Memories of an Arcader: Sega Genesis

It all started with a commercial.

Now like most kids during the end of the 1980s I was pretty much loyal to my Nintendo Entertainment System to a T, but even at the age of 6 there was something about the first Sonic game that grabbed my attention. But it wasn’t until a few years later when my family and I visited Target and I saw a Genesis kiosk that I finally got a chance to try out the game and I was hooked.

While the platforming action wasn’t a surprise, the fast pacing was on a different level than the NES, and I’ll admit – playing Sonic 1 was a guilty pleasure. Plus, who doesn’t enjoy being able to blaze through a level at high speeds just because you want to? Not only that but the fact that I saw a lot – and I mean a lot – of advertising for the Genesis and Sonic during my elementary and middle school years was on a different level. And it was also me discovering another game besides Sonic that solidified the Genesis as a real guilty pleasure despite me still playing my NES – Streets of Rage 2.

So between those two specific game franchises I was pretty much set with regards to SEGA. However, I gotta admit, those advertisements that attacked Nintendo did bother me a bit back in the day.

As time went by my folks didn’t get me a Genesis, but they would eventually give me a Game Gear – partially because one of my cousins had one, plus I liked the idea of playing my portable video games in the dark on occasion – but since there was little in the handheld’s library I made do with what there was (Sonic The Hedgehog 2, Sonic Triple Trouble, Sonic Drift 2, Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, and Shinobi were my GG library). But even with that I still couldn’t help but wonder about Sega’s Genesis and how it’s games stood out and it showed that SEGA was making an attempt to go for an edgy underground image, which did seem eye-catching at first but as time went by those ads seemed to feel like there was more style than substance to me. In the end I stuck with Nintendo, especially when titles like Starfox and especially Donkey Kong Country came out, which showed Nintendo may have been hit, but they were still standing. And by going with their games, they were able to strike back when SEGA was beginning to lose some steam. Then when the Saturn came on the scene there wasn’t a whole lot there for me to notice save for Sonic 3D Blast. Then I got my Nintendo 64 and played it like crazy. But every now and then during this time I would have this one crazy thought: what if Sonic was to appear on a Nintendo system? No sooner did I think that did I shut that idea down, since for obvious reasons it would be impossible. Of course, little did I know what was to come at the beginning of the 2000s…

In all, the Sega Genesis was a system that definitely stood out, and it showed that Sega was willing to stand up and hold their own against a company that was not just the leader of a resurrected industry but was rather the industry, and for a time it did seem that way in spite of the office politics that had been going-on between Sega of Japan and Sega of America. Sadly those politics would come to a head when SEGA left the hardware side of the video game industry in the early 2000s after the downfall of the Dreamcast. Fortunately they would bounce back in a different yet very welcome way with the arrival of Sonic Adventure 2 on the Nintendo GameCube as well as Sonic Advance for the Game Boy Advance, the latter I would see at my local Walmart.

When I first saw them I was floored, and I went ahead and bought SA2 well before I bought my GameCube. But more than that, the arrival of Sonic Mega Collection on the GameCube shortly after was an even bigger surprise for me personally because this meant that the ongoing rivalry between SEGA and Nintendo was finally over, and what once was thought to be a crazy dream was now a reality. For those of us who had grown up during the early/mid 90s, it felt like a “full-circle” moment because now we could truly have the best of both worlds – Sonic and Mario games on a Nintendo system. But that was only the beginning of something more when the Nintendo Wii came along and select games from the Genesis library would find their way to that system via the Virtual Console, as well as other new Sonic games that would come along.

In many ways, the Genesis did help bring a different feel to video games that in some ways were needed in order for the industry to grow, yet the office politics along with some questionable business decisions ultimately kept them achieving their full potential. But even with that, I’m glad that they were able to reinvent themselves to where now their games – new and old – have appeared on other systems, with Sonic chief among them. Plus me seeing Sonic and company appear on a Nintendo system feels more natural than seeing them on an Xbox or Playstation.

So from this Nintendo fan, thank you SEGA Genesis. You definitely helped bring things to the next level, and in the end, you truly earned your place in Video Game History!