Genesis recommendations

[extrarice]

My empire of classic consoles is expanding bit by bit, with the latest addition being a Genesis. I have never really paid much attention to Sega's consoles, so I'm at a loss of what titles are quality. I have a few Genesis carts that I remembered from my childhood, but nothing beyond that. Similar to Demonic Weasel's thread about collecting SNES games, what would you all recommend I look into? (note: I have zero interest in sports titles, but anything else is fair game) Thanks for the info! :D

[Joe Redifer]

Well you NEED John Madden Football, John Madden Football '92, Madden '93, Madden '94, Madded '95, Madden '96, Madden '97, Madden '98, Madden '99, and Madden '00.

Oh wait... no sports games? OK. Here's some good recommendations to look into:

-Thunder Force 2, 3, and Lightening Force (the US name for Thunder Force 4).
-Wonder Boy in Monster World (starts out slow but give it a chance)
-Midnight Resistance (fun Contra rip-off)
-Castlevania Bloodlines
-Ghouls N' Ghosts (far better than the SNES Super version if you ask me)
-Forgotten Worlds
-Strider
-Sonic 1 and 2 (duh). Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles are optional.
-Herzog Zwei (the first RTS ever... and in my opinion the best)
-Phantasy Star 2, 4
-Streets of Rage 1, 2 (part 3 is very, very optional)
-Golden Axe (part 2 is optional)
-Gunstar Heroes
-Castle of Illusion starring your homey and mine Mickey Mouse
-Road Rash (the first one was my favorite because of the music)
-Revenge of Shinobi
-Shinobi III
-Shadow Dancer (required!)
-Mystic Defender
-Rocket Knight Adventures
-MUSHA

There are plenty of others as well, but these should get ya started.

[Demonic Weasel]

Genesis games eh? Well then here's my list. I'll probably repeat Joe a couple of times though.

As far as the Streets of Rage series goes, I say get all three. And get all three Phantasy Star titles. Phantasy Star 3 may be a weak link, but it's still lot's of fun. Now for the actual list.

Shining Force: The Legacy of Great Intention
Shining Force 2
Shining in the Darkness
Flicky
Gain Ground
Golden Axe
Beyond Oasis
Landstalker
Light Crusader
Faery Tale Adventure
Crusader of Centy
All Sonic except the optional 3D Blast
Altered Beast
Comix Zone
Sunset Riders
Rocket Knight Adventures
Frogger
Gemfire
Exile
Mercs
Kings Bounty is optional
Mickey Mania
Pirates of the Dark Water
Rings of Power
Aladdin
Warsong

That's about all I can think of right now. Do you want some details about any of the games? And do you want recommendations for the Sega CD and 32X as well?

[Melf]

Moving to Genesis Does!

Our handy Genre Spotlight articles should be of some help. There's a ton of great info there.

On the spot, I'd recommend Gunstar Heroes, the Monster World Games, and anything Shining!

[Joe Redifer]

Phantasy Star 3 may be a weak link, but it's still lot's of fun.
I agree, it's much better than its reputation on the internet would lead you to believe.

[Demonic Weasel]

On the subject, I never got very far in the game because I couldn't save. Can anybody enlighten me?

[extrarice]

Genesis games eh? Well then here's my list. I'll probably repeat Joe a couple of times though.

....

That's about all I can think of right now. Do you want some details about any of the games? And do you want recommendations for the Sega CD and 32X as well?
Some details would be great! I can look up screenshots on vgmuseum.com, but that doesn't really give the whole picture. Though I am reading through the reviews here on sega-16.
As for now, I'm sticking with straight Genesis. Perhaps later on I'll look into Sega CD and 32X.

Thanks for all your lists! :D

[GeckoYamori]

The articles on the site should be of great help to you.

[Dartagnan1083]

On the subject, I never got very far in the game because I couldn't save. Can anybody enlighten me?

I forget how to save, but I remember managing without the manual.
Just be sure to check every building in the first two town and check every option in the menu.

If you're still stuck on saving I'm afraid I can't offer too much help

[Demonic Weasel]

Well I know the answer isn't in the menu or the first town.

Anyway details away. The three Shining Force games (I'm a fanboy so my opinion is hugely biased) are all RPG's. Shining in the Darkness is a true RPG and the other two were the beginning of the greatest Stategy RPG series of all times. You might want to check the reviews for details. I think just about all of the games that were mentioned are there. I'd talk some more, but I'm short on time and must be going. Sorry.

[Dartagnan1083]

*slaps forehead*

I completely forgot that I aquired a complete copy of Phantasy Star III last year.
the manual states that you save at the inns.
unless the manual is mistyped, I would suggest trying the inns.

If they don't offer right away, I think you might need to pay first.
I'm not sure, I stopped playing after a small amount of dungeons

[Demonic Weasel]

Okay. I'll try that. Thanks for the info.

[Gary_Oak]

Okay, let's get started:

Alien Soldier (Great game, but make sure you can avoid frustration)
Gunstar Heroes (This is one game you don't wanna miss)
Streets of Rage 2 (Really good game, even better if you have a friend to play with)
Rocket Knight Adventures (A little hard, but It's a platformer that you're gonna love)
Ristar (Same as above)
Sparkster (Yet same as above)
All Sonic Games (They are fun, easy, and totally addicting)
Wonderboy in Monster World (A very nice Action/RPG that will keep you busy for a couple of days)
Revenge of Shinobi (Believe me, this is one you don't want to miss)
Shining Force 2 (If you like Strategy games, go for it)
Phantasy Star 4 (An easy RPG, but beware of the bosses)

[Joe Redifer]

Avoid Sonic Spinball. It is very chunky and made by people who don't optimize their code.

[j_factor]

I like Sonic Spinball.

[Joe Redifer]

Well too bad!

[Zebbe]

Sonic Spinball is nice to play through once and then have next to your other Sonic games on the shelf, even though it's not a tr00 Sonic game.

[Demonic Weasel]

Sonic Spinball is better than 3D Blast at least. And I liked it too. But I am not entitled to that opinion it seems.

[Joe Redifer]

That is correct. :)

[Zebbe]

Nope, 3D Flickies' Island is better :)

[Demonic Weasel]

Allow me to beg to differ, but if there's any one Sonic game I absolutely despise it would have to be 3D Blast. I found Sonic Spinball on the other hand to be a nice and underrated little distraction.

[Zebbe]

I rank them both lowest of all Mega Drive Sonic games, and prefer 3D Flickies' Island because it feels more like a "true" Sonic game, even though Traveler's Tales produced it. I also enjoy the originality of Spinball, but the game is too short and getting stuck is so annoying in that game.

[Demonic Weasel]

I agree with you, but Sonic Spinball felt like a sort of side game. A mini-game of sorts that retained the true feel of the game in general. To me 3D Blast was just a rip-off of the Sonic name and a poorly made one at that.

[Obviously]

I just can't play 3D blast. I remember being impressed with it as a kid for about the first level before I got so annoyed with the design that I just couldn't play it anymore. I gave it many, many chances but I just can't enjoy it.

Spinball on the other hand... I enjoy it for what it is. It's a terrible pinball game but it's not a terrible game over all. I had fun with it but it's not a timeless classic that I'll go and beat over and over again like the real Sonic games. Once is enough for me thanks. I also get a kick out of the inclusion of some US Sonic characters in the bonus stages because I'm an idiot like that.

I really wouldn't recommend either unless you want to be a completist and have all the 16-bit Sonic titles.

[David J.]

Hey, I like all of the sonic games on the Genesis, even Spinball and blast. Just need to get spinball and S&K. And maybe non not-for-resale versions.

PROTIP: I own 4 of the 5 versions of Sonic 3D Blast. The PC, Saturn, Genesis and the Game Gear version, Sonic Blast (a lame sonic game). Just missing the SMS version, which is a lamer port of the GG game. And soon I'll be getting the back insert to the Saturn version of Sonic 3D Blast as mine is incomplete.

[Joe Redifer]

Sonic Spinball was too dark, too chunky looking, and the sound was too poor and scratchy to be enjoyable.

[Dartagnan1083]

I can play 3D blast just fine. . .for about 40 minutes.

But it's Sonic Adventure 2 that I absolutly despise and wish to burn in many bonfires.

[FishySaysSpoon]

Can't go wrong with Toejam and Earl 1 and 2 as well as the ecco the dolphin games.

[Obviously]

I can play 3D blast just fine. . .for about 40 minutes.

But it's Sonic Adventure 2 that I absolutly despise and wish to burn in many bonfires.

I couldn't stand Adventure 2 either. It just felt like such a rushed and poor attempt especially after the first Adventure had so much promise and room for improvement. One of my friends calls it, "The best Sonic game where you almost never play Sonic."

[j_factor]

I loved Adventure 2. It's not perfect, but it improved upon or removed almost every problem I had with Adventure:

- adventure fields (Sonic is supposed to be a series of platforming levels, not this quest crap)
- Big the Cat (his stages sucked so much that I could never bear to complete them)
- camera (certainly not perfect, but SA2 didn't violently pan around and launch me into pits)
- framerate (not usually a big concern for me, but high-speed at 30fps looks pretty choppy, especially if you move sideways)
- the hunting stages (not amazing, but much better than SA1's super-dull hunting stages)
- the shooting stages (same as above)
- the Amy stages (those were really lame and unnecessary)

I also preferred SA2's soundtrack and level design. The only thing I can say I liked better in SA1 is the plot. I don't get why people rag on SA2 so much -- the #1 complaint I hear about it is "the Sonic/Shadow stages are awesome, but they're only 1/3 of the game!" ...but it's not like Sonic comprises more than 1/3 of SA1, and the non-Sonic parts are more refined in SA2.

[Obviously]

The soundtrack for the dark team was pretty good, but the soundtrack of the light side of the game had me gritting my teeth all the way through. Strangely I actually had more camera issues in 2 instead of 1 but I heard that the Gamecube Adventure 2 which I never played fixed a few issues such as the camera.

I just really didn't have any fun playing through the game compared to the fun I had with Adventure 1. Maybe by that time the nostalgia factor had died out.

I've complained about the first Adventure's non-Sonic bits in the past as well, mainly because I don't want to buy a Sonic game to be forced to play the wacky sidekicks that Sega keeps dreaming up. I still feel personally that the Sonic campaign in Adventure 1 was the best attempt at a 3D Sonic thus far and it still felt like the main focus of the game with the others just being shorter side stories. In Adventure 2 I get the feeling that Sonic's levels are just a piece of the game and not the real meat.

I guess in the end I still ended up buying both... touche Sega.

[Dartagnan1083]

I absolutly hated the levels in Adventure 2

Sonic/Shadow
-Hold up and jump occasinally. Or grind and do nothing for about a minute
Serriously. . .in the first game there were branches that truly rewarded tinkering and maintaining speed. In SA2 you would just occasinally find a place to grind and save 2 seconds. This character is supposed to carry the game, but there are only 3 decent levels for sonic, and 1 decent level for Shadow.

This is the problem.
Refined levels my ass.
They sucked, and seemed designed for holding up. . .so most of them were asthetically weak as well.
I spent 95% of the levels holding striaight up without so much as a weave or alternate path to manuver into.
the better levels for me were the ones that actually required you to switch gears and use a little SIDEWAYS movement.

Tails/Eggman
-hold up and shoot stuff while messing with a convoluted jumping system.
Serriously, these levels were broken and uninteresting.
I would hover, glide over to the ledge in sight, Land on the edge. . .yet suddenly find myself falling to my death as the walker-legs straightened.

HUNTING
-the shards were smaller this time and easy to miss.
Levels were also unneccessarily large and complex. Who the hell wants to meticulously swim around while worrying about air. Who wants to roam through a room full of lockers and time sensitive switches.
If shit happens in these levels (and considering that helpful items are well hidden, shit will most certainly happen) you'll be stuck for an hour having to listen to horrible music.
It's not that I suck. . .I managed to get mostly A's with each character.
It's just that I find them so unpleasant that I never want to go back



The ONLY THINGS I felt was at all better in SA2 were the boss battles and chao raising.
That's it. . .(oh yeah, and BIG was removed too).

Everything else was rushed and shitty.
I must be the only person in the world that never had a huge problem with SA1's camera.
Sure it wasn't perfect, and I did encounter a few glitches, but it NEVER ruined the game for me.

[j_factor]

The shards are supposed to be easy to miss. The hunting stages sucked in SA1 because the shards were big and stuck out, the radar was cheap, and the levels were small and simplistic -- in other words, there was absolutely zero challenge involved in "finding" anything. In SA2 the levels are bigger and complex and the things are actually hidden (and the radar is toned down), so there's a challenge to it and it actually feels like you're searching for something. Although I really hated that Rouge level with that thing that "patrols" around and attacks you, the rest wasn't too bad.

Also, it's kind of weird that you keep calling SA2 rushed, considering SA1 had a shorter (and shortened) development period and more cuts.

And everybody knows that the best attempt at Sonic in 3D was Sonic World. :P

[Jubal]

as far as recomends for the Genesis

a few i enjoy are

Shadowrun
Road Rash 2 & 3
Lost Vikings
Starflight
Outlander (tho I always die at the 2d part heh)

[Dartagnan1083]

*j_factor

On the Hunt levels
you're confusing Challanging with Frustrating.
I wonder what benifit there is to having shards that are easy to miss. That essentially enables people to get stuck in one room for ungodly amounts of time since the radar is exactly the same as it was in the first game.
I thought it was nice that they expanded the level designs, but execution was way off. If I had my way, I would have made large levels that required use of Knux's abilities, but did not involve treasure hunting.


Development time means shit when the game's director (Iizuka) is the gaming equivlant of the anti-christ.

[j_factor]

*j_factor

On the Hunt levels
you're confusing Challanging with Frustrating.
I wonder what benifit there is to having shards that are easy to miss. That essentially enables people to get stuck in one room for ungodly amounts of time since the radar is exactly the same as it was in the first game.

You shouldn't get stuck that long; it's not that difficult. You just have to read the clues on the monitors. Shards being easy to miss is a benefit because it makes it so you have to use those, rather than just walking in the direction that makes your radar beep faster until you bump into it.

As for frustrating, I was only really frustrated by the aforementioned Rouge level, the Knuckles level "in space" with the meteors that sometimes hit you, and the Knuckles portion of that multi-character level at the end. And the frustration there was due to unfortunate level design choices... the actual hunting gameplay, while not the most enthralling thing in the world, wasn't terribly frustrating IMO.

And no, the radar isn't exactly the same. I just double checked this. SA2's radar has just three levels, green yellow and red; so it only gives you an idea of where it is, rather than telling you. SA1's radar is far more gradual and specific -- to the point of being too helpful, IMO.


I thought it was nice that they expanded the level designs, but execution was way off. If I had my way, I would have made large levels that required use of Knux's abilities, but did not involve treasure hunting.

Well, ideally, yes, I agree with that. But what I was expressing was that the hunting levels are much worse in SA1 (IMO), so I don't see them as a detriment to SA2 in comparison.

And I'd rather play 100 hunting levels than any more of that fishing shit. :P

[Obviously]

The fishing shit was such a small part of the game that it didn't even really matter. I agree it was terrible and if they wanted it there it should've been a mini-game and not important to unlocking the ending.

I also can't stand the search levels in either game.

Apparently Sega finally heard me shouting at the top of my lungs to make a decent real Sonic game again because Sonic Rush is pretty good.

[j_factor]

I agree, Sonic Rush is the best Sonic game in a long time.

[Joe Redifer]

I was actually disappointed in Sonic Rush. It got boring rather quickly and seemed insanely hard and unplayable. It should have been called Tony Hawk's X-Treme Sonic Rush.

Pass.

[j_factor]

Insanely hard? Whaaaaat? It's kind of easy, just like almost all Sonic games.

[Obviously]

I like Sonic Rush because it returned the speed to the series. The sense of speed was seriously lacking in recent titles.

[j_factor]

I like Sonic Rush because of its finger acrobatics. Boost, trick, boost, trick. Yeah. It's cool.

Although a little obnoxious sounding. I wish Sonic didn't go "yeah! alright! yeah!" etc. all the time. Not only is it annoying to hear, it covers up the great music.

[Joe Redifer]

I really didn't like the "tricks" part of it. Maybe if I was a skater punk, but I just don't like being REQUIRED to do "tricks" in games. Like I said, Tony Hawk's X-Treme Sonic Rush.

And yes, it is hard. I keep flying off to oblivion as there are tons upon tons of bottomless pits in the game. No room to explore.

[j_factor]

I've heard that complaint before, that there are "tons" of bottomless pits. I've fallen into a grand total of three in the entire game...

[Joe Redifer]

You are lucky. I wish I had the same experience you did with the game, because I'm sure I'd appreciate it more.

[Elusive]

Sonic Adventure 2 took everything so excellent in the first game and took a great big steamy dump all over it. Then burnt it and wrote vaguely threatening letters to its mother. Who it then set on fire.

Corridor 'let's-run-around-a-really-tight-space-and-lock-on-to-things' levels, obnoxious 'WOO YEAH PARTY WOO RAAAR' attitude, terrible soundtrack, and the addition of two totally unneccessary characters. Oh, and the last boss is a character you see in the about last five minutes of the game - it comes out of freakin' nowhere! SURPRISE, HERE'S A BOSS THAT FIRES GIANT FRIKKIN' LASER BEAMS FROM ITS HEAD AND FIRES METEORS AT YOU HERE HIT THIS TINY PINKU SPOT

I mean Christ, I preferred the 'steadfast heart of gold' Sonic of the original Adventure to the 'I'M NOT DONE WITH YOU YET SHADOW >=(' SA2 Sonic. Tails and Eggman in mechs?! Amy as another whiny sidekick rather than the 'I'll make that Sonic respect me' Amy of the original?

aaaaargh, unlubed anal rape on a disc, I swear. At least these mistakes were fixed (or lessened at the very least) in Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog. Yeah, I loved them too.

*vents steam*

[Melf]

I hated the whole "scavenger hunt with everyone BUT Sonic" style of Adventure 2. When I play a game called Sonic Adventure, I'd like to use SONIC.

[extrarice]

I picked up Sonic 1&2, Golden Axe, Castle of Illusion and Alisia Dragoon (http://www.vgmuseum.com/images/genesis/alisia.html) (which actually is an entertaining platformer). That should hold me for a bit. Thanks for your recommendations! :-)

[j_factor]

Alisia Dragoon is great.

[j_factor]

Sonic Adventure 2 took everything so excellent in the first game

I'm still not seeing what's so excellent about the first Sonic Adventure. I've tried it several times, and each time felt underwhelmed. It's choppy, badly paced, and riddled with all sorts of problems that hamper enjoyment.

I tried to like it, I really did. Last year, I gave it one more chance. I sat down with the game and forced myself to plod through it. And while I had fun at times, sometimes it was really hard to keep playing. Like when Knuckles found himself in that ancient echidna city or whatever, that part was incredibly dull. Or in Sonic's "Lost World" stage, when you come up to that snake in the water, I died so many times because I couldn't judge exactly where to land.

I remember in one of Amy's stages (I think the second one), I came to a long, narrow 'bridge' up in the air. A hintball right in front of it advised, "be careful not to fall!". Then I try to walk across, and the camera completely spazzes out, wildly panning back and forth. Was this someone's idea of a sick joke? I was only able to make it by moving one step, stopping, moving another step, stopping, etc., because it was literally impossible to walk in a straight line. I don't get how anyone can tolerate stuff like this.

Almost every time I died in the game, it wasn't due to a legitimate challenge in the gameplay, but due to camera issues, perspective problems, glitches, or my fishing line breaking.

And Big's stages. Ugh. Those were so unplayably bad that I literally couldn't bring myself to get through them. Every time I tried, I gave up and shut the system off in disgust. I beat Sonic Adventure 2, and I beat Sonic Heroes, but I will probably never be able to beat Sonic Adventure.

I can only conclude that Sonic Adventure is like Altered Beast, Super Mario 64, and Halo, in that people like it because it came out with the system.

[Mendicant]

I can only conclude that Sonic Adventure is like Altered Beast, Super Mario 64, and Halo, in that people like it because it came out with the system.
But I like Sonic Adventure. It did not come with my dreamcast. The exploration levels were bit of a drag.

And I also like Mario 64. :D

[Joe Redifer]

Castle of Illusion is the best game with Mickey Mouse in it... BY FAR. Probably the best game that has anything to do with Disney as well.

[Zebbe]

Nah, Quackshot is better. :)

[Demonic Weasel]

I never found a copy of Castle of Illusion. Quackshot wasn't bad either, but I got stumpted pretty early on it. And I was feeling lazy that day too.

Anyway Extarice, or whatever your name is, if you ever need some good RPG recommendations give me a holler. Because those are my specialties.

[Alianger]

Here's the nicest parts of a game guide I've made:

Platform:
Dynamite Headdy, Rocket Knight Adventures, Ristar, Sonic the Hedgehog 1-3, Sonic & Knuckles, Chuck Rock 2, Disney's Aladdin, Doraemon Yume Dorabuto 7 Nin no Gozansu, Ghouls 'n Ghosts, James Pond 2-3, Kid Chameleon, Mickey Mania, Misadventures of Flink, New Zealand Story, Sparkster – Rocket knight Adventures 2, ToeJam & Earl in Panic on Funkotron, World of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse & Donald Duck, Aero the Acrobat 2, Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle, Asterix and the Power of the Gods, Boogerman, Chiki Chiki Boys, Castle of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse, Flintstones, Rolo to the Rescue, Snake Rattle & Roll, Spider-Man vs. the Kingpin, Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel, QuackShot starring Donald Duck

Action:
Earthworm Jim 1-2, Mega Bomberman, Shinobi III, Castlevania: Bloodlines/The New Generation, Dahna Megami Tanjyo, Revenge of Shinobi, Strider, Vectorman 1-2, Zombies Ate My Neighbors, Alien 3, Bonanza Brothers, Blades of Vengeance, Crack Down, El Viento, Jurassic Park, Mystic Defender, Rolling Thunder 3, Valis III, X-Men 2, Ooze,

Run & Gun
Contra: Hard Corps, Gunstar Heroes, Ranger X, Alisia Dragoon, Alien Soldier, Adventures of Batman & Robin, Mega Turrican, Mercs, Predator 2, Rambo III, Rolling Thunder 2, Skeleton Krew, Soldiers of Fortune/Chaos Engine, Sunset Riders, Target Earth,

Traditional Shooter:
CLASSIC: Eliminate Down, M.U.S.H.A./Aleste – Full Metal Fighter Ellinor, Thunder Force III, Thunder Force IV/Lightening Force, Battle Mania 2, Bio-Hazard Battle, Fire Mustang, Gaiares, Gley Lancer, Super Fantasy Zone, Air Buster/Aero Blasters, Elemental Master, Forgotten Worlds, Granada, Steel Empire/Empire of Steel, Vapor Trail, Wings of Wor/Gynoug,

Non-Traditional Shooter:
Road Blasters, Twinkle Tale, Battletech, Strike Series (Urban, Jungle, Desert), Super Smash TV, Sub Terrania, Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair, Lethal Enforcers II: Gunfighters,

Rail Shooter
Panorama Cotton, Space Harrier II, After Burner II, Burning Force

Beat-em-up:
Streets of Rage 1-3, Golden Axe I-II, Battletoads, Comix Zone, Punisher, TMNT: The Hyper Stone Heist, Alien Storm, Battletoads & Double Dragon, Splatterhouse 3, Two Crude Dudes

Fighting:
Yu Yu Hakusho Makyôtô Itsusen, Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers,
Eternal Champions, Fatal Fury 2, Mortal Kombat II, Ultimate MK3, Dragon – The Bruce Lee Story, King of the Monsters 2, Samurai Shodown, VR Troopers, Weapon Lord

RPG
Phantasy Star II-IV, Shadowrun, Rent-a-Hero, Shining in the Darkness, Surging Aura, Rings of Power,

Adventure/Action RPG:
Ecco: The Tides of Time, Flashback: The Quest for Identity, Landstalker – The Treasures of King Nole, ToeJam & Earl, Arcus Odyssey, Beyond Oasis/Story of Thor, Crusader of Centy/Soleil/Ragnacenty, Ecco the Dolphin, Light Crusader, Monster World IV, Out of this World/Another World, Starflight, Wonder Boy in Monster World, King Colossus, Lost World: Jurassic Park, Technoclash

Strategy:
Shining Force 2, Langrisser Hikari II (Warsong 2), Pirates! Gold, Vixen 357, Herzog Zwei, General Chaos, Aerobiz Supersonic, Advanced Daisenryaku, Gain Ground, Hybrid Front, Power Monger, Shining Force, Uncharted Waters: New Horizons, Warsong/Langrisser Hikari,

Arcade:
Ms. Pac-Man, Rampart, Flicky

Puzzle:
Columns III, Puyo Puyo 2, Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine/Puyo Puyo, Lost Vikings, Puzzle & Action: Ichidant, Puzzle & Action: Tanto R, Shove It! The Warehouse Game, Pac-Attack

Pinball/Break-Out
Dragon's Fury, Dragon's Revenge, Psycho Pinball, Devilish

Racing
Micro Machines series (Micro Machines, Micro Machines 2, Micro Machines '96, Micro Machines Military), Out Run, Road Rash 2, Rock 'n Roll Racing, Virtua Racing,

[Joe Redifer]

No Road Rash 1? No Super Hang-On? Gotta have those.

[Obviously]

I tried to like it, I really did. Last year, I gave it one more chance. I sat down with the game and forced myself to plod through it. And while I had fun at times, sometimes it was really hard to keep playing.

That's the same feeling I got playing through SA2. I suppose if I hadn't played the first one first I wouldn't feel the same way, but having already played through the first one I couldn't handle having to go through it again in the second, and I mean I'm a guy who can go through a good chunk of the Megaman series in one sitting so it's not repition that's the problem. I guess I was pretty underwhelmed by the first but at the time I didn't see it.

Neither of them are excellent games but I prefer the first, probably for the simple psychologic reason that I played it first when the Dreamcast was new and still the future of gaming and everyone loved it. I remember liking the SA2 demo that came with PSO but when I actually got my hands on the game I couldn't bring myself to play it long enough to beat it once the Sonic and Shadow levels were done.

After my dissapointment with the second Adventure I didn't even bother with Sonic Heroes. My brand loyalty only goes so far.

And I know you all want to kill me for driving the thread off topic again. :)

[Dartagnan1083]

*insert rant

I loved all of sonic's stages (save for windy valley). It takes some 'practice' to come to terms with stage design, but all in all. . .these levels alone trump EVERYTHING that SA2 had to offer. Finding all the shortcuts was part of the fun. The shortcuts were found by exploring the environment (since there was actually something to explore), and finding little nuances in the environment. In that lost world level, you hit a switch more than needed to create a path up the wall that cuts 20 seconds off your stage time, it's fun to do as well.

There was a time when I kept dying because i couldn't judge analog sensitivity with jump distance, but it wasn't anything that I couldn't learn and eventually master.

It strikes a HUGE contrast with SA2's highly inflexible 'Hold Up and jump occasionally' and 'Hold up and maybe use optional inconsequential platform occasionally'

Amy's bridge is more about gentle finesse than anything else. (I actually genuinly prefer Amy's 3 levels to the entirety of SA2).
That camera spasm you speak of does lead to a cheap death, but not if you learn from it. Any of the camera spasms in the entire game can be remidied just by remembering where they are and adjuting an otherwise wreckless pace to conform with it. you may call this inexcusable, but remember that even the 2D sonics had traps that punished you for wrecklessly running without a care in the world. So while the camera does make it different in principal, it's not that big of an adjustment. In all the years I've had it since launch, I've only had about................7 deaths due to bad camera, 2 to going through a wall.


Big's levels were horrible, I'll admit that.
But at this stage, I can clear his quest and get it out of the way in about 35 minutes. . .leaving me to enjoy the rest of the game at my leisure. I see it as a chore neccessary to see Super Sonic.


I myself wanted to love Sonic Adventure 2. I spent many hours with it clearing all the stages again and again trying to get into the groove of things. I spent most of the summer of '01 trying to come to terms with the hunt levels, and trying to find SOMETHING fun about the Sonic levels (aside from the redeemable Forest and Jungle levels. . .and the first level. . .maybe). But it turned out that I couldn't force myself to like the game. after failing to unlock the hidden green hill level I went back to SA1 and started having gun again.
I haven't played SA2 in two years, which was a 10 minute session following another two year hiatus.
Essentially, I only kept it because I'm a Segaholic and it has sonic on the cover.

[Bubby_the_Tour_G]

Super Monaco GP (1990) and Ayrton Senna's Super Monaco GP II (1992)