The bell is tolling loudly for this console generation. And so, as we witness the PS2 and GameCube’s quiet death knell (the XBox has already passed on) — and with the release of the essential Sega Genesis Collection — I thought it would be a decent time to take a look at one of this console generation’s greatest gifts to us casual, fiscally lightweight, short-attention-span gamers: classic video game anthologies.

As I just came out from under my rock and discovered recently, it turns out there’s a veritable bounty of classic anthologies for the PS2, all of them under $20. I guess some person somewhere figured out that there was a market for these things, and I would like to thank you, that person.

Even beyond the nostalgia value — which, granted, is huge…and ultimately kind of useless… — there were a ton of great games back in the day (we’re talking late 1970s-early 90s) whose cleverness, nonchalant disposability, and effortlessly entertaining pleasures can seem refreshing and oddly satisfying in this day and age of umpteen buttons and 50+-hour storylines. Like many good video games, they also have a kind of screwball artistic value.

Anyway, with all that mouthful said, why don’t we start off with what is probably the worst anthology available: the Sega Classics Collection. Hooray!

The problem with this little monkey is some genius decided to create a collection of 8 and 16-bit Sega classics…and then “remaster” them so they look like PS1 games. Good call.

Great(ish) games like Outrun, Space Harrier, Monaco GP, Columns (which actually always blew, so, no great loss there), Alien Syndrome, and Golden Axe — for all intents and purposes, these games are pretty much rendered useless by the upgrades. The new graphics are polygonal bland and the new music is Eurotrash techno at its worst.

Most of these games were great in their original form, and unless it’s a full, carefully thought through overhaul, people just want to play the originals. Do I want to read David Copperfield if it were revised by Mitch Albom? Do I want to listen to “Pet Sounds” re-imagined by John “Mutt” Lange and Jim Steinman? Well, probably yes to the latter, but you get what I’m saying.

The saving grace is you can usually find this collection for under $10, and there are three tough-to-find, batshit crazy Japanese games on here worth that price: Fantasy Zone, Bonanza Bros, and Tant R.

The harmless but impossibly difficult Fantasy Zone is a surreal cross between Super Mario Bros and Defender. Maybe the closest thing to an 8-bit acid freakout that exists.

Bonanza Bros some folks might remember — it’s an ok little platform game where you have to sneak around and steal stuff while avoiding the po-po and whatnot. Fun for about 15 minutes.

But Tant R is the one that takes the cake here. I really don’t know how to describe it except that it’s a puzzle and action game that excels at making absolutely no sense whatsoever. The “premise” is you’re a couple of police dudes chasing a master thief in a Keystone Cops-like world where everyone is vaguely ovoid. You advance by playing a bunch of weirdo mini games of which there seems to be an almost infinite variety. Then you fly in a plane and try to avoid missles with the thief’s face on them. Must be seen to be believed.

A full list of games on the Sega Classics Collection:
Alien Syndrome
Bonanza Bros
Columns
Fantasy Zone
Golden Axe
Monaco GP
Outrun
Space Harrier
Tant R
Virtua Racing

SEGA CLASSICS COLLECTION
KFR Rating: C-

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