RetroWars III: Mega Drive vs Super NES

[noobish hat]

Can we all just agree that the 90s were the peak of everything. One decade gave us the MD, SNES, and PC Engine, and then the PS1, Saturn, and N64. There'll never be another decade like that!

[Atticus]

Can we all just agree that the 90s were the peak of everything. One decade gave us the MD, SNES, and PC Engine, and then the PS1, Saturn, and N64. There'll never be another decade like that!

It was a magic era. I think I preferred video gaming when it was uncool too

[Neon Ignition]

After a quick google check on the promotion it was 1991 when I joined the 16-bit race but I know it was one summer in the early 90's when my family were on a weeks holiday in Wales. We were staying in a caravan so needed to stock up on shopping for the week and so on the first day of the holiday we nipped to the local supermarket and grabbed what we needed. That shop included a multipack of Penguin biscuits and the next morning my Dad took one to snack on as we headed into town, the promotion was tied to the release of James Pond II as the brand was in the game and having opened the pack he found out we'd won a Mega Drive and a copy of the game. It arrived a few weeks later and up until then I'd enjoyed gaming on the Amstrad CPC464 and NES for a couple of years but never pushed for the new systems.

I spent the next three years or so as a fairly strong school yard defender of the Mega Drive, the hypefest for Sonic 2'sday was the first real mass gaming craze I'd experienced as well and though I could only get new games at Birthday's and Xmas I rinsed them and read gaming magazines to keep up on stuff. The SNES was a much slower arrival for me, I got to play stuff such as Pilotwings, Street Fighter II and Mario World as my cousin owned one but was into football so family visits made it easy for me to get perched in front of the console and to spend the day on it. Sometimes I'd be able to try stuff on a friends SNES too as the system would come and go and when currently owned he'd either import titles like Super Street Fighter II or rent stuff out.

1994 was the tipping point I think, I remember being at my cousins house and seeing screenshots in a magazine of Stunt Race FX and just being fascinated by it. Then Nintendo went and revealed Donkey Kong Country and it was mind blowing. With the next gen systems starting to circle I pushed for a SNES for my birthday and got the SF2 Turbo bundle so I'd be able to get DKC for Xmas.

I rode the two systems out until the N64 arrived then. The longer I owned a SNES though the quicker it overrode the MD as the superior machine, as much as the MD had helped grow my interest in gaming there was a fair gulf in the quality of both systems best games. I think with the MD it started to fall into less and less use after the release of Sonic 3, the SNES was a much more enduring machine. I remember sticking through all three DKCs, the crushing disappointment of saving up £60 to buy Mario RPG for them to then announce they weren't releasing it and even the dying days curiosity leading me to pick up SF Alpha 2 despite having long since played it in much better form on other systems.

The Mega Drive was a gem, the original model being the best of the designs. The SNES was just another level though, it was Nintendo firing on all cylinders in a way they have never done since.

[Asura]

even the dying days curiosity leading me to pick up SF Alpha 2 despite having long since played it in much better form on other systems.

Loved that. It's an absolute marvel. To me, it's one of those games like the DS Tony Hawk game; someone sold their soul to get that to run on its host hardware.

[Neon Ignition]

I'd love to know how it even got greenlit. The game was plainly going to struggle to run on the system, sales would never be huge and they hadn't even bothered with Alpha 1 and yet someone signed that project off.

[gamelife]

I had both systems growing up and still have both today, I got the MD for xmas 1991 and the SNES xmas 1993 and have great memories from those days . I've always preferred the SNES overall, I find I can go back to this system more often and the games seem to have more depth/re-playability for me and also has a bigger library of classics. Although the MD does have great games it doesn't hold my attention for as long, almost like the Neo Geo as most of the games were geared more towards arcade style play.

[hudson]

I was MD from importing one right up until I played Super Mario World on its release in my local Comet. Then I lusted for those hairy plumbs, ahem, plumbers.

[Leon Retro]

I probably should've been clearer, he had all those things too.

You know how when you're a kid, you don't really think you're rich, or poor, or in-between? You just kinda accept the reality into which you're born, and you don't really find out about that stuff until you get a bit older, and you see how other people live

Yeah, I didn't think about 'status' when I was a kid. I had friends from all sorts of backgrounds and didn't judge them at all by material things. I also don't remember other kids being jealous of stuff I had. We all just made the most of what we had.

I'd love to know how it even got greenlit. The game was plainly going to struggle to run on the system, sales would never be huge and they hadn't even bothered with Alpha 1 and yet someone signed that project off.

I think it's because the S-DD1 chip was developed around that time, which made the port possible. Star Ocean, which uses the same chip, was also released in 1996.

Capcom made the game for the Japanese market, but Nintendo decided to publish it in the US and Europe.

I think it's a resonable port considering the hardware. Enhancement chips came in very useful with some games.

[DeathAdder]

The Megadrive shades it for me. I can't deny the immense quality of many of the SNES games, but the Megadrive gave me more of that amazing feeling of playing at home the same game I had played in the arcade.

That really was a time when one needed to own both machines, with both of them having so many excellent games which didn't appear on the other console.

[Colin]

The MD & SFC along with the PCE & NEO will always be my favourite time in gaming.

Taking the two systems in question, from an aesthetic point of view I would take the Japanese MKI MD over the Super Famicom. It's one of my favourite console designs ever, made even better with the addition of the MKI MCD.

Hindsight is the best thing where the systems are regarded for me. I absolutely adored my MD which I imported in the early days of its Japanese release, but I did sell it to move to the SFC as it was still in my days of only being able to afford one system at a time. (Which is probably where my whole selling reputation on here came from!) As newer generations and systems appeared, I jumped from console to console before years later returning to the 'classics'. In the years in between, I was sure that the SFC was the better system in every way, something that lengthy absences from playing both it and the MD had built in my mind, and maybe swayed by opinions and enthusiasms in places like this.

The reality is actually much different though, and I had mentioned it in another thread a little while back. Now that I have ZERO interest in owning retro kit, but still wanting to play the games I love, I did what many of us have and built a little raspberry pi retro system. It was at this point that my favourite of the two systems became very, very clear. I decided I would only install games for each system on my pi that I would actually play, which numbered just over 30 on the SFC, yet over 100 on the MD. Like others have said, it's the system of arcade badassness, and supplies more of the type of gaming I love and want.

So simply put, MD absolutely all the way. The only thing it concedes to the SFC for me is it has poorer controllers. That said, I'd still take the PCE over either of them.

EDIT TO ADD: That photo of the PAL MD on the first page is an abomination. It's amazing how a few tiny changes can ruin a beautiful design.

[Asura]

EDIT TO ADD: That photo of the PAL MD on the first page is an abomination. It's amazing how a few tiny changes can ruin a beautiful design.

It is interesting though how the MDII design is, essentially, a SNES in terms of form factor.

[Colin]

Can't say I see that.

[dvdx2]

I think it depends on which one you grew up with as very few people could afford to run both. I was always a megadrive man, but the snes has some really nice games too. It’s nice to be able to experience all the software now and the emulation is mostly spot on.

Thunder force IV/Bare Knucle II and Gleylancer are definetly my favs.

[importaku]

Only a handful of megadrive games i still like and i have played pretty much most of the library of the md at one point of another either in physical form or through emulation, the tinny twangy sound chip on the md can be pretty unpleasant to listen to as well especially in the wrong hands. However in the correct hands it sounds wonderful.

Magical flying hat turbo adventure is the one game out of everything that i love, the graphics the sound and even the box art are just fantastic. Also enjoy the disney platformers like mickey & donald games (minus fantasia as that was total garbage) i also loved the wonderboy games especially the monsterworld ones that turned into huge sprawling action adventure platform games. Sonic goes without saying and i do have a soft spot for the ghostbusters game. These ones even now i still games i enjoy playing in emulated form. Praying Sega does not screw up the MD mini i would love to have a little machine to play all my faves.

On the other side the snes has a stupid amount of games i really like, if we strip away all the regular A tier stuff from nintendo which i liked most of it (mario zelda kirby samus ect) and concentrate on the 3rd party stuff there's Ganbare goemon that series alone was enough to justify my machine i have played them more than any other game on the snes and i adore them. Extremely imaginitve level design, absurd comedy elements, absolutely god tier soundtracks and they also play well too. On top of that there's the parodius games, wonder project J, gunmans proof, kikiki kai kai kai, the great battle series of games, the firemen, puyo puyo, rockman x plus a load more on snes, there were just more games i enjoyed.

I'll say one thing though speaking as someone who is mainly more nintendo than sega nowdays that japanese red & green MD logo is beautiful i absolutely love the japanese box design of the original console with the bright colours and triangles. It reminds me so much of the original sonic box art. Would be interested to know if they based sonics box from the console box design or the other way around.

[Asura]

Can't say I see that.

Seriously?

Symmetrical design.
Centered vertical cart slot with equidistantly spaced power and reset buttons.
Roughly the same size (though thinner, admittedly)

I always thought they were very similar in terms of form factor.

Were there any successful machines prior which had the SNES/MD2-style design? Maybe the Atari 7200.