Player Two Start: An SNES-CD Timeline

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1993 In Review

    • RySenkari

    1993: The Year In Review

    “When 1993 ended, we all kind of took a step back and saw how much things had changed in just one year. We'd gone from the SNES-CD kind of just being something neat to add on to the Super Nintendo to being the focal point of our creative endeavors. We hadn't gone in intending for this CD peripheral to consume so much of our time and attention, but the consumer response really did justify that shifting of our effort. We ended that holiday season with more than 30 percent of SNES owners owning the SNES-CD as well, either as the add-on or as part of the combo set. We were still splitting our consumer base quite a bit, but that rift was closing rapidly.”
    -Howard Lincoln in a 2011 interview with Forbes magazine

    “I knew the Genesis was good enough to compete for those lower-middle class families if Nintendo abandoned them. I knew that the more Nintendo shifted their development to the CD, the more of an advantage our console would have on theirs. It didn't matter how good their games were if the majority of consumers couldn't afford to play them. This was where we were going to make our stand. At least until the Saturn came out.”
    -Tom Kalinske, “The Chase: Sega's 20 Year Struggle To Take Down A Giant”

    “One of the questions people asked me is, 'why put all your good Neo-Geo games on the Super Nintendo CD? You're shooting yourself in the foot if you offer the same product on a much cheaper console, why not have your best games be Neo-Geo exclusives?' At SNK, we were in the games business. That was it. I didn't care how we sold our games as long as we were selling them. The only reason we even offered the Neo-Geo for home console sales is that people were willing to pay $600 for it. For us, it was just a means to an end of selling our games, and if the Super Nintendo CD was a better means to that end, why not? The thing could run our games just as well as our arcade machines did. Kids all over the world would play our games at the arcade or at the mall or at the pizza place and then go to the store and buy our games for their home console. We made a ton of money off Super Nintendo CD software. A ton.”
    -Eikichi Kawasaki, excerpted from a June 13, 2009 Kotaku.com interview in the article “The Legacy Of Neo Geo”

    “The Game of the Year award for 1993 was the biggest rout in the history of this publication. No game this year came close to Secret of Mana. Not Mortal Kombat, not Super Mario World 2, nothing else could even contend. Gamefan's Game of the Year award by unanimous decision: Secret Of Mana.”
    -Dave Halverson, in the March 1994 issue of GameFan Magazine

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    Top Selling Super Nintendo CD Games Of 1993 (pack-in sales included, only sales during the 1993 calendar year are counted):

    1. Super Mario World 2
    2. Super Mario Kart
    3. Mortal Kombat
    4. Star Fox
    5. Street Fighter II: Arcade Edition
    6. Where In The World is Carmen Sandiego?
    7. Secret Of Mana
    8. Final Fantasy III
    9. Super Bomberman CD
    10. The Simpsons

    -

    1993 Nintendo Power Editors' Choice Top Ten SNES-CD Games

    1. Super Mario World 2

    It was a close one between this and Secret Of Mana, but we couldn't get enough of Mario's latest adventure! With dozens of amazing levels to explore and colorful graphics, this is the best Mario game yet!

    2. Secret Of Mana

    This epic quest spans over 40 hours and features one of the most beautiful soundtracks of any video game we've ever played. With three different endings, we had to play through this game over and over again.

    3. Star Fox

    This high-flying space adventure brought cinema-style gameplay to our home consoles! Thanks to all the work from Jim Henson's great studio, Fox, Peppy, Slippy, and Falco blasted their way into our hearts!

    4. Battletoads II

    Rip across 20 fun and challenging levels with Rash, Pimple, and Zitz as the struggle to take down the Dark Queen is more fun than ever. The three-player action comes highly recommended!

    5. Final Fantasy III

    While Squaresoft's latest wasn't quite as exciting as Secret Of Mana, this quest traversing three worlds gave us an unforgettable feeling as we gutted through this challenging game.

    6. Mortal Kombat

    The at-times controversial Mortal Kombat was one of our favorites to play in the office, featuring some of the best fighting action we've ever seen on a console game!

    7. Deadman Sam

    This tale of a murdered nobleman out to reunite with his lost love took us through many spooky levels on our way to win true love once again!

    8. The Lost Vikings

    Erik, Baleog, and Olaf fight their way through many dangers in this outstanding action puzzler featuring a surprising amount of challenge and lots of addictive fun.

    9. Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego?

    We never thought we'd have so much fun learning geography, but the hilarious cutscenes and excellent play controls made this game hard to put down.

    10. The Simpsons

    The Super Nintendo CD showed off its arcade chops in this port of one of our favorite brawler games based on America's favorite family!

    -featured in the January 1994 issue of Nintendo Power as part of their Super Power Club bonus insert

    1993 Nintendo Power Awards (“The Nesters”)- compiled from fan voting, not a complete list of awards

    Best Graphics and Sound (SNES-CD)

    1. Secret Of Mana
    2. Star Fox
    3. Super Mario World 2

    Best Challenge (SNES-CD)

    1. Final Fantasy III
    2. Star Fox
    3. Battletoads II

    Best Play Control (SNES-CD)

    1. Super Mario World 2
    2. Star Fox
    3. Mortal Kombat

    Best Theme and Fun (SNES-CD)

    1. Secret Of Mana
    2. Super Mario World 2
    3. Star Fox

    Best Hero

    1. Mario
    2. Randi
    3. Kirby

    Best Villain

    1. Thanatos
    2. Goro
    3. Dr. Wily

    Most Innovative

    1. Super Bomberman CD
    2. Secret Of Mana
    3. Shadowrun

    Best Overall (Super Nintendo)

    1. Super Mario All-Stars
    2. Mortal Kombat
    3. Super Squadron X

    Best Overall (SNES-CD)

    1. Secret Of Mana
    2. Super Mario World 2
    3. Mortal Kombat

    -featured in the May 1994 issue of Nintendo Power

    -

    “What you're holding in your hand is Issue 0 of Nintendo Power CD, a new treat for all of our Super Power Club members! These two discs can be played in your Super Nintendo CD, and will bring you the latest in news, tips, tricks, and even special game demos! Every three months, a new issue of Nintendo Power CD will arrive with your monthly magazine. We'll be charging a little extra for new subscribers, but current subscribers will continue to receive issues of Nintendo Power CD for free until their current subscription runs out. Nintendo Power CD comes jam-packed with all the cool stuff you're used to seeing in your Nintendo Power magazine, but now in video form! You'll get to watch some of the Nintendo game counselors play through some of the trickiest sections of SNES-CD games. You'll get to see special video previews of games we've got coming up. And much more! Also included is a disc just for demos of upcoming games. We've partnered with companies producing new games to provide exclusive demos that you'll only find on Nintendo Power CD, so you can try out games before you buy them at the store! Nintendo Power CD will help take your Super Power Club membership to the next level of power!”
    -quoted from the insert included with Issue 0 of Nintendo Power CD, which came with subscribes' issues of Nintendo Power in January 1994. Nintendo Power CD was also regularly sent to Nintendo's retail partners, for the purposes of playing preview videos at kiosks or having the demo disc available for play

    Nintendo Power CD (Issue 0)- Winter 1994

    Disc One Contents-

    Classified Information- secret codes for 27 SNES-CD games, including Street Fighter II: Arcade Edition, The Terminator, The Simpsons, and others

    Counselors' Corner-
    Video 1: “How do I beat the Tree Segments in Final Fantasy III?”
    Video 2: “How do I access Rainbow Road in Super Mario World 2?”
    Video 3: “How do I reach the Central Computer in time in Flashback: The Quest For Identity?”
    Video 4: “How do I access the Black Hole in Star Fox?”

    Power Charts- A countdown of Nintendo editors' current top 10 SNES-CD games. In subsequent issues, readers would help vote for these charts.

    Pak Watch- Preview videos for NBA Jam, Secret Of Monkey Island, Kid Icarus CD, Ren and Stimpy, Daywalkers, Icebiter, Soulqueen, and Phaedra's Heart

    Disc Two Contents-

    Demos for the following games:

    Secret Of Mana
    The Simpsons
    Battletoads II
    Icebiter
    Utopia: The Creation Of A Nation
    Eskrima Warriors
    Secret Of Monkey Island
    Cannondale CD

    -

    Electronic Gaming Monthly 1993 Editors' Choice Awards (selected)

    Game Of The Year: Secret of Mana (Super Nintendo CD)
    Runner-up: Samurai Shodown (Neo-Geo)

    Super Nintendo Game Of The Year: Street Fighter II Turbo
    Runner-up: Super Mario All-Stars

    Sega Genesis Game Of The Year: NHL '94
    Runner-up: Gunstar Heroes

    Super Nintendo CD Game Of The Year: Secret Of Mana
    Runner-up: Super Mario World 2

    Sega CD Game Of The Year: Sonic the Hedgehog CD
    Runner-up: Aladdin

    Best RPG: Secret Of Mana (Super Nintendo CD)
    Runner-up: Final Fantasy III (Super Nintendo CD)

    Best Fighting Game: Samurai Shodown (Neo-Geo)
    Runner-up: Street Fighter II Turbo (Super Nintendo)

    Best Action Game: Super Mario World 2 (Super Nintendo CD)
    Runner-up: Gunstar Heroes (Sega Genesis)

    Best Music: Secret Of Mana (Super Nintendo CD)
    Runner-up: Actraiser 2 (Super Nintendo CD)

    System Reviews:

    Super Nintendo CD:

    Ed: 10 (quote: “Last year I said it was highly recommended. This year I'm glad to have been vindicated. Even if you have to shell out an extra $150, it's the best value in gaming, with a ton of great games and more still to come.”)
    Danyon: 9 (quote: “While it could do with a few more sports games, and there are a few FMV stinkers in the lineup, there aren't too many gripes to be had with the Super Nintendo CD. It's already the best peripheral ever made.”)
    Martin: 10 (quote: “Did I think at the beginning of the year that the Super Nintendo CD would have a better year than the Super Nintendo? This is an absolute must-buy now. For Secret of Mana alone, this is worth the price.”)
    Sushi-X: 10 (quote: “The best system for fighting games there is. You've already got the definitive versions of Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat, and Samurai Shodown is coming next year. What the hell are you waiting for?”

    Super Nintendo:

    Ed: 8 (quote: “I'm really pleased with all the games that are coming out for this and the Super FX chip shows a lot of potential, and that you don't need to shell out the extra cash for an SNES-CD to have great 3-D visuals on a home Nintendo console.”)
    Danyon: 8 (quote: “What worries me is that more of the good games seem to be coming out for the Super Nintendo CD. Will Nintendo keep pushing more good games to it to get people to spend the extra cash? But in the meantime, there's plenty to love about the good old SNES.”)
    Martin: 9 (quote: “You can't go wrong with the Super Nintendo, not with great games like Zombies Ate my Neighbors, Super Squadron X, and Mega Man X, along with stuff like Super Metroid and Dragon Warrior V coming down the bend.”)
    Sushi-X: 8 (quote: “For 100 bucks, if you don't have a Super Nintendo yet you should seriously consider buying one. The fighting games aren't quite arcade quality but in most cases they're damn close.”)

    Sega CD:

    Ed: 7 (quote: “The Sega CD made a nice little push at the end of the year with great games like Aladdin and of course, Sonic CD. The problem is that I'm worried about this system's future prospects, it definitely doesn't look as bright as the Super Nintendo CD.”)
    Danyon: 7 (quote: “A console/CD combo might be just the thing to get the Sega CD sales going again. $199, $50 below the Super Nintendo CD combo, would be a great price point and there's a lot of value there with games like Sonic CD and Lunar.”)
    Martin: 6 (quote: “The Sega CD got its butt kicked this year by the Super Nintendo CD and deservedly so. There just isn't a good base of games to justify the purchase of this thing.”)
    Sushi-X: 7 (quote: “I've been having a lot of fun with Ultima Underworld II, but RPG fans have better options (AKA the Super Nintendo CD), and so do fighting game fans. It just might not be worth the purchase right now.”)

    -excerpted from the 1994 Electronic Gaming Monthly Video Game Buyer's Guide

    -

    Gamepro 1993 Editors' Choice Awards (selected)

    Super Nintendo Game Of The Year: Super Empire Strikes Back
    Runners-up: Street Fighter II Turbo, Super Squadron X

    Sega Genesis Game Of The Year: Gunstar Heroes
    Runners-up: Aladdin, Street Fighter II Special Champion Edition

    Super Nintendo CD Game Of The Year: Secret Of Mana
    Runners-up: Mortal Kombat, Super Mario World 2

    Sega CD Game Of The Year: Sonic the Hedgehog CD
    Runners-up: Ultima Underworld II, Aladdin

    Fighting Game Of The Year: Samurai Shodown (Neo-Geo)
    Runners-up: Mortal Kombat (Multiplatform), Street Fighter II Turbo (SNES/Genesis)

    Action/Adventure Game Of The Year: Super Mario World 2 (Super Nintendo CD)
    Runners-up: Flashback: The Quest For Identity (Super Nintendo CD), Deadman Sam (Super Nintendo CD)

    Role-Playing Game Of The Year: Secret Of Mana (Super Nintendo CD)
    Runners-up: Earthbound (Super Nintendo), Ultima Underworld II (Sega CD)

    -

    “1993 was a tale of two experiments: Nintendo and Sega's experiments with optical gaming. For Nintendo, the Super Nintendo CD was a revelation, a way to expand their fanbase into older gamers with more disposable income, who would play challenging and edgy games such as Secret Of Mana, Final Fantasy V, The Terminator, and of course, Mortal Kombat. Nintendo's efforts paid off, striking a chord they never expected to strike and unwittingly but gratefully laying the groundwork for the true course of their fourth-generation console. The company ended 1993 at a crossroads, but it was becoming increasingly apparent that their optical experiment was becoming the wave of the future. For Sega, the Sega CD's shortcomings were amplified by the Super Nintendo CD's success, and being outsold 2-to-1 over the course of the year was a sign that they were going down the wrong road. Though Sega's future still lay in the CD medium, it was clear that they would need something with a lot more power to challenge Nintendo and Sony's technological might. Sega ended 1993 with a renewed commitment to the Genesis, hoping to win over those gamers who might not be able to afford a CD upgrade, and hoping to take advantage of Nintendo's increasing shift away from their cartridge-based console. The year ahead would see the Genesis in an interesting position, fighting a battle similar to the one the NES had faced in the months before the Super Nintendo's release. There were still far more Genesis consoles out there than there were Super Nintendo CDs, and if Sega was going to keep their market share up until relief arrived in the form of the Saturn, they'd have to take full advantage of that fact. Because with every hit game that came out on the Super Nintendo CD, Sega was running out of time.”
    -”The History Of Console Gaming: Year-By-Year (Part 5)”, Wired.com, June 12, 2012
     
    • 1993's Original SNES-CD Games

    • RySenkari

    This isn't an actual update, just a bit of an aside to give a bit more information on 1993's "original" franchise SNES-CD games. Most of the SNES-CD games scheduled for 1993 were either OTL games or part of existing OTL franchises. As the butterflies flap and the timeline advances, there will be more and more franchises original to TTL that will appear (over 40 original franchise games are planned for the SNES-CD in 1994). Here is a list of all the original franchise games that appeared and a brief description of them:

    -

    Scatterbeans: A colorful puzzle game that involves lining up colored spheres to form combos, somewhat like Bust-A-Move but the spheres shatter and disperse when combos are formed, it's a very fast-paced game.

    Dark City: Another mystery game, more of a detective noir game taking place in a grungy town called Dark City.

    Dragon's Destiny: A pseudo 3-D game where knights battle on flying dragons. A promising concept but the execution is poor and the game gets mostly bad reviews.

    The Shores Of Whitesea: An FMV based fantasy game with some RPG elements, the game is a cult classic in some circles but is thrashed by critics and is later bashed memorably in an Angry Video Game Nerd video.

    Super Carnival: An FMV carnival game simulator. Known mostly for its VERY cheesy acting which puts this game firmly in the "so bad it's good" category.

    Classics Of Great Literature: An educational game with the text of ten classic novels included and quizzes on those novels. Strictly an educational game, somewhat rare and valuable in 2013.

    Axes Of Avenglia: A fairly standard JRPG by Taito with CD enhanced music and some pretty good graphics for the time. A decent game but not really a standout.

    Nightfall: A horror FMV game that becomes one of the more controversial games of the time due to its violent content. Regarded as one of the better FMV games on the system. Notable for featuring a young Kelly Hu as a beautiful witch.

    Katie Corner: Another educational game, this one featuring puzzles and some live-action cutscenes. Gets decent reviews (especially for an educational game) but sells horribly, also somewhat rare and valuable today.

    Deadman Sam: A platformer starring a skeleton named Deadman Sam. Regarded as a pretty good game (especially the animation on Deadman Sam), and it gets sequels and the franchise survives to this day.

    The Swarm: A pretty standard shooter involving a hotshot pilot who takes down an alien invasion. Average reviews, average sales.

    Frantic Flight: Another shooter game, much more complex than The Swarm as you're able to customize your ships and it even randomizes your wingmen. A very well reviewed game that gets terrible sales, becomes one of the system's hidden gems.

    VideoMash: Though Nintendo kept the "Make My Video" series off the SNES CD, this game, similar to the Make My Video series but with original music videos specifically designed for the game, was published and released. Another game with horrible reviews but with a "so bad its good" following in the modern era of Youtube mash-ups.

    Neighborhood Wars: A somewhat silly strategy game featuring rival gangs of kids battling it out with water balloons and other humorous weapons. Somewhat below average reviews, the humor is rather juvenile.


    (Of the above listed games, the most successful by far, both critically and commercially, is Deadman Sam. Axes of Avenglia, The Swarm, Dragon's Destiny, and Nightfall see decent sales. Dark City does decently but a bit less so. Frantic Flight sells relatively poorly but achieves cult classic status. The rest are seen as busts for the most part.)
     
    • January 1994 - Sega's Counter-Strategy

    • RySenkari

    “It's about making Sonic 3 the best Sonic game ever. We just need a little more time to get everything ready, but I absolutely promise that Sonic 3 will be worth the wait, and when April 18th rolls around, you won't be able to stop playing.”
    -Tom Kalinske, announcing the delay of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 from February 2 to April 18, 1994 at the Winter 1994 Consumer Electronics Show

    “It's archaic. It's a totally underpowered piece of garbage. And video gamers are going to be able to do the math and see that we have the most powerful piece of video game hardware ever created, and that we're going to have the best games too. That's just a fact.”
    -Atari CEO Sam Tramiel, discussing the Super Nintendo CD in an interview with Newsweek magazine hyping the Atari Jaguar, February 21, 1994

    “We knew that the Atari Jaguar was a more powerful system than the Super Nintendo CD. It had two processors and both of them by themselves were faster, they were around 26 Mhz and we were 21. But, and this was why we weren't worried, or at least I wasn't... Atari did not take software publishers' needs into consideration. They put out a very powerful, very nice piece of hardware that was very difficult to develop for, while we at Sony cultivated relationships with software publishers and used their input the entire time we were making the Super Nintendo CD. Square, Konami, Capcom, Tecmo, we listened to them and we created a platform that they enjoyed making games for. The Jaguar had all of that power but no one was ever able to take advantage of its full potential.”
    -Ken Kutaragi, in an interview with Popular Mechanics, January 1998

    “We've got a pair of big games coming out this month for the Super Nintendo CD that I think a lot of people are going to love. It's been such a pleasure working with Nintendo, and I'm looking forward to us putting out a lot of games for the SNES CD in the future.”
    -Olaf Olaffson, from an interview with Computer Chronicles at the 1994 Winter CES

    -

    January 7, 1994 – Winter 1994 CES

    It's that time again, time for all the big electronics companies to show off their latest gadgets and gizmos in Las Vegas, and this season's Consumer Electronics Show is proving to be the most exciting one yet. We're going to be taking a look at the latest video games today, and all the major players are putting their best foot forward. We're even seeing the legendary Atari on the comeback trail with their new 64-bit Jaguar system that promises 3-D graphics and interactivity on a level not yet seen on a home console device. The Atari Jaguar has already launched in select cities and will be rolling out across the country in the coming weeks. Atari CEO Sam Tramiel has promised a big slate of games for consumers to purchase as the system is made available. At the Winter CES, Atari showed off Cybermorph, a 3-D shooter game that hopes to compete with games like the hit Star Fox on the Super Nintendo's CD peripheral. Tramiel has promised a networked link-up accessory for the Jaguar so that players can connect and play multiplayer games with one another from across the country, a device that could give it a leg up on its established competitors. With two powerful co-processors, the Jaguar is perhaps the most powerful video game system ever launched, but only time will tell if Atari can reclaim the throne it held so strongly in the 1980s.

    We've also seen new games promoted for the Panasonic 3DO, a powerful but expensive gaming console that was promoted very heavily at the time of its release last fall, though a high price tag and the rise of CD peripherals for Nintendo and Sega's systems have kept sales slow.

    The biggest splashes at the Winter CES, as always, have been made by arch-rivals Nintendo and Sega, who showed off games for both their cartridge and CD systems at the show. Nintendo has been heavily promoting their home console versions of the arcade hit NBA Jam, while their partner Sony has begun rolling out its own stable of games for the CD peripheral, with Icebiter and Skyblazer both set for release this month. Nintendo is also promoting a version of the CD-ROM adventure hit Secret of Monkey Island that looks to be a major hit with some of the system's younger players in the same way that Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego? was last year. Nintendo has been making headlines by purchasing the MLB's Seattle Mariners, and the company's baseball game, featuring baseball superstar Ken Griffey Jr., will release in cartridge form for the Super Nintendo just in time for the upcoming baseball season.

    On the Sega front, the company showed off the latest game in the Sonic the Hedgehog series, which has been pushed back from its scheduled Groundhog Day release date to later in the spring, giving the game's creators time to add even more levels and an all new character named Knuckles. Sega is also promoting a pair of sports games, including its own baseball game and a new version of John Madden Football for the 1994 NFL season. There wasn't as much focus on Sega's CD peripheral this year, though a version of Mortal Kombat was shown off at Sega's booth. The company has stated its renewed commitment to the Genesis system, though competition from the Super Nintendo CD may also be a factor, the company's CD peripheral outsold Sega's by a 4-to-1 margin during the holiday season and consumer analysts say that the Nintendo CD is at this time the better buy.

    Whether it's Atari, Panasonic, Nintendo, or Sega, video games put on an impressive show at this year's Winter CES, and we'll keep you posted on all the exciting news ahead.

    -from the Computer Chronicles report on the Winter 1994 CES, January 9, 1994

    Winter CES Update!

    There's a ton of games headed your way in 1994, and we got the first scoop on the biggest games of the year at the Winter 1994 CES! Both Nintendo and Sega's booths were jam-packed with their latest offerings, and though we had to fight serious crowds to play some of the biggest games, we came away with all the juicy details on every single game at the show.

    Nintendo's booth was split between their cartridge and CD games, but the biggest game of all was undoubtedly Super Metroid, coming to the SNES this April. It's the third installment of the popular Metroid series and it'll see bounty hunter Samus returning to Planet Zebes to fight the vicious Space Pirates. We were treated to a sneak peek at an incredible battle with Kraid that's sure to blow players' minds, as the huge green baddie now takes up two whole screens! We also got a look at Nintendo's new baseball game, Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball. Featuring all the real MLB teams, the game lets players experience a full season in the big leagues or kick back with a Home Run Derby. The graphics look great and the sound effects make you feel like you're really at the ballpark. We also got to spend some time with Mega Man X, which should be available in stores by the time you read this. There was also the really fun Star Tropics II: Zoda's Revenge, and we got to play Dragon Warrior V as well. From what it sounds like, Dragon Warrior V is the series' best game to date and it's the first game to appear on the Super Nintendo, which means it's bringing enhanced graphics and sound to the table. We also got to check out Kid Icarus CD on the Super Nintendo CD, and it's a LOT better than the NES original. It's a whole new adventure for the hero Pit, and it plays a bit like Metroid but with a Zelda II twist to it, you can explore a huge series of worlds and gather experience points and new equipment as you try to battle the evil Medusa and her wicked minions in a quest to save Greece. It's a really fun action game and we look forward to playing the full game when it gets released in April. A game we're REALLY excited about is Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, a new Castlevania game for the Super Nintendo CD that emphasizes exploration more than the NES or SNES Castlevania games did. Then there's Soulqueen, a really fun looking space shooter from Telenet Japan. It plays a lot like Axelay, but with great cinematic elements and a fun (and really hot!) heroine named Cleopatra, we're ready to blast off with this one when it comes out this spring.

    On the Sega front, we REALLY liked what we saw from Sonic the Hedgehog 3, though we're not happy it's been delayed to April. We trust Sega though, and we know that it's going to be worth it when we finally get to play, the parts of the game that were playable here at CES looked amazing. Sega had their own Castlevania game to show off as well. Called Castlevania: Bloodlines, it was even more action packed than Rondo of Blood, and might indeed be a more exciting game than its slower paced CD cousin. Sega also showed off a great version of Super Street Fighter II for the Genesis. While we're looking forward to seeing what the Super Nintendo CD version of the game is capable of, Sega's version looked arcade fast and jam-packed with characters and features. It's clear that Capcom isn't leaving its loyal Sega fans out in the cold.

    -from the Winter 1994 CES article in the March 1994 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly

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    Interviewer: I'd like to thank you for taking the time to talk to us about Snatcher, if only briefly. We've been hearing about this game even since before the Super Nintendo CD was released, and it's taken quite some time to get it to market.

    Masahiro Sakurai: Kojima-san and I have taken a lot of time working together to optimize Snatcher for the Super Nintendo CD. We think it's absolutely going to be worth the wait!

    Interviewer: I played some of Snatcher and it's a really impressive game, though it's not like anything that's come to market before. Do you think such an unorthodox game can be a hit with Western audiences?

    Masahiro Sakurai: I'm very confident that Western audiences will love Snatcher. It takes a lot of influence from the classic sci-fi films Blade Runner and Terminator, both of which were very successful here in the States. Nintendo is planning to promote this game to older players who will really get into the cinematic elements of it. Kojima-san really created something special here and I'm glad I get to help share it with Nintendo players!

    Interviewer: I can see there's a big crowd around the booth, I'm going to let you get back to promoting the game but thank you very much for this interview.

    Masahiro Sakurai: Thank you for enjoying Snatcher!

    -from an interview with Masahiro Sakurai for the Life and Times section of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer

    -

    January 8, 1994

    At the Alexis Park Hotel in Las Vegas, Tom Kalinske sat with some of his partners at Sega of America, discussing the company's latest strategy with Sega president Hayao Nakayama. Nakayama, along with some of the executives at Sega of Japan, were convinced that the company needed some sort of stop-gap measure before the release of the Sega Saturn. Nintendo's CD peripheral had dealt a seemingly mortal blow to the Sega CD, and now they were looking for anything they could throw up against it to compete. Nakayama had managed to convince his fellow executives not to go through with pushing Project Mars, a 32-bit successor console to the Genesis, but it hadn't been easy, and he'd needed help from Tom Kalinske to demonstrate the folly of such a move. Ultimately, it had been two factors that prevented them from forcing through Project Mars.

    The first factor was the system's proposed technical specifications. It would be more powerful than the Super Nintendo CD, with a faster processor and better 3-D graphics capabilities... but it wouldn't be significantly more powerful. Not enough to provide a budget-priced alternative to the Saturn when it was barely more powerful than its competition to begin with. The second factor was that Sega of America, which had seemed so powerful in 1992, had had its success wane during 1993 due to the rise of the Super Nintendo CD. With the sense that SoA and SoJ were “struggling together”, so to speak, Nakayama was able to convince his fellow executives in Japan that Kalinske was still the “man with the plan”, that there was no need for Japan's branch to exert its authority over SoA. Not yet, anyway.

    “I bought you time,” said Nakayama, as the conversation finally drifted to the subject of a Genesis stop-gap. “But the suits in Japan, they want something to bridge the gap between the Genesis and the Saturn, and if not Project Mars, then what...?”

    “Well, that's the thing,” said Tom Kalinske, a smile crossing his face. “Silicon Graphics has been working hard on the Saturn, but we've had them working on a couple other projects as well, and with the delay of Sonic 3...”

    “Something else they're not happy about in Japan,” Nakayama replied sternly.

    “We need to do something with that lock-on technology. Originally, we were going to use it to connect Sonic 3 to its companion game which would be coming out later this year. But now that we're going ahead and releasing Sonic 3 complete, that lock-on tech is a solution in search of a problem. I think we've found our problem.”

    “Project Phobos,” said Shinobu Toyoda, reaching into a briefcase and pulling out a manila folder. He placed it on the table for Nakayama and his fellow SoJ executives to peruse.

    “It's a lock-on cart packed with several co-processor chips,” said Kalinske. “as many as we can pack into a $50 accessory. You hook it up to a game, it'll pump up the processing power, a lot like the Super FX chip did for that Super Squadron X game on the Super Nintendo. We can use it to add 3-D elements to Genesis games, make them run faster, store more in internal memory....games enhanced with this will run faster and look better than anything the Super Nintendo can produce. It's not quite the level of enhancement we'd have gotten with Project Mars, but it'll be enough to bridge the gap until the Saturn's ready.”

    Nakayama looked over the contents of the folder. He seemed intrigued, but some of the other executives looked skeptical.

    “You say that they would not have bought Project Mars, what makes you think they will purchase this?” asked one of them.

    “We'll pack it in with certain games. We can pack it in with Sonic 3, not at the game's launch but as a 'special edition' later in the year. Or that Virtua Racing game that's coming out. I think we can port some of the Sega CD games with this too.” Kalinske's mind was racing with ideas, he got so inspired when he had a good idea that he knew would help Sega take Nintendo down, and he was convinced that Project Phobos would give the Genesis the winning edge. He just hoped the SoJ brass would be convinced.

    “We'll...go back to Japan and discuss this,” said Nakayama. “In the meantime, you need to make sure that it wasn't a mistake to delay Sonic 3. We're losing ground to Nintendo with every passing day.”

    Kalinske already knew that, and he was already working his tail off to make sure Sonic 3 would be a success. It would take a LOT of effort for the team to have the game ready with all the Knuckles content by April 18th, but he had allocated every possible resource he could to make it happen. The April 18th date was deliberate...it was the date Nintendo was planning to release Super Metroid. He was going head-to-head with the Super Nintendo's biggest cartridge game of the year and he was planning to blow it right out of the water.

    CES had been, by all accounts, a success for Tom Kalinske. And he hoped that meant it would be a success for Sega as well.

    -

    Cannondale CD:

    Ed: 6 (quote: “Knocking people off their bikes is fun, but this cycling game's graphics are pedestrian at best, and the racing gets rather old after a while.”
    Danyon: 7
    Al: 5
    Sushi-X: 5

    Fatal Fury 2:

    Ed: 8
    Danyon: 7
    Al: 8
    Sushi-X: 9 (quote: “This exciting fighting game is one of SNK's best, featuring a huge cast of characters and some really fast-paced action.”)

    King Of Dragons:

    Ed: 7
    Danyon: 7 (quote: “A really fun hack-and-slash game somewhat reminiscent of Zelda II with its leveling-up system. This CD version features a ton of spoken dialogue as you make your way through the levels.”)
    Al: 8
    Sushi-X: 7

    Lester The Unlikely:

    Ed: 6
    Danyon: 3
    Al: 2 (quote: “It's unlikely that I'm ever going to play this game again. This platformer is a horrendous mess.”)
    Sushi-X: 2

    Magician Lord:

    Ed: 6
    Danyon: 8
    Al: 5 (quote: “The graphics are nice but other than that this is just a really mediocre game. It's too hard and the slow-paced platforming makes this one a slog.”)
    Sushi-X: 6

    Skyblazer:

    Ed: 8
    Danyon: 9
    Al: 9
    Sushi-X: 8 (quote: “A terrifically fun side-scroller featuring great pacing, combat, and a HUGE variety of power-ups.”)

    Icebiter:

    Ed: 7 (quote: “This game's not perfect, but its rapid-fire weapon combat and great music make it one of the SNES-CD's best platformers.”)
    Danyon: 9
    Al: 8
    Sushi-X: 7

    -from reviews of January 1994's SNES-CD games in the February 1994 and March 1994 issues of Electronic Gaming Monthly

    -

    “January 1994 was a big month for us, because that was the month that the first game we had an actual creative hand in was released. That game would be Icebiter. It was...sort of comparable to Treasure's Gunstar Heroes game for the Sega Genesis. You had a guy whose village was sort of frozen by this huge ice monster, and there was a legend about this monster, he was the Icebiter who came from the depths of winter to get vengeance on humanity. The story was really silly but it was the gameplay that I thought stood out, the developers did a great job on the combat in particular. Basically, Icebiter kept sending all these different monsters at you throughout the levels, and as you made your way through them you picked up stronger and stronger weapons to use until you got to the Icebiter himself. The game got decent reviews and we sold a pretty good amount, nothing like Deadman Sam did or anything like that but we definitely turned a profit. Ultimately it was a sign that we could go out and actually get these developers together and not just publish games, but create our own studio and make games, and Icebiter was a big part of that success.

    I remember we ended up competing with ourselves in that month because we also had Skyblazer come out, it wasn't one we made but it was one that we published, and it was similar in a lot of ways and it got better reviews. Not quite as good sales, but better reviews. It was an excellent game. Now, around that time we also got approached by this company called Gamefreak who had an idea for a platformer game. Now that's another story, and we all know what Gamefreak did later on, but not a lot of people know that they really kind of got their start working with us.”
    -Olaf Olaffson, “The Sony Imagesoft Story (Part 1 of 3)”, excerpted from an article on IGN.com, October 24, 2010

    -

    SNES-CD Power Charts – January 1994

    1. Mortal Kombat – 26,917
    2. Super Mario World 2 – 23,360
    3. The Terminator – 16,775
    4. Star Fox – 15,182
    5. Final Fantasy III – 13,884
    6. Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts CD – 12,761
    7. Super Mario Kart – 12,408
    8. Street Fighter II: Arcade Edition – 11,587
    9. Jurassic Park – 9,152
    10. Secret Of Mana – 8,457
    11. Yoshi's Safari – 7,800
    12. Deadman Sam – 7,551
    13. Final Fight II – 6,604
    14. Frantic Flight – 4,887
    15. Super Bomberman CD – 4,615
    16. Battletoads II – 4,417
    17. Final Fantasy: New Generation – 4,122
    18. Secret Of Monkey Island – 3,581
    19. Super Detective Club – 3,227
    20. Lethal Enforcers – 2,911
     
    • Early 1994 Super Power Club Promotional Insert

    • RySenkari

    (Another quick little aside, if you remember those little inserts advertising the Super Power Club that Nintendo put in every game, you'll like this :) )

    *Cover of the insert shows a cloaked and masked spy, rappelling down next to a window and peeking in with binoculars on what looks like a board meeting between Nintendo characters like Mario, Luigi, and Link. The caption reads "There's A Spy In Our Midst..."*

    Here at Nintendo, we've got more games coming out than ever before. That's why you need the inside scoop, and that's what you'll get when you join the Nintendo Super Power Club. For just $59.99, you'll get three years worth of information on all the latest games. You'll get 36 issues of Nintendo Power, our monthly magazine featuring tips, tricks, and the exclusive Nintendo news you can't get anywhere else. You'll get also 12 issues of Nintendo Power CD. Every three months, a two-disc issue will arrive with your monthly Nintendo Power magazine. Nintendo Power CD contains hours of exclusive video, featuring interviews with developers and fans on the latest Nintendo games. You'll also be able to see the expert game counselors at Nintendo playing through the trickiest parts of some of the toughest games around. Plus, every issue of Nintendo Power CD contains a special demo disc that'll let you play upcoming games before anyone else. And, if you subscribe now, you'll get a special gift: your choice of one of three strategy guides. Choose between Super Mario World 2 or Secret of Mana, our most jam-packed guides to date, each with over 200 pages of information on one of the Super Nintendo CD's biggest games. Or you can choose our new Super Nintendo CD Player's Guide, with tips and hints on over 40 Super Nintendo CD games that will give you a leg up on the enemies. When you're in the Nintendo Super Power Club, it's like having your very own spy at Nintendo HQ.

    -from an insert included with Super Nintendo CD software during the first few months of 1994
     
    Last edited:
    • February 1994 - A Trip To Monkey Island

    • RySenkari

    “Am I bitter about my time at Sony? I think, the way that the gaming market was going at the time, it was hard for anyone to predict what would happen with the games Sony and Nintendo were localizing. I said Secret of Mana would be a commercial failure, it ended up selling half a million copies in its first three months of release in the West. I could have done without Ken Kutaragi coming to my office personally and showing me the sales figures. Contrary to popular belief, I don't hate RPGs. I never did. But when I got into the industry, they weren't big sellers.”
    -Bernie Stolar, former executive vice president of Sony Computer Entertainment America, in an interview with Kotaku.com in July 2013.
    (Note: ITTL, Stolar is the current president of Mattel, where he's infamously known for rejecting an idea for a doll line featuring the daughters of famous fictional monsters. Now known as Monster High, the doll line became a huge hit for Hasbro and along with its sister series Ever After High, the two shows are enormous hits for the Hub network and were a huge part of the Hub becoming part of most basic cable packages starting in 2014.)

    “Secret of Monkey Island had to be my favorite Super Nintendo CD game of all time. It was really challenging but a lot of fun and one of the funniest games I've ever played. If I ever do a personal top 5 list of best Super Nintendo CD games, you're definitely seeing Monkey Island on there. By the way, that movie they made of it in 2005? I kinda like to think I had a hand in that since I did suggest it to the powers that be at Nickelodeon while I was working on All That.”
    -Lisa Foiles, in a February 2011 interview with The Nerdist

    “This fleet's the biggest one yet! I see four capital ships....you'll need to assemble the Crusher Ray to have a shot at taking them down. Just collect the parts that come off the Xerus fighters and your ship's mechanic-bot will do the rest. Good luck soldier, you'll need it!”
    -Colonel Caster in level 13 of Meteora

    “Here's a picture of me when I was 11, reading the strategy guide for Phaedra's Heart. Is that enough 'gamer cred' for you?”
    -Anita Sarkeesian, in a Twitter post from August 23, 2014

    -

    February 7, 1994

    The Secret Of Monkey Island is released for the Super Nintendo CD. It's largely the same as the 1990 PC original, though a few new puzzles, areas, and songs are added for this version. The release comes after a major advertising campaign for the game, possibly the biggest for an SNES-CD game since Star Fox, on networks such as Nickelodeon and Fox Kids. The campaign is a major success, sales are excellent for the game, despite some skepticism from the gaming media that kids with short attention spans may not want to play a tricky point-and-click puzzle game. It's the first exposure that a lot of gamers have to the Monkey Island franchise, which has had yet to be released on any home console, and the Super Nintendo CD version becomes the most well known version of the game. Critical reviews are excellent as well, the game even beats out highly regarded games such as Meteora and Phaedra's Heart for Game of the Month in most publications. It's the first successful PC game to come to the Super Nintendo CD and see similar success, and its success will encourage other software companies to consider SNES-CD ports of their own.

    -

    “Phaedra's Heart is probably my favorite video game of all time, and I have a lot of fond memories of playing it as a young girl. I got it, along with The Secret Of Monkey Island and the Super Nintendo CD itself, for my 11th birthday, and both games had a major effect on me and what I understood strong female characters to be. The main character of Phaedra's Heart is the goddess Phaedra, who is stricken of her powers by a mysterious evil force and cast down into the world of the mortals. From there, she begins a journey to reclaim her powers while simultaneously befriending and aiding a group of humans to overthrow their corrupt ruler. While the game is full of tropes, being a 90s RPG, it's refreshingly absent of nearly all of the harmful tropes associated with female characters in games. Despite losing her powers, Phaedra is never portrayed as being weak or in distress. She's a fully fleshed-out character with a variety of emotions that are expressed in very natural ways throughout the game. She DOES get a love interest, sort of, but she's never defined by her romantic attachment and at the end of the game she chooses her true essence over her love interest. Her “duty” is never portrayed as something explicitly feminine or something she's required to do, but instead it's her duty to herself, something that she chooses to undertake for the benefit of her friends and for her people, but also for her own benefit. She is one of the best examples that exist of a strong female character with her own agency and her own defined goals and is an example that all who make video games should follow. It's been 20 years since Phaedra's Heart was released and yet very little progress has been made.”
    -Anita Sarkeesian, “Tropes vs. Women In Video Games Part 3”

    “We really expected this game to do well everywhere. When Phaedra's Heart released in Japan, we released the same week as the CD version of Final Fantasy V, and we sold more copies! We beat Final Fantasy, and I really wanted the same success in the West, but that didn't pan out. We sold....I think 40,000 total in North America, which was extremely disappointing.”
    -Keiji Honda, president of Enix, translated from an article in Famitsu magazine, October 1995

    “A lot of people asked me why I never did any more voice acting after Phaedra's Heart. Don't get me wrong, I loved doing the voice of Phaedra, it was a great opportunity for me. But I got the job I wanted as a teacher and I just chose to continue with my teaching career. I don't regret anything but I'm always grateful when anyone praises my work in that game. I really did have a good time.”
    -Jessica Kalenz, voice of Phaedra in Phaedra's Heart and now an eighth-grade English teacher, excerpted from an interview with Working Mom magazine in November 2013

    Enix's Phaedra's Heart is an exciting new RPG for the Super Nintendo CD! When the goddess Phaedra is cast down to the mortal world, she'll have to make new friends and battle fierce enemies to reclaim her powers and save her people! This RPG from the makers of Dragon Warrior and Soul Blazer will really test your mettle, but Nintendo Power is here to guide you through the first two dungeons and get you started out on one amazing quest!
    -from the February 1994 issue of Nintendo Power

    You are bidding on a North American copy of Phaedra's Heart for the Super Nintendo CD, complete with instruction manual and all inserts. No scratches on the disc, no scuffs on the case. Only about 40,000 copies of this game were released in the States, this game is VERY RARE especially in this condition! Included with the game is the Prima Secrets of the Games Strategy Guide for Phaedra's Heart, in very good condition with no creases on the cover or marks on the pages. Only 5,000 of these guides were made!

    Selling my husband's Super Nintendo CD collection after he was killed in a robbery on June 23, 2014. Need money to pay for funeral expenses.

    Price: USD: $267.50 (17 bids)

    -taken from an Ebay auction on July 20, 2014

    -

    Lemmings 2:

    Ed: 8
    Danyon: 9 (quote: “Even better than the original! The puzzles are as tough as ever, but it's one of the most addictive games I've played in a while. There are a lot of skills you can use to guide your lemmings to safety.”)
    Al: 8
    Sushi-X: 9

    The Secret Of Monkey Island:

    Ed: 9
    Danyon: 9
    Al: 9 (quote: “This PC port is a revelation, featuring the classic tale of swashbuckling and silliness in all its glory. You won't want to stop playing until you see how this thrilling story ends.”)
    Sushi-X: 9

    Daywalkers:

    Ed: 7
    Danyon: 7
    Al: 6
    Sushi-X: 7 (quote: “This game mixes platforming and horror really well, depicting a cop's quest to kill vicious vampires that are taking over his city. A lot of other games would shy away from blood and guts but this one doesn't.”)

    Phaedra's Heart:

    Ed: 9 (quote: “One of the best RPGs I've played on the system. The voice acting is superb, adding a real cinematic element to what's otherwise a great traditional role-playing game.”)
    Danyon: 9
    Al: 9
    Sushi-X: 8

    Meteora:

    Ed: 9
    Danyon: 8 (quote: “Probably the best acting I've seen in any FMV game on the system. That's not really saying much but in this game it really is. It's Wing Commander meets Star Fox in a lot of ways.”)
    Al: 7
    Sushi-X: 7

    Eskrima Warriors:

    Ed: 8
    Danyon: 8
    Al: 8
    Sushi-X: 8 (quote: “A really good fighting game with a variety of characters. The best weapon-based fighting game since Samurai Showdown, plus I got to learn what the martial art of eskrima is.”)

    Infiltrator:

    Ed: 7
    Danyon: 6
    Al: 6 (quote: “Basically, you're a spy that's got to break into a variety of locations and collect items, or documents, or sometimes you have to kill someone. It's an all right game but some of the tougher levels can be needlessly frustrating.”)
    Sushi-X: 7

    Kings And Knights:

    Ed: 3 (quote: “Maybe it's because I just got done playing Meteora, but my God the acting in this game is hideous. The quest to get back Excalibur has never been so awful as it is in this fully-FMV based turd of a game. The actor playing the king is worse than a mall Santa.”)
    Danyon: 5
    Al: 1
    Sushi-X: 1

    -Reviews of February 1994's SNES-CD games from the March and April 1994 issues of Electronic Gaming Monthly

    “And here's Cheer High Detective Team. This is a kind of visual novel game, I guess somewhat like Super Detective Club, where you've got a bunch of cute high school girls and you're trying to solve a mystery. I mean, I guess it's supposed to be for young girls or something, because all these characters are teenage cheerleaders....you see all their fashion accessories, purses, they drive around in a nice pink car, but.... this game, I'll tell you.... *shows three of the detectives walking around in one piece swimsuits* this game has a lot of stuff in it that, uh... *shows two of the detectives sitting back to back, tied up and gagged as a bomb is about to go off next to them* kind of makes it seem like they were doing this on purpose. *shows all six of them in cheerleader outfits kicking and waving pom-poms* I mean, everywhere you turn, there's some kind of fanservice thing going on! *shows four of the girls splashing around in the school swimming pool* Literally. Everywhere. And it's not even that good of a game, I mean, Super Detective Club is way better than this. The mysteries are easy as shit to solve, I swear the real challenge is finding all these fanservicey scenes. Like, fucking up bad enough to get one of the girls captured, or, visiting the pool just to see them in swimsuits, so.... you gotta wonder who this game was really trying to appeal to.”
    -The Angry Video Game Nerd from his 85th video, “Detective Games”, talking about another February 1994 SNES-CD release, Cheer High Detective Team

    -

    February 25, 1994

    Tonya Harding looked up at the podium next to her. There was Nancy Kerrigan, her fierce figure skating rival, getting the gold medal after being Russia's Oksana Baiul by just a tenth of a point. Harding would have to settle for the bronze, and for a moment she'd wondered what it would've been like if her ex-husband had been able to carry out his plan to sabotage Kerrigan's Olympic hopes. The night of the United States figure skating championship, which Kerrigan had won, Harding's ex-husband Jeff Gillooly had called her to apologize. He'd told her that he'd hired someone to attack Nancy Kerrigan a couple weeks before but that the attacker had gotten caught up in playing a video game and had forgotten to carry out the attack. She remembered yelling at Gillooly and demanding to know what the hell he'd been thinking, but deep down in the bottom of her mind she'd found herself wishing the attack had gone off as planned.

    Now, watching Nancy Kerrigan claim the gold medal that she'd felt she deserved, Harding couldn't help but think those same dark thoughts again. But then again... an attack like that, so close to the Olympics? It would've been glaringly obvious who had been responsible. In the end, it would've been more trouble than it was worth.

    “Maybe...” thought Harding, “this was the way it was meant to be. And....there's always the next Olympics...”

    -

    We're continuing our FMV Games Week here at Gamesradar.com with Meteora, a classic space shooter game for the Super Nintendo CD. Meteora combined some really nice full-motion video cutscenes with exhilirating space shooter action to provide one of the best FMV games to come out for the system. As part of the Meteora-related fun, we've got an interview with the game's lead designer, Brad Richards, who is now best known as the creator and CEO of Excitech Games.

    Interviewer: We're here talking to Brad Richards, lead designer and scenario writer for the Super Nintendo CD space shooter Meteora. Thanks for sitting down to talk to us.

    Brad Richards: Sure thing, I'm always happy to talk about one of my games.

    Interviewer: Meteora, as I recall was originally supposed to be a PC game, and then a 3DO game. What convinced you and your team to develop for the Super Nintendo CD?

    Richards: Well, the PC already had a lot of FMV-based space shooter games, it was a really saturated market at the time with stuff like Wing Commander, so we knew the competition would be tougher. And we weren't quite as impressed with the 3DO as I thought we'd be when we started developing for it. It was easier to make games on the Super Nintendo CD and that's what really appealed to our team.

    Interviewer: When Meteora was released, did you expect the critical reception that you got?

    Richards: I was pleasantly surprised to see the review scores, and it was a definite pleasant surprise to get the kind of sales that we did. We didn't beat Monkey Island obviously, but I was really pleased that the game sold even moderately well.

    Interviewer: I had to do a little digging but of all the games that came out for the SNES-CD that month, Meteora was #2 in sales.

    Richards: Well yeah, a distant second but second place is still damn good.

    Interviewer: What was it like working with Giancarlo Esposito and Milla Jovovich? I mean, they're both pretty famous now.

    Richards: Not back then though! *laughs* Well, Giancarlo, I knew him from Do The Right Thing and I was really happy to get him. He played, uh, he played Colonel Caster. He was really good, I mean he took this thing really seriously and kind of raised the level of the whole production, which was nice. I know other FMV games, the acting was REALLY bad, like in Night Trap, that game was awful but we wanted to do something good for the players especially. You were paying $50 for a game, you deserved to get something at least halfway decent, especially when you could go to a movie for $5 and see great acting in that. Milla Jovovich, she was SO young back then but she was great too, she was really professional and I wish we'd have given her a bigger role than we did. I mean knowing how famous she is now, I would've had her be the main character or something instead of his tomboy best friend.

    Interviewer: You know, a lot of people really liked her character in the game, she had some of the best lines. Where'd you come up with-

    Richards: From the end of level 8? *laughing*

    Interviewer: Yeah, you remember it don't you?

    Richards: She ad-libbed that. I swear to God, she ad-libbed that and cracked us the hell up. The line I wrote for her for that scene, I don't even remember it but I know it sucked. I should've known then that she was gonna be a star.

    -excerpted from an interview at Gamesradar.com, January 18, 2011

    -

    SNES-CD Power Charts – February 1994

    1. Super Mario World 2 – 20,415
    2. Secret Of Mana – 19,171
    3. Mortal Kombat – 18,842
    4. Star Fox – 14,994
    5. The Simpsons – 14,277
    6. Super Mario Kart – 13,231
    7. Final Fantasy III – 12,310
    8. Street Fighter II: Arcade Edition – 10,784
    9. Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts CD – 9,187
    10. The Terminator – 8,988
    11. Battletoads II – 7,654
    12. Actraiser 2 – 6,800
    13. Yoshi's Safari – 6,154
    14. Jurassic Park – 6,060
    15. Super Detective Club – 5,574
    16. Deadman Sam – 5,224
    17. Final Fight II – 4,826
    18. Super Bomberman CD – 3,711
    19. Kid Icarus CD – 3,442
    20. Final Fantasy: New Generation – 3,398

    -

    March 1, 1994

    Tom Kalinske was very pleased with what he'd been hearing from Yuji Naka and the rest of Sonic Team, and he'd just gotten to see the fruits of their labor first hand. The new Sonic 3 looked incredible. There were a staggering amount of levels to play, the Knuckles gameplay looked top-notch, and the game itself ran smoothly with no major bugs or hiccups to report. The few bugs that remained could be squashed quickly, which left plenty of time for the game to make its April 18th release date. The biggest problem facing this new Sonic 3 game was the cartridge itself.... it would be a special 34-megabit cartridge specifically designed for the revamped game. It would be quite expensive and the game would launch with an MSRP of $59.99... but Sega fans had already shown they were willing to pay a premium for quality games, as those who'd shelled out $80 for Phantasy Star on the Master System had proven. Kalinske already had visions of a special edition of Sonic 3, packed with the Sega Mega Charger (the name they were going to use in North America for “Project Phobos”), selling this holiday season for that same $80 price point, a killer value once people realized how much the new lock-on coprocessor cart could do.

    It did bug Tom Kalinske that the top selling game of the last month, The Secret of Monkey Island, was a game he'd once coveted for the Sega CD, before LucasArts decided to port it exclusively to the Super Nintendo CD instead. Nintendo kept one-upping him at every turn. Super Nintendo CDs were flying off the shelves faster and faster and the peripheral was dragging Super Nintendo sales upward as well, that console had outsold the Genesis now in the United States for each of the past four months. But April 18th was going to be different. Tom Kalinske new that not only was Nintendo releasing Super Metroid for their Super Nintendo that month, but a slew of games were releasing for both the SNES and the SNES CD. And he wanted nothing more than to crash Nintendo's party.

    “Mr. Nakayama,” said Tom Kalinske, speaking with his boss on the phone. “Did you get a chance to see the new Sonic 3 in action?”

    “I did,” Hayao Nakayama replied. “I was very impressed. I was right to trust you on this. I just hope you're right about Phobos, the brass still really wanted to go ahead with Project Mars.”

    “One thing at a time, sir. One thing at a time.”
     
    • March 1994 - The Impact Of Snatcher

    • RySenkari

    “The release of Snatcher for the North American Super Famicom CD was a real high point in my career as a video game designer. I really had this sense that it was the right game at the right time and the sales figures justified that feeling completely. It paved the way for so much, both in my own career and in the genre of interactive novel games as well.”
    -Hideo Kojima, Famitsu magazine, January 2001

    “I couldn't be more proud that I helped bring Snatcher to Western shores! It's a game that fulfills all the promises of 'interactive entertainment' that Kutaragi-san at Sony made when the Super Famicom Compact Disc System was released. I really hope that players give it a chance, it's not the kind of game they're used to but it's a new step in the development of video games.”
    -Masahiro Sakurai, in the March 1994 issue of Nintendo Power

    “I've dabbled in playing video games before. I did check out some of the Terminator games, most of which weren't very good, which is unfortunate. One of the stunt people on True Lies told me about a game on CD-ROM called 'Snatcher', and I was supremely impressed with it. The level of storytelling was absolutely superb. I think as technology marches forward, the people who make video games are starting to think in the same way as the people who make movies. I'd like this trend to continue. Who knows, maybe some day Hollywood film directors will be working on games?”
    -James Cameron, in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, July 15, 1994

    “I remember NBA Jam being our first really big sports hit. A lot of the game companies that do sports games, particularly Electronic Arts, were kind of sitting out the first year of the SNES-CD, wanting to see how sales would go, so it took a while to get a hit like NBA Jam was. Of course, it was kind of a hit for everybody, including Sega, but it was still a game that drove sales for us that spring.”
    -Peter Main

    “That SNES CD port of Alone in the Dark was a complete mess and we all knew it. The system was powerful but we had no clue how to get that kind of 3-D to work that early in the console's lifespan and Sony wouldn't work with us like they did with companies like Squaresoft and Konami, so we were really in the dark and the results were understandably horrible. We did our best but if you compare the SNES-CD version with the 3DO's....there's obviously no comparison, 3DO is way better. It's a shame too because judging from some of the games that came out later on, we might've been able to do a much better job if Sony had been more open to us about how to program for it. The system just wasn't capable of advanced 3-D without some really nifty hardware tricks that we weren't privy to. I'm sorry to anyone who had to suffer through that port, I'd refund your money if I had it to give.”
    -Shaun Hollingworth, co-founder of Krisalis Software, from an interview with Electronic Gaming Monthly in September 2005

    “I heard that Dragon Warrior V almost wasn't released. Thank you to everyone at Nintendo and Enix who decided to bring this wonderful game over here to the United States. I enjoyed every minute of playing it. I'm looking forward to the next one as well!”
    -Edith Jeter, from a letter in the September 1994 issue of Nintendo Power

    -

    Mr. Burns: And here we have the latest in interactive entertainment! The newfangled Ultra Compact Disc Game Enjoyment Device!

    Bart: It's a Super Kokiyama CD, man! *grabs the disc from Mr. Burns and puts it in*

    Mr. Burns: This game is based on the novels of Agatha Christie!

    Bart: *looking at the case* Cool, “The Tale Of Twelve Murders”! *playing it....quickly getting bored*

    *The screen briefly shows a point-and-click interface, Bart randomly clicking on things in a stuffy looking mansion but nothing's happening*

    Bart: Hey, what gives?

    Mr. Burns: Yes, this is the latest technology!

    Bart: *clicks on something and makes a shelf move* Where's all the murders? ...this game blows. *tosses down the controller*

    -from The Simpsons episode “Burns' Heir”, April 14, 1994

    -

    Welcome To NBA Jam!

    “Jam Day” is March 4th, the day when NBA Jam launches for the Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, and the Super Nintendo and Sega CD-ROM systems! With so many ways to play this thrilling arcade hit, you can finally bring all the rough-and-tumble action of NBA Jam into your living room! We got our first copies of the game to review, and all four home console versions are superb, with great graphics, lifelike sound effects, and superior gameplay. Whether you game it up with Nintendo or Sega, cartridge or CD, be sure to pick up NBA Jam if you're a basketball fan.

    Graphics: 5.0
    Sound: 5.0
    Play Control: 5.0
    Fun Factor: 5.0
    (Note: The Super Nintendo CD version, with detailed character graphics and the most voice samples, is the closest version to the original arcade game, though again, all four versions play pretty much identically to the one you've been spending quarters on for the last year.)
    -from Gamepro's review of NBA Jam in its April 1994 issue

    “NBA Jam leads all other video games in sales for the month of March. It dominated sales rankings and completely swept the top three best sellers for the month, with the Genesis version narrowly outselling the Super Nintendo CD and Super Nintendo cartridge versions of the game. Other games of note include Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball for the Super Nintendo, Madden '94 for the Sega Genesis, Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 for the Nintendo Gameboy, and Snatcher for the Super Nintendo CD.”
    -The Wall Street Journal, April 8, 1994

    “The home console version of NBA Jam is a smash hit, but it's created some controversy with its release. Basketball superstar Michael Jordan, whose Chicago Bulls have been in a fierce battle with the New York Knicks for first place in the Eastern Conference and the Atlanta Hawks for the Central Division lead, has refused to appear in either the arcade or home console versions of the game. Indeed, his contract with the NBA Players' Association has precluded him from appearing in any sports video games in recent memory, with his last appearance in a basketball game being his appearance in last year's NBA Showdown. When asked about why he chose to remain absent from the hit game, Jordan had no comment other than stating that he wanted to focus on basketball as his Bulls fight for playoff position. Unlike his basketball counterpart, baseball's biggest star Ken Griffey Jr. has embraced the virtual limelight. He'll be the star of a brand new baseball game appearing later this month on the Super Nintendo.”
    -Keith Olbermann, reporting on SportsCenter, March 7, 1994

    -

    Alone In The Dark:

    Ed: 7
    Danyon: 7
    Al: 6 (quote: “An otherwise excellent horror game is really marred by choppy graphics and sound problems, it's not really a port I can recommend unless the SNES-CD is your only option.”)
    Sushi-X: 4

    NBA Jam:

    Ed: 9 (quote: “The Super Nintendo CD offers up the most arcade-realistic version of this basketball hit. It's so much fun to play, especially if you can get three of your friends together.”)
    Danyon: 9
    Al: 9
    Sushi-X: 9

    Power Instinct:

    Ed: 7
    Danyon: 7
    Al: 8 (quote: “This quirky fighting game featuring transformations is hilarious fun. The excellent animation really brings this game's unique cast to life.”)
    Sushi-X: 8

    Ren and Stimpy:

    Ed: 6
    Danyon: 7
    Al: 7 (quote: “A unique adventure for the Super Nintendo CD, this side-scrolling platformer features all the wacky fun of the hilarious animated series.”)
    Sushi-X: 6

    Snatcher:

    Ed: 9 (quote: “The storyline is intense and this game is just really awesome in general. This game may very well be the start of a new generation of cinematic storytelling.”)
    Danyon: 9
    Al: 9
    Sushi-X: 8

    Wheel Of Fortune:

    Ed: 7
    Danyon: 7
    Al: 4
    Sushi-X: 5 (quote: “It's good enough, I guess. It features real clips of Pat Sajak and Vanna White, but I hate Wheel of Fortune and this just reminds me of evenings at my grandmother's house. Yes, I have a grandmother. No, she is not a ninja like me.”)

    The Next Champion:

    Ed: 9
    Danyon: 9 (quote: “This side-scrolling brawler lets you design your very own fighter and level them up as you traverse through 14 action-packed levels. It's kind of like Final Fight: The RPG, and I loved every second of it.”)
    Al: 8
    Sushi-X: 7

    Furious Heart:

    Ed: 5
    Danyon: 8
    Al: 5
    Sushi-X: 4 (quote: “This fighting game might look pretty, but the gameplay sure isn't. It's slow, it's choppy, and the characters are as generic as they come. This is no Street Fighter.”)

    P.O.L.I.C.E.: Hostage Rescue:

    Ed: 3 (quote: “Is it bad that I got more entertainment from shooting the hostages than I did from saving them? The lousy voice acting made me do it!”)
    Danyon: 5
    Al: 6
    Sushi-X: 3

    American Dance-Off!:

    Ed: 4
    Danyon: 1
    Al: 1
    Sushi-X: 1 (quote: “Not only is this the worst video game I've ever played, but the dance pad required to play made this hideous game cost $90. Ninety bucks for this atrocious garbage game. Majesco should be ashamed of itself.”)

    -from Electronic Gaming Monthly's reviews of March 1994's Super Nintendo CD games, from the April 1994 and May 1994 issues

    -

    *Our world is shown in the present day.*

    Narrator: In 1996, a terrifying plague of our own making brought humanity to its knees.

    *Brief scenes of chaos are shown, along with a scene of lights all over the world blinking out as humanity dies off*

    Narrator: But we rose from the ashes, and built new cities. We were destined for a new, bright future.

    *A futuristic city is shown as a nervous but brave detective, armed with only a pistol, runs through an alley.*

    Narrator: It's now the year 2046, and cybernetic killers called “Snatchers” prowl the streets. Created in a lab to look like typical human beings, these cyborgs are the super-criminals of the future, and only the “junkers” can stop their reign of terror.

    *The detective sees one of these cyborgs pinning a cowering woman against a wall, its eyes glowing red. The detective moves in.*

    Narrator: I'm Gillian Seed and I'm one of those junkers. It's up to me to take them down.

    *Seed shoots the cyborg, sending sparks flying from its head. He helps the woman to her feet, but as she gets away, someone shoots Seed from behind, bringing him to his knees.*

    Narrator: But lurking just behind the surface is an even deeper conspiracy...one that I may not be able to unravel.

    *Seed is being hauled away by two of the cyborgs*

    Narrator: That's where you come in. Unlock the mystery of the snatchers, and save the future... before all of humanity is replaced.

    *As this narration is playing, scenes from “Snatcher” are shown on the screen. Then the scene returns to Seed. He's being hauled into a lab and there's growing horror in his eyes. The scene fades to black.*

    SNATCHER – From the creator of the Metal Gear series

    Coming March 14, 1994, only for the Super Nintendo CD.

    -from a commercial that played during prime-time television in late February and March 1994

    March 14, 1994

    Snatcher, the CD-ROM remake of the 1988 original for the MSX2,is released for the Super Nintendo CD in North America. Nintendo chooses to have a unique advertising campaign in which the game is directly marketed to older players on prime-time television. Masahiro Sakurai, who assisted Hideo Kojima with the Super Nintendo CD port of the game, is extremely confident that the game will sell well, and when it was released in Japan during the previous November, it was a smash hit. While the game is outsold by hits like NBA Jam and Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball, it becomes a moderate hit for Nintendo, surprising most of the company's North American brass. The game receives mainstream media coverage and is praised by Entertainment Weekly and Variety. Most notably, the game is mentioned, though not glowingly, by Roger Ebert during his weekly TV show Siskel and Ebert At the Movies. While Ebert says that from what he's seen of the game (he hasn't played it), that he still doesn't believe video games will ever be art, he says that a game like Snatcher has the potential to elevate games to something more than merely toys, and he and Siskel then briefly debate whether games can be art (Siskel admits to playing some of Snatcher on the recommendation of a friend and enjoying what he played). The game also receives some controversy for its violent and at times sexual content, a 14 year old (who appeared nude in the game) was aged up to 18 for the North American release, and the game is the first game to ever be rated “M” by the nascent Entertainment Software Rating Board, or ESRB. In later years, Snatcher would be considered a very “soft” M rating, actually somewhat on the border between T and M, though in those early months the ESRB did “over”-rate some games out of an abundance of caution.

    Snatcher becomes known as one of the games that truly solidified video gaming as no longer being just a medium for kids, but something that could be enjoyed by grown adults. The trend that was somewhat begun by Sega in 1992 was now running its course in full effect. Though the game doesn't reach a million sales in North America, or even half a million (indeed, it would finish around 400,000), it would be recognized as one of the most groundbreaking games in the history of the Super Nintendo CD.

    -

    Congratulations on the North American Snatcher release! First week sales were almost twice Nintendo's estimate and it's already on pace to sell a lot more than the original. Would love to work with you again in the future. Busy with Kirby at the moment but if you have any more ideas for games I would love to hear them. -Sakurai

    Konami wants you in charge of Tokimeki Memorial port for Super Famicom CD if you're interested. I would love to revisit Metal Gear in the future but unsure if Super Famicom CD is capable of what I have in mind. Any word on when Nintendo will be sending dev kits for new console? -Kojima

    Not a clue about new console, I'm curious too! Seems like it will be a while yet. Probably couldn't tell you even if I knew, Nintendo is very secretive about such things! -Sakurai

    -a translated series of faxed notes between Masahiro Sakurai and Hideo Kojima exchanged in April 1994, included in the “Konami Complete Works (1993-2002)” volume

    -

    March 28, 1994

    “See, that's exactly why we're going to smash Nintendo once the Saturn comes out,” said Tom Kalinske. He and Al Nilsen were looking at some gameplay footage of the Super Nintendo CD's port of Alone in the Dark, and seeing how slow and glitchy the game was made him feel a sense of perverse glee. “They're already bumping up against the limits of their Nintendo CD. Hell, I bet we can get this game looking better than this on the Mega Charger.”

    “Should we call up Infogrames and offer to have them port it to the Genesis?” asked Nilsen, thinking a Genesis port of Alone in the Dark that looked better than what the SNES-CD was capable of would strike a fierce blow for the Genesis' superiority and would be just the thing to help push the Mega Charger to skeptical consumers.

    “...we'll think about it,” said Kalinske. While Alone in the Dark was a popular, critically-acclaimed game, it wasn't a system seller, and Sega wasn't interested in fighting the Super Nintendo CD with Genesis games. They were out to strike a blow against the Super Nintendo cartridge system. Dragon Warrior V was releasing that day and reviews were highly favorable, better than any RPG Sega had released in recent memory. Of course, Dragon Warrior was no threat to Sonic 3. “Seen the latest NBA Jam sales? The Genesis version is #1.”

    Kalinske knew that Nintendo buyers of NBA Jam were split between the cartridge and CD versions, but a win was a win and the Genesis needed a hit. NBA Jam had been a big part of Sega's marketing ramp-up to push the Genesis in the months before Sonic 3's release. Even the Sega CD version of the game had outsold hits like Sega CD's Aladdin.

    “Three more weeks,” said Kalinske, still watching the screen. “Three more weeks until we put the nail in the Super Nintendo's coffin.”

    “You really think Sonic 3 will do it?” asked Nilsen, sipping from a cup of coffee.

    “Let me dream,” replied Kalinske with a sigh. “And let's hope Nintendo can't program better games than this.”

    -

    SNES-CD Power Charts – March 1994

    1. Secret Of Mana – 21,711
    2. Super Mario World 2 – 21,496
    3. Battletoads II – 17,284
    4. Mortal Kombat – 16,651
    5. Star Fox – 15,735
    6. Super Mario Kart – 14,160
    7. The Simpsons – 11,984
    8. Final Fantasy III – 10,275
    9. Street Fighter II: Arcade Edition – 9,660
    10. Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts CD – 7,064
    11. The Terminator – 5,774
    12. Kid Icarus CD – 5,417
    13. Yoshi's Safari – 5,210
    14. Deadman Sam – 4,185
    15. Super Detective Club – 3,904
    16. Jurassic Park – 3,827
    17. Super Bomberman CD – 3,775
    18. Final Fantasy: New Generation – 3,314
    19. Secret Of Monkey Island – 2,940
    20. Snatcher – 2,826
     
    • April 1994 - Sonic 3 Makes History

    • RySenkari

    “That last stretch on Sonic 3 was the most difficult ordeal of my entire career. 16-hour days, sleepless nights, such a massive crunch toward the end that none of us thought we'd make it through. But seeing those first reviews and seeing the early sales figures made it all worthwhile. It was the culmination of everything we'd created Sonic the Hedgehog to achieve.”
    -Yuji Naka, in a 2011 interview with Sonic Central

    “I've been playing a lot of video games lately, not really thinking about music but playing a lot of games. That Secret of Mana's really good, you know? But I kinda lose track of time when I play and it pisses Courtney off so I gotta be careful.”
    -Kurt Cobain, speaking with MTV News on February 22, 1994

    “So we've been getting a lot of static about the 'perfect' score we gave Sonic the Hedgehog 3 a few months back. Everyone at EGM absolutely loved the game but some of our readers feel that only perfect games should get perfect scores. Fair enough. Starting with this issue, the Review Crew will only issue 10s to truly flawless games. We're also going to a half-point ratings system, so unless a game is truly flawless, the best score you'll see a game get in EGM is 9.5 out of 10. As always, 5 is average and we're saving our 0 rating for truly irredeemable crap.”
    -Ed Semrad, Electronic Gaming Monthly editor-in-chief, from an editorial in the October 1994 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly

    “There's no way we're moving Super Metroid. I'm not scared of Sonic the Hedgehog. Never have been, never will be.”
    -Howard Lincoln, in an internal Nintendo memo from April 5, 1994

    -

    April 4, 1994

    Nintendo releases Kid Icarus CD for the Super Nintendo CD. In a month featuring more than a dozen Super Nintendo CD releases in North America, Kid Icarus CD is the biggest. It's the third game in the series, following up the 1991 Game Boy sequel, featuring Pit returning to save Angel Land. Kid Icarus CD becomes the highest selling SNES CD game of the month and is a moderate success for Nintendo, though it is outsold significantly by Super Metroid.

    Kid Icarus CD – The Basics

    The difficulty of the game has eased significantly from its NES predecessor, and the game plays a bit like a hybrid of Metroid and Zelda II. Pit explores various realms and over the course of the game, including dungeons, forests, and towns, where he can interact with various townspeople and mythical figures. He can upgrade his weapons throughout the game and learn new angel powers as well, becoming stronger as the game goes on. The game features an orchestral, epic musical score and graphics typical of a high-end SNES game with no 3-D used. There's no voice acting but there are some animated cutscenes in certain parts. The game is divided into five major parts, in the first segment of the game, Pit must once again take on the evil Medusa. After defeating Medusa, however, Pit is cursed by the jealous sea god Poseidon and set adrift to a mysterious island where he must fight his way back to Angel Land, defeating Poseidon at the end of the quest. Once he arrives, he discovers he's been branded a traitor and is being hunted down by the warrior goddess Athena, while his friend Palutena wants nothing to do with him. He must gradually win back Palutena's trust, unraveling the complex relationship between her and Athena. He eventually gets Palutena back on his side and the two work together to defeat Athena, who confides to Pit after she's beaten that the gods have been under the control of a mysterious dark force. The next part of the game involves Pit rising up against and defeating Zeus, and finally, Pit discovers that the gods have been under the control of the evil Titan Kronos, who seeks revenge for being defeated by Zeus eons ago. Pit enters the Hall of the Titans and he slays Kronos, freeing the gods and Angel Land. Pit and Palutena ask Zeus to allow humans to control their own destinies. Zeus accepts, on the condition that Pit becomes the protector of the humans from this point on. Pit agrees and a new pact is forged, allowing the humans of Angel Land to become truly free.

    -

    Beavis And Butt-Head:

    Ed: 7
    Danyon: 7 (quote: “This game makes nice use of the CD medium to add plenty of funny sound clips from the show. The bonus music videos are a nice touch in this otherwise mediocre platformer.”)
    Al: 8
    Sushi-X: 7

    Castlevania: Rondo Of Blood:

    Ed: 8
    Danyon: 8
    Al: 10 (quote: “The best Castlevania ever and it's not even close. This is a true adventure masterpiece, with one of the best soundtracks I've ever heard in a video game.”)
    Sushi-X: 8

    ESPN Baseball Tonight:

    Ed: 7
    Danyon: 5
    Al: 5
    Sushi-X: 6 (quote: “The ESPN production values are nice but the baseball itself is just ok.”)

    Joe And Mac CD:

    Ed: 8
    Danyon: 8 (quote: “This SNES-CD exclusive Joe and Mac game is a better looking alternative to Joe and Mac 2 for the cartridge system but the gameplay is fairly similar. Still, the huge dino bosses are really fun to fight!”)
    Al: 6
    Sushi-X: 8

    Kid Icarus CD:

    Ed: 8 (quote: “This world is so much bigger than the world of the original NES game, and it's a lot more fun to explore now that I'm not worried about getting killed every few seconds.”)
    Danyon: 8
    Al: 7
    Sushi-X: 9

    The Masked Rider: Kamen Rider ZO:

    Ed: 4
    Danyon: 3
    Al: 4
    Sushi-X: 2 (quote: “This FMV game is hideous and I weep for all the good Japanese games that haven't been brought over. Instead, they send us this awful thing.”)

    RBI Baseball CD:

    Ed: 7 (quote: “The best pure baseball experience yet on the SNES-CD, though I still can't recommend it over Ken Griffey unless you REALLY need to hear more commentary. And if you do, you'd probably prefer ESPN's game.”)
    Danyon: 7
    Al: 7
    Sushi-X: 6

    Snow White: Happily Ever After:

    Ed: 5
    Danyon: 6 (quote: “This isn't a terrible platformer, it's quite colorful and the music is excellent.”)
    Al: 7
    Sushi-X: 5

    Space Ace:

    Ed: 6 (quote: “It's Don Bluth's classic laserdisc game in all its arcade glory. The problem is that if you've played it in the arcade hundreds of times like I have, you're not getting anything new.”)
    Danyon: 8
    Al: 4
    Sushi-X: 3

    Super Bases Loaded CD:

    Ed: 7
    Danyon: 7
    Al: 6 (quote: “It's a pretty damn fun game of baseball if you don't need authentic MLB teams. I liked this franchise a bit better on its cartridge form but this game features some really creative animation.”)
    Sushi-X: 6

    Wolfenstein CD:

    Ed: 9
    Danyon: 7
    Al: 8
    Sushi-X: 9 (quote: “Now this is what I'm talking about! Killing Nazis has never been so fun and this version features some rocking music as well. Now when are they gonna get Doom up and running on this thing?”)

    Bumblebee: Zooble's Hive:

    Ed: 8
    Danyon: 9 (quote: “Konami really knows how to do a platformer. This game was clearly designed with little ones in mind, but after putting out so many grown-up games, it's good that their quality control doesn't suffer even when doing a game for younger audiences. I've never seen a bee kick so much butt!”)
    Al: 9
    Sushi-X: 5

    Gun Warrior:

    Ed: 8 (quote: “Tecmo does it again! This game mixes crazy gunplay action with a medieval theme and is just pure unadulterated fun. There are so many guns in this great run-and-run game that you'll have trouble picking a favorite.”)
    Danyon: 8
    Al: 9
    Sushi-X: 8

    Soulqueen:

    Ed: 9
    Danyon: 9
    Al: 9 (quote: “One of the toughest shooters I've ever played, it's essentially Gradius with a plot. You'll get frustrated for sure but you'll want to keep playing to see what happens to Cleopatra next.”)
    Sushi-X: 9

    Dazzler:

    Ed: 6
    Danyon: 7
    Al: 5
    Sushi-X: 5 (quote: “Believe it or not, this colorful puzzle game got boring quite quickly. You connect sparks of light, you get rewarded with more sparks of light, but I just couldn't get addicted to it like I got with games like Dr. Mario and Tetris. Too bad, really.”)

    Tomato Tommy:

    Ed: 3 (quote: “I'd rather chug a bottle of ketchup than keep playing this unimaginative platformer starring an anthropomorphic tomato. The music is grating and repetitive and getting through even simple levels was a chore. I had to wash my eyes out with Sonic 3 after too much of this mess.”)
    Danyon: 4
    Al: 2
    Sushi-X: 2

    -from Electronic Gaming Monthly's reviews of April 1994's Super Nintendo CD games, from their May 1994 and June 1994 issues

    Super Metroid:

    Ed: 9
    Danyon: 9
    Al: 9
    Sushi-X: 9

    Sonic the Hedgehog 3:

    Ed: 10
    Danyon: 10
    Al: 10
    Sushi-X: 10

    -from Electronic Gaming Monthly's May 1994 Review Crew column. The 40/40 awarded to Sonic the Hedgehog 3 would be the first perfect score ever awarded in Electronic Gaming Monthly. Following reader backlash over the practice of giving out perfect 10s, no other game would receive even one 10 from a Review Crew member until Goldeneye 007 in April 1998, after EGM re-relaxed their scoring policy.

    -

    “Nirvana lead singer and guitarist Kurt Cobain checked himself back into rehab today, after climbing a fence to leave the rehab facility a few days earlier. In a statement made through one of his bandmates, he said that he'd been thinking suicidal thoughts for the last two weeks, and that he needed to get his head clear of drugs so that he could re-discover what gave him pleasure in life. Recently, he's also been dealing with a break-up from his girlfriend Courtney Love. The two had been in a series of violent arguments over the last few months, centered around, among other things, Cobain's drug use and his frequent playing of video games. One of these arguments put Cobain in the hospital for treatment of a slash wound to his shoulder. The troubled singer is being placed under 24-hour observation in the facility until he is considered to no longer be a danger to himself. In another statement, Cobain's ex-girlfriend Love stated that she believed Cobain's obsessive playing of video games to be the root cause of his depression, though the singer has repeatedly claimed inspiration from them in the past.

    And speaking of video games, and on a more tragic note, local rap musician Marshall Mathers, 21 years of age, was found dead in his apartment today of three gunshot wounds to the chest. Police believe that Mathers' friend, 21-year-old Darrell Johnson, had come to Mathers' apartment to take a video game console that the two of them had purchased together and were sharing. When Mathers refused to give up the device, police claim that Johnson allegedly shot Mathers, then attempted to flee the scene, only for police to close in on him shortly thereafter. Johnson is currently being held without bail at the Wayne County Jail.”
    -From a WKYZ-TV news broadcast on April 6, 1994

    -

    Soulqueen didn't sell well.

    “Soulqueen didn't sell well. We didn't think it would be a great seller, with all the competition from all the other big games coming out that month, and it was a very difficult game, so we knew it'd be a tough sell, especially in North America. I was pleased with the reviews, and I was pleased with...with the reception to Cleopatra herself, the main character of the game. We wanted to create with her a type of protagonist that you weren't used to seeing, especially not in a space shooter game where typically it's just you and a ship and the enemy ships. We felt the player would be more inspired if they got to know the person in the cockpit of the ship. We sold...I think just 51,000 copies in North America, which was a shame but that character Cleopatra has had such a cult following, people still doing fanart of her and the like. I mean, there's as much fanart of her as there is of Yuuko from Valis and those games sold a lot better!”

    She has a really distinctive design though, the messy green hair, the facial markings, her pretty smile...

    “And players who played the game were REALLY endeared to her. It's a shame we had to release the game a week before Sonic 3. That game blew everything out of the water.”

    -excerpted from a ValisNet.com interview with Telenet Japan president Kazuyuki Fukushima, on October 8, 2006

    -

    *A boy is shown playing Mario games on his Super Nintendo CD.*

    Narrator: Hey kid, is that the Super Nintendo CD?

    Boy: Yeah, it's really something!

    Narrator: It's true, there's a lot of things the Super Nintendo CD can do. But the one thing it'll never be able to do is play the best video game of all time!

    Boy: Huh?

    Narrator: The reviews are in, and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is the best video game ever made! With perfect scores from dozens of video game magazines across the country, it's Sonic's biggest and best adventure yet!

    *Rapid-fire scenes from Sonic 3 are shown as the narrator continues to talk.*

    Narrator: Explore more than a dozen worlds with Sonic, Tails, and the all-new hero Knuckles the Echidna! He's got a serious spin and serious attitude and he can reach places never before reachable in a Sonic the Hedgehog game! Use the Chaos Emeralds to transform into Hyper Sonic or take Hyper Tails and Hyper Knuckles for a spin!

    *More Sonic scenes are shown as the boy watches the screen, his mind completely blown by all the awesome stuff he's seeing.*

    Boy: This game looks AWESOME!

    Narrator: There's only one problem... you'll never, ever, EVER be able to play it on Nintendo! Only on the Sega Genesis!

    Boy: Noooooooooooooo!!! *holding his head in dismay*

    Narrator: It's Sonic 3 and it's too awesome for Nintendo CD! But you can go to the store and buy Sonic the Hedgehog 3, or buy the all new Sonic 3 Sega Genesis combo pack for only $129.99!

    *The boy is shown continuing to panic and despair around the TV as his Super Nintendo CD sits sad and unused in the middle of the room.*

    SEGA!

    -from a Sonic the Hedgehog 3 commercial that played in April and May 1994

    -

    April 18, 1994

    In what would become the biggest selling day in video game history to that point in time, a slew of games including Sonic 3 and Super Metroid were released in North America. On the Super Nintendo CD front, two of the month's three baseball games, ESPN Baseball Tonight and Super Bases Loaded CD, were released, along with Beavis and Butthead, Bumblebee: Zooble's Hive, Snow White: Happily Ever After, and Space Ace were released. Super Metroid alone outsold all six of those games combined on release day by a factor of more than double.

    Sonic the Hedgehog 3 outsold Super Metroid that day 11 to 1.

    The game, with pre-orders counted, became the first video game ever to sell a million copies on its first day of release. The delayed release, along with the slew of incredible reviews and massive advertising campaign by Sega, built anticipation to a fever pitch and the release of Sonic 3 wasn't just an event in the gaming world but was recognized by the general media as well, raising awareness of the game's release in the general public to an incredible level.

    Sonic the Hedgehog 3 received perfect scores by nearly every North American video game magazine, including Electronic Gaming Monthly, GamePro, and GameFan. Famitsu magazine awarded the game a 38/40. The game features 18 levels, all of them playable by Sonic, Tails, or the new character, Knuckles the Echidna, with a variety of added Special Stages and Bonus Stages to play through as well. The game featured even more content than the massively-hyped Sonic CD, considered a miracle for a cartridge game, even one that utilized a special 34-megabit cartridge.

    The game succeeded in pushing nearly a quarter of a million Genesis systems in its first week of release, causing the Genesis to soar past the combined sales of the Super Nintendo and its CD peripheral, and it would stay in that position for many weeks to come.

    Super Metroid was received extremely well at the time of its release, with its fantastic graphics, excellent musical score, and brilliant exploration-based gameplay. History would eventually come to regard Super Metroid as the superior game to Sonic 3 and its impact on the medium itself would be far greater. Between it, Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, and Kid Icarus CD, April 1994 would not be known forever as Sonic the Hedgehog 3 Month, but as the month when a new sub-genre of adventure video game began to take shape, a genre that would eventually become known and loved as “Metroidvania”.

    But for now, it was Tom Kalinske and his fellow Sega executives popping corks and sipping champagne. They had earned it, and they could be forgiven for gloating.

    -

    “Thanks for waiting! As a special bonus for pre-ordering Sonic the Hedgehog 3, you'll not only receive this exclusive limited edition CD, but you're also getting this extra gift: a $10 coupon for the Sega Mega Charger, a new Sega Genesis accessory coming this summer. Featuring our patented 'lock-on technology', it'll let you enhance the graphics and sound of your games even further than before, unlocking 'Mega Blast Processing' for an awesome new experience! This coupon is good toward the Sega Mega Charger accessory or any Mega Bundle of a Genesis game and the Mega Charger. Expires 12/31/94.”
    -from an insert included with Sonic the Hedgehog 3 pre-order bonus CDs

    Tom Kalinske stood in front of a podium, smiling from ear to ear. It was the morning of April 18, 1994, and Sega had called a special press conference to celebrate the release of Sonic the Hedgehog 3. A week before, Sega had formally unveiled the “Mega Charger” lock-on device to the general public for the first time, the device that had been known internally as “Project Phobos”.

    “As you all know, today is the day that Sonic the Hedgehog 3 launched in stores across the country, and I couldn't be prouder of all the effort put forth by the dedicated individuals at Sonic Team. Without your tireless effort and long hours, none of this would be possible. When I asked Sega to delay Sonic 3 until April, I knew that it would take a Herculean effort to put this game together in time for the release, and all of you came through. The reviews are in and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is the greatest video game of all time!”

    As Kalinske spoke those words, a massive cheer went up through the gathered crowd of Sega supporters. He continued.

    “Now, as you all know, we here at Sega have already begun our effort to usher in the next generation of video games. That next generation starts with the Sega Mega Charger, a device that will allow Genesis games to display 3-D graphics and feature cinematics previously only possible on CD-based devices. While we will continue to support the Sega CD, we here at Sega think that our customers shouldn't have to spend an arm and a leg to get great quality graphics and cinematics on their game consoles. We'll be launching the Mega Charger at a price of $49.99, which is the cost of a single Genesis game. In addition, we'll be bundling the Mega Charger with some of our biggest hits, including Sonic 3 and two of our future arcade hits, Virtua Racing and Virtua Fighter, so that fans will be able to save even more money by buying both at once. We'll also be bundling the Mega Charger in with a special Genesis bundle that we'll unveil in the coming weeks.”

    Kalinske held up the Mega Charger, a device that looked just like a normal Genesis game with a small lock-on attachment on top. Originally, this technology was to be used to link up two Genesis games together, and would have connected the two halves of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 if Sonic Team hadn't been able to succeed with Kalinske's request to combine the two games back into their original and complete one. Now, it would be used as a bridge between Sega's present and Sega's future.

    “With the release of Sonic 3 and the soon to be released Mega Charger, Sega continues to be the best value in video gaming today!”

    -

    SNES-CD Power Charts – April 1994

    1. Secret Of Mana – 20,286
    2. Super Mario World 2 – 19,544
    3. Mortal Kombat – 14,208
    4. Battletoads II – 13,576
    5. Star Fox – 12,240
    6. Super Mario Kart – 10,745
    7. Fatal Fury 2 – 9,664
    8. The Simpsons – 8,823
    9. Final Fantasy III – 8,500
    10. Street Fighter II: Arcade Edition – 8,341
    11. Icebiter – 7,116
    12. The King Of Dragons – 7,045
    13. Kid Icarus CD – 6,560
    14. Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts CD – 6,114
    15. Secret Of Monkey Island – 5,051
    16. The Terminator – 4,552
    17. Yoshi's Safari – 3,711
    18. Deadman Sam – 3,352
    19. Snatcher – 3,214
    20. Super Bomberman CD – 2,843

    -

    May 2, 1994

    Minoru Arakawa and Ken Kutaragi had spent the morning reading some of the North American sales reports as the two of them sat in a lounge at Nintendo headquarters in Kyoto. Super Metroid had been a hit. The sales numbers were great....they just looked terrible if you looked at them next to what Sonic 3 had done. Of course, if you did that, every game's sales figures would've looked terrible.

    “I see Sega is quite happy with how their new Sonic game performed,” said Arakawa, sipping from a cup of coffee with a stoic expression on his face. It didn't bother him how well Sonic 3 had done, but he was disappointed that none of Nintendo's games could pull in those kind of numbers. Even Super Mario World 2's opening week sales were dwarfed by what Sonic the Hedgehog 3 had done. Another troubling takeaway was that a number of people who purchased a Genesis to play Sonic 3 already had a Super Nintendo. Buying two systems was almost unheard of at the time, either you had a Super Nintendo or you had a Genesis. If Sonic 3 was good enough to convert Nintendo's loyal fans, then maybe Nintendo did have a problem.

    “Have you seen the latest footage of Donkey Kong Country?” Kutaragi asked, a smile on his face. “It's really something, what that Rare company is able to do with our hardware.”

    Arakawa looked up from his coffee and shook his head. He'd been meaning to ask Rare for an update on the game, but analyzing April's sales figures had kept him busy.

    “Oh, you need to see it. I think there's a copy of the video they sent to Sony here as well.”

    What Kutaragi had seen blew him away. He'd already seen what Rare had done on Super Nintendo hardware, enabling the cartridge to render the familiar character of Donkey Kong in incredible 3-D. Once they'd gotten on the CD though....that was a game-changer. The processing power of Sony's peripheral allowed Rare to create animated three-dimensional backgrounds, feature twice as many on-screen enemies, and jam-pack more levels into the game, bringing the game from a projected 30 levels or so up to somewhere north of 50.

    And then there was the work David Wise had done. His brilliant musical talent had a full showcase with the enhanced CD audio, he was adding tribal chants to his music now and was planning to work with a live orchestra for some of the game's tracks. Donkey Kong Country was shaping up incredibly well, and was poised to be the biggest game of the year.

    Perhaps, Kutaragi thought, and opined to Arakawa, even bigger than Sonic the Hedgehog 3.

    “I'll believe it when I see it,” said Arakawa with a chuckle as the two men entered a small room where a Nintendo staffer was already setting up the video Rare had sent.

    “Well, you know what they say,” Kutaragi replied as he and Arakawa both took a seat to watch the film footage. “Seeing is believing.”
     
    • May-June 1994 - Cultural Butterflies

    • RySenkari

    “Right around the spring of 1994 was really the time that the Super Nintendo CD was catching on not just as a family gaming console but as kind of a mainstream phenomenon, which we hadn't anticipated would happen. We had adults, lots of adults, buying the combo set and I think it was the first time where we had more than 50% of SNES buyers also buying the add-on, which was an incredible rate. It was still the time the Genesis was outselling us but we were putting so many CD peripherals in homes that we were turning more of a profit. Minoru Arakawa told me around this time that whenever he'd meet with Ken Kutaragi, there'd be this huge smile on Kutaragi's face, kind of an 'I told you so' smile. I told him once, if you'd been able to see from the very beginning the kind of mainstream thing this CD peripheral would become, we've got something called the lottery here and you might want to start playing numbers because you're some kind of a psychic.”
    -Howard Lincoln, from a 2009 interview with Forbes magazine

    “Um, yeah, I did have my name on a video game once. After I won the gold in Lillehammer, they put my name on the Winter Olympics video game that came out later that year. I never played it though! Was it any good? …oh, I'm sorry to hear that. *laughs*”
    -Nancy Kerrigan, in a 2006 interview with Fox Sports Net

    “Day of Malcarius was kind of the first real RPG effort we put forth on the Super Famicom CD after leaving Game Arts. I felt, well, we all kind of felt that the Super Famicom CD was a much more RPG-friendly platform than the Sega CD, but our game didn't get nearly the reception that Lunar did, at least not from a sales standpoint. We learned plenty of valuable lessons though.”
    -Kozezuki Himura, lead character designer for the SNES-CD original RPG Day of Malcarius, in an interview with RPGPulse.com on July 13, 2010

    “The Super Nintendo CD is the first video game console I really remember playing. I mean I remember I played Zelda on the NES a lot with my dad but the first game I actually have memory of playing is Carmen Sandiego on the SNES-CD. My dad says I played that game all the time when I was little and I believe him, and I thought it was just the most awesome thing to actually see video of Carmen doing some crime and then going to catch her. So yeah, I'm nostalgic as hell for the SNES-CD.”
    -Zelda Williams, in an interview with IGN.com on July 23, 2014

    “With Virtual Bart, after The Simpsons had sold so well on the Super Nintendo CD, that we got the license to do the SNES-CD version of that game. Acclaim did the other one, kind of a Bart's Nightmare sequel action game for the Super Nintendo and the Genesis, and then for the CD version on Super Nintendo CD we got to make it a four-player beat-em-up like The Simpsons arcade game. We had four playable characters, Bart and Lisa of course, and they were joined by Nelson and Milhouse. With only a three month development time, that's where we kind of ran into some problems. Particularly...the balance for the new characters. Nelson was really really good, and Milhouse was really really bad. And we didn't have time to really fix that before we had to launch the game in June of 1994. I think the game was fine otherwise, we didn't have to do too much besides come up with the new levels and enemies which didn't take long. It was just balancing Milhouse and Nelson that we ran into trouble with. Reviews were still good, sales were still good, I mean we had way less dev time than Acclaim did and still got way better scores, but we were all glad to have a lot more lead time for the Itchy and Scratchy game. And as for Milhouse, I know a lot of people online do challenge runs of the game with him now, so something good even came out of that!”
    -Jared Reely, localization/project manager for Konami of America, in a 2009 interview with Nohomers.net

    “With the first pick in the 1994 NBA Draft, the Boston Celtics select... Grant Hill, out of Duke University.”
    -David Stern, announcing the first pick of the 1994 NBA Draft on June 29, 1994

    -

    It's becoming abundantly clear that video games aren't just for kids anymore. Indeed, it seems that the latest games have begun seeping into all parts of pop culture, with the so-called “console wars” becoming a hot topic among Hollywood's biggest celebrities!

    Some of the brightest stars on Hollywood have been touting the virtues of the Super Nintendo CD, the CD-ROM attachment for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. While Nintendo's been pushing family friendly games at American kids for nearly a decade, some of the biggest hits on the Super Nintendo CD are decidedly NOT for kids.

    *scenes from Mortal Kombat begin to play*

    Case in point, Mortal Kombat. One of the biggest arcade hits of 1992 and one of the biggest home entertainment hits of 1993, it features violent, bloody fighting and some brutal finishing moves, and stars like Roseanne's Johnny Galecki and the Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air's Will Smith can't get enough of the game.

    Johnny Galecki: Oh yeah, Mortal Kombat, we play it all the time, definitely. We hook up the CD and then start ripping each other's heads off, it's a lot of fun.

    Will Smith: I'm lucky enough that I got both, I got the Genesis and the Super Nintendo, so I kinda go back and forth. We got a Genesis hooked up in the dressing room, but that Super Nintendo CD, it looks a lot more realistic and we got that hooked up on a big TV and it's even better than the arcade. And I just got the new Castlevania game, and that's really something too, all those creepy vampires. I tried to get Tatyana (Ali) to play that game but it creeps her out. *laughs*

    There's also the sci-fi mystery game Snatcher, about a dark future where evil cyborgs attempt to steal human identities. The praises of the cinematic game have been sung by directors such as Quentin Tarantino, and even Siskel and Ebert have shown interest in Snatcher's cyber-noir storyline.

    The Super Nintendo CD has been capturing the same kind of attention that Sega has been attempting to capture with its Genesis console for the past three years. Sega has been a familiar sight at celebrity events, and the company and its familiar characters have had a presence at the MTV Video Music Awards since 1992. Now, it seems like the new generation of video games, featuring sophisticated multimedia and three-dimensional graphics, are putting Nintendo into the spotlight in a big way. Actress Winona Ryder, famous for her recent role in “Bram Stoker's Dracula”, discusses her recent escape into the world of Soulqueen, a video game where you take the role of a hotshot female pilot as she rockets across the galaxy shooting down aliens.

    Winona Ryder: I'm not normally one to play video games, but a friend showed me this really beautiful game where you're this awesome pilot named Cleopatra, and these animated scenes play out between you shooting down other ships. And she's just awesome, if they ever make a movie of it then sign me up. I've never seen anything like that from a video game before but whenever I have some free time I'm playing it. And Monkey Island too, it's a lot slower paced but there's so much to do.

    Celebrities playing video games is nothing new. Courtney Love recently attributed her breakup with Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain to his video game habit, and there's one A-list actor who can't get enough of Nintendo's latest hits.

    *Footage is shown of Robin Williams playing Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego? on the SNES-CD with his daughter Zelda.*

    Robin Williams, known for such hits as Mrs. Doubtfire and Good Morning, Vietnam, is a long-time gamer who even named his daughter after the titular character from The Legend Of Zelda on the NES. He's another big fan of Nintendo's CD-ROM system, and plays games like Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego? with his daughter every chance he gets.

    Robin Williams: These games, they're just getting better and better. They've got real voice acting now, and they're filmed just like movies, it's amazing.

    *The footage shows Williams and his daughter right in the middle of capturing Carmen. Zelda is celebrating, pumping her fists while Robin points at the screen and yells “Yeah! You go DIRECTLY to jail, you do not pass go, you do not collect $200!” as the screen shows a dejected looking Carmen Sandiego behind bars.*

    When we asked Williams about some of the Super Nintendo CD's more mature games, he showed enthusiasm for them as well, though as the father to a four-year-old girl, he's careful about what games he lets her play.

    Robin Williams: Well of course, I love Snatcher, and Meteora's a good one. But I don't let Zelda play those. I mean, she can be in the room when I'm playing Snatcher sometimes. But she prefers Carmen Sandiego, and Secret of Mana, those kind of games. She's playing Monkey Island now, we're playing through that together and it's a lot of fun. You know, we're waiting for the next Zelda game. You know Nintendo's working on that one, don't you? They're going to have it out next year. *he catches himself, laughing* Oh, I don't think I was supposed to tell you about that! *laughing some more* Oh, they're not gonna be happy with me.

    Director Joel Schumacher has mentioned that he's been somewhat inspired by some of the latest video games as he gets ready to film the third Batman film, set for release next year. And as technology improves, and games get closer and closer to films in terms of production quality and content, we're likely to see even more crossover between Hollywood and the gaming world.

    -From Entertainment Tonight, May 23, 1994

    -

    “When I'd heard that Robin Williams kind of broke the news about Zelda 4 a bit early on Entertainment Tonight, I was kind of worried at first. We'd told him about the game hoping he'd keep mum about it until we could announce formally that we were working on it at next month's Summer CES. But, you know, he hadn't signed anything like an NDA or anything like that, we hadn't even really told him to keep it close to his vest. But, ultimately it wasn't a big deal. You didn't have the internet back then, at least not in the form we have it in today, so there wasn't much in the way of viral buzz generated by the comment he'd made. Not many of our fans even watched Entertainment Tonight, so that was another thing that kind of kept this contained. And finally, most people who did see it probably thought he was joking. Just, you know, Robin being Robin. So we couldn't get mad at him for the slip-up. How the hell are you supposed to be mad at Robin Williams anyway?”
    -Howard Lincoln, from a 2012 Kotaku.com article: “Nintendo and Robin Williams: A Whimsical History”

    -

    FIFA World Cup '94:

    Ed: 7
    Danyon: 7 (quote: “A fun soccer game that captures the excitement of the World Cup perfectly. Controls are a bit clunky but the graphics and sound effects are nice and it has all the teams!”)
    Al: 9
    Sushi-X: 6

    Jeopardy:

    Ed: 8 (quote: “It's the best Jeopardy experience on the home console. The full-motion video brings Alex to life like never before and there are over 5,000 questions and answers, so you'll have to play a LOT of games before seeing any repeats.”)
    Danyon: 8
    Al: 7
    Sushi-X: 7

    Nobunaga's Ambition: Lord Of Darkness:

    Ed: 8
    Danyon: 8
    Al: 7
    Sushi-X: 8 (quote: “An incredibly detailed turn-based strategy game, one of the best available for the SNES-CD. The historical content is a big plus.”)

    Thrillseeker:

    Ed: 9 (quote: “This REALLY ambitious virtual board game won't be for everyone, but I had a lot of fun with it. When you can get three friends together it's the best multiplayer game since Super Bomberman.”)
    Danyon: 5
    Al: 8
    Sushi-X: 7

    Day Of Malcarius:

    Ed: 8
    Danyon: 8
    Al: 8 (quote: “As far as RPG plots go, it's pretty generic. A group of young heroes rise up to challenge an evil wizard. It's clearly inspired by Lunar which makes sense since the people who made the game actually branched off of the Lunar creators. That said, it still boasts really beautiful graphics and an amazing soundtrack, so I can't knock it too badly for being a little bit of a rehash.”)
    Sushi-X: 8

    Fireball:

    Ed: 7
    Danyon: 6
    Al: 6
    Sushi-X: 6 (quote: “This shooter game is pretty much Asteroids with fireballs instead of asteroids and somewhat better graphics. If you're desperate for an arcade-style shooter, try your luck with this, though you'll find better on the SNES-CD.”)

    Invasion 2022:

    Ed: 5
    Danyon: 4 (quote: “A REALLY forgettable X-Com ripoff, it's not even the best turn based strategy game of the month (that honor goes to Nobunaga's Ambition). You can skip this one.”)
    Al: 6
    Sushi-X: 4

    3 Ninjas Kick Back:

    Ed: 4
    Danyon: 5
    Al: 2 (quote: “Horrible, horrible, horrible platformer. If you suffered through the movie you might survive this game. Otherwise, take a pass.”)
    Sushi-X: 3

    ClayFighter: Tournament Edition:

    Ed: 7
    Danyon: 7
    Al: 8
    Sushi-X: 8 (quote: “Last year's hilarious fighter is back with new characters, new moves and updated graphics. If you've never played the original, this is the one to get. If you have, you might wanna rent this first.”)

    Mad Dog II: The Lost Gold:

    Ed: 6 (quote: “It's not bad but it's significantly shorter than the first game, which was short enough on its own. If you liked the first though, you'll probably want to check this out even if you have to pay full price.”)
    Danyon: 6
    Al: 6
    Sushi-X: 6

    Nancy Kerrigan Olympic Gold '94:

    Ed: 4
    Danyon: 7 (quote: “It's not a terrible Winter Olympics game. The play controls on the figure skating could be better, which is a shame since it's the feature game of the entire package.”)
    Al: 5
    Sushi-X: 5

    Spectre:

    Ed: 9
    Danyon: 7
    Al: 6
    Sushi-X: 7 (quote: “The addictive computer shooter comes to the SNES-CD, which I felt did a great job rendering the excellent vector graphics of the original. It's not the best shooter out there but it's really pretty to look at.”)

    Tetris CD:

    Ed: 9
    Danyon: 8
    Al: 9 (quote: “You can't really go wrong with Tetris, and this updated version features great musical selections and a lot of fun modes, including a Challenge Mode similar to the terribly difficult Japanese arcade games. The definitive home console version of Tetris for sure.”)
    Sushi-X: 8

    The Incredible Hulk:

    Ed: 7
    Danyon: 7
    Al: 7
    Sushi-X: 7 (quote: “It's a pretty standard action platformer for the most part, but the graphics are awesome, with really good animation on the characters and enemies. If you're a Hulk fan be sure to check this out, even if you have to smash other people out of the way to get it up to the counter.”)

    The Lion King:

    Ed: 8 (quote: “This game continues the streak of excellent Disney adaptations that started with Aladdin. The soundtrack is amazing and it pretty much covers the whole movie, meaning that you'll have hours of fun reliving Simba's adventures.”)
    Danyon: 7
    Al: 9
    Sushi-X: 8

    The Simpsons: Virtual Bart:

    Ed: 8
    Danyon: 7 (quote: “I feel like this game COULD have been better. It straight-up lifts the excellent engine from last year's Simpsons arcade game, but the character balance is a bit screwy (don't pick Milhouse, whatever you do!). While a fun game, it seems like it was a bit rushed to make a quick buck after the first one was such a hit.”)
    Al: 9
    Sushi-X: 7

    WWF Raw:

    Ed: 8
    Danyon: 7
    Al: 7 (quote: “I really enjoyed this wrestling game, especially for its variety of moves and detailed character animations. Probably the best WWF game to come to a home console.”)
    Sushi-X: 7

    After The Lights Go Out:

    Ed: 6
    Danyon: 3 (quote: “If you're going to make ANOTHER detective game, try not to retread the same old cliches in every other detective game out for the console. And try to include some decent acting for crying out loud!”)
    Al: 6
    Sushi-X: 5

    Heavily Armed Princess:

    Ed: 6
    Danyon: 6
    Al: 9 (quote: “This game certainly lives up to its title. Pretty much everything your princess character can find is a weapon, and there are more than 30 in all. People might not like the over the top violence in a game that seems so sweet and girly at first, but I laughed my butt off the whole time I played. Tremendous fun.”)
    Sushi-X: 4

    Fatal Strike:

    Ed: 9
    Danyon: 9
    Al: 9
    Sushi-X: 9 (quote: “One of the best beat-em-up games on the Super Nintendo CD, in this game you're a warrior named Notukaga who has to punch, kick, and slash his way through hundreds of foes on your way to find the shogun who ruined his life. With such variety in enemies and stages and some of the best graphics I've seen on an SNES-CD game, I can't recommend Fatal Strike enough.”)

    -from Electronic Gaming Monthly's reviews of May and June 1994's SNES-CD games, in the June, July, and August 1994 issues

    -

    There were a LOT of games that came out for the SNES-CD in June 1994. We got some classics like Tetris CD, Virtual Bart, Fatal Strike, and The Lion King, all really awesome games, but I'd like to talk about two of the stranger and more obscure titles that we saw for the system in the month of June 1994.

    First up we have The Incredible Machine. This game was a port of a PC game about making Rube Goldberg devices, and I have to say that the SNES-CD's interface was pretty good. You could use the Mario Paint mouse or you could use a controller, and honestly either one of them works well here. It plays pretty much the same as the one on the PC, with the difference here being that you get some Mario themed items to use. You can have Yoshi eat something and then spit it back out, or lay an egg, that's pretty nice.

    Next up, Hurricane Season '94. This is an educational game, specifically a hurricane tracking/simulating tool. You can actually plug in variables and simulate a hurricane from formation to landfall, or to it going out to sea. It only does Atlantic hurricanes but it's actually a fairly detailed simulator and I'm surprised they made a game like this. It sold....very few copies, less than 20,000, most of those to educational institutions but I was able to find this on Ebay for 25 bucks. It's kinda fun to mess around with, if you're into hurricanes and the weather.

    So that's two of the really obscure, weird games to come out for the Super Nintendo CD in June of 1994. Next video, we're doing July and August 1994. And yeah. That means we're doing Oops!. That's gonna be fun.
    -excerpted from a Youtube video, “SNES-CD Weirdness (June 1994)”, by ultivillain86

    -

    SNES-CD Power Charts – May 1994

    1. Super Mario World 2 – 19,751
    2. The Secret Of Monkey Island – 18,640
    3. Secret Of Mana – 17,054
    4. Mortal Kombat – 13,519
    5. Star Fox – 11,440
    6. Battletoads II – 10,355
    7. Super Mario Kart – 8,859
    8. Meteora – 7,415
    9. Street Fighter II: Arcade Edition – 7,014
    10. Lemmings 2 – 6,351
    11. Final Fantasy III – 6,274
    12. Kid Icarus CD – 5,800
    13. Fatal Fury 2 – 5,471
    14. Snatcher – 5,056
    15. Daywalkers – 4,771
    16. The Simpsons – 4,700
    17. Icebiter – 4,365
    18. Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts CD – 3,882
    19. The King Of Dragons – 3,759
    20. Phaedra's Heart – 3,400

    SNES-CD Power Charts – June 1994

    1. NBA Jam – 30,417
    2. Snatcher – 23,218
    3. Super Mario World 2 – 18,088
    4. The Secret Of Monkey Island – 16,443
    5. Secret Of Mana – 14,287
    6. Mortal Kombat – 9,713
    7. Super Mario Kart – 8,453
    8. Alone In The Dark – 7,800
    9. Star Fox – 7,471
    10. Battletoads II – 6,988
    11. The Next Champion – 6,755
    12. Final Fantasy III – 5,972
    13. Furious Heart – 5,581
    14. Kid Icarus CD – 5,372
    15. Power Instinct – 5,334
    16. Street Fighter II: Arcade Edition – 5,244
    17. Meteora – 4,980
    18. Ren And Stimpy – 4,471
    19. Lemmings 2 – 3,618
    20. Phaedra's Heart – 3,287

    -

    Charlie Steiner: After last night's 94-87 loss in Game 3 of the NBA Finals, Michael Jordan is vowing revenge. His Bulls are down on the Houston Rockets 2 games to 1, but game 4 Tuesday night is in Chicago, and Bulls fans will be roaring for their team to tie this series. While Jordan was fuming after the loss, he had high praise for Rockets center Hakeem Olajuwon. Olajuwon posted 38 points, 12 rebounds, and 7 blocks in last night's Rockets' victory, including two blocks on Jordan in the same play.

    *A brief clip of Michael Jordan in the locker room after the game is shown.*

    Michael Jordan: He's an incredible athlete. I've gotta give credit where it's due. He was unstoppable. But I'm coming back, this team is coming back and we're gonna be right back here in Chicago Tuesday night and I'm giving it everything I've got. I can guarantee that.

    Reporter: Can you guarantee that the Bulls will win Game 4?

    Michael Jordan: Well, anything can happen. But I guarantee that I'm going to lay it all out on the court for Game 4 and there is no way I'm going to let that game get away like this one did.

    *Back to the SportsCenter anchor desk.*

    Charlie Steiner: *looking back behind him and holding his ear like he's listening to something in his earpiece, he has a rather shocked expression on his face* ….is that...is that confirmed? *inaudible mumbling behind him, he turns to face the camera* Uh, uhm, we've got a story now out of Los Angeles, and this is somewhat beyond belief but it is a tragic story that has just broke and I'm reporting it to you as I'm hearing it. O.J. Simpson, NFL Hall of Famer, a sports legend who is beloved around the world, has been found dead, along with his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson, in her Los Angeles home just a few minutes ago. And we're being told, and this is preliminary barring any autopsies but this is what the Los Angeles Police Department is reporting...we're being told that this appears to be a murder-suicide, that O.J. Simpson allegedly murdered his wife and then shot himself fatally immediately afterward. Again, we are reporting this story as soon as we're hearing it and obviously a very shocking and tragic report now out of Los Angeles. O.J. Simpson, NFL Hall of Famer, dead at 46 and, if what we're hearing is correct, in one of the most shocking ways imaginable. *shaking his head somewhat in disbelief* Unreal.
    -from the 12:00 AM broadcast of ESPN's SportsCenter, June 13, 1994
     
    • Summer 1994 CES

    • RySenkari

    “The Mega Charger, as Sega called it in North America, was the first thing Sega did since I had started working on the Super Famicom CD that really impressed me. From a technical standpoint it was quite advanced and a really well made device. It got some of the people at Nintendo worried as well! I remember at the time we were talking about what we might do to counter it. People were talking about making a new H.A.N.D.S. cartridge to pump up the power of the Super Famicom CD, or maybe doing a lock-on cart for the regular console, but I wasn’t worried and none of those things came to pass. We really didn’t need them. Once Squad Four and Donkey Kong Country came out and everyone remembered what our CD add-on was really capable of, the worries about the Mega Charger sort of faded.”
    -Ken Kutaragi

    “Would you like a free copy of the Squad Four Origins comic while you’re waiting to play the game? It’s the first issue of a comic we’re going to be publishing in Nintendo Power starting with next month’s issue, it’s the perfect introduction to the characters and the world of the game!”
    -overheard at Nintendo’s Squad Four booth at the Summer 1994 CES, Nintendo workers handed out free copies of the first issue of Nintendo Power’s Squad Four comic to people waiting in line to play

    “Lunar Silver Star on the Genesis, that was news to me. Nobody had told me that Sega asked Game Arts to do a Genesis port of the game. I was pessimistic from the start and when I got to see what they did to the game I was pretty pissed off. Even with that lock-on cart they had to cut about half of the spoken dialogue, they pretty much butchered the game and of course it was going to sell like shit. The problems between me and Sega started when they decided to put Lunar on the Genesis.”
    -Victor Ireland, speaking to The Gaming Intelligence Agency in a March 1999 interview

    “Going up to Chicago for the 1994 CES, that was a pretty fun trip. Nickelodeon put me up in a real nice hotel and I got to play a lot of the games before a lot of other people did. I mean, I’ve never been much of a gamer. I’ve played a few games, I played, uh, that Chrono Trigger game, I played a little bit of that because Mo (Quirk) did some voices in it and I wanted to see how she was doing. I’ll play Madden with friends sometimes, maybe a little Call of Duty that kinda thing. But I didn’t mind, it was 1994, the technology wasn’t so good but it was great for the time and like I said, I had a lot of fun. My favorite game from the show? Madden, obviously. I think it was Madden 95? I still remember the guy from Sega showing me the Genesis one. I don’t remember much about the game itself but I remember having a ball with it.”
    -Mike O’Malley, Entertainment Weekly, July 2014

    -

    June 22, 1994

    It was the night before the 1994 Summer CES, and Tom Kalinske and some of his fellow Sega executives were enjoying the end of Game 7 of the NBA Finals at one of Chicago's best sports bars.

    “Bulls down by three, Armstrong bringing the ball up the court, 25 seconds to go...” Marv Albert's voice echoed through the bar as Tom Kalinske and Al Nilsen watched the game together. They were enjoying the game of course, but they had plenty of other things on their mind as well. Kalinske would be giving a big speech the next day, where he'd not only be pitching the Mega Charger, but would be teasing Sega's next generation system as well.

    “They really think it's a good idea to tease the Saturn, do they?” asked Nilsen, keeping one eye on his friend and one eye on the game.

    “Armstrong gets it to Jordan, down to 15 seconds now....” The Houston defenders began crowding around Michael Jordan while Olajuwon hung out by the rim, determined not to let Chicago's star player get an easy layup.

    “Well, it's coming out in Japan this December, we gotta say something about it....” Kalinske replied. He was glad to have Al Nilsen by his side. Nilsen had contemplated leaving Sega the previous year, but Kalinske had been able to convince him to stay. Sega was lucky to have him, and they'd need all the help they could get if they were going to win this latest round of the console wars. “Don't worry. This is the Genesis' show and I'll make sure it stays that way.”

    “Jordan drives, Olajuwon's there....he flips the ball out to Scottie Pippen who's wide open for three!”

    The crowd in the bar, including Kalinske and Nilsen, stood up as Pippen took the three point shot that could tie the game. Everyone held their breath.

    “Pippen, for the tie.... bounces off the rim! Olajuwon's got it and he's fouled with five and three tenths seconds to go!”

    There was a loud groan in the bar and the sound of swearing and butts collapsing into seats could clearly be heard, while on the TV, the crowd in Houston erupted into euphoria. Kalinske shook his head and took another sip of his beer as Hakeem Olajuwon made the free throws that would ice the game and the championship for the Houston Rockets.

    “Tough break, eh?” Nilsen said, thinking that his friend was bummed about the result of the game.

    “Not really,” Kalinske replied with a shrug and a smile, leaning in and whispering. “Can you imagine how tough it would've been to get back to our hotel if the Bulls had won?”

    Al Nilsen stifled a laugh.

    -

    Mike O'Malley: I'm here at the Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago, and I'm headed to Sega's booth, Sega, you know them, they make Sonic the Hedgehog, they make the Sega Genesis, they make Toejam and Earl, they've got the hottest selling game console out there and I'm about to get the scoop on what they've got going on!

    *He walks over to a display that's showing Virtua Racing and begins to play.*

    Mike O'Malley: This here is Virtua Racing, it's the newest, fastest, most exciting racing game you can buy. Check out the 3-D graphics, they're so lifelike you'll think you're really cruising down the road.

    *Footage of Virtua Racing is shown on the screen*

    Mike O'Malley: Now this game's actually been out for a while on Sega Genesis, but I'm playing it on the new and enhanced Mega Charger. And to get all the details about the Mega Charger, there's one guy I gotta see.

    *Now Mike O'Malley is standing with Sega's Tom Kalinske*

    Mike O'Malley: I'm here with the head honcho, the big man himself, this guy is the president of Sega of America, Mr. Tom Kalinske, and he's got all the top secret info on this awesome new Mega Charger device.

    Tom Kalinske: *holds up the Mega Charger* That's absolutely right and here it is.

    Mike O'Malley: All right then, there's something we like to say on my show Guts, and if you guys watching at home are a fan of the show you'll know what's coming up next, so Mr. Tom Kalinske, spill...your...guts!

    Tom Kalinske: *chuckles* Well all right Mike, this is the Sega Mega Charger and it's a brand new peripheral that will bring arcade-quality graphics to a lot of the Sega Genesis games we've got coming up. As you can see here, it looks an awful lot like a Sega Genesis game, and what you do is you put it into your Genesis just like a game. You'll then take any of our Mega Charger compatible games and you'll just plug it right into the top like this... *it shows him putting Sonic 3 onto the Mega Charger, easy as pie* and our patented lock-on technology will do the rest.

    Mike O'Malley: It's that easy?

    Tom Kalinske: It's that easy. Now this Mega Charger contains a lot of technology in a very small package. You've got a pair of processor chips, one of them is for 2-D, things like animation, so that our games can look more like the cartoons you might see on Nickelodeon, or for example in Street Fighter, you can have a lot more detail on the characters and animations. And the second processor chip is for 3-D, things like Virtua Racing, so the game can run a lot more smoothly and quickly, just like in the arcade.

    Mike O'Malley: I saw Virtua Racing, I gotta say, it is really fast. I mean the game moves by at a blistering pace, and it was really exciting, I think the people at home are gonna have a lot of fun playing it.

    Tom Kalinske: We hope they do. The Mega Charger also has a pair of extra memory chips and an enhanced sound chip for things like voice samples, so that characters will be able to talk and sing just like they can do on film or on TV.

    Mike O'Malley: Well, this Mega Charger sounds pretty awesome. You know, on Guts we've got a little something called the Mega Crag, so this is just perfect, Mega Charger, Mega Crag!

    Tom Kalinske: There you go!

    Mike O'Malley: It's, it's a step up from what you had going on before. So now that we've gotten acquainted with the Mega Charger itself, care to show us some games?

    Tom Kalinske: Absolutely. First off of course is Sonic the Hedgehog 3, not only the fastest selling video game of all time but the best reviewed video game of all time as well. It's the best video game ever. But the Mega Charger makes it even better.

    Mike O'Malley: Okay, so let me get this straight...you're taking the best video game of all time, and you're making it better?

    Tom Kalinske: That's right. *smiles proudly and nods his head* When you hook your Sonic 3 cartridge up to the Mega Charger, it'll open up nine new levels on top of the 18 there already are in the game. In addition to that, it'll add some new 3-D minigames which you can see here....

    *The screen shows one of the Mega Charger enhanced 3-D minigames, Sonic is sort of flying through the air shooting at creatures that appear on the screen, the 3-D is quite smooth and quite fast*

    Mike O'Malley: Now that looks REALLY impressive, let me play that for a little bit.

    *As Mike O'Malley plays, Kalinske continues.*

    Tom Kalinske: We've also got a Mega Charger exclusive Sonic 3 theme song and, and this is really nice, we've got a brand new final boss that appears if you beat all the new levels. This new final boss is even tougher than Dr. Robotnik, he's the toughest boss we've ever put in a Sonic game, he's really hard to beat.

    Mike O'Malley: *having a bit of trouble with the minigame* This game right here, this is pretty hard to beat... *he laughs and puts the controller down* it was fun, but man, that's not easy.

    Tom Kalinske: This new final boss is WAY tougher than that game.

    Mike O'Malley: Would you say beating this new final boss is even tougher than climbing the Mega Crag?

    Tom Kalinske: *laughs* That's a tough one, that Mega Crag looks like a serious challenge but....I'm gonna say, yeah. It will be tougher to beat this guy than it is to climb the Mega Crag.

    Mike O'Malley: *looks at the screen* You heard it here first, this new final boss....even tougher than the Mega Crag. *turns to Kalinske* Thanks again, that was a lot of fun.

    Tom Kalinske: Any time Mike!

    *A bit later, we see Mike O'Malley at the booth for Lunar: The Silver Star, talking with a random Sega employee*

    Employee: This is Lunar and it's appearing on Genesis for the first time, only on the Mega Charger.

    *It shows one of the characters talking*

    Mike O'Malley: This is pretty neat, it's kinda like a storybook come to life to hear them talking like that.

    Employee: *he nods* This is one of the most well-known Sega role playing games.

    Mike O'Malley: Well, this is a cool game here, but you know, role playing games aren't really my thing, I'm more of a sports game kinda guy, you got any sports games to try out?

    Employee: We absolutely do, right this way please!

    *The next scene shows O'Malley at the Madden '95 booth with the Mega Charger enhanced verson of the game*

    Employee: You know, Sega's bread and butter has always been sports games, we've always prided ourselves on delivering the best sports experiences on a video game console and Madden NFL '95 is no exception.

    Mike O'Malley: *playing the game with a smile on his face* Well this is great, I'm gonna be the Patriots here and maybe get a little revenge on the Bears for what they did to us a few years back in the Super Bowl.

    Employee: *laughing* Well don't let some of the locals here see that!

    Mike O'Malley: Oh, I'm gonna invite some of them over here to watch! *he begins playing* I can already tell, the players look really lifelike on this game.

    Employee: Right, the Mega Charger delivers enhanced player animations and more detailed sprites for a richer and fuller experience. We've also been able to include a lot more voice samples for more realistic commentary from John Madden and Pat Summerall.

    *Pat Summerall's voice is heard commentating on a play, it's still quite stunted and un-natural but it's a lot more detailed commentary than most other console sports games of the time.*

    Mike O'Malley: It sounds just like the game on Sunday afternoon, this is great! *he scores a touchdown* I'm having a ball here.

    Employee: You haven't even seen the best part. This is a feature exclusive to the Mega Charger, you won't see it on Nintendo or even the Nintendo CD. If you exit the game-

    Mike O'Malley: I don't wanna exit the game, this is too much fun! *laughs as he exits the game out to the main menu* All right....

    Employee: Now you'll see that we have a Play Editor. With this, you can actually create your own customized plays.

    Mike O'Malley: Are you serious? *they go into the Play Editor and there's a bevy of options* I can make the patented Mike O'Malley Super-Duper Fumblerooski?

    Employee: *laughing* You can make any play you want, you can save up to 16 of your own custom plays and access them during a game at any time.

    Mike O'Malley: That is just awesome. That really puts this game over the top.

    Employee: Madden NFL '95 will be coming out a few weeks after the Mega Charger, so once you buy the game for the Genesis, if you have the Mega Charger you'll be able to access this mode and start making your own plays.

    Mike O'Malley: This just blows me away!

    -from the Nickelodeon Video Game Spectacular that aired on Nickelodeon on July 4, 1994

    -

    “While Sega's big push at the 1994 Summer CES was clearly their new Mega Charger peripheral, there were a huge variety of games featured at the show, some that will take advantage of the new peripheral and some that won't. We were quite impressed with the long awaited sequel to Ecco the Dolphin, Ecco the Dolphin: Tides of Time. The game features beautiful graphics and sound and while we were told that the game wouldn't be compatible with the Mega Charger, it was a fun and gorgeous game regardless. It picks up right where the first game left off, and it should be a blast to play when it's released this August.

    We also saw a couple of great comic book games featured for the Genesis system. First up was Spider-Man: Maximum Carnage, featuring the vicious villain from the comic book and TV show. The game uses a really neat comic book style of animation to punctuate the action appearing on screen and I think it looks like it'll be the best Spider-Man game ever made. There's also The Adventures Of Batman and Robin, which looks to be based more on the animated series than the comic book. Unlike Spider-Man, this game has some enhanced Mega Charger features including the actual voices from the show itself, which makes this game maybe the closest thing we'll get to being able to play the actual cartoon.

    Sega's also pushing Earthworm Jim, and this game was one of our favorites at the show. It features some great graphics (which are even better if you use the Mega Charger), and off-the-wall humor. It's clear that they're trying to push Earthworm Jim as the next big video game mascot and if this game is any indication, they might just succeed. We're not quite sure if he's up to Sonic's level but time will certainly tell!

    Of course, the biggest thing at the show was the Mega Charger, and we were quite impressed by what we saw. The peripheral, which you plug into your Genesis console like an ordinary Sega game, enables some very advanced graphics and sound via the use of a number of special chips embedded in the device, surpassing even the great graphics in Super FX chip games like Super Squadron X. While not quite up to par with some of the very best Super Nintendo CD games, as developers get more time to program for it we could see some efforts matching what Nintendo's CD marvel can do, and at $50, it's priced at just a third of the cost of the Super Nintendo CD. We really liked what it did with Virtua Racing and Sega has promised to bring Virtua Fighter to the device by early next year. We also got a glimpse at a very good version of Doom for the Mega Charger, while Nintendo's rumored Doom port was a complete no-show. With Sonic 3 still burning up sales charts and Doom as a potential killer app, the future looks very bright for Sega and its fans.”
    -from Electronic Gaming Monthly's August 1994 article summarizing the Summer 1994 CES

    -

    “Hi, I'm Tom Kalinske and I'd like to welcome everyone to the Summer 1994 Consumer Electronics Show. As you all know, Sega is devoted to providing the best video games to players all over the world, and at this summer's show we're pleased to announce the beginning of a new era for our company. In six months, our newest game console, the Sega Saturn, will launch in Japan. And while we and our partners at Silicon Graphics are very pleased with how the new console is turning out, we'd like to remind everyone that the Sega Genesis remains and will continue to remain the number one selling game console in the world. We've topped worldwide charts for the past two months now and this month is shaping up to make it a third. Those of you in North America thinking that you're being left out, let me assure you that on August 1st, the next generation of game consoles will begin for Genesis owners everywhere. That's when we'll be launching the Sega Mega Charger peripheral. This device, the size of a Sega Genesis game, will make the Genesis console four times faster and able to display many more colors on screen. It will enable games to be three times bigger and feature beautiful 2-D animation, life-like 3-D graphics, and enable sounds and sights that you've never seen before on a home game console. With our all new “Mega Blast Processing”, a Genesis console fitted with a Mega Charger will have more processing power than a Super Nintendo CD. And this little device will be available for the cost of a single Sega Genesis game. In some cases, less than the cost of a Genesis game. We'll be launching it for $49.99, but we've also made a Genesis console bundle available that will include Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and a Sega Mega Charger for only $129.99. And for those of you who already own a Genesis, we have five special bundles on launch day that will include both the Mega Charger and a Mega Charger-compatible game. Those bundles are: Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Super Street Fighter II, Virtua Racing, Lunar: The Silver Star, and Silpheed. The Mega Charger game bundles will be available for the low price of $79.99. Those of you who remember that Virtua Racing cost $99.99 when we launched it on Genesis a few months back, you'll know that those bundles are an incredible deal. But even if you don't purchase the Mega Charger, the vast majority of our upcoming Genesis library will be playable without one. Games that require the Mega Charger, and games that don't require it but are enhanced by it will be clearly marked on the outside of the box so that consumers will be able to pick the games that correspond with their device. With that said, we are hoping that most Genesis owners will consider the Sega Mega Charger a good deal, and that Sega will continue to provide the best value in home entertainment for years to come. Thank you, and enjoy the show!”
    -Tom Kalinske's keynote speech at the Summer 1994 Consumer Electronics Show

    -

    Mike O'Malley: We've seen Sega's games, we've seen what they've got coming up and it looks awesome. Now we're headed over to the Nintendo booth to get the latest scoop on what's going up with Mario and all his friends, let's go!

    *We see him at a booth for the upcoming SNES Rocko's Modern Life game*

    Mike O'Malley: Here we've got Rocko's Modern Life: Carnival Of Horrors. This game, of course based on the newest Nicktoon, and here, we have the director of Rocko's Modern Life himself, Steven Hillenburg, to talk about the game.

    Steven Hillenburg: Hello again Mike, here of course you can see we have Rocko's Modern Life for Super Nintendo.

    Mike O'Malley: Now this game, based on your very funny cartoon show, and you guys had a hand in this game correct?

    Steven Hillenburg: We certainly did, we were involved in it every step of the way. With the earlier game, Spunky's Dangerous Day, that game actually started production before the cartoon even premiered! But Nickelodeon wanted there to be another Rocko game and we started on that last fall, right after the show started. We've kind of got a Halloween theme going here, Rocko's at the carnival and getting into all sorts of trouble.

    *Scenes are shown from the game, Rocko is going into a tent and getting attacked by a psychotic clown*

    Mike O'Malley: Rocko appears to be in some trouble here, I'm gonna throw a baseball at this clown.

    *The baseball knocks the clown back*

    Steven Hillenburg: We actually included several characters you can play as in this one, try using Heffer, he's got a body slam attack that does a bit more damage here.

    *Mike switches to Heffer and slams the clown, it seems to knock him back a little bit more*

    Mike O'Malley: Hey, that worked! That was pretty good.

    Steven Hillenburg: We had a lot of fun in the writers' room coming up with ideas for the game and there were some really talented programmers that took our ideas and brought them to life.

    Mike O'Malley: Well, just like it takes a big team of hard working people to put a cartoon together, it's the same way with video games and I can tell they worked really hard on this one, can't wait to play it.

    Steven Hillenburg: We're hoping to have it out in October, thanks again for stopping by!

    *A bit later, we see Mike O'Malley at the Fire Emblem booth*

    Mike O'Malley: This game looks really fun, it's called Fire Emblem and I'm here with the head honcho of Nintendo, Mr. Howard Lincoln, who looks really excited to tell me about this game. I don't even think I have to tell him to tell me about it but I have to say it, Mr. Howard Lincoln, spill...your...guts!

    Howard Lincoln: Well this is Fire Emblem, it's making its first appearance stateside after being exclusive to Japan for the past few years, we're bringing the latest Super Nintendo game over to America and we know our fans are going to love it.

    Mike O'Malley: You seem pretty confident.

    Howard Lincoln: I'm really confident about this game. In Fire Emblem you're the commander of an army and you're placed into a battle with your enemy's army, and you get to sort of micro-manage them, so each of your soldiers gets one move every turn. You can equip them with different weapons and armor and gain experience in battle to make them the strongest soldiers they can be.

    Mike O'Malley: So it's like in the real army, how they have that slogan “be all you can be”, it's kind of like that?

    Howard Lincoln: That's absolutely right. So here we have a battle from the game and you're just going to click on your guys and send them into battle.

    Mike O'Malley: *messing around with the controls a bit* Okay, I'm gonna send him right up into this guy's face.

    Howard Lincoln: Now you have to be careful, you have to really watch out because in this game, when one of your soldiers gets killed, that's it, he's gone for good. Even if you win the battle, you don't get to revive him.

    Mike O'Malley: Whoa, are you serious? That definitely ramps up the challenge in a game like this.

    Howard Lincoln: Right, and we also think it makes you care a lot more about each soldier in your army, knowing that every battle is for keeps.

    Mike O'Malley: Yeah, you should've told me that before I moved my guy right into the line of fire here. *it shows on the screen Mike's soldier taking damage but surviving with 5 HP* Well, it looks like he survived this time.

    Howard Lincoln: You got lucky. *laughs*

    Mike O'Malley: Well- *he turns to the camera* Remember that when you play Fire Emblem, WATCH YOUR GUYS.

    *Now we see Mike over by the Donkey Kong Country booth, an absolutely huge booth with lots of people crowded around it*

    Mike O'Malley: This is one of the biggest games at this year's show, it's for the Super Nintendo CD, it's Donkey Kong Country and Howard Lincoln from Nintendo is going to tell me all about it.

    *Footage from some of the game's early levels is shown, the pre-rendered graphics and moving backgrounds look quite amazing*

    Mike O'Malley: It certainly looks awesome and this line is really long, but thanks to Howard here I've got a copy of the game all to myself, and I've got the inside scoop on one of the year's biggest games.

    Howard Lincoln: Well, this is Donkey Kong Country and this is the game that we're really pushing for this holiday season. We're working with a company called Rare, who's also responsible for the Battletoads games, and their work on this game has been quite impressive as you can see.

    Mike O'Malley: These graphics, they're just mind-blowing. The characters look great, there's so many things moving in the background, but I gotta ask, is the game good?

    Howard Lincoln: Play it for yourself and see. *he smiles as Mike begins to play the game's first level*

    Mike O'Malley: This is a lot like the Mario games, a lot of running and jumping involved, really fast paced. I have to ask though, I'm Donkey Kong here and isn't he supposed to be a bad guy? I remember playing Donkey Kong in the arcade and he was kidnapping princesses and throwing barrels, and this Donkey Kong seems a lot more fun.

    Howard Lincoln: Well this is actually a different Donkey Kong. It's the grandson of the original Donkey Kong and this one is a lot more relaxed, instead of kidnapping damsels he just hangs out in the forest and eats bananas and throws parties.

    Mike O'Malley: That sounds like my kinda guy.

    Howard Lincoln: These Kremling guys, these alligator looking things, they took Donkey Kong's banana stash and now he's trying to get it back.

    Mike O'Malley: *continues to play* Well, you never want to mess with a monkey's bananas. I've got to say, I'm enjoying this game a lot. Who's this little guy with Donkey Kong, is that his son?

    Howard Lincoln: That's his friend Diddy Kong, they kind of have a big brother little brother thing going on, Diddy hangs out with Donkey Kong and they party together in the jungle, and he helps Donkey Kong get his bananas back. The two of them have different sets of moves, Donkey Kong is the bigger, more powerful character and Diddy's a lot quicker and more acrobatic.

    Mike O'Malley: Yeah, these flips are amazing. I'm having a blast with this game!

    *Mike plays for a little while longer before turning and shaking Howard Lincoln's hand, he seems really impressed with what he's seen.*

    Mike O'Malley: Thanks, that really was a lot of fun.

    Howard Lincoln: I hope everybody watching Nickelodeon gets a chance to play this game, I think they'll have a blast just watching you play it.

    Mike O'Malley: Well it looks really good, I'm sure they will.

    *We next see Mike O'Malley at the Squad Four booth, holding a comic book in his hand.*

    Mike O'Malley: They're giving out comics over here! This is the booth for Squad Four, it's Nintendo's latest original game and this booth looks really busy too, so I'm gonna go over here where we've got this guy giving me a private demo. Your name is?

    Dylan Cuthbert: I'm Dylan Cuthbert with Argonaut Games, we designed Squad Four exclusively for Nintendo.

    Mike O'Malley: Tell us a little bit about Squad Four.

    Dylan Cuthbert: Well, Squad Four is a group of four space adventurers who explore the galaxy in search of adventure, fighting evil and stopping space criminals. It's a little bit like our earlier game Star Fox, but unlike Star Fox, which was a space shooter, these four heroes actually get out of their ships and fight on the ground, they're kind of like interplanetary space soldiers.

    Mike O'Malley: I'm already excited about this game and I haven't even touched a controller yet! So who are these guys in Squad Four?

    Dylan Cuthbert: Well, you've got Shad, he's the leader of the team, very brave and heroic. You've got Marcus, he's a bit of a hothead, very brash, very foolhardy. There's Rebecca, she's calm and collected but with a really fierce heart, and then there's Lane, he's the team computer expert, a bit of a nerd but also really brave. In Squad Four, these four heroes crash-land on a planet and while they're searching for parts to repair their ship they get caught up in a sort of planetary civil war that's taking place, they've got to figure out which side they're on and get off the planet alive.

    *Mike takes the controller and begins playing. The game is in a sort of third-person perspective, you can move in all directions but the action is sort of on rails, with automatic lock-on shooting and branching paths to explore and find secrets.*

    Dylan Cuthbert: This game really focuses a lot on exploration, you'll want to search every nook and cranny for weapons and items that'll help you out against the different enemies you'll be fighting, which include alien life-forms and enemy soldiers.

    *Mike seems to be having some trouble with the controls at first but once he gets used to it he gets better as the footage goes on.*

    Mike O'Malley: I'm not used to playing a game like this, there's a lot going on isn't there?

    Dylan Cuthbert: There is, you'll have times when you're under attack from all sides and you've got to move around quickly to take out the enemy before you get taken out. But there's also places you can kind of relax, natural breaks in the scenery and there are also towns to explore and people to talk to.

    *We see footage of Mike up against an early boss monster, a giant yellow frog, he gets some good hits on it and gets its boss meter down pretty low but it kills him and sends him back to the checkpoint.*

    Mike O'Malley: *he laughs* Well that didn't go so well. *puts the controller down and shakes Dylan's hand* Squad Four looks like a really fun and unique game, I'm gonna go read this comic and try to learn a bit more about the characters, and maybe come back for another go at that frog.

    Dylan Cuthbert: I'll be right over here if you come back, thanks for checking out the game!

    -from the Nickelodeon Video Game Spectacular that aired on Nickelodeon on July 4, 1994

    -

    “Nintendo didn't fail to impress with their offerings at the 1994 Summer CES. We saw a variety of games for both their cartridge and CD systems, and a couple of them stood out as potential rivals to Sonic 3 for Game of the Year.

    Let's start off by making something abundantly clear. Nintendo's current direction is trending toward the Super Nintendo CD and it doesn't seem like a course that's going to be reversed any time soon. Though Nintendo's cartridge games, which included the excellent Japanese import Fire Emblem (actually an adaptation of the third Fire Emblem game, though it's the first to see Western release), Crystalis II, a sequel to the NES classic, and the dark action platformer Blackthorne, were quite impressive, they pale in comparison to the Super Nintendo CD's blockbuster offerings. If you have the Super Nintendo but not the CD peripheral, you WILL be missing out on an increasingly growing number of Nintendo's best games. Sega has offered a budget alternative to Nintendo's pricey peripheral in the form of the impressive Mega Charger, but we do think that those who spring for Nintendo's CD system will get a ton of bang for their buck.

    We were most impressed with Donkey Kong Country, which clearly emerged as the game of the show in the eyes of most of the people who saw and played it. The game features tremendously impressive rendered graphics that give everything, from the characters to the backgrounds, a highly polished 3-D look that blows anything appearing on the Jaguar or 3DO away. The game features eight worlds and more than 50 playable levels, rivaling Super Mario World 2 in terms of sheer game content. While we didn't hear any voice acting from the game, its musical soundtrack is a thing of absolute beauty. We've been told the game will feature more than 40 music tracks across a variety of genres, from pounding hard rock to ancient pirate shanties to epic orchestral pieces, this game is creating a new level of atmosphere in a platformer and if what we saw at CES is any indication, it represents the future of video gaming.

    Speaking of the future of video gaming, Squad Four was the second Nintendo game to truly impress us. While not quite as graphically polished as Donkey Kong Country, it was impressive nonetheless. The 3-D graphics were quite smooth and moved along at a good clip, unlike the atrocious slowdown seen in the less visually impressive Alone In The Dark. Again, Jaguar comparisons are quite appropriate for the level of what we saw in this game. Nintendo also seems to be heavily pushing this game's storyline angle. It features voice acting (and from what we heard, impressive voice acting), numerous cutscenes, and its main four character cast seems highly fleshed out. Nintendo was even handing out comic books to people standing in line, giving a brief insight into the origins of the four characters and how they came to be in this group together. Argonaut Games is clearly picking up with this game where Star Fox left off, and when the rumored Super Squadron X sequel is released for the SNES-CD next year, we'll all be eager to see what they have in store for us next.

    We also REALLY liked what Nintendo showed us with F-Zero CD, the sequel to 1991's SNES launch game. The game moves faster than ever and there are more than 10 playable characters this time around, as well as the addition of a multiplayer mode. Alien vs. Predator, originally intended to be an Atari Jaguar game, will instead hit the SNES-CD, as Rebellion Games, the company behind the game, told us that they would have an easier time developing the game for CD. The graphics are right up there with Squad Four in terms of detail, perhaps even exceeding it, and even though Nintendo isn't getting Doom this year, Alien vs. Predator looks like a damn good consolation prize. Activision's Jewels Of The Realm looks like another fantastic game, it's a colorful adventure platformer that gives you the ability to mix and match special power jewels to enhance your character's abilities. The voice acting, which featured actress Alyson Court from TV's Beetlejuice and X-Men: The Animated Series is top-notch and quite humorous and it looks to be a game that will appeal to all ages when it comes out this August. For those of you into FMV games, Wing Commander and Corpse Killer should appeal to that segment of the SNES-CD's fanbase, while those of you craving military strategy games will love Cannon Fodder, which looks like it didn't miss a step from its excellent Amiga version.”
    -from Electronic Gaming Monthly's August 1994 article summarizing the Summer 1994 CES

    -

    “I'm Howard Lincoln, president of Nintendo of America, and here at Nintendo we've been hard at work making the industry's best games. Whether you own a Super Nintendo CD or you've stuck with our SNES cartridge system, there are hundreds of games to choose from, and we've got hundreds more in store over the next year. Our partnership with Rare has produced a game that I think will be recognized as the best video game yet. Donkey Kong Country will be receiving a massive marketing push leading up to its upcoming November release, and I think that every Nintendo fan will agree that this game was worth the wait. We'll be bundling it with all of our Nintendo CD peripherals and combo sets starting this December, but for those of you who purchase a Nintendo CD now for the Mario World 2 bundle, we'll be including a $10 coupon good for a copy of Donkey Kong Country when it launches this November 21st. We've also continued our partnership with Jim Henson's Muppet studios. Their company did an excellent job on last year's hit game Star Fox, and this December, our new game Muppet World will let SNES-CD owners explore the incredible world of the Muppets for the very first time, with a variety of games and adventures that will let players experience one of the greatest entertainment franchises of all time. Our newest original property Squad Four will be launching in October, and players will be teaming up with a squad of space heroes who have crash landed on a mysterious planet torn apart by war. On the Super Nintendo cartridge system we've got a treasure trove of role-playing games for fans to dive into this fall, including our very own Fire Emblem, a blisteringly difficult strategy game that will require every ounce of ingenuity our players possess! We've got Crystalis II coming out as well, along with Enix's amazing world-traveling adventure Illusion of Gaia, which launches for both our cartridge and CD-ROM based systems this October. It's been an incredible ride for us these past three years, and I just want to thank all the great Nintendo fans out there who have been playing and enjoying all of our Nintendo systems as we head into the second half of 1994. This year we'll be launching our new 'Play It Loud' campaign, showcasing some of the amazing new audio and visual experiences that Nintendo is working on for our newest and latest games. The campaign will begin with the launch of our new Game Boy Pocket device next month and will be heavily featured in our ad campaigns for this fall's biggest games. I do have one final bit of news to report at this time. As some of you might have seen on Entertainment Tonight, our good friend Robin Williams, one of the best actors in the world, mentioned a new Zelda game for the Super Nintendo CD that we plan to release next year. While he spoke a bit sooner than we would've liked him to, we would like to say that yes, we are planning to release a new Zelda game and are indeed hard at work on Link's next amazing adventure, and that it will appear on the Super Nintendo CD sometime next year. While we don't have anything from the game to show at the Summer CES, we are planning a big presentation for the Winter CES in January, so until then, please be patient and remember that Nintendo is always working on the next big thing. Thanks for coming, and we'll see you out on the floor!”
    -Howard Lincoln's keynote speech at the Summer 1994 Consumer Electronics Show

    -

    *Mike O'Malley stands off to the side of the convention floor after his Sega and Nintendo segments.*

    Mike O'Malley: We've seen the big games from Sega, we've seen the big games from Nintendo, and I gotta tell ya, it's way too close to call. Both these companies brought it big time at this year's Consumer Electronics Show, and I had a great time playing both their games! That's what I love about competition, it's just like on Guts, you've got these two big companies pushing each other to be their best and giving it their all and laying it all out there on the floor and we get to sit back and enjoy it all. If I was Mo, scoring this one, I'd give them both 300 points. It's just too bad we can't get Mario and Sonic up there on that Mega Crag to settle it because right now there's just no way to pick a winner! But you know what? I think we're all winners this time. I hope you had fun, now get outside and watch some fireworks! This is Mike O'Malley signing off and telling you to 'play on'!”

    -from the Nickelodeon Video Game Spectacular that aired on Nickelodeon on July 4, 1994

    -

    June 30, 1994

    Ken Kutaragi sat in Norio Ohga's office at Sony headquarters in Tokyo, Japan. The two men were discussing the latest developments between Sony and Nintendo, and Kutaragi was excited over what was in store for the partnership between the two companies.

    “All reports from the CES are that Donkey Kong Country was the game of the show,” said Kutaragi, “and Squad Four didn't fare too badly either. I don't care what people are saying about that Hyper Drive (the European and Japanese name for the Mega Charger) device Sega's got coming, we've got them beat.”

    “I'm confident as well,” Ohga replied, though the look on his face said that he had something else on his mind. Kutaragi was too excited to notice, and he had something else on his mind as well.

    “And did you see what we just finished working on with Rare? The new 3-D fighting game? Killer Instinct, I think it's called. It's launching in arcades in a couple months and I think we can port a really good version of it to the Super Famicom CD.”

    “I have seen it, it's quite impressive,” said Ohga, staring at Kutaragi from across the table. “I've been watching the news on Sega's latest console...the Saturn.”

    Kutaragi nodded in response. The latest reports on the Saturn had been nothing short of amazing. Game footage had started to leak out and the visuals blew away anything the SNES-CD was even remotely capable of. Once it launched in North America sometime next year, it would be very stiff competition even with the new Zelda game coming out.

    “Nintendo's probably going to be asking us about contributing to their follow-up console pretty soon,” said Kutaragi, who'd already heard whispers about Nintendo's next console when he'd visited the company's Kyoto headquarters. “I already have some ideas in mind but I'd like to have Sony's approval this time around...”

    “That...could be a problem,” said Ohga, who was now getting to the point of what he'd called Ken Kutaragi into his office to discuss. “Some of the directors don't like what we've been doing with Nintendo. Our profits haven't been up to their expectations, especially with the losses we continue to take on each peripheral and combination set we sell.”

    “But...we've been raking in record profits on software and music CDs, more than enough to cover the losses,” Kutaragi replied, referring to the age-old strategy of 'giving away the razors to sell the blades'.

    “The three biggest Nintendo games coming this winter are all first-party games,” said Ohga. “Squad Four, Donkey Kong Country, F-Zero, all first-party games. Our cut is much smaller on them, we barely get anything at all. We will sell plenty of copies of the new Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat games, yes, but will it be enough to satisfy everyone in the company? I doubt it will....”

    Kutaragi slumped in his seat. Ohga continued.

    “Right now....it is about 50-50 that we will not be helping Nintendo on their new console. In fact...there are some within the company who wish for us to work on our own device, separate from Nintendo.”

    “Well, that would be.....I have no doubt it'd be successful but without Nintendo's games....we'd have a lot of trouble.”

    Kutaragi knew that Sony had already contracted several big game projects for 1995 and that the company had begun establishing its own separate partnerships for its burgeoning video game production company. But he was doubtful that Sony would have the kind of third-party support that Nintendo could expect to have.

    “If we could convince Square and Konami to produce games for us, we might have a chance at going it alone but....I still think we should stick with Nintendo. And they're going to be asking us about the next console soon.”

    “Then you should start working to convince the members of the board that we need to continue this partnership,” said Ohga, giving Kutaragi a very serious look. “I'm willing to put my trust in you when it comes to this matter, but if you can't convince them we'll have to go another direction and I'll need your cooperation in that, am I understood?”

    “Absolutely sir,” said Kutaragi, nodding his head. “Whatever Sony decides is best, I'm on board.”

    “Good.”

    The two men stood up and Kutaragi graciously bowed to his superior before turning to leave the room. While Sega's immediate future was very clear, Nintendo's, it seemed, was about to become very clouded indeed.
     
    • July 1994 - The Slow Summer Continues

    • RySenkari

    (Before I post today's update, Nivek and I both want to offer thanks to everyone for the love at the Turtledove nominations, we've been nominated in two categories so far and we're very grateful :) Thanks for all the love and support!)

    -

    “In a lot of ways, July 1994 was the 'calm before the storm' in terms of the console wars, the month before a slew of big games including Super Street Fighter II and Jewels Of The Realm were released on the SNES-CD, and a month before the Mega Charger was released for the Genesis. All I know is that it was the month I got an SNES-CD for my 7th birthday.”
    -excerpted from an anonymous blogger relating his experiences with gaming, from the start of the SNES-CD section of the article

    “Though games titled Final Fantasy II and Final Fantasy III have been released in North America, in reality, those games are actually Final Fantasy IV and Final Fantasy V respectively. Contained on this disc, for the first time on Western shores, is the true Final Fantasy II and Final Fantasy III, fully re-mastered for your Super Nintendo CD.

    Final Fantasy VI – Coming Spring 1995”
    -from an insert included with North American copies of Final Fantasy Origins, which included remastered versions of the first three Final Fantasy games

    “Damn, I'm way too good at this!”
    -Major Hazard, one of the many random comments he makes during the game Major Hazard

    -

    (What was the thought process that went into the release of Final Fantasy Origins?)

    Hiranobu Sakaguchi: Originally of course, when the Famicom was popular, we intended to release Final Fantasy II and Final Fantasy III in the West. But by the time that we were working on the localization for those games, the Famicom was fading in popularity and we were too busy with working on Final Fantasy IV and its localization, so it was decided to scrap those projects and retitle IV as Final Fantasy II for the West. With the popularity of role-playing games on the Super Famicom CD console with Western players, particularly Final Fantasy V and Secret of Mana, we decided that we should localize the collection that we were doing for Japan. It had already been released as The Final Fantasy Collection in Japan in December 1993, and since we had a bit of a lull between the release of Secret of Mana and the release of Final Fantasy VI, we decided to ask our North American division to localize this collection as well.

    (Did you worry that there would be some confusion among American players, considering that North America already had a Final Fantasy II and a Final Fantasy III?)

    Hiranobu Sakaguchi: We did our best to make it very clear what these games were. We did not label them on the cover at all, we simply titled the collection “Final Fantasy Origins” and put some text, I believe it said something like “two all new games never released in the West” or something of that nature. (editor's note: The exact text was “Includes two Final Fantasy adventures never before played on Western shores!”) It was only once players bought the collection that we had the insert in the case that explained what these games were. Also in the lead-up to the release of Final Fantasy VI, which was the first game to be correctly labeled in North America, we had plenty of press releases to explain that this was the sixth game and that the other five games were available under other names, so by the time we did the CD remake of IV and released it there in September 1995, people understood that it was actually Final Fantasy II. I believe that people who play our games are quite smart!

    (Did you believe that before or after the release of Final Fantasy V in the West? I know that Squaresoft thought that American gamers couldn't handle a game that was that difficult which is why we almost didn't get it at first.)

    Hiranobu Sakaguchi: I admit that before I learned the sales numbers, I thought the game would do quite poorly in the West, as New Generation barely did enough sales to convince us to allow V to be localized. I was one of the people pushing to localize it but it was a difficult decision. I was so pleased that it did well and I was VERY pleased at how Secret of Mana did! After Secret of Mana did so well I knew that Western gamers were willing to buy quality role-playing games. It was why I had no problem localizing Alcahest for the Super Famicom. I remember, we were in a bit of a panic after Capcom wanted to publish Breath of Fire for themselves, because of that rule requiring Super Famicom releases (editor's note: When the Super Nintendo CD was first released, companies that published games on the Super Nintendo CD were also required to publish at least one game on the Super Nintendo during that same calendar year. If they failed to meet this release quota, they risked having their Super Nintendo CD game fail to be approved, or in the case of canceled SNES releases, risked having to pay a heavy fine to Nintendo. This rule was scrapped starting with the 1995 calendar year.), we had no Super Famicom games scheduled that year but then we realized we could localize Alcahest and we satisfied the requirement with that, and it did decent numbers at least considering what we expected.

    (Did Final Fantasy Origins match your sales expectations? I remember it doing fairly well.)

    Hiranobu Sakaguchi: It didn't sell quite as much as Final Fantasy III did but it made a profit for us, so that satisfied me!

    -excerpted from an interview with Hiranobu Sakaguchi for GameInformer magazine in August 2004

    -

    ESPN National Hockey Night:

    Ed: 7 (quote: “The presentation is this game's strong point, featuring some nice filmed segments with ESPN's Bill Clement. As a hockey video game, it's only average.”)
    Danyon: 7
    Al: 7
    Sushi-X: 7

    Final Fantasy Origins:

    Ed: 8
    Danyon: 8
    Al: 8 (quote: “While the gameplay might have aged a bit, this trilogy of NES role-playing classics gets a nice upgrade with Final Fantasy III quality visuals and CD audio. The third game is definitely the strongest one of the bunch. The best thing about this collection is that for the first time, all five Final Fantasy games are available in America!”)
    Sushi-X: 7

    Liberty Or Death:

    Ed: 7
    Danyon: 6 (quote: “This strategy game by Koei is pretty tough to get into, but it does a great job capturing the feel of a Revolutionary War battle.”)
    Al: 7
    Sushi-X: 7

    Princess Maker:

    Ed: 5
    Danyon: 8
    Al: 6
    Sushi-X: 5 (quote: “What a weird game this is. Part RPG, part life-sim, it was way too girly for me but if you ever wanted to raise up a princess, this is the game to play, I guess.”)

    Total Eclipse:

    Ed: 8 (quote: “The graphics in this space shooter are REALLY hard to beat, it features some of the best visuals of any game on the system, though the gameplay's not quite up to the level of Starfox and it runs a bit slow compared to the one on the 3DO.”)
    Danyon: 6
    Al: 7
    Sushi-X: 8

    Monster Wars:

    Ed: 8
    Danyon: 8 (quote: “Of the two Koei strategy games released this month, this game, which features hordes of vampires, frankensteins, werewolves, mummies, and many more creepy monsters in turn-based combat, is a lot more silly and a lot more fun. George Washington is cool enough but sending a gang of vampires to fight a gang of pumpkin men is just awesome!”)
    Al: 7
    Sushi-X: 7

    Astra:

    Ed: 5
    Danyon: 7
    Al: 6 (quote: “This is a pretty standard RPG featuring a group of typical heroes sent out to fight a deadly dragon. While RPG fans will probably enjoy it, I myself preferred the much more dated and yet much more engrossing Final Fantasy Origins.”)
    Sushi-X: 6

    Logjam:

    Ed: 8 (quote: “This platforming game featuring a plucky lumberjack was a pleasant surprise for me. The variety of levels and obstacles you have to dodge rivals any other action game on the system, though the music could've been a bit better.”)
    Danyon: 6
    Al: 7
    Sushi-X: 6

    Major Hazard:

    Ed: 8
    Danyon: 8
    Al: 9 (quote: “This was my personal game of the month. This top-down action shooter game features a Rambo-like hero with way more guns and a really funny mouth, and the graphics were excellent as well. I'd go to war with Major Hazard any day!”)
    Sushi-X: 8

    Fearleaders:

    Ed: 4
    Danyon: 4
    Al: 6
    Sushi-X: 3 (quote: “This platformer was absolutely as generic as they come and the ability to switch between the five cheerleading heroes on the fly was no help considering there was no difference between the characters except their hairstyles.”)

    -from Electronic Gaming Monthly's reviews of July 1994's SNES-CD games in their August 1994 and September 1994 issues

    -

    Keith Olbermann: And it's been three weeks now since O.J. Simpson brutally murdered his ex-wife Nicole Brown before taking his own life. In those three weeks there have been a number of clarion calls for the NFL to investigate what many are calling an epidemic of domestic violence among the league's players. It has become common knowledge now that Simpson regularly committed domestic violence during the couple's marriage, and the horrific murder has led a number of brave women to step forward and report domestic violence in their own lives. Commissioner Paul Tagliabue has not commented on the issue as of yet but there are growing number of critics who say that the commissioner can't remain silent forever. So far, no suspensions or fines have been issued despite several incidents of domestic violence being reported to the league within the past month.

    Charlie Steiner: Chris Webber is said to be taking his time to get adjusted to his new team the Chicago Bulls, but coach Phil Jackson says that he's looking forward to the challenge of working with someone he calls a “one of a kind talent”. The Chris Webber trade was the biggest story on draft night, as the Bulls sent B.J. Armstrong, Horace Grant, Toni Kukoc, and a king's ransom of draft picks, five in all over the next four years, to the Golden State Warriors in exchange for 1993's number-one pick. The Bulls...

    -from the 11:00 PM broadcast of SportsCenter, July 5, 1994

    -

    Top 5 SNES-CD Games (July 1994)

    Howdy there! It's Jackbob1985 again and this time we're looking at July 1994's crop of SNES-CD games. I played all nine American releases (well, as much as I could stand to....shame on you, Fearleaders) and here's my top five.

    5. Princess Maker

    This was an SNES-CD version of the classic MSX2 life-sim game that allowed you to raise a young girl to become a beautiful princess. It contained some RPG elements but was for the most part a life-sim, similar to games like Harvest Moon. I'm actually surprised this game was localized for North America and it did pretty poorly, selling only around 30,000 copies. The North American version had a LOT of stuff taken out, things like the prostitute ending were obviously scrapped for Western sensibilities but other bits of dialogue and violent scenes were removed to get this game down to an E rating (Nintendo tried marketing it for young girls but it didn't take). Compared to Princess Maker 2 which never saw an official American release, this game was pretty plain but a semi-fun diversion nonetheless. I had to play this one on an emulator because the original disc is going for over $100 on Ebay!

    4. Total Eclipse

    This was a port of a 3DO space shooter game known for outstanding pre-rendered graphics. While the SNES-CD should have been capable of running this game as well as the 3DO did (faster processor), it was a bit slower in framerate because the developers had trouble with the port. Regardless, it's still a great looking and decent playing game and worth checking out if you're a fan of space shooters.

    3. Monster Wars

    This game was the start of one of my favorite Koei franchises, and whoever had the idea to pair classic horror monsters with the RTS genre is a genius. Basically, you're the general of an army and you can pick between a variety of creepy people to use, there's like a Vincent Price guy, an Elvira ripoff, all of them kind of based on various scary character tropes, and you raise up an army of classic monsters and do battle across a variety of stages. There are some hilarious voice samples in the game and the music wasn't bad either. My favorite characters to use were definitely the vampires. They could drain enemies of their life points and they had some slick “magic” attacks at their disposal. You could use witches for magic too but they were glass cannons.

    2. Major Hazard

    Major Hazard is a game that was done by Activision, it's a top down third-person run and gun shooter game (think Duke Nukem meets Zombies Ate My Neighbors) where you play as Major Hazard, a trigger-happy, roided up soldier who commands a squad of hapless soldiers on a number of battlefields. He's as gung-ho as gung-ho can be and you get a variety of awesome weapons and cool items to help you out against endless hordes of enemies across 12 maze-like battlefields. This game was so much fun to play as a kid, it wasn't quite as foul-mouthed as Duke Nukem (Activision wanted to make sure it got a T rating) but the good major still had plenty of attitude, spouting off hilarious one-liners as you gunned down wave after wave of enemies (again, to keep it at a T rating there was no blood). This was actually, if the sales figures I got are right, the best-selling new SNES-CD game for the month of July 1994, barely beating out the #1 game on my list. I still remember the commercials for it and of course the game became a decently popular franchise.

    1. Final Fantasy Origins

    What else could be number one but this awesome collection of the three NES Final Fantasy games? This was the first time American audiences got to experience two of these games (II and III) and Squaresoft did a really good job with the presentation, giving them SNES quality graphics and CD quality sound. Not too much was changed in terms of the gameplay, these games were classic Nintendo Hard, though it was easy to break II in terms of difficulty if you knew what you were doing. They DID add an overworld save feature to all of the games, which especially helped in terms of Final Fantasy III since otherwise you would've had to go back through two whole dungeons if you had been killed by the (VERY difficult) final boss. I remember back then that this was when Squaresoft started using the “true” numbers for the series' games, so II became IV and III became V. It was confusing at the time.

    -posted on the “Jackbob's Video Game Reviews” blog on Wordpress, August 21, 2014

    -

    This month in Nintendo Power, it's the very first issue of our special “Squad Four: Origins” comic series. Before you play the game this fall, join Shad, Marcus, Rebecca, and Lane on their very first mission with this all-new comic drawn by Benimaru Itoh, who also drew last year's Star Fox comic and this year's Super Metroid comic!
    -introduction to the first of 12 installments of Nintendo Power's Squad Four: Origins comic, which ran monthly in the magazine from July 1994 to June 1995

    -

    SNES-CD Power Charts – July 1994

    1. NBA Jam – 24,533
    2. Kid Icarus CD – 21,744
    3. Super Mario World 2 – 17,280
    4. Snatcher – 16,977
    5. Secret Of Mana – 13,164
    6. Gun Warrior – 11,753
    7. Secret Of Monkey Island – 11,424
    8. Castlevania: Rondo Of Blood – 9,056
    9. Super Mario Kart – 8,605
    10. Beavis and Butthead – 7,741
    11. Mortal Kombat – 7,420
    12. Joe And Mac CD – 6,574
    13. Wolfenstein 3D – 5,742
    14. Bumblebee: Zooble's Hive – 5,325
    15. Star Fox – 5,289
    16. Battletoads II – 4,327
    17. Final Fantasy III – 4,060
    18. Super Bases Loaded CD – 3,821
    19. Street Fighter II: Arcade Edition – 3,780
    20. The Next Champion – 3,774

    -

    *Scene shows a boy playing Sonic the Hedgehog 3 on his Genesis*

    Narrator: The Sega Genesis is already the greatest video game console of all time.

    *Scene shows the same boy playing Virtua Racing*

    Narrator: But now the time has arrived.

    *Suddenly the game is yanked from the console. The boy looks around, bewildered.*

    MEGA-CHARGE IT!

    *The Mega Charger is jammed into the Sega Genesis and Sonic 3 is put back on. Footage from the game's Mega Charger enhanced levels is shown. The boy's eyes go wide as he plays. Then Virtua Racing is put on the system and the game's 3-D graphics whiz by with incredible speed.*

    MEGA-CHARGE IT!

    *Footage from more games including Super Street Fighter II, Silpheed, Spider-Man: Maximum Carnage, Streets of Rage 3, and Star Wars Arcade is shown, including the boy's awestruck reactions as he plays.*

    MEGA-CHARGE IT!

    Narrator: It's time to Mega Charge your Genesis with the Sega Mega Charger. Featuring 64 bits of built-in memory, an all new Mega Audio chip for lifelike sounds, and introducing Mega Blast Processing with four times the processing speed. Your Sega Genesis will never be the same.

    *The footage continues as the boy looks more and more excited with every game he plays.*

    MEGA-CHARGE IT!!!

    *Finally the controller drops and the boy is left twitching on the floor. The camera shows us his face, frozen in ecstasy. He mouths the Sega scream.*

    SEGA!

    -an advertisement for the Sega Mega Charger that began running in late July 1994
     
    • August 1994 - Sega's Mega Peripheral

    • RySenkari

    “Damn, the Genesis outsold us again? That makes four months in a row....and if I have to read about another Mega Charger sellout I'm gonna puke.”
    -overheard at Nintendo of America HQ sometime early in August 1994

    “So if we gather more jewels we'll keep getting stronger? That's good to know, but won't the bad guys just keep getting stronger too? It's gonna take more than just pretty rocks to save the kingdom!”
    -Lily (Alyson Court), during level 1-2 of Jewels Of The Realm

    “Welcome to John Madden NFL Football 1995. I'm John Madden.”
    -from the title screen of Madden NFL '95 on the Sega Mega Charger

    “Awww no, that Power Ranger game sucks, get the CD one, the CD one!”
    -overheard at a K-Mart, two boys discussing whether the Genesis Power Ranger game or the Super Nintendo CD Power Ranger game was better. The Genesis wouldn't get a Mega Charger-compatible Power Rangers game until 1995.

    “So in August of 1994, we were just about done with our work on the Saturn for the Genesis launch and the Mega Charger, which we'd contributed some chips to, was selling great, and Tom Kalinske and some of the other Sega execs want to take us to Vegas for a night on the town. Well of course, we accepted, there was no better way to celebrate a job well done. It was one of the best nights I can remember, and it was on that trip to Vegas that I knew we'd chosen the right company to cast our lot with.

    ...at least, you know, at the time.”
    -Ed McCracken, of Silicon Graphics, from an interview with Sega Retro on February 13, 2010

    -

    START. YOUR. ENGINES.

    *Scenes are shown from Virtua Racing on the Mega Charger*

    Narrator: Virtua Racing, the hottest arcade racing experience around is now Mega Charged for your Sega Genesis. With the all-new Mega Charger, the critically acclaimed international hit is now playable in the comfort of your home in full arcade quality.

    *More scenes are shown of the game*

    Narrator: And this....is from the other guys.

    *Scenes are shown from Stunt Race FX on the Super Nintendo...the game is graphically impressive but runs much much slower*

    Narrator: Left in the dust!

    *More scenes are shown from Virtua Racing, the cars whiz by on the screen, the game appears in the whole screen and looks fantastic...then more scenes are shown from Stunt Race FX*

    *Some teenagers come by and look at the Stunt Race FX game on a monitor, laughing at the chugging graphics and cutesy cars*

    Girl: It's...almost kinda cute!

    *The teenagers all laugh and then pile onto a couch to play Virtua Racing, having a blast while the monitor showing Stunt Race FX sparks and sputters like a broken down car*

    Narrator: If you're not Mega Charging, you're roadkill. Virtua Racing on the all new Sega Mega Charger. Nothing's faster.

    SEGA!

    -

    *The scene shows a fancy restaurant with a sign that says “Chez Super Nintendo CD”. A boy is seated at a table, playing Jewels Of The Realm on the Super Nintendo CD.*

    Waiter: And how are you enjoying your advanced graphics and lifelike voices, sir?

    Boy: *nods, looking satisfied* It's pretty good.

    Waiter: Your bill, sir. *hands him a bill, the boy reads it... it says “ONE ARM, ONE LEG”

    Boy: Huh?

    *A scary looking doctor with a chainsaw comes up to the boy, who screams. Cut to some kids at home, playing one of the 3-D stages of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 on the Sega Mega Charger and having a great time.*

    Boy: These 3-D graphics are awesome, and check out Sonic's voice!

    *A clip of Sonic speaking from the Mega Charger version of the game is played*

    Boy 2: Awesome! Hey, don't they have 3-D graphics and voices at that fancy restaurant down the street?

    Boy: Yeah, but I heard they charge an arm and a leg!

    *The boys laugh and keep playing*

    Narrator: Get advanced graphics, lifelike voices, and blazing fast animation with the all new Sega Mega Charger. Available as part of the new Sega Mega Bundle with the Sega Genesis and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 for $129.99. Because you shouldn't have to pay an arm and a leg to get the latest in awesome video game technology.

    *Cut to the boy from the restaurant strapped to a table as the scary doctor prepares to operate.*

    Boy: *lets out the Sega scream*

    SEGA!

    -from a pair of commercials that began running in early August 1994

    -

    August 1, 1994

    On a date advertised as “Mega Monday”, Sega launches the Sega Mega Charger in North America for $49.99. A PAL release would come the very next week, while Japan would get the Mega Charger at the end of the month. The Mega Charger is included in $79.99 bundles with the games Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Virtua Racing, Super Street Fighter II, Lunar: The Silver Star, and Silpheed, and in a $129.99 bundle with the Genesis and Sonic 3. The Mega Charger is an immediate hit, selling out in many stores, with some parents forced to buy the Lunar or Silpheed bundles to get their hands on one (indeed, up to half of the sales of those games may have been attributed to people who bought them just for the Mega Charger bundled with them). The peripheral receives rave reviews from publications like Electronic Gaming Monthly and GamePro, the later of which devotes a cover feature to it in its August 1994 issue. Coming off of four straight months of excellent sales for the Genesis driven by the release of Sonic 3, the Mega Charger continues the momentum, and it would lead to the Genesis outselling the Super Nintendo and CD peripheral for the fifth straight month.

    -

    Sega Mega Charger specs

    The Sega Mega Charger is a device shaped like a Genesis cartridge with a lock-on slot on top where a Genesis game can be placed. It doesn't need its own power source (unlike the 32X OTL), you just stick it into the system like you would any other Genesis cartridge.

    It contains:

    -2 11 Mhz processor chips, one used for 3D graphics acceleration (like the SuperFX chip), the other used for 2D sprite graphics (to bring Genesis games near the Neo-Geo in terms of sprite detail), this effectively brought the total processing power of the Genesis to a smidge under 30 Mhz.
    -8 MB (64 Megabits) of re-writeable memory. Mega Charger enhanced games contain a certain amount of extra content in compressed form. When a game is locked on to the Mega Charger, it decompresses that data and copies it to the re-writeable memory in a process that takes anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 minutes. When a different game is locked on, it erases that data so it can decompress another game. This meant that if you kept playing the same game, you wouldn't have to sit through a decompression sequence every time you booted up, but if you switched games often you might have to do it more often. Considered a mild annoyance but back in 1994 people played individual games longer.
    -128KB of RAM, 96KB of video RAM
    -An advanced sound chip somewhat better than the SPC chip in the SNES, could be used to play enhanced music samples (though not quite as good as the CD audio on the SNES-CD) or voice clips.

    Sega and Silicon Graphics lost money on each one sold, though they made that back through game sales, plus the $399 price tag of the Saturn basically included a hidden “Mega Charger tax” that would also offset the losses from peripheral sales IF the Saturn sold well.

    The majority of Genesis games, around 70% of them, had no Mega Charger-enhanced data, though many of the bigger games would at least be enhanced somewhat by locking in with the device, and a few dozen future Genesis games (including launch titles Lunar and Silpheed, along with the later Virtua Fighter and Doom) would require the peripheral.

    -

    (Looking back at that Mega Charger launch, we noticed that the five games that you chose to have bundles with the Mega Charger initially kind of paralleled Nintendo's launch line-up for the SNES-CD. You both had a Street Fighter game, you both had an RPG, Nintendo had Final Fantasy and you guys had Lunar, you both had a racing game, your Virtua Racing vs. their Mario Kart, you both had a kind of shooter game, they had Sewer Shark, you had Silpheed, and finally both you guys had a sort of family game, you had Sonic 3 and they had Dragon's Lair. Was that deliberate or just a coincidence?)

    Tom Kalinske: *chuckles* It was a coincidence, I mean I didn't even notice that until you told me, but wow, strange world huh? But no, our idea with the Mega Charger bundles was to make sure there was something for everybody. We could've just done a Sonic 3 bundle, but a lot of people already had Sonic 3 and we'd have lost a lot of potential sales if we didn't have options. So instead, we looked at the most promising games, tried to have a variety and then, you know, put the bundles together. Looking back, Nintendo did a pretty good job on that launch. I mean they were always pushing us hard, they were the industry leaders, so a lot of the stuff we did that looked like we were imitating them, we did it just because it made good business sense.

    (Speaking of good business sense, could you explain some of the strategies you had going into the Mega Charger launch, and what difficulties you experienced with everything?)

    Tom Kalinske: Absolutely. The strategy was to accentuate the value of our Mega Charger versus Nintendo's CD. And I remember we had a three-pronged ad campaign with the launch, we ran three different advertisements at the time. The first one was just us promoting the Mega Charger with that “Mega Charge It” ad that got a lot of rave reviews, it was kind of our self-promotion ad. Then we did a pair of attack ads against Nintendo, the first one was kind of an update of our old race car ad that we did when Mario Kart came out and we showed it compared to Sonic. Here, we had their Stunt Race FX game, which ran at a pretty atrocious framerate on their cartridge system, and put it up against our Virtua Racing. Because at the time, our Genesis/Mega Charger bundle was selling for the same price as their cartridge SNES bundle with Mario All-Stars. And we were showing that we were the better value. And then, then we did that famous “arm and a leg” ad that showed how much of a value we were compared to the SNES-CD. The Genesis/Mega Charger combo was half the price of the SNES/CD combo. We could deliver a similar experience for half the price, and we did a whole campaign over the next few months were we kept saying that Nintendo would take your arms and legs if you bought an SNES-CD from them. *laughing* I mean here's the thing. Until 1995, they sold the SNES-CD by itself for $150. And you could get a Genesis AND the Mega Charger AND a game for $130. So, what I wanted to do, and at the time this was considered to be almost impossible, but I wanted to convince parents whose kids owned a Super Nintendo already and were thinking of getting the SNES-CD to say, okay, look, there's like 150 games for that one, and on the Genesis there's over 500 games and counting. And instead of getting the SNES-CD, you could get a Genesis instead. We wanted to take Nintendo families and make them Sega families. At the time, you didn't buy two systems unless you were rich. But if you were going to spend all that money on a Super Nintendo CD, we were saying “hey, why not a Genesis instead?”

    (Did that work?)

    Tom Kalinske: Actually, yes. We got letters from parents who said they had done just such a thing. We would have liked to have gotten more, but that strategy paid off in some ways.

    (Until the Saturn launched at $399.)

    Tom Kalinske: *laughing* Yeah, we had to scrap a really good ad campaign when the Saturn came out.

    (I know that there were a lot of games ready for the Mega Charger launch. You guys had just announced it a few months before. Did third parties have longer to prepare?)

    Tom Kalinske: Well, you have to understand that the Mega Charger began its life as a lock-on cart for Sonic 3. We'd been working on the technology for years. Then Silicon Graphics came on board, right around the time the Super Nintendo was using the Super FX chip, and I asked them if they could work on a little side project for us. I asked, basically, “what's the most chips you can pack into a cart and keep it right around the price of a game?” And they came back a few weeks later with the Mega Charger specs, and then I shopped those around to our third-party partners and said “this is technology that we're going to have in some form in 6-8 months, start planning games around it”. I mean, if I hadn't gotten my way on Project Mars, those Mega Charger games would've just ended up Project Mars games. So it wasn't too big of a risk, and we had plenty of Mega Charger games for that late 1994 release window.

    -excerpted from an interview with Tom Kalinske on 16-Bit Life, January 8, 2012

    -

    Anchor: The new “Mega Charger” from Sega hits store shelves today. The device, the size and price of a Sega Genesis game, allows players to bring arcade-quality graphics into their living rooms. The device has been the subject of a lot of hype for the last few weeks, and when we hit the stores today, we found a lot of unsatisfied shoppers, and not for the reasons you might think.

    *Scenes are shown of shoppers at a local Walmart store*

    Reporter: Sega's Mega Charger is here and it's a hit...much to the chagrin of shoppers looking to buy one.

    Woman: Uh, it was sold out.

    Reporter: That's the story all over Charlotte. In fact, we called eleven local electronics stores, and only one of them had the device left in stock...and by the time we got there, it was sold out too.

    *A scene is shown of another local woman with a Mega Charger box in hand.*

    Woman: I think we got the last one! *she laughs*

    Reporter: The new Sega Mega Charger promises to enhance the graphics and sound of your favorite Genesis video games. Just hook up the device to your favorite game and voila, the game moves faster, 2-D becomes 3-D, and new sound enhancements like spoken lines are added. Advertisements touting the device have been playing for weeks now and it looks like players can't resist Sega's newest toy. We asked some shoppers if the device's cost has been a deterrent but parents agreed, it's a lot more economical than some of the alternatives.

    Woman: Well, we've always been a Sega family because they respect the consumers' budget. I mean, Nintendo wants more than a hundred dollars for their game things, but this is the same cost as a game so we can justify it a lot more.

    *They ask another woman buying the device with two young girls with her.*

    Woman: We always get good deals on Sega stuff. We bought this with the new Sonic game they've been wanting, it's nice to be able to get them both at once and we got a good deal on it.

    Reporter: Sega has promised that there will be enough Mega Charger devices to meet demand, but so far it looks like not everyone is satisfied that they'll meet their end of the bargain.

    Boy: Um, it really stinks that we can't get one today. Why'd they sell out?!

    Anchor: And not only has Sega promised more Mega Charger devices will be available, but more games as well, the popular arcade game Virtua Fighter is planned to hit stores next month, and Sega has announced another Sonic game starring his pal Knuckles will be out some time next year.

    -WSOC-TV news report from August 1, 1994, from the 5:30 PM broadcast

    -

    Aero Fighters:

    Ed: 5
    Danyon: 5 (quote: “Just another run of the mill shooter on the SNES-CD. Graphics are mediocre and the music is repetitive.”)
    Al: 6
    Sushi-X: 6

    Animaniacs:

    Ed: 7.5
    Danyon: 4.5
    Al: 5
    Sushi-X: 6 (quote: “If there's one thing this game excels at, it's the presentation. The graphics are a lot like on the TV show, and I liked the sound clips from the game. It's just too bad playing this game isn't as fun as just watching the show.”)

    Cannon Fodder:

    Ed: 9 (quote: “War has never been so much fun than when you're playing this superb port of the classic Amiga strategy game. A computer classic becomes a home console hit.”)
    Danyon: 9
    Al: 8
    Sushi-X: 8

    Corpse Killer:

    Ed: 4
    Danyon: 7
    Al: 4.5 (quote: “Bad acting and a lack of scares mar this ho-hum FMV dud.”)
    Sushi-X: 4

    Madden 95:

    Ed: 9.5 (quote: “While it lacks the play editor of the Mega Charger version, it excels in everything else, from player animations to life-like presentation. This might just be the best sports game ever made.”)
    Danyon: 8
    Al: 8.5
    Sushi-X: 7

    Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers:

    Ed: 8
    Danyon: 7
    Al: 8
    Sushi-X: 8 (quote: “This fun beat-em-up is enhanced by clips from the show and voice acting when you're traveling through the game's stages. Unlike the 7 stages in the SNES version, this game gives you 12 and a number of unique boss fights.”)

    Sam and Max Hit The Road:

    Ed: 9.5
    Danyon: 9.5
    Al: 9 (quote: “It's a shame this game is probably going to fall through the cracks in a very crowded month because it's a hilarious, heart-warming, and all around fun game and another great computer port.”)
    Sushi-X: 9

    Super Street Fighter II: Arcade Edition:

    Ed: 9
    Danyon: 9
    Al: 9
    Sushi-X: 8 (quote: “I mean, it's fun and all, but this is the third Street Fighter II game and while I'll never get tired of playing Street Fighter, I wish I didn't have to pay for it more than once.”)

    Superman CD:

    Ed: 8
    Danyon: 7 (quote: “Superman flies through ten side-scrolling levels in this all right comic book adaptation. It gets really fun when they mix up the familiar level formula, like when Superman gets to fly up a skyscraper or explore Lex Luthor's maze-like factories.”)
    Al: 7
    Sushi-X: 7

    Solus:

    Ed: 7
    Danyon: 9 (quote: “This is the game that justifies your Super Scope purchase. Nintendo's R+D 1 has outdone itself in this adventure that transforms from a standard first-person arena shooter to a masterful and thrilling adventure game.”)
    Al: 7
    Sushi-X: 6

    Jewels Of The Realm:

    Ed: 9
    Danyon: 8
    Al: 9 (quote: “The charming characters and huge variety of power-ups make this perhaps the best action game I've played since Super Mario World 2.”)
    Sushi-X: 7

    Oops!

    Ed: 3.5
    Danyon: 2
    Al: 2.5
    Sushi-X: 1 (quote: “Oops! is an understatement. This game is one of the worst I've ever played. It makes Night Trap look like Citizen Kane.”)

    Your City:

    Ed: 7 (quote: “This city micro-manager isn't for the faint of heart, it's not nearly as intuitive as SimCity but it makes up for it in its depth and strategy.”)
    Danyon: 4
    Al: 8
    Sushi-X: 4

    -

    Two of the Super Nintendo CD's best original games were released in August 1994. Jewels of the Realm and Solus were outstanding original titles, one of them becoming a major hit and a franchise and the other becoming one of the system's biggest cult classics.

    Jewels of the Realm was an Activision title and was one of the best selling games for the Super Nintendo CD in 1994. It took place in a medieval sort of kingdom and focused on two children, Chris and Lily, whose village is destroyed by the tyrannical wizard king Luxor. The children set out on a massive quest to stop Luxor and save the kingdom before he conquers it all. The game takes the form of a stage-based action game, not so much a platformer but kind of a test of combat skill like the Kirby games. There are 7 levels in all, divided into 4 stages each for a total of 28 stages. You can control either Chris or Lily, who can use a variety of powers to fight enemies and make traversing the stages either. You get your powers from colored gems you collect, you get five slots for gems and different gem combinations allow you to use different powers. There were eight different colors of gems, red, yellow, blue, green, orange, purple, white, and black, and over 60 different powers, depending on which combinations you had. Some powers took two gems, some took three, some took four and some took five. Some single gems could enhance certain powers as well, so if you had four gems and a certain color you could use an enhanced version of that power, if you had one combination of two and another of three you could use two powers at once, etc. It was amazingly fun and on top of that the game had stellar production values, Chris and Lily were voiced by Hadley Kay and Alyson Court respectively. If you remember, they were prolific in Canadian cartoons in the late 80s and early 90s and Alyson Court still voice acts with regularity today. The game sold well upon release and there have been several sequels, the most recent in 2009 with one planned for later this year as well.

    Solus, on the other hand, was a bit more esoteric of a game. A level-based Super Scope rail shooter, the game had 12 levels and one of the best storylines ever seen in an on-rails game. Developed by Nintendo's R+D 1 division as a follow-up to Metal Combat, your character is a man who's been trapped in a mysterious arena by a group of unseen villains and is forced to fight for his life against other similarly trapped combatants. For the first five levels, you have to shoot down hazards and creatures in pursuit of your opponents, who you fight in a series of fast-paced boss matches. However, at the end of the fifth level, your female opponent, named Marie, is able to free the two of you just before you land the finishing blow. The two of you spend the next three stages looking to free other combatants while being pursued by increasingly dangerous waves of enemies, and then spend the last four stages taking the fight to the people who put you in the arena in the first place. While on-rails, the game offers several divergence points to choose your path through the levels, and what you do at those points determines the fate of some of the characters, including Marie's. The game was extremely well received critically but despite Nintendo promoting the game well, sales are still poor. You didn't even need the Super Scope, you could use the Justifier to play but it still sold fairly poorly and no sequel or even spiritual successor has been made since.

    These two excellent games were released amidst a slew of hits in August 1994. One succeeded and thrived and the other survives as a cult classic, but both are a reminder of the creativity inspired by the Super Nintendo CD.

    -excerpted from a Nintendolife.com article on January 28, 2012

    -

    Amiga ports to the Super Nintendo CD were in a lot of ways a mixed bag. While the Super Nintendo CD, in a lot of ways, provided the platform that would give the spotlight to many games that otherwise might not have gotten the mainstream recognition that they did, it also did a lot to undercut the Amiga's success and might have been a catalyst for the platform's eventual decline.

    1994 was a big year when a lot of the Amiga success stories began to be ported to the SNES-CD. The Secret Of Monkey Island was obviously the biggest and one of the best sellers of the year, but there were also games like Cannon Fodder and Sam and Max Hit The Road. I remember when Cannon Fodder came out, Nintendo hyped it quite a bit. The American magazine Nintendo Power even gave it the cover of the August 1994 issue. The game turned out to be a moderate success for them, nothing like Monkey Island but still a success. Sam and Max, of course, well....in retrospect I wish they'd given that game the cover instead. It had everything going for it...lovable characters, great voice acting, an amazing story, awesome gameplay... but instead of being a mega-hit like it should've been, it barely sold 50,000 copies in North America and only broke even because of PAL territory sales. What went wrong? The lack of hype and advertising for the game didn't help. The existence of family games like Power Rangers and Jewels of the Realm made for stiff competition. Even the release of the Sega Mega Charger that month probably harmed it somewhat.

    More Amiga ports would come to the SNES-CD throughout its lifespan. Some of them would do well, others would flop like Sam and Max. While us die-hard Amiga fans will swear up and down that the Super Nintendo CD was no substitute for the Amiga, there's no doubt that for better or worse, it provided a much larger mainstream audience for games that would've otherwise been played by a devoted few.

    -excerpted from an article about Amiga ports at amigahistory.co.uk on December 3, 2010

    -

    Angry Video Game Nerd: You know, for such a shitty game, Nintendo sure hyped this one up. *showing articles from Nintendo Power magazine about the game “Oops!”* This game was made by Sony for Nintendo, it was an FMV game and Nintendo hyping it up so much I think was their way of saying “We're sorry we didn't let you put Night Trap on our system so here, you can make this one instead.” And that's basically what it is, Night Trap for little girls. I mean, even Night Trap was kinda fun! At certain parts. But this game, it's so boring! And the acting is so lousy, I mean, check out this blonde girl here. She's the main character and she's the one who sets all the traps.

    *The girl goes to another room and begins to place a bunch of thumbtacks on the floor.*

    Girl: Are you sure these thumbtacks will stop the bad guys? If they're wearing shoes you might want to have me put down sticky glue instead! Oh well, it's too late now!

    AVGN: And sure enough, here come the bad guys wearing big old shoes. They go right over the thumbtacks and this girl's totally trapped!

    Girl: Oh no! They're gonna get me!

    AVGN: But wait, look, press a button and you'll send Stephanie into the room instead. So the bad guys are grabbing Stephanie now, but she's got a joy buzzer! She's really zappin' em now. You know, joy buzzers really aren't very useful. And why are they called joy buzzers? I mean if you're getting shocked by them you're probably not very joyful! But it's not much of a shock, so what kind of joy is the person shocking you getting either? I tell ya, joy buzzers, that's some fucking false advertising right there.

    *Later on in the review....*

    AVGN: So if you do everything right, and believe me, that's a lot easier to do than in Night Trap, you catch all the bad guys and the cops show up. Hooray, ya win. Not like that's all that big of an accomplishment. I mean, even if you get caught, there are SO many outs that it makes losing practically impossible! In Night Trap there were some real stakes, if you got caught it was game over. Hell, there was even a Congressional hearing about it! Can you imagine if there was a Congressional hearing about this game? I imagine it going something like this.

    *Cuts to AVGN dressed as Bill Clinton*

    AVGN: Well, I think that Oops! is a detriment to the American people and a threat to the free world. It's an awful, awful game, and playing it makes me want to quit being president and go live under a rock. Also, it doesn't have Dana Plato in it. Which means at least I can play it when Hillary's around. What say you, president of Nintendo?

    *Now he's dressed up as Howard Lincoln*

    AVGN: Uh...oops?

    *Now he's dressed normal*

    AVGN: Oops? You're abso-fucking-lutely right oops! This game is a turd, a shitstain on the mostly spotless record of one of the greatest video game consoles of all time. They made it for little kids, but I think the reason they really made it was to get all the little kids to stop playing so they could put another Mortal Kombat game on there! I mean Mortal Kombat II came out the very next month, that can't be a coincidence. If this is what Nintendo is spoon-feeding to the kids who played this console, then it's gonna take a lot more than a fucking airplane to get me to swallow it down, it's gonna take a whole god damn fleet of airplanes while FDR, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and General George S. fucking Patton hold me the fuck down and cram it into my throat, and even then I'm gonna puke it back up onto all of them because this game is a fucking piece of shit! And another thing, the actress who played the little girl is a no-talent hack who-

    *Jennifer Morrison comes up behind the Nerd*

    Jennifer Morrison: You trashing my acting?

    AVGN: Uh....no honey, you were great in this game. I was just telling the viewers that your performance in this game was an Oscar-worthy-

    Morrison: You don't have to bullshit me, I know this game was fucking trash. *smiles and leans in, kissing him on the cheek*

    AVGN: ….well, there you go, if even the star of the game thinks it's trash, then it's REALLY FUCKING TRASH!

    Morrison: *under her breath* But not as trashy as the Angry Video Game Nerd movie... *smirks*

    AVGN: ...huh?

    Morrison: Nothing, nothing. So what's the next game you're gonna do?

    AVGN: Well, since you're the star of Once Upon A Time, how about helping me review some shitty fairy tale games next week?

    Morrison: Well how shitty are we talking about here?

    AVGN: Fairy Tale Friends for the Sega Saturn. *holds it up*

    Morrison: You know, I think I'll take my chances with the Evil Queen....

    AVGN: *now dressed up as Rumplestiltskin* Ah, but we have a deal, dearie! *laughing* One cleaning of the house for one shitty game review!

    Morrison: But you ALWAYS clean the house.

    AVGN: Well then, you owe me a whole SLEW of shitty game reviews! *holds up a bunch of bad fairy tale games* Mwahahahaha!!

    -from AVGN #91, “Oops!”

    (Yes, ITTL the Angry Video Game Nerd is married to actress Jennifer Morrison. It doesn't butterfly too much with his reviews except that his budget is somewhat bigger. I'll share more on how they get together in a future post...)

    -

    SNES-CD Power Charts – August 1994

    1. NBA Jam – 20,286
    2. Kid Icarus CD – 17,988
    3. Super Mario World 2 – 16,586
    4. Secret Of Mana – 14,086
    5. Snatcher – 12,287
    6. Secret Of Monkey Island – 9,065
    7. Gun Warrior – 8,426
    8. Super Mario Kart – 7,844
    9. Castlevania: Rondo Of Blood – 6,953
    10. Mortal Kombat – 6,504
    11. Wolfenstein 3D – 5,183
    12. Star Fox – 4,764
    13. Joe And Mac CD – 4,511
    14. Thrillseeker – 3,967
    15. Beavis And Butthead – 3,504
    16. Final Fantasy III – 3,485
    17. Street Fighter II: Arcade Edition – 3,070
    18. Bumblebee: Zooble's Hive – 2,843
    19. Battletoads II – 2,757
    20. Phaedra's Heart – 2,401

    -

    August 24, 1994

    Howard Lincoln met with Minoru Arakawa at Nintendo of America headquarters on a bright Wednesday morning in Redmond, Washington. The two gentlemen were discussing the latest sales figures...it looked like the Mega Charger was about to power the Genesis to its fifth straight month of topping Nintendo in sales, but there was encouraging news. Super Street Fighter II: Arcade Edition was driving major sales for both the Super Nintendo and the SNES-CD, while Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers had exceeded sales expectations on the CD and Jewels of the Realm had been a major hit at well. SNES-CD sales were seeing an upswing, just not enough to topple the Genesis' lead. Not yet.

    “The latest estimates are that we're going to be trailing Sega until Squad Four is released in the West,” said Arakawa. “The game just released in Japan and it's dominating the charts there, it's the biggest game debut this year.”

    “I expected as much,” Lincoln replied, though the idea of the Super Nintendo spending half a year behind the Genesis in sales was still troubling....and it could be even more than that. “I'm worried we won't pass the Genesis until Donkey Kong Country is released.”

    Donkey Kong Country was, like Super Mario World 2 had been before it, the company's ace in the hole. The game had been generating hype for months and now that it was near completion, the game was being seen in its full glory by both Nintendo employees and game industry journalists. The consensus was that the game was incredible and it topped anything the Mega Charger was even remotely capable of.

    “Then there's the question of the Saturn's release in Japan...” said Arakawa. “The launch lineup is taking shape....they have the Virtua games and a few others including a game called Panzer Dragoon...it is like our Star Fox but....you're riding dragons. Early footage is impressive.”

    “It looks better than Donkey Kong?” asked Lincoln. Arakawa replied with a nod. Of course it looked better...it was on a next generation system. And speaking of which... “Ken Kutaragi called again the other day...it seems some of the people at Sony are really dead set on parting ways with us.”

    Arakawa shook his head....the news was deeply distressing, though he knew that Kutaragi would always be a champion for Nintendo. There was still plenty of time to work with him...but they needed to finalize plans for a next-generation console soon. Sega was already going to get at least a year's head start...that was all they needed.

    “Keep working him,” said Lincoln, patting his friend on the shoulder. “You know he's better than anybody at convincing the Sony brass that they need to see things his way.”

    “I have a feeling it's all going to depend on Donkey Kong,” said Arakawa, forcing himself to smile. “Just like it did 13 years ago.”

    Howard Lincoln let out a chuckle and walked with Minoru Arakawa to the break room, giving his reply as they walked.

    “Some things never change...”
     
    • BONUS - The Nintendo Power Covers Of 1994

    • RySenkari

    Oh yes, right now I'm going to go ahead and post a list of 1994 Nintendo Power covers for TTL:

    January 1994: Mega Man X (as in OTL)
    February 1994: The Secret Of Monkey Island (OTL: Bugs Bunny Rabbit Rampage)
    March 1994: Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 (as in OTL)
    April 1994: Kid Icarus CD (OTL: Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball)
    May 1994: Super Metroid (as in OTL)
    June 1994: Donkey Kong (as in OTL)
    July 1994: Super Street Fighter II (as in OTL)
    August 1994: Cannon Fodder (OTL: Stunt Race FX)
    September 1994: Mortal Kombat II (as in OTL)
    October 1994: Squad Four (OTL: Illusion Of Gaia)
    November 1994: Donkey Kong Country (as in OTL)
    December 1994: F-Zero CD (OTL: Earthworm Jim)
     
    • BONUS - The Cartoons Of 1994

    • RySenkari

    Okay, since there's been so much talk about pop culture and cartoons and TV lately, I'm going to go ahead and give you guys a mini-update on the current state of TV animation.... :) (Thanks to Pyro for the Sonic SatAM info!)

    -

    1994 is well remembered for being the peak of the console wars, but what a lot of people don't know is that it was also the peak for animated TV shows based on video games. There were a lot of these shows in the mid 90s, and 1994 was possibly the biggest year for them in general.


    At the time, of course, the biggest cartoon shows were the two shows based on Sonic the Hedgehog, particularly the Saturday morning cartoon series that featured Sonic and his friends as heroic freedom fighters out to stop the evil Dr. Robotnik. Toward the end of the show's second season, it was struggling in the ratings against the mighty juggernaut, the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. In fact, the show barely got a third season at all! It was later said by one of the show's writers that the show was about 20,000 viewers above the threshold for cancellation when it was green-lighted for a final season of 20 episodes that aired during 1995. It was likely that the runaway success of Sonic the Hedgehog 3, which had been released earlier that year, gave the cartoon the extra bump it needed to get those episodes. The show's survival was by such a narrow margin that Sega knew these episodes would be the last and got plenty of time to wrap up the show's ongoing storyline, which featured the wizard Nagus supplanting Dr. Robotnik as the final villain. It also saw Sally's computer NICOLE transforming back into her original human form, and Sonic and Knuckles (who appeared with nine episodes remaining in the show) briefly fighting for the affections of Princess Sally, creating tension leading up to the epic final showdown with the dark wizard.


    Another show that debuted that fall was the cartoon version of Mega Man, which appeared in syndication and featured characters from the hit NES series of games. Though characters from Mega Man X showed up toward the end of the show's run, budgetary problems put an untimely end to the show in late 1995. 1995 would see the start of a TV show based on the hit game Earthworm Jim, starring Dan Castellanetta as the titular hero. The show appeared on Kids' WB and was a moderate success, lasting two seasons in all. One of the most successful video game based cartoon shows was Where On Earth Is Carmen Sandiego?, based on the hit educational game series. Featuring a superb voice cast including the debut of veteran video game and cartoon voice actress Jennifer Hale and the EGOT-winning entertainer Rita Moreno as Carmen herself, the show was a major hit for FOX Kids which already had hits in shows like Power Rangers and X-Men. The success of the Super Nintendo games bolstered the success of the show, which lasted more than five years before finally ending in late 1999.


    Speaking of Nintendo, the company was juggling a pair of TV show ideas in 1994, based on their hit games for that year's holiday season. They initially intended an animated series based on Squad Four, but the company's creative wing was unable to decide on a suitable premise. Squad Four would later receive a successful 52 episode anime series in 2000, the anime made it Stateside in 2004 on Nickelodeon. Nintendo got closer to having a Donkey Kong Country animated series, the idea was to have a CGI-based series that would begin airing in 1996, but the idea fell through when the Canadian company that Nintendo intended to have make the show instead picked up a traditionally animated series based on Activision's hit Jewels Of The Realm video game franchise. Nintendo also mulled the idea of another Legend Of Zelda series, a more serious show based on their 1995 video game The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina of Dreams, but that idea barely got past the planning stages.


    With all the video game-based animated series being conceived and aired during the mid 90s, it's a surprise that Nickelodeon, which had done a couple of video game specials with Mike O'Malley and had aired Nick Arcade in 1992, never picked up one of these shows for their own network. During the fall of 1994, of course, Nickelodeon was preparing to debut their fifth Nicktoon, Klasky Csupo's “Aaah! Real Monsters!” The network was also finalizing a deal for what would become their sixth Nicktoon, based on a pitch from two writers on another hit Nicktoon “Rocko's Modern Life”. Their new show, about two inventive young boys who get into all kinds of crazy adventures while their older sister tries in vain to tell their mother, would ultimately become one of Nickelodeon's most successful shows.

    -excerpted from the article "1994: Video Games And Beyond", posted on Pop Culture Flashback on January 11, 2013
     
    Last edited:
    • September 1994 - The Battle Continues

    • RySenkari

    (Author's Note: We just recently received a submission for a future game to be included in the timeline and I just want to remind all of our awesome readers that if you have an idea for a video game to include, either an original concept or part of an OTL franchise, feel free to send it our way! Our game line-up is pretty well set through 1995 and most of 1996 but we're still taking suggestions and ideas so PM either one of us if you've got an idea for a game and maybe we'll include it!)

    -

    “Compared to the situation we had in 1993, with all the media controversy and getting dragged up before Congress and all, the release of Mortal Kombat II in 1994 went by with pretty much no fanfare at all. There wasn't even a problem with putting it on the cover of Nintendo Power. So much had changed in just a year, we had games like Snatcher perfoming well and with the T-rated Squad Four coming out the very next month, Nintendo had turned a crossroads. There were still people within the company who thought that we shouldn't be doing everything so fast, but the industry itself was changing and we were just going with the flow.”
    -Howard Lincoln, “The Chase: Sega's 20 Year Struggle To Take Down A Giant”

    “Doing two Contra games at once was quite an ordeal but I think things went really well! It was actually a lot of fun getting to utilize the new tech provided to us by Sega and Nintendo. Our experience with those games cemented the idea that Contra games were really fun to make.”
    -Nobuya Nakazato, director of Contra, speaking with Famitsu in December 1995

    “The World Series might be canceled but in MLBPA Baseball, enhanced by the Sega Mega Charger, you can have your own World Series in the comfort of your own home, with lifelike graphics just like the games on TV!”
    -from a magazine advertisement for the Sega Mega Charger's sports line-up that began appearing in fall 1994

    “Once we saw what Sega was planning to do with its next generation system, and how much success Nintendo was having with its own CD system, we just felt it would be the best thing for our company to back out of the arrangement with Bandai. The time just wasn't right for an Apple video game console.”
    -Steve Jobs, in an interview with Wired magazine, August 2003

    -

    *Al Bundy is just finishing setting up the device on his television as Bud walks into the room.*

    Al: Son, this is a great day for the Bundys. You know why?

    Bud: You finally started washing your socks?

    Al: ….no! The Bundys have a CD player!

    Bud: *looks at the device, his eyes go wide* Dad, that's not just a CD player, it's the best video game console ever made! It plays the newest video games with high-definition graphics and arcade-quality sound! Oh man, I can finally play that new ultra-violent shooter I can't afford to play at the mall!

    Al: Bud, you're not gonna be playing any games on this thing. *holds up a CD* Your dad is going to be using it to listen to the soundtrack to Hondo!

    Bud: But dad, you can't use the best video game machine ever as a CD player!

    Al: I can and I will! Son, do you know how long I've been hiding money from your mother to afford this thing? I had to hide money in places that....well frankly I don't want to talk about!

    Bud: *shudders* How did you even get the people at the store to take your money?

    Al: It's money, Bud. People don't care where it's been. Where do you think they got the term “filthy stinking rich” from? Now unless you want to listen to the soundtrack of the greatest movie ever made, I suggest you go upstairs and read your little girly magazines and play with your joystick.

    Kelly: *leans in from behind the couch* Yeah, I hear Bud's got all the high scores.

    -excerpted from the Married With Children ninth-season premiere, “Super Hondo CD”, on September 4, 1994 (with Katey Sagal's pregnancy butterflied away, the Wanker County arc never took place)

    -

    Ballz 3-D:

    Ed: 7 (quote: “Not a terrible fighting game, and the 3-D graphics are quite good, but the soundtrack could really use some work.”)
    Danyon: 7.5
    Al: 7
    Sushi-X: 6

    Contra IV: Hard Corps:

    Ed: 9
    Danyon: 9
    Al: 8.5
    Sushi-X: 9 (quote: “Branching paths and a whole team of characters to play with make this perhaps the best Contra game to date.”)

    Lethal Enforcers II: Gun Fighters:

    Ed: 6.5
    Danyon: 7 (quote: “Gameplay wise, this Western-themed shooter is an improvement over the first, but it's pretty short.”)
    Al: 7
    Sushi-X: 6.5

    Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City:

    Ed: 7
    Danyon: 4.5
    Al: 5 (quote: “The unforgiving difficulty and lousy play controls take what could've been a decent action game and make it into an unfortunate slog.”)
    Sushi-X: 5.5

    Mortal Kombat II:

    Ed: 8
    Danyon: 8 (quote: “Mortal Kombat is back and it's just as fun and violent as you remember. With several all new characters and excellent background animation, it might be even more fun than the arcade!”)
    Al: 8.5
    Sushi-X: 8.5

    Pitfall CD:

    Ed: 6.5
    Danyon: 5
    Al: 7 (quote: “I wasn't particularly impressed with this CD adaptation of the SNES' Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure. What good are voiced characters and cutscenes if there isn't that good of a story to tell?”)
    Sushi-X: 6.5

    Road Rash:

    Ed: 8.5 (quote: “This arcade-style motorcycle combat game really shines on the SNES-CD. The graphics are a tad choppy compared to the 3DO version, but the soundtrack is really superb, providing an exciting backdrop to the fun racing action.”)
    Danyon: 7.5
    Al: 7.5
    Sushi-X: 7.5

    Samurai Shodown:

    Ed: 9
    Danyon: 9
    Al: 9
    Sushi-X: 9.5 (quote: “Last year's best video game comes to the Super Nintendo CD and it's just as good if not better than the Neo-Geo version, with a couple of new characters added to the mix. This might just be the system's best port ever.”)

    Wing Commander:

    Ed: 8
    Danyon: 6.5
    Al: 6 (quote: “While it's nice to play to play this space combat classic on the SNES-CD, it could have been a better port. The sound quality of the voices is rough and the game has some notable slowdown. For SNES-CD space combat you're better off with Star Fox or even Total Eclipse.”)
    Sushi-X: 6

    Ys IV:

    Ed: 7.5
    Danyon: 8.5 (quote: “The enhancements given to this outstanding RPG on the SNES-CD make it a far cry better than the clunky trilogy port. This one seems like it was made for the SNES-CD from the ground up. No voice acting to be found but this game's excellent graphics and really awesome anime cutscenes are a big plus. This is my RPG of the year so far on the system.”)
    Al: 8
    Sushi-X: 8.5

    Knightstar:

    Ed: 7.5 (quote: “It's not the best RPG, but I thought the voice acting was decent and the graphics were quite good as well. Join Hiroshi on his quest to save his kingdom and you'll have a really good time.”)
    Danyon: 7.5
    Al: 7
    Sushi-X: 7.5

    Snakey Snakington:

    Ed: 4
    Danyon: 3.5
    Al: 2.5 (quote: “Another crap platformer on the SNES-CD. You're better off waiting for Donkey Kong Country.”)
    Sushi-X: 3

    School Daze:

    Ed: 1 (quote: “The acting in this game makes Saved By The Bell look like an Oscar-winning movie. Even at its worst, high school was NEVER as lame as it is in this FMV stinker.”)
    Danyon: 1
    Al: 2.5
    Sushi-X: 2

    My Name Is Silence:

    Ed: 6.5
    Danyon: 9
    Al: 8.5 (quote: “Perhaps the best FMV game on the SNES-CD, this cryptic but addicting thriller puts you in the shoes of a reluctant assassin caught up in a web of international political intrigue. It's almost like getting to play a James Bond movie. Even the acting is really good, which makes this game a must buy for anyone starved for FMV games.”)
    Sushi-X: 6.5

    Hunter:

    Ed: 4.5
    Danyon: 5.5
    Al: 4.5
    Sushi-X: 4 (quote: “This painfully generic run-and-gun shooter features terrible level design and lousy play controls and I'd stay as far away from it as possible.”)

    -from Electronic Gaming Monthly's reviews of September 1994's SNES-CD releases in their October and November 1994 issues

    -

    The Story Of Contra IV

    Contra III: The Alien Wars is hailed as one of the greatest Super Nintendo games of all time. Initially, it was to receive a port to the SNES-CD some time in 1993, but instead, Konami decided to utilize the Super Nintendo CD's technology to produce a new Contra game using ideas already conceived for a potential Genesis installment of the series. This would lead to the development of Contra IV: Hard Corps for the Super Nintendo CD peripheral. The game featured four playable characters and branching storyline paths that allowed the player to earn one of several endings. The multiple ending concept was not new to video games, having been utilized by, among other games, the hit 1993 RPG Secret Of Mana, as well as the space shooter Star Fox, but it added a great deal of replay value and storytelling quality to Contra IV that hadn't yet been seen in the series. Like many other SNES-CD games, it featured voice acting for all four main characters and a number of the villains, as well as proper narration for storyline scenes. It proved to be one of the top selling games of September 1994 for the Super Nintendo CD, outsold only by Mortal Kombat II among new release titles, and the critical reception for the game matched and at times even exceeded that of its acclaimed predecessor.

    The Sega Genesis, on the other hand, received an entirely different Contra game. Called Contra: Probotector, the game starred a pair of freedom fighters, Ken Severn and Ashley Steelgard, seeking to fight off an invasion of killer robots led by a sadistic and hyper-intelligent AI. It differed, however, from such man vs. machine plots as the Terminator film series by teaming the heroes up with benevolent robots and AI programs, putting the two heroes in the middle of a sort of robotic civil war, where they were usually tasked with either protecting or rescuing heroic AIs or scientists that would help provide better weapons or other devices for the heroes. The game featured only one ending but differed in that your choice of character deeply affected how the game would play out in terms of gameplay. Ken was a more brash, run-and-gun type of character with more powerful weapons, but Ashley had a better relationship with the robots and had access to better utility devices to weaken the robots she had to fight. Players could choose between a more action-type game experience with Ken, or a more strategic experience with Ashley. When linked up with the Sega Mega Charger, the game was enhanced with three more stages, bigger (and tougher) bosses, and a limited amount of voice acting. It wasn't quite as well received critically as Hard Corps but was still one of the Genesis' most successful games of the fall of 1994.

    -From the article “Konami: The Untold Story Of The Company's Greatest Games” in the February 1997 issue of GameFan

    -

    (Can you tell me what exactly happened with Victor Ireland around that time?)

    Well, the roots of the end of Sega's relationship with Working Designs probably had roots in the decision to do a Mega Charger port of Lunar: The Silver Star. Looking back, I think it would have been smarter to bring over Lunar 2: Eternal Blue for the Mega Charger instead, because at least there, it was something people hadn't played before. We wanted to give Genesis fans who never had the Sega CD to play this great RPG. We tried to get as much of the original content in the game as possible. We kept most of the animations in. We kept the soundtrack mostly intact in terms of quality. We kept about half the spoken dialogue. But Victor, from the very beginning he hated it. And he's always been really difficult to work with. So when the Genesis port of Lunar failed, and I mean it utterly flopped, we sold less than 30,000 copies... you combine that with the Sega-CD pretty much tanking out around that time and we just couldn't financially justify localizing Lunar 2 for either the Genesis or the Sega CD. And Victor...did not take it well. When I told him that we weren't going to bring Lunar 2 over, he completely went berserk. He swore at me, pointed his finger at me, I mean he used pretty much every obscenity you could think of. And I kept my cool, I stayed professional. I mean he wasn't going to hit me or anything like that, he just kept swearing and when he was done I asked him calmly, “are you done?”, and he replied “yeah, we're done, we're f-ing done” and then he swore at me again and stormed out of my office. And that's how we lost Working Designs. When they popped up a year later working with Nintendo on their big RPG for 1996, I wasn't surprised. I was kind of relieved actually, I was thinking “well, he's your problem now!”.

    -excerpted from an interview with Tom Kalinske on 16-Bit Life, January 8, 2012

    -

    The Sad Tale Of The Bandai Solaris

    When Apple told Bandai that they were backing out of their partnership to make a Macintosh-based next-generation video game console in the fall of 1994, Bandai probably should have just cut its losses and scrapped the entire thing. But the company, flush with money from Power Rangers merchandise and confident that with Nintendo and Sony having yet to reach a deal on their own next-generation console that there was room for another player in the video game market, pressed forward. They ended up making the same mistake that Phillips, Pioneer, Atari, and 3DO had made before them: the combined juggernaut of Nintendo, Sony, and Sega was just too tough of a nut to crack.

    While Bandai was unable to use the Pippin name, they conceived of a new name for the console: Solaris, a name that conjured forth images of the shining sun. With Apple allowing Bandai to retain use of its technology in order to avoid a potential lawsuit for backing out of the deal, Bandai believed that the console, a powerful 66 Mhz system three times faster than the SNES-CD and comparable to Sega's upcoming Saturn, could compete when it launched in the fall of 1995. It launched with an all-new Power Rangers game, as well as a Japan-exclusive game based off the popular Gundam anime series. But with little else in the way of software support, practically nothing from third parties and a difficult user interface, the console flopped hard, selling less than 100,000 copies over its lifespan. Despite the initial failure, Bandai pressed on, pouring millions upon millions of dollars into game development to support what was rapidly becoming a white elephant.

    When the console ultimately failed in late 1996, it plunged the company into a state of near-bankruptcy, saved only by the continued success of its Power Rangers merchandise. In desperation, the company sold its idea for a virtual-pet toy, known as the Tamagotchi, to the toy company Hasbro for just enough money to stay afloat through 1997. The Tamagotchi later became an enormous hit franchise for Hasbro and was said to be the beginning of a nearly two-decade era of success that continues to this very day with franchises such as My Little Pony and the popular Monster High and Ever After High toy lines. Bandai's ultimate liquidation and acquisition in 1998 for a song by, in the ultimate irony, Sega, was born out of its desire to compete in the very same industry that Sega had succeeded in.

    -excerpt from the book “Stupid Is As Stupid Does: The Dumbest Technology Fails Of All Time”, published in 2011

    -

    SNES-CD Power Charts – September 1994

    1. Super Mario World 2 – 17,559
    2. The Simpsons: Virtual Bart – 14,300
    3. NBA Jam – 13,746
    4. Kid Icarus CD – 12,905
    5. Secret Of Mana – 10,478
    6. WWF Raw – 9,421
    7. Snatcher – 8,876
    8. Secret Of Monkey Island – 8,143
    9. The Lion King – 7,468
    10. Super Mario Kart – 7,339
    11. Gun Warrior – 7,253
    12. Fatal Strike – 6,574
    13. Tetris CD – 5,900
    14. Mortal Kombat – 5,887
    15. Castlevania: Rondo Of Blood – 4,956
    16. ClayFighter: Tournament Edition – 4,738
    17. Star Fox – 4,665
    18. Wolfenstein 3D – 3,880
    19. Final Fantasy III – 3,389
    20. Mad Dog II: The Lost Gold – 3,024
     
    • What's Spider-Man Up To?

    • Pyro

    With a thumbs up from the authors of this TL, here is a comic book themed update.

    --

    1994 was the year that defined me a connoisseur of comic books even though I did not realize it at the time. Like most ten-year-olds at the time, I was heavily into video games and between that and my LEGO obsession; I only had enough money to buy an occasional issue of Superman and Spider-Man. One of those issues was the first part of “Power and Responsibility” in Web of Spider-Man #117, which reintroduced Ben Reilly to the Spider-Man canon. Unfortunately, this was a time when Spider-Man appeared in four interconnected titles (Amazing, Spectacular, Web, and Adjectiveless), which was more than what my meager allowance could pay for. I spent most of 1995 and 1996 busting my hump—working various chores and oddjobs to pay for a Sega Saturn just in time for Christmas ’96. Needless to say I learned a valuable lesson about the virtues of hard work and persistence, but missed out on what was likely the most seismic event in comic books that decade.

    The success of The Death and Return of Superman and Knightfall was not lost on the powers that be at Marvel. Both events saw the death (or incapacitation in the case of the latter) and replacement of Superman and Batman, but also increased sales in what was then a hot collectors market. Marvel decided to draw from a relatively obscure storyline from the seventies, or at least obscure to those who were under twenty-five at the time, to shake up the status quo once more: Marvel brought back the Spider-Man clone from Amazing Spider-Man #149. Peter Parker was undergoing something of an identity crisis at the time; the machinations of the Chameleon and the late Harry Osborn (as the second Green Goblin) saw him pushed to the verge of insanity when they inserted robot duplicates of his parents, Richard and Mary Parker, into his life. Combined with Aunt May’s deteriorating health, Peter estranged himself from Mary Jane and withdrew from his life. Aunt May had been speaking with a stranger whose the artists kept hidden on the phone months prior and when said stranger finally appeared on the last page of Web #117, we learned at it was the clone who now went by “Ben Reilly.”

    Power and Responsibility unfolded over six months with Peter headlining Amazing and Web while Ben took over Spectacular and Adjectiveless. Peter’s issues focused on his reconciliation with Mary Jane and the revelation her pregnancy while Ben’s focused of forging a life for himself in New York City. However, the arc climaxed not with an epic battle with a supervillain but the quiet passing of Aunt May in the beautifully written Amazing Spider-Man #400 by J.M. DeMatteis and Mark Bagley. “A Death in the Family” will go down in the annals of comic book history as the most significant issue of Spider-Man since “The Night Gwen Stacy Died” because of Peter’s decision to assume the responsibilities of husband and father, and retire as Spider-Man.

    Superheroes rarely if ever passed on the torch unless they died or sustained heavy injury. Jay Garrick and Alan Scott, the Golden Age Flash and Green Lantern, faded into obscurity in the early fifties; the second Flash, Bally Allen died so that Wally West could become the third in the eighties; and Superman and Batman’s replacements were temporary. Ben Reilly will always be a polarizing figure in the Marvel fandom. Older fans from the sixties to the eighties typically pine for Peter Parker whereas newer fans from the nineties onward accepted Ben Reilly as their Spider-Man. It has not helped that subsequent animated series and movies featured Peter and not Ben, which confuse the readership even further because of the complex continuity behind Ben Reilly,

    The ugly truth was that Marvel had written themselves into a corner with Peter’s marriage to Mary Jane. Writers on the books were never fond of the marriage because Peter’s troubles with his love life were often a central pivot in his storylines where his sense of responsibility as Spider-Man conflicted with any potential romance. Making Ben Reilly the “one true Spider-Man” seemed to be the best idea at the time. Ben Reilly was single and struggling with his professional and personal lives, plus the fact that he did not cultivate relationships with New York’s heroes added an interesting wrinkle to his interactions with the Avengers, X-Men, and Fantastic Four. (I highly suggest you read his crossover with the pre-Onslaught Fantastic Four. His banter with the Human Torch is hilarious.) However, Ben Reilly was and is a satellite character of Peter’s because of his nature as a clone.

    I believe one of the reasons why Ben Reilly has endured so long despite being persona non grata on television and the movies is due to the video games. Spider-Man: Power and Responsibility for the Super Nintendo CD and Sega Genesis (I advise you play it with the Mega Charger), the sequel to Maximum Carnage for the “vanilla” SNES/Genesis, introduced Ben to a whole new audience. Nearly every Spider-Man video game released afterward featured Ben Reilly as Spider-Man, which created a significant contingent of diehard fans. Though former Marvel Editor-in-Chief, Joe Quesada said that he wanted Peter to return as Spider-Man in several interviews, and even joked that he would even sell Peter’s soul to Mephisto to do it. However, nothing came of it—and personally, I am glad that Joe Quesada was not serious when he said that. Imagine all the Ben AND Peter fans that would burn him in effigy if it had actually happened.

    One reason why I believe why Ben Reilly endured as long as he has is because his status of a clone had constantly searching for identity and second-guessing himself. It spoke to many Spidey fans of my generation who came of age in the Ben Reilly era. There was nothing wrong with Peter, but his decision to retire so that he could become a family man was a natural growth of the character. What one needs to remember is that Ben Reilly IS Peter Parker, or rather, a Peter Parker with different life experiences and how is coming into his own as a realized being. The trouble with Superman and Batman is that they have remained static over the decades and that neither Clark Kent or Bruce Wayne will vacate their respective mantles. I would say the status quo is god, but the Grant Morrison and Mark Waid’s “millennium” revamp of the Superman titles proved that wrong (another post for another day.) Marvel prides itself on being more realistic than its distinguished competition, or as realistic as it can get with purple giants devouring planets, and the only way to bring Peter back is to wipe the slate clean with a Crisis-style reboot. Rumors of that persist, especially with a new iteration of Secret Wars on the horizon, but until Marvel gives us confirmation, Ben Reilly is here to stay.

    -from the blog "The Musing Platypus" by B. Ronning, January 3, 2014

    --

    This is my TTL self reminiscing on a (thankfully) shortened Clone Saga, that ended happy. I do not too much else will be butterflied away, at least from the DC side of things. At one point I considered changing the equally-infamous Emerald Twilight story arc, but decided to leave as-is after reading this interview with former GL-scribe Gerard Jones persuaded me otherwise.

    As for other butterflies, I will defer to Nivek and RySenkari but I believe that the 90s animated series will still air of Fox Kids in 1994/95. However, I imagine they may change the second season to shoehorn Ben Reilly in.
     
    • October 1994 - Squad Four Comes In For A Landing

    • RySenkari

    “Right after we started working on the SNES-CD port of Doom, Nintendo gave some of us a tour of their studio, and the game that impressed me most was Squad Four, easily. Yeah, Donkey Kong Country might've had smoother graphics but I absolutely loved what they were doing with Squad Four and it's clear they took some inspiration from Doom with the psuedo 3-D environments and really creative uses of sprites to create depth. It was then that I knew that the SNES-CD was the only system capable of handling the definitive home console port of Doom. It's still one of my favorite games on the system. Hell of a game.”
    -John Carmack, co-founder of Id Software, in an interview with Electronic Gaming Monthly, June 1998

    “But the best Nintendo Power cover art of all time was the October 1994 issue with Squad Four. Benimaru Itoh, the guy who did the Squad Four comic for them, did a great piece of original art that had all four characters on Planet Velna, posed perfectly, there's Shad sitting there looking up at the sky with this hopeful expression, Marcus kinda off to the side looking like a badass, Rebecca with her twin energy swords looking up like Shad is and then Lane's sitting there looking straight up with his hands in his lap like a kid at a playground. The sky is full of stars and it's such a beautiful piece of art, like an old-timey movie poster. When I saw the October 1994 issue of Nintendo Power, I wanted this game. I didn't wanna wait for Christmas, I wanted it right fuckin' now!”
    -The Angry Video Game Nerd, “Nintendo Power Retrospective”

    “My first voice acting role was on the video game Squad Four. We had just finished up with The Party and I was kind of at a crossroads in my career, still really young, about to start doing musicals but I heard about this audition, they needed voices for a video game. I'd always wanted to do voiceover and this was kind of a chance to get my feet wet, so I auditioned and I got it, I was SO surprised because I was 18 and this was my first role ever but Nintendo thought I was the best for the part. It's been 20 great years since. I love doing Rebecca and I hope I can keep voicing her as long as I can do the part!”
    -Deedee Magno Hall, “Q+A with the cast of Steven Universe”, IGN.com, December 22, 2013

    “Yeah, that created some tension between Enix and us, the whole Illusion of Gaia thing. We'd been giving all this hype and promotion to Squad Four and it became apparent that the two games were going to release at about the same time and Enix wasn't happy about us sort of shafting their game in promotions. We'd offered to delay the game until the following spring but they didn't want to compete with Final Fantasy VI. We tried to position the games as sort of counter-programming to each other and also tried to heavily push the SNES cartridge version but that just made the CD version undersell quite badly. Enix blamed us for botching the release and I really don't blame them for doing so, but at the same time they needed to realize that we had a LOT of games coming out that month.”
    -Nintendo executive Peter Main, recalling October 1994's competing releases

    “It's part of the mission we signed up for! If there's people in trouble, we gotta help 'em. It doesn't matter who they are, it's what Squad Four does!”
    -Shad, during Mission 14 of Squad Four

    “Forgive me, Leonardo, but my loyalty to my father trumps anything else. Rest assured, I won't enjoy killing you.”
    -Karai, just before you fight her in TMNT V: Wrath of the Foot

    -

    *Scenes from the opening of Squad Four are shown, we see four young people on a spaceship heading for a crash on a distant planet.*

    Narrator (Don LaFontaine): Four heroes crash-land on a distant world. Cut off from Mission Control, they can only rely on themselves...and each other.

    *More scenes from the game are shown, showcasing the beautiful scenery of the mysterious world the group has crashlanded on. The four main characters can be seen waking up apart from each other.*

    Narrator: Now, you'll need to master the skills of all four heroes if you want to survive. Take these brave space warriors on a journey beyond imagination. Battle dangerous enemies, befriend mysterious strangers, and wield powerful weapons as you fight to stay alive in this space charting adventure.

    *More scenes are shown, Rebecca wields her dual energy blades against some aggressive soldiers, Shad is shooting at monstrous birds in the sky, Marcus rolls to avoid an attack from a two-headed lizard beast, and Lane runs through the forest dodging bolts of lightning from above.*

    Narrator: This amazing story comes to life with hours of real dialogue from dozens of characters and lifelike animations that put you in the center of the story. Will these four brave young souls survive, or will they meet their doom light years from home?

    SQUAD FOUR, from the makers of Star Fox, only for your Super Nintendo CD. For a limited time only, buy a Super Nintendo CD peripheral and receive Squad Four as part of a special bundle pack.

    PLAY IT LOUD.

    -

    October 17, 1994

    Squad Four is released for the Super Nintendo CD in North America. The release is the culmination of a massive marketing campaign involving commercials and magazine ads along with months of coverage leading up to the game's release. The game is the first Nintendo first-party game to receive a Teen rating from the ESRB, though it's on the softer end of that rating scale. The game receives great to excellent reviews upon release from most publications, it's not considered a true classic like Super Mario World 2 or Secret Of Mana, but overall reception is very favorable. Among many reviews, it receives a 36/40 from Famitsu with solid 9s across the board. It very narrowly misses out on a perfect score from GamePro, getting perfect 5s in all categories except Play Control, for which it receives a 4.5. It becomes the third fastest selling Super Nintendo CD game to date, behind only Super Mario World 2 and Mortal Kombat, with nearly a quarter of a million sales in its first week. It receives a special SNES-CD bundle that includes the Squad Four game and the SNES-CD peripheral, though it doesn't replace the very popular Super Mario World 2 bundle, instead becoming a limited-time special edition bundle like Nintendo released for Star Fox during the summer of 1993. The game's release is the beginning of a massive holiday season for Nintendo, just over a month before the release of Donkey Kong Country. It would later come to be known as the start of the “second era” of the Super Nintendo CD, when games truly started to push the capabilities of the peripheral and when the cartridge-based Super Nintendo began to recede into the background. Though the SNES-CD was released in December 1992, it was Squad Four that may truly have kicked off the fourth-and-a-half generation for Nintendo.

    -

    Squad Four: Origins

    From July 1994 – June 1995, Nintendo Power ran a twelve-issue comic in their magazine based on the very first adventure of the main characters of Squad Four. The comic was drawn by Benimaru Itoh, who is also known for his work on the Star Fox and Super Metroid comics (which ran in Nintendo Power IOTL, both comics are also featured ITTL but Star Fox has some significant storyline changes). These are brief summaries of the twelve issues:

    Issue One - “Graduation Day” (July 1994): Introduces Shad, Rebecca, Marcus, and Lane and shows them graduating from Lockstar Academy and being placed into Squad Four together.

    Issue Two - “The Mission” (August 1994): Squad Four is assigned its first mission, but there's already tension between Shad and Marcus.

    Issue Three - “The Price Of Failure” (September 1994): A suspect slips away from the squad because of squabbling between Marcus and Shad. Marcus decides to sneak away from the group and investigate a potential enemy base, while Rebecca follows him.

    Issue Four - “Sneaking Suspicion” (October 1994): While infiltrating the enemy base, Marcus and Rebecca are captured. Shad tries to help Lane become more confident.

    Issue Five - “Within The Fortress” (November 1994): Marcus and Rebecca escape the enemy base while Shad and Lane attempt a rescue. The squad reunites.

    Issue Six - “Where There's A Will...” (December 1994): Rebecca and Lane help Shad and Marcus reconcile just in time to catch a dangerous fugitive.

    Issue Seven - “No Rest For The Weary” (January 1995): The squad is commended for apprehending the criminal, but all of them feel there's more they can do.

    Issue Eight - “Third Time's A Charm” (Febuary 1995): Squad Four takes a big risk in order to find out what their enemy is really planning.

    Issue Nine - “Best Laid Plans” (March 1995): Squad Four's actions cause a crisis at headquarters, putting the group at risk of becoming criminals themselves.

    Issue Ten - “Shad's Gambit” (April 1995): Shad proposes a last-ditch idea to help he and his friends redeem themselves, while Dr. Barris plans his final move.

    Issue Eleven - “The Madness Of Dr. Barris” (May 1995): The mastermind behind the group Squad Four has been investigating unleashes his devastating plans on an unsuspecting Planet Lockstar and our heroes are the only one who can stop it!

    Issue Twelve - “The End Of The Beginning” (June 1995): Squad Four and their allies finally put a stop to Dr. Barris' evil plans. At the end, there's a flash-forward to two years later with Squad Four getting deployed on the mission depicted at the start of the game...

    -

    Squad Four: The Basics

    Squad Four was developed by Argonaut Software as their follow-up to 1993's Star Fox, though unlike Star Fox, the main characters are all human and not the anthropomorphic animals of the Star Fox series. The gameplay is a sort of hybrid of Star Fox, Sin and Punishment, and Jet Force Gemini in terms of gameplay. The game is divided into 26 missions, though unlike Star Fox, which was an arcade-style game that could be played and beaten in a half-hour, Squad Four is much more of an adventure game. The missions are longer and divided into several parts and the game will take a first time player about 10-12 hours to complete. There are three types of gameplay. The first and most common type of gameplay is an on-rails walking section similar to the gameplay of Sin and Punishment, where your character runs and guns at creatures and enemies coming at them. You point your weapon and shoot, though there's also a melee weapon you can use to strike at enemies who get close (somewhat like in Kid Icarus: Uprising). The second type of gameplay is an exploration mode, where your character is given free range of 3-D movement and can wander around an enclosed area. Sometimes this can be part of a wilderness environment or a segment of a temple. Other times it's a town where you can actually talk to people and purchase things. Because of the hardware limitations of the SNES-CD, these are somewhat limited segments, but they're still numerous and nearly every mission has at least one (some have several). Finally, there's all-range combat mode which allows for combat with enemies with 3-D movement. You can get close and use your melee strike (indeed, your projectile weapon is better in the on-rails segments while your melee weapon is better in the 3-D segments most of the time), or you can shoot at enemies. To shoot, you hold down the R button which plants your character's feet in place, you can then use the directional pad to turn in any direction (while holding down R in this mode, your character will automatically lock onto enemies, you can switch the lock-on with the X button). Again, this fixed-movement shooting style is due to the SNES-CD's hardware limitations, later installments of the game allow for full movement while shooting.

    During the game, you have a limited number of lives (you start with 5 and can acquire extra lives through various means). Each mission has several checkpoints, if you die during a mission, you'll return to the checkpoint, but if you lose all your lives you have to start the mission over. Unlike in Starfox, you only have to start at the beginning of your current mission, you automatically save at the end of each mission and you can return to a previous mission to replay it, go for a higher score, or look for power-ups. During a mission, your character can acquire or purchase various upgrades to their weapon or life bar. These upgrades aren't permanent like in an RPG-styled game, but more like the weapon upgrades in Star Fox, you keep them until you get a game over. Each of the four main characters has missions that you are required to use them for, but for some missions (eight in all), you are free to use any of the four playable characters.

    The game features a mix of sprite-based and polygonal graphics. Where things would get overly blocky if presented as polygons (such as human characters or highly detailed monsters), sprites are used, and the environments look rather like those presented in games like Doom. The frame rate is a tad slow when a lot is happening on the screen but for the most part the game is designed to run as smoothly as possible, using graphical tricks wherever possible to make things look as good as they can within the limits of the SNES-CD software. The game features more voice acting than any previous SNES-CD game, with dozens of characters having spoken dialogue (and the main characters having lots of it). Spoken dialogue is particularly featured during important storyline scenes, and at one point, Deedee Magno's character Rebecca even sings a short lullaby to a child character (the directors were directly influenced by Magno's history on the 1990s Mickey Mouse Club show and as part of the band The Party, suggesting the scene for her character). The voice acting is considered to be perhaps the best ever featured in a video game to that point, with Charles Martinet's performance receiving particular praise (up until then he'd only been known for voicing the wacky Mario characters, his performance as the brave young hero Shad was a surprise to many who didn't know his talents). This was also one of the first roles for Michael Reisz and Tom Kenny, the latter of whom was mostly known at the time as a sketch comedian and for voicing Heffer on Rocko's Modern Life.

    The Squad:

    Shad (voiced by Charles Martinet): The leader of the team, a brave and idealistic young man who has very heroic ideals. In the Five Man Band archetype, he'd be The Hero, while in the Four Temperament Ensemble, he'd be Sanguine. His long-range weapon is a pistol while his melee weapon is a long sword.

    Marcus (voiced by Michael Reisz): Also brave and heroic, but somewhat more cyincal than Shad and clashes with him often. Hot-headed at times. In the Five Man Band archetype, he'd be The Lancer, while in the Four Temperament Ensemble, he'd be Choleric. His long range weapon is a shotgun while his melee weapon is a spear.

    Rebecca (voiced by Deedee Magno): A bit more reserved than Shad or Marcus but still a very tough woman who can easily hold her own with them, not a damsel in distress by any means. In the Five Man Band archetype, she'd be The Big Guy, while in the Four Temperament Ensemble, she'd be Phlegmatic. Her long range weapon is a sniper rifle while her melee weapon is a pair of twin energy blades.

    Lane (voiced by Tom Kenny): The team tech-nerd and computer expert, he can be a bit cowardly at times but is just as heroic as the others. In the Five Man Band archetype, he'd be a cross between The Smart Guy and The Chick, while in the Four Temperament Ensemble, he'd be Melancholic. His long-range weapon is a bolt thrower while his melee weapon is a taser.

    The Plot:

    The game starts out with the team en route to a disturbance on a distant planet where space pirates are attempting a coup. However, the ship passes too near a gravitational disturbance, and it crash-lands on the planet of Velna, a rather primitive jungle world. During the crash, the group is forced to eject in separate escape pods, and so, starting with the second mission (the first is a tutorial mission taking place in a combat simulator), you take turns controlling one of the four characters on their own separate paths as they try to survive in the wilderness while meeting the denizens of Planet Velna. During these first missions, you learn that the planet is embroiled in a civil war between two rival factions with grievances that seem equally valid, and that Squad Four finds themselves taking sides. Shad and Lane seem to gravitate toward the more law-and-order Krills, the current rulers of the planet, while Marcus and Rebecca side with the rebel Hadro faction, who seem to be in the right despite their at-times ruthless tactics. About halfway through the game, the four characters re-unite and for a few missions you can choose which one to control. However, later on there's a disaster and the squad is once again separated, for a somewhat briefer time this time around. During this third phase of the game, you learn that the Krills are indeed the faction in the wrong, and that the ruthless tactics of the Hadro are necessary because the Krills have discovered a way of gaining partial immortality by forcing the Hadro to gather mysterious minerals that the Krills use to brainwash and create super-soldiers out of captive Hadro. At the end of Mission 22, the Krills are preparing to subject Shad to this process when it is interrupted by Marcus, Rebecca, and Lane coming to his rescue. The final four missions revolve around the once-again reunited Squad Four as they battle the remaining hostile Krills to save the Planet Velna from oppression. At the end of the game, the liberated Krill survivors and the appreciative Hadros reconcile and the planet Velna knows peace once more. The grateful Velnians give Squad Four a new ship, and the game ends with the squad flying off to complete their true mission.

    -

    Bubsy CD:

    Ed: 6.5
    Danyon: 5
    Al: 5.5 (quote: “This middle of the road platformer is made interesting only by Bubsy's at times irreverent quips.”)
    Sushi-X: 5.5

    Eye Of The Beholder:

    Ed: 7
    Danyon: 7 (quote: “This RPG based on an Advanced Dungeons and Dragons campaign is as hard as they come, but it's nice to have an old-school dungeon crawler appear on the SNES-CD.”)
    Al: 7.5
    Sushi-X: 7

    Firestriker:

    Ed: 8 (quote: “This action game can be quite entertaining and addictive despite its rather simplistic, pinball-like gameplay.”)
    Danyon: 7
    Al: 7
    Sushi-X: 4.5

    Illusion Of Gaia:

    Ed: 8.5
    Danyon: 9
    Al: 8.5
    Sushi-X: 8.5 (quote: “One of the most epic RPGs to come to the Super Nintendo CD, this globe-trotting adventure is a big improvement on the already impressive classic Soul Blazer.”)

    NBA Live 95:

    Ed: 7
    Danyon: 8.5
    Al: 9 (quote: “The NBA Live series takes graphics to the next level with this excellent SNES-CD version of the game that features excellent commentary and detailed player animations.”)
    Sushi-X: 7

    Nightmare Busters:

    Ed: 9 (quote: “As far as run-and-gun games go, this off-the-wall game is a true original, and I had fun with its card-slinging hero for hours on end.”)
    Danyon: 9
    Al: 8.5
    Sushi-X: 8.5

    SimCity 2000:

    Ed: 8
    Danyon: 8.5
    Al: 7.5 (quote: “While not as instantly addictive as the 1991 SNES classic, this is still a worthy follow-up with a lot more options and opportunities to build your perfect city.”)
    Sushi-X: 6.5

    Street Hockey '95:

    Ed: 4
    Danyon: 3.5 (quote: “Compared to NHL '95, this hard hitting arcade-style hockey game should be spending five minutes in the penalty box.”)
    Al: 7
    Sushi-X: 3.5

    Super Adventure Island CD:

    Ed: 8 (quote: “The primitive hero Higgins makes the jump to the SNES-CD in a really fun action game featuring great graphics and a swinging soundtrack.”)
    Danyon: 8
    Al: 7
    Sushi-X: 7

    TMNT V: Wrath Of The Foot

    Ed: 8
    Danyon: 9
    Al: 8
    Sushi-X: 9.5 (quote: “Making me choose between this game and Turtles In Time is like having to pick between my own kids. Can I just say they're both instant classics?”)

    Squad Four:

    Ed: 9
    Danyon: 9
    Al: 8.5 (quote: “While the controls in all-range mode take a bit of time to get used to, it's worth it to experience this game's amazing visuals and good storyline.”)
    Sushi-X: 8

    Slumlord:

    Ed: 6 (quote: “This overly violent brawler where you control a brutal crime boss who roughs up everyone who crosses him is a pretty ho-hum game, it's clear the developers are hoping that shock value is the main selling point.”)
    Danyon: 7.5
    Al: 6.5
    Sushi-X: 7.5

    Dunk Star:

    Ed: 5
    Danyon: 5
    Al: 4.5 (quote: “Lousy play controls and the worst announcer this side of the Jaguar's White Men Can't Jump make me recommend staying far away from this awful basketball game.”)
    Sushi-X: 5

    Real GT Racing:

    Ed: 7.5
    Danyon: 7
    Al: 7.5 (quote: “The graphics and variety of cars in this racing sim make it one of the best racing games available for the SNES-CD. We just wish there were more tracks!”)
    Sushi-X: 5

    -from Electronic Gaming Monthly's reviews of October 1994's SNES-CD games, from the November and December 1994 issues

    -

    Illusion Of Gaia Special CD Offer!

    While you can pick up Illusion of Gaia for the Super Nintendo, complete with a free T-shirt for a limited time, if you have a Super Nintendo CD the game comes with even more excellent bonuses. The special bundle, retailing for $79.99, comes with a t-shirt just like the one in the cartridge edition, a cloth map of the game's world, a CD soundtrack containing selections from the game's score, a special hardcover instruction book/strategy guide with a full walkthrough of the game, AND included on the disc is a port of the Super Nintendo classic Soul Blazer, the predecessor to Illusion of Gaia. We hope all this cool extra stuff encourages you to discover Illusion of Gaia for yourself when it releases in stores this month!

    -a blurb at the end of the Illusion of Gaia article in the October 1994 edition of Nintendo Power

    -

    So what exactly was the deal with Illusion of Gaia?

    It was the last major game that we released as a cross-platform release for the Super Nintendo and the Super Nintendo CD. In fact, it was one of the last major games of ANY kind to receive such a release. At the time, we had a deal with Nintendo where they would publish and promote the game, and we were hoping that this would mean a big boost in sales for us. But then we got stuck in October amidst all kinds of competition. There was TMNT V, there was NBA Live 95, and then there was Nintendo's Squad Four game. And as a result of that, Nintendo kind of buried our game. I know that Nintendo had been planning on Squad Four and working on it for a long time but they could have given our game more of a platform instead of making it an afterthought. It wasn't just that that was our big problem, it was Nintendo's close relationship with Squaresoft which grew even closer during 1995 and especially during that huge year in 1996. Nintendo and Squaresoft were really close and we felt that we were being treated as the red-headed stepchild, so to speak. And this was after our Dragon Warrior games had sold so well for the company.

    Would you say it was Illusion of Gaia that started the problems Nintendo and Enix had with each other in 1995 and beyond, or was it at an earlier or later point?

    It definitely started there. I mean, we still did all right on the SNES cartridge system, but we got buried on CD. Less than 100,000 copies sold, and this was with all the extras we'd packed in to try and encourage people to buy it. After Illusion of Gaia, the prevailing mood started to be that Nintendo didn't appreciate Enix, and that led to the problems that came later on.

    -excerpted from a Gaming.moe interview with Robert Jerauld, former Enix USA producer, November 24, 2014 (OOC: inspired by this OTL interview from November 15 http://gaming.moe/?p=331 )

    -

    And now we have the series' fifth game, “Wrath Of The Foot”. Konami did a fifth Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles beat-em-up game for the arcades in 1993, and this was the first game actually designed from the ground up for the optical home console peripherals. When the Sega CD version got deep-sixed due to declining sales, it became exclusive to the SNES-CD (though the Mega Charger would get a separate Turtles game to make up for it in 1995, we'll be looking at that one next). Wrath Of The Foot, as the title would indicate, focuses on the Foot Ninja, the servants of Shredder, particularly his daughter Karai who plays a BIG role in this game. In fact, for most of it she's the main villain, deploying her seven ninja servants to battle the Turtles throughout the stages. As this game was designed for the CD medium, it's got a good amount of voice acting and much more detailed characters than the previous game, it even has full-motion video cutscenes for certain parts. Of course, those of us who know TMNT lore know that Karai isn't ALL bad and indeed, she even harbors feelings for Leonardo in this game. After a climactic battle with Karai in the next-to-last level, she surrenders to the Turtles and Shredder takes over as the proper villain in the final epic level. The game let you control any of the four Turtles, with a slightly different storyline and dialogue depending on which Turtle you played as (in four-player games, the first player's Turtle would be the storyline focus). The gameplay didn't change, just the dialogue for the most part. Here's where the FUN part comes in: in the SNES-CD version, after beating the game, you could replay it...as Karai! The storyline changed to that of a rebellion against her fellow Foot Ninja, with dialogue focusing on Karai's inner struggle and her fellow ninjas considering her a traitor. During the next-to-last level, Shredder revealed that he had kidnapped and brainwashed Leonardo to fight against you, making for a REALLY fun fight where you actually got to fight Leonardo as a boss. This all led up to the final emotional showdown between Karai and her father and one of the most beautiful endings in the history of the series....indeed, a lot of TMNT fans actually consider Karai's path to be the true path through the game. This game got really good reviews, and though initial sales were disappointing due to having to go up against Squad Four and Donkey Kong Country in its first couple of months, the game showed a lot of legs and is overall considered to be a success for Konami. Sadly though, by the time this game was released the TMNT fad was considered to be winding down, and the SNES-CD didn't see any more Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games. It's a shame, but at least the series went out with a bang!

    -from “TMNT: Turtles In Review”, an article on Kotaku.com posted on July 11, 2012

    -

    SimCity 2000-

    This version of the popular PC classic, released as a sequel to the classic SimCity game featured on both the PC and the Super Nintendo, was somewhat modified from the PC version like the original SimCity to more closely resemble a Nintendo game. Like the SNES game in 1991, this version allowed you to have Bowser wreck your city, and as you achieved different levels of population, a different background song would play for your city. Despite the changes, it still featured the same level of depth and complexity as the original PC game, featuring the addition of water lines, arcologies, and a huge host of other features that made it a far more involved game than the original. It proved to be one of the month's best sellers, trailing only Squad Four and TMNT V: Wrath of The Foot on the October SNES-CD new release sales charts.

    Nightmare Busters-

    One of the system's quirkiest action games, Nightmare Busters almost didn't make it to fruition at all! The company Nichibutsu had originally conceived the game as a Super Nintendo release, but the capabilities of the Super Nintendo CD encouraged them to retool the game from the ground up as a CD release instead, and it was published in October 1994. Despite good reviews for its spooky atmosphere, fun gameplay and tough difficulty, it had trouble finding an audience amidst the slew of great games released for the SNES-CD that month, and sales were middling at best.

    Real GT Racing-

    Though it may seem like an SNES-CD precursor to Gran Turismo, Polyphony actually had nothing to do with this racing game, though it shares that series' proclivity for real cars and lifelike driving. Despite the decent graphics and realistic cars, the track selection featured only a few mostly cookie-cutter racetracks and the racing itself got quite dull after a while of playing. Without the license system and car purchasing that Gran Turismo is known for, there was no variety to spice up this game's pretty visuals and sales and reviews hovered around the mediocre mark.

    Home Improvement-

    Yes, there was a Home Improvement game for the SNES-CD released in October 1994. No, it did not do well.

    -Excerpt from “The SNES-CD Games Of 1994” article on 16-Bit Life, published March 17, 2013

    -

    SNES-CD Power Charts – October 1994

    1. Final Fantasy Origins – 15,960
    2. Super Mario World 2 – 15,894
    3. Secret Of Mana – 11,226
    4. Kid Icarus CD – 10,585
    5. Major Hazard – 8,866
    6. NBA Jam – 8,560
    7. The Simpsons: Virtual Bart – 7,984
    8. Super Mario Kart – 6,314
    9. Secret Of Monkey Island – 6,064
    10. Logjam – 5,766
    11. Snatcher – 5,670
    12. The Lion King – 5,562
    13. WWF Raw – 5,080
    14. Tetris CD – 4,633
    15. Final Fantasy III – 4,571
    16. Gun Warrior – 4,483
    17. Mortal Kombat – 4,372
    18. ESPN National Hockey Night – 3,823
    19. Fatal Strike – 3,690
    20. Monster Wars – 3,447

    -

    November 7, 1994

    Tom Kalinske had seen the preliminary sales reports for the month of October, and for the first time since March, the Super Nintendo had managed to outsell the Genesis. It was only barely, but it was still a sign that Sega had to stay on top of its game if it was going to have any chance of toppling Nintendo. He wasn't surprised that Nintendo had won the month. With a slew of huge releases including the inescapably hyped Squad Four, the Super Nintendo CD's line up easily trumped what Genesis was offering. The next big things to hit the Mega Charger were Doom and Star Wars Arcade, and both of those games were slated for December releases. While the holiday season was up for grabs, it was clear that fall was going to belong to Nintendo.

    But at the moment, he let that bit of bad news fade from his mind. He was already thinking ahead, to the impending release of the Sega Saturn in Japan and, next year, in North America. The Saturn was what it was because Tom Kalinske saw into the future. He was the one who made the call to hook up with Silicon Graphics, and now the Saturn was loaded with the best hardware in the history of console video gaming. He had been the one to recruit the talent that would give the Sega Saturn the best third-party lineup in video game history. He'd even scouted an 18-year-old wunderkind from Iowa to score the soundtrack for one of the Saturn's biggest launch games. Ultima: The Worldly Lord would have its soundtrack created by Jeremy Soule, a brilliant musical genius who'd sent his musical portfolio out to any company that would have him. He'd been rejected by LucasArts and even by Squaresoft (though, not because they already had Nobuo Uematsu on payroll, but that they had no other projects that needed him at the time....their proposition for a game called Secret of Evermore for the Super Nintendo cartridge system was canned when Nintendo decided not to follow through with their SNES cartridge development mandate for 1995). It was Tom Kalinske at Sega who'd given Soule his chance, and when he'd heard that Nintendo had cast Deedee Magno as a voice in Squad Four, he'd exchanged a laugh with one of his colleagues: “They got a Mouseketeer? I went out and got the next Mozart.”

    And there was one more project that was very near and dear to Tom Kalinske's heart. Once again, he was paying a visit to Sonic! Software Planning headquarters, where development was well underway on a little Saturn launch RPG that would be known as MagiQuest. This three-player action RPG was the fulfillment of the promise Tom Kalinske had made his daughter, that Sega would have a game like Secret of Mana. The gameplay, however, was much faster-paced, featuring hack-and-slash like RPG combat performed by its three colorful main characters, brave young girls named after Kalinske's daughters.

    “Well, how's the game look so far?” Kalinske asked, smiling as he patted the game's lead programmer on the shoulder. On the screen, one of the game's beautiful backgrounds was taking shape. The three main characters were traveling through a colorful, circus-like world with lots of large trees and beautiful low-hanging flowers and leaves. When they encountered an enemy, one of the girls blasted it with a powerful burst of fire magic, causing multiple damage numbers to appear, one for each fireball that hit. “Oh, that looks awesome! All the main attacks are spells, right?”

    “That's absolutely right, your main attacks will be magic and we're programming over 100 different spells to use into the game.”

    Kalinske just nodded his head, watching with joy as the game inspired by his daughters played out on the screen. Development was barely halfway done, but already the game looked absolutely amazing and like it would be a blast to play. He spent more than an hour talking with various programmers and developers, all of whom showed great enthusiasm for the game and appreciation for Kalinske's praise.

    “With games like this, we'll blow Nintendo out of the water next year. They can push their Donkey Kong Country all they want, once the Saturn launches next year it's game over.”

    As Kalinske finally left the development office, he was approached by a secretary who told him about a phone call that had come for him at the main desk. He picked up the phone and on the other end was his friend and colleague Shinobu Toyoda.

    “Shinobu, if you're calling to tell me about the SNES-CD sales, I know, I know, we got our asses kicked last month-”

    “It's not that. I just spoke to Nakayama-san about the Saturn...what we'd talked about earlier?”

    “Oh....what did he say?”

    “He said that Silicon Graphics and the board agree that there's no way we're going to be able to sell the Saturn for anything less than 58,000 yen. Any less than that and we'd lose too much money on each one sold.”

    “And that means.....at least $349 in North America.”

    “Probably $399. Maybe more.”

    Kalinske's shoulders slumped. He'd been giving Nintendo hell about the price of the SNES-CD for the past three months now. The latest commercial had two kids wondering what Nintendo could be doing with all of those arms and legs they were collecting from SNES-CD buyers, depicting parodies of Mario and Luigi in a humorous sword-fight with one of them holding an arm and the other holding a leg. As soon as Nintendo found out what the Saturn was going to cost, they'd turn the ad campaign right back on him.

    “Well.....that's a pickle,” said Kalinske, letting out a sigh. “Did you happen to hear anything about what Sony and Nintendo are up to for their next-gen system?”

    “Nothing,” Toyoda replied. “Though I've been hearing through the grapevine that the two companies are having some rather serious disagreements.”

    “Well that's been the news for the past two months, lemme know if you hear something new and we can go out and have a drink to celebrate,” said Kalinske, trying to force a laugh. “I'm gonna head back to the States, we gotta try and figure out a counter-ad for this Donkey Kong game or we're gonna get our asses kicked even worse this month. Hope I can see you there soon.”

    “I hope we get some good news soon.”

    “You and me both, Shinobu...”
     
    • November 1994 - The Prime Primate

    • RySenkari

    “Between Donkey Kong Country, Squad Four, and Alien vs. Predator, it was clear that the Super Nintendo CD completely blew the Mega Charger out of the water from a technical standpoint. For the first few months after the Mega Charger's release, you could kinda make the argument that the two were equal, or close enough that there wasn't a difference between the two. But those three games trumped anything Sega could produce before the Saturn came out and they knew it.”
    -Adam Sessler, from an article on GameInfinity.com, January 23, 2013

    “While Nintendo combs through the video game retirement home for the hero of its latest game, hook up your Genesis and blast your way through hot new games with radical new heroes like Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Earthworm Jim, Akira Yuki, and more!”
    -excerpt from Sega's anti-Donkey Kong Country ad hyping the stars of its Mega Charger games

    “This may be the best looking video game I've ever played. Everything about Donkey Kong Country is polished to a high mirror shine. The graphics are stunning, the music is so good I could sit and listen to it for hours, and the gameplay transcends even the best of the Mario games. It's a feast for your eyes, ears, and hands.”
    -excerpt from Ed Semrad's 9.5/10 review of Donkey Kong Country

    “I don't think we could have made a game that good on our own!”
    -Ken Kutaragi, speaking about Donkey Kong Country in a 1999 interview

    “To be fair, I wasn't following politics all that much back then. When Newt Gingrich and the Republicans swept into Congress in 1994, some of us were upset, some of us were happy, but as far as I was concerned, as long as neither party went after video games again I didn't care who got in there. And by then, aside from an occasional politician saying that video games are too violent in order to score some quick soccer mom brownie points, nobody was really coming after us. The industry had dodged its biggest bullet in the 1993 Congressional hearings. After that it was smooth sailing, after Congress backed off it opened the way to a new age of freedom and creativity in games and all I cared about was being out in front of it and beating our competition. And competition was fierce!”
    -Tom Kalinske, in an October 2008 interview with gamepolitics.com

    “Trouble In Paradise? Nothing can be confirmed, but behind the scenes scuttlebutt says cracks could be forming in Nintendo and Sony's lucrative partnership, and with mum being the word on their next-generation answer to Sega's upcoming Saturn system, could those cracks be the first signs of a genuine rift?”
    -excerpt from Electronic Gaming Monthly's Quartermann column, December 1994

    -

    (Author's Note: This ad is largely as IOTL, with a few minor, butterfly-caused differences along with the TTL changes of course...because why change one of the best video game ads of all time?

    A quick shout-out and thanks to Starwarsfan, who cooked up a nice little video edit version of this ad for us:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUWFweohx-I

    This is the update you've been waiting for, so I hope you enjoy it!
    smile.gif
    )

    *Scenes of planet Earth are shown as a faint jungle drum beat goes off in the background.*

    HE'S COMING.

    *A kangaroo looks up*

    OUT OF HIBERNATION.

    *A monkey jumps between two trees, a herd of zebras run by the screen.*

    IT'S THE BODACIOUS BEAST.

    *More jungle scenes of animals are played between the next few words*

    THE PRIME PRIMATE.

    DONKEY KONG.

    *Scenes from the game are now shown, showcasing the beautiful graphics and variety of levels.*

    INTRODUCING DONKEY KONG COUNTRY.

    *More scenes from the game are shown between each phrase*

    THE FIRST MULTI-LAYER RENDERED VIDEO GAME EVER.

    FEATURING HIS SIDEKICK DIDDY KONG.

    AND OVER 50 STUNNINGLY ANIMATED LEVELS.

    *more scenes*

    WHERE YOU GONNA FIND IT?

    NOT ON SEGA.

    NOT ON MEGA CHARGER ADAPTORS.

    NOT ON PERSONAL COMPUTERS.

    *more scenes*

    IT'S ONLY FOR THE SUPER NINTENDO CD.

    DONKEY KONG COUNTRY.

    JUNGLE FEVER SPREADS.

    NOVEMBER 21

    PLAY IT LOUD

    -one of the commercials for Donkey Kong Country which aired in the United States through most of November and December 1994

    -

    November 21, 1994

    Donkey Kong Country is released for the Super Nintendo CD, and simultaneously as a bundled game with both the stand-alone SNES-CD peripheral and the Playstation Combo Set (along with the Super Mario All-Stars cartridge). The game doesn't quite reach the lofty sales heights of Sonic the Hedgehog 3's first day sales (mostly due to Nintendo not pushing pre-orders nearly as heavily as Sega did) but it still manages to reach nearly a million sales in its first week alone and would easily become the biggest selling game of the holiday season. The game is the biggest single driver of SNES-CD sales ever, even more than Mortal Kombat, and is the primary push for many families to finally purchase the peripheral or even the combo set. Because of the success of Donkey Kong Country, Nintendo would more than double Sega's hardware and peripheral sales in the month of October. The game is released to rave reviews, equally as good as the reviews Sonic the Hedgehog 3 received and in many cases more so. Primary praise for the game goes to its groundbreaking graphics. While fully-rendered graphics are nothing new for the Super Nintendo CD, having been featured in games such as Deadman Sam, the painstakingly animated backgrounds, boss animations, and other technical features make Donkey Kong Country a marvel of its time, surpassing even the best graphics found on nearly all Atari Jaguar games despite the Jaguar's superior hardware. The game even makes the engineers at Silicon Graphics take notice. While the Saturn, due to release in Japan in just two weeks, is capable of far superior visuals, the fact that Donkey Kong Country's graphics surpass those of some of the Saturn's launch lineup is something that surprises Sega brass and third party software developers.

    -

    Donkey Kong Country: The Basics

    Donkey Kong Country is, in terms of gameplay and story, virtually identical to OTL's game. It remains a tricky platformer that takes Donkey Kong and his friend Diddy Kong to a variety of jungle locations in search of Donkey Kong's hoard of bananas, stolen by the evil reptilian Kremlings. However, the game is significantly expanded from OTL's version in terms of content. Instead of the six worlds and 33 levels (40 if boss levels are counted) of the OTL game, the SNES-CD Donkey Kong Country features eight worlds and 52 levels (61 counting boss levels). The worlds are as follows:

    World One: Kongo Jungle (as OTL), the boss is a giant gorilla twice Donkey Kong's size that swings from vine to vine.
    World Two: Monkey Mines (as OTL), one extra level from OTL, the boss is a crazed witch doctor character (think someone like Mola Ram).
    World Three: King K. Rool Park (an amusement park level somewhat like Krazy Kremland from DKC2 OTL), seven levels, the boss is an evil clown.
    World Four: Vine Valley (as OTL), one extra level from OTL, the boss is an evil giant shark.
    World Five: Gorilla Glacier (as OTL), one extra level from OTL, the boss is an evil snowman (like Bleak from DKC3).
    World Six: Kremkroc Industries, Inc. (as OTL), one extra level from OTL, the boss is a giant oil drum (only boss that remains the same as OTL with the exception of the final boss King K. Rool).
    World Seven: Chimp Caverns (as OTL), two extra levels from OTL, the boss is a huge rock/gem monster that shoots lots of projectiles at Donkey Kong and Diddy.
    World Eight: Mt. Konguaea (a giant fiery volcano world), six levels, the boss is a huge fiery dragon with probably the best animation in the whole game and probably the best animation seen to date in a console video game.
    Then the final confrontation with King K. Rool is largely as IOTL.

    The game's graphics feature something that Nintendo and Rare call “multi-layer rendering”, using the increased storage capacity of the CD format and the processing power of the SNES-CD to produce multiple layers of animation at once, particularly for background layers but also for Donkey, Diddy, and enemy characters. It's a subtle but very beautiful effect, producing a level of graphics seen in many OTL PS1 games. The only real drawback to this technique is that levels take a few seconds extra to load when entered from the main world screen. Because of the many deaths that the player is likely to suffer during a level, this might cause frustration. However, there IS an option in the options menu to give the player the choice of whether they want to go back to the level select map or directly back to the level when they die, if the player goes directly back to the level they can avoid these load times. The soundtrack, composed by David Wise, is a beautiful orchestral score featuring all sorts of instruments and even effects like tribal chanting. With over 30 unique music tracks in the game, it features one of the biggest soundtracks on the SNES-CD.

    -

    Alien vs. Predator:

    Ed: 8.5 (quote: “A superb first-person shooter that lets you control a deadly Xenomorph, a fierce Predator, or a human soldier caught in the middle. The graphics are out of this world!”)
    Danyon: 8.5
    Al: 8
    Sushi-X: 8

    Donkey Kong Country:

    Ed: 9.5
    Danyon: 9.5
    Al: 9.5 (quote: “There's really not much else I can say about this game. It's better than Sonic 3 and better than any other game for the Super Nintendo CD. Believe the hype. Donkey Kong Country is fantastic!”)
    Sushi-X: 9.5

    Super Bomberman 2:

    Ed: 9
    Danyon: 9
    Al: 9
    Sushi-X: 9 (quote: “It's the same old Bomberman formula but it's a formula that doesn't get old, especially when you've got three friends over to play.”)

    Koolblocks:

    Ed: 8
    Danyon: 8 (quote: “This fun puzzle game combines elements of games like Tetris with space shooter games to create a fast-paced and super addictive matching game that's easy to pick up and hard to master.”)
    Al: 7.5
    Sushi-X: 8.5

    At Land's End:

    Ed: 4.5
    Danyon: 6
    Al: 5.5 (quote: “Though this adventure game clearly takes inspiration from the Zelda series, it falls apart in so many ways. This deeply flawed game is for serious adventure fans only.”)
    Sushi-X: 3

    Science Fighters:

    Ed: 7
    Danyon: 7.5
    Al: 8.5
    Sushi-X: 7.5 (quote: “I never thought I'd have so much fun making nerds beat the hell out of each other Street Fighter style, but I really did have a blast with this.”)

    Tut's Tomb:

    Ed: 5
    Danyon: 4 (quote: “The good king should've stayed in his tomb rather than starred in this sickeningly sweet platformer with lousy play controls and repetitive music.”)
    Al: 3.5
    Sushi-X: 3.5

    -from Electronic Gaming Monthly's reviews of November 1994's SNES-CD games, from the December 1994 and January 1995 issues

    -

    Behind The Scenes At Capcom: What's Next?

    Capcom has created some of the very best video games of all time. From Street Fighter II to the awesome Mega Man series, you've almost certainly got at least one Capcom game at the top of your all-time favorites, and now the company has graciously offered to let us go behind the scenes and check out some of their latest projects.

    We're starting off with the Blue Bomber himself, Mega Man, who's got two huge games coming out right at the start of next year! First off is Mega Man X2, the sequel to January's excellent SNES re-imagining of the iconic character, Mega Man X. Unlike the first game, this game will appear on both the SNES cartridge system AND the Super Nintendo CD, with the latter game offering exclusive animated cutscenes to go along with the action! Mega Man X2 features eight new Mavericks to fight and eight awesome new abilities for Mega Man X as the hero seeks to stop Sigma once more. Will X's friend Zero, who sacrificed himself at the end of the previous game, be making a return? Capcom refused to say for sure but they did say that Zero would have some role in the upcoming game. Whether that's as a live ally or a deceased spirit like Dr. Light has yet to be seen. Also coming up is a new Mega Man game for the Sega Genesis! Appropriately called Mega Man: Mega World, the game is scheduled for a February release and is said to be a remake of the first three games in the NES series, combined into one incredible adventure! The game is said to feature Mega Charger enhancements that will enable the game to receive a full graphical update and will also enable new abilities for Mega Man. It's good to know that whether you play Nintendo or Sega, you'll have a Mega Man game to look forward to when the next year begins.

    We're also pleased to report that the sequel to Capcom's excellent role-playing game, Breath of Fire, will be released in the United States sometime in 1995. Breath of Fire II is set to be released very soon for the SNES-CD in Japan. The plot features a variety of new characters and some great new dragon abilities as well, and is said to pit its main character Ryu against a corrupt god who rules the world through his all-encompassing worldwide religion. The game's heavy basis on religious themes would likely have made it very difficult to release as a cartridge-based game in North America, but being a CD format game allows for much more mature content and we're excited to experience the game's very intriguing plot when it hits our shores!

    We've been hearing more and more about Capcom's upcoming action game for the SNES-CD. Titled Victory, we got to look at some exclusive new footage of the game that will be released sometime next spring in North America and in January in Japan. It plays somewhat similarly to the old NES Metal Gear games, though with the weapon variety and fast-paced gameplay of a game like Zombies Ate My Neighbors. From what we can tell, the game is heavily story based, with full voice acting and a cast of intriguing characters. It stars a man named Nash Grieves, a soldier who, while fighting in the middle of a war, begins to see very strange, otherworldly things, sightings that become stranger and more frequent as time goes on. These sightings eventually lead Nash to a discovery that will change both his life and the entire world. We were VERY impressed with what we saw and if the footage is any indication, this is going to be one of next year's most talked about games.

    We finally got a quick glimpse at some technical video of a game that Capcom is developing for Sega's new Saturn console. It's said to be a horror game and the graphics are some of the best we've ever seen, far surpassing anything available for the SNES-CD or the Genesis Mega Charger device. Capcom refers to the game only as Project Biohazard, and it looks to be especially frightening and especially violent, but also looks like a lot of fun. We'll try to bring you more on Project Biohazard and all the rest of Capcom's upcoming projects as more information is made available!

    -from the December 1994 issue of GamePro magazine

    -

    “Alien vs. Predator is definitely the project that we're most proud of out of everything we've done. The decision to stop development on the Atari Jaguar version and bring all of our work to the Super Nintendo CD wasn't one that we took lightly. On the surface, the Jaguar was the more powerful platform, but the difficulty in programming for it caused us numerous headaches, while Sony's offer to assist us with development of the game was a big factor in our decision. Ultimately, with Sony's help we were able to do pretty much everything we wanted to do on the Jaguar on the Super Nintendo CD, and the game came out looking and playing fantastic.”
    -Andrew Whittaker of Rebellion Games, discussing the Super Nintendo CD's Alien vs. Predator with Nintendo Power in the February 1996 issue

    “You know, considering how well the game sold, I don't think I could ask for much more. I mean, obviously coming out the week after Donkey Kong Country hurt us initially. We knew that coming in. But holiday sales were huge and we sold way more copies of the game than we ever would've on the Atari Jaguar. I think we provided a nice alternative, a more grown-up game that people could play when their kids were tired of playing Donkey Kong. It was also a time that first-person shooters were really coming into vogue on the system, so that was another huge plus. We beat Doom to market by almost nine months!”
    -Mike Beaton of Rebellion Games, discussing the Super Nintendo CD's Alien vs. Predator in the October 2008 issue of GameInformer

    -

    Super Bomberman 2
    The sequel to 1993's hit Super Bomberman CD hits both the SNES and the SNES-CD, but if you want the best game, the CD's the best way to go. While the levels and gameplay are pretty much the same, the SNES-CD version features enhanced graphics and gives voices to each of the Five Dastardly Bombers, which is a nice little addition that gives some real character to each one.

    Graphics: 4.5
    Sound: 5.0
    Play Control: 4.5
    FunFactor: 5.0
    Challenge: Intermediate

    Science Fighters
    One of the quirkiest fighting games we've EVER played, Science Fighters takes ten scientists, including a chemist, a biologist, a MARINE biologist, an astrophysicist, and others, and pits them against one another in classic 2-D fighting action. The special attacks range from merely quirky to absolutely hilarious and each character, from Quaker Bob, the earthquake-generating geologist, to Tessa, the cute quantum physicist, has their own variety of moves and strategies to use. If you're into science or just want an alternative to the bloody action of Mortal Kombat, then Science Fighters is definitely for you.

    Graphics: 4.0
    Sound: 4.5
    Play Control: 4.0
    FunFactor: 5.0
    Challenge: Intermediate

    -excerpted from reviews of Super Bomberman 2 and Science Fighters in the December 1994 issue of GamePro

    -

    Spaceworld 1994 – New Zelda, New Mario, Next-Gen No-Show?

    It's a rare Shoshinkai where Nintendo isn't launching a new piece of hardware, but that was the case here at Spaceworld 1994. While some expected Nintendo and Sony to be announcing their next gen SNES-CD successor, especially in the wake of the impending Saturn release from Sega, we didn't even get an inkling of such news here. It wasn't a complete disappointment though, as we got lots and lots of news on upcoming games, including new installments from both of Nintendo's primary franchises. First up, lots and LOTS of info on the new Zelda game, set to launch here in Japan sometime in the spring. Titled The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina of Dreams, the game is set to be a sequel to both A Link To The Past and Link's Awakening, combining elements from both games in what is said to be Link's biggest journey ever. Link returns to Hyrule, and indeed, the world we saw was pretty much identical to LttP's Light World with a few new areas added in...but we did see video footage of an entirely new world that becomes accessible sometime during the game. The graphics were superb, it's still the familiar top-down Zelda we all know and love, but Link and the enemy characters had a lot more detail to them and the entire world looked completely enhanced, with more color and detail everywhere. The game is shaping up to be an incredible one and I'm sure we'll hear more about it in the coming months leading up to its release. Nintendo also announced the long-awaited Super Mario World 3, the latest game in the classic Mario Bros. series. This game had a whole new perspective, with a pseudo 3-D Mario exploring what appeared to be a series of isometrically-based levels. Though it looks like the same classic platforming gameplay of previous Mario games, this new perspective gave everything a fresh new appearance and I wish we could have seen more. It's likely that Nintendo will be showing off even more of this game at the Winter 1995 CES coming up in a couple months.

    I gotta say, Donkey Kong Country was everywhere at this thing. As of the time of this writing the game has yet to release here in Japan and people were crowding around booths to play, the only booths more crowded than the DKC booths were the booths for Ocarina of Dreams and for Final Fantasy VI. Speaking of THAT game, which launches in Japan next month, Final Fantasy VI is shaping up to be fantastic as well. The game debuts a new, highly-detailed graphical style for the series. It's strictly 2-D but character sprites are very detailed and the enemies in battle even have some rudimentary animations, a first for the Final Fantasy series and one that gives everything a beautiful look, like something out of an animated storybook. The game centers around a girl named Tina who has mysterious magical powers and is being exploited by an evil empire when she is rescued by a bandanna-wearing rogue from the rebellion seeking to overthrow the empire's oppression. The game has the familiar Moogles and chocobos that have become a trademark for the series, and also features a wonderful fully-orchestrated and CD-audio enhanced soundtrack. But Final Fantasy VI wasn't the only RPG at the show. We also got a glimpse of Telenet Japan's Tale Phantasia, and as good as Final Fantasy VI looked, I have to say that Phantasia looked even better. Not only that, but the game features full voice acting and a wonderfully fun interactive battle system where you control character movement and attack timing. Telenet Japan's clearly been developing this game for a LONG time, and while Squaresoft is getting all the hype for the latest Final Fantasy, I think this is the game Nintendo really wants to push. No word yet on a United States release for Tale Phantasia but a Japanese release is scheduled for summer.

    Nintendo made a point of emphasizing how pretty a lot of their SNES-CD games are, and I was impressed by the 3-D capabilities on display in games like Battle Arena Toshinden, this one a fighter published by Nintendo's hardware partner Sony. It looks tremendously good, better than any previous fighting game on the system, and the playable demo showed the game running at quite a good framerate. It launches on New Year's Day in Japan, so it may already be out here by the time you read this, and it has been scheduled for a Western release sometime in 1995. We saw plenty of other games here, such as Lucienne's Quest, Super Punch-Out CD, Super Squadron X: Critical Dawn, and Double Dragon: Triple Trouble. The one thing we didn't see too many of...cartridge-based Super Nintendo games. With the exception of a couple games like Mega Man X2, SNES cartridge games were almost as much of a no-show as Nintendo's SNES-CD successor. It's clear that the SNES-CD is both Nintendo's present AND its future right now, and though it pales in comparison to the Saturn from a technical standpoint, it's still got an incredibly bright future as demonstrated by the wealth of games on display here at Shoshinkai.

    -Excerpted from an article in the January 1995 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly, written by Peter Molyneux

    -

    SNES-CD Power Charts: November 1994

    1. Super Street Fighter II: Arcade Edition – 27,763
    2. Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers – 20,886
    3. Jewels Of The Realm – 18,294
    4. Super Mario World 2 – 17,168
    5. Final Fantasy Origins – 11,562
    6. Cannon Fodder – 10,847
    7. Superman CD – 9,607
    8. Secret Of Mana – 9,508
    9. Madden 95 – 8,874
    10. Kid Icarus CD – 8,065
    11. Sam And Max Hit The Road – 7,753
    12. NBA Jam – 6,950
    13. Corpse Killer – 6,375
    14. Major Hazard – 6,227
    15. The Simpsons: Virtual Bart – 5,768
    16. Oops! - 5,608
    17. Solus – 5,370
    18. Super Mario Kart – 5,066
    19. Secret Of Monkey Island – 4,784
    20. The Lion King – 4,658

    -

    December 6, 1994

    The Sega Saturn is launched in Japan with five launch games: Virtua Fighter, Clockwork Knight, Mahjong Goku Tenjiku, TAMA, and Wan Chai Connection. Despite the small launch lineup, and despite the high 48,200 yen price tag, initial sales are decent due to the success of Virtua Fighter. At Sega of America headquarters, Tom Kalinske follows news of the Japanese Saturn launch. He knows that if the American launch is to be successful, he's going to need many more launch games to bolster the system's success, especially considering Nintendo's robust Space World lineup.

    “New Mario...new Zelda...Nintendo's going balls to the wall next year. They're already crushing us in sales thanks to Donkey Kong, no way we're winning the holiday. We need the Sega Saturn to be successful if we're going to beat Nintendo.”

    The one solace that Tom Kalinske had was that Nintendo and Sony still hadn't hashed out a deal on the SNES-CD's successor. Nintendo almost never held Space World without a new system to show, but this year they'd done it. Were they getting desperate? Or were they just that confident in their line-up of games?

    Or were they waiting for the big show?

    Not the Consumer Electronics Show, which, despite its importance to the tech industry, had seemed to treat video game companies like second class citizens during most of its lifespan. Ironically, had the Super Nintendo CD not been released and raised the profile of the game industry to the point where it had managed to eke out a modicum of respect, Sega would have likely pulled out of the CES before 1994. But even with the CES treating game companies a bit better, there was still somewhat of a need for the game industry to have its own trade show, where it could make its own headlines. With the founding of the International Digital Software Association, the game industry would have its own show. It was scheduled for May 1995 of that year, and would provide Sega with the perfect platform to hype the impending North American launch of the Sega Saturn.

    “And also,” Kalinske thought, “would give Nintendo and Sony a chance to hype THEIR new machine...if they even had one.”

    The prevailing rumors, growing in volume, were that Nintendo and Sony were at odds with one another...that the SNES-CD's successor would not be a Nintendo and Sony collaboration. Of course, it was only a rumor...but one that Tom Kalinske desperately hoped was true.

    Because even with the success of the Mega Charger, there was a growing terrible feeling within Tom Kalinske that the Genesis' days were numbered.

    -

    At that exact moment, Ken Kutaragi was in a conference room at Sony headquarters with Norio Ohga and Sony's board of directors. They had all gotten news of the initial sales success of Donkey Kong Country. The game was a hit, bordering on a phenomenon. The technological achievements of the game justified everything that Ken Kutaragi had put his heart and soul into from the day he'd started working with Nintendo.

    “Our collaboration with Nintendo has been...a lucrative one,” said one of the directors, though his face remained stern as he looked across the table. “Troublesome, at times, but ultimately profitable. It has influenced in many ways the direction of this company.”

    “While we're not all in agreement on this issue, the majority of us believe that to continue the partnership with Nintendo would be a....good decision.”

    Kutaragi's heart began to beat faster and faster, though he dared not show the growing joy that was filling it up. He remained as stoic as the directors as they continued to speak.

    “We do have....several conditions, that would need to be fulfilled in order to maintain our partnership,” the first director continued. “Conditions that would not be difficult for Nintendo to meet, conditions that would greatly enhance the profitability of creating a new video game device in partnership with them. We ultimately seek more recognition and more profit potential for our products. If these conditions are met, we hope development on a new device with Nintendo would begin immediately.”

    “If they are...not met?” asked Ohga, looking at the director and then back at Kutaragi.

    “We are prepared to create a video game device on our own, without any input from Nintendo,” said another director. “Kutaragi, you are prepared to do so as well?”

    “Of course,” said Kutaragi with a nod. “But...I'm sure Nintendo would be happy to fulfill any conditions the board of directors sees fit to set forth.”

    “We are sure as well,” continued the director with a slight nod of his head. “Thank you all for meeting here today. Kutaragi, I trust you'll let Nintendo know of our conditions as soon as possible?”

    Kutaragi nodded in reply. He had a feeling that Sony wouldn't demand much, but any demands would be very difficult to make Nintendo's president Hiroshi Yamauchi acquiesce to. Still, if it had been possible to make the Super Nintendo CD a reality even with all the drama that had arisen around that little video game device, he knew that it couldn't be too much of a stretch for the next console.

    “The tough part is over,” said Norio Ohga as the two men left the room together, placing his hand on Kutaragi's shoulder and allowing a hint of a smile to cross his lips. “You did it.”

    “We'll see....” Kutaragi replied with a nervous laugh.
     
    • December 1994 - Another Big Holiday For The Big N

    • RySenkari

    “As big of a holiday season as 1993 was for us, 1994 was even bigger. We avoided the shortages of 1993 by shipping a lot more units, and we finished second in sales that year to, I believe, only Power Rangers. I never doubted for a moment that Donkey Kong Country would be our biggest blockbuster game ever, and the success of that game absolutely justified the decision to make it exclusively on CD.”
    -Howard Lincoln

    “We came back down to Earth, I think, at the end of 1994. Did we sell a lot of Genesis systems and Mega Chargers? Sure. But just like in 1993, Nintendo creamed us. We were going to end 1994 in the same place we ended 1993. But all things considered...that kind of felt like a win.”
    -Tom Kalinske

    “This holiday season, pick up Star Wars: X-Wing on Super Nintendo CD, Super Return Of The Jedi on the Super Nintendo cartridge system, or Star Wars Arcade on the Sega Mega Charger. Because whatever you're playing on, the Force will always be with you.”
    -from a commercial aired during the 1994 holiday season, advertising that year's selection of Star Wars games

    “The technology available on the Super Nintendo CD really inspired a lot of us during the time that we were developing Rayman. It was conceived for the system right from the start but as we realized more and more what it could do for us from a development standpoint, we kept getting ideas and not just new ideas for Rayman.”
    -Ubisoft's Michel Ancel in the June 2006 issue of GameInformer

    “This game is the most insidiously devilish thing I've ever seen. It's spawned from Satan in the pits of Hell!”
    -Jerry Falwell in a December 20, 1994 sermon condemning the SNES-CD game Shin Megami Tensei, a game that would have spawned significantly more controversy had it sold more than 20,000 copies in North America

    “Two of the biggest influences for me in terms of game design probably were the shooter games Universalizer and Soulqueen for the SNES-CD. Universalizer showed me how to properly do a challenging shooter game, and Soulqueen showed that these types of games could have a compelling story. So those games were I think the most influential games on the design of the Chorokai Project series.”
    -ZUN, discussing his Chorokai Project series in a January 2008 Famitsu interview

    -

    December 7, 1994

    It didn't take long for Ken Kutaragi to arrange a meeting with Minoru Arakawa to discuss Sony's terms for maintaining their partnership with Nintendo.

    “Basically, Sony wants three assurances from Nintendo. The first is that Sony receive more recognition from Nintendo as it pertains to their role in hardware development. They've come up with a little paragraph that they're wanting to put on all Sony products in the future, including on the box of whatever this successor device will be.”

    Over the past few months, Sony had been re-considering its role in the technology business. The higher-ups at Sony had come to see the company as a sort of...concierge of dreams. With Sony's technological muscle, the dreams and visions of creative visionaries in all fields, particularly the field of home entertainment, could become reality. They saw Nintendo as one of those “dreamer” companies. Sony wanted the new Nintendo console to be part of its overall strategy of attracting the attention (and cash) of entertainment companies all over the world. It would help with the tech, and its partners would supply the ideas.

    “That sounds agreeable,” Arakawa replied, “as long as it is not a large section of the box.”

    “It would be a graphic and a statement in a corner on the back of the box,” said Kutaragi. “Nothing too large, it wouldn't even take up an eighth of the box I don't think.”

    “I'm sure Yamauchi-san would agree to that,” said Arakawa, who then asked Kutaragi to continue.

    “The second condition is that Sony receives either a cut of first-party game revenue or a larger cut of third-party game revenue.”

    “How much larger?” asked Arakawa, immediately dismissing the first option.

    “Ten percent larger,” said Kutaragi, “though that number is negotiable.”

    Ten percent added to a reasonably small cut wouldn't be too much of a stretch, though such a concession might be a blow to Yamauchi's pride. Still, it seemed as reasonable as the first condition and Arakawa assured Kutaragi that Nintendo could concede such a thing without much difficulty.

    “And the third?”

    “The third....Sony wants backward compatibility for the new device. They want it to play all Super Famicom CD-ROM games as well as music CDs.”

    Arakawa's expression hardened. Nintendo and Sony both wanted the new device to use a proprietary disc format, particularly one that would allow for more memory, perhaps up to a gigabyte of space. But backward compatibility for the new system would present somewhat of a technological problem. Nintendo had considered backward compatibility for the Super Nintendo, to allow it to play NES games, but that idea had been scrapped for being unfeasible. For a proprietary system to allow SNES-CD compatibility would be a costly stretch...and might harm the last couple years of SNES-CD profitability as well.

    “It will not be easy to convince Yamauchi-san to do this,” said Arakawa.

    “Backward compatibility...is the main sticking point with Ohga-san,” said Kutaragi. “If the new system does not allow for backward compatibility, Sony is prepared to develop its own console.”

    Kutaragi shrunk back in his chair as he spoke. Clearly, it wasn't his decision to make backward compatibility such a non-negotiable. Arakawa sighed.

    “If it was up to me, I'd certainly like the SNES-CD successor to have backward compatibility,” said Arakawa. “But it's not. I'll try to convince Yamauchi-san to implement it in the new system but it might take time.”

    “I understand,” said Kutaragi, standing up to shake Arakawa's hand. “We're willing to give you at least six months to decide, perhaps more...but I'm worried that too much of a delay-”

    “I know, the Saturn,” said Arakawa, a worried look on his face. “We need to get this deal done soon.”

    -

    December 12, 1994

    F-Zero CD is released for the Super Nintendo CD. Lost somewhat amidst all the Donkey Kong Country hype, it does modest sales at launch and throughout the holiday season. It receives very good reviews, scoring a 35/40 in Famitsu and 8s and 9s from most American video game media outlets, as well as a perfect score from GamePro. The game is considered even more difficult than the first, though it's also considered a far more complete game and an excellent fit for the CD-based system. F-Zero CD completes the Super Nintendo CD's trifecta of first-party hits during the 1994 holiday season, and flanked by a slew of excellently received third-party games, it helps to drive Super Nintendo CD sales to even loftier heights in one of the most lucrative holiday shopping seasons in North American history.

    F-Zero CD: The Basics

    F-Zero CD is the sequel to the original F-Zero for the Super Nintendo. Featuring ten playable racers as opposed to the four featured in the original game, and 24 tracks that can all be raced in time trial mode, F-Zero CD is considerably more robust than the original game. It features rapidly moving graphics with dynamic, animated backgrounds and lightning-fast racing action, along with a jam-packed soundtrack with a unique song for each track. The single-player mode features four circuits: Knight, Prince, Queen, and King, each with six tracks that the player must earn first place in to advance. The player gets four lives that are lost whenever a vehicle runs out of life (from slamming into obstacles or other cars) or fails to finish in first place in a race (unlike the original F-Zero, you can finish a lap in any place as long as you finish the race first). The game is considerably more difficult than the original F-Zero, making this one of the hardest racing games on the SNES-CD. The individual racers have their own storylines for each circuit, told over a series of short non-animated cutscenes (similar to Super Mario World 2). The game also introduces two-player multiplayer to the F-Zero series. You can race a partner in Grand Prix mode, race in Vs. mode on individual tracks, or compete in a Death Race, where the player who runs out of energy first loses (invisible rubber-banding is used to make sure the competing racers stay relatively close).

    -

    F-Zero CD:

    Ed: 9
    Danyon: 9.5
    Al: 8
    Sushi-X: 9 (quote: “If you have enough patience to master the brutally difficult gameplay, this is one of the most satisfying racing video games ever made.”)

    Muppet World:

    Ed: 7
    Danyon: 7
    Al: 7.5 (quote: “While clearly geared toward kids, some of the mini-games are surprisingly appealing to older players too, and it seems that this game is a love letter toward long time Muppet fans.”)
    Sushi-X: 7.5

    Rayman:

    Ed: 9.5 (quote: “The most pleasant surprise of the year is this superb platformer from Ubisoft that looks and plays almost as good as Donkey Kong Country. Yes, I said it.”)
    Danyon: 9
    Al: 9.5
    Sushi-X: 8.5

    Shin Megami Tensei:

    Ed: 6
    Danyon: 6
    Al: 6.5 (quote: “While hardcore RPG fans will find the game's old-school sensibilities rewarding, the bare-bones graphics and convoluted plot will scare off those new to the genre.”)
    Sushi-X: 6.5

    Space Pirates:

    Ed: 7.5 (quote: “This sci-fi adventure is one of the more fun FMV games, but I wish there was a bit more interactivity during the admittedly pretty cutscenes.”)
    Danyon: 5
    Al: 5.5
    Sushi-X: 7.5

    Star Wars: X-Wing:

    Ed: 9.5
    Danyon: 8.5 (quote: “Not a PERFECT PC port, but good enough, this really fun space-flight sim is one of the most in-depth space shooters I've ever played, and the best Star Wars game since Super Empire Strikes Back.”)
    Al: 7.5
    Sushi-X: 7

    Terminator II: Judgment Day:

    Ed: 7
    Danyon: 8
    Al: 8 (quote: “This sequel to last year's fun Terminator game, basically took the engine from that game and grafted the T2 plot onto it. Much closer to the movie than last year's game, it's a lot of fun to take control of Arnold's awesome Terminator character. The music's not quite as good though.”)
    Sushi-X: 8.5

    Tin Star:

    Ed: 6
    Danyon: 7.5
    Al: 8.5 (quote: “You CAN use the SNES controller but I really recommend the Super Scope, it makes aiming and shooting at the bad guys in this Western-themed rail shooter a lot more fun.”)
    Sushi-X: 6

    X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse

    Ed: 7
    Danyon: 6.5
    Al: 7
    Sushi-X: 8.5 (quote: “This was an awesome adaptation of the X-Men comics and I loved the variety of characters you can use to punch your way through stages.”)

    Universalizer:

    Ed: 9.5
    Danyon: 9 (quote: “An absolutely beautiful shooter with one of the best soundtracks I've ever heard in this type of game. It was tough as nails, but getting through this game's fourteen stages was a lot of fun.”)
    Al: 9
    Sushi-X: 9

    Unearthed:

    Ed: 5
    Danyon: 6
    Al: 6 (quote: “Pretty much just your standard RPG, featuring a fairly boring story and some bottom-of-the-barrel SNES quality graphics. Pales in comparison to some of the great RPGs that hit the SNES-CD this year.”)
    Sushi-X: 3.5

    Race For Your Life:

    Ed: 5.5
    Danyon: 7
    Al: 7.5
    Sushi-X: 7 (quote: “This violent racing game lets you take the wheel as one of several criminals who go on a cross-country death race to escape the police. It's kind of fun but really, really violent, and definitely deserves the M rating it got.”)

    Oceanica:

    Ed: 7
    Danyon: 8 (quote: “Enix's sorta sequel to E.V.O. focuses on sea creatures in a giant ocean. I had a lot of fun getting my creature stronger and ducking giant ocean predators in the early stages, but the later stages with the human hunters could at times be an exercise in frustration.”)
    Al: 7
    Sushi-X: 7

    -Electronic Gaming Monthly's reviews of December 1994's SNES-CD games in the January and February 1995 issues

    -

    “I'd never done a video game before, so developing Muppet World was a major challenge for me. It was, however, one that I was glad to take on, and the work we did on it laid the groundwork for future endeavors in the industry. It was nice to have Nintendo's help, the same way that we contributed our help to their Star Fox game, and it was of course another chance to work with my good friend Mr. Shigeru Miyamoto.”
    -Frank Oz, discussing his work on Muppet World with Muppets Monthly magazine in February 2001

    Muppet World

    Muppet World is a game nearly two years in the making, brought into existence by a deal made by Nintendo with the Jim Henson Company. In exchange for their work on Star Fox, the Jim Henson Company would be allowed to make a Muppet game for the Super Nintendo CD, and would be assisted by Nintendo itself in the game's development. The result is a surprisingly fun mix of mini-games and adventures, featuring a ton of Muppet-related fun and more than a half-hour of new live-action Muppet footage. The game takes place in a sort of hub world, you select an “adventure” from the main screen featuring one of twelve muppets. There's Kermit, Miss Piggy, Rowlf, Gonzo, Animal, even Statler and Waldorf get their own adventure (in this case, a wacky platformer where they make jokes about everything). Five of the “adventures” are basically mini-games, but seven of them are games in their own right, ranging from about an hour to three hours to complete. Once you beat all seven games and complete the five mini-games to a satisfactory level, the final “adventure” is opened up: a two-hour adventure featuring all the Muppets that's a great culmination to the game's storyline as well as being a love letter of sorts to those who've followed the Muppet franchise for the last 30 years. While the game is relatively easy (being targeted to kids after all), more hardcore players will still get some fun out of the game, especially if they're fans of the Muppets at all. Muppet World is pretty much everything you could ask for out of a Muppet game.

    Graphics: 7
    Music: 7
    Control: 9
    Play Mechanics: 8
    Originality: 9
    Overall: 40
    -review of Muppet World from the February 1995 issue of GameFan magazine

    -

    “So, with the Mega Charger version of Doom, they told us they wanted the game out for the holiday season 1994. But the problem with that was that we needed to make some cuts to get the game to run smoothly on the Mega Charger, and we really weren't given the time to get everything working properly. Given, maybe three more months, the game would've been perfect on the Mega Charger. As it stood, the music had to be somewhat downgraded, which was a shame because the Mega Charger's audio chip was really good. The game had some slowdown, not a lot but definitely noticeable compared with say, the Jaguar version or the Super Nintendo CD version. It was a decent port, but we really got crunched and that prevented it from being as good as it could have been.”
    -[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]John Carmack, co-founder of Id Software, in an interview with [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Electronic Gaming Monthly, [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]June 1998 [/FONT]

    “Star Wars Arcade, while a very nice looking game that definitely rivals a lot of the stuff you might see on the Super Nintendo CD, is fundamentally flawed in several important ways. The game's fairly short and fairly repetitive, and while that might work for an arcade game, this is supposed to be a home console game and one of the Mega Charger's killer apps. The controls aren't that great, in fact, they're significantly worse than the SNES-CD's X-Wing game. So what you have is something that's very pretty, but under the surface the true colors of this game aren't so pleasant.”
    -excerpted from Al Manuel's 6/10 review of Star Wars Arcade in the January 1995 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly

    “Just like in 1993, our big holiday 'killer apps' turned out to be disappointments and that seriously hurt us when it came to countering the SNES-CD's sales push that holiday season. Earthworm Jim for the Genesis was a pleasant surprise, but that was coming to the SNES-CD the very next month and it had a nearly identical version on the SNES as well, so we really didn't have any good exclusives to push Mega Charger adaptors. We just kept advertising Sonic 3 and Virtua Fighter and tried our best to keep chugging along until the Saturn launch.”
    -Tom Kalinske

    -

    “So with the Niners about to meet the Titans in Super Bowl XLIX, our first Super Bowl appearance in a quarter of a century, I feel like it's time to revisit the closest I feel we've been to the Super Bowl since 1990, and that was in 1995, with Steve Young and probably the best team I feel we've had since those great Joe Montana years. Everyone who was a Niners fan back then will remember all the hype going into the 1994 season. We'd just traded with the Atlanta Falcons for their star receiver Andre Rison, the guy that was going to give us a Super Bowl-winning receiver tandem like the Dallas Cowboys had with Michael Irvin and Alvin Harper. Jerry Rice and Andre Rison soon dominated the league and the Niners were off to a 13-1 record, on track to crush the NFC playoffs with a number-one seed and one of the best offenses in league history.

    But on the night of December 13, 1994, all of that became moot next to one of the most tragic incidents in NFL history. At the time of course, Andre Rison was dating Lisa “Left-Eye” Lopes, one of the members of the hit band TLC, and the two had had a very tumultuous relationship. Of course, the backdrop to all of this was the NFL's ongoing crackdown on domestic violence in the wake of the OJ Simpson murder-suicide, with a major spotlight being placed on the league and its commissioner Paul Tagliabue. We'll never know the whole truth about that night. To this day, Rison claims that Lopes was threatening to “burn the house down” and that she had started the fight. But however that night's fight started, it ended when Rison punched Lopes in the face and knocked her head into a stone coffee table. The blow caused a massive cerebral hemorrhage and Lopes died on the way to the hospital. Rison was immediately barred from the NFL, and though he managed to cop a plea to voluntary manslaughter, he served eight years in prison for the crime.

    Only nine at the time, I was shocked, saddened, bewildered...horrified by the news that the man who'd become maybe my favorite player on the team could have done something so horrible. To this day, there's no way I can bring myself to side with Rison even if his story of the events of that night was true...though considering that he'd had a history of abusing Lopes even before the incident took place, I highly doubt the validity of his version of events. I kept my Rison jersey for some time after the incident, though I never actually wore it again and eventually my mom threw it away (she wouldn't have let me wear it again even if I'd wanted to). What happened afterward....the Niners, despite bravely attempting to fight through the enormous distraction and emotional toll of the event, making it to the NFC Championship only to lose 35-17 to the Dallas Cowboys, who would go on to become the first team to ever win three straight Super Bowls after beating the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XXIX. Paul Tagliabue resigning as commissioner after the season in the wake of overwhelming public outrage. All of it just seems inconsequential next to the loss of a beautiful and talented young musical star on the rise.

    Steve Young never did get his ring, and indeed never got that close again, never again making the NFC Championship. Here's hoping that Andrew Luck and this year's great Niners team can exorcise all those old demons of the last 25 years.”
    -from Dispatches From Candlestick, a San Francisco 49ers fan blog, on January 28, 2015

    -

    This month will see the release of three very quirky but very fun games for the Super Nintendo CD, and here are some brief rundowns so you can consider picking them up if you want something a bit outside the box!

    Universalizer

    Universalizer is a 2-D space shooter somewhat similar to the Gradius series. You're a pilot who's pursuing an ancient evil that traverses numerous galaxies in search of ultimate conquest! Your ship possesses a great weapon: The Universalizer, which allows you to call forth the energy of the planets and stars and convert them into different types of projectiles and shields to blast enemies on your way through the cosmos! There are fourteen different levels to conquer, each one taking place in a different galaxy and each one featuring its own beautiful musical score, the SNES-CD's enhanced audio capabilities really come to life in this excellent but very difficult game!

    Oceanica

    From Enix comes this spiritual successor to E.V.O.: The Search For Eden. It takes place in a vast ocean, where you're a tiny fish that must hunt down and consume other fish to grow bigger and stronger. Along the way you can explore various undersea caves and even ancient city ruins in search of new powers you can use to aid you on your quest. Your ultimate goal is to become the Great Whale of the Sea, an ancient guardian who is completely impervious to all predators. To reach this goal, you'll need to dodge thousands of other sea creatures and even smart and skillful human hunters to survive.

    Shin Megami Tensei

    One of the absolutely strangest role-playing games we've ever played, this game is for mature audiences and hardcore RPG fans only! It's a first-person RPG, played somewhat like the old Dungeons and Dragons games, but the gameplay is very much like Final Fantasy in that you're fighting monsters and collecting loot. You're also tasked with collecting demons to aid you on your quest. These demons can be fused into a variety of creatures from myth and lore, and you'll need all the help you can get to fight some of the toughest enemies we've ever seen in a role-playing game, or any video game for that matter!

    -from the “Pak Watch” segment of Nintendo Power in the December 1994 issue, which also contained a brief walkthrough of the first four stages of Universalizer and would cover Shin Megami Tensei in more depth in January 1995's debut of the “Epic Center” feature (which debuted IOTL in March 1995)

    -

    Ubisoft: The Hottest Game Company You've Never Heard Of

    Though Ubisoft has been around for several years now, they've burst onto the scene this month with their new Super Nintendo CD game Rayman. It's been getting rave reviews and is set to be one of the hottest selling titles of this holiday season. The company is headquartered in France, which is perhaps known for its fine art and delicious cuisine rather than its video games. But Ubisoft has gathered some of the freshest talent in the industry, including Michel Ancel, Rayman's young but talented creator. So what's next for this exciting company?

    Believe it or not, Ubisoft has a Japanese-styled RPG set to release in North America in February 1995! Called The Darkest Ritual, the game centers around a pair of teenage girls, Etienne and Kris, who accidentally unleash an evil curse upon their high school and must become powerful witches in order to stop it! Ancel says that the game is partially inspired by 1992's film Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but the game will be facing stiff competition, as Final Fantasy VI is set to release the very next month. Judging by how Rayman has directly challenged Nintendo's megahit Donkey Kong Country, it's clear that Ubisoft isn't afraid of a little competition. We can't wait to see what this company on the rise comes up with next!

    -from the January 1995 issue of GamePro magazine

    -

    Jackbob1985 here, and today I'm continuing my in-depth look at Super Nintendo CD releases with a countdown of my top five games from December 1994. This month was absolutely stacked, with hit franchise games and superb original titles, and it was hard to choose a winner (but fun to play most of these games!). So without any further ado, let's get this list started.

    5. X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse

    The first X-Men game to hit the SNES-CD, this was a pretty straight forward action title, but it featured great graphics and music and I loved the variety it gave you when it came to choosing which mutant to go into battle with. This game let you choose nine mutants, including Beast, Cable, Cyclops, Gambit, Jubilee (ew), Psylocke, Rogue, Storm, and Wolverine. The storyline was fun and fresh too and overall this was just an awesome X-Men game.

    4. Star Wars: X-Wing

    A lot of people consider the PC version of this game an all-time classic, and it was really good on the SNES-CD as well. The SNES-CD version cut out a decent chunk of the cutscenes, which was a shame, but the gameplay was left pretty much untouched and it included all the missions from the PC version, some 40 in all. It was one of the best straight-up space-flight simulators on the SNES-CD, with gameplay that I honestly found superior to Star Fox. The SNES might have had those cool (but super-hard) action games, but the SNES-CD was where you could find the best Star Wars action of all, and it started with this great port.

    3. Universalizer

    From a straight-up space sim to a balls-to-the-wall bullet hell game, Universalizer might be the toughest game on the SNES-CD (and yet it actually sold a decent number of copies). You traverse the entire UNIVERSE in your quest to achieve cosmic glory, and with a great variety of weapons (and awesome music), you'd have fun even while you were getting blown up again and again and again.

    2. F-Zero CD

    This sequel to 1991's F-Zero surpassed the original in pretty much every single way. It gave these compelling characters an actual story (true, it was just a backdrop to the racing, but still) and had one of the most fun (and fistfight-inducing) multiplayer modes on the system. F-Zero CD remains my favorite in the franchise and one of my favorite racing games of all time period.

    1. Rayman

    The original Rayman for the SNES-CD (it got a Saturn port later on, but it'll always be a Nintendo game to me) is one of the best platformers of all time, period. With enchanting graphics and pixel-precise action, it's a tough call between this and Donkey Kong Country for my favorite platformer of the year (Sonic the Hedgehog can go to hell). While all the hype went to F-Zero CD, this game slipped in under the radar and endeared a lot of players. It's super fun to go back to again and again and again.

    -posted on the “Jackbob's Video Game Reviews” blog on Wordpress, November 3, 2014

    -

    *After a Christmas-themed version of the Angry Video Game Nerd theme, the Nerd heads downstairs to open up his gifts.*

    AVGN: You know, there's no better time of the year than Christmas morning. The warm feeling you get from sitting by the fire with friends and family, the delicious taste of Christmas cookies and egg nog, and of course, the gifts. Definitely the gifts. I wonder what awesome games I'm gonna get this year?

    *The Nerd looks under his tree to find...nothing.*

    AVGN: Huh? Where are all the presents? *he looks around and spots a VHS tape under the tree with “Play Me” written on a note taped to it* What the...? *he pops it into the VCR*

    *On the screen is the Grinch, laughing and sneering at the nerd.*

    AVGN: Goddamn it, I shoulda known! This fucker, the Grinch, stole all my presents!

    Grinch: Angry Video Game Nerd, I've stolen your presents, and everyone else's presents...in fact, I've stolen the jolly old elf himself! *laughs and steps aside to reveal Santa Claus tied to a chair*

    Santa Claus: *struggling* Help me! Help me Nerd!

    AVGN: That son of a bitch! The Grinch kidnapped Santa!

    Grinch: I've kidnapped Santa Claus, and I'm not giving him back unless you, the Angry Video Game Nerd, play a video game!

    AVGN: Well that doesn't sound so bad.

    Grinch: I want you to play THIS! *somehow hands the Nerd the game through the screen*

    AVGN: *he sees the game and screams* NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

    *It's “Who Kidnapped Santa Claus?”, an FMV game released in December 1994 for the Super Nintendo CD*

    AVGN: This is one of the worst video games ever made! This is maybe THE worst Super Nintendo CD game ever made!

    Grinch: If you don't play it, I'll make Santa play it instead! *laughing*

    Santa: No! NO! Please, please Nerd, save me! You have to do it, for all the children!

    AVGN: *groans* Fine...but I better get some damn good presents this year. *he pops the game into the SNES-CD, leans back into his couch and takes a big swig of egg nog with alcohol*

    *The review continues, interspersed with Tay Zonday singing a profanity-laced parody version of “You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch” (retitled to “You're An Asshole, Mr. Grinch”). The game is a horridly acted FMV disaster where the player has to help two annoying kids solve the mystery of who kidnapped Santa Claus from the North Pole. It's barely better than Plumbers Don't Wear Ties in terms of production values with none of that game's humor.*

    -from episode 101 of The Angry Video Game Nerd, “Christmas Special: Who Kidnapped Santa Claus?”

    -

    SNES-CD Power Charts: December 1994

    1. Mortal Kombat II – 29,256
    2. Super Street Fighter II: Arcade Edition – 22,087
    3. Contra IV: Hard Corps – 19,656
    4. Jewels Of The Realm – 16,338
    5. Super Mario World 2 – 16,057
    6. Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers – 11,862
    7. Wing Commander – 10,586
    8. Final Fantasy Origins – 9,057
    9. Lethal Enforcers II: Gun Fighters – 8,446
    10. Secret Of Mana – 7,906
    11. Cannon Fodder – 7,708
    12. Kid Icarus CD – 7,554
    13. Madden 95 – 6,940
    14. Road Rash – 6,067
    15. Superman CD – 5,864
    16. NBA Jam – 5,547
    17. Sam and Max Hit The Road – 5,360
    18. Pitfall CD – 4,702
    19. Super Mario Kart – 4,451
    20. Ys IV – 4,203

    -

    December 19, 1994

    Hiroshi Yamauchi had been considering the terms that Sony had laid out to Nintendo for more than week. The terms relating to increased recognition for Sony and an increased cut of Nintendo's game profits had been tolerable, but the demand for backward compatibility for the SNES-CD successor was considerably more of a stumbling block, and as Yamauchi discussed the issue with Howard Lincoln and Minoru Arakawa, he was already having unpleasant flashbacks to those days in 1991 when Norio Ohga had raked him over the coals.

    “What possible use could they have for this backward compatibility, if not to push their music CDs?” said Yamauchi, a stern look on his face. “It does us no good to make this new system compatible with the old games when we will still be trying to push the old system!”

    “Sir, I think it could work out to our advantage,” said Howard Lincoln, who, along with Arakawa, was favorable to the idea of backward compatibility if it would help seal the deal with a very lucrative partner. “The ability to play music CDs is something that the Saturn has, and we need to keep a leg up on them if we're to keep our competitive advantage.”

    “We'll keep our competitive advantage the same way we always have, by selling great games,” Yamauchi replied. “The ability to play music CDs is a side feature, nice to have but not if it costs us even more money to manufacture the system.”

    “Sony is more than willing to absorb most of the additional manufacturing costs,” said Arakawa.

    “And they'll absorb them the same way they absorbed them with the current console, by demanding even more of a cut from the games we sell.”

    Hiroshi Yamauchi was convinced that Sony's ultimate goal was to absorb Nintendo completely and take over the company that had been in his family for more than a century. He'd rather die than let the company be taken. If Sony wanted to compete against Nintendo, so be it. He'd rather be beaten from the outside than taken over from within.

    “My answer remains the same, I will agree to the first two terms but not the backward compatibility. Keep trying to work out a deal with them that doesn't require that and if they wish to go their separate ways then that is the way it will be.

    Arakawa and Lincoln left Yamauchi's office disappointed, but not surprised. Somehow, the two of them knew they'd have to convince one side or the other to cave in. They knew they'd need Ken Kutaragi's help. While they were willing to let Nintendo go its own way and compete with Sony, neither one of them wanted that. Nintendo's partnership with Sony had been highly lucrative, and not only that, but Howard Lincoln believed it had advanced the medium of video gaming itself. Neither man was about to let backward compatibility be the stumbling block for one of the greatest partnerships in the history of the industry.

    “We have to keep working him,” said Lincoln to Arakawa, who replied with a nod. “And before I forget, Merry Christmas.”

    “Merry Christmas, my friend.”

    And, if Hiroshi Yamauchi or Norio Ohga could be convinced to cave, a happy New Year.
     
    • 1994 In Review

    • RySenkari

    1994: The Year In Review

    “This award came down to Rebecca, the eventual winner, and Mai Sharanui from The King Of Fighters '94. Though we had great fun watching the bouncy ninja Mai, we had even more fun watching the fierce Rebecca gunning down hordes of aliens and twirling those glowing twin swords of hers all over Velna. And that voice! Rebecca from Squad Four, you can sing us to sleep any day of the week!”
    -from the “Hottest Game Babe (All Systems)- Rebecca (Squad Four)” award commentary in EGM's 1995 Video Game Buyer's Guide

    “By 1995, we'd begun acknowledging that we were phasing out the cartridge-based Super Nintendo. Even in Nintendo Power, so much of the coverage had gone to the SNES-CD that we began covering the system like we had the NES back in 1993. While we still had a couple big games left in the pipeline, Yoshi's Island the biggest among them, we'd finally begun formally saying that the SNES was on its way out. It had been a great, albeit somewhat short run.”
    -Howard Lincoln

    “The Super Nintendo, now just $69.99! Comes with Super Mario All-Stars and two controllers!”
    -from an ad that Nintendo began running in January 1995 after dropping the Super Nintendo cartridge system to $69.99 (and the Playstation Combo Set to $199.99)

    “Mark my words, 1995 will be the year of the Sega Saturn. We're bringing the arcade experience home in ways that players haven't even begun to imagine.”
    -Tom Kalinske, in a January 3, 1995 press conference announcing Sega's plans for the coming year

    “So uh, we're gonna change focus and start developing games for the Super Nintendo CD and the upcoming Saturn system. I feel like the market focus at the time is on producing cheaper hardware and we just, I think the 3DO machine might have been a bit...I don't think the market was ready for it yet. And it hurts to admit that, but after talking to our manufacturing partners and our creative team, I feel like...like this refocus is going to lead to more long-term success for our company.”
    -3DO co-founder Trip Hawkins, speaking a a January 16, 1995 press conference on the future of the 3DO

    -

    Top Selling Super Nintendo CD Games of 1994 (pack-in sales included, only sales during the 1994 calendar year are counted):

    1. Super Mario World 2
    2. Donkey Kong Country
    3. Super Mario Kart
    4. NBA Jam
    5. The Secret Of Monkey Island
    6. Squad Four
    7. Mortal Kombat II
    8. Star Fox
    9. Secret Of Mana
    10. Super Street Fighter II: Arcade Edition

    -

    1994 Nintendo Power Editors' Choice Top Ten SNES-CD Games

    1. Donkey Kong Country

    Donkey Kong Country amazed us all with its incredible graphics, awesome soundtrack, and great gameplay. No monkey business here, Donkey Kong Country was our number one pick!

    2. Squad Four

    This action-packed space adventure introduced us to four brave heroes and broke new ground in storytelling and cinema-like effects.

    3. F-Zero CD

    F-Zero is back and it's better than ever! We loved this sequel to 1991's smash hit and we can't get enough of taking all ten racers out on the track.

    4. Snatcher

    Hideo Kojima's cyberpunk thrillride was one of the most innovative titles we've ever played on a Nintendo system. We can't wait to see what he comes up with next!

    5. The Secret Of Monkey Island

    From Lucasarts came this fun pirate adventure starring Guybrush Threepwood, an intrepid adventure seeking to take down the evil LeChuck. Yo ho ho and a bottle of fun!

    6. Mortal Kombat II

    Mortal Kombat returned, as brutal and bloody as ever. Though the controversy was lighter this time around, the gameplay certainly wasn't, and we had even more fun playing this than we did last year!

    7. NBA Jam

    We loved hitting the hardwood with all 27 NBA teams in this excellent arcade port. Shattering the backboard and catching on fire has never been so much fun!

    8. Contra IV: Hard Corps

    Konami does it again with this action-packed run and gun adventure that featured multiple paths and loads and loads of tough enemies to gun down.

    9. Jewels Of The Realm

    We loved this colorful adventure game that gave us tons of ways to get through its beautiful levels. We also felt that it featured some of the year's best voice acting and storytelling.

    10. Rayman

    This platformer featuring graphics right out of a storybook was one of the most original and fun action games we've ever played. It even gives Donkey Kong Country a run for its money!

    -featured in the January 1995 issue of Nintendo Power as part of their Super Power Club bonus insert

    -

    1994 Nintendo Power Awards (“The Nesters”)- compiled from fan voting, not a complete list of awards

    Best Graphics and Sound (SNES-CD)

    1. Donkey Kong Country
    2. Squad Four
    3. NBA Jam

    Best Challenge (SNES-CD)

    1. Donkey Kong Country
    2. Snatcher
    3. Phaedra's Heart

    Best Play Control (SNES-CD)

    1. NBA Jam
    2. Donkey Kong Country
    3. Squad Four

    Best Theme And Fun (SNES-CD)

    1. Donkey Kong Country
    2. Squad Four
    3. The Secret Of Monkey Island

    Best Hero

    1. Donkey Kong
    2. Samus
    3. Shad

    Best Villain

    1. King K. Rool
    2. Ridley
    3. LeChuck

    Most Innovative

    1. Snatcher
    2. The Secret Of Monkey Island
    3. Squad Four

    Best Overall (Super Nintendo)

    1. Super Metroid
    2. Dragon Warrior V
    3. Super Street Fighter II

    Best Overall (SNES-CD)

    1. Donkey Kong Country
    2. Snatcher
    3. Squad Four

    -

    We're now going to take a look at how video game technology is making the leap in 1995. It's been more than two years now since the release of the major CD-ROM video game peripherals, and though Sega's CD add-on has largely been a failure, Nintendo and Sony's CD-ROM has thrived, with more games promised this year than ever before. Sega has chosen to move on to the next generation of gaming technology, and though their new Saturn device won't be released here in North America until the fall, we've managed to get our hands on the Japanese version of the device in order to take a look under the hood and see just how advanced it really is.

    The device is packing a graphics processor from Silicon Graphics, a company known for making high-tech computer internals. The Saturn can replicate some of the most advanced computer graphics we've yet seen on a home device, and though the price tag of nearly 50,000 yen is steep, it's significantly less than the 3DO device released in 1993, and vastly more powerful. As seen in the hit game Virtua Fighter, the Saturn can perfectly replicate the performance of its arcade counterpart, in fact showing even more detail and quickness of movement involving the game's cart of characters. Sega remains quiet about the system's exact graphical specifications, but similar graphics chips have been clocked at over 80 megahertz, rivaling some of the speedier home PCs available on the market. Though Sega is hinging most of its long-term plans on the Saturn, its cartridge-based Mega Charger attachment for the Sega Genesis continues to sell at a robust pace. Capable of 22 megahertz of processing speed, it too is capable of displaying accelerated 3-D graphics, though its version of Virtua Fighter isn't quite as clean or speedy as the arcade version.

    Sega's arch-rival Nintendo has yet to announce the successor to its Super Nintendo, though it will almost certainly use optical disc technology similar to the SNES-CD. Whether or not Nintendo will partner with Sony on its new system is unknown, though an inside source says negotiations are “ongoing”. Nintendo impressed many with the rendered graphics of its hit Donkey Kong Country game, and ports of popular PC titles such as Doom are planned for release in the upcoming year. All in all, Nintendo was much more secretive about their upcoming plans than Sega was, but it's likely that if Nintendo and Sony do collaborate on a new console, its performance and processing power will almost certainly rival that of the Sega Saturn.

    Nintendo and Sega are clearly the top dogs in the gaming industry, putting companies such as Atari and the upstart 3DO Company in the red by easily beating their own next-generation hardware devices on the market. The 3DO Company is expected to refocus its efforts on designing software titles for Nintendo and Sega's systems, while Atari continues to push on, recently dropping the price of its Jaguar system in an effort to keep pace with Nintendo's recent price cuts. There's also a new contender in town, as Japanese toymaking giant Bandai is said to be announcing its own next generation console at the Winter CES, coming up later this month. Whether or not Bandai can break up what's turned into a duopoly has yet to be seen, but Nintendo and Sega seem to be far more worried about each other than any potential third party in this industry race.

    -Computer Chronicles, January 8, 1995

    -

    SEGA MEGA CHARGER
    Sega Enterprises, Ltd./Silicon Graphics

    The Sega Mega Charger is a powerful graphics accelerator in the form of a Genesis cartridge that can be easily plugged into the Genesis video game console and linked up with certain games to provide enhanced 3-D graphics and sound capabilities.

    -Popular Mechanics, "Design and Engineering Awards 1995", January 1995

    -

    Electronic Gaming Monthly 1994 Editors' Choice Awards (selected)

    Game of The Year: Donkey Kong Country (SNES-CD)
    Runner-up: Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (Sega Genesis)

    Game of the Year was a damn tough decision, probably the toughest we've ever had to make. Sega brought its A-game with Sonic 3, but in the end, the graphics and music in Donkey Kong Country, along with its fantastic platforming gameplay, put it over the top. We couldn't get enough of guiding Donkey Kong and his sidekick Diddy through the eight beautifully designed worlds, fighting giant bosses (that dragon!) and pushing through some of the toughest platforming challenges we've ever faced. Even with the Mega Charger backing it up, Sonic 3 just couldn't quite take this one.

    Super Nintendo Game Of The Year: Super Metroid
    Runner-up: Fire Emblem

    This one was pretty easy. Super Metroid took the Planet Zebes and super-sized it, providing some challenging but rewarding exploration segments as we made our way through fire, rain, and jungle environments on our way to take out the deadly Mother Brain.

    Sega Genesis Game Of The Year: Sonic the Hedgehog 3
    Runner-up: Virtua Fighter

    Sonic 3 was the first game to ever get a perfect score from EGM, and for good reason. It was Sonic's best adventure yet, taking us through colorful environments faster than the speed of sound. Virtua Fighter was superb and a great showcase for the Mega Charger's capabilities, but in the end we couldn't say no to the hedgehog.

    Super Nintendo CD Game Of The Year: Donkey Kong Country
    Runner-up: Snatcher

    While we loved the innovative and unique Snatcher, and its storytelling absolutely blew us away, there was no doubt that Donkey Kong Country was taking this one home. The chest-pounding, monkey-rolling, Kremling-stomping adventure was just too good!

    Best RPG: Fire Emblem (Super Nintendo)
    Runner-up: Dragon Warrior V (Super Nintendo)

    Two challenging RPGs that showed that the Super Nintendo cartridge system can still bring it when it comes to epic adventures. In the end, it was Fire Emblem and its high-stakes, high strategy gameplay that took the crown over Enix's old school epic.

    Best Fighting Game: Virtua Fighter (Sega Genesis)
    Runner-up: Super Street Fighter II: Arcade Edition (SNES-CD)

    We'll always have a soft spot for Street Fighter, but Virtua Fighter is the next generation and boy did it kick butt with its 3-D gameplay and glimpse into the future of fighting games!

    Best Action Game: Donkey Kong Country (SNES-CD)
    Runner-up: Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (Sega Genesis)

    Just like in our Game of the Year debate, the monkey won out over the hedgehog, with just a bit more platforming satisfaction.

    Best Music: Donkey Kong Country (SNES-CD)
    Runner-up: Snatcher (SNES-CD)

    Snatcher's jazzy tunes and cyberpunk sounds definitely struck a chord, but the fully orchestrated Donkey Kong Country soundtrack made every jump, barrel throw, and enemy knockout as epic as it could be.

    System Reviews:

    Super Nintendo CD:

    Ed: 10 (quote: “The Super Nintendo CD continues to impress with every game released for it. Hands down, the most robust and varied lineup of any of the major game consoles.”)
    Danyon: 9 (quote: “While the RPG selection this year was a bit lacking, every other genre was well represented, especially the fighting games, which I'm sure Sushi-X will appreciate.”)
    Al: 10 (quote: “What wasn't there to like about the SNES-CD this year? From Donkey Kong Country, to Squad Four, to Snatcher, there was enough on this system to make my job as a game reviewer as fun as ever.”)
    Sushi-X: 9 (quote: “This thing is an arcade lover's dream machine, though it's yet to be seen how well it can handle the next generation of 3-D arcade hits.”)

    Super Nintendo:

    Ed: 7 (quote: “It's clear that this system is on the way out, but it's been a good ride and we've still got some great games to come.”)
    Danyon: 7 (quote: “I know that people who are sticking with the SNES over its CD add-on might have been a bit disappointed, but games like Fire Emblem and Super Metroid still keep me playing this awesome console.”)
    Al: 7 (quote: “Three years in and already showing its age? Technology is really something, isn't it? That being said, I can't get enough of Fire Emblem and I'll be sad to see the end of cartridges.”)
    Sushi-X: 6 (quote: “The existence of the SNES-CD really highlights this thing's flaws, especially as it pertains to fighting games.”)

    Sega Genesis:

    Ed: 8 (quote: “We all loved playing Sonic 3, but outside of that, the Genesis' lineup left a bit to be desired. Here's hoping the Mega Charger peripheral will stimulate some creativity.”)
    Danyon: 9 (quote: “The Mega Charger really saved this thing's bacon just when I was starting to get bored with it! I can't stop playing Doom on this thing.”
    Al: 8 (quote: “Sonic 3 was my game of the year and I'm hoping for good things from Knuckles: Renegade when it hits in the spring.”)
    Sushi-X: 9 (quote: “The Mega Charger is a huge boon to fighting games, giving us the best home console version of Super Street Fighter II and making Virtua Fighter possible. Will we see some SNK ports? I hope so!”)

    -from Electronic Gaming Monthly's 1995 Video Game Buyer's Guide

    -

    Gamepro 1994 Editors' Choice Awards (selected)

    Super Nintendo Game Of The Year: Super Metroid
    Runners-up: Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball, Dragon Warrior V

    Sega Genesis Game Of The Year: Sonic the Hedgehog 3
    Runners-up: Virtua Fighter, Madden '95

    Super Nintendo CD Game Of The Year: Donkey Kong Country
    Runners-up: Squad Four, The Secret Of Monkey Island

    Fighting Game Of The Year: Super Street Fighter II: Arcade Edition
    Runners-up: Virtua Fighter, Mortal Kombat II

    Action/Adventure Game Of The Year: Sonic the Hedgehog 3
    Runners-up: Donkey Kong Country, Jewels Of The Realm

    Role-Playing Game of the Year: Dragon Warrior V
    Runners-up: Phaedra's Heart, Final Fantasy Origins

    Game Of The Year (Overall): Sonic The Hedgehog 3
    Runners-up: Donkey Kong Country, Super Metroid

    -

    Game Watch (starting with the January 1995 issue, Nintendo Power magazine officially changes their “Pak Watch” list of selected upcoming games to “Game Watch”, in accordance with the increasing irrelevance of cartridge-based games with the decline of the Super Nintendo)

    SNES-CD:

    Bass Masters Classic – Winter '95
    Don't Go To Bed! - Winter '95
    Earthworm Jim: Special Edition – Winter '95
    Escape From The Lab – Winter '95
    Flintstones: The Movie – Winter '95
    Justice League: The Battle For Earth – Winter '95
    Lords Of Thunder – Winter '95
    MechWarrior 3050 – Winter '95
    Mega Man X2 – Winter '95
    Nightsquad – Winter '95
    Real Ultimate Football – Winter '95
    Scooby-Doo: The Mansion Mysteries – Winter '95
    The Darkest Ritual – Winter '95
    Timecop – Winter '95
    Urban Strike – Winter '95
    3-D Pool – Spring '95
    Backwoods Racing – Spring '95
    Bikerz – Spring '95
    Cat Jackson – Spring '95
    Chumoking – Spring '95
    Cosmic Fantasy – Spring '95
    Dark City: Heart Of Darkness – Spring '95
    Double Dragon: Triple Trouble – Spring '95
    Eyes Of The Vampire – Spring '95
    Fatal Fury Special – Spring '95
    Final Fantasy VI – Spring '95
    Friendly Fire – Spring '95
    Gex – Spring '95
    Icebiter 2 – Spring '95
    International Superstar Soccer CD – Spring '95
    Kirby's Avalanche – Spring '95
    Lucienne's Quest – Spring '95
    NBA Jam: Tournament Edition – Spring '95
    NCAA Final Four Basketball – Spring '95
    P.T.O. 2 – Spring '95
    Parallel World – Spring '95
    Pickton Lake 2 – Spring '95
    Populous CD – Spring '95
    Shadowrun 2 – Spring '95
    Spawn – Spring '95
    Stargate – Spring '95
    Super Punch-Out CD – Spring '95
    Super Turrican 2 – Spring '95
    Swords of Samnaria – Spring '95
    Top Gear 3000 – Spring '95
    Victory – Spring '95
    Virtuoso – Spring '95
    Batman Forever – Summer '95
    ClayFighter 2 – Summer '95
    Deadman Sam 2 – Summer '95
    Doom – Summer '95
    Earthbound 2 – Summer '95
    Gryphon – Summer '95
    Hotel Havoc – Summer '95
    Hyperspeed – Summer '95
    Madden 96 – Summer '95
    Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: The Movie – Summer '95
    The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Dreams – Summer '95
    The Mask – Summer '95
    Toxic Waste – Summer '95
    WWF Wrestlemania – Summer '95
    Battle Arena Toshinden – Fall '95
    Cannon Fodder 2 – Fall '95
    Eskrima Warriors 2 – Fall '95
    Killer Instinct – Fall '95
    Super Star Wars Trilogy – Fall '95
    Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego? - Fall '95

    -published in the January 1995 issue of Nintendo Power

    -

    “1994 was arguably the high-water mark of the console wars, at least as far as the SNES vs. Genesis portion of it was concerned. Sega went into the year in near panic mode. Their CD-ROM experiment had been a disaster in the face of the Super Nintendo CD's superior line-up of games. But Sega responded with a bold strategy: focus on value and re-double its efforts on the Genesis, the system it had been pushing for the last four years. With the massive release of Sonic 3, those efforts paid off, and Sega spent a good part of the year ahead of Nintendo in sales. The release of the Mega Charger that August was perhaps the second most successful peripheral launch ever...second, of course, only to the Super Nintendo CD. It gave Sega the processing power it needed to compete with Nintendo's high-capacity CD-ROM games and successfully bridged the gap between the Genesis and Sega's fifth-generation console, the Saturn. Nintendo followed up a fairly weak summer with a massive holiday season of hit games, including franchise-starter Squad Four and the massively acclaimed Donkey Kong Country. It swept most of the major game publication awards and dominated sales that holiday season, pushing Nintendo's SNES and its CD-ROM peripheral, which had become overwhelmingly the focus of its development efforts, back in front to stay. Though Sega ended the year in pretty much the same place it had started, they'd at the very least bought valuable time, keeping their company a clear close second in the console wars rather than falling into irrelevancy. 1995 would see the beginning of the next generation with the North American launch of the Sega Saturn... but Sega would have to navigate a minefield of challenges along the way.”
    -”The History Of Console Gaming: Year-By-Year (Part 5)”, Wired.com, June 12, 2012
     
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    • 1994's Original SNES-CD Games

    • RySenkari

    And here's a list of all the SNES-CD games of 1994 whose franchises were completely original to this timeline, along with brief descriptions to help you get an idea of what kind of game it would have been:



    Squad Four: An adventure game by Argonaut featuring a squad of four interstellar explorers who crash-land on a planet in the midst of a massive war. A majorly-hyped first party game for Nintendo.


    Daywalkers: A platform horror game about a cop who fights vampires that are attempting to take over a city. A fairly violent game that gets decent reviews and sales.


    Cheer High Detective Team: A visual novel/detective game about a group of cheerleaders who end up solving mysteries. While intended as a game for tween girls, the numerous unintentional fanservice moments in the game make it a surprise cult hit among males, though overall sales are pretty low and reviews are below average to middling at best.


    Thrillseeker: A board/party game for 2-4 players. One of the first party games to come to the SNES-CD, it's actually a fairly decent game and because it's one of the first of its kind, sales are fairly good.


    After The Lights Go Out: A noirish detective game full of FMV cutscenes. The protagonist, Sam Steele, investigates a variety of mysteries in a city full of crime. The game isn't bad but there are a ton of cliches and the acting is cheesy. This game is around the time that there are a glut of detective games on the system and sales are poor.


    Monster Wars: A tactical RPG by Koei featuring all kinds of horrific monsters. Vampires, werewolves, skeletons, mummies, and other creepy crawlies clash on numerous battlefields, fighting for control of the Dark World. One of the best SRPGs on the system, sales are about average for the genre.


    Knightstar: A JRPG about a young boy destined to become a knight and save his kingdom. A middle-of-the-road RPG, though there are a decent amount of voice acted lines in the game, giving it a boost in the production values department.


    Snakey Snakington: A generic platformer starring a snake named Snakey Snakington. Repetitive music and unoriginal stages doom this game to below average reviews.


    Phaedra's Heart: A JRPG by Enix, starring a goddess named Phaedra who loses her powers and must journey through the world of the mortals to reclaim them. Features some voice acting. One of the best-received original RPGs on the system, but sales are atrocious. The game is now a collector's item.


    Solus: The spirital successor to the Super Scope games Battle Clash and Metal Combat, this is a lightgun game by Nintendo's R+D 1, which has the player battling for his life in a futuristic arena. About halfway through the game the scene shifts to where the player is battling those who put him in the arena with the help of some of his surviving opponents.


    Bumblebee: Zooble's Hive: A platforming/action game where you control an anthropomorphic bumblebee named Zooble who has to fight to protect his hive from a gang of evil spiders known as the Webkins. Featuring some catchy music and tight platforming gameplay, this Konami game is a success for the most part.


    Slumlord: An action game where you play a rather shady character who runs a crime racket and dishes out punishment to those who cross him. A somewhat below average game that would be controversial for its violent content if many people had bought it.


    The Next Champion: A sidescrolling fighting game where you customize a character and then take them on a journey to become the next world martial arts champion. Receives some praise for its early use of RPG elements and its character building tools.


    Who Kidnapped Santa Claus?: An FMV-based detective game where you have to find out who kidnapped Santa Claus. Atrocious, cheesy acting and boring gameplay make this one of the worst games to be released for the console. The Angry Video Game Nerd does a Christmas special on this.


    Hurricane Season '94: A piece of educational simulation software where the player can simulate or track hurricanes, the simulator allows the player to plot weather conditions to steer or strength hurricanes. A fairly well-made, if quirky piece of software with very few sales.


    Gun Warrior: An action game where the player battles the evil army of the dark wizard Zekto, with only his many, many guns to aid him. Features some pretty fun action and slick animation, along with good music, the game is a hit for Tecmo and becomes a franchise.


    Astra: A fairly generic RPG featuring a band of warriors who battle an ancient, evil dragon and his demon hordes. Sales are pretty lousy and the game is mediocre.


    School Daze: An FMV game where you're a student in high school and you have to deal with high school romance, bullying, classes, and other things. Another one of those FMV games that is “so bad it's good”, the acting is atrocious and the game itself isn't very good.


    Meteora: An FMV space shooter where your character has to fight off a variety of armadas. The acting is actually halfway decent (a couple of the actors in this become more famous later on) and the game itself is well received.


    Universalizer: An arcade-style space shooter in the vein of the “bullet hell” genre, similar to games like Gradius and Axelay. Excellent animation, a variety of levels and weapons, and outstanding music makes this one of the best received shooters on the whole system.


    Koolblocks: A puzzle game that has the player matching groups of similar blocks, while also shooting blocks with other blocks to clear increasingly large arenas. Despite the generic name, the game is decently received and has a fun multiplayer mode.


    At Land's End: A Zelda-esque adventure game featuring a brave knight who has to explore several kingdoms in search of a captive princess. The game has none of the charm of similar adventure games and the repetitive and clunky gameplay earns it middling reviews at best.


    Jewels Of The Realm: An action/adventure game by Activision, featuring two characters, a boy and a girl who are forced onto a journey together when their village is destroyed by an evil tyrant, they have to power up mystical jewels to increase their power to get strong enough to save the realm. The game features voice acting and cutscenes, the girl is voiced by Alyson Court in her first major video game role (before she plays Claire in Resident Evil). The game is very well received for its gameplay and production values and sells quite well.


    Soulqueen: A space shooter starring a badass female bounty hunter named Cleopatra who calls her fighter ship the Soulqueen. Very fast-paced and difficult, the game is considered one of the founding games of the modern bullet-hell genre. An instant cult classic.


    Furious Heart: A fighting game featuring a variety of brawlers. Really generic in terms of its gameplay but does receive some praise for its graphics.


    Science Fighters: A quirky fighting game which features scientists of various disciplines brawling. Almost completely tongue-in-cheek, this game is actually praised somewhat for some unique characters and moves, and has a fun, albeit completely wacky storyline.


    My Name Is Silence: An FMV game about a mysterious assassin caught up in a tale of political intrigue. One of the better-acted FMV games on the console despite featuring a cast of complete amateurs, it's known as one of the better FMV games on the console and receives a cult following.


    Hunter: A first-person shooter/army game where you have to hunt down a tyrannical warlord. The graphics are rather simplistic and the clunky gameplay and confusing level design make it an ignored and panned game.


    Day Of Malcarius: An RPG created by a group of former Game Arts workers who spun off from the company to form their own. Somewhat like Lunar but a bit more experimental, about a group of warriors who rise up to battle a warlock named Malcarius. With solid gameplay and graphics and a good musical score, the game is one of 1994's better SNES-CD RPGs.


    Fireball: A multi-dimensional shooter game without much of a plot, it's somewhat like a much faster paced Asteroids, where your single ship flies around the screen shooting down balls of flame that light up with bright colors. Decently fun but nothing special.


    Tut's Tomb: An Egyptian-based platformer game where you play as King Tut. Lousy graphics and clunky play controls make this a below average title.


    Unearthed: A generic-as-they-come RPG with bad graphics and very dull gameplay, with an unoriginal story to boot. Poorly reviewed, disappears among the herd of other RPGs this year.


    Dunk Star: A basketball game featuring a variety of fictional players where the object of the game is to come up with the most spectacular dunk possible. A fairly generic sports game with a hilariously bad announcer.


    Heavily Armed Princess: A platformer about a princess who takes up a sword and many other weapons after her prince boyfriend is kidnapped. Excessively violent and filled with hilarious cutscenes and one-liners, the game receives a very mixed reception but becomes a cult classic.


    Oops!: A trap-em-up FMV game featuring a group of girls at a slumber party. Developed by Sony after their proposal to get Night Trap on the console was shut down, this game is a much more kid-friendly Night Trap Lite in both content and difficulty. The acting is even worse than Night Trap, with the exception of a young Jennifer Morrison who plays one of the girls. Nintendo actually tries to hype this game but the atrocious reviews kill sales pretty quickly.


    Real GT Racing: A racing game featuring 20 real cars from across the racing world on a variety of licensed tracks. One of the better looking games graphically of 1994, the racing itself is fairly dull and the game receives middling reviews.


    Race For Your Life: A racing game featuring cars driven by escaped criminals looking to avoid the cops and wreck each other as they race across the country. The first racing game to get an M rating on the SNES-CD, this game is notorious for letting you run over bystanders and the language is fairly extreme for an SNES-CD game.


    Oceanica: A spiritual successor of sorts to E.V.O.: The Search For Eden, developed by Enix, the game has you as a small sea creature who must grow bigger by devouring other larger creatures, eventually you end up having to evade human hunters. A decently received adventure/RPG game.


    City Planner: A sort of rival game of sorts to SimCity, City Planner is a much more in-depth city simulation, which involves running the day-to-day business of a city more than it does building one. It even lets the player make illicit deals, though there is the risk of being caught by police or investigative reporters. Very low sales but another cult classic game for the console.


    Logjam: A platforming game about a lumberjack in a forest who must dodge bears, environmental hazards, and other things on his way back home. The game actually has a pretty good soundtrack and decent level design and does fairly well.


    Major Hazard: A third-person action/shooter where the title character, Major Hazard, battles a variety of enemies in his quest to help his army win a war. A somewhat silly game, Major Hazard is an overly manly hero in the vein of Duke Nukem and the game is fairly fun, with fully voiced gameplay.


    Fatal Strike: An action game/brawler where you control the samurai Notukaga as he quests through a variety of levels for revenge against the shogun who wronged him. Made by Koei, the game features excellent graphics and level design and is a minor hit for the company.


    Invasion 2022: A real-time strategy game where the player must repel an alien invasion. Compared to X-COM in a number of ways, but the gameplay isn't nearly as good and the graphics are mediocre, leading to poor reviews and sales.


    Icebiter: A run-and-gun action game where you play a soldier who must save his icebound village from a huge ice monster and its monster minions. Somewhat comparable to Gunstar Heroes in gameplay, it features decent level design and music and is fairly well received.


    Eskrima Warriors: A fighting game featuring the martial art of eskrima, involving sticks, blades, and blunt weapons. Considered a sort of pre-cursor to Soul Edge, though the two games have nothing to do with one another and aren't by the same company (this game is Tecmo, Soul Edge is Namco), the game is one of the better fighting games of the year.


    Infiltrator: A sort of stealth action/adventure game where you play a professional spy that breaks into a variety of locations. Decently received, though not a great or even really good game.


    Dazzler: A puzzle game where you combine sparks of light in certain combinations. Instead of racking up your score (though you do get a score), the object of the game is to make more and more impressive comboes for brighter visual displays. Though the gameplay is mediocre, the graphics and art design get a lot of praise and it shows off the SNES-CD's 2-D capabilities in a big way.


    Tomato Tommy: A puzzle/platformer starring an anthropomorphic tomato. The gameplay is extremely bad and the graphics, while colorful, are very repetitive. Add in a complete lack of decent music and it's one of the SNES CD's worst platformers.


    Kings And Knights: A medieval FMV game where a mystical king sends you on a quest to retrieve the ancient sword Excalibur. The actor playing the king is terrible, hilariously so and the game itself is miserable.


    P.O.L.I.C.E.: Hostage Rescue: An action game where you're a police officer who has to rescue hostages. It's as generic as it gets and the poor voice acting doesn't help matters, the game is repetitive and the play controls lousy.


    American Dance-Off!: A dance game that attempted to bring back a version of the NES' floor mat accessory to the SNES-CD. Made by a third party, the accessory barely worked and when it did, the game was horrible anyway. The one saving grace is that this game's atrocious sales and critical reception don't have any butterfly effects on the later Dance Dance Revolution, indeed, nobody remembers this game by the time that one comes out (except for EGM's Seanbaby and later, the Angry Video Game Nerd).


    Fearleaders: An action game where you can switch between five cheerleaders as they attempt to battle a variety of scary monsters in an attempt to save their school from the living dead. A generic, ho-hum platformer that features cookie-cutter dialogue and below average graphics and sound.
     
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