Streets of Rage. I can hear the synthwave blasting from back in 1993.

I also had a Sega CD but I did sell that a long time ago.

I was going to buy a Super Nintendo because I was jealous of all the RPGs on that system, but my best friend convinced me the Sega CD was a way cooler investment, especially since I already had the Genesis.

So I went and bought the Sega CD, excitedly brought it home and popped in the included game, Sewer Shark.

It was at that moment I knew... I fucked up.

I still have my OG Genesis in the garage. A couple of years ago I opened it up because the LED wasn't turning on - the system itself worked perfectly fine, just the light. Don't remember everything that happened but since then it hasn't powered on. I'm tempted to toss it, but then again, it's like 30 years old, so I think it deserves better.

I even remember the day I got it.

My parents would have killed me if they knew I spent money on a gaming console. I got dropped off over to my friend's house as a sleep-over because it was summertime. He lived within walking distance of Toys R Us. Went there with a bunch of cash and bought it and brought it back to his house. I knew I couldn't just bring the whole box back home without my parents knowing what was up, so I unboxed it and put each piece into a different plastic bag and mixed them all up in with my sleeping bag. To most people, it just looked like a mess of random electronic toys. When my mother came to pick me up, she started gossiping away with my friends mom for like 20 minutes. I asked her to pop the trunk and I snuck all the things into the car. When we finally got home, I pretended that I forgot the stuff in the trunk, so I went down to the garage and grabbed them a little at a time to bring back to my room. Thankfully the console itself wasnot that big so I kept it in one of the drawers in my desk, but I ran all the wires out the back. Over the next few weeks, I took out more and more of the parts and put them on my desk. At this point, it looked like any other piece of random electronics, so no one ever knew I did this. This is literally the first time I've ever told this story. Not sure if anyone else could relate, but toys and having fun were rather low priorities so ya had to sneak in whatever gaming you could do.

Well that's as authentic a retro experience as it gets!

Nice. I'll never forget getting the Sega Genesis with Sonic 2 for Christmas one year. That was one of the first stops on a lifelong journey of gaming. I still play the old Sonic games once in a while on newer platforms and the nostalgia hits hard. Enjoy yourself.

Damn awesome you need to play shadowrun that was my favorite genesis game!

The Genesis was the first console I bought with my own money. Kid money (allowance plus birthday money, etc.). It was definitely a few years into its life, and I remember it being on sale for something crazy like $60 at Canadian Tire. Everyone I knew, myself included, had a SNES, and inviting friends over to see the Genesis brings back some good memories. I remember playing Sonic 2 and discovering that you could plug a Sega Master System controller into the second port and your friend could play along as Tails. Mind blowing. The sound was so amazing too. That Yamaha sound chip brought the music of the arcades to life in my living room. I eventually sold my Genesis to EB for about the same amount and bought Night Trap for PC. Not a great move in hindsight, but I did keep all my games.

Someone just posted that background and both your posts ended up close to each other in my feed. https://toad.work/post/1039482

This is hitting me right in the feels. I need to dig mine out of storage.

The first time I visited a family friend and watching him boot up Castlevania Bloodlines I was absolutely flabbergasted how amazing that game looked. I still have that reaction to this day when I boot it up on my emulator when feeling nostalgic.

I had the wide genesis also, but I had the newer CD so my genesis hanged off the side.

What are you like 41. That's not old gtfo of here. Go live the other entire half of your life.

I found my dad's old genesis in the attic and I need to clean it up and hook it up to one of our two CRTs we have in our basement.

I have very fond memories of playing Sonic 2 at the ripe age of 2, as well as the old monopoly game. Looking forward to getting it cleaned up when I have some sparetime and running some of my earliest gaming memories