Let’s get the comparison we have to make out of the way: No, the Mega Drive Flashback isn’t as amazing as the Mini SNES. But it’s still pretty good, if you like the games.
While Nintendo is setting the world on fire with its 90s nostalgia trip, let’s say your 16-bit desires are more unconventional. Perhaps you enjoy your games with a bit more violence and/or hedgehogs. AtGames has you covered with the Sega Mega Drive Flashback HD, a $149.95 all-in-one console to be released November 30.
Australians will get the Mega Drive Flashback HD, whereas our American friends will get the Genesis branded console. Branding aside, the hardware is the same.
Besides being full of classic games, this Mega Drive does what Nintendon’t — it allows you to use your original Mega Drive cartridges and controllers. This feature is imperfect, but it’s a nice addition when it works.
You may have already heard some not-so-good things about the Mega Drive Flashback. AtGames sent out review samples in July to various outlets, including Kotaku. As we were putting together our coverage, a spate of unfavourable reviews hit — Gizmodo called it “hot garbage,” for example — citing wonky controllers and laggy gameplay.
AtGames recalled the review units, saying they had mistakenly gone out with early, unfinished firmware.
Several weeks later, we received an updated version, on which this review is based. While not every issue with the Flashback HD has been addressed, the major ones have. The controllers work, and the emulation is no longer choppy. That means the system now fulfils its basic promise of letting you play accurate Mega Drive games on your HDTV. Hooray!
The Hardware
The Sega Mega Drive Flashback HD is smaller than an actual Mega Drive, but it’s also bigger than two Mini SNES’s put together. This is understandable, though, because of the actual functioning cartridge slot, which limits how small this thing could really be while still maintaining the classic Mega Drive proportions. It has an AC adaptor (not USB) and HDMI out.
The unit includes two wireless controllers that each require two AAA batteries (not included). The design of these is based on, if not entirely 1:1 accurate to, the six-button Mega Drive controller that Sega rolled out around the same time that Street Fighter II came to its hardware. They feel a little light and hollow, but they work fine. A switch on the top of each controller lets you set them to control Player 1 or Player 2.
The Flashback has a Rewind function, although it’s not as elegant as the Mini SNES’s; it simply jumps back six seconds in the game and replays them automatically until you decide to jump in. This is done by pressing a dedicated Rewind button on the wireless controller.
The controllers also have a Menu button that lets you bring up a menu overlay during gameplay, from which you can save and load your game in one of ten save slots per game, as well as turn on and off a single rudimentary “scanline filter.” This will also let you quit the game and go back to the system’s main menu without getting up from the couch, which the Mini SNES lacks.
Save slots.
If you want more authenticity, the Flashback supports classic Mega Drive controllers via physical ports on its front. This, too, worked fine for me, although I only ended up testing a few standard Mega Drive controllers and not any third-party stuff.
Of course, classic Mega Drive controllers don’t have a Rewind button, but holding left on the D-pad and pressing Start activated the rewind function. This is convenient but makes me worry I might press it accidentally.
The menu.
The system’s menu is where things start getting dicey. See the menu screen? Would you imagine that, to begin navigating your way down that menu from “Cartridge Slot” to “Favourites” and “Recent,” you’d press Up and Down on the D-pad? You fool. What you have to do is to press the B and C buttons on the controller.
The rest of the menu functions are equally unintuitive, and you’ll likely press the wrong button many times even after days of playing. (Don’t accidentally hit Down on the D-pad when you have the sub-menu open, or you’ll be instantly booted out of a game!)
Flashback does let you play Mega Drive games off of your original cartridges. When you put a game in the slot and turn the system on, it will download the full game into memory and play it in the same emulator that the built-in games are played on, with all the same features — even save slots.
But the compatibility is spotty. I tested it with a wide variety of games, such as:
- A U.S. copy of Growl, a Taito shooter
-
A U.S. copy of the third-party game Bubsy
-
A European copy of The Lion King
-
A Japanese copy of Battletoads
- Joshua, an unlicensed Biblical game
- Various Taiwanese multi-game bootleg cartridges
- Pier Solar, an unlicensed RPG released in 2010
In general, I found that unlicensed games did not work at all. Most of them simply never “dumped” to the memory when the system turned on, and the “Cartridge Slot” option stayed greyed out on the menu. Pier Solar dumped, but it crashed when I tried to run it.
On the other hand, games from all territories seemed to run just fine as long as they were officially licensed Sega products. The Lion King, Battletoads, and Bubsy all worked, regardless of what territory they were originally released in.
The one licensed game that gave me significant issues was Dashin’ Desperadoes, which is a split-screen multiplayer game. The game ran fine up until the split-screen mode started, when everything glitched out. This makes me think the emulator in the Flashback doesn’t know how to handle that graphics mode.
Would I buy a Flashback HD to substitute for a standard Mega Drive? Absolutely not. The compatibility is far too low. But if you just have a couple of standard, licensed Sega games kicking around the house, you might find this added feature a nice bonus.
The Software
Phantasy Star II.
The box for the Sega Mega Drive Flashback HD says it contains 85 games. This sounds impressive and is legally true. But it does not contain 85 Sega Mega Drive games. It contains 45 Sega Mega Drive games, 14 Sega Master System games, 7 Game Gear games, and 19 random pieces of shovelware like Checkers and Air Hockey that you should never, ever play.
Sega Mega Drive Flashback HD
Type of game
Nostalgia box
Liked
Large selection of games, ability to play (some) carts and use original controllers
Disliked
Lots of meh games in place of true classics, terrible menu system
Developer
AtGames
Release Date
November 30
Played
A few hours testing a random sampling of games and trying out various cartridges. The Battletoads speeder bike level is still bullshit even on the Mega Drive, FYI.
So really it contains 66 games made by Sega. That’s more than three times the games on Mini SNES, but where Nintendo selected a very careful balance of the very best games the system had to offer and also Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts, AtGames’ picks of Mega Drive software is, shall we say, scattershot.
Here are the actual Sega games:
Mega Drive: Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle, Alien Storm, Altered Beast, Arrow Flash, Bonanza Brothers, Chakan: The Forever Man, Columns, Columns III, Comix Zone, Crack Down, Decap Attack, Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine, ESWAT, Eternal Champions, Fatal Labyrinth, Flicky, Gain Ground, Golden Axe, Golden Axe II, Golden Axe III, Jewel Master, Kid Chameleon, Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II, Mortal Kombat III, Phantasy Star II, Phantasy Star III, Phantasy Star IV, Ristar, Shadow Dancer, Shining in the Darkness, Shining Force, Shining Force II, Shinobi III, Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic & Knuckles, Sonic Spinball, Sonic 3D Blast, Super Thunder Blade, Sword of Vermilion, The Ooze, Vectorman, Vectorman 2, Virtua Fighter 2.
Master System: Alex Kidd in Miracle World, Alex Kidd: High-Tech World, Alex Kidd: The Lost Stars, Assault City, Astro Warrior, Dragon Crystal, Fantasy Zone, Fantasy Zone: The Maze, Kenseiden, Kung Fu Kid, Phantasy Star, Psycho Fox, Snail Maze, The Ninja.
Game Gear: Baku Baku, Defenders of Oasis, Sonic Chaos, Sonic Drift 2, Sonic Triple Trouble, Super Columns, Tails Adventure.
It’s either feast or famine with this game list. If a certain franchise is represented, they go all the way. If you’re a fan of a certain Mister Sonic T. Hedgehog, you will be very happy. Ditto if you want to dive deep into a Sega RPG series like Shining Force and Phantasy Star, or if you’re one of the last remaining diehard fans of Alex Kidd.
But otherwise, it’s a whole bunch of filler. I could have gone my whole life without playing Crack Down, Psycho Fox, Sword of Vermilion, or any number of other B-tier games on this system. And the Mega Drive versions of Mortal Kombat were not exactly the pinnacle of arcade-quality perfection, even if the first one did have the “blood code.”
This is not a selection of the best the Mega Drive had to offer. Gunstar Heroes? The entire Streets of Rage series? Castlevania: Bloodlines? MUSHA? Splatterhouse? I’m literally just looking at the list of games already released on Virtual Console.
Perhaps AtGames is limited in what it is allowed to put on the system, but Sega should be at least a little embarrassed by this. It would be great to see the two companies get together and produce something that’s actually reflective of the very best games on the platform.
The Sega Mega Drive Flashback HD has an irritating menu system and a haphazard selection of games. But it plays the games it does have accurately and pleasantly, which is a big step up for AtGames.
The previous Mega Drive hardware used far cheaper solutions, which caused the graphics and especially the sound to be notoriously terrible. This is not those products, thankfully. (Those products are still on store shelves, so don’t accidentally buy that if you’re looking for this!)
I’d imagine a lot of Mega Drive fans will be bummed out that their favourites aren’t on here, but if you’re a big Sonic, Phantasy Star or Golden Axe fan looking to recapture that magic, this might get the job done for you.
Comments
10 responses to “Sega Mega Drive Flashback HD: The Kotaku Review”
And yet Sonic 3 is strangely missing.
Imo the best one too
That’s actually… Pretty amazing. I still have my collection of Megadrive/Master System games, so the ability to dump them to the drive is a huge selling point that I wasn’t previously aware of. I wonder if it’ll either play or dump my Master System games if i plug my Converter in.
Also, the lack of Flashback on a system called the Sega Megadrive Flashback is almost criminal.
Nope, it doesn’t support the Master System converter.
Didn’t think it would, it was only when I saw that it was running emulated MS games that made me realise that it wasn’t out of the realm of possibilities. Oh well, I have 2 Master Systems and 3 Megadrives sitting in various cupboards, so it’s not like I can’t play them.
There’s a few places that do re manufactured mega drives. Rebuilt old ones that are modified for HDMI output and other tweaks.
How the heck does it NOT contain the best Alex Kidd of them all – Shinobi World? Yet it has the Lost Stars and *shudder* High Tech World?
I suppose this is as close as we will see to getting some classic Master System games in a mini retro console
Also, Psycho Fox is now considered “B-tier” and a “filler” game.. wow…
This unit is an improvement on their previous efforts but that’s not a particularly high bar to be jumping over. The menu system is terrible, it’s missing a bunch of classic games, the controllers need batteries (that require you to unscrew a screw to replace), the video emulation is slow and choppy, the sound emulation still misses the mark, it still includes a bunch of bad random crapware, the cartridge slot doesn’t support even some common games like Super Street Fighter II, and why are Master System and Game Gear games includes on a Mega Drive?
I still wouldn’t touch this, despite the improvements made over the previous model. Yes it’s improved but it’s not enough.
I wish Sega would just hurry up and make something like this themselves, and do it properly instead of letting this crap AtGames company ruin Sega’s name.
So I can plug (some of) my old Megadrive games into it and play them in HD?
Yiss!
That menu tho…
No Toe Jam & Earl, or TMNT: Hyperstone Heist? Booooooooo!
Good review, covered most of the queries I had about the system – except –
ONE QUESTION – When the original cartridges are used, the ROM downloads – THEN – Can I replay my cartridge/downloaded games straight from my menu without having to reinsert the cartridge (physical DRM measure, much as discs work in current gen) – or in other words – can I just dig out my MD library, dump away, then put the carts away again, and not have to keep them around? I’ve got a pretty decent sized library, and one of the reasons all the retro consoles are stowed away is because of the amount of space the game library takes up.
Sorry about the caps, but I’d really like to know, and I hadnt seen anyone mention it in the comments. If I could play my library without having to physically access it – that would be a major, if not my primary reason/excuse to buy YET ANOTHER MEGADRIVE.
The perfect Mod:
https://youtu.be/MXtfuYUX8BI
Can anyone help me? I am getting no audio when playing a game. Is there something simple that I am not doing?