First impression from this video: this game looks like an Amiga game, second impression: looks like Chuck Rock 2, then played the start and you did mention "Core Design", yup it makes sense. No wonder it's not using any specific hardware from the Mega CD, but still those guys produce quality games.
Eh? Core Design did Battle Corps and Soul Star didn't they? Both of these games made extensive use of the Mega CD, Soul Star probably more so than any other game on the system so it wasn't always typical of them to not make use of the hardware. It was probably just rushed to get it out the door. Same as you, it also struck me how Amiga like, Chuck Rock 2 ish this game looks. Very similar art style/pixal art and overall aesthetic.
No wonder? Core Design went on to be the one developer who took Sega CD to its full potential, with games like Thunderhawk, Battlecorps, BC Racers and (especially) Soul Star, which is (by far) the most technically impressive game on the system.
I've been having a lot of fun exploring the non-FMV portion of the Sega-CD library and finding quite a few gems. Will add Wonderdog to the list, looks like a fun romp. Only really odd thing that jumped out was, it used a password system rather than the Sega-CD system memory. That may be a tell that it started as a Genesis game, which would also explain the lack of Sega-CD effects utilization.
The biggest issue is that the "good" games on the system rarely do anything more impressive with graphics or gameplay than cartridge-based games of the time. The only notable change is including CD quality music and while that's neat... it's not enough to carry an entire system by itself.
I see what they did with the theme song, its very Stevie Wonder like with the Clavi. For those not inclined, that's the keyboard instrument he uses that brought the funk, like in the song Superstition. Wonder Dog, Stevie Wonder. Cant be a stretch at all.
I remember playing this game on my friend's Wondermega. It was a fun afternoon, and the console itself was utterly beautiful. My friend quietly traded the console and its accessories in about a fortnight later and nobody ever mentioned Wonderdog again.
Apparently Wonder Dog was a mascot for JVC, and he can be seen in some of JVC's products, including a VHS cleaner. This game was a launch title for JVC's WonderMega (or X'Eye) console, which was a Genesis and Sega CD in one.
You're right about Sega only focusing on the FMV games for the Sega CD because I've never heard of Wonder Dog until today. And I had a Sega CD back then😭😭
I remember when the AVGN mentioned this game in his Sega CD overview ages ago! Regardless of whether the game was good or bad, I couldnt imagine anyone shelling out $300 for the Sega CD to play a game on it that was basically a standard cutesy Sega Genesis/SNES style platformer slapped onto a CD-Rom. Granted, a decently playable, colorful platformer is better than a grainy zero budget FMV title that you 'play' once and forget about, but it still mustve felt like such a big kick in the balls compared to the sheer amount of hype built up for the add-on. Even the 32X, as rushed and bad of an idea as it was, did a much better job showing off what its hardware could do. (Its crime was not following thru on its potential and abruptly leaving consumers high and dry in order to support the Saturn).
It wasn’t. Lunar 1 and 2, Silpheed, Sonic CD, Soul Star, Ecco CD, Final Fight CD, all the Working Designs games, and on and on… if anything, the Sega CD was underrated because everyone thought it was nothing but dumb FMV games.
@@BlownMacTruck It was either dumb FMV games or released of games already or could had been available on Sega Genesis or Super NES. Even back then most old gamers complain that Popful Mail, Lunar 1 and 2 as well as Vay could had easily been released on the based Sega Genesis if they just change the FMV cutscenes to still images instead. Popful Mail did eventually get a Super Famicom released while Lunar 1 & 2 got Sega Saturn remakes.
@@VOAN Except those games weren’t released on those platforms specifically because side the developers wanted the cutscenes and audio. Also I would love to see Soul Star running on a SNES, lol.
Gamefan Editor-in-chief Dave Halverson busted a fat nut to this game. I remember the glowing review he gave it in the mag, and how Wonderdog followed his publications all the way up to the commissioned art that routinely punctuated issues of Play.
The praise gaming magazines heaped on this one confused me at the time, since it didn't really look like anything special. Retrospective analysis seems to be less glowing but still somewhat positive. I'm pleased you addressed that.
I had my japanese Mega CD since Dec '91 and bought Wonder Dog in September '92. I think it was the first good game for the Mega CD. Previously I had basically just used my Mega CD as a music CD player. It's a likeable game with colorful visuals, nice soundtrack and fun, although simplistic gameplay. The Amiga version isn't nearly as colorful and sounds way worse, so the Sega CD version is the one to go for.
The games remembers me a lot to Chuck Rock 2. Nice game: Platforms, beauty graphics, nice CD sound, originals bosses but it was a game than can released in the normal MD (without CD sound and animated FMV). 6.5/10 for me.
It looks fun, but games like this kinda encapsulated my issue with early CD games. The same graphics, but with CD sound was not a compelling reason to shell out $300.
i was too young to ever afford a sega cd at launch but we certainly lusted after it for the cd-format alone. sometimes you dodge a bullet without even knowing!
Part of me wishes sega made core design a second party developer or something, they seemed like very dedicated fans of developing for the sega cd with some really skilled programmers.
This was one of the few games I felt classic AVGN didn't give a fair shake in his Sega CD review. It looked like it had potential as a platformer. Will probably give this a shot this weekend.
I kind of wonder if the lack of hardware features comes down to the game being under time constraints. It came out in Japan when the Sega CD had been on the market for only 3 weeks. In Japan New Year's is the big buying season, kids get money as new year's gifts so the big titles tend to come out the week before, so as to be the hot new thing on shelves when they walk into the store with a pocket full of money. Wonder Dog is obviously a kid friendly title, but it hit on January 4th when a lot of that money might have already been spent. That makes me think they rushed to get it out there as close to new year as they possibly could, but just missed the deadline to ship a week earlier. The other thing is the Amiga port you mentioned. I wonder if it was hard to get their hands on dev kits early on, so Core being a British dev house where the Amiga was huge and it using the same 68000 processor, much of the development might have been done on Amiga. It looks every bit like a Euro Amiga platformer, it would be right at home on the Amiga CD32.
I was a Sega CD early adopter, but I passed over decent games like this to play “cool” games like Tomcat Alley. Wish I could go back and slap my dumbass teenage self and remind the little bastard gameplay is king.
I did the same! My parents bought me a Sega cd on release day and ib was really into the fmv games. These years later, I wish I'd kept the system and games so I could play what I missed out on.
Wonder Dog, was use for a mascot who is for the JVC VCR head cleaner and shows wonder dog cleaning the screen, to say that he is cleaning the heads of the VCR.
"Over 400 Enemies" on the box. Good shit, ha ha. Forgot about that. There may be 400 enemies in the entire game but only a few enemy types. This game's a classic for me. My friend wasnt impressed, but I enjoyed this one alot. The CD quality music with the colorful visuals and unique gameplay , and the fact that it was a game I could beat back then, was all really enjoyable. This was one of my first Sega CD games and one of my favorites on the platform (I know there wasnt alot of top tier games, but there was a few). This wasnt on the level of Dark Wizard, Sonic CD or Shining Force CD for me but Id probably give it 4th place.
More specifically, the kid who found the pup in the intro wanted to keep him, but his father said no to that, pulled the kid into the family car and drove off.
Good review! I remember seeing this game reviewed in GamePro as a kid and I always wanted to play it. I never had a Sega CD, though, so I just never got the chance. It did seem to come out of nowhere on the Sega CD and it is shocking to see there was never a Genesis version. I might have to give a try. It looks like quite an acid trip of a game!
I remember getting this with my Sega CD and a bunch of other clearance games Christmas of 1994. I actually kinda liked the game and got quite good at it, but to this day I remember getting to the final stage Area (planet k9 i think) and for the life of me couldn't figure out how to get underneath this tunnel like obstacle to proceed. I remember treating it like a mario game, get a run at it and jump into a crouch and slide through but it kept spitting me back out. Pretty much gave up there and beat wolfchild instead.
So many people didn’t care about the increased hardware that we got to see virtually nothing of it. Even the indie guys working with it today say it’s not a big deal… Total horseshit if it nearly doubled the gennys power. Shows how much people so easily influence each other.
Even the genesis, 32x (at times), saturn and dreamcast have homebrew/hack games than the sega cd will ever dream of. Sega cd missed out of having a arcade edition hack of MK1 due to its complicated weak performing hardware. With the MSU-MD/MD+ audio hacks, everdrive pro and sgsdk. All of made the sega cd useless. The day msu-md and md+ can allow extra sound effects will be the final burial of the sega cd.
@@maroon9273 nobody will ever beat out the red book audio of the sega cd at least where genny games are concerned. I don’t know why all the hate for the cd but caching could have mitigated any bandwidth issues. I myself got burnt by all of the fmv games but the potential is still there…
I would get so irrationally excited about side scrolling post-Sonic platformers like this and Bubsy from gaming mag hype back in the day. In reality the games I really enjoyed were strategy rpgs, action rpgs, jrpgs, fighters, sports titles, run&guns and the occasional cinematic action games like Flashback or Super Star Wars. Good thing I only rented them most of the time.
Wonder Dog is one of the system's finest in my opinion despite no scaling and rotation. Sometimes all that is needed is a simple platformer. I'd much rather this than something like ''Sherlock Holmes'' or the ''Make My Video'' series.
I really liked this game when I bought it back then when I got my import japanese mega-cd. the music was great and lots of fun secrets to discover in this one.
Game was an okay platformer but I feel it could had been much more had Core gave Wonder Dog more power-ups aside from shooting stars all the time and actually make the levels bigger with more obstacle rather than having it been straight forward all the time. Fun fact: GamePro magazine issue 42 actually gave this game a perfect score.
I still think that the Sega Genesis is the best console ever made. I (unfortunately) skipped the sega CD and 32X because of the unentertaining software that they offered. Even worse than that, I ignored the Dreamcast (which was the most advanced console for the time period.) I ended up missing a bunch of great games from that era of gaming. I blame no one but myself...
When I saw this, i immediately thought that it looks like an Amiga game. That, on it's own, it'a not a bad thing, but have in mind that, in 1992, Amiga is 7 years old and this game acts as flagship title for Sega CD.
If six year old me had seen this game, I'd have decided off the cover art of the box like so many of us and thought, "Wow this dog looks like a dork like Urkel!" and then I'd have not gotten the game. The irony would never hit naive child me because of course I didn't know that Jaleel White was Sonic, and you bet I watched all the Sonic the Hedgehog I could.
I have a soft spot for this game. What should be a run of the mill mediocre platformer is elevated in my eyes due to its art style, graphics, and sound.
This was one of the first games I got with my original Sega CD, I loved this game at the time, especially after being so disappointed with all the fmv games
I'm pretty surprised that this got such glowing reviews from game magazines. I would have to agree with your analysis of the game and say it's slightly above average at best.
The CD soundtrack likely had something to do with it. CD music kind of elevated many early Sega CD games. The Sega CD was my first console with a CD drive. It was also my first CD audio player. I got a PC Engine CD unit later. It probably was like that for many game journalists also. Listening to music CDs and hearing CD-quality audio in games is trivial now, but back in '92 it was magical and futuristic.
Core Design understood nothing at all. Sega were correct in their assessment that the 16bit scaling rotating capacities of the Mega CD were simply not there. Look at the visual horror that Taito's Night Striker is. Barely a video game. Sega's CRI had to make criminal concessions to keep After Burner III running. Sonic CD kept the rotation to the bonus stages for good reasons. GameArts understood this perfectly and made the best possible use of the Mega CD, with terrific music and voice acting, anime cutscenes and virtually bo scaling effect. Wolf Team used scaling to make the sprites pop out in Sol Feace. It worked. Core Design never got it. They were misled by deceiving sales figures boosted by the suspicious help of the British gaming press. From their messy helicopter game to the barely playable SoulStar, they persisted in using a technical capacity that was only there on paper and the results were horrendous. The Mega CD shot way above its station, in the FMV department (250Ko RAM) as well as the scaling-rotating department. This is where Core Design went wrong. There was a proper way to use the Mega CD.
This game looks like a Euro- platformer. It has that Amiga flavor to it. Although I do love the game developer Rare, I've never been a big fan of Euro- platformers. I don't know why? I want to like them, but I don't find myself enjoying them much. Anyway, it's still a really cool video. I love seeing games I've never heard of before! Great job!🤩👍👍👍👍👍❤️
I played a demo of this on my Amiga (which sort of proves the point that this never took advantage of the Mega CD). Core Design's presentation was always brilliant, with great character design, animation and lots of colour. But I found the game itself to be pretty bland and I never liked the star weapon as it looked a bit silly. Not a bad game, but not one to get the pulse racing.
I can't unsee moose antlers for Wonder Dog's ears on the lives counter. I know they're upside down for moose antlers, but that's what they look like to me!
SEGA CD was probably the biggest waste of money I ever spent in gaming. Even something as little as a larger color pallet would have done wonders. I bought it day one and not a single person I showed it to didn'tsay they thought I got ripped off. It's why I didn't buy a Saturn.
Same story for me. SEGA never showed off the power of the ASIC-DSP, and only 12-15 games had bonus stages to show what the "PlayStation 0" could do. SEGA's refusal to properly support the $500 combo and bring outnsonmany lazy ports and s***y FMV games doomed the company in the eyes of gaming enthusiasts. In 1994, SEGA then abandoned the $49.95 SVP LockOn for the $160 32X due almost a year later. SONY fired back with "2 99," and the Console Wars were over.
First impression from this video: this game looks like an Amiga game, second impression: looks like Chuck Rock 2, then played the start and you did mention "Core Design", yup it makes sense. No wonder it's not using any specific hardware from the Mega CD, but still those guys produce quality games.
Eh? Core Design did Battle Corps and Soul Star didn't they? Both of these games made extensive use of the Mega CD, Soul Star probably more so than any other game on the system so it wasn't always typical of them to not make use of the hardware.
It was probably just rushed to get it out the door.
Same as you, it also struck me how Amiga like, Chuck Rock 2 ish this game looks.
Very similar art style/pixal art and overall aesthetic.
No wonder? Core Design went on to be the one developer who took Sega CD to its full potential, with games like Thunderhawk, Battlecorps, BC Racers and (especially) Soul Star, which is (by far) the most technically impressive game on the system.
You’re right. The engine for this was used in Chuck Rock 2.
Yeah, it has that British microcomputer platformer feel going on.
@@BigBillKelly-x2zWhat ? Rushed !? But I thought old games were perfect and rushed/unfinished games are only a modern thing !!?
Never saw the red variant of the Wonder Dog box. Mine was green. I always thought Wonder Dog sounded like Scooby Doo when he took damage.
It was GREEN dog!!!
And Homer Simpson when you hit an enemy saying ''DOH''.
@@drunkensailor112 underrated comment
It's either a Scooby sample, or someone at core design doing a passable impression I reckon.
Sack attack!
Next: Wonder Dog in Monster World
I would love to see that. :)
I always loved the pitch-shifted Homer Simpson grunt from certain enemies.
I've been having a lot of fun exploring the non-FMV portion of the Sega-CD library and finding quite a few gems. Will add Wonderdog to the list, looks like a fun romp. Only really odd thing that jumped out was, it used a password system rather than the Sega-CD system memory. That may be a tell that it started as a Genesis game, which would also explain the lack of Sega-CD effects utilization.
sega cd has a decent amount of quality, but the hardware is annoying
The biggest issue is that the "good" games on the system rarely do anything more impressive with graphics or gameplay than cartridge-based games of the time. The only notable change is including CD quality music and while that's neat... it's not enough to carry an entire system by itself.
Add Terminator to your list, The music is awesome and the game is actually pretty good.
@@oblivieon1567
bari arm is quite good
I was a fan of FMV games back then, and am still a fan today!
Yeah FMV cut scenes we're great on the Sega CD like Cliffhanger or the game Revenge of the Ninja 🥷
I can’t explain why exactly, but when I played this back in the day, I felt like the future really had arrived. An old favorite 👍
I fealt the same way at the time. Loved the Sega CD.
I remember renting a Sega CD and popful mail, that game was amazing for the time.
People could rent a console back in the days ..? 🤔
@@joezar33 I rented a Saturn and Virtual Boy from Blockbuster Video also
Wonder Dog looks like Bubsy done right, I've always been a Nintendo kid but. This is just better.
I see what they did with the theme song, its very Stevie Wonder like with the Clavi. For those not inclined, that's the keyboard instrument he uses that brought the funk, like in the song Superstition. Wonder Dog, Stevie Wonder. Cant be a stretch at all.
I remember playing this game on my friend's Wondermega. It was a fun afternoon, and the console itself was utterly beautiful. My friend quietly traded the console and its accessories in about a fortnight later and nobody ever mentioned Wonderdog again.
Apparently Wonder Dog was a mascot for JVC, and he can be seen in some of JVC's products, including a VHS cleaner. This game was a launch title for JVC's WonderMega (or X'Eye) console, which was a Genesis and Sega CD in one.
He mentions that in the video
I had the VHS cleaner as a kid lol
Cool enough game, but I think Chuck Rock II is Core's crown jewel of their platformers of the era.
yep, much less random
You're right about Sega only focusing on the FMV games for the Sega CD because I've never heard of Wonder Dog until today. And I had a Sega CD back then😭😭
I remember enjoying this game for what it was. And that Track 2 music sounds like the theme to an 80s sitcom
It’s a great time when sega lord x posts
Yep. This is one of the most consistently great gaming channels on TH-cam.
Yeah, he's like a big brother with great stories about gaming
You never cease to amaze me, man. Ive been a game history buff for decades but never heard of this
I remember when the AVGN mentioned this game in his Sega CD overview ages ago! Regardless of whether the game was good or bad, I couldnt imagine anyone shelling out $300 for the Sega CD to play a game on it that was basically a standard cutesy Sega Genesis/SNES style platformer slapped onto a CD-Rom. Granted, a decently playable, colorful platformer is better than a grainy zero budget FMV title that you 'play' once and forget about, but it still mustve felt like such a big kick in the balls compared to the sheer amount of hype built up for the add-on. Even the 32X, as rushed and bad of an idea as it was, did a much better job showing off what its hardware could do. (Its crime was not following thru on its potential and abruptly leaving consumers high and dry in order to support the Saturn).
It wasn’t. Lunar 1 and 2, Silpheed, Sonic CD, Soul Star, Ecco CD, Final Fight CD, all the Working Designs games, and on and on… if anything, the Sega CD was underrated because everyone thought it was nothing but dumb FMV games.
@@BlownMacTruck It was either dumb FMV games or released of games already or could had been available on Sega Genesis or Super NES. Even back then most old gamers complain that Popful Mail, Lunar 1 and 2 as well as Vay could had easily been released on the based Sega Genesis if they just change the FMV cutscenes to still images instead. Popful Mail did eventually get a Super Famicom released while Lunar 1 & 2 got Sega Saturn remakes.
@@VOAN Except those games weren’t released on those platforms specifically because side the developers wanted the cutscenes and audio. Also I would love to see Soul Star running on a SNES, lol.
The super famicon verison of popful mail suck though.@@VOAN
I remember he got the plot wrong for the sake of a joke.
Gamefan Editor-in-chief Dave Halverson busted a fat nut to this game. I remember the glowing review he gave it in the mag, and how Wonderdog followed his publications all the way up to the commissioned art that routinely punctuated issues of Play.
It looks really fun. I wonder I didn't even know this game exists.
You're one of the greatest story tellers on YT
I'm Wonder Dog X, and I WILL catch you next time.
*Wonder Dawg
It's weird that Wonder Dog shoots stars at cutesy little bunnies and other tiny animals.
The praise gaming magazines heaped on this one confused me at the time, since it didn't really look like anything special. Retrospective analysis seems to be less glowing but still somewhat positive. I'm pleased you addressed that.
i'd give it a 6.5/10 max
I remember seeing this in EGM and thinking it would be something special. Just a common platformer.
Those giant boss sprites look sweet
You'll want to play it any way you can.
Oh! A secret SNES drunk account! :D
I had my japanese Mega CD since Dec '91 and bought Wonder Dog in September '92. I think it was the first good game for the Mega CD. Previously I had basically just used my Mega CD as a music CD player. It's a likeable game with colorful visuals, nice soundtrack and fun, although simplistic gameplay. The Amiga version isn't nearly as colorful and sounds way worse, so the Sega CD version is the one to go for.
This review is basically how I felt about Chuck Rock as a kid. It wasn't bad or broken. Just something I played because it was a gift and I was bored.
The games remembers me a lot to Chuck Rock 2. Nice game: Platforms, beauty graphics, nice CD sound, originals bosses but it was a game than can released in the normal MD (without CD sound and animated FMV). 6.5/10 for me.
It looks fun, but games like this kinda encapsulated my issue with early CD games. The same graphics, but with CD sound was not a compelling reason to shell out $300.
I love your game reviews. Keep em coming.
Sega Lord x. The Dreamcast needs saving! We are waiting!
All they really had to do was not piss off EA earlier.
i was too young to ever afford a sega cd at launch but we certainly lusted after it for the cd-format alone.
sometimes you dodge a bullet without even knowing!
Part of me wishes sega made core design a second party developer or something, they seemed like very dedicated fans of developing for the sega cd with some really skilled programmers.
Everyone dropped the ball with everything to do with the genesis really.
This was one of the few games I felt classic AVGN didn't give a fair shake in his Sega CD review. It looked like it had potential as a platformer. Will probably give this a shot this weekend.
The pacing in Wonder Dog’s opening cinematic is so awkward, I think in part to loading each scene off the CD.
It felt like a obscure Amiga game ported to CD.
But it's charming enough!
Dude your videos always make me feel nostalgic, thank you so much for your content.
I kind of wonder if the lack of hardware features comes down to the game being under time constraints. It came out in Japan when the Sega CD had been on the market for only 3 weeks. In Japan New Year's is the big buying season, kids get money as new year's gifts so the big titles tend to come out the week before, so as to be the hot new thing on shelves when they walk into the store with a pocket full of money. Wonder Dog is obviously a kid friendly title, but it hit on January 4th when a lot of that money might have already been spent. That makes me think they rushed to get it out there as close to new year as they possibly could, but just missed the deadline to ship a week earlier.
The other thing is the Amiga port you mentioned. I wonder if it was hard to get their hands on dev kits early on, so Core being a British dev house where the Amiga was huge and it using the same 68000 processor, much of the development might have been done on Amiga. It looks every bit like a Euro Amiga platformer, it would be right at home on the Amiga CD32.
I was a Sega CD early adopter, but I passed over decent games like this to play “cool” games like Tomcat Alley. Wish I could go back and slap my dumbass teenage self and remind the little bastard gameplay is king.
Lol!
I did the same! My parents bought me a Sega cd on release day and ib was really into the fmv games. These years later, I wish I'd kept the system and games so I could play what I missed out on.
Wonder Dog, was use for a mascot who is for the JVC VCR head cleaner and shows wonder dog cleaning the screen, to say that he is cleaning the heads of the VCR.
"Over 400 Enemies" on the box. Good shit, ha ha. Forgot about that. There may be 400 enemies in the entire game but only a few enemy types. This game's a classic for me. My friend wasnt impressed, but I enjoyed this one alot. The CD quality music with the colorful visuals and unique gameplay , and the fact that it was a game I could beat back then, was all really enjoyable. This was one of my first Sega CD games and one of my favorites on the platform (I know there wasnt alot of top tier games, but there was a few). This wasnt on the level of Dark Wizard, Sonic CD or Shining Force CD for me but Id probably give it 4th place.
That's back when listing an X amount of things, was a marketing thing.
More specifically, the kid who found the pup in the intro wanted to keep him, but his father said no to that, pulled the kid into the family car and drove off.
I bought Wonder Dog day one. Loved the heck out of the game and was on the hunt for all its secrets and dog bones.
This was one of those platformers that got lost in time.
Can’t wait for zool
I know I owned this game. I know I played this game. I remember absolutely nothing I'm seeing here.
Good review! I remember seeing this game reviewed in GamePro as a kid and I always wanted to play it. I never had a Sega CD, though, so I just never got the chance. It did seem to come out of nowhere on the Sega CD and it is shocking to see there was never a Genesis version. I might have to give a try. It looks like quite an acid trip of a game!
It's always a pleasure to watch one of your videos!
I remember getting this with my Sega CD and a bunch of other clearance games Christmas of 1994. I actually kinda liked the game and got quite good at it, but to this day I remember getting to the final stage Area (planet k9 i think) and for the life of me couldn't figure out how to get underneath this tunnel like obstacle to proceed. I remember treating it like a mario game, get a run at it and jump into a crouch and slide through but it kept spitting me back out. Pretty much gave up there and beat wolfchild instead.
So many people didn’t care about the increased hardware that we got to see virtually nothing of it.
Even the indie guys working with it today say it’s not a big deal…
Total horseshit if it nearly doubled the gennys power.
Shows how much people so easily influence each other.
Even the genesis, 32x (at times), saturn and dreamcast have homebrew/hack games than the sega cd will ever dream of. Sega cd missed out of having a arcade edition hack of MK1 due to its complicated weak performing hardware. With the MSU-MD/MD+ audio hacks, everdrive pro and sgsdk. All of made the sega cd useless. The day msu-md and md+ can allow extra sound effects will be the final burial of the sega cd.
@@maroon9273 nobody will ever beat out the red book audio of the sega cd at least where genny games are concerned.
I don’t know why all the hate for the cd but caching could have mitigated any bandwidth issues.
I myself got burnt by all of the fmv games but the potential is still there…
I would get so irrationally excited about side scrolling post-Sonic platformers like this and Bubsy from gaming mag hype back in the day. In reality the games I really enjoyed were strategy rpgs, action rpgs, jrpgs, fighters, sports titles, run&guns and the occasional cinematic action games like Flashback or Super Star Wars. Good thing I only rented them most of the time.
Wonder Dog is one of the system's finest in my opinion despite no scaling and rotation. Sometimes all that is needed is a simple platformer. I'd much rather this than something like ''Sherlock Holmes'' or the ''Make My Video'' series.
Always great watching your videos!
I really liked this game when I bought it back then when I got my import japanese mega-cd. the music was great and lots of fun secrets to discover in this one.
Game was an okay platformer but I feel it could had been much more had Core gave Wonder Dog more power-ups aside from shooting stars all the time and actually make the levels bigger with more obstacle rather than having it been straight forward all the time.
Fun fact: GamePro magazine issue 42 actually gave this game a perfect score.
GamePro also gave Tomcat Alley a perfect score. I guess they're special like that...
gamepro lol
I still think that the Sega Genesis is the best console ever made. I (unfortunately) skipped the sega CD and 32X because of the unentertaining software that they offered. Even worse than that, I ignored the Dreamcast (which was the most advanced console for the time period.) I ended up missing a bunch of great games from that era of gaming. I blame no one but myself...
Skipping DC is blasphemous 😅😂
it's between sfc and mega drive
i prefer the style of md games more
6:27 it's funny, I was thinking exactly that watching the review. Great video.
I was 8 years old back in 93 and I was playing Super Nintendo and I still love Super Nintendo❤
I was 5, playing Genesis, but I got my SNES shortly after. SNES was definitely better.
It's a great system for sure.
Cool story
Ok...
@Vulpas That all depends on what genres you're in to. The SNES has a better RPG lineup, but Genesis has better run n guns and shooters.
Can u imagine looking at that game in Walmart and being like yessss I want that wonderdog game, smh
Wonder Dog got that great graphics. 😀👍🐶🎮
I enjoyed playing Wonder Dog on Sega CD. Would love to play it modern console
In that first stage you showed off, if that Wonder Dog sprite weren't there and I was asked what game it was, my first guess would have been Bubsy.
Haven’t thought about this game since the AVGN sega CD vid back in 07. This rules.
Always a good day when Sega Lord X blesses us with a new video.
SEGA!
Had Wonder Dog...great music it had...game was good I'd say....please do "Willy Beamish" if u could.....
When I saw this, i immediately thought that it looks like an Amiga game. That, on it's own, it'a not a bad thing, but have in mind that, in 1992, Amiga is 7 years old and this game acts as flagship title for Sega CD.
I wonder if the bouncing star attack was inspired by Mr. Gimmick. Seems like it
Great Stuff, as always!
If six year old me had seen this game, I'd have decided off the cover art of the box like so many of us and thought, "Wow this dog looks like a dork like Urkel!" and then I'd have not gotten the game. The irony would never hit naive child me because of course I didn't know that Jaleel White was Sonic, and you bet I watched all the Sonic the Hedgehog I could.
I have a soft spot for this game. What should be a run of the mill mediocre platformer is elevated in my eyes due to its art style, graphics, and sound.
CD32 Style Graphics
This was one of the first games I got with my original Sega CD, I loved this game at the time, especially after being so disappointed with all the fmv games
I remember reading the magazines lol.. great times for sure
Nostagic game.
I'm pretty surprised that this got such glowing reviews from game magazines. I would have to agree with your analysis of the game and say it's slightly above average at best.
The CD soundtrack likely had something to do with it. CD music kind of elevated many early Sega CD games. The Sega CD was my first console with a CD drive. It was also my first CD audio player. I got a PC Engine CD unit later. It probably was like that for many game journalists also. Listening to music CDs and hearing CD-quality audio in games is trivial now, but back in '92 it was magical and futuristic.
You should do an episode on if Sega made super scalers on the Sega CD and how they would’ve turned out with the hardware!!
It looks like Chuck Rock 2... the blocks of the plataforms and the letters and numbers. Maybe the background a little bit too
idve been pissed to have bought a sega cd
Core Design understood nothing at all. Sega were correct in their assessment that the 16bit scaling rotating capacities of the Mega CD were simply not there. Look at the visual horror that Taito's Night Striker is. Barely a video game. Sega's CRI had to make criminal concessions to keep After Burner III running. Sonic CD kept the rotation to the bonus stages for good reasons. GameArts understood this perfectly and made the best possible use of the Mega CD, with terrific music and voice acting, anime cutscenes and virtually bo scaling effect. Wolf Team used scaling to make the sprites pop out in Sol Feace. It worked. Core Design never got it. They were misled by deceiving sales figures boosted by the suspicious help of the British gaming press. From their messy helicopter game to the barely playable SoulStar, they persisted in using a technical capacity that was only there on paper and the results were horrendous. The Mega CD shot way above its station, in the FMV department (250Ko RAM) as well as the scaling-rotating department. This is where Core Design went wrong. There was a proper way to use the Mega CD.
This game looks like a Euro- platformer. It has that Amiga flavor to it. Although I do love the game developer Rare, I've never been a big fan of Euro- platformers. I don't know why? I want to like them, but I don't find myself enjoying them much. Anyway, it's still a really cool video. I love seeing games I've never heard of before! Great job!🤩👍👍👍👍👍❤️
I played it many years later and found it to be okay. Didn't blow me away but it's not terrible either.
I loved Wonder Dog when it was current.
I had the same experience as you with the game.
Never had a Sega CD. I was extremely satisfied with the Genesis.
Sega Lord X keeping Sega going strong
They should have just released this on a 8 meg cart.
I didn´t know the existence of this game, I will check it out :)
I played a demo of this on my Amiga (which sort of proves the point that this never took advantage of the Mega CD). Core Design's presentation was always brilliant, with great character design, animation and lots of colour. But I found the game itself to be pretty bland and I never liked the star weapon as it looked a bit silly. Not a bad game, but not one to get the pulse racing.
This was one of the games I scored from a cheap bin at toys r us. Along with Time Gal and Afterburner 3
I can't unsee moose antlers for Wonder Dog's ears on the lives counter. I know they're upside down for moose antlers, but that's what they look like to me!
Great video and breakdown. Wonder Dog looks for all the world like an Amiga game, though.
Awesome thanks segalordx
SEGA CD was probably the biggest waste of money I ever spent in gaming. Even something as little as a larger color pallet would have done wonders. I bought it day one and not a single person I showed it to didn'tsay they thought I got ripped off. It's why I didn't buy a Saturn.
Same story for me. SEGA never showed off the power of the ASIC-DSP, and only 12-15 games had bonus stages to show what the "PlayStation 0" could do. SEGA's refusal to properly support the $500 combo and bring outnsonmany lazy ports and s***y FMV games doomed the company in the eyes of gaming enthusiasts. In 1994, SEGA then abandoned the $49.95 SVP LockOn for the $160 32X due almost a year later. SONY fired back with "2 99," and the Console Wars were over.
Please do a review on Soul Star for the Sega cd, thanks.
Wonder Dog is voiced by Homer Simpson.
It is an amusing game !
We still have it at home... 🙂
...thank you to remind us to play it.
Isn't this the game with the, uh, well-endowed spaceship at the beginning?
The SNES could do this, no problem.
All traditional 2D games on Sega CD are just Genesis games with CD audio and FMV.
The Snes could definitely do this.