Sega Megadrive Classics Review Switch – Portable Old Skool Stylez

Sega Megadrive Classic is a hub for a big ol’ bunch of tasty morsels from a simpler time.

If I were to compile a list of these titles it would look a little something like this;

I was just a twinkle in my mother’s eye and an itch in my father’s sack when a lot of these games were released so I called up my older brother for a little direction.

He suggested I have a look at Sonic, Alex Kidd, Shinobi and them funky aliens Toejam and Earl. I fell into my beanbag, set my Baby-G Casio to stun and threw a cartridge into the Megadrive.

Megadrive Classics Review Switch

I begun my trip down someone else’s memory lane with Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master and I was not at all disappointed.

The shinobi is an absolute weapon!

Dishing out fans of kunai while front flipping and dive kicking inferior ninja square in the tits. You just gotta watch out for guys with boomerangs though. The 90’s recognised the boomerang as the ultimate weapon in close to short range combat.

More like Shi-Yes-bi

After assassinating everyone who wore different coloured pyjamas than me I swapped out Shinobi for Alex Kidd.

Young Alex lives in a place where goods aren’t for purchase but can be won in high stakes games of rock paper scissors. A lump sum of cash buys a chance to bet your life in a winner-takes-all game. 

You’ll walk away with glorious prizes like a high-speed motorbike or an old wooden stick. It might not make sense to you high-brow civilised folk but it’s a rich culture that dates back as far as memory allows.

Good old Rock, nothing beats that

Following some juvenile gambling and homicide I swapped out The Kidd for The Baddest, Bluest Echidna Australia has ever seen. We don’t have hedgehogs here you see…and Knuckles wasn’t around just yet.

I actually had played a lot of Sonic as a young buck because my aforementioned older brother was adamant that it was vital to my education. I can’t agree more.

What a cracker. I don’t need to hype it up, everyone knows old school Sonic and the new Sonic Mania are slicker than a duck’s back in the water. Thankfully the highspeed hedgehog has such a strong foundation because these spinoffs should have killed Robotnik’s Rival long ago.

Back when Sonic was kicking it Old Skool

I’m three games deep here and my girlfriend hasn’t had a go yet. Now, this is a problem for two reasons. One, it’s unprofessional to mention I have a romantic relationship in this context and I’m clearly trying to flex on my ability to attract a significant partner.

Two, the old Tails to my Sonic isn’t very good at playing Tails in Sonic. There was some tension so we took to the Streets of Rage and started flogging these punks like the boys in blue at a Black Flag concert.

The best part of Streets of Rage is that when you run out of lives your score resets. So you can teamkill the shit out of your player two if they are unexpectedly exceeding your own capabilities.

Sometimes it pays to be a dick

The best part about the Sega Megadrive Classics collection is the out-of-game in-built features. Similar to other “collections,” you can quicksave and load as easy as pushing the right joystick up and down.

This is particularly handy if you don’t think extreme difficulty and no checkpoints is a poor feature in a game. I don’t, but if you wanna play with training wheels on go ahead.

Additionally, the games can be sped up and even rewound using L and R. There are some long unskippable scenes in these older games so I appreciated the ability to fly past them after my 14^th game over when I’ve had enough.

I liked this collection and I’ll be having a deeper look in as my schedule allows. Especially Shinobi!

That ninja is a rude dude but he’s the real deal. 

Sega Megadrive Classics was reviewed on Switch using a digital code provided by the publisher. 

PowerUp! Reviews

Game Title: Sega Megadrive Classics

• 9/10
  Huge Collection of Classic Games - 9/10
• 8/10
  Rewind and Fast Forward - 8/10
• 8.4/10
  Portability on Switch makes it even better - 8.4/10

8.5/10

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