Speederino

To elaborate more, it’s got that cheap old-school level design and enemy placement. I also don’t like how uber precise you have to be with the double jump, whenever I think I’ve finally nailed the timing it turns out nope, I haven’t. When the game is at its absolute best, it *is* a fun enough action game but it’s far from being something I’ll be coming back to over and over.

All that said, I have played a bit of Shadow Dancer and Shinobi 3. I think I’m going to like those a lot better, from what I’ve experienced.

The team mechanic is kinda cool but a.) I’d rather not have to babysit other racers and b.) considering it’s the only real addition to this game I don’t think it was worth the trade off of losing transforming vehicles, tracks that change with each lap, or (especially) all the other Sega characters.

It’s still a good enough game on its own but yeah I’m probably not gonna stop being bitter about the losses. Not unless they announce an *actual* ASRT sequel somewhere down the line, anyways.

It is a step back from ASRT. 

>not unless they announce an *actual* ASRT sequel

i honestly won't be surprised if they're using TSR's numbers to nix the idea of a legit ASR3, TBH.

that and IIRC, the original team that made the first two games has gone on to other things. a few came back for TSR but that staff is mostly different otherwise.

i have vague memories of this worm child

Seriously though GOD what a blast from the past. I had this on a Windows 95 PC but the Genesis version is the same thing. It even has voice acting, which is...surprisingly impressive given the game we're talking about. o_0

@Ferno  Yeah he drove an apple car that was also a helicopter.

Yes, worms can drive. Shut the fuck up.

memories flooding back wtf

there was also this cat mf and a couple other animals

think i had a game on the sega pico with them in it

holy fuck i had a sega pico at one point what else have i repressed

Huh. I haven't seen anything related to this series in years. I think I watched a cartoon regarding the Alphabet, where a monkey stole a police dog's motorcycle or something.

Golden Axe?

Maaaaaaaybe. Maybe.

Probably.

I dunno.

Impatiently wait for 4?

Well, there's still some good franchises on the Mega Drive/Genesis. SoR and Golden Axe are just 2 of them. If RPG is your style, why not try Phantasy Star or Shining Force. Not going too far? Comix Zone, Shinobi and Gunstar Heroes maybe are an option. But if you want to feel like in home, sooner I'll force myself a playthrough into some of the rarest not well known Sonic games (Sonic the Fighters, Sonic 3D Blast, Sonic R and likely anything Sonic from MS/GG).

Phantasy Star is likely. I mean to dip into the recent re-release of the first game sometime soon.

It's amazing. America thought they could make the game more hardcore by beefing up the difficulty and punished those who dared to try playing on a fair and tolerae level.

Yet they paradoxically go and tone down all the epic edgy stuff that made it hardcore in the first place because they couldn't bring themselves to show suggestivly dressed women, a gay character and the threat of nuclear war to younger kids who likely don't play these games anyway.  (True, the stakes of having bombs in the city is still a realistic terrorist threat)  

I could have lived with the difficulty changes if they hadn’t arbitrarily locked you out of actually finishing the game on easy mode. Just...why? Whhhhhhyyyyy?

One theory I heard is that they might have been compensating for the rental market. If the game was too easy, everyone would rent it once, beat it, and never touch it again. But make it super hard and suddenly you have to take your time and rent it over and over again to stand a chance.

Also why give all the female mooks more clothing but keep Blaze in a sports bra?

Or you can just play the Japanese version.

That or apparently there's an English translation of the Japanese version. I might have to go with that XD

It's okay. You can admit a huge, extremely powerful man threw a hamster wheel at your face.

Yeah. I guess the sooner I admit to the truth, the easier it will be to accept. Because a big powerful man did indeed throw a hamster wheel at my face.

Because that is what happened.

Guys, I heard Speederino actually hit his face with a hamst—whoa, what are you doing to me? WaitwaitwaitWAIT!!

I think Turtles in Time outstays its welcome, and I find the dashing to be kinda finicky. Hyperstone Heist fixes both of those problems.

Pity that the western version of the 3rd game threw out all that forgiveness by making the JP's normal mode into its easy mode and making said easy mode lock you out of the final stages.

Yeah I've heard about that. Genesis Classics thankfully does let you play the Japanese version, though. I'd like to be able to understand the story and dialogue but man am I tempted.

The UK is fucked in general because to my knowledge - all of the places, or most at least is dead.

There was one near me for a long while that used to do a pass where you could get unlimited rentals of games and movies for a week (2 at a time) for a set price, and that was perfect for me trying PS3 games. I used to love getting a new release, a movie, and some popcorn to play through it that night, and this was how I played some of my favourite games like Infamous 2, or even stuff like Arkham Origins or Injustice for the first time.

Sadly, the signs of it dying were approaching, because PS4 and Xbox One rentals never happened, and new PS3 and Xbox 360 games were becoming more and more heavily limited. A year or so later when I was going to my school about 40 minutes away, there was another branch that was doing the PS4/Xbox One rentals, but they were so heavily overpriced that it wasn't really worth it anymore, sadly.

Honestly, it's a shame, because game rentals is such a vastly untapped market for the simple reason that you can try out games for a much lesser price, and know to pick them up later if you like them. In this era in particular, I think game rentals would even have more value because games are usually supported more with free content these days, meaning even if a player ran through the main bulk of content on a rental, they'd still have reason to consider picking up the full game if they enjoyed it.

Outside of the US is even worse, I think there's only one company left in the UK and anywhere else doesn't have that anymore.

It's not just rentals that are more or less gone but demos. There are still a couple now and again (or in the case of Spyro on the Switch, unless you have the 10GB update is pretty much a paying demo) but nothing compared to the past where the PS1/Dreamcast era was gold regarding this where any major game and some lesser known ones got demos. They might not be the same as the final but often gave an opportunity to try the game.

Like there are a bunch of games that I might be interested in but without knowing for sure whether you like it or not parting with your money is a bit umm... Unless you are willing to wait for a price drop or in the case of some selected Japanese made games/limited run esque games actually go up in price. e.g. saw Persona Q2 the other day but £48 used minimum is gulp and that is way too much for a game that I might not even like.

There are a lot of games I might not have ever discovered if I hadn't been able to rent them, especially regarding cult classics. Viewtiful Joe, Ace Attorney, Elite Beat Agents, Simpsons Hit & Run, Psychonauts; back in the day I even got my fix of Crash & Spyro primarily through rentals.

Screw renting! Who dares to pay a lower price to only finish half of the game in this day and age???

All people must gives us their full payment to buy and play our half finished games permenently!

Isn't Michael Jackson involved in that series? We all know we can't get rereleases he was involved with (looks sadly at Sonic 3&K)

That’s what I wonder. Yet, Space Channel 5 Part 2 got a few re-releases and Jackson is definitely in that. Lessee, when was the last time it was relea-

*2011*

And when was the last time S3&K was relea-

*2011*

Oh. Yeeeeeeeeah. Probably not a coincidence, this.

The first game had this Michael Jackson cameo so, yeah, I think it's licensing issues. You can buy Space Channel 5 Part 2 on Steam and Xbox 360 (Via Dreamcast Collection), though.

Edit: Ninja'd.

Why not just remove the Jackson cameo?

Not sure what his role is in the first game but in Part 2 you have dance-offs and team-ups with him. You even get to briefly play as him iirc. So he's not really something that can just be removed or replaced.

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I heard the ending was a let down.

I can see why. I like the idea of what happens but I was a bit surprised when the credits began rolling. It just kinda ends.

Before anyone asks no, don't worry, everything's fine. It doesn't hurt and a chipped tooth is honestly no big deal, I mostly just think it's funny that I can say "I smacked myself in the face with a hamster wheel and chipped a tooth"  XD

I haven't chipped my tooth on a hamster wheel if that's what you're asking.

There's bound to be SOMEONE else

I mean it happens all the time, amirite?

I broke my tooth on a desk in 2nd grade instead.

Who's dat? It's like wooking into a miwwor. PUDDING BREAK!

*slurps pudding*

Oh, I don't know....*raises hands awkwardly in confusion and thankfulness that it's not real*

Most Saturn games didn’t even make it stateside iirc. Because some genius at Sega decided westerners wouldn’t want to play RPGs.

The CEO of Sega America only wanted “5 Star” games on the system, I guess he thought that would make tons of great amazing games suddenly fall from the sky instead of placing a stranglehold on their own market for no real reason.

I first played Panzar Dragoon on the Saturn. ^^

Stolar deliberately held up everything on the system that wasn't a big budget 3D title (the kind of things like Tomb Raider or Resident Evil); running a chainsaw through the third party companies who were interested in supporting it with games they had already made for the Japanese market (at a time when Japanese elements of media were becoming very popular) but didn't necessarily have the budget to make an atrocious looking early 3D title that the Saturn wasn't really good at running anyway. Victor Ireland in particular detailed the issues that Working Designs had trying to support the system with the kind of games that had just a couple years earlier helped float the Sega CD to some sort of success; before giving up and decamping for the PSX.

Sega hired Stolar to run SoA (even after he had just been thrown the fuck out of SCEA for doing the same thing when SCEI was trying very hard to raise goodwill to third parties to bury Nintendo before the N64 even came out); and then Sega basically let him do whatever he wanted in America even after they had functionally forced Kalinske out of the company immediately after the Saturn launch for running SoA outside of SoJ's influence. It took until he mismanaged the Dreamcast launch for SoJ to finally be rid of him.

Also, Japan had the stellar marketing campaign of Segata Sanshiro. For how memetic is these days, it did payed off back in the day.

Kalinske was dine dirty.

Honestly, I look at the whole thing and I can't help but wonder of SOJ deliberately went out of their way to sabotage SOA because they were jealous of the fact that they managed to make the Genesis successful whereas the Mega Drive flopped hard in Japan (kinda funny the inverse happened with the Saturn, don'ta think?

Seen a few Saturns in my time and they usually go quite quickly. When I was younger, I wanted one but got a Mega Drive instead, probably a wiser choice all things considering.

As for the games, well... basically what Tornado already said but it doesn't help that the 32X pissed away all the goodwill Sega had then it got worse from there. Apparently the NA Saturn launch burned through retailers, launch games were released unfinished even in Japan where Virtua Fighter and Daytona USA had to have remakes and sequels on the same system and strained developers more so Western ones because it was hard to develop and any documentation if they got any was in Japanese. Speaking of which SoA was banking on a Sonic game that never came out.

Plus there was the stigma of any 2D made games during this time and that was a thing, more so in the US and Europe. Not just Bernie Stolar but many magazines gave any 2D game a lower score than a 3D one even if it was fantastic. While the PS1 got a mix of both 2D (and even good selling 2D games such as Rayman and Mickey's Wild Adventure in Europe, GTA sort of) and 3D, the Saturn was more 2D or 2.5D biased. Since many of the exclusives and the arcade ports were 2D, the mainstream sort of dismissed them with a few exceptions. The Arcade ports and RPGs probably were a reason why the Saturn sold well in Japan and the N64 sold crap over there, vice versa elsewhere even though Sega Rally and Virtua Fighter 2 were reasons to own the Saturn back then.

Regarding RPGs, that might have not helped too much at least back then (now, probably the Saturn would have been like what the PS3 at best or the Vita at worst ended up). In America, they were still a niche yet it was growing and most of them weren't released in Europe until Final Fantasy VII and even then, it took years before we even got to parity with the US. Funny how Sega was the one who did bring RPGs into Europe like Phantasy Star, Dragon Force, Shining series and yes, Panzer Dragoon Saga while Square said screw Europe and lucky to even get Secret of Mana all thanks to Nintendo, Enix said screw Europe with Dragon Quest but at least gave a few lesser known ones in return and Working Designs also said screw Europe as well (Psygnosis had to publish Alundra, the only one that I can recall right now).

How exactly were you playing them? Were they the original versions or emulated? 

Off the Genesis Classics collection on Switch. Here's the thing: I was testing out a new 3rd party controller I bought. I thought it might just be that, but then I tried out Mania with it and everything felt great. So I can rule out the controller being the culprit.

Oh, I see now.

Okay, I haven't tried the collection out myself, so I can't confirm this, but I recall many people complaining about the amount of input lag in that collection, so it's probably just a result of bad emulation rather than the games themselves. 

Weird. Other games on the collection have felt fine to me so I don’t know why Sonic feels off.

Sonic requires precision inputs, so just the teeniest bit of input lag throws the whole thing off.