Legal Law

Sega Master System – How To Not Fulfill Potential

Well folks, it all started on Christmas 1990…

A young me saw an ad for MS Power Base and instantly fell in love. I would love to be able to show you such a video, but the Internet, despite containing 12,000,000 shades of adult material, has no room for it. I’m beginning to wonder if I imagined it all. In any case, during the month of December I insisted tirelessly to my father (B. Simpson would have been very impressed) to buy the Power Base with Hang-On, Safari Hunt and Light Phaser. And credit to the man, ignoring late mortgage payments, late demands, and much to my mother’s annoyance, he duly complied. He was stunned.

However, I found this American advert for the bundle which at £100 looked expensive but was actually good value for money. In addition, there was also a hidden maze game. Someone has to retrieve the hidden games. I dug up my Master System a couple of months ago, which still works despite my cousin putting coke in it (if you breathe too much into an Xbox it will almost certainly explode) and boy, did it bring back some memories! What also struck me was how bad some of the titles were. These were games that he had played to death! Ninja and World Soccer were personal favorites, but both are graphically pitiful. That sounds harsh given that they were some of the early launch titles, but let me continue.

Golden Ax is the game that really caught my eye. Ninja (1987) and World Soccer (also 1987) were released just two years before Golden Ax (1989), but if you put them side by side, you wouldn’t guess they’re from the same console. Other popular titles from the ’80s (eg Ghostbusters, California Games) and even titles from the early ’90s (Indiana Jones, Tom & Jerry) pale in comparison to Golden Axe’s graphics. It’s true that the levels are two-tone and the rendering is puzzling in places, but the sprites look pretty much the same as they do in 16-bit. The sprites are large and well detailed. The main character may only have around 15 frames of animation, but the movement of the sword feels smooth and true. All this with a palette of only 64 colors compared to 512 on the Mega Drive.

Most 16-bit to 8-bit conversions are terrible (the awful E-SWAT immediately springs to mind) and a lot of positive things can be said about Sega’s stance on making completely different 8-bit games under the same license ( Sonics 1 & 2) but I invite you to take a look at Streets of Rage and Mortal Kombat. Both of these games are one-dimensional, and thus creating different 8-bit versions would seem silly. The care with both is remarkable. You can’t do much with the Texas Instruments (remember them?) SN76489 sound chip from the Master System, but its graphics capabilities are amazing. Of the 64 colors available, the Master System can display 32 at a time. This is compared to the Mega Drive’s 64 and the NES’s terse 25. The Zilog processor on the MS runs at 4 MHz compared to 1.79 MHz on the NES. The Zilog chip was also used in the Mega Drive along with the Motorola 68000.

The clues were there. Streets of Rage, after a night with too many jars (blurred eyes and all) could be mistaken for the 16-bit version, save for the awful sound. Sacrifices had to be made, the Master System’s reduced memory (although still double that of the NES) couldn’t handle two players, but all the levels remained intact, including the excellent elevation stage. With Mortal Kombat, more sacrifices had to be made. There are only two stages, but most of the characters are there, with the exception of the unpopular Kano. Each sprite is large, well drawn, and the animation works to create a fun fighting game the likes of which European/Japanese Master System owners have never seen again. Why so region specific? Good…

Did you know that Street Fighter 2 existed in the Master System? I’m sure I didn’t until earlier this year, I found out that MS is still supported in Brazil (and the emulation products in China and Taiwan). SF2 is a capable beat ’em up and while it looks decidedly more basic (albeit better than the C64 version), it really does make you wonder what Sega could have done with their first historical console. Some Master System games are also available through the Wii Online Service. Who the hell would have thought this of a Nintendo console in the early nineties!

There are things we can not avoid. The NES’s stronger game library and character recognition meant that it outsold the Master System almost five to one. When Sega invented Sonic, the Master System was subject to poor arcade chatter and puzzle gameplay. The inventive Galaxy Force is the anomaly here, Sega didn’t make use of the MS’s advanced capabilities until it was too late. Sonic 1 was the last MS release in the US. Most would assume the Mega Drive release is to blame for this and Sega had to do something to stop the NES dominance. The fact is that Sega made an 8-bit console superior to the NES, but chose to go with the 16-bit first, thus inviting the inevitable knockout blow from Nintendo (the SNES).

I’ll always love the Master System and while it’s unlikely it will ever have its current incarnations, I can still enjoy Sonics, Streets of Rages (oh yeah, the sequel is in there too) and Mortal Kombat. Just don’t mention E-SWAT.

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