{"id":19547,"date":"2019-11-08T00:01:42","date_gmt":"2019-11-08T00:01:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=19547"},"modified":"2019-10-20T13:42:35","modified_gmt":"2019-10-20T13:42:35","slug":"the-games-of-the-sega-genesis-mini-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2019\/11\/08\/the-games-of-the-sega-genesis-mini-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"The Games of the SEGA Genesis Mini: Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A couple of years ago, Nintendo made a big splash with their NES Mini and SNES Mini consoles.\u00a0 Now SEGA is joining the bandwagon with a mini version of their most popular console, the SEGA Genesis.\u00a0 But there have already been mini Genesis consoles with pre-loaded games on them, and Genesis collections on consoles, so what\u2019s the big deal with this one?\u00a0 Well, mainly SEGA is making this one themselves, and they\u2019re taking Nintendo\u2019s approach to how they include which games will be on it.\u00a0 So what does that mean?\u00a0 Well you\u2019ll just have to find out in this blog series.\u00a0 We\u2019re going to take a look at the games on this mini console, but there are so many that we are going to split this up into three sections, one a week this month.\u00a0 For this first part, we\u2019ll take a look at the Genesis Mini itself, and a few of the expected games on it.\u00a0 Don\u2019t worry, we\u2019ll get to the good stuff soon!<\/p>\n

So there have been Genesis Minis in the past, and I even own one.\u00a0 So why did SEGA make their own, and why should you be glad they did?\u00a0 Well, first off, other companies made previous Genesis Minis, and the emulation was HORRIBLE!\u00a0 And even though they claimed to have lots of games on them, only half were actual Genesis games, the other were mostly pirated crappy junk.\u00a0 But this SEGA-made Genesis Mini has good emulation from what I can tell, and it took Nintendo\u2019s approach to including games.\u00a0 So it has a wide variety of popular Genesis games, and even some third party stuff.\u00a0 There are even some super rare games on here, which we\u2019ll go over later in future blogs.\u00a0 Here is a bigger picture of the front of the box.<\/p>\n

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And here\u2019s a bigger picture of the back of the box.\u00a0 You can see all the games on here.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here is the console itself in the palm of my hand.\u00a0 There is even a flap for cartridges, but I don\u2019t know how you can fit any in there!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Mini even comes with two full sized Genesis controllers, which is nice.\u00a0 I only wish they were the six button ones, as there are games on here that would make full use of them.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never really been a big fan of the Genesis controllers.\u00a0 The D-pad and buttons always felt smushy to me, and the same goes for these.\u00a0 I\u2019ve always preferred the SNES controllers much better.\u00a0 Anyway, since we\u2019ve spent some extra time talking about the console, the first batch of games we\u2019ll go over are just the ones you\u2019d expect to be on here, and have been on Genesis collections in the past.\u00a0 Like I said, we\u2019ll get to the good stuff later.<\/p>\n

Sonic the Hedgehog<\/strong><\/p>\n

Of course they\u2019re going to put the game that put the Genesis on the map on here.\u00a0 Sonic\u2019s featured prominently on the box and everything.\u00a0 But as much of a cultural icon as Sonic is, I never understood the draw of his first game. \u00a0It looked nice graphically, but whenever I would play this at demo stations as a kid, I would always ask myself, \u201cThis is better than Super Mario World\u2026HOW?!?\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019d always see these commercials comparing Sonic to Mario and them claiming Sonic was better.\u00a0 Never understood that.\u00a0 Luckily the Genesis Mini lets you save four spots per game, perfect for those games like this one that never let you save.<\/p>\n

Sonic the Hedgehog 2<\/strong><\/p>\n

The sequel was certainly an improvement over the first game, but not enough to get me to want a Genesis.\u00a0 The one thing that caught my attention in the sequel was Tails, who is now my favorite SEGA character.\u00a0 (second and third place go to Ulala and Ristar).\u00a0 I liked how a second player could pick up a controller and move Tails.\u00a0 It gave the younger siblings something to do, which is more than what Nintendo was doing at the time.\u00a0 Too bad they didn\u2019t put Sonic 3 on here, as that\u2019s one of the few Sonic games I actually really like!\u00a0 And speaking of Ristar, I\u2019m disappointed they didn\u2019t put that on this collection as well.\u00a0 I personally think that Ristar is a better game than Sonic.<\/p>\n

Sonic Spinball<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I played the Casino Night pinball zone in Sonic 2, I thought, \u201cThey could make a whole game out of this.\u201d\u00a0 And well, they did!\u00a0 It\u2019s a bit rough around the edges, but this is another one of the few Sonic games I like.<\/p>\n

Dr. Robotnik\u2019s Mean Bean Machine<\/strong><\/p>\n

We all know the story on how this is actually a Japanese puzzle game called Puyo Puyo.\u00a0 I do like how in Sonic Mania, one of the bosses is just a round of Puyo Puyo against Dr. Eggman.\u00a0 I\u2019d rather just play Kirby\u2019s Avalanche, though.<\/p>\n

Comix Zone<\/strong><\/p>\n

This came out late in the Genesis\u2019 life and it shows.\u00a0 It\u2019s a beat \u2018em up set in a comic book, with word balloons, panels, and everything.\u00a0 It\u2019s pretty impressive even to this day, but the only problem is it\u2019s way too hard.<\/p>\n

Columns<\/strong><\/p>\n

Since it came out early in the Genesis\u2019 life and right after Tetris, it\u2019s a bit slow.\u00a0 But it\u2019s still an OK puzzler.<\/p>\n

Altered Beast<\/strong><\/p>\n

Did you know that before Sonic the Hedgehog, Altered Beast was the pack-in game for the Genesis?\u00a0 I guess they wanted to showcase how close it was to the arcade game, but I never thought the game was that good, as it felt slow and clunky to me.\u00a0 I did like how your guy would power up and turn into a muscleman before being a beast.\u00a0 Always cracked me up.<\/p>\n

Alex Kidd and the Enchanted Castle<\/strong><\/p>\n

Before Sonic, Alex Kidd was one of SEGA\u2019s mascots.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know how they thought he\u2019d compete with Mario.\u00a0 This game is horrible with awful hit detection.\u00a0 And since you die in one hit, it\u2019s even worse.<\/p>\n

Ecco the Dolphin<\/strong><\/p>\n

I never had a Genesis as a kid, and most of the time I was OK with that.\u00a0 I was perfectly happy with my SNES.\u00a0 But every once in a while a game would come out on the Genesis that would make me want to try it, and this was one of those games.\u00a0 In a time where every 2-D game had to have a cartoon mascot with attitude, it was refreshing to see a relaxing underwater game starring a realistic dolphin.\u00a0 Unfortunately once I did play it and discover it had very unclear goals, I didn\u2019t like it as much.\u00a0 But it was still pretty innovative for the time.\u00a0 You know what I think the best Ecco game is?\u00a0 Ecco Jr.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t have those unclear goals, it was pretty fun, and you could learn some facts on sea life, too.\u00a0 I liked how SEGA made games for younger kids back then, too.\u00a0 Nintendo didn\u2019t do that as much.<\/p>\n

Golden Axe<\/strong><\/p>\n

I wish they would\u2019ve put Golden Axe 2 or 3 on here instead, as I like those a bit better, but I can understand why they would put this on here.\u00a0 It was certainly one of SEGA\u2019s signature series.\u00a0 I think the first one is a bit too clunky and slow, but it\u2019s still not bad.\u00a0 Can you guess who my favorite Golden Axe character is?<\/p>\n

Kid Chameleon<\/strong><\/p>\n

One thing I like about Genesis collections is that since I never had a Genesis as a kid, a lot of these games I didn\u2019t play to death like I did the games on Nintendo collections.\u00a0 And sometimes I could discover a game that was better than I thought it would be.\u00a0 This is an example of one of those games.\u00a0 It\u2019s not the best, but it is a pretty decent little hop and bop platformer.\u00a0 The story is totally from the 90s in that you\u2019re a cool kid with sunglasses and a leather jacket who must save other kids from a VR hologram game in an arcade.\u00a0 You can collect power ups that change your appearance and skills, hence the name.<\/p>\n

Shinobi 3<\/strong><\/p>\n

Back in the day, Shinobi was SEGA\u2019s resident ninja and starred in a lot of games.\u00a0 I guess this one is the most playable one on the Genesis, but it\u2019s too bad the Mini didn\u2019t have the one that had music done by Yuzo Koshiro.<\/p>\n

Streets of Rage 2<\/strong><\/p>\n

And speaking of Yuzo Koshiro.\u00a0 Since I never had a Genesis as a kid, I totally missed out on this one.\u00a0 Most of the time, when I would play a Genesis game, I wouldn\u2019t be that impressed.\u00a0 I\u2019m a SNES man after all.\u00a0 But once I played this on one of the early Genesis collections, I was totally blown away.\u00a0 This game was actually really good!\u00a0 Of course it had the fantastic music, but the gameplay was spot on, too.\u00a0 One of the few times a Genesis game really impressed me.\u00a0 Too bad we didn\u2019t get the other Streets of Rage games on here as well, but if they had to pick just one, 2 is the way to go.\u00a0 I can\u2019t wait for Streets of Rage 4 which comes out next year!<\/p>\n

Vectorman<\/strong><\/p>\n

This game uses pre-rendered graphics and was to compete with Donkey Kong Country, which came out that same year (or the year before, I can\u2019t remember).\u00a0 But this game is nowhere near as good as DKC was, so why even bother?\u00a0 And as a run and gun game, I\u2019d rather play something like Earthworm Jim instead.\u00a0 So I never understood the draw of this one.\u00a0 At least the sequel had impressive lighting effects, I\u2019ll give it that.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s all for now.\u00a0 Check back next week for more games on the Genesis Mini.\u00a0 I promise they\u2019ll be some more interesting ones on there.\u00a0 Later!\u00a0 –Cary<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A couple of years ago, Nintendo made a big splash with their NES Mini and SNES Mini consoles.\u00a0 Now SEGA is joining the bandwagon with a mini version of their most popular console, the SEGA Genesis.\u00a0 But there have already been mini Genesis consoles with pre-loaded games on them, and Genesis collections on consoles, so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":19532,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19547"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19549,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19547\/revisions\/19549"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}