It has happened thousands of times and will continue to happen indefinitely, at least as long as there's an industry behind it. Making a video game is a colossal project, where many things can go wrong. Companies closing, complete games failing to meet required quality levels, abandoned unfinished prototypes for one reason or another, licensors pulling rights to their properties—these are some of the reasons. That's what this article is about: canceled Sega Genesis games and their respective ROMs to download, play, and be amazed.
We already did it with canceled Nintendo NES games. Why not try with Sega Genesis? Here we go! In this report, you'll find the best canceled Genesis games with ROMs available to experience them firsthand. The worst games were left out; you can download them out of pure curiosity from this link, as well as those that are known but have no playable ROMs. The selected games from this list you can download here. To play them, you'll need a good Sega Genesis emulator, like Gens or Kega Fusion. And I warn you: the fact that these are the best doesn't mean any of them is truly good. The truth is, most of them were properly archived, unlike many NES games.
The Itchy & Scratchy Game
Anyone who has played The Simpsons: Bart's Nightmare may know, more or less, what to expect from this derivative. It's a platformer, like 90% of games at the time. Itchy (the mouse) is the star of the show, and all levels and enemies are somehow based on the little clips we see in The Simpsons. The main enemy, who constantly follows Itchy, is Scratchy (the cat). You can "kill" him, but he returns within a few seconds, making him very, very annoying. Unfortunately, The Itchy & Scratchy Game is one of those games where the character is too big and moves too fast, making it hard to see dangers coming from all sides, and we always end up bumping into something. The Sega Genesis version was never released, although the same game exists for SNES (there's also a version for Sega Game Gear with uglier graphics and simplified gameplay).
Baby's Day Out
If you look for a twist, you could say Baby's Day Out is a faithful adaptation of the movie of the same name, where a baby is kidnapped by some mobsters, then escapes and miraculously survives all the dangers of the big city. Because when faced with the challenge of bringing the film to video games, the easiest thing would have been to make a platformer, like Baby Jo on Amiga. But that wasn't the path the developers of Baby's Day Out took, no. It seems that baby has a separate god! How can everything go so well for him? And that's where the game designers focused. The movie's baby survives because he has a guardian angel who, in the style of Lemmings, guides him through the levels. And that guardian angel is you! For each level you have a time limit to bring the little baby to the exit, without anyone or anything harming him. Baby's Day Out is complete, and it's only suitable for those interested in its bizarre premise.
Stone Protectors
Possibly the best game on the list, but still pure 90s garbage. It's based on the animated series of the same name, about muscular gnomes fighting evil toads, in the vein of all those shows made exclusively to sell action figures and toys to kids. Stone Protectors is a beat'em up in the style of Streets of Rage, save for differences, where you can choose one of five playable characters to get through 10 levels of pure, entertaining crap. The game isn't all bad, but it's stupid and repetitive, and with so many better options, I don't see why anyone would want to play it.
Fido Dido
Fido Dido was the 7up mascot during the late 80s and early 90s, until he was finally replaced by Cool Spot (the 7up logo spot but with sunglasses and a better attitude). And his game is as embarrassing as PepsiCo's corporate attempt to appeal to the youth market. It's a horrible failed attempt at game design, with no rhyme or reason. It's a platformer, but with elements that make it too generic and redundant, and with certain gameplay mechanics that are incomprehensible. It's possible that if you were a kid in the 90s you might have played it on a cartridge, but that's because someone illegally burned it and sold it as if it were original. The game was never commercially released because Kaneko, the developing company, closed its US branch before its debut.
Davis Cup 2
Nothing special, a tennis game based on the Davis Cup, with various options and game modes. Single player against the computer or against a friend, doubles with a human partner or a computer-controlled one, or doubles against another human. As usual for these games, there's exhibition, tournament, and training modes. The game is quite difficult and, honestly, doesn't differ from many similar ones. A copy-paste with no glory, but good for playing with a friend on a Sunday afternoon.
Jim Power - The Arcade Game
A jump-and-shoot that could have been good, and at first seems to be, but has design decisions that break it completely. First and foremost, it's one of those games where you die in one hit. Anything that touches you is lethal. Even drops of water falling from the ceiling! That wouldn't be a big problem if enemies didn't appear on screen too quickly, and often from behind the scenery, and they're impossible to dodge. To beat it, you have to go slowly, stopping every now and then, so the bad guys don't crash into your character. A shame, because it could have been an interesting game. It has a PC version that was released, and since it's a beta, it has the same music track for all levels, though it can be completed if you have enough patience.
Wacky Races
If Super Mario Kart had an illegitimate and deformed son, that would be Wacky Races. Although, to be fair, at the beginning of the game we're told this is only a demo. But even so! The idea was great! I would have loved for it to work, but no. Wacky Races is based on the animated series of the same name, where a bunch of crazy pilots try to reach the finish line before their rivals, with Dick Dastardly and Muttley doing their thing. You can choose any of the cars from the show, but in the end it doesn't matter because you'll wreck it within seconds of starting. A real shame.
Lobo
Ocean does it again! What an abominable company! Because not content with ruining conversions of awesome licenses like RoboCop, Batman, Darkman, Total Recall, The Terminator, and Rambo, among many others, they also messed with Lobo, the DC comic about the last Czarnian, and the result was so vomit-inducing they didn't even dare to publish it. Lobo for Sega Genesis was going to be a versus fighting game in the style of Mortal Kombat with pre-rendered graphics like Donkey Kong Country, but it failed to live up to the genre or its character. Santa Claus makes an appearance at the beginning, ending with a showdown with Dox, the boss of the galaxy's greatest assassin.
Mr. Nutz - Hoppin' Mad
Another pathetic attempt to emulate Sonic, this time with a squirrel with 90s attitude. As if there weren't enough Sonic clones! Mr. Nutz - Hoppin' Mad is divided into two parts. On one hand, you have to find your way through a map in the style of The Legend of Zelda (but much simpler); and on the other (when entering the levels) comes the platforming part, with Sonic as the main inspiration. The map part is pretty bad and seems more like a way to stretch the game than to deliver real fun. The platforming part is as generic as it gets and a bit poorly designed. Lots of nuts and little noise.
Flash Point
A fun, though simple, variant of Tetris. To win each level of Flash Point, you must clear all the glowing blocks from the board by forming lines with them. This small modification completely changes the strategy of Alexey Pajitnov's classic and confronts us again with the threat of the tetrominoes but in a completely different way. That said, the music is horrendous, repetitive, and shrill, far from the catchy Russian tunes of the original game. Flash Point is interesting but never escapes the shadow of its inspiration. Only to pass the time.
Jelly Boy
The Jelly Boy game! A platformer that reminds me of James Pond (the stretchy spy fish game), but with several things that set it apart. For starters, since this guy is made of jelly, he can take on all sorts of shapes, which are useful for overcoming levels and taking down the bad guys. It's an average game, nothing special, with official versions for SNES and GB but not for Sega Genesis, because it was canceled due to the game's poor performance on those other consoles.
The Revenge of Fu Manchu
Believe it or not, The Revenge of Fu Manchu is a clone (of inferior quality) of Zombies Ate My Neighbors, the super classic from LucasArts Games. It's the same interface, the same objective, and the same style of play. It even has the same radar! Except that instead of zombies and other B-movie monstrosities, there are Chinese mythology creatures, and instead of Western neighbors, there are Chinese neighbors doing Chinese things. It's not an exact copy, though: the levels have different designs and enemies behave differently, so it might entertain you for a bit, at least to see the differences between the two games.
That's all, friend! Next time we'll play canceled Super Nintendo games, to keep the tradition.
