It was a feeling of wonderful, terrifying overload. You’d walk into your local Toys “R” Us electronics department, the familiar 8-bit chiptunes of the NES demo kiosk playing in the background. But something was different now. The air was thick with a new kind of energy. In one aisle, a sleek black console with bold white lettering promised “Genesis”. Across in another corner, a chunky, almost toy-like, matte black box with “TurboGrafx-16” seared across the front drew you in. At the same time, there was another war being fought for our backpacks. Nintendo brought out the Game Boy, a brick of addictive portable magic, and Atari had unleashed the Lynx, a handheld sporting a full-color display and scalable sprites.

The magazine stand, which once might have carried a handful of copies of the latest Nintendo Power, was now blasting you with brash headlines and action platforming heros from whatever magazines they could get their hands on. The floodgates had opened, sweeping us all away into the epic future of video games that we could hardly believe was happening. One fan penned a letter to GamePro in near desperation, urging them to publish more frequently, and the magazine’s response delivered: “Alright, you want monthly, you’ll get monthly!” At EGM, a bold claim boasted “WE’VE GOT IT ALL!”, as they expanded more pages with more tips, more maps, and more secrets to navigate gamers through the deluge of new hardware and software. The magazine machine was in overdrive.

While we were all getting lost in the magazine hype of the new consoles a nearly forgotten system made a stunning comeback, slamming back into our consciousness and forcing us to rummage through the back of our basement closets to find our Sega Master Systems. Flipping through the pages of the latest GamePro, we read back to back articles about two of the biggest 8-bit all-time bangers.

Phantasy Star, a science-fiction RPG that appeared impossibly massive, was a landmark 8-bit game with its advanced first-person dungeon crawling technology, beautifully detailed anime-style cutscenes, and a storyline spanning multiple planets, setting a new standard that wouldn’t be matched for years to come.

Additionally, the system also received Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap, which wasn’t just a straightforward platformer but one of the first true Metroidvania games, allowing players to take on animal forms with unique powers to defeat enemies and explore new areas of a vast, interconnected world. It featured bright and cheerful visuals, catchy tunes, and an ideal blend of action, exploration, and role-playing.

The Sega Master System was meant to be quietly disappearing into obscurity as the Genesis came to the center of attention but instead it made a stunning last stand. For the few Master System loyalists left, it was a time of massive vindication. When their friends were penny-pinching to purchase a Genesis, they were playing two of the best games ever made, a final stand of glory that showed that the 8-bit systems were far from dead.

The fall of 1989 wasn’t just the start of a new era of consoles, it was the beginning of an all-out console war. It was an overwhelming flood of technology and imagination, an era where past and future coexisted together on shop shelves. You could start an 8-bit adventure one day and get a taste of the 16-bit future the very next. It was an era of unprecedented choice, and to us who lived it, it felt as if the doors to these digital worlds had just been blown wide open. Experience the overload in PlayZine Issue #5!