I absolutely love Columns. I still play it regularly on the Sega Genesis Classics game on Xbox One. I got my Genesis for Christmas in 1990 (6th grade) and, as a huge Tetris fan, was thrilled that Sega's big puzzle game was only $30. That music really takes me back to those winter and spring nights in 1991 with just the flickering light of my TV in my bedroom.
Rambo and space invaders i have massive memories of as they were some of the games my late friend who died of an overdose who had one of the first megadrives in the UK due to his dad importing it.... space invaders tunes were awesome. Still play it today.
@@teen_laqueefa Well thank you for the passive aggressive compliment sir. The comment was no masterpiece as rushed; as I've commented many a time about why my association to the megadrive is so strong. And this was more aimed at the channel owner.
Simple doesn't always mean "bad". I've played a bunch of these games during childhood and had a blast! I'm sure some would disagree, but I still feel some of these games are still worth a run now. I used to play Columns, Ms. Pac-Man, Pac-Mania, and Pac-Attack quite a bit as a kid. These games offered a quick burst of fun! Beating a high-score was sometimes a fun little challenge, especially against your friends!
I agree, not everything has to be epic, intricate, story driven and last 100+ hours. Sometimes, having a quick blast with a simple game can be just as satisfying.
'Championship Soccer' was known as 'World Cup Italia '90' in the UK, & actually ended up being quite popular due to being part of the 'Mega Games 1' bundle
Ms.Pac Man helped me get so many higher priced games for a while. They sold it for 20 bucks at Toys r Us, and at Funcoland in the same plaza they took the game for 45 bucks. It only lasted about a summer, but so useful.
Remember how fuckin expensive a 16 megabit game was now you can get Gigabyte memory for a few bucks. Think how shitty it would be to have that technology forever
1 Megabit = 128 Kilobytes, btw. By comparison, Donkey Kong Country is 32 Megabits (nearly 4 MB). A typical Neo-Geo game at the time was 100+ Megabits (More than 10 MB).
Everyone, including magazines, was talking in Megabits in the console space at the time. I guess the games were getting too large to use Kilobytes as the standard metric but still too small to use Megabytes (which became the standard in the CD era). And now, after the DVD era 20 years ago, we are still using Gigabytes. I don't see Terrabytes being the standard any time soon though.
@@Imgema Terabytes won't be the standard soon because there are almost no drives that can hold more than like 4 Games didn't take up multiple gigabytes until there was an easy way to store those gigabytes, be it large hard drives or DVD
Seriously though, the Tengen Ms Pac-man is great and has so many options. The arcade mazes, mini ones that don't require screen scrolling, big ones that are the size of 2 screens, and strange ones that look like something out of rom hacks. Plus, it has 2 player simultaneous play, co-op or competitive. Something I've only seen in the World's Largest Pac-man arcade game since. And it was only 20$!
Yeah it stayed a top 20 in sales the whole time it was sold new during the sega years for all reasons listed, everyone had a copy if that and a sonic game.
I got Columns for Christmas. I wanted a different game, but I got Columns. I didn't play it until the last 2 days of Christmas break because I was upset. Then, I played it pretty much straight through those last two days. It was addicting. Also, one of the few games my parents could play with me. It now holds a special place in my memories. I'd love to play another round with my parents again.
While I didn't own a dedicated Flicky cartridge, I did buy the Classics Collection that bundled Gunstar Heroes, Alex Kidd, Altered Beast and Flicky on one cartridge. Bought it at retail for £20 too!
Small rom games were always nice to see back when I used my Super Magic Drive MD/GEN cartridge copier. I have a couple of floppy disks (1.44MB) where I could fit six games on the single disk. It was kind of a game all in itself. :)
This reminds me of back when I would go to the library to use the internet in the late 90s (didn't have home internet yet) and I would download emulators and roms to put on 1.44mb floppies. I remember not being able to get a Final Fantasy V rom(which was fan translated even back then) because it was slightly too large for the disk. So small games were a good thing for sure.
Flicky is my go-to game on the Mega Drive for if I have a little bit of time to play something. Incredible pick up and play value and even a little bit addicting.
Top notch filming and editing SLX! Really liking your new software, much like fine wine, your videos and channel get better as time goes on. There is no substitute for quality. I personally find it easier to measure the games by byte like the EverDrive's do rather than bit as when you say a game is 1 megabit i'm forever calculating in my head each time what that is in bytes. 2 Megabits = 256K - 1 Megabit = 128K? My favourites showcased here are Space Invaders 91, Pacmania, Flicky and Columns. Alex Kidd In The Enchanted Castle is not a bad game, much like Ariel The Little Mermaid, it's just not a really good one either, exploring the levels and the castle at the end keeps things interesting. Of all the games shown in this video, Space Invaders 91 has the best music, I recognise that Cube sound driver anywhere! And Pacmania has awesome music aswell by Paul Webb.
I remember I was amazed at the commerial from Rambo III, especially the third person helicopter level. When we got the game it wasn't as good (graphics wise) but I really liked the gameplay!
Love this channel... Your videos sometimes just plays on my TV in the living room for hours, just for the ambient :) So much memories... Watching your videos I feel like Im at home :) Anyway this one brought so much memories. I played most of those games back in day and some of them I really liked it. I bought those games when they were actually really cheap and nobody liked them.
@@TyTye having grown up a bit on the Master System i was used to that basic look, it was my first Roguelike and i loved it. still go slay the dragon occasionally.
Ugh, Fatal Labyrinth... That game introduced me to, and started, a lifelong visceral hatred of randomly generated/roguelike games. Worst game for the Genesis that I ever paid money for.
Ms Pacman on Genesis is such a good two-player game, the way you can send your opponent flying across the screen right into a ghost is so nasty, I love it!
Great topic as always. Do you do a lot of brainstorming for new topic ideas? I’m always surprised at the originality and consistent quality. I imagine a giant cork board full of different notes and strings connecting the different topics maybe lol.
Actually it's a notebook. Page after page of games, topics to cover them, and how I can use ideas to form new episodes. I was about 15 when I started doing my own game reviews so I've had a long time to think about it.
Frogger is just under 1Megabit too, although shipped on a 4Megabit cartridge probably because by 1998 it was cheaper to just use larger ROMs than source the smaller ones even if they ended up 3/4 empty.
Thanks for reminding me of some of these slx, and Rambo was always a particular favorite of mine. And I know im going to get some flak for this, but I loved that fighting masters game when I was younger. Which I know you don't much care for, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. But great video as always
@@SegaLordX e swat is incredible, I've always loved the flashing lights in the background, the parallax scrolling, and awesome music. Not sure why people criticize you for that, it certainly isn't a bad game lol. In many ways it's better than the arcade version, at least I think so
I LOVE Fatal Labyrinth, and its predecessor Dragon Crystal on the SMS/GG. They’re just simple Roguelikes, which makes them extremely replayable and addictive.
I saw that on this video and thought 'That looks JUST like Dragon Crystal' i'm glad to know it IS a sequel cos the resemblance was uncanny. And I agree, I hated that game the first few times I played it, but later on when I understood it, It quickly became one of the most addictive games I ever played
Awesome vid as always. :) I actually like Art Alive tho. Lack of: Battery back up might seem disappointing, but I think it was pretty rare, so kinda understandable. There’s drawing on another cart and also Sega cd, so all 3 put together, they’re quite good. :)
8:44 You can tell if your Mega Drive system has TMSS by it's revision number. TMSS was introduced on the VA6 board revision of the model 1 MD, so the game won't lock on systems with previous revisions. For me, the game will definitely work on my Mega Drive as mine is a VA1, the first hardware revision after the launch model VA0.
Wasn't it VA5 onwards for TMSS? One of my 4 Mega Drives/Genesis-es is an early UK Mega Drive (1990 Model 1 VA4), so it's still Signetics 68K and non-TMSS, both of which are rare on PAL consoles due to the later launch. And yes it's 60Hz/region modded etc
I always thought the big problem with the Sega Genesis early on was a lack of cartridge space. It's hard to make a really great game in 4 megabits. It can be done but it's really tough especially when your user is expect lots of big high resolution sprites.
I think early Genesis games were certainly limited by the small carts. By the time the SNES comes along, many of its games are 8 megs plus right out the gate. And it showed.
Great video again Lord X. I loved Rambo, and the fact that most character's looked the same actually helped in my opinion, giving the impression Rambo is taking on an army, who would all look alike. Love your channel.
Fatal labrynth appears to be a complete Dragon Crystal reskin (also a Sega title) from the Sega master system / Sega game gear. Well slightly upgraded but i bet it's the same engine.
no it's not, Fatal Labyrinth appeared on Sega Meganet service before Dragon Crystal as Labyrinth of Death, it was first and different version of Fatal Labyrinth
I bought Flicky new for $20 at Babbages. I also think the program itself was smaller than 1 megabit (125K) but it was the smallest memory storage Sega could get a hold of at the time.
I always enjoyed Columns and Rambo III a ton. I think Columns has some of the best music on the Genesis. I also agree that the Tetris game isn't the best example of Tetris. We got that on the Sega Genesis Mini and I would have much rather seen a different title in its place. The music in it is just dumb.
Thanks for the vids man, even if I don't have the time to watch them when I'm working on the computer I'll thumbs up and leave them playing in the background!
Oh, this explains why like half of these games I had on the same 1 cartridge collection. Have much love for Fatal Labyrinth for being my first Roguelike.
Hey, for what it was, Rambo III was a pretty decent early game on the Genesis. It was one of my favorites early on. I definitely remember Super VolleyBall as one of those games that looked cool in magazines, but quickly lost that shine the moment you started playing it. I’m so glad you could rent games before buying them back then.
good vid SLX I just find it impressive in general in what they managed to make on the SNES and Genesis and NES and Master System with the size limitations they had someone said ghouls and ghosts is 5 megabits, which seems like a good game for it's size I've seen some of your other videos, and altered beast I think was a game launched at the system's release and it seems good and is probably small and there is that ninja game that I can't remember the name of it and it was an arcade port that you've talked about, and I think you said it was a small cartridge too
Loved this video idea! Groups of games you'd never really think of as a "group". Allows for covering games that wouldn't typically get covered! Great as always!
I appreciate the conversation of file size vs fun. Games can be fun regardless of file size. You could fit a lifetime of games in the same amount that takes to fill a buggy mess of a modern game. It's all about perspective.
if i have to guess i would say phantasystar 4 should be the largest, street fighter 2 turbo and sonic 3? i dont know...lets wait for the episode to find out ^^
@@Sinistar1983 imagin there where no limitations back in those days. We could have perfekt arcade ports at home one the genesis. But space was always a problem an expensive. I remember my first computer had a 20 megabytes hard drive and my friend told me I will never run out of space again ^^ innocent time's
@@dab7465 hey even with limitations, cool stuff has came out because of those restrictions. And that honestly inspired me to create a new gameboy game so that way I can understand better on how these old devs worked under those restrictions
@@Sinistar1983 He's already made an episode on the largest Mega Drive/Genesis games aswell as the most expensive and cheapest episodes. Scroll through his back catalogue of videos.
Cool ideas for videos like this are why Sega Lord X is awesome. It feels like a lot of my other RUclips subscriptions are all about talking about some future revision to the Nintendo Switch or how Sony is a jerk to their customers. Content like this, in contrast, is such a breath of fresh air.
I feel like Sega Lord X videos could've been an actual television series from the 90's. That would've been so cool to have back then to get video breakdowns on the games of those days. Instead all we had were magazines like Gamepro and Electronic Gaming Monthly. Most of the time I would just rent a game based on the box art and cross my fingers hoping it would be good.
Now that you mention it, there is *one* Nintendo Switch related topic I'd love to see Sega Lord X cover; and that's the Genesis games that comes with the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion package.
I'm hoping for an episode about games that had really good manuals inside. I could only afford to buy a dozen games, so most of the games I played were rentals, and those *never* had the manuals.
Some of these games I've never heard of. Rambo III, Columns & Fatal Labyrinth are the best of this selection. And, on a side note Rambo III is by far my FAVORITE game on the Genesis.
Man, I played Rambo 3 so much as a kid. Over and over for hundreds of hours. lol It's one of my favourite games for the sega genesis. I still have it to this day, in the case with the manual!
I remember I had bootleg cartridge with 9 games in early 90's all of the games are on this video except one game like mahjong clone. Now I understand how normal cartridge includes lots of games that time. They are just small games:)
19:53 - Most Space Invaders games are really unsettling for me to look at. The enemy movement patterns just give me the same feeling I get when I see screen tearing.
My favourite Genesis games were definitely on the more expansive side: Phantasy Star 4, Shining Force 2, Uncharted Waters 2, Shadowrun, and Sonic 3 & Knuckles.
We were only able to afford on consol when I was younger which was the snes. So hearing some one else's perspective is eye opening. What a great wholesome channel.
A member of the dev team responsible for porting Out of this World has previously gone on record stating that the team was limited to how many megabits the port was allowed to have on the Genesis and had the dev team been afforded more menory, the port would have been more faithful to the Amiga version.
They had some similar limitations with the SNES. In fact they had to write a compression/decompression routine, which is why you see a couple seconds of loading time before levels.
I just checked and both my Out of This World for the Genesis and for the Amiga are only about 1MB. And the Genesis could be 4 or even 5 MB as needed. Although I'm referring to emulation and so I'm looking at .md format for Genesis ROMs and .hdf format for Amiga floppy disks. Perhaps they're compressed compared to the real thing?
@Dave Davies It's a great version! I do find the SNES version has the best score as well as that Mode 7 intro but the Genesis version is the better port!
I would be curious to know how, if any, of these games utilised data compression to make the same game smaller on the cartrige and thus fit more on there, particulary the assets. If you've ever had to work with uncompressed raw image or sound data then you know that those files get really big really fast
Super Street Fighter probably did it even though the game used bank switching. all those animations it has must make the game bigger than the stated size for it.
@@tf1090c fatal labyrinth is a roguelike game, a game that plays similar to the legendary computer game 'rogue'. Rogue's characteristic is that they have randomly generated levels and item effects meaning you cannot memorize and make strategies, and it brutally punishes you with the difficulty where a single mistake can permanently doom you, and you can't revert it but start the new game. So rogue and its clones had some cults but were never popular due to its punishing game design. Then games like binding of issac borrowed some elements from rogue and made a much more forgiving (and less in-depth)genre called roguelite which became very popular now.
I heard that Tetris was released but only for a single day or two before retailers had to pull it from the shelves. Which is why you do see insanely high priced copies of it in the wild from time to time.
Ms. Pac Man ended up on the top ten best selling genesis game list as it was sold for ten bucks at retail. This price point was almost unheard of for new software in the 16 bit era.
I believe it since I also got the game for $10 at KB Toys when I was leaving the arcade one night. every time I went there for the next 4 months the game was always low in stock with 10 or less copies or it was just sold at at random times. The snes version was same way with being low in stock or sold out and like the genesis it was near impossible to find in other stores.
You know what's even crazier than these tiny cartridges? The fact almost every game now is made via middleware engines for ease of coding or cross platform porting........which is highly inefficient unlike the games of yesteryears which often coded down to 'the metal' as they put it. Basically optimised to the systems architecture.
I had some of these cos I allways got the budget games for xmas and birthdays etc.. Balljacks being one, it was actually easy once you knew how to win, i think i fiished it in a day. Klax was another and that was hard. I had Flicky and Columns on collections, and both were so so simple, but really addictive. Alex Kidd Enchanted Castle I actually enjoyed as it was a return to the Miracle World type game, all the other Alex Kidd sequels were bad, and pretty much unrelated, so it felt like the only true sequel. Fatal labyrinth ive never heard of before, but it seems to be a sequel to Dragon Crystal on the Master System, which was also a simple game, but soo addictive once you work it out.
Nice vid. I got a lot of mileage out of Fatal Labyrinth, and if you're not a fan of the repetitive music, just turn the sound down a bit (it might even be something you can disable on the SEGA Mega Drive & Genesis Classics, though I haven't checked).
To resume, I shall say, that developer skills and cartridge size matters more, than console type. Some games listed above can simply be beaten by NES/SMS counterpart.
Wow just when I thought there wasn’t anything/anyone left to watch on here than Sega Lord X drops a video thank you from one Sega retro brother to another much love enjoy the week Rambo 3 Tecmo World Cup And World Championship Soccer Awesome Games Great Times For Me And My Brothers
I have to respectfully disagree on Alex Kidd In The Enchanted Castle. It may have simple play mechanics, but it uses them to their fullest potential! The level design complements your abilities well. Breakable objects are layed out thoughtfully to combat enemies or to be cleverly used by the player as a platform to reach secret areas. The levels are straightforward and compact enough for a newbie to easily find the goal; and they are big enough to allow for a good amount of exploration. You want to find as many coins as possible since you can purchase helpful items and continues. Every time you get a game over, you can spend 1000 coins from your previous game to continue from the level you died at by going to the options menu and selecting continue. As for the items you can get, they can help you access new areas, skip a level you are struggling with (assuming you use the motorcycle and helicopter well), read the minds of a boss, levitate, bounce on a damaging pogo stick, and obtain a projectile attack. This game gave Alex a new jump kick attack which can be useful to hit enemies from above, and it can be used to discover hidden areas underground. Alex has also been given the ability to crawl on the ground, and to attack while crawling. This makes hitting enemy's on the ground and fitting into tiny gaps a much less difficult matter. Another new mechanic is that when you punch certain objects they will be launched forward. This can be used attack enemies, somewhat like a projectile attack even if you don't have the item granting you that ability equipped. It can also move the object so it can be used as a platform to reach secret areas. The best innovation in this game is that you have the ability to unequip and reequip items from the menu at any time. You only lose the item when you die whilst having it equipped. On top of that Alex Kidd In The Enchanted Cadtle has some really catchy tunes that I constantly found myself humming along to. The only things I dislike about the game are that the visual assets can be repeated a few too many times and the rock, paper, scissors mechanic. That is not enough to deter me from the game since the level design and item game are so excellent!
Back in the day we had a 6-in-1 bootleg cart with Tetris, Klax, Blockout, Columns, Flick and Shove-It. Looked pretty amazing at the time a cart with 6 games, we didn't know it was only 10 megabit, so it was just slightly bigger than a single game like Strider.
Its crazy to think that a single photograph on my phone is more than 20x larger than an entire Genesis game.
Not really. Technology jumps higher everyday
While I was capturing this, I made a few MP3's of the music in the games. One of those dwarfed all these games.
@@deshawnheaggans6810 Don't be gay.
@@retroman-- how is that possible when your girl comes to me whenever she wants to feel good if you know what I mean.😆
@@deshawnheaggans6810 my wife's pregnant...was it you?
Was going to bed, NOT ! 😀
Dude SLX videos always go up at the worst time here in NY, right when im goin to bed certain days. And dammit its always so worth it.
I feel you man. Literally in bed and ready to call it a day but then I saw this post…
I was already sleeping and went to take a piss. Now watching the video...
I drop em when they're done. I do appreciate the dedication, tho!
Hahaha same. 😆
I absolutely love Columns. I still play it regularly on the Sega Genesis Classics game on Xbox One.
I got my Genesis for Christmas in 1990 (6th grade) and, as a huge Tetris fan, was thrilled that Sega's big puzzle game was only $30.
That music really takes me back to those winter and spring nights in 1991 with just the flickering light of my TV in my bedroom.
Rambo and space invaders i have massive memories of as they were some of the games my late friend who died of an overdose who had one of the first megadrives in the UK due to his dad importing it.... space invaders tunes were awesome. Still play it today.
Sorry about your friend, and your sentence structure.
@@teen_laqueefa Well thank you for the passive aggressive compliment sir. The comment was no masterpiece as rushed; as I've commented many a time about why my association to the megadrive is so strong. And this was more aimed at the channel owner.
Simple doesn't always mean "bad". I've played a bunch of these games during childhood and had a blast! I'm sure some would disagree, but I still feel some of these games are still worth a run now. I used to play Columns, Ms. Pac-Man, Pac-Mania, and Pac-Attack quite a bit as a kid. These games offered a quick burst of fun! Beating a high-score was sometimes a fun little challenge, especially against your friends!
I agree, not everything has to be epic, intricate, story driven and last 100+ hours. Sometimes, having a quick blast with a simple game can be just as satisfying.
'Championship Soccer' was known as 'World Cup Italia '90' in the UK, & actually ended up being quite popular due to being part of the 'Mega Games 1' bundle
Ms.Pac Man helped me get so many higher priced games for a while. They sold it for 20 bucks at Toys r Us, and at Funcoland in the same plaza they took the game for 45 bucks. It only lasted about a summer, but so useful.
I’ve been wondering why Funcoland had so many copies of Ms. Pac Man and so much lost investment
wooow lol nice
Remember how fuckin expensive a 16 megabit game was now you can get Gigabyte memory for a few bucks. Think how shitty it would be to have that technology forever
1 Megabit = 128 Kilobytes, btw. By comparison, Donkey Kong Country is 32 Megabits (nearly 4 MB). A typical Neo-Geo game at the time was 100+ Megabits (More than 10 MB).
Yeah, megabits are kinda misleading nowdays. SNK was certainly like "ooh, beeg numbers better" and slapped the megabits in Neogeo AES game boxes
Everyone, including magazines, was talking in Megabits in the console space at the time. I guess the games were getting too large to use Kilobytes as the standard metric but still too small to use Megabytes (which became the standard in the CD era). And now, after the DVD era 20 years ago, we are still using Gigabytes. I don't see Terrabytes being the standard any time soon though.
@@Imgema Terabytes won't be the standard soon because there are almost no drives that can hold more than like 4
Games didn't take up multiple gigabytes until there was an easy way to store those gigabytes, be it large hard drives or DVD
Yeah, it's pretty crazy. Some of these games take up less space than a standard RUclips thumbnail.
@@5witchy676 misleading in what way? It’s clear it’s 1megabit how hard can it be to convert. Most everyone I think knows a byte is 8 bits
Seriously though, the Tengen Ms Pac-man is great and has so many options. The arcade mazes, mini ones that don't require screen scrolling, big ones that are the size of 2 screens, and strange ones that look like something out of rom hacks. Plus, it has 2 player simultaneous play, co-op or competitive. Something I've only seen in the World's Largest Pac-man arcade game since. And it was only 20$!
Yeah it stayed a top 20 in sales the whole time it was sold new during the sega years for all reasons listed, everyone had a copy if that and a sonic game.
@@petewillson205 I didn't know that. Pretty cool
Always looking forward to your stuff man, it's very well done.
Glad you enjoy it. Thank you.
I got Columns for Christmas. I wanted a different game, but I got Columns. I didn't play it until the last 2 days of Christmas break because I was upset. Then, I played it pretty much straight through those last two days. It was addicting. Also, one of the few games my parents could play with me. It now holds a special place in my memories. I'd love to play another round with my parents again.
While I didn't own a dedicated Flicky cartridge, I did buy the Classics Collection that bundled Gunstar Heroes, Alex Kidd, Altered Beast and Flicky on one cartridge. Bought it at retail for £20 too!
GH is legit hardcore
Was exactly the same and makes sense why they bundled Flicky and AB with GH for the size. Got mine from blockbusters in the UK too haha!
Small rom games were always nice to see back when I used my Super Magic Drive MD/GEN cartridge copier. I have a couple of floppy disks (1.44MB) where I could fit six games on the single disk. It was kind of a game all in itself. :)
This reminds me of back when I would go to the library to use the internet in the late 90s (didn't have home internet yet) and I would download emulators and roms to put on 1.44mb floppies. I remember not being able to get a Final Fantasy V rom(which was fan translated even back then) because it was slightly too large for the disk. So small games were a good thing for sure.
It was like playing Tetris with file sizes.
Flicky is my go-to game on the Mega Drive for if I have a little bit of time to play something. Incredible pick up and play value and even a little bit addicting.
Same here. Did not discover it until around 2002 and it just clicked instantly. What a classic 🐦 🐦
@@theOfficial476 Glad to see I'm not alone in this!
Top notch filming and editing SLX! Really liking your new software, much like fine wine, your videos and channel get better as time goes on. There is no substitute for quality.
I personally find it easier to measure the games by byte like the EverDrive's do rather than bit as when you say a game is 1 megabit i'm forever calculating in my head each time what that is in bytes. 2 Megabits = 256K - 1 Megabit = 128K?
My favourites showcased here are Space Invaders 91, Pacmania, Flicky and Columns. Alex Kidd In The Enchanted Castle is not a bad game, much like Ariel The Little Mermaid, it's just not a really good one either, exploring the levels and the castle at the end keeps things interesting. Of all the games shown in this video, Space Invaders 91 has the best music, I recognise that Cube sound driver anywhere! And Pacmania has awesome music aswell by Paul Webb.
I remember I was amazed at the commerial from Rambo III, especially the third person helicopter level. When we got the game it wasn't as good (graphics wise) but I really liked the gameplay!
Love this channel... Your videos sometimes just plays on my TV in the living room for hours, just for the ambient :) So much memories... Watching your videos I feel like Im at home :)
Anyway this one brought so much memories. I played most of those games back in day and some of them I really liked it. I bought those games when they were actually really cheap and nobody liked them.
100%. Best Sega nostalgia on YT
"if you're looking for excitement, you won't find it here" (perfect review of "Shove It")
Yup.
Fatal Labyrinth is easily the cream of this crop, i can only imagine how much better it could have been with a larger cart.
Yeah I was surprised how good it was when I first discovered it on the Megadrive collection a few years ago. It looks ugly but it's very addictive
Yeah that game was good stuff at the time
@@TyTye having grown up a bit on the Master System i was used to that basic look, it was my first Roguelike and i loved it. still go slay the dragon occasionally.
Ugh, Fatal Labyrinth... That game introduced me to, and started, a lifelong visceral hatred of randomly generated/roguelike games. Worst game for the Genesis that I ever paid money for.
@@homiedclown well it's not for everybody, but i'm pretty sure there are worse Genesis games out there.
Ms Pacman on Genesis is such a good two-player game, the way you can send your opponent flying across the screen right into a ghost is so nasty, I love it!
The Genesis port of Ms. Pac-Man is still the best version of the game even to this day.
Great topic as always. Do you do a lot of brainstorming for new topic ideas? I’m always surprised at the originality and consistent quality. I imagine a giant cork board full of different notes and strings connecting the different topics maybe lol.
Actually it's a notebook. Page after page of games, topics to cover them, and how I can use ideas to form new episodes. I was about 15 when I started doing my own game reviews so I've had a long time to think about it.
Sega Lord X is a content master, super fun yet again!
Beautiful selection of Megadrive / Genesis games ❤️
Osomatsu-Kun was also a 2meg cart, it was meant to be 4mb, but they literally chopped out half the levels to fit it on a cart.
Frogger is just under 1Megabit too, although shipped on a 4Megabit cartridge probably because by 1998 it was cheaper to just use larger ROMs than source the smaller ones even if they ended up 3/4 empty.
Always great videos!
Thanks for reminding me of some of these slx, and Rambo was always a particular favorite of mine. And I know im going to get some flak for this, but I loved that fighting masters game when I was younger. Which I know you don't much care for, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. But great video as always
lol, I constantly catch crap for liking some of the games I do. My love for ESWAT never goes unchallenged.
@@SegaLordX mine too, it’s a good shoot-em-up game!
@@SegaLordX e swat is incredible, I've always loved the flashing lights in the background, the parallax scrolling, and awesome music. Not sure why people criticize you for that, it certainly isn't a bad game lol. In many ways it's better than the arcade version, at least I think so
Art Alive seems like a game that could shine through emulation, where the option to save will be there through save states and screenshots.
Eeeeeh, it's still incredibly limited in choices, it's not like it can produce anything masterpiece worthy.
I LOVE Fatal Labyrinth, and its predecessor Dragon Crystal on the SMS/GG. They’re just simple Roguelikes, which makes them extremely replayable and addictive.
I saw that on this video and thought 'That looks JUST like Dragon Crystal' i'm glad to know it IS a sequel cos the resemblance was uncanny.
And I agree, I hated that game the first few times I played it, but later on when I understood it, It quickly became one of the most addictive games I ever played
Awesome vid as always. :)
I actually like Art Alive tho. Lack of: Battery back up might seem disappointing, but I think it was pretty rare, so kinda understandable. There’s drawing on another cart and also Sega cd, so all 3 put together, they’re quite good. :)
Gotta love that rubber band bass, hissy cardboard drums, and electric piano. However the melody could remove your ear wax.
8:44 You can tell if your Mega Drive system has TMSS by it's revision number. TMSS was introduced on the VA6 board revision of the model 1 MD, so the game won't lock on systems with previous revisions.
For me, the game will definitely work on my Mega Drive as mine is a VA1, the first hardware revision after the launch model VA0.
or you can just turn it on...
Wasn't it VA5 onwards for TMSS?
One of my 4 Mega Drives/Genesis-es is an early UK Mega Drive (1990 Model 1 VA4), so it's still Signetics 68K and non-TMSS, both of which are rare on PAL consoles due to the later launch. And yes it's 60Hz/region modded etc
@@RWL2012 Every source I've looked at says VA6.
New vid just in time for bed, time to watch!
And I appreciate the view!
I love this channel and your knowledge/enthusiasm.
Loved the NES ProAm. I had an NES Advantage that made it great to play. The Genesis version looks like it could have been on the NES though.
I always thought the big problem with the Sega Genesis early on was a lack of cartridge space. It's hard to make a really great game in 4 megabits. It can be done but it's really tough especially when your user is expect lots of big high resolution sprites.
I think early Genesis games were certainly limited by the small carts. By the time the SNES comes along, many of its games are 8 megs plus right out the gate. And it showed.
Super Mario World (SNES), at only 4 megabits, was quite the achievement.
@@videogameobsession I'll give you that. Nintendo was very good at reusing assets without you realizing they were doing it.
Sonic 1 and Ghouls and Ghosts were 4 meg games on the Genesis.
GNG was 5 megabits, but both made excellent use of the limited rom size.
Space invaders 91 is an underrated gem.
AWW, MAN! I LIVE for the "C'mon, boy" acknowledgements in Zoom! That game is a great challenge. My older brother and I used to go for hours on it.
Great video again Lord X. I loved Rambo, and the fact that most character's looked the same actually helped in my opinion, giving the impression Rambo is taking on an army, who would all look alike. Love your channel.
Fatal labrynth appears to be a complete Dragon Crystal reskin (also a Sega title) from the Sega master system / Sega game gear. Well slightly upgraded but i bet it's the same engine.
no it's not, Fatal Labyrinth appeared on Sega Meganet service before Dragon Crystal as Labyrinth of Death, it was first and different version of Fatal Labyrinth
@@TeHbTeHb dang then it's the other way around ! Still super similar games
Yay! A small video to watch just before bed! 😋♥️
What, you don't like Zoom?! COME ON BOY!!
Haha. I like it much better with the volume down.
I bought Flicky new for $20 at Babbages. I also think the program itself was smaller than 1 megabit (125K) but it was the smallest memory storage Sega could get a hold of at the time.
28:37 "Tetris buttholes everywhere" THAT ISN'T HOW I WOULD'VE PLAYED THAT PARTICULAR INSTANCE...
Cracking work as always mate.
I really loved Blockout, Columns, Klax, Ulimate Qix and Ms. Pac-Man. Nice list of games!!
I always enjoyed Columns and Rambo III a ton. I think Columns has some of the best music on the Genesis. I also agree that the Tetris game isn't the best example of Tetris. We got that on the Sega Genesis Mini and I would have much rather seen a different title in its place. The music in it is just dumb.
I appreciate the historical significance of Tetris for the Mega Drive, but the game just isn't that good. I'd take Columns anytime.
Loved me some columns
They may have been small but I put big time into Rambo and Pac-mania as a kid. Great upload.
Quite a few of these games were also released on the Atari Lynx.
Thanks for the vids man, even if I don't have the time to watch them when I'm working on the computer I'll thumbs up and leave them playing in the background!
Oh, this explains why like half of these games I had on the same 1 cartridge collection. Have much love for Fatal Labyrinth for being my first Roguelike.
Hey, for what it was, Rambo III was a pretty decent early game on the Genesis. It was one of my favorites early on.
I definitely remember Super VolleyBall as one of those games that looked cool in magazines, but quickly lost that shine the moment you started playing it. I’m so glad you could rent games before buying them back then.
I actually used to love Hard Drivin lol the cinematic recreation when you crash always cracked me up 😂
good vid SLX
I just find it impressive in general in what they managed to make on the SNES and Genesis and NES and Master System with the size limitations they had
someone said ghouls and ghosts is 5 megabits, which seems like a good game for it's size
I've seen some of your other videos, and altered beast I think was a game launched at the system's release and it seems good and is probably small
and there is that ninja game that I can't remember the name of it and it was an arcade port that you've talked about, and I think you said it was a small cartridge too
Loved this video idea!
Groups of games you'd never really think of as a "group". Allows for covering games that wouldn't typically get covered! Great as always!
Nice addition SLX, I had a number of them back in the genesis days that I had completely forgotten about
I appreciate the conversation of file size vs fun. Games can be fun regardless of file size. You could fit a lifetime of games in the same amount that takes to fill a buggy mess of a modern game. It's all about perspective.
Now I want to see a largest episode over this topic as I think its interesting to see devs working under certain constraints
if i have to guess i would say phantasystar 4 should be the largest, street fighter 2 turbo and sonic 3? i dont know...lets wait for the episode to find out ^^
@@dab7465 i know that for unofficial releases there's pier solar, Paprium and demons of astaborg
@@Sinistar1983 imagin there where no limitations back in those days. We could have perfekt arcade ports at home one the genesis. But space was always a problem an expensive. I remember my first computer had a 20 megabytes hard drive and my friend told me I will never run out of space again ^^ innocent time's
@@dab7465 hey even with limitations, cool stuff has came out because of those restrictions. And that honestly inspired me to create a new gameboy game so that way I can understand better on how these old devs worked under those restrictions
@@Sinistar1983 He's already made an episode on the largest Mega Drive/Genesis games aswell as the most expensive and cheapest episodes. Scroll through his back catalogue of videos.
Cool ideas for videos like this are why Sega Lord X is awesome. It feels like a lot of my other RUclips subscriptions are all about talking about some future revision to the Nintendo Switch or how Sony is a jerk to their customers.
Content like this, in contrast, is such a breath of fresh air.
I honestly don't care at all about what modern companies are doing. I'll leave that content for others.
I feel like Sega Lord X videos could've been an actual television series from the 90's. That would've been so cool to have back then to get video breakdowns on the games of those days. Instead all we had were magazines like Gamepro and Electronic Gaming Monthly. Most of the time I would just rent a game based on the box art and cross my fingers hoping it would be good.
Now that you mention it, there is *one* Nintendo Switch related topic I'd love to see Sega Lord X cover; and that's the Genesis games that comes with the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion package.
Only sega lord X has the ability to make a video about anything and it always works
I'm hoping for an episode about games that had really good manuals inside. I could only afford to buy a dozen games, so most of the games I played were rentals, and those *never* had the manuals.
Flicky gameplay was used in Sonic 3d Blast: some didnt like it but I found it original
Super Volley Ball are very good to play. Despite the limited content, it was very fun and challenging.
I love seeing Sega Lord X videos
it’s amazing how tiny these games files are
Some of these games I've never heard of. Rambo III, Columns & Fatal Labyrinth are the best of this selection. And, on a side note Rambo III is by far my FAVORITE game on the Genesis.
Man, I played Rambo 3 so much as a kid. Over and over for hundreds of hours. lol
It's one of my favourite games for the sega genesis. I still have it to this day, in the case with the manual!
I remember I had bootleg cartridge with 9 games in early 90's all of the games are on this video except one game like mahjong clone.
Now I understand how normal cartridge includes lots of games that time. They are just small games:)
19:53 - Most Space Invaders games are really unsettling for me to look at. The enemy movement patterns just give me the same feeling I get when I see screen tearing.
My favourite Genesis games were definitely on the more expansive side:
Phantasy Star 4, Shining Force 2, Uncharted Waters 2, Shadowrun, and Sonic 3 & Knuckles.
We were only able to afford on consol when I was younger which was the snes. So hearing some one else's perspective is eye opening. What a great wholesome channel.
When 12am is stricken I usually think MID-NIGHHHT to the theme of the opening jangle
Oh man, your graphic overlay game is really stepping up!
A member of the dev team responsible for porting Out of this World has previously gone on record stating that the team was limited to how many megabits the port was allowed to have on the Genesis and had the dev team been afforded more menory, the port would have been more faithful to the Amiga version.
I think many a dev team during that time would have similar stories.
They had some similar limitations with the SNES. In fact they had to write a compression/decompression routine, which is why you see a couple seconds of loading time before levels.
I just checked and both my Out of This World for the Genesis and for the Amiga are only about 1MB. And the Genesis could be 4 or even 5 MB as needed. Although I'm referring to emulation and so I'm looking at .md format for Genesis ROMs and .hdf format for Amiga floppy disks. Perhaps they're compressed compared to the real thing?
@Dave Davies It's a great version! I do find the SNES version has the best score as well as that Mode 7 intro but the Genesis version is the better port!
I would be curious to know how, if any, of these games utilised data compression to make the same game smaller on the cartrige and thus fit more on there, particulary the assets. If you've ever had to work with uncompressed raw image or sound data then you know that those files get really big really fast
I'm sure some had to. Especially the ones with a lot of content for such a small ROM.
Super Street Fighter probably did it even though the game used bank switching. all those animations it has must make the game bigger than the stated size for it.
Blockout on DOS was the first computer game i played, which was in 1990
I enjoyed Fatal Labyrinth, but I hate how insane the difficulty becomes later on in the game
There is a reason why roguelike wasn't popular until roguelite term was made with issac and others.
@@phj9894 I don't understand, pls explain.
@@tf1090c fatal labyrinth is a roguelike game, a game that plays similar to the legendary computer game 'rogue'.
Rogue's characteristic is that they have randomly generated levels and item effects meaning you cannot memorize and make strategies, and it brutally punishes you with the difficulty where a single mistake can permanently doom you, and you can't revert it but start the new game. So rogue and its clones had some cults but were never popular due to its punishing game design.
Then games like binding of issac borrowed some elements from rogue and made a much more forgiving (and less in-depth)genre called roguelite which became very popular now.
@@phj9894 Thanks!
I played Flicky a good amount on the Sonic Mega Collection for my GameCube. It was a simple but kind of fun time killer.
I heard that Tetris was released but only for a single day or two before retailers had to pull it from the shelves. Which is why you do see insanely high priced copies of it in the wild from time to time.
Ms. Pac Man ended up on the top ten best selling genesis game list as it was sold for ten bucks at retail. This price point was almost unheard of for new software in the 16 bit era.
I believe it since I also got the game for $10 at KB Toys when I was leaving the arcade one night. every time I went there for the next 4 months the game was always low in stock with 10 or less copies or it was just sold at at random times. The snes version was same way with being low in stock or sold out and like the genesis it was near impossible to find in other stores.
You know what's even crazier than these tiny cartridges?
The fact almost every game now is made via middleware engines for ease of coding or cross platform porting........which is highly inefficient unlike the games of yesteryears which often coded down to 'the metal' as they put it. Basically optimised to the systems architecture.
I had some of these cos I allways got the budget games for xmas and birthdays etc..
Balljacks being one, it was actually easy once you knew how to win, i think i fiished it in a day. Klax was another and that was hard.
I had Flicky and Columns on collections, and both were so so simple, but really addictive.
Alex Kidd Enchanted Castle I actually enjoyed as it was a return to the Miracle World type game, all the other Alex Kidd sequels were bad, and pretty much unrelated, so it felt like the only true sequel.
Fatal labyrinth ive never heard of before, but it seems to be a sequel to Dragon Crystal on the Master System, which was also a simple game, but soo addictive once you work it out.
Nice vid. I got a lot of mileage out of Fatal Labyrinth, and if you're not a fan of the repetitive music, just turn the sound down a bit (it might even be something you can disable on the SEGA Mega Drive & Genesis Classics, though I haven't checked).
To resume, I shall say, that developer skills and cartridge size matters more, than console type. Some games listed above can simply be beaten by NES/SMS counterpart.
I still enjoy the simple fun of Flicky to this day, although it's quite shocking to remember that it sold for the same price as Streets of Rage 2
Some of these games are better than some of the 60 gig+ games released today!
Wow just when I thought there wasn’t anything/anyone left to watch on here than Sega Lord X drops a video thank you from one Sega retro brother to another much love enjoy the week Rambo 3 Tecmo World Cup And World Championship Soccer Awesome Games Great Times For Me And My Brothers
Glad the video interested you. Thanks for watching.
@@SegaLordX everything interests me from you as always you continue to never disappoint
I have to respectfully disagree on Alex Kidd In The Enchanted Castle. It may have simple play mechanics, but it uses them to their fullest potential!
The level design complements your abilities well. Breakable objects are layed out thoughtfully to combat enemies or to be cleverly used by the player as a platform to reach secret areas. The levels are straightforward and compact enough for a newbie to easily find the goal; and they are big enough to allow for a good amount of exploration. You want to find as many coins as possible since you can purchase helpful items and continues. Every time you get a game over, you can spend 1000 coins from your previous game to continue from the level you died at by going to the options menu and selecting continue.
As for the items you can get, they can help you access new areas, skip a level you are struggling with (assuming you use the motorcycle and helicopter well), read the minds of a boss, levitate, bounce on a damaging pogo stick, and obtain a projectile attack. This game gave Alex a new jump kick attack which can be useful to hit enemies from above, and it can be used to discover hidden areas underground. Alex has also been given the ability to crawl on the ground, and to attack while crawling. This makes hitting enemy's on the ground and fitting into tiny gaps a much less difficult matter. Another new mechanic is that when you punch certain objects they will be launched forward. This can be used attack enemies, somewhat like a projectile attack even if you don't have the item granting you that ability equipped. It can also move the object so it can be used as a platform to reach secret areas. The best innovation in this game is that you have the ability to unequip and reequip items from the menu at any time. You only lose the item when you die whilst having it equipped.
On top of that Alex Kidd In The Enchanted Cadtle has some really catchy tunes that I constantly found myself humming along to. The only things I dislike about the game are that the visual assets can be repeated a few too many times and the rock, paper, scissors mechanic. That is not enough to deter me from the game since the level design and item game are so excellent!
2:50 This is game made in Poland.
Yes, I am from Poland.
My first Genesis cartridge ever was a mash of 4 in 1 and they're all here!
Pacmania, Tetris, Championship Pro Am and Tecmo World Cup.
My older brother always called world championship soccer as peacock soccer. Due to that triangle thingy on the players. XD
Dude, why are you so good at speaking?
To hear some tell it, I sound like a robot. I just do my best.
I love the "Come on Boy" of Zoom
1 Mb games: 2 to 3 minutes of endless fun!
Fatal labyrinth- 16bit dragon crystal without the cool dragon mechanic.
I've spent an inordinate amount of time trying and failing to get good at Qix.
Art Alive! My dad bought me that, traded it in instantly.
Back in the day we had a 6-in-1 bootleg cart with Tetris, Klax, Blockout, Columns, Flick and Shove-It. Looked pretty amazing at the time a cart with 6 games, we didn't know it was only 10 megabit, so it was just slightly bigger than a single game like Strider.
Wasn't Flicky a budget title in the US? In the UK it was only £20 at release.
If you're looking for excitement, you won't find it here. Sega Lord X you slay us lol.