Reviews

Mega Drive Game Reviews

  • Review Monster World IV (Wii Virtual Console / Mega Drive)

    Worth the wait

    Originally released in 1994, Monster World IV is the final game in the Wonder Boy series. It's a very well-liked game and another great entry in the franchise, but there was just one problem: it was never released outside Japan. Until now that is, because SEGA has finally given the rest of the world a chance to experience the game,...

  • Review Super Street Fighter II (Wii Virtual Console / Mega Drive)

    Online, but off-base?

    It's taken five and a half years for an online Street Fighter game to reach Wii. In that time, Xbox 360 and PS3 owners have had five different SF online titles — six, if you count Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition. Heck, even 3DS has Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition. Wii owners, for their sins, get an online-enabled...

  • Review Strider (Wii Virtual Console / Mega Drive)

    From Russia with love

    When you consider that he hasn’t starred in his own game since 2000, Strider Hiryu’s popularity in Capcom fan circles is impressive, which is largely down to the high regard in which players hold his 1989 coin-op début. Powered by Capcom’s CPS hardware, Strider was an arcade action platformer that redefined the genre;...

  • Review Sonic & Knuckles (Virtual Console / Sega Mega Drive)

    Lock-on, baby

    It's widely known that Sonic and Knuckles (S&K) started out as the latter half of Sonic 3, but development constraints forced SEGA to split the game in two, putting S&K onto an innovative Lock-On cartridge that, when combined with Sonic 3, pieced the game back together into its original state. Now, with the announcement that...

  • Review Shadow Dancer: The Secret of Shinobi (Virtual Console / Sega Mega Drive)

    Shinobi Joe is back, and this time he’s brought his dog

    Shadow Dancer started out life in 1989 in the arcades as the sequel to the ever-popular Shinobi, which was a sizable hit for creator Sega. In the same year the company also released the rather excellent Revenge of Shinobi as an early title for the fledgling Mega Drive/Genesis. It strayed from...

  • Review Earthworm Jim 2 (Virtual Console / Sega Mega Drive)

    Groovy!

    After creating the excellent Earthworm Jim videogame and subsequently making an awesome cartoon based on it, it was quite logical that Interplay would not give up on the franchise just yet. Not too long after the cartoon, they released Earthworm Jim 2, which was intended to be even better than the original game. As Queen Slug-for-a-Butt was...

  • Review Shanghai II: Dragon's Eye (Virtual Console / Sega Mega Drive)

    A history lesson in the failure of PC-to-console ports.

    Activision was the first to sell a mahjong solitaire (for lack of a better term) game for IBM PCs and Apple Macs in 1986 under the name Shanghai. They even got the programmer of the original game -- which was created on University of Illinois mainframes -- to do the programming and create...

  • Review The Revenge of Shinobi (Virtual Console / Sega Mega Drive)

    Joe Musashi returns in what is arguably the best ninja game ever

    There’s a common assumption that a console’s best titles come towards the end of its lifespan. This is mainly because developers take time to get to grips with a new machine’s power and as a result you have to wait a couple of years before you see what each console is truly...

  • Review Pulseman (Virtual Console / Sega Mega Drive)

    Will Pulseman's quality shock you?

    Ask yourself this - what games have Game Freak actually developed? Many people will probably only answer with "Pokémon," but the truth is, before Pokémon was even created, Game Freak was responsible for a handful of unique titles of their own. Pulseman was strangely only released in Japan originally. It was...

  • Review Galaxy Force II (Virtual Console / Sega Mega Drive)

    Galaxy Force II is another classic Sega arcade shooter that hasn't aged very well.

    Galaxy Force II debuted as a Sega arcade release, using the same type of sprite scaling seen in Sega's other arcade title Space Harrier, and basically mimicked 3-D scrolling without the use of actual polygon graphics. While Sega's Saturn console would later get a...

  • Review Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure (Virtual Console / Sega Mega Drive)

    Can Harry Jr. fill his father's boots?

    The two original Pitfall games for the Atari 2600 have become quite dated now – walking across a handful of endlessly repeating screens in the hope of finding treasure has lost its appeal. Activision once tried to "upgrade" the formula by allowing the Japanese developer Pony Canyon to make Super...

  • Review Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair (MD)

    The once quiet town of Xenobia is under attack by fierce, gruesome monsters and no one can stop them!

    Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair might seem incredibly familiar to Virtual Console addicts because the game has technically already been released on Nintendo’s download service – in the guise of Monster Lair on the TG-16! The complexities of the...

  • Review Wolf of the Battlefield: MERCS (MD)

    Join a group of professional mercenaries to undergo secret missions, battling through enemy lines to go where no ordinary soldier would dare to go.

    Once upon a time, back before Capcom officially started supporting the Genesis/Mega Drive, Sega acquired licence to reprogram various arcade classics produced by the developer. Ghouls ‘n’ Ghosts,...

  • Review ClayFighter (MD)

    ClayFighter is a 2D fighting game in which the characters, as the name suggests, are made completely out of clay.

    When Clayfighter was first released on the 16-bit consoles in 1993, claymation had never before been used in video gaming. While television shows and motion pictures had experimented with the technology to varying degrees of success, it...

  • Review MUSHA (Virtual Console / Sega Mega Drive)

    We've got much love for MUSHA!

    Mention the name Compile to any serious shooter fanatic and you’re likely to be faced with a barrage of nostalgic ranting. The now defunct company was responsible for some of the finest blasters the video game industry has seen, including Super Aleste (also known as Space Megaforce), Gunhed and Zanac. Surprisingly,...

  • Review Boogerman: A Pick and Flick Adventure (Virtual Console / Sega Mega Drive)

    While investigating Professor Stinkbaum's lab, Boogerman stumbles upon a strange machine that opens a portal to another dimension.

    Almost everybody knows Earthworm Jim - But Boogerman, which was created inbetween the first two Jim games, is much less familiar. This is a bit unjust, as it's every bit as quirky and fun as the aforementioned series...

  • Review Forgotten Worlds (Virtual Console / Sega Mega Drive)

    You will never forget this one!

    Forgotten Worlds was an interesting shoot-em-up arcade game back in the days. Not only was it developed by Capcom, it featured 2 player simultaneous play and a innovative control system were you rotated a second joystick on a 360 degree axis to determine what direction you wanted to fire in. On the shiny new CPS-1...

  • Review Phantasy Star IV (Virtual Console / Sega Mega Drive)

    In the year AW 2284, planet Motavia is once again plagued by strange biocreatures.

    After two successful Phantasy Star releases, Sega decided to change things up a bit for their third release in the series Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom. The game featured more of a medieval look to it instead of the science fiction theme that had been such an...

  • Review Street Fighter II: Special Champion Edition (Virtual Console / Sega Mega Drive)

    Street Fighting SEGA style.

    Back when Street Fighter II-mania was gripping the global gaming community, Capcom’s decision to release the first home port of the game on Nintendo’s SNES spoke volumes. This move showed that the company was backing Nintendo in the 16-bit war (up to this point all of Capcom’s Megadrive/Genesis games had actually...

  • Review Earthworm Jim (Virtual Console / Sega Mega Drive)

    A crow is chasing a worm named Jim, while in outer space, Psy-Crow is chasing a renegade ship.

    If you were at all interested in videogames or cartoons in the early 90's you were no doubt a fan of Earthworm Jim. Originally appearing in this game, the unusual hero went on to star in his own cartoon and a number of sequels to the videogame. Earthworm...

  • Review Shining Force II: Ancient Sealing (Virtual Console / Sega Mega Drive)

    It’s a dark and stormy night in the kingdom of Granseal when a thief steals two jewels from the Tower of the Ancients.

    The original Shining Force was a massive success for Sega, granting the Genesis/Megadrive with a strategy RPG to rival Nintendo’s popular Fire Emblem franchise. A sequel of some description was inevitable and when it arrived the...

  • Review Splatterhouse 2 (Virtual Console / Sega Mega Drive)

    Rick, once again encounters the Terror Mask and must use its powers to rescue his beloved Jennifer.

    Rick is back! After the Terror Mask from the first Splatterhouse comes back and tells him his girlfriend (Who seemingly meets an unpleasant fate in the first game) can still be saved, Rick puts on the mask again, and goes back to the remains of the...

  • Review Super Fantasy Zone (Virtual Console / Sega Mega Drive)

    Take on the role of Opa-Opa, who is on a mission to avenge the death of his father.

    Given that the original Fantasy Zone achieved quite a cult status in arcades and on the various 8-bit consoles of the time period, it's certainly no surprise that the game spawned a few sequels and spin-offs. Super Fantasy Zone represents what many fans of the series...

  • Review Gley Lancer (Virtual Console / Sega Mega Drive)

    In the year 2025, a war breaks out between humans and a hostile alien race.

    The Virtual Console certainly isn’t short of 2D shooters. We’ve seen some excellent (and not so excellent) examples of the genre come and go, but most of the games we’ve experienced so far are retro classics and will have been familiar to fans already. Gley Lancer, on...

  • Review Phantasy Star III (Virtual Console / Sega Mega Drive)

    As Rhys, the crown prince of the Orakian kingdom of Landen

    By the time Phantasy Star III was released the series was well on its way to becoming a solid favourite with Western Sega fans, having already become pretty famous in its homeland Japan. With the third game Sega decided to make some sweeping alterations, but the core gameplay fundamentally...

  • Review Powerball (Virtual Console / Sega Mega Drive)

    Who will be the powerball champ?

    This forgotten futuristic sports game by Namco undoubtedly takes some inspiration from Speedball 2, which was really popular at the time. The basic premise is that Powerball is a futuristic sport that takes the brutal elements of rugby or American football and mixes them with soccer. You can play as eight different...

  • Review Mega Turrican (Virtual Console / Sega Mega Drive)

    The Machine has enslaved the galaxy under its tyrannical rule.

    I know what you’re all thinking: why have another Turrican title on the Virtual Console when we’ve only recently been blessed with the delights of the sublime Super Turrican – especially when you consider these 16-bit titles look very much the same? However, while it’s true that...

  • Review Puyo Puyo 2: Tsuu (Virtual Console / Sega Mega Drive)

    More Puyo Puyo fun for the Virtual Console.

    We’ve already experienced the first Puyo Puyo title on the Virtual Console, although you may not have noticed as the western version was retooled as Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine. As far as laying down the foundations of the Puyo Puyo franchise, it’s not a bad game at all, but it was undoubtedly...

  • Review Phantasy Star II (Virtual Console / Sega Mega Drive)

    Hailed as one of the greatest games of all time by fans

    The original Phantasy Star never really had the impact it deserved, mainly thanks to the fact that its host platform - the Sega Master System – failed to sell in significant numbers in the US. The series would have to wait until the introduction of the Genesis/Megadrive before it would gain...

  • Review Columns III: Revenge of Columns (Virtual Console / Sega Mega Drive)

    Oooh it's the revenge of Columns - I'm really scared!

    Sega’s answer to Tetris is back once again. The first Columns has already been released on the Virtual Console and Sega never bothered to port the Columns II arcade game to the Megadrive/Genesis, so we swiftly move on to Columns III. While not terribly innovative in terms of concept, the...