is a fun little classic arcade game and I like it. The visuals and music are good enough to do, and the basic mechanics are solid. The isometric grid looks nice enough in that classic sense, the sprites are decently well drawn, and the music is alright. The game also has two multiplayer modes, either alternating in the main game, or competing against another player in a special mode. You can choose between either two controllers or switching back and forth on one controller for the alternating mode, which is nice. In summary Zoom is a fun classic-style arcade game, and I like it. Sure, this game has a few issues, but it's a fun little game well worth picking up for cheap.