Four Sega Genesis / Mega Drive Games Have Been Added To Switch Online's Expansion Pack

darn it I was afraid of that, Wily Wars, now im tempted to upgrade

Oooh. Honestly because The Wily Wars was never released on cartridge in America and its Megaman, I'd have assumed that would've been announced on its own.

Man, Sega does what Nintendon't, which is apparently have a solid list of 3rd party games for NSO with a genuine following. (even ignoring that Sega itself is now 3rd party). Also for that matter, NSO with actual Megaman and Castlevania, whose absence elsewhere on NSO has not helped the service.

Somebody set us up the bomb .

Comix Zone was a great game. Target Earth and Zero Wing I never heard about before. I never played Willy Wars, but I'm pretty sure it's a collection

All Your Base Are Belong to Us

Finally we got that in HD for the first time.

Zero Wing. If I recall, that's the game with the infamous intro with lines like "Somebody has set us up the bomb," and the infamous "All Your Base Are Belong to Us!"

Ooooo mega man and comix zone.
Have to play those!

Zero Wing! For great justice!

Holey moley! I know ripping on Nintendo's online offerings is the hip (and probably right) thing to do, but I've gotta say? This is a solid offering this month. Well done, Nintendo! Or, Sega. Or, whomever. >.>

If these updates were more frequent than like over 2 months then maybe I’d be excited these games are coming but between this and the n64 emulation this just doesn’t seem worth it. Also if it really is because of licensing issues than that’s pretty pathetic for the richest company in Japan.

@kkslider5552000 Actually, we've been able to get Wily Wars in the Sega Genesis Mini from a couple of years ago, and we also got a reproduction cart from Limited Run Games, but this is easily the most readily available legitimate way it's been made available outside of Europe, so, absolutely still worth celebrating.

Seriously awesome additions! I finished a run of Slay the Spire, went back to the Switch home page, and saw Target Earth/Assault Suits Leynos listed and almost spit out my raisinettes!

It’s one of my favorite Genesis games, and great to see in the service together with these other legit choices.

Well, people might complain about other aspects of the service but NOT about this batch. Awesome games!!!

There's a pretty decent side scrolling shooter game hidden underneath all of Zero Wings bad engrish and meme-fodder.

I’ve played Comix Zone so many times and I could never really get into it. Still a nice batch released here.

@Funneefox You know eventually they may bring Sega CD games to this service soon too. My guess is that after the Mega Drive Mini 2 launch in Japan, Sega may start putting some of the Sega CD games from there for NSO too. This maybe why Sega won't release the Mega Drive Mini 2 over here. Sega would slowly include some of their Genesis Mini games, Classic Collection games, Sega Channel games, and newer games for NSO. For this addition Comix Zone is from the Sega Genesis Classics Collection, Mega Man: The Wily Wars is from the Genesis Mini, Zero Wing is from the Sega Channel, and Target Earth is the new addition.

I'd join the crowd complaining about the slow trickle of NSO classic console games, but then I remember that, unless I really focus on any one of these games, it'll be months, possibly years, before I play any of these to the end, so the trickle actually works to my favor.

Well the genesis app just went from the bottom of the library to the top !

Off to try and beat Cats now, so smug with all his base 😂

Zero wing? Incoming memeslaught.

Cool! Never played Wily Wars. Hoping for some kind of update on the next wave of N64 games as well ...

@DrewBA77
YOU HAVE NO CHANCE TO SURVIVE MAKE UP YOUR TIME.

I'm still waiting for GBA to justify the upgrade but Wily Wars makes it super tempting. Regardless, I just bought Xenoblade and July is going to dry up my wallet so I'll wait a bit.

Hmm don’t think I have played target earth.

Already have two of these games on the Mega Drive Mini: Comix Zone and Mega Man: The Wily Wars. The other games are excellent too.

If you're used to the NES versions of the latter you'd be surprised how much tougher the games are, especially Mega Man 2 (which is set to what we know as Hard Mode).

It looks and sounds fantastic though, especially this release by M2 which doesn't suffer from slowdowns thanks to their GigaDrive emulator.

Wiley wars is certainly a pleasant surprise!

Does this mean that there's an actual chance of getting Mega Man games on other parts of the service? It'd be really nice to Legends show up on N64 NSO, and finally seeing Mega Man and Bass show up on SOMETHING besides some random plug-&-play that everyone's already forgotten about would be HIGHLY appreciated.

Target Earth is great. One of my faves. One does need to give it some time. The first couple of levels are not that impressive and it’s not as clear as it could be about how getting a high score and reward is important for making more weapons available.

How does Genesis get Mega Man when NES nor SNES apps do? What’s up with that CAPCOM?!

I'm down for all things Mega Man, plus Comix Zone is pretty good as well. I've never played the other two games, but I might check them out as well.

Some good games in this batch, even if some have quirks. Wily Wars has some nice exclusive content and custom weapon load out. Zero Wing has, in addition to great justice, solid gameplay and killer music, especially toward the end.

@shonenjump86
The music absolutely kills it for me

Oh my god! It's the All Your Base Are belong to Us game!!!

@aaronsullivan
In Target Earth you learn quickly that unlike most video games, explosions are harmful and not just screen decoration.
Also it’s useful sometimes to pull off a mega jump - just hold the jump button while stuck in a downhill slide.
It was a lot of fun learning the game and earning armaments back in my teens, but I don’t remember ever beating it. Maybe I’ll have a chance now using rewind!

Zero Wing: The Base Game belongs to all of us... On NSO!

@kkslider5552000 To be fair, the Castlevania Collection is pretty great, and is usually only $5. Also, Capcom released the MegaMan Collections before NSO games were even a thing I believe. So, they are available.

@Funneefox I think Sony might have to say something about being the richest company in Japan.

"All these games are belong to you! For you dare obtain pass of expansion!"

@shadowii Capcom is basically releasing every non-licesned game it's ever created in the Switch. (Heck, even their version of Disney's Aladin is on the system.)

@Slowdive You are right, the Mega Man games are tougher. I normally can sail through Mega Man 1 to the Wily stage, but it was a struggle to get there in this version.

@Serpenterror There isn't anything worth playing on the Sega CD. Sonic CD was the only game, and it's on Origins. (I say this to people all the time, and they try and make a case for this or that game, but those games were like 6s when they were released, and time hasn't improve them.) There is a reason the Sega CD died a quick death.

Honestly, them showing the entire intro of Zero Wing to begin with is some fine, fine trolling on Nintendo's part. Man, this almosts tempts me to get a sub.

Almost.

Wow what a solid addition. Never expected Comix Zone or Mega Man in NSO!

@LinktotheFuture Same. Enemies are bullet sponges taken to the extreme, basically, and they do a lot more damage as well.

Nice, three of the four games are actually new to the Switch, only one that was already in the Genesis Classics collection. That's what I'm really looking for from Sega Genesis NSO, unique games that I don't already have from retro collections that I bought early in the Switch's lifetime.

The Willy Wars? Now that just about sums up the 1990’s games industry.

Did somebody say... Comix Zone? 😍

YOUR BASE ARE BELONGING TO US

@RCGamer Never heard of Zero Wing, huh? Tell me you're young without telling me you're young.

What a great selection! Looking forward to playing all of these. Refreshing to have such positivity around a NSO game update!

Now definitely all Sega's bases are belong to us!!!

And best update of the mega drive section ever... finally some games I didn't have on 10 platforms yet

Wow, this is the best NSO update for me since Donkey Long Country 3 was added! (I'd never played it) Very happy with this, especially the Mega Man compilation

Have they not been added yet in Europe? No update for me in UK...

@Clyde_Radcliffe I’m in the uk and I have them.

" All your base are belong to us ", now that's the kind of broken English I can get on board with.

Cool more games you can rent!

@SteamEngenius 🙄 Not all of us want to play these games for the rest of our lives after completing them

@Bass_X0 Thanks, it must have been a bug, I deleted the whole Mega Drive app and redownloaded and I have them now 😃

Unexpected bonus for subscribers. What a good update.

I didn’t know Target Earth was part of the Assault Suits series, but when I played it just now I thought it reminded me of Cybernator.

@Maulbert hahaha! I'm not that young, I'm 38. But seriously, I played only a few Mega Drive games

Decent additions there and while yeah pretty much any game on the megadrive nso I can play on sonic gems collections, ones I have on wii vc/xbox store, various megadrive collections on xbox 360, switch, steam etc or the Megadrive Mini. (It's mad how much sega re-release them but ignore their other consoles) It is very handy to have option on switch that can just boot up for 30 mins of quick play.

Hehe, Willy Wars. Sounds hard.

@RCGamer It has nothing to do with playing Genesis games. One of the internet's oldest memes from the early 2000's came from Zero Wing. 'All your base are belong to us'.

It's been memed beyond all recognition, but to this day I've never actually played Zero Wing — is it any good? I remember Mean Machines giving it a so-so review back int' day

@Mattock1987 Yep, it's Rock, Man.

@Maulbert
"Go ahead, make my day"
"The stuff that dreams are made of."
"One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don't know."
Sometimes excerpts from a piece of work are more well-known than the work itself. If you can name where every quote is from without looking things up, then "congratulation"

If not, then maybe chill on the condescension, mate. There are probably games and other such things that I would instinctively think "How could you not have heard of _____, you must have been comatose!" but it's good to know that not everybody had the same exact childhood experience, even as gamers. Heck, I can imagine a lot of the elder folks on here grew up on the ZX Spectrum and are aghast others Britons have never played Head over Heels or Manic Miner.

Maybe take the time to ask them about what they did play as a kid, instead of being snide about the fact that they didn't play what you played. Just a thought.

As for the actual batch of games, these are mostly great games, with the exception being Comix Zone (which is a great idea inside of an unfun game that's hard in all the wrong ways). Wily Wars is the Super Mario All-Stars of the Genesis and quite tempts me to upgrade my subscription... but not quite yet. They just need to add GBA and GCN and beef up the N64 library.

@TotalHenshin Dude, I said nothing about playing the game. I never played Zero Wing. However, almost anyone on the internet from 2001-2006 saw 'All your base are belong to us'. Chill out.

@Funneefox but the n64 emulation is nothing like it was when first launched? It's been improved quite a lot.

Fun Fact: Zero Wing uses the Cube Music Engine that was also used in Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine. It's hard to explain, but the engine does a good job at using drum samples while playing the electronic music. Go and have a listen to the music for Zero Wing on YouTube.

@Andee It's a decent shooter. Not the biggest fan of the speed the ship goes (think R Type), and it's a bit on the easy side, but still and enjoyable shooter.

I just prefer Battle Mania 2 myself. I doubt we would ever see that game know.

Zero Wing?!

What you say?!

Zero Wing!

Will finally get some use out of that official Switch Mega Drive controller.

Who's excited to see willy on that crisp OLED screen?

You know, since getting the Steam Deck, I've hardly touched my Switch. It went shockingly quickly from getting almost all my play time to getting very very little. Still more than the PS5....but you know, almost certainly less than my XBSX now (thanks to GamePass).

But, when I saw this headline, and saw that it included Wily Wars....I was like "that's it, I'm dusting off my Switch!!" I love Wily Wars! I mean, I already had access to it on my Genesis mini, but playing that means having to dick with hooking it up, and trying to sneak in some game time where the toddler won't run by and trip over the controller cord (and also not being able to play it out and about anywhere). This way I can play it all the ways the Switch let's you play, which is what had made the Switch become my #1 system for so long in the first place! 😊

Now, of course, I could always just set up something like Emulation Station on the Deck, download a bunch of ROMs, and then have this kinda stuff not really matter to me anymore either (have only big AAA 1st party Switch exclusives still matter anymore). And someday? I will! Mark my words!....

.....until then, though? This article has got me seriously excited to spend some time with my Switch again!! ❤️

Cheers!

[edit: Zero Wing has me excited too. I mean, how can I not be excited about getting to experience "All your Base" outside of a YouTube video?!]

Sega really went above and beyond with ComixZone! The L X and R buttons actually work, the way a six button Genesis controller would!

Nice! Never played Wily Wars and I've heard Comix Zone is actually pretty good. Go, Sega.

Comix Zone is flat out fantastic. People complaining its too hard need to spend time to learn it properly and stop trying to brute force things like most beatemups. Its more like a action puzzle platformer with beatemup controls. Its definitely worth playing until it "clicks". Play it 6 button too if you can.

Zero Wing is great, not just for the memes, its a genuinely good shooter, Toaplan usually delivered the goods.

Wily Wars is a cool novelty for people who grew up with the NES games, and was great for Sega only kids to have their own versions. The graphics are a nice mini upgrade but for me they don't control/play quite as well as the NES versions... or maybe thats just because I played them first and am used to them.

Never played Target Earth / Assault Suits Leynos so will have to check it out.

4 amazing games that I've never owned, only emulated. I'm excited that they're on the service

Ah, yes! Zero Wing, the "How are you, gentlemen!!" game.
Somehow I remember that more than "All your base are belong to us" and "Somebody set up us the bomb"

Mega Man: The Wily Wars is certainly a solid addition and I've heard Comix Zone is also pretty good. No idea what Target Earth is, though.

For those who don’t know, Target Earth is the prequel to Cybernator on the SNES

I wonder if Zero Wing is the reprint version.
Reportedly they commissioned someone to translate the endings to the Japanese version while purposely leaving in the meme bad translation of the European version.

@Maulbert To be fair, probably most of North America hadn't heard of Zero Wing before the 2000 meme. Since the game itself (for the Genesis) wasn't released here.
(supposedly there was maybe a licensing issue with the company that had the distribution rights for the arcade version)

@Serpenterror if they bring sega cd games I’ll hop on this service like a middle aged man on the bull ride at the bar lmao

A good addition of games to be fair. It adds more value to the service...
Intrigued to see what N64 game or what they do next as all mentioned games have now been added...

Required viewing with the announcement of Zero Wing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fvTxv46ano

I’d like to see 32X and Sega CD games on Switch. I think the main criticism of the games originally was more due to the utter mess of setting the 32X and Sega CD consoles up. I’ve never played them but I’ve watched the AVGN episode. Bringing them to Switch would be a good move.

@Slowdive Well, I beat Mega Man 1 and 2 on Wily Wars, but it was tough. The prospect of beating 3 kinda scares me. It was always the toughest of the 3 for me.

@Andee Besides the funny meme, it is surprisingly a good game! The music track is killer. And you have a cool tracker beam where you can pull in enemy ships and use them as human shields! Also a nice touch is that color of your window on your ship will change, so you know what power up you have. "Uh, I can just shoot to see my power up?" I don't mean that, it changes so you know which power ups to collect during the game so because you can keep powering up the same weapon. (I've watched people stream the game, they keep collecting every single power up, which is the wrong way to play.)

@LinktotheFuture One thing that makes Wiley Wars tough, is that the Robot Masters have twice the health bar, then in the NES games.

@TotalHenshin I started playing Comix Zone and feeling like it was TOO hard as well. But I kept playing. Within 30 minutes I was MUCH better at the game. A few tips, go into the options menu and turn of "blocking" and switch it for a more powerful kick attack. Then in the first page of the game, make SURE you collect the "rat" item. The rat is SUPER useful, even though he seems useless ar first. Also, this is a 6-button game so be aware. The items you collect are mapped to the shoulder buttons and "Y". Honesty, the game is fair, you just have to figure out some tricks to survive. (I won't tell you in what ways the rat is useful, I'll let you have fun figuring it out.)

These are fantastic additions. I'll play all of them.

Will Wiley Wars have that slowdown that it did on the mega drive?

That's actually a good update

Ahhh jeez I always wanted to play Target Earth/Assault Suits Leynos... still not enough to pay money for a service I'll never have the time to use, though. A man can dream, I guess.

Comix Zone is a great game

Remember when the Wii got Commodore 64 games? Or did I dream that?!

Bring back virtual console!

@Moistnado I admire your persistence but that ship sailed long ago.

Zero Wing is a great shooter. Toaplan knew how to code for the Megadrive. I never knew about the meme until much later as I had the Japanese version of the game.

@thinkhector

You're very wide of the mark as far as quality Mega/Sega CD games are concerned. To only mention a single game is crazy. Just off the top of my head these are at least 8/10 titles...........

Lunar Eternal Blue
Lunar The Silver Star
Popful Mail
Cadillacs and Dinosaurs
Lords of Thunder
Vay
Snatcher
Soulstar
Sonic CD
Shadowrun
Ninja Warriors
Switch
Keio's Flying Squadron
Bari Arm
Dennin/Robo Aleste
Final Fight CD
Silpheed
Dark Wizard
Shining Force CD
Devestator

@X68000 I won't go thru your whole list but just to point out a few things:Lunar Blue and Lunar Silver are better on the PS1. Final Fight Arcade is superior and available on the Switch. Keiko's Flying Squadron, Slipheed make no one' list for best shoot 'em up on Genesis, to include them you have to ignore the Genesis library as a whole. Popful Mail is completely over rated. Snatcher is better on Playstation 1. Shining Force is just fine on regular Genesis. And Vay is actually the only real exclusive, so I might give you that one. So Sonic CD, and, even though there are better RPG's, Vay is good for what it is.

@thinkhector
Your original argument mentioned the system being a failure due to a lack of good games but the list I made included many which were the best versions available at that time.

Nobody held back buying Final Fight CD because a better version would be available nearly 30 years later on the Switch.

I think the main reason for the Mega/Sega CD failing was due to being too late to market. The PC Engine/Turbografx CD add on had far greater success but released in 1988 and time to mature before the next generation 32bit systems arrived.

@Bigbear1up I haven't played the Mega Drive version of Wily Wars, but I didn't notice any slowdown on this version on any of the 3 games.

@X68000 I wouldn't even call the Sega CD a failure. The 32x was a failure. The Sega CD sold relatively well for peripheral that cost twice the price of the base system. The issue WAS the games. When it was released (full disclosure I owed one at release), the games being pushed were the FMV games. Those were utter garbage, even at the time. They were trying to of video on CD! Not a DVD, but a CD! The only interesting games at the time were when they would package 3 Genesis games on a disc, and sell it for the price of one. But you paid so much for the system...to play bargain cartridge based Genesis games? Okay, so it can't do video well, but it does music EXTREMELY well for the time. So they re-release some Genesis games with (arguably) better music. But then we winded up with a different problem. Take a game like Sol-Feace, the soundtrack is awesome!! But the game is average. There are 25 better shooters on cartridge for the Genesis. Take the game "Hook" like the movie. The music is incredible! It's literally music from the film! The game is mediocre at best though. Sega CD games should have been cheaper to make then cartridge games. Was Sega releasing Sega CD games at lower prices? NO!!! Anyways peripherals sell as well as peripherals sell, which is not that well. (That's Microsoft tried bundling Kinect with consoles.)
Anyways, back to Final Fight. The reason Final Fight CD wasn't a big deal back then is because the SNES version and already been out WAY before. And it was a good version. In fact, it came out twice on SNES before it came to Sega CD, adding the missing main character from the game. But the other reason, nobody cared about Final Fight when it did come is another game: Streets of Rage 2. Everyone knew it was better than Final Fight. Sega SHOULD have released there BEST Genesis games on CD with better music. But not even the game that needed two cartridges to complete (Sonic 3) would be made on CD. "Hmmm...I could either spend $80 dollars on two Sonic 3 cartridges or $40 on Sonic 3 CD?" You see how dumb that decision was back then? And remember this, Sonic CD was the best selling Sega CD game! Not knowing how to play to the strengths of the CD medium is what did the add on the greatest disservice.

@Maulbert Right, but knowing a meme and knowing where it came from are two different things. You ribbed him for not knowing where it came from, but he never said he never heard the meme.

@thinkhector I did use the rat a bunch (didn't know about blocking), but IIRC aren't there rooms you go into that are just certain death? Is that fair?

I’m glad to report there is no audio lag in Mega Man The Wily Wars like on the Genesis Mini! I guess NERD does what SEGA/M2 don’t this time around.

@TotalHenshin Comix Zone has its own Dirty Harry (NES) “Ha Ha Ha” room? That sucks!

@MasterGraveheart The release from LRG wasn’t just LRG, but a number of other publishers too. It was an authentic cartridge North American release licensed by Capcom, as opposed to just reproduction cart, of the Genesis/Mega Drive game.

@thinkhector Well there's these:

• Snatcher
• Lunar: The Silver Star Story
• Lunar 2: Eternal Blue
• Sol Feace
• Final Fight CD
• Earthworm Jim: Special Edition
• Shining Force CD
• Vay
• Popful Mail
• The Terminator
• Night Trap
• Out of This World 1 & 2: Heart of the Alien
• Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure
• Ninja Warriors
• Eternal Champions: Challenge from the Dark Side
• Mickey Mania

Heck many of these games remain exclusives to the Sega CD such as Vay, Heart of the Alien, and Eternal Champions: CftDS and some such as Snatcher and Popful Mail only had English translation on Sega CD over its PC Engine and Super Famicom version. Final Fight CD Red Book audio soundtrack is exclusive only on Sega CD. Lunar 1 & 2 here are better than their remakes on PS1, Sega Saturn, GBA, and PSP.

@mereel My best guess is Capcom was willing to give up "Wily Wars" as a freebie on NSO due to not technically including it in their Mega Man compilations, plus it serves as advertising for players to buy the "Legacy Collection" to continue with the next three games in the series (and the relatively easier original versions of the first three games).

@thinkhector Irregardless of any missing characters or stages, no beat 'em up with a missing co-op mode can be considered good! Even back then, nobody really liked either SNES version of "Final Fight."

Overall, I do agree that the Sega CD needed better games (even the 32X's meager library arguably trumped it in quality), but just making slightly improved ports of Genesis games wouldn't have solved that problem. (Although, I do like your idea of a complete "Sonic 3"). It needed more good exclusive games or at least the best console versions (at the time) of arcade ports like the 32X did with games like "Space Harrier," "Star Wars Arcade," and "Virtua Racing Deluxe" (which in the latter case to this day is still the port with the most content).

Arcade ports are an interesting idea, although the Sega CD would still have been unable to emulate arcade games at the time so they still would have had elements missing. For example, Final Fight CD didn't have as many onscreen enemies as the arcade.
The problem with SEGA CD is actually the business model. Look at how Sony used the price of Playstation games, $40 often, to pummel Nintendo 64, $70 often. SEGA CD should have competed on price. I personally would have lowered the price of games, and also given developers a reason to makes games for the SEGA CD. For example, I would have gone to developers and said, if you make a cartridge game, and also release it on SEGA CD, we will lower the cut we take from 30% on cartridge games to 20% on SEGA CD. Even if it was the exact same game. You might have seen the entire Genesis library released on CD.

@Teksetter That extra level of strategic thinking makes it really fun. I randomly discovered the cheat to add continues, which made it much easier to practice later levels and work towards completing it. It was very difficult even then, if I remember right.