Best Mega Drive / Genesis games


Guys, no love for Phantasy Star 2? 4 is better but 2 is quite a classic and has some pretty challenging old school super labyrinth dungeons with a compelling (if terse and awkwardly presented.. okay, compelling for 1989) plot. Can take or leave 3, I couldn't really get into it enough to play it all the way through, but it's not a bad game. 4 really is an excellent game, even if it does drag on towards the latter half.. still can easily hold its own against the best RPGs on SNES.


I'm also quite astonished that Landstalker hasn't been listed yet. It's somewhere between Zelda and Seiken Densetsu on the adventure vs RPG continuum - ie, there's a lot of emphasis on puzzle dungeons but also on plot/NPC interaction and equipment. The level design is very effectively done in isometric view, even if the controls are a little fiddly (but not nearly as bad as say, Snake Rattle 'n Roll). I actually haven't beaten this game still due to some really weird bug preventing me from being able to clear the last section the last time I tried it in an emulator. I hear it was actually a bug in the emulation, although I don't have good information on it :<


Other games I enjoyed that haven't been mentioned yet:


- Contra: Hard Corps: This game is really hard and really good as far as Contra games go. It's somewhat more of a boss fest than the earlier ones, but has some pretty great boss battles at that. 4 characters to pick from and four paths to choose from (well, sorta, they lead to 4 end levels and endings anyway)


- Sonic 3 & Knuckles: Okay, I know other people have mentioned "Sonic" in this thread, but IMO these two sort of half-games combine perfectly to make one great game that was unfortunately split apart but restored by Sega. One is not complete without the other. It's funny how Sonic 3 is what gives Sonic & Knuckles its save game capability, which really opens up the game to clearing all the stuff in it (and getting Hyper Sonic and Doomsday Zone is pretty great)


- Sonic 1 & Knuckles: .. I'm not kidding. This is of course not an actual game of playing as Knuckles in Sonic 1 like it is with Sonic 2 (pretty crazy trick there) but the Sonic & Knuckles cart lets you "unlock" 1's data to be used as level data for Sonic 3 style special stages. This sounds like it'd be terrible but somehow I spent hours and hours playing these special levels, writing down the passwords, clearing a few each day, thinking I'll eventually clear them and see some kind of ending. Little did I know that this combination generated 65536 levels. Kind of cruel when you think about it.


- Taz-mania: Fun level design and cartoony effects, based on the cartoon from the same era.. this was actually my first Genesis game.


- Greendog: I don't actually remember much about this game except that I liked it and I was able to beat it back when I wasn't very good at games so it probably wasn't very hard.


- Cool Spot: Back then games starring license mascots could actually be good.


- Street Fighter 2: Champion Edition: Felt like a really solid conversion, even if the music wasn't quite up to par despite being done on a Yamaha synth..
 
Guys, no love for Phantasy Star 2? ...
You're right there. Phantasy Star II is definitely up there in my catalog. I totally skipped over it in my list. I really liked III as well. In fact I played it through a few times to get some different endings.

I'm also quite astonished that Landstalker hasn't been listed yet. ...
I never really liked it. I think the fiddly controls were enough to do it in for me. I remember hearing it was great and renting, playing it obsessively for a few days, but ultimately laid it down.

... bunch of others ...
Contra: Hard Corps - Indeed a brutal interpretation. I seem to remember this one was the one with the big elevator levels... is that right? Or the SNES Contra. If it was, I hated that crap, and if it wasn't, I should give this one a try again.


Sonic & knuckles: Yes very cool, and if you haven't played Sonic 3 + Knuckles by now, you should. Just like you should probably play all of the sonic games if you haven't already. :p


Taz-Mania - I played it pretty extensively, but I never really felt it was a stand-out title for the Genesis. It's ok, but not great.


Greendog - I rented it once, didn't think much of it and got Target Earth the next day. :)


Cool Spot - Another one I missed. This game is deceptively fun, and the level design is quite nice too, very Earthworm Jim like, as I recall.


Street Fighter 2 - I intentionally avoided arcade conversions in my list, that and I'm not a big fan of the genre, I played more Mortal Kombat anyways. :)
 
I had both Greendog and Tazmania, horrible games ^^


Well, agreed, greendog had some decent parts, but overall it was terrible. Tazmania was only playable cause I liked taz so much. :D
 
I dunno, maybe I just had bad taste then. That was a really long time ago.
 
contra: Hard Corps or probotector(cooler with robots)as its known in the uk is pretty good although not as good as contra3: the alien wars (super probotector) for the snes that game is the sh*t!
 
Sonic and Sonic 2 are excellent. Sonic 3 is impossible. If anyone has managed to get past Carnival Night Zone, please let me know how to.


Lemmings is good if you like games that really make you stop and think.


Oh, I can't believe I didn't mention Zoop yet! Zoop is one of the best games I've ever played! It's probably tied with Portal for goodness in my mind.


I can't think of any others right now, but I probably will soon.


EDIT: :ph34r:
 
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Sonic and Sonic 2 are excellent. Sonic 3 is impossible. If anyone has managed to get past Carnival Night Zone, please let me know how
to.

Sure, I beat it as a kid. You have to press up and down on the white cylinders to make them oscillate.. that seems to stump a lot of people. I know I've had difficulty with it before, but always eventually figured it out.
 
I admit it's a takes a bit of time to get going in the beginning. I suggest mining the crap out of the rocky and frozen planets in your home solar system to build up your capital and ship. If you can take the grind, try to get a Mineral Scanner II for your Terrain Vehicle as fast as you can. Otherwise try to keep your eyes peeled for rare lifeforms. There's some easy to catch ones out there that are worth more than Endurium.

Starflight, now this was an awesome game, in regards to the original posters statement, definitely try to spend a little more time in this.


When you are able to get out of the solar system and start exploring the universe it is immense, so many wormholes to discover, so many species to interact with, it is a fantastic game.


@mindlord: as far as gunstar heroes goes, it was also available on the playstation, but oddly enough only as a single player game, which seemed to take most of the fun out of the game for me.
 
Ghostbusters


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Here's some games I enjoy that haven't been mentioned yet.


Splatterhouse


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Skeleton Krew


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Rocket Knight Adventures


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Mercs


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FlashBack


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Sensible Soccer


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Adams Family


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Mickey Mania


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The Lost Vikings


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Toki going ape spit


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Beyond Oasis (NTSC) / Story of Thor (PAL) (great action-RPG)


Shining Force 2 (strangely addictive turn based strategy/RPG)


Sonic 1 & 2 (didn't care for the others)


Streets of Rage 2 (great beat-em-up co-op, 1 and 3 weren't so good)


Zero Wing ("All your base are belong to us!")


World of Illusion (awesome co-op and if you have kids, they'll love this)


And then there's Mega Man - The Wily wars, which is basically beefed up Megaman 1-3 from Nes (and some extra). Even though "beefed up", I preferred the Nes versions. I wonder why Prometheus didn't mention this...?


PS. Because of the meme, you'll probably have to pay quite a lot for the Zero Wing ... if you find it at all. And it's not even that good of a game.
 
OOO Buck Rogers: countdown to doomsday I loved that game!


Also the MD excitement caused by this thread is killing my wallet
 
- Sonic 1 & Knuckles: .. I'm not kidding. This is of course not an actual game of playing as Knuckles in Sonic 1 like it is with Sonic 2 (pretty crazy trick there) but the Sonic & Knuckles cart lets you "unlock" 1's data to be used as level data for Sonic 3 style special stages. This sounds like it'd be terrible but somehow I spent hours and hours playing these special levels, writing down the passwords, clearing a few each day, thinking I'll eventually clear them and see some kind of ending. Little did I know that this combination generated 65536 levels. Kind of cruel when you think about it.
Heh, I still have a notebook with hundreds of these codes somewhere, along with things like Sonic and Vectorman debug mode coordinates.


S1 data is not used as level data though, S&K only checks the header for S1.
 
Heh, I still have a notebook with hundreds of these codes somewhere, along with things like Sonic and Vectorman debug mode coordinates.
S1 data is not used as level data though, S&K only checks the header for S1.

Gasp.


So it's the S&K data itself being used then?
 
And then there's Mega Man - The Wily wars, which is basically beefed up Megaman 1-3 from Nes (and some extra). Even though "beefed up", I preferred the Nes versions. I wonder why Prometheus didn't mention this...?
I didn't mention it because, frankly, it's crap. :p


The controls are poor due to the bizarre changes made to them in this version - there is a pause of a whole one-and-a-half seconds if you try to change direction, for example, which is absolutely unacceptable, and the shooting isn't quite right either - and it negatively impacts the playability of the included games. Moreover, the music is horrible, the graphics are weird and lack the personality that the NES versions had, some of the games are missing options that were present in the originals, and there is no PAL optimisation in spite of the fact that only region the English version was made available in (and is region-locked to!) was the PAL region.


The only noteworthy thing about it is the unlockable Wily Tower game, and its bosses who are based on Journey to the West, but it's just not worth playing through the incredibly bad remakes to get to. It's certainly not worth the ridiculous money that the game (both legitimate copies and bootlegs) goes for.


It wasn't made by Capcom themselves. According to the book Mega Man: Official Complete Works, it was so buggy that they pitied the guy who was responsible for it at the third-party it had been contracted out to, and it ultimately resulted in adjustments to Capcom's quality-control procedures to try to avoid any repeats of the issues that were encountered with the game.


In short: I cannot recommend this game. :p
 
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Triple Play 96 ( loved how if you watched a replay and looked out in the stands you could see SPOCK beam down watch some of the game then beam back to the ship.)


Columns (II?)


Vectorman
 
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How do I stop bidding on games? Seriously I think I might be mentally ill
 
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