You won’t miss them in most games, but playing something like Street Fighter II is a nightmare on Genesis without the extra buttons you actually have to hit start to toggle between punches and kicks, which means you can’t actually pause the game.īut there are also some quality-of-life improvements that are very welcome. But if you plan on spending a lot of time with the console, I’d recommend buying the optional six-button gamepads for a few different reasons. Playing with the cartridge slot, you can feel the love the Mini’s creators had for the original console.įor the most part, the three-button controllers that come bundled with the Genesis Mini do the job well enough. These elements are silly and superfluous, but they’re also indicative of the Genesis Mini as a whole, and the attention to detail that makes it feel all the more authentic. There’s even a removable expansion port on the bottom with no actual expansion options. The cartridge flaps open up, and there’s a useless volume dial you can slide around. Look a bit further, though, and the Genesis Mini is actually a surprisingly faithful recreation of the original hardware, including elements that aren’t even functional. The top features the familiar “16 BIT” logo in raised silver letters, along with the premature “high definition graphics” boast printed right on the casing. It’s plastic and toy-like, and Sega says it’s 55 percent the size of the original console. At a glance, the Genesis Mini looks just like its competitors: a shrunken version of a console that came out decades ago.
Buy for $79.99 from Amazon Buy for $79.99 from Google Shopping Buy for $79.00 from Walmartįirst, there’s the hardware itself.