Sega Game Gear/Japan

Game Gear

Japan

Cover	Title	Genre	Description	Translation	Screenshot
	Coca-Cola Kid	Platformer	An obscure platformer done by the team who made most 8-bit Sonic games. This kid has a fuckton of moves, including, but not limited to: kicking, wall-jumping, charge-dashing, disc throwing, and sliding. Collect Coca-Cola coins to get extra stuff after certain stages. If you like Sonic and Megaman X style action, consider checking this out. There is a translation patch for the ROM, but the story still won't make sense...	Link
	Eternal Legend: Eien no Densetsu	Action-RPG	A Japan only Game Gear exclusive that's a traditional RPG in the vein of Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy.	Link
	Fray in Magical Adventure	Shoot 'Em Up	Whimsical little shmup spinoff of the Xak series, which was fairly prominent on MSX. This is actually a different version than the home computer version, which is more of an adventure game. Still, it ain't too shabby. Nice graphics, music, and gameplay. The neat thing about this is that you can jump, which makes dodging a little easier and lets game design add some platfoming in the mix. You can also use different charge shot spells as well. No translation yet, but, it's not like this story's that important. (The MSX2 version does have a translation, though.)
	GG Aleste	Shoot 'em up	Not the same Aleste (aka Power Strike) from the Master System, but a spin-off of that series. A bit slower and easier (surely to make up for the machine's blurry screen), but still a blast.
	GG Aleste 3	Shoot 'em up	After M2 bought the rights to the Aleste series, they produced a compilation, Aleste Collection - which included a whole new GG entry (which had no cartridge release, but of course the ROM was quickly extracted). And they pulled no punches, this is the Game Gear squeezed to the limit!
	Godzilla: Kaijuu no Daishingeki	Strategy/Fighting	This website explains the game better than I could. A very strange mix of strategy and fighting games. It requires excess luck and skill in the fighting scenes and strategy in your unit placement to win. More so if you're the fucking G-Force. That's right. You can choose to play as Godzilla and his monster buds, or the humans out to protect their cities. It's a solid game, but it's not too easy to get into unless you're a big strategy or Godziller buff. Each map is based on a different movie. There's only 4, yet they're all really long. But! If you manage to get a medal in all 4 maps...	Link
	Gunstar Heroes	Run 'N Gun	A slightly different version of the 16-bit original. There's no multiplayer and Black's stage is absent, but you use a giant robot instead of the ship-flying section. That said, everything else's more or less the same, but in 8-bit form: Gun combos, stage design, bosses, even the goddamn Seven Force kicks your ass in 8-bit. It's almost as good as the 16-bit version, as it's a damn fine port, but it's also a bit harder at times, due to invincibility frames not being as long.
	Head Buster	Strategy RPG?	A real oddball, as it's not quite an RPG, and not pure strategy. Plays similar to Super Robot Wars but with customizable nameless units. Essentially, you fight against enemies in an arena, but also make money to buy more robots and upgrade different aspects of their parts, giving them new abilities and so forth.	Link
	Last Bible: Megami Tensei Gaiden	RPG	A remake of Last Bible from the Game Boy. In color before the GBC port a few years after this came out. Includes additional story content where the GB original ends that ties it into Last Bible 2 better. Less anti-climatic than the original ending. Not to be confused with Last Bible Special. That is a hard as balls first-person dungeon crawler. More Wizardry than SMT or MT. It too has an english translation for those brave enough to play it.	Link
	Lunar: Walking School	RPG	An episodic spinoff of the Lunar series. Doesn't really resemble Lunar outside of having the Vile Tribe as your enemies. Unlike most RPGs, all of your characters are spellcasters specializing in different fields (mages, healers, magic knights, etc.). A light-hearted adventure, it can get a bit confusing, so check the complete walkthrough/FAQ here. Remade for Sega Saturn with more Lunar-esque battles and cutscenes, but only this one is translated.	Link
	Madou Monogatari (series)	RPG	A very strange first-person RPG. There's items, but no equipment, only Magic spells you learn. There's experience points and level ups, but no visible stats. Your only hints as to your status are visual imagery and conversation texts. I'm not sure if this is casual or hardcore because of that. That said, the experience is still solid. You lead young Arle to pass her magic school's final exam by conquering a tower filled with goofy, but dangerous monsters. And yeah, this is where Puyo Puyo came from.	Link
	Mappy	Arcade/Puzzle	IT'S MAPPY! You know, "Mappy"? No? Oh well. Bounce on trampolines to recover stolen goods from cat bandits. Open doors to knock them on their asses temporarily. This port is better than Namco's standard Pac-Man copypasta affairs because it has both the arcade original and a newer and larger super mode with all new gigantic levels. (There's also a third mode, which I want to guess is a 2-player mode, but I wouldn't know, since I haven't been able to see it in person and you can't select it normally.)
	Moldorian: Hikari to Yami no Sister	RPG	An RPG with great looks and sounds. The story seems a bit non-typical as well, but is hard to figure out from just sprites walking and talking. The neat thing about this is the battle system, which has a sort of Active Time Battle system element to it, much like SquareSoft's early SNES Final Fantasy games, so think fast.	Link
	Phantasy Star Adventure	Adventure	Similar to the Phantasy Star II Adventure entries, this is a point-and click adventure game, except with menus. You explore different areas, and find different things to use in said areas. There are also some battles with enemies, except they are done with dice. It's worth a shot if you're a fan of old-school adventures like this.	Link
	Phantasy Star Gaiden	RPG	A more traditional RPG. This is a sequel of sorts to the first Phantasy Star.	Link
	Puyo Puyo / Puzlow Kids	Puzzle	Mostly here as a curiosity. Plays damn near the same as Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine in essence but with different characters and music (well, this did come first technically). Japan only, but has a strange in-game translation of the entire game to English and renames itself "Puzlow Kids". Sega and Puyo Puyo go hand-in-hand, and there are other games with Arle and crew on the GG. Sadly, they are Japan-only with no translation (except for MM1GG), removing most of the fun for non-Japanese readers.
	Royal Stone	Tactics RPG	Sequel to Crystal Warriors.	Link
	Shining Force Gaiden	Strategy/RPG	Side-Story to the original Shining Force and happens 20 years after SF1. Town sections are streamlined into menus, and any exploration must be done mid-battle. The battles are still great and the graphics and music are impressive for 8-bit. This story features the children and relatives of Shining Force 1 and Guardiana's new enemies. Japan-only, but this and SFG2 below are on Shining Force CD, which is English with extra battles and connectivity. Perfect if you hanker for some more Shining Force combat.
	Shining Force Gaiden: Final Conflict	Strategy/RPG	This game fills some plot holes between Shining Force 1 and 2. It plays like the other Shining Force Gaiden games, but features battle locations, music, and a few characters and relatives of characters from Shining Force 1 and 2, such as Adam, Sir Hawel, and your MC, Ian, is related to two very important SF icons. Bosses are pretty much all new though. Only in Japanese, but a FULL translation patch is available for the ROM. Easily the best of the Gaiden games, in more ways than one.	Link
	Sokoban	Puzzle	Well, it's pretty hard to fuck up Sokoban unless you plain don't give a shit. Thankfully, the company that made this put significant effort into the puzzles. If you've never played a Sokoban type of game, you try to push blocks into certain spots in order to clear the stage. Much easier said than done, because it's quite easy to mess up and get a block stuck to where you can't push it to a stage-clearing spot. These sorts of games have been on numerous platforms, but since you're here, you might as well start with this one if you haven't played one already.
	Sylvan Tale	Action/Adventure	A nature themed Zelda-like Action/Adventure that takes some elements from Dragon's Trap (in that you transform into different animals and take advantage of their different traits to progress). A must play!	Link
	Taisen-gata Daisenryaku G	Strategy	Part of a very long-running series that began 3 years before the original Famicom Wars. Arguably, the GREATEST of all turn-based strategy series. Even on an 8-bit portable, it's still got plenty of depth to each and every map. Seriously, it's hard enough to bust your brain against the chess-master AI, but to do so in a language you probably can't even read?! Not at all for the faint of heart or mind. That said, the game looks and especially sounds great for GG. If any gameplay elements were lost from the transition from home PCs to GG, you probably wouldn't even be able to tell.
	The Berlin Wall	Puzzle	Dunno how the Berlin Wall fits into this, but this is still entertaining. It combines elements of games like Lode Runner, Solomon's Club, and Bubble Bobble into a quirky little smorgasbord. You take on enemies in stages, and bosses as well. Here's a video to help visualize the stages and gameplay. Japanese only, but you don't need to know the language to enjoy this.
	YuYu Hakusho: Horobishi Mono no Gyakushuu	Beat 'Em Up	Loosely based on the anime, but still good. The levels are weird and have freaky enemies. Kurama is OP thanks to his great jumping and long ass thorn whip. Hiei is less so due to his good sword range, but low defense. Yusuke and Kuwabara are hella strong, but have shit range. There's also Punch Out-like boss fights, but they control like River King. This has one weird continue system. You transfer any amount of vitality from your live pals into the dead one. Live ones must be careful when their stages come up, since you can't heal life outside of found items. Fun(?) Fact: Yusuke can't beat the final stage due to his shit jumping. Though if you want, you can beat the final boss as him by letting someone else beat the stage but die right before the last boss, so he can switch in. The other YYH GG game is a turnbased fighting game which sucks.