Rank: Penguin Editor in Chief
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Location: Scotland, Geographical Penguin Shit
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As you know, I had a two-week vacation in Spain and as such wasn't able to really get anything for you up on the site for retro or new stuff. So, to make up for this, I have decided to give you a special review, on a game that combines the two from 2 months ago. I know it's not in the public eye, but dammit it should be, because this is a game you have to at least look at. Welcome to...
(oddly enough the inside of my head is like this.)
MODERN/CLASSIC GAMING
Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection/Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection
Developer: Backbone Entertainment
Publisher: Sega
Genre: Platformer/RPG/Beat-em-up/Puzzle/Shooter
Year: 2009
System: Xbox 360, PS3
Some of you may know about emulators, but for those who do not, let me enlighten you. Emulators are special programs which can play ROMs of certain consoles, some of them even able to include bonuses like rewinding, fast forwarding and save states. Now imagine an emulator that was official, licensed by a videogame company to play on a console. That is Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection.
Story - Pick a story, any story from the 49 games Sega created within so long ago in the early age of console gaming. Here are all the games Sega have given us for this collection, with a few even not from the Mega Drive itself. I mean holy shit, this is a retro orgasm, good to also see the less popular ghames in here, but they all have one defining connection. They are all made by Sega. Hell all the RPGs alone will keep you going for a looooong time.
* Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle
* Alien Storm
* Alien Syndrome (arcade)
* Altered Beast (Genesis and arcade)
* Beyond Oasis
* Bonanza Bros.
* Columns
* Comix Zone
* Congo Bongo (arcade)
* Decap Attack
* Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine
* Dynamite Headdy
* ESWAT: City Under Siege
* Ecco the Dolphin
* Ecco: The Tides of Time
* Fantasy Zone (arcade)
* Fatal Labyrinth
* Flicky
* Gain Ground
* Golden Axe
* Golden Axe II
* Golden Axe III
* Golden Axe Warrior (Sega Master System)
* Kid Chameleon
* Phantasy Star (Sega Master System)
* Phantasy Star II
* Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom
* Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium
* Ristar
* Shining in the Darkness
* Shining Force
* Shining Force II: Ancient Sealing
* Shinobi (arcade)
* Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master
* Sonic 3D Blast
* Sonic & Knuckles
* Sonic Spinball
* Sonic the Hedgehog
* Sonic the Hedgehog 2
* Sonic the Hedgehog 3
* Space Harrier (arcade)
* Streets of Rage
* Streets of Rage 2
* Streets of Rage 3
* Super Thunder Blade
* Vectorman
* Vectorman 2
* Zaxxon (arcade)
Gameplay - Since all the games work differently from the Phantasy Star RPGs to the Streets of Rage beat-em-ups, I will only rate how the controls are for each genre of games or for special cases in terms of the 360 controller I used.
(WELCOME TO THE FANTASY ZONE, MOTHERFUCKERS!)
Platformers (Sonic the Hedgehog, Ristar, Alex Kidd) - The controls feel like yesterday in their simplicity, better even for having more freedom and despite the more SNES-style button layout of the PS3 and 360, it feels like the Mega Drive was for me. No real difference here thankfully, though one complaint comes from Ristar where aiming for enemies with the analog stick to grab them is a little crazy, you never seem to aim just right with it due to its sensitivity.
Shooters (Space Harrier, Alien Syndrome, Fantasy Zone) - Better than the originals due to the analog stick offering better range of movement and more smoother as well. Best example of controls would be Space Harrier, the analog works beautifully with this as it was programmed to be with that sort of directional control.
Beat-em-ups (Comix Zone, Streets of Rage, Golden Axe) - Undoubtedly the best of the lot in terms of control, moving the characters feels less sticky than in the originals, the controls are spread out nicely so for an easier time, and I will say here and now that Comix Zone had the best transference of controls ever. See, Comix Zone has a quite complex set up. It had punching, kicking with one button, blocking and moving with the d-pad, and one button for selecting inventory items. Now, every inventory item has its OWN button as does blocking, offering a much better experience to rip the shit out of those comics.
(Ahhh nothing like beating up independent women while morally superior in the 90s)
Puzzle (Columns, Dr. Robotniks Mean Bean Machine) - And here we have the worst controls. The analog stick is terrible for making precise input of where you want to put your blobs or blocks, so these games unfortunately suffer quite a bit from the upgrade from d-pad to analog.
But hey, the 360 has a d-pad right? Well yes but that's just a plastic turd, does anyone have a good use for that d-pad other than quick changing in Dead Space? Seriously that thing is just a piece of crap, ESPECIALLY in fighting games like Street Fighter IV, which I REALLY should have mentioned in the review on that, sorry folks.
RPGs (Phantasy Star, Fatal Labyrinth, Shining Force) - There's really no change here, RPGs are those sort of games that work with any controller because they usually do not require quick judging.
There's little else to say on the Ultimate Collection itself other than the fact that each game has its own small history and trivia page, as well a sa ton of unlockables, most of them being interviews with the creators. Really all I can do is make personal recommendations on games I really enjoyed out of this....and I will.
Bonanza Bros - This old-style arcade game is actually quite fun, traversing a faux-3D map of a building to gather all the treasures, deal with the guards and escape on your blimp, surprisingly addictive with good music.
Comix Zone - As I said before, the controls are magnificent on this game and the graphics and music are still kickass with difficulty still brutal. Any of the beat-em-ups are great but in terms of controls, this is the best.
Space Harrier - A true arcade classic, full of obstacles, and sweet graphics. Welcome to the fantasy zone!
Ristar - Original colourful platformer larger than life but sadly did not become so, it was planned to be a Sega mascot as big as Sonic but fell off the map.
(The SPORE Extermination Team eliminates the last Sporn monsters)
And now for a rundown on the games I personally do not recommend playing.
Fatal Labyrinth - This is a really basic dungeon crawler, really old Gauntlet style traversing which if you loved back in the day, sure go ahead but it's a little lacklustre with very repetitive hallways and no map and a Food counter that you have to keep full.
ESWAT - This is fucking terrible. It feels uninspired other than its "innovative" jumping. You have two jumps. High jump and normal jump. High jump can make you jump into the background like say, behind a fence, but sometimes you wanna jump up a ledge, not into the background, and believe me, the final boss fight before the achievement for that game WILL fucking frustrate you.
Sonic 3D Blast - Surprised to see an old Sonic game I hate? Well tough nuts, because this game I actually played on the Sega Saturn is just terrible. Being an early contender for 3D, the controls are awful even if the analog does work better on this than the d-pad ever did but Sonic is still like a tank on ice in this game, the perspective is irritating, the bonus stages meant to emulate those from Sonic 2 look horrific, and the music is mundane and classic of Richard Jacques. Just that one achievement you need and then you never play it again.
Oh and here's a couple more things you'll love about the games. Firstly, for certain games like the shooters, there's a rapid fire option in the control setup, just if you want it. Secondly, every single cheat in those games works. EVERY SINGLE ONE. I tested this out with some from Vectorman and Ecco the Dolphin, and it's just perfect. So enjoy having some of the easiest achievements ever. And finally, quite a few of these games are 2 player, so if you got a pal who also loves the old school, then relive the experience of beating the shit out of your friend "by mistake" in Streets of Rage.
(Death Adder always did have a thing for Fabio, which is why he killed his sunbed, because strapping oiled men always want revenge for EVERYTHING)
Graphics - What's there to say about the graphics? Well all the games have their own graphical styles, I can't really say on how it is overall, other than the graphics looking so fresh from their heyday on a bigger screen, mindblowingly so. It's hard to say because it all depends on your experience and equipment with each one of them, but the smoothness of games like Ecco and Sonic are just wonderful. There's no slowdown, no frame rate grinding like you might have gotten back in the day on your Mega Drive, so it's all retro eye viagra. Oh, also, you can choose the screen size manually so it can fit your whole screen for all the glory.
Music/Sound - Just....absolutely perfect, a perfect conversion with the only difference being whatever your TV can do now that it has some old games to be played on it (I mean newer TVs can't play anything that's N64 or older after all, right?) so there's no problems here other than the games' own soundtracks back in the day. The real classics to look out for are Golden Axe, Comix Zone, Sonic the Hedgehog and Ristar. Seriously awesome music right there. Even the music on the menu is good, very nostalgic feeling which perfectly amplifies the game itself and the games themselves.
Overall, this is one of the finest, no, THE finest retro videogame collection ever made. Every game in there may not be a winner but they are all old school, some older than others, you will undoubtedly find at least THREE memorable games in there that aren't even Sonic, I bet that. My only truest complaint with this is no Eternal Champions.
Seriously. I fucking love Eternal Champions and after seeing how brilliant they did up Comix Zone's controls, the stuff they could have done with Eternal Champions would have been EPIC.
If anything it could have replaced ESWAT which in my opinion is the worst game of the bunch for its frustratingly stupid jumping controls.
Fun and Innovation - 4
Replayability - 5
Gameplay - 5
Presentation - 5"Videogames are bad for you? That's what they said about rock 'n' roll." - Shigeru Miyamoto  Hail Slither, The Eternal Champion!
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Rank: You're gonna stick that where?
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Eternal Champions would have been awesome. It should be mentioned that this game is incredibly easy to get all the trophies/achievements if you're into that sort of thing. Hopefully they will put another compilation of their sega cd/saturn/dreamcast hits. I really want to play Sonic CD and Shining Force CD. Whut Whut in the butt.
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Rank: Penguin Editor in Chief
Groups: Newsie, {pDs} Member
Joined: 6/15/2006
Posts: 594
Points: 486
Location: Scotland, Geographical Penguin Shit
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individual wrote:Eternal Champions would have been awesome. It should be mentioned that this game is incredibly easy to get all the trophies/achievements if you're into that sort of thing. Hopefully they will put another compilation of their sega cd/saturn/dreamcast hits. I really want to play Sonic CD and Shining Force CD. They really need to make one involving a few (or rather, the only) good Sega CD games, which really come up to Sonic CD, Ecco CD, Eternal Champions CD and Shining Force CD. However, the Sonic Gems Collection on Gamecube or PS2 has Sonic CD, so go look for that. "Videogames are bad for you? That's what they said about rock 'n' roll." - Shigeru Miyamoto Hail Slither, The Eternal Champion!
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Rank: You're gonna stick that where?
Groups: {pDs} Member, Moderator, Server Admin
Joined: 5/9/2006
Posts: 412
Points: 66
Location: the internet
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oh I forgot all about Eternal Champions CD! IGN has a really good retrospective and history of sega on their site. IGN - The History of SegaWhut Whut in the butt.
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