Game Gear 1990 (2 of 3): Zan Gear / Mahjong Haopai / Revenge of Drancon | Game Boy Works Gaiden #10

Moving beyond the three launch-day Japanese releases for Sega's Game Gear, we venture into November 1990 with three more titles that continue checking off the obligatory boxes for a new game platform: Strategy, mahjong, and platformer. Two of these games never made it to the U.S., continuing the precedent set by Pengo: Ultimately, a sizable percentage of Game Gear's library would fail to reach the States. Not that American kids were necessarily clamoring for a dense strategy title set in the Warring States era of Japan, or for a conversion of a tabletop game typically enjoyed by the elderly. They probably WERE clamoring for a great conversion of Wonder Boy, though! Too bad some of them never realized it was available right from the console's beginnings due to Sega of America's bizarre decision to rename Wonder Boy "Revenge of Drancon." Not to belabor a point, but... what? Still, another convincing case for Game Gear's merits versus the competition as it hits on some nuts-and-bolts titles that demonstrate both capable technical performance and appealing visuals. Special thanks to Stone Age Gamer for helping to make this series possible with their EverDrive-GG X7: https://stoneagegamer.com/everdrive-gg-x7-black.html 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! And be sure to check out the Retronauts podcast (http://www.retronauts.com), where I (and many others!) tackle a much wider array of classic gaming topics each week.