It’s November 1990. “Home Alone” is lighting up box offices, and another wave of Sega games is upon us!
October 1990 was filled with mostly Mega Drive/Genesis games and a couple stray Game Gear titles. November sees the return of Master System titles; fingers crossed that they won’t be exercises in torture.
Did you miss the October 1990 list? Check it out here.
Once again, all release dates are from Japan, unless otherwise noted.
Taisen Mahjong HaoPai – 11/10/90
Granada – 11/16/90
Castle of Illusion – 11/21/90
Megapanel – 11/22/90
Junction – 11/25/90
Gauntlet – 11/90 (EU)
Impossible Mission – 11/90 (EU)
Summer Games – 11/90 (EU)
John Madden Football – 11/90 (US)
24 replies on “What’s Next! – November 1990”
Lots of classic stuff here fantastic time Sega fan
Ohh looks a good month.
I’m a little worried about those Master System games, if I’m honest. Though I’m not sure how anyone could screw up Gauntlet…
I recall SMS Gauntlet being decent, and Castle of Illusion is fun (although I like the SMS version more). It actually looks like a pretty drab month to me but I’m looking forward to being surprised!
November is the calm before December’s deluge of games…
Two of these I’d probrably rank in the Genesis top 10.
Castle of Illusion and…?
John Madden Football. That game was so good. It was like a revelation on how good a football game could be. Ok the sequels added stuff and some of them might be better, but none had the impact of the first game. I mean playing on a CRT you could have fooled yourself into thinking you were watching a game on TV. Ok that’s a little hyperbolic but it looked and played sooooo good.
Peter Skerritt will be taking care of that review, although I will give some additional thoughts on it at the end of his review. Looking forward to it!
One of those games makes my personal Top 10: Granada. Awesome free-roaming shooter that’s probably my favorite of its kind on the Genesis (not that there’s anything else quite like it). Perfect controls, tough but fair difficulty, memorable music, great stage design — it’s a gem.
OTOH I don’t like Castle of Illusion at all, which I’ve always thought was wildly overrated. Maybe it’s just that I played World of Illusion first and prefer it in every way — better music, graphics, atmosphere, etc. It’s true that WOI is also very easy, but COI is one of those easy games that’s peppered with cheap hits.
Free-roaming, you say? That could be interesting. I just hope it’s not like Thunder Force II…
I remember Mission Impossible getting really good reviews from magazines back in the day along with Gauntlet.
So after months of mediocre Master System games might be a couple of decent ones in this run.
Got to echo the previous comments, November 1990 looks a decent month.
In regards to the MS games, Gauntlet is good and people say good things about Impossible Mission. Think Summer Games is the one to worry about…
Oh yes, those Summer, Winter, and California Games are all trash.
I need to play Castle of Illusion – I still haven’t, after all these years. I grabbed a UK MegaDrive cart copy a couple years back at a used game shop, but w/o a Retron 5, I still have no way to play other than emulation. I should bite the bullet and check it out though; by all accounts, it’s excellent. I was always curious about Junction, but I know it’s kind of a clone of a series of puzzle games that hit the Game Boy. Granada is one of the only shmups (or shmup-like games) I don’t own for Genesis, and I really want to play it, because I’ve heard it’s quite good. I’m also very curious about the SMS port of Gauntlet – the NES version is solid, and I played a bunch of it on PC many years ago, so I’m wondering how the SMS version fares. Is Impossible Mission a port of the NES game?
I think Impossible Mission is a port of the computer game. I hope it’s better looking/playing than the NES version.
Yeah, I still haven’t played Castle of Illusion. I’m looking forward to it, along with all the other Disney Sega titles.
All of the other Disney titles, except Fantasia. Which was outsourced by Sega. Not a very good game. Although visually it’s nice to look at and the sound is not bad.
A few solid sms games. The euro/aus releases for sms start to get REALLY good.
This is what I like to hear. I’ve suffered through far too many awful SMS games.
Granada is amazing, probably my favourite game ever. I think it’s criminally underrated as it never seems to be in anyone’s top ten list for some reason. Not many people have tried to speedrun it either (which is quite difficult to do). It’s truly a unique game that I find hard to put down.
I just finished reviewing Taisen Mahjong (to be posted shortly), so Granada’s up next!
Are you planning to play SMS Castle of Illusion at the same time? I’m keen to hear your comparison.
I agree that the MD version is overrated – sorry Sean! I’d probably recommend Quackshot instead, or World of Illusion if you can rustle up a second player.
If I’m not mistaken, the SMS Castle of Illusion is an entirely different game. As such, it will have its own review, similar to Super Monaco GP.
Yep, different stages and mechanics. Sounds good re the separate review.