Sega Genesis must haves

Anything from run & guns to modern RPGs, what else do you play?
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D
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Post by D »

Nice ones to look for:

1 Quack Shot - It even got rereleased for the saturn and you can clearly see why

2 Castlevania - Not a super great game, but still...it's a castlevania game!!!!!

3 Shadow Dancer (plus the two Shinobi's)
I like the Master System version of Shinobi ALOT (better)
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Post by Ganelon »

I'd say Bloodlines is the best Castlevania game (along with Chi no Rondo). Not very CV-like since it's the only game where you're not at/around Castle Dracula but it's faster paced than any other CV game. Ironic how Hard Corps and Bloodlines both feel more Treasure-like than the games the Treasure programmers helped design.
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Post by King Slime »

BrianC wrote:
I played Midnight Resistance and read some reviews of it. I don't remember the physics or the gameplay being that bad. The game certainly isn't as good as Contra or Gunstar, but please explain why you think the physics are so bad. From what I remember, Midnight Resistance is merely average, not terribly bad.
It was ridiculously slow, when ducking you aim your gun down. (I'd rather shoot the enemy in front of me rather than the floor.) Besides the jet boss, none of the bosses had good fighting patterns, most of the weapons were useless, it was often unfair when you died, the stages were practically vacant of any kind of creative structure and were severely flawed. Example: one stage is just a semi-long bridge with three tanks that run you over, and they obviously expect you to destroy those tanks, however, you can never kill them quickly enough and you end up getting a huge tire mark on your ass.
I saw some potential to the game, but in the end, it failed.
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Post by llaoyllakcuf »

Don't know if its a "must have", but I think Atomic Robo-Kid is great.

love that quirky character design..
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Post by Shatterhand »

Isn't Midnight Resistance an arcade original?

I only played the Mega-Drive version briefly, so I barely remember it.

Though the Amiga version is loved by many amiga users...

So... maybe the MD version was just a bad port? Or is the arcade original bad too, and Amiga users crazy? (I mean, so many of them also love Xenon 2... :D :D)
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Post by SheSaidDutch »

Most of the other's have been mentioned already,so this Is all I can think of, Hope this will help-

Rolling Thunder 2-3
Rambo 3 *Ikari Warriors but better*
Phantom 2040 Action Platformer
James Pond 2-3 Platformers
Generations Lost* alot like FlashBack,Black Throne
Chase HQ2-Racing *port of Chase HQ*
Double Dragon *a really good port, one of the best across the systems IMO*
just dont go for DD2.
Comix Zone-Action Platformer
BattleMania 2*Jap only sequel to Trouble Shooter* even better than the original
Sub-Terrania
Shadow Run-Action RPG
WolfChild-Action Platformer
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Post by BrianC »

SheSaidDutch wrote: BattleMania 2*Jap only sequel to Trouble Shooter* even better than the original
From what I tried, it's a great game, but don't expect to find it cheap. It usually goes for over 100 dollars.
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Post by King Slime »

Shatterhand wrote:Isn't Midnight Resistance an arcade original?

I only played the Mega-Drive version briefly, so I barely remember it.

Though the Amiga version is loved by many amiga users...

So... maybe the MD version was just a bad port? Or is the arcade original bad too, and Amiga users crazy? (I mean, so many of them also love Xenon 2... :D :D)
Yeah. It was an arcade game, but I have no clue if the arcade version is t3h sux.
Well, it could be just a bad port, but even so, I'm not too crazy about getting the Amiga version. Never played Xenon2 but from what you imply, I think it supposedly sucks. wee
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Post by Vexorg »

Midnight Resistance was reasonably good for a Data East game in the arcade (although relatively mediocre in comparison to other similar games) which I believe used a rotary stick similar to Ikari Warriors for aiming of weapons. They had one in the cafeteria at one of the high schools I went to, although I only played it a couple of times.
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Post by SheSaidDutch »

I've played both the genesis and arcade, and IMO they are both poor,

If you dont like the genesis port, I dont think you will like the arcade version.


Add Sensible Soccer to that megadrive list, I hate sports but I love this game :P
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Post by Turrican »

Shatterhand wrote:Another World was the first game, it was released in Europe on Amiga, then ported to other systems.

Many people complained that the game was too easy (And indeed it is), so when they brought the game to the US, they added one more level, and made some areas a bit thouger. The US version is called Out of This World.
Wait a minute. are you positive about this? Can anyone confirm? What kind of stage is it, where does it fit with the rest of the game?

Is it exclusive with the Genesis version of Out of this World?

Because I own Another World (PAL/EU) MD and Out of This World NTSC/US for Snes.

but I don't remember an added stage in the Snes version. Then again, I thought the MD version was generally better, so I played that one the most and maybe I just forgot it.
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Re: Sega Genesis must haves

Post by azmun »

Super Mega C wrote:I'm looking for fun but cheap games that I can find fairly easy.
I'm surprised no one here has mentioned it yet but I'd have to go for Mega Bomberman since I'm a real sucker for multi-player games. Get this with the multi-tap. I believe this can be had both cheaply and easily.
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Post by ST Dragon »

Best Genesis/32X/CD games worth owning imo:


GENESIS
=========


Aero Blasters
After Burner II
Arrow Flash
Alien Soldier
Alisia Dragoon
Altered Beast
Battletoads
Batman - Adventures of Batman & Robin
Battletoads & Double Dragon - The Ultimate Team
Blades of Vengence
Castlevania - Bloodlines
Comix Zone
Contra 4 - Hard Corps
Cutthroat Island
Doom Troopers
Death & Return of Superman
Earthworm Jim 1
Earthworm Jim 2
Ecco 1
Ecco 2
ESWAT Cyber Police - City Under Siege
Eliminate Down
El Viento
Fire Shark
G-Loc Air Battle
Galaxy Force II
Gaiares
Generations Lost
Golden Axe
Golden Axe 2
Golden Axe 3
Ghouls & Ghosts
Gley Lancer
Gunstar Heroes
Gynoug - wings of Wor
Heavy Unit
Hokuto no Ken 2
Insector X
Jewel Master
Jim Power - The Arcade Game
Kolibri 32X
Lost Vikings
Kujaku-Oh 2 - Peacock King |
Mystic Defender |---> Same
Mega SWIV
Mega Turrican
Mickey Mouse - Fantasia
Mickey Mouse - Castle of Illusion
Mortal Kombat 1
Mortal Kombat 2
Mortal Kombat 3
M.U.S.H.A
Ninja Gaiden
Phantasy Star III
Phantasy Star IV
Pirates of Dark Waters
Puggsy
Raiden Trad
Red Zone
Revenge of Shinobi
Risky Woods
Ristar the Shooting Star
Rocket Knight Adventures
Rocket Knight Adventures 2
Shinobi 3 - Return of the Ninja Master
Soleil
Sonic 1
Sonic 2
Sonic 3
Sonic and Knuckles
Space Harrier II
Splatter House 2
Splatter House 3
Streets of Rage
Streets of Rage 2
Streets of Rage 3
Story of Thor
Strider
Super Street Fighter 2 - The New Challengers
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - The Hyperstone Heist
Thunder Blade
Thunder Force Series
Tiny Toons - Buster's Hidden Treasure
Toki - Going Ape Spit
Truxton
Turrican
Twin Cobra
Two Crude Dudes
Universal Soldier
Valis Series
Vectorman
Vectorman 2
Wonder Boy IV
Wolf Child
Zero Wing


32X
====

After Burner 32X
Blackthorne 32X
Doom 32X
Shadow Squadron - Stellar Assault 32X
Space Harrier 32X
Virtua Fighter 32X


SEGA MEGA CD
--------------

Annet Futatabi
Android Assault - The Revenge of Bari-Arm
Earnest Evans
Eternal Champions
Final Fight CD
Flashback CD
Jaguar XJ220
Keio Flying Squadron
Lunar Series
Lords of Thunder
Nova Storm
Popful Mail
Robo Aleste
Shining Force CD
Silpheed
Sonic CD (U)(920)
Sol Feace
Soul Star
Star Blade
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Post by Samudra »

The Adventures of Batman & Robin
Red Zone

Seeing as they are both mentioned only once (^) I think they deserve some more attention.

The first is a run and gun game with beautiful graphics, effects, bosses, ideas and music. The gameplay just doesn't reach the same height as the levels are too long and repetitive at times. Also near level 3 it feels thrown together, but maybe level 4 is better again.

All the people who love games like Alien Soldier and Mega Turrican to see the things talented programmers can do with the Genesis should definitely see Red Zone (made by Zyrinx (Subterrania)).

Quote from one of the first screens you see when powering on Red Zone:

"This game features:

Rotating Background Graphics
Rotating Background Texture
3D Vector Sprite Objects
3D Vector Polygon Graphics
Realtime Zoom
Full Motion Video Compression

All running without the use of additional hardware"

These lines are no joke. The beta version is in the public domain (I'm pretty sure it is on Zophar), but it is called Hard Wired and has a few differences.
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Post by captain ahar »

^ i wanna try it. it looks interesting.
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Post by ST Dragon »

Yeah, I remember Hard Wired (Beta) & the Final Red Zone being one of the 1st Genesis games I played via emulation back in 1997!
Awesome intro sequence & ingame graphics.

Adventures of Batman & Robin has incredible parallaxing & animation for Genesis standards! Pushes the old Geny to it's limits in this department.
Looks more like a SNES game.

Some more Genesis game that deserve more attention:

Alisia Dragoon
Atomic Runner
El Viento
ESWAT Cyber Police - City Under Siege
Hokuto no Ken 2
Jewel Master
Kujaku-Oh 2 - Peacock King
Mystic Defender
Valis - The Fantasm Soldier
Valis 3


These are surely not the best in the graphics department, but they have much better gameplay & music than other overrated platform games like Gunstar Heroes & Alien Soldier, being two examples...
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Re: Sega Genesis must haves

Post by Strider77 »

Wise from yo gwave.....
Damn Tim, you know there are quite a few Americans out there who still lives in tents due to this shitty economy, and you're dropping loads on a single game which only last 20 min. Do you think it's fair? How much did you spend this time?
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Re: Sega Genesis must haves

Post by ChurchOfSolipsism »

Not sure if it's been mentioned yet, but Xeno Crisis is an absolute banger and totally worth the asking price.
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Re: Sega Genesis must haves

Post by it290 »

Xeno Crisis is easily one of the top 10 Genesis games, which stands as a kind of crazy testament to how much better games have gotten on decades of game design experience alone, even taking technology completely out of the picture. Makes the other games that it stands peer to peer with, stuff like Streets of Rage 2, seem absolutely miraculous.
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Re: Sega Genesis must haves

Post by MintyTheCat »

azmun wrote:
Super Mega C wrote:I'm looking for fun but cheap games that I can find fairly easy.
I'm surprised no one here has mentioned it yet but I'd have to go for Mega Bomberman since I'm a real sucker for multi-player games. Get this with the multi-tap. I believe this can be had both cheaply and easily.
I can only agree Mega Bomberman (port of PCE : Bomberman '94 was it) is very decent and good fun. Comes into its own when you use the multi-tap and have a few people round to play.

Xeno-Crisis (my name's in the ROM too as one of the backers) is fantastic, old-school, hard play.

I really, really, like the MD's port of Gauntlet that I don't think anyone put forward.

But many of you have put forward some really decent titles.

Chakan is hard but worth playing too.

Personally, I find that I come back to Gain Ground all the time.
We still play Bare-Knuckle 2 fairly often too.

Chaos Engine port is not bad too.
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Re: Sega Genesis must haves

Post by Despatche »

Useful thread, not sure why it was only now that this has been bumped.

Crying (Bio-Hazard Battle) was mentioned a grand total of once. This is an injustice. It is one of the best games of that entire generation.

King Colossus is sibling to the above, and is an extremely good action game even disregarding the RPG stuff.

Slap Fight MD is an incredibly good sequel to an often overlooked arcade game, which also happens to include a nice conversion of said arcade game.

Hellfire and Same! Same! Same! (Fire Shark) are extremely good arcade conversions that are probably better than the original games, a rarity.

Despite everything, Mega Turrican is the true Turrican 3. The Amiga version is a cheap imitation at best. Hülsbeck really needed to do more with FM.

Virtua Racing Deluxe (32X) is arguably the best of the Virtua Racing games. I really like FlatOut though.

I could say everything about Zaxxon's Motherbase 2000 (32X) that I do about Crying.

Fuck Musha, Dennin Aleste (CD) is much better. Everything around Musha is better than it, at least a little bit. Mahou Daisakusen is such an infinitely better product than Musha, it's insane.

Dungeon Explorer (CD) is not really a Dungeon Explorer game, yet is called one anyway. It's a very good game though. Maybe not quite as good as King Colossus but definitely up there.

This is not an inclusive list. I need more experience with Mega Drive games and with video games in general.
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Re: Sega Genesis must haves

Post by Air Master Burst »

Not sure if it's been mentioned yet, but the Sega CD version of Eye of the Beholder is generally considered the best version, edging out the Amiga version on the strength of a really dope soundtrack. It supports the Sega Mouse, too, which helps a lot.
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Re: Sega Genesis must haves

Post by Axelay »

Great thread.

You need to get Dynamite Headdy its a great game and affordable.

Gynoug (wings of wor) is also affordable and massively underrated. It sports a great OST great explosion sounds (the game is full of them) and great stage and enemy designs. The Power up system is rad also (I love the shield and wildfire)

I would say Sparkster on the Megadrive is a good sequel to have. It is so much better then the snes version imo. The Snes one is like a pseudo remake of the first one. The Music stage sucks and feels really out of place. And the Bosses are kinda lame. The explosions sounds are punchy, But sword swings feel light. I feel the ost is tinny compared to the Genny games.

So yeah get the Megadrive version if you can.

Also Splatter house 2 is cool it has a ton of atmosphere. Do not play it at night though......

And if you want to spend a little bit of money I would say Contra Hard corps is well worth it for:

Branching paths
Multiple endings
Multiple last bosses
Multiple characters and weapons
And a OST of legend.
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Post by Sengoku Strider »

Axelay wrote:affordable.
This is the key word here. Retro prices have gone through the roof across the board in the past two years, and the Genesis/Mega Drive has borne a large brunt of it. Like that Castlevania Bloodlines recommendation at the top of this page from 2005? That game's pretty common, yet is averaging $200+. God help poor souls like me collecting Japanese, because the JP Mega Drive version (which easily has the coolest box art + name combo) Vampire Killer has nearly doubled in the past 18 months and is going for ~$800 now.

There's an upper tier of highly rated Japan-only shmups that are out of reach for anyone not willing to pay through the nose:

Battle Mania Daiginjō - $1700+
Panorama Cotton - $1230
Eliminate Down - $1150
Twinkle Tale $580
Slap Fight MD - $400

Those are the prices on Pricecharting, but honestly those buyers might have been fortunate; Japanese retailers have them listed even higher than that.

Western releases like M.U.S.H.A. ($975 - cool game, but blame Classic Game Room for the price), Crusader of Centy ($1530+) or titles that only saw a PAL English language release like Alien Soldier ($900) & Mega Man ($350) are borderline unobtainium as well. You can save a bit if you're willing to jump around regions, like going with Japanese MUSHA Aleste ($285). But as a general rule, these days this is only a platform for the truly dedicated or those with a decent amount of disposable income to throw at their hobby.

The JP Super Famicom is more manageable, especially if you're willing to go for stuff loose. But the PC Engine (though not the TurboGrafx-16) is on the whole the most accessible console for your 16-bit dollar, euro or yen. Killer titles like Lords (Winds) & Gate of Thunder, Gradius I or II, Salmander, Spriggan 1 & 2, Gunhed, R-Type, Super Star Soldier & Final Soldier (though not Soldier Blade) & Side Arms can all be had for around $100 or even much less. Even things like the original Cotton aren't much higher, at $140. I highly recommend getting on this before the internet speculators figure this out and nuke it like they did the JP Mega Drive market.

But, if the Mega Drive is where your heart truly lies, here's a top 10 which can all still be had for $150 or under, based on what I've played physically:

Gunstar Heroes
Fire Shark/Same! Same! Same!
Thunder Force II, III, IV
Revenge of Shinobi, Shadow Dancer (don't pass this over!), Shinobi III
Dynamite Headdy
Sonic the Hedgehog 1/2/3/and Knuckles
Gaiares (Is #1!)
Ghouls n' Ghosts/Daimakaimura
Phantasy Star II & III (IV will run you well over $200, unless you're able to go Japanese)
Contra Hard Corps (NA versions only, the easier original JP rev is ~$500)
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drauch
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Re: Sega Genesis must haves

Post by drauch »

I thought prices had gone through the roof like 8 years ago or so and just continually kept going up. Sounds like they're reaching the stratosphere now.
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Re: Sega Genesis must haves

Post by neorichieb1971 »

I only have 1 Megadrive title on my wanted list. Wani Wani world. I'll probably pick it up this week. If I am not mistaken its my 100th Megadrive/Genesis title.

I wouldn't mind a few more titles, but they have all hit the $500+ range. BTW this thread no way implies you're supposed to buy the original cartridges. Most people are playing these titles on FPGA consoles.
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Re: Sega Genesis must haves

Post by MintyTheCat »

I still use original hardware for the most part to play MD games, but I never reach for the original cartridge, get it out of the box as most of my games now are in storage. Instead, I rely on Flash Carts which saves space and time. There are a few games that I 'should have bought years ago' but I didn't. I am not particularly interested in completing a collection and so I seem to be happy with what I have.

I must say that one title that I keep coming back to on the MD is Gain Ground.

Recently, I got my hands on an Astro City Mini V and played VV and Same! Same! Same! - the ports on the MD do feel remarkably decent when compared to the original Arcade titles, I felt.
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Re: Sega Genesis must haves

Post by BrianC »

One advantage of flash carts is being able to play translations and hacks. Definitely a plus for playing stuff like Langrisser II, Dynamite Headdy, Panorama Cotton, and Twinkle Tale. Some really elaborate hacks too. There's one that turns Sonic 1 into a Tetris game and a ton of alternate character hacks for SoR2 that do much more than alter the character sprites.

doh. Meant Panorama Cotton, not Boomerang.
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Re: Sega Genesis must haves

Post by XtraSmiley »

Guys these have been some great recommendations. I wish there was more time in the day to play!

I'll throw out Herzog Zwei in the mix. I think it's pretty fun 1-player, but probably past it's prime after you beat it, but 2-player this game still shines and if you and a buddy are competitive, it can be a blast. (I know it was on the first page, but that was in 2005, time to give this gem a bump! It's also now on the Switch, although I don't have that version)
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