Good lord, what a dogshit year. At least the video games were pretty good! Let's take a look at some of the stuff I played in 2025, or as I prefer to call it, Anno Diablo:
FINAL FIGHT MD
The Sega Genesis conversion of Final Fight, a project started in Brazil three years ago, is quite close to finished, hovering at 92% completion in its most recent build. Was a Genesis conversion of Final Fight strictly necessary in 2025, where you'll find pixel perfect emulations of the game everywhere else? Not really, but Final Fight MD isn't as much for the players as it is for its designer Mauro Xavier, who wanted to flex his programming muscles by bringing this big, big arcade hit to a humble home console, with as little compromise as possible.
I'm happy to say that this seemingly impossible task was a success. Final Fight MD ranks up there with Strider, Forgotten Worlds, and Chiki Chiki Boys as one of the best Capcom arcade ports you'll find on the Sega Genesis. You want all three heroes from the arcade game? You've got 'em, plus Maki from Final Fight 2 in a special "Mega" mode with additional content. You want all the stages? They're here, including the flame-filled foundry that left players a little crispy around the edges. You want achievements? Well, Xavier wanted them, so you're getting them... and you'll need to get a whole lot of them to unlock everything the game has to offer.
There are frequently points in Final Fight MD when the Genesis is pushed past its limits, crushed under the weight of six huge onscreen enemies and up to three (!!) players. You will definitely notice slowdown and flicker, but it's easy to forgive when the little Mega Drive that could is pushed to the point where it just barely can. Three-quarters of the time, the game mimics its arcade ancestor flawlessly, to the point where you won't even notice the difference on a handheld device.
Yes, you've probably played Final Fight a million times on a million formats, but it's worth playing it again on the Genesis, if only to marvel at Brazil's mastery of this ancient hardware.
EARTHION
Speaking of unexpectedly recent and awesome Sega Genesis games, Yuzo Koshiro hit us with a doozy in Earthion. It's a side-scrolling shoot 'em up with lofty aspirations, looking as though it was meant for the more powerful Neo-Geo with stunning intermissions and gigantic bosses.
Earthion's more than just a pretty face, though. The weapon system is one of the best I've seen in a shmup, with "adaptation pods" that force the player to make difficult decisions early in the game to benefit from additional weapon slots later. Weapons range from the dull but effective (V-Fire) to the slow but devastating (Prism Laser) to the tricky to use but deeply satisfying (Apex, a bomb which lets out a bass-heavy explosion as it scorches the earth below. War crimes have never been so much fun!).
The gameplay feels like the missing link between Yumekobo's Pulstar and Blazing Star, with the quarter-munching accessibility of the latter. You're given a generous health bar that refills over time, and even if you're blasted out of the sky, your next ship appears inches from the smoking remains of the last one. The game kind of has to be gentle with the player, because the sky is often thick with bullets, and collisions aren't always fair. This is especially true in the miserable bio-organic stage, full of claustrophobic tunnels, moaning worms, and a poorly telegraphed ambush from a gruesome monster that chases you through the start of the level. And you were doing so well up to this point, Mr. Koshiro...
Even with that unbelievably crappy stage, Earthion is one of the best and certainly the most eye-catching shooter on the Sega Genesis. After Mighty Number Nine, I look at the hype surrounding crowdsourced video games with a jaundiced eye, but this is every bit as good as the screenshots and the blurry video previews suggested it would be. (Aside from that crappy, crappy bio-organic stage. Did I mention it sucked a whole lot? It's a point worth belaboring.)
ATARI VCS
(not the old one, the more recent one)
This has got to be the most confusing video game branding since Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3. The Atari VCS is not a remake of the Atari 2600, nor is it an Atari 400 or 800 as the two available models suggest. Rather, the VCS is a low-spec x86 computer running its own proprietary operating system... Atari's half-assed answer to the Xbox Series and PS5, basically.
When used as its creators intended, the VCS is nothing special. There's a bundle of classic Atari games built into the unit, but if you want more software, you'll have to buy it from Atari's digital storefront. The selection of games is both underwhelming and overpriced, with the only big (or any) budget title being an awkward re-imagining of Food Fight as a Splatoon-like online action game. The rest of the titles are a jumble of unremarkable indie games, along with a handful of Atari 2600 and 7800 homebrews.
The average gamer would starve to death before finding much nourishment in the Atari VCS e-shop. However, you don't have to use the VCS in an official capacity... it's better to crack it open, add an M.2 drive, and turn it into a handy emulation station. It's not easy to do this, but once you have, you'll find the VCS absolutely creams single board computers like the Raspberry Pi in overall performance. You might even be able to use the VCS as an ersatz Steam Machine, although you'll want to stick with old-school titles like Freedom Planet and Peggle 2, as opposed to hardware-heavy juggernauts like Doom Eternal.
In short, the VCS is a pretty bad system if used as directed, but a pretty good plaything for nerds with some IT experience and a lot of free time. Those individuals will be able to mold the VCS into anything they want it to be... as long as they don't expect this eighty dollar toy to perform at the level of a supercomputer. If you're smart enough to hack this, you're also smart enough to recognize its limitations.
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