Thoughts on the Full Genesis Mini Line-up

So! We now have the final lists for the Genesis / Mega Drive Mini—and, shockingly, I have many thoughts.

In case you haven’t gotten the full details, here’s the full list of the final ten… er, twelve… games that were announced:

First, again, the turn-around of this project is nothing short of amazing—and I cannot give Sega enough credit (and thanks) for that. By all accounts this was going to be yet another throw-away half-assed clone project at first, but they heard the complaints of fans & fixed that. We’re now at a point where we’re getting a project overseen by the best in the business, M2, with a selection of games that shows actual thought and consideration, crafted to the point you can actually add on props to make the experience more “legit”.

Here’s the full line-up of titles on the North American Genesis Mini. We’ll get into my arguments in a moment, but overall this is a far better list than I could have hoped for. Are there some things I would have done differently? Absolutely—but this is darn fine line-up.

The good: there’s a lot of choices here I wouldn’t have expected or felt sure enough to hope for. Titles like Castlevania Bloodlines & Contra Hard Corps knock out some in-demand high-priced titles; inclusions like Mega Man: The Wily Wars & Monster World IV we never properly got before. And, as a general look back at what the Genesis was in its heyday, it’s a pretty good library! Missing some of the standards or requested games, but overall feels like a collection one could be happy with, and a bit more daring than some of the previous Genesis collections.

The bad: There’s a few “WTF?” choices here that are taking up space that could have been used far better. Altered Beast and Virtual Fighter 2 don’t belong anywhere near this thing; getting no MUSHA (which is on the JPN release) is an utter crime gives its price/rarity here. And, the bigger problem for me overall is that while the Genesis Mini has a pretty solid and slightly surprising library, it’s also incredibly safe. I can’t fault Sega of America for picking this list, because it makes more sense for consumer appeal—but, you know.

The problem is that the Japanese version exists, and just feels so daring in many ways. The Mega Drive Mini has some deep, deep cuts, feeling less like “let’s make something for casuals + hardcore alike” and more like “this is a crazy niche product and let’s embrace that”. I also really respect and appreciate the “only one game per franchise” decision on the Japanese side. I know it isn’t a popular decision for some fans, but I think it was the right choice to make for a better line-up.

At this point, I’m definitely leaning in the direction of picking up the Mega Drive Mini for that reason. Given that I already have my Analogue Mega Sg, I want something that both hits my nostalgia but which also feels totally unique—and the JPN vision is doing that more. And also, really, it’s the inclusion of two 6-button controllers—that goes a long way for me. I still think the one true mistake made with this whole project was giving any consideration to the original 3-button controller. They’re not good, and the “nostalgia” isn’t worth it.

Of course, there’s one other big point we need to get to: we’re getting 42 games, not 40! And it’s in these two games that we get no better look at the passion and care that’s going into the Mini.

First up is Darius—a game that never actually came out on the Mega Drive. It exists due to the work of one dedicated fan, @AC_Hidecad, who (from my understanding) taught themselves how to program in order to port Darius to the system. So the inclusion of this port of Darius is, in essence, a fan game being given official blessing—and that’s crazy! I mean, allowing homebrew ports to exist is one thing, but going through the work to get the rights to include one on your commercially-available official product?

The other addition is equally crazy: Tetris. The Mega Drive version of Tetris is one of the rarest games in existence, as it’s thought that there are only 10 surviving “retail” copies in the world.

BUT—this isn’t quite that Tetris!

Tetris on the Mega Drive Mini is actually a brand-new, from scratch port of Sega’s arcade release of Tetris. The rare MD version wasn’t actually a great port in some ways, so this is seen as a sort of “what if that port had actually been good?” version of the game.

And then, of course, we have to mention the work that’s being put into the overall menus and user interface, Yuzo Koshiro’s sound work on the device, and all of the other small touches.

In the end, I have no hesitation in saying that I think the Genesis/Mega Drive Mini is going to be the best of these “mini retro” projects we’ll ever have gotten, and that it might stay that way for the foreseeable future. Even Nintendo’s efforts don’t compare to this. Now, I know—that’s influenced by my ride-or-die Gen/MD fangirl bias, but this truly feels like a legitimately special project, one that rationally should never have gotten this much time & care put into it.

Between this & the Analogue Mega Sg, 2019 has been a blessing for us Sega fans.

…though, okay, as one final thought, I do wish the JPN version of the Mega Drive Mini had Battle Mania II on it. That would have been another chance to give fans access to a grossly overpriced release. But hey.