The Sega CD vs The Arcade

We look at some Sega CD games that came from the arcade and how well they hold up.
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Opening "Sega" jingle is from Astal for the Sega Saturn.
Ending Music during the credits is from Batman for the Sega Genesis.
SLX Logo
By: Jan Neves
KZbin Page - / jan3d
Intro by Evan S.
portfolio.tsestudios.com/
Episode Notes:
1. MAME used for arcade games. There are a number of emulation errors you may notice. The chase seen in Lethal Enforcers has borked scrolling for instance.
2. Mega SG with a Mega SD for most of the Sega CD footage.
3. Games covered in the order they appear:
After Burner III
Fatal Fury Special
Final Fight CD
Mortal Kombat
NBA JAM
The Ninja Warriors
Road Avenger
Samurai Shodown
StarBlade
Lethal Enforcers I & II
Night Striker
Sega Arcade Classic Collection
Sengoku Denshou
4. The Japanese Mega CD launched for over $400 in late 1991. With import fees and shipping, it was a $500+ product. A brutal proposition for my $100 a week check. Since the Mega CD was region locked, it also meant $60-$70 per game before shipping.
5. I still have a number of my original Sega CD games. I use to listen to them in my car CD player for the longest time.
6. The Ninja Warriors segment shows a zoomed in arcade version so you can see the details better.

[@matthewnikitas2904]

I recently had surgery and haven’t been able to work for the past few days and your videos have been keeping me entertained at home thanks a lot man

[@SegaLordX]

No problem dude. Hope you're back on your feet soon.

[@cristinamaiapm]

@@SegaLordX Do you like feminazis?

[@timsohn7057]

@@SegaLordX I remember posting this last year when I bad surgery as well. Sega Lord you will be surprised who you are helping out by making these awesome vids!!

[@michaelhodges7512]

Get well my friend.

[@Fartsanchez]

@@cristinamaiapm what even is this comment

[@bensmith1689]

The Mega CD was my favourite Xmas present ever. Final Fight, Terminator and Snatcher were worth the price of admission on their own.

[@mercster]

Heh my Sega CD Christmas was total opposite... I just got bad games. (I chose them, noone's fault but mine.) Actually I think I could only pick one or two and one of them was that horrible robot fighting game. And the packins were stuff like Sherlock Holmes. Soon after this I got into Amiga so I never really grew my Sega CD library... looks like it was decent if you chose wisely.

[@homejonny9326]

@@mercster Robot fighting game? Probably Heavy Nova...

[@mercster]

@@homejonny9326 Just checked, it was the Sega CD-only sequel "Black Hole Assault." It assaulted a black hole alright...

[@shaggymcdaniel3216]

Mine was the original PlayStation. I couldn’t wait for Christmas, so I tried to secretly open it up, only to find out my tv didn’t have composite. Had to get my mom to go out again to get the nasty RF adapter from Electronics Boutique.

[@bensmith1689]

@@mercster Yeah. I remember buying Night Trap 🤣. I remember you could use the Lethal enforcers light gun with Snatcher. I would have it in my pocket until a combat scene then pull it out and fire. Made you feel like a real Blade Runn....er... Junker. I did get an Amiga later on. Civilization 1 for 50p on my local market is probably the most value I have ever gotten out of a game. I so miss those great big boxes and lovely thick manuals.

[@LADY_PUNK]

I think the sega cd was powerful enough to have developed a port of Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, in the same way that Final Fight was developed ... it would have been perfection ...

[@cristinamaiapm]

I hate feminazis

[@GameSack]

I was always disappointed with Neo Geo ports that just had the Neo Geo music streaming from the CD. I didn't want that. I wanted superior arranged versions of the music.

[@SegaLordX]

With the cuts those games usually saw, an arranged soundtrack would have been a great addition.

[@fmdof]

Was that something that actually bothered you 26, 27, 28 years ago as a kid who was fortunate enough to have owned those consoles. Or is this an opinion from modern eyes?

[@GameSack]

@@fmdof This was something that bothered me 26, 27, 28 years ago. I loved what they did with Final Fight.

[@ssaunders1122]

@@GameSack awesome. My two favorite reto channels talking together.

[@_TheElMan]

Get you two together for a fireside chat about the Mega CD. We would love that.

[@wraithcadmus]

I've been going through my old Amiga games lately, and the whole "this is just the A500/Genesis version warmed over for the A1200/Sega CD" is a mood.

[@BrianJones-wk8cx]

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again-love your work, man. Through your explorations, you always take me back through familiar territory while also inevitably charting new territory. I always come away with a few “new” titles to track down and enjoy. It’s like I’m a middle-aged adolescent all these years later-thanks again for both the trip down memory lane AND the opportunity to expand the retro collection!

[@thecunninlynguist]

Final fight CD was my uncle's favorite

[@greenkoopa]

Your uncle had great taste

[@f.k.b.16]

In middle school, I bought the SEGA CD months after it came out with my own money. From the first I heard of it I started skipping lunch and saving that money (except pizza day!). I went in to HH Gregg and paid cash. $318 one dollar bills lol! The cashier was thrilled lol! But shortly after I bought it, the only games I really had any love for was Sonic CD, Silpheed, and Sol-Feace. And I too look forward to the scaling effects. SonicCD was the only example I had and I hated it. But like an abused dog... I kept coming back to SEGA over and over!

[@RichardCraig]

LMAO, I'm glad I'm not the only one who held on to extra lunch money to save up for games!

[@f.k.b.16]

@@RichardCraig back at you lol! I thought I was the only one!

[@LordSephleon]

I feel like I'm one of the few who loved Sega CD since I got it upon its US release, but not for the reasons others may have sought the console for. While I admit I was definitely awed by FMVs (despite discovering how bad many of those games were) and the incredible CD quality music (some of which I still listen to even to this day), the stars of the system in my eyes were largely RPGs: the Lunar series, Vay, Dark Wizard, and Shining Force CD, to name my favorites among them. Through some of those RPGs, I was also introduced to Working Designs, a publisher I loyally followed until they closed down in the mid-2000s, including some of their other ports like Cadash, Dragon Force (well, nearly their entire Saturn line, really, but Dragon Force is my favorite among them), Alundra, Arc the Lad Collection, and Vanguard Bandits. Also, I probably played Final Fight CD more than any other port of that game (even the SNES version, which I owned a solid 2 years prior) solely because it was the absolute best version: co-op play, all three characters, near-arcade quality, and the best OST remixes to date. EDIT: Typos.

[@pedroangelsaezhernandez5347]

I played the snes version a lot when I was a kid, but when I discovered the Sega cd version... Oh boy, you can imagine my face back then. One of the best arcade ports of the generation by far

[@LordSephleon]

@@pedroangelsaezhernandez5347 You and I probably had the same expression: our jaws hitting the floor at the awesomeness that was Final Fight CD. :)

[@CasperEgas]

I love the Mega cd, it was really under appreciated. It only puzzles me that they didn't upgrade the colours, especially with the focus on fmv.

[@XenonXyanide]

The base Mega-Drive was the bottleneck for the colour issue.

[@lazarushernandez5827]

@@XenonXyanide They solved that later with the 32X. Its solution was to overlay the 32X graphics over the Genesis/Megadrive's own. They could have done the same with the Sega CD. What gets me is the games that didn't upgrade sound over their cartridge versions, the Sega CD added 10 sound channels (2 for CD audio and 8 PCM) to what the Genesis already had. I'd wager there were bottlenecks trying to juggle all of the audio as well.

[@SegaLordX]

I'm sure Sega considered a 32X style solution for the color on the Sega CD even then. They likely axed it because the unit was already skyrocketing in price.

[@mxggo9046]

@@lazarushernandez5827 Thats the issues, why the need for 32x. don't get me wrong, I don't hate 32x...I just would have been on board with Sega CD had they added color and vibrancy along with sound...Maybe getting something closer to SNES. Interestingly, SNES was much less expensive and had ( arguably) much better games...

[@lazarushernandez5827]

@@mxggo9046 I hear ya. When the rumors of the Sega CD first showed up I really wanted them to improve the base Genesis functionality beyond just storage and audio; my list also included a larger color palette, mode 7/hardware scaling and rotation...basically enough power to do justice to their arcade ports. To their credit they got a lot of it right. The letdown for me was the focus on the FMV video games. Instead of games like Outrun, Turbo Outrun, Super Monaco GP etc...there was a bunch of 'Make my Video' games, Night Trap (controversy and nostalgia have given that game more fame than it deserved; it was ok) and those weird sports titles (Scottie Pippen Slam City). Still, wouldn't have experience Sonic CD, Lunar the Silver Star, Snatcher and a bunch of others without it.

[@aaronmerkel5216]

I fell in love with the fmv games, especially Night Trap.

[@FooFighter33]

Loved my Mega-CD. Bought it as soon as it was released. If only Sega had improved the colour palette the FMV would have looked so much better. 😢

[@segare-trop-vieux3932]

Final Fight is perhaps the best arcade port on the Mega CD

[@_TheElMan]

The colours have been fixed recently too

[@furyianz]

Final Fight CD my all time favorite Sega CD game I did put countless hours into that game lol.

[@SuperGaknar]

the attack combos are too damn slow

[@robkrasinski6217]

@@SuperGaknar The punching seemed slower on the Sega version vs. the arcade.

[@mayamanign]

Remember picking mine up on launch day at Totally Video Games. Golden age baby. She sits in the box in my archive but I play all the games on the MegaSD.

[@Draknfyre]

The Sega CD suffered from the same thing several other consoles did: Hardware capabilities that the company refused to let (most) developers fully use by way of not including the full documentation and instructions in the dev kits. Essentially third-party devs had to work with 70%-90% of a system's capabilities, and the company reserved the full use for their own games. They wanted to have an Ace in their sleeve so their own games would have an edge versus third-parties, but this was a stupid concept because by gimping your third-parties, it only hurts the system itself. IIRC Sprite Scaling was one of these features Sega jealously guarded and only select games were given permission to use it. In the end it's always the same story: (System) had far greater potential than most of the games used, because the parent company wanted to reserve the full power for themselves.

[@joshoshea3194]

FANTASTIC side by side comparisons. Great video Sega Lord. I think it's your best one yet.

[@ESLTeacherTom]

Thank u for the photosensitive notice!

[@oleblue73]

Imagine if the original Genesis/Megadrive had the hardware of the Sega CD to begin with. (Sans CD player, of course.) We could have gotten decent ports of Afterburner, Thunderblade, Space Harrier, etc... scaling sprites in NBA Jam... It probably would have been more expensive at launch, but it would have been worth it.

[@opaljk4835]

The whole reason the Genesis was popular in the US was it’s competitive price point (well, also Sonic). If it had that kind of technology from the jump it would’ve been really difficult for them to get any traction

[@maroon9273]

At least added expansion support to the expansion and fully on the cartridge port for future enhancement graphically/audio wise.

[@BUTT-HEAD666]

I remember the Sega CD way ahead of it's time

[@greenkoopa]

Yeah there's a few really great games, the Lunar series and Shining Force, Final Fight, Fatal Fury Special was good, then playable but not great ones like Hook and BC Racers

[@davidaitken8503]

I think you are remembering wrong.;) Wait, I take that back. Lazy ports. Overhyped games that sucked. Yeah, I guess it actually was ahead of its' time because that pretty much sums up the game market of today.;)

[@BriChiGuy]

This brought back a lot of memories. Road Avenger was so great

[@Canadian_Gamer]

Lovin' this Sega content, great way to ease into the weekend. 👍

[@darthv72]

Fun fact about final Fight. The JP Mega CD version retains the arcade audio sample for the car bonus round "Oh my God" but the NA Sega CD version used the SNES audio sample which was more muffled and changed to "Oh my car"

[@mukiex4413]

Just noticed the new intro (I usually just listen to these). Looks awesome!

[@BenW83]

Love the new intro mate keep it for all your vids! Thanks for the entertainment.

[@scottlinux]

I'm actually impressed with many of these arcade ports. For the time this was amazing

[@HereForAStorm]

I disagree - the SNES was doing better ports without expensive hardware add-ons. There was too much untapped potential with the Sega CD. I liked the music though.

[@thomasbeall9069]

Sonic CD, Final Fight CD, Lunars, Snatcher and Lords of Thunder. It reached its potential just fine, Batman was a doozy if a rail shooter too. Was steep for its time, but worth it if you were older and had a job unlike so many kid fans. SNES couldn’t even handle two player Final Fight. Base Genesis he two Punisher which ran on stronger arcade hardware than Final Fight. CD Final Fight was a gem.

[@kingofdust9725]

@@thomasbeall9069 That's just you trying to make yourself feel better about buying this crap.

[@i-dont-burn-under-the-sun]

@@kingofdust9725 Final Fight Guy

[@kingofdust9725]

@@i-dont-burn-under-the-sun What about it?

[@roberthornibrook6344]

The PC Engine Arcade card version of Fatal Fury 2 Special is pretty darn close to the Neo Geo port too. Then again it did have a expanded color pallet and more ram added vs the Sega CD port.

[@SegaLordX]

Yeah, that Arcade Card had what, an extra 16 megs? That was an insane amount at the time.

[@roberthornibrook6344]

@@SegaLordX Yeah and very late into the PC Engine's life. Regardless, I still love my Sega CD for what we did get. Just wish we saw some more scaler games and maybe up the color pallet a bit more like the 32x we got a few years later.

[@wharfthedwarf7884]

Like the intro mate! Keep up the good work!

[@jaahnnn]

That side by side comparison is everything bro ill sub and like just for that

[@justnature1900]

I love all your content.. sometimes you show some games I've never heard of I really wish you would post the game title on the screen as you switch from game to game

[@telaneyshay9578]

I came home from school one day and it wasn't even Christmas, my mom had a brand new model 2 sega cd for me...good times

[@CouncilEstatePopMusic]

Thanks for this 👍 I wondered what the comparisons were like.

[@irmaosver]

Great content as usual. Some of those even caught me by surprise! And I even had one as a child. I think it must have been pretty difficult to decide what features they should have put in the hardware at the time without knowing what game devs would choose to put in the games. Hindsight is 20-20

[@1ButtonDash]

i hated when the sega cd games just basically took the same format the cartridge games had then just added a few things like better sound. felt like such a lazy way to improve the games

[@michaelatiernan2371]

Sega? Lazy? Never! ;) See also: where the hell's my up to date PC ports of your entire model 1, 2 & 3 arcade game back catalogue, eh Sega? It's a license to print money and they do nothing with them.

[@robkrasinski6217]

Mortal Kombat and Final Fight were not arcade perfect on Sega CD.

[@robkrasinski6217]

Some of those bad arcade ports could have been rereleased on the Saturn and Dreamcast and been more arcade accurate. The Sega CD was really handicapped by the inferior Genesis hardware. I think 32X had more colors but it was cart based.

[@johnmc3862]

@@davedavies8968 The Sega CD was never going to compete with something as graphically intensive as After burner or Virtua racing. 2d fighting games yeah maybe.

[@johnmc3862]

@@robkrasinski6217 The Sega CD wasn’t that good, it was miles behind dedicated arcade machines costing 1000’s.

[@superdave8561]

The last game you talked about was one of my favorite arcade games I loved to play. I was so happy that I actually got a version of it on PlayStation 4.

[@pda1799]

Another fantastic video. Thank you, SLX.

[@Mazgid]

Congratulations man for 100k ! That proves that if you passionate about something, you're always get an audience!

[@davidaitken8503]

Even if he was passionate about Virtual Boy, I doubt he would find 100k audience.;) Just saying.

[@Unquestionable]

I still remember my neighbor hyping up the Sega CD like nothing else. Come Christmas day I eagerly headed to his place to enjoy some, what he ensured me, was some next level gaming. We spent probably 4 hours playing Criss Cross' Make My Video and I felt incredible disappointment. I will say we eventually got some solid use out of the system when Lunar and Popful Mail brought some much needed JRPG love to a Sega system.

[@davidaitken8503]

Ahh, Popful Mail. Now there is a game that doesn't get talked about nearly enough on KZbin channels. There was also versions of it on the PC Engine and Super Famicom in Japan. They are all pretty different from one another. I get the impression the PC Engine was pretty much a straight port of the original computer version, much like Y's. The Sega CD version seems like a built from the ground up re-imagining of the game, and the SNES version seems somewhere inbetween with majorly overhauled visuals (much larger sprites and vibrant colors) compared to the PC Engine version, but still fundamentally the same map layouts and gameplay feel. I couldn't say which version is the best as I've mostly played the Sega CD version because it was the only one translated into English.

[@derekbuckler3859]

My favorite sega cd games were final fight, shining force, the terminator, and the awsome remake of batman returns. In thoroughly enjoyed the sega cd, and i grabbed it as soon as it was released in the states. It was severely underrated in my opinion, wish it had gotten more support. Also games that were designed just for the sega cd like sonic, or shining force showed a lot of potential. Sega dropped the ball in many ways, but i still love it to this day

[@jamesmull5341]

I still play the mega cd today, mainly final fight but others too.. awesome vid mr. lord

[@greenEYEDdj]

This was a excellent video. Never disappoint.

[@Syntox]

I often wonder why they even bothered making the Sega CD at all.

[@davidaitken8503]

They're Sega. Finding ways of running their business into the ground is what they do. Think of all of that R & D, engineering, and promotion that went into the Sega CD. Now think about all of the things they could have done with those resources that would have helped the Genesis compete, from development and promotion of games, to cartridge enhancements that would have improved the games and not split the install base like an add-on did. There is a reason why Nintendo scrapped plans for a CD add-on for the SNES. It just doesn't make much sense to offer up an expensive add-on to a system people already own when you can use enhancement chips to improve the games while having the entire install base be a potential customer for that game.

[@StitchJones]

This video is solid gold! I remember saving up my money to get the SegaCD and just being blown away at the time.

[@emmanueloverrated]

IMO, the problem with the re-releases on Sega CD was, it was brainless to port the cartridge games to the CD format and only add Redbook audio... then sell it that way. Redbook audio on a console was pretty new and sufficient to sell. Given this idea, there was probably few incentives to mobilize a team that would reopen the code and improve the game to have scaling sprites etc.... We have to keep in mind that, the code from these old game was radically optimized and expensive to modify... for a re-release you'd have to think about it twice, putting effort on an old title or producing something new? Pretty sure some people scratched their head on that question back then.

[@roberto1519]

Hardware-wise the Sega CD was great, an amazing sound chip adding many more channels and better SFX quality, a much faster CPU and sprite scaling capabilities, not to mention you could store basically all Genesis or SNES cartridges in a single disc. In Japan, the Super Famicom received so many amazing RPGs developers had to fit somehow into tiny cartridges, if Sega had a better install base and management, they could seduce lots of developers to bring those amazing RPGs to the Mega-CD, with amazing music, cutscenes, visuals, etc. Lunar and a few others made the cut, but overall, the biggest failure of the addon was they hadn't good ideas to make it worth buying. Instead of the arcade version of Cadillacs & Dinosaurs, they port a bad FMV PC game with the same name, lazy Genesis/Mega Drive ports with "CD Sound", weak exclusives like Earnest Evans and many others. There are dozens of good games for the addon, specially third parties that used well the hardware, but otherwise, it's another case of an era of experimentation and lazy software. I won't even mention the amount of bad FMV weird stuff from this era, fortunately, PS and Saturn escaped this.

[@alexojideagu]

It should have displayed more colours

[@roberto1519]

I agree and don't think it would be hard to do so, specially at the time it was released. I believe they kept the same color limitations of the Gen/MD because so then they could port the cart games fast enough to build up the library, just adding a few redbook tracks and FMV sometimes. It's kinda sad really.

[@alexojideagu]

@@roberto1519 Especially as it came out the same time as the SNES. Sega had a huge chance to blow the SNES out of the water in every way. AND it had a working Megadrive connected to it. Imagine how powerful it could have been with both running their CPUs and a GPU together and sprite scaling etc and 256 colours.

[@alexojideagu]

@@roberto1519 They should have forgotten the FMV angle and made a 2D arcade powerhouse like the Neo Geo and CPS1. The Sega CD alone had a faster CPU than the CPS1 plus the Megadrive CPU on top. What a waste!

[@davidaitken8503]

@@alexojideagu The lack of RAM prevented it from doing anything close to Neo Geo quality games. They were uncompressed cartridges for a reason. They basically just used it like a giant cache.

[@tiger8559]

Thanks for using my favorite Final Fight CD track, been listening to it for 28 years. Great to see these prominent KZbinrs giving the soundtrack love in recent years.

[@richardbustamante8795]

So many good points. Great video.👍

[@jessragan6714]

I remember a friend at the time saying that the bride in Road Avenger was better off dying to those gang members, because it's demonstrated throughout the rest of the game that her husband was a violent psychopath. I mean, he's not wrong.

[@davidaitken8503]

That is true with most video game heroes.;) A guy is just sitting there on the subway, minding his own business, and BOOM, the metro city mayor grabs him and pile drives his skull into the floor.

[@darinherrick9224]

I absolutely agree that the Sega CD should have been $150. If it had been without the extra chips, people would have bought it and then it would have gotten more games, and some of them would have been better than what we got. I think the real problem with Sega CD in the hardware is that they used it to make FMV games but with limited colors the Genesis was really poor at that. It would have been a much idea to go the Turbo Graphics route and just fill the games with loads and loads of voice acting to animated stills ala Wing Commander. Every time I see all these awesome Japanese exclusive games that were loaded with animation and voice acting I turn green with envy. If America got the same games at all instead of adding English voice acting they just replaced everything stills and text. The only good example of a game that DIDN'T do that which I can think of is Snatcher. Just imagine Sega CD released at $150 with 30 games like Snatcher over it's life.

[@birdrun4246]

I mean the MegaCD has almost enough hardware for a full console. Some of the stuff seems to be specifically to counter the SNES -- there's an 8 channel sample based sound chip (just like the SNES one!) which generally goes unused because CD audio, and hardware to do Mode 7 equivalent stuff. It's like they had a checklist of SNES features they wanted parity with.

[@Prizrak-hv6qk]

@@birdrun4246 Not "Mode 7 equivalent stuff". The SNES could only scale and rotate a background layer and use tricks to sometimes simulate sprite work, while the Neo-Geo could only scale and rotate sprites. Sega-CD, on the other hand, could do both at the same time. It's a shame that they didn't focus on these capabilities. It's a sight to behold when used right and goes far beyond what either the SNES or Neo-Geo could do. E.g.: Soul Star. I blame Sega of America on deciding to put most of the dev focus and marketing on FMV and other "interactive media" games. The FMV capability was the most obvious difference from older consoles and did initially sell some systems based on the novelty, but it was ultimately a crappy gimmick.

[@davidaitken8503]

@@Prizrak-hv6qk Even to this day I'm still amazed at how many companies got suckered into the "lets push interactive multi-media" mindset. It seems even a business guy in a suit could have picked up a controller, and played Star Fox and Sewer Shark back to back and have understood which technology was going to dominate the business (3D or FMV).

[@Fluoride_Jones]

I remember being SO excited when I got the Sega CD, and being so pumped when I got "Sewer Shark" and "Night Trap," thinking FMV games were going to be the future of gaming. Oh, how wrong I was. I felt bad that I didn't play it nearly as much as I assumed I was going to. Though, the last game I got for it was "Silpheed," and that was awesome!

[@NeoTurboManiac78]

Road Avenger and Final Fight are by far my favorite arcade ports on the Sega CD. The audio alone makes it worth playing.

[@quagmirefx]

Top notch content as usual. Thank you Lord X.

[@TheGemini5]

This is a great episode SLX! I've always said the Sega CD and Saturn's ROM cart slot were massively underrated AND underutilized!

[@agustindanielgimenez9483]

24:44 So you have the ability to transform yourself into a samurai warrior, an altered beast and a shinobi, right?

[@SegaLordX]

Indeed.

[@sjfvideo9508]

You did good work on this. Interesting to see side by side comparisons. Yeah I spent alot of cash on my Mega CD. If only Sega could have done more with it.

[@JamesChessman]

Awesome topic, SLX!! I love it that the fandom of the Sega CD, never dies lol.

[@begkrootox]

I used to finish school, head over my friends and we'd spend hours on lethal enforcers 1 & 2. So much fun with the guns

[@BlackMoore82]

By 1993 the arcade by my Grandma's old house in Burnaby, BC had a four game Neo Geo machine with Cyber-Lip, Fatal Fury Special, Samurai Showdown, and Sengoku on it. I played each game religiously.

[@KL-mk1yn]

Another great video. Thanks Sega Lord X.

[@ricardobarros1090]

Great video! Thank you! 👍

[@SoCalBIGmike]

Watching this I just dream 'what if' Sega actually utilized the darn 32X in conjunction WITH the Sega CD. It would essentially have none of the compromises Mel discussed in his epic video.

[@maroon9273]

With a launch date in late 92 or 93 in JP/NA. Duo console for EU or only NA/JP.

[@mullaoslo]

its so cool to hear your "adult" takes on these consoles since i was a mere lad between 5 and 10 during these years.. i remember thinking the sega cd looked cool but it was never enough to be able to convince my mom to buy one... i do remember a salesman trying real hard to convince her with batman returns on sega cd

[@ryuugakun84]

Something about sengoku reminded me of the fist of the North Star games. Nice review my guy

[@jastiksk8crw]

I haven't commented in a while our watched many gaming videos. I was glad to see your channel. I remember you mentioning what you went through a while ago. Having lived multiple lives and experiencing evil I had been through some traumatic, hardening stuff. Yet I built myself and a strong foundation only to find myself betrayed by the 11 year love of my life and about to lose everything I worked for. I had to pack up my video game/art creative room. I put everything in to this person and our home and now have to fight not to lose everything. My point is there is nothing more dangerous than a man who has rebuilt himself. Keep it up SEGA LORD X. You're tongue is like a small rudder steering a large ship. Your words impact people. Even ''been there done that' people like me.

[@maxinsano7376]

Damn...Your love for Sega runs deep dude. You don't just play Sega, you ARE Sega.

[@peristrojka]

Great episode!

[@Darkundeadhero]

I remember when Sega said there was no money in hardware. I knew that was BS then and now that I'm seeing the add-ons and Consoles that Sega was putting out with these hefty price tags and the slap in the face half-assed effort they were putting in. It rings even louder now how full of it they were.

[@jasonz7788]

Great work Sir thank you

[@alanw083]

Aw man I remember finding the pink second gun at a car boot sale when my brother and I were kids and picking it up immediately then going home to play two player Lethal Enforcers. Also using the gun in Snatcher was so much fun.

[@tonyjackson4078]

I loved Night Striker. The arcade was so smooth and I literally pulled the joystick to breaking trying to navigate those tight spaces.

[@johnbowles5399]

Thanks for giving Mortal Kombat CD some love. It is the best home 16-bit port of the original game and the extra frames of animation, voices and all the music from the arcade game really make it a great experience. You just have to ignore the horrendous lag when fighting Shang Tsung in the final battle. 😁

[@TheGorillafoot]

I know a lot of the games on Segs CD where bad vs the arcade, but at the time it was amazing to see real video on a home console. I was blown away at the time the first time I saw it.

[@GregsGameRoom]

Looks like the Sega CD version of MK has transparent shadows where the arcade does not. That’s one improvement anyway…

[@arioca]

There's also more animation on the Sega CD port compared to the Genesis.

[@crystalwater505]

Ninja Warriors Again also got an enhanced version on PS4, you can see more the screen and it plays like an arcade version of the game if it had an arcade version. Highly worth.

[@TurboXray]

Yup! I would have taken a color upgrade over the given scaling/rotation capability (15 color pseudo frame buffer for scaling at a low frame rate).

[@maroon9273]

The launch price would've been cheaper than it's original price.

[@RitterDesHimmels1]

Wow! Such an interesting topic!

[@CinePhil101]

I love u man! Keep making videos!

[@Banderpop]

I wanted to see lots of sprite scaling and rotation on my Mega CD. John O'Brien did such a great job on Batman Returns that at the time I was sure the likes of Power Drift and Rad Mobile were still going to come, eventually. But I have to agree that the inclusion of the extra hardware, including also the PCM sound channels and the extra CPU, meant the machine was overpriced, and in turn the small userbase meant most developers didn't think it was viable to learn how to use the extra features.

[@mid-jump_attack]

Great video. Seems like all Sega videos eventually lead to "damn it Sega!". LOL

[@retroimportgamer513]

It's such a massive shame that the Sega CD never lived up to what it might have been. Oh for those conversions of the glorious sprite scaling arcade games that would have been so amazing. It never felt much more than standard Megadrive games with different soundtracks to me. Great video as usual 👍

[@chrisw8069]

Excellent video.

[@Apanblod]

I remember having saved up to buy a Mega CD as a kid, going to the store and not being able to find it anywhere. I asked the clerk where they kept the add-on and he replied that they didn't sell it anymore, as the Saturn had just been released. In hindsight I was probably better off not having brought the SEGA CD, as channels like this one didn't exist to guide us through the system's.. uneven library.

[@CasperEgas]

After Burner 3 really sucks. When your expensive add on produces a game inferior to After Burner 2 on the Mega Drive...ouch. Don't have Fatal Fury, as it is extremely expensive. Final Fight is great on Mega cd, maybe better than the arcade version, except for the colour downgrade. Fewer enemies makes the game better. Mortal Kombat is not really my thing. For me, the Mega cd version doesn't offer enough over de Mega Drive release. NBA Jam is great, but this version isn't the best. I would choose the 32X or Jaguar game over it. Ninja Warriors is great, shame it didn't get a PAL release. Road Avenger is pretty fun and the Mega cd version is fine, but the fun doesn't really last and it becomes too difficult. Don't have Samurai Shodown, much too expensive like the other JVC release. Might buy Star Blade some time. It is also pretty expensive. Do have the 3DO version, which I like. I think the Lethal Enforcer games both have very ugly Mega cd releases. They are ok-ish at best. Never played Night Striker. The pack in collection is just a collection, that there were some sound updates is just a nice bonus. I don't understand the Golden Axe two player loss either... Sengoku I have only played on Neogeo. It isn't worth the effort.

[@thomasbeall9069]

Sengoku is great on Sega CD. Has set lives unlike AES version. Plays faster than NeoGeo and tracks the arcade sound and music. Just lacks color depth

[@jaredwhite200]

My favorite Sega Cd game is Sonic Cd. It’s will always be one of my favorite games ever

[@franciscovega2042]

Great video. I agree with his closing statement. It seems resources could've been better utilized to increase the genesis' strengths rather than attempting to compete with the aracade sprite scaling.

[@lo1bo2]

I bought the model 2 Sega CD at $220 with my own money and loved it! Renting on the weekend was the best way to try games.

[@hhectorlector]

wow some of those arcade originals are still incredible

[@BubblegumCrash332]

CORE was the only studio that took advantage of all the extra hardware in the Sega CD. Excluding all the FMV games

[@matthewlane518]

Lethal enforcers 2 lol I love how some of the bad guys say "owe" when there shot, a bit of an understatement, if getting shot just causes an "owe" dosent seem to deadly

[@ravagingwolverine]

Very nice video and fun to watch and listen. I imagine the reduction of attack speed in Final Fight was due to the smaller number of on-screen enemies. When I last played it, I noticed how far the game pushed the limits which is apparent from the sprite flicker in spots. The flicker or drop out is not bad and you may need to be looking for it, but with the big sprites in the game, I think the game hits the per-line limit. They did a nice job hiding it and it's a good port. As for Mortal Kombat, despite it largely being the Genesis game with the same visual issues, the CD audio restored so much of the atmosphere that was missing from the Genesis version that it made it so much more enjoyable to me. The atmosphere was a big part of Mortal Kombat.

[@davidaitken8503]

The reduction in attack speed had to do with how the game can't seem to process all of the collisions and animations simultaneously. You swing a weapon and your arm and the weapon you're holding don't animate at the same time. If you hit several enemies with it they literally react one at a time from closest to furthest. This makes stringing together a series of punches to two or more enemies feel incredibly sluggish. If I'm not planning on playing as Guy and I'm just playing single player I much prefer the SNES version. It looks and sounds great and feels much faster. I had already moved on to Final Fight 2, and 3 by the time I tried out the Sega CD version. The original arcade is still king though as those two sequels were never able to recapture the raw and gritty atmosphere nor did they have the absolutely overwhelming numbers of the arcade that made crowd control management an essential strategy. Final Fight One on the Game Boy Advanced is the best home version outside of emulated ports. It did get the most enemies out their of all of the home versions.

[@braddl9442]

Sega CD was my fav system as a kid. I had all the games you listed here. The only system I regret selling off now was my sega CD. Esp since I had all the games that are super expensive now. Wish I had just saved them./

[@oscarzxn4067]

I think the most dissapointing aspect of Fatal Fury Special on the Sega CD is that is inferior in a fair number of ways to the Super Nintendo version, since a lot of details are missing, so that shows that it could have been better.

[@Sakf504]

Even the backgrounds in the Game Gear version look more pleasing than most from the Sega CD version (which look terrible, coming from a arcade port or not), and i think it even plays a bit better too, so that's a bit disappointing.

[@KittyMeow1984]

True... if you are from North America or Japan. You see, when it came to the European version of Fatal Fury Special for the SNES, we got a very shitty deal: while the North American/Japanese version was released as a 32 Mbit cartridge, the European one was only 24 Mbit in size, meaning that it was missing 4 characters and stages, so the Sega CD version was considered the superior one around here.

[@davidaitken8503]

@@KittyMeow1984 I think the term you're looking for is, "best of the worst".;)

[@davidaitken8503]

Could it have been better though? The underlying problem that the Sega CD had was that it was still fundamentally using the inferior Genesis hardware with the Sega CD only adding a few additions to functionality. That was why it didn't sell. If you were a kid with a Sega Genesis would you spend $300 on a Sega CD that has barely improved versions of the games you could already get for the base system, or would you be better off spending that money on a SNES and opening up a whole new library of games to you, including some arcade ports that were superior to even the Sega CD versions? I don't think anyone at Sega ever really thought this through. Actually, I don't think that anyone at Sega has ever thought much of anything through.;)

[@maroon9273]

@@davidaitken8503 plus, unable to do 100% what the genesis can do by itself. I believe the sega cd caused 32x to born instead of focusing on enhancement chips like the svp and snes was doing.

[@DarkReturns1]

Damn that was a fast 28 min!

[@mtshark7]

Awesome video man! It is a shame Sega didn't utilize the CD attachment better.

[@XGALAXYDRIFT3RX]

Love you videos! But this one made me think my computer was messed up the way things were glitching through out. I was freaking out because i was just inside my computer messing around before this video.

[@SegaLordX]

What was glitching, specifically?

[@XGALAXYDRIFT3RX]

@@SegaLordX Starting @ 1:00 the box with names of the games and the sega cd in the backround. The box glitches and then the whole screen glitches right after.

[@JorgeAraujo97]

Sega CD should've been made as a fully fledged console instead of an add-on. Or at the very least, Sega could have fully exploited its features.

[@lazarushernandez5827]

They didn't know any better back then, we know now that these expensive add ons only served to splinter the user base, with the base console always being the largest one. Back then they were fighting the popularity of the PC-Engine in Japan who brought out their CD Rom in 1988, 3 years before the Mega CD showed up (1991). By that time the Super Famicom had been released in Japan (1990) and undoubtedly had been flexing its Mode 7 earlier.

[@_TheElMan]

I've never thought of that bizarrely. I think that could of worked. Especially if they gave it more colours. Could of been a mini Neo Geo with Sega sprite scalers.

[@SegaLordX]

Sega's track record shows that spreading themselves too thin usually lead to disaster. Marketing 2 stand alone consoles in 91/92 at the height of the Genesis popularity may have been difficulty. It could have done well in Japan, however. Especially if it did arcade ports better.

[@JorgeAraujo97]

@@SegaLordX Sega's top brass had a short vision, ruled by immediate gains, coupled with a very creative and competent design team. It was a one weird combo. Maybe a couple more years of development and the Sega CD would be predating the PSX as a fully fledged 32 bit CD-ROM console.

[@_TheElMan]

@@JorgeAraujo97 a 32x CD all in one that had no relation to the MD would of been a decent stop gap. Could of meant the Saturn was put back a year to make the 3d better... Ifs and buts..

[@impossiblescissors]

Some common themes: Sega CD games could rarely match the Arcade, and frequently Sega CD got the Genesis game with enhanced music.

[@maroon9273]

Even the genesis ports as well. No improvement other than music and added sound effects. Only malibu, core and game arts were the first gaming developers to utilize the add-on hardware before sega did.

[@SpaceAce114]

Great video

[@Oysterblade84]

Unfortunately for me, I was never able to experience the Mega-CD back in the day because it was far too expensive to own one. My parents had just bought me a SEGA Mega Drive in late 1993 bundled with Sonic 1 & Sonic 2 coming from owning a SEGA Master System II and it cost $300 so there was no way my parents were going to buy me the expensive add-on. I remember being at Kmart once and saw hundreds of copys of Sonic CD behind the glass cabinet and hundreds of SEGA Mega-CD II attachments on the shelf but like I said I never got to see what Sonic CD was all about other than the game case and cover. Now days I own several Mega-CD attachments and burn all ROMS to CD-R myself instead of paying thousands of dollars just for an original copy. The Mega-CD failed in 3 aspects: 1. It launched a bit too early, most of us were still only in our infancy in collecting cartridge games. The technology came too soon. 2. It was too damn expensive at retail so most parents ignored it because of it's price. 3. 70% of it's software were shitty FMV games that didn't even feel like you were playing a video game. As much as I love the add-on, I too feel that more should have been done with the software of games. There should have been more focus on the scaling and rotation and less on those shitty FMV games (aside from Road Avenger).

[@Clay3613]

What discs and software do you use to burn? My copies always have issues.

[@Oysterblade84]

@@Clay3613 Please re-post the same question over on my channel and i'll answer it for you there, for some very strange reason I can't post a reply to you here, someone is deleting them or not letting them post or go through.

[@AlienGenotype]

Why not just emulate the system instead of burning cd copies?

[@Oysterblade84]

@@AlienGenotype I prefer to use real hardware.

[@arioca]

The Ninja Warriors Again on the SNES is a completely different game; Ninja Warriors on the Mega CD is an accurate arcade port.

[@jabarijones7871]

But the snes Ninja Warriors was better than that trash Sega CD version. Period!!!

[@arioca]

@@jabarijones7871 That's a matter of opinion. The video was about arcade ports on console so the info in this particular case didn't make sense.

[@davidaitken8503]

@TrueSinister It was implied though. Having said that, Ninja Warriors in the arcade and all home ports were complete garbage. The completely re-imagined SNES game developed by Natsume is the greatest side-scrolling beat'em up of the 16-bit era. Period. No other game ever came close, despite it lacking 2-player co-op (which the updated modern version corrects). All of the characters felt completely different from one another and not just variants in speed and strength with a move or two to differentiate them. We're talking entirely different move sets, and a lot of moves I might add. Playing on a single plain like a one-on-one fighting game opened up so many cool elements too that were completely missing from more traditional beat'em ups.

[@davidaitken8503]

Yeah. The Sega CD version is accurate, all right. Accurate in how awful it is. The SNES Ninja Warriors is a masterpiece and the single greatest beat'em up of the 16-bit era. I do get your point though. It wasn't a port of the arcade at all, which the Sega CD version was.;)

[@davidaitken8503]

@TrueSinister Honestly, I really don't think the Sega CD could have handled a decent port of the SNES Ninja Warriors. There are just too many frames of animation needed for any given section of level for them to load up entirely into RAM. There is a reason you never saw even a Streets of Rage port on CD and that pales in comparison in terms of the sheer size of the characters, amount of animation, and number of unique character types in any given section of the game. I think Final Fight CD was pretty much bumping into the absolute limit that a game like that could get away with on a CD based system at the time and that game doesn't have nearly as much in terms of character and background animation.

[@davidline2454]

l really enjoyed this video. Used to have a sega cd, honestly tried to like it but excluding the live action games I didn’t notice any graphic or gameplay improvements at the time. The main thing I used it for was the cd audio, karaoke with the ability to play cd+g discs and video cds!