@@RetroGamerBoyBut all the more reason that the 32X wasn't necessary for the Genesis in 1994-95. The CD clearly had enough gas left in it to take on some of those PS1 launch titles.
Soulstar definitely looks amazing. I bought it last month (I live in the US) but haven't played it yet because I have a massive backlog of hundreds of games. That said, the Sega/Mega CD had some outstanding games. Presentation is but just one part of a game. That said, Soulstar looks like a lot of fun with some variety in gameplay and great ambient music to go with it. There is a reason that it's pricey.
Great list! I would probably have dropped Final Fight CD and Thunderhawk and added Popful Mail and Shining Force CD to mine. But as you said, it's really hard making a top 5, there are quite a few bangers to choose from. Others would be Lunar 2, Dungeon Explorer, Lords of Thunder, Android Assault and the Ecco games.
I was considering Shining Force, but because it's essential a Game Gear remake I opted for other titles. There are some great games in your list though😁👍
What the hell. The montage at 13:14, I cried. I cried and felt an urge to salute. That was just beautiful. Dude. What the hell. I rewatched it. Shivers. Glorious. I miss it so bad. I miss The discovery. I miss living through that era. I miss those days. Nothing will ever be the same. Why? Why is it like this? Why? Bravo. I’m gona go watch it again. It’s so beautiful. Life is not like it was anymore.
My personal Top 5 Mega CD games: 1. Terminator CD 2. Final Fight CD 3. Sonic CD 4. Silpheed 5. Snatcher Honorable mention: Vay (THAT SOUNDTRACK!!!) Guilty Pleasure: Every FMV game on the console. My first FMV game was Mad Dog McCree on the family PC in late 1994, and I was blown away (no pun intended, and I was also 8 years old). I now own almost every FMV game on the Mega CD, and I have no regrets.
Shame not many developers actually took advantage of the extra power provided by the MegaCD, much like the 32X and Saturn. People in the homebrew community are now getting to grips with developing for it, so perhaps we will see some new showcases of its abilities in the future.
Core Design seemed to be the only developer who know the mega CD had these capabilities. No ode why a Sega didn’t think its device couldn’t handle show scaler games. Outrunners could have had a proper port.
I can't agree anymore than you on Sonic CD. Fantastic game and my fave of the 16 bit ones. Great vid as always Mike. So glad I own a few of these already (Thunderhawks first mission music is etched into my brain) and I wasn't aware of Soul Star but that's now absolutely on my radar to find
I remember the intro to Silpheed being the most atmospheric thing I ever witnessed in console gaming. It blew me away when I booted this game up for the first time and it always remained a treat throughout all the times I played through the game.
I am fond of the mega-cd and i am a Megadrive fan because of the Mega-CD. I still think that it's a unexploited superb machine. So if you wanted to make me cry with your "Mega-CD montage" let me tell you something.... you won.
Great video, thanks! I didn't own a Mega CD back in the day but have beem collecting for it in recent years, I now have 40 games. My top 5 at the moment is: Snatcher, Shining Force CD, Dune, Robo Aleste and Keio Flying Squadron. It's hard to pick just five, the system has so many good games.
A very good list and I need to give Thunderhawk a longer play. It's really hard to just pick 5 though for my list I'd probably have to fit Lunar Eternal Blue and Shining Force CD with Lord of Thunder as a top honorable mention.
I genuinely feel sorry for those that had a Mega/Sega CD at the time yet didn’t get to experience Snatcher. It is still and always will be my favourite game. I’m not that sure it’s aged well however as it is very text heavy. Kojima liked to detail the far end of a fart with spec, still it was a game like no other. “Cuuunnninghaaaam!! No, Snnatttcher!!!” *sniff* It was one of those very very few games that captured pure magic.
I've just finished playing through Lunar again recently - a brilliant game, and the soundtrack is amazing, really showing off what the CD add-on could offer. Final Fight CD and Snatcher were also excellent, can't argue with any of your choices 😀
Wow! Very good list and very well done. I too am a Sega CD fan since day 1. With retro gaming taking off I feel like the Sega CD is finally getting the respect it deserves as a great system with some fantastic games. In addition to all the games, you mentioned some other favorites of mine include Earthwork Jim Special Edition, Flink, Road Rash, Popful Mail, and Mickey Mania with Tomcat Alley and Sewer Shark being guilty pleasures of mine 😊 I forgot to mention Jurassic Park. I think that game does not get enough love, especially considering its high production values.
Great list, just a pity that the Lunar games were never released in Europe! The first one is available as a repro with the music stretched but not the second due to how the music was engineered. I'm working to resolve this so us PAL Mega CD owners can finally play this game on our consoles at the correct speed!
Oh the memories. I was buzzing to finally get my hands on a Mega CD. I wanted one from launch but my parents refused to pay the rather lofty price at the time. Eventually the Mega CD 2 came out which was much cheaper and I finally got one! It came with Road Avenger and boy was I blown away. I memorised that game having played it to death and managed to beat it. Happy days. Great list by the way. Final Fight CD was probably my favourite game I owned for the system. Only had a demo of Thunderhawk and regret never buying it. Remember playing the demo over and over again. I've managed to get my hands on a Mega Drive 2 Mini and hope to be able to add some essential Mega CD games to that one day 🤞
My personnal N°1 on the Mega CD is the 2nd greatest game I have EVER played in my entire life. - The greatest I have ever played in my life is Shenmue and Shenmue II by Yu Suzuki on the Sega Dreamcast. I finished the game thinking I have been through a genuine master piece comparable to Once Upon A Time In The West in the world of cinema. The stunning scenery in Kow Loon's Old City and Guilin National Park, the crazy ambition of reproducing Hong Kong street by street, Shenmue continues to blow my mind. - Now the 2nd greatest game I have ever played, right behind Shenmue, is Lunar Eternal Blue for the Mega-CD, by Game Arts. Once again, I dropped the controller after defeating the final boss thinking this is very special. I cried. Because of the emotional trick in the Love story. The cartoon is very well done. It complements the 16bit RPG to perfection, by which I mean the rhythm is pitch perfect. All characters are phenomenal, with great personnalities. Massive congratulations for the outstanding English translation. The voice acting is terrific too. I love that you can sail the boat over the map. I understand the interest in Snatcher (it took me a while to get into it) but for me, there is no debate whatsoever as to what is the crown jewel of the Mega-CD. For me, it's Lunar Eternal Blue by a Usain Bolt margin.
Fun fact - the tune playin on the silpheed entry, was what i used for my intro on my channel ... now i use mitch murders version of the space harrier theme. Before that i used level 4 of sol-feace... sega had some amazing sound tracks and i was so fortunate to have a mega cd back in the day.
Great video, although personally i wouldn't put Silpheed so high in the list. Thunderhawk is probably my number 1 mega cd game. It blew my mind back in the day, as did Final Fight cd. The mega cd doesn't get enough love. It was a cool sega add on, but the fmv based games did let it down a tad.
Thanks for bringing back happy memories :-) Final Fight (that music!), Sonic CD, Silpheed are great choices. I never played Snatcher though. A shoutout for Time Gal :-)
😅 I have Time Gal, the game was pretty shallow, once you know all the sequences the game lasts about 15mins. But the animation was so cool to see on the Mega CD.
Hi! The Sega Mega CD is the most successful Add-On of all Add-Ons in the world, selling approximately 6 million units worldwide. Furthermore, the Mega CD is the owner of the most beautiful version of Sonic of all, precisely "Sonic CD," and of the shooter with polygonal graphics with the most beautiful graphics of all existing console systems, including the 32 and 64 Bit ones. namely Silpheed, and A/X-101. And I would say this alone is enough to make it a great success!!..Not to mention the fighting game conversions, then many RPGs, and FMV Technology, which caused a huge sensation at the time!! Then the Chip Custom A.S.I.C. for 3D Hardware graphics, 8 stereo audio channels with P.C.M. quality. and an independent Motorola MC68000 processor with clock increased to 12.5Mhz in spite of the MC68000 at 6.67 of the Mega Drive, and a good 6-MBit of V-RAM. In short, a MASTERPIECE!!!
Always wanted one as a kid but me and all the kids I knew had Nintendo. It wasn’t until recently after retiring from the army that I’ve been able to finally play these games.
Oh wow, SoulStar looked good! Road Avenger is one of those games that if I saw it, I'd HAVE to play it--playing a cartoon always felt like playing the future. Love me some Lunar though I've only ever played them on PS1... Space Ace--heh, always adored those Don Bluth style animations but MAN are those arcade games quarter munchers! Ha ha Sonic CD does seem like a must huh? Definitely love playing FFCD--it's THE way to play it at home for sure.
Man, that could be my top 5 as well, with a change or two (Lunar being no.2, Soulstar swapped with ThunderHawk). And Snatcher... one of my fav games of all time.
@@RetroGamerBoy I agree I really do agree it even loads twice as fast on EVER DRIVE PRO / Mortal Kombat Sega CD is damn good port. 🙏🏻☯️🐲 And Supreme Warrior is an honorable mention for FMV game💛
Additionally, award for best animation (non-FMV) also goes to Game Arts for Urusei Yatsura, a truly impressive game. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Otv620ziWjg.html
Great video Mike, I can’t comment on snatcher as I’ve never played and it’s quite pricey, I prob would have put a vote in for Batman returns just fi4 the amazing driving section and prince of Persia, catch up soon and have a great Christmas, cheers Jonathan 👍👍
There is a company called Retro Game Lab Reproductions that make some nice Mega CD repros of some of the more expensive games. My daughter broke my copy when she was younger so I've got a repro from them to tie me over until I pick an original up again. They are very good and come with manuals as well. They also make it clear on the box that it is a repro.
No Popful Mail? I have a soft spot for the French-produced Dune game too, the Mega CD version isn't quite as good as the DOS CD version, but its close! Hat tip to the definitive versions of Earthworm Jim, Ecco the Dolphin and Mickey Mania as well
@@RetroGamerBoy Yeah, I think Sega of Japan wanted the CD primarily for anime cutscenes and storytelling in RPGs...but at the time, the west didn't really care about RPGs and not many ever got western releases, so they had to find other things to do with it to sell the hardware...FMV being one of them
@@RetroGamerBoy Why did they bother to put scaling hardware in there bumping the hardware cost by $100 over the PCE CD, then seemingly only ever used it for the Sonic CD bonus stage. They could've done kick-ass versions of the dozen or so scaler arcades with redbook audio and it would've sold like hotcakes...but all we got was shite like Afterburner 3 and Nightstrikers
@@RetroGamerBoy And it still mystifies me that Core Design were the only developer to ever use the sprite scaling stuff...despite not being renowned for similar 3D titles on Amiga or anything...bizarre
Interesting choices, for me Keio Flying Squadron is better than Silpheed but its all down to personal taste 🙂👍 But Snatcher is definitely the king of the Mega CD library 👑
@@RetroGamerBoy nice! 😃👍 yeah a great intro and the music in the game is awesome - do you have demo CD version which actually had the complete game on it? 🤣🤣
To be honest i was expecting a video about the amazing news of the developing of a new shmup game by Yuzo Koshiro and Ancient that it will be released on physical format for the Megadrive/Genesis!!!🤩🤩🤩
Silpheed at #2? Obviously it's all subjective, but IMO SoulStar is infinitely better, as is Keio Flying Squadron. I've always considered Silpheed to be pretty mediocre by the shoot em up standards of the Megadrive and MegaCD.
The overall package on Silpheed is pretty special. But the fact that most people don't know that the Mega CD had these great shootém-ups is a real shame.
Great list. I would remove Sonic cd, which looks and sounds fantastic, but the time travel gameplay slows it down too much for me. Space is does absolutely nothing for me. I would add Night Trap and Shining Force cd instead.
Fantastic video mate and a real eye opener for me. Don't really know much about the saga cd apart from all the fuss on Twitter of course. I really liked the look of that terminator game you mentioned at the beginning.
Snatcher? Looks more like an interactive book like Willie Beamish. It's crazy cuz every other game you reviewed looked fun to play and actually looked like real games. The actual gameplay in snatcher looked sort of boring. After browsing through some of the comments I really don't see anyone reminiscing or speaking highly of Snatcher. Perhaps it's more about the rarity of the game because the gameplay looked meh. Maybe it's something I'm missing like extraordinary replay value? If the storyline warrants a number one position above all other "games" why haven't they attempted making a movie about it? And don't point towards blade runner because that is not based on Snatcher.
Snatcher was a stunning game. It was created by Hideo Kojima (creator of Metal Gear Solid) and characters and elements from Snatcher make it into Metal Gear. The game shares elements of point and click and has light gun section. It's not an action game or even fast paced, but the story and world have influenced many games. But not every game is for everyone.
@@RetroGamerBoy its pretty awesome, its a japanese anime originally. he's a bit of an anti-her if that makes sense, a badass charismatic but sleazy guy with a gun for an arm haha
Okaaaaay.... jesus, there are soooo many games missing! As usual, it focuses on Western games only. First of all, the greatest M-CD game ever is Lunar: Eternal Blue, along with The Silver Star (why are you using the Saturn logo?!?!). I don't mean those SHIT working hacks "translations" either. I mean the pure Game Arts/Studio Alex games as they were meant to be played. No Popful Mail is a joke, too! It was one of the only times SEGA Japan put any effort into a M-CD game! Probably more to do with the Falcom part of SEGA-FALCOM! Popful Mail is AMAAAAAAZING!!! Again, not the horrible, terrible, working hacks "English" version! There is also the amazing, the stunning Urusei Yatsura: Dear My Friends. Incredible game and another Game Arts M-CD masterpiece! 3X3 EYES was one of the best 16-BIT RPGs ever made, with the LUNAR's being the greatest 16-BIT RPGs ever. Again, it was one of only 5 or 6 games SoJ put effert into, and it shows! Stunning graphics, sound, animation... so many fun little touches in the game, such as walking into the game shop in HK and having the guy mention a "secret" game that was coming soon. It was SFII' SCE! Sengoku Denshou is another that deserves a mention. As usual, the sprite handling abilities were ignored, and we had NONE of the scaling of the NG original, which the M-CD could have handled no problem, but it was a pretty good conversion. Being only one player (!!) Did kill it a little, though. There is also Flink! Amazing, gorgeous game! Keio Yugekitai!! Bari-Arm!! Dai Hou Shin Den!! Cosmic Fantasy Stories! ARCUS I•II•III!!! YUMIMI MIX!! Dennin Aleste! Shadow Run! Mahou Shoujou Silky Lip! One of the most inovative 16-BIT games ever made.... Do not mention MODE 7 and the M-CD in the same sentence. MODE 7 could scale and rotate ONE sprite OR background. The M-CD had FULL sprite scalling, near SUPER SCALLER quality. If only idiot, stupid SoJ had upgraded the M-CD to be 32-BIT as they should have, the M-CD would have potentially surpassed the SUPER SCALLER hardware. I love and adore the M-CD but I could talk about how much I cannot forgive SoJ for screwing it up so badly, for many, many hours. The M-CD should have been what the 32X was. Every game should have been moved to CD! The fact that all big name games stayed on cart tells you everything! If the system had been 32-BIT and at least SYSTEM-24 or NEO-GEO in quality, the M-CD would have been the greatest system of the era. Third parties would have FLOCKED to it! KONAMI might have made all those SCD games for the M-CD instead! Imagine Dracula-X with 32X grapghics! Of course a cart assisted Street Fighter 2 would have killed all the competition, not to mention Mortal Kombat.... *SIGH*. The 6M-bit memory would have been more than enough to do a near perfect SFII. Plus, all those planned CPS-I games might have made it out. All those cancelled M-CD games might have actually made it out! SoJ could have ported the REAL Shadow Dancer, Moonwalker and E-SWAT to the M-CD and made them arcade perfect. Not to mention the fact that we may have gotten S32 conversions such as Golden Axe: RoDA, Spiderman and Arabian Fight. That Punisher conversion would have been arcade perfect... It is nice to dream, but also so, so very depressing. I would kick Cerney in the arse if I ever met him. He should have made them make a 32-BIT system!! 😂 They charged more than an AES!! The hardware should have matched the price!!
There are some great games you mention there. I've heard that the Mega CD has some Dev tools coming out that could see new indie titles coming out for the console. Now that would be epic.
@Retro Gamer Boy Holy crap, that would be epic, indeed! I would so love to see my beloved MEGA-CD actually get the love and attention it deserved in 1991-1995. Christ knows SEGA didn't give two shits about it. The shoddy hardware development and lack of moving all games to CD, NEC/HUDSON style, proved that a million times over :'(
I had the Sega CD and a couple of fantastic games like Syndicate when I was a kid ... Now I just bought a Sega CD on Ebay but DAMN! what crazy prices for the Games???
Just burn a CD. Feeling “wrong” as you put it is much better than not playing the game at all. (Here’s a not very well-kept secret: the game plays exactly the same as an original CD if you’re using original h/w)
Not sure were I would rate most titles among a top 5 or even top 10 for that matter, but my number 1 would always be Snatcher, no doubt. It's one of very few games I've played and finished more than once, and actually revisit on a pretty regular basis. It's also a game I've wished would get revisited in some way, shape or form, but Kojima seems to have little to no interest in that proposition(and or Konami). So the original will have to continue to be one of my favorite gaming memories of all time.
I love your videos. But can you make the thumbnails more G-rated? Thumbnails like this make it hard for me to watch the videos. I would not want my wife to know I watched videos with this type of thumbnail on it. Thanks!
@@RetroGamerBoy what I meant was if they didn't release the sega cd as a n add on at first , because if u don't have a sega gen then you cant buy it , plus think of how much both of them cost together . if it was a stand alone and released at the same time as the PlayStation , it most likely would have been a hit !
@@curlyflipper2020 if it would of released at the same time as the PlayStation it wouldn’t of even continued for 6 months😂PlayStation ended the Saturn. Dreamcast amongst others
