The Mega Drive Mini 2 - Sega Minis What Nintendon't

[WildcatJF]

Wave 2 was just announced!

• New Mega Drive games are Outrun, After Burner II, Columns III, Puzzle & Action: Ichidant-R (Sega), Splatterhouse 2, Megapanel, and Fushigi no Umi no Nadia (Namco)
• New Mega CD games are Starblade, (Namco) Night Striker and The Ninja Warriors (Taito)
• New bonus game is previously unreleased port of Starmobile

 

[Kazin]

*sweating nervously* ...Shining Force II will surely be on the next wave!

Although, granted, I bought a used Genesis Mini last week and hacked it already, so I have SF2 available lol. Just no Sega CD games since the original model doesn't have a whole lot of space to work with

 

[ShakeWell]

Fuck yeah, Splatterhouse 2!

Also, I was really hoping Night Striker would make it, iirc that's the only home port (maybe there was one for Marty or X68k?), and it's a pretty fun game. Hope that sticks as an import if/when this thing gets a US release.

 

[ArugulaZ]

Night Striker was on Saturn as well, and is supposed to be a better port. (I would hope so, it's a more powerful system!)

EDIT: I'm watching Night Striker S right now, and daaaaamn that is one Zuntata-y soundtrack. It's like a frozen can of Zuntata juice by concentrate.

 

[WildcatJF]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1542132320060133376

 

[ShakeWell]

Now we know that the Mini 2 is well and truly for Mega Drivers Custom.

 

[Kazin]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1547263260231356416

Releases October 27th, 2022, and is apparently an Amazon exclusive. You can buy one now, though I'm going to wait until the mentioned Friday news release thing to see if it's cheaper or whatever once the US site puts a listing up. In any case, Sonic 3D Blast confirmed (........hooray)!

 

[ArugulaZ]

They should include the much improved director's cut. They probably won't, but they should.

 

[muteKi]

The special stage mechanics changes, the removal of any challenge from the stage 1 enemies, and the grind for score attack are all things that lead me to disagree with you significantly, I'm sad to say. It was an interesting experience but I think there are a lot of issues with implementation that I think worsen the experience.

 

[Kazin]

Neither version of 3D Blast has convinced me it's worth playing, to be honest. It's one of those games I rented a few times as a kid, and have come to viscerally hate when I see it, even though it's not that bad.

 

[muteKi]

It's OK, but I can't help but think it should be better than it is, or at least it should play more like at least one of either Marble Madness or Snake, Rattle and Roll

 

[ArugulaZ]

That's unfortunate to hear. When I heard there was a director's cut of Sonic 3D Blast by one of the original designers, I thought they'd fix a lot of its problems and add content. I guess the game is beyond fixing, though.

Anyway. I'm not all that excited about this system in light of its price and Amazon exclusivity. I have two Genesis Minis (one on purpose, the other as a gift) and that's probably going to be enough for me. A full list of titles might change my mind (and they'd have to be really good ones), but right now I'm in firm "no" territory.

 

[Sarge]

Maybe I should have waited, but I preordered it. Ah well, if it's cheaper... at least I actually got in.

 

[WildcatJF]

Opinions: The Genesis 2 Mini is confirmed! But…

After a good month and a half of the Mega Drive Mini 2’s announcement, Sega of America has confirmed that they will be bringing their own Genesis 2 Mini out this October exclusively through A…

lvls.wordpress.com

Differences between the two. The Genesis 2 Mini currently lacks Popful Mail, for instance.

There will be more MDM2 game announcements Friday, too. Let's Go Lunar

 

[Kazin]

Oh, I'm definitely getting one of these, I love these goofy mini consoles, and the Genesis model 2 had a reset button, which means this will probably be hackable (since the lack of the reset button is why the PC Engine Mini remains unhacked so far, supposedly).

 

[ArugulaZ]

I mean, how else are you going to play X-Men if it's included on this system?

(There's got to be some way of getting into the Turbo Mini, like jumper pins you can connect or something. Nothing stays unhackable forever if there's sufficient interest in doing it.)

 

[Sarge]

I mean, how else are you going to play X-Men if it's included on this system?

(There's got to be some way of getting into the Turbo Mini, like jumper pins you can connect or something. Nothing stays unhackable forever if there's sufficient interest in doing it.)

There's definitely a way in, just that the team working on it hasn't found a safe way to publicly release yet. It all comes down to not having that reset switch. I think they had some team and real world-related issues that have ground progress to a halt.

Definitely rooting for Lunar.

 

[Phantoon]

I mean, how else are you going to play X-Men if it's included on this system?

It'll be no use for X-Men as it'll kick you back to the menu

 

[Kazin]

Official English site, though no full games list yet.

I preordered one.

 

[WildcatJF]

I suspect Sega of America is going to mirror announcements with Japan for the next 30+ games on these, and with Japan having their next reveal tomorrow at 4am PST, we may get the next 10-11 games for both. Here's tomorrow's stream announcement:

I'll be live reacting to this tomorrow, so I'll share news after all the games are revealed. There's two more announcement streams planned in August.

 

[Sprite]

Official English site, though no full games list yet.

I preordered one.

I pre-ordered one too, though I’ll be very confused if the actual retail price really is $102.38 and can only be shipped from Japan. Though I suppose they did say supplies on this one we’re going to be limited and focused on Japan, so

 

[WildcatJF]

Wave 3 for Japan, guess what got confirmed..............BOTH LUNAR GAMES!!!!

Sega of America really needs to get a hold of Vic Ireland, or the NA version is going to be severely compromised.

As for what's going on with the Genesis 2 Mini, they do talk about it a bit at the end of the livestream (mild translation here):

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1547920340097331200

 

[Kazin]

C'mon Vic, get on board, I want to not have to hack your old Lunar releases in

 

[ArugulaZ]

That tricycle game... it's one of those random ROMs you play in MAME for about three minutes, then completely forget about later. What an odd choice for inclusion. In fact, what an odd choice of a game to port to the Genesis, then release on the Genesis Mini 2. Geez Sega, what are you doing with this?

Relieved to see Final Fight CD included in the selection of games, though. I had a feeling it would be there, but it's nice to have that suspicion confirmed.

 

[WildcatJF]

Latest announcement interview with Sega's classic hardware producer Yosuke Okunari (slowly being translated as I type this):

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1547933423977009152

 

[WildcatJF]

That tricycle game... it's one of those random ROMs you play in MAME for about three minutes, then completely forget about later. What an odd choice for inclusion. In fact, what an odd choice of a game to port to the Genesis, then release on the Genesis Mini 2. Geez Sega, what are you doing with this?

Per GSK's translation

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1547917423588016129

(for those who don't see Twitter embeds: "the original arcade game was released for System 1 hardware in 1984, and this MD port is brand-new to the Mini 2—as it happens, M2 made it ages ago but never found an excuse to do anything with it")

 

[Kazin]

M2, just sitting around making new ports for old hardware, not even always releasing them. I love them so much

 

[ArugulaZ]

The Wonder Mega Collection has little chance of being included in the Genesis Mini 2, but you know what I would happily accept as an alternative? Wonder Dog. It was a Core game, not too dissimilar from Chuck Rock, but more fun to play. I would take that, definitely.

 

[WildcatJF]

Here's my live reaction to the latest round of Mega Drive Mini 2 announcements this morning:

https://lvls.wordpress.com/2022/07/15/lvls-reacts-mega-drive-mini-2-third-wave/

An update on the Genesis 2 Mini and different titles: In an article posted by Dengeki (and translated by GSK here: https://twitter.com/gosokkyu/status/1547933423977009152?cxt=HHwWgMDUge7PrvsqAAAA), Okunari said he "wants to keep the games as similar as possible but for various reasons (JP-only licenses, sublicenses in different countries, regional trademarks) plus language barriers, the two lineups are inevitably different & the Genesis has unique substitutes." He also said that there's "20 games to go", so perhaps we've hit the end of the bonuses. In terms of the remaining announcements, he noted that "3D STG [shooters], party games, puzzle games and fighting games" have been a focus so far, but other genres will be covered in the remaining two announcements.

 

[ArugulaZ]

Maybe in the US version, to capitalize on the popularity of Namco's game, Spatter will become Spatterhouse, and the little guy on the tricycle will wear a hockey mask and lop off his enemies' heads with an axe.