Super-scale success: Great Baseball & Space Harrier | Segaiden #041

Exploring Sega Master System's chronology in direct comparison to the NES lineup has proven education. I didn't own either system as of March 1987, when these two games premiered, yet I distinctly remember being as impressed by the Master System demos I saw at shops as I was by my friends' NES games. Releases like Great Baseball and Space Harrier assure me of my younger self's sanity: They really did blow anything Nintendo had on offer right out of the water. Great Baseball looks (and more or less plays) like Bases Loaded, a game that wouldn't appear on NES until mid-1988. In the meantime, all the NES had to offer on the baseball front in 1987 was Nintendo's own elderly Baseball, a first-generation release hailing from 1983. As for Space Harrier, no one cared about its strange graphical clipping effect at the time, because no one had ever seen a console game crank out so much high-speed action with such huge sprites. Master System obviously couldn't match the Super Scaler arcade original, but this cart came close enough that no one was complaining. Production notes: Why watch when you can read? Check out the massive hardcover print editions of NES Works, Super NES Works, and Virtual Boy works, available now at Limited Run Games (https://limitedrungames.com/collections/books)! Look forward to SG-1000 Works: Segaiden Vol. I, due July 2023. Video Works is funded via Patreon (http://www.patreon.com/gamespite) — support the show and get access to every episode up to two weeks in advance of its YouTube debut! Plus, exclusive podcasts, eBooks, and more! Most Master System footage captured from U.S. carts running through an adapter on Sega Mark III hardware with FM Sound Unit and RGB bypass modification by iFixRetro. Most arcade and Master System Light Phaser footage captured from MiSTer, with thanks to MiSTerAddOns. Video upscaled to 720 with xRGB Mini Framemeister.