Game Gear collecting

[BoneSnapDeez]

Here's an obscure one for ya...

Check out Fray: Shuugyouhen - it's a spin-off from the Xak series and quite a fun game. Japan-only, of course. And quite expensive.

Someone, I forgot who, is selling that in the BST forum.

Does it play like the Xak games? And, more importantly, is it as text-heavy as the Xak games?

I'm afraid I have no answers. I love Xak, but have only played a bit of Fray on an emulator. As I recall, it plays more like a shmup or Pocky & Rocky game than a traditional JRPG.

[Krejlooc]

I'm afraid I have no answers. I love Xak, but have only played a bit of Fray on an emulator. As I recall, it plays more like a shmup or Pocky & Rocky game than a traditional JRPG.

You just piqued my interest considerably. I'm likely done spending for right now, having taking a significant drain on my account from tax season. But I'll consider it for my next round of games along with Panzer Mini and Slyvan Tales.

[Krejlooc]

It's funny to read people's accounts of the Game Gear today. Back in the day, the Game Gear was cutting edge and I loved the shit out of mine. It's crazy how many people don't like the game gear today. I always hear about the battery problem, but I had this big-ass rechargeable battery brick thing that you could clip onto your belt and a car charger, so batteries were never a problem for me. That rechargeable battery could actually power the game gear for quite a while on its own.

The hidden reason the game gear was so badass back in the day is because I was a huge Sega Master System fan before I got a genesis and game gear, and I had more SMS games than game gear games. I saw the Master Gear converter advertised on the box or in a game or something and picked one up, and my game gear became a portable SMS. That let me play a bunch of games like Wonderboy III and Fantasy Zone II that really boosted my game gear's worth. Wonderboy in Monster Land actually makes for an awesome portable game. Thus, the other common complaint I hear about the Game Gear - that it's library is lacking compared to the Game Boy - didn't apply to me.

I really took to my game gear. I had the TV Tuner, which was pretty pointless even when it worked (no more analog TV signal) but still a neat novelty. I had the game genie and the 2nd player adapter for the Master Gear Converter. Every Christmas, my grandma would give me some random Game Gear game or two and they were usually pretty good, like Jurassic Park or Shining Force or Sonic Triple Trouble. I actually really liked the handheld and it blows my mind that so many people played so little of their Game Gear growing up. Mine was a constant companion - numerous family trips and outings and reunions were made bearable thanks to that machine. I completed my first playthrough of Phantasy Star on my Game Gear, for example. I tend to lump the Master System and Game Gear into one collective entity - Sega 8-bit. The Game Gear, after all, is just another slight revision in the long line of Master System revisions, dating back to the Mark III.

The only thing that I really wanted, and that Sega never made, was a Super Game Gear, like the Super Game Boy. I actually believe that Super Game Boy and Game Boy Player are both big reasons why the Game Boy's library is so fondly remembered - because people could actually play the games. In retrospect, a Super Game Gear doesn't really make much sense, because that's basically a master system with a larger color palette, but the few game gear exclusives that exist have always made such a device desirable. I'm pretty stoked to be building a machine that I've wanted for decades now.

[pierrot]

I mostly don't care for handhelds pre GBA SP, and even then I'd pass over almost any game that also has a console release.
Even though the NES was my first experience with video games, I was raised on Sega, for whatever reason, and the Game Gear was the only handheld I owned until Pokemon was released in the US. I was also (figuratively) raised in the backseat of an '87 Labaron, so I played Sonic Drift 2, and Sonic Chaos until my eyes were literally (not literally) bleeding. With all the night driving that took place in my childhood, if I had started with Nintendo systems, and had a Game Boy while growing up, I would have literally ( - (nope)) died.

I don't think it's so much that people hate the Game Gear; I think it's more that, given its limitations, the desire to use the actual hardware these days is more about nostalgia than anything. I also think that Sega hardware is misunderstood by the average person, in general. I will say that life with my Game Gear was a whole lot better once I had rechargeable battery packs for it, though.