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.

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.

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.

Michael Jackson estrela este icônico jogo em seu segundo look que as pessoas reconhecem, além da roupa no Thriller.

Moonwalker foi um filme icônico dos anos 80, então, nada mais justo do que tentar tirar o maior proveito disso por todas as mídias possíveis. Assim foi criado um Beat em up pra arcade que... nunca vi ninguém jogar... aí toda essa fama trouxe o jogo para os consoles caseiros, sendo a versão do Mega a mais famosa de verdade.

Neste jogo, você controla Michael por fases soterradas de inimigos aleatórios que escondem crianças raptadas, e você deve salvar todas e seguir pra fase seguinte. Seus ataques consistem em passos de dança cheios de purpurina que fazem os inimigos saírem voando no espirro, e um especial que tira metade da sua vida, mas faz todos os inimigos da tela dançarem rangatanga com você.

Em qualidade, não é o melhor Beat em up que você vai achar na plataforma, mas em questão de design, fica claro porque ele foi empurrado pra todos que tinham Mega Drive. A capa do jogo, e o fato do Michael estar no ápice de sua carreira na época são símbolos icônicos que fizeram qualquer um ter o jogo na coleção, indiferente se gostava ou não.

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

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

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.