Topic: Genesis Mini: Anyone else excited?

[Order.RSS]

Alisia Dragoon would be a really cool addition if that makes it in the Western release. You basically shoot lightning everywhere and hope your dragon/eagle assistant takes care of the rest. Lot of exploration too, supposedly. I've never seen that cartridge at an affordable price.

RE: Columns, I think a lot of that game's appeal is mired in history. The Genesis version predates the SNES, so it would have compared favourably to the NES version of Tetris - especially because Columns had multiplayer too. On Game Gear meanwhile, it was the pack-in release and in colour compared to Game Boy Tetris.
I think in retrospect it has aged less favourably, since the music is a lot worse than Tetris' offerings and the visual style looks a lot like cheap mobile phone games from 2005. But I guess at the time Columns was considered a solid puzzle game on home computers, and when it came to Sega devices it had more colours and features than NES/GB Tetris.

[ejamer]

And from Sega official twitter we have the final set of North American games getting added:

The last 12 titles are:
- Tetris
- Darius
- Road Rash II
- Strider
- Virtua Fighter 2
- Alisia Dragoon
- Columns
- Dynamite Headdy
- Kid Chameleon
- Monster World IV
- Light Crusader
- Eternal Champions

Honestly, this last batch in North America is kind of a let down. Monster World IV, Dynamite Headdy, and Alisia Dragoon are great additions, and the two "bonus" games (Tetris and Darius) are awesome. But there is a lot of filler here - some expected because of being well known titles from Genesis history, some oddities that require a six-button controller (when the system only ships with three-button controllers), and some that could have been replaced by sequels or outright better games.

Kid Chameleon, Eternal Champions, Light Crusader, Columns, Strider... few would miss these games if they weren't included, and except for one they are all widely available elsewhere. It's a shame we missed out on some gems that other regions received (like MUSHA, Alien Soldier, Snow Bros, Revenge of Shinobi) or that were highly anticipated but didn't end up making the cut (like Rocket Knight Adventures or Sparkster, Pulseman, Shadowrun, Mega Turrican, Ristar, Mutant League Football, or countless others).

Someone on the resetera forums where they were discussing this release pretty heavily made a great comment:

This product is 75% awesome, 25% “what the hell are you doing”. So, it’s actually a fairly good representation of Sega as a company.

I laughed, but don't really disagree.

Luckily, they got enough right here to quell any disappointment in the overall lineup. Lots of rare and expensive games are included, and it really does offer a pretty broad swath of gaming from the 16-bit era. There are at least a dozen games I'm looking forward to trying for the first time in September, and some others that I already love included in the package... not a bad deal!

[broodwars]

I see nothing appealing in this final round of NA game announcements, so I guess I won't be getting this. Meh.

[Order.RSS]

Thanks for posting the Western additions eJamer. This product has gotten a lot more interesting.
Does Genesis Mini include the option of savestates? There's some cool games on here I'd be willing to save-scum my way through.

Highlights for me:
-Monster World IV looks a lot like Shantae 3 to me.
-Strider I'm happy about, cool action game.
-Light Crusader could be awful, but I think it's Treasure's only real RPG? Worth a look.
-Between Landstalker and Beyond Oasis you have basically 2 Zelda type games here.
-Cool shmups like Super Fantasy Zone, Thunder Force III, Space Harrier 2, Gunstar Heroes.

Dissapointments:
-Where the **** is Outrun you cowards. (I guess it's a license thing?)
-Are there any good fighting games here? The Virtua Fighter 2 down-port looks hideous, Eternal Champions looks like an also-ran, and this Street Fighter II version isn't the best either I think. Bummer they didn't go for Mortal Kombat, or the SNK fighters on Genesis (Samurai Shodown, Art of Fighting, Fatal Fury).
-EDIT: It's kinda annoying how Sega Genesis Classics on Switch includes stuff that's not on here (Alien Soldier, Phantasy Star II & III, Toejam & Earl 2, Ristar, Golden Axe II & III, Shining Force II & III, Streets of Rage 1 & 3, Revenge of Shinobi, Vectorman 2). But vice versa you're missing a lot too. I wish they'd just include all of these on Genesis Mini, even if it pushes it to 60 games.

Bummer about MUSHA Aleste too, but of course it'll never include everything.
With all my whining said & done though, I'm fairly interested in this now. Definitely keeping an eye on reviews when it comes out, but it'd be nice to replace my old Genesis with this one if it's a quality product and has savestates.

[Adrock]

Mini add-ons for Sega CD and 32X. Non-functional, just for decoration.

[ejamer]

Yes, the Genesis Mini includes save states - looked like 4 saves per game based on the video from Japan. The menu system for this mini console seems pretty decent too.

Hopefully you enjoy Monster World IV; some of the game design is a bit old-school, but it's a really solid title and I had a lot of fun with it!

Regarding fighting games, I also would've rather get Mortal Kombat 3 on the list than Virtua Fighter 2. Apparently VF2 isn't a bad game though. Apparently Eternal Champions is?  Skipping over the SNK fighters doesn't affect me because I have a couple of SNK collections on the Wii including most those games, and they are superb when played with the Tatsunoko v Capcom arcade sticks.

Good to see that broodwars continues to live up to his "king of the curmudgeons" status.   


Dirty (but probably unsurprising) admission: if this ends up being easy to mod, I'm going to be pirating some games that made it in other regions but were cut here. Goodbye Alex Kidd, hello MUSHA! *fingers crossed*

[ejamer]

...
-EDIT: It's kinda annoying how Sega Genesis Classics on Switch includes stuff that's not on here (Alien Soldier, Phantasy Star II & III, Toejam & Earl 2, Ristar, Golden Axe II & III, Shining Force II & III, Streets of Rage 1 & 3, Revenge of Shinobi, Vectorman 2). But vice versa you're missing a lot too. I wish they'd just include all of these on Genesis Mini, even if it pushes it to 60 games.
...

It would be cool to have a "comprehensive, collector's version" of the mini system.
I'd pay extra if it were possible to have all the missing Sega Genesis Classics games thrown in, just to get rid of the redundancy.

[Ian Sane]

That final list of 12 is not that exciting unfortunately.  From a historical perspective I get the appeal of Tetris but, it's just Tetris, you know?  There are a thousand versions of that game.

What the hell is Virtua Fighter 2 doing here ahead of literally any other first party Sega game?  The Genesis version was a WTF release even back then.  This is the Sega equivalent of Rainbow Six - a scaled down **** version that no one even wanted then and has ZERO historical significance today.

Still the SNES Classic had 21 great games and if you filter out the junk this has at least that so you can consider the filler an unwelcome "bonus".

This makes Nintendo look better retroactively in the 16 bit console wars though.  I'm trying to think what first party SNES titles Nintendo could have included that would be such obvious filler.  There's no Super Scope support, Nintendo probably doesn't own the rights to Mario is Missing since it's essentially a Mario skinned Carmen Sandiego game... I guess if they went nuts with puzzle titles like Wario's Woods and Yoshi's Cookie.  Does Stunt Race FX not hold up?  Honestly it's hard to think of outright junk first party SNES titles but Sega could be "relied on" to have a couple a year.

At least Sonic 3D Blast isn't on this thing.

[ejamer]

...  Does Stunt Race FX not hold up?  ...

It doesn't hold up well at all.
Interesting from a "tech" standpoint, but pretty bad as a game.

[Mop it up]

I actually think Stunt Race FX would be fine if they smoothed out the framerate...

In any case, for those wondering, the final count of games which are not included in the Genesis Classics collection on Switch stands at 19. Close to half of them, not bad diversity. Here's the list:

Ecco the Dolphin
Earthworm Jim
Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse
World of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck
Super Fantasy Zone
Mega Man: The Wily Wars
Ghouls ’n Ghosts
Darius
Road Rash 2
Strider
Alisia Dragoon
Eternal Champions
Castlevania: Bloodlines*
Contra Hard Corps.*
Thunder Force III**
Street Fighter 2: Special Champion Edition***
Tetris****
Wonder Boy in Monster World*****
Monster World 4*****

*Available on Switch in their respective collection
**Its sequel, Thunder Force IV, is a Sega Ages title on Switch
***There's that Street Fighter collection on Switch, though I dunno if it includes this exact version.
****Other Tetris games on Switch of course.
*****While these aren't in the Switch version of Sega Genesis Classics, they are included in the PS4 and XBONE versions.

Wow, that's a lotta footnotes. In any case, I can't say there's much here I would want. The only way I could see myself getting one of these is what I've said before, if they happen to overproduce them and they become cheap. It's a good product for the right people, though.

[ShyGuy]

TETRIS

[Shaymin]

Virtua Fighter 2 is a good game.

The Genesis version of Virtua Fighter 2 is an abomination.

[Luigi Dude]

So it looks like the best version in the end will be the Asian version.  For anyone that doesn't know, there's also a third version of this mini that's being released in several of the non-Japan Asian countries and it basically takes the best of the Western and Japanese versions.  It also has a few exclusives like Alien Soldier which is pretty awesome too.

Seriously, look at this lineup.


Alien Soldier
Alisa Dragoon
Assault Suit Leynos (Target Earth)
Castle of Illusion
Castlevania: Bloodlines
Columns
Comix Zone
Contra: Hard Corps
Darius
Ghouls & Ghosts
Golden Axe
Gunstar Heroes
Landstalker
Langrisser 2
Mega Man: The Wily Wars
Monster World IV
MUSHA
OutRun 2019
Phantasy Star IV
Puzzle & Action: Tant-R
Puyo Puyo
Puyo Puyo Tsu
Road Rash 2
SEGA Game Series Value Edition (this is a compilation game that includes several smaller Sega games like Flicky)
Shining Force
Shining Force II
Slap Fight
Snow Bros.
Sonic the Hedgehog
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Space Harrier II
Streets of Rage 2
Strider
Super Fantasy Zone
Sword of Vermilion
Tetris
The Revenge of Shinobi
The Story of Thor (aka Beyond Oasis)
Thunder Force III
Wonder Boy in Monster World
World of Illusion
Wrestleball


So yeah, looks like the Asian mini is the one I'll be getting.  The only negative I have with this one is it losses Dynamite Headdy and Shinobi 3, but it still has the most consistent lineup of the 3.

[ejamer]

TETRIS

Saw a twitter post regarding this. Apparently it's not an old version of Tetris, but a new development (sort of a "what if" scenario that takes lessons learned from many Tetris releases, but still could have worked on Genesis hardware) created just for this release.

EDIT: Another report I've read, which seems more credible, suggests that this game will be a port of the arcade version of Tetris to the Genesis specs. So it's probably not an entirely new game? I don't know... and I don't know if it really matters.

So it looks like the best version in the end will be the Asian version.  ...

Hmm... Interesting.
For anyone curious, there is a sortable table on the Wikipedia page that will let you compare what's in/out for each regional release.

That does look like the most appealing lineup. Losing Dynamite Headdy, Earthworm Jim, and Toejam & Earl is unfortunate... but otherwise it drops all of the least interesting games from the North American console and replaces with them something better. (Swapping out one good Shinobi game for a different good Shinobi game is a sideways move.) I'd be keen to play all of Alien Soldier, Assault Suit Leynos, MUSHA, Shining Force II, Slap Fight MD, and Snow Bros.

Do we know anything about language settings on the mini conosle though? I'm wondering if the system menus and/or emulated games will allow different language selections; otherwise this might be more hassle than it's worth.  Also, where are you importing from and are there any issues around power supply?  (Answers might not be known yet.)

One last funny thing I noticed: this release includes just one 6-button controller, but then removes all of the fighting games that would be the main reasons to use that controller... weird.

[Mop it up]

And now it's time for a completely unnecessary post where I evaluate the games not contained in the Switch collection to determine how worthwhile it might be for me.

Alisia Dragoon
I've never heard of this before. It looks sort of like a Castlevania game, I think? Those are okay, this might be okay.

Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse
World of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck
I've never particularly cared for Disney stuff even as a kid, so these probably wouldn't do much for me without that nostalgia factor.

Castlevania: Bloodlines
Contra Hard Corps.
We used to have Contra Hard Corps. so I wouldn't mind giving that a go, and I'm curious about the Castlevania game as well. However, both are on Switch if I really want them.

Darius
I've never cared for shmups.

Earthworm Jim
I have this for the SNES, but apparently this version is supposed to be better. Even if that is the case, I sort of feel like the only notable thing about it is how wacky it was for the time period.

Ecco the Dolphin
I don't have this anymore, but playing it once was enough for me.

Eternal Champions
I've never heard of this, and it sort of looks like I'm better off that way...?

Ghouls ’n Ghosts
Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts isn't my kind of game, so I don't see why this one would be.

Mega Man: The Wily Wars
While I am curious about the changes here, it's ultimately still three games I already own and played.

Road Rash 2
I've played one of these on the PlayStation which was good for a laugh, but I feel like that was enough for me.

Street Fighter 2: Special Champion Edition
I've never liked fighting games.

Strider
I have the NES version and I hate it. Who wants to buy it off me?

Super Fantasy Zone
This looks like a really weird shmup so I would probably try it, but wouldn't stick with it.

Tetris
This will probably have some minute differences that the hardcore fans appreciate, but that ain't me.

Thunder Force III
Shmups not my thing.

Wonder Boy in Monster World
Monster World 4
I was disappointed that they cut these from the Switch version of Sega Genesis Classics for unknown reasons. They look pretty interesting and are the main two games I would want out of this bunch.

As you can see, most of this stuff is a mild curiosity for me at best, I'm afraid...

[ejamer]

...
Mega Man: The Wily Wars
While I am curious about the changes here, it's ultimately still three games I already own and played.
...
Strider
I have the NES version and I hate it. Who wants to buy it off me?
...

Not at all saying it's worthwhile for you - but just a couple of points that might interest you (if a friend buys one or something).

Wily Wars isn't just the first three Mega Man games remade and packaged together, it's also got the Wily Tower game mode available after you finish the basic games.  Quoting from the megaman.fandom.com site:

Wily Tower
Wily Tower is an optional bonus game unlocked after clearing all three Mega Man games on the same save file. In Wily Tower, Dr. Wily has created three new robots specifically designed to destroy Mega Man to act as guardians of the tower. These robots are known as the Genesis Unit, since the game was released for the Sega Genesis, and are patterned on characters from the Chinese novel, Journey to the West.

Players are given the option to pick up to eight out of the twenty-two weapons from Mega Man 1, 2, and 3, as well as up to three out of the seven transport items from those games. (It is possible to begin a stage without selecting any weapons/transport items, but obviously not recommended unless you are looking for a self-imposed challenge.) Wily Tower stages feature nearly all of the enemies from the first three games, with notable exceptions being the Air Tikki from Mega Man 2.

For me, this mode is pretty exciting because it's kind of like a new (mini) Mega Man game. Plus I'm a big fan of Journey to the West...

Also, the NES version of Strider is very very different from the Genesis version. That doesn't mean I think Strider is a great game on Genesis (it's ok, I guess) but comparing the two versions is like apples and oranges.

[Ian Sane]

Strider on the Genesis is a great game and it was a very faithful arcade port in its time.  But that's the problem with it.  The arcade version has been made available numerous times since then.  I have it on the Capcom Classics Collection for the PS2.  So now the Genesis version is really just an inferior version.  Ghouls n Ghosts has the same issue, except the Genesis version has codes which I personally find essentially to have any fun with it.

I get that there is some nostalgia for these versions but I feel in general arcade ports aren't ideal for these mini-consoles, unless they're something like Contra on the NES where the home version has some unique elements that keep it relevant.  I get why Street Fighter II showed up on both the Genesis and SNES minis but it is not that hard to find arcade-perfect Street Fighter II so I see no point in playing these old versions.

[lolmonade]

Road Rash 2 is one of those games I think I have fonder memories than what it deserves.  The idea of a racer where you can knock people off their bikes with weapons as an actual strategy to win was a distinction at the time. 

[ejamer]

So there was an announcement for TurboGrafx-16 Mini made by Konami over E3 this year...

Although I have huge respect for PC Engine (and regional variations) I'm not that excited about a mini console. There just weren't as many games that I feel like I've missed out on - partly because I played a good selection of highly-rated TurboGrafx games during the Virtual Console days.

Anyway... not really related to this topic, but felt like I'd just throw mention here and let someone who is more excited about the release create a thread if they want.

[Adrock]

Previews for Genesis Mini are popping up. Looks like a winner.

The Sega Genesis Mini Builds On What Made Nintendo’s Tiny Consoles Great

[ejamer]

Previews for Genesis Mini are popping up. Looks like a winner.

The Sega Genesis Mini Builds On What Made Nintendo’s Tiny Consoles Great

Nice!  I recently noticed that my amazon.ca order had been price adjusted to $80 CAD, and then realized these little beasts aren't too far away now.

Will be nice to read a bit of hype about it and get excited. Thanks for sharing the link!

[Order.RSS]

Sega are really marketing this pretty hard. Looks like they've sent a bunch of gaming-related Youtube shows units to test out. There's several previews in my recommended watch lists already, at least.
Quick look at a few articles seem to suggest it's a quality product, but there's some sound lag apparantly. Doesn't seem like a total dealbreaker though.

And now it's time for a completely unnecessary post where I evaluate the games not contained in the Switch collection to determine how worthwhile it might be for me.
[...]

Fun to read these thoughts, plus it's helpful to know the differences between the Mini and the Switch Collection! Annoying that there's still no definitive, one-stop shop for retro Sega though. I get that they don't want to cannibalise potential sales of the Collection with the Mini; but I'd like to replace my old Genesis with one product, not multiple.
That said, I think I've made up my mind to go for the TG-16 Mini instead and maybe get the Switch Collection sometime down the road when I've finally upgraded to Switch. 

[Stratos]

I'd love to grab one for adding to my row of legacy consoles since I have yet to grab an original Genesis, but I'm disappointed in the actual lineup. Will be a bargain bin purchase for me as I would rather put that money towards grabbing an OG Genesis and the handful of games I actually liked on it.

[ejamer]

I'd love to grab one for adding to my row of legacy consoles since I have yet to grab an original Genesis, but I'm disappointed in the actual lineup. Will be a bargain bin purchase for me as I would rather put that money towards grabbing an OG Genesis and the handful of games I actually liked on it.

I'd love to hear some elaboration on what games you want that are missing, just because it's fun to hear what games people are excited about.

To me, the lineup is pretty good. There are a handful that I would personally have swapped out, and a couple of notable (mostly niche) omissions... but a good enough mix of popular classics and rare/oft-forgotten gems to justify the purchase. I am sad that none of Flashback, TMNT Hyperstone Heist, Shadowrun, MUSHA, Mega Turrican, or Alien Soldier made the cut though; doubly so for the games that will get released in other regions but not here.

I think the "Asian" version has a better overall lineup - and depending on which country you order from that version comes with a 6-button controller too. The extra cost/complexity in tracking one down wasn't worthwhile for me though.

Frankly, I'm expecting we'll see this thing hacked eventually anyway, like all of the other mini consoles released recently. If it does, I'd consider dropping a few of the worst games here and replacing them with some different titles.

[ejamer]

Ugh.  Just got an email from Amazon.ca. 

My Genesis Mini order is on the way - or at least it will be shortly are the release date, so I can expect it to show up anytime after September 25th. Meanwhile, some Walmart stores in Ontario have reportedly broken street date and already have units available to purchase. By the time mine arrives, the hardware will probably already have been hacked.

I've heard rumors that in other regions Amazon ships things early to account for delivery times, so that the product actually arrives when it's supposed to get released. If true, then I wish they'd start doing that here in Canada also. Waiting for a week or two (assuming there isn't any delay in the delivery process) can be a real bummer when you are excited about something... and I need something good to help wash away the taste of PS Classic failure.