The retro-scene concerning the SEGA Genesis

Is there a black hole in the retro-scene concerning the SEGA Genesis?

This has been on my mind for quite some time now, and i can't help but notice how much the Mega Drive/Genesis has been dwindling. I know that a lot of this has got to do with the fact that SEGA has not released a console in over a decade and their reputation has been in the gutter, but the utterly complete lack of knowledge concerning the system's library is baffling to me.

I think that this is also, in part, due to the now famous 'Sonic's Ultimate Collection'. People often recommend that over actually collecting for the system, and that is a huge problem. The problem with that collection is that it's pretty awful in content. It's missing most of the actually great games on the Mega Drive, and they put a lot of games that were never good to begin with (like Super Thunder Blade, a laughably bad port of an arcade game, Altered Beast, Golden Axe - which just pail in comparison to the arcade version, and so on).

For example, here's a list of truly brilliant games off the top of my head - Rocket Knight Adventures, MUSHA, Mega Turrican, Contra: Hard Corps, Castlevania Bloodlines, Gley Lancer, Gaiares, Alien Soldier, Thunder Force III & IV, Battle Mania Daiginjou, Gunstar Heroes, Alisia Dragoon, Shinning Force II, Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master, Elemental Master, Dynamite Headdy.

Out of the 18 brilliant games in my list, 4 of them are on the collection.

That's like coming up with a SNES collection, slaping Mario and Zelda, filling the rest with mediocre games like Knights of the Round, the painfully aged Star Fox, and not putting in any of the JRPGs, or Kirby games, or Mega Man X games, or Donkey Kong.

And then there are people that go on about how the library 'hasn't aged well' and never go into detail regarding that. I'm gonna go on a limb here and assume they tried a few of the popular, but mediocre games like Altered Beast, Golden Axe, Vectorman, Ecco etc. The stuff that's on the Ultimate Collection.

Don't you bash Knights of the Round and Star Fox!

It's all from the perspective of a guy that never touched these two 16bit machines before 2008.

Sega rules. End of discussion. Mortal Kombat is the greatest video game ever and donkey kong sucks!

I still prefer the Genesis version of Mortal Kombat. The absolutely terrible sound quality and grainy graphics are very nostalgic for me.

truxton, zero wing, grind stormer all rule.

Maybe you're just looking in the wrong place? There are plenty of dedicated Sega/Genesis communities all around the internet that have quite a bit more knowledge on the subject than most "modern" gamers. I can tell you right now that that your aren't going to find many roaming Gamespot these days with the removal of Legacy Platforms.

It's because all of us that actually know anything about the Genesis are over, or are getting close to 30 now. All of what these 90's babies know of the Genesis is what AVGN tells them (his comparison video against the SNES was a joke btw), or they think Sonic '06 is indicative of what SEGA has always been about. So many people also don't seem to know anything of SEGA's mascots beyond Sonic, let alone know of all the amazing third party exclusives that they've had on their systems.

There are dedicated SEGA sites though like SEGA-16, and thankfully, there's at least one huge Genesis fanboy with a voice on youtube, Mark Bussler from Classic Game Room. If people want to undervalue the Genesis, that's fine. As long as there's a cloud of ignorance, it at least makes it easy to collect games for it.

literally the only reviewer I will give the time of day. I wish there was a bit more ignorance tho and no one knew of alien soldier so I can get rid of my reprod cart and get a megadrive copy for under $200.

@Some-Mist:

Yeah, I'm in the same position with Alien Soldier too, lol. Games that didn't receive a NA release can be pretty pricy, but overall it's not too bad compared to the dumb prices associated with the SNES, or even the Saturn, for example.

The sad thing is people equate Sega primarily with Sonic these days and if Sonic games aren't doing well than that reflects Sega as a whole and for all the nostalgic gamers who talk about all the great NES and SNES games, I rarely hear anyone reflect on the Genesis despite a lot of people having it growing up, yet a lot of my friends who had a Genesis seem to have most of the same titles. Sonic 1, Mickey Mouse Castle of Illusion, Mortal Kombat (for the blood) and usually a variety of sports games and I think the big problem is, outside of Sonic, Sega hasn't made a lot of really good attempts to bring these old franchises into the next gen especially during a time when so many old games were getting either retro remakes for download or a next gen reboot. Looking back Sega did try a Toejam and Earl 3D game on the original Xbox but it was forgotten. And of course there was the disasterous Goldenaxe Beastrider which boggles the mind of how Sega screwed that one up.

I think I also heard somewhere that a lot of the classics of the Genesis, while exclusive to the system, weren't true first party Sega games and that Sega didn't retain the rights to a lot of the characters of that era like Nintendo did. A lot of fans were upset that Toejam and Earl were absent from both Sega All Stars Racing games and it was due to the fact the original creator retained the rights to them and wouldn't let them be used. As well as when it came to the various compliations, there were certain games they couldn't get the rights to. Now the reason I think Sonic 3 and Knuckles was left out was because there was already the Sonic Mega Collection (GC/PS2), plus it could be downloaded on the various services and maybe Sega thought having all the Sonics on that was reduntant. It also doesn't help that when Sega makes one of their "All Star" collaboration games like the racing ones, they focus more on Dreamcast era characters then Genesis or Saturn era characters. Racing Transformed was little better with reps from Shinobi, Ristar, Afterburner and so on.

It is amazing though, despite having a lot of good games and being the slightly better selling, the lack of knowledge of the Sega Genesis library is mind boggling. Seems like all anyone remembers were Sonic and Mortal Kombat's bloody finishing moves. It also doesn't help that it seems with every bad Sonic game or an Aliens Colonial Marines devoted Sega fans continue to dwindle manly because they have less and less to get behind.

Well, there certainly isn't a black hole if you're actually collecting on the system. The Genesis is one of the most affordable retro systems to collect for right now. And I'm sure that's going to change as the NES well dries up.

I thought Sega's Ultimate Collection was a great compilation. I played most of those games on their heyday and have many fond memories. Yes, the Genesis versions of Golden Axe and Thunder Blade were inferior, but it's what we had and played. Also it's a Genesis collection. I would LOVE a classic Sega arcade compilation of their 16 and 32 bit games. Also, the games on the compilation were developed/published by Sega, which is why games like Gaiares and Thunder Force were not there. I wish they'd make a second compilation.

And yea man, back off Knights of the Round and Star Fox :)