Pushing the Sega Master System to its Absolute Limit

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Master System isn't well known in the US, because it bombed against NES. But anybody from Brazil will be very familiar with it as the console Tec Toy resold countless variations of. These days they sell Genesis/Megadrive clones, but Master System was a mainstay of Brazilian gaming for much longer than an 8-bit machine should've been relevant.

Game Gear enjoyed some limited success in the US, holding its own against Gameboy for a few years, and it's nearly the same hardware as Master System. Not quite identical however, hence you can't build a converter that will let you play Game Gear games on a Master System. The resolution is different, I believe the color palettes and sound chip have some small differences, etc.

It was actually more powerful than the NES by a good bit, able to display a larger number of simultaneous onscreen colors. The sound chip was worse (imo) but the visuals were typically better if you compare ports of the same game on both platforms.

The few Americans who owned this underdog of a system (or who learned about it by owning a Game Gear and playing MS ports on it) love it dearly, as Sega consoles are famous for inspiring cult followings. People love to root for the underdog.

The Synchrobots are among those with fond memories of the Master System platform, and have paid tribute to it by authoring this demo, "Blast!"

That distinctive bloopy SMS sound chip. Gotta love it. Very impressive scaling and rotation there. Of course Bad Apple has been ported to Master System. It's sort of infamous for having been ported to absolutely everything. It's the scene demo equivalent of Doom:

Lambo by Genesis Project is another OutRun/New Retro Wave themed demo. It is a 1980s console after all. Unsure what other connection there is between Master System and that particular aesthetic, but there's a couple demos in that style for MS:

Whew, some taxing plasma effects there and high color stills. But enough demos! It's all about the games, right? What kind of graphics did the Master System and Game Gear manage in games? Sonic Drift 2 is exemplary, mostly for its pseudo-3D track elements in certain stages:

Gunstar Heroes? On an 8-bit machine? Unbelievably yes, and without much sacrificed. It's still every bit as fast and hectic, albeit witout quite as many sprites onscreen at one time. The large size of certain sprites and bosses are the highlights imo:

Ristar is another game that made an impressively intact downward jump from Genesis to Game Gear. Only someone very familiar with how the GG/MS and Genesis hardware differed would be able to tell at a glance which version this is:

Tempo was actually a 32X game, perhaps an odd choice for a port but the dev did a marvelous job with it. The animations look uncut, and the backgrounds are somewhat more basic but still in tune with the 32X game's aesthetic:

Magic Knight Rayearth was also an odd choice. A Saturn JRPG? Really? But it looks stellar on the Game Gear despite its limitations. The sprites are easily recognized for their Saturn counterparts and there's some excellent detailed pixel art environments going on:

But my pick for the most beautiful Game Gear/Master System title has to be Tails Adventure. A Metroidvania with lots of backtracking, it's a shame it never caught on as a side-series to the main Sonic games because it's both great fun to play and a treat to look at:

Am I right? If you were just looking at still screenshots, you'd think for sure it's a Genesis game. If you have an emulator for Master System/Game Gear and play only one of these games, I'd recommend it be Tails Adventure. Metroidvania style games have a timeless appeal regardless of platform and this is a very unique one.

Sonic Blast is a necessary evil for this list. I say that because it's technically impressive but garish, as pre-rendered sprites do not translate well to 8 bit color depth and resolution limitations.

An actual Sonic 3D Blast port was likely deemed impossible without being too sluggish or cramped, so we got this polished turd instead. Go ahead, try to tell me the lovingly hand drawn pixel art of Tails Adventure doesn't play to the platform's strengths better. You can't!

That's not to say an isometric Sonic wasn't attempted on Game Gear, but indeed it was discovered that making Sonic as fast as normal would be unplayable due to the cramped field of vision afforded by the small, low resolution screen.

Sega's solution? Make Sonic slower! Because what could backfire about making a game where their one trick pony of a mascot, famous for being fast, moves about as quickly as an old man hobbling along with his walker, struggling to hold in a deuce?

That's all for this time! Keep your eyes peeled for the next installment! (Do not actually peel your eyeballs or reconstructive surgery may be necessary to reverse it)

^{Stay cozy!}