Super Hydlide

[Arkhan]

Is awesome.

 

Who agrees?

 

(I expect 0 agreers)

 

 

 

I popped this beast in over the weekend to test out my XRGB + Sega Genesis setup. I could have picked something more graphically exciting, but I thought to myself "hey, lets christen this thing with an underdog!"

 

So, I did.

 

and then, I sat and beat the game in a coke-fueled marathon.

 

 

It's one of those games I feel most people don't really get. You can see it on youtube when people review it and have the typical "THIS SUCKS THIS IS SHIT THIS IS TRASH WHAT WERE THEY THINKING" avgn style rambling, complete with "Didn't read the manual" stupidity.

[Torr]

I love the game too. However I've never beaten it in the 15+ years I've had it. Can never beat Kaizack himself...

I had a buddy who liked it too, he used to come over and play it.

 

I was surprised when I found that on the Internet it's just panned as a bad game... also surprised to know it was the first Genny RPG in North America.

[Arkhan]

It's got the same fate as Hydlide 1, really. (Also remember, Super Hydlide is Hylide 3)

 

A bunch of idiots play the game with no manual, get confused that it doesn't operate like Zelda, and then they go on to say the game sucks and its garbage. I could go on for hours about how dumb I think most Hydlide 1 haters are. The games laughably easy if you take the 45 seconds required to understand the controls/how to fight stuff.

 

I thought the music in SH was pretty amazing. The Genesis versions of the tunes are much more colorful than the MSX2 ones because of the FM.

 

Also, I always thought the atmosphere of the game was pretty awesome. Especially once you're up in space running around.

[Classic Pac]

I played this game once and left it faster than any game I ever played period. I hated Super Hylide and still do.

[Arkhan]

I played this game once and left it faster than any game I ever played period. I hated Super Hylide and still do.

 

You hate it so much you spell it wrong!

 

 

What was wrong with it?

[Classic Pac]

In a single word....EVERYTHING!!!

[Arkhan]

Well that doesn't get us anywhere.

 

It sounds like you went to the shop, bought crap you couldn't carry, walked very slow, got confused, yelled, and shut the game off.

[Jess Ragan]

There is nothing "super" about Hydlide. Unless the designers were thrown into a volcano... that would be pretty super.

[Arkhan]

I've yet to hear any compelling argument for why any of the Hydlide games is bad.

 

I've mostly just heard the usual "it sucks", "its stupid", "I died alot", "I didnt know what to do" stuff.

[Jess Ragan]

I just played Super Hydlide, and while it's not as icky as the first game, it's still loaded with some very serious issues. The presentation is about where the ORIGINAL Hydlide should have been, with tiled, grainy playfields and characters that lurch across the screen so stiffly you'd swear this was a supercharged ColecoVision game. (I suspect it's exactly that, a port of a MSX computer release.) There's really no excuse for a Sega Genesis game to look like something coughed up by an 8-bit system on a bad day, yet here we are!

 

Super Hydlide has also got to be one of the most user-hostile games I've ever played. It seems designed for the specific purpose of aggravating newcomers to the point where they never want to lay eyes on it again. The concepts of item weight and overemcumbrance aren't foreign to gamers in this age of Skyrim and Oblivion, but if I had to deal with that crap in the far-flung year of 1990, yeah, I'd be pretty pissed. Worse yet, Super Hydlide won't let you carry more than a knife and a pocketful of change. You actually do have enough money at the start to buy a weapon, armor, and a shield, but just enough strength to carry one of these items. You buy all the provisions you think you'll need for your adventure, step outside, find your feet glued to the floor, and are forced to throw out half of what you purchased!

 

Oh wait, there's more! Once you step outside the town with your knife and nothing else, you're beseiged by badly animated monsters that would like nothing better than to grind you into the dirt and wipe their feet with you. You have to do the same bullshit you did in the original Hydlide, picking off the RPG equivalent of kittens and puppies while dodging seeds from the yellow plants growing just outside the town's entrance. Two hits from the seeds will force you to limp back into town, to either stay at an inn (for the low, low price of ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS!!!) or buy rations, which cost half as much but are heavy enough to break the back of your wimpy warrior.

 

Adding to the already overabundant frustration is that your hero will have to go to a shrine in the town to power up. No, you can't raise a level just with experience points... you have to go to a temple to exchange them, like so many Skee-Ball tickets for a crappy plastic toy. Was this really necessary? Was there a point to this that I'm missing?

 

Once you do get your weak little peckerhead leveled up a few times, the game becomes tolerable, but I'm already expecting him to be dropped right back to square one, when a new set of enemies in a different section of the map carve through his energy and use his carcass for fertilizer. I've leveled up to Soldier status so far and although the game has a faint trace of peculiar charm, playing it reminds me of the Andrew Dice Clay joke about masturbating with a cheese grater. Somewhat amusing, but mostly, painful.

[Rex Dart]

I've yet to hear any compelling argument for why any of the Hydlide games is bad.

 

I've mostly just heard the usual "it sucks", "its stupid", "I died alot", "I didnt know what to do" stuff.

 

I suspect it's the high degree of fecality present in the game.

 

Incidentally, what do you think of Shaq Fu?

[Arkhan]

I just played Super Hydlide, and while it's not as icky as the first game, it's still loaded with some very serious issues. The presentation is about where the ORIGINAL Hydlide should have been, with tiled, grainy playfields and characters that lurch across the screen so stiffly you'd swear this was a supercharged ColecoVision game. (I suspect it's exactly that, a port of a MSX computer release.) There's really no excuse for a Sega Genesis game to look like something coughed up by an 8-bit system on a bad day, yet here we are!

It looks and sounds better than the MSX2 release, and far better than the MSX1 release. The MSX2 isn't similar to the Coleco video hardware like the MSX1 was. Also, this was the FIRST RPG for the Genesis (1989). It still has one of the better Genesis soundtracks ever done.

 

It doesn't predate Phantasy Star II in Japan, but it does in America.

 

The graphics are not THAT bad. I'm playing it again on a 55" tv thru an XRGB3. It looks pretty nice. Dithery, but nice. It's Genesis stuff. I expect dither. Some of the dungeon art is pretty cool, and the bosses look nice.

 

Super Hydlide has also got to be one of the most user-hostile games I've ever played. It seems designed for the specific purpose of aggravating newcomers to the point where they never want to lay eyes on it again. The concepts of item weight and overemcumbrance aren't foreign to gamers in this age of Skyrim and Oblivion, but if I had to deal with that crap in the far-flung year of 1990, yeah, I'd be pretty pissed. Worse yet, Super Hydlide won't let you carry more than a knife and a pocketful of change. You actually do have enough money at the start to buy a weapon, armor, and a shield, but just enough strength to carry one of these items. You buy all the provisions you think you'll need for your adventure, step outside, find your feet glued to the floor, and are forced to throw out half of what you purchased!

*sigh*. This is a case of not reading the manual. It's just like the people that gripe about Hydlide 1 and their lack of understanding how the combat works. Or the people that don't understand Ys' ramming system.

 

You probably own a loose copy. It's not 1993. It's 2012. You can Google the manual now! FFS. Once you understand the weight system (that is not very hard to grasp), you can easily set your equipment up. If you can compare whole-numbers, you can handle the weight system.

 

Oh wait, there's more! Once you step outside the town with your knife and nothing else, you're beseiged by badly animated monsters that would like nothing better than to grind you into the dirt and wipe their feet with you. You have to do the same bullshit you did in the original Hydlide, picking off the RPG equivalent of kittens and puppies while dodging seeds from the yellow plants growing just outside the town's entrance. Two hits from the seeds will force you to limp back into town, to either stay at an inn (for the low, low price of ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS!!!) or buy rations, which cost half as much but are heavy enough to break the back of your wimpy warrior.

Lol. buy a sling. Stand back. Shoot things. Like the original Hydlide, every enemy has a way to hit and kill it without even being harmed. In this case, use a sling until you are stronger. You can position yourself in such a way that the enemies can't even touch you. Also, you could just mame the good aligned monsters for 1 or 2 levels if you want.

 

Yes. There are good and evil enemies. your morale affects how easy the game is. If you aren't sure if an enemy is mean, see if it attacks you. If the tree-things aren't flinging seeds, they're friendly.

 

 

 

Adding to the already overabundant frustration is that your hero will have to go to a shrine in the town to power up. No, you can't raise a level just with experience points... you have to go to a temple to exchange them, like so many Skee-Ball tickets for a crappy plastic toy. Was this really necessary? Was there a point to this that I'm missing?

It's no different than D&D, Ultima, Might and Magic, or Wizardry. It's to simulate a level of higher learning. Yes, you experienced many things, but until you reflect upon them, you don't actually level up. It's not the end of the world. Plus once you level up, you can go hit the item shop and grab all that stuff you could not wear previously due to weight issues.

 

This reminds me of the dudes I play Cyberpunk 2020 with that whine when they have to go train to get skill level increases.

 

Once you do get your weak little peckerhead leveled up a few times, the game becomes tolerable, but I'm already expecting him to be dropped right back to square one, when a new set of enemies in a different section of the map carve through his energy and use his carcass for fertilizer. I've leveled up to Soldier status so far and although the game has a faint trace of peculiar charm, playing it reminds me of the Andrew Dice Clay joke about masturbating with a cheese grater. Somewhat amusing, but mostly, painful.

He never gets dropped back to square 1, fortunately.. Once you pass the starting point and get various pieces of armor and weaponry, and gain some levels, things ease up significantly. It's got that standard early action RPG starting climb. Once you get past a certain point, you're fine.

 

Also, I completed this game when I was 12, so I don't understand how adults can be so disabled at the game. I don't mean this as an insult. You aren't alone. It's some widespread thing. I am apparently immune to it.

 

I finished Hydlide 1 some time in Elementary school, so I must have been like, between 7 and 11 years old. I still have no sympathy for anyone that gripes about the game so goonily. If a little kid can figure it out, so can you.

 

 

I suspect it's the high degree of fecality present in the game.

-_-; Constructive.

 

 

Incidentally, what do you think of Shaq Fu?

 

Nice idea. Poorly executed. The art was all there! The controls were dumb.

 

 

 

 

I made this video awhile back showing people how to play Hydlide 1, because I got into an argument with some goon. He claimed the game was trash, and completely random. You never knew if you'd be hurt by the enemies. This video serves to disprove that and show how easy the game is. I am not quite sure what it is, but there is some USA standard to hate on Hydlide. This isn't as prevalent in the European and Japanese world. I call it Zelda syndrome. This stuff predates Zelda, as far as everyone but the USA is concerned.

 

[Jess Ragan]

If everybody BUT you sees the issues with this game, it doesn't mean everyone else is wrong. Sorry, but I've seen what the Genesis is capable of and Super Hydlide barely scratches the surface of its power. Character movement is outlandishly stiff, with onscreen sprites jumping four to eight pixels with each step. Most 8-bit games don't do this! The stiff movement makes Super Hydlide as appealing to the eyes as ground glass in the corneas. You claim that this was the first Genesis RPG and that people should make allowances for its age, but my god, it has a tough time measuring up to role-playing games on the previous generation of systems. Ys for the Master System and Crystalis for the NES both move more smoothly, and Ys has about the same level of detail in the characters. The bottom line is, Super Hydlide is an eyesore. You don't even need to compare it to the Genesis games that came afterward to know this... just look at what's come before it.

 

I bristle when people make the argument "read the fucking manual." That's great advice for computer games, but video games are a different beast altogether. They're streamlined and intuitive, and anything you can't figure out on your own should be explained in the context of the game itself. That's what a good game does anyway, but Super Hydlide doesn't seem to think that's all that important. You can figure out the weight play mechanics with a little trial and error, but it, like so much in this game, is poorly presented and evasive. You're given no indication of what measurement the game is using (grams? Ounces? Pounds?) and the numbers are so huge they they lose all meaning. The same goes for the currency... with the massive inflation in this game, you'd be tempted to think Fairyland is using the Russian ruble.

 

I'll give you credit for having the perseverance to dig deep enough to find the diamond hidden in Super Hydlide's rough. However, there is a lot of rough here; way too much for the average gamer to ignore. I'm just amazed that you're able to blind yourself to it all. This game's got big problems. You can't just wave them all away with "it's good for its age!" (no, not really...) and "read the manual!" (does it explain why this looks like something my cat left in his litterbox?).

 

Every gamer is going to have a weird B-rated title they'll defend to the death... Urban Reign for the Playstation 2 is mine, and I guess the Hydlide series is yours. Just understand that a LOT of people have a strong negative reaction to Hydlide, and that changing their minds is going to be a long, hard, and largely fruitless road.

[Rex Dart]

I've mostly just heard the usual "it sucks", "its stupid", "I died alot", "I didnt know what to do" stuff.

 

Funny how you keep hearing that, huh?

 

Sometimes you have to admit that you're a fan of a shitty, shitty game. I had a blast with Superman Returns on 360.

[Emehr]

Every gamer is going to have a weird B-rated title they'll defend to the death...

 

That would actually make a good thread topic. Mine is Renegade on the NES. Great game for blowing off some steam.

 

As for Super Hydlide, I acquired it from a friend back in the day and while I won't defend its honor, I did manage to persevere to the last boss guy only to have him devour me after I lopped his kneecaps off. To this day I have never beaten that last guy. The battery in my game will fade and I will never be able to say, "I beat Super Hydlide.". I think I'm okay with this, especially since the ending is on YouTube. I didn't love the game but I didn't hate it either. Eventually, your brain fills in the missing frames of animation and you get used to the weight system. After that, it's just a matter of plowing through the areas and putting up with the occasional eyesore levels. I've certainly played worse games. But I've also played better games.

[Arkhan]

If everybody BUT you sees the issues with this game, it doesn't mean everyone else is wrong. Sorry, but I've seen what the Genesis is capable of and Super Hydlide barely scratches the surface of its power. Character movement is outlandishly stiff, with onscreen sprites jumping four to eight pixels with each step. Most 8-bit games don't do this! The stiff movement makes Super Hydlide as appealing to the eyes as ground glass in the corneas. You claim that this was the first Genesis RPG and that people should make allowances for its age, but my god, it has a tough time measuring up to role-playing games on the previous generation of systems. Ys for the Master System and Crystalis for the NES both move more smoothly, and Ys has about the same level of detail in the characters. The bottom line is, Super Hydlide is an eyesore. You don't even need to compare it to the Genesis games that came afterward to know this... just look at what's come before it.

The game is distinctly designed around the movement style you witness. If it were done smoothly, it would change the entire design of the game series as a whole. It could smooth scroll. It just doesn't, because that isn't how it was designed. Also, Crystalis came out THREE years after Hydlide 3 (Super Hydlide = Hydlide 3). Ys 1 came out in the same year, and only a few months prior. So, holding Hydlide III up to what they do is pretty nonsensical.

 

Sure, it came out on the Genesis after these, but, it is a port. All it got was a graphical and aural enhancement. The gameplay remained the same. Saying it doesn't hold up well comes off as ignorant. It stands just fine in with the MSX library of action RPGs it coexists with. Games like Fray and Xak have similar movement, and are classic games. Ys for the MSX even has blocky scrolling in general. Does that mean the game is complete trash? I doubt it.

 

I bristle when people make the argument "read the fucking manual." That's great advice for computer games, but video games are a different beast altogether. They're streamlined and intuitive, and anything you can't figure out on your own should be explained in the context of the game itself. That's what a good game does anyway, but Super Hydlide doesn't seem to think that's all that important. You can figure out the weight play mechanics with a little trial and error, but it, like so much in this game, is poorly presented and evasive. You're given no indication of what measurement the game is using (grams? Ounces? Pounds?) and the numbers are so huge they they lose all meaning. The same goes for the currency... with the massive inflation in this game, you'd be tempted to think Fairyland is using the Russian ruble.

Uh, first, the game originated on a computer. Second, computer games ARE video games. This whole piece I quoted here is just goony, dude. The manual exists to explain the game where the game is unable to because of platform limitations. Do you really think T&E wanted to waste ROM space explaining crap they could just print on paper? Next you'll argue that Zelda II is BS because they don't tell you in-game that the hammer can destroy trees, or you'll say it sucks that a game like Starmaster didn't tell you in-game that you need to use the console switches to operate the game. Or Street Fighter II sucks because you need the instructions for the moves! Or Stellar Track on Atari 2600 sucks because it doesn't tell you exactly what you're doin on screen, right?

 

Give me a break, dude. The manual exists to explain the game. Deal with it. In the time you spend over exagerating how bad the measurement / weight system is, you could have just googled a GameFAQs version of the manual and possibly gone on to enjoy the game.

 

 

I'll give you credit for having the perseverance to dig deep enough to find the diamond hidden in Super Hydlide's rough. However, there is a lot of rough here; way too much for the average gamer to ignore. I'm just amazed that you're able to blind yourself to it all. This game's got big problems. You can't just wave them all away with "it's good for its age!" (no, not really...) and "read the manual!" (does it explain why this looks like something my cat left in his litterbox?).

I guess I have the ability to see games in their proper context, whereas you do not. I also didn't really dig deep. I liked Hydlide 1 when I was younger, and when I saw Super Hydlide at the used store, I grabbed it for 3.95! I'd also like to point out that I didn't even have the manual. I just figured it out. I didn't get a boxed copy until recently. I also enjoyed the game start to finish. Later on, I'd eventually discover that there was a 2nd Hydlide for MSX and that Super Hydlide was the THIRD game. I have all 3 for MSX now, and enjoy the entire series on both MSX and Genesis.

 

It sounds like you never even made it to the first dungeon/boss, and that is a giant shame. You should check out some youtubes of the game once you progress past the first portion.

 

There is an entire scene of computer users that would probably agree that Hydlide 3 isn't an awful game.

 

I mean, you could sit and say a game like adventure blows. It's got horrible graphics! It looks like something my cat puked all over your cat!

 

Every gamer is going to have a weird B-rated title they'll defend to the death... Urban Reign for the Playstation 2 is mine, and I guess the Hydlide series is yours. Just understand that a LOT of people have a strong negative reaction to Hydlide, and that changing their minds is going to be a long, hard, and largely fruitless road.

I think the strong negative reaction is a result to being blinded by the NES, and it is apparently only a B rated title here in USA. This kind of game is/was considered normal on multiple personal computers, and it really isn't an awful game. go play the famicom port instead of the Genesis one. It's all in the right context and crap. Maybe you will enjoy it more.

 

 

Funny how you keep hearing that, huh?

 

Sometimes you have to admit that you're a fan of a shitty, shitty game. I had a blast with Superman Returns on 360.

 

I think it's only shitty in the eyes of jaded Americans. If it were so bad, there would not have been various remakes and enhancements over the years, and there would not be various Hydlide shrines out there.

 

I speak to many Euro MSX fans who love the series. So, I think shitty is quite relative here. Depends on the platforms you are most biased towards. I'm not really biased towards any of them.

 

I also like how you keep chiming in but haven't really given any actual commentary on the game. It's cool if you want to be contrary just to be contrary, but lets hear what your actual opinion is instead. I think it will be more fun than these dry comments from you.

[Torr]

I must say Super Hydlide was the first REAL RPG I played. By that I mean EXP points, Stats, and Inventory management.

I loved it. So did one of my friends. The only gripe we ever had with it was the less than stellar graphics. We were both big fans of Golvellius on SMS and thought that even that older 8bit title looked better.

But the gameplay was solid.

[Arkhan]

The graphics are ported over from the MSX/PC-98 games, so they end up looking out of place on a system where big sprites is the norm.

 

The PC-98 game uses all software sprites and blitter background excitement.

 

 

I think had the game been a Genesis original, it would've had bigger sprites. Something like Traysia

[Austin]

I will eventually give this game a shot. I like the original Ys games, so I won't mind the "run into enemies" gameplay.

[Arkhan]

Super Hydlide has no ramming system!

 

You get to press an attack button and stab stuff.

 

If you get a sling, you fling stuff!

 

It's great.

[+SmittyB]

I've recently picked up a copy of Super Hydlide (I haven't played any of the other Hydlide series games) and I have to say I do like it or at least I do now after the first 30 minutes of getting used to the control scheme, the way the menus are organised, and the clock system. I can't say much about the majority of the game as I'm not very far into it but I think it would be fair to point out some of the design 'flaws' that I've run into so far.

 

The ability to dodge attacks by squatting with the B button took me a couple of minutes to work out as the manual never really states that you can do this and it's only in the hints section that it implies that you can, even so once I found you can do that it made the combat much more enjoyable. The ability to become invulnerable to everything by squatting until the threat passes allows for some good quick-reflex action that makes it so even a low level character can take down a more powerful foe if the player is skilled enough, something I wish more games did.

 

The starting difficulty is something that the Phantasy Star games I've played have also had a problem with, the player starts off too weak to really do much but fight a single monster at a time and then heal. I was actually surprised however at how quickly the game gets going and after only 1 or 2 levels you have more than enough health and load capacity to buy what you want within reason and start the game proper. They probably should have started the player a couple of levels higher to stop this but oh well....

 

Speaking of leveling, the whole 'go to a specific place to level up' works for me because of how your exp is more of a second currency that you need to strategically balance between levels and spells, furthering this games level of character development.

 

The clock is something I'm not that fussed about as it's a nice touch how things go from day to night with shops closing and opening at certain times but I can see how somebody would find it annoying when paired with the ration system where you're character must eat at a few points throughout the day but again, once you get past the first couple of levels and you can carry plenty of rations it isn't a problem.

 

The only thing I'm not currently liking but still it isn't much of a problem is the morality system where some enemies are good and some bad. The problem lies with how most good enemies are palette swaps of the bad ones and you're morality drops sharply (if not straight to 0) if you kill the wrong ones. This alone I can live with but in the 'Tower of Habel' where the passages are narrow, you can't walk past them and you sometimes have to kill a good monster just to continue.

 

Finally I'm neutral about the graphics. Even though it can hard to distinguish things clearly on my rubbish TV they do their job and that's fine.

 

Also the music is very catchy.

 

tl;dr Version

Good game with minor flaws. Read the manual and play for 30 minutes at least.

[Arkhan]

You know if a monster is good or bad based off if it attacks you or not.

 

In dungeons, you can just walk into the good guys, they wont touch you, and you can steer them through the dungeon. That's what I usually did.

 

It's ok to slap the crap out of a few of them along the way if you really need to, but I've always found that just walking against them worked fine.

 

What class did you pick?

[+thegoldenband]

I got 95% of the way through this game but packed it in when I discovered I'd thrown away an item (the Horn) whose absence prevented me from getting back to a town where I needed to have one more conversation. Maybe I can still finish the game anyway -- does the fairy appear even if you haven't talked to that guy? or maybe the Horn regenerates where it was before? -- but it was sort of the straw that broke the camel's back at the time.

 

That said, I liked Super Hydlide a lot, and I have to admit that I roll my eyes when people play it for five minutes without reading the manual and pronounce it a shitty game. The learning curve is initially brutal, but within an hour I had gotten on the game's wavelength and had no trouble advancing. A few puzzles stymied me and I resorted to a walkthrough once or twice, but in retrospect it was clear that I hadn't talked to everyone and would've had better luck if I had been more systematic (though it's frustrating to have no idea which "!?" speakers will deign to have an actual conversation with you once you advance enough; the game makes it seem like all of them are potentially available, but clearly they're not). Conversely, a few things that were allegedly hard seemed totally straightforward to me.

 

However, the game does have two very serious flaws. One is that there's no way to rest without saving your game. That may not sound like a big deal, but it goes hand in hand with the other major flaw: there's nowhere to store unused items, and it's often unclear what you need to keep and what can be tossed. That can get depressing, and by the time I was near the end of the game, I was swamped with stuff that was weighing me down, because I could only guess as to which items I could safely dispose of and which ones might be needed in the future. As it turned out, one of my guesses ended up screwing me over -- and since I couldn't rest without saving, or even copy my game to a different save slot, there was no way back.

 

Anyway, I might try again to finish my game, or I might start again from scratch -- I haven't decided. But Super Hydlide is definitely one of the most engaging RPGs I've played on the Genesis, in part because it's so different from all the interchangeable JRPGs that came out in the late 1980s/early 1990s. And yes, the graphics are primitive at best, but they do the job well enough, and the tunes are pretty compelling. It may only appeal to a small subset of RPG players, but I seem to be in that subset.

[Arkhan]

Be sure to use the bank to bank all your excess money, and use a money changer.

 

That way, you're only holding important items and aren't weighed down like a mofo.

 

 

I love the music. I leave the game running in the background and listen to the title music alot. and the character select screen.

[+SmittyB]

I know you can tell if a monster is good or evil by whether it attacks you or not but with the amount of damage some enemies can do I've found it's best to attack first and ask questions later. Also I haven't been able to push any NPCs out of the way (even in towns when they block shop doors), perhaps my character isn't strong enough?. also I decided I'd play a warrior on the basis that a balanced class would be the best way to play for the first time, and yes the music is very catchy (and oddly doesn't have the distinctive twanging sound that most other early mega-drive games have).