21| Ranger-X

Released: 1993 (Exact date unknown)

Available On: Sega Mega Drive

There is no denying that the Sega Mega Drive was a fantastic game system. It may be a popular theme today that despite the console war at the time being red hot, it was really the Super Nintendo that had the obvious edge of the two platforms, but personally I don't believe that. Many of the Super Nintendo's games were much rougher around the edges than most seem to remember. Super Mario World may look like a classic, but it is a very boring Mario game with some of the least exciting level design in the 2D series. Secret of Mana's concept sounds incredible in theory, but it suffers from terrible pacing issues. A lot of the "big classic" arcade ports are very poorly done with tons of missing frames, slowdown, and key missing features. And even the games that were pretty good at the time, have aged pretty badly. JRPGs and platformers have had 20 years of continuous work built on their respected genres since the system bid its farewell. So many of Squaresoft's and Nintendo's "legendary" offerings just fall flat in the present day. Sure, there are still many awesome games for the system that hold up such as Donkey Kong Country 2, Chrono Trigger, Super Castlevania IV, Shin Megami Tensei II, and Yoshi's Island. However, at the end of the day a lot of the games just don't hold up as well as they once did.

In contrast to this, the Sega Mega Drive focused on arcade type experiences. These genres the games fell into were already very developed and since haven't really "evolved" all that much. So a title like, M.U.S.H.A. Aleste won't seem too dated compared to say Crimzon Clover. But despite that, I feel that the games on the Mega Drive have also aged better due to two more reasons. The first is that the system was actually up to the task to play these games. Sure the hardware may have lacked the flashy graphics of the Super Nintendo, but its speedy CPU meant that it could run these titles with minimal to no slowdown. There is also the fact that the Sega Mega Drive had a lot of titles that really experimented with their set genres. While most fighting games at the time were copying Street Fighter II, Yuyu Hashinko attempted to be its own thing by being a four player brawler. At a time when most platformers were Mario clones, Sonic the Hedgehog focused on vertical level designed and had the layout less like a traditional "hilly" platformer and more like a rollercoaster. There are plenty of examples of this, but one of my favorite ones is Ranger-X.

Ranger-X can be described as another side-scrolling shooter for a 16-bit system. In it the player controls a giant robot that is protecting residents from an enemy invasion. This sounds very typical right? Well it does, until one realizes that Ranger-X does a few things that changes up the system a bit. First off, there are a few different "formations" the mech can transform into. The default mode is a flying humanoid robot that is most typically seen from most Japanese anime. It is accompanied by a unicycle which in a way acts like the humanoid's "dog". In this mode the player can control both mechs as they fire upon waves of enemies. There are also however two more modes. The simpler one is that the player can have the humanoid mech jump onto the unicycle and attach to it. This results in creating a wall that blasts away enemies and can travel quick distances while remaining on the ground. The third mode is having the humanoid mech fully integrate with the unicycle, and turn into a full fledged motorcycle with increase speed, firepower, and jumping abilities. What's interesting about this is that the humanoid mode and motorcycle mode both have their own health bars, giving the player two chances in a way. These multiple modes result in the player having multiple ways to approach each stage.

Admittedly, the first level of the game is as typical as one can get. The player simply has to move to the right side of the screen and shoot down all the enemies. Very simple. However, as the game progresses, it appears that each level is a different. Once the first area is cleared, the next takes a complete alternative approach. Rather than start off in an open desert, the mech transverses through a maze like cave. It revolves around the player traveling around finding various locks to destroy in order to find their way out of underground labyrinth. Other levels involve vertically scaling a massive tower or balancing combating enemies both high up in the sky and on the ground. The game never really has a point where it rests on its laurels.

It just isn't the gameplay that is impressive about the game. The title is also technical masterpiece for the system. Not only does it have a high color count, detailed pixel art, and impressive scaling, but it also features some nice parallax scrolling, pseudo 3D effects, and various other visual wonders.

This is the type of wizardry one would expect from Treasure or a major developer like Konami or Sega themselves. Not some fresh of the presses rookie developer.

GAU Entertainment, the developer of this game, performed a slam dunk right at the start. But unfortunately seemed to lose their footing not long after. They were eventually brought by Sega and were merged into Nex Entertainment, a studio most known for the Time Crisis games...the later bad Time Crisis games. It is always unfortunate to see these talented developers either go to waste or the wayside.

Ranger-X isn't the perfect game. For starters the game is far too short, even considering the genre it is in. It is also way too easy as well. There is also the music which leaves a lot to be desired as it is pretty much your standard Mega Drive fare. But at the end of the day, I really enjoyed this game and in my opinion it is the best game made exclusively for Sega's 16-bit system.

As I say farewell to Sega's little machine that could, I can't get over the fact of how overlooked I feel the console is. It featured dozens of high quality games that support the statement of "they don't make them like they used to". Despite that, it constantly gets over shadowed by its rival. Maybe its because the genres the Mega Drive specialized in have fallen out of popularity since the 1990s, or possibly it is because Nintendo is still around to promote their franchise, play style, and philosophy, while Sega has kicked the bucket as a console maker and is a shadow of their former selves. It is hard to tell for certain, but either way the Mega Drive was a fantastic system and I feel that there is no better game to bow down as the curtain's close on it for this list than Ranger-X.