Sega Genesis Mini: The Kotaku Review

Sega has always been more loved than successful. At no time has the Genesis and Dreamcast manufacturer become the world leader in video games. When he succeeded in America, he failed in Japan and vice versa. The Genesis Mini is a synthesis of the moment closest to victory – a reminder of what Genesis was, but also what it could have been.

The Sega Genesis Mini at $ 80, coming out on September 19, includes 42 classic games of 16-bit system life. This is a considerable sum, exactly double that of Nintendo's SNES Classic. It also includes two of the classic Genesis three-button controllers, an HDMI cable and a USB cable with AC adapter, in other words, everything you need to play right away.

The material is a beauty thing, a perfect recreation of the 1989 launch model, Genesis. The Genesis Mini goes even further than other classic mini-hardware with interactive elements. The volume control slides up and down, the flaps of the spring-loaded dust cover over the cartridge slot open and close, and you can even remove the port cover to connect the real Genesis to a CD Sega.

None of these things actually a function, of course. You can not read Genesis Cartridges on this machine. There is also no Sega CD accessory of proportional size allowing you to read Sewer shark (Although we can all agree that we would buy such a product immediately). But they make the Mini Genesis itself a fun toy before even turning it on.

The included controllers give the impression of exactly duplicating the original crescent-shaped massive blocks provided with the first model of the Genesis. This is where you can get the impression that Sega made a mistake with the Mini, since it includes these 3-button pads and not the 6-button controllers produced later. In Japan, 6-button pads are included; here they represent an additional purchase of $ 20. Most games only use three buttons, but for those with 6-button Street Fighter II Special Edition Champion), you will have to pay.

Even though the controllers use USB, you can not simply plug in an old USB controller and run it on the Mini. You will need an officially licensed controller from Retro-Bit. Sega sent samples of excellent 6 button controllers. They have been useful even for games that do not need six buttons, because you can press the "Mode" button to open the system menu. To access the menu with a 3-button touchpad, you have to hold down the Start button for three seconds, which is annoying.

So was it an error to include 3-button pads? I lean towards "no". The appeal of a mini-console like this is not limited to gameplay; it is also this little replica of the thing itself. Most people who played in Genesis at the time used these controllers. He completes the nostalgic circle to start Sonic the hedgehog again and feel one of those big chonky woods in your hands, as you remember.

Like the classic Nintendo systems, the Genesis Mini has an original menu screen music composed in a classic chiptune style. Unlike Nintendo systems, the melody here is composed by the king of 16-bit music, Yuzo Koshiro (Streets of Rage and Actraiser among others). The new music is what the kids call today a "bop". I just like to let her run and listen to her. They even synced the startup sequence of the Mini with the music. It's attention to detail!

The Mini is weak on the features of the software. This is obvious: you can choose to watch the games in their appropriate 4: 3 aspect ratio or be weird and extend them like a crazy carnival mirror on your entire TV. You can enable and disable a "CRT filter" for fake scan lines and apply one of two different screen backgrounds to the empty space around the 4: 3 image. There is a "save anywhere" feature with four slots per game. And that's about it. I would have really liked seeing a Rewind feature such as the SNES Classic.

But all this would make no sense without some games to play, and with 42 titles, Genesis has the most major minis. When you think of your childhood playing Genesis, which game do you return to immediately? NBA Jam? Joe Montana Football? Aladdin? Deadly fight?

Oh. Well, none of them are on this point.

There is an obstacle for the Genesis Mini that the SNES Classic does not really have to deal with. If you look at the top-selling games for SNES, most games in the top 20 are on the SNES Classic. But look at the best-selling games for Genesis and you can see the problem: sports licenses, movie licenses and fighting games that deserve this box to get the rating "Mature".

Sega after popular licenses and games filled with great movies, professional athletes and sports franchises was part of Sega's game plan in the 1990s. And it worked! But it also left the current Sega a library of software that is virtually unworkable today. This means that if, like many American Sega fans, you have practiced a lot of sport on your Genesis, you will not find this experience here.

Sega has definitely tried to get on the Mini games designed for Western audiences, as Jim earthworm, Vectorman, and Road Rash II. But overall, we're looking at a range of stylish Japanese action games, JRPGs and shmups. It's almost the kind of Genesis collection you'll find at someone who prefers the Super Nintendo. It's a Genesis collection for mein other words, I do not complain.

Here is the complete list of games. I've played at each of these games, some for hours (Bright force), some for a few minutes (Jim earthworm). I will organize them arbitrarily and irrevocably in four levels: a level, a level B, a level C and Virtua Fighter 2 For the level of genesis.

A step

• Castlevania: the lines
• Bright force
• Gunstar Heroes
• Shinobi 3
• Contra: Hard body
• Beyond the oasis
• Phantasy Star 4: The end of the millennium
• Wonder Boy in Monster World
• Strider
• Monster World 4
• Alisia Dragoon
• Dynamite Headdy

Level B

• Sonic the hedgehog
• Ecco The Dauphin
• Dr. Robotnik's medium bean machine
• Comix area
• Castle of illusion with Mickey Mouse
• The world of illusion with Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck
• Thunder Force 3
• Streets of Rage 2
• Sonic the hedgehog 2
• Landstalker
• Street Fighter 2: Champion Special Edition
• Ghouls' n Ghosts
• Gold hatchet
• Tetris
• Darius
• The columns
• Super Fantasy Zone

Level C

• Space Harrier 2
• ToeJam & Earl
• Modified Beast
• Jim earthworm
• Mega Man: The Cunning Wars
• Alex Kidd in the enchanted castle
• Sonic the Spinball Hedgehog
• Vectorman
• Road Rash 2
• Chameleon
• Eternal Champions
• Light Crusader

Virtua Fighter 2 For the level of genesis

As you can see, regardless of the ranking of these games, the Genesis Mini has a powerful bench. To give the console a greater variety, Sega decided to follow a rule of one game per set, with a limited exception. While I appreciate the efforts for diversity, I do not think they should have been so strict in this regard. I would have preferred to play the original Streets of Rage, or Bright Force II, instead of – let me draw a hat from here – the Genesis version of Virtua Fighter 2, a game that probably should not have existed and does not really need to be resurfaced here.

But in general, the range is strong. The old Genesis small consoles did not really represent the best of the best that the platform could offer. Here, finally, we have some prominent action games like Gunstar Heroes and Castlevania: the lines. We jump at the end of the Wonder Boy in Monster World series to arrive at the two horizontally scrolling JRPGs, under-appreciated in their day, but still as vivid today.

SNES Classic presented a new game from the 1990s, Star Fox 2, of course, the Genesis Mini had to double this count also, adding the unpublished version of Genesis from Tetris and the version worn by fans of the arcade game Darius. Since we're coming back here in the 1990s, I'm going back to my magazine vocabulary for turn-of-the-century video game enthusiasts and say these words as "a mix." Darius is very fun but this port of Tetris is rather anemic. SNES Classic wins the wars of the "new game", but that's probably because only Nintendo could ever have missed a perfectly successful match.

There is another important bonus that shows how the Mini Genesis looks more like an enthusiast project than a bland marketing medium. You can configure the menu to display in many different languages, which changes the overall menu design. The menu will look like the Genesis logo and design of this region, moving to the name "Mega Drive" for Europe and Japan. And if so, the games themselves will play in that language, using other ROM files. Beyond the oasis actually had, for example, a French version.

Some games differed more than their languages. If you change your language to Japanese, Dr. Robotnik's medium bean machine will return to its original Japanese version, Puyo Puyo. Other differences are more subtle but important, like the Japanese version of Contra: Hard body gives the player a three-bar life counter instead of killing a shot. Or you can simply play the Japanese version of Street Fighter II because you want "Mr. "Bison" to be named "Vega". I am not here to judge. This additional approach makes Genesis Mini an exploration of the era much more in-depth than the tiny, competing boxes.

One wonders, on the eve of the release of this very cool device, if Sega missed the window of infatuation for the mini-console. After the huge success of the NES Classic, the market was flooded with copies. The bad taste of the ill-made PlayStation Classic has still not been completely erased from our collective mouths. Will people queuing to buy another small console during these holidays and reward Sega for his Herculean, even late, efforts here? Those who add another Mini to the stack will be at least not at all disappointed with it.