CREATING THE MEGA DRIVE MINI
Just as the high-end console market has evolved over the decades, so too has the market for plug-and-play retro consoles. In the dark days of the early Nineties, systems of questionable legality such as the TV Boy were your only option, but publishers have been officially supporting this sector for a couple of decades now. In between obvious hits like Pac-Man and unusual choices such as the EA Sports FIFA 96/NHL 95 pack, there have been some truly landmark releases. The Atari Flashback 2 was one of the first to mimic the look of the original machine, and was so authentic that you could add a cartridge port to it. The Nintendo Classic Mini: NES captured mainstream attention and raised consumer expectations of what should be included on all-in-one retro consoles. And after spending plenty of time with the Mega Drive Mini, we feel confident in saying that it’s another milestone release. The physical product is closer to the original device than any before it, the list of games is an excellent representation of the system’s best, and the developers have gone above and beyond in adding extras – not only including regional revisions for each game, but two brand-new games.
As far as the public is concerned, the story of the Mega Drive Mini starts at the Sega Fes event in April 2018, where the company grabbed plenty of retro-related headlines – it announced the Sega Ages range for Nintendo Switch, revealed that a revival of the Sakura Wars series was in development, and told fans that the original Shenmue games would
