I lusted after these when I was a kid, and eventually blew all my saved up Christmas/Birthday money on one.
The battery thing really sucked, but still had a lot of fun with it. Must of played that first level of Sonic 2 a thousand times.
My white whale was the TV tuner, I thought the idea was so cool as a kid.
I had a friend who brought their Game Gear with the TV tuner to the playground in elementary school, and it was a moment of absolute future shock. It didn’t matter that we could barely tell what was happening on the screen, because I couldn’t believe that it was even possible!
I saw a kid hook up the TV tuner in the back of the bus and was insanely jealous.
the boss levels on sonic 2 game gear were SAVAGE, my god
Platonic mostly
I owned Sonic 2 and Columns and… not much else.
As far as a retro systems and emulation is concerned, I mostly ignore it on favor of the Genesis, which has mostly the same games just better versions of them.
I’m sure there’s some game gear only banger I’m unaware of.
I had a friend who had one in college my freshman year. He brought it to show off and until that point I had no idea they even existed. Mind you, this was about 2013, so it was already “retro” at the time, but me, my roommate, and a few others present thought it was awesome and were going to try to find our own on EBay…right up until it died half an hour later and he had to replace ALL SIX of its AA batteries.
I put sooo many hours into “Sonic the Hedgehog Triple Trouble” on road trips as a kid, I had to use the cigarette lighter power cord adapter because it demolished the batteries of the 90s.
The Game Gear I have now lasts longer because batteries have gotten a bit more efficient though. I was able to find a copy of Triple Trouble at a local retro game trader and honestly that’s all I wanted from childhood so I stopped looking for Game Gear games. A trip down memory lane every once in a while and I’m good.
There’s a 16bit fan remake of Triple Trouble out there that I would heavily recommend you try out! Just finished playing through it recently and loved it.
Shinobi 2 for Game Gear was a childhood favourite even if I didn’t have any batteries and just had to hang out near an outlet to play it. I booted it up on my Analogue Pocket recently, and it’s still super fun! I enjoyed a bunch of games on the system, but that’s the one that feels like an all-time classic to me.
Yes. Absolutely. Shinobi 2 for Sega Game Gear is an all time classic.
It’s a shame more people don’t encounter it when exploring retrogames. It’s so easy to assume the Genesis versions of each title will be better, and skip trying the GameGear version.
Mine still works. I still play Sonic and Simpsons every once in a while.
I had one as a kid. That thing went through batteries so fast, I messed mine up because of it. I had a battery pack for an RC car, and it looked like a bunch of AA batteries in series, so I took it apart. It worked in my game gear for a little bit until I smelled burning plastic. It melted a part of the battery compartment and my game gear wouldn’t take batteries after that, only running off AC power.
My first RPG was on game gear, Dragon Crystal. That was the one where you have a dragon egg following behind you and you had to push your body against the trees to reveal the maze-like path. I don’t know if there was an end to that game, but I barely made it to hatching the dragon.
I loved the Sonic games, Castle of Illusion, Columns, the Streets of Rage series.
I had the adapter so I could play my master system games.
Bought mine in the 90’s from a high school friend. Got the car adapter and it was a lifesaver for the family road trips which we did a lot of back then. I kept it even though it stopped working years ago. Then learned how to recap it during the pandemic and got hooked to console modding. That was a slippery slope. I’ve since bought, fixed, and customized 6 game gears with custom-painted shells and installed the different variations of screen and power upgrades. Now I find broken consoles and fix/upgrade them as a hobby. There’s something so satisfying about bringing life back to gaming hardware that people have given up on.
I relate to the game gear during long car rides (Mortal Kombat II!!!). Awesome that you’re restoring them now!!
Thank you for doing this. It’s so cool to bring new life to old systems.
I was envious of anyone who had one when I was a kid, but now I don’t know if there’s any games on it that make buying this system worthwhile.
I had a friend who had one and it looked amazing! Just like a real console attached to a TV, and indeed it was basically a portable Sega Master System in design. I only had a gray-scale GameBoy so the display on the Game Gear was incredible by comparison.
I do remember my joy, when finding out that instead of feeding it with batteries, I could even use the power adapter of the master system to play with the Gamegear. 😄
Had one, mostly played it plugged into the wall. I was a big fan of Defenders of the Oasis and the Streets of Rage 2 conversion (it’s not great, but good enough for 9 year old me). The Ristar port was pretty solid if memory serves me well.
They mod well these days and have replacement screens that have the correct ratio, which wasn’t always the case. If you put a good screen into one of these things, they really pop.
I’ve emulated some of the games, but I don’t have the money to buy one at the moment. I would like to get one, though.
Love and hate, for sure.
As a kid it was the coolest thing ever, but the thing was a battery eating machine, so it was always a struggle to get my parents to buy a new set. Eventually they got me an A/C adapter which was… somewhat compatible. It fit, but shake it a little too much and POP, game reset. And of course that always happened after beating a tough boss. 20 years later I’m still annoyed.
I hope I can find mine tucked in some old drawer at my grandma’s and give it a well-deserved overhaul.
It’s a shame that such good pice of hardware does not have software at the same level.
