Nemesis (Master System) Playthrough
164A playthrough of Zemina's 1987 shoot 'em up for the Sega Master System, Nemesis.
Playing through the Super Boy series of Mario knock-off games (https://youtu.be/1BMK0CIJ8oA), I found myself becoming increasingly interested in Zemina, a South Korean company that specialized in producing bootleg games for the Zemmix (a consolized MSX system) and the Sega Master System. I tumbled far down that proverbial rabbit hole, but the scrapes and bruises weren't all for naught - I tripped over quite a few unexpected surprises along the way. Nemesis was one of those surprises.
Nemesis for the Master System is an unlicensed, South Korea-exclusive port of Konami's 1986 MSX conversion of the first Gradius arcade game, and this is a port in the truest sense of the word. The original game's code was tweaked just enough to get it up and running on the Sega SG-1000, and since the Master System hardware is backwards compatible with SG-1000 software, Zemina repackaged Nemesis as sold it as a Master System cart.
It might look rough if you've never seen an MSX game in action, but the MSX was Konami's platform of choice for years before they shifted their focus to the Famicom, and their expertise shines though here. The smooth feel of the gameplay is remarkably similar to the arcade version's, and it doesn't take long at all to adjust to the choppy screen scrolling. I don't tend to notice it at all once the action gets going.
And since this so-called Master System version is practically identical to Konami's MSX game, it includes the graveyard stage and all of the bonus stages. (I show the bonus stages in the second loop of the game which begins at 22:45.)
Zemina's version lacks the ability to unlock characters and items through plugging in a second Konami cartridge, but beyond that, it's hard to find anything to complain about.
It's an excellent port of an excellent mid-80s computer game. It obviously doesn't hold a candle to the arcade and Famicom games, but anyone who likes shooters will find a lot to love about this obscure bootleg.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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