Sega Master System system + games I have review thread (inc. SegaScope 3-D Glasses)

[A Black Falcon]

I understand the Game Gear is literally the same system, and games COULD be played on both just by plugging them in, if only the cartridges weren't changed up.

The basic hardware is very similar and they use the same CPU, etc., but the two are not identical. There are two differences:

First, the Game Gear runs at a lower resolution, while the SMS runs at a higher resolution. This makes sense, because the small screen of a portable doesn't need to be as high resolution as a television does. This means that platformers on both systems are usually going to be a bit better on the SMS because you can see farther ahead.

Second, the Game Gear can display more colors on screen and has a much larger color palette. The SMS has a very limited color palette, much like the NES, but the GG has a much larger one. This is why GG games cannot run on a Master System, but SMS games can run on a GG (Master Gear/Gear Master converters, as I mentioned, do just that) -- the resolution issue can be gotten around (the GG can display TV resolutions after all, through some hardware design trick or something considering that the screen is lower res than a TV, think of the TV Tuner), but the color limit cannot.

Having a way of playing GG games on a television is something that a lot of GG fans badly wish existed, but aside from a few special homebrew creations, and perhaps some dev kits or something, it doesn't exist. What there are are a few homebrew edits of some GG games to reduce their color counts down to SMS levels, so the games could be played on an SMS with a flashcart or in emulation or something... that is possible. Quite a bit of work, though, and there are just a couple of them.