The late 80's and early 90's were a pretty exciting time in gaming. I say this because home consoles were getting a lot better and I think for me this was most evident when Sega started to actually become a player in the market and Atari was fading away and dying a slow death. Sure Sega has the Master System but in the United States you'd be hard pressed to find anyone that actually owned one - everyone had an NES though.
Sega was able to capture a much larger slice of the market share by doing just one thing correctly: They were the first team to enter the 16-bit arena. They were all alone in this world for more than 2 years actually and I can only pretend to understand why that might have been: Did they not have the technology? Did Nintendo believe that the NES could compete with the Genesis on its own? I don't know why but from August of 1989 to August of 1991 if you wanted a next gen system, you had to buy a Sega Genesis.
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My family ended up getting one of these things back at Christmas in 1990 - a full year and a few months since the release date. I was young, didn't have a job, and my parents were not the type of people to dole out money for video-games or really anything else for that matter. So when the opportunity arose for "Santa" to bring me one, I jumped at the opportunity. I'm pretty sure I didn't get many other gifts that year.
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When the system was launched, a mere 8 games launched with it and of course Altered Beast was packed in with the system and even though that games looks completely silly by today's standards, it was pretty damn revolutionary as far as graphics were concerned and the game TALKED. This was the first home console that I recall where words appeared verbally in a game that actually sounded real.
The other games at launch were pretty great as well (for the time) and my favorite of the bunch was Thunder Force 2 which I think is a great game even to this day. I would love to find out that someone did a remake with modern graphics and sound.
There were less than 20 games available by the end of the release year and had it not been for my friend in the neighborhood whose parents bought him just about anything he wanted, I probably would never have played them. Hell, it probably took me a while to even know the Genesis existed since there was no internet at the time (well, none that was used in any sort of widespread way.)
By the time Nintendo joined the 16-bit console war in 1991 Sega already had a massive head start of them. I once again found myself in a gaming pickle because even though I did have a job at this point in my life, I was already a bit "bunkered down" as far as the Genesis was concerned so I didn't want to dish out the $200 or so in order to get one.
Once again though, I found myself with a rich neighbor who got everything and the SNES was one of those things. I wouldn't end up having one myself until at least 1995 and at that point were were just a few years away from Playstation.
I will admit that the games that appear on both Genesis and SNES - most of them are better on the SNES and there are some very good hardware reasons why that was the case. I think that when something comes out 2 years later it is pretty understandable that it is going to be technologically better and the SNES was that. There are very few games that are on both systems that are actually better on the Genesis and the few times this happened it was because of gameplay mechanics, never because of graphics. The SNES was simply a superior machine as far as processing power was concerned so the Genesis never stood a chance.
A few standout titles that really did it for me on the Genesis are as follows
- Phantasy Star 2
- Phantasy Star 3
- Gaiares
- Herzog Zwei
- Sword of Vermillion
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All things considered, I still think this is one of the best RPG's ever made
It was mostly timing and lack of money that made me a Genesis guy, there is no denying that the SNES was a superior machine. Strangely enough, it was the Genesis that brought Sega to the forefront of home gaming and for a little while there it appeared as though they were actually going to take over. However, it was that same arrogance that would be their downfall. They prolonged the life of the Genesis for too long and by the time the next gen systems were being released Sega just started to fall apart as a company. You may recall that Atari had done exactly the same thing years before. Bad management is to blame I suppose.
So if you were old enough to be around during this time, which team were you on? I was team Genesis!