System Profile: Sega CD & 32X

There was a time about 15 years ago when Sega seemed completely fearless. While Nintendo was busy making the greatest games of all time, Sega was pushing the limits and trying everything that seemed like even a halfway good idea. They released game systems for kids, made a game that you could attach other games into, attempted early internet experiments, and had a few infamous add-ons. Probably the two most famous, although not the least successful, are the Sega CD and the 32X. It seems like these machines get insulted constantly on line, and so of course I had to pick them up. I'm looking forward to setting the record straight.

In case you've never seen them in action, here's what the set up looks like:


And here's what it looks like when you squish a model 1 Genesis in there:


I think they are both beautiful things, even with q-tips on the floor. When you collect video games you end up with those all over the place.

Actually most people feel that this is an unwieldy monstrosity, and they are partially right. It does drive me crazy how many wires it takes. Still when I first put the pieces together I got very excited. I would've been the king at my school back in 1995, at least until somebody got a Playstation.

Here's what it looks like when you've got it hooked up. Yes, it takes three plugs to have all three at once, and there are a few games that require this. I'm sure that's a fire hazard, but as a collector I've seen worse.


I am going to talk about 32X first because it is the less interesting of the two. It's got plenty of character, but it also had a very short lifespan. Actually of all the things Sega ever did, this is possibly the most confusing. It was released only a few months before the Saturn, and its graphics are only a little bit up from the CD. Nevertheless there it is.

I actually think it's got some pretty good games on it. The version of Virtua Fighter is excellent, and so is the version of Virtua Racing. It must've made people feel like chumps who paid 100 dollars for the original Genesis version. I would love to post about some games I've beat for it, but as it turns out I suck at 32X. I've never won a race or even got through Virtua Fighter on the easiest setting. I'm alright at Metal Head, but it is very boring. That seems to always be my luck.

There's actually not that much to say about it. It's a lump that sits on top of your Genesis and plays a few slightly better looking games. It didn't make any sense then and, it doesn't make sense now. There's only 36 games for it that makes it easy to collect for. Of course there are two that are ridiculously expensive. Isn't that always the way?

Now on to the Sega CD. This probably won't surprise you too much, but I love this machine. The entire game library seems to be made up of underrated gems and extremely funny cult classics. I mean, what's better than watching extremely grainy Soundgarden videos?

That's actually the biggest caveat of the Sega CD. The sound is good but the picture is not. It has real actors and filmed cutscenes, but they are very grainy because of the lack of colors. Most of the gameplay sections of the games look fine , but they are often interrupted by grainy videos that don't even make much sense. In its defense there are some games that look very good. Games like Silpheed wouldn't look too bad on Playstation. However, some of them do give you the sense that you are fighting in front of a back drop, which I guess in a way you are.

Of course the system is best known for its full motion video which features a bunch of games that remind me of Syfy movies. The difference is that every once in a while the characters will look at the screen and say "well what are you going to do now?" and then you will have to shoot something or solve a puzzle. As I said before, they are mostly lousy but definitely entertaining. I actually don't have many of these yet, but I will keep you posted.

So those are the latest editions to my Sega collection. I admire the company's boldness, and I wish that people would go back and see their failed systems in a more sympathetic light. Sure you make fun of Sega CD now, but you know you wanted one. Didn't you think that Sewer Shark looked like the most awesome game ever? Well anyway you should track one down. It's especially good if you like good space shooters, cheesy FMVs, and obscure, expensive RPGs. Luckily, these are all my favorite things.

Playstation 2 #1- Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy

Well, here's another game from this century and from a system that is still being produced albeit in much smaller numbers than it was a few years ago. Jak and Daxter sure doesn't feel that new anymore though. It seems like since then the characters have been in dozens of games and have moved on to the venerable mascot phase. How old am I that Jak and Daxter doesn't even feel new anymore? They were the hot new game characters back about ten years ago. They even replaced Crash Bandicoot as Naughty Dog's main property. It's similar to what happened in 1991 when Sonic replace Alex Kidd as Sega's mascot. That's a real thing. You can look it up if you don't believe me.

I noticed a couple of interesting things about this game. The first one is that nobody that I talked to liked it. What's the problem with it anyway? I mean, it's not Banjo-Kazooie or anything, but it's a pretty good 3D platform game. Is it because Daxter is annoying? If this is a problem you can turn off the hints and shut him up for the most part. Besides, isn't it nice that Max Casella, aka Vinnie from Doogie Hower, is getting paid? I always liked that guy. Maybe in the super violent world of Playstation 2 this game just isn't adult enough. Of course I spend most of my time playing old kid friendly games, so it's not much of a problem for me. I'd sure like to know why everybody hates this game so much when every publication I read loves it.

The next thing I noticed is also my biggest complaint with the game. This game is too easy, and it goes by way too quick. I don't mind an economical story line. This one's pretty simple, although it doesn't always make sense. The main villain is voiced by Dee Snider, but he's only got about 10 lines in it. You'd never even notice him if you didn't read it in that awful fold-out map style manual. I don't know why they didn't just get some generic Naughty Dog employee to do it if the character was going to be in it so sparingly and with so little promotion. Did everybody know this 10 years ago? I sure can't remember

The real problem, however, is that the game is just too easy. The only real danger in it is tripping over all those power cells you're going to find. This is the main goal in the game, and they are simply everywhere. There are different tasks for finding them, but they mostly boil down to walking along a path until the power cell shows up. There are some that are more difficult to get, but they are easily skipped if you want to beat the basic game. You only need 72 out of 100 to make it to the final level. Also, when you die you start back at the nearest entryway with all the things you collected still intact. This is likely to be the favorite part of many people out there, but it just seems a little too easy for me. If you're going to do this why have a life bar at all? It seems like there should be consequences for death. At least there are a few difficult boss fights in it.

I would say that I beat this game in about 10 hours, which was a shame because I was really starting to get into it. I like how it plays like one big world instead of a bunch of individual levels connected to a central location. On a whole the voice acting is good, and I like the Mark Mothersbaugh music even if it's not quite up to the caliber of the old Crash Bandicoot games. The good certainly outweighs the bad in this one. I just wish that it was more of a challenge. There's a roll jump in this game that helps you get to far off ledges. I had no idea this existed until after I beat the game. I had to skip an entire level because of this, but I still beat the game easily. That's gotta tell you something.

Now if I know game series than the sequels are probably harder. They should also be easy to track down since everybody buys these games, but nobody seems to like them much. Also this is 2011, and just about any Playstation 2 game can be found for 5 bucks or less. They're cheaper than most Atari games. I guess now would be the time for me to start building up my PS2 collection. Let's see, I've got 13 of them. I guess that only leaves me about 2000 more to get. Looks like I'm well on my way.

Sega Genesis #4: Shining in the Darkness

I remember last time I was on here I said I was going to go easy on myself with my next game. Well as it turns out I completely lied. Instead of playing through another old Disney game or some archaic sports game that only requires you to beat the computer once I decided to play through Shining in the Darkness. This game is a largely unheard of game today, but is it a very interesting Genesis game. It's also quite long. It's not much shorter than Dragon Warrior 3, and it has much less variety.

So if you were a big fan of RPGs back in the early 90s than you probably remember the Shining Force games. This was a series of strategy games that got released on a few different Sega systems up through the Saturn. The first two were on the Genesis, and they are two of the greatest games ever produced for it. In fact, Shining Force 2 is my personal favorite Genesis game. Well Shining in the Darkness is the little known predecessor to these games. However, the gameplay is completely different. Where the Shining Force games were turn-based strategy games, Darkness is an old fashioned dungeon crawler. In case you're too young to know what that means, it's sort of like that old 3D maze screensaver. Or are you too young to remember that one as well?

Here's that screen saver that always distracted you during math class.


And here's Shining in the Darkness poorly cropped to hide the fact that I just found this picture on someone's site.

So it has that impressive for 1991 3D scrolling effect, and that's really about it. There is one town, one castle, and one big ol' dungeon that will keep you busy for weeks. It doesn't sound much like that other games in the series, but there are some hints of Shining Force games to come. The similarities mostly come in the form of graphics and sprites. The menu screens are very similar, and I'm fairly sure the priest is that same one that's in later games. It also starts out the same with a person telling you a story that leads to the game select screen. Other than that there's not much resemblance, but the roots certainly are there.

I already mentioned that this game is mostly your characters moving around in a big dungeon with brick walls and floors. The whole game takes place in a small box in the middle of the screen, and if you look closely you'll notice that only the walls move while the floor stays the same. It sound boring, but I actually had a very good time playing this one. As you know, I love a game where you start out weak and slowly get stronger. Darkness did this at a very good pace. Levels never took too long to gain, and you could always tell a difference when you gained one. It also had three very useful party members. Often these games will have one guy who is completely useless. Also, unlike most of these old 3D games where I instantly get lost, I was able to make it through this one without cheating and looking up a map. In fact, the only time I got lost in the maze was when I thought I had missed my save point and checked it on a map loaded up on my computer.

Alright well let's tally this one up. On the downside it's a very drab looking game with little to do besides look around the dark dungeon. There's only one town that you move through too slowly, and one castle that you will probably forget about by the time it's actually useful. On the plus side I found it surprisingly engaging. Every time I went back in the dungeon I was able to make it a little bit farther. I usually couldn't wait to get back in there. The fighting system is very user friendly and fast-paced, so the game never seems to drag. Somehow they managed to make tedium seem fun, which is that main goal in this type of game.

This game only gets so-so reviews online, but I would say that this one is worth checking out, especially if you're into those old Shining Force games. It's interesting to see where the series got its start. I think I will close this one out before it starts to sound too much like a review. I promise next time will be something a little less involved. Spring break's coming up, so that would be the perfect time to play through some old platform games. Or maybe I'll start a game on Dragon Warrior 4. Either way I will try to update more than twice a month.

NES #34 - Dragon Warrior 3

Oh Dragon Warrior 3, where do I even begin? This is one of the biggest and most amazing games that I’ve ever put inside my NES. I can’t believe that they were able to make a game so massive and detailed on such and old system. This is back in the days when RPGs usually lasted around 10 hours and only had one or two characters. I would estimate that this game took me at least 30 hours to complete, but it was probably even longer. This game also drove me absolutely crazy more times than I can count. There were times when I wanted to retire from gaming altogether and start writing a novel. The only problem was that I could only think about dragons and medieval knights. No, I had to get through it if I was ever going to regain my dignity.

First of all, I love these old RPGs where your characters start out so weak that you can hardly take two steps out of town. I love to play a game for at least an hour before I stop walking in a circle around the first village. Dragon Warrior 3 not only does that, but allows a person to do that as many times as they want to. Other than the main character all the party members are created by the player. That means endless possibilites as long as you don’t mind only having a few character classes to choose from. I of course love this because it allows me to bypass the prototypical wizard. I really hate black wizards in these old games. They are always so stingy with the MP that wizards are only useful when fighting bosses. I hate to waste MP on any of the regular monsters because I’ll need enough for the boss. Why can’t they have MP restoring items anyway? Instead I went with a soldier, pilgrim, and merchant until I’m able to turn the merchant into a sage.

So that’s what you can think about before you even start playing. The gameplay is that familiar old Dragon Quest style. If you’ve played any of the newer games in the series than this one wont’ be too surprising. Actually it almost feels like the first game in a whole new series because most of the innovations in it later became series standards. Basically you go from town to town slowly getting stronger and slowly going through elaborate dungeons with plenty of tricks and secrets. Did you notice that I said slowly twice in there? There is a reason for that.

This game is slow! It’s one of the slowest paced games that I’ve ever played. You walk slow. That boat is damn slow. The phoenix is even slower. It takes a ridiculously long time to save up enough money to buy equipment for everybody. Not to mention the high level you have to obtain to fight that final boss. If this was any other game than I would call this a deal breaker, but for a Dragon Warrior game it’s all part of the experience. In fact, I would go so far as to say it was better because it moved so slow. This allows you to be fully immersed in the world. Because it goes by so slow you are able to appreciate everything the developers spent so much time putting in there. This might be why I’ve played through this game but never made it through Phantasy Star 4. That game just flies by to where I hardly even feel like I’m playing it. Of course my girlfriend will probably chuckle at this paragraph a little bit because she had to spend two months listening to me complaining about the game’s slow pace from the other room. I guess you appreciate things more when they’re over.

This game did take me about two months to complete. I would play it for an hour or two after work almost every day. I can’t imagine how long it would take without the internet to help me. Although the game came with detailed guides in the box so I guess they knew this one was gonna be trouble. This game is also one of the earliest I can think of that had a genuine fake ending. I seriously thought that I was fighting the final boss only to find out that I had another dozen hours or so of gameplay left. If you like random encounters than you’ll love the underworld. You’ll get into a fight almost every third step. Also, it looks a little familiar down there. Where have I seen that overworld layout before?

So I better stop this one before it runs on too long. Dragon Warrior 3 truly is a remarkable game. I got it at a time when I thought I had played through all the great NES games. It completely took over my life for a couple of months there, and I wasn’t really sure that video games could do that to me anymore. It was truly a worthwhile experience, and I’ll never forget how I felt when I finally beat it. I guess now I need to play through Dragon Warrior 2, but I might put that one on hold for a while. I just can’t take those trees that have that instant death magic. I guess that’s another story for another entry. Maybe I’ll go easy on myself and my next game will be a simple action side scroller. (Don’t worry, it’s not.)

Sega Genesis #3: Sonic the Hedgehog

Even though Sega had already been in the home console game for around ten years, this is where Sega began for most people. It's so synonymous with the company that it's hard to even think about Sega games existing before this, and yet they had been in the game a long time. They started out as a 3rd party publisher releasing games on Atari and Colecovision, and in 1986 they released the Master System which competed with the NES. Heck, Sonic's wasn't even their original mascot. That honor goes to Alex Kidd. He had a strong start on the Master System, but his subsequent games ruined the character. Hey, that sounds a little familiar.

Sonic the Hedgehog was released about two years into the life of the Genesis, and it caused millions of kids to suddenly want one. I'll never forget those old commercials. Sonic seemed so fast and exciting. We all doubted that Nintendo could do a game like that. They also had Larry Cedar dressed up like and old lady with tongue-in-cheek references to Mario. Back then Mario was the king of video games, and I had never heard him mentioned negatively anywhere. It was like I was suddenly in an alternate universe where there were other machines to play video games on. I was actually pretty excited.

By the time I realized that I wanted a Genesis in 1991 "Santa" had already gotten me a SNES. Luckily that thing was awesome, and I was able to put Sonic out of my mind until next Christmas. There are some things I will always remember, and one of those is the first time I played Sonic. First of all, when you turned on a Genesis game it would talk to you. That was almost cool enough right there to justify getting the new system. Of course it also had all those good games. That was definitely a plus.

Sonic blew me away when I first played it. The style of game was familiar, but everything about it was different. It was super fast, had those giant levels with branching paths and plenty of hidden treasures, that cool rotating bonus level, and of course the unique ring system. Ever since Super Mario Brothers came out games had you collecting 100 of something. Occasionally it was only 50, but the end result was usually just a 1-up. Sonic changed everything by making the rings he collected act as his life bar. Sure you could get an extra life at 100, but that was only part of it. It was contorting to know that you would be safe as long as you had 1 ring left.

I played the heck out of this game as a kid. I loved pausing the game at certain times to reveal funny graphical moments. Times like when Dr. Robotnik's giants glowing wrecking ball would be solid brown, or when two swinging platforms in Marble Zone would swing towards each other and actually fuse together for a moment. This is something I still do when I play the game, and it shows how obsessive about this game I was.

This game was also quite hard, and it was years before I ever actually beat it. I always got hung up on Labyrinth Zone. All those hidden spikes and drowning possibilities got to me. I've still only been to Starlight and Scrap Brain Zone a few times. What I had to do to beat this game was walk away for a while and try again when I was older. When I played it again in high school I suddenly found out that I was awesome at Sonic. When I beat the game I had over 20 lives and every emerald and continue that was available. I actually felt a little silly having so much trouble with it, but that's the game. I was only so good because I knew all those earlier levels well and could snatch up all the rings and lives.

I thought that it might be difficult again playing it now after so long, but I didn't have too much trouble. I don't think I died until Labyrinth Zone, but after that I died plenty. I still got all the emeralds, and I had forgotten how disappointing the ending was. Well that's Sega for you. I did have a great time playing it though. It took a little under an hour, and it was a nice way to spend a Friday evening.

So that's Sonic the Hedgehog. It's the game that started arguments all over the country among kids who weren't that into sports. Mario vs Sonic debates are still heated today. This also marks the beginning of what was probably the greatest era in gaming. All of a sudden Nintendo had competition and that caused them to make better games. There would be countless classics from both companies, and a few stray ones on other systems, for the next 6 years or so before Sega started to implode and Sony became the new king in town. Still, I doubt any of our childhoods would have been nearly as fun without Sega's glory days.

Oh, and on a side note my girlfriend also beat Sonic for the first time soon after I got done with it. It took her a lot more lives, but she stuck with it and was able to take down Robotnik with no trouble. I think she deserves a round of applause, so clap for her when you read this. She won't be able to hear you, but I think she'll still appreciate it.

Sega Genesis #2: Pocahontas

I played through this game on special request from my girlfriend. She told me that it was one of her favorite games as a kid. It actually took her a while to track down an affordable copy. I guess it's not that common even though it's a licensed property from the 16 bit glory days. She used to tell me all about this game putting special emphasis on how easy it was. I wonder if this old video game pro will find the game as easy as he expects it to be?

Actually this game drove me crazy! It's an interesting little game that is sort of the kid version of Prince of Persia. There's lots of ledge jumping and puzzle solving, but not nearly as many spikes. You also get to switch between Meeko the raccoon and Pocahontas by pressing the C button. This leads to some interesting puzzles, and for some gamers extremely frustrating situations. You also get abilities from animals such as being able to run and swim faster which is always a plus.

However, this didn't keep me from being completely hopeless in the first level. Of course the best part was that my girlfriend got to watch the whole thing. Dying isn't particularly easy on this game, but you can do things that make the game take much longer. I was expecting this game to take about 15 minutes, but it ended up taking a few hours. You often need Pocahontas to help Meeko get through certain spots, so of course I would run way ahead of him and have to slowly go back and recover him. Meeko can't swim, so of course at every body of water I would either forget to push him a log or I would just miss my jump. I still have nightmares of a poor little raccoon struggling in the water. Don't worry though, Meeko can't die in this one. In addition to all that I missed all the easy puzzles. The ones that just involved pushing a rock were the ones I overlooked in search of something more complex. Sometimes the simplest solution is best.

In fact the only thing I was good at was all that ledge jumping. Of course this is the one thing in the game my girlfriend wasn't good at. Would you expect it to work out any other way?

So there I was making myself look like a fool while my girlfriend laughed at me. I know that sounds bad, but I actually had a great time playing this one. I feel very fortunate to have a girlfriend who plays old games along with me. We had a great time as we laughed at my ineptitude. It was one of those dream relationship moments. My only regret is that I didn't beat the game during that first sitting. Those see-saws were just too damn hard to get past and by then it was pretty late.

I actually beat the game the next day, and it was one of the most enjoyable games that I've played for this blog so far. The game is good but not great, but it it sure had a good story attached to it. My girlfriend grew up loving that game many years ago. It took her forever to find a copy, and when she finally did she shared it with me. I think my favorite part about video games is that they bring couples together. That and explosions. They're pretty cool too.

Sega Genesis #1: World of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck

So this is the first Genesis game I've done for my blog, but I'm not going to spend too much time introducing it. Not much to introduce really. I never played it until last weekend. I recently discovered that I have over 50 Genesis games at my disposal, but I have played through very few of them. Since so many of them are character based platform games I should be able to cross them off my list quickly. Hopefully the games don't prove me wrong.

I think it's fitting that the first game I picked to play was a Mickey Mouse game. Genesis was best known for two things: sports games and licensed character games. I'm not sure why they were so popular. Were there not enough original characters on the system? Many of the games were also released on Super Nintendo, but it seems like they were more popular on Genesis. I can't think of anyone who played the SNES version of Aladdin. It was all about Genesis. World of Illusion was a Genesis exclusive, and it's one I never played as a kid. That's kind of a shame, because I think my window for maximum enjoyment of this game passed quite a few years ago.

If there was ever a game that didn't need a password it's this one. It's one of the shortest platform games I've ever played. I think it's only got five levels, and none of them besides that water level are much of a challenge. The whole thing only takes about 20 minutes. On top of that the password is a little confusing. It has various Disney characters on playing cards. Most of them are recognizable, but there are a couple obscure ones. Back in the early 90s you would not have been able to take a digital picture of it, so you'd have to write it down. Hopefully you know who Horace Horsecollar is because that would certainly help. On top of that you have to toggle through all the different cards, so if you miss one you have to go all the way back through them.

Well for someone who claims to not need a password I sure seem to know a lot about it. Okay so maybe I used it once, but it was pretty late when I started the game and I had other things to do. I hope you don't think less of me because I admitted that. Okay now that I've written a giant paragraph about the password I can move on to the game.

World of Illusion is a pretty good concept, but I wish there was more to it. Mickey and Donald stumble into a magical world controlled by a powerful wizard. At least he thinks he's powerful. It's got your basic platform elements in it, but magic is the real gimmick. Every level you get a new magical spell. At first I thought I was actually going to use them when I felt like it, but they are used at preset times. You do get to hear Mickey and Donald say "alakazam" so that's pretty cool. The spells give you a magic carpet for the flying level, a giant bubble for the underwater level, and a teleporting box for the level where everything is huge (my personal favorite). It's not much, but it does make the game a little more interesting than just walking to the right and swooshing your magic blanket at everything.

You can see the Sonic influence in the level design. There are branching paths you can take with hidden power ups. All this is just fine, but what bugs me about this one is the bosses. This game has just about the easiest bosses I've ever seen. It's not only because it's a kid's game either. I've played many games designed for kids in my day but nothing compares to this. That spider boss doesn't even do anything. He just climbs up and down until you kill him. The clock boss is odd but definitely not a challenge. The only boss that was difficult at all was the shark boss, but I blame this more on poor design than anything else. In fact the final boss might have been the easiest of the bunch. I'm not sure if he ever even hit me. If his magic truly is stronger than Mickey's than you'd think he could at least fought back.

Oh yeah I just remembered something else that the Genesis is known for: bad endings. This one certainly fits the description. They get back and finish their magic act, and then as the credits roll Mickey and Donald walk over a hill in the forest. And then they walk over the same hill again. Then they walk over the same hill again. I was really hopping that they were going somewhere, but in the end they just stop and look at you. I guessed they realized that they weren't getting anywhere. That's about how I felt when it was all over.

Anyway I don't mean to be so hard on this game. It's not bad. It's a good one to pick up at your local used game store if you're looking for a Genesis game to beat. I just wish the developers would've went a little bit further. If it had more levels, harder bosses, and a way to select different magics for different situations than it could've been a great game. At one point the game shows you a list of the cast members. This includes Goofy, Daisy, Mini, and several others. However, their only appearance is in the audience during the magic show. You just see their little heads sticking out. That's how I feel about this game. It has potential, but it's just not all there. How's that for a good analogy?