Im very excited. I actually won a bid on 6 games first, then went looking for a console. Snagged a 1601 “graphics text” model.
I’ve always wanted a genesis, its one of the few systems I’ve never owned. What are some of your favorite games?
Also, mine is coming with a phaser gun, which ill probably sell. Or should I keep it?
Can’t wait to hook this bad boy up to my Sharp CRT ;)
this Phaser? https://segaretro.org/Light_Phaser
This reminds me of the time a guy had a police standoff with one of those in Brazil.
Correct!
Oh man. I’d completely forgotten about this. I used to have one! Might explain my collection of Mauser Hsc’s.
Oddball games I picked up over the years.
Jurassic Park - follows the novel which has some fun set pieces. Difficult
Toy Story - TT game, and a fun “doom” level
Zero Tolerance- FPS for genesis
Scooby Doo Mystery- unless the snes game it’s actually a point and click adventure. Very fun
Jurassic Park is fuckin’ awesome!!!
The soundtrack for Zero Tolerance is great too.
Can I piggyback on this post? What are some good RPGs for the megadrive/genesis? I like to live translate games as I stream them and I’m looking for some text-heavy games, but it seems like the Super Famicom/SNES had a near-monopoly on RPGs.
In no particular order:
- Shining Force 2 - though its combat is more on the tactical side, like Fire Emblem.
- Langrisser - tactical combat
- Shadowrun - possibly the best Shadowrun videogame before the 2013 releases
- Sword of Vermillion - damn old and made by Sega themselves.
- Beyond Oasis (Thor) - Zelda-like, graphics are super pretty
- Crusader of Centy (Soleil)
- Landstalker - isometric view and some platforming around
Thanks so much! I’ll go check out my local used second-hand shop for these.
Phantasy Star IV is probably the best RPG of its generation IMHO
My life revolved around PSO and PSO BB back in high school and university. I’ve been meaning to play the original series, so thanks for reminding me! I’m eyeing a copy of Phantasy Star on the Mark III on Mercari right now…
Ranger-X - fantastic mecha side scrolling shooter where you can dock your mech with motorcycle or spaceship. Love that game.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 - Chemical Plant Zone is easily one of, if not, the best sonic level ever
X-Men - the music alone is fantastic
Phantasy Star II - one of the greatest RPGs ever.
Battletech - like jungle strike but with Mechwarrior
Dr. Robotniks Mean Bean Machine - awesome and addictive puzzle game
Jurassic Park - the graphics at the time were fairly game changing, especially the T-Rex
Skitchin - like Road Rash but on rollerblades
Mortal Kombat - IMHO, other than the Sega CD version, best home port of the game just remember to enter in the blood code
Super Monaco GP II - one of the best racing games of the 16bit era
Back in the day, Sonic 2, Sonic 3, and Sonic & Knuckles. I find the series can be a hard sell to people who didn’t grow up in that era though. Sonic 1 is a classic too, but doesn’t hold up as well as the others, imo.
Streets of Rage is another solid trilogy. I think it peaked at SoR2, but the other games are fun too.
If you’re just looking to play games and not buy them, Crusader of Centy is a lot of fun. A bit of a unique Zelda-like game where instead of new items, you get new animal followers!
The Shining Force duology is great, too. It was probably one of the first SRPGs to be released in North America!
And obligatory name drop for Star Control. The sequel is so much more fleshed out, but this one is a tactical strategy game where you have space ship fights when you encounter the enemy. There are two sides, each with ~7 unique and distinct ships!
Other than those…check out Sega Lord X on YouTube! He always talks about Shinobi, the arcade ports, and other awesome Sega games!
Sonic 1 is so rage inducing lol. More like a slow puzzle than a gotta go fast game.
I didn’t know star control 1 was on the Genesis. Huge fan of the series! 3 never happened.
Have you heard that the *original developers are making an ACTUAL sequel?
Yes, after all these years. They legally had to rename Star Control, so now it’s “Free Stars”. And the sequel to Star Control 2 is “Children of Infinity”!
Check it out! I’m so excited for it.
Rocket Knight Adventures - A mascot action/platformer featuring an opossum knight with a jetpack. The artwork and soundtrack are gorgeous, and the rocket charge attacks feel awesome. The bosses are all extremely creative and often have multiple stages, including, an evil train, a water snake that you fight while jumping between the foreground and background, a giant crab, a gradius style spaceship battle, and an epic rock-em-sock-em robot battle in giant mechs.
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Lost Vikings is a puzzle platfromer with three characters made by pre-Blizzard guys. It’s just awesome all around.
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Comix Zone is a stylish, visually stunning adventure of an artist trapped in his own comic by the evil guy. I’m still impressed how cool it looks.
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Zero Tolerance is probably not that fun, but it’s Genesis’ sole popular FPS game pushing console’s limits. It’d be interesting to look at it in restrospection.
Yeah, Zero Tolerance is amazing from a technical standpoint, and a solid gaming experience as it goes, but I personally felt it dragged on for too long without enough variation. Then again I felt about the same regarding the original Doom and Doom 2, so it’s probably more my tastes than the game itself.
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Shining Force II was the first RPG I ever played, back in the days when you could rent the entire console. I absolutely fell in love with that game.
In addition to many listed elsewhere…
Beyond Oasis. Castlevania: Bloodlines. Rocket Knight Adventures. Shadowrun. Phantasy Star series. Castle of Illusion and World of Illusion. Might and Magic II.
And the Genesis version of Earthworm Jim remains the definitive version for me.
Castlevania Bloodlines is one of the best 16 bit Castlevania games. Shadowrun is also a great RPG for the system and infinitely better than the SNES version (the latter feels more like a point and click adventure)
People often say to play Phantasy Star 2 and 4, while completely avoiding 3. PS2 feels super dated but the story holds up, PS4 has loads of QoL improvements and a new story.
Comix Zone is cool but is also ball-bustingly difficult. Vectorman is another console exclusive that I thought was a pretty good entry on the system beyond the usual Sonic and sports games everyone is going to mention.
Gunstar Heroes is also another banger but due to its popularity it commands asinine prices on the used market so maybe just emulate that one.
On that note, I certainly won’t fault anybody who wants to get some flavor of piracy cartridge, e.g. the Everdrive or some derivative thereof, to feed their retro console given the current insane collector’s prices for many titles these days.
The best alternative to Gunstar Heroes is Contra: Hard Corps, though I guess that cart is also expensive as fuck, at least from a cursory ebay search - plenty of “enhanced edition” being sold at a much cheaper price, but those are reproduction carts with the romhack
Make sure you try to get both Toejam & Earl games, although diehards will swear the 1st one is better than the 2nd one. I also recommend the Batman & Robin side scrolling beat em up, not only was it fun but it had a banger soundtrack.
I’m not certain if you got the version compatible with the Sega CD but if you can locate one there were several ports of Genesis games to it. Eternal Champions was better on it because it had actual CGI and better animations, the Batman game was baller and, of course, there was Sonic CD as well.
diehards will swear the 1st one is better than the 2nd one.
The consensus on this actually shifted over the years. In the 90s, 1 was better than 2. Then in the 2000s, 2 was better than 1. And now it’s reverted back to 1 being better than 2.
It’s always been 1 better than 2 though.
The Genesis is such a great console. I love how it really tried to bring the arcade home. Street Fighter 2, Ghouls 'n Ghosts, Strider, Air Buster, Out Run and come to mind.
So many great games. Some of my favourites (mostly action RPGs, exclusives marked *):
- Landstalker*
- The Story of Thor*
- Wonderboy in Monster World (* virtually an exclusive)
- Soleil*
- Flashback
- The Immortal
- Quackshot*
- Light Crusader*
- Arcus Odyssey
- Sonic the Hedgehog 2* (the other main games are good too, but this is my favourite)
- Desert Strike and Jungle Strike (I don’t remember playing Urban Strike, but it got excellent reviews)
- The Lost Vikings
- Sword of Vermillion*
Oh wow someone else that likes Light Crusader!
Random pick but I always liked Cosmic Spacehead as a kid. It’s kind of a mix of a point and click adventure and platformer, quite unique and charming.
I really like haunting starring polterguy
I wasn’t a huge fan of the system but Ecco the Dolphin, Golden Axe, and Eternal Champions were dope.
