This time on Classic Gaming Quarterly, we
take an updated look at the launch of Sega’s most successful console of all time, with
the August 1989 release of the Sega Genesis. In the early and mid-1980’s, Sega made numerous
attempts at entering the home video game market, beginning with the SG-1000, released in Asia
as well as select foreign markets. This was followed-up by the SG-1000 II, which
was mostly a cosmetic redesign that set the stage for the Mark III, a more powerful console
that was Sega’s final hardware architecture of the 8-bit era. In 1986 Sega decided to tackle the west, creating
Sega of America, redesigning the Mark III and releasing it as the Sega Master System. By the time the console was released here,
the Nintendo Entertainment System had already been out for a full year, and the Master System
was never able to put up any real competition. The Sega Mk. III had not been successful in Japan, and
Sega's decision to re-release the system at home in 1987, as the Master System, did nothing
to advance their cause against either the juggernaut Famicom, or market new-comer NEC's
PC Engine. The Master System had however been successful
in both Europe and Brazil, helping to encourage Sega to take another stab at the market by
releasing the world’s first true 16-bit home system. In his position as Sega Research & Development
director, Hideki Sato, who would later become the president of Sega, was responsible for
overseeing the development of the new console. In 1985, Sega had created the System 16 arcade
board, so named because its hardware was based around the 16-bit Motorola 68000 processor. Games released for this board include E-SWAT,
Shinobi, Altered Beast, and Golden Axe. Sato lacked both the time and money to design
a new console from scratch, and turned to the System 16 as the ideal solution to bring
the arcade experience home. Plans for Sega's new system were first shown
to the public in the pages of Japanese magazine "Beep!", where the system was referred to
as the Sega Mark V, before the name was later changed to the Mega Drive. The Mega Drive's hardware architecture was
designed by Masami Ishikawa, and is centered around the aforementioned Motorola 68000 CPU,
the same processor used in a number of home computer systems, including the Amiga, Atari
ST, and the original Apple Macintosh. The system also uses a secondary CPU, the
Zilog Z80, to control the sound hardware, but this had the added welcome effect of providing
backwards compatibility with Master System games. Speaking of sound, the Mega Drive uses a Yamaha
YM2612 6-channel FM chip paired with the same Texas Instruments programmable sound generator
found in the Master System to produce stereo music and sound effects. The Yamaha 7101 display processor can display
up to 64 colors on screen at once from a total palette of 512, up to 80 simultaneous sprites,
and has a maximum progressive scan resolution of 320x224. Like the Master System before it, the system
has an RF out jack, and also has the same multi-AV jack that outputs composite and analog
RGB video signals along with monaural sound, but up front the console adds an amplified
stereo headphone jack. The iconic Mega Drive design was intended
to look like a piece of high-end audio equipment, and featured raised “16-Bit” lettering
in gold print. Finally, unlike the small, boxy controllers
of both the Mark II and Famicom, the Mega Drive controller was larger, more ergonomic,
and featured three action buttons instead of 2. The Mega Drive was released in Japan in October
of 1988 with an initial launch price of 21,000 yen, which was about $150 at the time. The system did not have a pack-in game, but
released at the same time as the system were Space Harrier II and Super Thunder Blade. Still not out from under the shadow of Nintendo,
the Mega Drive hit the Japanese market just one week after the launch of Super Mario Bros.
3. In February of 1989, Sega hired Al Nilsen
as the Director of Marketing for Sega of America specifically to handle the promotion of the
new system. One of Al's first jobs at Sega was to help
pick a new name for the console, as the "Mega Drive" moniker was already trademarked here. From market research and focus groups, emerging
from the initial list of 5 was the name Genesis, representing a new beginning for Sega in the
North American market. Unlike both the Famicom and Mark III, the
basic cosmetic design of the Mega Drive was unchanged for the North American release,
with only a few subtle tweaks. Nilsen had the gold "16-Bit" lettering reduced
in size and changed to silver, and added both the Genesis logo under the cartridge slot,
and the phrase "High-Definition Graphics" arcing around the upper edge of the system's
dome. The Genesis was launched on August 14, 1989
with Altered Beast as the pack-in game. Five additional games were available on launch
day, including Last Battle, Space Harrier II, Super Thunder Blade, Tommy Lasorda Baseball,
and Thunder Force II. The first television ad, known as "The Maker"
and filmed in a historic church in London, began appearing in major markets. Although it would take Nintendo a full two
years to release a 16-bit console of their own in North America, at their peak in the
late 1980's they controlled about 95% of the home video game market here. But the Genesis wasn't the only new home console
to hit American shores. Releasing in select markets just a week after
the Genesis, NEC's PC Engine was redesigned and re-named the TurboGrafx-16, and perhaps
a bit disingenuously marketed as a 16-bit console. The Turbografx had a solid launch lineup,
highlighted by Blazing Lazers and Dungeon Explorer, and sold for about the same price
as the Genesis. In these early days of the 16-bit era, neither
system emerged as the clear leader, although Sega did establish the Genesis as a viable
presence in the market. Rather than trying to compete with Nintendo
head-on, Sega was targeting the teenage and young adult demographics that had been largely
ignored. Sega began to gain marketshare, while the
Turbografx-16 faded into the background. Although always a distant third to the PC
Engine and Super Famicom in Japan, the Mega Drive and Genesis would go on to sell over
30 million systems worldwide thanks to its popularity in in North America, Europe, Brazil,
and other parts of the world, and become Sega’s most iconic and successful console of all
time. Altered Beast was the original pack-in game
for the Genesis. Originally a Sega System 16 arcade title,
it was designed by Makoto Uchida, who perhaps more famously created Golden Axe, and who
was inspired by the work of Ray Harryhausen, whose Dynamotion stop-motion animation was
featured in such films as 1973’s The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad and 1981’s Clash of the
Titans. Altered Beast was developed by Sega AM1, at
the time known as Team Shinobi, having also developed that game for the System 16 platform. Altered Beast takes place in ancient Greece. You play the role of a fallen centurion who
has been resurrected by Zeus to rescue his kidnapped daughter. In each stage, you have to power-up your character
by killing blue two-headed wolves which then release spirit balls. After collecting your third, your character
changes into a beast form, which varies by stage, unlocking a boss battle. Once you defeat the boss, you lose all power-ups
and the process starts again. Altered Beast’s soundtrack was composed
by Tohru Nakabayashi, a member of Team Shinobi who also composed the entire soundtrack for
Golden Axe, as well as arranging the music for Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker. In the October 1992 issue of Mega Magazine,
Altered Beast was named the worst game released up to that point on the Mega Drive. Not only do I disagree with that, but it wasn’t
even the worst game released at launch. While the gameplay is fairly bland and shallow,
Altered Beast did a good job of differentiating itself from the 8-bit pack, with huge sprites,
parallax scrolling, and digitized speech featuring memorable phrases like "rise from your grave"
and "welcome to your doom”, and made for an excellent introduction to Sega’s Arcade-at-home
system. —————————— Space Harrier was a 1985 arcade game designed
by the legendary Yu Suzuki and released on the same arcade hardware as his earlier work
Hang-On. The game is a third-person on-rails shooter
that takes place in a vividly-colored fantasy world. Space Harrier was a hit in the arcades and
was subsequently ported to almost every home console and computer of the day, including
the Sega Master System. In 1988, Space Harrier II was specifically
developed for the Mega Drive, and was one of two Japanese launch titles. While the title would lead one to believe
that this game is a sequel, which technically it is, in reality it plays more like a 16-bit
home port of the original arcade game. This game does add the ability to select which
stage to start with, and the graphics in many of the stages are new, but the gameplay itself
is nearly identical. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as Space
Harrier is an awesome game. But they could have just released a home port
of the original and called it good, as far as I’m concerned. While the soundtrack for the original Space
Harrier was written by Hiroshi Kawaguchi of OutRun fame, the music for this game was composed
by Tokuhiko Uwabo, who specialized in arranging the music for home ports of Sega’s arcade
releases, including Fantasy Zone and Choplifter on the Master system, but perhaps most-famously
composed the music for the first two Phantasy Star games. Out of the 6 Genesis launch games, Space Harrier
II would have been an excellent alternative pack-in title. The game has arcade-like colorful graphics,
digitized speech, and although the Genesis wasn’t actually capable of it, gave the
illusion of true 3D. Last Battle is another side=scrolling action
game, and a Western localization of Hokuto no Ken: Shin Seikimatsu Kyuuseishu Densetsu,
a game co-produced in Japan by Fuji TV as a Fist of the North Star tie-in. That version of the game was the sequel to
a Mark III release that also underwent Western localization and was released on the Master
System as Black Belt. As it is in the west, Last Battle is a fairly
forgettable side-scrolling beat-em-up that really just feels like an inferior version
of Altered Beast. On the positive side, the game has reasonably
good graphics for the time, along with an overworld map that allows you to choose your
own path, to a certain degree. But the game also has stiff controls, bad
sound effects, and corny dialog that was just dropped into the game to replace the Fist
of the North Star story line. Enemies quickly fly off the screen when hit,
which looks really awkward. This was probably a quick fix affected during
localization, as in the original Japanese game, in true Fist of the North Star style,
when hit, enemies heads explode and their bodies follow suit. The aforementioned Mega Magazine rated Last
Battle as the #2 worst Mega Drive game of all time, and while I think they were way
off with Altered Beast, I can’t really argue with them this time. Much like Space Harrier II, Super Thunder
Blade was a home sequel to an arcade game, this time 1987’s Thunder Blade, developed
for the Sega System X, which was the follow-up platform to the Sega OutRun hardware. Thunder Blade was a popular arcade title,
and the deluxe cabinet was a sit-down machine that mimicked the cockpit of a real helicopter. Thunder Blade was also ported to just about
every home gaming platform of the day, again including the Master System. I’ve read it hypothesized on multiple websites
that the game was inspired by the 1983 film and TV series “Blue Thunder”, the former
starring Roy Scheider of Jaws fame. I can’t find a solid source to back up this
claim, but it’s either true or an amazing coincidence. Super Thunder Blade is another rail shooter,
but the designer ostensibly tried to create a more realistic feel to the helicopter’s
flight, making the controls feel a bit more floaty, and less responsive than Space Harrier,
which definitely takes some getting used to. As was the case in the arcade original, overhead
shooting levels are mixed in, but unlike the arcade you can not raise and lower your ship,
probably due the limitations of the home harddware. Like seemingly all of Sega’s arcade games,
Super Thunder Blade has great music, and that signature Sega color palette. But the framerate seems choppy, and somehow
Super Thunder Blade is unable to impart the same feeling of that third dimension that
Space Harrier can. The Genesis is of course not capable of hardware
scaling, and it seems a lot more noticeable in this game. Unlike Space Harrier II, Super Thunder Blade
doesn’t really do it’s arcade progenitor justice, and the game would have at best been
a one time weekend rental back in 1989. Tommy Lasorda Baseball was the sole sports
title available at launch. It was also the first example of Sega of America’s
marketing strategy of purchasing celebrity endorsements that would resonate with American
audiences. This strategy was initiated by SOA vice president
of sales Steve Rhoads, begun with the signing of Arnold Palmer (although that game would
not make it out in time for launch), and was further prioritized by incoming president
Michael Katz, who signed both Michael Jackson and Joe Montana. At the time, Tommy Lasorda was probably at
the peak of his popularity, after coming off of a 1988 World Series win with the Los Angeles
Dodgers, and had a number of endorsement deals <pause> in addition to this deal with Sega. The game was released as Super League Baseball
in Japan, and was a home port of a System 16 arcade title. The Mega Drive version of the game is similar
to the Power League series on the PC Engine, developed by Hudson, but they are two completely
separate franchises. Tommy Lasorda Baseball lacks both an MLB and
MLBPA license, meaning that the teams are identified by city only. You can choose between a single game in either
1 or 2-player mode, or a 30-game season complete with a password-based save system. The game both looks and sounds like a huge
upgrade over baseball games of the 8-bit era. The sound effects are more realistic, the
digitized speech is crystal clear, and the music is surprisingly good for a sports title
and changes throughout the game. Tommy Lasorda baseball was a great game when
it launched, and is still one of the better baseball games on the Genesis. If you were a sports gamer on August 14th
1989, you no doubt picked this game up along with your Genesis and went home a happy gamer. The sixth and final launch title, Thunder
Force II is a shooter that was originally released in Japan by Techno Soft on the Sharp
X68000. The game is the second in a series that was
active for 25 years beginning with 1983’s Thunder Force on the Sharp X1 and ending with
Thunder Force VI, released in 2008 on the Playstation 2. While the original Thunder Force was comprised
entirely of free-roaming levels, Thunder Force II oscillates back and forth between free-roaming
and horizontally scrolling stages. In the free-roaming levels, you need to destroy
several ground bases while dodging fire from both ground and air-based enemies. This not-often-seen style of gameplay would
appear in another Techno Soft franchise; Herzog. Once you destroy the final base, the stage
automatically comes to an end. Thunder Force II was the last entry in the
series to feature these top-down levels, as the series would become side-scrolling-only
with the release of 1990’s Thunder Force III. The horizontally-scrolling stages in Thunder
Force II play more like a traditional shooter and culminate in boss battles. There are a variety of power-ups to be picked
up throughout the game, but they’re specific to the type of level on which you obtain them. Thunder Force II has good graphics for a launch
title, but understandably looks subdued compared to the subsequent two entires on the Genesis. While the game has great music and sound effects,
the digitized speech is surprisingly sub-par for a Genesis title. Thunder Force II is, in my opinion, the best
game in the Genesis launch lineup. Were I buying the system in August of 1989,
I would have picked up both this game and Tommy Lasorda Baseball, saving Space Harrier
II for a weekend rental, and waiting for the impending release of Ghouls N’ Ghosts. That’s going to do it for this episode of
Classic Gaming Quarterly. Don’t forget that you can keep an eye on
us between episodes on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. As always, thanks for watching and we’ll
see you next time.
