You may think the Genesis has nothing left to show you, but unless you’ve got a complete collection of Sega Genesis games in your basement, the odds are high that there’s a title you haven’t heard of. Let’s take a look at some unique Sega releases for their most famous console that have mostly fallen through the cracks over the years.
1. Phelios
Developer: Namco
Publisher: Namco
A wildly entertaining, unique vertical scrolling shooter, the 1988 Japanese arcade release Phelios was just one of the many amazing games developed for the Namco System 2 arcade system board. A 1990 Genesis port showcases not only an addictive, visually striking game, but also a console that was really starting to come into its own at the start of a new decade.
Phelios draws from Greek Mythology for its setting and graphics, with players taking the role of Apollo in pursuit of his beloved Artemis, seized by a demon known as Typhon. The game breaks down into seven chapters, with tough boss fights waiting at the end of each.
Where the game offers something special is in its graphics, which are extremely good for an early-ish Genesis title. The stage designs also do an excellent job of immersing you in a pretty relentless, but not overwhelmingly so, world of skeletons, dragons, and bosses that take classic Greek characters like Medusa to interesting extremes. Phelios will offer a stiff challenge to all but the most experienced fans of this genre. There’s not much from this period of the Genesis as bright and graphically ambitious, with most vertical shooters opting for spaceships or cute-em-ups. Phelios went its own way.
2. Decap Attack
Developer: Vic Tokai
Publisher: Sega
Reminding you that not all mad scientists are evil, some of them are just quite annoyed, Decap Attack, coming from the wildly varied folks at Vic Tokai, offers a unique platformer experience in the form of Chuck D. Head, a monster who resembles a mummy and can only attack enemies by jumping on them, or by using the head that protrudes from his bandage-covered chest. The mechanics are pretty standard for a platformer, but there’s definitely some originality in Chuck’s powers and how that influences a surprisingly challenging 1991 platformer game for the Genesis. You can even hit the jump button repeatedly while jumping to slow down your descent, which isn’t mind-blowing these days but is a bit wild for the time.
The level designs are certainly pretty eye-catching, but it’s the designs for the various monsters and other creatures Chuck encounters that will make the most impression on you.Decap Attack highlights the Genesis’ power with relatively smooth animation and a wide array of graphically striking sprites. Giant mutant frogs, robot tanks, skeleton fish, ghosts, and even the Abominable Snowman all serve to create a really quirky, fun game that reminds you in the best way possible of the throwback horror game classics of this era.
If you liked Splatterhouse, you might get a kick out of this goofy cousin.
3. Crusader of Centy
Developer: Nextech
Publishers: Sega, Atlus
Crusader of Centy, also known as Soieil in the land of chippy chips and saddy sadness, deserves to be appreciated on its own merits. However, it’s also true that if you’ve ever really wanted to play The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past on the Sega Genesis, this ridiculously charming action RPG does have that slight “but at home” quality to it. Again, Crusader of Centy very much goes on its path, but it’s impossible to look at this game commissioned by Sega to beef up their RPG library, and not imagine that the developers at Nextech were going for a certain vibe with this one.
Exploring a sprawling, vibrant world with lush 16-bit graphics and memorable characters and monsters, Crusader of Centy pits players as a young man named Corona. You soon discover that you can only communicate with animals, who become a part of your quest that you can actually equip and swap out as needed.
A total of sixteen animals are available, and with the ability to equip two at a time, you have a consistent element of strategy to consider as you move across a great story told in a top-down landscape filled with beautiful scenery, a little bopper of a soundtrack, and roughly five million things that want to destroy you.
4. The Ooze
Developer: Sega
Publisher: Sega
A 1995 top-down action game like The Ooze could really only have been developed and published by Sega, especially considering the pretty brilliant and syrupy aesthetic. Slimes, goos, plasms — you name it, Nickelodeon kids were all about it, and everything about this bonkers hidden gem is built around appealing to that same demographic.
It’s interesting to wonder how a game as bizarre as The Ooze even makes it to the Genesis at its life in 1995, but it doesn’t really mean anything when it comes to exploring this game’s vast world, solving some very tricky puzzles, and fighting a range of monsters using a host of unique abilities. All of which involve using your ooze as either a projectile or a blunt instrument of justice against an evil corporation, as if there’s any other form of corporation.
The Ooze benefits a lot from being a product of Sega’s in-house developers Sega Technical Institute at a time when they knew the console in and out. The soundtrack is as underrated as it gets for a late-stage Genesis game, and though The Ooze can make you Gandalf every 5 or so minutes, everything about this game deserves a fresh look and some new fans, especially as we think it may have influenced Carrion, another great game you should check out.
5. Skeleton Krew
Developer: Core Design
Publisher: Core Design
A bit obscure even to many fans of the classic run-and-gun genre, Skeleton Krew is another absolutely fascinating 1995 Sega Genesis artifact that’s still a blast to play 30 years later.
Set in the ever-closer year of 2062, Skeleton Krew pits you and a team of mercenaries against a deranged former mortician using cryogenics to create an army of mutants hellbent on destroying the city. That may sound a little like the plot of a movie that you would find next to Big Jug Wives 26 in the VHS section, but it’s obviously the gameplay and your surroundings that will make playing Skeleton Krew its own kind of fun.
While it may not have a ton of weaponry options or much in the way of interactivity with your environment, Skeleton Krew nevertheless sends you to four distinct planets that each come packed with some of the best art direction for a Genesis game at this point in time, especially if you’re a fan of Warhammer 40k.
It’s a lot of fun to play, although the unusual perspective when combined with the controls can sometimes make for a frustrating experience, but there’s more than enough in the way of attention-grabbing presentation to keep you playing to the end. The music and sound effects in general also sounds like Trent Reznor hooked his brain up to a keyboard in the shape of the Necronomicon. Give it a blast.
6. Dynamite Headdy
Developer: Treasure
Publisher: Sega
“Bizarre” is a good way to categorize many of the hidden gems for the Genesis, and Dynamite Headdy is no different in that regard. You’re a puppet named Headdy in this weird platformer that came out near the end of the Genesis’ glory days in 1994, and it falls to you to save your world from a vicious puppet king in a fast-paced, utterly gorgeous game from the same people who brought you Gunstar Heroes.
And if you know Gunstar Heroes and its penchant for relentless action combined with great tension and beautiful peak 16-bit graphics, then you have a rough idea of the fun you’rein for with Dynamite Headdy.
Using detachable appendages to aid you in your quest, Dynamite Headdy doesn’t have the normal powerups you might be expecting. Instead, you’ll be swapping out your head for different ones with different sorts of abilities as the game goes on. It’s a clever twist on an old part of the formula, and it creates a challenging platformer, with side-scrolling shooter levels thrown in for the hell of it, that doesn’t really have anything you can reasonably compare it to, though fans of Rayman and uh, NeverDead might get a real kick out of this.
7. Granada
Developer: Wolf Team
Publisher: Wolf Team
In the far-off future of 2016, war for mineral rights in Africa with tanks known as Maneuver Cepters sets the stage for the forgotten gem Granada. Released in 1990, this shooter still looks and plays quite well for a game well over thirty years old.
Granada on paper may sound pretty standard for its genre, and while it’s true that the controls and basic demands of the game are nothing particularly new, it’s once again the presentation of things that makes this game more than just an entertaining, forgotten release for the Sega Genesis.
The game especially goes in its own direction with regards to how you can explore and interact with your environment. Granada doesn’t have the forced scrolling that would become standard for these sorts of games, leaving you to complete the maze-like levels with a certain degree of freedom. We say “certain” because the game does come with a timer, meaning you have to meet the objectives and defeat a challenge within a certain span of time.
It’s a nice element to the overall challenge of the game if you hate yourself a little bit, so don’t be afraid to play on the easiest setting so you can explore these stages more fully.
8. Cosmic Spacehead
Developer: Codemasters
Publisher: Codemasters
A 16-bit remake of a title released the year prior for the Nintendo Entertainment System, the 1993 game Cosmic Spacehead is another one that we wish had way more fans.
Developed by the UK company Codemasters, who are now mastering how to ruin their games, there aren’t a whole lot of titles out there, let alone for the Genesis, that combine the point-and-click adventure game with light platforming elements. Yet that’s exactly what you’re going to do as the titular Cosmic Spacehead.
As a series of episodic adventures, Cosmic Spacehead does a nice job of taking you around the world to find proof of your previous adventures to your people from the planet Linoleum. It’s a tough, kinda clunky and a bit weird game at certain points, but that’s offset by one of the most graphically underappreciated games in the entire Genesis library, with an emphasis on puzzle-solving that’s easy to break down more often than not.
Cosmic Spacehead has ample visual charm and a sheer novelty factor that should be experienced at least once. Chances are good, however, that you’ll get seriously hooked on this little oddball.
9. Gain Ground
Developer: Sega
Publisher: Sega
1991 was a very good year for Sega and the Genesis, so it’s fair enough that some games would simply fall through the cracks. Gain Ground is one such example, featuring action mechanics with a heavier emphasis on strategy than you might expect.
Your objective is to either get your soldiers to the other side of the battlefield, or to wipe out absolutely everyone on the opposing side, with combat spread out across different time periods and worlds. Everything about Gain Ground feels kind of new, which is a weird thing to say about a game that originally debuted in arcades more than four decades ago.
Once you get over the minor learning curve this title throws at you, what you have is an action game with a real-time strategy component that keeps you in constant movement, questioning everything and trying to destroy everyone in front of you. Starting out with three soldiers for normal mode, you’ll be able to recruit up to 20 soldiers for your cause, each with their own strengths, weaknesses, and abilities.
Gain Ground is a deeper game than at first glance, and it’s the sort of whipper you can accidentally sink a dozen or so hours into, and then drag a friend along to play some co-op with you for another dozen.
10. Yu Yu Hakusho Makyō Tōitsusen
Developer: Treasure
Publisher: Sega
Long before the series became a staple of Toonami and Adult Swim, Yu Yu Hakusho Makyō Tōitsusen was a Japan exclusive brawler for the Genesis, though it did interestingly come to Brazil all the way in 1999, that showed the successful manga and anime series in a fantastic fighting game light.
While the graphics may immediately grab you as being something that wouldn’t look out of place in the following generation, it’s when you pick up the controller and start to play that you experience the ways in which Yu Yu Hakusho is more than just another arcade-style fighter from the 16-bit era.
In particular, it’s the fact that the Yu Yu Hakusho offers 1 on 1 or 2 on 2 fighting options, with the 2 on 2 option specifically supporting four players. This was highly unusual for a 1994 fighting game, as is the sheer amount of voice acting crunched into the cartridge. Novelty aside, the game controls beautifully, with fluid movement and 11 characters, which makes it all the more of a shame that yet another Treasure banger never got a European or North American release.
You’ll likely have to turn to emulation to check out Yu Yu Hakusho Makyō Tōitsusen for yourself, but it’s worth the effort for this forgotten gem.
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