What game do you really like that most would consider to be crap/mediocre?

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Originally Posted by Obviously

I think overall the Genesis usually did a better job of sounding closer to the arcade cabinets than the SNES.

Which makes sense considering the early Genesis used a Yamaha YM2612.

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Amen to that. In fact there are a fair few of games that sound better than the arcade originals,some by quite a large margin. Just off the top of my head: Zero Wing, Snow Bros, Slap Fight, Dangerous Seed, Darwin 4081, Strider and Midnight Resistance all sound better.

You have stuff which is practically identical (JP Marble Madness) or sounds slightly different but pretty much just as good (Double Dragon 2, Golden Axe). I was surprised how close a lot of the instruments in GA actually sound, given how elderly the port is.

I'm talking music here, SFX are another kettle of fish in most cases.

Oh yeah, and agreed on TMNT HH blowing away TiT soundtrack wise. I would say HH probably has some of the greatest tracks on Genesis.

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Originally Posted by OverDrone

Amen to that. In fact there are a fair few of games that sound better than the arcade originals,some by quite a large margin. Just off the top of my head: Zero Wing, Snow Bros, Slap Fight, Dangerous Seed, Darwin 4081, Strider and Midnight Resistance all sound better.

You have stuff which is practically identical (JP Marble Madness) or sounds slightly different but pretty much just as good (Double Dragon 2, Golden Axe). I was surprised how close a lot of the instruments in GA actually sound, given how elderly the port is.

I'm talking music here, SFX are another kettle of fish in most cases.

Oh yeah, and agreed on TMNT HH blowing away TiT soundtrack wise. I would say HH probably has some of the greatest tracks on Genesis.

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Good points you made there.

Despite everything, there's also some tracks in Street Fighter 2 that i prefer on the Mega Drive than it's CPS1 original, like M.Bison/Balrog's theme.

MD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uqC9L52OjI

CPS-1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGsLkosT6HI

Thanks for providing the info regarding the differences between the SNES and SEGA Genesis versions of Sunset Riders! It was interesting to read the views of the author's assessment featured in the Retro Sanctuary article. This weekend will be busy but I will definitely set some time aside to play this game.

Regarding people's comments concerning the surprisingly good sound, graphic, or technical capabilities of the SEGA Genesis, I don't really fault their views of the coneole since the Genesis is either not a console that they grew up with or one that they favour. Put in this perspective, seeing such comments rarely affect my disposition.

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Originally Posted by stephbm6

Mystic Defender - It was the first game I bought for my Genesis in 1990. I still play it today, it's such a great game!
To me Mystic Defender and MUSHA are the best games on the Genesis.

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Mystic Defender is a fantastic title! The musical score throughout this game is fantastic and I really love the organic look of the enemy sprites and colorful backgrounds! Back in 1990, this game blew me away as I traversed the later levels. The game deserves more praise than it gets!

Vapor Trail.

Somebody (maybe ocremix) should do a metal/hard rock remix of some of the music in that game such as the main theme and the boss music.

I found Virtua racing overrated, but Jaguar underrated on the megaCD or Sega CD and it had a great track editor. So I guess if you call jaguar a mediocre then that's one I thought was good.

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Originally Posted by OverDrone

Amen to that. In fact there are a fair few of games that sound better than the arcade originals,some by quite a large margin. Just off the top of my head: Zero Wing, Snow Bros, Slap Fight, Dangerous Seed, Darwin 4081, Strider and Midnight Resistance all sound better.

You have stuff which is practically identical (JP Marble Madness) or sounds slightly different but pretty much just as good (Double Dragon 2, Golden Axe). I was surprised how close a lot of the instruments in GA actually sound, given how elderly the port is.

I'm talking music here, SFX are another kettle of fish in most cases.

Oh yeah, and agreed on TMNT HH blowing away TiT soundtrack wise. I would say HH probably has some of the greatest tracks on Genesis.

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megadrive had better sound, but TMNT HH was rubbish, Konami should have just ported the first arcade game

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Originally Posted by Modelboard4

megadrive had better sound, but TMNT HH was rubbish, Konami should have just ported the first arcade game

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Konami may have made different versions for different systems but they were all good for different reasons. TMNT HH on the Mega Drive may have less levels than the arcade game and TiT (lol) on the SNES but it makes up for that by having better animation and music than the SNES version, it also captured the feel of the Turtles cartoons and was a bloody good side-scrolling beat-em-up by anyones standards, especially in two player mode.

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Originally Posted by SEGA-Jorge

FM-Synth it just wonderful.

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And let's not forget the Master System's sound chip! It really makes the console sing!

[Thunder Force IV spoiler warning]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf-zb1MdXe4

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Originally Posted by Obviously

I'm a pretty hard guy to rile up but every time I hear some snot on Youtube talk about the Genesis sounding like crap...

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I hear ya there. While the Genesis did often sound like crap on digitized sounds (given how it's ability to do digitized sounds was limited compared its 16-bit competition, all of which featured sound chips designed for digitized sounds), its music sounded gorgeous in the hands of a competent developer/composer.

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Originally Posted by OverDrone

Amen to that. In fact there are a fair few of games that sound better than the arcade originals,some by quite a large margin. Just off the top of my head: Zero Wing, Snow Bros, Slap Fight, Dangerous Seed, Darwin 4081, Strider and Midnight Resistance all sound better.

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I'd add Ghouls 'n' Ghosts to that list of games that sounded better on the Genesis than the Arcade.

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Originally Posted by OverDrone

You have stuff which is practically identical (JP Marble Madness) or sounds slightly different but pretty much just as good (Double Dragon 2, Golden Axe). I was surprised how close a lot of the instruments in GA actually sound, given how elderly the port is.

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I thought Golden Axe, especially some tracks, sounded better on the Genesis myself. I'm specifically talking about the music that plays when you fight Death Adder. The arcade version is just too slow for my taste, whereas the faster tempo of the Genesis version really gets the adrenaline pumping and gives the whole "desperate battle against the ultimate evil" feel (even though Death Bringer was still waiting in the castle...).

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Originally Posted by Christuserloeser

And let's not forget the Master System's sound chip! It really makes the console sing!

[Thunder Force IV spoiler warning]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf-zb1MdXe4

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Okay, not sure what part of that is due to the SMS sound chip, but that's just my own ears. However, I always felt the SMS sound chip was one of the weakest components in the Genesis (and SMS for that matter). It was one of the oldest components and was inferior to even some of the 8-bit competition (the NES's sound chip was better). Of course, that isn't to say that intelligent use of it could enhance what was spit out of the FM chip, but there were better chips that could've done the same job.

Then you have stuff like Treasure's Yuu Yuu Hakusho which not only has an absolute ton of sampled speech and FX, but they are pretty much crystal clear, play simultaneously over the top of one another and all this with music playing at the same time.

Meanwhile you have games that give you an option to cut the music when a sample plays, like Puyo Puyo 2 and (I think) Panorama Cotton.

What's interesting is that Rolling Thunder 3 lets you play high quality samples in the menu screen, which you can degrade on the fly by starting one of the music tracks.

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Originally Posted by OverDrone

Then you have stuff like Treasure's Yuu Yuu Hakusho which not only has an absolute ton of sampled speech and FX, but they are pretty much crystal clear, play simultaneously over the top of one another and all this with music playing at the same time.

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That's Treasure, it's not fair. :) They're the equivalent of demoscene programmers who figured out how to get all their insane tricks to work while providing a playable game, as opposed to just a fancy demo. :)

Mega Turrican also has really nice sample playback.

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Originally Posted by Mega Drive Bowlsey

Konami may have made different versions for different systems but they were all good for different reasons. TMNT HH on the Mega Drive may have less levels than the arcade game and TiT (lol) on the SNES but it makes up for that by having better animation and music than the SNES version, it also captured the feel of the Turtles cartoons and was a bloody good side-scrolling beat-em-up by anyones standards, especially in two player mode.

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Examples?

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Originally Posted by Dragonmaster Lou

Okay, not sure what part of that is due to the SMS sound chip, but that's just my own ears. However, I always felt the SMS sound chip was one of the weakest components in the Genesis (and SMS for that matter). It was one of the oldest components and was inferior to even some of the 8-bit competition (the NES's sound chip was better). Of course, that isn't to say that intelligent use of it could enhance what was spit out of the FM chip, but there were better chips that could've done the same job.

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0:11-0:24, 0:48-end: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf-zb1MdXe4

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Originally Posted by Dragonmaster Lou

That's Treasure, it's not fair. :) They're the equivalent of demoscene programmers who figured out how to get all their insane tricks to work while providing a playable game, as opposed to just a fancy demo. :)

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It's not really a matter of the Genesis not being able to play decent quality samples, it's a matter of how much space a high-quality sample takes up and how much they usually compressed them.

Probably one of the most popular, nice sounding samples on the console has got to be the famous SEEEEGAAAA at the beginning of Sonic, but it takes up 1/8 of the cartridge space of the original Sonic.