In the end, however, I have to admit that my love for Sonic & Sega is a bit ironic, given my previous Nintendo background. I wasn’t born into a Sega-loving family; I was simply another Nintendo kid until December of 1991 when my life was turned upside down. My parents, bless ‘em, had been getting hints for months that I desperately wanted a Genesis. I’m talking magazine ads glued onto the fridge, casual conversations with my folks about how cool Sonic looked, and yes, a very public meltdown at the local Sears when I saw the Genesis display with Altered Beast running.
After months of hints, Christmas morning finally arrived, and there it sat — that sleek black box with “16-BIT” written across the packaging in giant letters. The Nintendo was 8-bit, so 16 had to be twice as good, right? That’s just basic math. The moment I hooked up the Genesis to our old Zenith TV and heard that boisterous “SEGA!” sample, I knew my Nintendo days were behind me. Even my dad stopped reading the paper to glance at me. “Now that sounds like the arcade,” he said. At that point in time, that was essentially the ultimate compliment, as he’d taken me to Chuck E. Cheese’s often enough to know what “real” games looked and sounded like.
As you may or may not know, the console wars were FIERCE back in the day, and I immediately converted to Team Sega. If you weren’t alive during the Genesis/Super Nintendo wars, you cannot possibly comprehend how much we cared about this stuff. Back in the day, you chose your console, and that was pretty much who you were as a person. “Genesis Does What Nintendon’t” wasn’t just some ad slogan – it was the holy scripture for kids like me who went from being a Nintendo kid to a member of Team Sega.
My friend Mike was a diehard Nintendo kid, and our friendship nearly ended during those years. We would have huge debates about things like “Blast Processing” (which I discovered years later wasn’t even a technical term – just fantastic marketing) and Mike would counter with “Mode 7!” as if that made any difference to a 13 year-old who barely knew how to program his VCR. We would go back-and-forth debating things like sprite count, color depth, etc. like we were some type of engineers instead of two suburban kids who mostly just wanted to play cool games and feel superior to our friends.
The game that ultimately sealed the deal for me was Sonic. Don’t get me wrong, Mario was OK… he was kind of… safe, you know? He was like your mom’s favorite cartoon character. Sonic had attitude. When you let him stand still for a little too long, he would tap his foot and look at you like “Come on, are we doing this?” The speed of the first Sonic game was unlike anything I had ever experienced. Mario felt like riding a bike… Sonic felt like driving a sports car. The way he would curl into a ball and gather momentum rolling down hills and then blast off ramps… regardless of the fact that I had to use an RF adapter to connect my Genesis to the TV (so the picture wasn’t even that great), the speed still came through perfectly.
It wasn’t just about the mascots either. The Genesis had this whole identity built around being more mature than Nintendo. Take Streets of Rage – that game brought arcade style brawling to the home with a dark and gritty urban backdrop that felt almost taboo. The first time I called in that special police attack that blew away everyone on the screen with a massive explosion, I literally leaped off the couch. The music in that game, even through the poor speakers on our TV, sounded like it belonged in an actual club. That Yamaha sound chip in the Genesis produced these deep bass lines and drum samples that were just different than anything on Nintendo. I still believe that the Streets of Rage 2 soundtrack holds up to actual electronic music from that time period.
I also have to mention the six-button controller. When Street Fighter II finally came to Genesis after being a Super Nintendo exclusive for what felt like an eternity, that authentic arcade layout on the six-button controller made all the difference. I was so close to asking for a Super Nintendo just for Street Fighter, but once Sega released that controller, my mind was made up. While the normal three-button pad was adequate, that six-button one was perfect. The d-pad had just the right amount of resistance that made executing special moves more precise. I spent an entire summer mastering Chun-Li’s spinning bird kick with that thing. My friend Steve couldn’t beat me for months, until he eventually broke down and bought his own Genesis. That was what winning looked like in the console wars.
Phantasy Star III was the second Genesis game I purchased using Christmas money from my grandmother (she always gave cash because she “hadn’t a clue what kids want nowadays”). I had never really messed with RPGs before – they seemed slow and text heavy and boring. However, there was something about that cover art with the spaceship and the fantasy characters that captured my attention. What followed was probably a 50 hour adventure that completely changed what I thought video games could be. The multi-generational storyline where your choices determined which character your kid would be in the next chapter… my teenage brain wasn’t prepared for that level of narrative complexity. The Genesis RPG library is largely overlooked in comparison to the SNES classics, but games like Phantasy Star created RPG fans out of action game kids who would’ve otherwise dismissed the genre.
Arcade ports were amazing too. After years of playing poorly-recognizable NES versions of arcade hits, seeing games like Golden Axe and After Burner II that looked virtually identical to their coin-op counterparts was nothing short of magic. My uncle, who wasn’t into games, but enjoyed taking me to the arcade on occasion when he’d take me to the mall, stopped dead in his tracks when he saw me playing Golden Axe at home. “That is the same game from the arcade,” he stated flat-out, not asking but observing in awe. For kids without unlimited quarters, bringing that arcade experience home was groundbreaking.
Not everything Sega attempted succeeded, though. The add-ons… man, where do I even begin? The Power Base Converter that allowed you to play Master System games seemed cool for about a week before I totally forgot it existed. The Sega CD, which my parents bought me for my 14th birthday after months of begging, was a mixed bag at best. Night Trap was terrible, but it had that forbidden allure with its cheesy full motion video of actual women running around in nightgowns. Sonic CD was actually awesome. Sewer Shark was… well, it existed, and it had live actors, which was impressive at the time. But even the failures felt exciting – Sega was trying new things, while Nintendo seemed happy to keep making the same styles of games, but prettier.
Admitting something embarrassing: I actually liked the FMV games on the Sega CD. Not because they were any good – most were terrible – but because they represented this strange moment in time where no one had any idea what gaming’s future would look like. Playing something like Ground Zero Texas with its terrible actors and “interactive movie” concept was hilariously bad, but at the time it seemed like maybe this was where games were heading. I would invite friends over to watch these things, turn my bedroom into a mini-cinema, and we would all collectively mock the acting and cheer when we managed to kill the alien at precisely the right moment. It was social gaming before online multiplayer existed.
The 32X, though… By 1994, I had earned enough money from my summer job at the local grocery store to buy one, despite my dad telling me I was “throwing good money after bad.” And guess what? He was right. That mushroom-looking thing on top of my already absurd Genesis/Sega CD stack looked like something from a bad science fiction film. But Star Wars Arcade on that system… for about three weeks, I somehow convinced myself it was the greatest achievement humanity had ever accomplished. Flying a polygonal X-Wing that somewhat resembled the ships from the movies was enough to make the purchase seem worthwhile for the short-term. Reality struck when no other good games came out for it. That is what it means to be a Sega fan – you ride the highs and the lows, and sometimes those lows include mushroom-shaped accessories.
The collecting community for Genesis games has become completely insane in recent years, which I find somewhat gratifying for all those playground debates. Games I remembered my friends disparaging as inferior to their Super Nintendo counterparts now sell for thousands of dollars on eBay. That complete copy of Castlevania: Bloodlines that I traded to Mike for his spare NBA Jam (it seemed like a fair trade at the time) would probably fund a nice vacation today. I have rebuilt about half my original collection in recent years, focusing on the games that truly mattered to me rather than attempting to collect for bragging rights. My original Genesis died sometime in 1998 due to a rather unfortunate Dr. Pepper accident during college (my roommate’s fault, not mine), but I recently picked up a Model 1 at an estate sale that works perfectly. That Genesis startup sound still sends shivers down my spine every time.
There is something difficult to explain to people who did not live through it is how the Genesis shaped not just what we played, but how we perceived ourselves as gamers. Nintendo had this wholesome, family-friendly image that grew more childish as I entered my teens. Sega presented an identity that reflected how I wanted to perceive myself – cooler, more rebellious, into faster and edgier things. It is no coincidence that Sega sponsored actual sports events and used actual athletes in advertisements, while Nintendo continued to feature cartoon mascots. Choosing Genesis was not merely choosing a console – it was proclaiming who you wanted to be.
The limitations of the hardware created the ideal environment for creative development. Developers could not rely on photorealistic graphics or voice acting, so they had to excel at the fundamentals – solid gameplay, feel, and crafting memorable environments with limited tools. A game such as Gunstar Heroes, with its relentless action and incredible visuals, demonstrates the potential talent of programmers when they fully grasp the capabilities of their hardware. When my Super Nintendo owning friends would come over, and I would fire up Gunstar Heroes, there would be an initial moment of stunned silence as they absorbed what they were witnessing, followed by “Can I play?” That was what it meant to win in the console wars – not in terms of sales numbers, but in terms of that instant of pure envy.
Sometimes I wonder how my gaming tastes would differ if my parents had decided to purchase a Super Nintendo instead. Would I still prefer faster games? Would I still appreciate electronic music that was prevalent in many of the Genesis soundtracks? The games we play during our early years of gaming influence us in subtle ways, and the 16-bit decision my parents made (possibly based on what was on sale that week at Sears) has impacted how I approach gaming for the last 30 years.
The Genesis wasn’t perfect, of course. The three-button controller could be a problem for your hands during marathon sessions of Ecco the Dolphin (don’t judge me, that game was ridiculously hard). There were certainly games that had better visuals and sound on Nintendo. But the Genesis had personality. It had an attitude that proclaimed games didn’t need to be cute or wholesome to be worthwhile. In an industry that often takes itself far too seriously, that is a lesson worth recalling.
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