Long before Metal Slug was making a name for itself with anarchic gunplay, that signature blend of action was perfected in Gunstar Heroes. Although it faced tougher competition in Japan from Nintendos Super Nintendo, games likeSonic the Hedgehog, Altered Beast, Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, and a range of licensed sports titles made the Genesis a zeitgeist-grabbing hit in the west. A reimagining of the underdog that led a 16-bit revolution. Driving down a post-apocalyptic road to nowhere, you have to shoot oncoming vehicles and collect the fuel orbs within, all while staying on the tarmac long enough to reach the finish line before your petrol runs out. 1080p. Konami really was on form at this point in its history, andHard Corpsis one of its many 16-bit masterpieces. This Sonic-branded game merged colorful combos with multiplayer bean-stacking that couldn't be topped at the time. Released to the rest of the world asMagical Hats Turbo Flight! ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Even though it had you taking control of the remorseless oceanic killing machine that is a dolphin, Ecco was a surprisingly calm and atmospheric game. SEGA Genesis 1992. El Vientomay desperately want to be aCastlevaniabeater, but its more akin to a 90s straight-to-video movie, which oddly enough, is actually a recommendation. It's a long-running joke that Street Fighter II had possibly too many iterations on Genesis and SNES consoles, but the best of the lot on Sega consoles was undeniably Super Street Fighter II. However, after the heat died down the games were . The Sega Genesis is a treasure trove of beat 'em up games, which includes the classic Sega Arcade franchise Golden Axe. The system takes a while to get used to, but the efforts worth it: once mastered,Bio-Ship Paladinoffers a hint of strategy along with its traditional shooting. GameSpot may get a share of the revenue if you buy anything featured on our site. Scruffy and slightly generic sprite designs are compensated for by some unusual locations and some absurdly violent explosions you really havent seen a man on a motorbike explode until youve playedEl Viento. There are gigantic amalgams of screaming heads, pistons, and arteries. Taking the brutal foundation of the original Mortal Kombat, everything about the follow-up was simply better. Theres also a clever two-player option, where one player flies the ship while the other controls the movement of the aiming reticle. Clothing matters aside,Stormlords an absorbing, strangely claustrophobic game, in which you control a bearded chap intent on rescuing the motionless fairies dotted around the landscape. Man, Im glad this panel is over, the hero thinks aloud as he fends off another round of bad guys. You can also spit blobs of your own goo at enemies, but again at the expense of your overall mass. (1996 on Genesis) Sega Sports Special Teams: World Series Baseball '96 (1996 on Genesis) Sega Sports Team: World Series Baseball II (1996 on SEGA Saturn) A steadily-rising water level adds a layer of tension, as one slip from a platform or fading rainbow can leave you falling to your doom. The Sega Genesis, known as the Mega Drive in regions outside of North America, is a 16-bit video game console that was developed and sold by Sega. Its essentially a series of mini-games held together by a story about a VR helmet. Titles listed do not include releases for the Sega CD and Sega 32X add-ons. While the TurboGrafx-16 predated the Genesis/Mega Drive release, it's not truly a 16-bit system; the graphics card itself was 16-bit, but the CPU was still 8-bit. [10] Top sellers included Sonic the Hedgehog, its sequel Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and Disney's Aladdin. ToeJam & Earl in Panic on . To get rid of them, you have to shoot them with an aiming reticle, a bit like TADs arcade machine,Cabal. Not to be confused with the excellent SNES game of the same name, Adventures of Batman and Robin for Sega Genesis was actually a fast-paced side-scroller similar to the Metal Slug series.. As one of a small band of Indiana Jones-like heroes, you batter and shoot your way through a landscape of ivory poachers and other cruel villains, and every so often, a few animals will join in to deliver their own spot of retribution. Its a more conventional experience in single-player, but remains colorful and is, by the standards of the time, exquisitely animated. This game was ported to the Sega Genesis in 1992 (the exact launch date was December 18, 1992, which means it landed on the Genesis before Mutant Football League did). The graphics began to. Here's a look at the 15 best Sega Genesis games that defined the era of blast-processing and 16-bit goodness. Planetary. A top-down shooter,Granadahurtles along at an incredible pace, offering up a maze of futuristic buildings where all kinds of enemy hardware await. Licensed third party re-releases of the console are still being produced,[4] and several indie game developers continue to produce games for it. Some distractingly repetitive music can grate after a while, but the variety of the levels and sheer challenge makes this shortcoming easy to overlook. The machine was launched in Japan the year before under . That didn't mean that some nasty difficulty spikes didn't pop up from time to time, but for the most part, playing Ecco meant that you were in for an experience. The table can be sorted by clicking on the small boxes next to the column headings. Admittedly, the hack-and-slash action in this Wolf Team game is pretty generic, but theres something so batty aboutEl Vientothat its worth recommending despite its flaws. This side-scrolling run-and-gun game was ported to numerous computers and consoles, including a great version for the ZX Spectrum. We heartily approve of this alteration. Further Reading: 25 Underrated SNES Games. Ropey from a visual standpoint,Techno Copis the video game equivalent of a B-movie its solid, trashy fun, with some unintentionally funny sprite designs. Seemingly inspired byRoboCop, this British action game was notable for its unusual amount of violence. Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Steam, Xbox One, Xbox Series X Out now Were still trying to figure out what 90s game designers had against trees. The Japanese developer Vic Tokai got an unusual amount of mileage from this platformer, which appeared in different guises on the Nintendo Entertainment System (asKid Cool), Sega Master System (asPsycho Fox) and finally the Genesis. It had a consistent stream of quality titles and its digitally-sampled audio made for sublime soundtracks, even if some of its hardware components were inferior to Nintendo's SNES. Kicks Dr. Machino's Butt, Bubsy in Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind, Cheese Cat-Astrophe Starring Speedy Gonzales, College Football USA 97: The Road To New Orleans, College Football's National Championship II, Desert Demolition Starring Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, Dick Vitale's "Awesome, Baby!" Four more Sega Genesis games have come to Nintendo Switch Online, including Golden Axe 2, Alien Storm, and Virtua Fighter 2. A total of 878 licensed game titles are known to have been released for the console: Sega Meganet, also known as the Net Work System, was an online service for the Mega Drive in Japan. A gaudy relic from a bygone age,ToeJam & Earlstill has lots to offer, particularly when played with a friend. Fury of the Gods Brings Back the "Shazamily": Inside DC's New Superhero Adventure, Scream 6's Brutal NYC Trip: "You Can't Trust Anyone" This Time, Cocaine Bear Is Not Just About a Killer "Coked-Up" Bear, It's Also an "Underdog Story", How Marvel's Wastelanders Podcast Created an Exciting Story with No Visual Safety Net. Also, while the TGX16 released in Japan before the Mega Drive, Sega beat TGX16 to market in . It gives the player two paddles to control instead of one the first only able to move left and right, the other able to move forward and back as well as from side to side. Keith Stuart. It is truly a classic and one of the best RTS games in history. Utilizing dial-up Internet access, Meganet was Sega's first online multiplayer gaming service, and functioned on a pay to play basis. Another standout RPG on the Genesis, Phantasy Star IV saw the series return to its sci-fi roots for one final hurrah. The system functioned through the use of a peripheral called the Mega Modem and offered several unique titles that could be downloaded, and a few could be played competitively with friends. Couple all this with a relatively unusual two-player co-op mode, and you have one of the most exhilarating shooters available for Segas console. Unfortunately, all those sprites come at a price if youre after a physical copy from eBay the going rate appears to be somewhere around the $50 to $70 for a cart in a box with instructions. Its beefed-up heroes traverse landscapes full of traps and imaginative monsters, including a gigantic wolf boss whose howl is powerful enough to shatter windows. The sheer volume of shooters available for the Genesis meant that a few inevitably slipped under peoples radars, andAero Blastersis perhaps one of the less well known. Inevitably less smooth and flashy than the arcade version,Chase HQ IInevertheless replicates much of its white-knuckle excitement. Fast, exciting, and full of surreal moments,Pulsemanis a superb, often overlooked moment in Genesis gaming. So, sit back and enjoy the best Sega Genesis / Mega Drive games coming to Nintendo Switch Online. The Sega Genesis became a hugely popular console in America and Europe. 17. The US launch of the Sega Genesis, on 14 August 1989, probably didn't seem like a huge deal outside the video game industry. Free to play Phantasy Star Classics Intergalactic. Sorry, but you can't access this content! Six-button support was added, the animations were smoother than ever, and that opening intro scene of Ryu striking a fighting pose was an instant system-seller. Sega Genesis was sold as the main rival to NEC PC Engine and Nintendo Super Famicom. It was replaced by Sega Saturn in 1997 although some companies continued making the console up to 1999. Most games for the service were small, at around 128kB per game, due to the limits of Internet connection speeds at the time. Conventional level designs are interspersed by stages where the scrolling speeds up and the player hurtles through a maze of narrow, sharply-angled corridors, injecting a welcome bit of variety and tension. Zero lag. Free to play Streets of Rage 2 Streets of Rage 2 TAKE 2 THE STREETS // ALL OVER AGAIN! Games likeBatman: The Caped Crusaderhadtoyed with similar ideas years earlier, butComix Zonedoes things that could only be dreamt about on the ZX Spectrum, like the sequences where Sketch rips through the white space between panels to get to the next scene. Was Kaneko inspired by the success ofSonic the Hedgehogand intent on creating an animal with attitude character of its own? The timing ofWorld of Illusions release was unfortunate because it remains a brilliant platform game among the very best available for the Genesis, in fact. Buy Now . With a bit of practice, the system quickly becomes second nature, and as the action progresses up the screen,Bad Omenbegins to more closely resemble a scrolling shooter than something likeArkanoid there are enemies to destroy, obstacles to avoid, and area bosses to take out. 5 days ago. Battletoads & Double Dragon (1993) Battletoads is a name that strikes fear into the hearts of the less skilled games among us. Yet, whileSonicand several other core hits were responsible for selling a legion of systems, there was also a range of other cracking titles among the Genesishundreds of releases.