Ranking all 35 of the Sega Genesis/Game Gear/Sega CD/32X/Master System Games I've Finished

While the system came out exactly a decade earlier, it wasn't until Summer 1999 when I finally went "GIVE ME GENESIS" and picked up the system for $20 in a retro game store. Along with several games at $10 each that, by then, were generally regarded as the best the system had. There's something to be said for getting into something well after the fact. Like a TV series that ended and has a finished story to watch, or a game system where you can instantly check out all of the system's high points without waiting or wondering.

In any case, time for something a little different. I've got no real interest in doing any lists for modern systems (2001+) but I love the idea of ranking retro games, so I'll probably do a couple big Jason Graves style retro lists like this in the future. Going big here with a longer list, but expect short not-detailed entries (a bit like the RPG lists, but moreso). This is more about the ranking element than about the retrospective element, which I save for the 1000 List.

Honorable Mentions (things I never played) - Shining Force series, Golden Axe series, Rocket Knight Adventures, Earthworm Jim 1+2, NBA Jam, Shinobi, Revenge of Shinobi

#35. Mortal Kombat (Game Gear) - Terrible, terrible game. Has the same framerate issues as the Game Boy port, but at least it has color. There's also a Master System version that is pretty similar to this one (thus awful) and I didn't play much of it. If I had finished it, it'd be a copypaste of this entry, just a step higher-placed solely by virtue of being on a larger screen. The hardest thing in this game is trying to fight Goro, who just no-sells everything. The whole game is basically a slideshow with like 3 FPS. A lot like the Game Boy version, but not quite as awful because at least it has color. I spent most of my time playing this trying to get special moves to work, and I think I managed to launch Scorpion's Spear ONE TIME out of the probably 50 times I attempted it. Just a godawful cash-in on every level.

#34. The Terminator (Genesis) - I was led to believe that this was a good game that succeeded against all odds. Nope. It's just as bad as all the Terminator-related games on Nintendo systems. I made myself finish the game once sunk cost set in and I was trying to do a post for it. It was several hours of my life that I'll never get back. The Sega CD was the only system at the time to get the "Terminator Platformer" right (and to a minor extent, the Game Boy one is okay). This one is especially weird because you start in the future levels with no laser rifle, all you can do is throw grenades. Who thought of that? The machines look wrong too. Then you go to the present and it gets exponentially worse, with bullet-sponge street punks everywhere.

#33. Zero Wing (Genesis) - The source of the "All Your Base" meme, this was basically a generic shooter. I can barely remember it except how generic and bland it was.

#32. Phantasy Star 3 (Genesis) - A godawful RPG from an otherwise-decent series. I have yet to play the Game Gear spinoffs so maybe those are worse, IDK. Doubt it, because even a super-generic RPG would be better than this calamity of game design. If I were to list off the bad things about this game, I would probably be here all day.

31. Brutal: Paws of Fury (Genesis) - Bizarre fighting game best-known for having a bunch of animal characters like Kendo Coyote and Kung-Fu Bunny. Weirdest thing is that the final boss is The Dalai Llama. A game called Brutal has Dalai Llama as the final boss. So is it any good? Well, I didn't have a bad time playing it, so that's something. It's an incredibly rudimentary fighting game, though, where characters basically just have one move (at least there are weak/medium/strong versions of that one move, due to the system's 3 buttons). It's slow, choppy, and uneven; sometimes your characters take a ton of damage, sometimes they take basically none. Two fighters can be chipping away at each other, then someone like Ivan the Bear unleashes a bunch of fierce charges in a row and your HP plummets by like half. I mean, it's not a good game. As a kid I really wanted this game for a while (the SNES version, thanks to Nintendo Power) and knew all the characters. My mom basically said absolutely not, pointing out how ridiculous it is that a game called Brutal has Dalai Llama as a final boss.

#30. Dragon Ball Z Retsuden (Genesis) - Japan-only. Terrible fighting game with slow, unresponsive controls. However it deserves credit for having a good soundtrack and for giving us playable Recoome and Captain Ginyu for the first time in a DBZ fighting game. Also, it looks really good. Way better than it actually is.

#29. GG Aleste (Game Gear) - The first decent game on this list (I don't play many bad games). It's an Aleste game, and even in scaled-down portable form they're a good time. Nowhere near Space Megaforce, though. It took until Blazing Lazers for the Turbografx-16 for me to find a game on that level again.

#28. GG Aleste 2 (Game Gear) - More of the same, only it's better-looking and plays more smoothly. The small screen hurts it a bit because you can't see very far. Other than that, it's a fine time. Pretty weird how they made an official GG Aleste 3 in like 2019 for a long-defunct system and threw it into the Aleste Collection that we never got here.

#27. Mega Man (Game Gear) - Worse than any of the NES Mega Mans and probably worse than any of the Game Boy ones too. This had the opportunity to cover some of what the Game Boy series missed, but it barely took advantage of that, and the tiny screen made a lot of these NES levels a real chore to try to play through.

#26. Golvellius (Master System) - Grinding, The Game. Actually had a blast with this despite that, but it's got very little replay value or reason to stick around.

#25. Virtua Fighter (32X) - Never got that good at this one, and it's blocky as hell. Give me a good 2D fighter any day. It's a real first of its kind though. Just feels incredibly futuristic, and plays well enough to keep you engaged. Except there really isn't much to do once you get over the "wave of tomorrow" three-dimensional visuals, and this one barely lasted me a half hour. I imagine people went nuts over it during the brief time when it was the only thing like it.

#24. Altered Beast (Genesis) - Bizarre game where you can transform into a werewolf and beat up your foes. It's one of the more classic and well-liked games on the system, and I had fun with it.

#23. TMNT: Hyperstone Heist (Genesis) - The game that almost nobody seems to remember existed, this is the Genesis counterpart to Turtles In Time. It's a beat 'em up, it's decent, but it's a bit on the forgettable side. Emulated it and had a blast. Might have a little too much in common with Turtles In Time, like shared bosses and the like.

#22. Robocop vs. Terminator (Genesis) - Platformer/shooter that's much better than one would expect. How is Robocop easily dispatching scores of Terminators, though? From the sound of the game you'd think it's a one-on-one showdown, but nope. It's Robocop vs a bunch of T-800s. I don't know how believable it is that Robocop could get the better of ONE T-800 much less lots of them. Would be ranked considerably higher if Robocop didn't move so damn slow, because it's a solid game.

#21. Sonic the Hedgehog (Genesis) - The signature platformer of the system and an iconic game. And I...didn't really like it the first few times I tried it. Eventually it grew on me, but I still don't think it stands up to the likes of the Mario games. There's no precise platforming to be found here and you can't zip around that much either, so you're stuck in this mid-ground limbo instead where most of the time you aren't speeding through and aren't being engaged on a skill level. All of that said, it's charming enough.

#20. Aladdin (Genesis) - Notable for giving the player a sword, which the SNES counterpart to this game didn't have. Which means this game might be a rare Genesis version win over a SNES version! Not sure, though. Can't remember it well enough, just that I liked the sword-based gameplay more than the SNES's kid-friendly jump-bop gameplay. Also this sold like 5 million copies. Goddam. It's a great game, but it's really short.

#19. Contra: Hard Corps (Genesis) - Again, I'd go with Contra III over this any day, but it's a fun romp. This one goes off in some wild directions. One of the characters is a wolf man. It's a Contra game and they're almost never bad, but I wouldn't pick it over the Nintendo offerings in this series.

#18. The Terminator (Sega CD) - A good action platformer with a great soundtrack and solid gameplay. What is this sorcery? All the other games based on T1 were terrible. Like abysmally terrible. This one, though? Well, it isn't amazing or anything but it's actually a fun time and worth playing through. Still, we never got the amazing 2D game we should have for this series... until now. I need to get ahold of Terminator 2D: No Fate next.

#17. Mega Man: The Wily Wars (Genesis) - Technically this is three games in one, with upgraded remakes of Mega Man 1, 2, and 3. And while I don't usually put compilations onto lists like this (you won't see Mario All-Stars on the SNES list I'll inevitably do), this game gets in via a loophole: It adds new content. Specifically, the Wily Tower is basically a smaller fourth game that they added on once the main three are cleared. Being able to choose your own set of weapons from the first three Mega Man games for Wily Tower (I always go with Metal Blade, Elec Beam, and Quick Boomerang, first and foremost) is pretty damn awesome. Not sure whether I should count this as one game or three games, but technically it's one game in this form. Why isn't it higher? Slowdown. There's way too much slowdown in this game. What happened there? Blast Processing fell short on this one.

#16. Phantasy Star 2 (Genesis) - Now this is a real beast of an RPG. The kind of thing you end up working on for a month as a kid, getting absorbed by when staying in on a rainy day. It's a lot better than Final Fantasy 2 or Dragon Warrior 2, with colorful visuals that are ahead of its time, and solid as hell gameplay. However, it doesn't make it to the top ten because the dungeons tend to be unnecessarily massive, with boring layouts that waste a lot of space and are seemingly designed to be tedious. Yeah, the dungeons in this game are terrible, and it's a shame because the game does so much right. When dungeons are where most of the gameplay is, it brings the game down.

#15. Mortal Kombat (Genesis) - Waaaaaay better than the Game Gear version, this actually feels like real Mortal Kombat. Scorpion's Spear worked on the first try! The music is all Genesis remakes of the actual soundtrack of the game, as opposed to the GG version just having the terrible Game Boy version's soundtrack. This is one game where the Genesis version debatably had the SNES version beat, due to having less censorship of things like blood and fatalities. I think I still prefer the SNES version because it's got more colors and better visuals. Man, Genesis was so close to scoring a win here.

#14. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Genesis) - Basically what I thought the first Sonic game was going to be. Lots of zipping around, with levels designed for stopping as little as possible. Had more fun with this one, gets my seal of approval. I believe this one introduces Miles "Tails" Prower, who flies around and gets in your scene. Christian Bale would be OUTRAGED. At least he doesn't talk all Quirk Marvel like the Miles in Metroid Prime 4. Why do the characters in that game always raise their face-shields to talk? They can leave the face-shields down and talk. They're on a hostile planet with potential toxins in the air. Raising face-shields to crack Quirk Jokes is dumb. What isn't dumb is Sonic 2, which should probably be a few spots higher. If only I could get into Sonic games as much as I want to.

#13. Ghouls n' Ghosts (Genesis) - Tough little game here that feels kinda like a 1.5 between the NES and SNES games in the series. I'd generally go for Super Ghouls n' Ghosts over this one any day, but it has its own unique stages and bosses and that makes it worth playing for superfans. It's also the only game in the series, AFAIK, to have the Sword weapon. Which basically turns it into an entirely different game, and is fun to play around with.

#12. Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure (Sega CD) - A much more complete version of the SNES game, with a bunch more levels. Something about this game pulls you in and really feels like a quest through the jungle to fight various Mayan deities. One of those rare games that can transport you somewhere else. It's a great game on any platform, that more people need to know about.

#11. Wrestlemania: The Arcade Game (32X) - A super appealing game with WWF New Generation stars battling it out Mortal Kombat style. Digitized graphics, weapons, a good time. However I really wasn't into how the game mostly throws handicap matches at you, and why (world champion at the time) Diesel wasn't the final boss fight (or in the game at all) is beyond me. If it were all one-on-one fights this game would have been basically perfect.

#10. Final Fight CD (Sega CD) - The best version of the original game that I've played, this is Final Fight with top tier visuals, which means Jessica is more gorgeous than ever as she writhes about in the clutches of a wheelchair-bound gang lord with a minigun. He should win an award for "most bad-ass game boss in a wheelchair" and probably inspired the wheelchair-bound minigun-wielding guys in Bloodborne. Funny thing is, the most memorable of those guys is the one at the top of the tower in Old Yharnam, and he's best defeated the same way you defeat this guy: By knocking him off the tower.

#9. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (Genesis) - The first Sonic game to truly "click" with me, I enjoyed this one a lot. The soundtrack is awesome and super stylish. The levels are pretty refined at this point too. The forest fire is an iconic first level, and the new Super Saiyan Sonic takes things up a notch. The core gameplay still isn't my favorite, and I recognize that many Segaphiles would have this at the top of the list.

#8. Sonic 3 and Knuckles (Genesis) - Takes Sonic 3 and bumps it up a few degrees. Was originally meant to be part of the same giant game, and I would have liked to see that. You can still kinda play it that way by plugging the two games together. The fusion of the two would probably be #4 or 5 on this list if I were to count it that way, just by virtue of having so much to do and doing it as well as the series ever has. Another great soundtrack, and some memorable levels.

#5, #6, #7. Streets of Rage 1, 2, and 3 (Genesis) - In no particular order, these games all rocked. I've played a lot of beat 'em ups, and I'm not sure any of them "got" the essence of the genre as much as these three did. They might seem overrated on here, but I would seriously pick these games over anything else in the beat 'em up library, for any retro system. (Capcom's Final Fight, Knights of the Round and King of Dragons are the only other three games that I'd put on this tier)

#4. Shinobi III (Genesis) - Possibly the best action game on the system, this is a magnum opus of a game that elevates the Genesis by existing. It's comparable to some of the best action games on the SNES. You've got some great powerups and attacks, nonstop action, great music, and an unmistakable style about the whole thing. One of these days I really need to play the first two.

#3. Castlevania: Bloodlines (Genesis) - Castlevania games can be found near the top of virtually any list for me, and this one is no exception. Two characters to choose from at the outset gives this game replay value, and the levels are a memorable trek through real-world locations in World War 1 era Europe. One character has the classic Belmont whip-swinging gameplay while the other has a spear that can stab in more directions, varying things up a lot. Konami really scored big with this one on a level they didn't quite reach with Contra Hard Corps: I would actually place this above some of its Nintendo system counterparts.

#2. Phantasy Star (Master System) - Hard to believe this came out around the same time / before the likes of Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest on the NES, because it blew them both away. Which wasn't easy, especially at the dawn of RPGs. Not just in graphics and sound due to being a more powerful system, but also in terms of gameplay and story. This game was WAY ahead of its time, and really deserves a modern remaster. Preferably one that changes very little and updates the visuals (especially for the first-person dungeons).

#1. Phantasy Star 4 (Genesis) - Not only the best RPG on the Genesis, one of the best RPGs of the 16-bit era. And that's up against some STEEP competition. This is without a doubt the crown jewel of the Genesis library and the reason to get one, for anyone who even somewhat likes RPGs. Culminates the story of the quadrilogy with an epic adventure that spans multiple worlds. The other three aren't necessary to play before this to get the most out of it; if anything, I'd probably just play the first one (it's the best, and the one most connected to this one anyway). The villain from the first game makes a big return here as one of the two major sub-villains of the story, and you get some highly-nostalgic music remixes of PS1 themes to boot. Somehow nostalgic even for me despite completely missing the era of the original. This is one of the greats, in any case.