RyaNtheSlayA's RetroReviews of everything 32 bit and on...

[RyaNtheSlayA]

Silpheed-Sega CD

Now I love my Sega CD, I feel it had a rightful place in history, though it is often considered a devilish abombination. Silpheed is one of those games that I can say, if they had more games like that, the Sega CD would have dominated. Silpheed is a top-down shooter that is 2 parts Galaxian/Galaga, and 1 part Star Fox. The graphics in this game are breath taking, it really shows the power of the Sega CD. It features polygon graphics that are more detailed than Star Fox, but arent detailed enough to slow down gameplay or be distracting. In fact the only thing I found all that distracting was the laser that fired into the large shuttle and caused a very bright, yellow ring to appear. The control is spot on and if it wasnt, it would be a near impossible game, speaking of which i must add that this game is challenging. It may take you once or twice to finish the first couple levels until you get used to the difficulty. The sound in this game isnt all that great, the voices sound more like a digitized voice on a SNES cartridge than a CD quality recording, but the music is some of the best ive heard in a game in a long time. You eventually earn an assortmant of weapons including Left and Right Spread Guns, Lasers, and an assortment of Optional Smart bombs and other special weapons. This game is definately worth owning the sega cd for, the game itself is awesome and the best part, almost no load times .

Overall: A+

Graphics: 10/10
Sound: 4/10
Control: 9/10
Accesability: 5/10
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Art: 5/10
Music: 10/10
Playability: 7/10
Lasting Value: 8/10

[timewarpgamer]

I totally agree. With more games like Silpheed, the Sega CD would have secured a much more appreciated and venerated place in history. The combination of FMV, polygons, and CD-quality music in Silpheed makes it one of the greatest games for the Sega CD. There were actually quite a few excellent Sega CD games the flew under the radar. Check my official list out here:
http://www.timewarpgamer.com/pages/segacd.html

Also, if you're a fan of 8-bit and 16-bit games in general, please check out my site at:
http://www.timewarpgamer.com

Covering all these consoles and games is a BIG job, so I welcome any feedback.

[RyaNtheSlayA]

Hello, from now on I will give a single overall grade, then let you read the review, I spend too much time writing these and I feel people are starting to just look at the end. Thank you for your time

Road Rash 3:

Road Rash 3 came out in 1994 but I ask you... WHAT HAPPENED. Sure the game is great but they runed alot in the process of making it more realistic. First off lets go to gameplay. Its the exact same thing as in the other Road Rash games, you race to the finish while whiping, punching, and hitting your oponents off there motorbike with various weapons, but with a little extra bit of deepness that wasnt there before. You now can upgrade your bike and the control and speed is far more realistic. Now getting into graphics, the Genesis wasnt made to do scaling or "Mode 7"esk graphics, there for, this game, and any game that pulls that off, gets aplause by me. In previous titles, EA would use beautiful hand drawn landscapes and backrounds. This game however went into the digitized approach, not that im against digitization or anything but they actually made it worse in doing so. The digitized objects are soooo pixilated, you could mistake that car for a house and vice-versa, and screw up your timing. Also, these horrible looking digitized objects actually push the Genesis even more, making the frame-rate SLOWER. Ok, since the previous games were so fun and fast paced that you forgot about the frame-rate, this game makes the game seem slow and I actually had to turn it off at one point. I gather your saying, well the music has to be awesome, with all those awesome rifts and stuff. Well sorry, all you get here is fast paced easy-listening, which I enjoyed, but I found it to be out of place. The control is spot on but i felt some delay in turning, which was probably caused by the horrible frame rate. Also there is no save feature, but there is a password system, which luckily is short so you dont have to write down all that much. Overall this game is fantastic, but if your a newcomer to the series, try the 3DO version or Road Rash II on the Genesis.

Overall: B+

[RyaNtheSlayA]

Sonic Jam

So, I dont have the Genesis Sonic the Hedgehog games. But thats cause I have something better. Sonic Jam was released in 1997 for the Sega Saturn. Now you may ask, what was the point of releasing this? Well after they realized there was no possibility for a new sonic game to be released in time. Sega threw together all of its previous offerings with new content to try and hold over the sonic fan-boy community. Well just like Sonic R and Sonic 3D, this just made their mouths water more. Now getting into the game you get all the Sonic games in the original quadrilogy: Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic 2, Sonic 3, and Sonic and Knuckles. These are all emulated perfectly but there is more. The game now gives you the option to have the Spin Dash in Sonic the Hedgehog, and have Knuckles in it too! You also get the "Sonic World" option. This is a 3D world with TONS of virtual Sonic merchendise. You get commercials, posters, the whole bit on that single CD. Whats more is you get a whole bunch of mini-missions to complete in Sonic World. Now a quik note is that if you play this then Sonic Adventure, you are going to notice the EXACT same feeling of control in Sonic World. This is because it was infact the prototype build of Sonic Adventure. Now getting to the rest of the game you get the exact same graphics, sound, and control of all previous offerings, no more, no less. If your a Sonic diehard or just dont feel like buying the games for the Genesis, this is a really good deal, though it does go for a decent price on ebay if your looking for CIB, its fairly easy to find in plain, disk format.

Sonic the Hedgehog: A
Sonic 2: B (my least favorite suprisingly)
Sonic 3: B+
Sonic and Knuckles: A
Sonic 3 and Knuckles: A+
Sonic World: A (its fun to just go and explore)

[The Apprentice]

I just read your reviewon Road Rash 3, and while the content of the review was solid, I'll have to counter-review this in my thread because I strongly disagree on some points. Good job on the Sonic Jam review though. I own most of the Genesis versions, but the disk has always made me wish I could afford it. Yeah it's cheap, by most standards, but I like for my games to come in good condition with the box and I never really wanted to spend all that money on one game. Good review.

[RyaNtheSlayA]

I just read your reviewon Road Rash 3, and while the content of the review was solid, I'll have to counter-review this in my thread because I strongly disagree on some points. Good job on the Sonic Jam review though. I own most of the Genesis versions, but the disk has always made me wish I could afford it. Yeah it's cheap, by most standards, but I like for my games to come in good condition with the box and I never really wanted to spend all that money on one game. Good review.

Thanks, I believe in healthy competition, plus it alows people to get 2 different views of a certain title. I like my games complete too and I managed to snag a copy of Sonic Jam in fairly good condition for about 15 bucks. Its gone up lately and Ive held off on the Saturn collection due to the rising prices lately.

[Funk, E]

Technically the Sonic games in Sonic Jam aren't emulated, they're ported, so there are a few differences. You can spin-dash in Sonic 1, for instance.

[RyaNtheSlayA]

Sonic R- Sega Saturn

Onwards to the Saturn games, Sonic R was the only "real" Sonic experience on the Saturn. But even then it wasnt really a true Sonic game. Sure in all previous games you raced to the end as fast as you could but this game is all about racing. If I remember correct this concept was first introduced in Sonic 2 in 2 player mode on the Genesis, and was also present in Sonic 3. Well getting back to the game, its a very solid racing title, not phenominal, but solid. The graphics in this game I would say land somewhere inbetween the PS1 and N64. It has solid 3D models and the enviroments are decently detailed. You may think, "how is that possible on a SATURN?", well the game uses a draw in system called the DirectDraw3D. This alows the enviroment to draw in and out at a certain distance at 12 shades, eleminating the pop in that plauges many Saturn games. The sound is impressive, the sound effects, the music, they are all CD quality. On that note I should warn you on the music, you will A)Love it or B) It will make your ears bleed. Im one of the few that found the music enjoyable, but it really is pretty cheasy; so you may want to turn the vocals off for a more tradition sound. This game is easy, but the control is horrible unless you have the 3D pad. There is a WORLD of difference between the 2!!! On that note you press up to move forward which for an adventure game is fine but for racing its horrible (EDIT: u can also use the B button which I found out soon after writing this so sorry about that ). There are only 5 tracks, but its ok considering that this game has decent replayability. There are hiddin characters, most of which you wont find in ANY other sonic game. Most notable is MechaKnuckles, who happens to be my favorite character. Each character has there own strengths and weeknesses but it hardly makes a difference. Overall this game is OKAY, not great, not bad, but just pretty mediocre. Its a must buy for Sonic die-hards and racing fans; but to others its not really all that worth it unless you find it cheap

Overall: C+

[RyaNtheSlayA]

Technically the Sonic games in Sonic Jam aren't emulated, they're ported, so there are a few differences. You can spin-dash in Sonic 1, for instance.

i stated that, plz read the whole reviews before critiquing me plz.

[nateup2]

"These are all emulated perfectly but there is more."

just to nitpick