Is the Sega Genesis already dead?! No, silly, it's doing just fine here in August 1989. However, it does have a game based on Fist of the North Star now. Even if Sega was too miserly to change the name. They weren't fooling anyway, though, unlike with Black Belt.
There is some inconsistency online regarding Last Battle's ...
2025-08-20 12:04:46 +0000 UTC View Post
Can you believe that Sega launched Genesis (Mega Drive) in Japan with only two games? And that they were both Super Scaler conversions? Well, kinda-conversions. Space Harrier II is technically new. Kinda seems like putting a lot of eggs in one basket, especially when one of those eggs really serves to highlight how much less po...
2025-08-13 11:55:17 +0000 UTC View Post
It seems fitting that episode 89 of Segaiden tackles Sega's most significant game release for ’89. I didn't plan it that way, mind you. The universe just loves me, if only in small, meaningless ways. Case in point: I woke up this morning to discover I'd won 20 bucks in the lottery. That doesn't change my life, but $20 is still [checks] a coffe...
2025-08-06 11:57:44 +0000 UTC View Post
Well, I finally had to stop dragging my feet and get on with the 16-bit era in earnest. So here we are: Sega Genesis. The opening few minutes admittedly may feel a little bit familiar after last week's recap episode, but this time it's console-focused rather than arcade-focused, and also it's a nearly 20-minute video, so I promise that I do get ...
2025-07-30 12:27:10 +0000 UTC View Post
This episode is coming in a bit hot—so hot that I'm going to have to do some editing and re-upload this weekend. The jerks at the IOC hit me with a copyright strike for a couple of seconds of relevant-in-context clips of Olympics footage, for one. Not really surprising that those creeps don't respect Fair Use laws. But, also, I was thinking th...
2025-07-23 12:13:39 +0000 UTC View Post
The sesquicentennial episode of NES Works brings the brief NES Works/Segaiden crossover sensation to a close. The closest thing we'll see to something like that in this series again will be, I dunno, the eventual NES port of Bonk's Adventure? I tried to save the best for last—and 50% failed, because this episode covers the absolutely ...
2025-07-16 12:24:07 +0000 UTC View Post
Thankfully, this is not the final Fantasy (Zone). If nothing else, I can justify doing a Turbo Works side episode on the tragically canceled (but illegally uploaded for the sake of history!!) Space Fantasy Zone for PC Engine. And good thing, too, because the Fantasy Zone series is too good and cool for this to...
2025-07-09 12:00:43 +0000 UTC View Post
You know, it's strange. I had it in my head as a kid that unlicensed NES games were generally pretty terrible. I guess I really bought into Nintendo's corporate messaging after reading all those Nintendo Powers. However, that's not really been the case so far. Neither Alien Syndrome nor Vindicators belongs in the panth...
2025-07-02 11:43:44 +0000 UTC View Post
I have a few frustrating blind spots in my mental catalogue of video game history—things that have cemented themselves as fact in my brain despite being completely wrong. That includes the relationship that Tengen had to Atari's post-crash entities: it was a division of Atari Games, not Atari Inc. Usually these goofs are minor enough that I le...
2025-06-30 22:00:08 +0000 UTC View Post
Sega? On my Nintendo?! It's more likely than you think.
Yes, long before Sega became a third-party publisher for GameCube, the company put a few of its hottest arcade titles on NES. Well, Sega didn't. Mostly it was Sunsoft, via Tengen. And since Tengen was involved, you probably only saw these adaptations at mom-and-pop retail and local, n...
2025-06-25 12:01:19 +0000 UTC View Post
Here's something of a first for this project: the first time my chronological journey through American game systems has reached the point where an older system is supplanted by a new one from the same manufacturer. Sure, I've looked at the launches for Super NES, N64, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance (and Virtual Boy, I guess), but ...
2025-06-18 11:28:47 +0000 UTC View Post
Well, this one takes me back. I covered Montezuma's Revenge a long, long time ago as a primal metroidvania game. And now, here we are again. Covering it as a... well, not primal. I'm not sure what kind of Master System release it is. A weird one, since it wasn't published by Sega. And there weren't a lot of those!
As for King'...
2025-06-11 11:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post
This is not the version of Altered Beast that millions of Genesis owners played. This is the other Sega-published port of Altered Beast, which was played by tens of thousands of Master System owners who desperately longed to be Genesis owners. Altered Beast on Master Beast sure is a thing. Not a good thing. But a remar...
2025-06-04 11:00:11 +0000 UTC View Post
I've become aware of a curious dynamic with the Master System library. When I embarked upon this phase of Segaiden, my intent was to give Sega's 8-bit system a fair shake, approaching it with the some critical-but-fair mindset as I took with the NES (and would later use for Atari and INTV's releases from the same period). And for the most part, ...
2025-05-28 12:00:53 +0000 UTC View Post
Super NES Works is back?! Eh, sorry, not really. This is one of the last few remaining patron-request episodes I had on my production docket from the days when I took patron requests, and I've been holding on to it until after I completed Ys (Y's) for Master System. Sorry that it took so long, Peter LaPrade!! The journey throug...
2025-05-21 11:00:08 +0000 UTC View Post
I've been holding on to the Master System version of Ys as a treat for a rainy day. By which I mean as a sort of palette-cleanser after surviving a succession of extremely unpleasant games. Though, as it happens, today is pretty rainy here.
So, apologies for all the duff games that we've had to sit through (including this...
2025-05-14 11:23:18 +0000 UTC View Post
Hmm, yeah. ALF. It was bound to happen eventually.
There's not actually all THAT much to say about this game, and it's not like Sega based it on a classic media property that I love deeply. No, the majority of running time for this episode is more of a John the Baptist-style preparing the way for the Sega Genesis, since that conso...
2025-05-07 12:53:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Recent events (for example, chilling-effect legal attacks on the Internet Archive/the fascistic enshittification of the social media platforms that I used as my primary means of self-promotion/the continued heat death of games journalism) have prompted me to prioritize getting back into the habit of making websites of my own again. I don't have ...
2025-05-05 12:44:40 +0000 UTC View Post
You know, I remembered Rastan being pretty good on Master System, but putting together brought the memories all rushing back. It is, in fact, not especially good. It feels like Sega's answer to the NES version of Strider. Yes, I know, Strider also showed up on Master System. But that was the cool arcade St...
2025-04-30 11:33:42 +0000 UTC View Post
Something a bit different this week, but not actually different in terms of tone or focus. It's more an administrative difference, because this is a rare piece of Sponsored Content. I get a lot of content sponsorship offers—a few a week, usually—but nothing that seems like a natural fit for my channel and my style. But for once, I g...
2025-04-23 11:16:30 +0000 UTC View Post
You can tell I've been a little off my game lately while trying to get life back on track after its recent succession of crises and commitments. I forgot to wear my Sega 3-D Glasses for this sendoff to the tech! I guess I'll just have to go as the Power Blade guy for Halloween to get a little last use out of them.
Meanwhile, i hav...
2025-04-16 12:04:02 +0000 UTC View Post
So here's the thing: The early NES library has a lot more good than bad in it. Where I struggled pretty hard to whittle down the best-of list a few weeks back to a mere 10 (-ish) titles, the lower (errr, upper?) ranks of this list drift very nearly into "ehhh it's OK, I guess" territory. I also tried to avoid bagging too hard on an...
2025-04-09 11:48:45 +0000 UTC View Post
Whew, I managed to get my production schedule back on track... well, mostly. Normally I produce videos on weekends, but the editing on this one happened last night after work. Thankfully it was an easy lift. Who doesn't love talking about Rampage? Or Reggie Jackson? In fact, Reggie Jackson Baseball is my favorite kind of s...
2025-04-02 11:26:34 +0000 UTC View Post
Whew, I finally had time to edit together the latest episode. Merry... something? Sorry to keep you waiting.
2025-03-29 21:58:52 +0000 UTC View PostHey all, I'm still running way behind on, basically, everything at the moment... actually, it's piling up and getting worse! The good news is that things will return to normal after next weekend, once I'm back from Midwest Gaming Classic*. For the moment, I'm focusing on writing a month's worth of scripts so that I can take a more assembly-line ...
2025-03-27 12:01:09 +0000 UTC View Post
I should have mentioned this here sooner! But I am mentioning it now! All three of The NES Era books are available for short second round of preorders, individually, in case you missed them the first time around.
Also, patrons who have signed up at the various book tiers can expect to see digital files... very soon.
2025-03-23 23:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
This week's bonus is another VHS rip, this time a Gamest Video showcase of The King of Fighters ’97 (you may recognize some of this material from my King of Fighters R-1 episode last month). This tape starts a little rough, with a lot of distortion and tracking errors in the first 10 minutes, but it clears up afterw...
2025-03-23 14:19:19 +0000 UTC View Post
Don't look at the tags for this episode, you'll spoil the countdown for yourself.
Yes, in order to bring NES Works and Segaiden into parity, I have created... a top 10 countdown. This one focuses on the NES library from 1985-87. I had intended to make this a recap of the entire NES library from 1985 through "peak NES" (August 1989), but th...
2025-03-20 14:30:21 +0000 UTC View PostHi all, just letting you know that this week's video will be a few days late, and that'll probably be the case into next month. I am currently in the process of finishing up the NES Era books (which you'll be seeing soon, if you support this Patreon at the appropriate level) while also driving my wife to and from a daily medical appointment whos...
2025-03-19 11:37:20 +0000 UTC View Post
As promised, the second side of the more-or-less lost-media version of this 40-year-old album. I can't promise that anything on here is a good listen, since the album was meant to be listened to as a continuous interrupted whole! Nevertheless... it existed.
2025-03-16 12:39:02 +0000 UTC View Post