The BEST Stage From Any Batman Game EVAR!

Actually, tho, this is a coveted and highly debated designation, considering the impossibly excellent Sunsoft NES "Batman" games.

This is stage 3-1 from the Sega Genesis game "Adventures Of Batman And Robin"... twenty minutes of straight holy-crap awesome. The whole fact that the stage is a (literal) "stage", with lights and gaffes and other theater crap crashing down on you is fun, blah blah blah and electrified gnomes or something...

But we know we're all waiting for what comes up at the 3:10 mark... I'll wait with ya, or you can move up the scrollbar to the MOST AWESOME MINI-BOSS fight that has ever existed.

Then, exploding bunnies. And giant mushrooms. And flame-spewing flowers. And more electrified gnomes than you can shake a stick at. And then, the game literally disentegrates into a full-on grand-mal seizure right before your eyes before the mini-boss appears.

And still, you're only half done.



Unfortunately, the second half is about half as inspired as the first half. Yes, I really did write that.

Anyway, a truly amazing and innovative boss makes his appearance at about 5:28. Catch up with me as you find appropriate.

One of the things that is kind of a shame about the prevalence of actual for-real 3-D graphics is that a boss stage like this cannot (or rather will not) be properly rendered ever again - this boss stage probably holds the position of being the last gasp of the "Space Harrier" engine... *sigh*

Let's see a more drawn out and dramatic playthrough of that boss-


There ya go. You can thank me later.

Space Fantasy Zone! Legendary Unreleased Game

Ok, so technically this was intended to be a game for the Turbografx CD System, the game itself was a mashup of two games licensed by Sega, which makes it Sega-tastic.

This game could have been awesome. The bright and surreal landscape, flora, and fauna of Fantasy Zone, with the gameplay of Space Harrier! Unfortunately, when the games were pressed, it turns out NEC didn't have all the licensing figured out and the game was shelved. A sad, sad story.

All we have to work with is the same 5 screenshots that a dozen other video game blogs have posted (so I'll abstain), as well as the above video. I'm also practically obligated to mention the mysterious bootleg ROM floating out in cyberspace that everyone seems to be able to get to work but me.

Sega Collector's Guild

Ratings, rarity/price guides, and detailed reviews for anyone looking to dip their toes into collecting, or at least acquiring a stash of old favorites!

Segagaga - Sega's Quirky Swan Dive Out Of The Console Race.

One of the last titles released by Sega for one of their own systems, "Segagaga" is a truly bizarre, post-modern romp where you are hired to help Sega win the console war.

That's right. In the Sega game you are playing, you are hired by Sega to help them make successful games. Makes your head hurt a little, don't it?

During the course of the game, you run into many, many familiar faces-





And encounter parodies of high-grossing games from the competition-





Haven't had a chance to check it out myself, but it looks like a fun romp as well as an opportunity for Sega to have gone out with a bang (shortly after the release of this game, Sega left the console race to focus primarily on games). However, I think American audiences should feel a little cheated to not have had this opportunity to bid farewell to our old friends.

Good news tho, THIS GUY has been working a translation patch, available for free, and utilizing professional translators.

A Crash Course In Sega's ORIGINAL Mascot (Not Sonic!)

We all remember Sega's mascot, designed to compete with Nintendo's ever-present Mario. A popular charachter that cavorted through colorful varied adventures, and whose image graced advertisements and inspired comics and...

What's that? You thought I was talking about Sonic The Hedgehog? Oh dear.

Gather around, children, and let me tell you about Alex Kidd...



Alex made his way through a dozen or so games on the Sega Master System and was retired after his debut on the Sega Genesis. Why was he less popular in the US than in Japan? maybe it had something to do with the fact that the Japanese games had him look like THIS-



And in America, he looked like this-



Really, which of these guys would you play a game involving? The dude who looks like Link from Legend Of Zelda throwing kung-fu? Or a fat, pasty, jug-eared doofus?

Next thing you know, Sonic entered the picture and Alex Kidd was demoted to being a checkout clerk (as depicted in the Dreamcast game Segagaga)



Poor guy; tough break.

All you ever wanted to know about Phantasy Star

I've decided today should be Segatastic Saturday! Why? I'm not all that sure. But let's roll with it.

In any case, for my first Segatastic article, I dug up two of the first websites I looked up as soon as the internet was available to me - a pair of excellent and thorough fansites to the seminal Sega "Phantasy Star" RPG series. Amazingly, they're both still around and fairly-regularly updated.

Most of us were exposed to the series because of Phantasy Star 2, one of the first cartridge releases for the Sega Genesis, and likely the first (or one of the first)console RPG many American children of the 80s had ever played - Dragon Warrior was released in the US the same year (1988) and the first Final Fantasy game was released a year later.

The first game was released on the Sega Master System, and is a coveted collectors item. It was known for being one of the first story-based console RPG releases in the United States on any system (1987, a year before Dragon Warrior), as well as being the first with a female protagonist.

The series continued with the epic Phantasy Star III, in which you play through the lives of three generations of characters, and the excellent wrap-up/reboot Phantasy Star IV.

For more (much much more) information, I present to you The Phantasy Star Cave and The Phantasy Star Pages. They contain scans, detailed walkthroughs, maps, fan art/fan fiction... In short, all you ever wanted to know about the series.