I disagree. TF2, is the Superior shooter... NOT the sequels. TF2 has much higher quality music and sound effects... And much greater details, in its Graphics. The later versions may have had more Parallax effects... but the graphics were far blockier. And unfortunately, Organics didnt look very good on the Genesis, due to its limited color palette... so TF3's attempt at making organic looking stages, looked quite bad. Additionally, I believe I beat TF3 in a single day... Where as it took me like a year of on and off playing, to finally beat TF2. When you play defeated a game that cost like +$60 , in a few hours, or a single day... it really ticked a lot of people off. No game should be that Easy to defeat. It shows very poor game / level balancing. The Top view stages were Fun, and Unique... But I do agree, that a mini map would have almost made them Perfect. The top view scrolling speed could have been reduced a little. And the range of your bombs, could have been Increased by an inch (Just adjust the number of hits per target, if needed). One of main the issues I had, when I first started to play TF2... was that I didnt read the manual... and didnt realize that the ship was actually dropping bombs. I was thinking... "Why arent my bullets seeming to effect these turrets?". When I finally read the manual, and realized the "Circles" were a representation of bombs... I finally started to make some good progress. Personally, I think it would be even better, if someone modded the bombs to be a little more like Xevious... where you have to precisely time your shots... and use a separate bomb button to drop them. Maybe adding a bomb falling noise, and at very least... a Special bomb explosion effect, would also help. This, the slight slowdown of the Upper walls, and a mini Map... would have made the Best Shooter that was ever Created, IMO. Because as it stands, TF2 is Still my alltime favorite shooter... despite the top view issues. Now... if you press A+B+C+START button at the title screen, you can choose your starting stage (limited to like level 5 or 6). This is ultimately the only way I was able to beat the game. I would start on level 5 or 6 (cant recall), and then work my way up to the Last Boss in the Caves, before the final stage... and get my Behind handed to me. Now, as much as I love a good challenge... that Boss was way too difficult. Especially after burning through most of my lives, to get to him. I had to sort of Cheat on that boss... by rapidly pressing the start button... to pause/un-pause the game... creating a sort of slow-motion effect. Even that was challenging... as trying to repeatedly tap the start button... at the same time as trying to control the ship, was no easy task within itself. BUT.. it was still a LOT easier than trying to dodge a billion lightning fast projectiles, and laser blasts. Admittedly, Im sure my Gamer Skills back then, were not as good as my current Adult Self.. but still. Interestingly enough... the X68000 version of TF2, has a much weaker version of the same cave boss. That said... the x68000 version also has a few more stages, too. One day, I vow to beat TF2, starting from stage 1. Finally, one more comment about Difficulty. In games like R-Type... if you lost your ship on a late stage of the game, and thus all of your powerups... its was almost impossible to recover from the resulting disaster. It would always put you back at a certain checkpoint... and you were typically far too under-powered to survive. This is due to that games very poor + unfair game balance. But with TF2... even when you lose all of your weapons... your main starter weapon is perfectly fine for dealing with pretty much anything that comes at you. In fact... you often have to switch back to it for certain areas... because its the only weapon that fires fast enough, to deal with certain things (such as clearing the rocks, and destroying the fast missile assault). Furthermore... TF2 doesnt have dreaded Checkpoints. You can crash... but the screen will keep scrolling... and will place your new ship down, without stopping the action at all. This allows you to tank through an entire Level... if you wanted too. Of course, since you wont have enough lives to tank more than a few stages... there is no way to Abuse this. You get to see whats ahead of your natural gaming skill level... but then are motivated to work hard... so that you can reach that later stage, without Tanking through everything. Eventually you build up enough skills to be very conservative with your lives... and thus, finally able to make it to the late stage boss.. with a few lives still left in reserve. I will say, that I was a little depressed at the games Ending. While it was "OK"... I sort of felt robbed, compared to the sheer effort it took to defeat that game. But not only that... The game was so damn innovative and impressive... that you sort of expected the ending to be equally as Impressive. Out of the 52 Genesis games that I had bought... I only really replayed about 7 of them. TF2 was my favorite game out of them all... AND, was also the game I replayed the most. Even after I defeated it... I still often fire the game back up, to play it again. I will also add... that Ive never heard a Video game Soundtrack, that is anywhere near as good as TF2. The closest game, was "Target Earth", which was an equally awesome game. A game that probably doesnt get the recognition that it Deserves... especially for its insane creativity, in how the later stages / gameplay functions... and the feel of "realism" of controlling a giant mech (including the ability to run into your own explosives, and destroy yourself as a result!). There are a lot of Surprises in that game! And the cinematic story animations in the beginning (if you dont hit start, it will eventually play), is phenomenal.

Also, I forgot to mention that many people don't realize that you can access the menu on the title screen by pressing A and THEN the Start button at the same time, which offers a stage select (only the first 5 levels), number of lives, difficulty selection (which is crazy cause normal is hard AF), etc. If you just hit the start button, the game starts immediately. "This is Exceliza. Roger, good luck!"

Thunder force 2 Rocks! This was my jam back in the day. It got me into shooters. I love the overhead levels. I would try to get the best times when playing. One of my favorites of my childhood. I played this till I finally beat it. And it was GLORIOUS!!!

Did you ever own this game growing up? Was it a weekend rental? Was this your pickup at launch? Or did you skip it when Thunder Force 3 came out? Let me know your memories with this game in the comments!

So cool to see someone actually talking good about this game. Like you said, most people write it off because 3 & 4 are just goated. Yet if you played this back when it came out, it was almost a masterpiece for its time. Also, it was the same for me, I went from Atari 2600 to the Sega Genesis. Love the Genesis even to this day and still play on it. Been hooked on Gleylancer lately.

Love thunder force 2 and TF3 plus TF4 is the best shooter for the mega drive great video 👍

Never knew about this game. Looks fun.

Just bought TF 3 complete in box as I'd never played any of the series. Great game and 1cc'd it last night. TF 2 still looks to be a worthy purchase.

Nice vid once again

The problem here is the compromised overhead stages in this port. If you're going to recommend it, the X68000 version can be easily emulated these days and is the version to recommend IMO