Best Sega Genesis/Mega Drive games of all time

11. Mickey Mania

Not many AAA platform games double as an interactive romp through the history of animation, but thats the best way to describe Travellers Tales 65th birthday present to the worlds most famous (and least mousey-looking) mouse. Subtitled The Timeless Adventures of Mickey Mouse in the US, the game offered a hint at the high production values that would come to typify Mickey's adventures, detailing a playable journey through more than a half-century's worth of classic Mouse cartoons.

So lush is the game's presentation (allegedly the first to count Disney animators among its staff) that it saw conversion to the Sega CD and PlayStation. The SNES port was forced to omit certain content, making this the definitive 16-bit iteration.

10. Toejam & Earl 2: Panic on Funkotron

Toejam and Earl were a pair of aliens who looked like a cross between members of the band Jamiroquai and characters from the fiction of H.P. Lovecraft, with crazy adventures to match. The pair really came into their own in this sequel, a vast platform game full of secrets and bonuses that managed to make something fun happen in every single screen.

With their home planet of Funkotron infested by slack-jawed earthling looky-loos, TJ&E must explore all manner of weird alien landscapes rounding up members of our dumb, dumb race before we gawp the funk-loving planet into extinction. Oh, and the boom box minigames lay down some beats so phat, you'll find yourself absent-mindedly Boom-Clapping them literally years later.

9. Flashback: The Quest for Identity

It should feel derivative: an upscaled presentation of the rotoscope technology driving Jordan Mechners Prince of Persia, pressed into the service of a plot that's shameless in its debt to Schwarzenegger movies such as Total Recall and The Running Man. But Delphine's Flashback: The Quest for Identity (or just Flashback, outside the US) is definitely more than the sum of its parts.

With vector-driven story sequences hinting at the look of future hardware generations, and an unprecedented smoothness to the stealth-n-shoot gameplay, its no wonder the game (still the best-selling French title ever) continued to shine decades later in a 2013 remake.

8. Sonic the Hedgehog

You may've heard of this game! Sonic has secured his place not just in gaming but in the wider popular culture, and this is the title where it began. Yes, the game came presaged by a marketing blitz representing the full weight of the Sega hype factory at the height of its powers, but it had the substance to justify it too.

This is a game built around the thrill of movement, the exhilaration of discovering new areas, and the challenge of developing reactions as fast as our hero's iconic red footwear. The levels reward any kind of approach, whether that's hunting out every last ring or just blazing through as quickly as you can. New to Sonic? Do yourself a favor and start all the way back here. You'll be up to speed before you know it.

Read more: The best Sonic games of all time

7. Sonic The Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 might just be the blue blurs finest hour on the classic consoles, mixing the originals explorative platforming with the sequels hyperspeed thrills; but the definitive version was originally only available to players who owned both the Sonic 3 cartridge itself, and the lock-on Sonic & Knuckles cart.

Originally intended as a single adventure, time constraints led to the Knuckles installment's separate release, but to ensure players didn't feel hard done by, Sega designed not only a games worth of content in Knuckles, but for the cartridge to unlock the full-featured, Sonic 3 & Knuckles extravaganza. Offering the only way for completionists to access the games Super Emeralds (and Hyper Sonic!) as well as access the hidden routes and unseen bosses in Sonic 3, this is a showcase platformer for the system and the most ambitious platformer Sonic Team ever made.

6. Micro Machines 2: Turbo Tournament

With the original Micro Machines, Codemasters delivered a shakeup to the racing genre whose impact can still be felt today in the likes of Calling All Cars! and Burnout Crash! (and probably also games with less insistent punctuation). The sequel improved on the originals strongest elements, namely the little vehicles deceptively solid physics and blistering multiplayer matchups.

The game is much more varied than its predecessor thanks to more vehicle types, even including helicopters with two heights to toggle between. Solo play is bolstered with a groundbreaking ghost mode time attack (that saves ghosts to memory), but it's multiplayer that steals the show, supporting up to support EIGHT PLAYERS by sharing four pads, two of which are plugged directly into the cartridge thanks to Codemasters' J-Cart. The results are hilarious.

5. Gunstar Heroes

Contra fans and Metal Slug junkies take note, if you've never tried this intense old-school shooter, prepare to put Gunstar Heroes right at the top of your 'must play' list. It may look like a cartoon, but there's nothing childish about the high-octane challenge of this side-scrolling masterpiece.

Treasure has always appeared to get more from consoles than the spec sheets would suggest, and Gunstar is no exception. Bravoo Man at the top of the pyramid in the first level looks 3D thanks to his multi-segmented body and the boss at the end of the mine with his many forms (including a spectacular, running man) still looks astonishing. With a mix and match weapon system, 8-way shooting action and constant, impeccably-programmed spectacle, this is one of gaming's finest hours.

4. Phantasy Star IV

At the time of its launch, it was a uniquely anime-inspired RPG. The games dense story, told with manga-style panels, made it stand out amongst other top down, turn-based fare. Sadly, it was to be the final entry of the original Phantasy Star series, but what a fine send-off it was. After the previous instalment dabbled in a medieval setting, IV brought the series back to its sci-fi roots to conclude the story of the Algol system. Sega will be hard-pushed to ever make an RPG better than this one.

3. Super Street Fighter II

For all the comparisons between the SNES' and Genesis' various SFII conversions, the simple fact remains that Super Street Fighter II is one of the purest and best fighting games ever made. The fighting system is supremely deep, yet somehow balanced perfectly across its roster of wildly different characters and fighting styles.

With support for the 6-button pad, Super Street Fighter II offers a comprehensive home console conversion of one of arcade gaming's brightest lights. And despite its age, the old excitement still swells inside when Ryu appears in that famous intro sequence and throws a Hadoken fireball at the screen. Goosebumps time!

2. Sonic the Hedgehog 2

Sonic 2 perfected the formula of the original, downturned the difficulty dial and ramped up the speed and spectacle, making for a perfect pop song of a video game. Newly added sidekick Tails allowed for an early form of drop-in, drop-out co-op, and his unlimited lives made him perfect for grabbing that last ring or getting the final hit on Dr. Robotnik. Younger siblings everywhere were suddenly useful!

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 also introduced pseudo-3D bonus levels where you could earn Chaos Emeralds. Collecting all seven let you become Super Sonic, a turbocharged yellow version of the hero. So, essentially super-saiyan Sonic. Subsequent Sonic games all tried to augment the experience, but invariably ended up diluting what made Sonic 2 so great. What a game.