Master System: Not for me? Or am I just not "getting" it?

[Yancakes]

Just to get this out of the way first: I don't like sidescrollers, and I especially hate colourful, cheery cartoony sidescrollers with happy, chirpy music and a main character who happens to be some offbeat anthropomorphic animal with attitude or somesuch. On my list of favourite games, the only people you will find moving from left to right are Sketch Turner, Kirby and the Belmont family. Otherwise, I really don't go for them...

That being said, Sega is one of my favourite game companies. I don't even own a SNES, but I've got a CDX and 32x and my Dreamcast might as well be welded to my TV. HOWEVER, growing up, when it came to the 8-bit games, in my group of friends it was always NES or PC or nothing (I happened to have both), so I never really got much of a chance to dink around with a Master System.

Fastforward to a couple of hours ago: I loaded up an SMS emulator and started digging through ROMs. I played a bunch of games, including games listed both on this site and on others, that are supposed to be the best that the SMS has to offer.

And I hated all of them. This isn't a flaming post, I really would love to love the SMS, so tell me what to play.

No Alex Kid or Wonderboy or whatever, and if anyone reccomends Psycho Fox I'll report their post for trolling. Give me something I might actually like.

My likes (in terms of Sega): Comix Zone, General Chaos, Mutant League Hockey and various EA NHL games, Centurion: Defender of Rome, Sub-Terrania, and virtually anything for the Dreamcast, especially arcade ports with cheesy announcers and fighting games where the sole objective is to physically hurt other people

My likes (in general): fighting games, Zelda, Front Mission 3, Civilization and Total War, RPGs with a lot of dialogue trees and Katamari Damacy

[Erik_Twice]

I'm pretty much a Sega fanboy and I love the Dreamcast for its arcade games but the SMS wasn't that hot with me either. Its best games have been surpassed elsehwere, in my opinion.

[noiseredux]

you guys are F'd in the head. SMS is amazing.

Zelda,

Golden Axe Warrior, FTW. It's not just "kind of like" Zelda, it's straight up SMS Zelda. It divided the community here, but half of us loved the experience (myself included). Read: http://racketboy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=35298



Ys... another TR title from this year that I'm certain everybody who played loved. I can't speak for the SMS version myself, but it's a great game so there's that.

RPGs with a lot of dialogue trees

Phantasy Star... I don't know if it has enough dialogue for you or not, but we played PS for TR a couple years ago and it earned itself the rank of "noiseredux's favorite 8-bit RPG of all time." Seriously. I'm saying this loud and proud: Phantasy Star is better than Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy. Come at me bro.

and Katamari Damacy

I don't think there's any SMS game where you roll shit around in a 3D world picking up more and bigger shit as you go. Maybe Psycho Fox?

[Opa Opa]

I didn't like Psycho Fox either.

What I like the Master System for are the arcade conversions. I really enjoy Hang-On, OutRun, Space Harrier, After Burner, and, to a lesser extent, Altered Beast.

Despite being run on inferior hardware, I find the arcade games to be really fun. And SMS Hang-On is actually my favorite version of Hang-On.

[ZeroAX]

The problem with the arcade ports is that they were done better on the Mega Drive (and well....the actual arcades, if we are talking about emulation).

I think the Sonic games were pretty interesting.

[jfrost]

If you like Castlevania, try Kenseiden? But I guess the music if very chirpy.

[JoeAwesome]

Belmont family? Master of Darkness.

[Luke]

There is a "Vampire" game that is great for the sms, but the name of it escapes me.

I still play the Zillion series, Reggie Jackson's baseball, Vigilante, Galaxy Force, R-Type, and the game that plays when a game isn't in the sms.

[prfsnl_gmr]

It is very fun collecting games for the SMS. I have about 80 of them, and it has been a joy tracking them down. That said, Phantasy Star is the only game on the system that is a true classic, and there is a reason that the NES was much more successful (in North America, at least).

Based on your post, I would recommend the SMS versions of Ninja Gaiden, Shinobi, and Double Dragon. Double Dragon and Shinobi play similarly to their NES counterparts, but they are different enough to warrant consideration. Ninja Gaiden (which was not released in North America) is like another game in the original NES Ninja Gaiden trilogy.

If you are interested in side-scrolling shmups, I would also recommend the SMS version of R-Type. (I would also recommend Fantasy Zone, but that does not sound like something you would like...)

My main problem with the Master System is the sound processor. All of the games sound a little too "tinny" for my taste, and I think that the NES really outclassed the SMS in that area.

[god]

The Vampire game could be Master of Darkness. Its a pretty believable Castlevania clone and seems pretty fun. I recently found a copy for sale that had a kids name on the front written on a crusty old band-aid, welded to the case with scum. That's how I found out about it.

If you havent yet, check out 'The Ninja', and 'Submarine Attack' and the others mentioned in the thread. Master System really is a great system, there's just a whole heap of bad games for it.

There is a "Vampire" game that is great for the sms, but the name of it escapes me.

I still play the Zillion series, Reggie Jackson's baseball, Vigilante, Galaxy Force, R-Type, and the game that plays when a game isn't in the sms.