This collection of just under 50 Sega Genesis games could’ve used a better title. As is, Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection is misleading. I mean…is this a gathering of only Sonic games? Or are these games handpicked by the speedy, blue hedgehog himself? And if that, where is Toe Jam and Earl or Mortal Kombat or Boogerman: A Pick and Flick Adventure? Okay, maybe I don’t really give two cares about that last one…
Regardless, this is a good deal. You get a lot of games for an excellent price ($18 used, I think?) rather than buying a lot of them individually on XBLA for 400 MP a pop. Eek. However, for a lot of these games, no one should waste their money. Going in, I’d heard of a good number, played a few in my childhood over at friends’ houses, and experienced the rest as brand new things in 2010/2011. A lot are just meh. Can’t say it any straighter. Bonanza Bros. is ridiculous and a mess strategically. Sonic 3D Blast should come packaged with Advil. Controlling the helicopter in Super Thunder Blade is broken. I jumped to my death quickly in Space Harrier and never went back to it.
I only had a good time revisiting more familiar titles, such as Streets of Rage, Golden Axe, Sonic II, Beyond Oasis, and Ecco the Dolphin. Tara and I played some of these together, but as is usual with older games, frustration reigns supreme. We’d get more mad than glad during split-screen Sonic the Hedgehog 2 versus adventures. I was most surprised to find myself really enjoying generic platformers like Dynamite Headdy and Kid Chameleon.
Honest disclaimer: I have not beaten every single game in this collection. Not even close on most of them, nor do I really want to. So, the reason I’m considering this one completed for 2011 is based off its Achievements. I’ve unlocked them all. Woo-hoo? Woo. They’re split down the middle between super easy and soul-crushingly difficult. I’ll discuss them greater in another post, devoting way too many words to the Achievement for Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine. How I will forever hate that one.
If you’re looking to do some retro gaming and have everything you wanted from the SNES generation on your Wii or Nintendo DS, then this one’s worth a spin.
Grinding Down 
I still play a lot of those games on my Genesis…
It’s that frustration that made those games great. When you can say that you beat Sonic 3D Blast, it means something. It means you spent a day, maybe more, straight sitting in your living room playing through the game first try, because if you didn’t you went right back to the beginning dammit, but you manned up and awkwardly led those tiny birds to victory, and to freedom. And you did it all without a tutorial or levelling up even once.
Those were the days.
You should give the Phantasy Star games a try. They are very time consuming but very awesome as well.
It was weird going back to some of these games. I had Sega Channel back in the day so a lot of these I played for a tiny bit and then never saw them again. I had so many “OH! That is what that game was!” moments!
Getting that Mean Bean Machine trophy was extremely gratifying! That game kicked my ass back in 1994, but NOT ANYMORE! w00t!
Yeah, my brother bought this. I enjoyed it, but probably not in the way Sega intended. Turns out I’m not too big on the Genesis library, if this any indication. It’s got some good titles, but most of our experience was spent making fun of the bad ones.
My brother did get a bizarre addiction to Gain Ground, though. That’s bad enough just because it’s a terribly tedious game, but I somehow got addicted to watching him play it. It feels like it goes on forever, but I just had to see how it ended. A couple of that game’s songs will haunt me to my grave.
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