sixteen-bit
Member
Don't miss the bus on this one.
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Sega CD/Mega CD Appreciation Thread of Welcome to the Next Level
- Thread starter MikeMyers
- Start date
Don't miss the bus on this one.
bishopcruz
Member
Loved my Sega CD. great system with some real underrated games. Sonic CD blew my mind back in the day, and I loved having access to games like Willy Beamish and Monkey Island back was great.
Lunar Eternal Blue needs to be played by everyone, it is up there with the best RPGs of that era, no matter the system.
I still contend that the Lunar games on Sega CD are just better than their later counterparts. Lunar 1 lost its harder edge in the later remakes, while also spoiling one of the main plot twists in Lunar 2. Lunar 2 was much closer to its roots, but still had a worse soundtrack, and the cinematics didn't have the same feel as its less technologically advanced predecessor.
What Lunar 2 did on Sega CD was unequaled at the time, it not only had amazing music, a great plot, a long quest, and great characters, but its cinematic presentation was leagues ahead of anything else (save maybe Urusei Yatsura, that game uses black magic.) that was available at the time. It made Lunar 1 look like an early PC Engine game, and it would be years until other RPGs caught up. God bless Game Arts.
Lunar Eternal Blue needs to be played by everyone, it is up there with the best RPGs of that era, no matter the system.
I still contend that the Lunar games on Sega CD are just better than their later counterparts. Lunar 1 lost its harder edge in the later remakes, while also spoiling one of the main plot twists in Lunar 2. Lunar 2 was much closer to its roots, but still had a worse soundtrack, and the cinematics didn't have the same feel as its less technologically advanced predecessor.
What Lunar 2 did on Sega CD was unequaled at the time, it not only had amazing music, a great plot, a long quest, and great characters, but its cinematic presentation was leagues ahead of anything else (save maybe Urusei Yatsura, that game uses black magic.) that was available at the time. It made Lunar 1 look like an early PC Engine game, and it would be years until other RPGs caught up. God bless Game Arts.
On money, probably. Sounds like the marketing department wrote that one.
I hate how hard Sega pushed the weird live-action FMV for the Sega CD in the US. There was so much more to it than that.
blast processed
Member
MrCunningham
Member
One of the biggest problems with trying to advertise traditional 16bit 2D styled console games on the Sega CD, was that they looked almost exactly like like Sega Genesis games in still images in magazine prints and in gameplay footage on TV commercials. There were really no enhancements in the colour or resolution department that helped separate the add-on from their mainline 16bit console. It would've been really hard to convey to an audience that the Sega CD is a worthy investment by showing standard 16bit console fare that consumers could already find on the Genesis.
So that's why SOA exploited the hell out of the FMV angle of the machine. It was just easy for them to show off clips of FMV games and make claims like "photo realistic graphics!!" and "Yo, Your SNES can't do this!". They marketed it like it was some new frontier in gaming. It was a really unfortunate angle too. SOA even invested money in their own FMV studio (s?). just so they could make games like Fahrenheit and such.
I still enjoy some of the FMV stuff on the Sega CD for its inherent cheesiness. But the shallowness of the genre really hurt the machine in the long run.
One night in Neo Kobe
Is the best futuristic game opening theme to this day. Seriously could see that working as some anime intro (or even 80s/90s live action crime drama). I haven't played the game, yet have had the theme stuck in my head since the first "hidden gem" video I watched.
TheEnforcerJustifier works with this right?
Is the best futuristic game opening theme to this day. Seriously could see that working as some anime intro (or even 80s/90s live action crime drama). I haven't played the game, yet have had the theme stuck in my head since the first "hidden gem" video I watched.
The
Beatofficer
Member
I love(d) Popful Mail. Such a wonderful game that I wish had more than just the Sega CD game. It's one of my "Unicorn" games, hoping I find it in the wild so I can buy it and adore it,
Diablohead
Member
A IBM PC/Sega CD hybrid would have been every gamers dream back then
Too bad they only got the MegaDrive instead
At least Amiga's could be converted to CD32
Back in the day when I was 13 or so me and my friends wanted one of these
Armoured Priest
Member
Yup.
Gotta give it up for Pleasure of Tension as well. Its such a great track, and it wasn't redbook CD audio, but just the Genny (with maybe a bit of a boost from the Sega CD.)
As I mentioned above, it seemed Sega was only going for a CD-ROM unit for the Mega Drive / Genesis, without a major upgrade in performance other than some buffer RAM.
Here, the final MEGA CD was revealed to the press at Tokyo Toy Show. Now it wasn't just an expansion, but a major upgrade as well.
The only significant thing they didn't mention, was the separate custom ASIC for scaling & rotation, etc. That was not handled by the MEGA CD's own 68000 CPU, as they seem to imply here. I guess it's understandable given this was a Japanese reveal, there was not much of an internet to speak of back then in '91, etc.
Here, the final MEGA CD was revealed to the press at Tokyo Toy Show. Now it wasn't just an expansion, but a major upgrade as well.
The only significant thing they didn't mention, was the separate custom ASIC for scaling & rotation, etc. That was not handled by the MEGA CD's own 68000 CPU, as they seem to imply here. I guess it's understandable given this was a Japanese reveal, there was not much of an internet to speak of back then in '91, etc.
Favorite remix of Pleasure of Tension is this one from a Snatcher midi soundtrack compilation:
https://youtu.be/NVLFcqbUkTs
And I'm proud to have my summary of Snatcher in the OP's description. Snatcher isn't just my favorite Sega CD game, it may be one of my favorite games of all time.
RAIDEN1
Member
Thing is though it is true what some people say, the Mega CD WAS the beginning of the end for Sega in the hardware business...considering that the Mega CD came out in 1991, only a year later they were already putting plans in place for the SATURN!!! ....and the Mega CD would forever be known as the console that couldn't provide crystal clear video, and always had the "grainy" effect to it, which really showed up the limitations of the hard-ware...makes you think how did Sega allow the hardware to release with such lacking playback quality especially as FMV was beginning to be the rage come 1992, even the 3DO was more capable than the Sega CD albeit at a higher price...
IrishNinja
Member
yeah i don't even know where to start with that post
RoninChaos
Member
DAT INTRO SONG
bishopcruz
Member
cj_iwakura
Member
bishopcruz
Member
I think part of the reason is that most of the audio in the game isn't subtitled, and the game has a LOT of it. That makes it rough to do a working translation, unless you want to fandub. And dubbed UY that isn't from the BBC just feels wrong, and hell that dub is wrong in and of itself.
ViolentP
Member
You just released a long lost memory. Thank you.
Bingo. See also the 10-minute climactic Zophar vs. Lucia sequence in Lunar~Eternal Blue (major spoilers) for an experience of beauty and terror. You can bet that this kind of PCE-like capacity is what Sega had in mind when they designed the system's capabilities, not the dumb low-fi digital video that flooded the foreign markets for whatever reason (probably in reaction to the same stuff on burgeoning CD-ROM PC games). Criticizing the MCD for having bad movies in Sewer Shark is like criticizing the Super Famicom for not being a very good toaster.
cj_iwakura
Member
BBC? UY? ....whaaa?
And you'd have to hack subs in, I guess. Was Policenauts originally subbed in JP?
bishopcruz
Member
Yes it was.
As for the BBC UY dub:
Look upon its works ye mighty and tremble
Still better than any of the US dubs, probably because it is just batshit insane.
cj_iwakura
Member
bishopcruz
Member
"What do you say Ataru? WIll you save the planet and all mankind?"
"FUCK OFF!"
I love it.
MrCunningham
Member
You can even see some scaling and rotation in there. that's pretty cool, to be honest. They did a really good job making it look like a real anime series intro.
Creating cutscenes like that is an art in itself. I was always fascinated by it. It's rare nowadays, but you can still find it ins some games, like the Super Robot Wars series and similar games like Project X Zone.
RAIDEN1
Member
The YouTube link to that anime clip, looked all well and good, but there is no denying that fmv playback quality on the Mega CD was severely lacking...similarly games like Rebel Assault, Microcosm et all never looked HALF as good as the PC-CD versions...
Imagine if the SNES-CD was released....it would have blown away the Mega CD for sure...
Imagine if the SNES-CD was released....it would have blown away the Mega CD for sure...
Well the SNES CD was slated to be a 32-bit addon, so of course it would have had an advantage in addition to coming out years later. Sega had to do a lot of cost cutting to reach sensible production costs (to the point where some prototypes actually caught fire due to the CD reader IIRC), and even then it was a pretty expensive addon. That's the price they paid for being an early player on the CD-ROM market.
sixteen-bit
Member
Secret of Mana was a pretty cool game, but it would have been nice to see them achieve their original vision on the SNES-CD.
Well there's also Popful Mail super famicom and pc engine games, while they aren't as great you might want to check them out.
IrishNinja
Member
honestly this "sega-cd WAS the beginning of the end for sega hardware" and pot shots onverall on it can go kick rocks - it was a great system add-on with a fantastic library, get outta here with that mess
Amen. It was actually Sega's warm-up. MCD gave Sega capabilities to keep up with the animation-enhanced games of the PCE, Nintendo's only serious console rival at the time in Japan, and the Saturn subsequently outsold the MD in Japan. Nothing had the capabilities of a PC CD-ROM in those days, and that wasn't the point. (Reminds me of this, a bit.)
Edit: I'd love to see OP add Black Falcon's insane-wonderful thread of MCD game descriptions.
RAIDEN1
Member
For what it was, the sega-cd was an ill-conceived system, and it definitely was the beginning of the end for Sega in the hardware business...to go from making the Sega CD your future from 1991 onwards, only then a year later to start work on the Sega Saturn which was to be the ultimate successor to the MD, but then even after that release the 32x...as well...it was a company spiralling out of control in terms of having a singular focus on one hardware platform only.
Hell even the 3DO and Jaguar CD may have put the Sega CD in the shade within a year if circumstances were different for both firms (ie not being outrageously priced, and better developer support..) The Mega CD in some respects wasn't future proof tech...as if post 1991 onwards Sega would go onto prosper on the hardware scene...
Makes you wonder why they ever bothered getting into the hardware sector, if ultimately it was going to bring the firm to its knees....
Hell even the 3DO and Jaguar CD may have put the Sega CD in the shade within a year if circumstances were different for both firms (ie not being outrageously priced, and better developer support..) The Mega CD in some respects wasn't future proof tech...as if post 1991 onwards Sega would go onto prosper on the hardware scene...
Makes you wonder why they ever bothered getting into the hardware sector, if ultimately it was going to bring the firm to its knees....
I don't think it's sinking in yet for them. Rearrange the words again and post it a third time.
Okay. Actually, the criticism of the 32X is not wrong---that truly was a grave error right when the Saturn was getting warmed up. But the MCD perspective varies greatly depending on your geographical vantage point. The huge sales of the MD in the US were an irregularity, a blip in Sega's hardware history. The MCD rendered Sega better able to rival NEC and the PCE for third place in Japan, and I'd call it a qualified success. The Saturn sold nearly twice as much as the MD in Japan, with Sega and Nintendo tied for second against the PS1. It's only with the magnificent tragedy of the dear Dreamcast that Sega's hardware presence was doomed. So from the US, I imagine that the MCD can be combined with the 32X and the failure of the Saturn there to create an image of massive decline, whereas it's actually a prelude to some of the successes of the Saturn in Japan, where Sega advanced from "obscure third place finisher" to a well-established name.
So instead, maybe we should be celebrating the MCD as Sega's great warm-up for the Saturn, where MCD-style game design prospered.
So instead, maybe we should be celebrating the MCD as Sega's great warm-up for the Saturn, where MCD-style game design prospered.
IrishNinja
Member
since you insist on saying a whole lotta nothin, let's break it down & be done with it
it wasn't "their future", it was Sega being Sega - trying their hand at new tech before most (save NEC) were ready. and being Sega, others (primarily Sony here) would benefit from their vision/efforts, but their desire to push boundaries was something to be celebrated.
yes, they lost focus - the 32X and the Saturn's design/etc were indicative of this - but a moderately successful add-on while still supporting their primary platform for years after wasn't what you're trying to paint it as here. fall back.
but they weren't, so just what if's here. what if nintendo didn't screw sony the way they did and create the PSX, what if my uncle had tits, etc etc.
and of course a 1x drive with limited video capabilities piggy-backed onto older hardware wasn't "future proof", no idea what about it implied otherwise
yeah, why'd they even get into arcade hardware eons ago & give us so many classics, they should've stayed making playing cards
it wasn't "their future", it was Sega being Sega - trying their hand at new tech before most (save NEC) were ready. and being Sega, others (primarily Sony here) would benefit from their vision/efforts, but their desire to push boundaries was something to be celebrated.
yes, they lost focus - the 32X and the Saturn's design/etc were indicative of this - but a moderately successful add-on while still supporting their primary platform for years after wasn't what you're trying to paint it as here. fall back.
but they weren't, so just what if's here. what if nintendo didn't screw sony the way they did and create the PSX, what if my uncle had tits, etc etc.
and of course a 1x drive with limited video capabilities piggy-backed onto older hardware wasn't "future proof", no idea what about it implied otherwise
yeah, why'd they even get into arcade hardware eons ago & give us so many classics, they should've stayed making playing cards
bishopcruz
Member
Blast processing indeed.
Holy shit this is fantastic. I wish the entire series was done like this.
cj_iwakura
Member
"I'll ram your teeth so far down your throat you'll be able to chew with your ass!"
Mighty works, indeed.
Heh, they changed 'pay us back before you get killed!' to 'We can catch Lum, look at the size of our hands!'.
Gunstarheroes
Member
Okay, more EGM on Mega CD!
Eat your heart out ^ SNES Mode 7, lol.
That's an awesome list of articles.
With a complete US collection, i really want to start getting some of the Japanese Mega CD games. I only have Funky Horror Band so far (which is pretty bad from the little i can play of it, good OST though) but i do want to get some of the better imports, if people know any (I have a modded system)
I am Christina Aguilera
Member
Okay, more EGM on Mega CD!
Nostalgia 1907 was directed by the creator of Strider. I've heard that it basically bankrupted the company of former Capcomites that made it, too (Takeru), unfortunately.
IrishNinja
Member
yeah, Nostalgia & Faria both look dope - shame about Cosmic Fantasy as well
Armoured Priest
Member
Indeed.
I would have liked to have played English language versions of the the other Cosmic Fantasy games.
Faria, does look like it would have been some else for Sega CD/Mega CD owners as well.
sir_kevith
Member
I had no idea a CD version of Faria was ever going to come out. I always liked the NES version.
EDIT: So it's Fhey Area and not Faria?
EDIT: So it's Fhey Area and not Faria?