The March of the Minis

We’re in a renaissance era for classic gaming consoles with preloaded games — good classic consoles, at that.

Pin that on how well the NES and Super NES Classic Editions from Nintendo performed worldwide. Several classic systems preceded those, but Nintendo was the first company to take them seriously by providing systems with several preloaded games containing actually good emulation. Their efforts were far beyond Sega’s and Atari’s systems in terms of quality, which sold well at several convenience stores, but were outsourced to other companies like AtGames that didn’t give the systems nearly the effort they deserved.

Nintendo doesn’t currently have another Classic system in the works that we know of, though we’re still waiting for the rumors about a Nintendo 64 Classic Edition to come to fruition. Not to worry, though: Nintendo started a good trend, as other companies have their own quality variants coming.

Okay, most of them do. It’s a damned shame what happened to the PlayStation Classic, which could have been good if Sony cared enough about the software emulation — especially with their dynamite ad campaign.

Sega announced the Sega Genesis Mini/Mega Drive Mini earlier in the year, the first Genesis classic system they’re taking seriously. Previous efforts were farmed out to the aforementioned AtGames, which kept returning the same results despite the number of chances they were given. This system was originally announced to be another in that line for release last year, until Sega delayed it to this year, something onlookers suspected was due to a desire to release a better effort at the time. Fortunately, they were right.

Not only will the system provide games with good emulation from M2, Sega is doing what Nintendidn’t by including a whopping 42 games — far more than the competing SNES Classic’s 23. It will include big first-party hits like the first two Sonic the Hedgehog games, Shinobi III, Phantasy Star IV, Shining Force, and Comix Zone, along with third-party titles like Street Fighter II: Special Championship Edition, Contra: Hard Corps, Castlevania: Bloodlines, and even Mega Man: The Wily Wars. It doesn’t include every game I wanted to see, like Revenge of Shinobi and the other Streets of Rage games, but the lineup is so good that I can’t complain. Most others aren’t complaining either.

Sorry, I do have to complain about Sega including three-button controllers in the western versions of the system instead of the superior six-button ones, like Japan is receiving. There will be a six-button option available as a separate purchase when it launches, but why the hell not include them here? Come on.

The Sega Genesis Mini will arrive on September 19th for $79.99, or an equivalent in other territories. There might be enough to go around for everyone who wants one here, unlike the scantly supplied and now-discontinued systems from Nintendo.

The NeoGeo Mini, SNK’s aptly-named take on a classic system, was good… for an SNK system. The emulation to a TV was imperfect, though it was acceptable on the tiny 3.5-inch screen included with it, and the controllers lacked features compared to the original versions. A new limited-edition Samurai Shodown iteration is coming soon, to commemorate the release of the new Samurai Shodown title that arrived yesterday. This variant will cost even more than the original version at $139, very expensive for a classic system. But it could be a collector’s item given how limited it will likely be, which will make it worthwhile for a certain audience.

The newest system announced is the TurboGrafx-16 Mini (or PC Engine Mini in Japan, and PC Engine Core Mini in Europe), Konami’s surprising announcement at E3 2019 (which, by the way, wasn’t Contra: Rogue Corps). The system didn’t garner as much attention as the SNES and Genesis in its heyday, especially outside Japan, but had a respectable software lineup full of gems. Only six games have been confirmed thus far for western territories, including Ys Book I & II, R-Type, New Adventure Island, Ninja Spirit, Dungeon Explorer, and Alien Crush. The Japanese version includes Ys and Dungeon Explorer, but substitutes the others for Bonk’s Adventure, Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, Super Star Soldier, and China Warrior.

The swaps are interesting given how all those games were released in the US too, save for Rondo of Blood. Rondo itself was released in Japanese on the Wii Virtual Console worldwide and localized for PSP (the latter version was also included with the Castlevania Requiem duo on PS4 last year). Hopefully they don’t leave it off the Mini outside Japan.

Speaking of that: This system is hardly “mini” in size. It’s smaller than the original TurboGrafx-16, but this image shows how it’s much larger than other Mini systems. If that’s what they had to do to implement good emulation, so be it.

No date or price was given for the TurboGrafx-16 Mini, but a better date should come soon. Since E3, Konami has released a list of the most requested titles for the system, which include Ys IV: Mask of the Sun, Snatcher, Emerald Dragon, and Lords of Thunder. Hopefully most of them make it.

This trend where the hardware manufacturers release classic systems they take seriously is a good one, and it would be a shame if it let up. The N64 variant feels like a case of when rather than if, but hopefully technology becomes cheap and feasible enough for Nintendo to continue with a Gamecube variant, and for Sega to release systems beyond Genesis for once. Cross your fingers.