Two Sega CD Games: One Disappointed Me, One Rocked My World

I recently beat Robo Aleste for the Sega CD. Compile, the developers of Robo Aleste, were also responsible for M.U.S.H.A., a Sega Genesis game that I absolutely adore.

M.U.S.H.A.'s soundtrack goes hard. It gets my blood pumping, putting me in the mood to destroy the forces of evil. The game's aesthetics and soundscape take me back to playing Genesis games in my bedroom at age 7.

The amount of on-screen action is crazy, with enemies swarming around and exploding in a fireworks show of mid-air carnage. I don't know how they got so much stuff on screen without any slowdown. The chaotic opening stage reminds me of Gunstar Heroes. It would not surprise me at all if M.U.S.H.A. was actually made by Treasure. I know it really wasn't, but it feels like it could have been.

I never actually played M.U.S.H.A. until age 14 when I emulated it on my PC, but the whole time I was thinking how awesome it would have been for to borrow it from Blockbuster as a kid in the 90s. I finally beat it at on my Genesis at age 28, but I had to use a repro cart, since just the cartridge all by itself costs $300 on eBay. For the box and manual and everything you can expect to pay about a grand. M.U.S.H.A. sure isn't an affordable game anymore.

Since Robo Aleste was made years later by the same people responsible for M.U.S.H.A., I expected to love it. To my disappointment, I didn't like it at all. I spent a long time trying to figure out why I felt this way. I kept writing and deleting drafts about how the graphics weren't as good, or it didn't feel as kinesthetically nice to play. But I knew none of this added up, since Robo Aleste literally does all the same things as M.U.S.H.A. Yet for some mysterious reason it just falls flat for me.

Finally, I realized the reason must be so petty that I didn't even want to admit it to myself. It's really superficial, but it comes down to the soundtrack. I dislike Robo Aleste's music so strongly that I can't even enjoy the game.

M.U.S.H.A's soundtrack is rock. It's made up of repetitive, aggressive drum samples; a bass guitar as backing; and a lead guitar taking center stage with more complex melodies. I know the Genesis's FM synth can't really reproduce those instruments, but that's still what they're all supposed to represent. The fan-made instrumental covers on YouTube all show a guy righteously shredding his electric guitar.

I don't know how else to describe Robo Aleste's soundtrack except as tepid Eurodance in MIDI format sprinkled with traditional Japanese influences. Nothing about it excites me, and I can't remember any of it after hearing it.

For me, rock music is a part of M.U.S.H.A.'s identity. It isn't the same game anymore without it. To illustrate my point, I came up with an experiment. The control group for this experiment will be a short video clip of Robo Aleste with its default soundtrack:



Now this is Robo Aleste with M.U.S.H.A.'s soundtrack instead:



Since the Sega CD wasn't limited to FM synthesis like the Sega Genesis, and could stream high quality audio, I've taken things a step further by making another video of Robo Aleste gameplay combined with a fan-made rock cover of M.U.S.H.A's soundtrack. It's worth emphasizing that it would have been technically feasible for Robo Aleste to include this exact song on Sega CD:



Now here is M.U.S.H.A. with Robo Aleste's soundtrack:



My takeaway from all this is that M.U.S.H.A.'s soundtrack makes things average things sound cool, while Robo Aleste's soundtrack makes cool things sound lame. Music is important in video games. It matters a lot. This isn't even some new, unprecedented concept for Sega fans. Some of the most devoted Sega lovers outright reject Streets of Rage III just because its soundtrack differs too much from Streets of Rage I and II. It's not even a bad soundtrack per se, it's just too off-brand for Streets of Rage. Personally I refuse to play the 90s PC ports of Sonic 3 and Knuckles because the music is too different from the Genesis versions.

I know I keep circling back to this with the Sega CD, but it really irritates me that even though better audio is one of the Sega CD's only advantages over the standard issue Sega Genesis, time and time again game developers wouldn't use it in any meaningful way. If they were just going to squander it, what was the point?

There is literally room on the disc for a rock cover of M.U.S.H.A's soundtrack, or at least power metal similar to that. Fans have covered M.U.S.H.A.'s soundtrack on their electric guitars and amps and uploaded it for fun. They weren't even getting paid to do it. But this commercial product that ended up on store shelves phones it in with such an essential part of what made me love its predecessor in the first place. It's profoundly disappointing to me.

I know that Robo Aleste has its fans, so if this is too controversial of a take, I welcome any input or discussion to help me understand. Maybe someone else can help me see it from an angle I hadn't considered before. But as of right now, Robo Aleste goes in my growing pile of underwhelming Sega CD games that make me want to go back to the plain old Genesis.



Next, I beat Soul Star for the Sega CD. Soul Star isn't a sequel to anything I've played before, but it had been on my “play this” list for years. Sega CD fans online all praise it to high heaven, so I knew I had to experience it.

Having finally beaten Soul Star, I'm proud to say it lives up to all the hype. This is an incredible Sega CD game. It's challenging, looks and sounds great, and harnesses the power of the Sega CD hardware to do things the ordinary Genesis simply couldn't.

Soul Star is kind of like Star Fox with sprites and mode-7 effects instead of polygons. You fly around in space and on the surface of planets, shooting formations of enemy ships coming at you in a 3D perspective. These parts reminded me of Space Harrier (arcade, 1985), except with better graphics and less weird art direction. Overall the whole experience comes across like a Sega super scaler arcade made for the home.

After the on rails flying parts, you go to a free-roaming stage where you must destroy enemy infrastructure while fighters and anti-aircraft guns shoot at you. I found these somewhat hard to figure out at first, since it wasn't entirely clear what I was supposed to do. But once I got my bearings, I really enjoyed them.

When Soul Star came out, 3D gaming was rare and inaccessible to most people. Back then, I only got to play 3D games on my Dad's PC (which I couldn't play whenever I wanted), or in the arcade (which required a grownup not only willing to drive me there, but also to provide me with quarters to play.) Virtually all of the games I could play at home on Sega Genesis or Gameboy were two-dimensional sprite-based titles with flat gameplay. So, while Soul Star's 3D design is nothing special now, it would have been jaw-dropping back then.

The 3D gameplay does come at a cost, since it's clear that Soul Star doesn't perform at 60 frames per second. It feels like 20 to me. To make up for this, it seems the developers gave all the enemies reasonably large hit boxes and made sure they didn't zip around too quickly. The game feels kinesthetically nice to play even though it shouldn't.

I liked Soul Star's weapons and power ups, even though the game incentivized always using the game's one overpowered weapon and never picking up something else or dying. This made it feel as though death had consequences and I needed to be careful, though. Judicious use of bombs and missiles were also key to clearing the free-roaming stages. I had to carefully budget them to destroy all my targets and get out in one piece.

There's a lot of pointless software on Sega CD which isn't any better than a standard Genesis cartridge, but Soul Star stands proud against this stereotype. If you are interested in the Sega CD, I consider this to be a “must play.” Even the music is pretty cool. I wasn't humming any of it after turning the game off, but I do remember remember that it sounded like a copycat John Williams orchestral score from a wannabe Star Wars clone. It sounded rousing and cinematic. I beat Soul Star on the easiest difficulty, but I could see going back later and trying my luck at a tougher setting. It's that good.