#sega-cd

We've reached another add-on with a fairly substantial library, and that means it gets a list of its own. The SEGA-CD, or MEGA-CD, wasn't a smash success by any means, but it wasn't the failure it's sometimes painted as either. The libarary has a couple hundred games or so in it, and while its lows are very low, the highs are nothing to sneeze at. As usual, these are just my favorite games and may not reflect what I would put in a "Best Games" list. I'm also only including games released during the original commercial life of the platform. Now loading!

In a lot of ways, the Mega Drive Mini 2 is the perfect place for something like the SEGA-CD port of Starblade. This game was a wild experience in the arcade, with a deluxe cabinet that really made you feel like you were in the middle of the action. It was something you would only play once in a while, or maybe even just one time. You get your fill of the dazzling spectacle, and you move along. How are the mechanics? As simple as can be. Aim your cursor. Fire your lasers. No power-ups or pick-ups. No ship control. There are some branching points, but you can conceivably see literally everything this game has to offer in about thirty minutes and ten dollars' worth of coins.

It's surprising that this game got as many ports as it did, really. The SEGA-CD version was the first one to hit homes, and perhaps the most justified of the lot. It was handled by Technosoft and is rather impressive for the hardware. The 3DO version came soon after, and eventually the PlayStation got its own version, too. Both consoles certainly had more tech muscle to work with, but the resulting game is more or less the same. In the SEGA-CD version, the difficulty setting determines which branches of the stages you'll play, and you're given a few credits with which to complete your mission. Every playthrough is the same, so while you might struggle at first, you should be able to clear it sooner or later.

Starblade is an incredibly shallow experience. Its merits lay in a cabinet most today will never lay their eyes on, and a bit of graphical wizardry that doesn't feel very magical a few decades on. If you paid full price for this back in the day, you probably got one evening of entertainment and something to show your friends if you needed your SEGA-CD to look cool for a few minutes. Not great mileage for your money.

Unlike with Aah! Harimanada, I don't feel the need to bring people up to speed on Captain Tsubasa's source material. This is one of the better-known anime/manga properties, globally speaking. Well okay, a short one for the North American audience. Captain Tsubasa was a popular sports manga that ran in the 1980s. It's about a young soccer prodigy who dreams of winning the World Cup for Japan one day. An anime was made from the manga, and it's that show that made the brand a household name in many countries around the world.

Naturally, the series was made in a handful of games over the years. The most well-loved ones came from Tecmo, debuting on the NES but eventually showing up on a few other consoles. The first NES installment was brought over to the West as Tecmo Cup Soccer/Football Game, with the licensed parts painted over with original characters. The games do a great job of capturing the over-the-top drama of the anime, and they do that by giving up on being traditional soccer games. This SEGA-CD release is no different in that regard.

In gameplay terms, this isn't too far off of the second Captain Tsubasa game on the Famicom, which itself simply refined what was going on in that first game. You control your player's movement on the pitch, but when it's time to do anything else you have to choose an action from a menu. Each action costs Guts, which work a bit like MP in an RPG. The computer will choose its action, and then the scene plays out based on how those things interact. And indeed, it is quite the scene. Whatever you do, you'll see dramatic animations going on in the largest window of the screen. They look especially good here on SEGA-CD, as you might expect. Anyway, it goes on like this until you either win or lose. After each match, your characters might level up and gain better stats. It might sound silly, but it's actually rather satisfyingly strategic.

Most of the time when I sit down to write these entries, I don't finish the game in question. These aren't reviews, after all. I put in an hour or so, sometimes a little more if I'm having fun. When playing Mansion of Hidden Souls, I hit the credits in just under that allotted hour. I can't say I had a bad time, either. It's interesting to play a game like this in the current year. It was fascinating in its time but its reputation quickly curdled as the novelty of FMV games faded. And yet as I made my way through it today, I couldn't help but be reminded of modern "walking sims". The first half of the game involves wandering around the mansion at your leisure, meeting its residents and looking for whatever you need to trigger the next part of the completion sequence. There's nothing you can do to fail for a good chunk of the game, allowing you to get immersed in the small but detail-dense setting.

After a certain part of the game, you're put on a timer. Not a terribly strict one, but you can't really afford to wander around anymore. However, that's essentially what you'll have to do. There aren't any real clues as to where you need to go and what you need to examine to get where you need to go, so you'll probably hit that bad ending at least once. Still, your victory is inevitable so long as you keep at it. Before you know it, you'll be out of that house and all will be well again. And that's really all there is to it.

I spoke with the great @phillamarr about his work on the C+C Music Factory Sega CD game 'Power Factory' last month at Twin Cities Con!