The Best Shoot ‘em Ups
If there was one genre where the Genesis absolutely dominated the SNES, it was shoot ‘em ups. The library alone still stands up as the greatest on any console, with classics like M.U.S.H.A., Gley Lancer, and Lightening Force: Quest for the Darkstar. If I’m being generous, I’d add Gunstar Heroes and Alien Soldier into the mix, even if they don’t quite meet the classic definition of a shoot ‘em up.
The point is, all of these games hold up incredibly well, and it’s because the Genesis’ faster processor was the perfect match for this style of gameplay, as it excelled in rendering fast scrolling levels and large, animated sprites. Shoot ‘em ups are still among the best-looking titles on the Genesis.
Excellent Arcade Game Ports
Though Nintendo first made a name for itself in the arcades, it had almost entirely turned its focus to console gaming by the late ‘80s. On the other hand, Sega doubled down on its arcade roots, putting out plenty of top-tier coin-op units well into the late ‘90s. That meant the Genesis was built with arcade ports in mind. Right from the get-go, the Genesis had a top-tier library of arcade games like Golden Axe, Alien Storm, and Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker (which is a surprisingly fun game, all controversy aside). If you were a fan of arcade games, Genesis was really the best option, as most third-party arcade games at least came to both consoles.
These arcade ports also gave Sega the opportunity to push the Genesis to its absolute limits. The Genesis version of Virtua Racing shipped with an extra chip that rendered the game in full 3D, and it still stands out as one of the most impressive achievements in programming ever. Then again, Sega also attempted a 2D demake of Virtua Fighter 2 for the Genesis that’s best forgotten, though Sega regularly continues to bundle it in various compilations for some reason.
More Mature Titles
Sega didn’t give developers carte blanche to put anything they wanted in games, but as Mortal Kombat illustrated, the company was much more open to violent and mature content in games than Nintendo was at the start of the 16-bit generation. That meant that Sega was the exclusive home of two games in the horror beat ‘em up series Splatterhouse, and the infamous Sega CD game Night Trap, an FMV game about scantily clad teen girls being attacked by vampires that contributed to the creation of the ESRB.
The irony is that when it came to overtly sexual content, and games featuring religious imagery, Sega actually required a lot of the same edits Nintendo did, but allowing a few gratuitously violent games on the console helped enhance the image among gamers that the Genesis was a console for adults.
