One of my earliest childhood memories is sitting with my Dad, watching him play The Ninja. I vividly remember where you scaled a cliff-side and got to the end of the game, only to be sent back if you missed a scroll. I was born with a joypad (that’s a controller, not a sex toy) in my hand.

There is one element that truly distinguishes all Sega Master System (SMS) games from the rest – the box art. Is it hip and retro you ask? Well is the Pope Jewish?

The box art is without a doubt the worst of all consoles, ever. To help demonstrate the point here’s an example:

The man has no mouth and he’s shaking that gun up and down to pump air out of the nozzle. This may charm of the pants off older gamers, but it really hasn’t withstood the test of time. It’s hard to fathom how the decision came about to have all the backgrounds on the box art as lined grids, reducing any attempt at artistic talent to mere doodles on scrap paper. The only redeeming point is it looks pleasant on the eye of any OCD retro game-collector when the boxes are lined up alphabetically.

Inside these ‘cool’ boxes is either a Sega Card or cartridge. The Sega Cards were credit card-sized and slotted into the earlier SMS models. Around twelve titles in total were released in Europe on this format. Whilst they were cheaper to produce, and thus cheaper to buy, the limitations on memory and lack of support on later models of the console ceased any further production. The cartridges held four times more information than the Sega Cards and quickly became the standard format. Eastern and Western titles had different shapes to the cartridges as a form of region lock, later imitated on Genesis/Megadrive games.

One area that the SMS did suffer in was the sound. Many feel that the SMS’ main competitor, the Nintendo Entertainment System, had a superior and greater range of sound, rather than just ‘soft-synth’ effects. Two of the games in this feature showcase some of the catchier themes the SMS could produce, and a recorded voice that scared the pants off of me as a child.

The Ninja

The Ninja is similar to another favourite game of mine that I looked at in the last feature, Secret Command. Essentially a top-down shmup, you play as Kazamaru, ‘the good guy in the blue vest’, who sets out to conquer tyranny and rescue the princess. This was a port vastly different from its original arcade version.

Part of The Ninja’s magic is in its length and variation of levels. All the stages are short and sweet, ending in a swift mini-boss battle. You’ll start by battling through courtyards, fighting in streets, using logs to cross a moat, dodging on-coming horses in a side-scrolling section and more before reaching the castle. Collect ‘The Secret Book of Pinwheel Darts’ (red scrolls) and your throwing knives change to shurikens, with the music shifting to a brilliant tune. The music, although looped, never becomes repetitive and makes every level feel like a final epic confrontation.

Apart from one section containing runaway horses with horrible collision detection, this remains a well-balanced game. It’s not easy but with every playthrough you’ll get a little closer to the castle. There are also a number of ‘Secret Books of the Ohkami Castle’ (green scrolls) that need to be discovered. Hidden throughout the game, you’ll need to find all five in order to open the castle doors. Failure to find all the scrolls results in you being sent back to earlier levels to find them. Ouch.

Psycho Fox

SMS games strongly favoured bright blue colours, and the opening scene of Psycho Fox is no different. Moving any character is initially slow and awkward as you’re required to build up a run, something unusual at the time of release. Newcomers will encounter this play mechanic as a vertical spike in difficulty from the get-go. It takes a while to master, but once done it becomes second nature. With perseverance you’ll come to realise how well this works. Certain jumps can be made with a run-up, and then only with a certain character.

Pressing the pause button on the console will not only halt the game but bring you to an inventory screen. Here you can use power-ups you’ve collected such as the Shinto stick, view bonus coins for the bonus levels or change character. This was an innovative addition, and one that’s a natural progression on a similar screen from Alex Kidd in Miracle World.

Each of the four characters all have varying attributes. The monkey can jump higher whilst the hippo with the smug grin can punch through rock walls. Psycho Fox and his crew each sport their own individually coloured underwear. If Superman can save the world with his y-fronts showing, why can’t they! The best character is the tiger; simply because he’s wearing y-fronts, a wife-beater vest and looks drunk.

There is also a mascot called Birdfly who can be found by smashing the secret eggs littered throughout the levels. Throwing Birdfly smashes oncoming critters, and does the same upon returning like a boomerang. A great game if you stick with it, Psycho Fox is seen as the precursor to Decap Attack, and it’s easy to see why.

Teddy Boy

The opening theme tune is a chirpy little number sitting beside the bright yellow and pink neon title screen. Hit the start button and you’re greeted with a bright blue (again) screen detailing your score and remaining lives. Armed with a microgun that shoots shrinking bullets you’ll battle through endless mazes. I loved this game as a child, and remember sitting there for hours repeatedly playing through the same levels trying to get a little further.

The European version is edited slightly from the arcade original. The background music was changed and the references to Japanese pop star Yohko Ishino removed. As Teddyboy (the name of the game and character is different), you’ll blast your way through mysterious mazes, shrinking all the monsters on each round. The levels are mazes with backgrounds in varying colours (including peach) that infinitely repeat and are littered with dice. Each die shows the number of creatures waiting to be hatched, and when an enemy is shrunk you have to collect it before it turns into an eyeball bug creature that’ll eat into the time limit. With the game forever looping, it’s time to get on that scoreboard.

Teddy Boy is a cute little game best played in short bursts. You’ll encounter Mexican wrestlers look-a-likes, snails with bullet-proof shells, bouncing Chinese dragon heads and more. Who needs a narrative when you have monsters spawning from dice? With the game continuously looping it’s recommended to load it up now and again for a few blasts through.

Impossible Mission

Another visitor. Stay a while, stay forever!. What a way to start a game! Impossible Mission was one of the earliest games to feature digitised speech, and as a child this opening line scared the hell out of me. Due to a publishing rights argument, this title was only available for a few days in the UK before being pulled from the shelves whilst the dispute was resolved. Luckily, my Dad had bought a copy the day before and friends of the family would visit in an attempt to borrow the game. It was like gold dust, and some retailers removed the name from the boxes so they could continue to sell copies on the sly.

As Agent 4125 it’s up to you to save the world from a nuclear strike and world domination by the evil, most heinous Dr… Elvin. The name might not strike fear into your heart but his digitalised speech and dastardly scheme will.

Deep inside his lair, a password is required to enter his control room and stop the launch. To acquire the password you’ll need the patience of a saint and an eye for problem solving. By using the elevators located in the underground base you’ll move between many rooms. Each room is protected by security robots and contain pieces of furniture and computers that need to be searched to find pieces of puzzles.

Once in a room you have no means of destroying the robots. You must jump over them or use one of the terminals to disable security temporarily or reset the lifts if you’ve made a mistake. To gain the passwords to use these terminals you must search the furniture for clues, by holding up in front of them, or solve music puzzles at giant computers you will find.

You have six hours in real-time (until 6 am) to collect all the pieces, solve the puzzles and defeat Dr. Elvin. Every time you die ten minutes is added, with two minutes being added for using the phone to call for hints. The levels, elevators and robots are randomly generated with each game. There is a lot of replayability in this title. A title that is one of the most mature on the SMS.

With the announcement of a pointless Dreamcast collection for the 360 and PC, it’s a wonder that some of these games (now probably out of copyright) haven’t been given a HD facelift for a brilliant downloadable collection. However, with publishing rights owned by different companies and some that’ll no longer exist, I doubt we’ll ever see this happen. For now we shall have to keep it analogue.

Stay tuned-in for the third feature on this classic console, as we look back at a wonder boy of the ‘80s, transform into a robot and train to a Survivor record.