Mega Drive Complete Japanese game Library

I did one of these for the Dreamcast once, so why not the Mega Drive? I've been on a bit of a high for Mega Drive Japanese games lately, so for those collecting them here is every game released in Japan for the system in chronological order (according to the database over at Guardiana), with their front covers featured which I found from various sources (some games were hard to find the covers of, so the quality of the pictures varies) and some OC Remixes of Ristar and Streets of Rage for good measure.

Funny to think of how many games they got over there that we didn't, yet their game line up is actually missing quite a lot too, such as Vectorman. Many Japanese versions of the games are much rarer, especially most of the games from 1995. Maximum Carnage and Bart's Nightmare can be found here easily and aren't even very good games, yet the Japanese version fetch hundreds upon hundreds of quid. A bit silly, really.

There's something to be said about the boxart from Japan though: there is a lot of nice artwork to be found. Compare the likes of Jewel Master, Alisha Dragon, Strider and others to their Western counterparts, you have to wonder what was going through their heads. Still, there are some odd choices like the cover to the The Ooze, which try to stand out as some sort of newspaper article with no artwork or screenshots, and Bio Hazard Battle goes by the name 'Crying' for some reason. These kind of differences from the west and east don't tend to happen so much now.

A blog you'll want to check out if you're looking to start collecting Japanese Mega Drives would be Mega Drive Memories by Ian Wilson.

Magical Flying Turbo hat Adventure: The More you Know!

Image from Segagagadomain

I'm sure you've all heard of the original Japanese version of the Mega Drive game Decap Attack, known over there under the crazy name of 'Magical Flying Turbo Hat Adventure', but it seems there was more to this than just a game.




I had a feeling it was probably based on an anime based on the copyright to Studio Pierrot on the title screen and box art, and from seraching for the game by it's Japanese name I came across a few things, like this opening to the anime:

There's a more colorful clip of this intro over at Nico Video, though you have to be registered to the site to view that. You might even recognize the music from the title screen of the game, makes sense. Pierrot still have a small official website set up for the anime, and there is an ending credits clip here. Yes, that is a 'Bye Bye Baby' cover you're hearing. According to some anime database website it was only running between the years of 1989 and 1990, so it can't of really took off.

What I was quite surprised to find is this anime had quite the merchindise push that it appaers was also led by Sega. They do have a toys department after all, that gave Japan the Zillion Laser tag game and the Pico pre-school console. There's lots of images of the boxes to toys of the robots from it on a website called Mandarake, as well as odd bits and bobs like keychains and small toys below, all with Sega's logo slapped on it.


There is also manga books to be found on Yahoo Auctions, and a DVD box set of the anime floating about. Would I want to watch it? Probably not, but it's just a fascinating sort of alternate dimension to me, growing up with the Decap Attack comic rather than this. The fact that main main bad guy in both versions is more or less just a different colour from the other links the two together in a funny kind of way (ok, they don't look exactly the same in the below pics, but in game they did), and it gives more context to an otherwise very odd (and fun) import Sega platformer.

None of this explains why Fantastic Dizzy is in the game, though.

Oh, and while I'm talking about Decap Attack, check out this amazing fan made figure of Chuck D. Head!

Mega Drive Musical Madness

Put this together over the last couple of days. The mega Drive in the right hands pumped out some brilliant music, and this video is a sample of some of my personal favorites. I might make another one of these at some point if I get time, or maybe videos of the music from certain games like Decap Attack and Battle Mania 2.

Another lazy commercial videos post!

The 'Genesis' is 20 years old from it's American release this week so why not?



This is a promo video presumably from 1989/90, before Sonic had even shown up. It's pretty long as it's a collection of commercials stringed together, but at least skip to 3:27 for the hilariously bad Stallone impression the narrator makes when talking about Rambo III.

This one is from Australia sometime around 1994/5 I'd imagine, when dodgy looking 3D animation like this was all the range. Vaguely interesting notes: the Ren & Stimpy footage shown is from an early beta build of the game, which you can find floating around the 'net' (which according to this Sega created). The beta is extremely basic with almost non existent level design and backgrounds. Also, when it talks about turning into Super Sonic in Sonic 3, doesn't that sound an awful lot like who currently voices Sonic in the modern games? Just a coincidence of course.



And yes, if you didn't already know in Australia they really do pronounce Sega as 'See-ga'. I wonder if the Aussie version of the Sonic games changed the logo voice to that. Probably not. This ad above for the master System is mainly notable for the rather ace rendition of the After Burner music. I also like how you could rent a Master System console in a sweet Sega branded suitcase of sorts.



Oh hey, here's some more Pirate TV ads I haven't linked to before! Above is a musical number about the Cyber Razor cut, and below is a rather bizarre shower scene Game Gear ad. Still my favorite Sega ad campaign of the lot.

Mega Drive/Master System Stand: I'm nuts.

Chalk this up as one of the craziest Sega related purchases I have ever made. The game shop I bought it from said they paid £600 for this back when the Mega Drive was the best selling format at the shop (15 years or so ago I'd imagine), and I got it for the starting bid of £50 one morning a week ago on a whim on eBay.

My dad picked it up all the way from Chester yesterday (he does a delivery job driving all over the country, so he picked it up while he was up that way), just in time for the consoles' 20th Anniversary since it's American 'Genesis' (ick) launch. To say it's big would be an understatement, it's 190cm tall and 56cm across, so about the size of our freezer. At first it looked a bit like the Leaning Tower of Pisa until this morning I figured out that you have to twist each shelf around until they lock in place. It's currently sitting in a room that isn't used much because there is no way it's going up those stairs, and there probably isn't anywhere to put up there anyway.

It has a big square weight at the bottom so it doesn't fall over, and Sega logo stickers on every side. It's not really much to look at until you fill it up with games though, right?

I have just over 100 Mega Drive and Master System games in all, and this thing can hold up to 140 (160 if you include the very top, though they'd probably fall off when you turn it up there). But enough talk, more photos! Click to enlarge yadda yadda..

Michael Jackson 1958-2009 - His Contribution to Sega

Michael Jackson has just been confirmed to have passed away tonight in a hospital in L.A. at the young age of 50. No matter what you think of him as a person, he was an incredible talent and for those who were kids during the 80's and 90's: his music was a huge chunk of our childhood.

And as any Sega fan would know, Michael Jackson and Sega got along rather well, collaborating on many projects such as The Moonwalker arcade, Mega Drive and Master System games..

..not to mention his supposed involvement on the Sonic 3 soundtrack.. (click image for the video)

More after the jump..



Here's a rather neat mix of the Sonic 3 credits music and Stranger in Moscow (and check out that photo!):

..his cameo in Space Channel 5 Part 2..

..and judging from the auction of his processions a while ago, he owned a LOT of Sega arcade machines at the Neverland ranch, possibly provided by Sega themselves as a thank you because you gotta admit, the Genesis in America may not of had the jump start in the market it had if it was not for his name associated with it in this infamous commercial.

R.I.P Michael.



EDIT: Someone linked to this wonderful piece of Sonic art. Don't know of where it came from, but it deserves a show:


and here's a collection of brilliant Sonic/MJ mixes by the ever clever Yuzoboy in one tribute vid:

Visualshock! Speedshock! Soundshock! The Mega Drive is 20 today.

On this day in 1988 the Mega Drive was released in Japan. It was actually about 2 and a half years from this point before Sonic The Hedgehog debuted on the system. Just take that into perspective for a moment: 2 and a half years was very much the Dreamcast's entire life span (if you don't count all those shmups released here and there afterwards, but I'll be going into the Dreamcast more next month for the Dreamcast's 10th Birthday) and yet in this time the Mega Drive had barely even started and would only get stronger and stronger from there on. It was Sega's most successful console in Europe and America, and longest living on the market worldwide. It was also the only console that managed to shake up Nintendo's stranglehold on the gaming market at the time and force them to push themselves to make their own 16-bit console. If it wasn't for the Mega Drive, Nintendo would of most likely of sat on the NES for much longer and wouldn't have felt pressured to make even better games which to the most heated and most exciting console "war" in it's history to date.

The Mega Drive still lives in many forms. The games are available on the Wii's Virtual console, on many Sega collection discs released, and in dozens of TV plug in and handheld devices, like this recently released tiny console that has 20 games built in and even a cartridge slot for the original. Mega Drive systems and games are also still sold in Brazil, where it even got some brand new games like a suprisenly well done port of Duke Nukem 3D.
Still, there is nothing quite like playing these games on the original hardware and you don't as much classy than the original model. The Mega Drive looked and feeled like a truly powerful and slick piece of hardware at the time, especially compared to the plastic lump that was the NES. It was also dark and not very toy-like at all, which was quite unusual for a console. There were many different kinds of Mega Drive models released in later years (The Wondermega, MegaJet, Mega Drive II and 3, the list goes on) but this will always be the most iconic.

Saying that, this is what I currently own and is my favorite model of the lot: The Multi Mega. At about half the size, with both the Mega Drive cart slot and a Mega CD disc drive, it is a wonderfully small but robust system. Combine this with a good scart cable for my LCD telly and a extra Master System converter makes it the ultimate retro system for me. The CD drive actually conked out on it a little while ago but I made sure to get it fixed, mainly because I'll never find one of these cheap again, I reckon. Did I mention it came from a car boot sale for £6.50? I probably did, because it's probably the best gaming related purchase I have ever made.

One of my other favorite things about the Mega Drive has to be it's controller. It's possibly one of the most comfortable to hold ever made, has a fantastic d-pad and great feeling buttons. Every thing about it just comes together beautifully. The six button controller they released later was a bit small for my tastes, but many claim it to be their favorite controller of all time.

Some things I can never say i liked was how Sega of America handled the Mega Drive. Simply put, the "Genesis" is a pretty dumb name, and the advertising, while very effective, was pretty obnoxious, often making up utter codswallop like "blast processing". I guess in that case I can see Nintendo fans who grew up in the US of A found Sega to be quite annoying and quite difficult to take seriously. Sega Europe were far more clever with their advertising (if a little batshit at times, see my Pirate TV articles), which is probably why is was even bigger over here still, although it also helps that Nintendo of Europe always were and always will be incompetent.

But in the end for me it was the games that really made the Mega Drive for me. The variety and quantity on offer was just something else. The excellent video above by youtube user Alianger does a very nice job at summing up what the Mega Drive was all about. If you don't have time to dust off your Mega Drive today to give it a play, at least watch this 10 minute epic.

Sega of Americas Holy Grail

I'm sure if you browse gaming blogs you will have already seen this by now (most likely at Kotaku where they made up some rubbish about Sega forgetting all about it, either from mis-reading or an excuse to take a pop at Sega AKA gaming's whipping boy), but I can't NOT post about this archive of Sega's back catalog that they store at the American offices. Apparently it holds just about every game Sega has ever made or published, as well as all their consoles and peripherals. It truly is a beautiful sight to behold, and they have even more games stacked behind the ones shown in the photos!

A whole draw full of what look like Dreamcast GD-Rs. They even have a list for them all.

More after the jump!

Darn, even more GD-Rs, although according to the writer of the Flickr page they could very well be early builds or prototypes. You whats to guess they have some copies of Propeller Arena and maybe some betas in there?



Goddam that's a lot of Saturn games! The rest are PS2, Xbox and Gamecube games, and when looking quite close up it seems they've kept a bunch of games that were not produced by Sega too.



This appears to be where they keep all their PC releases, of which they seem to have a lot of copies of. There appears to be at least six piles of Sonic 3D there alone, and what do you know: I didn't know they ported Virtual On to the PC.



Even more Saturn games and shelfs full of Japanese and PAL Dreamcast games. Someone wipe the drool from my gob please..



There's a Dreamcast award of some sort her that in the full size photos reads "Sega Dreamcast: 1 million units sold, November 25 1999". Also a bunch of master System games, loads of PS2 and even more of those big PC boxes.



A whole slew of Mega CD games here, many of which I've honestly never even heard of (Bouncers? Wild Woody?). The 2nd shelf seems to be a Nintendo stash, and who knows whats in those hundreds of CD spinals at the bottom. One can hope it's original source codes that they could use to port classics to modern systems. If you find Chu Chu Rocket in there can you port it to Wiiware please?



A tall pile of PAL Dreamcast and on quote "some burns". Having a closer look at these burns shows they they have a propeller Arena demo, a whole bunch of E3 anf TGS demos and even some betas and alphas! Right near the bottom of the pile is "Dee Dee Planet Final". FINAL? Holy shit. If you haven't heard of Dee Dee Planet, it was a Death tank style Dreamcast game that never got released. All we ever saw of it was this video.



Piles and piles of peripherals and consoles, all of them never opened from their boxes. Oh how i would love to have a supermarket sweep through this room..



Finally a photo of an entire wall of shelfs. In the bottom corner they have every Pico game, a bunch of Japanese mega CD and Saturn games, GBA games, even more "burns" and much, much more. It's just so much to take in. Incredible.

Japanese Sega Art Book of Sheer Beauty Part 2: Scans!

As I promised here are some full scale scans from that wonderful Sega game illustrations book.

Here's a scanned example of one of the pages, which not only contains all that lovely felt-tip pen colored art from Sonic 1, but also talks of the characters' "charming and saucy nature". Hmm. No doubt the PAL Sonic 1 box art was nicer, though. More scans after the jump.

Some art scanned from one of the Sonic 2 pages, showing Tails back when he was generally cute and not an annoying little idiot. "Look at all them Eggman's robots" indeed.

The creepy furries may get a kick out of this one. Features some artwork of the badniks from the Game Gear version of Sonic 2, which I can't say I've seen before getting this book before (for all I know they were probably in the Japanese manual)..

Ever wanted large artwork of Streets of Rage? Well here you go! Sadly I couldn't get perfect scans of these what with the page bends though, so a lot of these will have squashed shadowed sides. Still, click on this and you can see all that unnecessary muscle detail closer than if you placed the Mega Drive case against your nose.


This one of Monster lair wasn't going too far into the page dip so I got this one almost just right. Illustrated by , of who's artwork should be familiar to anyone that ever owned a Master System, as the art could be found on many a white gridded box (when they did very rarely put any effort into the art on them that is). This one might even work as a widescreen wallpaper.


This is one of my favorite pieces from the entire book, a real piece of art that's wasted on a tiny Game Gear box but would look great hung up on a wall.


This Phantasy Star II art is also very arty. Has the look of a Moebius illustration, sort of. Now a Panzer Dragoon art book, THAT would be nice.

Outrun artwork by Akira Watanabe (the same guy who did the Sonic 1 and 2 cover art, amongst other Sega art). This wouldn't look out of place framed in a 1980's diner complete with a girl flying around on Rollerblades chewing bubblegum. This image could be all you need on Wikipedia for the word "Sega". Amazing.


And if that wasn't enough airbrushed Outrun goodness for you, here's a poor attempt at a scan of the two page spread of Turbo Outrun. This American dream of driving like an arsehole to show off to your brain dead girlfriend is illustrated so perfectly here.



And finally here's the classic Outrun logo, which might just be the largest copy of it you'll find on the Internet. I could be wrong, though.


I may upload some more scans from the book if anyone wants them, and if they're possible without wreaking the book, and maybe I'll cook up some wallpapers too.