Last week, I had the opportunity to review the SEGA Mega Drive Ultimate Collection for the PlayStation 3 (which you can read here), a product which, although filled with some fantastic games, left a really sour aftertaste. What caused these feelings of displeasure towards Sega was the utter lack of care that they had in producing said compilation. They see the compilation as a quick cash grab, but I think there is the potential to do whole a lot more with this kind of product, and ultimately make it more successful.

Compilation Blues

Let’s pretend that after many years of writing appalling crap, I have been hired by Sega to work in their archive room so that I stop giving their games low review scores. With delusions of how to fix the company and plans for the development of Shenmue III in my briefcase, I head to Sega, only to be stuffed in a small room with hundreds of other ex-game-reviewers-cum-developers, forced to endlessly play Flicky while hooked up to a rusty old car battery that shocks us every time we lose a life. However, due to the fact I actually play games, I excel at Flicky, and suddenly get thrust into a leadership role on a new Mega Drive compilation project. Producing a decent compilation in this day and age seems to be a task beyond many publishers. I’m sure the suggestion would come from higher up to simply farm the collection out to Backbone Entertainment, which I’d promptly respond to with a fateful glove slap and a challenge to a duel (in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 versus mode, which I am sure is how all Sega board room disputes are handled). Sega is a company with a rich history, and I think it’s time that they used these compilations not just as an opportunity to make a bit of money off the back catalogue, but to pay respect to their roots. Thus I would propose the SEGA Mega Drive Legacy Collection project. The SEGA Mega Drive Legacy Collection would be the ultimate resource for Sega’s 16-bit work, encompassing not just Sega’s Mega Drive work, but their 32X and Mega CD titles too. Such a project would command greater resources than most compilations, so the final release would need the budget of a regular AAA title, and a price point to match. To charge people full price for a compilation, you need to make it worthwhile; so to put it bluntly, the project would need to be a Sega fan’s desert island disc. Sega published 210 Mega Drive games, 67 Mega CD games and 21 32X games. Those totals include games whose rights are owned by other developers and were reprogrammed by Sega, celebrity or league endorsed sports titles, and licenses from parties such as Disney, Marvel, Warner Brothers and so on. Obviously not every game they released would be published in the collection, and the sheer number of games may require more than one release. Sega’s most important franchises need to be present in their full capacity, which could lead to some issues when it comes to games like Revenge of Shinobi, which is known for appearances from Spider-Man, Batman, The Terminator and Godzilla. Games which are not worth pursuing rights for should at least be acknowledged somewhere in the package (but more on that later). Many Sega developed games like Eternal Champions, Chakan: The Forever Man and Landstalker have still yet to appear on any compilations released to date. One of the biggest issues of existing compilations is the quality of the emulation, which is also often used as a scapegoat for missing titles (namely Sonic 3 & Knuckles), even if said titles have appeared in other collections (like Sonic Mega Collection, eh Backbone?). One could either produce a new emulator internally, or seek the expertise of the homebrew emulation community. The top two Sega Mega Drive emulators have remarkable accuracy and play 99% of games released on the main system and the two add-ons with no major issues. These emulators also have support for compression of Mega CD titles, so one would perhaps be able to include multiple releases for games where there were significant differences between regions (Sonic CD, for example). It wouldn’t be the first time that Sega went to the emulation community for assistance – the Dreamcast release Sega Smash Pack was developed by one of the authors of the two leading Mega Drive emulators. Special features on classic game compilations are usually pretty disappointing – a bit of old artwork, the game case and maybe 3-5 trivia points. For the Legacy Collection, I’d want the box art, cartridge art and manual for each region, concept art, magazine ads, television commercials (where available), and for more important games, a short video documentary/interview with one of the creators on the development of the game. Also included should be a full length documentary on the Mega Drive era, featuring interviews with the major players from Sega and other parties involved in making and marketing the system. The major special feature I’d like to have in the Legacy Collection is a Sega Encyclopaedia, much in the style of the Metal Gear Solid Database, which brings together all of the information on every title Sega released for the Mega Drive, Mega-CD and 32X, along with information on the characters featured in each game and the people who worked on them. Here you’d have all of your random trivia, background information on the development of the game, series legacy, a gallery of images from the game, in-game footage (particularly where rights to have the game on the collection could not be secured) and technical information. One could even join forces with a book publisher like Prima or Bradygames to produce a coffee table book version of the encyclopaedia.	The game they play in Hell
	Sorting out the license issues is a major hurdle
	If a ragtag bunch of bedroom coders can do it, why can’t Backbone?
	Guys like Yuji Naka would have many interesting stories to tell

If such a compilation were successful, it’d lay the groundwork to do it for other Sega systems. Sadly, I think that the prospect of higher return on investment for the cheap cash grab projects is fairly more appealing to any publisher, not just Sega, than a true piece of fan service like the one I’ve attempted to detail here. Some technical factors, such as storage requirements, would probably force the project onto the next generation of consoles, when one would expect that the downloadable services like Virtual Console will be handled a lot better. Still, one can always dream.