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[Bending_Unit_22]

I was a Nintendo fanboy so I naturally though it was stupid at the time. I was aware from magazines that it was coming but yeah I have no idea when the launch date actually was. Just one winter day the store had these ginormous boxes with $300 on them in the Sega section. I played Sewer Shark at a store kiosk which along with 7th Guest (I have no idea where I played it at this point) swore me off FMV games forever. I was so bored by Sewer Shark that despite having zero interest in fishing I stood behind a man playing Super Bass Fishing on a SNES kiosk until my mother finished shopping. I also played Sonic CD, and, so... I have never had any interest in furthering my contact with the system.

 

[Ceallach]

Is that a bad translation on the left or what the line was supposed to say?

it's not a bad translation. You need to see the full scene and be familiar with Cobra's style of humor for it to make sense though.

 

[thoseAREmySHOES]

I still can't believe my parents sold my JVC X'EYE when I went away to college years ago...

 

[Docpan]

Was an early adopter and it was one of the first machines I bought with my own money.

Became a whore for the FMV and QTE games(Cobra Command, Road Avenger, Sewer Shark, Ground Zero Texas, Night Trap, etc...) but sadly never once had seen Snatcher in store to purchase. Wanted a copy so bad, but it just didn't seem to exist, or the stores near me never placed any orders(it did have a tiny print run).

-Lunar 1 released not long after my love affair with jRPG's began with FF4(2 US) and it was truly a highlight of the console.

-Jurassic Park gets special mention for having a crash bug that prevented progression at a certain point. The soundbyte loop that was coincided with the crashes became a longtime quote among my friends.

-LOVED Willy Beamish and other Dynamix adventures on the thing. They were HORRENDOUS ports with insane loading, constant crashes, save issues, terrible performance, downgraded visuals, and other nonsense. But those games were so good(eventually replayed them on PC).

-Batman Returns was impossibly difficult, but those CD exclusive car segments were incredible looking.

-Fuck Gamefan for hyping WonderDog. Looked incredible in their issue pictures(and their review scores were GotY worthy), but the game was total garbage.

I shifted back to the SNES during the Play It Loud! campaign as their lineup was pretty incredible, eventually selling my entire library of CD and Genesis games/hardware for the Saturn surprise launch. But 1992 and 1993 were dominated by Sega CD in my gametime.



Pretty sure I recall Consulting Detective being a pack-in game at launch(Sol-Feace as well if I'm recalling right). I played it but didn't love it. (I did like the Dracula game that studio later released though). Also a demo disc came bundled with the system too, but I can't recall what was on it.

GameFan often hyped games that turned out to be shite. I remember Knuckles Chaotix had a front cover and a full multipage glowing preview that made it seem like the real start of the 32 bit era. Luckily, I dodged a bullet by never picking up that disaster.

 

[RAIDEN1]

I'll never understand how Sega could release this add-on with such poor FMV quality...it took the 32x to set it right...washed out grainy look, hell no...imagine if the Sega CD had the 32x tech already in it come 1991...it would have been a trail-blazer, giving the Megadrive/Genesis 32 akin capability before the competition came into town!

 

[Skulldead]

I've played i don't how many hour at Dungeon Explorer. I think this is the third game in the series. A truly overlook gem !

I was also verry happy tto be able to play Dungeon master 2 because my PC couldn't run that game at the time.

I really like that console, got a lot of great exclusive game !

 

[peppermints]

How did save games work for this thing? Obviously it didn't write to the CD, was there a memory card setup?

 

[Dirk Benedict]

How did save games work for this thing? Obviously it didn't write to the CD, was there a memory card setup?

Internal Ram. There was also an expansive Ram Cart you could buy.

 

[theultimo]

Internal Ram. There was also an expansive Ram Cart you could buy.

the ram cart was required for 1 game: shining force CD.

you could not complete it without it.

 

[xDUMPWEEDx]

Years later I walked into a Electronics Boutique (before they became EB Games - I guess Boutique was just too crazy of a word) they had the Sega CD on clearance for some crazy low price like 40 bucks or something. I try not to impulse buy too much but I nabbed it.

I quickly purchased both Lunar games, Vay, Eternal Champions, Final Fight and Shining Force CD. I'm definitely happy I picked one up.

Sweet fucking deal!

 

[Team Andromeda]

I'll never understand how Sega could release this add-on with such poor FMV quality...it took the 32x to set it right...washed out grainy look, hell no...imagine if the Sega CD had the 32x tech already in it come 1991...it would have been a trail-blazer, giving the Megadrive/Genesis 32 akin capability before the competition came into town!

Because SEGA Japan didn't care much for FMV and the Mega CD was never meant to be an FMV player or system, that's just a SEGA American thing. Truth be told the old PC Dos was far more of an FMV system; I still have loads of FMV of my old Dos PC and its FMV was hardly brilliant either in 256 colours.

What the Mega CD really need was Sega Japan to have actually used the system it made, to its fullest. Sega Japan really should have had its top CS Team handle ports of the OutRun, AB II, Super Hang-ON, Space Harrier all using ASIC chip early in (Batman Returns and Cliffhanger 3D sections show what was possible). Sonic CD really should make use of the ASIC chip for all sorts of sprite based effects on the game's bosses, even on the UFO's in the Bonus section And we really should have had the likes of Street Of Rage II on the system with a CDDA soundtrack, along with the planned games like Phantasy Star IV with the 3D dungeons and half an hour of cartoon cutscenes

 

[lazygecko]

Core needs a shoutout for being probably the most staunch supporter of the system and releasing tons of games for it. Both enhanced ports and (AFAIK) exclusives like Battlecorps and Soul Star.

I'll never understand how Sega could release this add-on with such poor FMV quality...it took the 32x to set it right...washed out grainy look, hell no...imagine if the Sega CD had the 32x tech already in it come 1991...it would have been a trail-blazer, giving the Megadrive/Genesis 32 akin capability before the competition came into town!

It's not a good fit for live action FMV, but for properly optimized cartoon/anime visuals it works great, and even good for faked flat-shaded 3D polygons as shown by Silpheed. As long as you make the video work within the limitations from the start and don't rely on automated color reduction algorithms, you'll get a nice clean output.

I still have loads of FMV of my old Dos PC and its FMV was hardly brilliant either in 256 colours.

I think this is also true. Even upping the colors to 256 you're still going to have lots of distracting banding/dithering artifacts when conveying live action or CG FMV.

Imagine enhanced ports of key releases like Streets of Rage II, Street Fighter or Shinobi, with slightly better rendition of the soundtrack (not an all-new OST) through CD audio, and some extra intros or cutscenes. For almost half the price of the regular release. Maybe compilations of older 4 or 8 meg cartridges for cheap. They could even have done the Sonic & Knuckles lock-on with no extra hardware (and get Michael Jackson music!).

They did release at least 1 compilation. It had Streets of Rage 1, Revenge of Shinobi, Golden Axe, Super Monaco GP and Columns.

 

[Theslammer]

Because SEGA Japan didn't care much for FMV and the Mega CD was never meant to be an FMV player or system, that's just a SEGA American thing. Truth be told the old PC Dos was far more of an FMV system; I still have loads of FMV of my old Dos PC and its FMV was hardly brilliant either in 256 colours.

What the Mega CD really need was Sega Japan to have actually used the system it made, to its fullest. Sega Japan really should have had its top CS Team handle ports of the OutRun, AB II, Super Hang-ON, Space Harrier all using ASIC chip early in (Batman Returns and Cliffhanger 3D sections show what was possible). Sonic CD really should make use of the ASIC chip for all sorts of sprite based effects on the game's bosses, even on the UFO's in the Bonus section And we really should have had the likes of Street Of Rage II on the system with a CDDA soundtrack, along with the planned games like Phantasy Star IV with the 3D dungeons and half an hour of cartoon cutscenes

I never really thought about that, but yeah.... all those FMV games look to be western games with American actors. Huh, good to know.