SEGA Game Gear: the Little Handheld with Big Ideas.

My favorite games on the gamegear were off course sonic the hedge hog 1 & 2, sonic choas through sms cartride adaptor.
I will always miss late 2012 and early 2013 as i do had great moments playing those games😁

I played the Game Gear here and there as a kid, it was a dream for any kid. I never owned one, but I clearly remember enjoying it for a few times.
The TV turner would would be amazing as well, these things were cooler than cool in the 90's, few kids born past the 00's would understand this, even a PS5 Pro at 8K is normal now.

As for the color pallet, I believe the handheld can only benefit from it using the lower resolution mode, for instance, Castle of Illusion runs with the SMS resolution, it's basically a SMS ROM on a GG cart, the handheld probably can't use the different pallet in this mode.

There are dozens of GG2SMS converted games, while the pallet needs working, there's almost no compromise when playing on the console, a few games even benefit from the increased SMS resolution and 2 player mode, too.
Many still think the GG is very different to the SMS, but it's basically a portable SMS, forced to be in stereo due to it having headphones and a different color pallet selection for the lower resolution mode.

Being able to play under the blanket all night without my parents knowing: absolute game changer!

The Game Gear is great, but it came out only 2 months before the TurboExpress/PC Engine GT, which did everything the Game Gear does, only much better.

Arriving during the same holiday season, the Game Gear wasn't pushing the envelope.

The TE/GT literally made console gaming portable by literally playing the console games you already owned.

The higher price was canceled out by negating the need to buy the same games over again.

Playing Street Fighter II' CE on a high quality portable screen when the only other console port was World Warrior for SNES was cutting edge.

My brother had the Sega Game Gear with the TV tuner. Great little system!!

My parents bought me the gg in 1993 for being a good student, i remember playing at nights when everyone was sleeping though. my favourite games were shinobi ,taz , batman returns, sonic 1&2, chuck rock 1&2 ,chakan, sonic and nuckles , g- lock i think i had more than 30 games and i had the magnifying lens that made the screen more visible and the tv tuner also what a great console

Game Gear is my favorite to collect for. It's becoming harder to find games I don't have. And nobody seems to know, but I know.... 2 player GG is some awesome gaming fun!

keep hold of your high tech gaming system I laugh at danger

I have 2 x restored Sega Gears with tv tuners. Using an analogue TV transmitter to get that retro experience. Can you remember when new back then did the display look the same or better than the GG consoles today being around 30 years old?

It's odd how the TurboExpress always seems forgotten in discussions of early-90s handhelds. Not critiquing you, just saying. I think it helps explain the market at the time. Nintendo dominated because of its cheap product, but then if someone wanted a pricier color handheld, there were THREE competing options. So the high-end market was totally fragmented.

(The TurboExpress also had a TV tuner, as an aside.)

I love the Game Gear so much... I have a pair or GG I have to get repaired.

Still got my childhood game gear but its now fully modded out with replacement screen, power and audio boards and charges internal lithium ion batteries via USB-C and despite all that stuff the enjoyment of playing those games I used to play all those years ago is the best thing about it!

Similar to the wireless transmitter they brought for the master system... or the mega drive... To put the console further away from. The TV and transmit the video to the TV.... Though, it never worked too well, the technology simply wasn't there yet. I miss the adventurous Sega that always tried to bring something different. But I understand that The financial risks are far higher nowadays than they were back then, thanks to the costs involved in R&D having exploded over the past 3 decades.. It's curious how we have more tools, more resources, even AI and yet.... R&D is more costly than ever....

One question

Can working Game Gear still be found, or are they ALL with ruined capacitors and need to be changed?

Great vid! Not having Fatal Fury Special on here is CRIMINAL though! 😜

You missed the best bit of the football Italia intro. Shame!

The Game Gears battery life was better than the Switchs or Steam Decks, times have changed....
And I could never understand why everyone is complaining about the batteries, I used rechargeable NiCd batteries back in the day for road trips and a small charger. Just having 6 additional AA-NiCd in your back pack was enough for any road trip and I recharged them at my destination. Even train rides were no problem, this combo lasted for around 8hrs and lets be real - the space needed for 6 more batteries to get 12 hours+ isn't so much.
Were people just not aware that rechargable batteries existed back in the day? Always wondered.

The games on Gameboy were vastly better - neither the Lynx or GG had anything close to games like Links awakening, Metroid, Mario, Wario et..plus it was the only truly portable handheld with any sort of battery life. Its nice to have a bit of nostalgia for the gamegear but its screen was washed out and rubbish (not shown on your video where you've put in emulated capture) and the games arent worth revisiting really - but enjoy them if they hold personal nostalgia for you

Say "purple burglar alarm" 3 times fast please.

hi you forgot Panzer Dragoon Mini and Faceball 2000

The gamegear was only surpassed by the time the GBA came around. What it did with pseudo 3D isometric games like Arena, proper RPGs like Shining Force and even fighters like Fatal Fury Special, took over 10 years for Nintendo to match.

Crazy.

Hi everyone, a brilliant video just posted by Retro Dodo channel , of an all Nintendo really rare room tour “ Inside Europe's RAREST Nintendo Collection “ enjoy 😊

Nice work! Subbed!

Wow didn't know 8 bit gunstar heroes was a thing. It looks amazing. Was this master system too?

I got my Game Gear with the Sonic 2 pack in back in ‘92, and I still have nightmares from the first boss. Luckily there’s a level select code but even that’s tricky to pull off. Also hearing NBA Jam really took me back. I probably played that on Game Gear more than any other platform.

My best memory of the game gear was getting yours for a week...packed in the carry case, power lead, all the games you had to enjoy while you were busy with another Sega console...one you needed to get the bus for 😂

I must've gotten my Game Gear not long before you did, James. Portable Sonic and Columns alone got me through many boring visits to my parents' friends, road trips, and also kept me company on some otherwise really sad hospital visits. I love the scrappy little thing.

I didn't realize until later in life that it was essentially a portable Master System. It explained why I thought some games felt oddly proportioned, as though they weren't originally designed for such a small screen. I would have liked to have seen more games built specially for the hardware instead of being shrunken SMS software, I think that was a strength of the Game Boy library, but regardless I do love the Game Gear catalog.

I still have my unit from circa 1993/94. Once I have it repaired it will absolutely be traveling with me again.❤

Sonic Triple Trouble for me was my fave GG game. Just felt to me like the perfect Sonic game for the GG and I still have a copy today, as the artwork just brings back so many memories. In fact it was the only game that tempted me to get the Analog Pocket adapters, before Open FPGA came.

I heard one of the problems with sonic was because they made the master system version. When they transferred it to the game gear they lost a small percentage of the screen so you could easily run into enemies. They had to change parts for it too to make it easier because of that.

I chose the Game Gear back in the day. I think it was price and amount of games available at the time🤘🏻

I didn't have much games but I loved all of them. The games I remember are Mortal Kombat , Sonic1&2, outrun, chacal, George forman boxing, Donald duck,Shinobi,colums, leaderboard golf?

Neo Geo classics is wheres its at Fatal Fury Special and Samurai Showdown had no place on the GG but turned out fairly decent!

Jurassic park was the best gg game fight me

Castle of Illusion, Columns, George Foreman’s KO Boxing, Joe Montana Football, Krusty’s Funhouse, Lucky Dime Caper, Ninja Gaiden, Sonic the Hedgehog 1&2, Spider-Man Return of the Sinister Six, Chase HQ are the games I can remember having after looking at a list of games. For some reason the audio went out on my Game Gear after a couple of years so there was no more sound.🤷🏼‍♂️

I know the SEGA Genesis has backwards compatibility with the Master System via Power Base Converter and can play Sega CD and 32X with the proper add-ons. As I look at my Game Gear, I wonder now how SEGA would have done back then if they made a Super Gameboy-like adapter for the Genesis. Since the Game Gear has a low battery life by default, back then, it would have made a ton of sense to be able to play these game on the TV when batteries were scarce and simply not available. One thing no one talks about is how back in the 90s (and later on, in the 2000s), Nintendo was not just selling us on the console and portable. They were selling us on the ecosystem that both consoles combined created. We also seen this with the Turbo Grafx 16 and later on with the Playstation Vita (to a lesser extent, the SEGA Nomad and the PSP). Although we'll never know, I think if Game Gear Adapter was a thing, SEGA may have been able to sell more Game Gears.

Cool video that brings lots of memories but I wish you would have shown the excellent and extremely underrated Game Gear versoin of Batman Returns, which is litterally a Shinobi game with Batman characters.

Shit...I didn't even know the TV Tuner was a thing. That's wild, thanks for informing me.

Still have and love my Sega Genesis and Sega Game Gear systems! And even on my most recent console that's a combo hybrid called the Nintendo Switch, I have alot of the Sega Games on it. The Switch is the new Game Gear and Game Boy

So many great games. If it had an MS version id still prefer to play it on that as ive always preferred a TV display but the GG was an utter marvel. Great vid James.

What a brilliantly presented video this is, fair play James! As with all SEGA hardware of the earlier generations, I enjoyed the Game Gear from afar, as my cousin owned one, and I would only see him a few times a year. I always remember thinking the colourful visuals were absolutely spectacular! A real powerhouse for sure, any the poor battery life didn't really bother us because we had a seemingly endless supply of rechargeable batteries in the house 😅

I loved my game gear but man was the battery life horrible, my dad bought me a wall adapter and car cigarette lighter power adapter because he got sick of buying me batteries for the thing lol

It felt like a handheld from the future

The batter was the only issue
They should have made that back light solar panel operated.
With a magnify glass to spread the light behind the screen

Better than any gameboy

The fact that you could watch TV on this was crazy! If only it didn't eat up so many batteries...

goal lazzzziiiiooooo!!

Ah the game gear while I only got my first game gear in 2017 and it sadly broke within a month or two and then getting a new one in 2023 which is sadly out for the count due to a issue with the coil that powers the system I still need to see if the guy who was fixing it has done so so I can play sonic 1,2 and chaos against and maybe bart Vs the space mutants, streets of rage or the excellent version of Garfield caught in the act