Sega 32X - Is It Actually Worth Playing? - Retro Gaming History & Console Review - THGM 

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If only the Saturn was backward compatible with the 32x and the SEGA CD...

Fun Fact: A few years ago, some Sega fans were able to power the Sega Mega Drive, Mega-CD & 32X using a single power supply.

I love the 32X and knuckles chaotix is sweet. It is just a game you have to adjust to as you play... like most 90s games.

Sir, your articulation on the subject of retro video games is so beautifully British it should be illegal. God bless you!

*Nakamura:* The 3DO and the Atari Jaguar are the real threat!! *Time traveler:* HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Doom, Star Wars Arcade, and motocross championship were mad fun back in the day

I'm actually thinking on creating an open source hardware clone of the Mega Drive/32X/Mega-CD with the current proposed name being OpenNeptune. The hardest part is creating SH-2 clone, since that doesn't exist yet.

I had a large number of friends in Japan during late 80s and 90s. Surprisingly enough Sega though completely in Japan at that for decades was still seen as a foreign company.

I wanna get one so I can play Knuckles and Virtua Fighter

For Mortal Kombat II yes, best version ever released.

I love my 32x, sure I got it for free from my uncle but I have 10 games that are all quality, plus the better ports of MK2, NBA Jam TE And Wrestlemaniac Arcade

You sir are my new favorite retro game reviewer, keep these gems coming!!!!

You had me until MK2. As someone who grew up with both the MK and SF series, MK1 on Genesis/MegaDrive being the first game I officially owned, I have love for both series as well the fighting game genre in general. Granted, there are some stinkers, but MK2 DEFINITELY was not one of them.

Nice video. I have a soft spot for this console as I have fond memories of playing it with my brother Christmas 1994 while he was home from college. I’d like to port an open source flight simulator to it and use the Genesis to draw the cockpit and the 32X to render the outside visuals. The two could work together to produce a nice game with good frame rates and fully textured polygons as I only need to render half the screen in 3D.

The Mega CD wasn't designed to compete with the Super NES, it was designed to compete with the PC Engine's CD-ROM add-on and the never-to-be-released Play Station add-on.

Richard, you left out the Mega-CD 32X games. I see this as an opportunity for you to give them more spotlight in a dedicated video. They are not "good" but they are fun! I really like & recommend them =)

Good show Top Hat! Great to see u picking up for the underrated Chaotix! That was one of the first games I emulated on PC in 200, being a huge fan of the Genesis titles. The game play was different to be sure but I still found it a great game with incredible graphics and music.

I owned the 32X back in the day when it went on clearance at my local K-Mart, and had about 15 games I had gotten for it all under $20 USD each, but sadly like an idiot in the late 90's along with my Genesis I listed it in a local trade paper, and sold it off to fund a new PC build. Ahh the stupid things we do as kids in high school. So I will say yes if you can find it at a good price with all the hookups then it's worth owning, and playing as it helps filter the output of the Genesis Model II units to look a bit cleaner, otherwise just emulate it on PC if you can find the BIOS files needed to make it work. Edit: On Knuckle Chaotic I personally did not care for the gameplay, but the music is some of my favorite Sonic music of all time, so I still fire up the game via emulation from time to time just to listen to the music when I'm in a bad mood.

My proper decorum friend,. may I say: Kolibri, Tempo, and Knuckles Chaotix...exclusives that give meaning and purpose to this tumultous, rotund hardware.

Nice video, very informative!

Great video! I just picked up a 32x and a half dozen games too! Doom, star wars, and Ungh. ...cosmic carnage. Lol. been having alot of fun!

Greetings from New Hampshire! Happy to see someone else experienced the magic that is Funspot!, which is still open today. :)

One great 32X game you missed is Darxide - it's basically a 3D version of Asteroids, with great graphics for its time, developed by the same guys who did the Elite games.

Kolibri is arguably the finest hummingbird based shooter available for the 32X!

Definitely not my favorite Sega console, or console add on , but i like it.Wasnt very well supported, but it has a few games i like. I like the 32x version of MKII, Primal Rage, Doom, and Blackthorne.

The Mega Everdrive flash cart supports 32X games FYI. You can get every game on an SD card and they run great

I feel like I made a smart choice with the 32x. I rented it for a week for Blockbuster along with Knuckles Chaotix. I was 8 years old when it was released and didn't think it was worth the months of begging my parents for, nor worth wasting on as a potential Christmas gift. Doing some housework for a while in exchange for a week's rental however was completely worth it. I was a big fan of Sonic games and couldn't pass up playing. Great game, would love to play it again soon to see how it holds up to memory. I recognize that this video is already a year old but I frequently watch through your old videos and love them all. Keep up the great work!

I heard that Shadow Squadron music at the end. Now I want to do nothing else but play that. Good memories of my time with the 32X. (Also yes, Knuckles Chaotix is a slice of fried gold wrapped in plastic and silicon)

My fave system to emulate!

Knuckles Chaotix is still awesome to play today for me, and the music is unique! 🎮

Rocket knight adventures music... HELL YEAH!

Dope watch!

I see top hat, I leave a like that’s just the gentlemen way to do it

Hello. What is the song that plays in the beginning of this segment just before the Sonic song? Thank you.

I bought the 32x when it came out and really liked it I still play it today on retro game nights

I'm surprised you don't mention Blackthorne on the 32X. I love that game!

The intro music is inspiring as hell.

I remember seeing the box art for Knuckles Chaotix and fantasizing about that game as I played the amazing Sonic 3 and Knuckles. In retrospect, I definitely lucked out on spending my time with the Sonic games on the Genesis!

I only first heard of the 32X at Toys R Us when it was already deeply discounted to $19.99. I remember only really seeing Doom and Star Wars Arcade for sale for it, which I didn't feel I needed a new system to play. Also I guess part of me saw it so deeply discounted and thought it must not be that good, which is only mostly true. There are still some games I'd like to check out though. The X-Men prototype with Bishop was pretty cool too.

Lol, Shenmue was also my first space harrier (and hang on) experience. I loved beating my high score (and receive a mini arcade machine as a reward from the guy behind the counter). I still have my DC and Shenmue copies, but they're in a box. I am looking forward to the HD release to play the games again :)

I've not yet watched the video, but had your gameroom tour playing in the background whilst I was cooking. As you finished and asked what people would like to see covered, I was literally thinking to myself, Tophat should cover some more of Sega's old systems, as he's been very Nintendo heavy recently. I was particularly wondering if you'd played chaotix through... Great British minds think alike eh?

Your lucky, the last 2 years when I made the trek up to Funspot, Space Harrier was out of order :(

I remember buying the 32x in 96 (or early 97) for $15 along with Virtua Racing and Tempo. Definitely my favorite version of Virtua Racing, and I also really enjoyed Tempo. It had its faults, but was too goofy not to find entertaining, especially that song for the opening. Calling the game "BS Racers" also seemed appropriate considering how it played.

Still gots mine. Got it that first xmas

That chaotix soundtrack is exceptional

Man I don’t know about the rest of you but I became pretty disappointed when he started knocking Mortal Kombat 2 ! I mean I know to each their own but Mortal Kombat 2 was pretty revolutionary for the time and still holds up pretty well Today- Maybe I am biased because it’s my favorite arcade game ever, but it seem like a lot of game reviewers don’t actually like Mortal Kombat, and prefer street fighter games

32X has a few games that are worth emulating...

For some reason I used to confuse the 32X with the Atari Jaguar CD, a truely terrifying top loaded attachment :D

woooah, that old sega cd stack thingymajig rig was folkin ridiculous

Lord wonder how many people had seizures watching the 90s Sega commercials?? Thats the real question here.. lol

I didn't know Afterburner was on the system. Terrific arcade game I had a ton of fun with back in the day.

Mmmmmmmm fine wine good day sir

Would need a megadrive first... hopefully next month

Watching this and metal head was in my 32x.

Subscribed!

Looking forward to the Chaotic video. Maybe the 32X is worth a look. If I had bought one back in the day I would have been upset though.

Back then I only wasn't unaware of, I can't even imagine that there were other gamesconsoles beside the Nintendo ones. Until the first glimpse of the Playstation arrived here in 1998.

Just got a 32x today for $20! But now I need the Genesis 1 to 32x cable

I would have loved to see what an epic rpg would have looked like on the 32x. Especially if all that hype machine stuff about combining the 32x and the CD actually panned out. It wouldn't have been better than saturn, but still could have made for some truly great titles

MK2 on 32x is one of the best ports of the game ever. Though .. nowadays the 32x really isn’t necessary for any game released on it. Better alternatives everywhere.

A small thing I appreciate about your videos: unlike other RU-vidrs, you use the word infamy/infamous correctly. It's one of the few language pet peeves of mine and you thankfully never trigger me!

I own two of these and you bet your ass they are worthwhile. Afterburner, Space Harrier, Blackthorne, Star Wars yeah. Great games.

One thing to note, is that all cartridge based games were ridiculously expensive. The original Genesis/MD titles for example cost around $59-$69 per cart. You can't really blame the 32X for that.

Subscribed. For eclectic tastes. Literally the only reason I had any interest in emulation was for those hard to reach, if not impossible, games and systems I never got to experience. Novelty over nostalgia.

Even though this is kind of an old video, I have to wonder if at one point, Sega was planning on an adapter for the Saturn's cartridge port, to allow it to play Genesis/Megadrive games, and perhaps even 32X. If they were, it's likely to have gotten the axe while they were trying to milk the last few pennies out of the consoles and games still on the shelves, and never saw the light of day. I'm fairly sure from the architecture of the Saturn, that it could easily have handled 32X titles, and via emulation, any Megadrive titles you threw at it. Bad mistake, Sega. Probably would have been a two level operation, the CD would have the emulation software/instruction set, and a cartridge with a bit of tech to tell the Saturn which software it'd be running. It'd be interesting since only recently they managed to crack the Saturn, to see if anyone found anything in the original BIOS code that actually allows this.

I guess I'm a moron, because I have always thought Mortal Kombat was better than Street Fighter II. I actually considered buying a 32X when the stores were just trying to get rid of them at super low prices. Even with it's small library, I just really loved Space Harrier and Afterburner.

Well shite...I was just called a Neanderthal for liking Mortal Kombat... Hold my spear....

I used to have one, was good at the time

The stack is the reason for the CDX design upgrade...

i honestly love the 32X . one of the best port of space harrier.

I bought this at launch. My mom hated me for it since I only got like two games for it LOL

A couple of my 32X favorites that didn't make the list: Blackthorne and Star Trek's Starfleet Academy Bridge Simulator. Both were also released on the SNES, but I prefer the 32X versions.

Star Wars arcade 32x is my favorite console game of all time.

I actually really like my 32x while I agree that the games library is miniscule, what is there is mostly quality. While some ports are gimped, and/or have better versions on other consoles at the time, Doom comes to mind, there were some stellar arcade ports. Such as After Burner, Virtua Racing Deluxe, and Space Harrier. As well as a couple of good original games, such as Kolibiri, and Knuckles Chaotix. And some very technically impressive software like Darxide, and Metalhead. Still though, as much as I love my 32x, I would feel absolutely gutted if I had bought this on launch, or when it was relevant. While the library has an overall better quality library than the 32x, it sold less than 1/3 of what the Sega/Mega CD.

Seeing Space Harrier. Getting perfect happiness. Thinking about Shenmue. Watching too many streams on twitch...

7:20 You should've added a 'game genie', sonic & knuckles', and 'sonic 3' to create the ultimate sega tower

I loved my 32X. I got it for $20 when it was being discontinued and got a dozen games for $5 each. I could have bought Kolibre but skipped that for Spiderman: Web of Fire. Wish I got Kolibre because Web of Fire was bad. Only positive thing about it was I sold it for more than $200 years ago.

32X is a good system with so much unexplored potential. It's too bad its life got cut tragically short. My favorite game for the system is Shadow Squadron.

I really wanted the 32X when it came out. In hindsight I'm glad I didn't get it and waited it out for the Saturn. But it's still a nice piece of gaming history today, especially for Sega fans.

You missed the rarest most expensive pal 32x game: Darxide

Are you serious about Mortal Kombat? yet like Wrestlemania made by the same people?!...

I need a new copy of Spider-man web of fire. ugh, dog hate my brand new copy I had for my collection! I go to reorganize my collection and BAM he runs off with it! Cart is fine, just some bite marks, but it's no longer mint condition! *eye twitches*

THGM, from a wrestler's standpoint, how good of a foreign object weapon would the Sega Stack (Sega Master System+Mega CD+32X) be for a wrestling match? I imagine it looks good and heavy and would come appart rather spectacularly if struck over the head of an unsuspecting face wrestler.

Wrestlemania the arcade game I played it on the snes it was so much fun 😂

That review of Mortal Kombat 2 was pretty darn childish.

I really like Knuckles Chaotix, it's really fun, it's such a shame Sega has never ported it!

I've always enjoyed the 32x. I got one in '95 (used unit from a local video store). I was quite disappointed when support got dropped by Sega but was not surprised. I remember at the time, Space Harrier and After Burner got some negative press, with a lot of reviews saying "why is Sega releasing 10 year old arcade ports on this system". I thought they were great as it was the first time I played near arcade ports of either one on a home console. I am glad that over time these two ports got more appreciation. Another good arcade port on the system is NBA Jam tournament edition. It was the first port I played at home that featured the arcade scaling that was missing from the 16 bit versions. Virtua Racing is probably my favorite game on the console. It is the best version of the game on any console IMO (the Saturn version was a missed opportunity). Doom 32x, despite only being the first two episodes of the game, was fun and I still enjoy it though at the time, I had Doom on the PC so anything on a console was going to be inferior. Being a fan of FMV, I did enjoy the upgraded 32x ports of those games. It would have been interesting if there was a 32xCD game that was released that was not FMV but I guess no one felt the investment would have been worth it. I do not get the hate the system has received, I think a lot of it is people jumping on the bandwagon. Sure the system had a lot of issues, but from someone who had one for over 20 years, I don't regret having it.

haha, I couldn't even tell you were trying to do an American accent until you said. ;)

The 32x is a lovely system. Cumbersome, sure, but some games had a good bump in graphics and playability from their 16 bit counterparts.

Primal Rage had bigger sprites, more animation and better sound on 32x (11:50). Also. were you playing this on real hardware? Because every review I've ever seen of BC Racers (not BS as you said) says it plays at 7fps - even slower than the Sega CD. But your footage looks smooth. What is the truth here?

About MK vs SF - MK have much easier and comfortable controls, better story, more real life look to it, enough secrets, enough over the top attractions and ok fighting mechanics. SF - all these Z shaped inputs to do any special move is a pain in the arse, i remember buying SF4 for Xbox360 and i was fighting against my controller more than i fought an opponent on screen. And i don't plan to go to internet for hours just to find out what controller u need to use to play SF comfortably, how much it cost over the game itself and how long before it can arrive at my home. MK - you just pick up and play, SF - you need to fight your own character on screen because Camcom (and many others) thinks - it's ok to make Z, circles, half circles and all other strange movements on a standard controller, or ok to buy a special controller just to play their game (since releasing locked on content as DLCs, and then Ultimate, Ultra and Special versions of the same game for money, instead of free patches, is ok with them too).

When I had 32x, Knuckles Chaotix was my favourite. Doom was cool, but the music was shit. Mortal Kombat 2 was probably the closest you could get to an arcade perfect port until digital rereleases later on. Tempo was fun, but got too confusing later on. Kolibri was pretty, but ultimately there wasn't much of a challenge and it ended up feeling pretty bland.

Also, am I the only one who'd storm Parliament and demand that Mr Top Hat Gaming Man does a video on whether or not the Commodore Amiga is worth playing in the present day?

I definitely don't think the 32X was worth the money when it came out, but I managed to pick up the complete Genesis Trio and a bunch of games for $100 about 10 years ago (back when retro gaming was still pretty niche). I actually did really enjoy playing the 32X and the bunch of games we had for it. My personal favorite was Star Wars Arcade since it played like an underpowered and arcady version of one of my favorite games of all time: Star Wars Rogue Squadron.

Virtua racing, virtua fighter and MK II alone were enough

I love blackthorne on the 32x

I bought a 32X at one point. (Back when it was a collectors item, not a new item. Around 2004 I think.) I wound up returning it though. It was neat and interesting, but I wasn't able to find much on it that I wanted to play. It wasn't so much about the library of games the console had, but it was more because there was only one used game store in my area that even had any 32X games, and their selection sucked. As I recall, when I returned it I instead bought a Sega CD. I still have that.

Good vid but you skipped the inner fight between Sega of America and Sega Corporate in Japan! That was a big story.

I've owned the 32X twice in my life and I feel that there's some fun to be had from it. Not worth a ton of money or anything but definitely worth emulating and worth grabbing if you come across one for cheap. And for CDX owners like myself, it works perfectly fine in mine, despite what some online will try to tell you. Thanks for the great video Mister Hat.