Developer: Sega
Publisher: Sega
Released: 1992
As Sega was readying to launch the Sega CD in North America, it was decided that the system would come with a pretty impressive amount of software. Players were being asked to fork over 300 bucks for an add-on to their much cheaper Genesis, so it made sense to sweeten the deal as much as possible.
Packed in the box along with the Sega CD were:
– Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective Vol. 1, which showed off the full-motion video capabilities of the CD-ROM drive.
– Sol-Feace, a side-scrolling shooter featuring two rather elaborate animated intros and full redbook audio
– Hot Hits: Adventurous New Music Sampler, featuring songs from bands like Dramarama, The Escape Club, and They Might Be Giants. Because…you know, you can play CD music in your video game console now.
– Rock Paintings, another music disc to show off the CD+G format, featuring songs from Information Society, Chris Isaak, Fleetwood Mac and more.
– Sega Classics Arcade Collection
It was a pretty great bundle of software. Especially at the time, considering we were used to getting a single free game with our consoles. If nothing else you had discs that showed off just about everything the Sega CD was capable of doing.
The Sega Classics Arcade Collection came complete with four games: Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, Columns, and Revenge of Shinobi. Admittedly, all of those games were pretty long in the tooth (Streets of Rage was the newest game at the time, and it was still a year old). But when you consider that a lot of Genesis owners really jumped on board around the launch of Sonic a year earlier, there was at least a decent chance that a lot of players didn’t already own all of these classics on cartridge.
And hey, even if they did, all four of these games were enhanced using the awesome power of the CD-ROM format!
The Golden Axe soundtrack got the full redbook audio treatment, which I believe are recordings of the music from the original arcade title. All of the enemy death screams have been updated as well, and sound much cleaner than their Genesis counterparts, although still aren’t based on the screams heard in the arcade game (there’s a good chance that has something to do with licensing rights, since those original screams were lifted directly from movies like Rambo and the Conan films).
Otherwise, though, this is the Genesis version of the game, complete with the extra level and boss found at the end. But for some reason, the second player option has been removed from the Sega Arcade Classics version. No reason for this has ever been given as far as I know.
Streets of Rage retained its two player mode, thank goodness, and came complete with high-quality voice samples as well. It’s too bad Yuzo Koshiro’s soundtrack didn’t get some sort of upgrade, but it was so good to begin with perhaps there was no reason? The other possibility is that Sega wasn’t allowed to adjust the music since Koshiro tended to hold the rights to all his work.
Columns is still Columns. Even back in 1992 Sega could not help but put this game on any compilation it released.
Seriously though, it makes sense that Columns was included in Sega Arcade Classics. The puzzle game craze was still very real in 1992, and for what it’s worth, there didn’t end up being a whole lot of them in the Sega CD library. As for differences between the original cartridge version and this CD update, Columns has been given a redbook audio title track.
Finally, there’s Revenge of Shinobi. There were multiple revisions of this game in cartridge form, mostly to remove game characters that were a bit too close to real-world characters and actors like Rambo, The Terminator, Godzilla, Batman, and more. I believe the version found on this CD was the final revision of the game, which featured a Spider-man copyright before the title screen.
As with Streets of Rage, the only real update to Revenge of Shinobi is some more impressive voice samples whenever Joe uses some of his ninja magic.
I vividly remember getting my Sega CD. Since I grew up in Canada and back then release dates weren’t always very reliable, I ended up getting a family member who was vacationing in Florida to pick one up and ship it back to me. When I tore open the box (OK, carefully opened the box) I was actually kind of surprised to see that only four games were listed as part of this compilation. I can’t remember exactly which magazine it was, but somewhere along the line I’d been led to believe that Super Monaco GP would be part of the Sega Arcade Classics collection.
After sifting through a few old magazines, I’ve found a bit of information. The Quartermann column in the December, 1991 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly mentions how Sega was originally looking to put at least 10 games onto one disc as part of a Genesis compilation series for the CD-ROM drive, though it’s not mentioned as potential pack-in software.
By July 1992, EGM was reporting pack-in software for the Sega CD would include Sherlock Holmes, a CD+G sampler disc, a compilation featuring five Genesis games, as well as a RAM cartridge.
In the November, 1992 EGM clarified that Super Monaco GP would not, in fact, be a part of the Sega Arcade Classics collection. I was crushed when I found out. Not that ancient Genesis games were the main reason I wanted a Sega CD, but Super Monaco GP was one of my favourite games on the system, so I was kind of looking forward to it.
Another year ended the pain! In 1993 the Sega Classics Arcade Collection was updated to include Super Monaco GP. This new version of the compilation was packed in with Mega CD consoles in the UK, as well as an updated software bundle for the US, where it was partnered with Ecco the Dolphin.
As you’ve probably guessed by now, precious little was updated when Super Monaco GP made its way onto a shiny new disc. The music in the game has been improved, though it is not redbook audio. The Sega CD does have better sound capabilities than the Genesis hardware alone, so I assume that’s what the game is taking advantage of here. Also, as in the other action games in this compilation, the voice samples have all been massively improved.
Was a compilation of old Genesis games an exciting prospect back when the Sega CD was released? Well, probably not. Outside of Streets of Rage, every other game on the Sega Classics Arcade disc was 2+ years old, and had most likely been played to death by die-hard fans at that point. But gamers had been fed so much information about how CDs had so much more capacity than cartridges, and were so much cheaper to make. There was a sense that those savings would be passed along to the customer, and for those of us who hadn’t already taken the plunge with a PC CD-ROM drive or an add-on for the TurboGrafx-16, this was our first taste of what that could possibly look like.
Plus it was part of the biggest pack in software suite I’d ever seen on a home console up until that point. Maybe the biggest ever?
