The Sega Genesis & Sega CD vs The Sega 32X - The Complete Series

[Music] when sega launched the 32x in late 1994 it was meant to be a new era in sega gaming affordable 32-bit power as an alternative to the sega saturn and sony playstation sega genesis and mega drive owners didn't need to drop their older machines to upgrade as the 32x worked in tandem with what they already owned the question is how did these enhanced games fare against the vanilla versions already available in this episode we are going to take a look at the same or similar software that was available across the sega genesis the sega 32x and the sega cd did the 32x really give us that next generation feel or did it crash and burn leaving sega fans feeling ripped off let's take a look and find out [Music] our first game is pretty interesting for two reasons first neither the sega genesis or 32x had any hardware sprite scaling capabilities second both games appeared relatively soon after the launch of the two platforms the extra horsepower under the hood of the 32x really makes a difference here however you get more color faster smoother software sprite scaling and better music to top it off in fact the 32x version can be compared directly to the original arcade and still fares well it was for a time the best home version of afterburner 2 available on a sega platform easily killing the genesis and master system variants before it the sega saturn version showed up a while later and stole the title but even then the 32x edition was a fine version to play to be honest this is the kind of stuff i was hoping to see on the sega cd in 1992 but by the time it showed up on the 32x years later the lustre of these visuals were lost on a lot of people still the 32x did right by afterburner and this one is definitely worth your time while the poor genesis game pales in comparison it was still a fun game in 1990 it sports much less detail and let's be honest those ground missions look terrible but i think for the hardware you can't hate on it too much [Music] mortal kombat 2 was incredibly popular back then when it hit home on the genesis and super nintendo the latter commanded most of the respect in regards to being more accurate to the original arcade vision particularly when it came to sound effects when it was released for the 32x in 1995 it was still quite the popular fighter and i was really excited to see how much better it could be there's no doubt about it it was a big upgrade across the board stages had more color sprites were animated better sound effects were clearer and there were a lot more of them my only real complaint was they didn't try and give us the arcade soundtrack instead opting to use the genesis tunes virtually untouched but the best part was they didn't mess around with the lightning fast gameplay making this version the one to own for quite a while were the upgrades worth another 70 dollars at the time if you were a big enough mortal kombat 2 fan i'd say yes it was amazing how much difference having the missing sound effects back made in this game i mean if cart size was an issue in the genesis version i would have rather had a stage cut out to fit in the missing samples sound often gets minimized when compared to visuals and i think this game alone proves what an error that can be [Music] [Music] fight [Music] round one fight come here the popular arcade game nba jam tournament edition made its way to both the genesis and 32x the four-player genesis version was always an outstanding port of the game so the 32x really had something to build on it came on a bigger cartridge and boasted improved visuals such as player sprite scaling like the arcade original and improved sound effects but compared one to one how big of a difference is actually here you still get a ton of dithering across the chord and crowd most of the assets are the same across the scoreboard and front end and i dare say the music itself isn't all that great the voice samples are louder clearer and there are more of them giving you that arcade feeling quite nicely i must confess that the larger scaling sprites of the 32x version have an off-putting mix with the backgrounds the genesis sprites fit in better in terms of size and detail i don't know this one is a mixed bag for sure while i appreciate the voice work the visuals of the 32x release don't really do a lot to warn a 32-bit label while the scaling players are closer to the arcade's presentation the funky looking sprites take a hit in the process from a gameplay perspective though either one will do they both still play a hell of a game of two on two hoops head fake [Music] [Music] oh [Music] nfl quarterback club suffers much the same way that nba jam does on the 32x only in reverse while the 32x version gives us a field that is rendered as a 3d plane the sprites are nearly identical to the genesis version in size animation and detail the information bar scoreboards and front end are also extremely similar if not outright identical in places i do like the more 3d field in the 32x version especially how it allows you to look downfield better but these two games are far more similar than they are different i didn't expect a claim to redo the player sprites into 3d polygons or anything but you at least would think they would have done more to spice them up and increase the detail and size as a matter of fact all this really did was bring the game up to the super nintendo's level of presentation side by side it certainly doesn't destroy the genesis version visually and perhaps most disappointing of all the sound effects are pretty much identical with only a bit more clarity in its overall quality while i do think it's better than the genesis release this thing was 70 dollars at launch and it damn sure wasn't worth that curiously this was released in every major region despite nfl football's limited appeal outside of north america white 51 huh pitfall the mayan adventure was an interesting release for the 32x it saw some big color enhancements over the genesis release but suffers from some serious frame rate issues while playing this is basically because unlike the genesis the 32x itself had no specific hardware for scrolling 2d graphics efficiently this had the unfortunate side effect of some 2d games running at 30 frames per second versus their usual 60 frames per second with pitfall here being one of them so while you do get a better looking game the trade-off is far from worth it the slower update makes things much more difficult to play in my experience whereas i can make my way through the genesis version's first three levels i find myself having heaps of trouble making jumps and taking hits in the 32x activision even skimped out on trying to improve the audio on any level the sound effects and music are identical to the genesis version in every way that matters and i couldn't pinpoint any decent improvements anywhere this one always had some great animation and that at least returns but that performance leaves much to be desired this was also released on the sega cd and that one gets the nod for best playing version on a sega system so [Music] foreign so [Music] while nowhere near as popular as street fighter 2 or mortal kombat primal rage had its fans back in the day when the genesis version was released it took a major hit in both sound and visual fidelity when compared to the arcade original the 32x version sought to remedy this by bumping up the color and improving the sound was it able to succeed well it's definitely better than the genesis version of that i can confidently say right off the bat you notice stages have more color and better details the cool line scrolling makes a return too so there's no question each stage manages to impress a bit more the sprites are also more colorful and even a tad larger bringing them a more arcade feel even the little humans scurrying around in the battles are better looking on the 32x time warner interactive even cleared up the sound effects here this makes for an improved home port in every single way but let's be realistic here it's still a world away from being arcade accurate it still has way less animation much smaller fighters and the overall detail and clarity is no match at all the saturn and playstation would receive ports around the same time that just murdered what you see from the old 32x here so yeah it was better than the genesis but still way way behind other versions of the [Music] game [Music] rage [Music] foreign our last game for part one is tough man contest the boxing game from electronic arts that played a little like nintendo's punch-out arcade game here you must fight your way through an amateur boxing competition against fighters from all over the globe the genesis version of this game wasn't particularly great so the 32x really didn't have a ton to work with for what it's worth the backgrounds were completely redesigned with loads more color and detail and the sound effects have been improved across the board it definitely looks better back there but everything to do with the fighters is very similar animation looks the same as do the menu screens despite the visual improvements there are still areas of heavy dithering in the background and fighters so it still looks like a 16-bit game the saturn and playstation wouldn't have been caught dead with these visuals i will say this though if you enjoyed the gameplay on the genesis it's more the same so the visual improvements may make it worth a look for some of you one two three four five six seven one two three four five virtua racing shares a unique similarity between the two versions the genesis needed extra hardware to run both of them the original virtual racing for the genesis used the svp or sega virtual processor a booster chip inside the cartridge that helped render the polygons faster than the genesis ever could alone and of course virtual racing deluxe uses the 32x itself to render the polygons you see and the differences between the two methods is quite stark while the original genesis release was impressive in its own right the 32x is the better version of the two by leaps and bounds you get much better color across both the backgrounds and polygons rendering performance is vastly superior as well the 32x's sound hardware gets some use with clearer voices sound effects and music the devs also gave the 32x version quite a bit of extra content in the form of two new tracks and two new cars both games also have a two player split screen mode where once again the 32x version really puts the svp-powered cartridge to shame i captured these two games back to back playing the 32x version first and then the genesis the contrast in the visuals made playing the latter extremely difficult everything looks and runs so much worse it actually makes some of the areas of the track hard to see of course neither of these games are a match for the model 1 arcade but having a choice between home versions at the time it was 32x all the way i do prefer the ai in the genesis version as far as gameplay is concerned it's much more fair in regards to difficulty on the 32x the top two cars drive a perfect line every race and you need to be just as dead on accurate to even get close to their level casual fans will never see a first place win in that version of the game [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] since sega made the 32x you'd think that they'd make software that really took advantage of it i mean they were trying to sell the thing to you right well in 1996 we received world series baseball starring dion sanders for the 32x a continuation of the much-loved baseball series that started on the sega genesis but just look at the two games side by side you get a bit more color in the players in the field and that super next-gen feature of scaling when a play warrants the excitement and that's it man that's what your 160 dollar add-on and 60 cartridge got you the majority of the sound effects are similar the voices are almost identical and the front end and option screens are exactly the same in fact these two versions are much more the same than they are different they're both 24 megabits they both have battery backups and they both feature multiplayer the 32x version only saw release in the us and that wasn't until february of 1996 well after the demise of the hardware itself rarely can you use the term cash grab for a failed product but sega phoned in this lazy port making it one of the worst defenders of the practice for the platform if you like baseball games you are missing very little by sticking with the genesis original [Applause] number 20. out now batting for the brave the first spaceman i was a big wrestling fan in my youth hell some of my favorite games back then were wrestling titles i loved wwf raw and the genesis so when it was announced for the 32x i was excited to give it a go pitting the two side by side there is very little reason for celebration however outside of some color differences the two remain quite similar in animation sprite size and arena design they both are four player and retain the same match types as well the biggest differences you'll find is actually in the music the 32x has much better music and each wrestler's theme song sounds much fuller and richer crowd noises are better and every wrestler's grunts and groans are clearer but for that sound trade-off you get another game that runs at 30 frames per second versus the 60 of the genesis original some of you won't mind this but if you are sensitive to the lower performance it can impact replayability severely to make matters worse this was another game that came at a premium at the time costing 70 dollars when the genesis and super nintendo versions were already being discounted the core game here has always been fun particularly that royal rumble mode where you could battle your friends but at half the performance plus additional cost this was one you could live without [Applause] one two three while acclaim was responsible for publishing both wwf raw and wwf wrestlemania the arcade game the results couldn't have been any different here sculptured software really upgraded the standard genesis version the sprites are larger and more colorful the ring and arena are more detailed and the music is in a different league entirely it does again suffer from the 30 frames per second performance issue but in this case it's worth it to get the increase in the other areas i always thought the original genesis game was impressive in its own right it had all the wrestlers and looked fantastic for hardware that was years behind the arcade machine in terms of technical advantages with that said i really do like the 32x entry as well they really kicked up the visual oomph and i noticed very little slowdown when more than two wrestlers were on the screen had wwf raw had this same level of enhancement it would have been a far more impressive experience you don't often hear me say this but i'll take the 32x's visual goodies over the smoother gameplay of the genesis edition in this one [Music] [Music] [Music] heart the brutal fighting game series was released on the genesis and sega cd in 1994 under the name brutal paul's a fury these two versions were largely the same visually with the cd having the added benefit of better music when the 32x edition was released the following year it was called brutal unleashed above the claw and saw some pretty radical upgrades in background graphics and content you get two new fighters and four new stages giving you plenty of things to learn and play around with the backgrounds have seen some major polish both in color and detail the ones that were redrawn are night and day and really take advantage of the 32x's additional palette so more fighters more stages and improved visuals it's another 32x winner right nope sure as hell ain't while the additions are welcome this takes a nosedive in the gameplay department running at 30 frames per second it's so much choppier than the genesis and sega cd versions stages that have foreground details show it off the worst damn near a slideshow of poor scrolling i was never a fan of brutal's gameplay either so losing that smoothness just worsened my distaste for it the setup was always weird anyway you start out with no special moves and have to earn them as you play and get this to keep what you have learned you gotta put in a password to recover them i don't know man this game was an acquired taste to begin with so the 32x version is a hard sell i can tolerate 30 frames per second in a brawler like wrestlemania but here you really do feel it impact the gameplay that wasn't all that great to begin with [Music] i included rbi baseball here so you could see where the series was headed in terms of design and gameplay rbi baseball 94 was actually the last game in the series for the sega genesis an rbi baseball 95 was only released for the 32x the new batter box view looks much better than the original genesis design the infield and outfield are actually proportional to one another's actual stadium something the genesis version was way way off on the outfield was always overly massive in the 16-bit game making it really easy to get hits and score runs thanks to the really large gaps between players the 32x remedied this making it a much more realistic simulation of the sport the only thing i'd criticize here is that it still didn't look like a 32-bit sports title i mean they could have done a polygonal field and stadium for a grander effect to the presentation instead it's all two-dimensional small and lacking details that you'd see in premium 32-bit releases this one plays well enough and is a solid upgrade over the previous genesis release but you compare it to something like world series baseball on the saturn and it just gets blown out of the water [Applause] [Music] the third [Music] at the end of 1995 electronic arts released fifa 96 for both the 32x and genesis this is one of the few titles that actually had two different teams developed two different games under the same name for the genesis and 32x they were even released on the same day though the latter was only released in europe and boy what a difference between the two versions you get while the genesis uses traditional sprites against the 2d field the 32x version uses 3d polygons for the field and stadium and 2d sprites that scale in and out with the action this allows you to choose different camera angles that can really change the way it feels and plays this definitely gives the 32x version a next-generation appeal the 16-bit game lacks entirely but to be fair there are some trade-offs for this new 3d engine first you lose the beautiful animation in the genesis sprites and the smooth field movement while the 32x visuals are more dynamic and exciting they are also far choppier and nowhere near as detailed as much as that disappoints me i still have to say i was impressed that it exists at all most sports games even sega's own line were just re-badged genesis ports in little else electronic arts actually gave you a 3d engine here and that was no small victory on a platform with so few games [Applause] uh the last comparison i have for you i'm including as a bonus only you can't really compare these two because they were completely different games to begin with they were also many many years apart i'm throwing it in to show you just what could have been done with the 32x in regards to software sprite scaling you saw afterburner complete in the first episode so coupled with this i hope you can see why it was such a missed opportunity for sega to shun these types of games outrun was supposedly in development for the 32x at one point but sega cancelled the project before it was finished i think with the added features of the 32x this is the route sega should have gone out runners a b cop rail chase slip stream the 32x could have been sega's place for super scalers giving genesis owners access to a huge amount of software that was virtually untapped in the american home market even if these games had to be cut back to 30 frames per second they still would have ran and played well particularly against the previous home efforts the base genesis had a few games that showed off software sprite scaling fairly well itself but i think between space harrier and afterburner the 32x showed it was more than competent at doing strong ports for these types of games [Music] uh get ready we are going to start with surgical strike and on-rails explosion simulator this was developed by the code monkeys the same company that did tomcat alley you are in control of a combat hovercraft that is loaded with missiles and a chain gun as targets pop up you mow them down or blow them up you even have some control over the direction you move though these are still confined to the pre-recorded paths here the color advantages of the 32x are pretty easy to see while still grainy as hell there's a ton more detail in every scene of the 32x version to its credit the sega cd is still full screen and is still fairly easy to make out everything that's going on and man are both these games hard as hell the first few times you play them you have no clue just what the hell is going on and you take damage from every angle curiously the 32x version was actually advertised on the sega cd box as a free upgrade but that never happened in fact the only boxed release there ever was for the 32x was in brazil where it was sold as a standalone product and has become a heck of a collector's item especially complete outside of its collectibility i can't say i enjoyed this one much i appreciated the realistic models in the environments and everything blows up real good but the constant switching between these animations and the targeting system really grows tiresome the 32x is definitely the better looking version but this game is a misfire otherwise okay soldier kabul knows you're here you're gonna have to find your own way in jj and i'll give the look down from here take out the missiles before they get off the ground shoot for the boosters okay soldier kabul knows you're here you're gonna have to find your own way in jj and i'll give the look down from here take out the missiles before they get off the ground shoot for the boosters i always thought the supreme warrior was a really interesting direction for a full motion video game the mix of video sprites and narration kinda limited a unique touch for the fighting genre the gameplay consists of fighting various bad guys gaining their power and then facing the evil warlord fang 2. the gameplay is a little different than your typical full motion video slog thanks to the use of a fairly snappy interface you attack at the right times and the video plays out in your favor miss your chances to score hits and block attacks and you take damage problem is it's so fast and the icons are so far apart it's incredibly hard watching my daughter play it was hilarious i was bad myself but watching her fumble with the control pad and exasperation was eye opening she told me she sees why the sega cd went down in flames with garbage like this the sega cd video is not full screen but it still doesn't look too bad it has the typical grainy look but everything is easy to see and make out the 32x version improves nearly everything about it however the video is cleaner in a larger window and of course quite a bit more colorful surprisingly they did skimp on the heads up display which still looks like the low color genesis border it's just smaller like a lot of full motion video games supreme warrior is tough no matter which version you play it takes quite a bit of time to get a feel for how to succeed and man does it get tiresome getting your ass kicked over and over i did enjoy the 70s style kung fu presentation and the cutscenes can actually be quite entertaining the vanilla sega cd version of this is fine for these things however making the 32x version kinda unnecessary outside of the additional visual polish at its heart it's still a full motion video game so if you hate them this one ain't gonna be changing that [Music] and you thank to ferocious as ever more so and you thank to ferocious as ever more so one of the stranger full motion video releases was slam city with scottie pippen like supreme warrior it uses fast interactions to play out the various video clips it of course is nothing like real basketball while you can move the on-screen character you have no control over how the video flows meaning you have to look for the right cues to actually succeed but this is utterly destroyed by the constant cutscenes and trash talking that break up the action it's weird stuff too guys trying to score girls bookies taking bets and a ton of other non-basketball related crap the sega cd video is again grainy as hell but it at least remains detailed enough to follow what's going on the 32x version offers some improvement but not a lot to get excited about there is still tons of blocky artifacts hampering the display and the sprite elements look just as awful in both editions they even kept the same damn low color heads up display again i appreciate that digital pictures was trying to make full motion video games more exciting but it again fails to unshackle its games from poor pacing terrible control and a bunch of interruptions that have nothing to do with the subject matter if they put the constant cutscenes before and after the game it may have been more tolerable but as it stands both these versions are piss-poor representations of the sport both also come on a whopping four cds man i almost broke a sweat running points on you so fast you got beat down bad man don't worry about me ace i've got a ride all i want to do girls carry your books hold your hand walk you home from school yo bro you were so close but i told you i had something for you you should have dunked more good old night trap depending on your view this is either one of the very best full motion video games ever or one of the worst since i encountered it early in the life of my sega cd i'm rather fond of it in a way so the 32x release held a ton of appeal for me same setup as before you are controlling hidden cameras and traps inside a house full of vampires your job is to save a group of young women while denying the vampires a feeding frenzy you can jump room to room at will which always kind of provided a nice exploration factor for discovering when and where you should trap the bad guys the sega cd version has the usual shortcomings in regards to video it's grainy and the color use is quite weak the window you navigate is kind of small too the 32x made that bigger improve the image quality and upped the color quite significantly this does make for a more pleasant experience if you are a fan so i can definitely recommend it it does nothing at all for the gameplay however so if you always hate it night trap you'll be hating this version as well this was actually the centerpiece of my 32x collection for a long time because my family and friends enjoyed playing it so much i always kind of saw this as a party game as it's much more fun with more people unlike some of the other full motion video games on the 32x this one improved the heads up display quite significantly [Music] [Applause] when fahrenheit was released in 1995 it was the only north american release for these machines that shipped with both versions in the same retail packaging as nice as that was you couldn't give one of the discs to your friends though because the 32x version needed the sega cd disc to boot up not that it matters because this is yet another case of only mildly improving video assets the goal here is to work your way through burning buildings completing objectives before your oxygen runs out you can freely move as you please but you won't last long if you keep going the wrong way originally you were aided by maps that were included in the instruction manual and without them you kinda end up flying blind both versions are full screen and there's no heads up display to speak of so these two end up looking pretty similar after seeing a few full motion video games in a row you kind of start to realize that while the 32x version looks better in every instance the impact just isn't all that impressive both are still grainy both still have loads of compression artifacts and both just don't look all that great i mean you had a 100 genesis a 300 sega cd and a 160.32x and this was the best improvement we could get the monumental disappointment of how these two machines were being used should be setting in right about okay now get in search rescue and get out yeah if i gotta follow you i like to get out of my piece hey hot dog don't forget your gear my daughter emily my daughter slow down what's the story my daughter might be in their car is there but i don't see her anywhere oh god you gotta find her you heard him boys and girls there may be someone in there it's time to shake and bait fast night okay let's get in search rescue and get out yeah if i gotta follow you i like to get out in one piece hey hot dog don't forget your gear my daughter emily my daughter slow down what's the story my daughter might be in there car is there but i don't see her anywhere oh god you got to find her you heard him boys and girls there may be someone in there it's time to shake and bake corpse killer was perhaps one of the better received full motion video games of the time thanks to its shoot em up gameplay while these segments were surrounded by story bits the main gameplay has you shooting zombies and side scrolling action similar to the likes of operation wolf the 32x again improves the things it did in the other games and again if you have access to both that is the version you want hell i'd even go so far as to say the 32x version rivals the sega saturn in video quality but that's only saying something if you like the game it's still the same game it always was and again even with the improvements the 32x video is still not particularly great both versions claim to use the minister light gun but i've never tried them out to see if it actually works i mean this kind of game is just as easy to use a controller with anyway it was disappointing again to see digital pictures not upgrade the heads up display all that much from the sega cd version i mean such a simple thing to upgrade and improve the presentation a bit yet it continues to look like a dithered mess like night trap if you're a fan of it the 32x version may hold some appeal if you're on the outside looking in you're probably sitting there with a scowl on your face wondering where the hell the real games are private first class tony gallano dr hellman has done nothing but told us the truth he's not a violent man he's a caring visionary private first class tony gagliano dr hellman has done nothing but told us the truth he's not a violent man he's a caring visionary bc racers was released for both systems and it isn't full motion video based it was core design's 1994 take on mario kart using the chuck rock universe you race around a ton of different tracks trying to finish first you can attack use nitro boost and you have a choice of a bunch of different racers sounds like a winner and if you are a racing game fan there is enough here to get some enjoyment out of the carts are easy to control and the tracks are easy to follow the problem neither one of these games take true advantage of either platform while the engine is technically using some scaling techniques both are not anywhere near as smooth as they should be i mean there are better looking scaling engines on both that are much smoother and faster making you wonder just what the hell is going on while this was bad enough for the sega cd the 32x version is supposed to be on a next generation machine look at it does that look next generation to you the problem here is that bc racers isn't a bad game it's just that it should have been so much more it was never a deep or complicated experience so the jump the 32 bits should have at least brought some visual power with it no such luck they even messed around with the control in how you attack and do nitro boost which was easier and you could attack from both sides on the sega cd while sega was wowing us with afterburner and space harrier this thing here was nothing short of a titanic let [Music] down [Music] pitfall the mayan adventure appeared on both as well you can pretty much copy and paste everything i said in the genesis comparison in part one and apply it here about the visuals the sega cd version is pretty much identical to the genesis and graphics so again the 32x version looks better thanks to more color but with that comes the frame rate being cut in half essentially ruining a fast scrolling 2d game like this the sega cd version also has some additional cutscenes and a much much better cd soundtrack making it the best version of pitfall by quite a stretch so brutal paul's a fury was also on the sega cd again take what i said about the genesis version before and apply it here it doesn't have the big color of the 32x version but it plays so much better the scrolling on the 32x is so janky it actually moves the position of the second fighter as you move around him no joke you can move the position of the second fighter by just scrolling the screen the sega cd version of course adds a ton of animation and the cd soundtrack ain't so bad still this game is a low tier fighter no matter which way you choose to play it [Music] remember how i said the 32x nba jam tournament edition was kind of a mixed bag due to its weirdly proportioned sprites well the sega cd version of the original nba jam is actually pretty damn good thanks to loads of arcade voice samples great music and an overall killer presentation it was by far my favorite 16-bit version of nba jam and honestly i'll take it over the 32x version any day it's not that i dislike tournament edition on the old x i just like the look feel and sounds better on the sega cd in the plus column the 32x version has a better roster for many of the teams [Music] he's on fire [Music] the next three games you're gonna see are just comparisons for fun since they are all pretty much completely different content the sega cd got wwf rage in the cage and earlier entry into the series that would go on to become wwf raw on the 32x as you can see very similar overall on how it looks and plays of course the sega cd version had some great music but lacked the all-important royal rumble mode a crushing omission i still really like both games though after burner 3 was more a take on g-lock than it was after burner but here it is nonetheless this was one of the most disappointing releases on the sega cd for me and the 32x version absolutely annihilates it visually the sega cd version has a nice soundtrack but man is it dog ugly last but not least the soul star the core designed space shooter that really showed off what was capable with the sega cd scaling hardware a port was meant to come to the 32x as well but midway into development it was cancelled and all that remains is this simple prototype it's a shame it never saw the light of day the following contest is scheduled for one thought to my left from uganda weighing 390 pounds the ugandan giant kamoma so after playing all these games what conclusions have i reached as much as i wanted the 32x to be more than it was there is no question it was an ill-timed poorly designed stop gap that was in no position to perform as well as gamers wanted it to and sega needed it to much like the sega cd before it the very nature of its add-on qualities meant we were gonna get a ton of similar games that failed to truly utilize the hardware effectively as we saw time and time again many of the games for the 32x amounted to little more than genesis software with a few bits and pieces of enhanced color and sound and while it's easy to blame lazy developers for these games it's as much sega's fault as it is theirs the 32x's design and marketing didn't exactly inspire game makers to take a lot of chances particularly with the sega saturn landing a mere six months later to add to the letdown were 32x cd games that were exclusively full motion video so we never got to actually see all three pieces of hardware doing a traditional game together despite these realizations the 32x still had some games very much worth playing and the thing is almost all of these games did something the base genesis wasn't known for those ports of space area and afterburner showed that sprite scaling was definitely something the 32x could do and of course the polygon games for it represented some of the best experiences a flat shaded virtual cop could have been a winner a port of outrunners would have been huge and just imagine a special 32x version of fantasy star 4. where were these games at if sega lacked the resources to push this kind of software why bother releasing a 32x at all i also believe that sega went about the form factor of the 32x entirely wrong the messaging itself was as convoluted as i've ever seen this right here should have been the product sega released from day one not an add-on but an upgraded genesis ii the genesis 32x would have been stand-alone sega could have promoted its backwards compatibility to parents and perhaps more importantly it wouldn't have had the stigma of being attached to an old system given how inexpensive it was to produce the genesis at that point i doubt it would have cost much more than the 32x we actually received but hindsight is always 2020 and none of that mattered what we are ultimately left with are kids that had it back then and kids that didn't the former likely have a few good memories of the old 32x while the latter experienced it much later endearing it to none of them and that tends to be gaming in a nutshell what you played as a kid has a profound effect on your opinions of these products both then and now while i can certainly see the flaws of the 32x and its software there is still a part of me that really enjoyed some of its games and honestly guys that's all that really matters i'm single lord x thank you guys for watching and i will catch you next time [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Sega Lord X

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

Id: 2PN0_0ad68c

Length: 53min 22sec (3202 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 10 2021