5 Game Gear Games You Forgot Were Awesome

During the ’90s, Nintendo’s biggest competition in the home console space was Sega. The Genesis went toe-to-toe with the Super Nintendo during that era, proving Nintendo wasn’t the only company capable of producing a quality product. However, Sega wasn’t as successful in the handheld space. While Nintendo kept flying high with the Game Boy, Sega’s Game Gear lagged due to its high price and constant need for AA batteries. And while there weren’t a ton of great games, there were still some hidden gems that many players have long forgotten. Here are five awesome Game Gears nobody talks about.

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5) Baku Baku

Baku Baku was originally an arcade game, but it was ported to the Sega Saturn and Game Gear relatively quickly. This is a falling block puzzle game, which is going to make you think of Tetris first. However, Baku Baku is a completely different animal. You’re dropping lines made up of animals and food tiles. If you can match an animal with its favorite food, it will eat it. You want to create long lines of food to rack up bonus points and send your tiles to your opponent.

The arcade and Saturn versions are obviously superior, but you aren’t losing too much playing the Game Gear port. It’s got almost everything you love, just on a smaller scale. Plus, it’s easy to pick up, making it a great option for any young players picking a handheld console for a long car trip. You just need to make sure you don’t forget the extra batteries.

4) Deep Duck Trouble Starring Donald Duck

Unlike Baku Baku, Deep Duck Trouble was a Game Gear original. This platformer stars Disney’s Donald Duck in a fun, 2D side-scroller. There are five levels to platform through, but you can tackle all but the final level in any order. Don’t expect a Super Mario-like challenge from the platforming, but Deep Duck Trouble is a fine way to introduce players to the genre.

The reason it’s gone under the radar since it released comes down to a few issues. Starting its life on the Game Gear is probably the biggest limiter to Deep Duck Trouble‘s success, though it did eventually come to the Master System a year after its launch. However, another factor is that Disney had a string of successful platformers during this era with games like DuckTales and Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse. Deep Duck Trouble had a lot to live up to, and it didn’t do enough to push the needle. Still, if you’re a fan of Disney platformers, it’s worth picking this one up.

3) Crystal Warriors

Crystal Warriors is one of the few Game Gear exclusives of the era. Sega noticed the success of games like Fire Emblem and Shining Force, and decided to take a stab at making their own turn-based strategy game. You form a party of up to nine characters and have to fight your way through hordes of enemies. Each unit belongs to an element, and Sega uses a rock-paper-scissors-like format to give every element strengths and weaknesses to keep things balanced.

Best of all, you can use the Game Gear link cable to jump into one-on-one matches against your friends. Granted, that’s a lot of money in batteries to power two Game Gears, but if you can swing it, it’s the best way to play Crystal Warriors. Unfortunately, Sega never ported it to another console in the ’90s, but it did re-release it via Virtual Console in 2013. There’s also a sequel called Royal Stone that launched in 1995, but that one never left Japan. Crystal Warriors does feel a little dated these days, but it’s a neat artifact from the Game Gear’s past.

2) Devilish

Have you ever been playing Breakout or Arkanoid and wishing your paddles were actually a prince and princess who had been transformed by a devil? And that they need to use the ball to fight back against the demon so they can get married and fall in love? Well, do I have a Game Gear game for you!

Devilish is pretty much exactly what I just described. You’re using your dual paddles to keep your ball in the air, trying to defeat baddies and take out blocks to progress. Like a few other games on this list, it can feel a little rudimentary by today’s standards, but there are three difficulties and a time trial to help keep things fresh. Devilish also got a few sequels. Devilish: The Next Possession came out on the Mega Drive, while Devilish: Ball Bounder launched on the Nintendo DS. Those games added a two-player mode, which adds a new dimension to the brick-breaking fun.

1) Defenders of Oasis

For the most part, RPG developers seem to stick to a few genres. We have plenty of medieval fantasy games and a ton of futuristic Sci-Fi takes. What we don’t have much of are games based on One Thousand and One Nights, the classic Arabic tale that gave us films like Aladdin and Arabian Nights. Fortunately, Sega was on the scene to give us Defenders of Oasis, a Game Gear RPG based on that classic story.

You play as the Prince of Shadam and have to recruit a party to head out and defeat the evil empire that has taken over the prince’s home. This is a classic RPG. That means random battles, villages filled with important characters, and menu-based combat. Its story is unique for the era. It might not play better than Final Fantasy, but you never accuse it of taking story beats from another game. If you’re looking for a Game Gear, Defenders of Oasis should be high on your list of games to check out. Sure, combat gets a little repetitive and boring after a few hours, but you just didn’t see much like this in the ’90s.

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