I've been playing a lot of Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection recently. I was really excited getting this game, as I only had Nintendo consoles for my youngest years as a gamer. The only Sega console I own is the Dreamcast, so up until getting UCG my exposure to their previous consoles had been extremely minimal.

As a child of the SNES I will admit that at first I was really disappointed with what I saw. The colors in a lot of games were really garish. A quick check of the technical specs confirmed my suspicions: the Genesis had a much lower color palette than the SNES and it really showed. In the right hands this didn't need to be a handicap, though. I insist that graphics on any system aren't bad because of technical limitations, but instead are measured by how well designers work within these limitations. However, I still couldn't bring myself to appreciate the design in many of these games because it seemed the designers were trying to do too much with too little, or just simply didn't know what they were doing. I don't like to bash game designers too much because making games is hard work and an awesome job, but Alex Kidd and Decap Attack look like they were drawn in MS Paint by a six year old.

If you're a Sega kid, I'm really sorry to bash the console so much. Eventually I warmed up to many of the games. Here's my current ratings for all the Genesis games on the collection:

5 Stars
Shining Force 2
Shinobi III

4 Stars
Comix Zone
Golden Axe III
Ristar
Shining Force
Sonic & Knuckles
Sonic The Hedgehog
Sonic The Hedgehog 2
Sonic The Hedgehog 4
Streets of Rage 2

3 Stars
Altered Beast
Beyond Oasis
Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine
E-SWAT
Shining in the Darkness
Sonic Spinball
Streets of Rage
Streets of Rage 3
VectorMan 2

2 Stars
Alien Storm
Bonanza Bros.
Columns
Decap Attack
Dynamite Headdy
Fatal Labyrinth
Flicky
Gain Ground
Golden Axe
Golden Axe II
Kid Chameleon
Sonic 3D Blast
VectorMan

1 Star
Alex Kidd
Ecco: The Tides of Time
Super Thunder Blade

Not Rated (I actually haven't gotten to these yet)
Phantasy Star II
Phantasy Star III
Phantasy Star IV


My opinions on lots of these games changed the more I played them. I knew that Shinobi III was excellent from the start, but it took a while for me to appreciate Shining in the Darkness. I was ready to give it a one or two before getting out some graph paper and really sinking my teeth into the game. Then my perception of it improved, if only a bit.

I'm currently playing Phantasy Star (the first one), and I'm really not sure where I stand on it. The colors again are super garish; everyone in the future apparently loves wearing turquoise. So the overworld sprites hurt my eyes, and not being able to choose which enemy to attack in the battles is infuriating, and the music gets old fast, and venturing into a dungeon to find a cake shop to buy a cake that costs a thousand stinking mesetas to bribe your way into the governor's palace is pretty stupid. Actually, I'm not sure why I'm still playing it. I think I'll go and finish Shining Force II.