Review Renovation Collection 1 (Evercade) - A 'Double-A' Selection Of Sega For Evercade

Renovation was one of many publishers who made a tidy profit bringing Japanese games to Western shores (mainly Wolf Team and Telenet titles) and this Evercade collection pulls together a whopping 12 of the firm's most notable Genesis / Mega Drive titles. We're not talking AAA here – these are more 'AA' side of the fence, but (most) of them are still worthy of your time.

Some of these games, such as El Viento and Gaiares, regularly sell for many, many times more than the cost of this collection – making it a wonderfully low-cost means of experiencing these titles for the first time. The former is a cult action platformer by the legendary Wolf Team, while the latter is one of the most beloved (and difficult) shmups on Sega's 16-bit console – notable for its unique "TOZ System", which allows you to inherit the power of enemies.

Arcus Odyssey is another Wolf Team offering, and while it looks like an RPG, it's actually more focused on isometric action and exploration. Granada, on the other hand, is a top-down multi-directional shooter which looks a little wimpy in static screens but is actually a challenging and entertaining blast. Sticking with the shmup genre, we also have Sol Deace, the cartridge version of the Sega CD launch title Sol Feace. Even though it's missing the fancy animated introduction and CD-quality music of the original, it's still a pretty enjoyable example of the genre.

Final Zone (AKA: FZ Senki Axis) is another isometric action title, this time placing you in the cockpit of a hulking mecha. Despite some ropey animation and occasionally frustrating collision detection, it's actually a lot of fun, and has some wonderful music by Motoi Sakuraba (who is now more famous for his work on the Tales series, Star Ocean, Shining The Holy Ark, Golden Sun, and Dark Souls).

For RPG fans, there's Exile and Traysia. Neither title is really what you'd call a classic – both suffer from poor translation work, and Exile has some quite extreme censorship when compared to the PC Engine original – but they'll keep you busy for a few hours, provided you're willing to put some effort in.

The Valis series gets not one but two entries on this cart: Valis: The Fantasm Soldier (1991) and
Valis III (also 1991). Both are reasonably solid action platformers, notable for their scantily-clad heroines. Finally, we have the crushingly poor pinball title Dino Land and Beast Wrestler, an utterly dire wrestling title featuring all manner of weird monsters. Don't even bother booting up either of those, if you want our opinion.

Despite offering 12 titles, what's odd about Renovation Collection 1 is that none of the games are quite what you'd call a solid-gold release; Wolf Team and Telenet both had a reputation for somewhat average games back in the day, and even their best-known releases – such as El Viento and Valis – are rough around the edges and lack the finesse displayed by Sega, Capcom, Nintendo or Konami's output from the same time period.

Having said that, if you're a Genesis / Mega Drive fan, then you'll no doubt have fond memories of at least one of these games – and even if you ignore Dino Land and Beast Wrestler, you're getting good value for money here.