Segaiden

For those who found the authentic role-playing style of Phantasy Star a little too spicy (read: wordy) for their liking, Sega quickly followed up with a more Sega-style take on role-playing: Golvellius, which many people regard as the MSX's answer to Zelda II. I disagree, given that this is actually an MSX game reworked for the console, and that title shipped close enough to Zelda II's original release in Japan that their similarities almost certainly result from both games referencing the same foundational material. But "the Master System port of the MSX's answer to the games that inspired the Zelda series" doesn't really have the punchy zing of great marketing or console wars, so feel free to just shrug and go with the Zelda II comparisons if it makes you feel more alive.

Talk about hiding your light under a bushel. Power Strike finally brings Compile's trademark vertical shooting style to Master System, leapfrogging the design of Zanac for NES, and Sega of America celebrates this powerfully impressive work by the Master System's most reliable external developer by... making it a mail-order game exclusively offered in a single issue of the company's newsletter. Friends, that is what you call A Choice. Power Strike (that's Aleste, if you're nasty) merits discussion of more than just its tortured release. It's a great-looking game that runs smoothly on Master System despite throwing a ton of stuff around the screen at all times (though not SO smoothly that you can't hammer the attack buttons and cause some helpful slowdown to kick in), and it continues iterating on Compile's beloved eight-option secondary weapon mechanics previously seen in Gulkave and Zanac. Oh, and it's very difficult, which is why I recorded this episode with an infinite lives cheat a

This upload contains no test signal. 1988 winds down with a couple more games that feel extremely Sega Master System-like. One of them is a bad, difficult light gun game. Featuring Sylvester Stallone! Two clichés in one. The other, R-Type, is heck of good, but it's also a cliché given that it's heck of good in large part because Sega farmed it out to Compile to develop. And Compile, as you may have noticed by this point, does not miss. Unlike me with the Light Phaser throughout most of Rambo III. Alas.

Hey, we found Carmen Sandiego. Turns out she's on Master System. Sega (or rather, Parker Brothers under license from Sega—what a brave new era!) brings us the first of many console adaptations of this vaunted edutainment game, which would soon explode into a multimedia sensation. Before the cartoons, before The Learning Company, before Netflix, there was... Carmen Sandiego on Master System, which features an uniquely enthusiastic interface overhaul intended to better suit the world of two-button controllers.

Miracle Warriors brings us to the end of the Master System's run for 1988 in the U.S., bringing a clunky computer RPG to American homes where it became a clunky console RPG. Someone at Sega or Tonka looked at this one and said, "This definitely holds up well alongside Phantasy Star, we should ship them both at the same time." Meanwhile, over in Japan, the Mark III was winding down its run with the Mega Drive in stores and pretty much zero interest remaining in Sega's 8-bit line. As we turn our attention eastward to look at the final handful of Japan-exclusive releases for Mark III, we find a few familiar faces, beginning with that "Rygar" guy. Or maybe Rygar is the villain. Or is he called Ligar? So many mysteries abound! Including the way Argos no Juujiken shipped not from Sega or even Tecmo but from a little-known development and publishing company called Salio.

Two Japan-exclusive Master System (well, Mark III) titles this episode. First, the companion piece to Argos no Juujiken with Solomon's Key, the second and final third-party release for Mark III. Unlike the Mark III's take on Rygar, though, this version of Solomon's Key is barely distinguishable from the NES port. More uniquely, we have Galactic Protector, also the second and final of a set of Mark III releases. Specifically, the second and final Fantasy Zone spin-off. And I do mean spin: Galactic Protector requires use of the Paddle Controller that shipped with Alex Kidd: BMX Trial, since it involves Opa-Opa revolving around different planets in an attempt to defend them from harm. "You have to own Alex Kidd: BMX Trial" is a pretty steep barrier to entry! Weird marketing choice there, guys!

More Paddle Controller games? Yes, apparently. Megumi Rescue and Super Racing have the distinction of being the final Mark III releases for which the Paddle Controller was mandatory. And can you believe it—they actually put the thing to good use! Megumi Rescue is a descendant of Breakout and Circus Atari that combines fast action, a whimsical theme, and a surprising number of gameplay factors to be one of the more entertaining games of its type. And Super Racing is maybe the only top-down racing game to use an analog controller in the entirety of the post-Crash 8-bit era, which makes it stand out. Neither of these games left Japan, and that seems a shame: they're pretty danged good.

If you think eggs are expensive right now, imagine the cost incurred by the egg that figures into a central role in Hoshi o Sagashite... for Sega Mark III, also known as The Story of Mio. Not only does our protagonist have to fork over an undisclosed pile of cash for the thing, once it hatches he has to travel across the galaxy to learn more about the lifeform within, bribing and boozing galactic denizens along the way. But that's the charm of Hoshi o Sagashite..., really. It's kind of a load of nonsense, but it goes about its nonsense in a pleasant, non-confrontational way. What would you expect from a game whose lead designer was Rieko Kodama, though? A game with explicit ties to Phantasy Star... though you probably shouldn't take them too literally. Unless... is that Myau on the cover??

The end of the Sega Mark III's run in Japan coincided with the end of a major period of Japanese history, with its final game shipping just a few weeks after the death of Emperor Hirohito and the advent of a new calendar as the Showa era gave way to the Heisei. Coincidence? Sure. Nevertheless, the end of both the Showa and the ’80s in Japan really did feel like a time of transition and societal change, and these penultimate Mark III exclusives absolutely do come off as something of a time capsule that captures a slice of Showa spirit. In their own way. Sort of.

We cross the threshold into Segaiden 1989 this week with the final Mark III exclusive release—not chronologically, but in title at least—as well as the actual final game ever released for Mark III, period. The former title, Final Bubble Bobble, did eventually make its way to the U.S. on Game Gear about five years later. That barely counts! While the latter, Bomber Raid, also just so happens to be the very first Master System release for 1989 in the U.S. From this point on, the Master System is strictly a Western concern as it soldiers on in North America, picks up steam in Europe, and begins its millennia-long reign in Brazil.

I originally set out to make this a multi-game episode, but no. Cyborg Hunter turned out to have far more to see and say than I could have imagined. And so, here we have a fairly in-depth look at a largely forgotten game (certainly one I never hear people discuss) that Sega created, Activision published, and Zillion inspired in some pretty significant and undeniable ways. Yeah, that's right: this is Zillion III, and it plays a whole lot more like the first game in the series than Zillion II did.

The Master System stomps and smashes its way into 1989 with a pair of familiar titles. Rampage will be familiar because it had shipped a month earlier on NES—a bit of a lucky break for the NES port, because this adaptation blows it out of the water. And speaking of blowouts, the second game this episode features the king of them: Mr. October, AKA Reggie Jackson, the home run king. His game will seem familiar not just because it's another 8-bit baseball sim, but specifically because it's another 8-bit baseball sim by Whiteboard, whose work we just saw with Nekkyu Koushien.

The Shinobi series is making a comeback this summer after years of dormancy with LizardCube's Shinobi: Art of Vengeance. No simple visual facelift for a decades-old video game, Art of Vengeance appears to take a holistic approach to the series' evolution, pulling in bits and pieces from practically every game in the nearly 40-year history of Shinobi franchise. This episode, the first (but definitely not last) franchise retrospective for the Segaiden and NES Works projects, takes a look at the Shinobi games and how they evolved over time, with some thoughts on how those elements feed into Art of Vengeance. In addition to the arcade and Master System releases, which I covered last year, this episode also works as something of a preview for upcoming episodes on the Genesis and Game Gear titles, while also reaching even further ahead to games that are entirely outside of this channel's scope, like PlayStation 2 and 3DS. Oh, and modern systems (what with Art of Vengeance, you know).

This week's pair of games presents itself as royalty and nobility, but that just goes to show how little the divine right of kings is worth these days. Not that Poseidon Wars 3-D is bad, mind you, but it certainly doesn't have much going for it beyond its historic connections. No, not its connection to Greek mythology (it doesn't actually have one)—I mean its links to Sega's own past. That's certainly more than Lord of the Sword has going for it, a game that plays like someone dredged a forgotten mid-tier Falcom clone from the PC-88 library and did nothing whatsoever to freshen it up.

The most ’80s of Master System games are here to remind you that 1989 was, in fact, the pinnacle of the ’80s. Now, that has nothing to do with the quality of these games. Rastan gives us a pretty unsatisfying port of an arcade hit, and California Games offers a strong rendition of a fundamentally flimsy game. What I mean is that both of these games embody trends of the decades. California Games catches the tail end of "California Cool," the idea that America's far coast was a luxurious paradise of sun and sand (rather than the bastion of Evil Communist Murder that more poisonous elements of the media landscape have been pushing in recent years) pressed into service of a series of minigames that embody the supposed California lifestyle. As for Rastan, well, it was one of a legion of barbarian-based action games inspired by Conan as portrayed by the future governor who would preside over the California Games a decade and a half later.

One of the more bizarre and infamous games on Master System—not because of the game itself, which is fairly mundane and unremarkable. It's just... of all the properties to license, why ALF? And if ALF, then why not base a game on one of the cartoon spin-offs that lends itself more to outlandish fantasy settings and gameplay conventions? Nevertheless, here's Sega dipping into that licensing budget to create a video game about an annoying little alien whose entire world while trapped on earth consists of hiding in a suburban home with a family of uninteresting mid-tier sitcom Americans. Not exactly a gripping premise for a video game, at least not by the standards of the Master System! I'm sure a modern indie dev could knock it out of the park, but this was video gaming in 1989. The experimental, anything-goes recklessness of the early-to-mid ’80s had subsided by this point. And this is what it gave us.

Again, the chronology of this series has gotten a little scrambled here in early 1989, with March 1989's Ys (not Y's) coming in after May releases like ALF and Time Soldiers. But the explanation is right there in this episode's first feature item: Time Soldiers turned out so poorly on Master System—much like ALF and Lord of the Sword—that we needed to jump backward in time to redeem the console. Because Ys (not Y's) for Master System really stands out as a huge highlight of the system. Yeah, it's grindy and repetitive. But it moves at a brisk pace, streamlines its action so that you barely even need to press any buttons, has a great soundtrack, and even doth featureth a Shakespearean English localization ere Dragon Warrior arrived. Forsooth and verily. Anyway, it's real, real good... and it even beats the NES library to the punch in a few interesting ways.