 SEGA DRUNK In the book, Console Wars, by Blake Harris, there's a significant portion dedicated to how Sega eventually became unraveled in the mid-90s. Sega of America president and CEO at the time, Tom Kalinsky, talks quite a bit about how Sega was just spread too thinly. Developers had to make games for the Genesis, Sega CD, 32X, the Sega channel, and the upcoming Sega Saturn. If Sega of Japan hadn't intervened and insisted on releasing the 32X peripheral, Kalinsky says that he would have rode the Genesis exclusively past 1995 and into 1996 so that the Saturn could be properly advertised as a big deal and so more games could be available at launch. And yeah, he's got a pretty good point. Sure, hindsight is 20-20 and all that, but developers were still cranking out really high-quality games for the Genesis as late as 1994. Take Pulse Man, for instance. Pulse was a game that was initially released for the Mega Drive overseas and was only available in the US via the Sega channel, but if this was given a proper release at the time, it could have gone a long way in keeping the Genesis relevant. I mean, this is like a top 30 or maybe even a top 25 game for the console, at the very least, and it was buried on the freaking Sega channel. Pulse Man was made in 1994 by Game Freak, yes, the same Game Freak that went on to make the Pokemon series, and one of only two titles they would make for the Genesis, the other being a game based on the manga Magical Tararuto. This game is an action-platformer that has a ton of things going for it. You play as Pulse Man, or is that Pulseman? If you pronounce it Pulseman, it makes him sound like a third-string running back for Georgia Tech. But instead, Pulseman is a teenager with electrical superpowers because he's the love-child of some digitized mother that exists in some virtual world and some regular-ass scientist who evidently got really lonely one day. But seriously, the story here is pretty bonkers. This dude fell in love with and procreated with some program he created. I mean, that's some Star Trek Voyager holodeck crap right there. Pulse Man has a health meter that can usually take three or four hits, and you get three lives and five continues to get through seven levels broken up into a few different stages. No saves or passwords here, but there is a stage select code. Just press A-B-C-C-B-A at the Sega logo on the second player controller, then go to the options menu. I always appreciate stuff like that because it gives you the option to see the whole game in a shorter amount of time. The C-button jumps, B is your melee attack, and when Pulseman gathers momentum and breaks out into a run and gets covered in lightning or static electricity or whatever that is, you can press the A-button to pinball all around the level reaching areas you couldn't otherwise reach while taking out enemies along the way. It's pretty cool. It reminds me of Sparkster's attack in Rocket Knight Adventures. There's all sorts of other stuff you can do as well, like down and B does a kick, up and B does a backflip. You can also use your charge to throw a fireball, and you can also dash by tapping forward twice. It's an easy temptation to compare this game to Mega Man, what with the whole man motif and having a stage select at the beginning and all that, but it's a lot closer to the first Sonic the Hedgehog with a dash of the aforementioned Rocket Knight Adventures with a vibe similar to the typical fictional futuristic cyberspace stuff you'd see in movies like Tron or Lawnmower Man. It all comes together as a really fun playthrough and something unique, and it definitely has that first party polish to it. This isn't just another action platformer, it's pretty clear the people that made this one were firing on all cylinders. For example, you come across these warp points that put you in some cyberspace world, and that's where the first boss fight takes place, where you have to dodge this wire hand that rips apart the ground beneath you. That's really cool. There's also parts throughout the game where you have to use your electrical charge to follow these wires, which is a lot trickier than it sounds. You got this crazy boss fight, which is like something out of a treasure game. You get a rival with similar abilities that chases you down and challenges you to a fight. You even get bonus stages that briefly turn the game into super breakout. That's a nice touch. Just the overall look of this game is crazy. I mean, just look at this casino setting here. I feel like my TV is going to burst into flames trying to support all these colors at once. The music here is absolutely top notch. It's some of the best music on the Sega Genesis. I know it's a running gag for some people that make fun of how the Genesis relied on FM synthesis, which produced some not so desirable results, but man, just listen to this. Even the voices sound reasonably good here too. So yeah, the best compliment I can give Pulse Man is that this is the kind of game that rewards you for your practice. The more you play it, and the more you learn the levels, the more satisfying it is to rip through this game. I usually pick out one thing I really look forward to, the more I play through a game like this, but with Pulse Man, it's just everything. I wanted to see more boss fights, hear more of the soundtrack, see more of the backgrounds. It's just a great time. I will say this is definitely a long game for its kind. There's a lot of content here, so this is not a quick play-through by any means, but hey, more to enjoy. And definitely check this one out any way you can. All right, I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.