My old Sega Master system

[knave]

I found my old Sega Mastersystem but have no games. Is it worth keeping? (i was done with the snail maze 25 years ago)

[SavannahLion]

The only game I really only ever played, and liked, on it was Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap.

I might be jaded as I got my console sometime between 1996 and 2000 and the first time I actually got to play the console was at the peak of the 16 bit era.

Some of the "must have" titles never really clicked for me on this console. Phantasy Star and Y's are usually given very high regards but I tended to prefer Shining Force and Zelda on their respective consoles. Alex Kid in Miracle World is another you'll see kicked around but I always preferred Super Mario and the underdog, Kid Chameleon (which I always felt would've greatly benefited with an actual map, but oh well....). Some of the arcade ports seem pretty decent if that's all you got but given that later consoles sported far better ports and well... we have MAME.

In the end, my SMS is lost somewhere in the crypt, destined to be discovered by my children after my death. No really, I have no idea where it, or any of those games are. Buried amongst all the other forgotten consoles.

It's only worth keeping if you feel it's worth keeping.

[DaveMMR]

I found my old Sega Mastersystem but have no games. Is it worth keeping? (i was done with the snail maze 25 years ago)

No.  Send it to me for easy disposal.   

[NickG]

Having one of these originals is really nice if you do not have an alternative means (emulation) for the shutterglasses 3D or the lightgun.  I really like a lot of games on this console but many did have better ports and all can be emulated last I checked.  If you do prefer original hardware and software and thumb blisters, do consider a rom cart to more easily access your collection.

[Howard_Casto]

Well if it's the original version that takes the cards, hold on to it.  Those are going to be worth money some day. 

As for actually playing it.... umm... aside from Wonder Boy there's a decent boxing game...Ring King?.....Sorry I've got nothing....

The main reason the SMS wasn't successful is because at the time Nintendo made all companies producing games on the NES sign a agreement saying that they couldn't port the games to other consoles.  So all of your classics from the era... they are on the NES.  What's left are in-house sega games (some good, some terrible) and obscure third parties that weren't big time enough to produce on the NES yet. 

[Malenko]

Well if it's the original version that takes the cards, hold on to it.  Those are going to be worth money some day. 

As for actually playing it.... umm... aside from Wonder Boy there's a decent boxing game...Ring King?.....Sorry I've got nothing....

The main reason the SMS wasn't successful is because at the time Nintendo made all companies producing games on the NES sign a agreement saying that they couldn't port the games to other consoles.  So all of your classics from the era... they are on the NES.  What's left are in-house sega games (some good, some terrible) and obscure third parties that weren't big time enough to produce on the NES yet.

Yeah like Mortal Kombat II, Ninja Gaiden, Rocky, Rambo, Gauntlet, Baku Baku animal, Klax, Outrun, Asterix, Golden Axe, Choplifter, Terminator, Kung Fu Kid, Bonanza Brothers, Batman Returns, Streets of Rage, Buggy Run, Darius 2, Space Harrier, Desert Strike, Road Rash, Marble Madness, Alex Kidd in Shinobi World (reminds me, Shinobi is on the master system, but it sucked),  Golden Axe Warrior, Fantasy Zone, and R-Type.

I admit a lot of those games are better on other systems (specifically the Genesis/SNES/Arcade) but to say the SMS didnt have a little bit of merit seems short sighted. Lets not do the whole "no point in playing it on a console if you can play it on your mame cab" song and dance, kk? I think we can all agree that Krusty's super fun house sucked on all the systems.

I would LOVE to have a SMS, never got one as a kid, cant find one at a decent price as an adult. Thought about getting a power base for my model 1 genesis, but no luck with that either.

[pbj]

I lived in a rich neighborhood in Southern California when SMS came out.  The kids without game systems in that neighborhood had access to everything on the market thanks to millionaire neighbors.  That Christmas, every single one of us opted for a Sega Master System. 

Then I moved, and it was like stepping into a bizarro world where everyone owned a clearly inferior runner up.

That being said, NES had 5 games that were unmatched - SMB 1, 2, 3, Mike Tyson's Punchout, and Zelda.

Plenty of fun stuff on the SMS at the time, though.  We owned most of the arcade ports and the lightgun games were far more accurate.  Plus a version of Double Dragon that resembled the arcade game.

Most of the games that Malenko named came out after the Genesis and were fairly hard to come by in the USA.  It was crazy how long it was supported in Brazil, though.

[Howard_Casto]

Well if it's the original version that takes the cards, hold on to it.  Those are going to be worth money some day. 

As for actually playing it.... umm... aside from Wonder Boy there's a decent boxing game...Ring King?.....Sorry I've got nothing....

The main reason the SMS wasn't successful is because at the time Nintendo made all companies producing games on the NES sign a agreement saying that they couldn't port the games to other consoles.  So all of your classics from the era... they are on the NES.  What's left are in-house sega games (some good, some terrible) and obscure third parties that weren't big time enough to produce on the NES yet.

Yeah like Mortal Kombat II, Ninja Gaiden, Rocky, Rambo, Gauntlet, Baku Baku animal, Klax, Outrun, Asterix, Golden Axe, Choplifter, Terminator, Kung Fu Kid, Bonanza Brothers, Batman Returns, Streets of Rage, Buggy Run, Darius 2, Space Harrier, Desert Strike, Road Rash, Marble Madness, Alex Kidd in Shinobi World (reminds me, Shinobi is on the master system, but it sucked),  Golden Axe Warrior, Fantasy Zone, and R-Type.

I admit a lot of those games are better on other systems (specifically the Genesis/SNES/Arcade) but to say the SMS didnt have a little bit of merit seems short sighted. Lets not do the whole "no point in playing it on a console if you can play it on your mame cab" song and dance, kk? I think we can all agree that Krusty's super fun house sucked on all the systems.

I would LOVE to have a SMS, never got one as a kid, cant find one at a decent price as an adult. Thought about getting a power base for my model 1 genesis, but no luck with that either.

Hey you find some examples other than cruddy ports of arcade games and I'll quit bringing it up.  If you already know what I'm going to say then you know you don't have a leg to stand on in the argument.  Shoot half of those are cruddy ports of GENESIS games.  Like pbj said, many of them weren't even released in the US or were games released years earlier on the Genesis and back-ported for the sake of the few countries where the system did catch on.  So there's no nostalgia there and they aren't particularly good ports.  Don't get me wrong some of them are, but the point still stands that there is a reason he's struggling to find something fun to play on it... there aren't a lot of games that are really spectacular for the Master System.... heck there might not be any. 

This isn't a Sega exclusive problem either. My SNES is pretty much exclusively a Super Metroid and SMW machine at this point.  No point in playing mortal kombat and street fighter and the myriad of Konami/Capcom arcade ports on it.  You compare those to the NES... well it had a ton of great games that were never released on any other platform or the arcades.  There was a reason it sold so well.

 
pbj is right on the lightgun stuff though.  Some awesome lg stuff on the system.  I just never mention that stuff because crt tvs are such a rarity now.  I know I finally caved and threw mine out. 

[Malenko]

EDIT: I didnt like my first stab at a reply, seemed very Dickish/Xouchey, so here is take #2

I only count arcade ports because at the time, it was the only way to play arcade games. I accept that people would rather play MAME than a port, but there are some console versions that are different and fun, like Mighty Final Fight for NES.  I typed the list up there based on games I played on an emulator. I fully admit I dont know when they came out, if they were genesis ports, or how rare the actual cart is. I am in no way saying the SMS was better than the NES by any stretch of the imagination, Im just saying it wasnt an Apple/Bandai PiPP!N.

[butanebob]

Is it worth keeping?

Yes. There're some great games on it, not heaps but enough. Try to find some of these:
Alex Kidd in Shinobi World
Asterix
Golden Axe Warrior
Golvellius
Kenseiden
Master of Darkness (Castlevania clone)
Ninja Gaiden (Original game - not a port of the NES version)
Power Strike 2 (Actually one of the Aleste games made by Compile)
Psycho Fox (pseudo prequel to Decapattack on the Megadrive)
Wonderboy III (Incredible game years ahead of its time, big influence on the later metroid and castlevania games)
Zillion

[danny_galaga]

+1 on Fantasy Zone (",)

[Haze]

Still has my favourite version of Fantastic Dizzy, had the MD and Amiga versions both of which looked better but played worse IMHO.

Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap as people have mentioned is essential, although I guess technically the PCE version (Dragon's Curse) is better, but you won't care, as a game it puts most of the Nintendo classics to shame IHMO and it's aged just as well as any of them.

The Sonic games are kinda interesting because they're completely different games to the Genesis ones, but they've not aged well at all.

Land of Illusion is superb too, and not the same game as the Genesis Mickey Mouse outings, that's also aged very well.

[pbj]

Wonder Boy 3 was a really odd game, but we played the hell out of it.  My copy of Wonder Boy 2 used to be really glitchy and we'd intentionally shove that thing in crooked just to see what would happen.  Really crazy results like shops selling the wrong items, levels being totally scrambled.  It'd be nice to see an emulator that could simulate some of that behavior.  I remember all the early Genesis games that you could yank out, shove another one in, and hit reset for weird results (probably influenced Nintendo's decision to lock in the carts once the system was powered up).

I've thumbed through the entire US SMS release list, and it's really funny how everything I was about to list out here is either an arcade port or had a better version on Genesis.  I suppose the novelty at the time was I didn't realize how many of those games were arcade ports when I was a kid (having never encountered them).

Phantasy Star was good and had the distinction of being $68 at Toys R Us for 5 years.  We liked the Rocky and Ghostbusters games.  Shooting Gallery was awesome but we had that thing mastered quick.

 

[SavannahLion]

I remember the whole pulling the cart and swapping business. I wouldn't loan my Genesis games out for years to people who I knew did that kind of stuff.

Wasn't there a gaming mag that used to publish which carts did what back then? They had an occasional section dedicated to such "dangerous" tricks. Like rapid power cycling, cart hot swaps without the genie, etc. EGM or GamePro or something?

[pbj]

It was either EGM or GamePro and it was just one page of one issue.  We all passed it around for years.

All those tricks could be done by hitting controller combinations, so all you were doing was getting the things into some kind of debug mode.

The ones I recall offhand were the beast selection in Altered Beast, Japanese title screen on Ghouls n Ghosts, and level select on ESWAT.  Again, all could be done with controller combinations that were eventually discovered later.


Another neat thing you could do with a Genesis was throw a region switch on it.  Then you could play Genesis, 32X, and SMS games in Japanese mode.  The most dramatic changes were found in Mystic Defender...

[yotsuya]

I loved the SMS. It was worth it for Phantasy Star, Rocky, and Afterbuner.

[lilshawn]

by the time i got an SMS everybody had moved onto the genesis. still a great system.

my console had the snail game and "hang on" as build in titles.

wonderboy a definite fave there. Had a sonic the hedgehog game too...wasn't nearly as fast as the genesis version, but still pretty good.

[northerngames]

I lived in a rich neighborhood in Southern California when SMS came out.  The kids without game systems in that neighborhood had access to everything on the market thanks to millionaire neighbors.  That Christmas, every single one of us opted for a Sega Master System. 

Then I moved, and it was like stepping into a bizarro world where everyone owned a clearly inferior runner up.

That being said, NES had 5 games that were unmatched - SMB 1, 2, 3, Mike Tyson's Punchout, and Zelda.

Plenty of fun stuff on the SMS at the time, though.  We owned most of the arcade ports and the lightgun games were far more accurate.  Plus a version of Double Dragon that resembled the arcade game.

Most of the games that Malenko named came out after the Genesis and were fairly hard to come by in the USA.  It was crazy how long it was supported in Brazil, though.

there were still alot more too.

castlevania
metroid
metal gear
ikari warriors
blaster master
ninja gaiden
contra
life force

the last two probably still have the #1 spot for the most remembered game code of all time.

[kenzo42]

During my SMS days, I really enjoyed:

Wonderboy in Monster Land
Wonderboy 3
Phantasy Star (yeah, that was a pretty expensive game for 1987 - $70!).
Mickey Mouse Castle of Illusion
Miracle Warriors
Ys
Rambo (hardest game I've ever played till this day)
Astro Warriors
Psycho Fox
R-Type

[elvis]

During my SMS days, I really enjoyed:

Wonderboy in Monster Land
Wonderboy 3
Phantasy Star (yeah, that was a pretty expensive game for 1987 - $70!).
Mickey Mouse Castle of Illusion
Miracle Warriors
Ys
Rambo (hardest game I've ever played till this day)
Astro Warriors
Psycho Fox
R-Type

This list right here.  Brilliant.

[opt2not]

Keep it. Get yourself a Master Everdrive cart. Browse romhacking.net for fixes/updates/complete reworks to your favourite games, or translations of some Japan titles like a translated Japan Region of Fantasy Star, which has better music than the NA release. Get the Roms and apply the hacks (easy!). Or just load the cart with every game in the library. Then enjoy playing them on the original hardware!

I've been enjoying my Everdrives, and they've really breathed some life back into my old consoles. I get to play a lot of the titles not released in NA, or games which the carts are harder to obtain, as well as a whole load of of my favourite games with fixes and fine tuning changes.

Right now I'm enjoying the Mother: 25th Anniversary Edition version for my NES, which was just released. They translated the game, improved some of the graphics, and tuned the gameplay a bit to make it a bit more accessible.

[pbj]

You are not allowed to make a post like that without more examples

[opt2not]

Here's a list of the current hacks listed: http://www.romhacking.net/?page=hacks&genre=&platform=22&game=&category=&perpage=20&title=&author=&hacksearch=Go

A few noteworthy ones are the Y's FM Sound re-enabling hack, A Phantasy Star re-working to fit the story of the series more, and an interesting Game Gear port job of Sonic Dash 2.

Pickin's are slim with the translations though:
http://www.romhacking.net/?page=translations&genre=&platform=22&status=&languageid=12&perpage=20&title=&author=&transsearch=Go

[knave]

I looked up the Master EverDrive, and its Genesis cousin, Very cool...

...still not sure Its worth it for me though...but very cool.

[danny_galaga]

Master System was HUGELY successful outside of the US, so in the US it hasn't got such a great rep especially since some of the good games didn't get an NTSC version.

[Deadpool]

I loved my SMS, some of the games I played when I was a kid were:
Sonic the Hedgehog
Prince of Persia
Asterix
Sonic Chaos
and Ghouls 'n' Ghosts

So I would say keep it! Although you may find it difficult to acquire games for it as it is an old game console.

[Locke141]

Keep it. Get yourself a Master Everdrive cart. Browse romhacking.net for fixes/updates/complete reworks to your favourite games, or translations of some Japan titles like a translated Japan Region of Fantasy Star, which has better music than the NA release. Get the Roms and apply the hacks (easy!). Or just load the cart with every game in the library. Then enjoy playing them on the original hardware!

I've been enjoying my Everdrives, and they've really breathed some life back into my old consoles. I get to play a lot of the titles not released in NA, or games which the carts are harder to obtain, as well as a whole load of of my favourite games with fixes and fine tuning changes.

Right now I'm enjoying the Mother: 25th Anniversary Edition version for my NES, which was just released. They translated the game, improved some of the graphics, and tuned the gameplay a bit to make it a bit more accessible.

+.5

I got mine at a local game shop in the late 90's. It was cheep and the store had lots of games for it and they were all $5 each. I loved it and still have it at my parents house. It will have a place in my man cave when we move back to the US. Everdrives have made it worth it to keep any system that they make a card for. On top of that Rom hacking is a fun way to experience old faves with a new twist.

However, if your not a console collector and you don't care about having it in your collection, the Everdrive MD v3 for the Sega Genesis will play Master System roms. The Genesis was backwards compatible, with an adapter to accommodate the smaller carts. If you don't care about having it in your collection, I would post it for trade here and see what happens.

P.S. I want to see a list of the games that were coming out in Brazil in 2012.