The Early Days of the Sega Game Gear

[Music] with the massive success of nintendo's game boy it made perfect sense for sega to try their hand at the portable games market but sega chose to go in a radically different direction instead of shooting for maximum battery life they chose technological advances that put it well beyond what we were seeing on the barely visible puke green nintendo option using its 8-bit master system as a foundation sega opted for a backlit color display stereo sound and a relatively powerful vdp that could pull from a pallet of over 4 000 available colors it was a battery hog to be sure but it was something worth seeing when it first launched in japan in october of 1990 sega also decided against the narrow vertical orientation of the game boy and went with a horizontal layout that made holding the device quite comfortable so excited was i to get my very own game gear i imported the little guy a few months after its japanese debut so i could start my journey with it early that first year it was available in the us had a solid list of software that i want to talk about here today we are going to take a look at some of the games that you could play on the game gear in 1991 we got a bunch to go over so let's get started [Music] the software tool works chess master was released on pretty much everything back then and the game gear was no exception this sega published title had an extremely simple presentation but the gameplay was actually pretty good a solid ai could be adjusted for beginners and experts making it a great choice for long car trips it's simple but the charm for fans makes it well worth a look white black [Music] white check black capture white capture check black [Music] white capture check and mate [Music] clutch hitter was originally a sega arcade release that was ported down to the game gear in those early days it actually looks pretty good and while a tad bit slow still plays fairly well to get a sports game of this caliber on the go was really nice it has the real players but no real teams but i still enjoyed it quite a bit [Music] junction was a puzzle game by konami in the arcade originally micro net scored the license to bring home some ports for the genesis and game gear shortly thereafter here you basically must adjust the tiles in the correct order so the ball travels safely to the goal it seems simple at first but gets really hard the longer you play i never liked this much because it gets boring so quickly the ho-hum presentation doesn't help if you love puzzle games maybe take a look otherwise this one is a skipper atari's clacks was an arcade game that popped up on everything so the tingen or tengen if you prefer game gear release was no surprise this one has little colored bricks moving down a pseudo 3d playfield where you can catch them and then stack light colors for score it's a fair puzzler that is interesting and fun for short bursts it won't dethrone tetris as the all-time portable champion but still worth a look if you appreciate the genre [Music] pretty sure you all knew pac-man would be here and it does not disappoint namco's little yellow dot chomper is back in portable form and the game gear does a decent job with the presentation as you'd expect the lower resolution and small screen means namco would make things scroll vertically so it was all big enough to see you get used to it though and it does end up being a very playable recreation of the arcade it was the kind of game you needed on a day when your mom was running chores and left you in the car for 10 minutes at a time not bad at all [Laughter] put in putter miniature golf should have been a killer game for the game gear i mean this is the kind of pick up and play simplicity tended to really pair well with portable gaming but i'm not so sure how much of this any of you can tolerate the physics are quite frustrating and getting a good score takes countless tries it's not bad but far from good considering sims was at the helm [Music] slider is a weird one here you have to go over the game board turning the blue and yellow blocks into pink blocks there are weapons to deal with the enemies in your way and warp blocks to shoot you around the area it's actually not bad at all if a tad bit simple these type of puzzle offerings appeal to me because they were more action oriented i feel like i was battling as much as puzzling you can certainly do a lot worse on the old game gear [Music] sega wasn't gonna miss a chance to get columns on another platform so here it is on the game gear as well you know this one match the light-colored gems in rows of three or more to get score and keep from filling the screen up i mostly play flash columns in this one and while it's nothing exciting it gets the job done for a portable puzzle fix [Music] sega's woody pop could be one hell of a frustrating game you've seen this one dozens of times under other names but they are all basically the same break blocks by hitting them with your ball that's it there are a few power ups and obstacles that get in the way but ultimately it's about breaking the blocks and keeping the ball in play these games kinda get old to me quick and i never felt they played the best with digital directional pads it's okay but there are many many better games on the platform [Music] [Music] [Music] i want to tell you that us gold's world-class leaderboard golf is a winner i want to tell you the graphics are nice and that the gameplay is spot on and i'd be lying to you if i did the choppy visuals make this one not so good to look at despite the nice animation the gameplay is really frustrating because the putting is just so damn difficult to get any consistency with i can get the ball to the green quickly and efficiently but getting it in the hole is another matter entirely what looks like a sure thing will mysteriously just veer off course right at the moment of truth this can be fun but my god is it frustrating when i first found super golf i thought man this is gonna suck but you know what i was pleasantly surprised by this one's quality it's really easy to pick up and play very similar into the way nintendo's golf outings were the options are easy to understand and you'll be doing well much faster than you'd expect the graphics are colorful and detailed and it tends to only cost a few bucks sigma enterprises developed it the same company they did shadow blasters on the genesis [Music] do [Music] devilish was a genki developed puzzle game that was sort of a hybrid between breakout and pinball the screen scrolled vertically as you made paths through the obstacles and you often had enemies in the way that needed to be dealt with it holds up better than stuff like woody pop and has a ton more replay value a sequel hit the following year on the genesis a game many of you are likely much more familiar with the old game gear edition here ain't half bad though so be sure to give it a look [Music] sega's dragon crystal shares a lot with the 16-bit fatal labyrinth basically you explore around collecting items while battling enemies that get in your way it's an extremely simple game that gets crazy challenging to me it's kind of a mix between the old east games and gauntlet save states can really help you get a footing with the difficulty so i recommend playing it on a modern device [Music] been there done that is what came to mind when i first saw fantasy zone here how many times can sega release the same damn game well good news my brethren because the game gear fantasy zone is in fact a new game with different levels and bosses sanritsu developed it and while it uses the same formula appearing in the arcade version pretty much everything else here is new it's crazy colorful plays great and is one of the platform's better horizontal shooters it won't change your mind if you hated the original but what is here is very playable [Music] sega's g-lock was originally a graphically impressive arcade game that took a number of cues from the likes of afterburner the game gear version of course tampers down the visual something fierce what that leaves you with is some middling gameplay that kinda gets boring pretty quickly shoot down a certain number of planes in each round that's about as exciting as things get with the originals graphics gone i'm not sure many of you will care anymore [Music] haley wars is a vertically scrolling shooter from imaginative technology land the developer that did arrow flash for the genesis while not super exciting this does play well enough to hold your attention for a while it puts you in mind of some of the shooters for the pc engine which is no bad thing the action never really gets crazy fast so it's quite well suited for the small screen the backgrounds do get repetitive and sometimes it goes long stretches with no enemies so it really needed a tighter level design still it's a worthy play if you enjoy the genre [Music] [Music] you knew it wouldn't be long before u.s gold and tear text took a giant dump on your game gear and boy is indiana jones and the last crusade a stinker just trying to get this dude to do the simplest things is like pulling teeth i've had rectal exams that were more fun if you wasted your hard-earned money on this atrocity as a kid you have my sympathies i'd love to hate on it some more but i honestly couldn't stomach playing it enough to capture more than 5 minutes of gameplay i gave it all the time i could way back when and i refuse to give it anymore you never would have thunk it but old tiertex comes through with a halfway decent port of paperboy for the game gear gameplay is tight the visuals are solid and while that sound is kind of crap i'll take what i can get you all know it well deliver papers while avoiding obstacles the simple premise goes a long way in the portable arena and comes off quite well sometimes old arcade games like this could really shine when put in situations where time was of the essence if you like this one on home platforms this one is a pleasant surprise the msx classic psychic world get support to the game gear thanks to sanritsu this is a platformer where you must battle enemies across 4 levels and defeat their bosses power ups litter the play area and give you many options to employ this one actually plays great but has a really annoying design of enemies hitting you countless times when they make contact instead of taking a hit and being invincible for a second you just keep taking damage get yourself in a bad enough spot and you can lose nearly an entire life bar running across a single bad guy they did it because it's so short but it's no less frustrating with a few more levels and a different damage system this one could have been a classic [Music] back when space harrier hit the arcades in the mid-1980s it was a sight to behold most of those super scalers were but playing it downgraded like this on the game gear is a hard sell especially in 1991 the visuals here are so heavily downgraded that the choppy animation really hammers the fun factor i know there are many that feel these ports are still impressive given the hardware but i'd much rather play the original than settle for these types of concessions [Music] take what i said about space harrier and pretty much copy and paste it here i will admit that super monaco gp suffers to a much smaller degree thanks to the smooth movement of the road it allows the gameplay to shine a bit more so the playability remains higher while still a far cry from its arcade cousin this one is still worth looking at [Music] on a similar note chase hq mirrors much of what made super monaco gp still playable the smooth track movement really allows the gameplay to stay quite entertaining again nowhere near the arcade but still retains enough of that charm for some short play sessions upgrade your ride take down the bad guys and serve justice as a true road warrior one of the better vehicle based games in those early days [Music] [Music] wonder boy was something of a sega staple in the early days but for some reason sega changed its name for the us game gear release now known as revenge of drankin this was a pretty solid port i mean as far as sprites and colors go it's not far off the better versions of this game seriously if you enjoyed this one the game gear did it all kinds of justice [Music] the 8-bit castle of illusion was developed in-house at sega which was completely different from its 16-bit offering and what can i say here that most of you don't already know beautiful visuals memorable sound and an adventure worthy of a cultural icon like mickey mouse everything here just oozes quality from the stage design the variety the enemies i mean this in a portable form factor was nothing short of incredible at the time it was the kind of game that was legitimately a console experience on the go i dumped many hours into it and got so good i could beat it with a single life i can't claim that about many games but i proudly say it here whether you like disney or not whether you like kitty games or not castle of illusion is a top-notch product that deserves your attention every so often that sega magic was indisputable and this right here was one of their best 8-bit efforts [Music] uh [Music] i was so excited to play game gear shinobi when i saw that it was being released i honestly would have been happy with a straight sega master system port of the arcade but sega reached down and gave us something so very much more this completely new adventure was centered around rescuing your fellow ninja and gaining their talents in your battle to stop the city of fear you'll traverse highways valleys and forests as you make your way to the final battle once you rescue your friends you'll then have nearly unlimited options to ambush your enemies and you'll need it too there have been some dastardly traps set and there are entire areas loaded to the brim with death around every corner you can play it the way you want in any order you want a true evolution from the arcade original there are many great shinobi titles out there and the game gear has one of the best [Music] do [Music] it was incredible enough for sega to release one instant classic from disney on the game gear that first year but it was just icing on the cake to get two the lucky dime caper is itself an incredible platformer that in many ways was just as solid as mickey's adventure it's got great stage variety the visuals were a treat and just like castle of illusion the 8-bit donald duck was completely different from the 16-bit one with so many good games happening all at once you really had to wonder how sega was able to pull it all off this is also one game where the difference between the master system release and the game gear version make both worth playing seriously i know some of you bail out on these disney games just because you dislike the ips but you really need to give these a chance they are so much better than you can possibly imagine [Music] [Applause] [Music] when sega got japan's system house to do ninja gaiden on the game gear i was expecting a port of the nes version nope they went with a completely new game that looks and plays like no other entry in the series i actually like this but my god is it short and easy most of you with any action game experience will beat this in a single setting and everyone else with not much more i do like the visuals the sound is decent and the gameplay is fun even as a portable release this needed more meat on its bones however i mean i've seen demos with more gameplay [Music] believe it or not just eight months after the game gear launched in north america sonic made his debut on the platform developed by ancient this was not a port of the 16-bit genesis edition and is instead an entirely different adventure with new stages gameplay and boss encounters it was extremely well received and is considered by many to be the better designed of sonic's original console outings there's no denying it was a quality product the screen is a little tight due to everything being zoomed in a bit but otherwise this is a grand portable release that really set the tone that the game gear was here to stay it wasn't quite the visual spectacle it was on the genesis but this captured the imagination of millions all the same [Music] the sega game gear would go on to receive many great titles over its lifetime more than 350 games total in fact not only that but sega sold 10 million systems making it one of their better performing pieces of hardware thinking back to my time with it i spent many a night in my room ac adapter plugged in either playing one of these games or watching a tv show with my tv tuner having that color backlit screen was a dream even if the batteries away from home didn't last that long these days i have a modded game gear with a modern lcd screen that looks just spectacular and if you enjoy playing on it i highly recommend the upgrade one thing that a lot of people don't realize is is that while the sega master system was short-lived here in the us the game gear kept much of its library alive for us not only that but with a master gear converter you could actually play your sega master system library on the go i can't even begin to explain how cool that was back then a single device that lets you play both a portable and console library and lets you watch tv these things may seem like nothing today but it was pure magic in 1991. there are likely many of you that have never given the game gear a proper chance perhaps you have always heard the game boy was so much better so it wasn't worth your time well i was a big fan of the game boy myself and i still enjoyed the heck out of my game gear the two shared few games so there is so much to discover here i hope this video is a great starting point for you to see that it wasn't just nintendo that made memorable portable experiences i'm single lord x thank you guys for watching and i will catch you next time [Music] you

Channel: Sega Lord X

Views: 64,487

Keywords: game gear, sega game gear, sega, segalordx, sega lord x, sega saturn, sega genesis, sega dreamcast, mega drive, megadrive, 32x, mega cd, genesis, saturn, master system, sega cd, gameplay, review, movies, retro games, retro gaming, video games, ps4, xbox, wii, nintendo, gamecube, n64, ps1, ps2, ps3, psp, vita, switch, atari, shinobi, mickey mouse, donald duck, game gear micro

Id: _tNdTPqHh3s

Length: 28min 9sec (1689 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 19 2022