The Sega CD seemed to peak in the beat-’em-up genre with the early release of Final Fight, since few games that followed, if any, equaled that level of quality. Sony Imagesoft, known for its dreadful line of licensed games (Mickey Mania was a fortunate hiccup), tried to fill the void with Ultraverse Prime, a game based on the Malibu Comics superhero. To say the game is underwhelming is a major understatement, and it comes off as a digital checklist of how to make a generic brawler. It did have an interesting theme song though…
Sega CD Reviews
Marko CD
Let me see if I’ve got this right. Marko’s Magic Football was originally released in Europe on the Mega Drive, Mega CD, and Game Gear, and all made it across the pond to the U.S. except for the CD port. Eventually, the Sega CD version finally saw distribution in 2003 by Good Deal Games, which undoubtedly made all those who bought the incredibly expensive European original very unhappy. During the conversion process, the name was chopped off, no doubt due to America’s insistence in calling the sport “soccer,” but regardless of what it’s called, Marko is still a solid platformer that’s worth checking out.
Surgical Strike
Full-motion video games are a staple of any Sega CD library. Heck, you seemingly can’t own the add-on without having at least one in your library. Back when Sega was betting the farm on the genre, its TruVideo line was producing titles on a regular basis. Some were decent (Wirehead), and some were Surgical Strike. I know you can’t believe we found another bad FMV game, but at least try to feign surprise. For us, please?
Samurai Shodown (CD)
IPPON! SNK’s Samurai Shodown sliced and diced its way onto just about every console imaginable, and many gamers expected the Sega CD version to be the best one. Sadly, this wasn’t the case. Long load times, a missing character, and an unforgivable bug hamper what is otherwise an excellent port.
Prize Fighter
The Sega CD will forever be remembered for having the largest library of FMV games around, and there are a ton of different opinions regarding the overall playability of the genre. Regardless of how you feel about them, one thing we can probably all agree on is that some FMV games should maybe never have been attempted at all due to the gameplay constraints they placed on the concept they were trying so hard to bring to life.