SNES/Mega Drive Trek Games

[Happenstance]

Did anyone here ever play the Star Trek games on the SNES or Mega Drive/Genesis? I work on my retro collection from time to time and was wondering if any of them were worth picking up?

As far as I could see there was:

Star Trek Next Generation: Echos From The Past (Mega Drive/Genesis). Apparently this was almost identical to the SNES game Star Trek TNG: Futures Past, but it had an extra level so I expect I'd get this one.

Star Trek DS9: Crossroads of Time (Mega Drive/Genesis/SNES)

 

[jaime]

My SNES game had some weird glitch in. I don’t think it was this one though.
I did play the Starfleet Academy one a lot, but that feels slow and ponderous now, and graphics have changed somewhat.

 

[ALF]

TNG's Future's Past is pretty good, I'd recommend. For the time, I guess it was pretty ambitious. The fun bits are choosing which away team members to use and driving the Enterprise around the galaxy is pretty fun. I remember what a pain in the ass it was to figure out... then the internet came along and fixed that. The ship/ship combat is nicely done, although there isn't much of it during the game play, IIRC. Monotonous music would probably be the low point.

I've only played Crossroads of Time on an emulator a few months ago. The graphics were gorgeous but I wasn't sure what I was doing and I gave up - but I've heard good things. It's a hell of a novelty to control Ben Sisko in a video game!!

 

[Terok Nor]

Played some of them. All I did in the DS9 one was go up and down the promenade in the turbolift. I think I once got to Ops and just gave up.

 

[Yistaan]

Future's Past and Echoes from the Past were both console versions of "A Final Unity" on PC. If you want the definitive story, play PC 'A Final Unity' if you can find it. It would take a bit of work to configure Dosbox though. Sadly, this game doesn't seem to be on Gog or Steam the way TOS' 25th Anniversary and Judgment Rites are.

 

[CorporalClegg]

Future's Past and Echoes from the Past were both console versions of "A Final Unity" on PC. If you want the definitive story, play PC 'A Final Unity' if you can find it. It would take a bit of work to configure Dosbox though. Sadly, this game doesn't seem to be on Gog or Steam the way TOS' 25th Anniversary and Judgment Rites are.

I agree that the DOS version is the most 'complete' version. It certainly wins in presentation hands down. But I find there are bits that are just too clunky to play. And the away missions and space battles hold up better in the console versions.

And, yeah, the DOS version is a real PITA to get working because you need to affix both CD and core speeds and even then it's prone to crashing during videos. It would be nice if it was on GOG, but I think it might be a licensing issue with SpecHolo as I think the only games they have on there is the Falcon series.

Of the two console version, the Gen/MD version is definitely better. It had a later release, so it received a lot of bug fixes. Plus there all the typical issues in any Gen/Snes head2head: higher res, faster processing (which does matter in this game), and less censorship (of which there was a bit in the Snes version.) But of course, the Snes has much better sound effects. (The phasers sound like crap in the Gen/MD.)

Any way you go about it though, the game definitely doesn't hold up compared to the usual 16B classics, but there's still plenty of fun to be had for any [TNG] Trekkie gamer. And, hopefully, GOG will put out the DOS game in prep for the new show.

The DS9 name game, however, is really nothing special. It's just a DS9-skinned cinematic platformer -- and not a particularly good one. It's really clunky and the story isn't particularly interesting. And there's a whole lot of aimless running around.

Like all the cin-plats of the era (Well except for PoP, I guess, but that was more of a case of which was the least worst port. But I digress.), the Gen/MD blows the doors of the SNES version, as the latter has serious slowdown issues at times. And the Gen is just all around more zippy and snappy. Again, it's probably worth a play of DS9 Trekkie gamers, but the big caveat here is cin-plats can be a bit of an acquired taste. If you're not really into them, you might just find the game frustrating.

 

[Gary Mitchell]

I remember that DS9 Crossroads of Time was a little difficult. Surprisingly, I remember a cheat code for it: DAVIDL. I'm not sure what it does though.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I had Starfleet Academy on the SNES. But my version was second hand and somehow broken, the ships were extremely glitchy to the point it was virtually unplayable, constantly "exploding" apart. I still had lots of fun playing it.

I played DS9: Crossroads of Time very briefly, and five minutes of Sisko prancing around the Promenade like a ballet dancer was enough to convince me I didn't need to see more.