The Genesis / Mega Drive Mini Hack Is Finally Here

Well of course there's value in piracy. That's why Captain Blackbeard first set sail on the high seas...

Yo, ho, ho! That is good news indeed. Though I might wait a couple of revisions before partaking, yar.

Before everyone starts complaining about NL. THESE kind of hacks Really benefit the gaming industry because of the preservation of games that are lost to distribution or licensing.

My NES, SNES and PS1 mini are now a museum of hidden gems lost to time that will never see the light of day in a subscription service or digital shop.

Also you’re playing them with the controller they were designed in mind.

I can’t wait for a N64 mini... and I’ll still be paying for my NSO subscription.

Was really disappointed when Splatterhouse 2 wasn't on the Mega Drive mini. Without any knowledge of copyright law and and no way of substantiating such a claim, I suggest that, if you have purchased the game multiple times already, and there is no official way to get it, I think a copy-paste of content you previously paid for several times onto a console you also own, would stand up in court. Especially if you have a really expensive lawyer.

There also a TrueBlue available with all megadrive games installed.

https://smile.amazon.co.uk/Haunen-Mini-Ultradrive-Games-Genesis-MegaDrive/dp/B082G6M2ZM/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=13QWR8UGSPVZ7&keywords=megadrive+mini&qid=1577702871&sprefix=Magadrive%2Caps%2C174&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUFIS1k3VjEyRU9MM0YmZW5jcnlwdGVkSWQ9QTA1NTE4MTIyRVo1WkxWME1HMkROJmVuY3J5cHRlZEFkSWQ9QTAyNjM5NjcyN1BBR0hZQ1BVOVZOJndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfYXRmJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==

@fafonio as far as preservation goes, I think the 8 and 16 bit eras are probably well covered by now. I'm more worried about present day games. How do we make sure that our grandchildren get to play games that require gigabytes upon gigabytes of patches in order to run? Will they get to play the Last of Us and Days Gone, for instance?

@Earl_Grey that's a question that will be answered in time, when systems like this are available for current games.

I just ordered a True Blue mini, but I canceled it as soon as I saw this hack was ready. It's incredibly easy to do. I just wish someone could patch it so TNMT Hyperstone would work on it.

Can't change the pre-installed games?

There goes my plan to replace every game with The Ooze.

But has the sound been fixed?

I knew you guys at Nintendolife couldn't wait to tell us about this! Let's not discuss game piracy in the comments though Am i right? BAN HAMMER!

Like that's not exactly why someone would do this hack.
On a side note i knew about this months ago and yes,
I'm quite enjoying it!

@Earl_Grey in a few years time we'll look at gigabyte patches the way we do with kilobyte patches on DOS games now. I don't think we need to worry about famous, static, single player focused games like Last of Us.
I don't know how preservation will work with evolving, multilayer focused games like say Fortnite though.

I’ll be trying this out this week but it may be better to wait as I have been hearing some games like the turtles game having no sound. That’s a big one I want as well along with the xmen games.

Got a Genesis mini for Xmas and played through most of the games this weekend. Had just boxed it back up, but could be time to take it out and add the rest of the first party Sega games. Streets of Rage 1, 3, Golden Axe 2, 3, Alien Storm, Sonic 3, Knuckles, Super Hangon, Revenge of Shinobi, Super Thunderblade, and Afterburner II would really help complete the collection. Probably throw on MUSHA and Truxton too. Too bad about TMNT.

I hacked my NES, SNES, and PlayStation minis. The PlayStation especially needed it, since the initial game selection Isn’t great and the built in emulator is weird.

I got a Genesis Mini for Christmas, and I have no desire to hack it to add games. The selection rules. The few biggest omissions I either own or have on other Genesis collections.

Now excuse me, I have to jump back into Dynamite Headdy.

@AlienX It's the first version of Lunar, be patient, ugh

@fafonio At least we can get Sonic 3 on this now

as for the mini N64 I don't think that's going to happen going by how Nintendo is handling their Retro consoles I mean unless it sold tons back in the day which the NES and SNES did but N64 didn't sadly it's very unlikely

I have 2 Genesis minis ready to be violated! 🤣 will be awesome parking it next to my Snes mini which has 6600 games! 👍

Yeah i don't see N64 mini happening either. Too many licensing nightmares for the library to be worth it. You'd get all the best first party games obviously but you'd be missing Rare titles which was by far a large portion of what made N64 worth buying in the first place.

Oh and yes the Genesis mini hack will finally make Sonic 3 playable on the system so really that's all you need to make it perfect! The stock library was already pretty darn impressive but not having that on there was a huge mistake!

@TYRANACLES
Just run TMNT in retroarch instead. It works fine there. No sound issues at all! Something about the Genesis Mini's base emulator doesn't agree with that one.

I'll stick what is on the mini.i wont ruin mine

My biggest disappointment with the Genesis Mini was the lack of a rewind feature.

Sonic and Knuckles 3 would be great with the original controller but I'll probably just play it on Sonic Mega Collection instead (or just buy it on Steam).

Great, but I'm going to wait for the hakchi version of this or an updated version of Lunar where you can remove all the boot menu and retroarch box arts. Basically, I just want an extremely easy to install and set up and seamless experience inside the modded mini with only the additional games and nothing else showing that indicates is was modded.

As great as this hack is though, not all roms will run properly on it as M2 made the emulator specifically with only the 42 games in mind. If you just want to add 50 or so additional games then that's good but don't expect near perfect emulation until the hack gets further updated. If you already got the Analogue Mega Sg with a Mega EverDrive or Mega SD flash cartridge from TerraOnion then you really don't need this.

Time to finally pick one up!

@wazlon No rewind?

The best reason to do this isn’t to add games, it’s to reclaim a bit of the input delay that was unfortunately present in the original. There’s now mostly manageable lag if you’re a regular genesis player

Kinda sucks that a lot of the sites are being taken down, though.

Anyways I kinda want to get back into playing with the SNES Classic again, been too distracted lately. It was fun making custom borders, though.

I only plan on adding Ristar, as well as Sonic & Knuckles and its lock-on games. Come on, SEGA. I barely even played Genesis growing up, and even I know what a Ristar is.

Added Psycho Pinball, Micro Machines, Flicky and Ristar.

That'll do..

Article is lying, if you do the backup of your NAND first it is impossible to brick and you can restore it to factory default at any time. The only way it could break is from a power surge of some kind which would just be bad luck and could happen during normal operation of the system anyhow.

@retro_player_22 the only thing Sega games used was blast processing. M2 has got the blast processor emulated so all games will run.

Since game companies are unwilling to provide a digital storefront for their backlogs, this piracy is inevitable. Even holdouts like myself aren't gonna last forever waiting.

Mainly, I am waiting for a reliable and safe Switch hack that supports all these emulators, when it does, GG. I've waited for years for this kind of a service and I'm running out of patience!

@delt75 Probay will happen soon. Just run from Retroarch until then.

@BlueOcean There's no rewind on the Genesis Mini unfortunately. You do have four slots per game for save states (restore points) but I was gutted when there was no rewind feature because I assumed it would come as standard.

@wazlon Thanks for the information, that's disappointing. And happy new year!

if you're gonna hack why not just play it on your PC with xbox controller or even usb genesis controls. heck they even have N64 controller USB for PC gaming. You still can get that old school feeling. Funny people out there

Gamestop has a one day sale on these for $35.00 pick one up now if you can. It's a steal at that price.