4th Generation Consoles TurboGrafx-16, Super Nintendo, Mega Drive, AES, CD-i

As we have a 5th & 6th gen thread let's have a 4th gen aswell.

4th Generation Consoles are PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 & CD, Mega Drive/Genesis & CD & 32X, Super Famicom/Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Neo Geo AES, CD-i, LaserActive, Archimedes

Hello, can of worms. Grin

Most of my gaming in the fourth generation was on the SNES, with slices of playing on Mega Drives and a tiny amount of CD-i stuff. The SNES remains my favourite console ever - brilliant machine with many classic games.

Other way around Mega Drive and it's addons with a bit of SNES, and later CD-i for Zelda.

This was the era that saw my gaming get a little out of hand. Previous to this i had spent a fair bit of time gaming on the Spectrum but i also spent time playing with Star Wars figures and Transformers etc. By the time the Megadrive came out, the toys had gone. I actually had an eye on the Turbografx16 for the superior version of R-Type which was advertised in one of the mags i read but the cost of importing one was beyond my budget. Eventually though, i got Sonic and the Megadrive for Xmas.
To me, it was amazing. The huge graphical shift compared to the ZX, the games that almost perfectly resembled the arcade versions i used to play in town with friends and a little later, the quality new games such as Flashback, Alien3 and Syndicate.

Around 1992 I went to a mates house after a few underage beers and he had a SNES with only Street Fighter 2. There were six of us, winner stays on and that was that. The whole night gone and many more after it. Not long after that a different friend picked up a SNES with Super Mario World and Mario Kart. After playing those i bought one cheap of somebody ( can't remember who ) and stuck with it until the Playstation. The games i had previously played are excellent today but my favourites on the SNES were Link To The Past and Secret Of Mana. I'd never played anything like those before and loved the depth of the gameplay and loved the music. Awesome times.

That's me and my mates did but during 6th gen. I was 3 when I got my mega drive, with sonic 2, alladin and mortal kombat 2 (I think).

The SNES, eh? Wot's wun o dem?

The SNES represented the time when my video gaming passion finally hit top gear, I was holding down a steady job (TWO paper rounds, and the money collection from said rounds from which I was paid a sort of comission) and earning about twenty-five quid a week so was able to hoover up many new titles as they hit the shelves.

But. In a time before the SNES even hit these shores, before I even knew of it, a schoolfriend's cousin had just arrived from the USA with a Super Famicom (late '91). And Mario World. And F-Zero. Now, up to this point I had only played up-to-8-bit stuff and had a faint whiff of Amiga goodness. Playing Mario World and F-Zero for the very first time is a glorious memory. THOSE graphics. So... so... colourful. The music. So much awesomer than anything I'd heard before. The huge Bullet Bills. Oof. So big. Mario World blew my socks off. F-Zero melted my tiny little mind too. Sod Lotus Turbo Challenge and EVERY OTHER CAR GAME EVER.

This was just glorious.

The wait for the PAL release however, was not.

Still, on release day, I troddled off to my local Comet (closed aaaaages ago, and is now a soon-to-close carpet shop) to purchase one SNES with TWO controllers and Mario World. £149.99? Yup. that'll do nicely.

That Christmas, I helped myself to three new games. Only one of which was a PAL release (Sim City), the other two being Parodius Da! (Jap) and Super Mario Kart (USA). Oh, and a convertor that worked with Mario Kart. As some didn't. The extra processor in the cart caused issues with some "cheaper" convertors. But mine was fine. Yes.

Games came and went, a games shop in the next town across(ish) - "Games Zone" in Featherstone - provided me with, for anything up to about 8 quid, a brilliant game swap service. Take in old game, pay a bit of cash, swap for other game. Fantastic.

However, my memories of the SFC were still burning away, and the knowledge that we UK gamers had been saddled with a machine 17.5% slower than our Other Region-ed Brethren slowly gnawed away at MY VERY SOUL.

So. In 1994 (or thereabouts) popped in to my local shopping centre to a shop called Microbyte, where they'd had a US demo machine running for a while. And asked them if they'd be interested in selling it. They were. One huge air-punch and an Eighty Pounds Sterling transaction later, my US SNES was snuggled next to my PAL one, jostling in a most friendly manner under the TV.

From there, armed with 16-bit Nintendos that could play UK, USA and Jap games, I began my importing in earnest. Final Fantasy 2, 3, Chrono Trigger, Bomberman, Mystical Ninja and Soul Blazer, in particular, were just a few titles I got either quite a while before they turned up on these shores or not at all, and there were many, many others I purchased over the machine's life.

I currently have 100 titles for my SNESes. It remains to this day my favourite system - the memories the thing has given me from the start even up to this day surpass everything that has come since - and cemented my status as a Nintendo fanboy (but not one of those dickhead types). The importing of systems and games carried on over to the N64. But that's another story.

Oof. Waffled on a bit there Laughing

Excellent Stuff Mandle

I have similar memories about the mega drive, opening it up Christmas I think in 93 and playing Aladdin. Having what seemed like the whole estate over to play it as I was the only one to have one. A girl around the the corner had a SNES which to back then did nothing for me as Super Mario was so slow compared to Sonic. I appreciated the SNES more now as games such as Mario World are classics.

As Stu seems to bringing some life back into the retro thread,

This seems a thread we should be using seeing it's the generation that kicked off the whole console wars.

So anyone been playing anything recently from the 16Bit era (be it a VC game like Earthbound), or just thoughts they'd like to share before Stu ends up making a Mega Drive etc thread Razz

As much as I loved the 16bit era, it seems to be my least-revisited generation these days, just slightly ahead of the N64/Saturn. I put this down to me not having many SNES games, and to my Mega Drive (my baby as a child, which I do have plenty of great games for) looking shit on my HDTV.

If I could be bothered to get the MD under my telly with a decent picture, I'm still not sure it would receive as much love as my NES seems to do these days. I don't know what it is about the NES that's charmed me so in recent years, besides the controller being one of my all-time favourites.

Our SNES - for it was shared between my two brothers and me - came from the thriving Woolworth's in the nearest town (which still stands empty now). It came with the game-changing (ha!) Super Mario World. Unlike mandle, our games stayed firmly in the UK - Super Mario Kart, Super Bomberman, Super Metroid, UN Squadron, Mystical Ninja, Parodius, Super Castlevania IV... all classics that kept us playing for ages. There'll be many I've forgotten, too...

What did you make of Mystical Ninja, Zero?

My SNES - which is still going strong today - was a secondhand one from the time when they were sold out everywhere. I was hoping for the console bundled with either StarWing or Super Mario World, but I ended up getting an unboxed unit. My first game for it? Shitty Plok.

Over the years I managed to get hold of SMW and SMW2, Donkey Kong Country, Super Mario All-Stars, Super Mario Kart (many, many years later), Mario Paint, StarWing, Road Runner (for some reason), and Super Tennis.

SNES, Saturn, Master System and Dreamcast are my least-populated consoles, in gaming terms. I never picked another game up for my DC after the ones I bought with the console, Samba De Amigo aside.

Stu_the_great wrote:: What did you make of Mystical Ninja, Zero?

Love me some Mystical Ninja, though it did get mighty hard by the end. Thank goodness for the miracle of save states! Embarrassed

You mentioned loads of games I missed... StarWing, Yoshi's Island, Donkey Kong Country... and you'd better not let PhoenixAsh see you dissing Plok!

Had PhoenixAsh ever posted here, I might consider watching what I type. Laughing

Seriously though: Plok is shite. Anyone else had the misfortune of playing it?

Is this how we're going to coax people onto the forum: insulting their favourite games until they rise to the bait? Laughing

I... don't have much else to say about the 4th gen. It was just before I became a gamer, and I'm not a great fan of retro gaming in general. Super Mario World, Yoshi's Island, and Gunstar Heroes spring to mind, though.

Balladeer wrote:: Is this how we're going to coax people onto the forum: insulting their favourite games until they rise to the bait?

It's how I feel about the game. I'm not directing my dislike at another person's tastes. Laughing

Did you play those games retrospectively, Balla? Gunstar Heroes is an interesting one for me, as I always lose interest once I reach the Dice Palace (never made it past the sodding Dice Palace because of how dice rolls turn out DAMN YOU!

).

I did indeed! SMW and YI on the GBA, and Gunstar on the Wii's VC. I had a lot of time for the latter: because of its sheer madcap inventiveness, it didn't feel that aged. I'll agree that the Dice Palace was a bit tedious, but: Seven Force! Twice! Brilliant!

I never did manage to track down the GBA sequel, though. Sad

Is there much to go after the Dice Palace? I repeat the same boss every time I reach that point that I lose the will to live and turn the bleddy thing off.

I can't argue with the excellent boss battles, though. They're of typical Treasure quality. If you haven't had your arse handed to you by Ikaruga, I can't recommend it highly enough. Probably my favourite Treasure game (a discussion for another topic).

It depends which order you do them in, doesn't it? If I recall correctly, it's four levels (including the Dice Palace) in any order, then a fairly long final level with several bosses. So, a decent chunk, regardless.

It's been that long since I played it, I'd completely forgotten about the mission select system...

Stu_the_great wrote:: SNES, Saturn, Master System and Dreamcast are my least-populated consoles, in gaming terms. I never picked another game up for my DC after the ones I bought with the console, Samba De Amigo aside.

4th Generation Consoles TurboGrafx-16, Super Nintendo, Mega Drive, AES, CD-i 4b79d-sdcnm

Don't get me wrong, mas: I love my Dreamcast, I just manage to do so with a very limited number of games. Smile

But it has so many good ones, it must be the best games to console ratio system ever as you think N64 has some classic but then it has stuff like Superman 64 that it's avg of quality has to be lower then the Dreamcasts.

DC games worth owning:

ZeroJones wrote:

Stu_the_great wrote:: What did you make of Mystical Ninja, Zero?

Love me some Mystical Ninja, though it did get mighty hard by the end. Thank goodness for the miracle of save states! Embarrassed

You mentioned loads of games I missed... StarWing, Yoshi's Island, Donkey Kong Country... and you'd better not let PhoenixAsh see you dissing Plok!

Did you end up playing them though Zero

Which ones? I've played (and beaten) the SNES originals of all the games mentioned in your reply except Plok.

I was on about StarWing, Yoshi's Island, Donkey Kong Country.

But you've answered the question that you have played them.

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