The Sega Mega Drive/Genesis Thread (NEW)!!!

[BIL]

I actually remember having to take a pair of snub-nosed pliers to the NES version of Gauntlet when it was time to return it to the rental place.

I like how there was no apparent regulation of Famicom cart colours or opacity. Even a set of loose FC carts can look pretty snazzy with a range of different shells.

[CIT]

I noticed MD/Genesis has a few custom cart shells (Taito and Sunsoft), but they don't vary as much as the JP Famicom shells, where Konami, Sunsoft, Namco, Irem, and Taito had their own designs. I like the standard cart shells for both JP and US MD/Genesis.

There are some pretty strange looking custom shells for MD/GEN too. The EA games all had the big shell with the ridiculous yellow tab on them. Turrican has a big shell, and Psycho Pinball has a really weird rounded one. And then there's Virtua Racing and the Micro Machines one with the integrated controller ports.

[BrianC]

I noticed MD/Genesis has a few custom cart shells (Taito and Sunsoft), but they don't vary as much as the JP Famicom shells, where Konami, Sunsoft, Namco, Irem, and Taito had their own designs. I like the standard cart shells for both JP and US MD/Genesis.

There are some pretty strange looking custom shells for MD/GEN too. The EA games all had the big shell with the ridiculous yellow tab on them. Turrican has a big shell, and Psycho Pinball has a really weird rounded one. And then there's Virtua Racing and the Micro Machines one with the integrated controller ports.

Doh. I think I meant the JP cart shells there, since I only mentioned Taito and Sunsoft. I actually have a few of those you mentioned (EA games, Psycho Pinball, VR, and Turrican). I don't have the J-Cart with the ports. Come to think of it, I still need to pick up Micro Machines Turbo Tournament '96. The odd thing is that some of those Codemasters games seem to be at least partially optimized for 60 Hz since the music isn't sped up. I know Super Skidmarks is one of those games that rolls on US TV's, though. I don't have any problem PAL games, but I did try some PAL games with the Harmony cart on the 2600 and got screen roll (good thing the good ones have NTSC conversions).

Some of my Genesis games (not my boxed ones and not all of my cart only, but EA ones are shown):


Edit: Oh yeah, Sonic and Knuckles!

[BIL]

I was always so tempted to try yanking the yellow tab out of the few EA carts I owned, heh.

I remember the weird Ballistix unlicensed carts too, I had a copy of Test Drive 2 that came in a cardboard box... god, I owned a lot of shitty games back then. Zero Tolerance was another, I guess Accolade kept using the Ballistix cart mould after they'd dropped the name.

The only odd cart I remember seeing recently was Batman MD, which I sold on. I can't remember if Super Fantasy Zone uses the same shell. Certainly has the same tiny Sunsoft case.

[BrianC]

I have my favorites in a separate box, but the EA games like Road Rash 2 are left out because they are too tall. Anyway, the custom JP carts seem to be a variation of the rounded or ridged sides theme, aside from Virtua Racing and Sonic and Knuckles. I find it funny how Sonic and Knuckles is a region free cart when Sonic 3 was region locked. It even lets you play different region versions of Sonic 3 for Sonic 3 and Knuckles. It also has the slot on the side like JP carts.

I have seen pictures of Batman and Super Fantasy Zone JP and they both use the same style cart. I saw a boxed Super Fantasy Zone at a game convention. Those Sunsoft boxes are awesome. I have Super Fantasy Zone, but it's in a standard Genesis style cart since it's the EU version.

[stryc9]

The only odd cart I remember seeing recently was Batman MD, which I sold on. I can't remember if Super Fantasy Zone uses the same shell. Certainly has the same tiny Sunsoft case.

It will come as no surprise that Panorama Cotton uses those shells as well. I think they look, and feel really cool.

[Ed Oscuro]

I've got a copy of this, but didn't remember the funky nonstandard case - however I remembered to look this game up specifically, out of the whole Genesis library, strangely.

[BIL]

Musha Aleste get! And hyper obscure factoid get too. Like HG101, I'd assumed "Metallic Uniframe Super Hybrid Armor" was an acronym cooked up for the US version. But it's actually right there in the JP manual under the player mech's portrait. Along with lots of other badass, super-detailed, super metallic-illustrations of enemies from tiny popcorns to boss machine behemoths.

Although I consider Super Aleste Compile's better shooter, owing mainly to its fierce suicide bullet modes, Musha, like Battle Mania 2, has such blazing 16-bit style my MD couldn't be without it.

[yojo!]

Musha Aleste get!

You have chosen wisely. The parallax scrolling backgrounds are very impressive in this game. Toaplan forever!

[Ed Oscuro]

And Compile too, right? (MUSHA isn't by Toaplan.)

[Specineff]

It was distributed by them in Japan, IIRC.

[stryc9]

That is correct. Toaplan logo on the title screen in all its glory

And that is an interesting factoid, BIL, never noticed that before.

[BrianC]

Musha Aleste get! And hyper obscure factoid get too. Like HG101, I'd assumed "Metallic Uniframe Super Hybrid Armor" was an acronym cooked up for the US version. But it's actually right there in the JP manual under the player mech's portrait. Along with lots of other badass, super-detailed, super metallic-illustrations of enemies from tiny popcorns to boss machine behemoths.

That reminds me of the dialog in Goemon's Great Adventure for N64. I assumed that the plot was Americanized because it has silly references to actors like James Dean, but the game actually kept the JP voices intact (though a song was cut out) with the one thing I could understand being names like James Dean. The plot wasn't changed, it was just outrageously silly to begin with.

[BIL]

I thought I was warming up to the MD version of Kyuukyoku Tiger and nabbed a cart, but having gone back to the arcade-perfect Toaplan Shooting Battle on PS1, it's apparent how much Treco messed up Uemura and company's original design (at least partially out of necessity, of course). The MD's far quicker ship speed and lack of space means a reliance on simplistic, memorise-or-die enemy placements over the AC's elaborate crossfire traps, and it also renders the AC's splendidly unhelpful powerup behaviour trivial. The vaunted sniper AI is a myth, suffice to say... like the AC and a myriad of other Toaplan and Toa-derived STGs, any hesitation when strafing near enemies will likely get you a bullet in the face as you attempt to head "where you wanted to go." It's just that with the MD's brutal crop and zoom job, you're near enemies virtually all the time whether you like it or not, and ripe for a point-blank blast if you're at all indecisive.

Also picked up a JP copy of Aladdin on a whim, since I have a fondness for Western-licensed games in Japanese format. And... well, this could be filed under "Dream game hacks," "Action sidescroller miscs" or "Little things that annoy the hell out of you." Having never seen it in person previously, this is one beautiful game. I know, slowpoke.jpg, but holy fuck - it looks CPS3-esque, and the reproduction of the movie's look on MD is marvelous. The audio is also on good form, I feared a Faustian tradeoff awaited in that department. But the luxuriant animation does exacerbate an annoying tendency for attacks to cancel if you go from running to standing, standing to crouching, facing left to right, or the inverse of those (I can deal with the air attacks also dying if you land, Ryukenden's odd foible, but the startup frames also make that more annoying here). You can infinitely cancel the melee and projectile attacks into each other then kill both with a crouch, and the "sliding stop" animation will send Aladdin into a speed-boosting, animation-breaking slide if you resume running before it's over. Speedrunners exploit it, but it's easy to do it unintentionally if making small adjustments near a ledge.

Also, the camera keeps Aladdin dead-center when grounded, but jumping forward will progressively put him uncomfortably nearer the screen edge. You can re-center the camera after landing by tapping in either direction, something that quickly became second nature, but you shouldn't have to.

So yeah. Game could use tightening up. Still enjoying it a lot, though. Treated as a "cinematic platformer" it's excellent, and as with stuff like Alisia Dragoon and Castle of Illusion it's quality enough that it's both possible and desirable to adjust to the niggling control issues.

[yojo!]

I thought I was warming up to the MD version of Kyuukyoku Tiger and nabbed a cart, but having gone back to the arcade-perfect Toaplan Shooting Battle on PS1,.

Owning both PCB and PS1, I always feel like the PS1 is running at a lower frame rate (30?) than the PCB version.

[BIL]

The PS1 version feels exactly the same as MAME's 60fps to me.

Are you playing ToaSBv1 on a stock Japanese PS1? On seemingly anything else (modded US/EU PS1, any PS2, every PC emulator I've seen) KT and Twin Cobra will run slowly if they even boot at all.

[yojo!]

I run it on a modded US PS1; unlike Euro zone consoles (50hz), US ps1 run in NTSC (60hz) just like the Japanese one, so it shouldn't suffer any slow down.

[BrianC]

Final Fantasy Anthology has some issues with older PS1 models, so it could be something along those lines with the Toaplan collection.

[BIL]

I run it on a modded US PS1; unlike Euro zone consoles (50hz), US ps1 run in NTSC (60hz) just like the Japanese one, so it shouldn't suffer any slow down.

Are you playing with the game's speed set to "Arcade?" That might cause the problem you mention, since the PCB's refresh rate is sub-60hz.

Raiden Fighters Aces (360) has a similar speed option and it makes things feel less than smooth too (dropped frames). I've always played ToaSBV1 with the game speed on "Normal" for this reason, which feels like every other forced 60hz PS1 port (R-Types, Raiden Project, Raiden DX, etc).

[Obiwanshinobi]

I run it on a modded US PS1; unlike Euro zone consoles (50hz), US ps1 run in NTSC (60hz) just like the Japanese one, so it shouldn't suffer any slow down.

NTSC games run at 60 Hz on PAL units. It's PAL Saturn that needs a hardware mod to display 60 Hz. No such problem on PSX.

[BIL]

Final Fantasy Anthology has some issues with older PS1 models, so it could be something along those lines with the Toaplan collection.

TSB1's apparent timing issues remind me of the ongoing Night Raid debacle - apparently that has laggy controls on some non-JP PS1s but not others. Maybe it's a BIOS rev issue.

Out of interest I got TSB1 running in ePSXe by burning an image to disc (refuses to boot KT/TC otherwise), and its scrolling feels a tad stuttery there compared to on my PS1 too (pSX emulator still tells me to GTFO altogether :/ ). Then again the same happens with the similarly superlative Capcom Generation discs. Probably needs some emu tinkering on my end, I guess. I still don't know how to emulate Gradius Deluxe Pack's PS2-hating port of Gradius II. Bought both TSB1 and GDP partially blind as a result, glad I didn't get screwed.

In any case, regardless of possible non-native hardware issues and the usual ~55hz PCB vs 60hz port speed discrepancies, PS1 KT's level layouts, boss patterns and other content are certainly arcade perfect. The MD one is fun enough for what it is (the absurd claustrophobia does ramp up the pace even as it flattens the game design), but I doubt I'll keep it around. Not a patch on Toaplan's own very respectable yoko adaptation of Same! Same! Same! which actually came (came! came!) out a year earlier.

[zinger]

WTF, I found a MD game I have never seen before: Nightmare Circus. And it's one that actually tops the arcade version of Runark in terms of awesome weirdness. Check this shit out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHTfV6e_hXE

It's messed up in all kinds of ways, but there are tons of amazing aspects to it as well. Those youtube videos totally blew my mind!

Hilarious funfact: the lead programmer is the Johan Andersson who went on to create the Hearts of Iron and Europa Universalis series.

[louisg]

Whoa! Nightmare Circus is insane It looks like the kind of thing those guys who did Biomechanical Toy might've done.

Re: Mega Drive, I've mostly just been playing Road Rash II lately. I can't say that it's all that fair of a game, but I'm still addicted to it. It seems like it has some serious random-death issues. I'm to level 3 so far.

[BrianC]

I found out about the game at the sega-16 forums, but I heard the game was unfinished and almost impossible to complete. I agree it has a lot of interesting elements and looks like it had potential, though.

[Ruldra]

Shit is crazy Never heard of this game before, nice find. Kinda reminds me of Shadow of the Beast.

[Ed Oscuro]

The Nightmare Circus play I saw looked fairly complete, and playable, if difficult. There's an ending of sorts if my memory serves.

It's no Trio The Punch but it's probably more like Nothing But Trouble in its straightforward obsession with a kind of aesthetic.

[CIT]

Well, I finally got around to the Shadow Dancer clear.





Really tight game, and feels even more "arcade" than the original Shinobi. I like how the stages feel really compact, like your thrown into these short bursts of intense action, and how everything stresses your shuriken throwing precision. Some very intense boss fights as well, especially the final one. Good stuff here and I especially love the soundtrack! But needless to say, the two Super Shinobis are still in a league of their own.

[Ruldra]

Did you try playing WITHOUT shurikens? I find the game to be much easier that way. You don't need to get so close to enemies to draw the sword and it's very effective. Plus most enemies later on are immune to shurikens anyway.

[CIT]

Yep, definitely enough places where shurikens won't suffice, especially with those jumping ninjas in the last two stages. The boss on the statue of liberty and the final motherfucker really require some careful aiming though.

[BrianC]

the two Super Shinobis are still in a league of their own.

No they aren't. They don't have any female baseball players.

Actually, I like both quite a bit. I'm also digging the 3DS Shinobi so far. It mostly pays homage to Shinobi III, but is very challenging and has enough unique elements to feel like its own game. I find the GG Shinobis to be good stuff too (play like a combination of Mega Man and Super Shinobi).