VGC Top Ten: Sega Master System Games
by Stephen Kelley, posted on 07 August 2010 / 24,840 Views
There were many models of the Master System, this was the most widespread.
Background:
Last year VGchartz ran a series of articles that ranked the top ten games for a number of modern systems including the 360, Wii, and PS3. The voting was handled by the staff and a small “reader’s choice” section was added with the reader’s opinions. A year has come and gone, and tastes change, so we decided to see what kind of games you guys wanted listed in a top ten this time, except we are handling things differently this time. Not only will the list be compiled entirely by you, the fans, but we will go through a large number of game systems all the way back to the 1970’s with the Atari 2600 to modern day. We hope to do this a few a weeks, so stay tunes for your favorite systems! Since our readers are a diverse group be prepared for some surprises!
Method:
Our voting was carried out on the forums, where we asked patrons to list their top 5 Sega Master System games in order, and numerical values were placed on the places. After compiling all the totals, this is the list that we came up with.
History Lesson:
In the blink of an eye the video game crash of the 1980’s seemed nothing more than a bad memory in the minds of most gamers. While arcades definitely took a large hit, home systems began to pick up again with the popularity of the Nintendo Family Computer a.k.a. The Nintendo Entertainment System. Not letting Nintendo have all the glory, an army of competitors began to pop up all over the market including a new Atari system, and the much more significant Sega Master System. While dominated in the Americas and Japan by Nintendo, Sega made a great deal of money in Europe with the Master System, paving the way for the legendary Sega Megadrive / Sega Genesis. If there is anything at all to tarnish the legacy of the Master System, it can be argued that most of its games had terrible boxart, but that’s only a mild complaint. We hope you enjoy our picks for the best games on the console as voted on by the patrons of this very website.
10. Altered Beast
Side scrolling “beat ‘em up games” where in their heyday during the era of the Master System and its successor, and one could argue that Sega was the king of the brawlers. One of the more popular games during this time was the hit arcade game Altered Beast which pits an undead centurion against all manner of villainous monsters. The main draw for the game was that the player had access to various animal forms that the centurion could shape shift to, keeping the gameplay sharp and enjoyable in a genre where games often get stale. Some might question the Master System port of Altered Beast as a bad example of the game based on the original arcade version, but the truth is that no version of the game is the same as another. Some had different bosses, different forms, or even different graphics altogether. For many gamers this is the definitive 8-bit version of the game.
9. Golvellius: The Valley of Doom
With the wild success of the first Legend of Zelda game it was a mere matter of time before Sega would have a similar game in the pipeline. The found it with a year old MSX computer franchise called Golvellius and likened the franchise immediately. This Master System version of the game was both graphically superior to the original, but also had a different “overworld” and dungeon set up than it. The game sees a hero by the name of Kelesis on a quest to save a missing princess named Rena. An evil demon by the name of Golvellius has apparently taken her to one of his many caves, and you are tasked at collecting his treasures and defeating his minions. Sadly Golvellius never really got a sequel despite a “to be continued…” ending, but you never know, weirder things have happened.
8. Sonic Chaos
Sega released many Sonic the Hedgehog games on the Master System after the success of the character on the Sega genesis. While many were ports, fans adored them thus making them some of the best selling games on the system. Sonic Chaos was developed for both the Sega Master System and the Sega Game Gear, their answer to Nintendo’s Game boy. While it looks like a game based on the second genesis Sonic game at first glance, the game has a bit of innovation including the fact that it was the first game in the series to allow you a direct control of the flight of Sonic’s fox friend Tales. Another innovation was that Sonic actually runs faster in this game than the two Genesis games up to that point. Crazy for an older system huh?
7. Double Dragon
Double Dragon is one of those old franchises so popular that it once spawned toys, comics, a movie and a Saturday morning cartoon; all of which were fairly bad. The game itself was however the opposite, and was one of the stand out titles of the “beat ‘em up” boom of the 1990’s. Due to the graphical prowess of the Sega Master System itself, this version of the game was almost as good as the original arcade version of the game, and walked circles around the NES version.
6. WonderBoy III: The Dragon's Trap
Wonder Boy is a confusing series to try to keep track of. Due to rights issues within the games developer and publisher, we have odd occurrences like there being two games called Wonderboy III, No Wonderboy IV, and a few games changed completely into others like the fairly popular Adventure Island series. This third adventure for our titular hero sees him trying to remove a curse he obtained prior to the beginning of the game, and show’s what happened at the end of the last game. This plays out very similar to Castlevania Symphony of the Night, where you actually started the game playing the previous game in the series. The similarities do not end there as this game was the first game in the series to be made strictly for consoles, so it is more of an adventure games, than its arcade brothers. In fact it looks and plays very similar to modern Metroid or Castlevania games.
5. Ys
The game series with one of the shortest possible names for any game got its start on consoles via the Sega Master system, and it definitely started out with a bang. The popular Action RPG series stars a man named Adol Christin, and in typical action RPG manner he is immediately sent on a quest to collect a number of artifacts, in this case six ancient books, to defeat unspeakable evils. Since its first outing, Ys (pronounced like the word “fleece” minus the “fl” for those who don’t know) became so popular that it later spawned an anime and many more games. This made it a shoe-in for our list.
4. Sonic the Hedgehog
A surprise for me whilst compiling the votes, was that a large number of folks voted for the 8-bit version of the original Sonic the Hedgehog game. While you might initially think that this game was a quick cash port for owners of the prior Sega System, in truth this version of the game is quite different from the 16-bit version. Not only are the levels tweaked for better 8-bit performance, but this game actually had entirely different stages in some cases including ones named Bridge Zone, Jungle Zone, and Sky Base Zone.
3. Sonic 2
As with any Sega related list, I imagined that there would be a few Sonic games included, but little did I know that we’d see all of the major platform games for the Master System included. Sonic 2, not to be confused with the Megadrive / Genesis game, made great strides for the series on an 8-bit console including the ability to gain back lost rings and the ability to smash through walls, abilities taken for granted on the 16-bit games. This game was notable for its use of gimmick levels such as a mine cart stage and a hand glider stage which set itself apart of pretty much any Sonic game of the time.
2. Phantasy Star
RPG fans were out in full force when we did the voting for this list, as one of Sega’s most beloved titles got a little bit of love and made it all the way to the penultimate spot on our list. It did many things that were almost unheard of for console RPGs of the time such as being story driven, having a female protagonist, and sci-fi elements. Phantasy Star was outrageously priced upon release in the West, making it a fairly sought after and rare game after release and thus a game for hardcore players.
1. Alex Kidd in Miracle world
Before Sega stuck with Sonic for its main corporate Mascot, there was another character that was championed over all others, one that was Sega personified, that character was Alex Kidd. The game stars a boy named Alex Kidd, a boy with monkey-like features who can punch pretty much anything into oblivion. He is tasked by a dying man to save the rulers of a planet from an evil warlord, and an adventure ensues. Alex Kidd is fairly popular due to it being packed into a lot of Sega master Systems themselves, but that doesn’t tarnish the legacy of the game as it was a very good 8-bit platformer. While Alex could not defeat the portly Italian plumber that Nintendo created, he lived in the hearts of many, and made the top of our list.
Join us soon for another edition of this very special VGC Top Ten series, where we will be looking at the Sega Megadrive / Genesis.
In the meantime check out a few older lists in this series:
VGC Top Ten: NES Games
