Are there any games that are better than you remember?

Joe! I’ve been watching Game Sack for 5-6 years now and I just have to let you know that I appreciate your content IMMENSELY. Huge part of how I got into collecting and became more knowledgeable about retro games. THANK YOU 🙏🏾

Being a longtime subscriber I think it's finally time to give an high opinion of your channel and how you're continued making high level quality content. You're a true gaming guru and you're videos are entertaining and informative as ever, keep up the magnificent work my man!

"...and if you were alive in the '90's you know that more blood means it's better" amen

If you want to be fully powered up in the SMS Ghouls N' Ghosts, just die in the second half of the first stage over and over again. You'll get enough treasure chests to cycle through to all the store options.

Can’t wait for Dave to make an appearance with a full head of hair after that Keeps advert.

I'm pretty sure that the bloody wolf "Woofs" are a nod to Dave

It’s 7am Sunday UK and I’m in the office not working and enjoying a cup of Joe Reddifer

Herzog Zwei is still my favorite strategy game. I was slightly disappointed at first, but kept playing since I didn't get games often. I was hooked after giving it a chance.

I love that you have a double skit at the end of each episode now. That hair loss skit is hilarious.

The best part of streets of rage 3 is that little soda can rolling down the street as a middle finger to final fight's barrels.

I remember... I remember the 90s like it was yesterday.

Crusin’ is so much fun in the arcade… And honestly, I think USA’s N64 port captures the look and feel pretty well.

Yes, I remember 1991, 1992, 1994 and 1993.. The year without a SoR

The soundtrack to Herzog Zwei is amazing!

As a Castlevainia superfan I have to say of course CVII is a MetroidVania! Several areas are blocked and need items to progress and there is a way to increase both HP and upgrade weapons. It is the first MetroidVania. CVII walked so SotN could run!

Dunno why, but I felt so happy hearing you call Bloody Wolf, Bloody Woof, especially with the dog woof. That callback to the old skit is very much appreciated

Absolutely adored Zelda II and Simon's quest the first time through back in the day! So it's nice to see them get some love.

I always thought Street of Rage 3 was odd looking, and not as good as 2 as a young lad. But you could select Shiva as a bonus character, so I didn't mind too much.

I knew Herzog Zwei got a mixed reception at release, but those EGM reviews/scores are a punch to the gut.

8:07 my favourite version of Ghouls n Ghosts (on SMS) as it isn't stupidly hard. My favourite "trick" is to keep dying on the first level until powered up fully (apart from the final weapon), makes the game an absolute breeze lol!

Sunday mornings in UK always made better with Dave haha. Thanks dude 👍🏻

"... a large portion of the music was automatically composed by a strange computer programme and NOT a HUMAN BEING." Elsewhere, Motohiro Kawashima, a HUMAN BEING, is sitting somewhere at the corner of his house crying upon hearing this remark.

I love Zelda 2, yes it was different from the first one but back then nobody complain about that. It was just another new cool game! And yes, the music is awsome!

I’m waiting for the GAME SACK sequel NAME SACK, where Joe talks about his favorite names, or names he hates, or names left in Japan.

The deaths from grenades at 15:44 and 16:50 are hilarious

19:00 Actually in SOR1 there is no dash at all, for any of the characters. In SOR2 only Skate can dash forward, yet not up and down. SOR3 was the only one that let all the characters dash as well as added them being able to dash up and down.

I love game sack . I go to bed listening to the crunch Thank you very much Joe and Dave

Man me and my brother would always rent streets of rage 3 back in the day.

Loved Zelda 2 and glad to see more people appreciating it. Simon’s quest was quite frustrating initially but once I started understanding the game structure it was pretty good. If I’m not mistaken Dracula’s eyeball when equipped allowed you to see holes the floor.

Enjoying my late night with Game Sack! Great topic too!

What can be better than Game Sack at 1 am? Nothing, that’s what.

There's probably a bunch but the first one that came to mind was Beyond Oasis. I remember it a bit from being younger but play ed it again recently and it's such a great game

Lol EGM was my go to mag back in the day, But they have been known to have given low scores for future epic games

Love CruisN USA and I’m really looking forward to the new CruisN Blast arcade port to Nintendo Switch. Great video as always Joe

omg finally someone talked about Herzog Zwei on the Genesis! I remember playing that game on the Genesis with my grandma and dad in 2-player mode. The single player was fun but 2-player was sooo much funner. Having the split screen in the center and being able to fly around with two players was pretty unique for the time. It was overall a very unique game for being on console. I seem to remember Herzog having incredible music too for the Genesis. This was in the 90's around the same time I remember my dad renting a Turbo Grafx-16 that we played for a bit. I only remember playing that one pack in game that came with it where you turn into a mini gundam in a side scrolling game. The girl from Bare Knuckle 3 was one of my childhood crushes. Something about athletic Chun-Li like babes get me

Wind Waker definitely came to mind when reading the title of this vid.

1:41 I mean the original gold edition was also sold with an entire strategy guide...I still have it.

I kinda remember 94. Definitely the world cup

Man I remember when there wasn't a pizza place, laundromat, movie theater, or bar that didn't have a Cruis'n USA cab. Those things were everywhere!

I always remember Bloody Wolf from a song GameJew wrote about it when it came out on the Virtual Console. Had a chorus that went something like "Bloody Wolf, Bloody Wolf, save all the hostages and shoot this dude. And when you shoot this dude, blood comes out of his chest". I gotta find that song now.

The changes to SoR3 by Sega US were due to nothing more than the egos of product managers and execs that were trying to make a name for themselves. A lot of video games houses/publishers back then hired execs that knew nothing about video games.

Me: It’s late, I should go to bed. *Game Sack uploads* Me: Oh, hell yeah.

Love Zelda 2! One of the very most nostalgic games for me! The soundtrack gets me every time.

Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! on the NES. I've always loved the game, but I love it even more now because it's so quick to just pick up and play, whether I just want to play it for 5 minutes or half an hour. It's so much fun to go through each different opponent that I have no problem starting over and doing it all over again. Sometimes I'll try to speed run my way through the game, although I'm still not that great at beating the later opponents. Road Rash on the 3DO is another one. Again, I've always loved the game, but it's a lot of fun to just pick up and play, and is probably my favorite game on that underappreciated console. Every time I play it for any length of time, I have a blast. There are probably a lot of other 16- and 32-bit games that I would consider for such a list, but I'm blanking right now.

this video made my dog sad because he kept hearing a bloody woof but couldn't find it :(

Damn it Joe, quit breaking Neo Geo sticks!

Love seeing Herzog Zwei in there. Also should throw General Chaos in there

AND I remember 1992 . I graduated that year and worked ( as the only guy ) in a grocery store deli surrounded by grumpy old women . I think that I spent every paycheck on new SNES games at the Kmart next door to the grocery store that I worked at .

Speaking of zelda, minish cap! I remember people saying it felt incomplete when it was released. Think it's often overlooked now and days

Sir you've outdone yourself with that shirt. Bravo.

"Humphry Bogart's great-grandson Terry" Awesome 👍

I really love your big sack. Its always relaxing to sit back and watch a new video of the sack man. Love these videos. Great for chilling

I absolutely loved Zelda 2 and Simon’s Quest when I was little. The music was some of the best on the nes and I was too young to realize either one had issues. I just enjoyed playing them like I do today. That’s all the matters in the end anyways.

The Cruis'n/Fast and Furious/Super Bikes games are a guilty pleasure of mine. Can you imagine how excited I was to see a new Cruis'n game announced at e3?

Ghouls and Ghosts on the Mater System was so awesome :) Played this one to death with my childhood best friend 👍👍

Most of the games I didn't like initially that I've come to enjoy later on are unanimous classics that I was too stupid or impatient to stick with. Final Fantasy VII, Dark Souls, Mystical Ninja starring Goemon, Rez, Ocarina of Time. Some of these are among my very favourite games now. It's definitely worth challenging previous assumptions as your taste broadens.

I would love to see a Zelda II remake that shows off what was awesome about that game

I really, really love the close up shots you do of the TV.

It's always a nice surprise to see Herzog Zwei on these lists. I've been a diehard since its launch. 👍

The arcade version of Crusin’ USA has great music!

I remember 1994. I was a high school freshman.

I member 1992. The Barcelona Olympics, and the video store across the street from our unit block had a Streetfighter 2 poster in the window. It wasn't until we moved house that I got a SNES for Christmas however. Got the Starwing (Starfox) bundle for Xmas the following year :)

Bloody Wolf *woof woof I spend hours rewatching your old episodes. Yes, i very much remember 1992. A lot good music came out that year.

I'm totally with you on Streets of Rage 3, the older i get i appreciate the Soundtrack more and it was way ahead of its time. I just wish we got Bare Knuckle 3 back in the day instead.

Love this topic and thank you for making a video on it!!!

00:43 - Legend of Zelda 2 02:57 - Cruisin' USA 05:35 - Herzog Zwei 08:13 - Ghouls and Ghosts 11:45 - Castlevania 2 Simon's Quest 14:32 - Bloody Wolf 17:32 - Streets of Rage Series

(UK player) I played Castlevania 2 and Zelda 2 back in the day, loved 'em both.

Oh look its a sack full of games

I never appreciated Shadows of the Empire back in the 90's. Today, I think it's excellent, and I even enjoyed the Mos Eisley level.

Great topic and video. Already wanting a part 2. Game sack never disappoints

91,92,93, 16,17,18 yrs old oh the nostalgia.

"I think people dislike games they suck at." Another been from Joe!

I miss EGM was buying it almost monthly during the 32-bit era

Hi Greg here, former marketing and production associate for Sega and temporarily on the conversion board during the early 1990s, SOR3 was one of the games we were responsible for at the time, so I'm partly responsible for the decisions being implemented (although I didn't make all of them!) What happened was, play tests at the time found that flashing sprites caused concentration to be compartmentalized on a fight-to-fight basis; basically having each enemy read to the player's brains as an 'episode', with the idea being that taking away the flashing would fade out the closure to allow players better concentration and awareness of the levels as whole, rather than the fights. A few of us, including the director of marketing (NA) were really taken by these findings and couldn't wait to see the effects after implementation. The evidence these days is shaky but at the time that was the thinking! Our colleagues including our liaison from Japan took issue with the findings but trusted us with our consistent audience. As for the colours I'll explain, Eddie (Sammy to us as we were working on it) was reworked as there was a large push to make him the next most marketable video game hero of America (talks of a movie "Skater Rage" were floated, but that's another story) In particular due to a dulling effect, where his colours would appear grey, as was noticed on the Philips and Magnavox television sets which, as some were concerned, this would lower the interest and his ability to stand out when compared with the competition, necessitated the sharpness increase on his spites. Since Eddie was at the centre of this push, and we had already sharpened his colors, the next best thing to do (not my fault) was to reduce how vivid other characters looked in comparison, as you can see with Blaze. To mention, Blaze tested well in Japan but we didn't have the reception we wanted from the previous game locally, despite the success overall, so it was considered okay to reduce her marketability so long as it increased Eddie's disproportionately. We actually had to manage a motorcycle scene that was being cancelled in the Japanese version of the game. It came to us incomplete but playable and we had to decide whether to push it to a third party for completion. Arguments were made from the board that we could be expected to advertise the game as a combat-racer which we didn't agree with, it was ultimately found the bikes didn't look comfortable enough and it was left out of the game. Overall I don't regret my time there but I do regret the decisions we made on this game! I feel as if the ideas supporting the changes were solid but ultimately flawed. Since this entire story is made up, since I was born in 1991, and I've never worked for a game company in my life, I've come to appreciate how much trouble the original developers went through and how much I'd like a cold drink at the moment since it's quite hot today. Thanks for featuring our game!

I feel like code name: VIPER has to be in here.

CV2 is clearly a "metroidvania" of a sort. Tho, Zelda 2 nearly is, too.

I'm not surprised Cruisn' USA was more popular than Daytona USA. It was an awesome arcade racer and gets my vote for best ever even over Outrun and is definitely on par with the games Joe mentioned. Not going to lie, saying it isn't is kind of just incorrect.

Things were getting a little crazy in the real world so thank god for Game Sack

Thank you. I needed a little positivity in my day.

That Crusin' game looks surprisingly crisp for an N64 title!

Zelda 2 certainly doesn't get enough credit. I played Zelda 1 and 2 before the arrival of KZfaq, and always thought 2 was the better game. Same goes for Super Mario Bros. 2 USA over the original.

A little known bit of lesser-known info on Streets of Rage 2: Only one background layer is ever shown behind the HUD, even though it's fully transparent so you'd think both layers would be visible behind it. This is because the Genesis can only every show two background layers and once, so anytime you see a large HUD over the game like this it will be at the cost of using that amount of space from one of the backgrounds. It's kinda cool to go through the entire game and see how Sega's designers and artists managed to get around this limitation of the console in such a way that I bet 99% of people never even noticed it was a thing. Ironically, on most SNES beat 'em ups the designers/artsists used the additional third background layer that the SNES is capable of for the HUD, which meant most HUDs like this on SNES were drawn in very low colour (this was a limitation of the third layer), yet they almost never thought to use a similar solution to Streets of Rage 2, which would have allowed them to both have a full colour HUD (using part of one of the full colour layers) alongside using the lower-colour third background layer for additional overlapping parallax.

I just remember pumping the accelerator pedal to do a wheelie in cruisin USA arcada. Good times.

Love these choices Joe. I played Castlevania 2 with a walkthrough and I still thoroughly enjoyed myself. I used to not be into walkthroughs or guides but now that I'm older I just wanna save time and get through the game so I'm all for a little help.

For me Streets of Rage 3 is still the best playing streets of rage game of the initial triology. I still prefer Bare Knuckle 3 (translated of course), but even if the graphics and sound department didn't really got improved, I think the gameplay blew every other game out of the water

The choose your car song is an absolute banger

Cruis'n USA was my favorite arcade racer. I played it more on console and always went for the 3 wheeled truck.

Bionic Commando is better than you remember and if you disagree, you're wrong! 😋

Hey Joe. Are you considering buying a Steam Deck?

Its 2pm in my place. Ice cream and gamesack episode.... Aaah lifes good today

MGS Snake Eater! Much better than I remember.

Ghouls ’n Ghosts on the Master System looks amazing with some great sprite work. I like the upgrade system, it reminded my of Returnal on the PS5. NOW I HAVE TO HAVE IT!!!

Early gang! GameSack is a Saturday night tradition. Thankfully Joe is a night owl like us 🦉

Awesome episode. I'd love more of these!

There used to be a "Cruisin' USA" cabinet in the lobby of my local Walmart growing up. Pumped a lot of quarters into it over the years.

“Pepperidge farm remembers 1994” and so do I, great video man. 👍🏻

When are you reviewing Streets of Rage 4 though?

I agree with every single one of your picks, Joe, but when I saw Herzog Zwei I involuntarily yelled because of how HYPE I GOT

Cruis'n USA was the first racing game that I truly fell in love with.