Sophie's Choice 2: Choice Harder! Credit: Nintendo/Sega
Sophies Choice circa 1993

When I was growing up there were three types of people: Nintendo fans, Sega fans and that one kid who owned a TurboGrafx-16 and spent every recess writing Air Zonk fan fiction.

Never was this cultural schism more intense than during the 16-bit era. The two big competitors for the average person’s gaming dollar were the Sega Genesis (aka Mega Drive) and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (aka SNES). While it’s almost de riguer to own multiple gaming consoles these days, back in the early 90s the only people who owned both a Genesis and an SNES were crooked politicians and DJ Jazzy Jeff.

Result: We all had to pick a side in the inevitable civil war.

Personally, I was Sega kid. My first console was an 8-bit NES — who didn’t own an NES? — but once I started buying my own gaming hardware, I jumped ship and went Sega all the way.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Gunstar Heroes, Phantasy Star IV, Shining Force 2, I even had a subscription to the Sega Channel for a few years. Sure, my allegiance to Sega caused me to miss out on a few SNES classics when they were first issued, but I also got to play a ton of radass games that most people have never heard of. Pulseman, anyone?

But we’re getting off track here. The goal of this post is to find out which side of the fence your allegiances fall on.

FOR SCIENCE!

11 replies on “Genesis vs. Super Nintendo … WHO YA GOT?!?”

  1. Holy shit, I fucking loved Sega Channel! So far ahead of its time. Even today it is still a crazy concept. I remember they use to put up games months before they were released for sale on it, but then they would take them down. Thus forcing me to never turn off my Genesis if I had a game that I hadn’t beaten.
    Amazing console, and I’m so happy that someone else remembers the Sega Channel.

  2. Yes! Or how about how Sega Channel had really shitty support for games with battery backup, so that if you wanted to play a long roleplaying game you couldnt play anything else until you finished it because if you did it would delete the save file?

    And yeah, I totally remember when they’d have pre-release games on there. I redidn’t realize how awesome that was at the time, but thinking back, that and the games that would never hit retail shelves in America (yet were still localized specifically for the Sega Channel) were such an awesome feature of the thing. The one I mentioned above, Pulseman, was the last game made by Game Freak before they went on to do Pokemon games forever and ever and it’s pretty damn brilliant. Other than that the two I remember most fondly were Mega Man: Power Battles (the Mega Man fighting game) and Golden Axe 3 (which was only released in Japan, I think).

  3. Er, that is, Golden Axe 3 was only released in Japan (and maybe Europe) until like 2 years ago when it was also included on the Xbox 360 Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection.

  4. It was all about Sega Genesis, though I’d pay for my loyalty when I bought the steaming pile they called Sega Saturn.

  5. I went with Nintendo here (can anything ever be as fun as mariokart?? quick answer: nope.) BUT to be fair, my first two ways to game were the genesis and game gear. Shaq Fu, widely regarded to be one of the worst games of all time, provided me with endless hours of entertainment, although the road rash series and SFII provided states of ecstasy no normal 5th grader could really handle. OMFG almost forgot about streets of rage on the sega channel, I CAN’T PICK ONE I NEED BOTH!?!!!!!

  7. I think the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on NES is the worst game of all time. Fuck you underwater detonator. Fuck you with a stick until you die.

    I was an SNES man. Final Fantasy! Chrono Trigger! Super Mario RPG, Ogre Battle. Come on. SNES was the golden age for decent, playable games. /oldmanshakescaneatkids

  8. The SNES had the better iteration of SF2! Endless hours of getting my ass kicked in VS mode. But I remember how much of a huge deal it was when the Genesis had the best version of Mortal Kombat 2, uncensored with all fatalities and such.

    But: Earthbound > *.

  10. EarthBound and Secret of Evermore were gems. Shadowrun, Chrono Trigger, Illusion of Gaia, hell all of the SNES games were amazing. It arguably had the best standard pack-in title both times (SMW & Yoshi’s Island)Who could forget Zombies Ate My Neighbors adnd Super Smash TV?

  11. The Genesis controller is terrible. SNES had way better play control. Streets of Rage has a great soundtrack. Super Contra is awesome. Earth Worm Jim is some kind of trip. Nintendo kept things cutesy while Genesis bloodied shit up a bit. Mario stomps Sonic.

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