Right, so there I was three weeks ago, up in my parents’ loft helping clear out decades of accumulated rubbish, when I stumbled across a box that made me stop dead. My old Mega Drive collection, sitting there like buried treasure. The cases had that familiar crack along the spine – you know the one, where you’d grip them too tight during particularly mental sessions of Gunstar Heroes. Even after all these years, the cartridges still had that distinctive metallic smell, like old coins.
That discovery got me thinking. I’d been playing Sonic 2 on my Steam Deck for weeks, enjoying the convenience but feeling oddly… hollow about it. The music was bang on, gameplay flawless, but something was missing. It felt like looking at a photograph of your childhood bedroom instead of actually being there, if that makes sense.
That’s when it clicked – I needed to set up proper Sega emulation. Not just something that runs the games, but something that recreates the entire bloody experience.
See, proper Sega emulation isn’t just about finding ROMs and pressing play. It’s digital archaeology, innit? You’re not just preserving games; you’re preserving moments. The way the Mega Drive’s FM synthesis made every soundtrack sound like it was recorded inside a chrome cave. How the Master System’s color palette looked on your mate Dave’s ancient Ferguson telly with the wonky aerial that only worked if you held it just right. The exact pressure needed for the Saturn pad – too soft and nothing happened, too hard and you’d jam the mechanism.
Started with RetroArch because, honestly, it’s the Swiss Army knife of emulation. Bloody intimidating at first glance – the interface looks like something NASA would use to launch rockets – but once you wrap your head around its logic, it’s absolutely brilliant. The trick is getting your cores sorted properly.
For Master System and Game Gear stuff, Genesis Plus GX is my go-to. Handles those systems like they’re its favorite children. The audio emulation is spot-on; you can actually hear the difference between a Game Gear’s tinny little speakers and the warm bass you’d get through proper telly speakers.
Mega Drive emulation, though – that’s where I bounce between Genesis Plus GX and BlastEm. Genesis Plus GX is your reliable mate who never lets you down, works every single time without any fuss. BlastEm is more like that perfectionist friend who takes forever to get ready but looks absolutely stunning when they do. Its accuracy is frankly terrifying. I’ve watched it reproduce sprite flickering in the original Sonic games that I’d completely forgotten existed. Stuff that other emulators smooth over, BlastEm preserves like it’s culturally significant archaeological evidence. Which, let’s be honest, it basically is.
Saturn emulation used to be the stuff of legends and crushing disappointment. Mednafen was decent enough but absolutely ravenous – needed a PC that could probably run climate simulations. Then Beetle Saturn showed up in RetroArch and changed the whole game. Still demanding, mind you. My old laptop wheezed through Panzer Dragoon like it was climbing bloody Everest in flip-flops. But on proper hardware? Pure magic. Nights into Dreams runs like silk, and Guardian Heroes looks exactly like the beautiful chaos I remember from those weekend rental sessions where you’d blow your entire pocket money on one game.
Here’s the thing about ROM collections – they’re not just files sitting on your hard drive, they’re proper time capsules. I’ve got complete sets for most Sega systems now, and I treat them like a personal library. Organized by region because the Japanese Mega Drive library is absolutely mental in the best possible way. Ever tried Alien Soldier? It’s like Gunstar Heroes having fever dreams about being even harder. Or Panorama Cotton, which somehow makes the Mega Drive do Mode 7-style scaling effects that shouldn’t be physically possible with that hardware.
The Master System collection is where you uncover the real hidden gems, though. Everyone knows Alex Kidd and Wonder Boy, but have you given Psycho Fox a proper go? It’s platforming perfection with a soundtrack that sounds like elevator music composed by very talented robots. Then there’s Kenseiden – this side-scrolling samurai adventure that feels like playing through a particularly violent manga. These games got absolutely buried under Nintendo’s dominance in most places, but they’re genuinely worth your time.
Game Gear emulation deserves special mention because those games were designed for a screen the size of a matchbox but somehow contained entire bleeding universes. Shining Force: The Sword of Hajya is a full-blown strategy RPG that’s longer than loads of console games. The Sonic titles aren’t just shrunk-down Mega Drive ports either – they’re purpose-built for portable play. Sonic Chaos has this weird dreamlike quality that works perfectly on modern handhelds.
Getting the visual experience right is absolutely crucial. CRT shaders aren’t just nostalgic window dressing for old gits like me; they’re functionally important. Those games were designed around scanlines and phosphor glow, yeah? I use CRT-Royale most of the time – it’s got that warm, slightly fuzzy look that makes pixel art actually breathe. Sometimes I’ll switch to Zfast CRT when I want something cleaner but still authentic. The difference is genuinely night and day. Sonic’s sprite work, which can look harsh and jagged in raw pixel form, becomes smooth and organic with the right shader applied.
Audio settings matter just as much. The Mega Drive’s YM2612 chip has this distinctive metallic edge that some emulators try to smooth away, thinking they’re being helpful. Make sure you’re getting the raw, unfiltered sound. Streets of Rage 2 should sound like industrial music having a proper party, not like gentle elevator jazz. The Master System’s SN76489 is gentler but equally important – it’s got this warm, almost analog quality that newer sound chips just can’t replicate.
Regional differences are fascinating rabbit holes to fall down. The Japanese Mega Drive literally sounds different from the American Genesis – different audio circuitry means the FM synthesis hits your ears differently. PAL versions often run slower but sometimes have extra features or bug fixes that never made it to other regions. I keep multiple versions when there are significant differences because, well, they’re all part of the story, aren’t they?
Save states are controversial among purists, but I bloody love them. Not for cheating – for preservation of sanity. My son can experience these games without the soul-crushing frustration that might put him off entirely. Quick save before a difficult boss, let him experiment and learn without having to replay the same twenty minutes repeatedly. It’s not about making games easier; it’s about making them accessible to different generations with different patience levels and available free time.
My current setup runs on a modded Steam Deck for portable sessions and a dedicated mini-PC connected to a Sony PVM for the full CRT experience at home. That PVM cost more than my first car (admittedly, my first car was a knackered Ford Fiesta), but seeing Streets of Rage running in proper 240p RGB is like experiencing it for the first time all over again. Those chunky sprites, that saturated color palette – it’s not just nostalgia talking, it’s genuinely how the artists intended their work to be seen.
Building a proper Sega emulation setup takes patience and quite a bit of tinkering, but it’s worth every minute spent tweaking settings and hunting down rare ROM dumps. You’re not just playing old games – you’re maintaining a piece of interactive history that matters. Every perfectly timed jump in Sonic, every successful combo in Streets of Rage, every mind-bending moment in Nights into Dreams is a small victory against the entropy that eventually claims all our favorite things. The original cartridges might be gathering dust in boxes, but the experiences they contained can live forever, pixel-perfect and ready for the next player to discover what we fell in love with all those years ago.
John grew up swapping floppy disks and reading Amiga Power cover to cover. Now an IT manager in Manchester, he writes about the glory days of British computer gaming—Sensible Soccer, Speedball 2, and why the Amiga deserved more love than it ever got.
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