Today, October 29th, 2018, marks 30 years since the release day of the Sega Mega Drive in Japan. This 16-bit beast, better known to us in the United States as the Genesis, would grow to become the first true threat to Nintendo’s dominance of the North American game market and would also grow to become the source of oh so many schoolyard arguments over “which is better” – the Sega Genesis or the soon to be released Super Nintendo. Hell, it was the console release which caused the “Bit Wars” to happen here, originally a battle of how much more capable the 16-bit Sega Genesis was compared to the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System, the Bit Wars evolved into a seemingly never-ending race for more powerful hardware all measured generally by how many “bits” the hardware was – effectively meaningless, but it was something to market that dumbed things down just enough for the average consumer to make a decision based on.
The Mega Drive itself wasn’t Sega’s first console, as the name “Genesis” in the US would make one think. Far from it, not only did the company have quite a bit of arcade hardware experience, they had also produced many 8 bit systems, mostly in Japan, but one variation – the SG-1000 Mark III, rebranded outside of Japan as the Master System – was released in the states to relatively poor sales against the mighty Nintendo Entertainment System.
The Mega Drive was based on a powerful 16-bit arcade hardware platform Sega has developed known as “System 16.” While weaker than the arcade hardware it was based on, the machine was still quite capable in and of itself and was certainly a stage above both the NES and the Master System – the console rivaling the capabilities of some computers of the era (depending on who you ask, of course.)
The United States wouldn’t actually see the release of the console until a year later, in late 1989, but when it did land in the States it took off quite quickly, capturing much of the market that Nintendo once held control over.
My personal experience with the console wouldn’t happen until Christmas of 1993 when I would receive one as a gift. Naturally, I was beyond excited! While a friend who lived a short ways away had a Genesis of his own, and I would play it often (this would be where I would play and grow to love Sonic the Hedgehog) the day I got my own console was just the best.
I remember my mom, somehow not being able to understand how to connect the console to the TV, had our neighbor come over to connect it. This is funny considering I connected it through RF, the same way the NES I already had did, but whatever – we’re talking about details from 25 years ago like I can remember what happened then right?
In any case, the connection was trivial and within moments I was playing Sonic 2, the game my system came with. Of course, this being 1993 my console was a Model 2 Genesis, but that was fine – as a kid, I sure didn’t know or care about the slightly degraded sound and I liked how relatively compact the console was.
Needless to say, I played the system all the time. On Saturday mornings I would get in quick sessions of Sonic 2 between Nick Arcade and Beakmans World, I’d have friends over and we’d try to complete Aladdin (something we never did, that game is freaking hard!), I’d rent games and give new ones a go all the time, and best of all when a new family moved in next door he also had a Genesis, which meant we could trade games constantly!
Good old Sonic The Hedgehog, a great game once you get past the memes surrounding it.
That was actually a rare treat, though – most of the other kids in the neighborhood had SNES consoles. I was a somewhat odd man out, so to speak, by having a Genesis. That was fine with me though – I had plenty of games to play on my own, and my friends had no trouble letting me play their SNES’s and in turn they could come over to play Genesis whenever – it all worked out, but still, this did show me a gaming world I was missing out on, and as I would get older I’d find out more games that I wanted to play were on the SNES.
The Lion King was a Genesis game I got early on in owning the console – quite a frustrating title, to say the least.
I still didn’t regret owning a Genesis. By the time we hit 1996 I was still playing the console, still getting games. Of course in 1994 I had gotten Sonic and Knuckles and Sonic 3, considering that combined game set probably the best game ever made at that time (and still a beloved past time to run through yearly) and I would continue to get various games through the years (including the not as great Sonic 3D Blast), but at this stage the system was showing age and wear. At some time frame the inevitable happened – the system broke on me. The controller port, it would seem, failed – those Atari-style 9 pin sockets can be fragile, and I guess over time I just wore the socket out, and up, down, and B on controller 1 just wouldn’t work.
What a shame.
I’d of course eventually stop trying to play the system with it like this – there was no point. I know by mid-1997 I had found my NES and reconnected that – a system I hadn’t played in nearly 4 years and a now 12-year-old me would basically do his first session of “retrogaming” not out of a desire to play old games, but because I had no other choice!
Sonic 3D blast was one of the last “great” memories I had with the console. Not that good of a game (not bad though) but for Christmas of 1995, this was the systems last hurrah in my life.
By Christmas of 1997 I would get a Super Nintendo and would play that for a year, getting a modest collection of games for it – not what I really wanted but still a nice set, and in Christmas of 1998, I would get a Sony PlayStation. I still played the Super Nintendo often, especially when borrowing games like Final Fantasy 3 and Chrono Trigger from a friend, RPG’s that I was aware of when I was still playing my Genesis regularly (hell, FF3 was mentioned heavily in the same Game Players issue which features Sonic and Knuckles – even then I was becoming an RPG lover!) so it was nice to go back and enjoy those titles, but I did miss my Genesis.
Sometime in 2000-2001 (during my second year in high school) I would buy a Genesis from a local Funcoland and I quite enjoyed the chance to go back and play Sonic 3 & Knuckles, among what other games of mine I could find, and ever since then I’ve always had a Genesis somewhere to play.
I would borrow Road Rash II often from my friend next door who also had a Genesis! (Funny too that this is the European box art – note Mega Drive as the system name!)
It goes without saying that the Sega Mega Drive / Genesis is one of my favorite game consoles ever. While many of the games do hold up well today, I won’t lie that much of it is nostalgia – had I had a Super Nintendo back in the same time period I’m certain it would hold the same place in my heart the Genesis does now, but that’s how life is – you tend to grow attached to what you had in the past.
I mentioned RPG’s above – oh yes, I’m fully aware there were plenty of wonderful Role Playing Games on the Genesis, but being a kid and not having much of your own money to spend on games that, at this time, just weren’t in stores anymore made things difficult – I had to take what I could get. Toejam and Earl 2 had to suffice.
Of course, I also wanted both the Sega CD and 32X add-ons when they were available, but never did get either. Even now I still don’t have either one of these, but still do want them, if only for the sake of making that inner child happy by finally owning the devices.
My love of Sega even goes so far as when Time Warner Cable advertised the Sega Channel on a nonstop infomercial around 96, I think, I not only watched it regularly but actually set a VCR to tape it! Oh, I wish I could find that tape, as the currently available on YouTube copies are not at all the same ads which I saw back then.
It’s funny, these days I don’t play the Genesis nearly as much as I used to. I have probably 5 different units as well – it just kind of happens over time with some systems, you find them cheap or buy them then store them away only to re-discover theme after you’ve bought a replacement! I don’t have my original console – that got thrown away ages ago thanks to the controller port issue, something I could these days fix without issue, and even the second console I bought in the early 2000’s I think may have gotten lost or thrown out at some point.
Still, I have working consoles, most of my old games, plenty of newer ones or re-buys of games sold or lost from my original collection and while I haven’t replaced all of the original set, I do have enough Genesis titles to keep me happy for the time being.
There’s still plenty of games for the system I’ve never even touched on. One day, maybe, I’ll skim through the library more and try to find a few more titles to add to my collection that I know I’ll enjoy.
Until then, happy gaming fellow Sega fans! Thanks for reading!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Genesis