The game gear saved the battery industry 🪫

I feel like the Game Gear’s legacy is largely seen as “the handheld that failed against the Gameboy” and I think that’s both sad and unfair. If you judge the game gear for what it was rather than for what it wasn’t, you’ll find that it was a great little handheld!

My first portable system. My dad helped get me the Game Gear on my Birthday of 1994.

I remember getting my GG on my bday. My parents got me the Lil suitcase too. Had a handful of games. I loved the GG

Always happy to see videos for the wonderful, battery-guzzling Game Gear.

Fatal Fury Special on GG is FANTASTIC. It's honestly pretty insane how well it turned out considering the limitations of the hardware. The graphics are great, the controls work really well, the gameplay is smooth, etc. Hell, it even has the day and night cycles for the stages that the Sega CD version lacks. Beautifully done job by Takara. Also yes, the GG version of Streets Of Rage 2 is AWESOME. It even has The Predator as the boss for stage 3 (seriously, I'm not even joking) that isn't in the SMS version. In fact, the SMS version of SOR2 is pretty trash overall.

Your knowledge about everything Sega is so impressive. Can't believe you nailed the puzzle genre with Popils, not that many people know about that amazing game.

The Game Gear was great when I was a kid because I could use it in my room without taking up the living room TV (since I didn't have my own). Never actually took it anywhere because of the battery consumption, lol.

Your videos can really bring me a bit of joy even in the most depressing times of my life, thank you!

Bro these retro videos always put a smile on my face. 😀

So many similar games (not to mention the hardware itself). A Game Gear vs. Master System (and which game to choose, when the versions are similar) would be really cool!

I LOVED my Game Gear as a kid, and this was not even knowing the Master System existed! It was indeed an amazing system just as long as you had the official batter pack! Yep I was smart enough to realize how important it was even as a young kid. I dunno why that was so hard for some ppl to get...

Nice to see the Game Gear getting some love. I had one and I agree Streets of Rage 2 burned thru allot of batteries. I'm gonna try out those English patched RPGs now👍

I remember buying one in 1992. My favorite thing about it was the TV adapter. I was the only person in Army training with a tv. 😂😂😂

One thing that bears mentioning... the Game Gear has excellent controls and feels very comfortable to hold. Anyone who's ever crippled their hands on a Wonderswan or GBA SP will appreciate the feel of a Game Gear.

Never had a Gamegear proper but Sonic Triple Trouble and Sonic Chaos were both really fun games. Now I’ve got an Analouge Pocket with a Gamegear adapter and a handful of games on the way. It’ll be fun to try some of these out

It's 2023 and we are still playing those old games, and i love it! You made my day, and i hope you're making videos for a long long time!

I was never a Game Gear owner (I was a Lynx guy - don't @ me), but this video was terrific - I'm inspired to check a bunch of these games out. Another great video, sir!

I had a game gear and turbo grafx express way back in the 90s on board the USS Shennandoah ad44. They were in constant use and nothing ever ever broke except the turbo grafx power cord needed to be taped. But on board a ship they were used 24/ 7 . Quality

That version of Road Rash is incredible.

I never did get a chance to own the Game Gear, but I did get to play Shining Force via emulation. For the time, I was impressed with it's really nice music, and addictive gameplay!

Thanks for this video. I mainly used my Game Gear with the TV tuner back in the day, and most of the stores nearby didn't have a huge selection of titles anyway, so it's fun to see, and I will definitely be checking out many of these on the strength of your recommendations!

I'm collecting for the Sega Game Gear now. This video helps a lot. Thank you for making this.

Terrific list. I don’t think I would change one bit. I’m delighted to see most my favorites, some usually overlooked, being represented, like Lucky Dime Caper, Master Of Darkness, Land Of Illusion, etc.

GG Shinobi to me is the definition of a good game in an unexpected place.

Love this channel, man. I've been going back and watching all these vids.

Excellent video! My experience with the GG in the 90's was brief, I only really remember playing some Sonic. Looking forward to rediscovering the games you recommended- especially Shinobi II! This type of video is so clear, helpful, and entertaining so - thanks!!

I'm glad you brought up Popils. I always loved games early on that allowed you create your own stages. I would spend hours building something and testing it out.

I loved this Video and it brought back a lot of memories. Thanks, SLX! I had a Master2Gear converter and was playing my Master games on the GG on the go (albeit a short amount of time due to battery life)

Wow-such a great trip down memory lane, as always! My Game Gear library was modest-just a handful of titles-but SoR2, NBA JAM TE, and NHL Hockey were my favorites and provided hours upon hours of fun on-the-go. The Game Gear is definitely an underrated gem, its strengths often overlooked in the shadow of the Goliath Game Boy.

Awesome. Great list. I still have my game gear to this day! Thrilled to see the shining force love. And GG outrun is very special indeed

Great list! My only objection would be Shining Force: Final Conflict. I think that Sword of Hayja is just a tiny bit better.

This video hit at the perfect time. My analogue pocket with the gamegear adapter is finally coming. and I have the Everdrive cart for it loaded it up and ready to play.

01:54 Honorable Mentions 04:06 Best Puzzle Game 05:29 Best Racing Game 06:49 Best Shoot-em Up 08:30 Best Platformer 09:53 Best Fighting Game 11:16 Best Strategy or RPG 13:02 Best Adventure Game 14:46 Best Beat'Em Up 16:13 Best Sports Game 17:54 Best Run'n Gun 19:37 Best Action Game 21:05 Best Exclusive Game 22:44 Best Sound 24:27 Best Graphics 25:47 Best Overall Game

great video! I'd love to see a spotlight on all the cool accessories and add ons the Game Gear got over it's lifespan

I loved my Game Gear, but that thing was always plugged into a wall; six batteries was not worth 90 minutes of unplugged play.

After you sung praise to the GG Shinobi I bought the title on the 3DS virtual console. You were not kidding that game is absolutely incredible. I still had no interest in starting a gamegear collection since the original hardware is a pain to deal with. But when I saw the GG adapter for the Analog Pocket I cashed it. Since then I grabbed so many games including a repro of Sylvantale. That game is just dropdead gorgous. And just last week I found a copy of GG shinobi 2 so you know I'm in portable heaven right now.

I got a Sega Game Gear during its launch year and loved it to death. I also had a Gameboy, but for me, the Game Gear won out because of the backlit color screen. I have a lot of fond gaming memories with the GG. Both Shinobi games were absolute masterpieces. I also loved the Lucky Dime Caper and Castle of Illusion. There were some duds on the system, but overall, I had a lot of these on my own Game Gear. Oh, and Aladdin is it's own game; it is not a port of either the Genesis or Nintendo versions, and I think it's all the better for it. The TV tuner was also amazing to me; I could watch TV in the car or while waiting after school.

I loved this video and wanted to see more. I know there were runner ups and hinorable mentions, but in a perfect world: i wish youd make a follow up with ALL your highly reccomended games. Like, a followup of just more honorable mentions / hidden gems, SLX level.

I think you hit on all the bangers on the system. The biggest miss by Sega is not releasing a Game Gear adapter for the Genesis. They could've sold three times as many units. Luckily, we have things like the Mega SG and Pocket, now!

Wow, you’re being VERY generous with those screen images. The Game Gear is the only portable console I ever owned back in the day, even though from the early 80’s to today I’ve had about 10 home consoles. When the Nintendo Gameboy came out in ‘89, I can remember being blown away at just the concept of being able to take cartridge games with me and play them like at home on my NES. But frankly, very disappointed with the pea green, non-backlit screen. So I never really made much effort to get one. But even though I was MUCH more into Nintendo (although I did have a Genesis too), the color backlit screen, horizontal shape, and even some accessories like the TV tuner we’re just too much for me to resist. I honestly only ever had about 4 or 5 games for my Game Gear the entire run that I had it. And you couldn’t rent games for it by me either like home consoles. I also never did get the TV tuner accessory, and the movement on the screen was SO blurry. But at the time, it still looked a whole lot better than the Gameboy to me. In the end, it ended up being more of a novelty for me. I never really got into any of the games or was hooked. But it’s still a fun memory for me, during the 7-8 years that I was THE most into video games from the late 80’s until the late 90’s.

Sylvan Tale is my favourite GG title, glad you acknowledged it. Absolutely stunning game!

Modded my system recently and I have another one I'm fixing up hopefully everything goes well as I sense it's a little bit more than the capacitors but at least the thing is coming together! Also I know you mentioned in the past video but Batman returns on game gear was rather fun. It was a game that I would play with friends at school and see how far we can get

Good and understandable choices. I have fond memories of my game gear. One game that never seems to come up in these lists is the game gear version of Lemmings as I spent ages playing that....all 120 levels with many Sega special ones and it was probably extra tricky because of the tiny screen and game gear controls. Not sure I'd do so well with 40-odd year old eyes and reactions though ☺

Man I remember walking by the GameGear at KB Toys, Toys R Us and every other store and just begging my parents to buy it! It was “to expensive” and this is still one of the only gaming devices I have never personally owned! I know the batteries died quick but I was such a Sega fanboy I didn’t care lol

Another amazing video! Cheers for all your hard work

A great selection with good reasons, I can’t fault those choices - I’ll be seeking them out

Late to the party but you were talking about the hardware and I wanted to chime in with a little tidbit. Yes, the specs were more along the lines of the MasterSystem. They both had the Zilog Z80 as their main CPU clocking in at 3.5Mhz. The interesting thing is the color palette. The Master had a paltry 64 colors in its palette. Granted, that was a bit more than the 50ish the NES had. But the GameGear had 4000 colors it could pull from. Only 32 on screen, again same as the MasterSystem but far more shades to choose from. To give you an idea of how insane that 4000 number is, the Genesis only had a palette of 512. So, yeah, it could definitely throw some beautiful colors on screen. Which was the big selling point over the GameBoy's black and green colors.

Great video really enjoyed. I remember playing some of these titles. On my game gear and Sega master system. I wish they would release some sort of mini console.

I cannot BELIEVE the first game you showed was Madou monogatari! Legit respect, I thought that game would have flown under the radar on a video such as this, and as a major Madou / Puyo fan it made me super happy to see :)

I adored my game gear and enjoyed this video, quite a few titles I’ve not come across before

Weirdly i preferred first GG shinobi... great game!

Always love your videos man. The sega game gear was my first system as a kid and i loved the power rangers games and sonic 2. 👍

Tengo que decirte que me encanta el canal. Si bien cuando yo era chico tenía consolas de Nintendo, jugaba mucho al SEGA en un videoclub de mí barrio. Creo que es el único canal de Sega que veo, se nota la pasión que te despierta Sega. Y no es para menos porque tenía excelentes juegos. Saludos desde Argentina ❤

Appreciate the work my good man. Thanks bro

Sega Lord X Enjoy Your Weekend Thanks For Everything You Do For SEGA

I got a preowned gamegear with the sega carry case from the pawnshop with Crystal Warriors, what a summer that was. My dad also got rechargeable batteries for me. When I wasn't playing on the go I was hold up next to the outlet by our front door with the AC adapter because those batteries went out so quick. I was blown away nearly 20 years later to find out there was a sequel to Crystal Warriors called Royal Stone and it was translated. GameGear looks nice and crispy on modern handheld emulators now these days.

I still have mine with a few mods to keep it more usable. The game gear was a very good handheld for the time... i know the screen is terrible today, but for the 90's... a colour handheld? And with a tv tuner? That was something from the future for a kid my age at the time, the biggest problem for me was the battery life... i still enjoy playing with my game gear, but tbh, the only original thing left of it is the pcb, everything else got upgraded, including a rechargeable battery with a usb c module. Worth the time, money and effort i spent on it, and i hope it will keep going for many years to come. Great video, got some games for me to check out from it. Keep up the good work.

Love it. I never had one but they were always on the want list.

Dude you are just killing it with the uploads these days. Don't think we haven't noticed the increasing output.

Well said about about Road Rash. I played the hell out of that game on my game gear.

I love this device it was my first portable,I got it with sonic and also got outrun and wonder boy a few months later.i used to play it at the shop where my mum worked,in the back room there plugged in with the AC adaptor.great days I miss very much 🙂

So glad I got the McWill mod on my GG! Got most of the games I wanted before 2020, though Popils has been on my short list for a while. Perhaps it’s time to pick it up!

I enjoy the picks you did an amazing job I like your picks and can't argue. Those were the best picks thanks for the videos your big fan Eric have great day Sega Lord X piece

I had a Gameboy but I use to borrow my friend's gamegear from time to time. It was amazing to see color on a portable system back then! But yes, it did eat batteries on a daily basis

Great stuff as always milord! Did you mention Alien 3? I always thought the 8-bit version of that game worked better than the Genesis one. And the art style is somehow perfect for the small GG screen.

I loved me some Game Gear as a kid, and still have a soft spot for it. Great video. Thanks to you, I've picked up the GG Shinobi games recently and see the appeal. I haven't gotten to sit down with them long enough to finish them yet, but I hope to. Also grabbed Master of Darkness and dare say it is better than some of the 2D Castlevania games.

I played castle of illusion on the Genesis and loved that game. Brings back so many memories

I loved my master system but I agree, the music could be so high pitched it was almost painful!but I could definitely tell you a master system game from a nes game by the music! lol I love your videos!

Thanks for the nostalgia video man, this took me back. I remember the awesomeness of video games back in the day they held so much more hit than miss compared to now. I was thinking about it and man our parents must have loved us lol, games were like 70 bucks for some SNES games and almost all N64! And that’s in the 90’s! They also dropped $200-250 for systems too! Games also shipped as full games…for the most part but crap was rightfully scrutinized like a certain Superman game. I remember by the time PS2 came out when I was a sophomore in high school that it was a mind blowing system. I think I played X-Box once because my roommate in college had one and I played one game: Fable. I just wasn’t that impressed by the games on it and thought it was inferior to PS2 by miles.

This video is a great advertisement of what the Game Gear has to offer, with a good selection of games on display. Nice to see Battletoads get some airtime - the colours are a beauty over the NES version. For runner-up fighter I would go for one of the Power Rangers games, Virtua Fighter Animation or even Buster Fight despite its odd controls - all of those titles show what 8-bit fighting games can offer with the sacrifice of small sprites.

My memories on GameGear from the 90s is about Star Wars. Finding Han Solo with his big gun and cutting enemies with the laser-sword into pieces was great with that BOOM-sound.

Wow, some of these games look great for thr device its on... I'm impressed. Great topic!

During the end of peak 8-bit and first year of 16-bit, my portable was an Atari Lynx. Sure, the library was dwarfed by GB and GG, but the Lynx had some titles - Blue Lightning, Roadblasters - with outstanding 3D scrolling/scaling effects that you wouldn't even see in most 16-bit console titles. And somehow I had a circle of friends who also convinced parents to get them a Lynx. We had some truly fun local multiplayer get togethers, like 6-player Slime World and 4-player Gauntlet (played in vertical screen orientation! Raiden too). The Lynx simply felt very unique at the time. In retrospect, the truth is that it only had about 9 or 10 honest-to-goodness bangers. A bit like the situation on Atari Jaguar, which I also owned a few years later. Another system with some slick hardware tricks that bested the competition, but poor library support and eventually failure. I always had every possible current generation of Sega home console hardware, and on the side these more exotic handhelds and niche consoles like Lynx, Jaguar and 3DO. It kept things feeling fresh and experimental.

I loved the game gear, especially shining force, but the fact it only lasted twelve seconds on 6 or however many fresh batteries was really what kept it from being bigger. You were forced to buy a battery pack if you weren't plugged into the wall at all times and it sucked having a bag with all the extra gear just for a short road trip, but man it was so cool and mind blowing back then.

The Dragon's Trap remake was SO good. Captured everything from the Master System while showing the absolute promise of a modern game. The graphics/music toggles were awesome. Also Joe Montana football on Game Gear was pretty good, especially as it's the only football game I've ever really sunk time into XD

Another great job. I missed out on the Game Gear thinking it was just a poor man's Sega Nomad but boy was I wrong. I love the fact the Game Gear had many games that were unique to the system and many of the Master System ports where not just watered down Genesis ports but unique games in their own right such as the Sonic games and Mickey games. Thanks to the Analogue Pocket and its Game Gear adapter I am enjoying these great games both on the go and on my TV via the dock.

This kind of video is full of nostalgia... Gotta love the 8 bit soundtracks....

The Game Gear adapter for my Analogue Pocket arrives today. Perfect timing.

So great to see the Game Gear getting some well deserved respect =) I had quite a few of the games shown here in my collection or played them back then, so this was a nostalgia trip all the way =) And I gotta say, from the little I know from the GG's overall library, I couldn't agree more with each pick.

Game Gear only weakness honestly was its battery, a friend of mine owned one and I had the pleasure to play Shinobi and Lucky Dime Caper at the time! Wonderful games.

Streets of Rage II has some of the best 8-bit music I've ever heard. Recently installed as many GG games on my New 3DS XL as I can and have been having a blast.

Road Rash is even smoother that their 16 bit counter part.

My friend did the translation for Sylvan Tales, awesome action RPG! I translated one of the GG's gundam game into English, which was a strategy game. Another strategy game I'd recommend is Royal Stone. Great graphics for the system.

Good list! I loved the Game Gear! I had played Castle of Illusion, Columns, Mega Man, the Donald Duck games, Ristar, Sonic Chaos and Sonic 1 as a kid back in the day. Though, the Game Gear was an absolute battery hog, so you really needed the AC adaptor back in the day. I didn't have a battery recharger at the time, so my parents would get steamed when I kept using up all the AAs! I just wish some of the heavy hitting franchises had made it to the Game Gear like Contra and Castlevania, but I know Konami was ultimately more focused on Nintendo's platforms and didn't have that same relationship with Sega. Had I known how good the Shinobi games were on the Game Gear, I would have definitely picked those up as a kid! I'll probably still check them out now as I'm a sucker for a solid 2D action game.

Nice to see this sort of video for the Game Gear. Some of my old favorites are on here, and there are a bunch of good picks here that I haven't played or want to revisit, making this video a handy reference, especially for translated titles that may not have been playable until more recently. I was never into Hockey, but those EA NHL games were just so well done, so I get what you're saying as you feature that one. On Battletoads, having played the NES version, I found the variety became tiresome after a while as I wanted more of the beat-em-up levels. That's just me. I was lucky as I had Fatal Fury Special back in the day. I didn't know how good it would be considered. I just knew I liked it. I picked it up just because I had rented Fatal Fury on the Genesis before Street Fighter 2 came out(I'm not even sure it had been announced) and so I was familiar with it. While I had some good games like that in my library, I didn't have either of the GG Shinobi titles. They were games I had my eye on, but things didn't work out. I did finally play them both several years ago and they easily became my picks for the best games on the system. They are so good. I had the first four Sonic games for the system, if I recall correctly, so I played those a lot. I played MK 1 & 2 a lot. MK 1 was surprisingly good for it at the time, at least in my opinion at the time. I played a lot of Dragon Crystal, which is pretty weird and gets ridiculously hard later in the game, but was fun. Ax Battler is clunky, but I liked it. As I had been mostly a Master System kid, the Master System adapter for the Game Gear was a major part of my experience, letting me enjoy old favorites like Rastan, Double Dragon, Shinobi, California Games, and many others as well.

The game gear is my favorite handheld. Great list man!

Oh! Soo Cool! Game Gear time! I had the Game Gear as a kid instead of the Game Boy and i liked it very much! Later i got a Game Boy and it was also a cool Handheald but without the Color. Some RPG's you showed i will play them in english (i hope soon). Thank you Sega Lord X

Being a portable master system is a pretty good description and nothing to scoff at. You do kind of step over the lower screen size making some games appear cropped.

Best video game KZfaqr. Period!

Man, Fatal Fury Special must have some kind of gift, given it also punched a bit above its weight on the SNES by having legit Dolby Surround audio!

I loved my Gameboy by the game gear was special to me. I remember when the TV tuner came out i thought it was the coolest thing ever to watch tv under my covers. Had the nomad (still do) years later, but will always love the game gear

Glad to see GG Streets of Rage 2 get the love, if you'll forgive a little plug I made a video recently about the differences and why I think they made the right cuts. GG games seem to have undergone a strange turning of the seasons, early on they were squished SMS games, but as the Genesis/MD took over it feels like games were developed first for the GG then just put out an SMS port as the hardware is so similar, especially here in Europe where the SMS enjoyed a long tail. Sure the GG never sold as much as the Game Boy, but by that metric the PS1 was a "failure" too, who can challenge a system with Pokemon? One thing that won't come across in the footage here is that the screen had the typical slow response time of the era, so you have to keep scrolling slow, but this also means flicker is much less egregious.

Many great memories of my game gear as a kid .

I was lucky that my dad was a car dealer and sometimes people just left stuff in their trade-ins. I'll never forget the day dad brought home a game gear, 7 games, a 12v car adapter, a carrying case and a Ni-cad rechargeable battery. I was 7 and had a Genesis so I was please to find you could use it's PSU to play the game gear at home with no battery worries. The rechargeable pack only would last an hour so I only kept it on because it protruded from the back and made it more comfortable to hold While on road trips sometimes I'd find new GG titles like the time I got GG Phantom 2042 new for $4. Tight controls, good sound design and challenging platforming made it one of my favorites on the GG today

Another stellar, deep-dive GG video! Top Notch!

I loved my Game Gear and loved the TV tuner when i was out with friends ( i did have the battery pack ) my favorite game on long journeys was either Columns or the GG Shinobi

My favorite Game Gear game was Defenders of Oasis. But that's coming from someone who only played maybe 10 GG games total. My brother owned one, not me.

Wicked. THANK YOU

I can't stress this enough : More Sega Please.