I had both systems. Mortal Kombat series was better on Genesis (i had the 6 button controller) and SNES had the majority of good titles. There are a few gems on the genesis, can't remember the name but a particularly good mech game where you could get in and out of different mechs, and even fight as a tiny little dude.

Herzog Zwei, which was reason enough to own a Genesis/Mega Drive.

Actually that may not be the game you were thinking of. I just wanted to mention how fuck-bastardly good it is.

Interestingly, the bloody (and superior) Mortal Kombat 1 for the Genesis nearly turned the tides in the 16 bit console wars, along with other games that were more lax on blood and violence (Shadowrun for Genesis vs. Shadowrun for SNES, for example.) Us kids and our bloodlust.

While I can admit to the Genesis alone being inferior to the SNES, if you include the Genesis add-on libraries it definitely wipes the SNES.

Yeah. I mentioned below that Donkey Kong Country was possibly my favorite game ever, but it's actually Gunstar Heroes.

There's one genre where the Genesis kicks the snes ass: shmups. The snes barely got a couple of good ones, with a ton of average to mediocre. The genesis?

Gaiares
Thunder Force III and IV
MUSHA
Ranger X
Gleylancer

Nintendo locking in the 12 month Street Fighter II exclusive was pretty fucking huge. The Genesis had a serious uphill battle if it wanted to beat SNES's install base in America after that. Having the better version of Mortal Kombat wasn't enough.

It didn't help that Sega has a legacy of mismanagement. I've heard a lot of the company's disasters could have been avoided if people picked up a phone or sent an email and just fucking communicated. Naka getting pissed that his engine was stolen from him without permission is the tip of the iceberg...

The Genesis did indeed crush the SNES when it came to shooters. The SNES, though, destroyed the Genesis on RPG's. Since those were my genre of choice back then, I was an SNES kid, even though I owned both systems.

Phantasy Star IV was amazing, though, so at least Sega had that.

I was a genesis kid.

It was all about starflight and Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday for me.

Love the thunder force and lightening force games, I forgot all about ranger x, that game was the shit. SNES did have UN Squadron, which was awesome.

Shinobi 3 is a great game.

Also shining force 1 and 2.

Chrono Trigger.

That should pretty much end discussion right there, but you also had: Final Fantasy IV and VI, Link to the Past, Terranigma, Secret of Mana, Cybernator, Metal Warriors, Front Mission, DKC, SMW, Mario Kart, Mario Paint, Mario RPG, Super Castlevania, Super Metroid, a better version of Thunder Spirits, all the Sailor Moon and Ranma 1/2 imports, King Arthur's World, EVO, Star Fox, Earthbound, UN Squadron, all of the Bomberman and Megaman titles, a better version of MKII, Killer frakking Instinct... really, the list could go on. SNES had superior hardware, superior sound, a better library of exclusives, a cooler controller; it kicked Genesis' ass across the board.

Now, Genesis may have had a couple better versions of multi-system games, thanks to Nintendos early censorship policy (which it wisely overturned following the MKI disaster), and it had better sports games. But then again, who cares about sports games? Dorks, that's who. Mutant League was the only remotely interesting sports series, but Sega only had a couple of those.

Chrono Trigger is shit.

Mario 64 was the end of Mario for me. Part of it was the fact that I never got an N64 until years after the fact, having switched over to Playstation during that period. But I also couldn'tbring myself to play Mario in 3D; for me, the series had peaked in SMW, and the 3D was just a gimmick that added nothing to platform gameplay.

Sonic, I never really cared for, but his games were clearly the standout titles on the shitturds Sega kept flinging into the console wars.

A little off-topic, but did Atari Jaguar even have a mascot? I even remember 3DO having the Geico Insurance Gecko, who at the time was a 3DO exclusive before the system failed. Jaguar had.. I think Rayman was already on other systems, Bubsy too.

Then again, did Sega Saturn really have a mascot?

I remember Final Fantasy being in the mid-s, and Phantasy Star/Shining Force were both over . Shining Force may have been . I was always late to the game, so to speak, getting a NES well after Super NES was out, and I never had a Genesis, but I'd read the Toys R Us ads in the newspaper.

Not NES era, but I remember Chrono Trigger was when it came out, which in 1995 dollars was almost a week's salary for a teenager working at McDonalds.

When I was a kid we'd visit my grandparents in a sleepy little Wisconsin town, so my parents would rent me a Genesis, and when Sega CD came out I rented Sonic CD and Sewer Shark (guess which one I played?) It's been at least 20 years since I last played it..

Anyway, I was looking up where to find it, and there's an iOS port.. it's only .99 so it's not breaking the bank, and it has a REALLY good metacritic score, but I've tried a few free platformers for iOS (mostly Mario knockoffs) and they still don't feel right. If anyone's played the iOS version, should I spend my hard-earned cash on this, or an extra pint of beer?

I downloaded and played it when it came out. I thought it was surprisingly playable. Not as good as a Genesis controller, for sure, but I was still able to collect all the time emeralds and such.

By the way, I find both funny, sad and appropriate that this gets pushed out of the hopper in less than a day while In the Realms of the Unreal lingers.