Back in 1987, everyone was getting the 8-bit Nintendo. Of course, I wanted one too, but I decided to get Nintendo’s 8-bit competitor at the time: the Sega Master System.

At the time, Sega hardly had any games at all in comparison to Nintendo, and their marketing & packaging was far inferior than Nintendo’s. In Japan, it was a different story, as they had more games to choose from and seemed to spend more money on advertising.

For example, here’s the American "Alex Kidd In Miracle World" packaging:

Oh, that hypnotic simplistic grid with clip-artish illustration.

And here is the Japanese packaging of the same game:

Much more exciting!

I can’t tell you how many lame hours I spent in grades 7 - 9 playing the 8-bit Sega Master System. But, what could I do? I was a total dork and soon realized that I actually wasn’t going to be the next Mike Schmidt…or even Steve Jeltz for that matter. It really didn’t help with the ladies being holed up in my bedroom, mapping out role-playing games with pen and paper either.

Of course, seeing things like this didn’t help me either.

For all you Sega dorks out there, there’s a YouTube user named talbot1939’s that video tapes himself kicking ass and easily winning several games with ease. Brings back some memories! Here he is conquering the game "Black Belt":