The 100 Best Sega Genesis Games

It was no small feat that Sega, with the help of third-party publishers, once managed to hold its own against Nintendo, a company that had a dominating marketshare in the latter half of the 1980s. The Sega Genesis had a respectable launch with the pack-in arcade port of Altered Beast and supported with games like Mystic Defender, Tommy Lasorda Baseball, and Ghouls 'n Ghosts. The next year saw an unusual glut of side-scrolling and vertical scrolling shooters, many of which were actually worthy of our top 100 list. And looking back on the Genesis game library as a whole, there really was something for everyone. This included unexpected gleams of innovation, like the early RTS Herzog Zwei as well as Contra: Hard Corps and The Adventures of Batman & Robin, games that greatly lessened our desire for a Super Nintendo. We did manage to go through over a thousand Genesis and Mega Drive games in the last couple months to make sure every release was considered. Along with a handful of imports that many American gamers never got to play, this list represents the 100 best games for the classic Sega console.