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Sega Genesis/MegaDrive Appreciation Thread: Alien Storm > Golden Axe
- Thread starter IrishNinja
- Start date
D.Lo
Member
Dude...
Konami were pretty great everywhere (with a few exceptions) until around the time they changed logo. I'm closing in on having all 82 Konami Famicom games (I have 80 CIB), and I have the complete Sega set (SG1000, Mega Drive, Saturn and Dreamcast).
True
Noooooooope nope nope no way. Though this is an unpopular opinion on Sega boards.
Bloodlines is a nice little game but that's a crazy statement, it comes nowhere close to the greatness of Akumajou Dracula X.
It's good, but SNES is much better and it's not Konami anyway, they only published it.
MD version is a turd.
This is weird. Tiny Toons on MD is great! Better than the SNES one, which has the annoying charge mechanic.
Konami were pretty great everywhere (with a few exceptions) until around the time they changed logo. I'm closing in on having all 82 Konami Famicom games (I have 80 CIB), and I have the complete Sega set (SG1000, Mega Drive, Saturn and Dreamcast).
IrishNinja
Member
fortunately, the truth need not be popular~
i love the shit out of Contra III, for real - i don't even despise the mode 7-y overhead levels like some. but the multiple characters/paths etc push HC over the edge for me
ah, no - i meant the SNES drac X, which it absolutely is better than
yeah, i said as much - they're still good games. Sunset Riders dropping characters is a damn shame though, almost as bad as say Final Fight.
haha i meant Konami's garbage now, not the TT games
okay that's pretty awesome! gotta put up pics sometime man
ah, loved that one last year - post your thoughts as you go! it's very much an underdog Sega story, which was refreshing
I read the first 5 chapters. Seth Rogen saying the Saturn shat the bed didn't sit with me well, even if its kinda true from a commercial standpoint.
The story about Kalinske being in that bootleg company that made Mattel toys in Spain was funny, dude legged it to the police.
The story about how when he sees Michael Katz leaving was interesting. Katz left SoA hating Sega of Japan, just like Tom Kalinske and Bernie Stolar would later do. It seems Peter Moore is the only one who didn't. Although he did admit into losing his cool in a debate with Yuji Naka.
The story about Kalinske being in that bootleg company that made Mattel toys in Spain was funny, dude legged it to the police.
The story about how when he sees Michael Katz leaving was interesting. Katz left SoA hating Sega of Japan, just like Tom Kalinske and Bernie Stolar would later do. It seems Peter Moore is the only one who didn't. Although he did admit into losing his cool in a debate with Yuji Naka.
IrishNinja
Member
yeah, that bootleg factory story was insane! and i think Moore was such a late-comer that the ship was already sinking, and he was just trying to make things better/etc so there were probably less mandates for him
and yeah, you gotta isolate that stuff man - like, the saturn we got really did wonders to start the exit of sega's hardware game. ive come to a point where i can understand/acknowledge this and still love the shit out of it all the same...i mean, most of the chances it took that hurt it at the time are now, 20 years later, much of what i love about it
and yeah, you gotta isolate that stuff man - like, the saturn we got really did wonders to start the exit of sega's hardware game. ive come to a point where i can understand/acknowledge this and still love the shit out of it all the same...i mean, most of the chances it took that hurt it at the time are now, 20 years later, much of what i love about it
Yeah, Moore did a good job. It's a shame we never hear Sega Europe talk about Saturn and Dreamcast though. that'd be interesting.
Yeah, the Saturn was a failure, but you know what bugs me? Systems like PS3 and Xbox lost a lot more money than the Saturn did, yet they are considered successes. Meh.
Yeah, the Saturn was a failure, but you know what bugs me? Systems like PS3 and Xbox lost a lot more money than the Saturn did, yet they are considered successes. Meh.
D.Lo
Member
Good to hear. Yes the overhead stages are lame, and the last stage is a boss rush (much like the whole of HC). But it plays like Contra with a awesome graphics, great sound effects, and a big-ass 80s movie orchestral soundtrack. Not like a brown/grey Gunstar Heroes with a techno soundtrack.
I've been shouted out of Sega boards for saying Contra Spirits is better however, it's like a sacred cow of the 16 bit fanboy wars you cannot touch it seems.
A much more sensible argument haha, that's why I use Japanese titles for these (Dracula XX).
I think objectively they're about the same honestly. While both are far below the other three 16 bit Castlevanias (in order, DX, Super and X68K). DXX has better music (a nearly perfect conversion of the CD soundtrack) and better graphics on a technical level. Vampire Killer/Bloodlines/New generation comes across as kind of dinky, NES sized sprites and 8-bit animation, a bunch of typical 'Konami on Mega Drive' gimmicks (lots of bosses made up of multiple sprites moving all over the place) and only six almost completely linear stages.
It also has a bunch of silly stuff like robots, and a busted story that tries to tie in the Bram Stoker book (a morality tale about a sexual predator when CV was previously clearly about wacky MGM monster movie drac, with Frankensten and Mummy Man etc).
Drac XX is a vastly disappointing game, one of the biggest missed opportunities ever. They built a great graphical and gameplay engine, it's a signifiant technical upgrade from the PCE version in terms of tiles, but it was clearly rushed at the end and they shat out generic levels, so the result is like an amateur ROM hack of a much better game at some points. It could have been an upgraded conversion of DX, or a massive new game, if they'd just put in the effort and used a bigger cart. But objectively it's a solid game with a killer soundtrack, a decent length, branching paths and very nice graphics.
That makes a hell of a lot more sense.
Yep, from last time I calculated, the original Xbox, PS3 and Xbox 360 had each lost around eight times what the Saturn lost.
We truly cannot call those systems successes IMO, when they were not required by the companies that made them to conform to market reality. They were literally dumped onto consumers. The OG Xbox lost US$166 net for every console installed into a home.
D.Lo
Member
It's very difficult to get exact figures because both companies obscured the financial results of the consoles by batching them with other profitable devices in quarterly reports.
But all three (PS3, Xbox, 360) lost roughly four billion each. I'm working on the Saturn having lost something like 500 million, it's hard to tell with Sega too, because the early Saturn years had leftover Mega Drive and arcade profits propping them up too, so there weren't clear losses in the Saturn years (it was the DC years when the losses started mounting).
IrishNinja
Member
good post D Lo - yeah, Drac XX does look gorgeous, and no one should ever slight anyone over Contra III, it's such a blast to play
but for the other stuff...that's why i don't really mess with sales-age. if something i like sells gangbusters, it's a happy coincidence...most of what ive read (eidolon's inn, etc) points at the genesis as the only piece of sega hardware to actually turn a profit. if i looked at that filter alone, the SMS, saturn & DC would be failures, and given their respective libraries, that's insane! so yeah, nuts to that, haha.
but damn, id love to read something by sega europe from that period, yeah
but for the other stuff...that's why i don't really mess with sales-age. if something i like sells gangbusters, it's a happy coincidence...most of what ive read (eidolon's inn, etc) points at the genesis as the only piece of sega hardware to actually turn a profit. if i looked at that filter alone, the SMS, saturn & DC would be failures, and given their respective libraries, that's insane! so yeah, nuts to that, haha.
but damn, id love to read something by sega europe from that period, yeah
Makes you wonder if MS has ever made money in the Xbox industry.
I wouldn't point to Master System to be a failure. It may have failed to catch on in US and Japan, but I never saw that it was some moneypit to Sega. Besides, its the longest surviving console of all time, which is just badass.
We do have some Sega Europe info from this interview with former CEO Nick Alexander:
On Mega Drive Vs. Super Nintendo
On the Game Gear:
On the Mega CD:
Source
They also recently interviewed Tec Toy, who handled Sega systems in Brazil, but again barely asked about Saturn and Dreamcast. Those are the juicy ones!
I wouldn't point to Master System to be a failure. It may have failed to catch on in US and Japan, but I never saw that it was some moneypit to Sega. Besides, its the longest surviving console of all time, which is just badass.
We do have some Sega Europe info from this interview with former CEO Nick Alexander:
On Mega Drive Vs. Super Nintendo
On the Game Gear:
On the Mega CD:
Source
They also recently interviewed Tec Toy, who handled Sega systems in Brazil, but again barely asked about Saturn and Dreamcast. Those are the juicy ones!
I've been reading recently about the Swedish distributor for Sega, and how their unique regional marketing with the launch of the Mega Drive pretty much mirrored the success of Sega of America, taking more than half of the market share from Nintendo on short notice.
D.Lo
Member
I think the Master System was a success. It was a clear second place in a newly reborn/expanded market, and surely made money overall. Especially with the Game Gear using the tech and games as a second life.
Saturn and Dreamcast weren't even big failures either, just victims of timing. Sega was very small company fighting with global giants who wanted in on the territory, literally no matter the cost. Clearly there were some massive strategic blunders, but it was more that Sega couldn't buy their way out of them. No Sega blunder cost anywhere near as much as RROD did.
And IMO Sega's success with the Mega Drive cannot be overstated either. Every non-Nintendo since the MD has continued on the path it beat - the 'edgy attitude' thing.
Saturn and Dreamcast weren't even big failures either, just victims of timing. Sega was very small company fighting with global giants who wanted in on the territory, literally no matter the cost. Clearly there were some massive strategic blunders, but it was more that Sega couldn't buy their way out of them. No Sega blunder cost anywhere near as much as RROD did.
And IMO Sega's success with the Mega Drive cannot be overstated either. Every non-Nintendo since the MD has continued on the path it beat - the 'edgy attitude' thing.
Yeah, it really feels like that Sony was basically just taking a page out of Sega's ideas and used their bigger pockets to overshadow Sega. For example, the Namco arcade games and Crash Bandicoot were basically Sega knock-offs IMO. Heck even the Crash commercial felt like a Sega parody to me.
D.Lo
Member
Exactly, perfect examples, the Namco games pissed me off back in the day they were so blatant. I hated myself for enjoying Tekken 3 more than VF3 haha. Crash is blatant Sonic ripoff, was clearly created for that exact purpose, and was even used to taunt Nintendo in the exact same way as 'Nintendon't' was.
My personal fantasy was that Nintendo bought a stake in Sega and the deal made all the post DC games exclusive to the Gamecube. That would have been a killer system, and would have been great for both companies.
I enjoyed the early Tekken games (but no where near as much I as like VF), especially 2, which had some great art direction and music. The PS2 games were where I started to lose interest, they just got way too stale. Never got into Time Crises or Ridge Racer though.
A Sega/Nintendo Gamecube might have been interested, especially considering how opposite N64 and Saturn's library's were.
Makes you wonder how the Mega Drive successor would have been if Sega did merge with Sony. I doubt we'd have gotten arcade-perfect X-Men Vs Street Fighter!
A Sega/Nintendo Gamecube might have been interested, especially considering how opposite N64 and Saturn's library's were.
Makes you wonder how the Mega Drive successor would have been if Sega did merge with Sony. I doubt we'd have gotten arcade-perfect X-Men Vs Street Fighter!
D.Lo
Member
Not on PS1 if that was the hardware.
N64 could easily have done an arcade-perfect X-Men Vs Street Fighter if Capcom had half a brain however.
IrishNinja
Member
...really?
That's what I'm trying to get at. If Sony/Sega did merge, which console do you think they would have released, the PS1 or the Saturn? I have a feeling it would have been the former.
As for N64, its lack of SF support was probably because the SF series was on life support at the time in the US, where the N64's biggest market was.
D.Lo
Member
Yes? It's a much more powerful system (around 3X the power of Saturn/PS1), had 4MB RAM standard, and could read from carts at near RAM speed anyway. And could do great 2D. It would be a relatively large cart, but the full arcade game is under 20 megs.
And keep in mind, after all these years, Capcom's highest selling game of all time remains Street Fighter II on Nintendo. They tried to claim recently that RE5 and 6 sold more, but only barely and by combining three platforms (PS3, 360 and PC), which is pretty lame, in reality any individual version of RE5 or 6 surely sold under 4 million (SF2 SNES is 6.3 million).
That and Capcom shafted Nintendo almost completely that generation. They only released three games total on N64, one of which was Disney Tetris.
We have no idea, but it definitely would not have been the Saturn. The Saturn was re-developed to add more 3D capability in response to the PS1.
Actually I think it would basically have been the PS1. Maybe it would have been black and had a better controller instead of a SNES pad with handlebars and a ruined segmented dpad.
Yeah, PS1 with a better d-pad. I doubt Namco's arcade games or Crash woulda existed though, haha.
Capcom's support of the N64 was poor (far from the only Japanese dev who poorly supported the system though), and yes SF2 on SNES was a big hit, but I dunno how well the SF on the N64 would have done. N64 was mostly popular in America, where MK overshadowed SF. Like I was telling you the other day, the best selling SF game on Saturn in the US was the one that was basically a MK wannabe (SF: The Movie).
Capcom's support of the N64 was poor (far from the only Japanese dev who poorly supported the system though), and yes SF2 on SNES was a big hit, but I dunno how well the SF on the N64 would have done. N64 was mostly popular in America, where MK overshadowed SF. Like I was telling you the other day, the best selling SF game on Saturn in the US was the one that was basically a MK wannabe (SF: The Movie).
Huggers
Member
Yeah Konami were class. Serious fall from grace these days. As for the Mega Drive Sunset Riders port. I know it gets a lot of stick for only having 2 characters and missing levels etc, but when I was little I was completely unaware of a better SNES version and still loved the game. It plays great.
StevieWhite
Member
That's probably likely, given that Sony would have been the one snapping up Sega.
You know, I wouldn't go as far as to call the PSX d-pad "ruined." Certainly not preferable, but it works all right.
D.Lo
Member
More like 'pointlessly made worse'.
Just like buttons named after shapes, completely unintuitive and done just for the sake of being different.
Yes I've come to accept that although its sad what happened to Sega with all their terrible business decisions, they still gave me access to many of my fave games of all time. A smarter more successful Sega may not have even made those games and systems and I'd actually have missed out as a result.
No major publisher now would allow the equivalent of Sonic Team deciding to go and make Nights and Burning Rangers instead of a proper Sonic sequel on the Saturn.
sixteen-bit
Member
Y'all wanna shit on the PS1 d-pad, but the SF4 winner of 2014 Evo used a PS1 pad, lol.
ResidentDante
Member
Imagine then what he could have done if he'd had a Saturn pad!
sixteen-bit
Member
probably much worse since he was used to the PS1 pad.
I remember back in the earlier days of the N64, Nintendo had a 'policy' where only select games would be published on the system, to ensure quality (lol). You can find lots of
propaganda
This could have been due to any number of factors, including production constraints on N64 carts, limited dev kits, etc., but the fact is, this left a lot of developers feeling alienated, and the policy totally blew-up in Nintendo's face. Nintendo essentially could pick and choose which games it would allow a license and cart-production window, and they obviously had a bias towards games that really pushed the N64 3D-prowess. By the time the Nintendo decided to ease-up on the decision, many developers had moved on, and didn't look back until the next gen (Capcom, mostly-included.)
I always wanted a port of XvsSF on the N64, and I recall reading in an old Gamefan mag, back in the day, that one was reportedly happening, at some point...
That being said, the Saturn port is a phenom, and in my top three on the system.
IrishNinja
Member
so i'm on a roll - pretty far along (i think?) in Beyond Oasis now...
really think i'll tie it up tonight...have to admit to using scumstates on the platforming sections though, ugh i'm not a fan of those
also, a buddy hit me up to say he found the cardboard box & manual for the game, so i should have a complete copy soon!
exactly, perfect example - i got a system with stuff like that, Panzer Dragoon and its 2D strengths shining on arcade ports that prolly got trashed (if reviewed at all) at the time, but really shine now
gorgeous...reminds me, after i tie things up im debating finally playing through those PS II text adventures! translations look solid
got the 4th element, rescued the princess & am climbing some big dungeon thing that hopefully leads to this silver armlet asshole?
also, a buddy hit me up to say he found the cardboard box & manual for the game, so i should have a complete copy soon!
exactly, perfect example - i got a system with stuff like that, Panzer Dragoon and its 2D strengths shining on arcade ports that prolly got trashed (if reviewed at all) at the time, but really shine now
gorgeous...reminds me, after i tie things up im debating finally playing through those PS II text adventures! translations look solid
Sega went bankrupt for our enjoyment.
IrishNinja
Member
^yupp
so how are we not celebrating Sonic 2sday up in here? 23rd anniversary, and Al Nilsen's showing off stuff on his twitter & giving away a singed copy of Console Wars to boot!
also, might have to tray the Sonic 2sday Challenge!
so how are we not celebrating Sonic 2sday up in here? 23rd anniversary, and Al Nilsen's showing off stuff on his twitter & giving away a singed copy of Console Wars to boot!
few years back, but still got my shirt
also, might have to tray the Sonic 2sday Challenge!
Sixfortyfive
He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
I hated that controller 20 years ago, and my opinion has not improved with the passage of time.
sixteen-bit
Member
Pretty sure I saw that shirt @ hot topic once.
IrishNinja
Member
haha shut yo mouf 16
kinda wish they'd reprint it though! id love to get my launch day DC shirt back
Wow, that's pretty impressive.
I wonder how capable it really is though. Seems like he only implemented what was necessary for his demo.
Still, more options are for the homebrew community are great.
blast processed
Member
Always wanted to order one of those light up Sega signs.
It should be noted, however, in Brazil the Master System is still in production and even holds it owns against the PS4 in sales.
I'm moving to Brazil.
ResidentDante
Member
True. I guess one can get used to pretty much any controller, if it clearly doesn't have a fault like input delay or something.
Not really... there are machines in production that say "Master System [insert number here]" on them but they're pretty much just generic Java/Android boxes that bear no resemblance to a real SMS.
I know. They do that here in the US, just with Genesis instead.
No, I mean they literally play mobile phones games and other generic crap that often has nothing to do with Sega or Master System. I've got one in a closet somewhere that came pre-installed with a bunch of EA shovelware: pre-smartphone phone versions of The Sims and Need for Speed and all sorts of garbage.
hah, awesome