Sega Game Gear Micro
The newest console on the list also comes in bottom. That isn’t because it’s a bad machine, but because of a string of strange choices made around it that if nothing else can give us nostalgia of the sometimes bizarre choices Sega would make during the 1990s.
The Game Gear Micro is a miniature recreation of the Sega Game Gear which has been released during the continuing boom of officially produced mini consoles that started with the Nintendo NES Classic Mini. As with all of these consoles, the machine comes with a set list of games built in, and this is where the Game Gear Micro baffled everyone who heard of the machine’s release.
There are four different editions of the Game Gear Micro available, and each of them are a different colour and feature different games. Yes that’s right. If you want to play all of the Game Gear Micro game available, you have to buy four of the things. It is the case that if you bought an American Genesis Mini you would get a slightly different list of games compared to the Japanese Mega Drive Mini, but this is typical for regional variants of these mini consoles. It’s unheard of for a company to release multiple versions of the same mini console on the same day and expect players to buy them all to get all the available games.
In terms of the games available, you can get the classic black machine features Sonic the Hedgehog (which is a different game than the original Mega Drive game), Puyo Puyo 2, OutRun and Royal Stone. The Blue Machine has Sonic & Tails, Gunstar Heroes, Sylvan Tale and Baku Baku Animal. The yellow edition has Shining Force Gaiden 1, 2 and Gaiden Final Conflict, and also has Nazo Puyo Arle no Roux. Lastly the red one features Megami Tensei Gaiden: Last Bible and Last Bible Special, the GG Shinobi and Columns.
As you can see, whilst a Shining Force fan will get 3 games form that series with the yellow machine, if you are a Sonic fan, you’ll need to buy both the black and blue machines to get both available Sonic games. They could have released a Sonic edition that also featured Sonic 2, and Sonic Chaos, or shock horror, put more games on and given us all the Sonic Game Gear Games as one collection.
With micro SD cards being so small you worry you may inhale one by mistake, there really is no reason why the very tiny machine couldn’t include more games. Putting out four editions with only four games on each is pretty unforgivable in terms of value considering that the cost of these is approximately $50USD each when these first released. That means that to get all 16 games you’d have to spend $200 which is about the same price of a Nintendo Switch.
Limited games and high price aside, the machine is so impressively small to fit it’s micro name that the machine is difficult to hold to play and features a very small screen which makes playing some games a strain to see.
With the four editions available and the limited games and being too small to realistically play regularly you have to believe that this product is created as a primarily collectors piece and not for long play sessions.
