Sega Genesis Collection

"Mini Reveiw of each Genesis game!"

When I was initially weighing the pros and cons to purchasing Sega Genesis Collection for PSP I found a lack of reviews for some of the games included. Yes, it's a collection game featuring a few of the best games for the Sega Genesis, but with tons of options on the market it's difficult to really warrant dropping down cash for games played to death. I wanted to know what these titles were about, but sometimes had a hard time finding reviews or decent information on some of the games. I picked it up any way, and decided to write a review that consists of mini reviews for each of the main games in this title.

Before I start I'd like to say initially that there are plenty of features in this compilation outside of just the titles. The most significant being all games feature an option to save your state, where you can save the title in midplay and start later. This is a much-appreciated function for some of the games, such as Vectorman where passwords are cumbersome in this day and age.

Other nice touches include customizing button set up, choosing the screen size and thus resolution of the titles, as well as easy to navigate menus. There's unlockable content such as interviews with the developers of different games, as well as a few arcade games. All in all the presentation is top notch and gives incentive to play different games to unlock more extras.

Now time for the epic series of mini reviews:



Alex Kidd 5/10: A very strange, very Japanese 2D platformer featuring bright colors and a chimp like main character. You run around collecting money that enables you to challenge NPCs at a game of rock, paper, scissors. If you win you get different items, like one allows you to punch fireballs, or even vehicles to drive around in. If you lose, that means you have to bet more money. There are obstacles and enemies ranging from cars to fish things.

The gameplay is simple and a little lacking in the engrossing factor. The bizarre outlandishness of the title and the music will feel like a really bad trip after snorting pixie sticks: it might warrant a casual play or two, but its just simple and too cheerful to play seriously.


Altered Beast 7/10: WISE FROM YOUR GWAVE! The heavy metal side scrolling beat em up makes for a great adventure, complete with voice acting! You play as some hero trying to rescue a goddess from the underworld. (No its not Persephone, I think it might be Athena but I don't remember exactly) Any way, so yeah you play as this man who slowly walks to the right and beats up monsters in a wide range of areas. The art direction is unique, kinda stylized and ultimately ridiculous.

The main reason for playing is collecting flying power up orbs that gradually make your already beefy man transform into even bigger muscley forms before a gaudy heavy metal screen flashes of your character turning into a powered up beast. The gameplay will change entirely; you might be a fire punching wolf man or an electrical dragon. The sound track seems like it should be really early Metallica or something. Great game, simple but just amazingly tacky. Ultimately a great title for laughs and fun crotch kicking action. Also on a side note, the bosses of this game are absolutely disgusting; it's kind of impressive.

Bonanza Bros 4/10: Play poorly animated robbers as they try to infiltrate high security areas. Using stunning bullets you must break into buildings, knock out guards, steal disks or other secret items and make it out without getting caught. Sounds like a good stealth game, but it plays at a snails pace, and it's really quite boring. 2 players can play it for more entertainment, but otherwise this one's a great cure for insomnia.

Columns 9/10: A tetris-esque title. Match three like colored cascading gems to make them disappear, make combos for big points, and listen to music that is on the fine line between depressing and hypnotic. While a fun title that can easily get you in the Tetris “Zen” I think most PSP owners would whip out Lumines before having a go at this. Doesn't stop it from being a fun, addictive puzzle game though. Save feature of the PSP actually lets you keep your high scores for once.

Comix Zone 10/10: A true product of the 90's. You play as a cool, muscley, fingerless leather glove wearing comic book artist who gets pulled into his own comic by the hands of the villain he created. This game is noted for its crazy artistic direction: As you play through you rip through the pages, jump from scene to scene, bad guys are drawn in as you destroy them, and the game makes perfect use of the blazing radioactive colors the genesis is capable of. Gameplay is a beat em up, where you can jump, throw punches, combos, as well as use items you pick up.

Everything about this title is top notch, though the difficulty might be a bit rough for some people. There's no extra lives, health restoration is rare, and if you die its game over. Thankfully save states make this title accessible where you can save at the beginning of each level. This is one of the best titles in this collection, and manages to wow audiences even today.

Decap Attack 7/10: Apparently this was some other game re-designed or something. I don't know, all I know is it's a 2D plat former where you play as a headless mummy whose face is in his chest. You hop around Halloween inspired levels launching your face at weird comical enemies, or find someone else's skull to use as a projectile weapon. You can find potions for temporary enhancements throughout the level, or play minigames. It's pretty challenging, graphics are a bit bland and music a tad annoying, though it is a fun 2D take on the semi-horror genre. It's worth checking out.

Ecco games clustered together 8/10: I don't enjoy these titles, but I see the value in them. You play as a dolphin investigating strange alien occurrences. Originally the game was known for its beauty and haunting melodies. The graphics don't shine through in this day and age, and the mood is just really a downer. There's a kids version of Ecco featuring other animal friends you can play as, but eh, it's just terrible I can't play em. But I also see the quality and the hard work that went into these surreal titles, so thus the score.


Flicky 6/10: Let me start by saying this title's sound track will haunt you. You'll wake up in the middle of the night with it stuck in you're head, and it will be one of the worst things you'll ever experience because you can't quite decide if the song is annoying or not, and either way it won't go away.

With that said, Flicky is an EARLY genesis game featuring a blue bird hopping around rescuing chicks (the bird type, not girl). You jump from platform to platform avoiding cats and lizards. Using flowerpots and things you can launch attacks to ward off animals that may attack your Flicky and disperse the birds. Each level is completed by rescuing all Flickies. Very very arcade, it has the same feel as the likes of pacman.

Gain Ground 1/10: This is total crap. You play as different warriors on an overhead plane trying to advance foes from different time periods. Boring, repetitive gameplay is masked with a huge range of different characters. While there are different skills for each one for different situations, the game is just so dull, and that isn't helped by poor visuals and music. Sad, sad excuse for a game, but I see why they felt compelled to add a war strategy title. Yuck.

Golden Axe Cluster 9/10: Fantasy 2D side scrolling beat em ups. Fight as different characters acting out different maneuvers, finding items to allow spells unique to each character, along finding riding different beasts with their own type of attack. The best one is the 3rd one, apparently never released in the US that features a plethora of characters to choose from, including PANTHER MAN! Also the women are exaggeratedly busty and usually wearing very little. This game really deserves some cheesy 80's metal, so have a CD ready.


Kid Chameleon 9/10: 2D platformer about a “cool kid” who enters a virtual reality system that's been abducting children. The platformer action is basic, and the graphics are really primitive, but there are a lot of levels and tons of forms your character assumes. Pick up a ski mask and you'll transform into an axe wielding homicidal maniac. Pick up a samurai helmet and you get a sword to hack things apart. This aspect alone makes the gameplay interesting and ever changing, and definitely one of the better titles in this collection.

Phantasy Star II 3/10: Ugh, I was enthralled at having access to the Phantasy star RPGs, but this one is really difficult to play. A slow paced, cumbersome RPG set in a futuristic world filled with drama and such. Fans of the series might get into it, but I played it for half an hour before getting too annoyed to go further.

Phantasy Star III 6/10: A step up…but still…why go for this when you can play….

Phantasy Star IV 20/10: This is a valid reason alone to pick up the collection. All the problems with the previous titles are minimized, the graphics get a step up, the animations of the monsters are great and the story is engrossing. All the standard fare of the RPG can be found here, treasure chests, random battles, level ups, spells… added into the mix are techniques and the ability to get your characters to combine attacks to form massively damaging strikes. And you're character can actually move at a decent speed (THANK GOD)

Set in a beautiful world that's a cross between fantasy and futuristic society you unravel mysteries and yeah, it's just a great bleeding time. Every RPG fan that can play non- 3D titles will find this deep, fun and perfected. And you can actually tell what's going on in battle! Awesome!

Ristar 10/10: I'm amazed this game series never took off. Made by the creators of Sonic team, you play as a star with stretchy limbs as he navigates a 2D platformer world of different planets. Gameplay is a bit more paced over speedy, but it's really quite brilliant the number of ways Ristar's elastic arms are implemented, from sling shotting himself off of pools, grabbing distant obstacles, hanging from flying enemies and so fourth. The graphics are beautiful, bold and well composed.

It's a high quality title that's often overlooked, with a lengthy quest and plenty of different environments to explore. There's a reason why this game was good enough to include in the Sonic Mega Collection titles: the high production standards shine through in every way. Fun and worthwhile.

Shadow Dancer+Shinobi III 7/10: Despite the fact Shinobi III came out later, Shadow Dancer is my preferred choice of these two Ninja titles. Even MORE 2D side scrolling beat em ups, this time there's a lot of shurikeins being tossed and Ninjutsu spells to deal mass amounts of damage. Shadow dancer has more flamboyant graphical flourishes and color use, along with adding an attack dog to the mix. Shinobi is more of a grimier solo adventure. Either way, lots of bad guy beating up, but not a lot of things to really stand out in memory as the gameplay gets a bit repetitive.

Sonic 1+2 10/10: I really don't feel compelled to describe these games. You'll notice though from playing other 2D games from the Genesis why these were such gems though, Like Ristar, they just have higher production standards with music, visuals and gameplay than the likes of say, Alex Kidd. For some reason, these Sonic games just feel right on a handheld system.

Super Thunder Blade 1/10: Ugly, hard to understand game where you play as a helicopter avoiding sky scrappers and trying to blow up things shooting at you. Frames of animation disappear at times, the bullet stream isn't completely consistent leaving you with a seizure and a lack of happiness in any way. Again, a reminder as to why Sonic revolutionized the genesis by not being slop.

Sword of Vermillion: 4/10: An RPG that…. uhh changes a lot. Sometimes you'll be exploring areas in first person where everything looks the same. Other times you'll be in random battles where you are in a 2D plane running around hacking things with a poorly animated and constipated knight. The battle system is really cruddy with poor collision detection and just doesn't work. The areas you explore will make you fall asleep with boredom. It's just not that great of an experience.

Vectorman 1+2 10/10: Action 2D platformer that manages to, like Comix Zone, use the graphical limitations and color styles of the Genesis to its advantage. You play as a green robot composed of jointless floating orbs that runs (or swims) through surreal landscapes shooting star like energy at bad guys. You find powerups that modify your main weapon or transform Vectorman into different forms.


I can't really capture how hypnotic this game is, the art style, music, everything. You'd just have to play it, but it's very good and one of the best titles on this collection. It'll also last you a while game, and makes excellent use of the save state feature. No more passwords!

While Vectorman 2 features more weapons and forms, it also takes a hit in its charm. In this game over fighting robots you fight bugs, so instead of the metallic conglomerations you face ugly oozing things. Environments are more natural, and it just loses some of its otherworldly allure.

Virtual Fighter 2/10: An ugly Genesis remake of a 3D fighter. Gameplay is generic fighting game where you push different button combinations for attacks. Boring characters, boring graphics, boring gameplay makes this a really uninteresting experience.


So there you have it, a hand full of games that will make you go out of your way to put this UMD disk in, even more games to play around with casually now and then, and a few tragic stinkers. I appreciate their attempt at making the Genesis seem more diverse by providing an example of every single genre on the system, but I still feel a few of them just don't belong.

So yeah, everyone has their favorites (I saw someone on the message board's favorite was the wretched Gain Ground) and some titles don't need the trip down memory lane to enjoy. If there are at least 4 titles on this game you think you'd enjoy, it's absolutely worth it. There's truly something for everyone in this pakage, outside of the blatantly obvious Sonic games.


Likewise, any one that's enjoyed games like Chrono Trigger should really play Phantasy Star IV, it's of the same quality as late SNES squaresoft games, only with unique spins and an entirely different world. People bought a GBA Phantasy Star Collection just for that title; you can access it here plus tons of extra content.

All around a good value.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 11/19/07

Game Release: Sega Genesis Collection (US, 11/16/06)