Best Genesis games outside of Sonic?

[Hookshot_John]

Ok, I owned a Genesis back in the day. Had about 9 games for it.. mostly Sonic games and sports titles. I know I missed out on a lot of great games, and I've even read through a lot of top 10's to see all the great games I missed.

I'm a big platformer person. Love Super Metroid and Yoshi's Island. Any games like this on the Genesis that I could look into? I'm also looking to write more articles for my site and wanted to know which games you would like to see?

I've always been a Nintendo fan-boy, so its time to expand a little past Sonic!

- John

[MrPopo]

In terms of platformers you have Dynamite Headdy and Castlevania Bloodlines, as well as the two Vectorman games. There's the Phantasy Star series and the Shining series to cover your RPG and SRPG needs.

[pakopako]

Quite a few nice shooters on the platform as well (though not as many as the SNES, and very much eclipsed by the TTI-Duo, a lot of quality titles were on the Genesis/Megadrive and its CD/32X expansions such as Kolibri, Aleste, and my best-shooter-of-all-time Panorama Cotton).

Also, platformer-wise, the Mickey Mouse games and X-Men titles were nice. And don't forget the fan-lated Metroid-vania-esque MONSTER WORLD IV.

[BurningDoom]

Here's a few good platformers:

Pure-Platformers:
-Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse
-Cool Spot (Yes, it's a tie-in, cash-in game but it's a good one, really.)
-Ristar
-Rocket Knight Adventures
-Sparkster (Rocket Knight Adventures 2)
-World of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse

Action-Platformers:
-Castlevania: Bloodlines
-Revenge of Shinobi (Shinobi II)
-Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master
-Strider (The Genesis version is sooooo much better than the NES version, and far different)
-Vectorman 1 & 2

[o.pwuaioc]

I don't think Lion King and Jurassic Park get enough love. I really enjoyed them. Ghouls and Ghosts of course. Others not mentioned are Gunstar Heroes (run-n-gun), Wonder Boy series, Streets of Rage 2 (beat-em-up), Ecco (interesting...similar to platformer), Turrican (run-n-gun), Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine (puyo puyo puzzle game), Mega Bomberman, Toejam and Earl (platformer), and Golden Axe.

[Xeogred]

Outside of Sonic games I think the stuff that usually instantly comes to mind for me is...

- Shinobi 3
- Thunder Force 3-4 (4 being my favorite horizontal shmup)
- Ristar
- Vectorman 1-2
- Streets of Rage series (specifically 2-3)

[flojocabron]

Dont forget about Ranger X

This game was a genesis exclusive.

Nice graphics for its time.

capable controls with the normal genesis controller and more moves with the 6 button.

[vlame]

Gunstar Heroes (run-n-gun)

quite possibly one of the best games ever made.

[Bradtemple87]

Streets of Rage 2 and Gunstar Heroes

[vicrizer]

For me,

Contra: Hard Corps
Gunstar Heroes
Phantasy Star IV
Dynamite Headdy
Light Crusader
Landstalker
Castlevania: Bloodlines
Ristar
Pulseman
Beyond Oasis
Shinobi III
Rocket Knight Adventures
Sparkster
Comix Zone
Crusader of Centy
Decap Attack
Ranger-X
Rolling Thunder 2 and 3
Sunset Riders
Streets of Rage 1/2/3

Shooters:
Gleylancer (import)
M.U.S.H.A.
Lightening Force (Thunder Force IV)
Panorama Cotton
Dangerous Seed
Steel Empire
Zero Wing
Burning Force