I thought I'd try and highlight a few games for the console this month that I'm a fan of. I am a big fan of the system and there's definitely nostalgia underpinning that. I won't pretend the NES library isn't overall superior or that the Master System has as many games to rival the best of the best on Nintendo's platform, especially with that console's practical monopoly on 3rd parties at the time - however, there's a ton of cool games that are fun and interesting to play that make the Master System a console worth owning still in my eyes.
The first games I want to recommend are the
Astérix titles on the system - more specifically the first 2. There are 3 Asterix games on the system:
Asterix and
Asterix & The Secret Mission were both developed by Sega and are fun platform titles. The later
Asterix and the Great Rescue is by Core Design and is awful, and to be avoided.
For the non-Europeans out there who might not be familair with the Asterix franchise, they're comedic French comic books starring a warrior named Asterix and his friend Obelix who live in Roman-era Gaul (aka France) and use a magic potion that gives them super strength to fight Roman invaders. Ultimately though, it's normal Asterix' shrewd and cunning nature that wins the day, generally in an amusing manner. They're honestly fantastic and the English translations are also brilliant, so give them a read.
Anyhow, in the games, this is translated into a character driven platform title where you play as Asterix and Obelix, jumping through stages and punching soldiers. Each level is made up of several stages, and you can choose to play as Asterix or Obelix in each one. Asterix being smaller can fit through tighter spaces, and makes use of potions which act like bombs to blow up blocks. In the second game he gets a double jump too. Obelix is stronger and can punch through the blocks or butt slam them but his bigger size means he is less mobile. Some levels are identical regardless of the character, but because of their unique skills, many of the levels for Asterix and Obelix are completely different, giving a great excuse to replay the game and try out stages you missed. Some are simple action romps, some have puzzles to solve, some require some exploration, so there's some nice diversity, although the difficulty can be a bit uneven depending which character you choose.
The sound isn't really anything to write home about, but it's unoffensive, and the game looks pretty great for the hardware, with bright colourful visuals and brillaint spritework that really does justice to the comics on an 8 bit machine.
I'm fairly sure these are European exclusives (my mind will be blown if they arent) but they're on the cheaper end of the spectrum over here so I'd recommend picking them up if you're interested in importing and trying some of the many PAL exclusive titles on the system. Just don't get mixed up and accidentally buy the Core Design game!
. Even better is when I finally got my Genesis for Christmas my parents also threw in a Powerbase Converter so I was able to keep the 8-bit Sega goodness going. I would even make time to go over the SMS coverage and reviews in Visions.
