Sega Genesis Mini unboxing

We had Nintendo consoles, and only Nintendo consoles, in the house growing up.  But when I was in late grade school/early middle school I lived on base at Camp Lejeune, and down the street was a good friend who lived in a Sega household.  Inbetween getting up super early to watch ExoSquad and wandering around the woods along the New River, a lot of time was spent playing Sega games.

So, when the Genesis Mini dropped to about $50 a few months back, I thought, why not?

The Mini is a gen-1 replica, and the box reflects that.  There are 40 Genesis and Sega CD games on the console, plus two that weren't released in North America(Darius and Tetris).  There are a few notable absences, such as Sonic&Knuckles and Mortal Kombat.  My understanding of the situation is that the hangup is Michael Jackson-composed music on S&K.




Like the Classic Nintendo consoles, the Mini is small.  Sega had put out a Genesis replica a few years back that was full size, and the net effect was a feeling of cheapness with the extremely light for it's size device.  Taking the Nintendo route of shrinking it to fit the smaller mainboard was smart.

As you can see the included controllers are the three button models rather than the six button ones. In my opinion they feel well built, although my wife's opinion was that they felt cheap.  They also fit better in my hands than the classic Nintendo controllers do, no doubt a reflection of Sega targeting an older demographic back in the day.



The gameplay itself is fantastic.  Sonic, Earthworm Jim, Castle of Illusion, etc. All hold up well,a testament to the quality of those first gen 16-bit games.  One that didn't hold up well was Street Fighter II.  I played this all the time on the SNES growing up, and the speed of the action compared to modern fighting games aged poorly. 

All in all, I think that this is a great little console, just like the Nintendo replicas.  I think that if you are going to be playing games that take advantage of the 6 button function, like street fighter, you should consider getting one of the 6-button controllers from Retro-bit's line.