Is the Mega Drive Classics collection a sign of things to come? Recently we’ve had seemingly more and more assurance from Sega that they are in fact, still the awesome force that many of us remember from childhood; and beyond our formative years for many in the case of the Dreamcast.

Whilst it seemed to be criminally underreported at the time, producer Kagasei Shimomura did hint that Sega would like to look at expanding the Sega Ages releases beyond the standard 'retro' early era stuff we typically see, and hinted this would be linked to how well the initial batch of material is received.

While not the type of thing we’d usually cover on this Dreamcast centric blog, I felt that the recent release of the Mega Drive classic collection is something of an eyebrow raiser for those of us hoping that Sega’s swansong console may see some form of similar contemporary bundle release.
The Mega Drive / Genesis Classics collection itself is a nicely put together affair, and whilst this isn't a review I currently have no qualms with it, especially with the low entry price. My day one consumer thoughts are that it is much closer to the standard of the Rare Replay collection than anything we’ve seen previously from Sega.

The entire thing is run from a GUI of a faux 90s bedroom. The games are arranged in a tremendously OCD nature on a set of shelves and scrolling and selecting your game sees an actual cart plonked into an original model Mega Drive / Genesis before you are taken through to the game itself.

With it only releasing recently, I’ve only managed to get time with a handful of games, but so far everything has run - and more importantly sounded - great (a Dreamcast Smash Pack / Mega Drive emulator this is not!) and there is a decent number of games on offer beyond the traditional ones you’d expect. It’s also great to see games like Gunstar Heroes and others from Treasure being recognised as well as lesser known titles like ESWAT.
So could we be in line for seeing some of our beloved Dreamcast titles appearing in something similar? Despite there being a myriad of technical and legal reasons why it’s mostly foolhardy to wish for just that (there certainly won't be 50 games), we are within a year of Shenmue III (allegedly) finally releasing, so maybe Sega have further surprises up their collective sleeves; especially given the strength of this Mega Drive Classics compendium and the inclusion of many third party developed titles.

Many with naturally bemoan this just being ‘roms on a disc’, but personally I’ve enjoyed my time with the games already and knowing that I now have a decent collection of mostly decent titles to play on the 'big telly' is a nice feeling. Especially as that aforementioned television doesn't actually support the genuine Mega Drive I do have...

What do you think? Are we likely to see an updated Dreamcast Classics Collection any time soon? Let us know your thoughts in the comments, on Twitter or in our Facebook group . Oh, and give our main page a like too if you feel so inclined.