Miss Sega Consoles? Play These Modern Games

Here’s a fact that might upset you a bit: Microsoft have been in the console game longer than Sega ever were. Here’s something that might cheer you up: plenty of modern devs have been making games that feel like they came from the Japanese giant’s glory days.

 

Spark the Electric Jester Trilogy

Plays like: Jonic the Wedgeblog

Look at this gameplay for five seconds and tell me what game Spark the Electric Jester is trying to be. That’s right: Chester Cheetah! Nah, Sonic, it’s so obviously Sonic that I’m surprised SEGA hasn’t sent the Monkey Balls around to collect some shins.

Focusing on Spark, who is an electric jester, the first game in the trilogy is very much a Genesis era (Mega Drive if you have seasonal depression) homage to Sonic’s earliest days, featuring the same fast pace but with extra tools at your disposal. You can even kamehameha dudes at some points. There’s plenty of variety here, with it even dipping its toes into other mascot platformers of the era.

But what makes this trilogy such a good SEGA salute is that the latter two games in the trilogy play more like Sonic’s early 3D adventures, including Sonic…Adventure! The third game in particular is a very ambitious game, feeling like a blend of Sonic Unleashed, Heroes, Forces (sorry) and Gundam? Yeah, there are giant mech sections in that one. Why? Don’t ask silly questions.

This trilogy is honestly the most obvious inclusion in this video, but while it’s pretty well beloved, it also feels like it’s not quite loved enough? You don’t have to be a Sonic fan to get something out of Spark, because when you have tight, responsive controls, lovely visuals, and just a constant stream of bangers across the soundtracks, it’s no joke how fun these games can be. And they’re usually pretty cheap too.

Next up: a card-based FPS with visual novel elements that’s about 4 times as good as it sounds.

 

Neon White

Plays like: hmm it just kinda “feels” Dreamcast?

Now, here’s maybe a slightly controversial one. I’m not sure there’s a Dreamcast game specifically like Neon White, but I’ve always felt it captured the spirit of the console pretty dang well in terms of vibe, looks, and general play. And it’s just really, really good too.

Angel Matrix’s speedrunning FPS pits you as White as he competes for a chance to live in Heaven by eliminating demons. But his competition seems to be people he knew in his past life. That’s where the visual novel part comes in, and while there is a lot of yapping here, some of it maybe a bit too much for some, the gameplay itself is king here.

Basically, Neon can use cards as weapons to defeat enemies, but then also discard them for second abilities to help him quickly traverse levels. The gunplay is fine, but where things get nuts is in timing those second abilities, knowing when to trigger them to maximise your speed. Each level here is like a minute long, but a minute can turn into an hour when you’re trying to shave time off your speed. It’s incredibly addictive, and a pure, fat-free gaming experience that you’d see all over the Dreamcast.

And while, again, it doesn’t necessarily play like a Dreamcast game in particular, Neon White had me checking for my VMU at multiple points just because of how it looks. Everything is so clean and bold, with bright colours and stark contrasts, and the brash splashes of text simply scream “waking up at 3AM at your friend’s house and something weird is on TV”. It also helps that MachineGirl’s awesome breakcore soundtrack feels ripped right from the Y2K era.

Neon White is just, simply, a whipper of a video game, and I implore you to check it out on PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series, Xbox One, and Switch.

Okay, you want a new Jet Set but are kinda worried after seeing this rumor? I got you covered:

 

Bombrush Cyberfunk

Plays like: Jet Set

This is just Jet Set Radio, but you can also take selfies. Oh, and also you’re playing as an android head grafted onto the body of a murdered graffiti artist. An important distinction to make, there. But the main thrust in Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is the same: do cool stuff and look cool while having a nice time across the visual feast that is New Amsterdam.

Team Reptile’s reverence for Jet Set is about as subtle as me next to the custard creams in the biscuit aisle of Asda, but that’s what makes Bombrush so good — it’s the Jet Set sequel we never got.

From the cel-shaded animations to the very deliberate, weighty animations to the bopper music to the general oddball vibes of meeting a guy chilling in a bin, Bomb Rush Cyberpunk absolutely nails the Y2K vibes here, but it also just nails the general gameplay too.

Cruising around feels snappy and responsive, while stitching your lines together as you rack up combos is always fun, especially as you don’t need to learn complex moves to make the numbers go up. Then there’s the graffiti, with plenty of awesome designs to unlock and sneaky spots dotted around the open levels to spray them on for 100% completion.

Bombrush Cyberfunk lets you skate and also BMX around a vibrant world that will take you back to simpler times about 30 seconds in. It’s a transportative game with more style points than Chester Cheetah at a Puddle of Mudd concert, with lots to see and do across PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series, Xbox One, and Switch.

And hey, if you don’t like anything that I just said, don’t shoot the messenger. Play it instead.

 

The Messenger

Plays like: Shinobi, Ninja Gaiden

A modern retro game so good that I think you could argue it was a key point in so many more games like it getting made, The Messenger just about straddles the line of being a “new” game. I mean, it came out in 2018, a whole 7 years, and somehow only two seasons of Stranger Things ago.

But I do think Sabotage Studio’s first game is one of the de facto games of its kind out there, and it also absolutely still does its thing better than many of its peers.

You play as a young ninja, sick running animation and all, who must deliver a scroll to stop a demon army. When you first boot up The Messenger, you might think it a fairly straightforward action platformer in that 8-bit Master System style, with some upgrades and neat Metroidvania elements.

But then, about halfway through, the game switches things up to the 16-bit Genesis era, and you can flip between them at will to complete clever time travel puzzles where one environment is completely destroyed in the future, but very chill in the past.

As a game heavily inspired by Sega’s most glorious of days, you should also expect the brutal difficulty of that era too. But here’s the thing: even though the lil hooded guy constantly negs you for your failure, I never lost my head with The Messenger just because the core gameplay is so tight and precise that all errors were because of my own idiocy. Did I have a little bathtub scream at a couple points? Yes, but that’s a me problem.

It’s not a problem for me to recommend The Messenger at all on PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Switch.

Right, time to get rolling onto the next one.

 

Rollerdrome

Plays like: Jet Set, Tony Hawk

Poor Rollerdrome, man. This is the exact kind of arcadey single-player game us 30 year olds with cottage cheese for knees have been asking for more of, but due to a mix of poor marketing and the game itself being hard to succinctly sell, it just did not do well, and its developer didn’t hang around for long after either.

Playing kinda like Jet Set meets Tony Hawk meets Max Payne meets Mad Max (the movies), Rollerdrome blends the scoring system of iconic 6th generation extreme sports games with bullet time shoot-outs.

If that sounds very fun, that’s because it very is. Rollerdrome will have you flipping and flying through the air more than Jet Li with a jetpack on particularly turbulent easyJet flight, with you having to compete to be the best at a dystopian bloodsport.

What that ultimately boils down to is building up sick trick combos while shooting at enemies in slow-motion. It’s not all smooth sailing, though, as Roll7’s penchant for making games where quick restarts are basically mandatory is on full display here. However, when the game sounds this great thanks to its brilliant synthwave soundtrack, and looks this good because of that brutalist comic book art style, you don’t mind the repetition.

Rollerdrome not too long a game, one that you cram in on your Steam Deck over the weekend and have a lovely, lovely time. Unfortunately, due to most likely shenanigans, the game has been pulled from sale on Steam and Xbox, though is still available on PlayStation Store as of this writing, and there are a lot of Steam keys floating out on the ether. Roll7’s legacy does deserve better than this, though. You know what, comment Beyond Rollerdrome! down below, and I will give one of you a Steam key for this banger

Right, now, let’s breakaway from being a bummer, eh?

 

Penny’s Big Breakaway

Plays like: Sonic, Clockwork Knight (vibes)

I don’t know if there are many games that give off “absolutely gigantic Sega Saturn energy” but Penny’s Big Breakaway is certainly one of them, even if you didn’t get many 3D platformers on the console. The wild range of colours, the glossy finish on everything, the yo-yos — this game would have absolutely killed it during Christmas 1994.

But fortunately Penny’s Big Breakway is a big hit these days too, though it does seem to have a few problems.

The game’s overt SEGAness can be explained by the fact that the game is developed by Evening Star, which consists of some of the guys who made Sonic Mania, including Christian Whitehead. That’s a team that knows their way around a retro platformer, and they upgraded their 2D engine to work in 3D here.

In Penny’s Big Breakway, that Penny comes across a very hungry and alive yo-yo before auditioning for her breakout role for the emperor of Macaroon. Hijinks ensue, and so she has to skedaddle to clear her name, one defeated penguin at a time.

Featuring fast-paced levels where you have to use momentum to zipdash around and route knowledge to rack up as high a score as possible, Penny’s Big Breakway is a very compelling game once everything finally gels, but it’s a little difficult to get past some early control bugbears and quite a few bugs in general.

If you can match its tempo and get past some frustrations, Penny’s Big Breakaway is a bright, bouncy platformer that you can check out on PC, PS5, Xbox Series and Switch, but maybe hunt down it on sale. Huntdoooown.

 

Huntdown

Plays like: Streets of Rage, The Punisher, Alien Storm

One of my prevailing memories of the Mega Drive (or Genesis if your preferred method of travel is eagle) is just how often its edgier games would absolutely push my shit in as a kid, in-between mouthfuls of A Bug’s Life lollies and not looking after my shiny Pokemon cards. We used to put those things, raw as a bone, in, I dunno, the fridge. Idiots.

The best 16-bit games made you work to see its end credits, and good gravy with bits of bacon in it, did Huntdown make me sweat a few times. I rawdogged it completely solo on my PS4, but boy do I wish I had a friend to suffer with me.

A side-scrolling shooter with the surprising addition of a cover system, Huntdown’s gorgeous hand-drawn graphics and animations help it look almost exactly like the 16-bit games of your youth, right down to the single frame cutscenes. As for the story: You know the gist: it’s the future, gangs are everywhere…shoot all of them, sometimes with a bazooka.

With three different mercs to play as, incredible environments to gawk at, and some brilliant boss fights to swear over, Huntdown is a modern classic run and gun shooter that acts as a love letter to the action movies of the 1980s and it also lets you kick people into explosive barrels. Yeah, thought that might do it for you.

You can check Huntdown out on PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Switch, but bizarrely there’s no native online co-op here so you may wanna get it on Steam to do that Remote Play Together. But hey, you’re Freedom Planet 1 and 2 to do whatever you want.

 

Freedom Planet 1 & 2

Plays like: Sonic, Ristar

Not the name of the delivery service in Futurama, the place where you can buy all the Funko Pops nobody wants, or that forgotten Xbox 360 sci-fi series, Freedom Planet is instead a duology that feels right out of two different Sega eras.

The first game is pushing the “new” moniker a bit, having come out in 2014. I still had a hairline back then. But the second Freedom Planet is much more recent, having been released in 2022 to very positive reviews while also feeling a tad overlooked.

What both games share is a clear love for the hog that built the house, as well as a host of other fast-paced mascot platformers of the 90s. Freedom Planet is Mega Drive down to a T. Or M. Then E, then G, then you get the idea. Those backgrounds are absolutely gorgeous and pop a lot even over a decade on, and the game still feels super smooth.

Freedom Planet 2, though, feels more like a 32-bit Saturn successor to 90s Sega icons that we never got. It’s an altogether better game too, with four playable characters, tighter controls, including an always sick parrying mechanic, more to explore, and a host of challenges and other modes for when you complete the main adventure after putting a water dragon in its place, and also terrorists.

It also goes without saying that both soundtracks are absolute slappers. Freedom Planet 1 is available on PC, PS4, Switch and Wii U, as long as you know where to look…matey, while Freedom Planet 2 is available on PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series, Xbox One, and Switch.

Okay, the next one’s a bit different: you can actually play it on a Dreamcast.

 

Driving Strikers

Plays like: SEGA Rally, Rocket League

Yeah, do you want to know what’s even crazier about Driving Strikers being made for Dreamcast? You can also play it online, and in cross-play against Steam players too. Very heavily stylised to call to mind SEGA Rally, Driving Strikers is not actually a rally game, as it’s more like Rocket League meets something like Mario Strikers. You’re a car, you’ve gotta put the ball in the goal hole, most goal wins.

That does kinda sum this one up, as it’s just meant to be a really arcade-y top down car sports game with a unique hook. It’s a 2v2 with support for 4 players, the cars looks suitably late 90s, and sometimes everything is lava.

But that cross-play is the real selling point here, if only as a total curio. The fact that a homebrewed Dreamcast game can be played against a Steam user who could potentially be using a PC that is 100 times more powerful is nuts, and a testament to just how creative the Dreamcast homebrewing is, even a quarter of a century on.

I also want to quickly shout out Parking Garage Rally Circuit, which is like Sega Rally meets Mario Kart. It looks really neat instead.

If you want a video just on Dreamcast homebrews, you know where to go, but for now, is anyone else getting a little HROT under the collar?

 

HROT

Plays like: Quake

There was a temptation to put in another modern retro platformer as the final game today, but for sheer variety’s sake, cos you could do an hour long video on just those, let’s instead focus on a modern boomer shooter that those who remember Quake on Saturn and Quake 3 Arena on Dreamcast will definitely get a kick out of.

HROT is affectionately dubbed as “Czech Quake” and proves that, once again, if you’re a major publisher and neglect your IP, some madheads in an eastern european country will take over from you instead.

So, how is it like Quake? Just check out that typeset, and also. It’s brown. Very brown. More brown than Wormtongue’s nose after some alone time with Saruman. But HROT also has the genius level design you’d expect from a 90s shooter, with each of the 24 levels being fun to explore and easy to navigate as you hunt for elusive keys.

It’s also an extremely off-kilter game, with meal recipes chucked in among the random dog encounters, bears that are on fire, and a gorilla with a rocket launcher all happening so fast and so furiously that you can barely register one insane thing before the next one comes along.

Oh, and shooting people is good fun too, and it’s a lot like in Quake in that you gotta blow everything up into big old chunks of flesh to have the best time. You can even kick grenades back at enemies, which is always a fun touch. If you want to have a very irreverent, very brown trip back in time to Czechia, HROT is hot to trot. DUSK is also really bloody good too.

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