 Back when I was a kid in the early 90s, it was Super Nintendo vs Sega Genesis. You picked your side, or more accurately, you just kinda ended up with whatever your parents bought you. And from then on, you defended your console, Tooth and Nail. However, to this day in 2017, I still get comments on this channel like from this guy here. SNES was trash, it was a baby console for kids that can't play difficult games or parents that didn't like blood, Genesis Fruit Life. Hey, I was a total slobbering fanboy for my console too. When I was 10 years old. But now that we're all adults, presumably, we can enjoy BOTH the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis consoles. Imagine that. And by God, I'm gonna take it a step further. Believe it or not, there were titles released for both consoles that might have been a bit better on one over the other. And I'm gonna take a moment to talk about the games that were just a bit better on the Sega Genesis. Now, this is kind of a tricky line to walk because there's stuff like Shadow Run and Aladdin. Both of those games are great in their own way. That's one of those things that boils down to semantics and what you personally like in a game. There's a few games, however, that may share the same name and beat different titles, but for whatever reason, the Sega Genesis just got the more interesting and less flawed game. Maybe the biggest example of what I mean is Jurassic Park. The SNES version is decent enough. It's a top-down action game where you're looking for eggs, occasionally going into buildings where you shift into this first person mode. The big flaw, however, is that there's no battery saves or passwords, so you gotta either beat this game in one sitting or use save states. That's just stupid. The Genesis version of Jurassic Park is a side-scrolling action platformer where you can play as either Dr. Alan Grant or a frickin' Velociraptor. Now, that's cool. The visual design here is also fantastic. The SNES opted for a more bright and cartoony vibe, whereas the Genesis game looks dark and intimidating. The level design here may not be the greatest. It's got that wide open all over-the-place feel to it that was pretty typical of other Genesis action platformers, but still, the controls are fine, the music is good, and did I mention you can play as a Velociraptor? This is still easily the better game between the two of the 16-bit Jurassic Park titles. One of the games that inspired this video was Robocop vs. Terminator. On the Super Nintendo, the game is okay-ish, but Robocop moves slowly and deliberately. His jump feels awkward, and the action here is just one big battle of attrition, one after another. You shoot the Terminator, he falls, he gets back up, you shoot him again. It's pretty boring. The Genesis edition of the game, meanwhile, plays much faster. The action is more chaotic. I mean, just look at these people frickin' explode! That's so over-the-top, it's hilarious. The music and sound design here are also a huge step up. So yeah, Robocop vs. Terminator is one you want to skip on SNES, but definitely one you want to check out on Genesis. Tasmania is another game that got titles on both consoles. The Super Nintendo version takes an over-the-shoulder third-person perspective and plays like a racing game. You just have to beat the time limit and eat as many birds as you can along the way. In other words, it's really boring, and it gets old after about five minutes. The Sega Genesis edition of Tasmania is, again, an action platformer using Tas's whirling attack to defeat enemies, and it features all the usual platforming stuff you'd expect from a mascot platformer like the token ice level, the token desert level, and so on. Tasmania on Genesis isn't exactly a must-play, but it's way better than the SNES edition. Here's kind of an obscure one. The Genesis has a game based on the Battletech lore and background simply titled Battletech, and it was later ported to the Super Nintendo, where it was titled MechWarrior 3050. This is a case where the Super Nintendo version isn't necessarily bad, it's perfectly fine, and the two-player feature of each player controlling a different part of the mech is cool. But the Genesis version executes everything here much better, and the gameplay is much more player-friendly like the targeting system. The SNES game could be a slog, it's a really tough game, but the Genesis version has a pick-up-and-play quality to it that makes it a lot of fun. Now, here's one that might boil down to personal preference for me. It's Doomtrooper. The SNES version definitely isn't bad. I mean, based on the backgrounds and visual style alone, this looks like Donkey Kong Country meets Contra. It's a pretty good game. But this is one of those that once you play it on the Genesis, you'll have a hard time going back to the SNES version because the Genesis version is so much faster and more intense. On the SNES, this is just another run-and-gun action game, but the Sega version is the kind of game that has you gripping your controller so hard you can hear the plastic creaking. Next is not really a game in particular, but an entire genre. Shoot-em-ups on the Sega Genesis are usually a better bet to be worth playing today rather than a shoot-em-up on the Super Nintendo. Of course, the SNES does have some great shoot-em-ups like Axelaya, UN Squadron, and Space Megaforce, but games that could have been great, like Gradius III and Super R-type, are marred by stretches of bad slowdown. Now, some people will say, well, the slowdown actually helps curb the difficulty of some of these games, but I can't say I agree with that because the slowdown comes and goes without warning. It's unpredictable. The Genesis just had the hardware that lent itself better to what's required to make a good shoot-em-up. A good example of this is a comparison between Thunder Force III for Sega Genesis and its Super Nintendo port, Thunder Spirit. The latter is a perfectly okay game, but once you play Thunder Force III, you'll have a hard time going back to Thunder Spirits. It's just faster, more intense, more player-friendly, and more responsive. It's almost got kind of an arcade quality to it, whereas the SNES version, while still decent, feels slow and sluggish by comparison. That's just one example. There are so many great Genesis shoot-em-ups that are all-time classics to this day, everything from Musha to Eliminate Down to Steel Empire to Wings of War to Thunder Force III and IV. Of course, I can't do a video like this without talking about the NHL series. Sure, these games are still great on Super Nintendo, but on Genesis, I mean, NHL 94 in particular has to be considered one of the 20 best Genesis games ever made. That's how good these games are on Sega. And again, it's because the faster processor allows multiple sprites to quickly and smoothly move around in a responsive fashion. The gameplay here is so addictive that even if you don't like hockey, you can still get into the NHL series on Genesis. Along the same lines, one last gaming franchise I'll mention is the Madden series. For whatever reason, these games are just borderline unplayable on the Super Nintendo. On every single play, the line of scrimmage turns into this giant, indecipherable ball of humanity, making it difficult to run the ball since there's no rhyme or reason to the blocking. And nearly every pass gets tipped at the line of scrimmage. It's so annoying. On the Genesis, the Madden series is much better. You can actually complete a pass-down field. Imagine that. It just seems like EA and the developers they worked with had a much better idea of how to code and develop these games on the Genesis than they did on the SNES. It shows especially on Madden 96 in particular. That's my pick for the best of the bunch. It's a fast-paced game that can even rival stuff like Tecmo Super Bowl. All right, that's all for now. I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.