You know, a common perception of Top Ten lists is that they are highly opinionated, self-indulgent, and personal. I mean, why would I want to know what some guy thought about which ten Van Halen songs were the best of all time? Well, actually, I often find other people's Top Ten lists to be exceptionally intriguing, depending on the subject matter; I get much insight from what others think about stuff in which I am interested.
With that in mind, I have prepared a Top Ten list of the best video game characters I have personally experienced in Sega Genesis games. Why the Genesis? Because I owned one back when it was relevant... and I still own the same one! Now, there are many games I have not played that feature such classic characters as Knuckles, Earthworm Jim, Ristar, Vectorman, Sparkster (from Rocket Knight Adventures), Strider, and the like. I did not include those characters because I have never experienced them first-hand.
Despite this, I do have characters like Sonic, Ecco, and those dudes from Gunstar Heroes on my list, but I also have several surprises (including some in-game depictions of real people) on the list with which you may vehemently disagree (By the way, I will break up the list into four separate blog entries so that you won't be stuck with reading one LONG post). So, here goes -- my Top Ten First-Hand Nostalgia Sega Genesis Characters (10-7):
10) Those Dudes from Gunstar Heroes. These two dudes, whom I will dub Red and Blue, were cute sprites with angry faces that threw, kicked, punched, and blew away any baddie that they encountered. Beyond what they did, these characters were as dull as dirt -- they were just angry dudes that destroyed stuff. Maybe they were angry about the injustices faced by their home planet Gunstar, but the characters were bombastic, monotonous, and gratuitously violent... much like the game itself.
9) Marcus Allbäck (FIFA 97). Back in the day, I was a huge EA Sports game guy, and FIFA 97 found its way into my Genesis library. One of the first teams with which I played was an Allsvenskan (Swedish League) team called Örgryte. On that team was a super-speedy striker named M Allbäck. I didn't know his real first name, so I used to call him "Mats," based on famous tennis player Mats Wilander. But I would later discover that Marcus Allbäck was not only a real player, but he would eventually become an important player for the Swedish national side and play a key role in the European success of FC Copenhagen... Anyway, going back to 1996, Allbäck was a speed merchant who became my most prolific goalscorer and the one player I would often try to acquire whenever I played with another team.
8) Transformable Mecha (Herzog Zwei). Okay, could any American kid who didn't speak German pronounce this game's title right back in the day? My friend Ed and I used to pronounce it "Herzog Zweee," just as one may process American English orthography based on the American English phonemic library and phonological constraints. However, the actual German pronunciation is "Heut-sock tsvai" (IPA: ˈhɛɐ̯tsok ˈtsvai). Pronunciation aside, the transformable mecha controlled by the player was undeniably awesome: you used it to deliver and drop tactical units, you could fly it around to scout what the enemy was doing, and you could transform it into a giant robot to blast away the enemy's tactical units. It was a versatile "character" that was the poster child of one of the first real-time strategy games ever produced, making the character and the game underrated classics.
7) Ecco (Ecco the Dolphin). We all know Ecco -- he's the super-smart and courageous dolphin who has been charged with finding out to where all his sea creature buddies were abducted. He is beautifully rendered, swims fast, has a cool and effective nose attack, and can get some mad hops out of the water. Despite these positives, the plodding, pensive pace of Ecco the Dolphin may be too dull for some, unless you have hours of time to search for answers to arcane puzzles and explore narrow caves and vast expanses of open ocean. Ecco the Dolphin was and is one of the few non-sports games I've played on the Genesis, which is why Ecco rates so highly. Nonetheless, the game may be worth a look, even if the character isn't "exciting."
Stay tuned for 6 to 3!
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