Sunsoft and the Sega Genesis

We take a look at the software that Sunsoft developed and/or published on the Sega Genesis and Mega Drive.

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Opening 3D Logo By:
Jan Neves

Episode Notes:

1. Games covered:
Tel-Tel Mahjong (1990)
Batman (1990)
Tel-Tel Stadium (1990)
Shikinjoh (1991)
Super Fantasy Zone (1992)
Lemmings (1992)
Batman: Revenge of The Joker (1992)
Superman: The Man of Steel (1992)
Beauty and the Beast: Belle's Quest (1993)
Beauty and the Beast: Roar of the Beast (1993)
Blaster Master 2 (1993)
Aero the Acro-Bat (1993)
Flashback (1993)
Daze Before Christmas (1994)
Bubble and Squeak (1994)
The Pirates of Dark Water (1994)
Panorama Cotton (1994)
Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel (1994)
The Death and Return of Superman (1995)
Aero the Acro-Bat 2 (1995)
Scooby-Doo Mystery (1995)
Justice League Task Force (1995)

[derekbuckler]

People often underestimated the sega genesis's ability to do great sound, or music. I loved both the batman, and superman games on the genesis. Also Technosoft showed just what the genesis was capable of with the thunder force series, as lightning force is one of the best games on the genesis period.

[Hektols]

Great point about the sound. You practically could guess if a Megadrive/Genesis game was made by japanese or western programmers just by listening to the quality of the sound and music.


Daze Before Christmas also allowed Santa to transform into a nasty version of himself who attacked with the sack and had shoot'em up stages where he rode his sled.

[VanDammage]

The soundtrack in Batman, Streets of Rage 1 & 2 & Dragon's Fury are 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

[dexocube]

Panorama Cotton is genuinely amazing. I couldn't believe it was running on a megadrive.

[ChristopherSobieniak]

Seems like when Sunsoft develops a game, it tends to be the best, when they're publishing other companies games, it tends to range from good to crap easily.

[mokthemagicman]

I LOVED Batman on the Genesis. My game store had the early Japanese version a year before we got the game and I bought it and made the adjustment on my Genesis to cut the opening bigger for the Japanese carts to fit.

[RedSoul]

1:20 WOAH now that is an immediate improvement from the last video. I can find no fault in your videos anymore boss. Good on you for following through. I really appreciate the change even if it is just the font type.

[MrGlasspider]

It's not about drivers, it's about composer, in this case great Naoki Kodaka. You can play his melodies with fart sounds and they will still sound great.

[midwestmonster]

Pirates of Dark Water is bittersweet because it gives the series a level of closure the cartoon never did. The cutscenes appear to be taken directly from the show's storyboards, so I have every reason to believe the closing cutscene is how the series' closing scenes would have gone down.

[michaelpaoletti]

I bought a copy of Batman Revenge of the Joker from Japan. Its complete with artwork and Japanese manual.

I did some research and it was made exclusively in Japan for Sega MD fans. It was a limited Print run. Its very cool to have a Japanese community company game

[TheIMMORTALKAHNHD]

Dude....youre like always on point with your timing! Was just needing something to watch

[Jayce_Alexander]

Sunsoft's fall from grace in the early 90s was downright tragic. They were arguably the best third party devs on the NES not named Capcom or Konami (HAL Laboratories had essentially become a first party dev in all but name by this point), but once they started outsourcing major franchises like Blaster Master and Batman to western developers they basically became another Ocean. To me it always felt like Revenge/Return of the Joker was sort of a watershed point that really demonstrates the difference between what people expected from Sunsoft in the 8-bit era, versus what they were becoming in the 16-bit era. Developed internally by Sunsoft for the NES and one of the standout late-era titles on that platform, with incredible graphics, a pumping soundtrack, and tight, if very difficult gameplay. The Genesis game (as well as the unreleased but finished SNES port), developed by Ringler Studios, is a great case study of how a port of a great game can get screwed if handled by incompetent programmers who don't seem to understand how to make use of a system's potential. It should have been an even better version of an already great game, but instead it's worse than the NES game in every respect. Even the graphics look more attractive on the NES, Batman looks straight up derpy in the 16-bit versions.
In the late 80s the Sunsoft brand served as a recommendation; by the mid-90s it had become a warning.

[adamking]

It's weird how Batman: Revenge of the Joker was such a cool game on the NES (where it was known as 'Return' of the Joker) with some excellent graphics and sounds, yet comes off as so average on the 16-bit Genesis.

[Gaming_since_the_eighties]

I almost forgot Sunsoft.

Thanks for the memories.

[PeteyPeeps]

Congrats on 50k subs! You deserve it. I'm addicted to your Saturn videos, they are getting me so hype and I'm picking up many games I didn't know about. Thank you SLX!

[sonicmario]

I actually remember the game "Bubble & Squeak" being out when I was a kid, since I was able to see a colorful advertisement for it in one of my comic books that I had growing up in the 1990s, and the characters also kinda remind me of Calvin and Hobbes because of how they looked in the game. ;)

[Larry]

Yeah, Travellers Tales seem to be the only Western developer to truly squeeze everything out of the Mega Drive.

[lesterrr]

what do you mean "ear torture"?! The Pirated Of Dark Water has GREAT soundtrack, it has a very consistent tone and feels like a concept album if you listen to it outside of the game! Besides, the standard GEMS presets are very much in place here, with percussive elements enhancing the tropical theme.. it never ceases to amaze me how the same music can have such an opposite effect on different

[Oysterblade]

I agree completely with all points in this video, Sunsoft's quality got worse and worse as the Mega Drive/Genesis went on and it's sad to think that only 4 of all those games they had something to do with used their own in-house sound driver, (Batman, Super Fantasy Zone, Lemmings and Superman). Bubble And Squeak gets a pass in sound from me because Matt Furniss got hired to do the music to that one and he saved the audio from being another GEMS stinker. Interesting that Batman Return Of The Joker had music by Tommy Tallarico and I didn't think that ost was that bad but the actual gameplay and presentation is really bad!

They were once a great Japanese company that developed top-notch games but once they started publishing only and stopped developing games their quality was definitely affected and turned them from fresh fruit into sour grapes. Great video SegaLordx.

[Prizrak-hvqk]

You're absolutely right, SLX. Only towards the end of Genesis' life cycle did the US and Euro software houses caught up to the Japanese as far Genesis/MD development and started putting out great-looking and sounding Genesis games like Earthworm Jim, Vectorman, Comix Zone, Batman & Robin, Mega Turrican and Flink. Shiny/Virgin were definitely an early trend-setter with Alladin... Until then, you literally had to watch out for Western-developed games in order to stay far away if you valued your fun, eyes and ears. Luckily, usually even the box art and screenshots were enough to tell after a bit of practice. What got me the most is Sega of America themselves choosing to publish junk like Fantasia, Greendog, Cyborg Justice and Chakan instead of localizing Monster World IV, Panorama Cotton, Alien Soldier, Super Fantasy Zone, Pulseman, Magical Troll, Gley Lancer and so many others. Gunstar Heroes only made it after a single SoA producer took in up a personal project! Those early to mid-period Western-developed game are still living up to the erroneous stereotypes and doing their damage to Genesis' reputation, literally turning a younger generation of retrogamers away from the platform.