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Wrestling games are a dime a dozen now, but there was a time when Genesis owners had literally none to play. After teasing us with a blurb for Wrestle War in two of its pack-in posters, Sega decided against releasing the game in America. Maybe the company knew better after all, as we really weren’t missing much. Bland, generic characters and stiff gameplay made it a title to forget, and we could always play Tecmo World Wrestling on the NES. At least that one was good.
Beat-’em-ups are quite common on the Genesis, and there are those that are truly memorable, such as Streets of Rage 2 and Final Fight CD on the Sega CD. However, for every light there is a darkness; for every ying a yang; for every Streets of Rage, there is a Growl. While Taito’s brawler might not seem so bad in isolation, compared to other releases in the genre – specifically those released before it – the game is substandard. Another victim in Taito’s line of neutered ports, Growl is a title only worthy of playing out of momentary curiosity.
Most people wouldn’t think of Kabuki theater when talking about martial arts, but hey, why not? Dreamworks’ Mystical Fighter brings all the splendor and mysticism of Japan’s classic drama to a side-scrolling beat-’em-up. The weird thing? It’s actually kind of fun!
Today, many console gamers enjoy the tower defense genre of games. The genre wasn’t so well known back in 1990, when Atari games released Rampart in the arcades. Featuring play for up to three people simultaneously, it was ported to every console known to man, including the Genesis. Handled by Tengen, the 16-bit version is actually pretty darn good.
Renovation brought over a ton of games for the Genesis, many of which found their ways onto other consoles. Exile was an action/RPG that was also available on the TuboGrafx-16 CD-ROM (check out our comparison of the two). While it didn’t boast all the bells and whistles of its CD sibling, the Genesis cartridge had some strengths of its own.