During it’s heyday the Sega Mega Drive (Genesis) was almost iconic. Names like Phantasy Star and Sonic are still going strong today and it was all due to the impact the black system initially had. Recently these games have been seeing more life through Marketplace downloads online that are essentially emulated versions of their original counterparts. These games have been well received and sold well but in one bold swoop Sega have undone all that work.
Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection is exactly what it sounds like and at a first glance you’ll buy into the ‘Ultimate’ tag. Over forty original Mega Drive games are emulated here easily making it a brilliant value for money. You can pick this up quite cheap already and when you compare this to how much you paid for Sonic on XBLA, you’ll feel like a fool for even considering downloadable games.
Here we have a plethora of basically perfect emulations (despite being framed) of the originals like Sonic, Golden Axe and much more. Naturally you’ll begin with the classics but there is some depth for the adventurous to tackle at a later date. Of course with these collections you’ll always be thinking of games that aren’t on the disc as there are no sports games and an over-abundance of side scrollers. The game is made up of the names you recognize and beyond the names you know there are a few hidden gems but not all titles feel as fresh as they did years ago.
The unfortunate truth is that side scrolling action games haven’t aged well and it shows. The collection hosts loads from the genre like Altered Beast or Shinobi and they just don’t feel as good as they did first time around. It’s a sad fact but these games have lost some of the magic due to ever-evolving technology and natural progression of the medium.
The achievements in the game give you enough goals and reasons to visit nearly every game in the collection. For every achievement you unlock you’ll also get an informative and intriguing interview video that relates to the specific game. These are a nice touch and if you don’t mind geeking out over some of Sega’s old employees talking about these classics, then you’ll feel more than compelled to slug it out through the unwanted titles.
That’s really the story of the whole collection. With these older titles you’ll find a scattershot of quality and preference. Sometimes this really halts the experience. But anyone who has been thinking about picking the individual games on the Marketplace should forget it and pick this game up instead. The collection’s value for money more than makes up for a few poorly aged games.
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