Another Christmas has come and gone and, being the nostalgic person I am, I realized much like Christmas of 2018 marked 25 years since I got my Sega Genesis as a kid, this Christmas marked 25 years since I got a Game Gear, Sega’s very awesome (and very battery hungry) portable console of the early 90’s.
Now, at the time I had a Game Boy. I had one since probably 1992, I’d have to guess based on what I remember of when I first got it, and I certainly loved it. My family always did their best to get me something new that was major each year — I can’t complain that they didn’t try, oh no, they did their damnedest and following the Genesis the year before, the portable Sega system seemed like a worthwhile “big” gift for 1994.
Much like the Game Boy, the Game Gear was a portable 8-bit system. What I didn’t know at the time was that the Game Gear was, in effect, a portable Sega Master System — hell, at the time, I barely knew what a Master System was! Unlike the Game Boy, which wasn’t related to the NES in any major way, the Game Gear was in effect a major console, and, barring the low screen resolution, it was really the same beast.
The story about me that morning opening the system was a pretty fun one, I think. I opened my normal assortment of goodies – remember, I was all of 9 years old, so still getting plenty of toys and stuff. Well, I was opening gifts and that’s when I opened “Sonic Chaos” for the Game Gear. My mom, trying not to let me realize what the “big” gift that year was, quickly covered things up by saying that she had ordered it for Game Boy and they sent the wrong one. Now, two problems. One, Sonic, as anyone would know, wasn’t on Game Boy. Two, she would have seen this item arrive and would have, were there an issue, have solved this problem before Christmas. I’m pretty sure she bought it in-store anyway, but I digress.
This told me what I was getting — I knew at that point I’d get a Game Gear, in all its battery hogging glory. Indeed, I’d get a set which had Sonic 2 and a Baseball game, as well as a carry case for the Game Gear. I mention the battery hogging nature of the Game Gear because it really was a hell of a drain. Still, I’d play it as much as I could, on batteries, and once I learned it could use the same power supply as my Sega Genesis, I had a way to play it all I wanted, at least, when I was at home or otherwise near an outlet.
I would play it quite a bit over the next few years. I don’t recall owning too many games for it – I recall getting, I think, a Bonk game which became a favorite as well as Micky Mouse: Castle of Illusions, alongside Sonic 2 (in all it’s annoying 8-bit glory) and Sonic Chaos, which is still a favorite game of mine.
I remember wanting Sonic Triple Trouble when it released, as well as pretty much any other Game Gear games — that never happened, as I actually think I only got a few games within that first year or so and no more. I’d continue to, by comparison, play Game Boy into the year 2000! Still, Game Gear would become something I took to friends houses and even to my great-grandmothers in 1995 for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Come probably summer of 1996 I recall playing it still while watching TV, but I think that was about the end of that. Soon my life would move on to other things….
Honestly, memories of it, while vivid, or few and far between. Gaming was changing quickly and games for the Genesis and Game Gear were scarce in the wild, and naturally as a young teen my interests began to change a bit. Things I had gotten just 2 or 3 years earlier were seen as ancient, and I would eventually set the Game Gear down one last time, never to play (or see it) again.
I do want another one, but let’s face it — the screens were terrible. In that day I could deal with it, but now, what a joke. Those can be replaced, of course. Then comes the fact that virtually all of them are dead these days, thanks to capacitor plague. They just don’t work anymore, but that can be fixed — I’m hoping to find one in the wild that I will be able to repair myself and enjoy.
There are other ways to play Game Gear games, of course, but there was a charm with the actual hardware as it existed, and what it meant to me at that time. It was Sega, but portable. That simple. It was dark. Unique. Special. Special to me, anyway, and it will go down as a system I had a short, but very great, time with and, while I didn’t know it at the time, was a taste of the quality that really was the Master System and its games, in a smaller form.
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