The first thing to talk about with this is the console it appears on: the Sega Pico. This is an “edutainment” device released in 1993. The internals were the same as a Mega Drive, but it featured a drawing pad and a pen, and the cartridges were books. The console can recognise which page you are on, and you can even press parts of the book to activate things in the game.

This game is a collection of minigames that take place in an amusement arcade. Each page of the book features a collection of minigames, plus some short dialogue (some of it voiced) from the characters.

The first page features a car race where you have to tap a button to go fast, a Skee-Ball minigame where you have to select the right power to aim your ball, a climbing game where you tap fast to win, and a basketball hoop game where you have to aim to shoot balls into hoops (although I found it easier to just aim forward and wait for the moving targets to align).

The second page has a Simon Says flag matching game, a crane machine where you pick up toys, and Whac-A-Mole where you have to tap the drawing pad to hit Dr. Robotnik.

The third page has three mini games. One based on the “ball under a cup” game where a bird hides inside an egg and is swapped around with empty eggs and a card game where you have to match pairs of cards. The third is a battle between Sonic and Dr. Robotnik where they’re throwing rings at each other. You press a button and a random icon is selected which determines who gets to throw a ring.

The final page of games has a game that is a bit like “Finders Keepers”. You have to run around multiple floors of a building, looking under everything for emeralds.

Then the game has an extra page where you get to colour in and draw. In the Japanese version, it features casino based minigames instead, like a roulette wheel.

For the intended audience, it’s a pretty fun minigame collection, and as it focuses on “dexterity”, feels like it’s much heavier on the “video game” side of things than “educational”.

Definitely one of the games where the journey to play it is a lot better than the destination itself. Getting a functional sega pico and a copy of the game to be able to experience this weird piece of history is way more interesting and engaging than actually playing the weird mediocre minigames that are contained within. I will say, however. Compared to all of the other sega pico games I've played, this one is actually one of the better ones in terms of both fun and interactivity with the systems weird book cartridges themselves. All in all, I'm glad that I have finally been able to cross this off my gamer bucket list, but unless you are a weird sega/sonic fan like me, I wouldn't recommend you do the same.