FLips' Sega MegaDrive Thread

[Arch Stanton]

Last week's review managed to completely pass me by, which is annoying because I try to keep an eye out for any posts in this thread!

I've never played any Shinobi games beyond a very quick go on those Megadrive Classic compilations, whereby I would get immediately frustrated by the difficulty then go look for something else to play!

[Merzbow]

I was always more of an arcade Shadow Dancer type, which I think is the same Shinobi lad? He just has a cool dog that helps attack people this time, it's a far goofier game too.

[Loki]

On 2/20/2024 at 1:05 PM, FLips said:

The Revenge of Shinobi has the unique achievement of having multiple versions across multiple decades, with at least four versions on the Mega Drive alone and then compilations and releases right up to the current generation.
This is because Sega for some reason just could not stop using copyrighted characters as bosses. Sometimes they were allowed to and sometimes they weren't and had to change it. Here's a nice breakdown of the major releases if you don't have time to read the included articles.

I'm just impressed that any company keeps good enough digital archives for 20 years that they can still modify the original game in 2009.  It's the same with Nintendo, being able to put original Gameboy games onto the Switch.  

The last time I worked for EA, there was a project ongoing to dig through all the huge archive of released games and get them working on a single browser-based emulator.  People literally digging through boxes stored under a mountain somewhere looking for hard drives and tapes and suchlike.  And there were a lot of gaps where games had simply been lost in all but their final cartridge or cassette tape format.  Or completely lost!

[RedRooster]

I've never actually played a Shinobi game, I don't know how I've managed that given the number of Mega Drive collections that I own. 

As far as suggestions for you - I'd definitely recommend Wiz 'n' Liz, especially if you have the option to play it multiplayer. It's an absolute blast. 

I know you've (kind of) reviewed a football game, but Sensible Soccer is so much fun that I can't not suggest it. I haven't played it for years, but I used to love Cosmic Spacehead; I'd be curious to read how that has aged and I'd also be interested in reading your take on one of the stronger Phantasy Star games or on Shining Force. 

[FLips]

I was going to do a new thread on the SEGA GEMS sound chip but remembered this one exists so here you are. 

A divisive bit of kit to say the least, the SEGA GEMS (Genesis Editor for Music and Sound Effects) was a sound driver used mostly by Western developers to help easily pump out music for their games if they couldn't wrap their heads around the Mega Drive's Yamaha YM2612 sound chip.

For a lot of people, the sound is like nails on a chalkboard; tinny, screechy, low quality. For others (like myself) it's the defining sound of the SEGA Mega Drive. I've been listening to a lot of ECCO The Dolphin lately and while that doesn't use GEMS directly, apparently it uses a modified version of it and for me at least, you can hear that vintage Mega Drive sound in it, albeit with clear improvements.

So here are some of my personal highs and lows of the soundchip. For those that ever owned a Mega Drive you'll recognise the sounds immediately. Feel free to add your own highs and lows. 

(Best) Eternal Champions

I've said before on here Eternal Champions is a vastly underrated and forgotten about fighter that did a lot of things back then, that their contemporaries are doing now. At the time seen as a Mortal Kombat clone, there was a lot more to it. A unique special moves system, taunts, a fantastic storyline that sadly the gameplay never lived up to. It got sequels, spin-offs and comic books at the time and then was promptly buried by SEGA, never appearing again for decades until it got released on Steam in the 2010s. Shockingly, word on the street is the bloke behind Jurassic World is writing a film about it now, which personally I'm 100% for even though it will definitely be shit.

For me, when I think of the sounds of the Mega Drive, this is right up there. 

 

 

(Worst) Taz-Mania

Taz-Mania is a fucking headache in every sense of the word. The character embodies the game and sound, and vice versa. It's chaotic, vicious and uncontrollable. While growing up I got my Mega Drive fix from all over. I had a few games, the ones I remember personally owning were Sonic 1, 2, 3 and Knuckles, Terminator, James Pond 3, Mega Games Vol 1, Mortal Kombat 3, and Streets of Rage 1, possibly 2. The majority of games I played were either rented from Movie Zone or the video man who rented out the back of his van, or borrowed from mates.
I can still to this day remember nearly every game every kid I knew or hung out with had. Lad over the road had Space Harrier 2 and Moonwalker, and one halloween got hold of Mortal Kombat 2 for us all to play. He was also the only lad I know ended up getting a Sega Saturn and bragged he could play Pokemon on his TV which was all thought was bollocks until he showed us his Super Gameboy.
Another mate had California Games, Fantastic Dizzy, Toki and Paperboy. Another one across the road from my Grandparents had Prince of Persia, Ecco The Dolphin, WWF Super Wrestlemania and his Sister had The Little Mermaid. He was also the only person I knew owned an Amiga and even though I never got to play it, loved reading the big boxes and instructions for Chaos Engine and Speedball 2 Brutal Deluxe.
My best mate though, he couldn't pay me to borrow his games. He had a couple of good ones; Mega Bomberman and the Mickey/Donald double pack probably being the cream of the crop. The rest though were absolute stinkers including Taz-Mania and it's space-faring sequel Taz in Escape from Mars, Sylvester and Tweety, and Bugs Bunny. He loves Looney Tunes growing up but unfortunately all of the games based on them (with an exception for Daffy Duck in Hollywood) being maybe some of the worst on the system.

Taz especially sticks with me as being the worst of the worst. Awful gameplay, awful soundtrack, and obnoxious constant sound effects. The difficulty was so high as well, it was no quick effort to complete. In fact I'm not sure to this day either of us have completed it. Anyway listen to this. Grim. I've included a full level so you can hear those sound effects too.

 

Best (WWF Super Wrestlemania)

Despite it being around 2000 and a lot of us moving into the next generations of games with PS1s and soon to be PS2/Gamecubes, a lot of us still loved the Mega Drive and SNES stuff and so alongside Smackdown 1 on my PS1 and WWF Attitude around a mate's house, we were (trying to) play WWF Super Wrestlemania too. It was a perfect storm for someone who was just getting into wrestling at the time that a new family moved in across from my Grandad and on his insistence sent me over to make friends with them the week they moved in. We became friends but also him, his brother and his dad were all grapple fans so alongside playing this we'd all have big wrestling matches in the garden, including a ladder match where we hung a belt up on the washing line, and back in the days where all the kids would get kicked outside to play, we'd line up outside his front room window to watch Royal Rumble 2000 on the telly as his Dad, I suppose rightfully, didn't want a bunch of rowdy kids in there with him watching it too.

WWF Super Wrestlemania is a bad game, I'll be honest with you, but thanks to this discovery period of wrestling I have a lot of fondness for it. The soundtrack is nostalgic to me and realising I could sit on the character select screen and hear the entrance music was a dream come true. It's not quite as high a quality as Eternal Champions but the low bar has been set by Taz, and it's way better than that. 

 

 

(Best and Worst) Sonic Spinball

One that I rented from Movie Zone for sure, Sonic Spinball, like James Pond Aquatic Games (another Movie Zone rental) was a spin off of a popular main series that just simply wasn't anywhere near as good as the series it span off from. Spinball sounds great on paper, it's Sonic Pinball. He spends most of his time as a ball anyway and all the mainline games on the console have a Casino style level anyway. What they ended up doing though was changing the Sonic physics so no longer was he light and loose, he was sluggish and heavy and felt like you were knocking a blob of clay around in the table.

Like other Sonic spinoffs though, namely Sonic 3D, the music was better than the game for the most part. Toxic Caves, the first level in particular is for me up there with any of the main series music and it's one that always shows up in modern Sonics where changing music to classic tunes is available. It has a real Toejam and Earl-style funk to it.

 

Sadly, the game also has maybe the biggest sound atrocity on the entire console. It would be unfair to blame it on GEMS but the sound chip's flaws are massively accentuated by the mix. I'm sure I read somewhere it was a developer mistake before release but can't find anything of the sort now. Fans have reworked it to make it sound maybe more how it was supposed to but that doesn't really improve it at all, but the original is harsh. Headphone warning.

 

(Best) Comix Zone

Not just a brilliant sound track for the GEMS sound but for the console as a whole. Alongside Toejam and Earl and California Games (both non-GEMS soundtracks) it makes up my own Holy Trinity of Mega Drive music. The games that by sound alone take me me back 30 years.

I posted it in the vinyl thread a couple of years ago but my wife bought my the soundtack to Comix Zone and it's very listenable. How they made the instruments sound like they do on a 16 bit game, with the limitations of GEMS is beyond me. No soundtrack better embodies the vibe of the game than this one, with it's grungey guitars and heavy bass. The vinyl also includes the original songs the music was based on, performed by composer Howard Drossin and his band at the time, Roadkill. 

Funnily enough this is one of the few games I don't remember where or how I played it. That being said, the entire thing stuck with me, from the unique comic book art style, to the rock solid gameplay, to the nearly perfect soundtrack. It's no surprise this one constantly shows up time and time again in compilations. Still haven't beaten it though.

 

(Worst) Chakan: The Forever Man

Not one I played as a kid, or even one I'd heard of, but got round to emulating later in life. I think it's meant to be one of the most difficult games on the system for a number of reasons, and I can only assume having to hear the soundtrack as you play is one of them. It's nearly all bad, start to finish. It takes everything people dislike about GEMS and spitefully concocts a soundtrack using only those dislikes. It's obnoxiously screechy, it sounds like you're hearing it through tin cans on a bit of string, the music sounds like it's out of sync constantly. It's a tour de force of bad sound design.

In a way you have to commend it for how out of the way it goes to make the game sound like this.

 

 

There's some shockers in the lows to be frank, but one thing I did come to realise is that even bad games can sound better than I remember them. When I was thinking of bad games I played that in my head sounded as bad as they played, I had Batman Returns and Ballz 3D. I was pleasantly suprised by Ballz especially as having a really unique techno soundtrack that was unlike anything else on the Mega Drive I'd heard.

So here's a couple of decent almost-rans.

(Best) Ballz 3D

This one was the lad over the road with Space Harrier and Michael Jackson's Moonwalker. He can only thank his lucky stars he had that Saturn and Super Gameboy on his SNES because his Mega Drive options weren't the best were they? I remember thinking this game was shit when I was a kid and it's still shit now. I remember the bad title music that sounds like it's just sex sound effects, but was shocked by actually how much better the in-game music is. Shame about everything else.

 

(Best) Batman Returns

I think this one was a rental and I don't think I ever made it past the first couple of stages. The sprites were too big for the screen, the colour palette consisted of black, brown and grey and there was pits and spikes everywhere. I didn't even really like Batman growing up but I think was about the same time McDonalds did the toys like the little batmobile bike water bottle and stuff. Side story but I remember me, my brother and my Grandad going to the local beck and filling the batmobile bike water bottle with tadpoles. We brought them back and put them in the paddling pool in my Mam's back garden. She wasn't impressed and I think we were made to take them back.

Anyway, the music for this is better than the game itself and I was ready to go in hard on it too. Fair play to the caped crusader.

 

[RedTwoster]

1 hour ago, FLips said:

(Worst) Taz-Mania

Taz-Mania is a fucking headache in every sense of the word. The character embodies the game and sound, and vice versa.

As soon as I started reading your brilliant post - easily the best gaming post I’ve read on this board by the way - Taz came to mind. I’m sure I remember it scoring well at the time, because when I started picking up Mega Drive games, I bought it. The jump sound effect alone makes me feel a bit ill, it’s horrendous.

Chuck Rock also comes to mind - I like the sequel and its soundtrack a lot, but the original is so bad that I just couldn’t get on with the game.

[FLips]

6 hours ago, RedTwoster said:

As soon as I started reading your brilliant post - easily the best gaming post I’ve read on this board by the way - Taz came to mind. I’m sure I remember it scoring well at the time, because when I started picking up Mega Drive games, I bought it. The jump sound effect alone makes me feel a bit ill, it’s horrendous.

Chuck Rock also comes to mind - I like the sequel and its soundtrack a lot, but the original is so bad that I just couldn’t get on with the game.

I think Taz-Mania could be studied for just how bad the sound is in every aspect. Mario and Sonic have iconic jump sounds, so it's not like the concept is a bad one. The sounds they pick for Taz are brutal though.

[I Bent My Wookie]

Having just watched that 5 minute Taz video, its such a great post @FLipsbut I may never forgive you for my ears right now. 

[abucalves]

On 12/26/2025 at 12:38 PM, FLips said:

 

(Best) Eternal Champions

I've said before on here Eternal Champions is a vastly underrated and forgotten about fighter that did a lot of things back then, that their contemporaries are doing now. At the time seen as a Mortal Kombat clone, there was a lot more to it. A unique special moves system, taunts, a fantastic storyline that sadly the gameplay never lived up to. It got sequels, spin-offs and comic books at the time and then was promptly buried by SEGA, never appearing again for decades until it got released on Steam in the 2010s. Shockingly, word on the street is the bloke behind Jurassic World is writing a film about it now, which personally I'm 100% for even though it will definitely be shit.

 

I first saw Eternal Champions advertised in an old comic I had and became obsessed with getting it. Of course this was all pre-internet, but I did manage to find it in a Cash Converters at some point. I thought the concept was great and I did not know that there is a movie being planned. 

The soundtrack is so good and this is a great time to mention that Bone Thugs sampled it

 

[FLips]

10 minutes ago, abucalves said:

I first saw Eternal Champions advertised in an old comic I had and became obsessed with getting it. Of course this was all pre-internet, but I did manage to find it in a Cash Converters at some point. I thought the concept was great and I did not know that there is a movie being planned. 

The soundtrack is so good and this is a great time to mention that Bone Thugs sampled it

The original version of Crossroads sampled the Bad Ending music too, so in a way it means that Eternal Champions indirectly led to the brief success of Blazin Squad. One for the pub quizzers if it ever comes up.

 

[FLips]

As I pointed out in the Rumble thread, last night discussion turned to which Mega Drive games have the best box art for display purposes. My mate is a bit of a collector, but his Mega Drive stuff as I pointed out in this thread before is real bottom of the barrel stuff barring a few exceptions. He's not collecting them for playing purposes though, he has a few he turns face-forward on his shelf just for viewing purposes, so these games don't necessarily need to be good.

The internet loves a Top-10 don't they? So here you go, in no particular order but with a section at the end for almost-rans and never has beens. Let this also be an exercise in reminding everyone, myself included, how forgettable and generic box art is now too. We had it so good.
As an aside I've deliberately left out the obvious big hitters like Sonic 1 and 2, or the games that come as posters in the box (two of which I have on my wall currently) like Streets of Rage, Golden Axe, Shinobi. I want to highlight the lesser known stuff or at least not the games everyone who's ever played a Sega would name straight off the bat.

Huge shoutout to Segaretro.org for the high quality scans too.

1. Space Harrier II

It hits every mark you want it to. It has stunning hand drawn art, shows the main character, takes the kinda naff floor/ceiling stage design of Space Harrier but makes it look cool as you like, and has those late 80s/early 90s vaporwave pink and blues in it. The glimmer on the sword, the mountains in the far distance and the medusa. It's stunning, even if the game isn't brilliant.

2. Comix Zone

This is where debate can start about the blue spine vs black spine, personally I'm black spine but there is a nostalgia to the blue. That black and white grid design is synonymous with early Sega though and I'll always have a soft spot for it.
Onto Comix Zone though, love this one. Like Space Harrier it does a great job of explaining the game without you really needing to look at the back. The design of him breaking out of the comic panel is really cool, his rat on the main title, and though I'm not sure why it's a green lizard arm, the hand drawing the comic as you play is a big part of the game too. Love the commitment to the gimmick on the back cover too. 

3. Ghouls N Ghosts

Some of these don't even need explaining. It's a badass looking knight with a huge sword and lightning blasting everywhere. Big gnarly looking demon in the blood red sky. I'm going into Blockbusters, I'm seeing the art, I'm renting it. I can't do the 2nd level, I return it after 2 days and don't rent it again.

4. Kid Chameleon

The kinda shit you'd see sprayed onto the side of the biggest ride at the fairground alongside botched portraits of Michael Jackson and Britney Spears. Samurai, Sunglasses and no less than two skateboards. Radical.

5. Shining Force

I'm actually playing this one on the Sega Collection at the minute during work. It's a Fire-Emblem style tactical RPG which isn't usually my type of game, but there's something really nice about the graphics and presentation that got me hooked. I believe there's 8 Chapters and I'm on 3 or 4 at the minute so getting through it. If you like this sort of game I highly recommend it.

Onto the box art though, love it. Love the misty/cloudy air, the castle in the wavy sunset, the motion blur effects on the sword swing. Just really nice to look at. The skeletons are really well done, and the font on the title stands out loads. For a game I had no idea about a week ago I'm all in on Shining Force.

6. Eternal Champions

I see a pattern emerging. Maybe I just really dig the high fantasy airbrushed looking stuff? Either way, great cover art. Personally for me the wrong choice of characters for the cover, I'd have replaced Jetta and Blade with Shadow and Rax but they've put them at highlights on the back so fair enough. Like all good box arts though, it nails the brief. Showcases the characters, sticks the main baddy on some big hill in the sky in the background, beams and clouds everywhere. Slash's club covering the Sega logo and Jetta's hair covering the spine are nice touches too, adds depth.

7. Mega Games I

Is it cheating to include a three game compilation? Maybe. That being said, the cover for MGI takes a snapshot of the best part of three seperate covers that on their own are fairly dull, and condenses them into one cover with a lovely big marble textured font. The motion blur on the bike and football, the explosion of the gems. Just a really great exercise in marketing three games in one, a little bit of something for everyone. I had this one as a kid, my Dad played the World Cup, my Brother played Hang-On, and me and my Mum played Columns. Winner winner.
Also compared to later Mega Games packs, this one is by and far the nicest looking cover of them. Though the included games got better, the cover art devolved into basically a little screenshot and a title. Shame.

8. Street Fighter II SC Edition/ Super Street Fighter II

 

I was just going to include Street Fighter II SCE with those bold electric blues and Ryu/Bison on the cover, but go look at it properly and you'll see Ryu's face is a mangled disgrace. For that reason I included the updated version too. Without context it's not that impressive, unless you're blown away by not one but two reminders that it's 40 MEG over the previous 24 MEG. What I've went for here though, is just how big it was at the time to get new characters in a game like this. I remember all the kids being excited about it. New characters, new stages, dying to try them out. The silhouettes on the brick wall with the logo smashing through. Fair play to them as well, all four characters introduced here became fan favourite mainstays. Not often that happens. I think both covers have a lot to give though.

9. Toejam and Earl

Less focus on lightning and fancy backgrounds, more focus on the two main characters and really that's what this game is too. Toejam and Earl are the stars here and your love or hate for the game probably relies on how endearing you find two funky aliens walking around a weird planet burping and slinging out catchphrases. Me personally, I love it. 
A weird game, a weird cover, a classic.

10. Dynamite Headdy

It's bold, it's bright, it gets the stage production gimmick included by bolting the logo to the cover. Weird looking characters, there's a lot going on. The amount of colour and charisma this one shows though, it's another eye catcher in Blockbusters getting taken out for the weekend isn't it?

---

I probably could have squeezed a Top 20 in, especially if I included the Sonics and usual lot in there. I also avoided including any covers that included photographs or real people, so that ruled out most sports games regardless of quality. Games like Road Rash though still look fantastic on the cover, they're just not as visually impressive as the hand drawn stuff.

Here's a couple of stinkers for you too. No idea who's picking these off the shelves.

1. The brown paper bag games

Ottifants, Eternal Champions, Home Alone, Global Gladiators plus maybe dozens more. The Classic Mega Drive collection takes the cover arts whether good or bad and hides them in this brown paper bag design. I don't get it. They look awful up close, look even worse on the shelf and adds a cheap looking brown spine into the shelf mix.

2. Zoom!

 

3. Corporation

Can't tell what the game is from the name, is it a business sim? It can't be because there's a large fully zoomed pixelated image of an orc on the front. Let me check the back, oh it's a dungeon crawler with robots in it? Nonsense. An exercise in bad design all around.

4.  White sleeve cover art

I've chosen Bubsy II because it sucks, but it's not the only offender. Brian Lara Cricket, most of the EA Sports titles, and Pink Panther Goes to Hollywood are only some of the offenders here for these plain but somehow really busy looking covers. They look cheap, and the back catalogue of games they cover is a who's who of no thanks.

5. Kixx label games

Not many games with this cover style thankfully. Hulk, Winter Games and maybe a few others. I just hate this type of cover art, they remind me of the (I think Woolworths) DVDs where the majority of branding is the store/publisher and not the movie/game which is relegated to a little box. Despite being 4 letters, KIXX is somehow bigger and more prominent than the title of the actual game.

---

I know I said I wouldn't include these in my list but I feel bad for excluding them so here you go.

I'm sure I've missed some or you have your own so feel free to stick them in here good or bad. 

Edited February 1 by FLips

[SuperBacon]

That Bubsy II one, he looks absolutely off his tits.

Great work FLips.

Edited February 1 by SuperBacon
Not Busby

[Arch Stanton]

I do understand the reasons for not including the obvious big hitters in the top ten, but just look at that Streets of Rage cover! Probably the greatest cover art in gaming history! 

[TibBo]

The original Wrestle War cover is glorious

[FLips]

I’ve never seen that version before, that’s fantastic.