I remember the console wars of the early '90s quite well. Those commercials and the ads in magazines, all trying to convince the youths of the world that either Sega or Nintendo was better than its competitor. We were a Nintendo household right up until the release of the PlayStation. None of my friends owned a Sega Genesis. In fact, for many years, my only interaction with the brand was through Madden Tournaments at the local Boys & Girls Club and a friend of mine who had the old Sega Master System. We played a lot of Thunder Blade on that thing.
For me, the distant relationship I had with Sega ended when I got a Dreamcast and fell head over heels for it. It was a short-lived romance but it did convince me to go back and see all the Sega games I'd missed over the years. And wouldn't you know, Sega seemed happy to fulfill that desire by releasing compilations of its Genesis titles on every console released after the Dreamcast died.
Looking back at the history of Sega games is appropriate today as June 3 is the 60th anniversary of the founding of the company. Its first successful game was the arcade hit Periscope. Its first console was the SG-1000, a name you could only get away with in the '80s. Today, it reigns as one of the most popular game developers out of Japan, and with its acquisition of Atlus in 2013, it owns one of the biggest JRPG franchises in the world.
I love the year or so I spent with my Dreamcast, but honestly, my favorite games Sega put out came long after that console was put out to pasture. So to mark this 60th anniversary for one of gaming's most prolific publishers, I asked Destructoid contributors to share their favorite Sega games.
