Games That Push the Limits of the Sega Master System

[@jeronimomathey3504]

Is true The Sega Master System was very famous in Brazil, I Love and a lot of People here in Brazil still loving The Master System. Every one here in Brazil loves when The Master System push the limits.

[@mshayashi]

O Master System é ainda produzido e vendido no Brasil?

[@luisjogos821]

@@mshayashi sim,mas o modelo oficial dos anos 80 eu acho difícil. É mais coisa emulado com um monte de games.

[@chitlitlah]

You guys still play it? Atari was the big American brand for consoles, but people here barely remember it existed.

[@IthosouShiro]

​@@mshayashi Só os da Tectoy

[@gtPacheko]

​@@chitlitlah it's more of a novelty than a mainstream console. It's still manufactured and sold but it's not original hardware, it's emulation machines like the NES mini. Best selling consoles in Brazil are stuff like PS5, Series S and PS4.

[@BubblegumCrash332]

I love how you technically show what's going on. Very interesting

[@johneygd]

Well, i can imagine that if capcom & midway used background tiles for their characters in street fighter 2 & mortal kombat, i can imagine,that would,ve took hundreds of animated frames because of the sooo many combination movents ever possible,also since theres lots of backgrounds, i bet they used prerecorded animated stuff and converted them into tile sets,also it’s no wonder that those games are running slow because the master system has to decide wich tile sets needs to be updated from wich tile sets at wich position,so it must,ve been very complicated to achieve that .

[@Sharopolis]

Thanks!

[@MaxAbramson3]

@@johneygd It's not the decision, which is made by programmers before the software is compiled or assembled. It's the fact that the Z80A has to spend time writing the character background tile over whatever background tile happens to be there--all at about 10fps!

[@walksontherock]

Phantasy Star is still my favorite Sega game, and very possibly, my favorite game of all time. It was what got me into gaming originally and is still amazing today. Back in the day, it was way ahead of its time.

[@joeb2588]

I just finished it again about a week ago. I have the game on my Switch. I play Phantasy Star every couple of years. One of the best games ever. In fact, I was disappointed when I got part 2. I wanted the same team and not so much sci fi, but more fantasy

[@joeb2588]

@your Ben chode Fantasy Zone 1 & 2 were amazing.

[@jayminer]

Land of Illusion has always impressed me, it has some cool effects and runs very smooth most of the time.

[@Millweed]

Chuck Rock 2 looks amazing as well. Huge sprites and heavy use of mesh patterns that look gorgeous on a CRT

[@Sharopolis]

Ohh that's one that has passed me by, I remember the Amiga version, never saw the SMS version till you mentioned it, looks great!

[@MaxAbramson3]

@@Sharopolis Do a second video just showing off the great graphics, sound effects, and music of other games.

[@johneygd]

You explained everything well but you forgot to mention that both games ,the lemmings & street fighter 2 does contain voices in it, wich was supposedly impossible since the master system lacks a pcm soundchannels,HOWEVER, with the (f)PSG soundchip, it is possible to similute real pcm on the master system, by mixing all 4 soundchannels and then quickly alternate the volume in order to create a wave form, thus producing a 1bit pcm sound,wich can be used for voices, instruments etc,,,😊

[@TheNuje]

Wait, so 3 square waves and one voice channel can technically do that? Obviously memory is so much cheaper than it was back then, so I get why nobody would have done that. But I always thought that the SMS could only create something like that by using the Z80 itself (and therefore pausing the execution of anything else). Interesting!!

[@johneygd]

@@TheNuje well the Z80 is still required to controllled all those soundchannels, not only that but it even involves more processing power to simulate that 1bit pcm sound on the psg chip, and obviously since that psg connat play bleep sound and simulated pcm sound atonce because of this, you will hear a slight pause once it skips from bleeps to simulated pcm and vice versa.

[@koerel]

@Drone Adventures I'm not 100% sure but I don't think the Master System architecture allowed for that kind of support chips in the cartridges.

[@MaxAbramson3]

@@koerel It allowed extra RAM on cart. In theory, you could add low power versions of the SVP that fed back processed tiles. However, in its day, the SMS VDP was powerful enough that you didn't need all of the extra chips that kept the NES alive until it was quickly replaced by its 16-bit big brother, the SNES.

[@Swampgift]

Also, the SMS was able to vocalize the intensity of Alex Kidd's pain in Lost Stars.

[@Cwiiis]

Aladdin is a notable missing game here; it pulls off some great tricks as well as being a pretty decent game too.

[@grunions9648]

I 'member when MK came out on Master System, it was my first time playing it outside of an arcade and it was really impressive, even compared to the 16-bit ports I thought. The only real disadvantage was the lack of buttons, I don't remember frame rate or fidelity being any sort of detriment to the overall experience. Great job Probe!

[@alexjohnston8889]

Yes I agree, I remember some people complaining it had only two environment's you fought in, the cave and bridge, that didn't bother me too much, for an 8 bit version I thought it was great.

[@txray3409]

The only way you would think it compared to the 16bit ports, is all you ever played with the SMS haha. It was NOT comparable.

[@grunions9648]

@@txray3409 Well I had it on Master System, Genesis, SNES and Amiga but ok.

[@txray3409]

@@grunions9648 Well then you're biasedly blind haha. It's not even close smh

[@alexjohnston8889]

@@txray3409 obviously it's not as good as the 16bit but for a master system it was good.

[@uniqutilities2831]

Clicked on this thinking it was a Sega Lord X video. Great content!

[@Dirk1Steele]

Surprised Phantasy Star is not in this list. Graphically impressive in general, the dungeons are super impressive.

[@jaysmith2858]

Still one of the best games ever made, and I say that as someone who isn't usually a fan of JRPG's.

[@24magiccarrot]

Phantasy Star wasn't technically demanding though, the video is about games that push the master system to the limits of it's hardware, all the games on this list feature multiple moving sprites. Phantasy Star didn't have much going on, on screen at once making it well within the master systems capabilities.

[@Dirk1Steele]

@@24magiccarrot Disagree. The 3-D dungeons which were definitely pushing the limits of what the MS can do. I would argue the single most technically impressive display on the system. And the battles in general are using a lot of animated sprites with varied backgrounds for location. Even the PS II on the MegaDrive did not do that. Yes the overworld is relatively simple, but for action components, quite impressive for the 8-bit wonder.

[@24magiccarrot]

@@Dirk1Steele It wasn't true 3D graphics they used several 2D stills so it was technically less demanding than it looks, the graphics techniqued used on Phantasy Star had been used on games on the spectrum, the only difference is the master system had a better colour pallet but not that demanding from a technical point of view.

[@phattjohnson]

Just checked out Phantasy Star. The overworld sprites are a bit rough but otherwise it's impressive in every other regard! The framerate in the '3D' dungeons is quite good!

[@dan_loup]

You could do the screen splits on the NES without a special chip, but if you needed more than one split, then it was hell on earth. The first split was done by using the sprite 0 hit flag thing. Basically the NES tells you when a non transparent pixel of the sprite 0 was drawn over/under a non color 0 background pixel. With this, you can sit around and wait until the hit happen and do your splitting magic (that was a bit of a hell itself as the scroll registers "change meaning" outside of the vblank as they're being used to actually draw the picture, so you need to do a bunch of weird math). After the first hit? you have to come up with precise wait loops and all that hell. Battletoads don't have any sort of scanline counter in it, and still manage to pull off all those effects, but i bet part of why it's hard is the programmers venting their frustration on the players.

[@Icelink256]

I was just about to mention this, myself. A couple of years back, I was able to create a fairly decent parallax effect, using just a stock NROM cart, with no extra hardware. (NROM is the same configuration used by early games like Super Mario Bros)

[@txray3409]

Yeah battletoads is impressive for that, as well as doing animated tiles for the more complex parallax effect - using chr-ram! I mean, they're do a lot with that cpu brute force haha.

[@bangerbangerbro]

Thanks for that explanation! Does anyone know how on earth battletoads does the vertical column scroll effect thing? Is that just using sprites or tessellating tiles being cycled through on the left and right or in the centre?

[@dan_loup]

​@Chatham Mulligan the best there is on that is MMC5, that allows the NES to split the screen vertically and use per tile palette selection. Normally, you can only choose one of the four palettes for a 2x2 tile block (16x16 pixels) to save on video ram, but with MMC5, it has a mode where every individual tile can have a different palette. It does those things with very tight timmings and basically hacking the NES hardware. I imagine its possible but very hard to increase the number of sprites per scanline by drawing em on the background with even more "hacking";

[@dan_loup]

@Chatham Mulligan Many master system games had mappers just like the NES games to go past the 32KB limit, but you can't have the same level of graphical trickeries on it because the SMS don't read the tile data out of the cartridge directly like the NES does. On the NES, there was only 2KB of video memory in the system, so they designed it in a way the NES cart has two ROMs with their own busses etc, one that goes to the CPU and one that goes to the PPU, and MMC5 sits on the PPU line to do all it's bizarre video hacking. You probably can do a chip that does special effects on the SMS as well, but you would have to use the CPU to copy data from the special chip memory to the video memory, like it happens with the super FX.

[@Sinn0100]

Oh man, I got an Nes in late 1985 and I thought it was pretty neat. I was very young and while I liked gaming I was very much a casual player. My dad (divorced parents) not wanting to be upstaged by my mom got me the Master System that next year in 1986. While the Master System didn't have as many games as the Nes, what you got was overwhelming quality and better graphics. This is what started my preference for all things Sega and in 1989 I received the Sega Genesis with a Powerbase Converter. That was the end of my life as a casual player. From that point forward I was a diehard gamer and Sega fan for life. My short time with the Master System can be summarized in one word...amazing. I preferred it's take on just about every game the two competing 8-bit machines had like Double Dragon, Rampage, and Paperboy. I mean, the Master System even got my favorite arcade game at the time- Rastan! While it didn't have the visual punch or sound the arcade brought but it was a damn fine conversion. R-Type on the Master System was a game that showed what Sega's little 8-bit wonder could do and for a time you couldn't get any better. The freaking Master System has a version of Road Rash that's actually comparable to the 16-bit Genesis! While I never played it...I have watched it in action many times (it never came stateside). What an excellent video and series. Thank you for making this and taking me down memory lane.

[@yeahyeahwowman8099]

The thing is everytime a Sega fan brings up the nes or the Snes, they are usually just bringing up the heavy hitters. It's the nes, it's Mario Bros 3, Legend of Zelda, Mega Man, ect. Reality is the nes has almost to many good games to count, you dont even have to walk off the beaten path very hard, alot of nes games that look really good.

[@Sinn0100]

@@yeahyeahwowman8099 The Nes has a lot of really bad games as well. Watch anything by AVGN and you will see how many were so abysmal they were an affront to your senses. I have played many games across all platforms...so many I couldn't even hazard a guess as to how many. I haven't played more Master System games than the Nes but at their top or the very best both machines offer the Master System was better (visuals not sound). I can also say the same thing about the Genesis but that is more dependent on game type. When a Sega Genesis game went all out and pushed the hardware it showed. Thunder Force IV is one game that comes to mind. It isn't just a graphically stunning game for basic 16-bit consoles...no, it looks and plays like a Neo Geo AES/MVS/CDZ game.

[@yeahyeahwowman8099]

@@Sinn0100 there's a ton of crappy games for the master system, every system is gonna have garbage on it. I would say there are some fantastic looking Genesis games, that have great sound. Reality is even at their very best, most Genesis games suffer poorly in the audio and sound effects department. The nostalgia oftens blinds us to the fact that alot of Genesis games that had slowdown as well, yet for some reason this seems to only be a snes problem. I got to say one thing I didn't like about the Genesis was the controller, theres a reason that button layout in a row wasn't copied. Reality when both systems came out swinging in the graphics department, I got to say I have yet to find one Genesis game that looks as good as yoshis island, maybe it exists.

[@Sinn0100]

@@yeahyeahwowman8099 Are you kidding me? Yoshi's Island? That was a Super FX game...that was not the Snes's doing. Fair enough, I raise you Virtua Racing which is the greatest technical feat ever produced on a 16-bit machine.

[@yeahyeahwowman8099]

@@Sinn0100 the fx chip was used for sprite scaling and 3d effects. It came to animation and color, that was the snes. Reality is much like Sega with its blast processing, the snes used morphmation to explain the stuff in yoshis island, like bosses getting bigger.

[@NickSquids]

Wonderboy 3 - Dragons trap is by far (imo) the extremes of the Mastersystem capability. It would almost pass muster on the Genesis/Megadrive standard. It's also an excellent game and even had a modern re-skin which is available on steam. Check it out (:

[@Sharopolis]

Yes probably my favourite game on the system, I nearly put that in instead of R-Type, but I was struggling to think of interesting things to say about it.

[@NickSquids]

@@Sharopolis Fair enough. I mean, where do you start? All of the above? Well made vid by the way - you _should_ do well in this part of YT. I'm looking forward to exploring your retro stuff during my next itch (:

[@jayc1676]

@Squids McKraken - Agreed .... all the Wonderboys were good on the Master System and Megadrive. If you're a fan, check out Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom.... it's a whole new Wonderboy game made by the same guy that did Wonderboy in Monsterworld. It's the biggest game in the series by far.

[@NickSquids]

@@jayc1676 I chucked it on my wishlist - cheers

[@JoakimKanon]

Yes! Amazing game. Many, many hours invested as a child. Introduced it to my son when I discovered the re-release on Switch. 😍👌🏼

[@johnnymack8442]

This was a great system. I still play games from it today.

[@ExplosionsCentral]

You know, I never looked at your sub count and always just figured, "He probably has about 100k subscribers." Then I looked, and... This is... This is unacceptable! You need more subscribers!

[@TheWrightClanX5]

Completely agree! Wonder if he'd consider doing updated versions of the obscure systems showcase vids with commentary... wink wink nudge nudge... 😁

[@mmkm78aaa]

A couple of ideas. He talks too much of rtype as a game at the beginning. I clicked to know about master system limitations and how games like rtype break them, not about rtype. Also music. This is the classic KZbin error, music is a bit too loud and after 5 minute I'm tired of listening. Maybe viewers are not aware of this, but your brain gets tired of discerning between music and speech after a while. Fix this and the channel will grow. I subscribed.

[@Sharopolis]

Thanks for the constructive criticism, both points taken.

[@NickSquids]

@@Sharopolis Maybe a moment for the fancy hardware after the fancy adds too (:

[@tommylakindasorta3068]

Thanks, I really enjoyed the video. I had SMS R-Type back in the day and was floored when I found the hidden level. It had that signature Compile music that always sounded great, like in Golvellius. I would love to learn more about Compile in the 8-bit era and how they managed to make such consistently high-quality games. Also, I wish I had known about Sagaia back then. That game would have been right up my alley.

[@TheWrightClanX5]

'Ending waffle' 😁 Awesome vid, loved the detailed explanations! Keep it up!

[@arzak1]

Great video, as always!!! I really like the Master System and here, in Europe, it had many great games. I especially like Master of Darkness, Castle of Illusion, Land of Illusion and Donald Duck's titles. One of the most impressive games i've seen on the platform is Aladdin, it looks really cool

[@Sharopolis]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@bangerbangerbro]

It seems that they were mostly popular at least here in the UK during the Mega Drive's time as a budget alternative, as most of them are mark 2s. That would explain why they don't seem to be worth much, mostly having inferior versions of Mega Drive games. I don't have one because I've never really wanted one, probably for the same reason no one else seems to want one, but I think I really should have one so I should get one before they get worth much. I'm a lunatic who is already annoyed that they have probably gone up a bit in the last 5 years even if they are still relatively cheap.

[@MyNameIsBucket]

This video seems a bit more focused on the technical side than the other ones, without getting too far into the weeds. Definitely an improvement.

[@Sharopolis]

Thanks!

[@demonsty]

i really dig how deep you go with the technical details. you know your stuff, bro. subscribed!

[@heyhonpuds]

Thanks for making a technical breakdown actually interesting.

[@Sharopolis]

Thanks for watching!

[@VideoGameAnimationStudy]

Yeah, I’m gonna need to know the music you used, good sir. Unless it’s KZbin royalty free stuff? Fantastic video mate!

[@Halbared]

Some of these fighting games on the Master look amazing for the 8-bit world! I know a lot of Master games weren't that good at playability but looked good (always an issue with graphics over playability) but I would have loved to have played some of these back in the day.

[@Sharopolis]

Jang Pung 3 is darn good, I'm sure it would have been pretty big had it ever got released outside of Korea.

[@ModeSOLOgaming]

Coming from that era of gaming, these videos make me appreciate how far gaming has come in such a relatively short time. Wonder if my kids will be watching videos like these on the current systems years from now.

[@juststatedtheobvious9633]

Digital Foundry makes videos like this for current systems. Their Switch videos are always a highlight.

[@gamecomparisons]

"The wealth of scrolling effects on the screen, I would call it parallax scrolling but people would complain..." This made me laugh, and then chuckle. Manchildren need to grow up already, if it scrolls independently and "parallax" is the term people use who cares if it is an actual background layer or if it can overlap with other layers? When I'm looking at a countryside while going for a drive, I don't dismiss the scenary bsed on what overlaps, that would be absurd. Probe and US Gold "a cursed union surely..." made me laugh too. Ah well. Thanks for the chuckle, this is a well made video with more than one fun moment. That takes talent.

[@k-leb4671]

Why would some people not call it parallax scrolling anyway? What's the difference?

[@bangerbangerbro]

The thing that usually annoys me is when people talk about the number of layers of scrolling done this way, especially when they compare it with the number of hardware layers.

[@jbmaru]

I like the in-depth technical analysis of the games. Subscribed.

[@lfccavalheiro]

Good video, I love how you explain the tricks programmers have used to pull off those gems. I am sure you could do a special video about late Brazilian releases, TecToy really pushed a lot of SMS limits.

[@Sharopolis]

Thanks! Yeah TecToy did some great stuff, I'll do more SMS stuff if there is interest.

[@mikejenkins4924]

SMS was really popular in Spain, even after the mega drive released. It wasn't really until the snes released that the sms died out.

[@barry-allenthe-flash8396]

Nice to see Jang Pung 3 get some love, even if the focus on the technical achievement meant you relegated what sounds like _a fantastic story_ to a mere footnote, lol. I've heard about and wondered how they pulled it off, so it was pretty awesome to see the comparison between it and SF2/MK - I had no idea those games did it that other way. Technical trickery like that is just really fascinating!

[@noaht2005]

It’s a pretty dodgy game too, being a semi-bootleg from Korea. The programming prowess is surprising. They also worked on Koko Adventure (Buzz and Waldog), a great famicom game with really satisfying physics

[@MattGamesYT]

Jang Pung 3 is such a good game! Been playing loads of MS stuff lately and I haven't even thought about it in years but seeing it again is a proper nostalgia wave man, cheers for that! I was only ever any good with Joe, never could get the hang of the other guys.

[@kwkfortythree39]

It is a very impressive game for the system. It even has cool rip offs like that dragon "sho ryu ken" from World Heroes series.

[@OzymandiasWasRight]

This channel is criminally underrated. Im here on my 2nd run through this channel. It takes a ton of work and research to build a channel like this. Well done.

[@Sharopolis]

Thank you! There's more to come too!

[@joltzyclayton8674]

Amazing! This video was packed full of info you just don't get on most channels. Subscribed imidietly after viewing. Bravo!!

[@Sharopolis]

Thank you!

[@MurderMostFowl]

R-Type was fantastic... shame they never made a Genesis version

[@jakelam5089]

R-Type really did push the limits of the Master System.

[@JoakimKanon]

😍👌🏼

[@KurtWoloch]

I think Hang-On (which I think was the first pack-in game here in Europe) wasn't a bad feat either. Surely the scenery wasn't as detailed as in Road Rash, but its look comes close to the arcade version, and it runs totally smoothly at 60 FPS! For the road I think it uses the same technique as Road Rash, and the roadside objects and cycles are probably done with sprites.

[@XeonProductions]

Wow, I always wondered how road rash simulated 3D on the Genesis. It's all just scan line manipulation.

[@juststatedtheobvious9633]

Bit more going on in the 16-bit version. They programmed a true sprite scaling engine at 20fps, while Sega always faked theirs. (G-Loc looks great, but that's because you have a single enemy type using up all the ROM space.)

[@jonimiahjm]

I'm 45years old oh! how I miss my master system those were good old days, simple but best!.

[@CRG]

Fantastic video. I loved how you showed the technical detail of each game. I loved my master system, first games console I owned and I play it to death before getting my Amiga. I've got 4 of them now, well, you never know when I'll need a spare :) Subbed!

[@Sharopolis]

Thanks!

[@Alianger]

I'd add Aladdin, Land of Illusion and Power Strike 2 here. Jang Pung 3 was unexpected!

[@r.t.5767]

Oh yeah Power Strike II

[@rolling-roadkill]

Great video even though I'm disappointed that Phantasy Star❤️❤️ isn't on the list.

[@VVc0w]

Really enjoyed this mate, found it in my Watch Later playlist. Way more detail than I expected, great video, the games don't look half as bad considering how old they are, R-Type especially looks very nice

[@Sharopolis]

Thanks for watching!

[@bobfromsoireegames4309]

It's quite amazing what they could manage to pull out of a Master System with the Road Rash conversion.

[@NickSquids]

Yeah, I hadn't really seen that. I wrecked the Megadrive versions though (:

[@EudesConhecido]

I really like how Road Rash is so close to the Sega Genesis version, but I have mixed feelings about it, because I always thought that the Sega Genesis version doesn't look like a good game, has a low framerate, the console could handle better graphics, and I was afraid that maybe the Master System version is only considered good because we compare with the 16-Bit version and it looks almost the same. One thing that always baffles me is that the tracks are exactly the same on both versions, it's not procedural

[@GrOuNdZeRo7777]

Good ol' Z80 CPU and PSG sound chip, Essentially the Master System was an MSX2 turned into a dedicated console...

[@Hologhoul]

Another fascinating and brilliantly made video. R-Type looks ace, love the colours and design of the backgrounds as you progress (I never got very far!)

[@datavalisofficial8730]

As a brazillian i can confirm, and even though i was not alive in the 80s, the master system and the mega drive both sell pretty well eveb these days, though for different reasons. Back when i got it, it was because it was cheaper than a ps2 and was the cheap alternative that isnt a famiclone Now its more for the nostalgia factor, as even the one that i got, the master system 3, is considered old now.

[@andrewchristianson2086]

Wow R-Type looks almost as good as a 16-bit game. Pretty impressive!

[@lazarushernandez5827]

What about Sagaia? Some of those effects looked straight out of Thunderforce 3 for the Genesis. Amazing how much the programmers were able to extract from this 8 bit.

[@txray3409]

@@lazarushernandez5827 TF3? Are you joking haha. That's laughable. They're demonstrable on the SMS, but they are a pal comparison to TF3.

[@lazarushernandez5827]

@@txray3409 I love the the TF series, I was just stating that the flame effects were reminiscent of those in TF3, and for SMS that's pretty impressive.

[@ignacioveiga2539]

"The character select screen looks like Ryanair's website". LOL great comedy there!

[@heilong79]

That fighting game at the end was really impressive looking for the system.

[@mattelectro78]

I was absolutely blown away by Cool Spot on the Master System, back in the day. Bright colourful cartoon graphics, and superb animation, almost as good as on the Mega Drive.

[@the.internet]

+1. Never seems to get talked about when it comes to technical achievements on the Master System. Was it UK only release? As a kid I was well impressed with how it looked and played. I seem to remember the frame rate was a little low but where animation and big sprites and backgrounds were concerned it was brilliant.

[@jonk6834]

Hurrah! Finally, somebody else who appreciates Cool Spot. One of the nicest looking games that I had on the Master System back in the early 90s. The music was pretty cool as well.

[@Sharopolis]

That was one I nearly put in, but the vid was getting long and I couldn't think of much to say about it other than 'this looks great!'.

[@the.internet]

Two other platformers that come to mind when it comes to quality sprite animation and nice backgrounds are The Jungle Book and Aladdin. I always remember seeing Aladdin on my friends Mega Drive then getting it on the SMS and being blown away with just how comparable the graphics were. Damn near 16bit-looks.

[@kwkfortythree39]

And with that bottom panel with score and such, while showing a multidirectional scroll like in Super Mario Bros 3 but without special mappers.

[@JM-hx9ew]

The sega master system was a beast back in the day. Its a shame it never got the third party support it deserved.

[@aBetterMove]

Lemmings is particularly interesting as a speedrun on the SMS because it has the best challenge: lag to wrestle with, but the ability to pixel-perfectly select jobs, mixed with no mouse. If you would like to see my run of the Fun levels, watch here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/ZqHRl6h3pJ2mfJo&feature=emb_title

[@Mackadotious51]

I still remember that day back when i was like 6 or 7 and saw Space Harrier running on the Sega Master System kiosk at the electronics department and being totally mesmerized by it. It pretty much solidify my view on how awesome the Master System was, even when all the kids in my neighborhood had the NES.

[@visionop8]

My parents gave me a choice of which system I wanted when I was 7 years old. I was all about the Sega Master System. It was a REALLY close race. My parents collected all the literature and paraphernalia of the time (I still have it all) and I would stay up way into the night comparing all of the information that they gathered. I really did want that Sega Master System as I looked through brochures and saw how awesome Hang On and Teddy Boy looked. But Somehow I sensed that Nintendo just had their shit together. It was the sound and music on Nintendo's hardware that won me over. The music and sound on those games to my 7 year old ears sounded incredible on the Nintendo Entertainment System. Being a musician, it just blew my mind and the Sega Master System sounded like an Atari to me. My ears betrayed my eyes and I chose the NES. I always felt regret about that even way back then as the NES never satisfied my eyes at all. The Sega Master System had graphics that really drew me in and made me regret my decision on many occasions. I wont even go into how mad I was when I played Double Dragon on SMS at a friend's house after owning it on NES. SMS Was SO much better in those regards. The NES tickled my ears and that is honestly what sold me on it. Of course I had access to the Legend of Zelda and the Super Mario Bros early games but looking back, those were just pop-culture zeitgeists and Sega had the deeper experiences with incredible visuals. I corrected my course later with the Sega Genesis and never looked back. I haven't owned a Nintendo system since the NES and and the only Nintendo hardware I actually deal with are the handhelds that my fiancee owns. I'm still a Sega playing fool to this day, and also SNK. That's another story.

[@jasonblalock4429]

Yeah, it was a similar situation here. I came thiisss close to buying an SMS, before my parents talked me getting into a NES based on the fact that local game stores had NES games, but not Sega. The funny thing is, as early adopters of the Laserdisc, they would definitely know something about the problems when you buy into a format that's technically superior, but lacks retail presence. . (And then later, when I upgraded to the Genesis, I made sure to also get the Power Base Converter so I could play those SMS games I'd had my eye on for years... :->)

[@joaozin003]

Fun fact: the brazilian company who selled Master Systems is still selling them

[@FirstLast-vr7es]

14:00 There appears to be a lung vendor in the background... Must be a street scene in Xinjiang, I suppose.

[@Owazrim]

The Master System really has some great games and great looks. I am glad there is a homebrew scene that keeps adding to the library.

[@kramalerav]

As a kid who owned a Master System quite early on, I must disagree. Great games for that system were too few and far between. To be fair, there was never a game in their library (I don’t think) that was so bad that it was totally unplayable. But I can’t name one MS title that can be considered “essential” or iconic either. Phantasy Star and R-Type were the only truly great games on that system, but even those belonged to niche genres that were the RPG and shooter respectively. It was very frustrating being outside the NES crowd. Sure, they looked great, but a typical SMS game got very boring after about 20 minutes.

[@Owazrim]

Shinobi, Choplifter, Rampage, Outrun, Golvellious, Wonder Boy 3, Alex Kidd in Shinobi World, Ghouls'n Ghosts, Golden Axe Warrior, and Castle of Illusion to name a few that I feel are solid games. Yeah, some of the early releases were arcade based hi-score games but the library branches out especially if you include Pal games. I didn't have an NES or SMS as a kid but I have enjoyed collecting, playing, and learning about the Master System.

[@SilverSonic2099]

A very good fighting game on the Master System was Masters of Combat. The characters were smaller than the ones on the fighting games shown here and the game was on the smaller scale with only 5 characters(4 main characters and the boss which can be unlocked and fully playable) but it is a pretty amazing game for the sytem in my opinion. All original characters complete with their own stage and music, very detailed stages, opening and ending cutscenes, it even has a bonus stage a la Street Fighter. The characters while small are very detailed and have a ton of moves and special attacks and most importantly, the game actually plays very well. I recommend anyone who likes the Master System and enjoys fighting games to play it when they have a chance. But get a move list online, the special moves are not very easy to figure out on our own(I had an original copy complete with manual and definitely needed it to play effectively).

[@MichaelPuterbaugh]

The visualization of how scroll offsets work is fantastic! Nicely done.

[@Sharopolis]

Hey thanks, but it's really just an emulator feature that I made use of, not my own idea unfortunately.

[@soundandvision77]

Wow this is really cool. I can’t believe all that time in those driving games that I was actually going in a straight line! So did they add forces to push the car or motorcycle on those turns to trick you into resisting them and steer? And the techniques they used for the fighting games is astounding. Great stuff!

[@KRAFTWERK2K6]

Holy cow, R-Type looks INSANELY good on the Master System. The colours alone already :O Really well adapted to the Master System's colour palette. Also i think Thunderblade should be on the list as well. For the 3D sections.

[@KRAFTWERK2K6]

@Sixtyfps Gaming Yeah Shinobi was also really good. It was also one of the few games that supported that FM Synth unit for the Master System.

[@mr.coolio4321]

Yaaaaay I've been waiting for a vid like this for ages

[@retro_reflections]

Cheers for reminding me about R-Type - just bagged a copy off eBay as a result! 👍

[@Sharopolis]

Have fun!

[@AnGhaeilge]

My first console. I loved it. Really underrated.

[@NickSquids]

Mine too. Along with our C64 - it was a good childhood (:

[@rickdeckard2240]

The first Sonic game adaptation (yep it wasn't just a mega drive port) on the MS was absolutely revolutionary for an 8 bit system! Soon after, Astérix was a very impressive game for the console too.

[@haiaokuwa]

Incredibly useful information! Your channel is fantastic!

[@huldu]

I was quite a bit surprised when I got a lot older to realize that the master system was so much smaller in US than most other parts of the world. Growing up most kids I knew had a master system and some of course had a nes. Why didn't the master system do so well in US, was it because of the weird looking box art?

[@AnthonyFlack]

Nintendo of America had some highly anticompetitive practices in the 1980s. They basically said that any retailer that sold the Master System would not be allowed to sell the NES. They did the same with developers, banning any third party Nintendo developer from working with Sega.

[@KotCR]

Yeah, same. Here in the UK were I grew up Nintendo just seemed like a smaller name in general. There wasn't really any Sonic vs. Mario arguments in the playground because everybody was Team Sega except for that one kid that would take the opposite side of anything just for attention. The only person I knew that had one (a Nintendo) was my cousin, most everyone else had Master Systems or were still stuck on thier old Ataris. A few lucky kids had Mega Drives. That was it really. Only Nintendo that I'd regularly see was the Gameboy, even then seemed less prominent than the Master System.

[@k-leb4671]

@@KotCR I feel like nowadays Nintendo is much more prominent in the UK.

[@KotCR]

@@k-leb4671 Definitely nowadays, and for the past 20 years for that matter, but not the first half of the 90s.

[@Fuuntag]

I enjoy your informed but not too deep breakdowns of certain techniques and technologies. Keep it up!

[@benwright391]

Really great video. Subbed. I never understood why people don't talk more about that extra level in R-type. It's cool, not THAT hard to find on accident...and unseen anywhere else.

[@skelkankaos]

Master System destroys preconceptions about 8-bit systems

[@verficationaccount]

People complaining in the comments that parallax-scrolling is not the correct technical term need to chill. At that point everybody knows what is meant by that. Great video, love the technical details!

[@noaht2005]

R-Type is in 3 of your ‘pushing the limits of’ videos. It really did turn out good everywhere. Also, Power Strike II is sorely missing, that game looks amazing and is incredibly smooth and fast

[@MattTheSpratt]

i'd be absolutely willing to give sagaia/darius II a ton of points on the music alone!

[@Servbot01]

Mortal Kombat 2 is more impressive and plays better. Also Golden Axe, Streets of Rage (1, not 2) and Deep Duck Trouble should be in.

[@24magiccarrot]

None of those games were technically difficult in comparrison with the games on the list. MK2 only had 2 moving sprites at any one time

[@txray3409]

This is about pushing the hardware, not how great a game is.

[@kyledonnelly8069]

Color palette of the Master System was amazing. So vibrant for the time.

[@Vospi]

This Lemmings example was stunning!

[@k-leb4671]

I love the Ryanair joke.

[@YamiVT]

I love this series! Please keep it coming!

[@dashfox8464]

Excellent video! Master System had lots of precious gems.

[@jaysilva5854]

I'd say it was common for 8 bit systems like master system or nes to have crazy flicker when the game pushed the console to the limit!

[@the.internet]

Great vid, huge SMS fan here and it's good to hear a Brit doing it justice. Subscribed!

[@Sharopolis]

Thanks! Glad you liked it.

[@cmyk8964]

People complained that you call the scroll effect “parallax”? It gives a parallax effect, for heaven’s sake! It should be called “scanline-based parallax”, perhaps, but still parallax.

[@dejiko]

No mention of R-Type using the FM synth if played with a japanese console?

[@Sharopolis]

Well, I did mention that in the original voice over, but it got lost in the edit I'm sorry to say. Good point though, it sounds superb!

[@christianpalmer225]

Lots of SMS games used background tiles where the NES would use sprites. It allowed for some HUGE enemies. Sometimes it went well, and sometimes you had black squares around the tiles.

[@JoakimKanon]

Street Fighter to Master System released ’97? That’s crazy! 🤯

[@RedTsarOldChannel-INACTIVE]

Yeah man,here in Brazil consoles were very expensive,so the Master System was a no-brainer back then. The last game of the Master System (Mickey's Ultimate Challenge) actually released in late '98!

[@heuvelroy1]

Yes the tectoys games from brazil

[@justwatch2760]

R-Tyoe really uses their resources properly. It looks like it plays very well. With the vast amount of moving sprites on the system at once , the flicker could be worst. But the music, and over all feeling makes it look like an arcade perfect port of this game .If I was 15 or 16 in the early 90's, and I bought this, It would have impressed me to the point where it made putting the controller down, an almost impossible task.

[@jakeconer]

What about Lemmings 2 even if that version wasn’t released?

[@WeSombreGhosts]

Good to see you back buddy !!!

[@Sharopolis]

Hey, thanks!

[@greenaum]

Bloody heck, Sharopolis, I do love your channel. You deserve many more subscribers, you put so much work into these videos. You just need the day to come when you're, for some reason, recommended on KZbin and people remember owning whichever console it was. Then you'll be a rightful millionaire. Well, there are no rightful millionaires, but still. Do you make enough off KZbin to live on? 137K views for this 2 year old video.

[@Sharopolis]

Thanks! Revenue varies, but surviving as a full time KZbinr is getting closer!

[@llpBR]

Oh yes super popular around here. You still can buy a brand new Master System in every supermarket in Brazil!

[@Gambit771]

It is because of Brazil that the Master System is the longest running console and probably will never have that record taken away from it.

[@Sharopolis]

Yeah I don't think anything else will ever come close will it?

[@Halbared]

I think it's fair to put the PC Engine version in the 16 bit camp. It looked amazing back in the day.

[@Sharopolis]

Yeah I'm of that view myself, but whichever I way I call it people still complain.

[@greenaum]

It had an 8-bit CPU. And a very powerful graphics chip that did most of the work of the amazing graphics. But the actual CPU, is a modified 6502, same as the NES. And that Atari 2600! Admittedly it runs at 4x the clock speed of the NES's version. Still, it's an 8-bit CPU in an 8-bit machine. "Bits" means something, in this case the registers, data bus, and ALU are 8-bits wide. Definitely can only work on 8 bits at a time.

[@waynetemplar2183]

Shadow of the Beast by Psygnosis was impressive both graphically and visually. It used a parallax scrolling effect for some backgrounds that looked very good (for an 8-bit system)

[@MaxAbramson3]

Another approach that I've suggested on fora for these big fighting games is to give each character 4 sprites each in width. Then, if the character move exceeds that for sprite limit., you only have to draw a few tiles. For their fist, kick, or fireball. Only on frames where both characters are attacking at the same time do you have any loss of frames. Otherwise, you're still at 60fps and have plenty of CPU time for sound effects and music. Disable the Master System's 16-bit RISC VDP it's still capable of color cycling and parallax scrolling, but you may have to bypass those effects while drawing those custom tiles.

[@lauratiso]

There's something about Street Fighter II that everyone forgets to mention: Tec Toy developed a 6 buttons gamepad for that port! It looks identical to the Mega Drive/Genesis 6 buttons gamepad, but it's incompatible with the 16 bits console.

[@lauratiso]

@Chatham Mulliganexactly! And it's simple and ingenious: the extra buttons inside the gamepad acts like pressing more than one input at the time, like up and down at the same time or left and right, and other combinations.

[@tasosrizopoulos868]

I believe that Lemmings is a completely different case than SF, MK and Golden Axe. I was always under the impression that the Master System Supports 3 modes: The terrible SG1000/MSX1 compatible, the classic one with the scrolling and the sprites and a tile based one with 2 layers of tiles used in a lot of games with the telltale sign that everything moves in 8 pixel steps, both background AND fake sprites. Space Harrier and Golden Axe were the first major titles that I can remember but Alienstorm followed the same approach. Now while Lemmings needs to add sub-tile details with digging etc. Street Fighter 2 only moves the sprites at whole tile steps thus it uses the simple tile layering method. Making a player sprite out of sprites and a second one made out of changing tiles would make a far more smooth and far more technically complicated game but it would allow for placing the player sprites at literally ANY pixel on the screen and obviously allow for the shadow sprites to be at the bottom and not UNDER the player sprites.

[@Sharopolis]

I think the tile layering was done in software in both cases, but I could be wrong. There's 4 modes, 3 of them MSX legacy and the last one, which has just one background layer as far as I know.

[@troywright359]

Good work, appreciate the timecodes

[@YouOpaOpa]

Oh wow, I never heard about Jang Pung 3! That does seem awesome!

[@BastetFurry]

The C64 uses an even more ingenious way to display Lemmings, the level is displayed as sprites while the Lemmings themselves are chars. Gives a narrower view but works pretty well for the platform.

[@inceptional]

Man, it makes me wonder about the kinds of games we could have seen on Master System if it has be as successful as the NES and supported similarly with all the best third parties putting their best work on it and constantly pushing it to its limits.

[@Rockysbeats]

great viedo i lerned lots bout how they made games with limitashons cheers ; 0

[@EOTA564]

The MS version of Aladdin has some very cool 3D background scrolling. Would even look impressive on the MD.

[@DJPeterJames]

I enjoyed having more unusual titles used as examples and it makes more sense to me. Much more enjoyable getting away from sonic and mario.

[@Sharopolis]

Thanks! Everyone knows the Sonic games were great, I wanted to pick stuff that did things you might not realise the SMS could do. Stay tuned for my next video because its in very much the same vein, but with a different system.