a fase do thriller é uma desgraça de dificil o jogo apela muito naquela fase. não entendo porque essa fase não tem a faixa trhiller (na beta tem) mas entre ele e a versão de arcade eu fico com a de arcade pela jogabilidade menos apelona de ter 30 inimigos jogando coisa de tudo que lado em cima de voce principalmente na fase do beat it que é fora do club 30. os cachorros enchem o saco. mas pra quem gosta do filme moonwalker esse jogo é pura essencia do michael.... só a ultima fase q é uma bosta pq muda de jogabilidade do nada

An early notable license for Sega, which culminated in a series of games that will likely never be rereleased.

Moonwalker for Genesis is alright, I'd say. It's basically a Shinobi game, except a little on the easier side (at least, until you start encountering Thriller zombies), and somewhat slower in pace. The FM synth renditions of Michael Jackson's songs sound alright, and there's a decent amount of enemy variety here. The controls sometimes felt a bit awkward to me however, and some enemies are particularly annoying to deal with (the aforementioned Thriller zombies) – especially considering you have to defeat some of them dozens or hundreds of times by the end of the game.

Overall – this is okay. Definitely a standout historical piece – a snapshot in time, when Michael Jackson was arguably at the peak of his popularity, and lent his likeness and feedback to a game for Sega's up and coming system. I don't think this is a must-play, but it's an interesting curiosity.

DONT STOP TILL YOU GET ENOUGH!....well alright that isn't in actually in the game but still (unless you check out SilvaGunner!) Quite the fun platformer and a great companion to the Arcade game. I love Smooth Crinimal a lot in this game, goes great in that Genesis sound and all the songs sound great. Game becomes a little bullshit hard starting with the graveyard though and that's why it's 4 stars instead of 5. Caves are also bit of a pain but not that bad. And I love the robot powerup, things they translated from the movie and how they did it is pretty sweet. I love how all the kids are clones though.

I used the Custom Soundtrack hack, not to add specifically custom (but I guess Don't Stop Till You Get Enough isn't impossible now) but to add back Thriller that was only in the prototypes, making the graveyard level a lot better.

Rusbé!!

Quem diria que um "Beat n' up" do Michael Jackson pudesse ser bom. Sei lá esse jogo me surpreendeu de tantas formas que eu não sei nem explicar.

Joguei a versão dele de Arcade, que tem o diferencial de ser ISOMÊTRICO (Todas as outras versões do game são naquele 2D padrão dos beat n'ups).

O jogo tem literalmente dois comandos diferentes: Atirar e DANÇAR. A dança é o especial do game, quando você dança todos os inimigos na tela tomam hit.
Outra coisa que dá uma variedade na gameplay é os itens dropados por NPCs (O meu favorito é o macaquinho que quando ele encosta em você, MICHAEL JACKSON AUTOMATICAMENTE VIRA UM ROBO CIBORGUE FUTURISTA!).

Acho que para um beat 'n up o jogo só peca em alguns cenários que são super parecidos uns com os outros.

(Uma curiosidade aqui é que o fliperama original do game tem opção pra 3 players jogarem simultaneamente, e isso era super raro pra época).

A trilha sonora é um show a parte com as músicas mais famosas do rei do pop modificadas para 16bits.

Zerei em 30 minutinhos com continue infinito (Como todo bom arcade esse daqui era bom em comer ficha/moeda).

I was born only within a few months of Michael Jackson's Bad, one of the most influential and acclaimed albums to ever be released. However, it was his follow-up, Dangerous, that I've always held the most reverence for. Not only were the videos for Remember the Time (starring Eddie Murphy) and Black or White getting a lot of play on MTV when I was young, but my mom wore down her Dangerous cassette a little more each time we went for a drive. Her Ford Aerostar had some kind of coolant leak, causing a sickeningly sweet smell to constantly waft through the AC while Jam blared to-and-from daycare. Ah, the sounds and smells of the 90s...

Between inhaling noxious fumes and listening to the King of Pop during my formative years, it's little wonder I've turned out as screwed up as I am today. When you've heard Who Is It fifteen-hundred million times between the ages of four and nine, it ends up sinking in and becoming an inseparable part of you. A lot of my musical taste has been informed by Jackson's work. And video games. Oh man, what if there was a Michael Jackson video game?

So, as part of my oft-invoked bucket list, I decided I should play Michael Jackson's Moonwalker, a game based on the film of the same name which released in 1990 for the Sega Genesis, and which I missed out on entirely during the height of Jacksonmania. It is fondly remembered by those who played it for being fucking garbage.

You control Michael through several insipid levels full of closets that may or may not contain children kidnapped by the evil Mr. Big. Michael has to save them by doing little hee-hee's that damage enemies, or by forcing enemies to dance in unison (this includes dogs, which is the highlight of the game. I am awarding Moonwalker a full star for the dancing dogs.) That's really all there is to it. In fact, it brings back memories of Wrath of the Black Manta, which is very similar in structure, though overall worse in quality. The only time this gameplay loop breaks is for the last boss fight, which has Michael inexplicably chasing Mr. Big through space in a shoot-em-up sequence. It is easily one of the most out-of-left-field boss encounters I can think of from this era, not just because of how wacky it is, but because the game had all but put my brain to sleep until the last ten minutes, at which point I was awoken with all the clang and fury of pots and pans being bashed together.

Moonwalker's entire soundtrack is composed of Michael Jackson's most popular tracks, and while this should be a significant feature of the game, it is instead an albatross hung around its neck, just dragging the whole thing down. The argument has been made that Jackson stepped away from Sonic the Hedgehog 3 over dissatisfaction for the Genesis' hardware, and if I heard music I made piped through like this, I'd probably develop the same prejudice against it. The counterpoint to this is that he was forced out by Sega due to his emerging controversies, but I see no reason why both can't be true. In any case, Jackson's songs are butchered here, and they don't always play in the levels you'd expect them to. How are you going to have a whole entire graveyard level and NOT play Thriller? Terrible.

Fortunately, there does exist an arcade version of Moonwalker that is much better. You know, assuming you're in the market for a playable Michael Jackson video game. The arcade Moonwalker is a lot more varied, has better renditions of Jackson's music, and of course benefits from greater graphical fidelity. It's a strange game, but one I'd actually recommend.

I've been spending a lot of time browsing Prop Store Auction's Rick Baker collection, pouring over the horrors of rotting screen-used props for something that might catch my interest, or that would perhaps fit my dainty 5'6" frame. I keep coming back to the cast of Robo-Michael from the Moonwalker film. I regret to inform you all that this has become my grail, my obsession, and that I will never be whole without it.

Radiator fumes have done irreparable damage to my mental development and I am paying for it every day.

This was definitely the weaker of the Moonwalker games released for different platforms, Sega Megadrive having the superior.
The arcade beat-em up is with great music, decent visuals but feels incredibly repetitive and gets boring extremely quickly..
How a game so flashy, abilities to dance and bust moves against enemies then even powering up into a damn robot (yea robot Jacko) can feel monotonous, I’ll never know..

Definitely play the Megadrive/Genesis version instead!

Cleared on March 12th, 2024 (SEGA Genesis Challenge: 53/160)

I'm not gonna lie, Moonwalker is unironically one of my favorite Sega Genesis games that I've played so far. Playing a fantastical rendition of Michael Jackson while he beats up thugs, futuristic soldiers, and even zombies while saving kids that all look alike all while 16 bit renditions of his songs are playing in the background sounds like some glorified power fantasy at best, but hey, if the power fantasy is as fun as this, I'm not complaining.

There are five levels in the game with each of them having 3 rounds. In each round you have to save a set amount of kids which amounts up to searching which can get confusing and even worse-so in 4-3 in particular where the area is so large like a labyrinth that you feel like you need to triple check even if it takes awhile. Only to realize there is a waterfall you have no idea you can check.

Every time you clear a round, you are met with Mr. Big who taunts you that you can't catch him... saying the same thing every... single... time. Then he leaves and throws a gauntlet of enemies which can easily be taken care of by spamming attack while crouched. At Round 3 of each level (with the exception of Level 4) and sometimes Round 2, however, they will throw a boss fight which range from rather easy to actually really annoying. Heck, if you're so careless to step in front of Mr. Big while he's on screen, you will actually take a lot of damage overtime and you can't even damage him, so be sure to step aside when he shows up. Easily the worst fight in the game are the duo zombies at Round 2 at Level 3 because they send their torsos flying at the direction they face and you have little time to react to whether they are about to strike above or below, and sometimes they'll strike both at once which is actually impossible to dodge, and somehow the boss that followed using a similar idea is much easier on the condition that you can actually stunlock one of the zombies and take it down, so you can divert your attention to the other. Also, Round 2 of Level 5 is a really dreadful level because you have these laser turrets that deal a ton of damage. Once you're on the higher floor it's not as much of an issue, but the lower floors are more cramped combined with enemies that infinitely respawn which isn't unusual for the game since enemies infinitely respawn in this game until you've rescued all the kids.

Some other mechanics to keep in mind is that if your health is red, your magic is gone and your attack range becomes scuffed. Until then, your attack is really powerful. You can sacrifice your health to spin around and if you hold it long enough, you can follow with a hat throw that deals a high amount of damage. If that sounds like a liability, the kids can heal you a good amount when you save them. I think my favorite thing about the game are just those odd interactions that you get. Kicking chairs and stones which can slide towards the enemy, sliding down the stairs and knocking out enemies in your way, being able to moonwalk even though that does almost nothing, all those weird sounds that he makes which is reminiscent of those weird flash animations that I've seen featuring Michael Jackson, and him transforming into a robot to pulverize Mr. Big's forces and his base which is then followed up with a plane chase sequence. It is insane.

One more thing is that if you hold your special attack long enough, you can actually perform a screen nuke by forcing all the enemies to dance. Too bad I didn't get a chance to do that on my first playthrough, but on the bright side, I'll surely be coming back for another round of this game someday.

It’s a nice game but not great (at least for me). It’s an action/platform game, where we need to find childrens who were kidnapped by the villains of the game. The game has 6 stages; the first 5 have 3 levels each, and the last stage has only 1, which i’s the final boss. Each stage has its own characteristics and differents enemies.
The great aspect of the game is its music, which are versions of Michael Jackson’s song in chiptone, and in the certain places we can use a special move that make the enemies dance to some Michael Jackson’s performances, it’s very enjoyable to see some zombies dancing to the sound of Thriller, it’s priceless.
On the other hand, what is not enjoyable is its difficulty, some levels are annoying due to the increase in difficulty, but in the end is a good game, but not great, It’s just regular.

Arcade version: A fun shump that has more interesting design and has multiplayer

Genesis version: The most incomprehensible platformer/Beat em Up.

All in all, don't play the Genesis game

Let's get this out of the way: Michael Jackson's Moonwalker is 100% a style-over-substance game. But wow, what style! Michael has a surprisingly varied and unsurprisingly stylish moveset which ranges from the cool (spinning around and throwing his hat) to the heavily situational (sliding down staircase handrails) and completely useless (moonwalking and the trademark crotch-grab). He also has possibly the slickest walk-cycle of any character from any Genesis game. But really, as an 80s kid who loves Michael Jackson and his music, the moment that I knew this game was for me was right at the beginning when he walks in through the door, flicks a coin into the jukebox and Smooth Criminal starts playing. At this point, I knew that no matter how bad the rest of the game was I probably wasn't going to hate it.

And the game did test my patience a lot past the halfway point - the final level in particular is an exercise in frustration, with so many attacks being aimed at you, often from off-screen. Some of the bosses utterly miss the sweet spot for challenge, either being braindead easy (if you know the exploit to beat them) or nearly impossible. And the final boss left me throwing up my hands in frustration saying "oh COME ON SHOME ON!"

Still, as a 1990 style-over-substance game that is mostly playable, I always had a soft spot for it as a kid. And replaying it now, I'd say (imo) that it's aged better than most people give it credit for.

*Couldn't think of where to put this in the main review, but given how many of Michael's moves are put in mainly for the cool-factor rather than functionality, I think this might be one of the funnest Genesis games to watch a TAS of.