Sonic Roms Guide
This guide is written and maintained by typhoon.
[ Genesis | Game Gear | Master System | Miscellaneous ]
Sonic Roms Guide Genesis
Game Gear
Master System
Miscellaneous

Missing Games
These are roms that are missing from the archive, either because they haven't been dumped or they haven't been found (mostly the former, I reckon). Some are compilations or roms for games that are completely missing from the archive, but most are regional variations of a game that happen to be separate roms. Of course, if you can send me any of these roms it would be appreciated.

Genesis

  • Telstar Multicart - includes Sonic 1 and James Pond 2
  • Telstar Multicart - includes Sonic 2 and Bubsy
  • Sega Top 5 - includes Super Thunder Blade, Flicky, Sega Soccer, Shinobi, and Super Monaco F1 Grand Prix

Game Gear

  • Sonic 2-in-1 - includes Sonic 2 and Spinball

Master System

  • Sonic & Tails - the Japanese release of Chaos for the Master System is unconfirmed

Miscellaneous

  • All that stuff on the Miscellaneous page that isn't marked "Sonic the Arcade Game"...hey, I don't even know the nationality of that so it may very well be international

Badly Dumped Roms
There's nothing more sickening than a poorly dumped rom, which is usually due to an error in the dumping equipment and mostly distinguishable by a bad checksum for the rom. I know checksums can be fixed easily, but a bad dump is a baaad dump and you never can tell for sure what else could be wrong with it until it turns on you...

  • Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Genesis, beta build)
  • Sonic Crackers (Genesis)

Sources
Just so you know I didn't make up everything on this site and, uh, I guess to give credit where it is due, here are a few of the valuable sources I used to put this guide together.

  • The Green Hill Zone (loads of information and moral support)
  • SMS Power (Game Gear and Master System roms and wisdom, not to mention Meka)
  • Genesis Power (Genesis roms, both undumped and redumped, and nifty resources like the G3, smd.com, and Genesis/32x BIOS roms)
  • The Scribe's Genesis Game Guide (a very solid reference guide no self-respecting Sega fan should be without)
  • Sonic Stuff Research Group (a nice guild for hacking and, uh, observing Sonic roms)
  • Cowering's Good Utilities (useful for sorting out bad dumps and alternates)
  • Lots and lots of rom sites (roms and enlightenment)

Miscellaneous Notes
Now there's nothing left but a few extra little things to get out of the way. Mainly clarification over the recommended emulators, tools, and formats used in this site.

  • All Genesis roms have the *.gen extension, equivalent to the binary format.
  • All 32x roms have the *.32x extension, also equivalent to binary.
  • Any format changes were done using the Genesis LaunchTool.
  • Checksums of the lock-on roms were repaired in Genecyst.
  • Genesis screen shots taken in KGen, with a few exceptions (all shots of the Sonic 2 Hidden Palace and Spinball were taken in Genecyst).
  • Game Gear and Master System screen shots taken in Meka.
  • I consult GoodGen for Genesis and 32x roms and Meka.nam for Game Gear and Master System roms. Naming conventions are mine, however.
  • This archive only stores dumps from retail cartridges, so don't expect any hoax, pirate, or hacked roms (even if Flicky was actually created as a cruel joke, it still doesn't qualify as a hoax or pirate rom).