No Genesis A+ Games?

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VideoGameCritic
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Re: No Genesis A+ Games?

Postby VideoGameCritic » January 10th, 2021, 1:02 pm

Another way to look at this is that the Genesis library is so consistently good across the board, it's hard to identify a title that's stands out so far ahead of everything else.

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Retro STrife
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Re: No Genesis A+ Games?

Postby Retro STrife » January 12th, 2021, 6:54 pm

VideoGameCritic wrote:Another way to look at this is that the Genesis library is so consistently good across the board, it's hard to identify a title that's stands out so far ahead of everything else.


To play devil's advocate: If that were the reason, the same might be true for other systems, like say the SNES or PS2. I love the Genesis, but I think it's hard to say its library is higher quality than the SNES. And even if it was, that's arguably more reason to add an A+ game. For the SNES and PS2, there are three A+ games each.

By the way - for some ideas, you listed several Genesis games in your list of Top 50 Console Games: Sonic 2 (#4); NHL '94 (#10); the first Streets of Rage (#18); NBA Jam: TE (#19), and Road Rash (#31). Sonic 2 at #4 seems like a worthy candidate for sure. For me, Road Rash is an A+ too.

Hagane
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Re: No Genesis A+ Games?

Postby Hagane » January 13th, 2021, 2:45 pm

I liked how he choose Street of Rage 1 over SOR2 in his Top 50, SOR2 is a total Final Fight rip-off with slower gameplay, SOR1 however great game, has it's own personality, much better music and you can call the cops for special which is a unique thing for a beatemup.

Road Rash however just didn't age that well, clumsy animation, it seems like it's missing some frames, looks like 20 fps or something, music sucks btw, it uses that awful Gems sound software where the bass sounds like farts, also gameplay gets old pretty fast. Can't understand how it made to his Top 50.

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Re: No Genesis A+ Games?

Postby jon » January 15th, 2021, 9:51 am

What I think is interesting is that neither the Neo Geo or the Genesis has an A+ game but they have a ton of A games. Perhaps other than the Neo Geo the Genesis is the most arcade like console. There’s something about these Neo Geo games that I can understand why arcade games would be given A’s instead of an A+. I understand why. One other thing is that while NHL ‘94 is amazing and I have great memories playing it in the early 90’s I’ve played better sports games.

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Re: No Genesis A+ Games?

Postby Breaker » January 16th, 2021, 3:07 pm

I guess all grades are subjective, but sports games are especially subjective in my mind. Something like NBA Jam is awesome to me, but if I was a die-hard basketball purest I might find it awful because it's so far from reality. As a big baseball fan, I love games that produce what I think of as "reasonable" statistics when I play a season. Somebody else might only want the flashiest parts of a baseball game.

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Re: No Genesis A+ Games?

Postby TheEagleXIII » January 17th, 2021, 4:55 pm

jon wrote:One other thing is that while NHL ‘94 is amazing and I have great memories playing it in the early 90’s I’ve played better sports games.


Understandably, what often gets overlooked about the 16-bit NHL series to those of you in North America is just how well the games were received abroad. It didn’t just lure in sports fans and convert a few of them - it was so good that it transcended genres. Reviewers who had no interest in sports were raving about it and it was aided further by the multiplayer.

The first few NHL games topped the Mega Drive gaming charts in the UK upon release. To put this in some perspective, even today the NHL is super niche here, and was even more so in the early 90s. Ice hockey was something we only saw every 4 years at the Winter Olympics at best. Other US sports games have gained big cult status here - Madden had a great reputation from the start and became properly mainstream here around mid-2000s. But the NFL has had a presence here since the 80s. It did rope in non-American Football fans, but as far as I’m aware, it was just gamers already into sports.

I can’t think of any sports game, or even a racing game, that without being super arcadey or gimmicky that has ever transcended it's own genre in this way to have mass appeal, especially in a country that had such little exposure to it. To be fair, the previous games had this reputation too, but NHL 94 was the pinnacle of the series. It’s also important to note it didn’t convert all non-sports gamers into hockey fans - I don’t think the series ever had that reputation again over here post 94 - it was just a super fun game with mass appeal. I think that should give it those extra few points to bump it up to A+.

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Re: No Genesis A+ Games?

Postby jon » January 28th, 2021, 9:17 pm

That’s really interesting about how the game was received in the UK. I’ve heard that in the 80’s the NFL started getting televised in the UK. What’s really interesting is that I heard the Dolphins were the most popular team and Dan Marino was especially popular. It might have been at the tail end of the Dolphins actually being really good back when they played in the Orange Bowl. I didn’t realize that NHL’94 was also popular over there.

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Re: No Genesis A+ Games?

Postby Breaker » February 10th, 2021, 10:02 pm

Thrilled to see NHL 94 get the first A+ grade for the Genesis!

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Re: No Genesis A+ Games?

Postby Retro STrife » February 11th, 2021, 7:55 am

Breaker wrote:Thrilled to see NHL 94 get the first A+ grade for the Genesis!


Agreed. Glad to see we peer-pressured VGC into adding one. Sonic 2 next?..

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Re: No Genesis A+ Games?

Postby Mpls_Vato » April 12th, 2021, 8:46 pm

Genesis games worthy of A+ consideration IMO:

NHL ‘94 - best hockey game of all-time
Shining Force 2 - the best strategy RPG until Final Fantasy Tactics
Streets of Rage 2 - best console beat’em up of all-time.
Gunstar Heroes - was amazing at the time and has held up extremely well.
Road Rash 2 - the best of the Road Rash series.
Toejam and Earl - way ahead of its time and still a great co-op romp in 2021.
Sonic 2 - the best of the series. Perhaps the best father-son/daughter game ever made (with kid helping out in the role of Tails)


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