Gaming off the Beaten Path

After lamenting the almost two decade drought of F-Zero titles last week, it looks like there could be hope for the franchise yet. This week’s entry will take us to Sega’s Streets of Rage franchise, a series of beat-em-up title that defined the Genesis.  The original game even came as part of the “Sega 6-Pack” cartridge, which to me was always such a definitive collection of the most popular (not best, most popular) series on the console.  It was a landmark franchise for the company…until it wasn’t.  After the third game released in 1994, it fell off the face of the Earth.  No SOR on the Saturn.  No SOR on the Dreamcast.  No SOR on any other console once Sega switched to software only.   Fortunately, that was finally remedied this year, with Streets of Rage 4 hitting modern consoles a few months ago.  It’s great to see the dormant franchise receive new life, but that isn’t the game we are going to discuss. Many Sega fans have told me they believe the second game, released in 19

It’s been a while, but its time to circle back to the Sega Genesis. I have discussed before how I was a Nintendo kid, only had an SNES, yada yada yada, etc.  etc.  A lot of games I will eventually talk about here will be new to me, but old hat to anyone that grew up on Sega.  Games like Vectorman, Comix Zone and Phantasy Star are “off the beaten path” for me, but many Genesis kids wouldn’t consider them so.  I had certainly heard of them, even if I hadn’t played them. But this week, I am going to discuss a Sega Genesis game I had never heard of in my life.  Released early in the system’s life cycle in 1990, E-Swat is a 2D side scroller that is somewhere between a run and gun game and a puzzle platformer.  You play as a futuristic police officer named Duke Oda, who is a member of the City of Liberty (not Liberty City, that’s a different place) swat team facing off against a mysterious organization called E.Y.E.  This organization has unleashed a compliment of mo

Last week I discussed my initial thoughts on Phantasy Star IV, a JRPG for the Sega Genesis.  As you could probably tell, I liked it quite a bit and was impressed by what it accomplished technically.  That’s great, but what was it that made the game truly stand out. First, we need to start with the story.  It starts out as fairly simple RPG fare.  You play as Chaz, a young hunter’s guild member on the planet of Motavia.  Once a lush, green world, Motavia has become a mostly barren desert planet full of monsters.  That’s bad news for most civilians, but it also means plenty of work for Chaz and his mentor Alys, a hunter so respected that she has been assigned a critical mission offered by the Motavian University.  That mission sets the pair on a path that will reveal the origin of the monsters, the reason for Motavia’s decline and the true level of danger the galaxy will soon face.     I think the best part of the story is how well it raises the stakes.  Earl

As I have mentioned numerous times, I grew up a Nintendo/Sony kid.  Most of my experience with Sega/Microsoft/Etc. Consoles came from playing at relatives’ houses, so my experience with them was very, very different. You see, I mostly stuck with those consoles because of their deep RPG libraries.  Up until I was older, I probably couldn’t have named a single RPG for the Sega Genesis.  Add in the fact that most of my time with those consoles were spent on more action oriented, quick playthrough games or multiplayer titles and you can understand why I lacked frame of reference with these games. The first I had ever really heard of Phantasy Star was via Phantasy Star Online for the Sega Dreamcast, a game that was probably too far ahead of its time for its own good.  It wasn’t until later that I found out there was an entire series of these games, that were traditional JRPGs dating back to the Sega Master System.  It wasn’t until even later I was able to get my h

Yet again, we have a first.  Looking back, I realized I have yet to review a Sega Genesis game.  And no, Sonic Mania doesn’t count. That’s probably because I was a Nintendo/Sony person growing up.  Nowadays, the PlayStation and XBox are almost interchangeable.  Sure, there are a few exclusives, but for the most part developers are going to release the same game on both systems.  Hell, some games even have cross play between consoles.  That wasn’t the case in the 90s, when your choice of gaming console drastically altered which games you could play. This also meant the big first party developers spent a lot of time trying to ape each others’ big name series’.  Nintendo was always looking for their own Sonic, while Sega was on a never ending quest for their own Mario and Zelda.  The generally did a pretty good job making games comparable to the former, but often struggled with the latter.  There were quite a few second rate adventure games on the Genesis that j

Lets talk about video game crossovers. Nowadays, they are common.  You have Marvel Vs. Capcom, Mortal Kombat vs D.C., Mario and Sonic’s Olympic Games and dozens of others.  That’s to say nothing of Super Smash Brothers, which is arguably the greatest crossover game of all time.  Just look at all the characters in the latest version. They weren’t always as common as they are now, but gaming crossovers have always had a place in the medium.  For all the things developers mess up, they are also something that is usually done right.  In 1993, Tradewest probably figured “hey, our two biggest IPs are among the gaming world’s most popular beat em ups, lets mix them together!”  So, we got Battle Toads/Double Dragon on SNES/Genesis.  Anyone who owned an NES is probably very familiar with these two franchises (this game also came out on the NES, by the way). Both were two player co-op beat em’ ups where you moved to the right and put the boots to anyone in your way