When do you think Sega was at it's most creative?

Face it, this forum is Sega world. While there are some here that do enjoy or even love Nintendo (I don't) Most of us agree, Sega was awesome and all Sega seems to be capable of now is reminding us of how awesome they once were.

While I was out earlier running some errands I was thinking about all the creative and different games Sega was pushing out when Sega Still made consoles.

Sega Super scaler technology even now is still impressive Outrun and Space Harrier still hold up to this day. Phantasy Star was the first RPG that I know of that wasn't all swords and sorcery. The R360 brought interactivity to the arcades in a whole new way.

The 16 bit era brought us fast platformers, Ristar, Sonic with probably the best level design ever in a 2d platformer, Joe Montana Football with ACTUAL Commentary, and well it may not have been the best idea, but the Add on was, well a creative way of extending the Megasis' life span.

Lets also not forget Decades before Nintendo had the 3ds Sega had Time Traveler and Holiseium. Virtua Racing wasn't the first 3d game but it was the first to take it Mainstream alongside Virtua fighter.

Then Saturn and Dreamcast, we Had Nights, Burning Rangers, Panzer Dragoon, Jet Set Radio, Crazy Taxi and Shenmue all of which I consider Sega's best games. Aspects of the Dreamcast's Hardware were pretty creative too, Modum, and VMU

Sega did alot, but when to you feel they were really at their peak?

 

At their peak, Megadrive days, but creativity, Saturn by a mile. The Sonic Team was responsible for some really unique and fun games in this era, Christmas Nights is probably one of my all time favourite games, I bust it out every year for some festive goodness, no other game does that for me. Sure the Megadrve days were fun and the Dreamcast days were epic, but in the days of the Saturn it's like Sega were on hallucinogens or something, and I really like that.

 

Anywhere between late Megadrive 1995 to around 2003 post-Dreamcast fits for me I think, as you said, Ristar was fantastic, also things like Kolibri, Comix Zone, Vectorman, Darxide were very creative during the lifespan of the Megadrive. Saturn and Dreamcast had some cracking games too as well as kickstarting the online gaming 'arena' we play with these days.

Thinking back, I think they started to lose focus after 2003, I mean; Sonic Advance, Billy Hatcher, House of the Dead III, Otogi were all really cool sega-feel games but after that, stuff like Headhunter Redemption & Sonic Heroes felt really sterile.

 

Yeah, if we're just talking creativity/originality, then it'd have to be the period from 95-2000, with some crazy games like Nights, Burning Rangers, Jet Set Radio and Shenmue, although Sega's arcade games from the 80s would come close with how they revolutionized sprite scaling.
Virtua Racing was definitely not the game that took 3D to the mainstream though, there had been a ton of polygonal 3D games before then.

 

I started playing videogames with Atari, then Namco and Taito arcades, but it was Sega that made me a true gamer. I don't know about you, but for me from the mid 80's till late 90's, was their peak in talent, creativity and originality. Anyone who experienced Sega arcades during that time have a special place for those on his heart. I could talk for hours about great times with Sega games on those days, both arcade or in home consoles. Games like OutRun, Alex Kidd in Miracle World, Sonic, and so on and on.... I remember the first time i saw stuff like Virtua Racing and Daytona USA. Standing in front of them, amazed, before even playing.

 

Id have to agree with this post, Plus add most everything Sega did was innovative for the times start to finish ( at least in arcade - console),
Virtual fighter for example changed the fighting arena.
Sega's employees had a lot of original ideas threw out its history.

Many of the new release have kind of sucked though.... sigh...

 

1994 to 2002. The best games and consoles lived in that time. Then the Xbox and PS2 came out followed soon by Gamecube...

 

I have no preference to Sega or Nintendo. I love my Nintendo 64 and Sega Dreamcast equally, I just struggle to afford to collect for one system but if I could I'd spread the wealth to two or more without a doubt.

Whilst Sega obviously went a little nuts and made a lot of good 2D games, most if not all were just really good games using existing genres and ideas. They didnt do much new they just did it well. The really interesting stuff didn't start to happen until the dawn of the 3D era with the 32X when the genres started to flesh out into the extra dimension. I'd so love to have been able to buy a Sega Neptune Obviously due to this the Saturn era was a creative era whilst they were finding their feet, but it wasn't Sega's most creative era nor was much of it revolutionary, merely evolutionary.

I'm a sucker for the sixth generation, but even then I think it would be hard to say Space Channel 5 is creative when it is really just a 3D PaRappa the Rapper. Cosmic smash is basically playing squash with weird art. Skies of Arcadia is just like many other generic RPGs except the ships float in the air not on water. Panzer Dragoon Saga with boats? lol. Sonic Adventure is Super Mario 64 without the fun and added crappy voice acting. The PuruPuru pack came out after the Rumble Pak. The Dreameye also came out after the Gameboy Camera. Rez is basically a shooter in the style of Vib-Ribbon. Even Seaman is just a Tamagotchi on steroids. They are all good products in their own right, but hardly original.

What do I think are Sega's creative highlights?

Custom uncrackable disc format which got cracked pretty quickly.
Internet connectivity out of the box. Free dial-up modem with a Broadband upgrade available. (more evolution than revolution, but done by everything since)
Operating system on the game not the console
System link a home console with a handheld / portable (done by almost everything bar Xbox since)
VMU miniscreen for status or minigames etc (PocketStation, NDS/3DS)

18 Wheeler. A racing game of sorts... but with a truck! Not so creative when you think about it that way, but how many trucker games were you aware of before it? A lot more followed since.
Brave Fire Fighters. Don't be a fake fireman in Burning Rangers when you can simulate a real one on the Hikaru!
Crazy Taxi. The arrow navigation system was one of the first of its kind. (common now - and we wonder why kids have grown up thick!)
Gunvalkyrie was originally intended to have some weird control scheme using a light gun AND a controller. It sure sounds like fun and in hindsight it also sounds quite familiar... (wiimote + nunchuk, psmove + nunchuk anyone?)
Jet Set Radio. First cell shaded game ever with beautiful music and it is fking awesome to boot. They borrowed a lot of pre-existing art under licence but you can look past that. (cell shading done to death by everyone since)
Propellor Arena. It took a combat flight similuator, put it in a modern setting, threw away the crap parts, added multiplayer and gave you the best bits again and again.
Sega Bass Fishing. Sort of like the fun minigame in Ocarina of Time, but you can use an actual fishing rod controller to go fish. How cool is that? (no official fishing rod for other playforms yet, but with generic accelerometers or gesture, no need any more)
Typing of the dead. A lightgun game without a lightgun haha. Classic.

 

Up until the seventh generation. Even now they still put out some original stuff. The Dreamcast era was arguably the best, Jet Set Radio, Space Channel 5, fucking Seaman, Shenmue, Crazy Taxi, and afterwards Panzer Dragoon Orta and Gunvalkyrie, also Chu Chu Rocket, man the list just goes on. I love Sega (but maybe not as much as Nintendo!)

 

Amongst my favorites

Jet Set Radio- There's nothing like this game at least nothing as stylish with it's music and graphics. I wish there was a 3rd game that mixes JSRF's Trick system with JSR's look and tagging style. For some reason the first thing I think of when somebody says Shibuya is JSR.

Nights- Again NOTHING like this I'm addicted to this game now, I have 3 versions of the game farthest in the XBOX version. You Fly, you run from a clock you cross breed genderless creatures by accident and ram into creatures. It SHOULD have a billion sequels like Katamari but sadly it doesn't It just has 1 Sequel I refuse to aknowledge.

Virutal On- Mech Combat isn't creative. But that Control scheme sure is.

Fighters Mega Mix- OK yeah it's a fighting game, but the Hornet from Daytona is a playable character? Name one other fighting game with a fighting car.

Crazy Taxi- Drive around breaking all kinds of laws like nobody's business pick up people drop them off, break more laws, and do it to some of Offspring's best songs.
YEAH!

 

Sega from their Arcade/Console days was always creative. It simply defined them to be making dozens of new games every year. The first thing that disappointed me when they went third party was that all of their big announced titles were franchises and not new games. They did still work on a few new projects that were carry-overs from the Dreamcast for a few years, but then they just stopped altogether.

So, as far as Sega's peak I think that must be the Saturn and Dreamcast time frame. I would also have to say that the Master System was an absolutely huge effort by Sega. Obviously the Genesis-SegaCD-32X would trounce most other Sega platforms in sheer numbers of Sega published titles, but I get a very non-Sega vibe from the Genesis library in particular after 1992.

 

Genesis-Dreamcast = i think were the good systems for this company
streets of rage
altered beast
phantasy star
gunstar heroes
golden axe
sonic&kunckles ( play the games you own with a new character)
mickey mouse castle of illusion (def a nice title)
castlevania bloodlines
joe montana sports talk football
thunder force
jurassic park games (rampage edition and the 1st game were great wayyyy better than SNES games)
shinobi
mystic defender
super ghouls n ghost
ranger x
shinning force
splatterhouse
xmen games ( clone wars and 1st game - were good too)
toe jam and earl
kid chameleon

panzer dragoon
die hard arcade
virtua fighter
daytona usa
fighting vipers
nights
burning rangers
*capcom ports, darkstalkers - street fighter - marvel super heroes - xmen children of the atom
figthers megamix
virtual on
shinobi legions

jet grind radio
sega sports titles ( were really good )
crazy taxi
space ch 5
shenmue
*almost any capcom arcade port, dreamcast owns in 2d fighters
and the system itself.... seriously browse the web with it, hardware was great.

the thing that kills em, is having wasted to much on 'add-on' crap
instead of sega cd/32x/cdx/gamegear, just go to saturn

nomad was pretty neat, the gamegear sucked... ugh i had high hopes for it

 

Alot of the games you listed were not made by Sega. We're talking about how creative Sega was.

 

When they decided to have the Genesis, Sega CD, Game Gear, 32X, Picco, and Saturn all vying for the same living room audience.

 

x

 

Pretty sure the Pico was after a somewhat different market than the rest. The Game Gear was also intended to be a portable rather than home console (battery life be damned!). It'd be like claiming the GameBoy was cannibalizing the NES market which it very well may have but I'd wager more people used them complementary rather than "one or the other".

 

valid point but market saturation is undeniable lol.

and honestly, a ton of my friends had GameGears and because the fucking battery they used them only at home...plugged into the wall.

 

well out of that list only these aren't from sega dev's

gunstar
castlevania
joe montana
thunder force
ranger x
jurassic park
xmen
splatterhouse
super ghoulsnghost
*and of course the capcom figthers

so its not 'alot' of games.
I mention those titles because they made that console even better, having a good variety of companies making quality games help the genesis/saturn/dreamcast.
the hardware for all the systems were good too, even before the genesis the SMS had 3D games.
I remember buying the SMS add-on for the genesis 1 too (since i had my collection of SMS games).
I actually was more into SEGA when they were coming out with systems, enjoyed the genesis and the saturn the most.

 

Good amount actuall Sega did do X-men if I recall. and Sega owns the Gunstar IP.

 

Owning it doesn't mean making it. Microsoft owns Halo but Bungie made it (and now 343, an entirely different group! see what he was getting at?)