Growing Up Gaming - The Sega CD

[@KaskelotenZebbe]

I love the Mega-CD. I got one after I got back to the Mega Drive, which was around the PlayStation 2 era. It really felt like the next level with the larger games and new sound capabilities. I have many favourites for it, most of those you mentioned, but also Dungeon Explorer, Shining Force CD and Android Assault among others.

[@mattlockwood6089]

I got mine 5 years ago model 2 with a model one genesis. First games were final fight cd, terminator, mortal kombat. Now I have over 10 games for it and love it

[@sewart]

Great lineup of original games there!

[@Alianger]

The silpheed method is great, whatever it's called, and some JP games like Lunar 1-2 had really clean and well made sprite-based intros. Interestingly a bunch of JP games used a Neo Geo-like solution for most sound, mixing the MD sound chip with the sample-based one inside the MCD. Silpheed does this in-game I barely had any games for mine besides the 4 in 1 pack and Sherlock Holmes back then, maybe because the stores we checked didn't show off many MCD games here in scandinavia. Or maybe because my dad also got the LaserActive not long after and more games for that one instead, which were almost all FMV-based. There were a couple of Silpheed-style games which I liked a lot back then (Rocket Coaster, Hyperion, Pyramid Patrol), and Triad Stone which was like anime Dragon's Lair.

[@sewart]

Having a LaserActive when I was a kid would have been so mind-blowing

[@cuttie1427]

Enjoyed that Greg, appreciate the hard work that goes into these videos

[@broch.630]

Never had a Sega CD growing up (nor did I know anyone who did), but it's been a real treat to explore the library on an everdrive. There's a decent amount of fun stuff that isn't just FMV games or questionably upgraded Genesis games. The Terminator has quickly become a personal favorite. I'm glad you talked a bit about the perception of FMV games. They're a bit of punching bag now, but my memories of that era are that everyone sort of agreed they weren't great YET but the prospect of being able to control "real" people was very exciting. At the time it felt like that was where things were headed, so I find it hard to hold it against the folks who were trying to develop games that pointed in that direction (even if I don't particularly want to play them now).

[@Toadws85]

It's funny hearing some as passionate about the Sega CD as I am. I meet others who love Sega and the Genesis specifically, much like I, but most hold reverence for that and lump it in to the 32x pile of what made Sega fail, along with misguidelgly assuming it was all FMV garbage. I was the only kid I knew in my neighborhood who had one. My older brother was able to afford to buy this kind of stuff as he had his own job. All my SNES friends always wanted to come over my house to play Mortal Kombat. They all enjoyed playing Night Trap, Fahrenheit and Slam City with me. We spent hours getting on dialup internet to look up all the secrets for Eternal Champions Challenge from the Dark Side. Stupid experimental titles like Bouncers gave us hours of fun. Micky Mania was soo much fun. My friends had Super Wrestlemania and those WWF games for their SNES, but we had Rage in the Cage with 4x the characters, let alone the big blue cage. I still remember picking up Flink for $4.99 on clearance at Toys R US. The focal point of my collection is my tower of power collection of Genesis, Sega CD and 32x games. Loved the episode man!

[@sewart]

Same! My tower of power is located in a display shelf currently sitting right behind me :)

[@THENAMEISQUICKMAN]

Yeah, I hate how the CD is just thrown alongside the 32X in the revisionist history books. The 32X was a total failure, but the CD did fine and had some great games.

[@xenosns]

Love these videos, thank you!

[@SteveCirelli]

Sewer shark was my pack-in and in thought it was amazing. I really liked Jurassic Park too. Just had a great atmosphere. Eternal Champions was another one that I sunk a to n of time into. I really liked it. Both Echos... I wish I had read more reviews of RPGs back then. I had Eye of the Beholder, which I really liked. Shining Force CD, loved it but didn't get to finish it. Definitely a game I want to finish. I think I was at the final boss... But I was headed into college and I didn't want to bring my Sega CD, fearing it would get broken.

[@sewart]

I never really played Shining Force CD. I'm currently playing through Shining Force II on my twitch channel, so CD is next on the schedule!

[@noneofyourbusiness4616]

Really nice to listen to, thank you! I did not have any Sega stuff until the Dreamcast, so completely missed this era. I enjoyed the highs and lows of consumer retail experiences (which sounded like they happened in the same store) of shockingly being offered a replacement console when you didn't even buy it there to the low of finishing a game before leaving the shop (not their fault, of course).

[@lightning89]

Still loving these videos Greg, keep up the hard work! I was a SEGA fan growing up, but never had a CD or 32X add-on until much later. In 2007, someone on a forum was giving away an old model 1 unit for free, and I snapped it up. It's missing the overlay / panel on the front, but it works well enough. Playing SNATCHER on it was one of my favourite gaming memories.

[@sewart]

Snatcher is one of the greats!

[@cedarvalleygaming]

My brother got a M2 for his birthday and the first game I bought for it was Rebel Assault. I thought FMV was the future and I enjoyed Sewer Shark, Ground Zero Texas, Corpse Killer, Midnight Raiders and especially Tomcat Alley. I played Wing Commander for the first time on SCD, it has my favorite Jurassic Park game, Thunderstrike is absolutely amazing, and Rise of the Dragon and Snatcher helped grow my early interest in cyberpunk. I love the Sega CD, so many great memories.

[@sewart]

Very similar for me. I know a lot of us look back on FMV games now and turn up our noses, but I was all in! I'm totally with you on Jurassic Park as well. I could never get into the Genesis games and thought the SNES one was pretty unplayable, but the Sega CD one put me right on the island :)

[@GameWired]

Don’t forget “The Colors of Modern Rock” CD that was a mail in order by proof of purchase of the original Sega CD ver 1. It goes for a Hefty penny on eBay but thankfully I found mine at goodwill for $1.

[@sewart]

I had no idea it had gotten expensive. I managed to pick mine up for a pretty reasonable price a few years ago.

[@mikew8126]

Never had a Sega CD or really knew anyone that had one either. I read a lot about it in EGM back in the day but I think by that time I was pretty much foolishly entrenched as a SNES fanboy so I kinda dismissed it. I really enjoy watching videos about systems like this that I have no experience with so I can learn more about them and possibly try out great games I missed. Sega CD and TurboGrafx 16 are two huge gaming gaps in my history.

[@sewart]

I hope you give some of the games I mentioned a shot!

[@CaseTheCorvetteMan]

I had a Mega CD, mine came with Road Avenger. I fairly quickly bought Lethal Enforcers CD with the Justifier and played the hell out of it. I used to play the CD music from Lethal Enforcers often

[@TheClosetNinja]

Did you just describe a video game VHS mixtape?

[@sewart]

I did! And I have it here. If I could only find that old VCR!

[@getbuckposse]

Snatcher is one of my all time favorite gaming experiences. It blows my mind how immersive and poignant it is.

[@sewart]

Same! I try to play through it at least once a year.

[@Jaspertine]

A game I had for the SCD that I NEVER hear anyone talk about is Loadstar: The Legend of Tully Bodine. Such a weird, stupid, fascinating game.

[@sewart]

You mean that game Elon Musk worked on? It's funny how no one talks about Loadstar, since Sega's investment in Rocket Science was all over the mainstream press back in the day.

[@Jaspertine]

@@sewart Did he really? why are we not teasing him about that daily on all the social platforms he doesn't own?

[@juststatedtheobvious9633]

The magic was that we were a part of a movie, during a time when 2D sprites were all we saw, telling the stories that fit into a very small, very expensive ROM. The idea of characters in a movie looking at you? Counting on you? That was the fantasy/horror genre, before technology finally made it possible. And even then, it was expensive arcade technology. This was a time when a CRT covered a lot of flaws, and 240P and bad color defined VHS. The difference between Sewer Shark and a real movie wasn't near as dramatic as it is now. Presentation and character went a long ways towards creating an immersion that's just lost today, when we can play Red Dead Redemption 2 or Alien Isolation instead.

[@sewart]

Yeah that's one of the tragedies of the FMV game discourse today. So many people base their opinions of the visuals without seeing them on a CRT.

[@TheMysteryDriver]

Sewer Shark and Tomcat Alley

[@sewart]

Loooooove Sewer Shark

[@Angielos]

is that a real commercial at the beginning

[@sewart]

Yep! Gotta love the 90s!

[@AQuestionofCharacter]

🔥🔥🔥

[@THENAMEISQUICKMAN]

The Sega CD much like the Saturn was really a victim of the early KZbin gamersphere basically just being all Nintendo. They tried really hard to rewrite history to the point these platforms were useless and sold nothing and had no games. It's annoying how much damage was done, but eh.

[@swilco266]

I had one back in the day, I thought sonic cd was crap, still don't see what people see in it 😂 thought it was a pretty average system overall though I wish I could have played the rpgs back then

[@THENAMEISQUICKMAN]

A lot of Sonic CD's reputation had to do with it being stuck on Sega CD for the longest time unlike the other 2D Sonic games which got rereleased all the time. People treated it like the greatest Sonic game but when it became more readily available like with the 2011 remaster that mentality kinda died down. I still think it's a very good game, but "best Sonic game ever" is considerably too far.