Retronauts - Retronauts Episode 180: SEGA Genesis Turns 30

Episode Date: November 5, 2018

Jeremy Parish, Benj Edwards, Chris Sims, and a host of Retronauts listeners recount the best moments and memories of SEGA's 16-bit Genesis on the occasion of the console's 30th birthday.

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DC Universe is only $7.99 a month or 20% off for a yearly membership. Join the ultimate DC membership at DCUniverse.com and check out Titans. This week in Retronauts, we process the blasts. Hi, everyone. Welcome to this episode of Retronauts, not some other episode. You might be confused there, but no, it's this one. And this one is the one where we talk about Sega Genesis. It is now, it is now 30 years since Sega launched the Sega Genesis as the Mega Genesis as the Mega. Drive in Japan. How did that happen? I don't know, but we're still alive, and so we're going to

talk about it. Now, this episode, I want this to be a bit of contrition because 10 years ago, that's how long this podcast has been running, 10 years ago, I put together a 20th anniversary episode for the Sega Genesis that was meant to be a celebration of the platform, but I didn't vet the participant list very carefully, and at least one person on the panel. spent two hours talking about how much Sega sucks and how bad Sega Genesis is. And unfortunately, those of us gathered here in the room together are not, like, huge lifelong Sega fans. But I feel like we are going to make up for what happened last time, because by God, we are earnest. And also, we brought in like 30 letters from people who love Sega Genesis.

So they are going to do the heavy lifting for us. In the meantime, why don't you? Do my fellow flawed humans introduce yourselves? My name is Chris Sims, and I do what Nintendo don't. My name is Benj Edwards, and I do what Chris doesn't do. And what is that? Oh, you drink gin. Okay.

I don't write comic books. Oh, well, there you go. There's a lot of things Chris does. You probably don't do. That's true. Yoga. Anyway, I'm Jeremy Parrish. I don't think I said that before, but that's who I am, and that's what you're stuck with.

So anyway, Sega Genesis, 30 years old, as of October 28th, 19, or 2018, I want to say. Happy Halloween. Yay. Maybe it's October 20th. In any case, it's October, and there is time for Sega Genesis. And was Clax ever on Genesis? I don't think it was. Oh, actually, yeah, it was.

Clax was on Genesis. So there is time for God's. Guys, tell me, what was your first Seaginous experience? What was the first impression it made on you? I remember walking up to a, in Toys R Us, walking up, or down the video game aisle and seeing a new demonstration console on the corner with these huge controllers that looked so bulbous and black

with three buttons. What's going on here? You know, three buttons and playing Altered Beast on a demonstration console there right when it was new, probably at launch time in America, which was 89, right?

That's correct, yes. And a few friends. I want to say August 89? Yeah, probably. I was eight at that time and my friends some friends had it and a later memory is that

one of my best friends in my neighborhood when I was little had a Sega Genesis and we played Sonic 2 on it and we didn't have a second controller and we figured out that if I took one of my Atari controllers over and plugged it into the second port that I could play as tails because there's only one button needed to jump

and that was a cool memory I got others, but Chris, what about you? I had a weird class hatred for Sega Genesis. I've told this story on podcast before. I don't know if I thought so. I think so, yeah. But when I was a kid, I somehow got it into my head. And I'm talking about like 9, 10 years old, that Genesis was for the rich.

It was for rich kids. And Super Nintendo was for the hardworking salt of the earth, blue collar, good Americans like me. And TurboGraphics was for my friend Matthew, who had one, and he was weird. So I had this, the Sega Genesis, I think I said this to Jeremy the other day, it had the same kind of appeal to me as like getting a dessert with flakes of gold on it, where I'm like, that is ridiculous, but I do want to try it. Because it was a system that for me other people had.

And it was a system that I was always seeing advertised, because they advertised heavily in comics. And, you know, they had so many games that I just, you know, that didn't seem like they were across platforms. Like, they had so many games I was never going to play. Like, I was a huge fan of Ducktails for NES, but I was never going to play Quackshot, because that was on the Genesis. I only ever got to play, like, Sonic when I was over at my sister's boyfriend's house. So Genesis had this weird amount of allure for me. The Genesis in general and, like, Sonic as a character, because I would, like, 92, 93 would be around.

the time that you know the sonic comics were starting and I was I would get those from the I would get those from the uh the grocery store and feel like like this this guy isn't Mario this guy's cool but my loyalties are with Mario so I had a it wasn't until I was an adult that I really got to sit down with Sega Genesis stuff and I still had this weird like like it's it's for rich people I don't get it it's it's for the rich I I've had you know the Genesis has been a weird thing because I approached it from the NES being my base console at the time and Super Mario Bros. being sort of the de facto awesome platformer. And so when I played Sonic and everybody said it was awesome, I was really disappointed in Sonic. I was like, it's supposed to run fast, but every time you run fast, you'd get hit or you run into things and stop. And then, you know, and you jump around and whatever,

I didn't understand it, you know. But if you didn't do anything, he would tap his foot and look at you. And then leave. And then he would quit. He would be like, out of here. Later, I thought for years and years, I thought, you know, Sonic to Hedgehog was vastly overrated, but I can appreciate it much more now, approaching it from a different perspective.

Yeah, I think the design of Sonic and a lot of games gets to something that Chris and I were talking about before we started recording, which is that Sega is an arcade company. They are very much an arcade company at heart, and Genesis games really reflected that. So they tended to be very difficult. and they tended to be very fast-paced, action-oriented, and they tended to rely heavily on the need to replay them and to really kind of learn what you do everywhere. And Sonic, you know, it has really great branching level design

where you can go different areas and find stuff, but it really is about kind of like finding your optimal route and learning, like, well, I'm going really fast, but I need to jump now because if I don't, then I'm going to hit a stopper and go the wrong direction, or I will run into like a chameleon that, pops out of nowhere and shoots at me. So there is an element of that sort of arcade memorization to that. And I feel like, you know, Genesis does a good job of bridging the divide between

console design and arcade design, which was the point. I mean, when Sega put together the Genesis, they built it around the same basic spec as their current arcade boards. They were, you know, we've talked about the arcade history of Sega. And this, you know, the system debuted in 1988. So at the time the system 16 board was the big thing. And the system 16 board was built around the Motorola 68,000 processor architecture. That's exactly the architecture they used for Genesis. Their previous system had been, you know, master system running on a Z80. So it's a different kind of system, a different architecture.

But they switched over to something that would be very compatible with their arcade hardware, if considerably less powerful, which was a problem kind of in the early going. But I really think that speaks to the mentality that they brought to their home console design. And I feel like it's a big part of what made Genesis so successful because, you know, you had a console here in 1988, 89, that was running on a chip almost exactly the same as a Mac Plus, which was a very expensive computer, a very powerful, graphically oriented computer. They were using it for a completely different kind of application, but I feel like it does kind of speak to. the seriousness with which they approach this. In Japan, you also had the Sharp X-68,000 computer, which launched a few years later, and that, you know, based on the name alone, ran on the same architecture and was basically

like a perfect arcade system. If you play, oh, man, I played an X68,000 at a Cortland or Long Island Retro Expo a couple of months ago, played like Strider and other Capcom games are arcade perfect on that system because that was what Capcom used as a development system. played super hang on and it was the most intense racing experience I've ever had it was this 16 bit you know arcade game on a home computer but you know the the the thruster kind of control system and the joystick like it's just so fast and so amazing and so intense and I I want to own that computer just to play that game and have that experience again even though that would cost me yeah me too

$4,000 yeah and I wish I could get into Japanese computers like that I've wanted to for so long. Just got to win the lottery, man. Yeah. I think that that speaks to something that we're going to talk about that Genesis collection in a little bit. And I, when I got it, I literally just played through it A to Z. And one of the things I was shocked by, I'm not bad at video games, I don't think.

I've got an Aeneas classic and an SNAs classic, so I've been playing a lot of older stuff lately. But I was shocked at how difficult all the Genesis stuff was. It is, like, I, when I got here, the first thing I asked you was, hey, is the Genesis just more difficult? And I think you can see that in Sonic. Like, Sonic is a beautiful game. It's very pretty. Like, graphically, I think it genuinely looks better than even like Mario World in a lot of ways. And it feels good.

Like, when Sonic goes fast and when he goes over the loops and slows down just a little, it feels so good. But that is a game where going fast is not the adventer. thing to do, and I find that very frustrating. You've got to know when to use the speed and when not to. It's like the gambler, the Kenny Rogers of action heroes. Sonic is the Kenny Rogers of video games. He absolutely is. Yeah,

the arcade vibe that Genesis had was ultimately why I didn't buy the system for myself. You know, I didn't talk about my first experiences with the system, but I had a few, and they involved, like, renting the system or borrowing it from friends. I got a friend who lived a few blocks away

who, you know, I went to church with, then he would lend me his Genesis occasionally and I'd lend him my NES or whatever. And he came back and he'd always be like, these games are stupid. I don't care about NES games. They're so slow. Whereas I'd be like, man, this system's really cool,

but where are the kind of games that I want? I want some games that are slower and deeper. And, you know, I loved playing, oh my God, I borrowed Strider from him. And it was, it wasn't arcade perfect, but it sure felt like it. And, you know, compared to the NES version of Strider, I was like,

this is, you know, night and day. man this this genesis is amazing but you know then I would I think I had some friends rented a genesis and star control and ghouls and ghosts and uh I was like oh man the star control game seems really cool but they just wanted to play ghouls and ghosts because it was like wow it's just like the arcade so there was kind of a disconnect between what that system was and what I wanted from it so I ultimately went with a super nests because it had the Mario games and the Mega Man games and the Castlevania games and the RPGs and the action RPGs that I really liked and those just weren't as prevalent and easy to come by on Genesis. But at the same time, I never

looked at Genesis and was like, yeah, this system seems stupid and bad and I don't want it. It was always to me like this thing that I wish, you know, I had it in my budget that I could also afford this system, but I only have so much money. So I got to stick with, you know, one and go with the thing that is the experience that I want. But yeah, my experience. with Genesis was always sort of like on the outside looking in and longing for something more. I feel like to your point, like us coming from a Nintendo perspective, when I, in later years, as I've been looking back and trying to find things about the Genesis Library games that I enjoy, I realize that I was sort of just looking for games that are sort of like NES games that are more

less arcade-y, like beat-em-ups where you die and you insert quarters. more like Landstalker or Beyond Oasis or something that's, you know, just have more depth and more adventure and more like you're just kind of chilling and you're doing what you want to do. And there was stuff like that. There was stuff like sort of Vermillion, but Sega didn't really push it that time. Yeah, they weren't the showcases of that system at the time.

They were like, look, EA sports. I don't want to play a sports video game. Yeah, I didn't like sports games, so that was that ruled that out. So Sega's marketing was very successful except to me because it wasn't communicating that, yes, this console also has the things that you like, Jeremy. So I missed out on it for a long time. And I'm really enjoying opportunities to go back and discover Sega's library. You know, I've been playing the Switch Sega Ages.

And just yesterday I was playing Thunder Force 4 for the first time, lightning force. And it's a really great shooter. Like, I wouldn't buy a console for that. But I'm really appreciating the opportunity that I have to go back and kind of discover the Genesis, you know. years later and find all these games that I've heard about or maybe that I haven't heard about, you know, that are out there that just need to be discovered. So, so there is kind of this, this appeal in the Genesis for me now and like, hey, it's this treasure trove of things that either I've heard about reputation or that no one ever talks about and that I'm going

to discover on my own, which I like. There are tons of deep cuts on this platform. That are really good. Christopher Hastings, uh, who did the adventures of Dr. McInjia, webcomic and wrote Gwen Poole for Marvel, once wrote in Doctor Mint Ninja that, like, as a kid, he thought that only a genie could allow a child to own both us who were Nintendo and a Sega Genesis. And I feel like there was that hard dividing line. Like, the advertising was so competitive, you know, like, you know, there was an entire magazine just for Nintendo stuff.

Like, if you were a Nintendo kid, I feel like you were a Nintendo kid. And the Genesis was something other. Yeah, they had Mega Play. Come on. Okay. But I feel like the games bear that out. Like there's a different style of games. And I find that really interesting to go back and look at. All right.

So I said that we were going to incorporate a listener mail into this for people's positive, experienced opinions that we can't offer. And we're going to do that now. We're going to break from format. And we're going to have the mailbag here at the top of the show. Letters and written letters in the mail, we're going to read them to you now. So from Jack, Sega Channel is the first thing that comes to mind. Keeping with the ancient Sega tradition, it was a cool idea that was too expensive and poorly timed,

but to an 8-year-old, it was magic. So the Sega Channel was an online download-based service where you could subscribe and play games that were broadcast over TV, and that's pretty ahead of its time. So he says, with 50 games available at a time to download and play on demand, my friends and I were able to bypass the normal limitations for playing new games. I have fond memories of playing Pulse Man, Mega Man the Wiley Wars, an alien soldier, all of which were available in the U.S. only through this service. On the other end of the spectrum, my friends and I enjoyed some of the worst games,

such as the semi-3D fighter disaster piece balls. Had we been unfortunate enough to blow a weekend rental or, God forbid, purchase that game, we would have been devastated. But with Sega Channel, we had a laugh for 20 minutes playing it before resetting the system and diving into another playthrough of Gunstar Heroes. We would also stay up until midnight on the day the rotation would change, eagerly awaiting the new games that we would have access to. There was even a section for beta versions of games years ahead of demo discs.

And just reading this makes me so jealous that I didn't have that experience. I'm really envious. That sounds amazing. I wanted the Sega Channel so bad when it was out, but they didn't offer it in my area. Otherwise, I would have bought a Genesis just for that at the time. Man, North Hills really was a hellhole. I didn't live in North Hills.

Negascot 128 says, Can anyone say anything about Gunstar Heroes that hasn't been said already? Tight controls, a great dual weapon mechanic, fantastic bosses, and it's all over before it can outstay, it's welcome. It's easily one of the best shooter games ever made and rightly cemented treasure

is one of the best developers of the era. Agreed, actually. Disagree. Disagree. No, I think Gunstar Heroes is overrated But it's a great game I used to think that and I've I used to think Treasure was overrated and I've come around

Yeah it's a matter of taste But it's definitely a very good game I'll give you that They're super technical which took me a long time to warm up to But yeah they're kind of amazing I mean we'll get to it that Gunstar Heroes is Out of all the games on that Genesis collection Like that is my number one pick

I'm surprised that you like that game I love the I love everything about it I love the aesthetic I think it's I think the characters are well designed I think the weapons are fun I love how every stage is just totally different than the last like they just had all these ideas I mean you can really tell that was kind of their breakout game they're like their first project as a team because it's like all the stuff they wanted to do when they worked at Konami but couldn't do they're like put it all in there we're gonna have a boss that has seven different

forms and changes as you fight him and then we're gonna have a stage where You roll dice and play a board game to beat the boss. Yeah, it's Benet. And it feels like, it feels like the next evolution of Contra should have been. You know, like coming from ex-Kanami employees makes perfect sense. Yeah, I mean, they probably bailed on Konami because they were like, oh, hardcore. Yeah, that's okay. But look what we can do instead.

And also, like, it has that feeling of Sonic, like the speed of Sonic, because not only is it a fast-moving game, but like your weapon. is like move super fast. Like it feels frantic in a way that like is almost like bullet hell, but also like has platform elements. It's a really good game. I really like it's brilliant. It's like your gun is an extension of yourself. You just point it where you want to kill things and it goes all over the place.

And it even gives you the choice of how you want to play. You can play as one character who does the run and gun thing. And you can play as one character who plants us feet and takes aim and is stationary when he attacks. Yeah. So it's really like, yeah, the customization and adaptability of that game. It takes some getting used to. But once you get the handle of it, you're like, oh, yes, this is good.

Yeah, I'll play it some more then. I don't know why that game didn't like Spark a massive franchise. It's ironic that I said it was overrated because it was not when it was new. Right. You know, nobody in America that I knew of had ever heard of that game. It even came with a fruit roll-up. Come on. How could that not appeal to you?

My God. Are you made of stone? I got this thing downloaded from the plane. station store. Are they going to mail me one? Sorry, that was a Genesis exclusive. They were doing what Nintendo don't. Mega roll-up. I mean, Nintendo gave you a coupon for

Pizza Hut mini-pisa, but did you get a fruit roll-up in the box? I don't think so. Look, there was no Genesis serial system. That's for sure. Benj, what's up on your mail roster? It would have been the fastest cereal in the world. Okay, the next one is mute kai.

While I own multiple old consoles, the Genesis is probably the one that I'm least likely to ever get rid of. Folks on HG 101, Hardcore Gaming 101, already know this due to the fact that it's my system of choice for the podcast and video music I've done for the site.

But I'm a huge fan of the YM 2612 sound hardware and its specific way of mixing audio is almost impossible to get right in emulation. I'd certainly think of my work on the system as being the least, demo scene adjacent and that I enjoy finding ways to make strange and weird sounds that aren't as thought of as coming from the system. Even if I didn't, though, the Yamaha chip in the Genesis is a surprisingly strong chip and is almost as good as the DX7 synth, which was, I think I have

one of this, which was used in a, it's an FM synthesizer thing, which that was used in a wide range of 80s production from thumping bass sounds to tinkling electric pianos. It's some very elaborate sound hardware considering, and for consumer-grade stuff, certainly beats the pants off the ad-lid chips on PCs at the time. In most respects, even if many Japanese computers had synth chips more in line with it. Now, so who was that from? Uh, mute K-I, mute key, K-I. That's the name, but. Mutakee. Maybe, Mutagie. The Genesis FM, it's a, I have a love-hate relationship with that. Obviously, I don't know if you remember the joke I made. on like our first or second podcast about the genesis.

Oh, I'm still getting hate mail about it. Yeah, so I'm not even going to repeat it on this. But FM synthesis, I always found grading and not as, you know, I guess compared to say the, I think the sound table, wave table sort of stuff on the super NES was, I found that was superior. But, you know, the, if you think about what he's actually saying here, though, having a DX7 type technology in 1988 on a console is pretty darn cool. Yeah, I mean, it was like arcade hardware caliber,

audio hardware in a console. It was pretty amazing. Lots of versatility there. I thought I was going to be the contrarian today, Bench, but it's all you. Okay. I still love the Genesis. I mean, it's just, it has its quirks, you know.

All right, well, here's a letter from Matt. There wasn't a whole lot to do during the summer for an 11-year-old suburbanite with no money. So I spent my day as the best, way I could imagine. Finishing Sonic 3 on every save file the game offered. Sonic 3 wasn't my favorite Genesis game, but I'd already played Streets of Rage 2, Moonwalker, and Castlevania bloodlines to death. Sonic 3 had some fun secrets to discover in a snappy, oddly familiar soundtrack. And best of all, I had a copy on hand and ready to go. Outside, the pavement radiated heat, and we didn't have air

conditioning. So as Sonic splashed through Hydro City, I swam in a pool of my own sweat. But as the day wore on, black clouds overtook the sunny sky. I paused the game and watched as the heavens burst. Rain cascaded down my streets as relief came in the form of an earthy scent and cool breeze. It was one of those moments that defined the joy of childhood for me. Back then, there was magic in a video game controller and a hot day in an unexpected storm. I feel like I was there. You mentioned bloodlines and real, real quick, I think that's legit the most underrated Castle. Oh, absolutely. I wrote a column for Polygon earlier this year saying, what the hell, Konami? Where is this game? Why have you not reissued it? It wasn't even on virtual

console. I agree. I've been building Genesis joysticks recently, and that's the game I used to test them all out because it just kicks ass. I sure do hate playing platformers like Castlevania on a joystick, but hey, if it works for you... It's good. The joystick is so good. No, it's... I'm not disparaging your joysticks, which are awesome. I just hate the experience of playing platformers. I know, but that's what I do too. I hate playing them on joystick, but this is so good. That's the problem. Like, it makes everything good. This was an ad for bloodlines, and now it's an ad for your joystick. 95, by it today.

If Bloodlines didn't have, like, the graphics weren't quite as, like, clashy as they are, because they do have, there are some, like, the Tower of Pisa scene is pretty eye-searing. But, like, gameplay-wise, and, like, for the most part, like, the world traveling aspect, Bloodlines rules. And people don't think of it. It's a great classic take on Castlevania. Maybe the last good, like, classic style, Castlevania. I mean, the Castlevania, the rebirth was okay.

but it didn't compare to bloodlines. Yeah. It's a great last hurrah. Natalie Kosuge says, I didn't actually own a Genesis when it was current. A friend of mine got one, so I decided to get a turbographic 16 instead and play Genesis games at his house.

However, I did grow up near the Genesis store mentioned the book Console Wars that Sega opened near Walmart's corporate headquarters in Arkansas. Wow. Fun fact, Console Wars misidentifies the store as being in Bentonville. It was actually in Fayetteville.

What's more, my cousin's best friend had worked there, and I had no problem and had no problem cracking open any game I wanted to play on one of the demo units. I still fondly remember the Friday when I went in after school, let out, and camped out with a copy of Hellfire until closing time. I don't know how much money that store made for Sega, but it made a great free arcade for my parasitic 12-year-old self. It's always good to have when you're a kid and you have an inside connection. Like my nephews love that sometimes I get Pokemon games early. And when I was a kid, I had an aunt who worked at best products.

if you remember that. She worked in the warehouse. I remember that. So when games came out, she was like, yonk. And not only did she get them right away without having to,

you know, fight with other consumers, she also got them at a 20% discount. That is awesome. Oh, yeah. My uncle worked at Nintendo and he told me how I could get Mew.

I just need to move the truck. Oh, yeah? That's awesome. Also, he's already played Mario 5. Damn. Do you want me read? Oh, you missed one that says, damn it, Jeremy.

You always set such tight deadlines. how am I meant to send you my handwritten letter in the mail, which is obviously a reference to the greatest theme song of all time? Okay, Zachary Walton says, I never had anything Sega growing up as I was a Nintendo kid, but my friend had a genesis. We never had a rivalry or ribbed each other for choosing Nintendo over Sega or vice versa. We simply enjoyed going to each other's houses to play the games we couldn't play in our own respective homes.

Wow, it's non-partisanship is sorely needed today. It's the healing this nation needs. Yeah, we need that right now. That being said, I was always jealous that the Genesis had the Streets of Rage trilogy. They are still, to this day, my favorite beat-em-ups, and my copy of Final Fight, despite being excellent, always just sort of fell flat, felt flat compared to the vibrant colors and music of Sega that Sega's brawler offered. The only downside to all this is that my friend got a little tired of me wanting to play Streets of Rage 2 again,

when he had other games like Sonic 3 and Gunstar Heroes that he wanted me to try out as well. Sorry, Jesse, Streets of Age 2 is just the better game. I love Streets of Rage. All right, from Eric. Now, here's one we can relate to. I never owned a Genesis, but my best friend did. My favorite memory is my first, seeing the enormous sprites and altered beast for the first time. The game is lousy, as I can now see.

But I'd never seen anything like that outside an arcade. This was before I'd seen Mario. Remember how amazing those huge bullet bills were the first time you saw them? the first time I saw Altered Beast was, at the time, more mind-blowing than that. Just the idea that you could have those kinds of graphics without having to drop a quarter per play. Ultimately, I think the Genesis was too arcadey for my taste, but for those first few minutes, man, that blew my mind. Curation of Genesis titles is rather wanting, though, isn't it? I've always wanted to play Castlevania Bloodlines in Aladdin,

but without the original hardware, I have nowhere to turn. I have to play Strider, my favorite Genesis game, using Wii Virtual Console, which right now means using the Wii Shell on my not yet defunct WiiU. Hopefully, the me fixes some of this, but I have a feeling I'm going to be left waiting on Bloodlines, Adeline. Matt M. writes in to say, I was pretty late to the Genesis era by way of the Sega CD bundle, so my earliest experiences revolve around cheesy but fun FMV games, like Sewer Shark and Ground Zero, Texas. I suppose my favorite memory would be opening the console on Christmas morning and popping in the Amazing Spider-Man versus the Kingpin with my cousin and being totally blown away by the incredible cutscenes and graphics.

even if I never really figured out how to properly play the game. But that first experience of feeling like I was playing a real comic book has rarely been topped over the years. And the next one comes from Darth Obvious, which is my favorite Sith Lord. Have you ever heard the legend of Darth Obvious the blatant? No. Not from a Jedi.

Although I was firmly on Nintendo's side in the 16-bit Wars, I always recognized that Sega had great games too. My favorite was Sonic 3 and Knuckles Plus Knuckle As someone who didn't own a Genesis And only got to play bits and pieces When I would trade consoles with a friend I didn't get burned out on Sonic

Or even question having to rent two games To get the whole thing Sonic 3 and Knuckles always represented to me The best graphics and sound the Genesis could offer And it always could stand up to superanus games Even Donkey Kong country Oh those fighting words Am I alone in being the one who doesn't like Donkey Kong country?

No, actually, it has kind of a bad reputation on retronauts. And actually, that's something we take as much heat for as our Genesis opinions. I think it's a highly overrated platformer, yeah. I got halfway through and was like, I'd rather play Final Fantasy 3 again. Yeah, there you go. That was 1994 for me. From Daniel Lewis, my favorite memory of the Genesis goes hand in hand with my favorite game, locked in the time of the not-so-distance summer of 1998.

Dude, that's 20 years ago. I hate to tell you. Small Soldiers was the banger of that summer, being cross-promoted at Burger King with their rodeo burger, fuel that would almost single-handedly propel my then-12-year-old body through the summer, playing a recently borrowed but four-year-old hidden gym, dynamite hetty. The fun frenetic gameplay with the many different head-switching power-ups, the whimsical puppet world with an excellent environmental detail,

detail, the astonishing soundtrack with wide genre representation. Dynamite Hetty had it all, and then some. I've never beaten it because Twin Freaks gets me to this day, but I remember vividly staying up till all hours of the night, try, try, trying again, and never regretting the mini-gameovers I would rack up over the years. Blargg says, I was Nintendo fanboy through and through in the 90s,

but occasionally got to play Genesis when my cousins weren't playing Madden to Death. I love the Sonic the Hedgehog games, but Gunstar Heroes was an absolute masterpiece. The game's unique combination of hand-to-hand combat, run-and-gun gameplay, and general wackiness, hasn't been surpassed all these years later, not even by the serviceable GBA sequel slash remake. Wow, there's a lot of these. Yep. Lots of people got to balance out our bad genesis opinions.

Good things, yeah. Go on, binge. Norm writes, there are some really interesting and memorable titles that have not really been spoken about yet on Retronauts or many other podcasts like Target Earth, Polter Guy, and Jail. general chaos. Speaking of those three specifically, although they were not perfect, they offered an unforgettable experience through their uniqueness and gameplay and or mechanics. Target Earth Polter Guy in general chaos. I've played Polter Guy.

I don't remember Target Earth in general. Target Earth, I think, is a Maasai game in the, like the assault suits Lainos genre. So you're like a big, stompy me kind of like Sabrenator on Super NES. How about that? I think. Don't quote me on that. Some deep cuts here. It's also worth noting lesser-known RPG titles such as Sorcerer's Kingdom, Traisia, and Crusader of Senti, or action games like Valus 3 or Valus.

How do you pronounce that? Volus. Volus 3. Burning Force and Guy Rears. Guy R Us. It's in the advertisement. Look at his t-shirt. It's pronounced Guy R Us.

Actually pronounced Ease. Ease. What about the apostrophe? Guy R-R-U-R-U. us. It sounds like a disease. The Genesis had a large library of exciting games that pushed the system, probably past its limits. Hard driving and steel talons, I'm looking at you. Of course, we all know the system sellers like Streets of Rage, Madden, etc. But there were plenty more entries that helped keep the Genesis pulse steady. All right. Let's keep going to the good times. From Utopia Nemo, my Genesis memory begins with a magazine. The EGM, 1989. 990 video game buyer's guide. Already a diehard Sega fan with a supermaster system,

I had an awareness that the Genesis was on the horizon. But at age 12, when I walked into that KB toys and saw that magazine, my life changed. It featured the Genesis, and I loved everything I saw. It's sleek, rounded, yet aggressive console and controller design, and its beautiful games with their massive and colorful sprites. I particularly remember the pictures of the Super Shinobi, which solidified to me that the Genesis was the continuation and advancement of everything I loved about Sega.

Though I lobbied like a champ, I wasn't surprised at Christmas when I didn't score a Genesis. Its hefty 189-99 price tag was just too expensive for our family. But I was undeterred. I saved up every penny. I did extra chores. I washed cars. I pilfered spare change whenever I thought it wouldn't be noticed. Nine months later, I earned enough to buy myself a Genesis. The only console to encourage skullduggery.

walking into the store and confidently summoning the hired help to fetch my system, I could barely contain my excitement. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Brandon Fraser says Genesis made up the majority of my childhood and still my favorite console to this day I have so many great memories of these games but for the sake of keeping it short I'll stick with Shining Force 1 and 2 back in the day my brother and I would rent this game every weekend

the battles were fun there were a ton of secrets and we were surprised that for all the times we rented it only once did our day to get erased luckily early on There is so much charm to these games from the music, art, characters, and that chess battle from two is still our favorite. I really enjoyed the Game Boy Advance remake of Shining Force One and was ecstatic about the revival of the series on PS2. Unfortunately, those games were met at the very best, and every new Shining Series announcement has been met with major disappointment. Maybe one day, but at least I can still go back to these great classics. And finally, is this the last one?

Indy Myon 95. Endymium. Indemian. Is that a thing? Yeah. It is. Endymion 95 says, I got my Genesis used in high school from a friend who was bailing for a super NES right around the time Sonic the Hedgehog came out, and it was fine.

But the greatest thing about the system was the social aspect. Suddenly, my friends wanted to come to my house. Nintendo was cool, but it was everywhere. You had to know that one kid with a Genesis to go visit and try it out. and maybe I was just naive enough to get taken advantage of or maybe the games we played were more conducive to cooperation. Genesis had so many two-player brawlers and fighters. In particular, it was a huge draw for my friends

when Genesis got the bloody version of Mortal Kombat and Super NES owners had to settle for sweat. And yeah, it was fun to go to their houses to get a solid Street Fighter 2 experience, but more often than not, we ended up cheesing something like Eternal Champions at My house. I still have my genesis and busted it out for a 90s theme party recently. And guess what my nephew picked to play first? Hell yeah, Streets of Rage, too, just like old times.

Here's one from France, I'm assuming based on the text, from Bastien. I could tell you about the first game I played on the Mega Drive, Streets of Rage, or how my dad told me he could have helped me pay for an Amiga after I bought a secondhand Mega Drive and Strider with my pocket money, another bullet dodged. Instead, I'll concentrate on two tidbits. When I sold my Mega Drive, it didn't work so well. That might be because my brother and I slammed the cartridges into the port, like the punk from the Sega C++ K-Tor adverts. Sorry about my pronunciation of French. Sega France had a train stocked to the brim with consoles and games come to 22, 23 separate cities. The contest was Sonic on the Mega Drive. And while queuing, you could see that.

highest score is being updated. My neighbors in the queue were confident of being able to beat the score, and so was I. Little did we know that the high score contest was on Labyrinth Zone. I still have my sticker, though. In case you're wondering, Labyrinth Zone is a very slow and difficult section of the game, as opposed to like Green Hills. Okay. This one comes from Paul St.R. 337. Reading forums listening to podcasts today where Nintendo Reign Supreme. It's like I grew up in an alternate reality in the UK where I'm from. Sega spotted a gap in the market and the Mega Drive was number one for much of the early 90s. All my friends had a Mega Drive and we'd spend countless hours at each other's houses,

playing games together like Streets of Rage, Golden Axe, and Micro Machines. My best Mega Drive memory harkens back to the Speedy Blue Hedgehog. Arguably Sonic's best game for 23 years until the recent release of Sonic Mania, Sonic 3 and Knuckles was the best Sonic had ever been. Unfortunately, to play the full version of the game, there was a wait of seven months from March to October 1994, as Sega split it into two parts. My friends and I had played Sonic 3 more times than we could count, and I was the first of our group to get Sonic and Knuckles.

I remember my friends and family crowding around the TV in my parents' kitchen, cheering me on as I tackled the game's final stage, the Death Egg Zone. Gaming has rarely felt so good since. Wow. Here's a cool one from Andy Lennon. I like this. In the early 90s, my high school band would convene at our drummer's garage every day after school to run through our blinkered repertoire of Slayer covers

in the pastel wastes of suburbia. Very apocative. Yeah, we were getting pretty good, too, until one day he came home with a secondhand Sega Mega Drive. We went from rehearsing for three hours daily to rehearsing for about 30 minutes tops before we busted out streets of rage or fatal fury. Then when Street Fighter Champion Edition,

special Champion Edition, and Micro Machines appeared, forget about it. We were hooked, and the calluses moved steadily from our fingers to our thumbs. which are also fingers technically right good times great classic hits okay there's actually a ton of listener mail here and this is not just a listener mail episode so i think we're going to call it quits after this but thank you to everyone who wrote in uh i wish we had time to read all of these but uh these guys have to drive home and they want to avoid rush hour traffic so we're going to have to skip a lot of this but i'm very

grateful for everyone who wrote in finally from havier love for the dungeon crawlers my best memory is for shining in the darkness. This game paved the way for all the Shining Force games. It also gave me all the tools I need to love and understand games such as Etri and Odyssey. This game allowed you to min-macks or party. You needed to map your way in the dungeon to get all the shortcuts right. It's not as forgiving as Shining Force. It's a hard game where you could easily end up in circles fighting nasty monsters. You encounter Dark Soul as the main guy. The menu options are a mainstay as well as many items. The basic party formation teaches you the basics for other RPGs. You are the fighter that uses swords and equips armors. You have a healer, very weak

with weapons, but great at using items and a powerful wizard that uses all kinds of magical items and spells, both extremely powerful by the end of the game. So basically just kind of a rundown of shining in the darkness, but this is a good game that's been largely overlooked. Actually, one final message here from Diego Trejo. I think I pronounce that wrong. Goals and Ghosts, the first game I ever played on a Sega Genesis hooked me instantly. I was shocked at the fidelity of the conversion and immediately started scheming on how I would buy a Genesis of my own. The only thing I loved more than my NES with the arcades, and the idea that I could have a piece of it for my very own was the most exciting moment in my long history

of gaming. I ended up trading and all of myself bought NES games to buy the Genesis and the game. The next few months were very painful, as being only 15 I didn't yet have a job to get my library going. It didn't take me long to rectify my employment situation. I just couldn't bank on gifts to fuel my new passion. I love my Genesis game, days. Cutting the hangar tag off the boxes was a ritual. Mastering arcade favorites a passion and it's still a favorite. So with that we will wrap up the listener mail section, but hopefully this has been a great cross section of people who love Sega Genesis and can speak to it with more personal experience and authority than we can. Although, I think we're willing to give it a fair shake here. I think I noticed the theme,

which is that most people love Streets of Rage. Streets of Rage is very good. In fact, we will get to that. So just a quick rundown of the Sega Genesis launched in Japan as Mega Drive. It was also Mega Drive in Japan in Europe. So let's look back at the launch of the Sega Genesis, the Mega Drive, in 1988. What awareness did you guys have of Sega in the year 1988, when Genesis launched? I was six, so nothing. I had an NES at the time, but as far as I was concerned, that was video games. I knew about the Sega Master System and Toys R Us, and that all the boxes were white with blue.

I think they're blue-crossed lines, like a grid on them. And I always wanted a master system just because I wanted to experience everything, but I didn't get one until maybe the early 90s. And so I came at the Genesis from arcade experiences. So when I saw Altered Beast, I wanted to play that on the Genesis. That was where I came from. Yeah, my awareness of Sega was it was the console that my friend down the block owned. He had a master system and would always talk trash about.

about the NES games that I owned and how much better his snail game was than my... He had a maze with a snail. In Rome. Wow. I find those boxes to be fascinatingly bad. I love that aesthetic. I love it so much, unironically.

I think it's amazing. At the time, I thought it was really damn cool. I don't know how you get to the point where you're like, yes, this is what we should show to the public. I don't know. I'm not even saying they're bad. But I have to say, you've probably never seen a Sega Master system store display.

Yeah, a wall of them. Where you have, like, a wall of those games. It really, it creates an impression. It's like, this is all part of a unit. Like, these all belong together, and it makes sense. Cohesive. I remember the wall thing. Yeah, so, like, the pro wrestling art where it's, like,

a guy holding his own head in a hammer lock, that's stupid. It's terrible. But when you see that with, like, three dozen other master system games, it all kind of fits together. And it doesn't, like, the individual mediocrity of the specific images isn't so bad because you have the grid, you have, you know, the Times New Roman typeface.

It's all very like... That very mid-80s typeface. Yeah, it was very much of the era and it all, like, it seemed very fresh and modern. And it was much more consistent than NES or Atari. It's like a Monet where you see it from a distance and it's so intriguing. And then you get up close and there's a dude headlocking his own head. Right. That's exactly what Monet is.

Yeah, it's like that scene in Harris Bueller where he's looking at the Surat painting. So the entire, you get closer and closer, you're like, whoa, guy with his own head. What? So the entire master system library is like a monolith to be taken as a whole. I would love to see it like that. Anyway, I remember the way. I remember the wall of games and toys are us all and the impressive uniformity of it all. And I also remember that they had 3D glasses, which I wanted really bad at the time.

The LCD shutter glasses. Yep, yep, yep. I have now. I wish I had them then. video game box art in the 80s is the wild west it really was but master's or Sega Genesis really felt like you know taking that and saying let's make it great and so it was a big step forward in terms of design but at the same time like Sega was definitely operating from a position of weakness the master system had fared poorly in the US and its equivalent the mark three had fared poorly in Japan actually much worse in Japan Nintendo had had almost those entire console markets locked down. Like Master System did okay for itself in Brazil and in some parts of Europe, but those were not major markets. The two big driving markets were the U.S. and Japan, and Master System was nothing there. So Sega was basically coming from nowhere.

And on top of that, because Nintendo had been so successful, they'd managed to work on all these contracts with third parties where they pretty much had third parties like Konami, Capcom, data east locked down. So they kind of had this rule where if you, wanted to put a game on NES, you couldn't publish that same game on another system, which is why you got like these weird, unique versions of Double Dragon on NES, and, you know, Master System was more like the arcade version. But a lot of developers wouldn't even work on Sega systems. So Sega internally developed a lot of these conversions, games like East, Strider. I'm pretty sure Strider and ghouls and ghosts were programmed by Sonic Team,

or what would become Sonic team, and Eugene Naka worked on them. So even though those were, you know, other companies' games, Sega had to make them themselves. So, you know, considering the huge disadvantage they were coming into the 16-bit market from, it's kind of amazing they pulled off what they did, but they did. And a lot of that has to do with the U.S. marketing and the European marketing. And that was driven by Tom Kalinsky, who I think recognized that the U.S. market wanted certain things and said, let's take this approach in America, let's put a pack-in game in our system, which you never do in Japan, and let's make really rude advertisements that go after the competition, which you never do in Japan. Japan was like, eh, that's not a good idea, but, okay, we'll defer to you on this. And the result was Sega became huge in the West, where I'd never really really.

found any attraction in Japan. So this kind of ended up being Sega's undoing because it created this bitter rivalry between the U.S. and Japanese sides. But for the 16-bit era, for the Genesis, Genesis was a big deal. It ended up, it ended up catching up with the Nintendo market. And at one point, you know, Super NES and Genesis pretty much had a split on the market. It was 50-50, which, you know, that's a big difference from like 90% for NES and 10% sent shared among everyone else. Yeah, I, like I said, like when I was a little kid first getting into video games, it was just Nintendo. Like the word was synonymous with video games. And then by the time the Super NES came out and I got one of those, like I was well aware that there was another system out there that I had opinions about before I ever saw because of those ads.

Yeah. Jeremy's absolutely right that Nintendo has. had a 90 plus percent lock on the market when the Genesis came out, the Magi Drive, and in America, I'm talking about America. And, yeah, after Sonic the Hedgehog, Genesis overtook Super NES sales for a season or so. And then eventually Nintendo came out with the Play It Loud thing as a counter to all that mature stuff. Yeah, I don't know that that was really what did it for them. I think it was the games.

They got Street Fighter 2 and they got Donkey Kong. country. Those were like, Super Metroid, it was awesome, but it did not sound like that. It was super Nintendo had Street Fighter 2 for a year. Yeah. That was a big deal. Yeah, I remember that. No. I think it shows how

equivalent they were that Biggie Smalls reference both of them. Super Nintendo Sega Genesis. Okay, there you go. Good reference. Point is right there. Sega Genesis. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. I think the Genesis looks cool. by the way. It does look cool. I think it looks cooler than the Super Nintendo. I only like the original model. I don't like the models.

Yes. Yeah, that's the one I like. And I only like it when it's stacked on top of a Model 1 Sega CD. When you do the side-by-side Sega CD thing, no. When you do the pure black Sega Genesis thing,

no. You got to have like the weird sort of carryover, we want to be so high-tech branding and graphics that they carried over from the Master System. I can remember Master System had that printed grid of like the controller and power system

silk screen on the front. It didn't make any sense. It was pointless, but it looked cool. It was cool, yeah. And Genesis was like, let's take that and make it even cooler in a more adult, sophisticated way. And it was. It's a 16-bit right there on the top of the system.

And it has a headphone jack with a volume slider. Yes. And that is a big part of why collecting and... Does it even work? No one knows. They never used it. Oh, it does. It does. If you want to have stereo sound on your Genesis, you have to run it. The Model 1, you have to run the sound through the headphone jack on the front because

it only puts mono, outputs mono from the back. That makes sense. So you have to get like a split cable that plugs into the front. My Genesis set up downstairs with the Model 1 Genesis and the 32X and the Model 1 Sega CD is a goddamn disaster. And it took me so long. I spent like a month trying to figure out. exactly what kind of cables I had to use to make that work. And I, I wasted so much money thinking,

well, this is going to do it because there's not good information up there. There's all these different hardware configurations. There's three different models of Genesis. There's two different models of Sega CD. There's the 32X. Oh, my God. It's a mess. Recently, I was trying to reconfigure each one. I love the model one Sega CD. It's almost like childlike in its experience of CD-ROM stuff it just seems so old and slow With the cart

Or the tray that comes out But it's cool It's really cool stacking it up like that This might sound weird I think the NES Looks like the original enterprise It's got that kind of military gray With the very low service detail

Yeah Everything is inside the Jeffries tubes Yes The Super NES is like the Enterprise Day. It totally is. It's got the... Everything is purple.

The rounder lines. It's got the very late 80s, early 90s colors. Yeah, yeah. I mean, like, the colors on the console are the same as the conference room, the ready room chairs. And the Genesis looks like Darth Vader. And I don't mean, like, I mean that in a cool way. With a red highlight. Yeah, it's got the red and it's shiny and it looks like, you know, Darth Vader or the alien from alien.

The model two looks like Darth Vader. Model 1, actually the Model 1 is like a new Hope Vader, and Model 2 is like Empire Strikes Backvader. Yeah. I love how the Power Base converter sits down exactly on the circle of the Genesis. You should talk about what that is. What is the Power Base converter? It's a device that lets you play Sega Master System games on the Genesis.

That was something Nintendo did not. They totally did not. The Super Nias was designed to be backward compatible with the NES. They used an advanced version of the NES chip to power the hardware. They had plans. You were talking about this earlier before the podcast. Yes, the controllers of the Super Nintendo are backwards compatible with the Nintendo and electronically.

If you hook it up the right way to the NES, it'll work and vice versa. So what were we talking about? Just the fact that Nintendo was like, we're going to make it backward compatible. Actually, no. But Sega did. We were talking about the power base converter. Sega did. They said, you know what?

Yes. You 20 people who bought master system games, you should be able to play even your stupid little card games. The three card games. And transbot in here and haunted cats. Not howdy, like what is it called?

Ghost House. Yeah, ghost house. Play these crappy little like low data games that you don't enjoy on the Sega Genesis. By God, we're giving you this option. I respect them for that. Yeah.

That is well. Because they're like, you can go on YouTube and look up news stories, like television news stories about like Nintendo, like, oh, Nintendo's trying to make all your games obsolete. It's those, it's, it's, it's that planned obsolescence. They could have fought that by giving you the backward compatibility option that was built into the hardware. How much longer would the NES lifespan have been if you could get one machine that, that, that could play both? I mean, the NES lasted until 1994. It, it survived for three

years after the Super Nies came out. So it did pretty well for itself. But yeah, it probably would have lasted even longer. I mean, how long were they releasing DS games after 3DS came out? A good bit. Yeah. Well, I think there are still Wii games coming out.

I think Just Dance for Wii is out this year. Wow. That's crazy. Backward compatibility is amazing. I love it. Yeah. There's a whole chapter of video game history that's weird. about the successor consoles and what that means and what companies were going to do with that.

Like, Atari struggled with that so much, which is pretty much why they screwed up and failed. But, yeah, so the power-based converter is really cool. It's just a neat option. And from what I have read in the past, I was actually rereading an article I wrote 10 years ago for the 20th anniversary of the Genesis. God. Which is, it says this is, I believe, my old. self when I read that it the hardware for the Sega master system is essentially in the Genesis already there's a Z80 in there you know it's like the system controller yeah it's like the sound

controller and there's the other stuff the other bits and pieces you need and the power base converter is essentially just a pass through for the right cartridge slot and maybe some ROMs for the Sega master system and it's so it's sort of it was baked in there to begin with the master system is beating in the heart of the Genesis So what do you guys think is the coolest Sega hardware? I'm going to go first here, and I'm going to say the coolest Genesis hardware is the 32X. Not the 32X, sorry, the CDX. Totally different.

32X is the worst. The CDX is amazing because it is a Discman that has a Genesis slot and also plays Sega CD games. It's everything altogether, and then you can take it with you and listen. to music and listen to CD. I wanted one. So good. I wanted one just so I could have my own CD player. That's how barbaric this era was. I wanted, I also wanted the turbographic CD player because, you know, you could actually use it as a CD player to listen to music, which just sounds so bonkers today. But at the time, that was like incredible. And my favorite, I always wanted the CDX, but I never got one.

I still don't have one. My favorite is, well, let's just be contrarian and say the 32x. Oh, come on. I know Jeremy hates it. You're just saying that. You don't even mean it. It's only in retrospect. At the time, it was a terrible mistake.

It has a library of like 10 games. I have no idea how many 20. I don't know total. I have probably half of them. Three of them are kind of good. Star Wars Arcade port is good. the Knuckles Chaotics is kind of cool and there's a football game

that's not that bad John Madden something it's not madden it's can't remember what it is but there's a great virtual eraser port on there that's very fluid and very nice and Doom is not that great for it and anyway but also one of the other coolest pieces of hardware is the laser active megapack thing that I saw that in a circuit city when I was a kid oh you've

seen one in person yeah they had them at circuit city they had um so you could buy a either a it's this laser disc player that you could buy an insert it was by pioneer pioneer yeah thank you um you could buy a module that would insert into the leisure player and let you play uh megadrive games Genesis games and um that that They also had the option of a turbo graphics plug-in. You could plug in that. It's like, you can play two games on one thing. And then there were some mega-LD games, they call them,

which were the Genesis that they were like souped up Sega CD games, but they used some analog video in the background, and they overlaid the digital stuff on top, and it's the most obscure format you could ever imagine. It's so expensive now because it's never going to be emulated correctly. Yeah, it's hard to preserve laser disks, man, it's, yeah, that is a, that is a rabbit hole. No one wants to go down. And let's see, what else is there?

There's a nomad, I have a nomad. I was going to talk about the nomad. You want to talk about it? Okay. Well, I mean, that's, even if it's not great, it's a full gaming system that you can take with you. And it looks weird, but like, it's, you know, weirdly asymmetrical. Yeah, it is. But it's, it's pretty cool in, like, as an idea.

Like, who didn't want that, you know? Yeah, I mean, that is the promise the switch fulfilled. Well, you know, NEC had done that with some turbographics like the GT and the LT, but definitely Sega, like, was the first to do it with a system that was extremely popular. Yeah, I feel like the Nomad hit way too late. It was coming out in the 32X era and when we, everyone was looking toward PlayStation and Saturn and stuff. But I thought it was so exciting. I got one used later. And the screen is not that great.

The controls are kind of weird. And yes, it's sort of lopsided, asymmetrical design. But it has a second controller port, which is really cool, so you can play two-player. And I actually played it the most many, many years ago. I would take it to my brother's house and plug it in with a TV output to his TV. This is like a portable Genesis. It was just easy to move around, and he'd plug in a controller. We'd play whatever game we had.

And it was really cool, except that I do not. have the battery pack that clips on the back it's not there's no way to put batteries into the base unit itself you have to have a separate like big ass thing you clip on kind of like virtual boy yeah kind of although better yeah no no that's debatable virtual boy is so cool so bad If you're If you like Retronauts, you're going to love the Collider Network on Podernerner Network And now the pop culture Titan is adding more shows to its roster for you to enjoy, including Collider Live, Collider Sports, Collider TV talk, wrestling sheet radio, and so much more. Check out all the shows on the Collider Network every week on Podcast 1 or wherever you get your favorite podcasts.

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JBL audio system and panoramic roof. The all-new Rav Ford Limited. Toyota, let's go places. JBL and Clarifier registered trademarks of Harmon International Industries Incorporated. All right. So to wrap this episode up, we were going to look at the launch lineups in different regions. And maybe that's something we'll do another time because we're kind of running short on time. As always seems to happen, you guys in your afternoon drive.

So to wrap this instead, what we're going to do is, okay, so let me give some context here. I feel like Sega is better than just about any other publisher at making its back catalog available. And those approaches aren't always the best. You have something like Sega Forever, which is kind of like, uh, not great. You have those at games mini Sega Genesis consoles,

which are complete garbage. But then you have, you know, Sega Ages and you have the ultimate Sega Genesis collection or whatever it's called. And those tend to be good to great. So most recently, the Sega Genesis Collection, Sega Genesis Classics came out this summer and contained dozens and dozens of games, I think all of which are first party published. That was something. Like pretty much the entire first party catalog of Sega Genesis. Yeah, I, looking at this, I was shocked. at how many first-party games there were,

which makes sense if Nintendo is like locking down the third-party developers, but they had that much output is surprising and admirable. Yeah, I mean, it had to happen because Nintendo had so much of a control over third parties. So it took a while for third parties to kind of move over to Genesis.

That's why you had so much better representation of, you know, U.S. developers who hadn't published on NES before, like Noddy Dog. They got started on Genesis. But yeah, so I asked everyone to look over the games that Sega considers canon by including them in Sega Genesis classics and pick their top five games. The two games they want to dump, they think should not be allowed to be on this compilation or any compilation, and their black sheep pick.

So, Chris, why don't we start with you? What are your top five? My top five, the first and foremost one that I wanted to talk about is Comic Zone. Because this is a game that I desperately wanted when I was a kid. What a surprise. Yeah, unsurprisingly. The game where you basically play as, you play a side-scrolling brawler as Rob Leifeld, essentially. Pretty much.

Your sketch Turner, comic book artist, who is so cool that he is wearing... He is wearing sunglasses inside during a thunderstorm. while drawing and but are you really lob right Rob Leifeld no it's

because as like how can you do leg sweeps if your characters don't have feet Jeremy it's beneath you it is just like just like my feet are

but the the visual presentation of this game and the idea of staging a game as panels and moving through panels and moving across a page and then down

and like literally opening up away to a different panel and then just swinging around the border is super cool and super smart and I know that like Sega ended up patenting that technology or that I don't... Yes, which is why we never had

anyone else do anything like that. Yeah, which is weird Thank you, Sega. Like, imagine how good maximum carnage would have been if you were doing that. And I think maximum carnage is pretty good. Unfortunately that game is ridiculously difficult. I've never been able. I've got past the first page once. Comics zone

is insanely difficult. Yeah. Even by Sega standards, which, you know, they're like, we're going to challenge you. Comics Zone is like, we are going to humiliate you. We're going to chasten you. We are going to emasculate you. Yeah. It's way too unforgiving in terms of, like, the damage that you take. It takes way too long to beat up an enemy.

Yeah. And to, like, break a barrel. It's, but the idea. He's got Turner attacks like he's, I don't know, a comics drawer or something. Drawer. One thing that bothered me about this is that I played. through comic zone all the way to the end of the first page and there's this pit right i fell in that pit three or four times and i kept playing i gotta see what's past this pit and then

i get past the pit it's the end of the damn page yeah then you go on the next thing but you die it's game over you have to start from the beginning if you fall in that pit if that game's had unforgiving lives it would be 10 times better yeah but it's such a it is a artistic masterpiece first of all this is one of my picks too so i'm going to talk about at the same time as you because it is And this collection is, first of all, is really a stellar collection presented better than any other game collection I've played recently as far as old emulated games. But this game, it has a depth to it that I didn't expect in the ways that it has this inventory system. And you interact with objects in the screen. It feels almost like a little mini-adventure game in it because you use these certain things like a bomb or your rack.

buddy can go attack enemies and you find him later and you can pick him up or there's other things like some kind of fist thing i don't remember uh and you can use these with the three uh secondary the xyz buttons i don't know how you do it with a three button controller but um probably hold select hold select yeah that's a yeah that makes sense and uh this this game is a masterpiece and this is the game that i played the most out of this whole collection uh i've played it over the years here and there and i've played it over the years here and there and i always think it's really cool but it's it's uh it's criminally underrated but it's also criminally difficult and if it were just had a little bit more forgivingness to it you could enjoy

the whole game not just the first page yeah also there's branching pathways based on whether you yeah go like across the the page or if you just drop down to a lower tier of panels so many good ideas i was literally like on game facts being like what's the infinite health code because I want to see the rest of this game, but it's impossible. I don't know. Like, who has beaten Comics Zone out there? But such a good idea,

and I wish, like, that is the premise of an indie game from 2017, you know? Like, that is a... Except it's been patented, so... Yeah. Actually, how long did patents last? Isn't it 20 years?

20 years. Okay. So, it's right there for everyone. Go for it. My next pick is another common one, Streets of Rage 3. Three? Three, yeah.

Oh, I wrote down two, but I meant three. Ah, okay. I feel like the Streets of Rage games kind of get better as they go on, and, like, you get to do more stuff. Like, you get dashing attacks and everything. Better, like, roster of characters in Streets of Rage 3. In the way that the Final Fight games kind of get worse as they go on, I think Streets of Rage actually improves. I love Final Fight, and I think Streets of Rage is better. I think so, too.

Yeah. I don't know what it is. It's like an aesthetic thing. something. Do you get that? They feel tighter and more fair. More fair. And in one stage you fight aliens, except there is just like actors on a back lot.

I am a big side-scrolling brawler fan, which is good because I grew up with the Super NES and that's 90% of games. But yeah, I think Streets of Rage is just a really it is the standard of that genre, which you know, on

on Super NES we had Final Fight, but I think this one kind of blows it out of the water. Except for it doesn't have Mike Hagar who rules super hard. My third one, Wonder Boy and Monster World. Pretty self-exploitative on that one. The aesthetic is really good. The idea of getting the outlines of doors when you're in the buildings,

I think it's just a very thoughtfully presented game. And Golden Axe, another side-scrolling brawler that I have really, really fond memories of. You get to ride a dinosaur. Yeah. I can't think of another side-scrolling brawler where it was like, hey, here's a vehicle that you can just ride around you in for a little bit, except for metal slug, but that's not really a brawler.

That's not a brawler. That's a lot later, too. Yeah, but, like, hopping on a dinosaur and, like, being able to knock people off and get knocked off, it adds such a frantic little thing to it. Again, a very hard game, but... And the Genesis version is a very good conversion of the arcade game. I don't think it has the three-player element.

to it. But I think everything else came through in a better way than, you know, the early Genesis arcade conversions were not good. Like, Altered Beast was good in as much as that game can be good. But like Thunder, Thunderblade, Space Harrier 2, like, those were really rough. Yeah. You know, you think, hey, Sega made a console based on the same architecture as their hardware, their arcade hardware board. So it's going to be great, right? Well, no, that was wasn't the case right away. So Golden Axe, I think, was important because it was, you know, finally them saying, hey, this is kind of more like what you expected from the Genesis. Yeah.

Didn't some of those, we talked about on the arcade podcast that the Space Harrier, I don't know if it's Space Harrier, but Thunderblade, wasn't that a super-scaler game that had like multiple 68,000 stacked up? I think you're probably thinking of Galaxy Force too, but yeah, I mean. So it had a lot more power in the arcade. Yeah, the Genesis just could not scale. sprites and backgrounds the way that the arcade boards could. I love Golden X.

It was one of my favorite arcade games at that era. What's your last one? Gunstar Heroes, which we already talked about in length. Super, like, probably the most, on the entire collection, I think the most playable game, the most fun, with maybe the exception of the Sonic games. But just, like, frantic and pretty and well-designed and innovative, like, a wild Here's Here's what I want to dump.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Are we going to do the... What are Benj's top five picks? One of them, we've already talked about, Comics' Zone. Yeah, Comic Zone. Another one is, I think my absolute favorite Genesis game these days

is Toe Jam and Earl Panic on FunkoTron. So you like the second one better than the first. Yeah, that's not a common opinion. What is you doing these games? The reason I love this game so much is because about 10 years ago, one of my best friends and I started playing games over the internet on emulators

where you could network them together and play two player games. And we found this game and we just stayed up all night playing it because it was so bat shit crazy. It was so funky it's like an acid trip the whole game. You don't know what's coming up next.

It's got weird sound effects and music and crazy graphics and things are scaling and you're... It's a side-scrolling platformer essentially and I think you're rescuing people. I thought it was a top-down game. No, the first one is a top-down game. That's why I don't like it that much. The second one is a platformer type style where you're capturing, like people from Earth, I think, have come to Funkotron

the planet, and you're capturing them in jars. I think you're shooting jars at them to capture them, and then you're sort of rescuing them. And then every once while you go into hyperfunck zone, and everything goes all wavy and crazy, and you run through and collect things. Oh, man. It's just a total trip. Like the wildest like diving into an abstract painting and playing it. I have fond, modern memories of that game. And another one on my list is Vector Man, which is one of the first games I rented for the Genesis.

It's a very late era Genesis game. I bought a Genesis used from one of my friends in high school around 96, 97. And Vector Man, they were still renting games at Blockbuster, and I rented Vector Man. I was like, wow, this is cool. It has a lot of polish to it. It's very fluid and smooth. It has a high frame rate.

Good sound effects. The only problem is it's very difficult, and I couldn't get past the first few stages. It's a Sega approach. Yeah, but it was still, it's a very good, very well-produced game. And another one is Shining Force, which I have not played since the late 90s, honestly.

But I remember also, this is another thing I encountered on Emulator in the late 90s when I was in high, school when the first Genesis simulators were out. I got Shining Force, and I played it for hours and hours and hours. I was surprised at how good it was. It's a strategy RPG where, I think it's like a tactical, isn't it a tactical strategy RPG where you place your guys on a grid and attack?

And I just, I don't know what it is, but I got, I really love that game, but I, I really haven't played it since. And the last one I picked from this collection is Crackdown, which I, yeah, it's just like the modern Xbox 360. Exactly the same. This is Crack Space Down. Oh. Crack down.

This is one we talked about on the arcade podcast. Did we? Yeah. That doesn't stick with me. Okay. I'm pretty sure it was on one of the Sega arcade things. It's a weird, it's the weirdest game. It's totally unlike anything else where you have, you can play two players simultaneously

and you see different, there's different, the screens divided into boxes. There's a box for you where you're seeing your top-down view, sort of like gauntlet. And then there's a box for your second player. And then there's a sort of mini-map, I think, on the top and some status bars on the top. And your goal is to navigate your way through an enemy complex and shoot the guys, and you can sidle up against the walls to avoid their bullets, which is really cool. And you plant bombs, dynamite in these certain spots, and then you exit the stage. And there's just something neat about it.

This is one of those games that totally goes against the traditional Genesis form. formula in terms of just in your face blasting action and stuff, it seems a little bit more slow and intellectual. And I love the co-op element of it and that you have independent views of what's going on on the same screen. I mean, that's just so cool. So I love that game. And I think that covers all my picks. Okay. So my own picks are kind of adjacent to you guys. Streets of Rage 1. I don't know why, but I like just the simplicity and purity of the first game

over the second and third. I think the second game has the best soundtrack, but the first one is the one that I enjoy playing the most. I don't know. It's hard to say. Three you get to run. So it's a little faster pace. There's also a guy with a skateboard, which I feel like Rollerblades.

Oh, is it Rollerblades? Oh, well, that changes everything. Yeah. And I'm not a big fan of Shining Force, but I like shining in the darkness, which is, is, you know, one of the first, maybe not the first dungeon RPG I played, but one of the first. And I didn't necessarily like it at first, but after getting addicted to Turin Odyssey, I went back to play more of Shining in the Darkness and was like, okay, this is actually good. And I feel like it's one of those that once the Genesis collection comes to switch, I'm going to have it in panel form finally and play a lot of it. It's a good game. It's a good game, yeah.

But in terms of RPGs, nothing on a Sega system comes close to Fantasy Star 4. which is a game I've never played all the way through, but just it takes the Fantasy Star concept and really perfects it. It is a top-tier console RPG from the 16-bit generation. It's not as flashy as Final Fantasy or Chrono Trigger or something, but it's just solid. It's really good at through and through. Yeah, there's something, there's a depth to a feel.

I got that when it was relatively new. So it was like $90? No, wait. It wasn't new. No, no, no, no. When I got a Genesis, I remember now it was from Blockbuster. It was a previously viewed thing.

But it was new to me. I remember this. New old. Yeah, but it was, yeah, that's a great game. None of you guys mentioned anything about Sonic, but I feel like this list would be remiss without some Sonic. And my pick is Sonic 2. I feel like it's the best Sonic game.

The first one has a lot of good ideas, but it's kind of rough. And I think Sonic 3 is actually genuinely bad. Yeah, it's not. I don't like playing Sonic 3 at all. But Sonic 2, like, it nails everything just right. Really, like, it's got the speed, and it doesn't feel as punishing. It has the second player element where someone can play as tails, and it's got that asymmetry that you see in Nintendo games.

The stage designs are interesting and fun. The music's great. It's got a biplane sometimes. Come on. What's not to love about Sonic 2? I am a notorious Sonic Hater. and I feel like the Genesis games all have the problems that we've talked about. I will say that Sonic Mania is one of my favorite games of the year.

That game is not on Genesis. No, it's not. But it's great. Sonic 2 and Sonic CD are my two favorite Sonic games, I think. Well, of the old era. All right. And finally, Beyond Oasis is a game that I need to play more of, but I love what I have played, the first few hours.

of it. It's got that kind of Zelda thing, but it's more like a lundra, actually. There's platforming. It's got a really great sort of Disney art style. Believe it or not, it was developed by Yuzo Koshiro's company, so it also has a great music in addition to the great graphics and solid gameplay. But it's, you know, pretty much Sega's answer to Zelda. And it's not as memorable or iconic as Zelda, but it's really good, really well made. And I love the look of it. So those are the essentials, but now it's time to talk about the dumpit list. And I'll go ahead and start here. I feel like if you look at the Sega Genesis collection, the two games you could lose and not miss them would be Space Harrier 2 and Virtua Fighter 2 because Genesis just had a hard time with those pure arcade conversions.

Space Harrier 2 was technically not a conversion. It was an original game for Sega Genesis, but it was not good. it was not fun, like the scaling was kind of the point of it. It just feels very choppy and rough, and I don't know anyone who likes it. And if you think the Genesis had trouble with System 16 games, well, just wait until you get the Model 2 and Virtual Fighter 2, which it takes, you know, the pioneering, beautiful cutting edge, 3D fighting game and turns it into a really ugly sprite-based fighter.

I've heard Virtual Fighter was pretty good on 32X, according to you. yeah but not on genesis just the raw 16 bit hardware no don't do that actually i was talking about virtual racer i don't even know if virtual fighter was on 32x i honestly don't know if it was okay well racial racer is definitely on it yes okay well in that case i don't know why they made virtual fighter don't play any virtual fighter before saturday yeah one two three go So, Bench, what's your dumpit list? Well, I had Virtual Fire, too, but that's been taken. I can't get into Bonanza Brothers.

love that game or something. I think people love it. But it's just too boring for me. But how about a genuinely bad game like Alex Kidd and the whatever people in the place? The Enchanted Castle? I think that's fair. I think Alex Kidd... What a horrible game.

I think Alex Kidd games are pretty terrible. The problem is I think they can't take it off because it's sort of iconic early Sega platformer, you know, like a mascot. That was sort of one of their mascots in the master system era. Was it? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, he was, he had several games on Master System. And they were okay, but this game is bad. Also, I mean, the Super Thunderblade or whatever it is, Super Thunderblade is not very good. You know, if that's another one of those things, it doesn't translate well. And there's another shooter.

I don't remember what it was, like a helicopter game or something. That's Thunderblade. Okay. Well, there's another one, too. I don't remember. But those are, you know, a couple. Chris? What would you dump?

I was playing this collection over the weekend, and I literally just went through it, alphabetical order. And I started Decap Attack, and my wife looked up from what she was doing and looked at the television and said, Turn this off. It is gross. And I agree. I also hate that it's like,

it's that kind of humor, and I'm making air quotes, that's basically like somebody in an office somewhere who's like kids are dumb they'll like this and like decaf attack starring chuck d head i'm shaking my head you can't see it but i'm it's you're decapitated what what is decap attack about though it's about you got a head in your body and you're like trying to it's like a Frankenstein is it like the pro wrestling cover art kind of master system you're holding your own head kind of maybe that's the what this was actually supposed to be the cover art, too.

It's a weird, like, horror game. But it's kind of like a comedy. It's like, what if Castlevania was a stupid comedy? I disagree. I think this is a surrealist masterpiece. On the level of To Jam and Earl's funk of the Funkzone Funkertron. Also not really did To Jam and Earl. Okay, actually, it's not as good as To Jam and Earl.

But it's just so weird today. I always saw a Decap attack in the store or somewhere. I'm like, what the hell is that? I'm never playing this. So I never played it until this collection. and it's bizarre, but it's... I feel like it was made moot by Dynamite Hetty. It looks...

It's like here's a much better game about heads, skulls, by treasure as opposed to decap attack. You have a skull for a little while while you're playing it and then it flies around their screen and then you're shooting out of your stomach a face like a brain or something out of a mummy. It looks gross. I don't like it.

But it has way more detail than I expected graphically and stuff. The other game, Jeremy, can I say the... F word on this podcast. Don't do it. Okay. Uh, uh, heck, Kid Chameleon. Kid Chameleon is trash. Kid Chameleon is, again, like, like, this is what you kids like, right? Like, I hate it. Like, oh man, these kids play video games, just like you kids like video games, right? Here's this cool kid. I hate him. I hate it. This game was really interesting to me because it's another one that I didn't really play until this collection. There's two things I found interesting about. One is it has some momentum like Super Mario Brothers.

Obviously, you're also jumping on enemies and hitting blocks from beneath. It's like the most Super Mario Brothers-like game on the Genesis that I've seen so far, where it has the mechanics of momentum. What if Super Mario Brothers was made by the people who made Pucci on that episode of The Simpsons? That's exactly what it is. It's like, okay, jumping and hitting stuff. Doesn't it have like 90 levels also? It's like just the game that ever ends.

You would have to ask someone else who did not viscerally hate. it on site. How much will we have to pay you to play through all 90 levels of this game? That would be a stream I would think would be worth paying. We'll work it out. Everybody pledge like so many dollars per minute and I'll sit down and do it. I found Kid Chameleon

Charming just graphically, it's like Decap Attack. It's richer than I thought it's sort of weird and funky and it reminds me of a 90 shareware platformer on the BC like a Captain Comic or Commander Keen where it's

trying very hard to be like a Mario thing but doesn't quite nail the mechanics of it but it's funky and weird so. Yeah, I saw it you made a little note on my list that says it reminds me of a shareware platformer and I'm like that's not a strong recommendation. It's just a charming thing. I mean, we're looking at this in retrospect now. I don't have to go back

in time and make this a best selling title. You're not paying $50 for it now. Yeah, that's true. That's different. Yeah. I didn't realize until I started talking about both that like I find both of these to be games that feel like they're insulting the audience. is intelligence I didn't say it that way

I don't know why but you can get different uniforms and stuff and kid chameleon that's why you're a chameleon you can be like a night guy I get the premise of the game bench

you can change like a chameleon so like Mario's suits and Mario 3 kind of what if Mario 3 was bad yeah what did a lot of games

like that actually yeah okay Vince did we do you yours yeah we did I think it's time to wrap by talking about the Black Sheep games? Is there a game on here that you feel, hey, people need to appreciate this

more? This is a game that does not get enough respect, enough props. Well, I found one that I had never really played before that I was surprised by, which is Biohazard Battle, the shooter, sort of a space shooter, but I think you're in a body or something, it's biological-based theme and uh there's something about it just the presentation the graphics were unexpectedly cool and interesting and the music was incredibly trippy and funky although it started sort of giving me funk funk it's the i do not think you know what this word means yeah it's something about it um it gave me motion sickness after a little while which i've never had in my life okay but you know it just was delightfully

surprising, I think, you know. But the other one, I mean, the most under-a game in here is Panicom FunkoTron. I think that's my real black sheep title. Okay. I am going to stump for Fatal Labyrinth, which I noticed in the notes, originally you put under your dump-it list.

Yeah, well, I thought it was a different game. I remember, I've played Fatal Everance before, and then I played again. I was like, oh, yeah, this is the rogue-like where they tried to do rogue on the Genesis, which is pretty damn awesome. Yeah. Like, yeah, I feel like, okay, it's a disavow that. It's a bit of a shallow game now.

Yeah. Sure. But this was, they were, they were breaking new ground. Basically, Fatal Labyrinth was a game for the Sega Channel. And they had, it was an original creation. So they had, you know, like a very limited storage space, very, you know, data transmission space. So they tried to make a compact game that would offer a sort of dynamic changing experience. So they looked a rogue and created a, you know, procedurally generated RPG that follows a lot of rogue-like rules.

And it's a simplistic take on the rogue genre, but I think it's a pretty solid one. And I appreciate the fact that the Sega Genesis collection has save states because it does have that rogue thing where all of a sudden you're surrounded by bad guys and 30 floors in. Oh, you're dead. Start over. I like being able to cheat just a little bit. It's okay. I play Mystery Dungeon, the fair way. I can play this game by cheating.

But I think it's a really strong historical artifact that predates. as far as I know any other console roguelike ever so it's it's kind of kind of a big deal in its tiny way I think you're right it takes a slice of PC gaming history and puts it in an unexpected place and it was a digital download game that eventually was elevated to physical status it's the first time I ever saw it was at a rental shop and I was like huh this description sounds interesting the dungeons never the same way twice I think I have this cartridge that's why I've played it before but I was you know there's so many weird little obscure RPGs I was thinking it was yeah I got it confused for a long time with fatal rewind which is very different that's like a

sygnosis game kind of actiony so I had trouble for years trying to figure out what this enticing looking game was that I saw at a at a rental shop but it was not fatal rewind it was fatal labyrinth and I finally got to play it on this collection was like oh this is the one this is it yeah there's one more game I was surprised by that I had never played before I think is Light Crusader which I did not have the time to get very far in this because I was rushing to come to this podcast

but it's neat it looks really cool it's an isometric action RPG with a map and I mean it looks really cool like oh man I would have loved this game if I knew about it when it was new so there's so much to discover for Nintendo kids like me who grew up in

Nintendo and Atari and stuff, and in this deep back catalog, I mean, there's incredible stuff on the Genesis. Yeah, Fatal Labyrinth is exactly the kind of game that I'm like, I wish I had known about this sooner. This would have changed my perspective on things. And Beyond Oasis is another one for me too. So I'm really grateful that Sega is so good about putting its back catalog on systems. And I love when M2 does their Sega Ages type things where they like reinvent stuff while

also keeping it very faithful to the original, but I'm also okay with things like, you know, the Genesis collection where it's just like, here's a bunch of games. Yeah. And it's so well done. It's just a great, great presentation and everything. For my Black Sheep, I think the Wonderboy games could use another look. I think those are good. Vector Man was another one that it looks like 1994 to me in a very kind of appealing way. And I feel like that's an interesting thing. But I wanted to talk a little bit about Shadow Dancer, the secret of Shinobi. Go for it. Which is not a good game.

It's a perfectly average side-scrolling action game, like a Ninja Guidean kind of clone, except you have a cool dog. And if you hold down the attack button, your dog will go and fight people for you. And I think that is a mechanic that is great. And I think more games should have cool dogs that are your sidekicks. I agree. It's not just for Stardue Valley anymore. All right, so any final thoughts on Sega Genesis here on its 30th anniversary? Oh, boy.

I don't know. This is your final thought. This is the last thing you will ever say about Sega Genesis. Okay, I'll give you a cool tip. If you love Sega Genesis and you like, you have a Sega CD, I think it has no copy protection. So if you download a bunch of Sega CD ROMs, you can burn them onto CDs and play the heck out of them. That's your piracy tip for the day. Stop all the download.

Stop. Hey, kid, I'm a computer. That was the other episode. Uh, no. I still have mixed feelings about the Genesis in general, and I honestly have a lot of mixed feelings about the, uh, the collection. I think there's a lot of stuff that's in there for its historical value. Uh, but there are some, like, really interesting and fun games in there. And Gunstar Heroes is, I'm glad that Gunstar Heroes is well known now as a, a classic of the era, because it's so good.

and if that had been a Super Nintendo game, people would have been losing their minds over it for like 20 years. I think you're right. Yeah. Yeah. If it had been on Super NES, boy, Nintendo would be the one republishing it. Yeah.

That's true. We have, we have so many Gunstar Heroes, cheeby versions on various handheld systems. It'd be Gunstar Amoeos. Gunstar Amivo is a great name for a game. Somebody get on that, please. All right.

My wife is shouting at. me over the phone to go home. Well, it's time for everyone to go home then. So that wraps it up for this episode of Retronauts. Thanks everyone for listening. Thanks everyone for writing in and balancing our poorly informed opinions about Sega Genesis with your expert experience. Guys, where are you on the internet these days? I am Benj Edwards. Right now, I am building cool Genesis joysticks called the BX-95 and a BX-1006 button stick that made like five or BX-95s and only one BX-100 for Jeremy and which he hasn't claimed yet. But I only got so much money.

Yeah, it's fine. He just, he got some. Handcrafted, artisanal joysticks. Free range, slow batch, small batch of joysticks. Anyway, you can watch my handcrafted joystick exploits on Twitter at Benj Edwards and also Vintagecom and Chris. You can find everything that I do at t-H-I-S-B.com. That's my homepage.

I do a bunch of other podcasts that are all linked there. If it is late October, I have some comic books that are out. The Army of Darkness 2018 Halloween special. I wrote the lead story and that with my writing partner, Chad Bowers. We also have a new miniseries coming out starring Sleepwalker, a relatively obscure Marvel hero who we are bringing back. If you want to know what it looks like inside all the Infinity Stones, then read Infinity War Sleepwalker because it's super fun.

Todd Knox doing the art for that. Owen Maren is doing the art for the Army of Darkness comic, which takes place in Charleston, South Carolina. So get those, and thank you. And finally, I'm Jeremy Parrish. You can find me here at Retronauts, which you can find on, oh, where can you find it? Retronauts.com, the iTunes podcast download service and other similar services, and podcast one who give us money for the ads that you had to listen to. If you don't want to listen to the ads, here's a secret. You can go to patreon.com slash retronauts pay $3 a month

and you get podcasts a week early at a higher audio band bit rate without advertisements. So that's a small trade-off. Either way, it helps me make a living, so we're grateful. In any case, thanks for listening. This has been a 30th anniversary tribute of sorts to the Sega Genesis. Keep playing Sega Genesis games on such platform. as Nintendo Switch and other classic consoles that are not classic. They're new.

I don't know what I'm talking about anymore. It's been a long day. I'm going to go now. Sega Genesis is cool. Good night. This brown bag lunch. This brown bag lunch, this staycation, this do-it-yourself change this second shift at work at american family insurance we understand what it takes to make

your first home a reality it's the same as it takes to protect me for home auto life and business visit hampham dot com to learn more insure carefully dream fearlessly american family insurance american family mutual insurance company s i and its operating company six thousand american parkway madison wisconsin the muller report i'm edonoghue with an apy news minute president Trump was asked at the White House, his special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation report should be released next week when he will be out of town. I guess from what I understand, that will be totally up to the Attorney General. Maine Susan Collins says she would vote for a congressional resolution disapproving a President Trump's emergency declaration to build a border wall,

becoming the first Republican senator to publicly back it. In New York, the wounded supervisor of a police detective killed by friendly fire was among the mourners attending his funeral. Detective Brian Simonson was killed as officers started shooting at a robbery suspect last week. Commissioner James O'Neill was among the speakers today at Simonson's funeral. It's a tremendous way to bear knowing that your choices will directly affect the lives of others. The cops like Brian don't shy away from it. It's the very foundation of who they are and what they do. The robbery suspect in a man, police say acted as his lookout have been charged with murder.

I'm Ed Donahue.