Been trying to find something to play for hours and only getting blips now and then. I come to realize that I just stopped feeling anything nostalgic for some consoles from particular generations of gaming. One of them is the Sega Genesis. The only greatest memory I’ve had of that system, was the Sega Channel, a subscription service that gave you access to numerous Genesis games in a monthly cycle. I was really one of the blessed few that got to experience that and was so happy someone made a rom dump of it only to find that it only brings me to the ATTENTION! screen when I try running it. That’s what you get when something happens to the adapter or service discontinued .etc
Anyways, I know the Genesis have had some gems and some classics. But I have a hard time really caring for most of its library and the way Sega has handled re-releasing its old games library, has really added sour to my feelings on the Genesis. Sonic, Golden Axe, Columns, Streets of Rage and repeat was all that Sega ever pitched out. Over and over, didn’t matter what generation of gaming it was. Maybe a few random titles sprinkled in and there you go. But it’s like, they didn’t bother lifting a finger to try and maybe get some of the better games that were released on that system. They didn’t get Shadowrun, which in my opinion, outclasses the SNES version just barely simply because it felt like a pure Shadowrun experience. Zombies Ate My Neighbors could have had an argument being compiled. Pirates! Gold was a stellar pirates-related RPG of its time, didn’t get compiled.
Like what the fuck, Sega? Yes we get it, never forget Sonic. Between the two big 16-bit consoles, I’ve found greater appreciation for the SNES. I mean, you could easily rank 150 banger classics off of its library compared to what Genesis’ best, I struggle to maybe get 20 or 25.
I never realized how much garbage was cranked out in the 8 bit era. Going back and firing up ROMs for games I had never played or even some that I used to enjoy, I discovered many of them to be unplayable.
Don’t get me wrong, there are some bangers, but at least 75% of NES games are just crappy remakes of decent games.
I know!
And some of those horrible games are highly sought after. Cheetahmen 2? Action 52, where half of the games didn’t even work? Why the flying fuck would anyone want these? And why would anyone pay top dollar to have these? They’re garbage for a reason. From someone who had once built a physical NES collection, there were just some things I was personally happy to have gone without. Those are just some examples.
For those examples, I’m sure the demand is BECAUSE they were terrible. If nobody bought them in the 80s, there’s going to be less of them floating around today. SMB/Duck Hunt were great games, but EVERYONE had it, so there’s really no value in that cart today.
Also some of the people who did have those terrible games as kids are probably still nostalgic for them.
My first game console was the Atari 5200 (garage sale, I’m not actually that old). Was it objectively bad? Yeah, probably. But I still want one and I’m still pissed at what happened to the one I had as a kid.
This has been a running gag between my wife and I. Whenever we fire up an old game that turns out to be complete trash, one of us just says to the other:
“Just think. Somebody got this for their birthday.” 😞
The NES.
I remember a bunch of nonsensical or just plain frustrating games where you’re lucky to get past level 1. It was fun as a kid when I was just screwing around. But SNES and Genesis felt like the beginning of the expectation that you play through the game or at least take them seriously.
A lot of it was really padding gameplay to make a game feel ‘complete’. It’s amazing how you find out some of those games only had like 4 levels or 4 stages with sub levels to each, but they had to be made to be either long or incredibly difficult on purpose.
16-Bit era really did clear a lot of that up, granted, some games did try to get by with that but we knew a little better what to avoid.
Sega never had the appeal to me either man outside those few games. I still like playing the SNES for whatever reason they just seem to hold up
i agree. i think Sega more often tried to go for trends and edginess, or encouraged (passively or actively) devs to do so. the games became total ancient history, emotion-wise. compared to Big N, whose titles became seen as classics and are often imitated.
on some level, it’s as simple as the colors being more primary and bright, versus secondary and dark. obviously not the only factor but an undeniable one.
edit: removed redundancy
That was really all that Sega was about in the 90s. They talked the big talk, but they really couldn’t walk it. They only struck luck at best, but they stumbled a lot of the time which eventually lead to their hardware exit by the 2000s.
Nintendo’s games proved that quality is ever-lasting and regardless of people’s stance on Nintendo, very few could argue their kind of quality. They let that speak for themselves.
It might not actually be their game, by copyright sense? They might not see a point in hunting someone down, that may or may not exist, to ask them if they want to remake a game but get none of the profits. Ideally none.
Or these games weren’t iconic enough to be checked off, on some survey to justify money being spent on it.
