The Amiga's Best Genre?

[Graham Humphrey]

Although I'm not sure it's the best genre, I think that there are quite a lot of good football management games. Premier Manager, Championship Manager, On The Ball, Super League Manager and Ultimate Soccer Manager are all great games.

[Muzkat]

I'd say platformers, just over scrolling shooters.

[keropi]

ah, the SEGA Saturn... I have one! with ~300 games ... the Shoot'em Ups are excellent! but the 3D capabilities are questionable, like on the amiga.... lol

[manicx]

I think that both me and FromWithin spoke about the 3D capabilities of the Saturn before. Panzer Dragoon Saga is the answer!

[keropi]

I have to disagree... at the end, it makes no difference if 1 or 2 SEGA software departments could really utilize the full saturn power... the bottom line is that noone else could, so the system silently died... I have a saturn and I love it, but the truth is that sadly...

Originally Posted by manicx

I wouldn't classify Megadrive as a shemups console. Megardive was the favourite console for coin op conversions. It had everything, platforms, beat em ups, shoot em ups etc. And don't forget that Sega had Sonic as a mascot, a character appearing in platform games. If you want to speak about the absolute console for shoot em ups, then this is the Saturn.

I used my Mega Drive nearly only for platformers. A pity I couldn't find phantasy star titles here at that time but after all I agree it was a mixed console, could do anything well enough.

[BippyM]

I think like Cody etc.. the Amiga excelled at to many areas for it to have a definitive "best" genre!

There were excellent shoot 'em ups, platformers, rpg, adventure, sport etc... besides FPS games I feel that there was little the Amiga could achieve compared to other machines of the day

and I dare anyone to find a couple of genres where the Amiga consistently fell short or simply had no games that stood out as a classic!

[manicx]

Originally Posted by keropi

I have to disagree... at the end, it makes no difference if 1 or 2 SEGA software departments could really utilize the full saturn power... the bottom line is that noone else could, so the system silently died... I have a saturn and I love it, but the truth is that sadly...

Nah... There is a big story behind the Saturn. One of my best pals used to develop for Saturn. I think FromWithin did as well so if you make a search for old topics on that you'll find the asnwer. Also, Retro by edge issue 3 has a great coverage on the Saturn.

[Anubis]

Superforg, Lionheart, Flashback, Mr.Nutz, Soccer Kid, Turricans....

All great platformer, and at the time nothing on PC could comapre to them.

I loved strategy games at the time, but all good games were already available on PC.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by manicx

I wouldn't classify Megadrive as a shemups console.

Then you haven't used it as much as I. Shmup saturation is one of the things that pushed the Megadrive into death. There were as many shmups as you had platformers in the Amiga. There weren't that many arcade conversions done either, dunno where you take tihs from. And since when "coin op conversions" is a genre?

Originally Posted by keropi

I have to disagree... at the end, it makes no difference if 1 or 2 SEGA software departments could really utilize the full saturn power... the bottom line is that noone else could, so the system silently died... I have a saturn and I love it, but the truth is that sadly...

Sorry, but the date of death that you take into account is the US market one. Saturn kept going well, until it died in 2001, in Japan.
And the fact that it was not really good at 3D does not mean it should fail. What sort of bollocks is that? (bollocks for other thread surely, no need to go OT here )

[JohnnyWalker]

Platformers. Is there any question?
At a point in the Amiga's life you could lift a doormat and a new Amiga platformer would come out. Obviously there were piles of shit but maybe if only because of the sheer volume of platform game production, soem great games have come out that pushed their console rivals into shame.

Platformers was the one genre that Amigas NEVER mastered. Mario, Sonic, these are the gods of platforms. The Amiga tried desperately, but never managed to produce any platformers that could be ranked better than "good".

The Amigas strongest point was that it had a lot of very original games (although at the time I remember saying the same thing about the Spectrum in comparison to the Amiga). It never really excelled in one genre likes PCs do now (FPS, RPG, RTS) it all was just a good "all rounder" IMHO

But not platformers.

[Peanutuk]

Perhaps Akira could state which platformers he has in mind?

[JohnnyWalker]

Yup, I'd like to see a "Best Amiga Games Ever" list that has one platformer in its top 10!

[Amiga1992]

I beg to differ. They all falled short of Sonic, but there were pretty excellent efforts.

I'll name a few:

Mr. Nutz
Ruff n Tumble
Turrican II
Wonderdog
James Pond 3
Aladdin

...to name but a few. Truth is, in the consoles, the only two majorly excellent platform games were the Sonic and Mario sagas. The rest were all feeble wannabes, and falled short just as much as their Amiga counterparts.


"Best Amiga games ever" lists are shit that will vary depending to each other, but you WILL see Turrican II in many of them.

[Peanutuk]

Well I guess,as you say, it is down to personal opinion so there isn't much point arguing either way. However, although I did really enjoy games such as James Pond 2 and First Samuria I didn't have much incentive to go back.

However Rainbow Islands (a platformer) is one of my all-time favourite games, and The New Zealand Story, Bubble Bobble and Rodland are all excellent. I guess it depends on whether you only want to count Amiga specific games. If not then surely most people's fabbo list will include one of these titles? So, I am now kind of agreeing that platformers may be a strong contender

It doesn't make any sense but I think the best Amiga genre was Amiga-style games

[StarEye]

What I find amusing is that when people talk about platformers they tend to say "but it's no Mario" or "but it's on Sonic".

I say to them "well... then I challenge you to find anything that's as good as Mario or Sonic on their respective consoles, 'cause there aren't any there either." The only reason you didn't find these games on the Amiga is because of copyright issues. In other words, if you like platformers, be sure to only ever play Super Mario or Sonic, 'cause there are no reason to play anything else since they automatically rule out all other platformers just by existing.

And for the record, that was sarcasm.

The best genre? Well, I think the amiga excelled in just about every genre;
Examples:

Sports: SWOS, Kick Off, Speedball 2, Great Courts 2
Managers: SWOS (twice, eh), Player Manager, Premier Manager, Championship Manager
Racing: Lotus, Super Cars, Stunt Car Racer, F1GP, Overdrive, Turbo Trax, ATR
Platformers: James Pond II, Jim Power, Parasol Stars, James Pond III, Giana Sisters
Action: Hired Guns, Chaos Engine, Dogs of War, Warzone, Midnight Resistance, Cannon Fodder, Syndicate, Ruff'n'Tumble, Assassin
SHMUP: R-Type I-II, Project-X, Apidya
RPG: Eye of the Beholder, Black Crypt, Elvira(?), Ambermoon
Action/Adventures: Shadow of the Beast, Lionheart, Another World, Flashback, Pirates!
Strategy: Dune II, Civilization, Colonization, Railroad Tycoon, The Settlers
Adventures: Monkey Island, Leisure Suit Larry, Indiana Jones, Beneath a Steel Sky, Lure of the Temptress, Cruise for a Corpse, Operation Stealth... most LucasArts and Sierra titles.
Multiplayer: Dynablaster, Moonstone
Puzzle: Lemmings, Push Over, One Step Beyond
Pinball: Dreams, Fantasies, Illusions, Slamtilt, Obsession, Brain Damage

Sure, there are a lot of cross-platform titles, but does that matter? I think a computer/console should be praised for what it has, not what the other platforms doesn't have.

[JohnnyWalker]

The only reason you didn't find these games on the Amiga is because of copyright issues.

That, and the fact that games like 'Zool' (which were touted as 'Sonic-beaters') were incredibly banal. I even remember magazines saying that Amigas should stop trying to be consoles, making poor clones of excellent console games, and concentrate on being Amigas! I still agree with that.

Akira: Sure, but people actively spend money on hardware just to be able to play Sonic or Mario. Just like they went out and bought CD drives to be able to play Wing Commander on the PC. There wasn't really a game like that on the Amiga, in any genre. But one things for sure, there was never an Amiga platform game that ranked anywhere near Sonic or Mario for playability. The consoles got: Mario, Mario 2, Mario 3, Super Mario World, Super Mario World, Mario World 64, Sonic 1, Sonic 2 and Sonic 3. That's 9 FANTASTIC platformers I've just listed off the top of my head.

[StarEye]

I happen to like Zool. In my opinion, it stands out easily and while it may have been marketed as one, I for one don't even remotely see any resemblence between Zool and Sonic. I think it's one of a kind, and a very playable and fun game.

Oh, and that's 9 FANTASTIC platformers on THREE different consoles. How can you even compare? And other than that, are you saying that there are no other platformers out there worth playing, other than Mario and Sonic? Because, I find that highly unlikely.

I can think of plenty of FANTASTIC platformers for the Amiga (IMO); Zool (what the hell is so wrong about this game?), Trolls AGA, Giana Sisters (sure, a Mario clone, but very good nevertheless), Superfrog, James Pond II and III, Ruff'n'Tumble, Soccer Kid, Magic Pockets, Alladin, Prince of Persia, Putty, Global Gladiators, Rick Dangerous I and II, Fire and Ice, Brian the Lion, Parasol Stars, Rainbow Islands.

Sure, there were people buying the Nintendo just for Mario. However, if the amiga was a console, and marketed as a console, I'm sure they'd run out and buy the Amiga 500 just to play James Pond II and Zool too. But it wasn't marketed as a console, and it wasn't meant for children with an interest for games, but for the same people that bought a PC. Not only was it marketed for a different market than the Mario and Sonic buyers, but it was also marketed badly... we know how Commodore messed up. So, the only reason people bought an amiga was because of it's incredibly powerful multimedia functions years before the PC, and because of technical abilities compared to anything else at that time.

Seriously, if the amiga have such bad games, why the hell are we sitting here for?

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by JohnnyWalker

Akira: Sure, but people actively spend money on hardware just to be able to play Sonic or Mario. Just like they went out and bought CD drives to be able to play Wing Commander on the PC. There wasn't really a game like that on the Amiga, in any genre. But one things for sure, there was never an Amiga platform game that ranked anywhere near Sonic or Mario for playability. The consoles got: Mario, Mario 2, Mario 3, Super Mario World, Super Mario World, Mario World 64, Sonic 1, Sonic 2 and Sonic 3. That's 9 FANTASTIC platformers I've just listed off the top of my head.

Sorry but that's just two series. Out of Mario and Sonic, there's NOTHING that comes close.

And people shelleld out cash for Amigas when they saw Shadow of the Beast. I also have seen people buying SNESes for Street Fighter 2. The market has nothing to do with this I guess.