racketboy.com

I have a fondness for Master System because it was my first ever console. I had a model 2 system with Alex Kidd in Miracle World built in, plus Sonic the Hedgehog and Aztec Adventure cartridges.

I moved onto Mega Drive quite quikcly after, but when I started actively collecting retro stuff, the Master System was a system I targeted early on. This was back when you could get amazing deals on eBay and I picked up the console plus 9 or 10 games for about £15-20.

Off the top of my head, these were the games. I kept most of them:

Phantasy Star
Special Criminal Investigation
Marble Madness
Castle of Illusion
The Lucky Dime Caper
Asterix and the Secret Mission
Fantasy Zone
The New Zealand Story
Sonic the Hedgehog
Sonic the Hedgehog 2

I got some other bargains for Master System on eBay too. Golden Axe Warrior for £12, Ys for £15 and way back when Wonder Boy III for a princely 5p. Although it's not so affordable now, Master System is still a fairly cheap console to collect for over here in Europe.

o.pwuaioc wrote:

Nemoide wrote:I actually only have one card game and it's extremely bad (F-16 Fighting Falcon) but I think the card format is really cool and do like the idea of collecting more of them.

How's your Turbografx-16 collection coming along?

I'll start as soon as I win the lotto!

I got my Master System at a garage sale while out for a run on a Saturday morning in the late nineties. The system and maybe fifteen games were in a box marked "$25." I got the sellers to hold it for me while I ran home to get my money.

R-Type was great, though very difficult. I've never been great at shooters, and don't think I ever made it past level 4? It's the section where all of these ships start flying around and leaving trails that you have to blast through before you crash.

I played through Golden Axe Warrior via emulator on my Dreamcast a while back and it just didn't click with me. I'm wondering if part of it was the inferior control with the Dreamcast d-pad. People rave about it, but I didn't really enjoy the tone and didn't find the world compelling.

I played through Phantasy Star on the Phantasy Star Collection on GBA and really enjoyed it.

I think I'm in the minority in that I liked the SMS version of Double Dragon more than the NES version.

I want to give Wonder Boy in Monster Land another go. The combination of exploring and time limits kind of turned me off when I was younger.

I also really enjoyed Rastan and Kenseiden.

Lord of the Sword has a bit of a Castlevania II feel, in that it's a lot of searching around and selecting routs in a side-scrolling adventure game, but I had to go super slow to avoid getting hit, and there's no save function so you have to start over from the beginning every time.

I have an empty case for Zillion, but not the actual cartridge.

I do not particularly care for the SMS d-pad, but I also don't like Genesis d-pad.

alienjesus wrote:Special Criminal Investigation

Never played this. Looks awesome.

It's a sequel to Chase HQ if you know that one instead!

alienjesus wrote:It's a sequel to Chase HQ if you know that one instead!

I'm vaguely aware of it. Kinda surprised I've never actually played it.

I have really come to appreciate the SMS. I didn’t have one when I was younger, but I was able to pick up a massive lot of SMS games in the ‘00s. (So massive, in fact, I decided to try to collect a complete set of SMS games shortly after acquiring it.) I’ve played a lot more SMS games in recent years, and I’ve enjoyed a lot of them.

The best game for the SMS is, of course, Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap, with Phantasy Star a very close second. Some other really good games are:

Castle of Illusion
Double Dragon
Fantasy Zone
Fantasy Zone II
Ninja Gaiden
R-Type
Wonder Boy

I’m curious about a few others. Have any of you spent time with Golvellius, Lord of the Sword, or Miracle Warriors?

From an American perspective, one thing I always found interesting about the SMS is that when we talk of imports we're usually discussing European releases. There are actually precious few Japanese exclusives on this Japanese console + a bunch of games that weren't released in Japan at all (contrast this to the Famicom!).

I've got three Mark III games, text heavy but fan-translated: Hoshi o Sagashite..., High School! Kimengumi, and Sukeban Deka II: Shoujo Tekkamen Densetsu. The latter two are clunky adventure titles I really can't recommend, but Hoshi o Sagashite... is pretty cool, like Portopia in space. There are even some sparse connections to Phantasy Star. Worth the hour playthrough.

How about Brazilian imports? Anyone ever gone big into those for the Master System?

The Brazilian stuff is interesting but mostly not worth the effort and cost to explore. Most of the games are either sprite swapped ports of other games (like Wonder Boy 3) or ports of Game Gear games back to Master System. The GG versions tend to be substantially cheaper.