Any other Master System fans?

[NeoZeedeater]

I think the Japanese version of Quartet (Double Target) is better as well. They racistly changed Mary from Asian to white, and with a worse character design. Plus, the Mark III has cool paddle games like Megumi Rescue and BMX Trial Alex Kidd not to mention direct backwards compatibility with the SG-1000.

[Zz Badnusty]

[...] the Mark III has [...] direct backwards compatibility with the SG-1000.

The Mark III will not play SG-1000 games accurately. The color palates are different and while it is tolerable for most SG-1000 games there are a few which become mostly unplayable. Hustle Chummy is one example - an enemy or two will be colored the same color as the background so it is not always possible to see the enemies.
I think there may be scrolling issues with other games as well. Super Tank "jerks" up the screen line by line, really it doesn't even scroll, it "clicks" up the screen. Maybe that was a problem on the SG-1000 also, I don't know.

[Black_Tiger]

So I have the Tototek converter and it has a port for Mark III games... my question is, are there any Mark III games worth tracking down?

Rygar! aka Argos no Jûjiken. It's a great port of the arcade and comes in a cool silver box.

Solomon's Key is another great port of a classic arcade game.

I haven't tried Super Racing, but it looks like a cool overhead racer with some cool tunes.

Pit Pot is a nice game and the Sega My Cards are very cool.

Woody Pop is a Breakout clone which uses the paddle controller.

Sukeban Deka II is a beat 'em up with a high number of large character sprites on-screen at once.

[A Black Falcon]

The Mark III will not play SG-1000 games accurately. The color palates are different and while it is tolerable for most SG-1000 games there are a few which become mostly unplayable. Hustle Chummy is one example - an enemy or two will be colored the same color as the background so it is not always possible to see the enemies.

This is true, the Mark III/Master System gets SG1000 colors wrong.

I think there may be scrolling issues with other games as well. Super Tank "jerks" up the screen line by line, really it doesn't even scroll, it "clicks" up the screen. Maybe that was a problem on the SG-1000 also, I don't know.

I'm going to guess that that's probably there in the original system... the Colecovision/SG1000 hardware wasn't designed for scrolling, so the few games that do scroll on the system don't do a very good job with it at all -- also see the SG-1000 version of Wonder Boy, for example.

There is one homebrew Colecovision game that shows that relatively smooth scrolling is actually possible, but I don't know of any '80s games that actually pulled it off on either system...

[ApolloBoy]

I think there may be scrolling issues with other games as well. Super Tank "jerks" up the screen line by line, really it doesn't even scroll, it "clicks" up the screen. Maybe that was a problem on the SG-1000 also, I don't know.

That's more of a TMS9918 problem. The ColecoVision, MSX1 and TI-99/4A usually have that problem as well, the SG-1000 isn't alone on that.

[KillerBean2]

Anyone else like the Master System?

The Master System was the first console that made me collect a full set. I now have all of the EU releases. I really like the SMS. Not as much as I love the MegaDrive, but it's still an awesome 8-bit machine.

Sure, the sound hardware is a bit crummy, but 16 sprite colors is way cooler than 3

[NeoZeedeater]

Pit Pot is a nice game

This is also available on a regular Western cartridge bundled with Astro Warrior.

There is one homebrew Colecovision game that shows that relatively smooth scrolling is actually possible, but I don't know of any '80s games that actually pulled it off on either system...

Nova Blast on ColecoVision scrolls pretty smoothly.

[A Black Falcon]

This entire discussion is about quality not quantity. Since it has already turned into a wall of quotes I am not retyping my original statements each time. The NES may have more Arcade adaptation, but the Master System has better ports. The NES may have an edge in Arcade adaptations that are essentially new games, but the Master System has better conversions that are more faithful to the original.

As I've said before, the NES actually has a pretty substantial library of good arcade ports that are ports. Just look at the early to mid '80s arcade games ported to the NES. They most certainly count, and they're often not just good ports, but by far the best ports out there at the time.

(Oh, and most of those that later got EU-only SMS ports didn't get those SMS ports until the '90s...)

It's not hard to say that the Master System was better at RPGs during the 8-bit era, it was effectively the only system with RPGs in the US

The 8-bit era is not 1988. The 3rd generation lasted from 1985 to 1994 in the US, or 1982 to 1994 if you include the "2.5" gen consoles in the 3rd generation. The SMS being ahead for one year in absolutely no way whatsoever implies that they won for the whole generation, when they had essentially nothing else for the entire remaining period! That's just absurd.

As to whether Phantasy Star, Ys: The Vanished Omens and Miracle Warriors are better than Dragon Warrior or Final Fantasy, I really don't care. I even played Dragon Warrior as my first RPG, even though I owned a Master System from summer of 1988 on the RPGs were double or triple the cost of the Action games I preferred to buy with lawn mowing money. The magazines were talking about Miracle Warriors and Ys in 1989 as though they were still new and worth owning though. My point here is that Phantasy Star, and to some extent the other Master System RPGs, were a huge deal to the US gaming industry.

Perhaps so, for the console gaming industry, but you can't deny that Final Fantasy became a much more popular game than Phantasy Star ever was. And as I said, the NES got a bunch of RPG releases between 1988 and 1992 or 1993, while the SMS had those few in 1988 and that's it, apart from Ultima IV (and that was Europe only). I guess you are saying that you think those few SMS games are better than all the NES ones combined, but while that seems unlikely objectively, I can't say fo sure myself for the traditional RPGs, I haven't played much of any of those. I can say that Ys certainly is not better than all the action-RPGs and similar titles on the NES all combined, though! It is a good game, but it's about on par with the better NES action-RPGs, not better than them.

Ys isn't an Action RPG just because you run into the enemies rather than going to a turn based battle. Crystalis, Willow and others, unless I'm mistaken, don't have hit points and experience points or levels, they are more like Zelda and Golvellius in that all power ups are obtained through items. But that is a digression that I really don't want to get into.

You're right, technically the games without experience and levelling systems aren't quite action-RPGs, but I think that both kinds, the ones with levelling and the ones without, are more like eachother than they are other games. So like, Zelda isn't an action-RPG, but it's far more like action-RPGs than anything else, so I think putting the two together makes some sense.

Mythical because everybody believes it but nobody can support it with evidence, least of all chronologically. It's just part of the Nintendo marketing narrative that everybody has bought into hook line and stinker.

That's just not really true.

I'm not sure what this statement was about. I peg the NES's peak from 1989 on based on quantity of software releases since there is a huge absence of reliable sales figures. I can generally count the number of games mass market consumers remember from 1985-1988 on one hand.

Um... hah? Super Mario Bros., Duck Hunt, Excitebike, Bubble Bobble, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., R.C. Pro-Am, Gradius, Mega Man, The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (1988 release), Super Mario Bros. 2 (also 1988), and more... plenty of really successful NES games come from that earlier period. Though as I said, I'd put 1988 in the peak period for the NES, not the early period; 1985-1987 for the early part, 1988-1990 for peak, and 1991-1994 for late. I think that breakdown makes the most sense by far.

I'm suggesting that a quantifiable reason why Rolling Thunder is better or Shinobi is better doesn't exist. Let's never talk about NES Shinobi again okay?

I haven't played NES Shinobi enough to say what I think of it. And anyway, why not compare those two pretty similar games?

I don't find Ys an Action RPG just because it lacks turn based battles. It barely has real time battles, the running into enemies thing is just a dice roll representation. You might be right about Sega bringing over Ys, Miracle Warriors and Phantasy Star prior to the later's success. I had Phantasy Star at 1987 in the US, but that was only based on the title screen copywrite date.

Copyright dates are not always correct, and the game was definitely a 1988 release. Also, um, of course Ys is an action-RPG. You run into enemies in the field, instead of fighting them through menus. That's the very definition of the difference between an RPG and an action-RPG.

This doesn't matter at all, at least not in this discussion. There is simply no way to erase the Master System's year long lead, at least, in RPGs over any other platform. Final Fantasy 7 may have made RPGs mainstream, but that is irrelevant to the fact that Master System RPGs either created or opened the door for the RPG niche Final Fantasy 7 enjoyed expanding.

There's no way to erase it? Hmm, how about wait a year or two and see the NES catch up? I think that'll do it.

(Also, while the NES had no traditional RPGs in 1988 of course, it did have an action-RPG in Zelda II. I don't know whether Zelda II or Ys I is the better game, overall...)

I'm glad you agree, because chronological order is the way it actually happened. Also, hardly anybody knew what was going on in Japan back then and due to the infancy of video game media mags even Dragon Warrior was "new" when it was eventually released. The relative smallness of the world today, thanks to the Internet, seriously skews people's view of the pre-internet past. Finding out about and obtaining Japanese games and information back then was expensive and time consuming to say the least. They might as well have been on a different planet.

True, knowledge of what was releasing in Japan was, in the 80s to early '90s, very minimal. That's certainly true, and was a factor, for things like how almost no one had seen Mario Bros. 3 before its unveiling in early 1990, while the game had been out in Japan since 1988. You're right here, people do often forget how different things were before the internet. I do remember that though.

I provided the link earlier for you to peruse. The NES and Master System are two systems I have actually completed reading everything I could find online about and marked every game ever recommended for gameplay as notable. If I recall correctly the NES had an edge of about ten games going into 1989 when it exploded and the Master System releases were cut in half by the Genesis.

I've said this before, but the problem with this idea is that because the SMS has fewer games, I think that that leads to a lower bar. That is, a SMS game probably wouldn't need to be as good as a NES game to be more notable, because of how many fewer games there were on the SMS...

Yes, I know that the game differential between the two systems really ballooned later on, but this is somewhat true earlier too.

Crystalis is ridiculous, I put it down after the third time I had to go back through every stinking town and talk to everybody systematically just to find the one random towns person who would talk about the next area so it would freaking unlock. Willow is great, I haven't played Guardian Legend. Back in the day, I played Zelda 1 as much as I could at friend's houses and then bought Golvellius. After finishing Golvellius several times I finally went back and tried to finish Zelda and found it horribly simplistic in comparison, that's when I picked up Zelda II instead hoping for more and getting it.

I think Zelda I's better than Golvellius for sure... it may be simpler, but it's great in its simplicity. But I've said how I find Golvellius decently good, but a bit disappointing compared to my expectations, and TGL. Oh, and Crystalis is a fantastic game, one of the better in the field on the NES. My personal favorite might just be StarTropics, though... that's really an incredible game. (Startropics II is good as well, though perhaps not quite as good as the first game.)

Yeah, I mean 8-bit art is kind of limited, and I find most NES games uglier than Master System games, but there really isn't that much of a difference. NES games are generally uglier because of the crappy video output quality and the scrolling glitches caused by Nintendo's own hardware hack job.

Bad video output quality? That just depends on which system you use... though I usually use a NES 2, despite the awful video output compared to the original NES model, because it actually works well, unlike toaster NESes.

Also, I do think (the better) NES games often have better art than SMS games. Bad NES art probably has no equal, though, that's almost certainly true.

My list would be much much different than the notable games lists. When system fans dismiss these lists they are in fact dismissing comments by dozens of gamers over the last ten years. I personally think that system fans have bloated the lists exponentially, but if they could describe why the game was unique that is all it took. Feel free to look down the NES list and see if you can find a game you'd recommend that isn't ticked. I'd be surprised if you found something that wasn't already reviewed online.

I don't think that saying "my list of what I say should be there based on what I claim are comments by gamers" should necessarily be taken as some kind of objective list... I mean, what's missing, and why? How do you decide what's "notable" enough to include? And as I said earlier, is there any accounting for the likelihood that games on a system with fewer games are going to be considered a bit better because of the system having less games?

I suppose it kind of is a quality over quantity argument. At the end of 1988 the NES has 82 recommended games out of 156 to the Master System's 75 out of 81. At the end of 1989 it is 130 of 264 for the NES to 93 of 99 for the Master System. Obviously the notable game lists have a margin of error to consider, let's say it's pretty good at 10%. So by the end of 1988 the NES had a lead of recommended games of about 9%, which is roughly equal. By the end of 1989 the gap is more clear at ~30-40% more noted games for the NES. That is pretty significant, but the NES library jumped over one hundred titles while the Master System saw less than twenty new games in 1989.

75 out of 81? Trying to basically prove my point that I've been making in this post, are you? Whether or not you are, I think that shows its truth. What, so 90% plus of the SMS library are games that are as good as the top 50% of the NES library? Even considering how the NES has a lot more awful games, that's ridiculous.

Including the Genesis in the count, which I think would be fair because the system was backward compatible with the Master System, would make these numbers more equal but I dont want to digress.

Including the Genesis would be fair if you were comparing total output of the company, sure. Of course, then you'd have to include the Game Boy for Nintendo too, since it also released in 1989.

[A Black Falcon]

Anybody care to make a case for the Game Gear Sonics? I was looking in to a GG for them but they don't appear any good at all from the first few levels on emulation; do they improve as they go? And how do they compare against the GBA and DS games (all which I know; ignore the Sonic Genesis entry)?

Sonic the Hedgehog - Probably my favorite of the GG Sonic games. The game's simple, but fun. It's not Genesis Sonic good, but is a good game. The biggest negative is that boss levels, and the entire final standard stage, must be played without any rings at all, which means that one hit and you start the bossfight, or that level, over. It does get annoying sometimes for sure. But other than that it's good. Bonus stages aren't much to speak of, and chaos emeralds are just hidden in the levels pretty much.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 - Disappointing game, and pretty terrible on the GG, too. The first boss is nearly impossible on the small screen, the completely failed the port over from the SMS. The first level's theme isn't that great either, it's a far cry from a standard Sonic first area. Also, more jumps where you can't see where you're going than the first game had. It's too bad that this game was the one chosen as a packin. Bonus stages are about the same as the first game. Also, Tails is on the game's cartrige, and it says "Sonic & Tails" on the cart too, but Tails is not in fact playable in this game; he's just the character Sonic has to rescue at the end. Blah.

Sonic Chaos - This game got a graphical upgrade versus the first two, and you can play as Tails too, instead of just Sonic like the first two games. It's easier than the first two games by a longshot, but it is a fun game. It's particularly easy with Tails, but he can't get the good ending, I believe (no emeralds with Tails, was it?). Unfortunately, bonus levels as always are basic side-scrolling ring collection areas, and as usual in GG Sonic games you don't get the chaos emeralds in bonus stages, but in the levels. But this is one of the better ones. I think this game even has infinite continues, too, if I remember right! Yeah, radical departure from the first two games for sure. Still, it's okay fun. The game's still very traditional and old fashioned, compared to the big changes between each Genesis Sonic game, but at least they added a few nice new features.

Sonic Triple Trouble - Why is "Triple Trouble" the fourth game? It's kind of confusing. This is the first Game Gear exclusive Sonic game, and it's about equal with Sonic Chaos in graphics and gameplay. Again you can play as Sonic or Tails, and the visuals look very similar to Chaos's. Gameplay's similar too, though with a few additions. I think this game is okay, but don't like it as much as Chaos, in part because of how it's so, so similar.

Tails' Adventure - This game's interesting. You play as Tails only, and it's sort of a Metroidvania. It's a pretty good game I think, one of the best of this line, if you count it as a Sonic game. The only real negative is that stupid Sega were cheap and the game has 16-character passwords instead of battery save. Lame. But other than that, it's worth looking up. GG exclusive.

Sonic Blast - No, this isn't 3D Blast, it's worse (remember, I actually like that game). Sonic Blast's gameplay is basically identical to the first four GG Sonic games, except this time you play as Sonic or Knuckles, instead of Sonic or Tails. Yeah, sorry, no Tails here. The graphics are CG-rendered this time, and it looks decent enough in static shots, but the problem is that this game's slow, even slower than the first four. I don't actually hate Sonic Blast, in part because it's fun to finally be able to play as Knuckles, but yeah, this game's far from Sonic fast, that's for sure.

As for other major GG platformers based on Genesis franchises, I haven't played all of them for sure, but I have Tempo Jr. and Ristar. Tempo Jr.'s a Sega Club game, and as a result is super, super easy, and like half an hour long. It's fun while it lasts, but it doesn't last at all. Ristar for GG, though, is a really good game. It's slow, but the game's designed that way, so it's not so bad. Ristar is one of the best GG platformers I've played, right up there with Sonic 1, Psychic World, and maybe something else.

I figured it was obvious I meant FF fans that have played PS; you can't compare without having played them. And you're putting words in my mouth. I never said anything about "everyone agrees" in that first post. I did say Phantasy Star was much better but that's not from bias. It's because I actually played the games and came to that conclusion.

What I meant was that I was questioning how many Final Fantasy fans have played PS1.

(I mean, as opposed to Phantasy Star fans; I'd imagine most of them have indeed played FF1 at least some.)

[sheath]

As I've said before, the NES actually has a pretty substantial library of good arcade ports that are ports. Just look at the early to mid '80s arcade games ported to the NES. They most certainly count, and they're often not just good ports, but by far the best ports out there at the time.

...The 8-bit era is not 1988. The 3rd generation lasted from 1985 to 1994 in the US, or 1982 to 1994 if you include the "2.5" gen consoles in the 3rd generation. The SMS being ahead for one year in absolutely no way whatsoever implies that they won for the whole generation, when they had essentially nothing else for the entire remaining period! That's just absurd.

I suppose it is how you define an era, but I define it at when the first console with serious software support was released. For the 8-bit era, that may or may not be 1985-6 in the US, but the legitimate 16-bit consoles definitely launched in 1989 and everything, including the software releases and press, declared the change in a very clear way. Obviously 8-bit consoles and games didn't cease to exist at that point, and that wasn't what I was saying. The hardware generations are typically delineated the way I described.

It is unfair to claim that NES games that came out from 1990 on should compete solely against the US Master System library when Sega and the rest of the industry had moved on. But that is, again, again, again, not the point of this discussion. We are not discussing whether the Master System was better than the NES we are discussing whether it is underrated.

As for what is and isn't a port, I'm sure you realize that almost nothing prior to the 32-bit era were actual ports. Most of them were ground up rewrites without even similar sound samples or art shared between the original and the adaptation.

Perhaps so, for the console gaming industry, but you can't deny that Final Fantasy became a much more popular game than Phantasy Star ever was. And as I said, the NES got a bunch of RPG releases between 1988 and 1992 or 1993, while the SMS had those few in 1988 and that's it, apart from Ultima IV (and that was Europe only). I guess you are saying that you think those few SMS games are better than all the NES ones combined, but while that seems unlikely objectively, I can't say fo sure myself for the traditional RPGs, I haven't played much of any of those. I can say that Ys certainly is not better than all the action-RPGs and similar titles on the NES all combined, though! It is a good game, but it's about on par with the better NES action-RPGs, not better than them.

I am shocked, SHOCKED, that a well marketed and designed RPG on a console that completely dominated not only its generation but part of the next would become more popular. The Master System still had well marketed and designed RPGs first, and probably opened the door for NES RPGs in the first place.

Um... hah? Super Mario Bros., Duck Hunt, Excitebike, Bubble Bobble, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., R.C. Pro-Am, Gradius, Mega Man, The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (1988 release), Super Mario Bros. 2 (also 1988), and more... plenty of really successful NES games come from that earlier period. Though as I said, I'd put 1988 in the peak period for the NES, not the early period; 1985-1987 for the early part, 1988-1990 for peak, and 1991-1994 for late. I think that breakdown makes the most sense by far.

My comment was about what mass market consumers remember, not about what was actually worth remembering. Have you checked the link I posted? 1988-89 is a pretty clear peak for the Master System and NES,

I've said this before, but the problem with this idea is that because the SMS has fewer games, I think that that leads to a lower bar. That is, a SMS game probably wouldn't need to be as good as a NES game to be more notable, because of how many fewer games there were on the SMS...

This makes me laugh, because I have heard the exact same argument aimed at popular consoles, claiming that console fans will recommend anything because of the flood of bad games. The notable game rubric may be a "low" standard, but it is quantifiable because it only requires that two or more gamers recommended the game and described the gameplay mechanic(s) that made the game noteworthy.

Bad video output quality? That just depends on which system you use... though I usually use a NES 2, despite the awful video output compared to the original NES model, because it actually works well, unlike toaster NESes.

Also, I do think (the better) NES games often have better art than SMS games. Bad NES art probably has no equal, though, that's almost certainly true.

Good NES games have a quality in audio, video and gameplay all to their own. The same holds true for the Master System. That is my only point.

I don't think that saying "my list of what I say should be there based on what I claim are comments by gamers" should necessarily be taken as some kind of objective list... I mean, what's missing, and why? How do you decide what's "notable" enough to include? And as I said earlier, is there any accounting for the likelihood that games on a system with fewer games are going to be considered a bit better because of the system having less games?

There are degrees of what makes an objective list of course. Which is why I have limited these lists only to games that have been recommended for specific gameplay related reasons. The limiter is player interest, not my perceptions.

75 out of 81? Trying to basically prove my point that I've been making in this post, are you? Whether or not you are, I think that shows its truth. What, so 90% plus of the SMS library are games that are as good as the top 50% of the NES library? Even considering how the NES has a lot more awful games, that's ridiculous.

Or prove the otherside's point that popular consoles always have more bad than good to offer. Or maybe I'm just trying to get people to talk about games outside of the popular franchises.

Including the Genesis would be fair if you were comparing total output of the company, sure. Of course, then you'd have to include the Game Boy for Nintendo too, since it also released in 1989.

Not for consoles, and not when we're talking about whether one console is underrated (not best, not better). Portable gaming has always been a separate market with different genre preferences, audience and definitely technical prowess.

[NeoZeedeater]

apart from Ultima IV (and that was Europe only).

It certainly was sold in Canada as Black Tiger mentioned (and it had Sega's specific Canadian barcode, not a European one). And j_factor said he found a copy in the US. It was also reviewed by American magazines.

[A Black Falcon]

It certainly was sold in Canada as Black Tiger mentioned (and it had Sega's specific Canadian barcode, not a European one). And j_factor said he found a copy in the US. It was also reviewed by American magazines.

Regardless, there is no record of an official North American release. And either way, it's a PC port also on the NES (and many other computers too), so it's not like it's hugely significant anyway. The PC version certainly is, but the console versions of those games were always nowhere near as good as the originals.

[j_factor]

PC? The lead platform for Ultima IV was Apple II. In any case, the SMS version is actually one of the best versions of the game. The NES version is not bad technically, but they made a lot of unnecessary gameplay changes.

[NeoZeedeater]

but the console versions of those games were always nowhere near as good as the originals.

Have you played this port or are you assuming? It's not as significant as the original release was for its time but it's faithful to it which was a rarity for Western computer to console RPG conversions. Artistically I think it has better cinemas than the 16-bit computer ports.

[TheSonicRetard]

Bonus stages are about the same as the first game.

Sonic 2 doesn't have special stages.