Sega Enterprises games

Sega Enterprises, Ltd. is the Japanese parent of a company that spent decades building coin-operated cabinets before it ever sold a home console. That order matters when you browse this page: many titles here began life as a machine in an arcade hall and only later moved onto the Master System or the Mega Drive, usually losing something along the way.

The arcade layer is easy to spot. Hang-On and Space Harrier belonged to Sega's taikan cabinets, the ones the player sat inside: the motorbike leaned, the seat moved, and that motion was part of the design. A home conversion kept only the screen, which is convenient here, because both run without hydraulics. Older stock turns up as well, from the ice-block shoving of Pengo to the isometric sleight of hand in Super Zaxxon.

The mascot before the hedgehog

Before Sonic, Sega's face was a boy with oversized fists. Alex Kidd in Miracle World is a platformer whose boss fights are settled not by jumping on heads but by rock-paper-scissors, so you have to read what the opponent will throw next. Sega kept relocating Alex into other genres, from bike trials to a slower adventure, and then quietly dropped him.

The Mega Drive years show up as action and role-playing. The Revenge of Shinobi gave the ninja a reserve of magic and became notorious for bosses that changed between print runs when licences fell through. Phantasy Star II is science fiction rather than swords and elves, set on worlds run by a central computer, and Beyond Oasis builds its combat on summoned elemental spirits instead of one all-purpose sword.

Roughly half of the Sega titles gathered here start straight in the browser window, with no install, no plugin and no account. The other half, the arcade Outrun among them, sit here as profiles: description, context and screenshots, but no emulator.