# What gave Mega Drive / Genesis bad rep?



## WiiCube_2013 (Jul 20, 2015)

Admittedly the Super Nintendo was in fact superior but that shouldn't have made the SMD irrelevant because it was still a great 16bit console, plus the more mature games were uncut whereas SNES had them censored. Although, later on they made it available via a feature or a cheat code to activate it.

Just take this example below:

*SMD*



*SNES*


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## The Real Jdbye (Jul 20, 2015)

It wasn't irrelevant, it was just that people had to choose between one or the other, since few people could afford both.
Most people just went with the SNES because it had a better library and that's what everyone else had, but there were a lot of Sega fans too.


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## WiiCube_2013 (Jul 20, 2015)

The Real Jdbye said:


> It wasn't irrelevant, it was just that people had to choose between one or the other, since few people could afford both.
> Most people just went with the SNES because it had a better library and that's what everyone else had, but there were a lot of Sega fans too.


In the 90's Nintendo pushed really hard for devs to stick to their consoles and reject the competition so it's a shame that they had to hold back due to such things.

Yeah, the SMD wasn't irrelevant it's in fact my favourite 16bit console but people prefer a lot more the SNES.


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## RevPokemon (Jul 20, 2015)

Probably IMO people think of it as the sonic console. I actually have to say while I think the SNES is better, its actually a lot more even to me since Sega released a lot of good non sonic games and many of the 3rd party games where better


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## chavosaur (Jul 20, 2015)

I bet Foxi could yell you why 

We need a revival of BFWWIWA
https://gbatemp.net/threads/bfwwiwa-issue-1-sega-saturn.361538/#post-4906856


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## Sakitoshi (Jul 20, 2015)

the bad reputation the Genesis/Mega Drive was mainly due the sound quality. in lots of games the SNES sound better.
here's an example:


Spoiler







also note how the Genesis/Mega Drive has to stop the music to reproduce Larry voice.

and while that is true, some other games sound better on Genesis.


Spoiler








to add insult to injury listen the same tune from Earthworm Jim Special Edition on Sega CD:


Spoiler








and we can't forget the masterpiece that is this:


Spoiler








aside from that is the facts that Wiicube and Rev pointed out. Nintendo had all the 3rd party hot stuff.


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## emigre (Jul 20, 2015)

The Mega Drive has a bad rep?  What the fact?  Have I entered a parallel universe? The Mega Drive was the ducking sex.


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## FAST6191 (Jul 20, 2015)

Doesn't that depend upon where you are in the world? In the UK and a few other European countries it was probably (means of measurement can argue both ways, raw sales are usually put as higher) the more popular of the 16 bit consoles. Equally where it might not have been I am not sure it got a bad rep, such things usually being reserved for things like the CDi.

Also relevant at this point
http://retro-sanctuary.com/Comparisons Main.html


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## the_randomizer (Jul 20, 2015)

The Genesis was actually very successful, what the problem (among others), was they tried to keep it alive for longer than it should have been by adding useless add-ons like the 32x, Sega CD, requiring extra power supplies and AC adapters for each peripheral, turning the Genesis into a proverbial Frankenstein's monster.

I never owned a Genesis/Megadrive, my next door neighbor and friend did and have fond memories of playing games on it, but the Snes was my first console in 1993, and since then it's been a favorite.


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## TecXero (Jul 20, 2015)

I don't think the MD/Gen did poorly, just it didn't quite have timeless games like the SNES, so it's just not quite talked about as much. Most of the games at the time tried to look cool and pushed things graphically, but gameplay wise, they still felt a lot like the 8-bit games. While the noteable SNES games pushed things in other ways as well, not just graphically. That said, the MD/Gen still had a few classics, and I'd argue it's still better than the SNES for multiplayer games.

Instead of going for expansions, Sega probably should have gone for expansion hardware built into the cartridges like the SNES had, or focused on developing the next generation console. The expansions (32X and CD) were expensive to develop, expensive for the consumer, and inherently splits their consumer base. Maybe they could have done with Nintendo (normally) does with handhelds. They could have had it so all games would work with the basic Genesis/MD, but certain games would have enhanced graphics, performance, and sound with a 32X, instead of having 32X exclusives.


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## WiiCube_2013 (Jul 20, 2015)

Saki @ The sound was another factor plus Nintendo had all the great 3rd party support but even then, the SMD had a pretty decent amount of multiplatforms too.


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## the_randomizer (Jul 20, 2015)

WiiCube_2013 said:


> Saki @ The sound was another factor plus Nintendo had all the great 3rd party support but even then, the SMD had a pretty decent amount of multiplatforms too.



I think you tagged his name wrong  The sound was the thing about the Genesis that was very hit and miss, some games sounded like arcades, others sounded like a raspy mess; Earthworm Jim 1 and 2 sounded horrible on their non-Special Edition/CD counterparts.


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## Sakitoshi (Jul 20, 2015)

WiiCube_2013 said:


> Saki @ The sound was another factor plus Nintendo had all the great 3rd party support but even then, the SMD had a pretty decent amount of multiplatforms too.


Yup, a game I always remember because was the only that used both consoles prefixes for the naming is Turrican there was Super Turrican for SNES and Mega Turrican for Genesis/Mega Drive.
fighting games where released for both consoles and where pretty close to the arcade in both cases.
the 1st party games where always cool, I remember always playing Comix Zone because it was so cool "look, I'm playing inside a comic!!".
and had some good 3rd party exclusives, like X-Men 2 Clone Wars(also played this a lot), Castlevania Bloodlines and some Mickey Mouse games.


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## RevPokemon (Jul 20, 2015)

Sakitoshi said:


> Yup, a game I always remember because was the only that used both consoles prefixes for the naming is Turrican there was Super Turrican for SNES and Mega Turrican for Genesis/Mega Drive.
> fighting games where released for both consoles and where pretty close to the arcade in both cases.
> the 1st party games where always cool, I remember always playing Comix Zone because it was so cool "look, I'm playing inside a comic!!".
> and had some good 3rd party exclusives, like X-Men 2 Clone Wars(also played this a lot), Castlevania Bloodlines and some Mickey Mouse games.


Yeah plus in many areas there were better games like Aladdin,MK and street fighter were better on genesis


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## WiiCube_2013 (Jul 20, 2015)

Sakitoshi said:


> Yup, a game I always remember because was the only that used both consoles prefixes for the naming is Turrican there was Super Turrican for SNES and Mega Turrican for Genesis/Mega Drive.
> fighting games where released for both consoles and where pretty close to the arcade in both cases.
> the 1st party games where always cool, I remember always playing Comix Zone because it was so cool "look, I'm playing inside a comic!!".
> and had some good 3rd party exclusives, like X-Men 2 Clone Wars(also played this a lot), Castlevania Bloodlines and some Mickey Mouse games.


 
SMD didn't have Turtles in Time but it did have that TMNT Heist game, as well as other cool 16bit games.


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## G0R3Z (Jul 20, 2015)

MY problem is that they constantly tried to get money out of people by bringing out more and more peripherals when they were just awful. Their games were good and I loved the genesis for its games, but they kept trying to keep it alive and it didn't work. It looked more like a coma patient than a console, just wires everywhere trying to keep it alive just a bit longer. 

It wasn't as 'fun' as the snes either. The more 'serious' gamers went for the genesis because of sports games and there were more fighting games as well. The genesis was a good competitive console.


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## emigre (Jul 20, 2015)

I actually have a soft spot for the Mega CD.

*runs away*


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## G0R3Z (Jul 20, 2015)

emigre said:


> I actually have a soft spot for the Mega CD.
> 
> *runs away*



There was a couple of good games for the 32x and CD (or even the 32x CD *shudders*), but it was like fondling through a trash pile trying to find them.


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## RevPokemon (Jul 20, 2015)

G0R3Z said:


> There was a couple of good games for the 32x and CD (or even the 32x CD *shudders*), but it was like fondling through a trash pile trying to find them.


Snatcher,doom,sonic CD were good and other games certainty benefitted from the CD tbh


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## G0R3Z (Jul 20, 2015)

RevPokemon said:


> Snatcher,doom,sonic CD were good and other games certainty benefitted from the CD tbh



Certainly, but there was so very few titles on the expansion systems that were good.


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## RevPokemon (Jul 20, 2015)

G0R3Z said:


> Certainly, but there was so very few titles on the expansion systems that were good.


Well let's face it we think of those crappy fmv games on cd,/32 way before we do snatcher and such


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## G0R3Z (Jul 20, 2015)

RevPokemon said:


> Well let's face it we think of those crappy fmv games on cd,/32 way before we do snatcher and such



Yep. And the original proper games on them were normally rubbish. It is one of the best doom ports on the 32X, but the expansions in general were failures. They wanted almost as much as the console originally cost for the expansions and there were few games to get excited about. Most of the good games were just ports from other systems, though. And the other games were either FMV, Sports or just plain awful.

I'm still in nintendo's corner for the 16 bit consoles, they just dominated with a library of excellent first party games, amazing third party games and the fun factor was there with the games. I think the consoles graphics were more 'colourful' which I enjoyed more than the gritty look of Sega's graphics. I think the sound was better on the Mega Drive though, it was punchier than the SNES' cartoony, childish sounding audio.


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## Hungry Friend (Jul 20, 2015)

I remember it having an excellent rep here in the US minus the 32x and to a lesser extent, the SCD failing. The SCD at least had some really awesome games like Snatcher, Sonic CD, Lord of Thunder, Lunar 1-2 etc. The 32x had Virtua Fighter and a half-assed version of MK2 although it played better than the SNES version(still prefer the SNES version over the 32x port). I think any bad rep for the Genesis/MD itself came from the sometimes inferior arcade ports but the SNES ports always suffered from at least minor slowdown, so each had their strengths and weaknesses. SF2 SCE for the Genesis is definitely the best 16-bit port of Hyper Fighting despite the shitty voices, and there's a hack that fixes the scratchy voices

SNES SF2 Turbo, despite having better colors/sound, had a good bit of slowdown although it's still a great port. the Genesis version is definitely closer to the arcade though, especially if you play the arcade version and then compare the SNES & Genesis versions right after.

Also, the SNES was the king of kickass RPGs back in the day even though the SG had Phantasy Star and Lunar if you had a SCD.


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## The Catboy (Jul 20, 2015)

The Genesis wasn't the problem, it was the shitty addons that they tried to use to force out some life for the poor thing instead of making a new system. That was the real problem for the poor system.


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## Hungry Friend (Jul 20, 2015)

Can't argue with that. The Genesis itself was a first rate console with a huge library of awesome games, although the SCD did have some gems, like a very accurate port of Final Fight that I forgot to mention. The 32x/Genesis Penis was a REALLY stupid move though considering it was released right before the Saturn came out. It killed a lot of peoples' trust in Sega and was imo the beginning of the end for them reputation-wise.


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## RevPokemon (Jul 20, 2015)

Hungry Friend said:


> Can't argue with that. The Genesis itself was a first rate console with a huge library of awesome games, although the SCD did have some gems, like a very accurate port of Final Fight that I forgot to mention. The 32x/Genesis Penis was a REALLY stupid move though considering it was released right before the Saturn came out. It killed a lot of peoples' trust in Sega and was imo the beginning of the end for them reputation-wise.


Wiiu and NX anybody?

But even still the saturned sucked for other reasons which were not specifically due to the CD/32x


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## Vipera (Jul 20, 2015)

I'm too young, so I have no idea. The PS1 was out already when I was 4.

But I remember some games for the SNES were very expensive, something like 220.000Lir (that's like 120$) for Aladdin on the SNES. I only had a Master System, but the prices weren't as high (around 40.000Lir). I'm surprised it's not the other way around.


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## RevPokemon (Jul 20, 2015)

Vipera said:


> I'm too young, so I have no idea. The PS1 was out already when I was 4.
> 
> But I remember some games for the SNES were very expensive, something like 220.000Lir (that's like 120$) for Aladdin on the SNES. I only had a Master System, but the prices weren't as high (around 40.000Lir). I'm surprised it's not the other way around.


Well SNES was by capcom and gen was by virgin so that might of had something to do with it


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## G0R3Z (Jul 20, 2015)

RevPokemon said:


> Well SNES was by capcom and gen was by virgin so that might of had something to do with it



I played both and prefer the SNES version. Not being biased, just thought it was better. That and I've never played a bad Capcom game. 



RevPokemon said:


> Wiiu and NX anybody?
> 
> But even still the saturned sucked for other reasons which were not specifically due to the CD/32x



I do fear for nintendo with both iwata's passing and the NX. Ninty seems to have completely given up on the Wii U and most of their first party games from now on seem to be amiibo focused, something I've not been suckered into. There's lots of rumors flying about and no confirmation on the OS and the hardware, so i'll reserve judgement until a proper press release on the console.


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## RevPokemon (Jul 20, 2015)

G0R3Z said:


> I played both and prefer the SNES version. Not being biased, just thought it was better. That and I've never played a bad Capcom game.
> 
> 
> 
> I do fear for nintendo with both iwata's passing and the NX. Ninty seems to have completely given up on the Wii U and most of their first party games from now on seem to be amiibo focused, something I've not been suckered into. There's lots of rumors flying about and no confirmation on the OS and the hardware, so i'll reserve judgement until a proper press release on the console.


Well the SNES vs gen thing the Genesis is considered to be the better Aladdin by many but the differences are really not as notable when many kids only played one version and the SNES one is still good(as is lion king and other capcom Disney SNES games)


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## G0R3Z (Jul 20, 2015)

RevPokemon said:


> Well the SNES vs gen thing the Genesis is considered to be the better Aladdin by many but the differences are really not as notable when many kids only played one version and the SNES one is still good(as is lion king and other capcom Disney SNES games)



Yeah, most of the disney games were developed by capcom back then. Shame disney set up their own studio, most of their current games are pretty mediocre.


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## RevPokemon (Jul 20, 2015)

G0R3Z said:


> Yeah, most of the disney games were developed by capcom back then. Shame disney set up their own studio, most of their current games are pretty mediocre.


Dis has made good games like epic mickey,Kingdom Hearts(even tho SE did most of the work), and what not.

Plus capcom would of stopped caring as they are known to do although I do miss kids IP games that are good (I'd kill for a good Steven universe game)


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## HaloEffect17 (Jul 20, 2015)

What gave Mega Drive/Genesis a bad rep?  Blast processing.


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## RevPokemon (Jul 20, 2015)

HaloEffect17 said:


> What gave Mega Drive/Genesis a bad rep?  Blast processing.


That was one of its biggest selling points even though the SNES had better specs in everything but the cpu


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## HaloEffect17 (Jul 20, 2015)

RevPokemon said:


> That was one of its biggest selling points even though the SNES had better specs in everything but the cpu


Yes, you're right.  But, when we look back at the Genesis now, people regard the SNES as graphically superior.  While admittedly, the whole "blast processing" propaganda in the '90s helped sell a great deal of Genesis's in the US, ultimately, there were slightly more sales for the SNES worldwide.


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## reiyu (Jul 20, 2015)

Uhh what? If you already have AVGN in your links, might as well watch his SNES VS Genesis video.  He himself quoted that Genesis had 51% market share in the West after that "Blast Processing" ad campaign.  Genesis did well despite the lack of SegaCD and 32X titles in the west, Saturn and Dreamcast didn't.


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## HaloEffect17 (Jul 20, 2015)

reiyu said:


> Uhh what? If you already have AVGN in your links, might as well watch his SNES VS Genesis video.


I actually did watch that particular video, and yes, the Genesis did very well in the West.  No doubt.  My point is that when we look back today on what gave the Genesis a bad reputation, it was blast processing.  It was misleading as the video mentioned, which constituted for more sales in the US back in the '90s.


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## the_randomizer (Jul 20, 2015)

RevPokemon said:


> That was one of its biggest selling points even though the SNES had better specs in everything but the cpu



The Snes CPU was more efficient, actually, despite the "lower" clock speed (MHz Myth), the first couple of years had many games with slowdowns, sure, but developers overcame that pretty quickly. From that point on, very few games had slowdown.

Blast processing was only a marketing plow, a buzz word for a faster CPU, when in actually it wasn't truly faster.


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## Sakitoshi (Jul 20, 2015)

RevPokemon said:


> That was one of its biggest selling points even though the SNES had better specs in everything but the cpu


naahh that was just Sega saying "my penis is bigger!!". it was too late when they realized Nintendo didn't care because they had the thing that could *insert* addons .


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## sarkwalvein (Jul 20, 2015)

At least in Argentina, the Megadrive was the console of choice back in the day, almost everyone and their dog had a Megadrive, but only a few had a SNES.
The reason was probably because of marketing and sports games.
In general Megadrive had way better sport games, and people probably liked that.
I think it actually fared quite better than the SNES, even when the latter had better hardware, graphics and specially sound.
The Megadrive had great platform and arcade games, but it was notably behind in the adventure and RPG department, I think it suited different tastes.


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## Beware (Jul 20, 2015)

The MD got cannibalized by Sega's own fracturing of their brand.  With a half dozen models of Genesis/Mega Drives in addition to 2 different expansions that played different games and third party spin offs of the main models, not to mention various models of the Nomad, consumers eventually became overwhelmed by choice/monetary investment necessary just to play the latest Sonic game.  I don't know anything about a "bad rep," but it died because Sega had no idea how to run a sustainable hardware business.


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## HaloEffect17 (Jul 20, 2015)

the_randomizer said:


> the first couple of years had many games with slowdowns, sure, but developers overcame that pretty quickly.


Yep.  The Super FX Chip brought the SNES to a completely different level.



Sakitoshi said:


> it was too late when they realized Nintendo didn't care because they had the thing that could *insert* addons .


That's one way of putting it.


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## sarkwalvein (Jul 20, 2015)

HaloEffect17 said:


> Yep.  The Super FX Chip brought the SNES to a completely different level.


It was in a completely different level way before that even using Mode 7, in e.g. F-Zero. (and every SNES RPG with its mode 7 world map)
Anyway, what really put the SNES in its own league was music that sounded like actual music.


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## HaloEffect17 (Jul 20, 2015)

sarkwalvein said:


> It was in a completely different level way before that even using Mode 7, in e.g. F-Zero.


Yeah, I forgot about that.  Super Mario Kart was pretty impressive as well incorporating that Mode 7 jazz.


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## cdoty (Jul 20, 2015)

WiiCube_2013 said:


> Admittedly the Super Nintendo was in fact superior but that shouldn't have made the SMD irrelevant because it was still a great 16bit console, plus the more mature games were uncut whereas SNES had them censored. Although, later on they made it available via a feature or a cheat code to activate it.



I don't know that the Genesis had a bad reputation. The Genesis was the system for quality arcade ports and sports games, and the SNES was the system for RPG style games and 3Dish racing titles. Someone buying a 16 bit system would have to consider the game library, and depending on their preferences would choose one or the other.

Nintendo first party titles really drove the sales of the SNES (and have up to and including the Wii U).
Sega has a lot of first party titles, but most were arcade titles. These titles didn't really allow for sequels, like Super Mario Bros.

The biggest limitation the Genesis was the color limitations. There were only 64 colors that could be used for tiles and sprites, but developers worked around this to some extent.
In comparison, the SNES has 128 for sprites and 128 for tiles. The SNES also had features that helped developers create more advanced titles.

For example:
To increase the number of colors on screen, a Genesis developer would have to create a HBlank interrupt, and change the color values directly. (A HBlank interrupt happens at the end of each line on the display).
A SNES programmer had it easier, and only had to supply a list of colors for each line, and the SNES would change those automatically.

The sound was also arguably better on the SNES. The SNES sound chip was geared more to playing samples and the Genesis used frequency modulation (FM).

There's one system that wasn't mentioned, the TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine. It was somewhere between the Genesis and SNES. It had all of the colors of the SNES and had a slower processor, but was still able to run arcade ports. With the faster processor and some good marketing it could have been a contender.


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## G0R3Z (Jul 20, 2015)

RevPokemon said:


> Dis has made good games like epic mickey,Kingdom Hearts(even tho SE did most of the work), and what not.
> 
> Plus capcom would of stopped caring as they are known to do although I do miss kids IP games that are good (I'd kill for a good Steven universe game)



Neither of those were developed by disney's studios though. Epic Mickey was developed by Junction Point Studios and Kingdom hearts was Developed by Square-Enix. Both have disney characters, but disney only published them.


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## RevPokemon (Jul 20, 2015)

G0R3Z said:


> Neither of those were developed by disney's studios though. Epic Mickey was developed by Junction Point Studios and Kingdom hearts was Developed by Square-Enix. Both have disney characters, but disney only published them.


True but they did have some part. then again they never make games but just publish like THQ used to do.

Also duck tales wasn't dis but wayfoward and capcom. I wish more games would get that treatment


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## G0R3Z (Jul 20, 2015)

sarkwalvein said:


> At least in Argentina, the Megadrive was the console of choice back in the day, almost everyone and their dog had a Megadrive, but only a few had a SNES.
> The reason was probably because of marketing and sports games.
> In general Megadrive had way better sport games, and people probably liked that.
> I think it actually fared quite better than the SNES, even when the latter had better hardware, graphics and specially sound.
> The Megadrive had great platform and arcade games, but it was notably behind in the adventure and RPG department, I think it suited different tastes.



Unfortunately most companies including Nintendo and Sega, generate most of their figures from the largest audiences of their products eg. USA, UK and Japan. It's silly, but they don't really have their sales figures sorted in a more general way.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



RevPokemon said:


> True but they did have some part. then again they never make games but just publish like THQ used to do.
> 
> Also duck tales wasn't dis but wayfoward and capcom. I wish more games would get that treatment



I know. Disney does have their own studios now after the acquisition of LucasArts. Disney/Lucas Arts are developing for the more casual audiences (Disney Infinity for example) and EA/Lucas Arts is developing for the Core Gaming market (New battlefront).


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## reiyu (Jul 20, 2015)

HaloEffect17 said:


> I actually did watch that particular video, and yes, the Genesis did very well in the West.  No doubt.  My point is that when we look back today on what gave the Genesis a bad reputation, it was blast processing.  It was misleading as the video mentioned, which constituted for more sales in the US back in the '90s.



Actually, nobody gave Sega bad rep.  They kinda just shot themselves in the foot towards the head with bad marketing.  Saturn was not received well in the west due to Sega japan not liking the west and not translating anything, so you can do the math, no games = no cash.  Dreamcast was a suicide mission, PS2 was right in the corner, and they just had to release a non-DVD device, also the PS2 was the cheapest DVD player out in the market, it was a win-win for every household.  Also to add that piracy was rampant on the early models of Dreamcast where you can just burn games onto a disk without any problems.

Consoles aside, look at where Sonic went after Dreamcast. The atrocious Sonic 06' was full of bugs.  This shows that Sega didn't care about their franchises.  After acquiring ATLUS recently, the Sega CEO published an apology statement towards the mass about not caring about the west and not taking care of their franchises.

It was simply bad management that lead to Sega's demise, and I doubt nobody really badmouthed Sega aside from Nintendo fanboys.


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## WiiCube_2013 (Jul 20, 2015)

Earlier today I tried out Sunset Riders on SNES and SMD, and turns out the SMD version is a bit better since it's not as censored as the Super Nintendo version. On the SNES version when you enter a bar you come out as if you woke up, while on the SMD it's more or less like the original edition, i.e, it's your character and a lady.


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## goober (Jul 20, 2015)

The first half of the Genesis/MD was very successful for Sega. They actually started to put huge dents into Nintendo's armor. Nintendo had to restrategize how they dealt with third parties because of it, become aggressive with software design and sales. It also forced them to push forward a few key titles, forced them to innovate more with things like the FX chip, and to fight harder all around. Quite a few technologies and games were "upgraded" from their previous design spec to make the disparity between the Genesis/SNES seem much larger.

It really is a funny time period. Sega's temporary strength lead to Sega's ultimate downfall and arrogance, and at the same rate made Nintendo stronger than ever after humbling them. It may seem crazy to think that Nintendo would have folded because of that time period but they were actually under real pressure for about a year and everyone was calling for their downfall at the time due to how they did business.

It just illustrates why Nintendo is Nintendo, they can usually learn from their mistakes (except in regards to third parties) and come back stronger and more profitable. They also leave themselves room to fail and as such take risks. Just not the risks people appreciate.


Only Sega gave Sega a bad rep. After the competition really heated up Nintendo kept innovating and trying to keep things affordable whereas Sega couldn't keep up after their initial push and as such kept introducing more and more hardware fragmentation, shovelware and rushed developments of not only hardware but software. They released a ton of peripherals, many sucking (though to be fair some were also great and ahead of their time), at time when there were already a ton of peripherals. Ports on their systems were often awful and the "worse" version just from a technical playability perspective and not even graphics/sound.

I don't mean to shortchange Sega since they did many great things at that time too, but they just did a crap load of tiny things that added up to diminish their branding. From a pure gameplay perspective Sega was more of an arcade-like system and if you liked those type of titles you generally loved Sega. If you wanted more, at the time of a "home console" type games, Nintendo had it down pat and all the third parties that went with it.


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## VinsCool (Jul 20, 2015)

This thread just remind me that I have Genesis games (including aladin) and I have to buy a console.


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## RevPokemon (Jul 20, 2015)

VinsCool said:


> This thread just remind me that I have Genesis games (including aladin) and I have to buy a console.


Where did you get the games?


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## VinsCool (Jul 20, 2015)

RevPokemon said:


> Where did you get the games?


My gf found them at her parent's house  
I am going to get a Genesis and play them


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## RevPokemon (Jul 20, 2015)

VinsCool said:


> My gf found them at her parent's house
> I am going to get a Genesis and play them


Marry her while you can!!!!


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## WiiCube_2013 (Jul 20, 2015)

VinsCool said:


> This thread just remind me that I have Genesis games (including aladin) and I have to buy a console.


I have two Model 2 Sega Mega Drivers complete in box as well as around 10-15 games. I had a Mega CD but the turd didn't work properly.

Anyhow, looking forward to play Batman Returns via a different method.


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## mightymuffy (Jul 20, 2015)

Hah, was arguing today about which version of SFII was best between SNES, MD/Gen & PC-Engine, and the subject of the speech in the MD version inevitably came up.... what the hell was that about?!  
I think the Megadrive's sound processor just needed a bit of twisting and turning by good devs to get something decent out of it, but others (Capcom included) just didn't bother trying..

Anyway OP, just where is this bad rep you're on about?!  Comparing the machine to the SNES is unfair as the SNES was clearly a far superior machine, but that doesn't mean the Megadrive was bad in any way, in fact it's my 2nd favourite machine of all time! Rather hilarious that my #1 fave machine is the SNES, but that's beside the point...

Even the Mega CD, yeah perhaps that got a bad rep, but really the only competitor to that machine was the fukkin Phillips CDi, and taken in that context, the Mega CD was awesome! 
32X? Well yeah, let's just forget about that though..!


----------



## DjoeN (Jul 20, 2015)

I love my SEGA collection, i love my SNES, i just love them both 
I grew up with both and it's a shame SEGA got out of the hardware stuff :/




 MegaCD1 with MultiBIOS MD1 (Regionswitched)


 MegaCD2 with MultiBIOS MD1 (Regionswitched)


 32x addon (Regionswitched)


 MegaCD2 (No MultiBios) MD II (Regionswitched)

My MD collection (only part of it, got more)


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## WiiCube_2013 (Jul 20, 2015)

mightymuffy said:


> Hah, was arguing today about which version of SFII was best between SNES, MD/Gen & PC-Engine, and the subject of the speech in the MD version inevitably came up.... what the hell was that about?!
> I think the Megadrive's sound processor just needed a bit of twisting and turning by good devs to get something decent out of it, but others (Capcom included) just didn't bother trying..
> 
> Anyway OP, just where is this bad rep you're on about?!  Comparing the machine to the SNES is unfair as the SNES was clearly a far superior machine, but that doesn't mean the Megadrive was bad in any way, in fact it's my 2nd favourite machine of all time! Rather hilarious that my #1 fave machine is the SNES, but that's beside the point...
> ...



Mostly from people online preferring Super Nintendo by far in every aspect and disregarding the SMD as if it was all that bad, it wasn't, in certain third party games with a mature theme they kept the blood and violence while SNES had that removed. AVGN's (he's tends to take SNES side over SMD) one of the culprits of making the SMD look bad but Sega's got a lot of blame to take too.

YouTube doesn't really have a lot of Sega fans or reviewers that are open-minded to both 16bit consoles.




DjoeN said:


> My MD collection (only part of it, got more)



That lump on SMD Model 1 doesn't really look good on either one. Sega really ruined SMD's stylishness.

Ah, finally found the photo! These are my boxed SMDs.


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## RevPokemon (Jul 20, 2015)

WiiCube_2013 said:


> Mostly from people online preferring Super Nintendo by far in every aspect and disregarding the SMD as if it was all that bad, it wasn't, in certain third party games with a mature theme they kept the blood and violence while SNES had that removed. AVGN's (he's tends to take SNES side over SMD) one of the culprits of making the SMD look bad but Sega's got a lot of blame to take too.
> 
> YouTube doesn't really have a lot of Sega fans or reviewers that are open-minded to both 16bit consoles.
> 
> ...


For what it's worth very few youtubers (or gamers in general) are open to all consoles as most have a bias towards certain companies and consoles due to experience,beliefs and what not.


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## VinsCool (Jul 21, 2015)

RevPokemon said:


> Marry her while you can!!!!


Oh I swear I love her! 


WiiCube_2013 said:


> I have two Model 2 Sega Mega Drivers complete in box as well as around 10-15 games. I had a Mega CD but the turd didn't work properly.
> 
> Anyhow, looking forward to play Batman Returns via a different method.


Hehehe, you know what? I also have this game :3


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## WiiCube_2013 (Jul 21, 2015)

VinsCool said:


> Oh I swear I love her!
> 
> Hehehe, you know what? I also have this game :3
> View attachment 21841


Oh, I was thinking of the Sega CD version where you drive the Batmobile.


----------



## RevPokemon (Jul 21, 2015)

VinsCool said:


> Oh I swear I love her!
> 
> Hehehe, you know what? I also have this game :3
> View attachment 21841


I do to for free ( if ya know what I mean)


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## VinsCool (Jul 21, 2015)

WiiCube_2013 said:


> Oh, I was thinking of the Sega CD version where you drive the Batmobile.



I don't think I am going to get a Turd CD, or at least, no for now.


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## RevPokemon (Jul 21, 2015)

VinsCool said:


> I don't think I am going to get a Turd CD, or at least, no for now.


well they are good if you get it for the right price as isn't emulating Sega cd hard ?


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## VinsCool (Jul 21, 2015)

RevPokemon said:


> well they are good if you get it for the right price as isn't emulating Sega cd hard ?


Yeah, but most of time, it ends up not working. Or I have heard bad opinions.


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## RevPokemon (Jul 21, 2015)

VinsCool said:


> Yeah, but most of time, it ends up not working. Or I have heard bad opinions.


Then again can't you use regular CDs and play the roms that way?


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## VinsCool (Jul 21, 2015)

RevPokemon said:


> Then again can't you use regular CDs and play the roms that way?


I am speaking about the mega-cd add on, not the games.


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## Sheimi (Jul 21, 2015)

I'm guessing I am one of the few cool kids who had both consoles growing up. Look at the 32x and CD.


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## RevPokemon (Jul 21, 2015)

Sheimi said:


> I'm guessing I am one of the few cool kids who had both consoles growing up. Look at the 32x and CD.


And by cool you mean had rich parents


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## VinsCool (Jul 21, 2015)

RevPokemon said:


> And by cool you mean had rich parents


Something I did not had


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## Sheimi (Jul 21, 2015)

RevPokemon said:


> And by cool you mean had rich parents


Nah, my dad got me more gaming stuff than my mom.


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## RodrigoDavy (Jul 21, 2015)

I don't think the Mega Drive has a bad reputation at all. It did really well, especially considering it was competing with fucking Super Nintendo which, in my opinion, is the best Nintendo console ever.
The Mega Drive is a great console, just a shame that it wasn't very succesful in Japan, so japanese developers tended to not produce games or be familiar with the Mega Drive's hardware.

I do think that the Mega Drive is for some reason overrated in North America. I've seen lots of "Genesis" fans that are like, "Look at all this blast processing... Fat plumber Mario rescuing pink pricess is so lame and childish... Sonic is waaayyyy better, plus he saves cute little animals... now that's what I call mature. Genesis does what Nintendon't!"



G0R3Z said:


> I played both and prefer the SNES version. Not being biased, just thought it was better. That and I've never played a bad Capcom game.


I feel like everyone likes Virgin's Alladin better because of graphics. I think the gameplay in Capcom's game is much tighter and more precise. In the Virgin's Aladdin enemies are more like obstacles but in Capcom's Aladdin they sometimes react to something you do and you can use many of them as a way to reach hidden places by jumping on them. (Which was nothing new back in the 90's but still something that Virgin didn't do)


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## tbb043 (Jul 21, 2015)

Bad rep? Wha? Genesis was a major success, the only real success Sega had. The only people with a problem with Genesis must be absolute graphics whores of the worst kind.


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## VinsCool (Jul 21, 2015)

tbb043 said:


> Bad rep? Wha? Genesis was a major success, the only real success Sega had. The only people with a problem with Genesis must be absolute graphics whores of the worst kind.


Definitely. Some games also had excellent graphics, sound, which is quite an achievement. A lot of gems, like Aladin, used all specs with brio. Sonic games are timeless legendary.


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## RodrigoDavy (Jul 21, 2015)

Speaking of sound, I think some of the Mega Drive's music sounded really amazing. There's a game called Langrisser II and I think the Mega Drive version sounds way better than the snes or even the pc-fx and ps1 version (even though the pc-fx and ps1 version use red-book cd quality audio)


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## VinsCool (Jul 21, 2015)

RodrigoDavy said:


> Speaking of sound, I think some of the Mega Drive's music sounded really amazing. There's a game called Langrisser II and I think the Mega Drive version sounds way better than the snes or even the pc-fx and ps1 version (even though the pc-fx and ps1 version use red-book cd quality audio)


Synth sound has its charm, and when it is well used, it sounds amazingly good


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## XDel (Jul 21, 2015)

A lot of it was the extra features such as Mode 7. Mode 7 was the first step towards 3D in home console gaming. In the end, they both ended up having great titles, after all, Mode 7 in itself did not make a game great, but it sure helped take games where they'd pretty much never been before, except of course on home computers at the time such as the Amiga.


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## VinsCool (Jul 21, 2015)

XDel said:


> A lot of it was the extra features such as Mode 7. Mode 7 was the first step towards 3D in home console gaming. In the end, they both ended up having great titles, after all, Mode 7 in itself did not make a game great, but it sure helped take games where they'd pretty much never been before, except of course on home computers at the time such as the Amiga.


Mode 7 in is beautiful in 2d games for sure. Especially in platforming/sidescrollers.


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## RevPokemon (Jul 21, 2015)

XDel said:


> A lot of it was the extra features such as Mode 7. Mode 7 was the first step towards 3D in home console gaming. In the end, they both ended up having great titles, after all, Mode 7 in itself did not make a game great, but it sure helped take games where they'd pretty much never been before, except of course on home computers at the time such as the Amiga.


First steps?
Theoretically it started in the 2600 era with games that used nothing but simple lines and only 2 colors to make a quasi 3d effect but I hear what your saying


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## VinsCool (Jul 21, 2015)

RevPokemon said:


> First steps?
> Theoretically it started in the 2600 era with games that used nothing but simple lines and only 2 colors to make a quasi 3d effect but I hear what your saying


That is not mode7, that is racing the beam


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## RodrigoDavy (Jul 21, 2015)

I think that, excluding games like Pilotwings and the racing games, Mode 7 was used mostly as a gimmick to make graphics a little nicer in some games. It had a lot of potential, but most of the games at the time were side-scrollers which didn't benefit from Mode 7.


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## VinsCool (Jul 21, 2015)

RodrigoDavy said:


> I think that, besides games like Pilotwings and the racing games, Mode 7 was used mostly as a gimmick to make graphics a little nicer in some games. It had a lot of potential, but most of the games at the time were side-scrollers which didn't benefit from Mode 7.


Donkey Kong Country used it very well


----------



## RevPokemon (Jul 21, 2015)

VinsCool said:


> That is not mode7, that is racing the beam


I was speaking of the first 3d games on home consoles not specifically 7


----------



## Sakitoshi (Jul 21, 2015)

RodrigoDavy said:


> I think that, excluding games like Pilotwings and the racing games, Mode 7 was used mostly as a gimmick to make graphics a little nicer in some games. It had a lot of potential, but most of the games at the time were side-scrollers which didn't benefit from Mode 7.


The very first minutes of Super Metroid use it too. the title screen itself, when Ridley escapes and you are escaping the Ceres station. the little cutscenes of Samus ship too.


Spoiler








In Super Mario World, the platform when you fight Iggy and Larry. when they scale the wall, jump across the stage and you step on and defeat Morton, Ludwig and Roy. and the rotating wheel of Reznor. and Bowser as he fly toward the screen and rotate to drop the balls.


Spoiler


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## RevPokemon (Jul 21, 2015)

Sakitoshi said:


> The very first minutes of Super Metroid use it too. the title screen itself, when Ridley escapes and you are escaping the Ceres station. the little cutscenes of Samus ship too.
> 
> 
> Spoiler
> ...



Now that I look back in SMBW it reminds me of how they use it in castlevania to an extent


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## XDel (Jul 21, 2015)

RevPokemon said:


> First steps?
> Theoretically it started in the 2600 era with games that used nothing but simple lines and only 2 colors to make a quasi 3d effect but I hear what your saying



Maybe I should have used the term (zoomable pixels)?


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## RevPokemon (Jul 21, 2015)

XDel said:


> Maybe I should have used the term (zoomable pixels)?


True but like I said I get what you are saying. 
Ultimately the fact that the snes had an expansion port for a gpu and cartridge was better than an add on. Although I do wonder what the Sony/Nintendo collab would of given us


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## XDel (Jul 21, 2015)

RevPokemon said:


> True but like I said I get what you are saying.
> Ultimately the fact that the snes had an expansion port for a gpu and cartridge was better than an add on. Although I do wonder what the Sony/Nintendo collab would of given us



I always imagined it would have been something like later generation DOS games, such as Anvil of Dawn, Terminator: Future Shock, etc. Basically something able to pull off PSX first gen games, and totally excel at 2D at the same time. That and we'd prolly have been blessed with a ton of RPG's with full motion animation.


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## RodrigoDavy (Jul 21, 2015)

VinsCool said:


> Donkey Kong Country used it very well


I wasn't aware that DKC used Mode 7, is it in a boss battle?


Sakitoshi said:


> The very first minutes of Super Metroid use it too. the title screen itself, when Ridley escapes and you are escaping the Ceres station. the little cutscenes of Samus ship too.
> 
> 
> Spoiler
> ...



I guess you have a point. It's a shame though that most games only used it for Boss Battles. I really like how they used it in Super Metroid to create tension though.

EDIT: And now we're discussing the Super Nintendo in a thread about the Mega Drive... lol


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## VinsCool (Jul 21, 2015)

RodrigoDavy said:


> I wasn't aware that DKC used Mode 7, is it in a boss battle?


All 3 DKC games used mode 7 for pseudo 3d effects in backgrounds while playing in many levels. DKC2 used it beautifully in ships levels


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## RodrigoDavy (Jul 21, 2015)

VinsCool said:


> All 3 DKC games used mode 7 for pseudo 3d effects in backgrounds while playing in many levels. DKC2 used it beautifully in ships levels


Oh, I know what you mean. I always thought the background in the ship levels was a trick done by the CPU.


----------



## Pleng (Jul 21, 2015)

mightymuffy said:


> Even the Mega CD, yeah perhaps that got a bad rep, but really the only competitor to that machine was the fukkin Phillips CDi, and taken in that context, the Mega CD was awesome!



In Europe there was the Amiga CD32 which wiped the floor with the Mega CD... 



RevPokemon said:


> And by cool you mean had rich parents



Or maybe he, you know, had a job? Our family had both a MegaDrive and a SNES (And a GameGear and a GameBoy and a CD32...) and we were _never_ bought any systems from our parents.


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## mightymuffy (Jul 21, 2015)

Pleng said:


> In Europe there was the Amiga CD32 which wiped the floor with the Mega CD...


(I just knew somebody was gonna come up with that one!)
UK here, and I also still have a CD32 plugged in - great machine... If there's anything MD related that'd challenge the CD32 it'd be the 32X in my opinion, or the 32X CD, and you can add the Atari Jaguar/CD and 3DO to that group.
No you should've said the PC-Engine CD, that'd have shut me up!  
Still, if you insist on the two machines being pitted together - I fully agree with you!


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## DjoeN (Jul 21, 2015)

Brrr, Amiga CD / Atari Jaguar CD / Panasonic FZ-1 R.E.A.L. 3DO
Had them all, sold the amigacd, the Atari stuff i still have and the Panasonic FZ-1 i maybe can sell for €50 but the FZ-10, I can't even sell it around here for a price higher then €20, _(even if you throw some AWESOME madden game with it  ) _
AmigaCD was great if you had the extras to turn it into an almost fully workin,g Amiga 1200
I really don't know what Atari was thinking when it launched the Atari Jaguar and later it's CD add-on both for a price way to high
Panasonic, well that was a very expensive flop :/

The Retro CD consoles i love the most are my PC-Engine Duo-RX (RGB modded) / Saturn and Dreamcast (and then comes PSX (the old versions, not the smaller white version PS1)

[EDIT]
For those wondering, no, most i didn't buy myself or my parents at that time, i got a best friend who bought them all (his parents (who owned a company) payed it all), we played alot at his home and we lost each other while going to different schools, but i later met him again and asked about his consoles, turned out he still had everythig (AmigaCD/Panasonic/Atari Jaguar(+CD) (The PC-Engine Duo-RX was a gift from some Japanese friends from my parents) (The Saturn and Dreamcast i bought myself)
So i asked if he would sell them to me, that was no problem, under 1 condition (he was moving to Africa and was not planning to take them with him) 5000 BF (around €125) not more and i would get rid of the 3DO systems cause the where so awefull, lol, anyway i could do as i pleased whit it, So i payed 5000 BF and a dinner  (that was more then 10 years ago) i broke his promise :/ i still have both Panasonic systems


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## Hungry Friend (Jul 21, 2015)

The PCE, especially the CD system had a ridiculously good library of games in Japan that were never localized due to its lack of popularity in the west, but it's definitely an underrated system. SF2CE didn't even use the arcade card and it was a really fantastic port, and some of the Neogeo ports looked better than their SNES & Genesis counterparts(Fatal Fury Special for example) Also Lords of Thunder was originally a PCE CD game that was ported to the SCD. Also Rondo of Blood, which is arguably the best classic CV game but that's a matter of taste.

All I can say about the 3DO(never had one) was that it had awesome ports of SSF2T & Samurai Showdown. They weren't perfect but for 90s ports they were pretty incredible. Other than loading time, the sound seemed to be rather compressed, especially in SS. Some parallax scrolling was missing in SSF2T, like the bathtub in E-Honda's stage+ some background animation.


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## sarkwalvein (Jul 21, 2015)

Hungry Friend said:


> Also Rondo of Blood, which is arguably the best classic CV game but that's a matter of taste.


That fucking great soundtrack... Oh... Nice...



Oh Konami, why did you had to die such a horrible death?


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## Foxi4 (Jul 21, 2015)

I have trouble understanding what the OP means by _"bad rep"_, both the SNES and the Genesis/MD went neck in neck throughout the generation and estimates of sales are inconclusive regarding which one sold better _(according to some calculations the Genesis/MD might've actually sold more units than the SNES due to sales made in North and South American states)_. The MD/Genesis never had a _"bad rep"_, it's a highly respected system, claiming otherwise is revisionist history.


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## RevPokemon (Jul 21, 2015)

Foxi4 said:


> I have trouble understanding what the OP means by _"bad rep"_, both consoles went neck in neck and estimates of sales are inconclusive regarding which one sold better _(according to some calculations the MD might've actually sold more units than the SNES due to sales made in North and South American states)_. The MD/Genesis never had a _"bad rep"_, it's a highly respected system, claiming otherwise is revisionist history.


I think we all think that. I think " why is the Genesis not held as highly as the Snes" or something like that would be a better title


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## Foxi4 (Jul 21, 2015)

RevPokemon said:


> I think we all think that. I think " why is the Genesis not held as highly as the Snes" or something like that would be a better title


Considering the sheer amount of third-party/knock-off/clone/SoC-based MD/Genesis systems currently present on the market, I'd say that both systems were held in equal regard, and still are to this day. There's countless plug-and-play MD-based systems out there, people clearly still have a soft spot for its library.


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## RevPokemon (Jul 21, 2015)

Foxi4 said:


> Considering the sheer amount of third-party/knock-off/clone/SoC-based MD/Genesis systems currently present on the market, I'd say that both systems were held in equal regard, and still are to this day. There's countless plug-and-play MD-based systems out there, people clearly still have a soft spot for its library.


Same here I mean games like the collections have done great and it is a great console that is easily a top 5 console of all time.

Hell even non gamers remember it to an extent from certain games.

But yeah I agree it is by no means underrated and I to feel they are both regarded equally.


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## Hungry Friend (Jul 22, 2015)

The Genesis had some seriously badass CPS1 ports like Strider & Ghouls. They only had around 1/3 of the animation of their arcade counterparts(would've been too expensive if they were bigger carts) but things were cut in a manner which minimized the impact on the visuals and most importantly, the gameplay was perfect. SF2 ran much much better on both the PCE and Genesis than it did on the SNEs despite the SNES versions looking and arguably sounding better. The music in the CPS1 SF2 ports sounds better on the Genesis imo & the PCE version had full, clear voice samples. The SNES version's voice samples(both CPS1 & 2 ports) are cut short to save space.

One seldom mentioned port of Ghouls due to the system's failure is the Supergrafx version, which was supposed to be the PCE's successor. Nearly arcade-perfect with much more animation than the SG version although the Genesis version's sound is superior.


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## RevPokemon (Jul 22, 2015)

Hungry Friend said:


> The Genesis had some seriously badass CPS1 ports like Strider & Ghouls. They only had around 1/3 of the animation of their arcade counterparts(would've been too expensive if they were bigger carts) but things were cut in a manner which minimized the impact on the visuals and most importantly, the gameplay was perfect. SF2 ran much much better on both the PCE and Genesis than it did on the SNEs despite the SNES versions looking and arguably sounding better. The music in the CPS1 SF2 ports sounds better on the Genesis imo & the PCE version had full, clear voice samples. The SNES version's voice samples(both CPS1 & 2 ports) are cut short to save space.


Well also that 6 button Genesis controller made games like sf2 and others alot better to play.


----------



## RodrigoDavy (Jul 22, 2015)

Hungry Friend said:


> SF2 ran much much better on both the PCE and Genesis than it did on the SNEs despite the SNES versions looking and arguably sounding better. The music in the CPS1 SF2 ports sounds better on the Genesis imo & the PCE version had full, clear voice samples. The SNES version's voice samples(both CPS1 & 2 ports) are cut short to save space.


I think the difference in performance in the snes version is overstated. The snes version was fine, I never played the game and thought "how unplayable this is". The fact that the snes could even handle Street Fighter Alpha 2 later on (despite the fact it was very stripped down) shows that it was not a machine as slow as everyone says.


----------



## RustInPeace (Jul 22, 2015)

It had a bad reputation? If you include the addons, I guess so. I never played the addons, but seen footage, namely from Angry Video Game Nerd. Genesis is still the only non-Nintendo console I've owned, so that should say something. Granted, I got it for free, secondhand with 10 games, including Sonic 1,2, and Street Fighter Champion Edition. I never took advantage of its Hyper Fighting though, too hardcore for me last I checked.


----------



## Hungry Friend (Jul 23, 2015)

RodrigoDavy said:


> I think the difference in performance in the snes version is overstated. The snes version was fine, I never played the game and thought "how unplayable this is". The fact that the snes could even handle Street Fighter Alpha 2 later on (despite the fact it was very stripped down) shows that it was not a machine as slow as everyone says.



Oh it's certainly not unplayable and I had a massive amount of fun with it as a kid, but if you play the arcade version of SF2HF and then play both the SNES and Genesis versions, the SNES version's timing is a bit off and there is very slight slowdown during fireballs and just in general. The SG port on the other hand has zero slowdown and you can pull off every single combo, CPS1 chains included, that you could in the arcade version. I'm no SF2 expert but the SG version has zero slowdown and perfect timing while the SNES version looks better, arguably sounds better but has just a tiny bit of slowdown. It's still a great port though so I was by no means calling it unplayable.

Super SF2 is one of those games that I see as superior on the SNES simply due to the SNES' sound chip and its ability to replicate the arcade version's music/sounds more accurately, although the SG version actually has the full arcade voice samples, just really really grainy. The SNES version's are often cut or even totally different, but they're clearer(although muffled) and the music is fantastic. SG version has less slowdown still, but the SNES version of Super simply feels more like the arcade version due to its superior colors and sound.

The SNES Alpha 2 port is indeed impressive, but to be fair it does use the S-DD1 enhancement chip.

*Rust:* I usually just set the turbo setting to 3 or 4 stars to make it the same speed as the arcade or just a tiny bit faster. Setting it all the way to 10 is kinda funny and all but it makes it nearly impossible to play.

OT, but I would've loved to see more SuperFX-2 games on the SNES that used the chip to enhance 2d sprites like Yoshi's Island did. That game is breathtaking visually and looks better than many early 2d games on the PS1.


----------



## WiiCube_2013 (Jul 23, 2015)

Foxi4 said:


> I have trouble understanding what the OP means by _"bad rep"_, both the SNES and the Genesis/MD went neck in neck throughout the generation and estimates of sales are inconclusive regarding which one sold better _(according to some calculations the Genesis/MD might've actually sold more units than the SNES due to sales made in North and South American states)_. The MD/Genesis never had a _"bad rep"_, it's a highly respected system, claiming otherwise is revisionist history.


As I've said it's how the internet's treating SMD/Genesis nowadays in comparison to SNES.

SMD has inferior audio quality but the more mature games are mostly kept intact.


----------



## Hungry Friend (Jul 23, 2015)

I never owned a Genesis as a kid(played SG games at a neighborhood friend's house) so I was absolutely thrilled when Genecyst & Dgen came out and allowed me to play SG games with(nearly) full sound and at full speed on even slow computers. I think a lot of the Genesis bashing is due to SNES fanboys plus all of the late RPGs and games like DKC, Starfox, Yoshi's Island etc that really pushed the SNES and/or used enhancement chips. That SNES sound chip really made games like FF6, SoM, SD3, CT etc. incredible experiences because of their amazing soundtracks. The SG definitely deserves more respect technically though; it was basically the arcade HW of 1988-89 but downgraded to make the system affordable.

That's a big reason why the SG had such amazing CPS1 ports- same basic architecture.


----------



## Foxi4 (Jul 23, 2015)

WiiCube_2013 said:


> As I've said it's how the internet's treating SMD/Genesis nowadays in comparison to SNES.
> 
> SMD has inferior audio quality but the more mature games are mostly kept intact.


It's not inferior, it's different. The SNES is muddy and squeaky, the MD is metallic and harsh. You're comparing guitars and violins here, two different kinds sound.


----------



## RodrigoDavy (Jul 23, 2015)

Hungry Friend said:


> Oh it's certainly not unplayable and I had a massive amount of fun with it as a kid, but if you play the arcade version of SF2HF and then play both the SNES and Genesis versions, the SNES version's timing is a bit off and there is very slight slowdown during fireballs and just in general. The SG port on the other hand has zero slowdown and you can pull off every single combo, CPS1 chains included, that you could in the arcade version. I'm no SF2 expert but the SG version has zero slowdown and perfect timing while the SNES version looks better, arguably sounds better but has just a tiny bit of slowdown. It's still a great port though so I was by no means calling it unplayable.


I see what you're saying. I don't think it was entirely the snes fault though, as Killer Instinct and Mortal Kombat games play very smoothly. But I disgress...



Hungry Friend said:


> The SNES Alpha 2 port is indeed impressive, but to be fair it does use the S-DD1 enhancement chip.


To be fair all the S-DD1 does is decompress the cartridge's compressed data so the cartridge can store more than 4MB of data. It's still the snes cpu that is doing the hard work.


----------



## the_randomizer (Jul 23, 2015)

RodrigoDavy said:


> I see what you're saying. I don't think it was entirely the snes fault though, as Killer Instinct and Mortal Kombat games play very smoothly. But I disgress...
> 
> 
> To be fair all the S-DD1 does is decompress the cartridge's compressed data so the cartridge can store more than 4MB of data. It's still the snes cpu that is doing the hard work.



Still impressive to see a near-identical arcade port on the Snes, graphically, it almost looks as good as the real deal, but the S-DD1 chip was only used in two games AFAIK, SFA2 and Star Ocean.


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## VinsCool (Jul 23, 2015)

So I got my SEGA, like I said I was about to do the other day


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## sarkwalvein (Jul 23, 2015)

VinsCool said:


> So I got my SEGA, like I said I was about to do the other day


Have a good time.
For some reason I listen Sega and have a weird urge to play Castlevania Bloodlines.


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## VinsCool (Jul 23, 2015)

sarkwalvein said:


> Have a good time.
> For some reason I listen Sega and have a weird urge to play Castlevania Bloodlines.


I paid 30$, almost given. Works beautifully,but RF connection gives an awful imaga quality in my hdtv lol


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## WiiCube_2013 (Jul 23, 2015)

Foxi4 said:


> It's not inferior, it's different. The SNES is muddy and squeaky, the MD is metallic and harsh. You're comparing guitars and violins here, two different kinds sound.


The other day I was listening to a comparison of Doom's score SMD x SNES and couldn't help but find the SNES version spectacular while the SMD was just utter shit. :-/

But anyhow, guess you're right.


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## VinsCool (Jul 23, 2015)

WiiCube_2013 said:


> The other day I was listening to a comparison of Doom's score SMD x SNES and couldn't help but find the SNES version spectacular while the SMD was just utter shit. :-/
> 
> But anyhow, guess you're right.


SMD usesFM synth for instruments, SNES uses samples, so, it won't sound the same for sure.


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## WiiCube_2013 (Jul 23, 2015)

VinsCool said:


> SMD usesFM synth for instruments, SNES uses samples, so, it won't sound the same for sure.


That's for sure. Nintendo got the best of 16bit music, although this is entirely subjective too.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 23, 2015)

WiiCube_2013 said:


> The other day I was listening to a comparison of Doom's score SMD x SNES and couldn't help but find the SNES version spectacular while the SMD was just utter shit. :-/ But anyhow, guess you're right.


This has always been a problem with ports - the Genesis had a _very_ distinct palette of sounds due to which it was always difficult to replicate music scores from other platforms in a faithful fashion. The Mega Drive shines most in its exclusives with music scores designed to be played on that particular chip. That, and sound is really a matter of preference - I could just as easily say that the SNES was a joke in comparison to the likes of Amiga, it's all very subjective.


WiiCube_2013 said:


> That's for sure. Nintendo got the best of 16bit music, although this is entirely subjective too.


Bwahaha!


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## VinsCool (Jul 23, 2015)

WiiCube_2013 said:


> That's for sure. Nintendo got the best of 16bit music, although this is entirely subjective too.


Metal/synth music sounds very good in a SEGA, while instrumental sounds better in SNES.
Although, some games has excellent sound, Aladdin and Sonic games have an excellent usage of synth.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



Foxi4 said:


> Bwahaha!


The main reason why I like .MOD music so much!


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## WiiCube_2013 (Jul 23, 2015)

VinsCool said:


> *Metal/*synth* music* sounds very good in a SEGA, while instrumental sounds better in SNES.
> Although, some games has excellent sound, Aladdin and Sonic games have an excellent usage of synth.
> 
> --------------------- MERGED ---------------------------
> ...



Suppose that's why I don't really appreciate Sega's tunes all that much as metal isn't my type of music. Synthesised BGMs? Love 'em!


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## VinsCool (Jul 24, 2015)

WiiCube_2013 said:


> Suppose that's why I don't really appreciate Sega's tunes all that much as metal isn't my type of music. Synthesised BGMs? Love 'em!


It's not a matter you like metal or not, just saying that metal tunes sounds better in SEGA than the same tune on SNES. It has its metal guitar sound that nothing could reproduce


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## FAST6191 (Jul 24, 2015)

Relevant as of the sound discussion
http://macgateway.com/featured-articles/sound-card-history/

As for the sound chip debate. We could talk specs and bore everybody to death. I think in the end though we can all agree that in the end it is a classic case of a bad workman blames his tools -- if you can not create something awesome sounding on either device then you have gone very wrong somewhere.

Also while we are on the Amiga let us see your SNES or megadrive pull this one off


Edit.
Actually you might as well have the efforts


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## RodrigoDavy (Jul 24, 2015)

VinsCool said:


> Metal/synth music sounds very good in a SEGA, while instrumental sounds better in SNES.
> Although, some games has excellent sound, Aladdin and Sonic games have an excellent usage of synth.


I think Sonic sounds great but I don't think Aladdin sounds very good. I do think Virgin did a great work later with the Lion King soundtrack for the Mega Drive/Genesis.

I would say it's harder to get good results with the Mega Drive sound chip, but artists who knew how to use the hardware were able to get excellent results that's impossible to get in sample-based synthetizers. It's a shame that the Mega Drive wasn't good with percussion.


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## VinsCool (Jul 24, 2015)

RodrigoDavy said:


> I think Sonic sounds great but I don't think Aladdin sounds very good. I do think Virgin did a great work later with the Lion King soundtrack for the Mega Drive/Genesis.
> 
> I would say it's harder to get good results with the Mega Drive sound chip, but artists who knew how to use the hardware were able to get excellent results that's impossible to get in sample-based synthetizers. It's a shame that the Mega Drive wasn't good with percussion.


Percussions were very good in some games though


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## RodrigoDavy (Jul 24, 2015)

FAST6191 said:


> Relevant as of the sound discussion
> http://macgateway.com/featured-articles/sound-card-history/
> 
> As for the sound chip debate. We could talk specs and bore everybody to death. I think in the end though we can all agree that in the end it is a classic case of a bad workman blames his tools -- if you can not create something awesome sounding on either device then you have gone very wrong somewhere.
> ...



Amiga sounds a lot like the GBA. It must be because both use 8-bit samples. Seeing as how amiga can only do 4 PCM tracks, I would argue it must be difficult to make complex compositions for the Amiga, especially during gameplay when sound effects can eat one or two channels.



VinsCool said:


> Percussions were very good in some games though


Were there any Mega Drive games that could do percussions like these: (It's a sincere question. Sorry if it seems I like to compare systems, it's just that 16-bit systems are one of my favorite topics)


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## The Real Jdbye (Jul 24, 2015)

RodrigoDavy said:


> Amiga sounds a lot like the GBA. It must be because both use 8-bit samples. Seeing as how amiga can only do 4 PCM tracks, I would argue it must be difficult to make complex compositions for the Amiga, especially during gameplay when sound effects can eat one or two channels.
> 
> 
> Were there any Mega Drive games that could do percussions like these: (It's a sincere question. Sorry if it seems I like to compare systems, it's just that 16-bit systems are one of my favorite topics)



People have made tons of amazing C64/Amiga music, it takes more effort than newer consoles, but still sounds better than most music from the SNES/Genesis era.
It's hard to make amazing music for any of them though. They all have their limitations.


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## VinsCool (Jul 24, 2015)

RodrigoDavy said:


> Amiga sounds a lot like the GBA. It must be because both use 8-bit samples. Seeing as how amiga can only do 4 PCM tracks, I would argue it must be difficult to make complex compositions for the Amiga, especially during gameplay when sound effects can eat one or two channels.
> 
> 
> Were there any Mega Drive games that could do percussions like these: (It's a sincere question. Sorry if it seems I like to compare systems, it's just that 16-bit systems are one of my favorite topics)


I'm not sure if "drums" were for the percussions samples from DKC, but here are some nice Genesis music pieces 


Spoiler: EPIC MUSIC













https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7DZ5Utuq58


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## RodrigoDavy (Jul 24, 2015)

VinsCool said:


> I'm not sure if "drums" were for the percussions samples from DKC, but here are some nice Genesis music pieces


Mega Turrican percussion kicks ass!


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## Hungry Friend (Jul 24, 2015)

As far as multiplats went, devs often didn't take full advantage of the SNES' unique architecture, hence the slowdown in SF2 and the Mortal Kombat games among others while games like DKC1-3 had next to none despite using no enhancement chips and looking absolutely fantastic. Also Alpha 2 is FAR from an exact arcade port but I'm surprised just how much Capcom was able to squeeze in there, especially considering the PS1 port had a significant number of animation frames cut as well, although it's obviously a much better port.

The SNEs was a totally unique machine while the SG was more like the arcade HW at the time. Both had strengths and weaknesses, and the Genesis port of Virtua Racing that used the SVP chip, which actually pushed many more polygons at a higher framerate than the superFX 1-2 chips if I remember correctly was fucking impressive. I still think the SFX-2 chip worked better for enhancing 2d visuals like in Yoshi's Island though, and Capcom probably could've put out a fairly accurate Alpha 2 port if they had used that strategy although that's just a wild guess.

As far as sound goes, it's all down to taste. Genesis had sharper/crisper music but was bad at orchestral stuff while the SNES shined when it came to beautiful symphonic pieces. FFIV-VI, CT etc wouldn't be nearly as good without that crazy kutaragi sound chip. I like guys like him; they have balls and a vision.



FAST6191 said:


> Relevant as of the sound discussion
> http://macgateway.com/featured-articles/sound-card-history/
> 
> As for the sound chip debate. We could talk specs and bore everybody to death. I think in the end though we can all agree that in the end it is a classic case of a bad workman blames his tools -- if you can not create something awesome sounding on either device then you have gone very wrong somewhere.
> ...




To be fair, the SNES version of Tales of Phantasia had a fully voiced theme song as well but due to cart limitations it was MUCH more heavily compressed than that. Also it sucks ass compared to that Cannon Fodder theme. Only 48-mbit cart I know of(8mb)


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## Geno Breaker (Aug 3, 2015)

Ugh that projecting thread title.

The Genesis never had a bad rep besides with a few kiddies who started disliking it because AVGN said the add ons were crap. It was definitely more popular in the first couple of years of the "16 bit war". It was the cool kid's system. It almost always outsold the SNES in America every year. (And in some parts of Europe) It It just happened to have add ons released for it and fail. But it never had a bad reputation.


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## RodrigoDavy (Aug 3, 2015)

Geno Breaker said:


> It was definitely more popular in the first couple of years of the "16 bit war". It was the cool kid's system. It almost always outsold the SNES in America every year. (And in some parts of Europe)


I'm just using your post to talk of off. This is not a direct response to what you said specifically. 

But wasn't that cool kid's system image the result of Sega's agressive market in North America? I mean the Mega Drive totally outsold the Snes here in Brazil, but I never found any brazilian Sega fan saying someone was not cool or childish for owning or liking the snes back then. In Brazil, the kind of agressive market Sega did in North America is forbidden by law, so I can only think this kind of attitude wasn't espontaneous but rather manipulative marketing.

Sure, the Mega Drive is a great system but I always see Sega fans kind of proud of this marketing Sega did, I think there should be more reflecting about this: wasn't this kind of marketing a little manipulative? Do you agree with the kind of marketing that make children make fun of each other based on the console they own? Do you think the use of this commercial is legitimate because it's clearly succesful in Sega's case?


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## Hungry Friend (Aug 3, 2015)

As someone who was a kid during the 16-bit era, it was definitely the marketing that gave the Genesis the "cool kid's system" image. Sega always went for "edgy" type ads and Nintendo helped them out by censoring shit, especially when the first Mortal Kombat came out. The SNES port was censored to shit and played like trash while the SG version looked like ass but had all the blood/fatalities and played just like the arcade version. It was a major PR disaster for Nintendo which is why MK2-3 SNES were uncensored.

I think MK1 being censored is what gave Nintendo the whole "kiddie system" image in the first place, at least when it came to general public perception. MK was HUGE back in '93 so pretty much everyone even aware of gaming knew about it.(popular enough for politicians to bash it and blame it for everything bad in the world)


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## VinsCool (Aug 4, 2015)

I'm enjoying my recent SEGA Genesis purchasse, and more games are coming soon from a seller from Ebay (Sonic games actually )


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## Sakitoshi (Aug 5, 2015)

Hungry Friend said:


> To be fair, the SNES version of Tales of Phantasia had a fully voiced theme song as well but due to cart limitations it was MUCH more heavily compressed than that. Also it sucks ass compared to that Cannon Fodder theme. Only 48-mbit cart I know of(8mb)


you are a little wrong there. that game isn't that compressed(not with enhancement chips at least) as I can play it with no problems in a Super Everdrive. Both Star Ocean and Tales of Phantasia were stored in 48Mbits(6MBytes) carts and are the only ones to do so. but Star Ocean uses the S-DD1 chip for uncompression routines, the game extracted account for a whopping total of 96Mbits(12MBytes). there is an extracted version of the game circulating on the net that you can play on real hardware if you bother to make a cart or have a flashcart with enough memory to hold it(AFAIK only the SD2SNES has that much memory).

>Amiga vs SNES vs Genesis music.
bitch please, PC could do way better with a Sound Blaster.


Spoiler: Megarace OST














Spoiler: Jazz Jackrabbit OST









full playlist here

ALL HAIL THE MASTER RACE.


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## Hungry Friend (Aug 5, 2015)

I'm talking about the fully voiced theme song in Tales, not the entire game. If you hear it in-game in the SNES version of ToP you'll know what I mean when I say it's compressed to shit(and I don't like the song anyway). However, I didn't know SO was that massive uncompressed plus I've never even played Star Ocean despite having the fan translated ROM; it's a series I haven't really tried yet other than making sure it runs in 9x. ToP doesn't use enhancement chips afaik.

I've always been mostly a console gamer, especially being a fan of JRPGs. The SNES, PS1 and PS2 had tons of masterpieces and the Genesis had a few great ones as well.


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## sarkwalvein (Aug 5, 2015)

Hungry Friend said:


> I'm talking about the fully voiced theme song in Tales, not the entire game. If you hear it in-game in the SNES version of ToP you'll know what I mean when I say it's compressed to shit(and I don't like the song anyway). However, I didn't know SO was that massive uncompressed plus I've never even played Star Ocean despite having the fan translated ROM; it's a series I haven't really tried yet other than making sure it runs in 9x. ToP doesn't use enhancement chips afaik.
> 
> I've always been mostly a console gamer, especially being a fan of JRPGs. The SNES, PS1 and PS2 had tons of masterpieces and the Genesis had a few great ones as well.


But Yume wa owaranai is beautiful! (Not really, but don't trash my memories).
I think the song voices are sampled at 8KHz, so yes, it sounds as if Yukari Yoshida was singing through an old phone.
The version sung by Megumi Hayashibara on the PS1 is way better IMHO.


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## Hungry Friend (Aug 6, 2015)

Yeah if I replay ToP, it'll definitely be the PS1 version that I also have a fan translated version of, and having played a little bit of it, the improvements are already incredibly obvious and I'm not just talking about the visual and sound quality.

Phantasy Star IV on the Genesis was really damn impressive for its time as well(and really fucking expensive) and much like Chrono Trigger(PSIV came first) it had allowed you to perform combo attacks with multiple characters simultaneously. The music, while excellent for the Genesis imo can't compare to the beautiful soundtracks of FF4-6, CT, SoM, Terranigma etc though. The Genesis could definitely pump out some awesome music but I just prefer the SNES' sound chip, although I'm definitely biased because of the fond memories I have of playing badass SNES games. Sound wise, it just had more tools to work with.


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## Flame (Aug 17, 2015)

Yeah fuck the megadrive... That's why my mum thought it was trash and put it in the trash can....

*cries in fetus position in the corner*

WHY!!!?

*continues crying in fetus position in the corner*


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