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One of the more campy franchise spawned from the ’80s was The Toxic Avenger, which told the story of a nerd who became a super hero after being bathed in radioactive waste. It was later expanded into a failed cartoon and this horrible action game, which eventually proved that the property’s half-life wasn’t as long as some had hoped. Sega and Troma conspired to release this glowing turd, basing it on the poorly-received cartoon, and poor Toxie’s never been the same since.
1993 saw the release of Francis Ford Coppola’s version of the horror classic Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The film tried to remain faithful to the novel while injecting a more modernized interpretation of everyone’s favorite vampire. Such a concept sounds like it would make for a great video game, right? Well, it did, and that’s why we have the Castlevania series. Unfortunately, Sony Imagesoft decided to license the film for a game released for several platforms, including the Sega CD. The latter included FMV cut scenes and cool-looking rendered backgrounds but not much else of note.
Wolf Team was on fire during the 16-bit era, producing several Genesis titles that varied from mediocre to excellent (depending on who you ask). One thing the group liked to do was create action games, and a fan favorite of the genre is Wolf Team’s El Viento. Spanish for “the wind,” the game tells the odd tale of a young girl out to stop the resurrection of an ancient demon in New York City.
Action games are a dime a dozen, but sometimes a few come up with an interesting idea. Sega’s Jewel Master tries something new by putting the weapons system into two handfuls of rings, each with its own power. These magical rings can be combined for all sorts of neat power, and though the game didn’t fufill its potential as hoped, it was still a fun little romp that deserves to be checked out.
For almost two decades, the Valis franchise has been turning heads, be it for its solid action, incredible cut scenes, or even its recent foray into the world of hentai. All of this controversy had to begin somewhere, and Sega-16 takes a look at the game that started the famous storyline, Valis: the Fantasm Soldier. It may not stack up to its Turbo Grafx-16 CD-ROM counterpart, but Genesis gamers didn’t get off all that bad.