Here is a little top 10 list of my absolute favorite games on the Sega Master System and my stories with them.
All pictures taken are of my personal collection. Enjoy!
This game was the first thing I ever bought with money I had earned from writing a game ost. My mom saw me playing this once and commented "all video games are just rip offs of Mario." I think about that a lot.
I actually played this with my sister once, who doesn't really play video games at all. When we played Virtua Cop afterwards she made a comment about how poorly aged it looked, but interestingly she didn't say anything like that about Gangster Town. I felt vindicated in my belief that pixel art ages a lot more gracefully than 3D graphics.
When I imported this game from Australia it had Castle of Illusion inside the case instead of Land of Illusion.
The seller couldn't do much, but thankfully I was able to find a loose copy of the game online which I promptly stuck inside the case.
This was a game I convinced a friend of mine to try. She doesn't play a lot of Sega games, but I assured her she'd love it since she's so obsessed with Zelda 1. Sure enough, she got so into it she mapped out every single area in the game.
I got this game for christmas one year. If the wrapping paper is to be believed, my dog got it for me. One time I had such an intense session playing this I actually tore a bit of skin, no joke!
I always associate this game with the summer of 2015, cause I'd always play it after getting home from my summer job. I was so obsessed with getting an "authentic 80's experience" out of it, I wrote down everything the NPCs would say in a notebook. I always think of the beach I worked near whenever I play this.
A friend of mine wanted to try this game out for the first time and I insisted that I send her the ROM. It was actually a romhack I was working on (never finished it!) so it wasn't until 5 levels in she got to play through the rest of the game like normal.
I actually ordered my copy of the game from Portugal, and the seller was nice enough to leave a piece of candy inside the case. Delicious!
A friend of mine drew my OC in the style of this game once. I didn't even ask! Whenever I hear Last Dungeon I always think of studying for my GED as I made a FDS cover of the song around the same time.
I played this on stream once and someone commented that the final boss looked like he had a smiley face on top of him and now I can never unsee that. I actually beat this game played at 60hz, which is one of my more insane gaming accomplishments.
This was the first Master System game I ever played. I discovered it on a java site when I was young and I was immediately blown away by how colorful the game was and how incredible the 1st stage theme was. This game singehandedly made me interested in the Master System (even if it took a decade for me to realize it!). It was the first game I ever bought for the SMS and a cover of the 1st stage theme was also the very first thing I uploaded to soundcloud. Speaking completely genuinely, I don't think I would be where I am in life had I never played this game. I certainly wouldn't be writing Master System music, that's for sure.
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