Little Red Wagon Repairman
MFOMBSoPGA
It's a tough choice as I like them both. I own both an Analogue Super NT and and Analogue Mega SG. I play the Sega Genesis more so I vote Sega Genesis.
Which Do You Like Better: Super Nintendo or Sega Genesis?
- Thread starter Little Red Wagon Repairman
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freeones_regina
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I got the Sega (called MegaDrive here in Europe) because back then I thought Nintendo was too childish, they didn't have blood in Mortal Combat 
:1orglaugh
:1orglaughDespite what Sega used to say back in the day the technical specs of the two systems weren't really that far off. At best they both had pretty minor advantages and disadvantages over each other as far as that. If somebody put a gun to my head and forced me to only ever play one system my entire life I would have to grudgingly go with the Super Nintendo. It just comes down to overall the Super Nintendo having the better library of games. I did like that Sega was more willing to let more mature content be released on their system, and didn't freak out when a game showed blood for instance. It seems like such a silly concern this day in age. I would give Nintendo some bonus points in their controller having a better shape, better configuration, and more buttons.
SNES for me.
As much as the gritty and distorted sound card of the Genesis often intrigues me, I have always felt their games just weren't that good, obviously outside the big hits like Sonic 1 and 2, of course. Those look ad play pretty OK.
I think their major success was having the blood code on Genesis for Mortal Kombat 1. When you put the two games together, the Genesis version didn't have any voices, the sounds in general are just super flat, and it wasn't graphically pleasing. They had real fatalities and that's what kids 10 and up wanted to see.
Nintendo fixed the shit out of it for MK2 but I agree, Nintendo always had that stigma about being a kiddie console ever since. Genesis tried to market themselves as the grown up one which was pretty smart. I got one of those mini Genesis machines about a year ago hoping to see what I've been missing out on this whole time and still just wasn't impressed, and I swear I really wanted to be. Without the nostalgia glasses, I'm just kinda eh.
I did like the Game Gear. Kinda.
As much as the gritty and distorted sound card of the Genesis often intrigues me, I have always felt their games just weren't that good, obviously outside the big hits like Sonic 1 and 2, of course. Those look ad play pretty OK.
I think their major success was having the blood code on Genesis for Mortal Kombat 1. When you put the two games together, the Genesis version didn't have any voices, the sounds in general are just super flat, and it wasn't graphically pleasing. They had real fatalities and that's what kids 10 and up wanted to see.
Nintendo fixed the shit out of it for MK2 but I agree, Nintendo always had that stigma about being a kiddie console ever since. Genesis tried to market themselves as the grown up one which was pretty smart. I got one of those mini Genesis machines about a year ago hoping to see what I've been missing out on this whole time and still just wasn't impressed, and I swear I really wanted to be. Without the nostalgia glasses, I'm just kinda eh.
I did like the Game Gear. Kinda.
Maybe it's just nostalgia mixed in with ever fading memories, but I thought sports games and beat em ups were better on the Sega. Take that with a grain of salt tough as I haven't played a Sega beat em up type game in years, and I haven't played a old Sega sports game in damn near 25 years. Which is sort of ironic since in general I found the movement and controls of the Sega back in the day slightly more stiff and clunkier. Then again maybe the beat em ups being the exception was because so many of them were ported from arcade machines. I also wouldn't be surprised if none of it was the result of the systems themselves as much as the SNES games often had better programming.
This makes me want to go back and retry the Streets of Rage and Double Dragon games just to see how they hold up after all this time.
The SNES had better of just about every other genre though, even platforming. Sure some things were slower with Nintendo games, but I could at least get to the final boss in the Sonic games with my eyes closed practically, and I say that as somebody who thought the Sonic games were great. Mario on the other hand had levels that were more creative or just downright brutal in difficulty. Sega also never had anything close to something like the quality of Super Metroid. Action or adventure games went to Nintendo with things like Link the Past along with many others Sega couldn't begin to touch in quality. Finally the RPGs. The SNES's number and quality of great RPGs not only beat Sega, Sega's got beaten so badly it's ass got punted into orbit with that genre.
Try to come up with a list of the top 20 or so 16-bit games ever. How many of them are Sega games? Maybe 2-4. Off the top of my head I can think of only the Sonic games and the better Sega version of Mortal Kombat even tough I sure others people's list will be different. Still I suspect most people would be around where I am with that number. Extend that list to the top 50 games of that era and I don't think the ratio gets too much better for Sega.
This makes me want to go back and retry the Streets of Rage and Double Dragon games just to see how they hold up after all this time.
The SNES had better of just about every other genre though, even platforming. Sure some things were slower with Nintendo games, but I could at least get to the final boss in the Sonic games with my eyes closed practically, and I say that as somebody who thought the Sonic games were great. Mario on the other hand had levels that were more creative or just downright brutal in difficulty. Sega also never had anything close to something like the quality of Super Metroid. Action or adventure games went to Nintendo with things like Link the Past along with many others Sega couldn't begin to touch in quality. Finally the RPGs. The SNES's number and quality of great RPGs not only beat Sega, Sega's got beaten so badly it's ass got punted into orbit with that genre.
Try to come up with a list of the top 20 or so 16-bit games ever. How many of them are Sega games? Maybe 2-4. Off the top of my head I can think of only the Sonic games and the better Sega version of Mortal Kombat even tough I sure others people's list will be different. Still I suspect most people would be around where I am with that number. Extend that list to the top 50 games of that era and I don't think the ratio gets too much better for Sega.
Streets of Rage was good. I almost forgot about that.
You know one thing that drives me crazy about Genesis? The buttons. A, B, C all in a row and, worse, no consistent mapping like, A is cancel, B is OK. Nintendo was always B is cancel, A to OK, Playstation is O to cancel, X to OK. Sega.. is a crap shoot. Honestly, that one thing is super frustrating.
If you were a sports fan, Genesis seemed to focus on those types of games. I only played one of the Hardball (I think) games and it was pretty OK. If you liked your RPGs, SNES was god of that genre. I super want to love Phantasy Star. I love future stuff, and I adore 16 bit rpgs. Once it goes in first person maze mode, I lose my mind.
Someone make me love Genesis. I really want to!
You know one thing that drives me crazy about Genesis? The buttons. A, B, C all in a row and, worse, no consistent mapping like, A is cancel, B is OK. Nintendo was always B is cancel, A to OK, Playstation is O to cancel, X to OK. Sega.. is a crap shoot. Honestly, that one thing is super frustrating.
If you were a sports fan, Genesis seemed to focus on those types of games. I only played one of the Hardball (I think) games and it was pretty OK. If you liked your RPGs, SNES was god of that genre. I super want to love Phantasy Star. I love future stuff, and I adore 16 bit rpgs. Once it goes in first person maze mode, I lose my mind.
Someone make me love Genesis. I really want to!
One thing I think that could be said about the Genesis is it has a lot of hidden gems. I think they were more lenient back then about what games they would allow on the system not just with more mature content, but also I think smaller studios or games had a easier time getting their game on the Genesis. I said the SNES has better platformers, and I think that's true overall, but the Genesis has so many relatively obscure ones that most video game fans don't even know about and some of them are alright. They are not good enough I would devote gigantic amounts of time to them. Most of them probably weren't even good enough to buy full price at the time they were released, but for a one night thing or to mess around with for a few hours it might be worth it.
Getting those games on the other hand is another matter, at least getting them legally anyhow. It would be a lot of hassle to go through to pick up the obscure cartridges just for that short of being a dedicated collector of them.
I agree about the controllers. I'm the type of person where the controller of the system is a bigger deal than most people that play video games.(It's one of the reasons I will never buy an Xbox console) Not only don't I like the size and shape of the Genesis controllers as much as the SNES ones, (Although the Genesis controllers still kick the ass of something like the Xbox or Nintendo 64 ones) but there are times where having an extra button or two matters. One top of that SNES's d-pad was more reliable that what the Genesis had in my opinion.
SNES/SFC. I was the biggest ninty fan back then, to the point where I would have arguments defending the system. (I've since changed after from shitty customer service from them as well as their consoles not aligning with my playstyle).
But man, if you thought the SNES library was big, add all the JP exclusives. And "region lock" was just matter of getting a $10 adapter to make the cartridge fit. Many of the games stand up today.
Looking back I think it's neat to see how marketing affected our perception. "Sega has the best sports games & the fastest processor" was one I heard all the time. But 'blast processing" was just a programming technique, not hardware, and SNES games could go just as fast. Roadrunner's Death Valley Rally (Yes, the bird running away from Wylie Coyote) was easily just as fast as any sonic game, and it was one of the earlier games! I always found it funny that the sega ad made fun of Mariokart, but off all the games in the ad, it's the only series that's still going strong.
There were plenty of good sports games on the SNES too; NHLPA was pretty awesome, and both NCAA Basketball and NHL Hockey gave us a taste of the 3D sports games we see today.
That said, Megadrive wasn't that behind. "SNES has better graphics" may have been true at the beginning, but programmers found ways around that. Remember how Street Fighter 2 for Megadrive looked HORRIBLE compared to the SNES? Then they somehow made the Turbo edition look on par with the SNES. Makes you wonder what programming magic they used. And processing power is all about how you use it: Aladdin for MegaDrive was universally considered better than the capcom SNES game, so much so that re-lease on the switch is including the virgin game and skipping the SNES game.
I think I didn't like how the Sega ads always made fun of the SNES. As kids we were taught to take the high road and I guess that spilled into games as well for me. But looking back, I'm glad sega had a strong following since now there's a market to play their games from back then, and it all feels new to me.
But man, if you thought the SNES library was big, add all the JP exclusives. And "region lock" was just matter of getting a $10 adapter to make the cartridge fit. Many of the games stand up today.
Looking back I think it's neat to see how marketing affected our perception. "Sega has the best sports games & the fastest processor" was one I heard all the time. But 'blast processing" was just a programming technique, not hardware, and SNES games could go just as fast. Roadrunner's Death Valley Rally (Yes, the bird running away from Wylie Coyote) was easily just as fast as any sonic game, and it was one of the earlier games! I always found it funny that the sega ad made fun of Mariokart, but off all the games in the ad, it's the only series that's still going strong.
There were plenty of good sports games on the SNES too; NHLPA was pretty awesome, and both NCAA Basketball and NHL Hockey gave us a taste of the 3D sports games we see today.
That said, Megadrive wasn't that behind. "SNES has better graphics" may have been true at the beginning, but programmers found ways around that. Remember how Street Fighter 2 for Megadrive looked HORRIBLE compared to the SNES? Then they somehow made the Turbo edition look on par with the SNES. Makes you wonder what programming magic they used. And processing power is all about how you use it: Aladdin for MegaDrive was universally considered better than the capcom SNES game, so much so that re-lease on the switch is including the virgin game and skipping the SNES game.
I think I didn't like how the Sega ads always made fun of the SNES. As kids we were taught to take the high road and I guess that spilled into games as well for me. But looking back, I'm glad sega had a strong following since now there's a market to play their games from back then, and it all feels new to me.
Genesis for arcade games
Snes for RPG games
Snes for RPG games
maildude
Postal Paranoiac
This is kinda related. LOOK AT THIS. And to think I owned this game, and it cost me, what...$40 or something??
Really? I have the JP version and it cost like 8000 JPY (around $80 USD). I know some niche games like PTO were over $100 USD, but this was also the era where games came with complete manuals, maps, etc.
Had both systems and for Sega just doesn't compare to Nintendo, the Sega controllers were awkward and mentioned above the buttons layout bad too.
The graphics were worse too and gameplay didn't seem as smooth, had Street Fighter for both systems and over time just didn't play Sega as much - would rent games for both systems and the selection for Sega was no where near what Nintendo was.
Also mentioned above was that Sega was better for arcade games and Nintendo better for RPGs - this is sorta true for me, as Sega just didn't have much RPGs to choose from, but as I said earlier Street Fighter was way better on Nintendo, I think only arcade racing games might be better on Sega.
I have a floppy disk copier for my support Nintendo from Hong Kong that copies all the games I rented so I have tons of Nintendo games and still like to play Nintendo today.
One RPG that I always wanted to play but didn't because it was only on Sega is Phantasy Star, I always thought about renting it then always got tied up in all the Nintendo RPGs etc so never got around to it.
The graphics were worse too and gameplay didn't seem as smooth, had Street Fighter for both systems and over time just didn't play Sega as much - would rent games for both systems and the selection for Sega was no where near what Nintendo was.
Also mentioned above was that Sega was better for arcade games and Nintendo better for RPGs - this is sorta true for me, as Sega just didn't have much RPGs to choose from, but as I said earlier Street Fighter was way better on Nintendo, I think only arcade racing games might be better on Sega.
I have a floppy disk copier for my support Nintendo from Hong Kong that copies all the games I rented so I have tons of Nintendo games and still like to play Nintendo today.
One RPG that I always wanted to play but didn't because it was only on Sega is Phantasy Star, I always thought about renting it then always got tied up in all the Nintendo RPGs etc so never got around to it.
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I like them both and i own a Genesis when i was a child. Still i would say the SNES got more my preference over the Genesis.
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