This isn’t easy to say, but here goes. Of the 50-plus games featured on the new Mega Drive Classics collection, released for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on May 29, only a handful of them possess any appeal for the modern player. Yeeouch. That hurts.
Now, don’t get me wrong here. Even with some glaring omissions (no After Burner, Out Run or Sonic 3, really?), the set pulses with nostalgic charm, with each of its selections as crisp as they’ve ever looked, and now with the bonus of rewind and quick-save features to ease you through some of the more testing options.
But the Mega Drive’s 30 years old, having originally released in Japan in October 1988, and the UK in 1990. It’s ancient history to younger gamers, who cut their teeth not on side-scrolling platformers, but the 3D worlds made possible by the PlayStation 2, or later consoles.
People who never blew on a cartridge, or understood what Game Genie or Mean Machines meant, or called a hints line while their parents were out at Asda. Damn, the internet ruined everything.
As a result of its age, the Classics collection can look flat, basic, dull even. And, with some of the games, that’s hard to argue with. However, there are titles here that anyone who appreciates the gaming medium needs to spend some time with – because of their historical significance, their role in the Mega Drive’s great 1990s success, their legacy, or simply because they’re amongst the minority and still rule today.
Which is to say, at the risk of stating the obvious, “must play” really doesn’t mean “best of”, with this little list.
ALTERED BEAST
First released into arcades in 1988, this shape-shifting, side-scrolling beat ‘em up was the first game that many a new Mega Drive owner played on the console, by virtue of it being the system’s pack-in title for Christmas 1990. Your character punches all manner of gruesome enemies into chunks, collecting dropped spirit orbs (“power up!”) – and upon retrieving three, he transforms into a powerful beast, just in time for the end-of-level boss.
Altered Beast is a hopelessly one-note game that really hasn’t stood up to the test of time, its five stages beatable in 15 minutes – but its place in Sega’s 16-bit history is indelible.
ALEX KIDD IN THE ENCHANTED CASTLE
Sega’s unofficial mascot before they felt forced to formalise one, in an attempt to do precisely what Nintendid(heh), Alex Kidd was the star of five platformers for the 8-bit Master System, but just the one on the Mega Drive. Enchanted Castle was a 1990 launch title for the system in the UK but felt tremendously dated even then, with imprecise leaping and landing, questionable punch connection and one-hit-kills, and a rock-paper-scissors battle mechanic that meant successful progress was more about luck than skill.
It’s awful, not quite a nadir of Sega’s first-party output of the time but certainly close to it. But play Enchanted Castle today and you’ll immediately understand just how behind the Super Mario series Sega’s equivalent genre efforts were. That had to change.
SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 2
Sonic was born of an internal challenge at Sega to devise a proper company mascot. Top brass settled on a hedgehog, initially called Mr Needlemouse before becoming the Sonic we saw in 1991’s first game. Sonic the Hedgehog swiftly replaced Altered Beast as the Mega Drive’s bundled title, and strong reviews and splendid (ultimately platform-best) sales encouraged Sega to develop a sequel. And the stops were well and truly pulled out.
1992’s Sonic 2 introduced a second playable character in “Tails”, and a new spin-dash ability that radically improved Sonic’s movement. It brought spectacular imagination to the speedy platformer’s level designs, and cranked up the quality of the visuals and music. It stands today as the best 2D Sonic game of all time – which makes it the best Sonic game of all time, full stop. If you grew up with Sega’s mid-00s output, and thus came to distrust anything with Sonic on it, Sonic 2 will show you that, once upon a time, he ruled the platforming market.
GUNSTAR HEROES
Treasure’s reputation as multi-platform shooter developers par excellence is well earned, through releases like Sin & Punishment, Radiant Silvergun and Ikaruga(released for Switch on May 29). The Tokyo-based studio, founded by former Konami employees, began by making games exclusively for Sega – and four of them appear on Classics. Alien Soldier is a gorgeous but punishing shooter that’ll have you screaming at your screen; Dynamite Headdya still-fresh-feeling, hyper-colourful platformer; and Light Crusader an isometric action-RPG that has its ambition torpedoed by its awkward perspective.
The jewel is Treasure’s debut title, Gunstar Heroes, a blisteringly fast arcade run-and-gunner – think Konami’s Contra, turned up way past 11 – that never gives the player a moment to catch their breath. It’s bright and bold, its music atmospheric and dramatic, and Gunstar’s challenge is significant without reaching Alien Soldier heights of Oh I Give Up. Just a beautiful retro wonder, and a vital play from this Classics set. And in what other game, ever, would you receive the notification: “Warning! Danger Ahead: Melon Bread!” Brilliant.
TOEJAM & EARL
There’s just something so wonderfully 1990s about ToeJam & Earl, that playing it in 2018 is a dizzying time warp to when The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was on after school, and Saturday morning kids TV was still a thing, all high-contrast graphics and “fresh” musical beats. A curious concoction of gentle-paced exploration and combat-less action – it’s mostly a case of avoiding enemies than engaging them – ToeJam & Earl shines as a couch co-op experience, the two titular alien protagonists exchanging jokes and quips when both in play.
Something of a cult hit for the Mega Drive, this is one for when you’ve a mate over, and some suitably of-the-time refreshments on hand, like Chewits and Carling Black Label.
STORY OF THOR/ BEYOND OASIS
Nintendo had the Zelda series, and a string of superb (pre-Enix merge) Square-produced titles, like Secret of Mana and Final Fantasy VI, making the SNES the preferable 16-bit system for role-playing gamers. But the Mega Drive wasn’t without a few RPG gems. Collected on Classics are three Phantasy Star games, three from Sega’s Shining series, the isometric adventures Land Stalker and Light Crusader, and the multi-perspective Sword of Vermillion.
But the most accessible RPG on Sega’s new set has to be Story of Thor– or Beyond Oasis, as it was known in the US. Its big, colourful sprites have it standing out beside its duller-palette platform-mates, and the consistent top-down viewpoint will make Zelda fans feel at home, likewise its dungeon puzzles and limited-use weapons like arrows and bombs. The score by Yuzo Koshiro, alternatingly enchanting and ominous, is the cherry on the cake.
STREETS OF RAGE 2
Speaking of Koshiro, it’s the composer’s incredibly evergreen work on Streets of Rage 2 that elevate a perfectly serviceable arcade brawler into a genuine classic, worth every reissue it receives. Its gameplay and plot may be elementary – walk from left to right, beat up all the goons, rescue your captured pal – but such is the slickness with which Streets of Rage 2was realised, that it is that rare 16-bit Sega game that feels as good to play now as it did in the early 1990s.
Like Story of Thor, its characters and NPCs are chunky and colourful; there’s a lot of fun being had with the level designs, ranging from theme park rides to underground wrestling arenas; and it’s perfectly beatable by beginners, which only adds to its wide appeal. And then there’s that music, an intoxicating blend of techno, funk and house, and the best the Mega Drive ever had.
RISTAR
Arriving relatively late in the Mega Drive’s lifecycle, in early 1995, Ristar was a welcome reminder that Sega’s in-house Sonic Team division was capable of more than just pumping out games for its blue blur of a mascot. Another platformer, Ristar sees the titular character reach out with extendable arms to grab both the environment, for traversal, and enemies, for a deft KO-ing head-butt. It lacks the speed of Sonic but makes up for that with a greater emphasis on strategy across each stage – and, for many critics with the benefit of hindsight, it’s actually a better game than most 16-bit Sonics.
Ristar pushes its parent hardware, looking like a next-gen title in comparison to Alex Kidd and Altered Beast – but with Sega’s Saturn (and Sony’s PlayStation) already out in Japan at the time of its release, and imminent in the US and Europe, it was a game doomed to period irrelevance, as consumers looked to move onto emerging 32-bit hardware.
VIRTUA FIGHTER 2
Sega’s collapse as a hardware force can be attributed to many things, and we’re not about to dig into all of that here. But there can be no doubt that the company failed to move on from the Mega Drive as quickly as it should, and as a result found itself having to support too many consoles at the same time. When the 3D arcade hit Virtua Fighter 2 arrived on the Mega Drive in 1996, as a 2D Street Fighter-like affair stripped of its polygon visuals, Sega was still putting out games for the handheld Game Gear and its newer Saturn console, as well as the 32X and its edutainment platform, the Pico.
The company was spread way too thin, and you can positively feel that pressure in the Mega Drive’s Virtua Fighter 2, a muddy, imprecise, unrewarding take on what had been an acclaimed title. The game had no right being on a 16-bit system, and its place on 2018’s Classics is more a hands-up acknowledgement of the Mega Drive’s death knell than an attempt to position it as a fighter worth playing again in the here and now.
If you want a retro game in this style, that remains a joy today, stick to Street Fighter. If you want to see just how badly Sega had lost their way in the mid-1990s, though, fire this one up for just five minutes. And then never, ever, play it again.
