kurupt

EA Sports games always played much better on Genesis than they did on SNES. You guys remember the Sega Channel? It was so ahead of its time.

nickdawgy

I paid $70 at TRU for Street Fighter II on Super Nintendo.

KingSmoth

Back in the day I enjoyed my Genesis much more than the SNES. My biggest gripe was that I also had the SegaCD and 32X, making power connections quite a chore. I was stoked that Splatterhouse 2 and 3 were released, having missed out on owning Splatterhouse for the TG-16 at the time.
The most expensive game I had from that era was Virtua Racing, which cost either $110 or $115.
I have never gotten rid of a console, so I play them all from time to time. Those old power bricks are still a pain...

Quack

Loved Mutant League Hockey, Maximum Carnage, Toejam and Earl!

gcribbs

My favorite was Shining Force.

printerati

I can't believe no one has mentioned Gunstar Heroes yet.

Thunder Force III is what sold me on the system, but I also played an obscene amount of NHL 94, Lightening Force, Landstalker, and Street Fighter II.

kefrank

You guys have definitely given me some other games to check out. Forgot to mention in my first post that I've been playing NHL 94 too. Maybe the best hockey game ever? The balance of simplicity and capability (one-timers!) is just right, IMO. Blades of Steel on NES is a close second for me though. Love that game.

Maxflier

My Genesis was mostly an EA Sports machine from what I can remember. I played the hell out of these:

NHL
NBA (NBA Live 95 was such a big improvement for this series)
Coach K College Basketball
Bill Walsh College Football
Evander Holyfield Real Deal Boxing

Mike86

One of my favorite classic wrestling games is on Genesis which is WWF Raw. Really fun and basic wrestling game with a decent roster and some cool features for the time. One of the first wrestling games I remember being able to use a weapon in (I think it was only a chair but still it was cool at the time). Also I remember you could knock out the referee to get cheap shots in which was sort of fun and there was also a decent Royal Rumble mode. The Royal Rumble actually had quite a few wrestlers in the ring at once too unlike other modern wrestling games that can only have six in at a time. I don't think it was thirty wrestlers but I know the ring could fill up with quite a bit.

Lord Zarak

When I got my first job at Kay-Bee Toys in the mall, one of the first big purchases I made was a Sega Genesis. Not too much longer after that, I bought the Sega CD add-on. That Sewer Shark CD game was hard, but I did eventually beat it. And yes, I even bought the 32X when it was closed out for $20. The 3-part system was ugly, but I will say that Knuckles Chaotix and Mortak Kombat 32X looked really nice.

rocket1312

I loved my Genesis. Just thinking about it makes me smile. Some of the games I played for untold hours were:

Golden Axe & Altered Beast: These two will always be linked together in my mind as being the quintessential Sega games, at least until Sonic came along. Golden Axe was far superior, but I loved turning into the beasts in Altered Beast. The weretiger was probably my favorite.

NFL Sports Talk Football '93: My step-dad and I still quote lines from the commentary 20+ years later. One of our favorites was if you sent the team out to punt on first down, the commentary would say "First and 10, the kicking team comes on. Uh oh, what a mistake!" Or "I can't believe it!"

Street Fighter II - Special Champion Edition: I got it with the 6 button controller, which I thought was far superior to the original 3 button.

NBA Jam: My ultimate goal was always to hold the computer scoreless over the course of an entire game. It took me forever, but I finally did it (using the Supersonics, I think) and after that I never really played it again.

World Series Baseball '95: This is the only baseball game where I've ever attempted to play an entire 162 game season. I don't think I made it to the end because I got frustrated after all of the player stats hit their limits and started resetting. For example, I think a player's home run total maxed out at around 250 home runs for the season. Yes, it was way too easy to hit home runs in that game.

Captain America and the Avengers: Like Sports Talk Football, this game had some classic voice samples. "Thank you...Wonder Man!"

X-Men: I see this game listed on "hardest games" lists all the time, but I played this game so much I could beat the whole thing in like 15 minutes. I'll still never forget the first time I got to the last level and the screen goes black and tells you to reset the danger room computer. I lost my mind and was so afraid of hitting the reset button and losing my progress even though I had an inkling that it was what you were supposed to do.

NHL '94: I learned recently that there's a pretty dedicated cult for this game online to this day and that you can download hacked emulated versions that feature updated rosters and logos and such. Awesome.

Lakers vs. Celtics: Tom Chambers dunk. That's all that needs to be said about that game.

There were plenty of others that I played a ton, like Quackshot, Aladdin, Mercs, Shadow Dancer, Sonic 2, Super Off-Road, Mortal Kombat I & II, and Shining Force II (although that came much later as I never could afford the $80 cartridge). The system probably didn't have as robust a library as the SNES did, but if you were a sports fan, you had to have a Genesis. It wasn't even a question. The SNES never could cut it in that arena. I've never really understood it either. The SNES had much beefier hardware, didn't it?

fujishig

This. Have you tried the pseudo-sequel FTP game (it's on both PS4 and Xbox One but I have yet to try it), AirMech?

Also remember fondly:

Mazin Saga
M.E.C.H.A.
Target Earth
Castle of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse (a lot of the Disney games in this era were great in their animation of characters, and not just cheapie cash ins)
Phantasy Star II: I loved this game. Came with a book/strategy guide bundled in. I remember going in and out of shops a ton of times trying to get my thief to steal stuff. Also did an Aerith long before FF VII.
Phantasy Star III: I know some didn't like this game, but I loved the whole generations thing. Never did get IV on the Genesis itself because of cost, though.
Michael Jackson's Moonwalker
Mutant League Football
Warsong (the first and only Langrisser game to come out here)

kgrogers1979

Sort of.

I don't know the technical stuff, but from my limited understanding, the Genesis had a better 2D processor so it could handle the actual 2D sprites better. However, the SNES hardware beat it in absolutely everything else. The SNES could pull off a bunch of special effects that the Genesis couldn't do. One of them was called Mode 7. Mode 7 was the way the graphics could scale and rotate to give off a kind of fake 3D look. F-Zero and Mario Kart were probably the two most well known Mode 7 games. Final Fantasy also used Mode 7 when you got on the airship and the graphics rotated perspective to a kind of fake 3D.

Lord Zarak

Worst puzzle ever. I remember getting so frustrated at being told to reset the danger room. I looked all over for a reset button. As time was running out, I angrily smacked the reset button on the console and a bunch of 01011100111 appeared. I was shocked that this is what I was supposed to do. Who would think to do that?

DJariya

I also had the Sega CD and 32X attachments.

Back in the 90's, I was addicted to playing Full Motion Video games. I just thought that was the coolest thing playing games with real life situations and real life actors. By today's standards, the graphics/video on those games are so inferior.

The game that I really liked, but I recall got poor reviews was Supreme Warrior. It was made in conjunction with Shaw Brothers studios in Hong Kong

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kgrogers1979

Speaking of FMV games, I used to really really love Phantasmagoria. I watched a Lets Play of it a year or so ago, and wow was that game really quite bad. My memories of the game were clearly clouded by nostalgia.

movie diva

OMG- I have my ex-husbands Sega Genesis with the CD, the first RPG I ever played was Dungeons & Dragons: Warriors of the Eternal Sun, and I loved Shadowrun...I got hooked on RPGs from that.

kefrank

Not to derail my own thread, but NCAA Basketball was another popular game with very prominent use of Mode 7.

Mike86

My collection. Surprised how many boxes I kept back in the day. Only my 6-Pak and Captain America and The Avengers cartridges don't have a box or case.

Breakfast with Girls

Shining Force II and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 were the best games on the system.

Ginwen

My favorites were the Shining Force Games, Toejam and Earl, and Road Rash 2. They've put Road Rash 2 out on other systems, but they always change the music so the Genesis one is better (especially the Hawaii part).

Bluelitespecial

I have the sega collection game for PS3 and will still play it often. I always enjoyed the sonic games and streets of rage. I saw EA NHL 94 mentioned above, it had the best body checking on any hockey video game I ever played.

kefrank

Bonus tip for retro gamers who didn't already know: Genesis controllers work perfectly with Atari 2600. I tried the Arcade Power Stick pictured in the original post with my 2600 last night and it was awesome - way more useable and comfortable than the stock Atari joystick.

Mike86

Played a bit of Captain America and The Avengers yesterday. Still a pretty fun game, the sound bytes are so cheesy yet awesome. I didn't get through it because you only get three lives and no continues but it's really pretty short. A walkthrough online shows its only five stages and I made it about halfway through the fourth in about fifteen to twenty minutes before dying.

Breakfast with Girls

I had no idea about this! I looked it up and apparently you can go the other way, too. (Also Colecovision.)