The Mega Drive and its ecosystem
Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2025 11:43 pm
The Mega Drive. Or Genesis if you're freaky. The Master System had set the stage for Sega, but not really lived up to its potential. But a new era was approaching - Nintendo had relinquished its exclusivity clause in the West, computing power was becoming more and more affordable, and Sega was making waves in the arcades. And what better way to bring that directly into people's homes than with an ambitious and capable games console!
If you couldn't guess by my icon here, the Mega Drive is my absolute favourite games console. It's got a confidence about it, but still has enough rough edges and quirks to feel sincere. It was nothing like as powerful Sega's arcade systems, but still definitely competent enough to do them justice in people's living rooms, as well as bring new ideas to life as well, such as a trail-blazing blue hedgehog. And also on that success, Sega perhaps got a bit too big for their boots, and started coming up with some funny ideas...
...giving the Mega Drive all sorts of weird addons and variants! The Mega CD makes enough sense, as CDs were becoming more and more affordable, and offered so much more space, and high-fidelity audio, no more music being limited by a sound chip! And to make the most of the opportunity, Sega added extra features that they presumably would have loved the Mega Drive to have had from the beginning, in sprite scaling and rotation, and even more sound channels and better sampled audio capabilities! However, their hubris misguided them, and they leant into FMV more than taking advantage of those capabilities to port more of their excellent arcade games to it. Games like Batman Returns (the driving sections at least) and Soul Star show what a port of Space Harrier, Outrun or even After Burner (II, not III!) could have been like on it! But alas.
And then there's the mushroom which, if you're not careful, can grow out of the top. I was not careful... And Sega weren't either. In many ways it's not meant to exist. It was designed purely as an attempt to bring the kind of 32-bit power the Saturn was being built around to the install base of the still hugely-popular Genesis in North America, instead of telling them all to move onto a completely new and incompatible system. Sega of Japan did not like it, as the Mega Drive was never a huge success there, and running to the end of its course. So not long after the 32X was released, the Sega Saturn was too, even sooner than planned, and instead of excited by the next generation's arrival, many fans felt betrayed and tricked! They'd spent their money on this addon for the tired old system, not the fancy new system! And so it ended up with low sales, and only around 40 games. However, of those 40 games, I'd say ten of them are definitely worth the experience. Kolibri, Tempo, Knuckles Chaotix, Star Wars Arcade and in particular Virtua Racing Deluxe, along with excellent (if not perfect) ports of Space Harrier, After Burner II and Virtua Fighter, are all worth checking out and seeing what more they can do than the basic Mega Drive. It isn't always much...but sometimes it still makes a lot of difference!
Of course, the base system has so many incredible games of its own, we can't let the strange sidesteps steal the entire show! What's your favourites?
Here's my collection! :3 My entire beloved tower of power, which I've modified each part of so I'm able to change it to any of the regions with just the flick of a single switch! The refresh rate and language of the main unit with the BIOS of the Mega CD matching, and each of which even having its own bank of FRAM save memory! Very pleased and excited with what I've pulled together!
If you couldn't guess by my icon here, the Mega Drive is my absolute favourite games console. It's got a confidence about it, but still has enough rough edges and quirks to feel sincere. It was nothing like as powerful Sega's arcade systems, but still definitely competent enough to do them justice in people's living rooms, as well as bring new ideas to life as well, such as a trail-blazing blue hedgehog. And also on that success, Sega perhaps got a bit too big for their boots, and started coming up with some funny ideas...
...giving the Mega Drive all sorts of weird addons and variants! The Mega CD makes enough sense, as CDs were becoming more and more affordable, and offered so much more space, and high-fidelity audio, no more music being limited by a sound chip! And to make the most of the opportunity, Sega added extra features that they presumably would have loved the Mega Drive to have had from the beginning, in sprite scaling and rotation, and even more sound channels and better sampled audio capabilities! However, their hubris misguided them, and they leant into FMV more than taking advantage of those capabilities to port more of their excellent arcade games to it. Games like Batman Returns (the driving sections at least) and Soul Star show what a port of Space Harrier, Outrun or even After Burner (II, not III!) could have been like on it! But alas.
And then there's the mushroom which, if you're not careful, can grow out of the top. I was not careful... And Sega weren't either. In many ways it's not meant to exist. It was designed purely as an attempt to bring the kind of 32-bit power the Saturn was being built around to the install base of the still hugely-popular Genesis in North America, instead of telling them all to move onto a completely new and incompatible system. Sega of Japan did not like it, as the Mega Drive was never a huge success there, and running to the end of its course. So not long after the 32X was released, the Sega Saturn was too, even sooner than planned, and instead of excited by the next generation's arrival, many fans felt betrayed and tricked! They'd spent their money on this addon for the tired old system, not the fancy new system! And so it ended up with low sales, and only around 40 games. However, of those 40 games, I'd say ten of them are definitely worth the experience. Kolibri, Tempo, Knuckles Chaotix, Star Wars Arcade and in particular Virtua Racing Deluxe, along with excellent (if not perfect) ports of Space Harrier, After Burner II and Virtua Fighter, are all worth checking out and seeing what more they can do than the basic Mega Drive. It isn't always much...but sometimes it still makes a lot of difference!
Of course, the base system has so many incredible games of its own, we can't let the strange sidesteps steal the entire show! What's your favourites?
Here's my collection! :3 My entire beloved tower of power, which I've modified each part of so I'm able to change it to any of the regions with just the flick of a single switch! The refresh rate and language of the main unit with the BIOS of the Mega CD matching, and each of which even having its own bank of FRAM save memory! Very pleased and excited with what I've pulled together!
