PixlBit

I've heard differing things on that. It used to be that people claimed that Shenmue is what bankrupted Sega and drove them into third party status, though that's a bit reductionist. Yu Suzuki, the creator of Shenmue, said later that this wasn't the case, that Sega just fell victim to the results of multiple failed consoles and an inability to compete with Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft. But it is also true that he got "kicked upstairs" into an office job where he had few duties despite still getting paid, and that's a typical passive-aggresive way in which corporations punish miscreants.  It's clear he wanted to do a lot more with Shenmue than he did, and stuff had to be cut for time and budget reasons. 

I've had that feeling of arcade games not looking or sounding quite as good as I remember them in a few cases. Nintendo's games tend to hold up pretty well in that regard, as they were among the best in class to begin with. Part of it, I think, is because of how primitive the 2600 and Intellivision were compared to the arcade. Doesn't stop me from loving those games, as I have a great many of the Arcade Archives releases on PS4 and Switch. But the arcade version of Contra, as seen on the Contra Anniversary Collection, is a bit jarring. 

I remember Ninja Gaiden for its opening cut scene, its game over scene (where Ryu has a buzz saw coming towards his chest unless you stick another quarter in), and the breakabld objects in the environment, which were a bit of a novelty at the time. 

Shenmue was a bit ahead of its time, much as I hate that cliche. Yu Suzuki just wanted to do more than could be done economically. The voice acting sounds like it was ripped from a casette tape recorded on a Tiger Talkboy. Its tank controls are unwieldy, like those in GTA. The difference being that Sega scrapped tank controls for Yakuza while Rockstar keeps using tank controls in GTA. But they're still good games, and I will be picking up Shenmue III. Sega became one of my favorite developers/publishers after they quit making consoles, ironically.

It's pretty much what it says on the tin, Puyo Puyo and Tetris, with Sega's anime Puyo Puyo characters and a couple of crossover modes. They did a pretty fair job of balancing the two games in head to head matches. Anyway it's pretty much my default Tetris and Puyo Puyo fix these days.

I've been playing the Castlevania, Contra, and Mana collections on Switch, all of them for games I missed out on, namely Castlevania: Bloodlines, Contra: Hard Corps, and Trials of Mana. Trials of Mana has been right up there with Mother 3 and Sakura Wars as my most wished-for localization. It's better than Secret of Mana in every way, starting with combat which is faster paced and actually remembers that it's an action RPG, along with six playable characters. Contra: Hard Corps is one of the funnest Contras I've played although it's a little over-animated to the point where it's hard to see enemies sometimes. Bloodlines is a great Castlevania experience. 

I still see various types of "Cruis'n" machines at pizza places and grocery stores every once in awhile. There was a new Cruis'n arcade game that came out a couple years ago, 

My first game of this type was The Great American Cross-Country Road Race, which was made by Activision in 1984 or so. 

The stage 1 music is "Humoresque," by Antonin Dvorak. The game also plays the opening bars of Foster's "Oh! Susanna" after you complete stage 4. Kangaroo, a pre-NES platformer by Sunsoft, also played that ditty when you made it ot the top of a level.

I never saw it in the arcade, either, only on Atari. I was amazed that they made a 2600 version of it though.

Outrun was probably my favorite racing game of the 80s. Sega can do racing games with the best if them. My favorite little animation was hitting something but not hard enough to roll your car and watching the girl scream at the driver and probably calling him an asshole for almost getting her killed.

I played a lot of Sega's 16-bit stuff because it's so readily available and because my Genesis-owning cohorts had Sega's games. Kinda debating on the Genesis Classic just because of one game - Alisia Dragoon, which I played at a Walmart kiosk when I was a kid and I haven't seen it re-released until now. If they could get Lunar and Lunar 2 on that thing I'd plunk down the money for a pre-order now.