The Rarest and Most Valuable Sega CD Games

Rare and Valuable Sega Genesis / Megadrive Games

Presented by Racketboy and G to the Next Level

The Sega CD was ahead of its time and didn’t quite get the support it deserved (although better than its sibling in the 32X). However, despite its reputation for Full-Motion-Video games and ports of Genesis/Megadrive games with CD audio tacked on, there are actually a handful of collectible titles (including some exclusives) in cult genres like RPGs and 2D shooters. These collectible genres and the relatively low print run, and the ultra fragile and often-lost/damaged manuals have driven complete copies of the Sega CD library to a bit of a premium.

Prices Current As of July 2022

In stark contrast to the Cheapest Games series, this Rare and Valuable series will round up the rarest and most valuable games for a given console or handheld so you’ll know what to look for whether you are buying or selling.

Below you will see two prices beside each title. The first is the average daily selling price, which is typically the going rate for the game disc by itself. The second price is the highest price in the past three months, which is for a complete copy of the game in good condition. The list is ordered by the balance of the two prices. Note that some of these games are not rare in the sense that there are not many available, but rare relative to demand, which makes the games expensive.

| Sega Genesis / MegaDrive | Sega CD  | Sega 32X |

Recent Growth of North American Releases

Even though values were rather elevated in our last 2018 guide, we’ve seen some under-the-radar rarities grow in value tremendously and other huge icons like Keio Flying Squadron continue to be one of the biggest growers to solidify its dominance in the Sega CD collecting world.

In the chart below I compared the average pricing between the different average loose price levels for a game and their highest mint copy sale during the time frame.  I compared those averages between our 2018 guide and this 2022 guide to calculate the value growth percentage.  If you’d like to see the full 2018 guide for comparison, I have made it available to my Patreon members. (Only $1 of support or more is needed to access)

The Most Valuable North American Sega CD Releases

Keio Flying Squadron: $1500 – $3450

Even though the Sega CD was initially infamous for its Full-Motion Video (FMV) games, the optical add-on did end up getting some solid exclusives and ports for shoot-em-up fans and other old-school genres. One of the quirkiest and most imaginative shooters to hit the American shores for its time, JVC-published Keio Flying Squadron is a title that is quite sought after not just for the Sega CD collectors but for fans of the shmup genre. Keio stuck out from the crowd even more by its heavy use of Japanese culture throughout the game itself and on the box art, which at that period was normally repackaged in other ways to appeal to Western markets.

Starring a spry bunny girl named Rami riding atop of her pet flying dragon Spot (who can spawn mini-option shot dragons), they are on a mission to take out the super-intelligent raccoon army who stole their family’s “Special Holy Object,” whom of the raccoon army’s leader, Dr. Pon, has an IQ of 1400 and is apparently a member of Greenpeace. It’s even wackier than it sounds and is only a fraction of what makes the game so charming.

Add in extremely colorful graphics, a fantastic soundtrack, addictive gameplay in the vein of Konami’s Parodius games, plus a very fair difficulty curve and there isn’t much wonder why it is high on so many Sega CD want lists. Unfortunately, the game has risen in value quite dramatically on a continual basis over the past decade. In the early aughts, Keio could be found for under $100. Around 2014 and 2015 the game started picking up steam as a big collector’s piece with a range of $140 (disc only) to $700 for a pristine complete copy. The next two years, saw some spiking in values, nearly doubling or tripling to a level of $355-$1360 in 2018.   The huge price increases weren’t done yet.  Even compared to the standards of the retro boom in the post 2020 era, Keio Flying Squadron has seen another a huge boost (approximately 350% increase) over the last four years — one of the largest percentage increases since our 2018 guide.  The big keep getting bigger.

The game did get a sequel on the Sega Saturn but the developers changed it to an action/platformer and Rami appears in a puzzle party game on the PlayStation in Japan only.

Fun fact: As a promotion, JVC included a playable first level demo of Keio Flying Squadron in packaged copies of the UK’s Sega Pro magazine. However, the company haphazardly printed full copies of the game so that players could unlock the remainder of the full game with a level select cheat code. This demo disc is becoming sought after by collectors as well.

Snatcher: $900 – $1550

Snatcher is the classic example of a low-profile game that comes out during the final days of a short-lived console (actually an add-on in this instance) and is only discovered by hardcore gamers. Developed by Hideo Kojima (of Metal Gear Solid fame) and his Konami teammates, Snatcher showcased an entertaining experience and creative cyberpunk story built upon strong sci-fi influences such as The Terminator and Blade Runner.

Instead of being a typical FMV game that was quite common on the Sega CD, Snatcher is similar to the graphical adventures of old on the PC (some gamers refer to it as a “digital comic”). Actually, it was originally released in Japan for the NEC PC–8801 and MSX2 computers in 1988. It later went on to be ported to other consoles, but the Sega CD version remains as the only English release. Released in late 1994 on the Sega CD, it didn’t actually get released on the Mega CD in Japan, but on the Playstation and Saturn a couple years later. Snatcher is widely regarded as groundbreaking for the adventure genre, in that it introduced visual novel characteristics to flesh out a deep back story. Snatched benefited from the CD medium with impressive sprite-based FMV’s and solid voice acting, as well as some excellent music, both in composition and quality.

After reviving the Metal Gear franchise on the Playstation in 1998, Kojima was brought more into the mainstream spotlight, his work on Snatcher started to get more attention. In the early 2000s, Snatcher started to become the main cult classic title that Sega CD fans started to talk about and was typically demanding the top prices (around $120 to $150 in early aughts) within the Sega CD library. After 2010, copies of Snatcher started hitting the $200 to $300 range before breaking into the $230-$700 range in 2018.  Snatcher was another big beneficiary of the 2020s retro boom, racking up about a 280% gain over the last 4 years.

The Space Adventure: $400-$650

Following much of the same strategy as Konami did with Snatcher, Hudson’s brought over a digital comic/manga from an older platform (the PC Engine CD, in this case) and updated it for the Sega CD. The Space Adventure is based on the manga and anime series Cobra by Buichi Terasawa.

Space Adventure also happened to be one of the last games released on the Sega CD in North America and Europe, but never saw a Japanese Mega Drive release (much like Snatcher). The game has one of the smallest print runs, even compared to other niche Sega CD games. Most Sega fans never even saw this game show up much until the collecting scene started growing.

While this title may have risen out of obscurity with die-hard Sega CD collectors and it does have some redeeming characteristics such as graphical presentation and plot, it doesn’t quite match the production quality of Snatcher, despite its similarities. The dialogue and voice acting are laughable, even by mid–90’s standards.

Whereas Keio Flying Squadron wasn’t nearly as valuable in the early aughts, it was still on Sega CD fans’ radar as a solid shmup to pick up. The Space Adventure, however, didn’t get much exposure (as most people never saw it or played it) and it easily got overlooked due to the likes of Snatcher and Rise of the Dragon being solid graphical adventures for the platform. In the early aughts, you could easily find the game for between $40 and $60 with it sometimes climbing to $100 to $170 between 2010 and 2014.  In our 2018 edition of this guide, it was sitting at $230-$450 before getting another solid boost in these last few years.

Popful Mail: $380-$650

If you’re a fan of Japanese RPGs — especially on the Sega CD, Sega Saturn, and Playstation, you are probably familiar with the publisher, Working Designs. Their specialty was localizing cult hits from Japan that most US publishers wouldn’t take a risk on. They were passionate about their craft and it showed in both the production quality of the game and the physical media artwork and finish.

While Working Designs did bring over some games for the Turbo-Grafx–16, they really made their mark on the Sega CD. The most well-known work was the Lunar series (mentioned below), but Popful Mail is one of the quirkier and harder to find of their Sega CD releases.

At its core, Popful Mail is a 2D platformer / RPG hybrid that lets you switch between three different characters — each with their own health bar. The game is pretty, funny, and very quirky, and better yet, it made it out of Japan. With voice acting and anime-styled videos no less! If you’re a fan of titles like Ys or anime like Slayers, this is likely a title you’ll enjoy. It should be noted, that the difficulty was toned up for the US release, so don’t expect it to be a cakewalk.

The Sega CD port of the Popful Mail remains the only English version of the game (it did get a Japanese port, but no PAL version), but it did see Japanese ports on the Super Famicom, PC Engine CD and Windows. It also originated on the PC–8801 (like Snatcher) and PC–9801.

Lords of Thunder: $250-$700

2D shooters are indeed one of the best genres to collect on the Sega CD, but they are also one of the most valuable. Lords of Thunder was originally released on the TurboGrafx–16 Super CD system (and known in Japan as Winds of Thunder on the PC Engine), but received a port to the Sega CD courtesy of Sega and Virgin Interactive in the tumultuous year of 1995. A pseudo-sequel to the PC Engine’s Gate of Thunder, Lords of Thunder artistically took the side-scrolling shmup action from a traditional sci-fi setting to a gorgeous fantasy medieval setting with a splash of steampunk mixed in for good measure.

The team behind Lords of Thunder was the Red Company (which later became Red Entertainment), who brought us the Bonk (PC Denjin) series, Tempo on the 32X, and other sought-after releases such as Thousand Arms on the original PlayStation and Tezuka Osamu’s Blood Will Tell on the PlayStation 2.

It’s debatable whether it was a worthy successor to Gate of Thunder to some, but through its striking visuals, exciting boss battles, and its iconic heavy metal soundtrack, Lords of Thunder has earned a place atop shooter fanatics and Sega collectors alike. The Sega CD port may have taken a bit of a visual hit (and the sound effect volume drowns out the soundtrack somewhat), but was overall very well done. As a bonus, the music from the disc can be played in a CD player or can be ripped into MP3s so you can rock out to the killer soundtrack on the go.

Radical Rex: $275-$460

This rather unoriginal platformer easily got lost in the mix among all the competition in 1994. However, even going back to visit Radical Rex, nobody was really missing out on much. Young children could possibly enjoy it, but the controls are also troublesome at times.

Aside from the CD audio soundtrack, there is no real difference between the Sega CD version and its cartridge-based brethren on the Genesis. The game was only released on this CD format in North America, despite getting a Mega Drive version in Europe.

Despite this being one of the least interesting games on this list, it also seems to be one of the rarest as copies on eBay only have a completed sale once or twice a month (about half as often as Snatcher, but about on par with Space Adventure).

Fatal Fury Special: $50 – $200

As much as everyone loved their Sega Genesis and Super Nintendos in the 90s, SNK’s Neo-Geo was the elite gaming console that perfectly replicated an arcade experience, with a handful of solid fighting games in their library. The Fatal Fury series was an early cornerstone franchise for SNK and the series did get some ports to other platforms. The Sega CD port benefited from niceties like the arcade intro, endings, and arcade-authentic audio, but it did suffer in graphical aspects like animation frames (and cutting scaling and parallax like the other 16-bit ports).

Fatal Fury Special also happened to be one of the rarest Sega CD games in the library, but as of recently has actually had less completed sales than the likes of Radical Rex. Copies of the game were going for a modest $20 to $40 up until 2015 when collectors started targeting those rarer pieces for their collection.  It increased to the $50-$200 range by 2018 and then shifted into another gear to move much higher in the ranking these last few years.

Shining Force CD: $280 – $485 ($630 Sealed)

When the Sega CD’s entry into the Shining Force Strategy RPG series hit the shelves, it was at the height of the series’ popularity, so it’s completely understandable why Shining Force CD is so desired among fans of the genre.

A port of the two Shining Force Gaiden games on the Game Gear (only one of which was localized outside of Japan as The Sword of Hajya), Shining Force CD gave a lot of bang for your buck. A combination of easy-to-get-into yet complex grid-based combat with its trademark stylish battle cutscenes, the gameplay is incredibly addictive as “just one more fight-syndrome” definitely kicks in. It’s also a very fun game to grind and build your character levels up, which arguably wasn’t very common in strategy RPGs at the time. Guardiana, the world of the Shining Force series, also felt much more open here than in previous games on the Genesis.

The rather quiet release of the game (it was in 1995, after all), as well as the generally low amount of RPGs on the Sega CD have made Shining Force CD quite covetable among gamers today. However, it is an absolutely solid entry into Sega’s iconic Strategy RPG series. Also, make sure to have a Sega CD backup RAM cart handy as you will need it to properly save across all the scenarios of the game.

Earthworm Jim: Special Edition: $150 – $510 ($880 Sealed)

One of the most popular characters of the “‘tude” era of mascots, Earthworm Jim stood earthworm-above-shoulders on the rest with incredible visuals, endearing characters, and non-stop action. You never knew what was going to happen next when playing his game and it did incredibly well on Genesis and Super NES. It even spawned toys, a comic book, a cartoon series, and a sequel, Earthworm Jim 2, the year after it was released.

But before Jim could get beaten up by grannies in the sequel, he made a pit stop on the Sega CD with Earthworm Jim: Special Edition. This is essentially a beefed up port of the Genesis game, with a completely redone CD soundtrack, new animations, a new level called “Big Bruty,” and even alternate endings depending on what difficulty you play on.

All of these enhancements are exclusive to this version of the game, which is assumingly the main reason why it has grown in value over the years. However, it can definitely be said that Jim’s outing on the Sega CD is the definitive edition of the first game and has hovered around the $100 mark in CIB condition since the late 90s before gradually increasing over the last decade.

Lunar Eternal Blue: $200 – $500

Yes, RPGs are the main reason to pick up a Sega CD a decade after its release (Shmups are another solid genre). While it may not be the RPG wonderland that is the original Playstation or the SNES, it does have quite a few titles that will keep RPG fans entertained for many hours.

One of Working Designs’ first big projects was working on Lunar Silver Star (mentioned below), which was named Best RPG of 1993 by GameFan magazine, and eventually went on to become the #1 best-selling Sega CD title of all time. The sequel, Lunar 2: Eternal Blue was released late in the Sega CD’s lifespan, so it’s harder to come by. Much like Silver Star Story, the game is classic JRPG that will keep you busy for a long while. The recorded speech in the game alone runs for over an hour and a half. The game uses twice as much dialogue as its predecessor.

Both installments in the Lunar series saw enhanced “Complete” editions on the Sony Playstation (which hold some value in their own right) and digital downloads on the Playstation Network. Even with these “superior” versions, the original Sega CD installments have held their value rather well over the years. The Playstation versions may have prevented the Sega CD titles from reach values in Snatcher territory, but they are still a solid cornerstone of a Sega CD collection.

ESPN NBA Hang Time 95: $180-$300

The Sega Megadrive/Genesis was well-known for being a haven for high-quality sports games. The Sega CD add-on to the 16-bit system did also get some attention from EA and its sports lineup (NHL ’94, FIFA ’94, Bill Walsh College Football). However, Sony Imagesoft also happened to roll the dice on bringing this NBA title to the CD platform as well.

Sony played it rather conservatively and didn’t produce a lot of copies. The game didn’t get a lot of talk and those that did have copies didn’t often keep their case/manual around or in good condition. As a result, complete copies are quite tricky to track down, and it has become one of the most collectible sports games of the 90s. Once it registered on collectors’ radars in the 2010’s, it remained pretty constant at the $50 to $190 zone. But in recent years, it has appreciated at a quicker pace than some of its peers.

Robo Aleste: $75-$330

Robo Aleste is an excellent follow-up to the impressive MUSHA on the Genesis/Megadrive and many consider it to be one of the best shooters of the Sega CD’s selection. Although, fans of the series will be quick to point out that Robo Aleste is more challenging and slower-paced than MUSHA before it.

This installment ended up being the final game in the Aleste series until GG Aleste 3 was included in an Aleste Collection on the Nintendo Switch and Playstation 4.

With shooters being heavy on the retro collecting trends, it shouldn’t be a surprise that Robo Aleste has been climbing the charts — especially considering MUSHA’s high ranking on the Genesis Rare & Valuable list.

Android Assault: $55-$290

Another one of the best shooters on the Sega CD, Android Assault (also known as “Bari-Arm”) is rising star — especially for those that enjoy the PC-Engine/TG-16 era of shooters.

Android Assault is also appealing to those that enjoy the Sega Saturn’s Hyper Duel due to its thematic similarities. However, in Android Assault, you go into “Robot Mode” by reaching your peak weapon upgrade, and a special attack is charged by laying off the fire button for a few moments.

As eluded to above, Android Assault felt a bit “dated” at the time of its release for such a “cutting edge” system like the Sega CD, so it didn’t exactly tear up the sales charts. As a result, there aren’t a ton of copies out there. However, the game holds up pretty well these days for fans of the genre.

Multimedia Rarities…

Colors of Modern Rock: $100-$205

While it wasn’t the first CD-ROM based console, the Sega CD was perhaps the first one to get a lot of mainstream attention and get traditional media companies to start thinking about how the video game industry and platforms might start creeping into their territory.

Discs/”Games” like the “Make My Video” series perhaps got the most attention, but there were other discs such as “Color of Modern Rock” and “NFL Football Trivia Challenge” that looked to expand the Sega CD’s multimedia and entertainment capabilities.

Colors of Modern Rock contained six music videos and was offered as a mail-in offer. It was developed by Digital Pictures (the studio behind many of the Sega CD’s infamous FMV games) as part of a planned series of titles called Virtual VCR.

NFL Football Trivia Challenge: $90-$190

Adding to the interactive media trend, “NFL Football Trivia Challenge” is pretty much what you might expect — a trivia game based on the American Football League.

This particular game, published by CapDisc was actually a full retail release but was only sold in North America. It has different difficulty levels and, living up to Sega CD’s reputation, utilizes video clips along the way.

Valuable Early-Release Cardboard

At the beginning of the Sega CD’s lifespan, games were released in cardboard boxes with a plastic tray and manual inside. Some of the boxes for these games are not only hard to find, but nearly impossible to find in mint condition. Below are some of the more collectible/rare titles of the bunch. We will list the disc-only prices for comparison, but we will also share a high and low range for complete copies of the games to give you an idea of the premiums for mint copies

  • Wolfchild- $73 (disc) $175-$214 (complete) (eBay)
  • Time Gal- $35 (disc) $100-$225 (complete) (eBay)
  • Final Fight (First Run)- $80 (disc) $100-$170 (complete) (eBay)
  • The Secret of Monkey Island- $20 (disc) $118-$165 (complete) (eBay)
  • Night Trap (First Run)- $25 (disc) $75-$160 (complete) (eBay)
  • Road Avenger- $40 (disc) $75-$130 (complete) (eBay)
  • Wonder Dog- $25 (disc) $60-$120 (complete) (eBay)
  • Rise of the Dragon (First Run)- $27 (disc) $50-$100 (complete) (eBay)

Additional Games of Value

  • Flink: $70-$253 (eBay)
  • Wild Woody: $55-$ 400 (eBay)
  • Crime Patrol: $150-$175 (eBay)
  • Lunar The Silver Star: $90-$260 (eBay)
  • Dungeon Explorer: $100-$210 (eBay)
  • Vay: $65 250-$320 (eBay)
  • Soulstar: $80-$220 (eBay)
  • Samurai Shodown: $100 -$170 (eBay)
  • Demolition Man: $80 -$205 (eBay)
  • Terminator: $75-$200 (eBay)
  • Novastorm: $91-$150 (eBay)
  • Lawn Mower Man: $ 100-$132 (eBay)
  • Panic: $76-$165 (eBay)
  • Shadow of the Beast II: $70-$180 (eBay)
  • Championship Soccer ’94: $40-$135(eBay)
  • Road Rash: $60-$163 (eBay)
  • 3 Ninjas Kick Back / Hook: $35-$165 (eBay)
  • Revengers of Vengance: $60-$120 (eBay)
  • Spiderman vs Kingpin: $28-$125 (eBay)
  • Starblade: $30-$135 (eBay)
  • Space Ace: $40-$105 (eBay)
  • Adventures of Batman and Robin: $38-$100 (eBay)
  • Night Trap (Re-Release): $25-$80 ($175 Sealed) (eBay)

 

Collection Photo Courtesy of @segacdndeez on Instagram

Read about how Brandon / supersparkster scored this Keio Flying Squadron and other great additions to his collection without killing his budget in our recent retro collecting interview.


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8 Comments

DocHix says:

Very interesting article. Where I live, it was typical less than five years ago to go into a retro gaming store/thrift store/pawn shop and find a handful of “desirable” Sega CD games going for anywhere from $5 to $10. I haven’t seen a non-sports, CIB Sega CD game in the wild for many months. I suspect many collectors are buying the less desirable titles for the cases! Despite all of the criticisms leveled at the Sega CD, it is a “system” with a nice range of must play games.

racketboy says:

Thanks for sharing! I haven’t seen many in-demand ones in person unless it’s at a convention or something. But yeah, I think people will buy cheap game for the cases 🙂 Good news is Limited Run Games is planning on releasing some high-quality reproductions of the cases very soon. There’s some less-refined ones on Amazon now that don’t fit real great, but hopefully the Limited Runs will be better (they have taken their time with design refinements, so I’m more confident).

Goatlll says:

The Sega CD is home to my luckiest puck ups ever. Earthworm Jim for 2 bucks at a yard sale and Snatcher from a pawn shop for a couple of bucks. Those were both in the early 00s, and I haven’t been that lucky since.

racketboy says:

Nice! Good timing on that! Earthworm Jim was always one I held off on the resale market as it was hard for me to justify the cost (never was cheap) compared to the cart ones, but oh well.

And Snatcher used to be the most expensive SCD game before Keio got more attention. One I never decided to pull the trigger on.

So many congrats all around!

Carmine says:

Thanks for the article. I ran across it
attempting to find more information on the prices of Sega CD games over the last ten years. About three years ago, I brought it a bunch of retro games from various consoles to a Mom & Pop style store for store credit. When I broached the subject of Sega CD games, the owners said they weren’t interested. Has there been a spike in overall values in the past couple of years?

racketboy says:

Yeah, some games like Snatcher and Keio Flying Squadron have always had some solid value, but even those have risen quite a bit over the last 3 to 5 years especially.

Sega CD kinda was a low priority for a lot of collectors though most of the early 2000s, but now they are starting to become more on-trend.

Helliant1 says:

It’s great to see that my desire to keep every box, plastic bag, cover and twist tie, etc… Might pay off now, some 20 plus years later, because I see Night Trap complete with box manual fetches a lot of money and I just happen to have one, in pretty good condition. I haven’t looked it up on this website, but read Conker’s Bad Fur Day!, is another highly sought after title too, is that correct, let me know, thanks! Oh and maybe get tips on what to do with Night Trap, man I loved that game, it was so cheesy, but cheesy greatness! I think I’m alone on that one.

racketboy says:

Yeah, cardboard and manuals in good condition have quite a premium. But all CIB Nintendo stuff keeps growing in value 🙂

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