What Genre was Sega Best at?

Post by **Original_Name** » Sat Sep 05, 2009 2:22 pm

Sega's covered alot of ground in video games over the years, but what genre do you think they did their best work in? I'm giving you guys two votes: go at it!

Post by **Pulsar_t** » Sat Sep 05, 2009 2:28 pm

what about fps?

Kidding aside I think 3D platforming has always been Sega's weakest link. The Saturn and Dreamcast games were alright but they butchered Sonic for good. Does anyone even remember Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg?

Post by **Ack** » Sat Sep 05, 2009 2:39 pm

While I don't know about best at, I'd say their impact on the fighting genre has been enormous, and their main entry in the series, Virtua Fighter, is a definite favorite of 3D fighters to me.

Post by **RyaNtheSlayA** » Sat Sep 05, 2009 2:44 pm

As awesome as Sonic and Alex Kidd and so many of Sega's platformers are. Nothing has sucked quarters out of me like their racing games. So addictive. Just think about it, all the awesome racing games they have come out with:

Outrun
Monaco GP
Sega Rally
Hang On
Sega GT
Sega Touring Car
Daytona USA
Virtua Racing

I'm sure I missed a couple too.

Post by **Original_Name** » Sat Sep 05, 2009 3:56 pm

Shit... I forgot to put Seaman in "Other". I mean, what title qualifies as "Other" more so than Seaman?

Anyway, my answers were "Other" and as a likely less-popular answer, "On-Rails Shooting". I mean, Sega INVENTED that genre with Space Harrier. The only major non-Sega on-rails shooter I can think of are the Starfox titles, and I prefer Panzer Dragoon to them immensely anyway. Not only did they invent the genre, but their contributions to the genre have been absolutely incredible. Rez alone makes Sega the best ever at representing the genre.

That said, I think they're very underrated RPG-crafters.

Post by **peglegs** » Sat Sep 05, 2009 5:09 pm

I picked beat em ups and rpgs but what about sports? cuz i would take a 2k football over madden any day or am I mistaken somehow about those being sega games

Post by **Pulsar_t** » Sat Sep 05, 2009 5:45 pm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Concepts

VC used to be part of Sega for several years but it's like associating Rare with Nintendo.

Post by **Original_Name** » Sat Sep 05, 2009 6:03 pm

Well, I actually was including Nintendo/Rare style partnerships in this, that's why I had ToeJam & Earl, Ecco the Dolphin, Shining Force, and Vectorman up there.

I honestly didn't put sports because I couldn't fit it in, and didn't figure it would be a very popular choice anyway. Sorry about that.

It's set so that you can change your vote, so let's just say that sports qualifies as "Other".

Post by **GagaMan** » Sun Sep 06, 2009 5:53 pm

I'd say Racing and Light Gun games. In the arcades only Namco (and to a smaller extent Midway) came anywhere close to Sega's complete dominance over racing games, and the same can be said mostly for light gun games (again Namco are a close second). I'd probably give on-rails shooters to them too, they more or less invented the genre with Space Harrier and perfected it with Rez and Panzer Dragoon.

Capcom has them beat on fighting games and Konami beats them on scrolling beat em ups, though Sega still has (IMO) the best 3D fighter in Virtua Fighter. 3D platforming IMO is their weakest area, they've done very good 2D platformers though, many up there with Nintendo's but not quite enough to top Nintendo (though thats mainly because it's Nintendo's specialty.)

I'd say their pretty good in the 'other' category too. They've done a lot of unique games no one else would have the balls to come up with.

Oh! You forgot puzzle games! They have Super Monkey Ball, Columns and Puyo Puyo, so they win that category IMO too.

Post by **shadobeni** » Sun Sep 06, 2009 6:20 pm

At least in the arcades, racing and on-rails/light gun shooters are their best.

It seems that these popular arcade games don't do as well on the consoles, especially the on rails shooters.

Sega is also pretty strong with the other category. It is surprising for such a large company, the type of weird/offbeat games that they've produced like Samba De Amigo, Space Channel 5, Typing of the Dead, Seaman, Sega Bass Fishing with that fishing controller. They're not all necessarily good but it's definitely different from the norm.

It seems that Sega has tried almost every genre except shmup and fps.

They have quite a few puzzle games in addition to the others mentioned like chu chu rocket and baku baku although their puzzle games never seem to catch on. There will always be the comparison to tetris who remains the king of puzzlers.

As for sports, well EA is pretty much tops.