As we said only a few months ago, the Sega Master System may well have been the most underrated console of the 1980s. Although it was a huge success in Europe and Brazil, it seemed doomed to live in the shadow of its main 8-bit rival, the Nintendo Entertainment System, and its showier successor, the Mega Drive.
All the same, the Master System played host to some truly special games over its long life. It goes without saying that the Alex Kidd titles were a must-have (particularly the first, Alex Kidd In Miracle World); its port of Bubble Bobble was the best on any system of the time; the Wonder Boy games were, each in their own way, out-and-out classics.
Those games and many more are covered in Bitmap Books’ forthcoming volume, Sega Master System: A Visual Compendium. Now funding on Kickstarter, it serves as a coffee table tribute to the 8-bit system, its peripherals and iconic titles.
This is the latest in Bitmap Books’ series of compendiums devoted to classic systems: the last five covered the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, NES, and SNES. This, then, is its first foray into Sega’s history, and will cover the Master System’s beginnings as the Sega Mark III in Japan, and how, despite its struggle to gain a foothold in America, the console soon built up an impressive library of games.
Weighing in at a minimum of 300 pages, it’s another impressive-looking project from Bitmap, featuring a wealth of Japanese and European box-art, screenshots, technical drawings and lots more. Additional stretch goals will expand things further, with more pages and fancier printing options (including a slippcase and gatefold pages) added the heigher the funding goes.
If you have fond memories of the Master System, this is well worth checking out. The book even has a double-page spread devoted to Psycho Fox – an under-appreciated game that, for us, is the best platformer on the console.
