OutRunners! One of Sega's Best Arcade Games Ever

[@baroncalamityplus]

This should have been a Sega 32x launch title.

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Would have been a good game for the hardware

[@johnbowdle3139]

Yes!!

[@tangreen7267]

Yes. This, Powerdrift, Revenge of Death Adder, etcetera, etcetera. What a damn shame.

[@edrikhtg]

Got the privilege to have ever played this game in an arcade. Funny story, the arcade had a short blackout and when the power went back on, this particular cabinet suddenly went free to play for the rest of the day. Couldn't help but to keep myself busy for a while lol. Glad i'm not the only one who remembers these games. Keep up the good work!

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Haha I love that story. Rare bit of luck!

[@PopeTheRevXXVIII]

The premature ending of Sega Ages on Switch deprived us of an M2 Outrunners

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

I’m shocked we have no port for modern hardware

[@PopeTheRevXXVIII]

@@VideoGameEsoterica it's like Sega forgot about it. Even in the outrun 2 era they referenced Turbo outrun but nothing from Outrunners

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Probably an arcade exclusive for X amount of years and by the time it was able to get a 1:1 port they decided it wouldn’t be profitable

[@iorch82]

This thing was absolutely impressive back then, there was nothing like that in the arcades. Perhaps Super Monaco GP? Oh, sweet 90's ...

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

The best era for 2D in arcades

[@Dilemina]

I used to rent Outrunners on Genesis a few times. They had Outrun at the Cinema lobby, but not Outrunners. So I only compared those two. And of course other racing games on Genesis. It was one of my favorite racing games on Genesis as a kid.

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Really what we need is OutRun 3

[@beingsupersonic7499]

The cherry Blossom course is beautiful

[@balaam_7087]

I remember playing this in arcades as a kid. It was so freaking good. This not being readily available on PS5/Series X so I can buy it right now is a travesty of justice 😭

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

One of the best Sega arcade games to have never seen a home port

[@TheKayliedGamerChannel-YouTube]

Agreed, superb arcade racer this one!👏 This along with Super Hang-On and ThunderBlade should have seen AGES releases on the Sega Saturn in Japan at least🤷‍♂️

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Sega really made a metric ton of hits back in the day

[@TheKayliedGamerChannel-YouTube]

​@@VideoGameEsotericafor sure, the golden age of arcades

[@shotgunl]

OutRunners is an amazing arcade game, and while I like the design aesthetic of the original Outrun more, whew, does this game move: it has an amazing sense of speed. Lots of fun. The Genesis port came out near my birthday, and I had asked for it sight unseen with no chance to rent it. I got that and Bloodlines as my two birthday games, and this port of OutRunners was definitely the lesser of the two games. However, I did have fun with it, and played it a ton. It's okay, but I do wish the Saturn had got a port.

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

I mean what can beat Bloodlines if we are being honest? Also glad to see you commenting again!

[@TheKayliedGamerChannel-YouTube]

Btw you can select a 2up version in arcade emulation which shows both screens set out in wide-screen format. I actually uploaded this in a video a couple of years back.

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

That’s how this was done. I just crop the second screen in post

[@TheKayliedGamerChannel-YouTube]

​@@VideoGameEsotericacool, you should have shown both side by side - you can toggle single or double, thought you'd done that 😅

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

No I just let it rip

[@gaminglakitu]

I think the real shame is that Sega *STILL* hasn't given us an official arcade port yet. Like I feel like Outrunners should of at least been a shoe-in for the Astro City Mini, but oh well we got Rad Mobile on there instead lol. Great video as always dude

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Maybe one day in a Yakuza game

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Also a classic

[@gaminglakitu]

@@VideoGameEsotericaLol tbf I did get into the series because Judgement had Motor Raid, so it could be very likely

[@gaminglakitu]

@@L4wnM0w3rM4n I respect your opinion, but man that is one hell of a hit take lol

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

@gaminglakitu motor raid is a classic too. Sega rally adjacent

[@accidentian]

One of my biggest achievements when I was 6 or 7 yrs old was winning the OutRunners once in the local arcade shop... This was me and my siblings favourite arcade back in the day. I tried the 3DS version but sadly there just wasn't as many cars and characters to choose.

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Sounds like a good memory!

[@MaddSweetGT500]

Hell yeah! Love this game ... The only thing that I didn't like about it was split screen. I wish this had gotten a Saturn port. I think that if they removed the constant split screen, they could have gotten closer to the arcade. I still play this game on my Genesis. Awesome my friend!

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

It was an odd design decision but it could have been worse

[@MaddSweetGT500]

@@VideoGameEsoterica I still loved playing this game when I got it home. The music was amazing ... Sometimes I'll pot it in and let the intro music play while I do some chores around my house 😁

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Oh it’s def still a fun game even if it’s wildly different

[@Zionfarm]

Love the content brother.

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Glad you are enjoying it :) plenty more coming

[@_BELMONT_]

I need to play Outrunners! Thanks for another great video VGE! We could all use a bit of positivity today!

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Haha not the video you were supposed to be watching but OutRunners is just more fun

[@_BELMONT_]

@@VideoGameEsoterica all good man i understand! OutRunners looks like much more fun!

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

I mean MK vs OutRunners I’d take OutRunners any day. But everyone knows how much I love racing games

[@bitwize]

Ever since seeing Chase HQ run on a freakin' ZX Spectrum, I've known that competent ports are possible even under severe constraints. I've been fortunate enough to play the arcade version, and had I had the Genesis version I would have enjoyed it even though it couldn't possibly hold up to the memories of the arcade.

[@Charlie-Cat.]

I agree VGE. I had many fun hours playing OutRunners growing up. Really is an amazing game for sure. 8^)

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Now if Sega would just make OutRun 3

[@martinh4982]

I always thought it a shame that Sega didn't do more to bring the super scaler games to the M/Sega CD. Looking at what other companies did with the tech, we could have had some cracking looking ports.

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Yes look at Taito with Night Striker. Not a perfect port but a playable one

[@Pixelhorizon]

The true successor of the original game! Outrun was such a tough cookie for Jotego´s to crack... Could he create a Sega 32 core? Oh man, that would be something 🙏

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Seems like System 32 should be possible

[@gammaphonic]

I’ve been waiting for a proper home version of OutRunners for years. I have no idea if the MiSTer is capable of doing a System 32 board, but I hope someone at least tries to create a core for it.

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

System 32 should be possible

[@Imgema]

I wonder, was the System 32 better at scaling than the Y-Board? Also, could the Saturn have an perfect port of this? At 60 fps even?

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

I think Saturn could have done it yet. Not sure on which board has the better scaling. They are both so similar

[@AfterBurnerTeirusu128]

Outrunners is finally being rereleased in the form of a Myarcade tabletop arcade game. Their Pole Position cab is decent, so I'll probably buy it.

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Interesting. Hadn’t heard that

[@AfterBurnerTeirusu128]

@@VideoGameEsoterica It's at their CES booth. They're also making larger tabletop cabs of namco/atari/capcom stuff. (and some sort of plug and play arcade consoles and handhelds)

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

I’ll have to look it up. Thanks!

[@maroon9273]

Sucks the saturn never made a compilation port of outgunned. Contunued on the dreamcast, 7th to present console generations.

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

You’d have thought one console would have seen a port

[@Idelacio]

Hell the Mega CD could have done it well enough. For me the megadrive port shoots itself in the foot with the enforced splitscreen, not surprising that it's not well liked in general.

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

The forced split screen is not a great design decision but I’m still impressed the entirety of the games concept translated over decently enough

[@iorch82]

No way Mega CD would run it. It struggled a bit with much simpler scenes such as these of the batman game, it didnt have dedicated hardware for scaling.

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

If it could do a version of Night Striker it could do a version of this

[@Idelacio]

@@iorch82 It absolutely does have hardware for that exact purpose, a custom ASIC chip (Sega 315-5548) with dedicated instructions. Core Design used it with most of their CD games, Soulstar, Thunder Hawk, Battlecorps for example. And VGE brings up Night Striker (Taito). Go watch these games, they are scaling sprites and not replacing them. I'm not saying it would have been a perfect port for Outrunners, just that it would have been decent enough for the time. The Mega CD's capabilities were criminally underutilised, even by SEGA themselves. Sonic CD uses scaling a bit, Afterburner and F1 Championsip make use of it, as stand outs.

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Sega CD had great hardware but it often just got used as a glorified storage medium swap

[@RolandoMarreroPR]

The Genesis game should have a single screen option! Wonder if there is a hack for this?

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Haven’t seen one

[@WellSwolen69]

Are you going to cover the Teraleak? It is a 1TB Nintendo leak that is ongoing

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

No I won’t be. That’s poking where I don’t think it’s safe to poke. I can’t talk about it without Vishal examples and my guess is Nintendo will be coming down hard on it

[@GamerGee]

Whew. This game. The sega genesis soundtrack trumps the arcade version. Which is insane. Outrunners on the genesis they just needed to make a single player version. The two player mode was good but I didn’t want the only options. The

[@TheKayliedGamerChannel-YouTube]

Sega Saturn should have got a port of this on the Ages Label, same for Thunder blade.

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

It was one of the stranger decisions they could have made

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

It’s very surprising it never did

[@simon41978]

I have no negative opinion on this game as I haven't played the home port. I do know Sega Lord X HATES it on Genesis. It's interesting that you both have polarised opinions. I've heard him complain about it so much, it was the first thing I thought of seeing the video title. 32X would have been a good choice. It wouldn't have to be perfect to impress.

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

I totally get how someone would not like it. I’m just impressed conceptually the entirety of OutRunners was able to be on Genesis. It’s not a good port but you can see the work and effort put in. So I always celebrate that

[@DehnusNorder]

Well they had a hope, but only if they were willing to lose money on every cartridge :P . You could have put a nice and powerful (and very expensive) solution on the cartridge, and just stream all the images to the screen :P. But without that? No the megadrive cannot pull that off. The 32X might, but then you're looking at something that is basically the earlier solution I just described, plus some extra bit planes that you'd need to pass through the megadrive to display :P . Heh, sorry, just wanted to show how ridiculous SEGA was back then and how awesome, the 32X basically being 75% of the Saturn's Processing units? Is just crazy when you think off it :P.

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

At least we got Virtua Racing with a custom chip. That was fun

[@verbage432]

If this was ported to the 32x it probably could have saved it

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Def would have sold more hardware

[@METR0lD]

I really wish there was a way to emulate this game without both screens forced. This game is amazing otherwise! 🤘

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Yes it can be a bit of a pain. I have to crop the image the remix the audio channels to get a clean single screen out with good audio

[@DefaultUsername0001]

🎉🎉🎉

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

You can’t beat OutRun or OutRunners

[@Riz2336]

What a downgrade from the arcade board but I'm not surprised

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Def never had the chance to get close

[@GamerGee]

Once again. The console soundtrack is way better.

[@Galgomite]

A compassionate defense but this port couldn't have been more disappointing. 1P-only and full screen would have been a start. A Japan-only release could have made more sense.

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

It has its charms. It’s not good but it’s not without effort either

[@srvuk]

The Megadrive port just looks and feels disappointing in comparison and rather less appealing. Although I would not expect the same experience, I think that I would feel somewhat deflated.

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Back in the day it would be a let down. In 2024 you can kind of view it for what it is…a very valiant effort

[@virtualvalium]

These graphics are nothing compared to Cool Riders

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Totally diff vibe

[@virtualvalium]

@@VideoGameEsoterica I know, it has some personality