Your Top 5 Game Gear Games

The Game Gear was one of Sega's worst systems but I still enjoyed many games on it. It's a better machine than it gets credit for. Its line-up was mostly downgraded Genesis games and shitty licensed games but it had its gems. And even downgraded Genesis games like Gunstar Heroes and Ristar were still pretty good considering the hardware.

My top 5:

1. Sonic Chaos - The best of the GG Sonics and the best portable platform game on a pre-NGPC format.

2. Aleste GG 2/Power Strike 2 - I have only played this through emulation but it's a great Compile shooter. Sega should be beat for releasing it in Japan and Europe but neglecting North America. It's a Game Gear exclusive and shouldn't be confused with another Aleste game of the same name.

3. GG Shinobi 2 - The multiple ninja thing sets the portable Shinobi games apart from the Genesis ones and makes them worthy in their own right.

4. Puyo Puyo - Puyo is great on any format and this is no exception.

5. Devilish - I haven't played the Genesis version which is likely better but I enjoyed this neat twist on Breakout-style games.


There are still a few nice-looking games I need to play a bit more like Defenders of Oasis(RPG) and Crystal Warriors(Strategy/RPG). These games might make my top 5 but I haven't played them long enough to judge.

1.Columns?
2.Sonic Chaos
3.Streets of Rage 2
4.puyo puyo

I definitely agree about Sonic Chaos, I had a ton of fun with that game. That and other Sonics are the only great GG games I've had though.

I don't think it is fair to call Game Gear a bad system. It's just not aged well unfortunately. When it first came out it was amazing though. The colour screen was revolutionary and the games were great. Compared to NGPC and GBA it's pretty lousy.. but compared to the old Fatboy GG's screen was a wonder to behold. Also, compared to the Fatboy GG's massive size was not that large. By today's standard GG seems like it's suitcase sized.. but it's an unfair comparision. It's like comparing a mobile phone from 1992 to a new one....

People don't realise that Game Gear also was pretty successful and popular. It never threatened GB but it did well. I think the critical area where Sega erred was by not redesigning the hardware into a "Game Gear Pocket" around 1995-96. If they could have made a sleeker and smaller version with a less blurry sreen at that time I think they could have taken a good share of the handheld market. It was perfect timing. Sadly they were too bogged down with other problems to do so...

Anyway, as for the software.. I think there were a lot of great games. All of the Sonic games were outstanding. Castle of Illusion is one of my all time favourite platformers. Ristar was fantastic. Ecco was cool.. Fantasy Zone was great. There were neat RPGs like Defender of Oasis and Golden Axe Warrior. Lucky Dime Caper was neat. As mentioned - all versions of Puyo own. I've heard the Shining Force games are good fun too. I have not played them yet though. Plenty of other decent games too.

There was also some Phantasy Star Adventure game that looked nice in photos.

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Originally posted by xS
There was also some Phantasy Star Adventure game that looked nice in photos.

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I am pretty sure those were Japanese only. :(

I wonder if the roms have been haked/translated though...

1. Aladdin
2. WWF Raw
3. Sonic 1
4. Sonic 2
5. Mean Bean Machine

There is a translated version of Phantasy Star Adventure. It's not a regular rom though; it's its own exe file.

I don't know if Phantasy Star Gaiden was translated.

1. Sonic Chaos
2. Sonic 2
3. A baseball game I can't remember the name of. It came with the system along with Sonic 2...
4. Aladdin
5. Lion King

I got a Turbo Express first then later a Game Gear so the GG had no chance whatsoever....

There's a number of GameGear games I wanted to like, but the scroll-blurring prevented me from really getting into many of the action games on the system. Though, to be fair, this problem was not exclusive to the GameGear, as the original GameBoy suffered from the same flaw to a lesser extent. And unfortunately, it was the very nature of Sonic games that made them very difficult to play on a GameGear screen. I did have quite a bit of fun with Shining Force: The Sword of Hajya, though.

I didn't own a GameGear for long before it broke, though, so I never really fully explored the library. I did always want to try the GG Ristar.

Phantasy Star Gaiden has been translated. Also, naflign has ported some of the short stories from the sega cd phantasy star game to PC and translated them into english.

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Originally posted by sggg
I don't think it is fair to call Game Gear a bad system. It's just not aged well unfortunately. When it first came out it was amazing though. The colour screen was revolutionary and the games were great.

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The color portable was revolutionary... when the Lynx was released in 1989 with more power to boot.

the GG's version of aladdin was suprisingly awesome, from what i remember..

also, i was addicted to road rash for a while for some reason..


there were quite a few good reasons to own a gamegear, even if they were only ports of NES or downgraded genesis games..

I got a GG on release (not the early Big City release, mind you).
GG Shinobi, and Castle of Illusion were my favorites.
Portable gaming has never really done anything for me. So the old under-used GameGear got shipped off to FuncoLand HQ, along with the majority of my Genesis library, so I could partially pay for my $300 SegaCD.

...I never did get to try the MasterGear, even though one of my friends had one. ..I just wasn't interested at that point.

I owned a Game Gear for about a year from 1994-1995. I bought it from a friend along with Aladdin and Mortal Kombat and some accessories. I also bought Shinobi and Ristar. All of them were very good games.

I never got too heavily into it, probably because I also had a Lynx and about 30 games for that system, and that's where I focused most of my handheld gaming attention at that time. I did enjoy it while I had it, but I ultimately traded in the system and games towards the Jaguar CD shortly after it came out.

The blurring, it hurts my eyes!!!

I liked playing dynamite heady on my GG though.

Atleast when the screen wasn't scrolling.

In no order (all are domestic):

Shining Force: The Sword of Hajya
Ninja Gaiden (great game, reminds me more of Shinobi than NG though)
Sonic Chaos
Revenge of Drancon (basicly adventure island)
Columns (I've never played a puzzle game as much)

I'd choose the Atari Lynx game library over the Game Gears any day.