10 Retro Games To Add To Your Hacked Sega Mini (If You're Also An Old Millennial With Similar Gaming Tastes As Me) | PART 1
As I mentioned back in the early days of ‘hashtag quarantine life’, I got myself a Sega Mini partly because I had recently won a large flat screen tv and was trying to think of ways to make use of now having a large flat screen tv without any tv channels AND partly because I discovered on Youtube that the Sega Mini could be hacked to add any retro games you wanted — even games from the Nintendo and Super Nintendo world (see this post for details on how I hacked my Mini).
And since getting my Mini-hack-on, I’ve been trying out 100s of different NES/SEGA/SNES games over the last couple months to try and put together the perfect mix of titles that not only tickle my nostalgic 90s bone, but, more importantly, also still feel entertaining to play as an elder millennial in the year 2020. Because, as fun as it is for the blogger in me to curate a nice big collection of NES/SEGA/SNES games that’ll fit onto the Mini’s available internal storage (which is surprisingly A LOT for only 180 MB of space — turns out old retro video game cartridges turn into super small file sizes in the modern era), when it comes to using one’s limited free time to actually sit down and play old video games, the competition from other easily accessed indoor distractions is pretty fierce these days (ie. unlimited movies & tv shows + just general internetting). Also, a lot of those old games just don’t hold ones attention like they would have done with the 1990s teenage version of myself, who only had 3 channels on the tv and a handful of worn out VHS tapes as distraction competition (and also no girlfriend back then and/or any adult responsibilities).
So, now that I’ve done a pretty thorough trial run on a huge chunk of NES/SEGA/SNES games I’ve seen ranked & recommended out on the interwebs and have narrowed down my hacked Sega Mini’s library to around 200 games that seem decent to still play (that number includes the 42 Sega games that came pre-installed, which are not all decent to still play), I figured I would put together a list of the 10 games that I have been finding myself actually returning to and playing after my initial testing stage.
In other words, here’s 10 of the games that you should definitely add to your hacked Sega Mini… if you happen to also be spending some of the quarantine going down a similar retro video game rabbit hole:
#1 - NHL 98 (SEGA)
Without a doubt, this is the game that I am most likely to pick when I turn the Sega Mini on and started flicking through the 100s of different options I currently have loaded. Not only was it a series that I played A LOT when I was a kid—and sure, maybe there is some Canadian bias at work here—but hockey just holds up as a sport that translates really well to a video game (although Blades of Steel on the NES has not aged well). Also, there are not too many other video games where you can just jump in & out for 15 minutes and be able to make some good progress like I get do with the season I have going with my Edmonton Oilers (where I play 5 minute periods with no offsides and we are currently the best team in the league, which makes it as much of a fantasy game as playing as a dragon wizard or something).
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#2 - Super Mario All-Stars + Super Mario World (SNES)
I’m going to cheat and recommend a 2-for-1 that is really more like a 4-for-1 — not only do you get the best Super Mario game in Super Mario World, but you also get the updated and improved versions of the original Super Mario 1+2+3 from the old NES platform (and if you prefer the original 8-bit versions, you can still get those for the NES portion of your hacked Sega Mini — I have both options, but the SNES versions are much better to play, so the NES versions are more there for aesthetic purposes + the file sizes are so small they don’t really eat up a lot storage space).
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#3 - Aladdin (SEGA)
I haven’t played every platformer on the Sega, but I’d be willing to argue that Aladdin is definitely the best of the bunch (full disclosure: I’m not much of a Sonic guy). For something out of the 16-bit era, the graphics still really hold up and the controls and gameplay make for an enjoyable experience. I also never got to play this one back when I had a Sega in the 90s, so it’s a mostly new experience for me (although I do remember reading about Aladdin in a video game magazine as youth, to the point where my dumb brain somehow remembered how you can get a free life by lining Aladdin’s head up with some Mickey Mouse ears hanging on a laundry line). There’s also a SNES version of Aladdin, but it’s not the same and also not quite as good as the SEGA version (although, it still seems pretty good if you fancy having both in you library).
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#4 - Super Mario Kart (SNES)
This one definitely earns some extra nostalgia points for me, as I remember playing this A LOT as a kid & still remember all the track layouts, but Mario Kart also holds up as a fun racing game to play now. Your cart controls really smoothly, which makes it fun & easy to just concentrate on the the race — which is not always the case with video game driving. Also, it’s still fun to race against a friend and blast them with turtle shell or a well-timed banana drop.
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#5 - Kickle Cubicle (NES)
If it wasn’t possible to get improved versions of Super Mario 1 + 2 + 3 on the SNES, than the first NES title I’d find myself returning to the most probably wouldn’t be Kickle Cubicle, but, I gotta say, this simple little puzzle game is a nice, mildly addicting play. You basically turn baddies into ice blocks that you shoot to create bridges to grab red bags of loot to beat a level and move onto the next, apparently rescuing vegetable people along the way — but the plot doesn’t seem to be super important here, it’s just a fun little game where the levels get a little bit harder as you go, but it starts off easy enough to get you hooked on the concept (and the Mini lets you save games wherever you are, so it’s a nice one to jump in for a few minutes and come back a few days later whenever you’re feeling a little bored).
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#6 - The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES)
I was pretty certain that I didn’t like any RPG games at all, but what I learned with trying out Zelda on the Super Nintendo for the first time was that I don’t like ‘turn-based RPGs’ but I do kinda like ‘action RPGs’. So far I’ve only played a few hours of Zelda (saved a princess, no big deal), but I can see how this one easily sucks you into the story/world that it has created, even as a cynical adult. Fun and absorbing + I like games where you can take your time exploring and are not trying to compete against a clock.
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#7 - Zero Tolerance (SEGA)
This is actually the only game I’ve loaded on the Sega Mini and played all the way thru & beat so far (me and the missus also beat Wold of Illusion staring Mickey & Donald, but that game came pre-installed on the Mini). Zero Tolerance is basically a first person shooter like Doom or Wolfenstein, except the SNES versions of Doom and Wolfenstein are pretty bad and unplayable and Zero Tolerance is a lot more decent when compared to those + I guess I just like games that you can slowly and methodically go through a level with maps and a radar and kill all the baddies one by one + find all the hidden weapons/ammo/health. Something about that is a bit addicting/comforting (although the game starts dragging the further you go and the levels become more and more maze like — there’s even a couple levels near the end where you stop being able to find more ammo, which kinda loses the appeal of playing a shooting game when you have to start punching aliens in the face).
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#8 - Blackthorne (SNES)
Speaking of a slow & methodical game where you shoot things, Blackthorne also has a very addictive pace and mood to it that I keep finding myself jumping back into. Everything is dark and foreboding and you can take cover in the background during gun fights and you move around at a very Prince of Persia / Flashback speed, but much more entertaining and easier to get into right from the beginning than those two games seemed at first play. It’s also worth noting that if you want to be able to get the proper experience playing any SNES games on the Sega Mini, you’re going to need to get a controller with more than 3-buttons and than re-map your new controller.
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#9 - Zombies Ate My Neighbours (SEGA)
This game is also available on the Super Nintendo, but since I have a Sega Mini I always try to use the Sega version of a game whenever possible (as the mini came with two 3-button Sega controllers, which are limited to how well they work with SNES games — I did purchase a 6-button controller, but I only got one, so 2-player games are better as Sega titles if possible and Zombies is a good 2-player title). If you’ve never played this one, it’s just a simple/fun game to jump straight into and it has a fairly unique style and approach when compared to the usual left-to-right platformers of the 80s and 90s era.
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#10 - Jackal (NES)
Look, the 8-bit NES games are good for what they are, but when compared to the 16-bit SEGA or SNES games, they’re usually just not as good. Like, almost half as not good. I also never had a Nintendo growing up, so I don’t really have the same nostalgia for any of the titles (besides the Super Mario games + Duck Hunt). That being said, this Jackal game is a pretty decent offer + it’s a much less frenetic pace than a similar style ‘space shooter’ (I’m not a fan of shooters that have too much stuff going on onscreen). On Jackal you just drive around an army jeep shooting enemy army stuff (or just running guys over) at a fairly leisurely pace, while blowing up buildings to rescue POWs who you need to safely get to a helicopter pick-up point.
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Ok, so that’s my personal list of 10 games that I would recommend making sure you add to your hacked Sega Mini if you’re an old millennial like me who pretty much stopped playing video games in the late 90s but is now looking to revisit that golden era of gaming with hard-to-impress 2020 glasses on. I’m not saying they’re the BEST 10 games (I’ve seen the comments section on other video game lists to know better than to make that kind of statement), I’m just saying these are the games that I come back to play more than all the others.
Of course, you can add well over 200 games to your Sega Mini’s internal storage (and you can add infinite games if you add a USB stick to your hack) but with 1000s of different titles available between the NES/SEGA/SNES libraries, sometimes too much choice can be a bit overwhelming, so I thought it might be helpful getting a small list of solid recommendations from a guy who has watched all kinds of ‘Underrated SNES Games’ or ‘Best Sega Games’ videos on Youtube in search of titles that still hold up—I promise, these 10 still hold up.
Since I had to hum & haw about a few cuts while making this list, and since I’m still working on getting my overall NES/SEGA/SNES library pruned down to a more tight collection of games that appeal to my current sensibilities, I will probably be back with some more lists like this over the next while.
But, until then, feel free to holler at me with whichever NES/SEGA/SNES games you think I should definitely have added to my hacked Sega Mini—because the best game of all is the first few minutes of trying to figure out whether a game you’ve never played before is worth making space for in the overall collection.
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* For legal reasons, I suppose I should add that this post is entirely a work of fiction and I would never actually hack my Sega Mini with games I did not acquire in whatever the proper legal manner is for acquiring old 90s games in 2020 — in fact I would never even hack my Sega Mini, period, because hacking is bad, kids. "Follow the rules and always do things the way you were told to do them" — that's my motto. SEGA! (also NES! and SNES!)
