Games to Beat / Games I’ve Beaten – Sega Genesis/CD

Sega Genesis

Well, this isn’t going to be a very impressive post. If you recall, in a recent post I declared that “Genesis Games Are Fucking Hard” and I stand by that statement. I’ve been living this reality for the past few months and I have very, very little mastery of the Genesis library to show for it.

I was hoping by the end of July, I would have beaten a Shinobi game or two, but Revenge of Shinobi routinely kicks my ass and I haven’t spent enough time with Shinobi III due to all my efforts and willpower being drained on Revenge. I thought maybe my skills at Contra on the NES could translate over to Contra: Hard Corps and my persistence would result in a hard earned victory. Nope. No dice there. Streets of Rage? I can’t regularly get past the twins. Comix Zone? No continues? No fucking way. So where does that leave me? Frustrated and ready to just admit I suck at Sega Genesis games that don’t allow unlimited continues and require a good amount of time (which I don’t currently have) to master. Sounds like a wonderful retirement plan to me.

So here’s a (short) list of Genesis games I did manage to finish over the past few months.

Gunstar Heroes – A tough game that requires quick reflexes, the ability to learn patterns, and continues. Lots and lots of continues. An amazing title that deserves all the accolades and I’m glad I don’t need to play through it again.

Castlevania Bloodlines – Another tough, but not impossible, game that I benefited from the use of multiple continues. I love the Castlevania franchise and having beaten Castlevania IV on the SNES not too long ago, I knew I needed to add the “other” 16-bit Castlevania adventure to my “completed” list. Great game.

Note to self: make more gaming friends so you don’t have to play through button mashers like TMNT: Hyperstone Heist all alone.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Hyperstone Heist – Not so much a hard game as it is a game that requires determination and button mashing stamina. A common theme with the 3 titles I have listed so far is that I can apparently beat Genesis games that allow for a healthy dose of continues. Cowabunga!

Sega CD

Confession time. I hadn’t spent a lot of time actually playing my Sega CD prior to this year. I had been spending time (and money) collecting games for the Sega CD because I liked their style, I liked Sega consoles, and it felt more like a forgotten system which always draws me in. I had picked up copies of Snatcher, Popful Mail and some of the other heavy hitters years before they skyrocketed in price, but actually sitting down and playing them? Nope. I always had other games to play instead.

Here we are in 2019 and I’ve essentially spent 3-4 months of this calendar year with my Sega CD as one of my primary gaming systems, exclusively playing games from my collection and adding a few others. The two games that I’ve already mentioned in previous posts, Snatcher and Popful Mail, were the two games I was most interested in playing. Not only because they are the two most expensive games in my Sega CD collection, but also because they are two of the most widely respected games in the library as well. The end result is that I played through both games and had a blast. Both games lived up to the hype and allowed me to appreciate them for their own unique and special aspects.

One other game I decided to give a full playthrough this year was Road Avenger. I was always on the fence about the system’s FMV games but there was something about this particular game that appealed to me so I gave it a shot and practiced, practiced and practiced some more until I finally beat it. It was worth the time and effort I put in as I thought the story was interesting and well executed.

Between those three titles, I didn’t have a lot of time to play through anything else for the console. The games I’m most interested in completing, whenever my next Sega CD fix rears its pixelated head will be the two Lunar games (The Silver Star and Eternal Blue) as well as trying to get through Sonic CD. I’ve played Sonic CD quite a bit but never made a concerted effort to get through it. Another retirement goal.