The first time I saw what the Mega Drive was capable of was in the Feb 1989 issue of ACE magazine. They featured one game – Space Harrier II, and the graphics looked mesmerizing. Of course, I wanted one but had to wait till it was officially released in Australia. In the meantime, my Amiga was keeping me busy. Fast forward to 1991, and I finally got one, it was bundled with Altered Beast and I purchased several games at the same time such as The Revenge of Shinobi, Rambo III, and Super Monaco II.
To say that I thoroughly enjoyed this beast of a machine would be a massive understatement. By the end of ‘92, I had 18 games in the collection. Being cartridge, games were unfortunately quite expensive. There were cheaper bootleg copies available, but there was no guarantee they didn’t have errors. You could rent or buy second-hand copies, and having worked at a game store during that time, I had access to some cheap games. Or you could invest in a flashcart device typically called the Super Magic Drive. This allowed you to load games into the Mega Drive using a 3.5” floppy disk.
Forward to today and we have modern-day equivalents such as the Mega EverDrive from Krikzz and MegaSD from Terraonion. I’ve got both but for this article, I’ll be talking about the MegaSD and its various capabilities. The great thing about the MegaSD is that not only can you play Mega Drive ROM carts, it also plays Master System games including FM support and full Mega-CD compatibility. You can now play all your Mega-CD games without having the add-on attached. 32X ROMs are also supported providing you have a 32X attached.
Price is around AUD 380 excluding shipping and dependant upon the exchange rate, but considering the price and availability of games on both formats these days, it’s definitely worth it. The best place to download complete ROM sets and disc images is archive.org. You then put them on a Micro-SD card, insert it into the MegaSD and you’re good to go.
This is what you’ll see when you boot the MegaSD. Files and folders located on your Micro-SD card will be shown. For ROMS, you can organize them into regions, then A-K and L-Z for example. For disc games, you need to place each game uncompressed into its own folder.
This is the Options screen where you can enable or disable the various functions available. The MegaSD supports auto region fixing, an in-game menu for load/save states and enabling cheats, changing settings for the Mega-CD and Master System, and much more.
Before playing Mega-CD games, you need to download the different region BIOS files, place them on the Micro-SD card and change the BIOS location in Options. They are freely available at archive.org or segaretro.org. It's recommended to run Mega-CD games based on your console's region to avoid issues such as out of sync video, stuttering or slowdowns.
Are multi-disc games supported? They certainly are! Games such as Night Trap, Ground Zero Texas, and Prize Fighter have multiple discs that you would typically swap over when requested. By placing the contents of each disc into the one folder, you can use the in-game menu or the button on the MegaSD to swap discs.
Another advantage of having a flashcart is that you can load graphical demos and play hacked games that typically improve certain aspects of the presentation and gameplay (this isn't exclusive to the MegaSD, you can do the same with a Mega EverDrive). One of the most popular hackers on the Mega Drive platform is called Pyron. He has worked on several games to improve colors so they look closer to the arcade (go to romhacking.net to download these). Here is one example of a Pyron color hack for Final Fight CD -
This is what you’ll see when you boot the MegaSD. Files and folders located on your Micro-SD card will be shown. For ROMS, you can organize them into regions, then A-K and L-Z for example. For disc games, you need to place each game uncompressed into its own folder.
Before playing Mega-CD games, you need to download the different region BIOS files, place them on the Micro-SD card and change the BIOS location in Options. They are freely available at archive.org or segaretro.org. It's recommended to run Mega-CD games based on your console's region to avoid issues such as out of sync video, stuttering or slowdowns.
Are multi-disc games supported? They certainly are! Games such as Night Trap, Ground Zero Texas, and Prize Fighter have multiple discs that you would typically swap over when requested. By placing the contents of each disc into the one folder, you can use the in-game menu or the button on the MegaSD to swap discs.
Another advantage of having a flashcart is that you can load graphical demos and play hacked games that typically improve certain aspects of the presentation and gameplay (this isn't exclusive to the MegaSD, you can do the same with a Mega EverDrive). One of the most popular hackers on the Mega Drive platform is called Pyron. He has worked on several games to improve colors so they look closer to the arcade (go to romhacking.net to download these). Here is one example of a Pyron color hack for Final Fight CD -
This is the Japanese version non-enhanced.
This is with the color hack applied so it looks closer to the arcade version.
There are some great graphical demos or productions as they are known as, for the Mega Drive that can be downloaded from pouet.net, here is one example -
The Spiral released by Resistance in 2019
I've had the MegaSD since November 2019 and to date, it has been working flawlessly. I currently have around 50 Mega-CD games, several hundred Mega Drive and Master System games, demos and various game hacks on the Micro-SD card. The only issue I've come across was with Vampire Killer (Castlevania: Bloodlines) as it kept crashing at the Konami logo. When I enabled 'Auto region fix', it ran without any issues. Here is a list of functions that the MegaSD can do -
- FPGA recreation of the Mega-CD/Sega CD hardware, can play all region disc games
- Supports Mega Drive/Genesis, Master System and 32X games (requires a 32X)
- Save State support for Mega Drive/Genesis games
- Built-in cheat engine for Mega Drive/Genesis games
- Per game Mega-CD/Sega CD Backup RAM support
- Master System FM Core
- Enhanced Mega Drive/Genesis games with CD audio
- Supports 400GB+ Micro-SD cards
The overall quality of the device itself, the packaging, and the manual is excellent. You can purchase the MegaSD directly from Terraonion but just be aware that stock isn't available all year round.
