What Genesis / Mega Drive games do you think sound the worst? How about the best?

Honestly, I like Sonic Spinball's music for the most part, though that Options Screen music can burn in hell for all I care.

having flashbacks to an older Sack episode where Dave plays Marble Madness and his ears literally bleed

Barney's voice: "We found a fart". Literally what he's saying XD.

i love the Genesis sound chip. whether it sounds good or bad is entirely dependent on the skill of the person utilizing it. Just like any other sound chip.

"Genesis games that sound like AAAASSSS"

Thanks for touching on the different Genesis sound "systems" used by games. Not a point many make when pointing out the bottom end of the Genesis music library.

One of the funniest post-credits skits so far. Had me laughing non-stop ever since, "But I'm a misogynist!"

GEMS wasn't THAT bad when you think about it. When used correctly the results could be really nice, Comix Zone as you said is a nice exemple of how a clever dude could use GEMS to its maximum potential, the Earthworm Jim games use it and sounded great. Toy Story used it too and it sounded amazing (though that title screen music used some amazing trickery to play a MOD file).

Unfortunately, its true. Games like this create a huge stigma behind the genesis having a crappy sound chip. As a fan its quite annoying because it couldn't be further from the truth. I think any audio chip has the potential to sound awful really and although this is cliche, its the man behind it that really counts. GEMS can actually be good like you said with Comix Zone. I suggest people check out the Rooftop track from Demolition Man, it uses GEMS and its pure awesomeness. Being a genesis fan can get tough!

Okay... headphones on, new Game Sack notification and now I'm deaf.

The reason why the voice samples for Super Street Fighter 2: The New Challengers were changed on the Sega Genesis is because the arcade version also changed the voices. SSF2 was the first version of Street Fighter 2 released for the CPS2 board so all the audio was remade for the new sound chip. Guile's voice (also the voice of the new announcer) is pretty weak, but it's something I've gotten used to over time. While the audio in this port is definitely not good, the SNES version of SSF2 also sounds far worse compared to the earlier SF2 games released on that platform. Both 16-Bit consoles got excellent ports of SSF2, but both had pretty bad sound. SSF2 on the Sega Genesis was actually the game that got me serious about Street Fighter 2. I first played it on January 28th, 2018 and got hooked. I mostly played the SF2 games in single player and occasionally with button-mashing friends since I was unaware of any online multiplayer options. Finally on February 28th, 2019 (exactly 13 months after first playing SSF2 on my Genesis) I discovered FightCade and began playing Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo online. I play 2-3 hours every day and I've improved quite rapidly. I main Old Guile (SSF2 version of Guile available in Super Turbo) and I've already gone to some local tournaments and compete every Monday night on online tournaments. I thank SSF2 on the Sega Genesis for getting me into competitive Super Turbo. As someone who didn't grow up back when Street Fighter 2 was released (I'm currently 18 years old), I have this port to thank for turning my retro gaming passion into something amazing.

I’m just gonna say it, I actually like how X-Men sounds on Genesis. Maybe it’s because it was one of very few video games I grew up with, but to my ears, the scratchy instruments actually suit the rough metal vibe a lot of the music has.

"Who needs two ears anyways" Vincent Van Gogh

"Guile's Sonic boom now sounds like a polite suggestion" That was a spot on description

"Aww, he didn't mention Chakan in the good Genesis music section. He must've just forgotten" Sees it in the bad music section. "Grrrr"

I loved that transition of fuzzy '90s Batman footage to razor sharp pixels. Thanks for all the attention to detail Joe, it doesn't go unnoticed.

The cheek percussion part was 100% accurate. Seriously, I could not distinguish the music from it After the first time.

I'm now interested in the "Worst Sounding SNES Games"

Guile: hey Ryu Ryu: yes ? Guile: Sonic boom 🥂

its annoying when people say the Megadrive had crap sound GEMS has a lot to answer for.

Hey Mr. Game Sack, I just wanted to let you know that I love this channel and one of my absolute FAVORITE things about it is that you put subtitles. That is just awesome and seemingly very uncommon. Thanks so much!

Gotta do one for the SNES too sir. There were some muffled, muddy, reverbed, overly compressed pieces of sht on there man

When Genesis games sound good, they sound flippin' amazing. But when they sound bad it is hell.

Thanks for this episode. Honestly, as an audio engineer myself, I really enjoy the parts of the episodes where you talk about nerdy audio stuff, and to have this whole episode like that was a treat! This has become one of my repeat Game Sack episodes along with Let's Make a KZfaq Show and the Video Game Memories ones. Thanks, Joe!

I grew up partially with Sonic Spinball by merit of it being on the Sonic Mega Collection. Imagine my surprise when Joe, as he's apparently called, put it on the list!! And color me even more surprised when I found out that the Osomatsu saga as a whole predates the Osomatsu-San anime that took the world by storm in 2017 or so, with a 1988 game called Osomatsu-Kun, and presumably a manga and anime before it.

Ultimate Qix was a port of an arcade game called Volfied. The "music" was the same in that game as well.

I think most of us were playing these games on old crappy TV hand me downs when we were young, so we probably didn’t notice so much 🤣

Joe slapping his face to the "tunes" of X-Men needs to be immortalised as a meme.

6:54 I think the Genesis' sound chips just started smoking really young.

Had to listen to the Rocket Knight Adventures soundtrack after this episode in order to recover.

The best-sounding version of Super Off-Road was on the NES, courtesy of David Wise.

FM synthesis was, along with PSG, some of the most important ways to produce audio for Arcade machines and PCs back then, specially in Japan. Basically every developer used those Yamaha sound chips to create sound, the Genesis uses an FM chip (along with a PSG one) because Sega knew that was the best way to go and everybody used it in their country (And even 1 game for the NES/Famicom used an FM chip called "Lagrange Point"), even themselves. From games like TMNT, Street Fighter 2, Snow Bros. etc all those games use the same family of sound chips as the Genesis (with some differences). It depends of the programmer or/and the musician to create great music and sound, but you need to understand that it is a synthesizer, creates synthetic sounds, not realistic ones (sometimes it does tho) so you can't expect stuff it can't produce, just like the NES, it barely sound like an instrument but still pretty cool in the right hands,

24:05 that Faery Tale Adventure theme is actually good. you hear it for hours and it starts to grow on you, organ music for a big adventure, clear fantasy sound that you won't find anymore, because everything is epic and orchestral.

Castlevania Bloodlines has amazing music on genesis, its also amazing what they did to make the music for Toy Story to work on Genesis.

There's something unique about the way the Genesis sounds. It's dirty, it's gritty, and that gives it a sound that sets it apart from other consoles.

I remember the Marble Madness music in the skit for "Piss Poor Ports." It was comic genius.

i actually like the way Ecco The Dolphin sounds, more so than the CD version which is just ambient dolphin sounds. Man, the genesis had some real bad sound sometimes, CastleVania: Bloodlines was like a miracle.

25:20 - "Ordeeeeeer!" I did not know John Berkow was in the game.

Chakan had some fantastic hub world music though. It really sold me on the game's atmosphere. GEMS seems to work alright for ambient-ish tracks I think.

This comment section is in the memory of all great sounding genesis games : SOR games All Thunder Force games Sonic 1, 2 and 3 Batman by sunsoft Vectorman Mortal kombat games Flashback The two earth worm jim games Phantasy star IV Shining force games Shinobi II and III Golden axe I, II and III Colums III(yes) Dr Robotnik mean bean machine Road rash I, II and III Bloodlines Contra hard corps Gunstar heroes And I'm certainely missing a lot of them

I wish the pacman part never ended.

16:37 I wonder if someone has already come up with a hybrid version of "Marble Madness" with Tengen's audio and EA's graphics and controls.

Someone who's skilled at ROM hacking should make a hack of the EA Marble Madness to give it the Tengen soundtrack so you can have the best of both worlds.

Still love x-men on sega lol. Even with its crazy stage music. Especially the drums in the 1st stage or the mouth drum you visually demonstrated. ROFLMAO!

Now do genesis games with the BEST sound!

The beta version of Street Fighter II for Genesis (named Street Fighter II' turbo,but based in Champion edition) had clearer audio samples.

22:15 this delighted me to no end.

Love these late uploads. Always good when watching random videos on KZfaq to see something good come.

i watched this episode wearing headphones :(

Ohh but Sonic Eraser *was* released on "Sega Game Toshokan." Sure, a random japan-only early 1990s download service, but still one that someone took a listen to and said, "Yeah, that's good enough for people to pay a subscription for."

Even though some of these games had bad sound, they are engrained into our childhoods and end up giving us good feelings of nostalgia. Powerful memories.

Come on, Xmen isnt that bad. Like the magneto screen music is really good

I feel like this episode of game sack made Dave proud 😂

Joe, judging by your Marble Madness gameplay footage I believe you don't realise you can speed up by holding the A button, IIRC. Makes bumping the black ball off the edge and making platform jumps way easier!

I miss the days, where you could tell the platform a game was on, just by listening to the music.

We need a MD+Version of EA Marble Madness with good the soundtrack.

During the Marble Madness segment, I was expecting the clip of Dave’s ears bleeding because of the horrible music.

Make no mistake the genesis is awesome.

You should have mentioned Beavis and Butthead for Genesis as an excellent example of poor Genny music. Upon starting it up, a PC - only gamer friend of mine asked if the " sound card " in my Genesis was broken !

The scariest halloween video I’ve seen so far

"You play the piano, right?" Uhh, yeah, I own a keyboard, correct. 13:44

I strongly disagree on Xmen. Shi'ar Empire was one of the best tunes on Sega. If Clone Wars made this list then there would've been problems lol

Man I think I have never heard anyone say Super Street fighter 2 sounds are Awful. I totaly agree.

There is no true worst-sounding-sega-genesis-games without Greendog. Just sayin'.

Joe, please let Dave know that we miss him and hope he's doing well... or at least I do. He should come back for a cameo at some point.

6:43 You know, Stan Bush of 'Transformers: The Movie' fame did a lot of those "I Love What You Do For Me!" commercials for Toyota. I wonder if that is his voice used for the clip.

"Batman games just somehow kept getting worse and worse" How about Adventure of Batman and Robin? This game is beyond awesome.

Can't wait for the video showing the best sounding Mega Drive games, because then you can put *_GRRRRREEEEENDAWWWWWWGGGGG_* in there! GREENDAWG is the best at *_EVERYTHING!_*

next I'll play X-men on the Genny, Joe will be playing the music in my mind 😂 thanks Joe!

I wonder how much effort it would ultimately take to turn Osomatsu-kun into a Bart Simpson game. It would give me an excuse to compose an entirely new and properly decent soundtrack, but would enough people appreciate the humor of the idea?

In the 90's I was a game tester at Viacom New Media...I had to play the Sega Genesis version of Zoop for 40 hrs a week, 3 months straight. Originally, every time you pressed the button to shoot your little arrow piece, the game would attempt to say "ZOOP ZOOP ZOOP"...but because of the bad Genesis sampling, it sounded like "JEW JEW JEW". I wrote that up as a bug, so they changed it to a horrible ear piercing beeping sound. "BRRRRZZZRP BRRZZZRP BRRZZP". I wrote that up and said "if you want people to love this game, you have to mellow out the constant obnoxious sound FX or they're going to throw it out the window! They then changed it to a very pleasant "whooosh whoosh whoosh" sound effect, which is how the game shipped. That's my contribution to making Genesis sounds LESS annoying! I guess it worked, as Zoop is not on your list! :)

0:37 - Sounds like Ric Flair and the Four Horsemen are walking to the ring.

I actually dig that version of the double dragon sound track!

Also, Bible Adventures totally reuses the same engine as Super Mario Bros 2/Doki Doki Panic. Which brings this meme to mind: "Can we buy Mario 2?" "We have Mario 2 at home." Mario 2 at home: Bible Adventures

Dude, the ending skit about Pacman is absolutely legendary!!! Nobody commented on this 🤭😂🤣

i HIGHLY disagree with sonic spinball being on this list.. the sound on that game is great imo

No Fantasia? Disappointed!

I gotta defend GEMS somewhat. It was actually a really nice toolset when you got into it. You could go in and customize every instrument or make your own. The default sound that you hear were all example sounds that weren't supposed to be used, but composers did anyway. It's not the hammer's fault when you smash your thumb with it. GEMS was just a tool, and it drew a real line in the sand between composers that were in it to make a quick buck and those that knew what they were doing.

Hey, you should do a follow up with worse sounding SNES games at some point, to show not everyone used the SNES sound chips effectively.

That marble madness game sounds like a horror movie 🥴😆

tommy tallarico shoutout has aged extremely poorly

Super Off Road was a superb game. The Arcade version had a massive truck steering wheel to steer your tiny truck! 3 of those giant wheels were somehow squeezed onto the standup arcade machine.

What?! No GREENDOG?!!! I guess you can only take so much trauma per episode. Eternal Champions was the only GEMS audio that was actually amazing to me. It still has some of my favorite 16-bit tunes. Now, World Heroes on the Genesis was a HUGE stinker. As a huge fan of the original Neo-Geo game, and after a few delays, I was glad to finally play it on my Genesis...but that didn't last long. The sound effects were either down sampled or missing entirely. The music was WAY worse with that twangy GEMS sound. The developer didn't include each stage's song and even reused what they had in other stages!! By this time it's sequel hit the arcade and SNES so I didn't look back. Just horrible!

Chakan is my most hated game on the system.

I never really minded the Mega Drive's sound chip and I'm still baffled by this popular opinion that it always had a bad sound. I thought it was right for the period. Guys, do you remember the 90s? Grunge music, Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Sonic Youth? Noise was everywhere in music all the time, and the Mega Drive took that sound and ran with it.

Here in Japan, the Megadrive name for the Qix game is "Volfied." I've no idea why.

Two things. 1. Marble Madness on NES sounded better. 2. Barney. Honestly, the only soundtrack that makes me nauseous. I would've said Heavy Nova as worse. However, Heavy Nova's soundtrack never made me sick. I'm going to try to muster through. If not, this is where I stop with this video. Edit: Thank you for keeping that segment short.

Best Musics: Streets of Rage 1 / Revenge of Shinobi !!!

This was awesome. I definitely want a "Best soundtracks" video now. Maybe an idea for a series where you cover soundtracks and/sound for other consoles? You don't have to make the videos all 30min long either. Thanks for this video either way.

This needs a counterpart episode. "Games that managed to make the awful Genesis audio sound good." That tinny GEMS audio is like a needle to the eardrum. "TINGGGgggGGGGGgggGGGGG....."

Marble madness is about the quality I'd expect from a toddler smashing on a toy piano with a hammer.

I see a "The BEST sounding Genesis games" episode in our near future. Lol

Gotta listen to some good Megadrive music to cleanse my palate after this. Gauntlet 4 - 'transparent obstacle' will do. ... aaaah yeah!

BRB gonna sample "let's play the bass drum" to create some hardbass

Whoever is a musician MUST listen to the Shinobi III soundtrack. It's a masterpiece and the best on the Mega Drive

Tiertex are notorious in the UK for their atrocious home computer ports of games, usually contracted by the equally notorious US Gold.

now do this for the SNES

I absolutely love that the subtitles during Marble Madness say (shrill videogame music) and (annoying videogame music)

Anyone else concerned by the concept of an anthropomorphic bass drum repeatedly beating itself in the face for Barney’s sick amusement?