James’ Top 7 Genesis Games

I was always a Sega Genesis kid. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my Super Nintendo as well. But I actually bought my very own Genesis with money I had from Communion and various birthdays that I knew I was going to use for something big. And it didn’t get any bigger in my eyes than the Sega Genesis. And when I bought the system, not only did I get Altered Beast, but also got DJ Boy. Do you remember that piece of shit?

And remember those Genesis commercials? Genesis does what Nintendon’t. Ahh, I miss the days of commercials that ripped the other company’s product apart.

Still waiting for the new game...

7. Splatterhouse 3 – Ahh, the good old days of 16 bit gore. The Terror  Mask is back and being an exclusive to the Sega Genesis, made this horror fan a happy camper.

Any game with 'wack' in it is awesome.

6. Comix Zone – What a concept for a game. You’re a comic artist… who gets trapped in his own comic book. The villain, a mutant named Mortus, throws you into the comic so he can take over the world. One of the finest games in the Genesis library.

That damn baby always gave me the heebie jeebies

5. Zombies Ate My Neighbors – A LucasArts game, and one of their best for a home console. You play as either Zeke or Julie, fighting zombies (of course) and other various monsters in a great little nod to an earlier time in cinema history. I still can pick this game up any time and play the hell out of it.

Centaurs rule!

4. Shining Force – My actual first foray into enjoyable role playing games. Most people say Final Fantasy or Dragon Warrior, but it was all about Shining Force with me. I loved the epic storyline, the diverse characters, the strategy of which characters to have in your party to better defeat the enemies. This games made leviling up so cool. And when you’d find  a secret character or mission, you felt like you were on top of the world.

Hmm, a tongue twister...

3. Aladdin – Yes, a Disney game makes the list. Just like in my top 7 Nintendo games will always have Ducktales, Aladdin will always be in my top 7 Genesis games. Why? Because it is simply one of the finest side scrollers to ever grace a cartridge. Plus it looked  absolutely gorgeous to boot.

Our collective nerd brains exploded when this popped up on screen

2. Sonic 3/ Sonic & Knuckles – Shaka also put it on his list, and I’m sorry but this is classic gameplay if I do say so myself. And the fact that they made a game that you could connect another game to, and therefore take the character of Knuckles and implant him in the previous game, in which he didn’t exist yet, is insane. That it worked perfectly well is still unbelievable. I can always smile and be in a good mood when playing any of these initial Sonic games, but these two games are the pinnacle of 2D gameplay.

One of the only calm moments in the game

1. Shining Force 2 – This game deserves a top on my list, mainly because where the first one showed me the way into rpgs, this showed me that I in fact loved them, as long as they weren’t rehashings that tended to be the norm.  It’s a game that I curse FuncoLand for convincing me, like many other impressionable youth out there, to trade it and many other classic games in order… then I could get one brand new game for the price of 8 games. What was I thinking? But Shining Force 2 took everything I loved about the first one and multiplied it 20 fold. An amazing rpg… wait, an amazing game overall and is definitely the Genesis game I look back at most fondly for.