The Little Mermaid
Okay, this wasn’t on my bucket list: but it was a special request by a special someone! (My daughter, in case you were wondering).
The game actually isn’t terrible… that may seem like an odd thing to say about an obvious movie tie-in video game, but younger persons who didn’t experience the height of 8-bit and 16-bit gaming may not be familiar with just how bad some licensed games were back in the day.
Some of them (I’m looking at you E.T.) were unplayable – actually most were.
When the Sega Genesis came along, the powers that be needed to do something to compete with Nintendo. The crux of what came was a Disney partnership which netted the Genesis some higher profile licensing along with actual quality games attached to it, as Disney cracked their nut in the video game market.
That’s not to say this game was perfect by any means. In fact, it lacked some real depth due to the lack of depth in the source material. However, The Little Mermaid can be very difficult due to controls and the way its setup.
Let me explain.
Ariel has to swim through a maze to rescue mer-people. Unfortunately, she and the enemies are much bigger than some of the spaces you have to squeeze through, and getting through stages without dying can be a challenge.
I imagine that’s by design due to it also a very short game.
There are four levels total before you face Ursula… and receive one of the weakest “thank you” endings in the history of video games. (It blinks for about 3 seconds and goes back to the start menu!)
I’m sure this satisfied most gamers appetites back in the day, and it wasn’t a total suck-fest you’d expect from the licensing tie-in either.
There are better Disney licensed Genesis games (namely Aladdin) so this one is largely avoidable unless you’re trying to complete a bucket list or have requests like I did. Keep in mind, you may want to set some cheats just to see how this plays out or else you may break a controller in the process!
Mega Man: The Wily Wars
The second of the two Sega Mega Man titles, this one will also seem as obscure as the Game Gear title because it was only released in Japan and Europe as a cartridge: with the American release being available exclusively via The Sega Channel…
Remember that service?
Wow, that could’ve been cutting edge! It was Netflix for video games delivered directly to your Genesis via a modem… but who had the capability back then?
Okay, back to the game: it’s a sequel and it’s not.
Wily Wars includes the first three NES Mega Man titles completely revamped with new graphics and sound. Think of it like Super Mario All-Stars is to the NES Mario games… which, Mario All-Stars also included a fourth game, and so does Wily Wars: the “Wily Tower”.
Wily Tower is unlocked after completing the other three games and retains the same look and feel as the remakes. The remakes themselves, compared to their NES originals, appeared to play faster; the music is fantastic, and graphically, I like this rendition of Mega Man as opposed to the NES appearance which was rehashed for MM9 and MM10 on later generation consoles. (Those games looked very generic by comparison of this 16-bit collection.)
Another great feature is when you begin Wily Tower. You are brought to a menu screen where you select eight of the 22 weapon upgrades obtained by beating the other three games’ bosses, plus an additional three items. This is the coolest idea I’ve seen in any of the Mega Man games I’ve played thus far and adds some replayability and strategy to the status quo. (This being the 16th Mega Man game I had played to date.)
The Wily Tower itself is short but can be difficult. There are three robot masters, but plenty of other goodies once you get to the Wily stages. Cameos occur and the game was just so much damn fun I’m not sure what else I can say about it: even if a great portion is mostly a remake.
It’s kind of disappointing that this title doesn’t get more recognition. I actually prefer its reboot style to the NES originals. The addition of Wily Tower, despite this game being released in 1994, should be a heads up to other developers with classic IP to reboot their series by packaging the old games with an updated look and then adding new challenges.
In summation, this is one of the better classic Mega Man games to play. Unfortunately, the cartridge itself is rare and a properly translated North American ROM can be as equally challenging to find: due to the translation of both the English language as well as the proper speed/framerate for NTSC (versus PAL systems it was released on).
Regardless, if you can obtain a way to play it, Wily Wars is an incredible trip down memory lane that definitely needs revisited even by the most casual of Mega Man fans.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist
Where do I even begin with this game?
Anyone who has followed this site for some time knows my love of the TMNT arcade games. Those games were ported to home consoles as TMNT 2: The Arcade Game on the NES, and TMNT 4: Turtles in Time on the SNES. A third game mimicked the NES style port of TMNT 2 as well, titled TMNT 3: The Manhattan Project.
All of the titles were well-rounded beat’em up games which were faithful to the entire lore of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies, cartoon, comic book and/or toy line… unlike the disaster which was the first NES TMNT game that was anything but!
With many developers have exclusivity rights to their games with Nintendo, it’s no surprise that none of those games appeared on the competing Sega Genesis – a console which was a rival of the Super Nintendo in throughout the 90’s. In order to get around contracts and licensing, developers would often re-release games under different titles, with slight modifications, on the Genesis.
Some of those modifications were often necessary due to the Genesis being a bit underpowered compared to the SNES hardware, yet a leap in a generation over the 8-bit NES.
It wasn’t until Mortal Kombat was released that games were published on multiple platforms, therefore, while the SNES got the arcade direct port of Turtles in Time (the arcade TMNT sequel and labeled “TMNT 4” on the console) Sega’s console would receive a modified version of the TMNT 4 game.
Being a fan of the series, more of these games should be a good thing, right? Well yes and no.
If you were a Genesis owner this was the only way you’d be able to play a TMNT beat’em up game and in that regard, it’s a solid title. The graphics and audio are truer to the arcade source material than the NES versions, but obviously inferior to the SNES TMNT 4 in almost every way imaginable. The Genesis lacked the same array of colors and the “Mode 7” motion graphics capabilities of the SNES, making Hyperstone Heist a flat, drab looking game at times. A stark comparison to the eyepopping visuals and colors of TMNT 4 on the competition.
After playing the other games, anyone would also note quite a few things which were ripped directly from the other two arcade titles. First, the levels look almost the same. In instances where they do not, color palettes were changed. There’s also an obvious limitation of on-screen enemies, so the game does not lag much like the NES version – and like its cousin, the Genesis title lengthens the game by sending extra waves of the same enemy groups multiple times before proceeding through the level.
That cheap shot isn’t bad enough when you get confused by the level layout. A decision was made to not end each section with a boss battle, rather, the turtles randomly move from sewer to above ground or otherwise, to stitch together a “level” between 2, 3, or 4 layouts which then end in a boss battle. For anyone who played the other games, the awkwardness feels like a glitch or mistake. I actually replayed the first few levels just to make sure it wasn’t!
Initially the game looks and feels like the arcade games, that is, until you start to play it. Everything that made TMNT 4 a classic feels watered down in Hyperstone Heist. It’s a shame too as the game released four months following the SNES release. There’s no way to throw enemies into the screen, for example.
Nearly every element is lifted from the other two arcade games with very little new content. The five levels mostly comprise chopped off and repetitive pieces from the other games, which feels particularly out of place when you’re on the pirate ship (rebranded “ghost ship”) but the stage was hundreds of years in the past in the arcade game. “The Gauntlet” stage changes the color theme of the previous cave, from the prehistoric levels of TMNT 4, to have a “blue” floor that the watery Pizza Monsters could jump out of. Even the sewer levels in the other games had a “floor” and a “water” path you could jump between, but in this game they are broken into two different areas using the same brick walls at the top and either a floor or water: not both.
The levels are also all linear: there’s no moving diagonally up/down through any of the levels and the only auto-scrolling stage is the Technodrome elevator borrowed from the SNES.
Worse than not facing many bosses, you actually face the same bosses over and over. Leatherhead returns from TMNT 3 and 4. Rocksteady is another boss, but Beebop isn’t in the game: a dubious omission when considering the addition of Leatherhead of him. The human form of Baxter Stockman flying his machine around also makes a brief appearance in “The Gauntlet” stage.
A new boss, Tatsu, fits the bill as a leader of the Foot Clan ninjas. He, along with “Shredder’s hideout”, are among the only “original” ideas in this game. And at that, Shredder’s hideout is largely comprised of rebadged pieces from an added level to the NES TMNT 2 port.
That’s where this game really falls down: both TMNT 2 and TMNT 4 were ports which also added more content in the home versions whereas Hyperstone Heist feels hastily thrown together. I’m not sure if it had to do with the Sega vs. Nintendo legalese or an actual hardware limitation, but the Genesis title feels also feels like an imitation.
The game ends by facing the three aforementioned bosses in succession once more before battling the arcade versions of Super Krang and Super Shredder. Truly the only non-recycled piece of the game is a portion of Shredder’s hideout.
I understand there’s only so much you can do within the confines of the TMNT license, such as “fight ninjas repeatedly” but when all of the other three games include such great use of the source material, plus add more to their home game brethren, it’s hard to give this title anything more than the thumbs in the middle. Heck, even TMNT 3 on the NES has a “credits” scene at the end which scrolled through the enemies (rather than stay on one graphic and scroll names).
I would’ve expected much more from a next-gen title… It plays like the other games and has fairly accurate visuals, but in the end it’s sorely lacking anything to make it stand out on its own.
Contra: Hard Corps
Holy %$&^! Is this game freaking amazing!
While I really liked the original NES Contra and Super C and while Contra 3 for SNES upped the ante for the series, Contra: Hard Corps showed what an accelerated, mature-themed, arcade upgraded style of Contra could really be.
I’m surprised more of the games in the series didn’t take a cue from this one. It had a rocking soundtrack, catchy visuals and finger-blistering action. Bosses take up large portions of the screen and the entire game feels like you’re in a non-stop Hollywood action film.
Some of the gameplay is a bit different than the traditional Contra titles, but that doesn’t take away from the fun. Rather than upgrading guns or even switching between two, there are four main weapons which you can switch between once you’ve acquired them. Bombs are also included and while this is a side story without the main characters, it actually adds to the Contra lore.
Honestly, this may be my favorite Contra game played to date. I feel like it was a forgotten title and doesn’t get the love it deserves. I even considered changing my rating system for two thumbs up, that’s how good this is. Try it sometime!
Mortal Kombat (Genesis Version)
There was always this thought that Nintendo was the only company to censor the original Mortal Kombat, but that was never the case. The Genesis version of Mortal Kombat was also censored, out of fear of those Congressional video game violence hearings.
Sega’s MK1 had a “blood code” and without it, the game was actually inferior to the SNES version. If the code wasn’t enabled, you’d actually get the “heart rip” fatality without the heart… or the blood.
At least the SNES version didn’t confuse the unknowing gamer and as upfront about being neutered. Yet, it was the Genesis copy which sold better, despite having a lot of animation and sound stripped from it since Sega’s hardware was more limited than the Super Nintendo.
You can have a look at my review of the SNES version here and compare notes: while I didn’t play through the Genesis one further, you can see that by graphic comparisons, several things are different. The Genesis also has less colors and if you were to hear the audio, it’s disappointing too. (Which is odd, as the Genesis actually had some games with great audio: Sports Talk Football speaks to that strength of the console.)
Also, playing with the three-button Genesis controller was a no-go for obvious reasons too.
In the end, I give this one a thumb in the middle. If you were a Genesis owner back in the day, this was your childhood. However, if you had the option of playing one or the other, even without blood, the SNES was the superior version of this game.
Mortal Kombat II (Genesis version)
While Nintendo finally backpedaled on violence in video games with Mortal Kombat II, Sega maintained the status quo, albeit without the stupid “blood code” from their version of MK1. Unfortunately, as with MK1, the SNES version is a lot closer to the arcade version than on the Genesis.
Yet to its credit, Sega’s MK2 was more polished than their MK1 version with better visuals and upgraded sound. Some of the translations in gameplay and style were more authentic to the arcade version on the Genesis. Therefore, I don’t loathe it nearly as much as MK1. (Which I honestly don’t care for at all on any of the consoles.)
As for gameplay, MK2 was a major update over MK1. The roster of playable characters was expanded, as were the number of finishing moves. However, it wasn’t just the amount of fatalities that could be performed by each character, but the addition of “babalities” and “friendships” which increased the appeal of MK2. Former hidden fighter Reptile became another palette swap playable character as did MK1 boss Shang Tsung (who retained his ability o change into other characters!)
A number of series staples such as “Toasty”, more pit/stage fatalities, and a handful of other secrets bring this to the forefront of fighting games. In my opinion, MK2 was the best of the series and still hasn’t been topped since.
Sonic the Hedgehog
Having not owned Sega consoles growing up I have a new appreciation of this series. The three-button Genesis controller layout was so foreign to me and I don’t think I ever quite had enough time to sit and understand how the Sonic games worked.
Going back and playing them now, I absolutely love them… at times.
Spikes, lava, and randomly placed cheap obstacles (enemies who make you lose all of your rings) definitely makes me think of other games of this era. It’s not always a bad thing and adds to the challenge of simply speeding through each board as fast as possible. (A gripe of mine with some of the Game Gear iterations, which are NOT ports despite sharing the same name with may of their Genesis siblings.)
The first Sonic is definitely groundbreaking. Graphically, it looks as if it pushes the boundaries of the Genesis hardware while giving the “blast processing” myth some credence with the fast-paced gameplay.
Once you have the hang of things, the game isn’t extremely difficult to defeat. It’s on par with Super Mario Bros. as far as platforms are concerned, which isn’t a wonder why Sonic became the face of Sega for the better part of the 90’s.