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Taito released plenty of games for the Genesis, but its Sega CD library wasn’t quite as robust. Some of the games that made it onto the add-on seem to have a “B grade” quality to them, and after playing The Ninja Warriors for the Japanese Mega CD, that assessment might actually be too generous. Granted, the source material isn’t that deep to begin with, but one questions why the CD technology seemed to only be used for redbook audio. What a waste.
It seems that only a handful of the seemingly endless stream of Space Invaders sequels and variations that have surfaced since 1978 actually try anything new, and the release of Space Invaders ’91 (Space Invaders ’90 in Japan) was a lukewarm effort at injecting some new life into the classic gameplay. It didn’t add much, but what’s there is actually fun for a while.
Taito had a a string of releases for the Genesis, and it often seemed like every arcade game the company put out eventually found its way onto Sega’s console. Unfortunately, some ports were better than others, and a few, like Thunder Fox, took a major hit during the transition. Truth be told, there’s actually very little thunder in this version. In fact, compared to the coin-op original, the Genesis port sounds more like a rumbly tummy than anything else. Sigh… such were the things gamers had to live with at the time.
At one time it seemed like the only way to find a decent game with the Acclaim logo was to look for one that belonged to another company, and even then it was hit or miss. Under the Flying Edge banner, the company did manage to produce some decent software, and along with successful arcade ports like NBA Jam, Acclaim made some strides towards decency. Another port it tossed our way was that of Williams incredibly popular Smash T.V. Adding a “super” to the name, it wasn’t as pretty or customizable as its SNES sibling, but there was still much fun to be had.
Virtua Fighter remains a three dimensional fighter, and therein lies one of its greatest strengths. It revolutionized the fighting game scene when it hit the arcades, and all those great features are present in the 32X version.