Maximise your Mega Drive Mini with Project Lunar

Everything in the system's library is now fair game
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Hello. I like every video game. See more of my work at https://linktr.ee/stuartgipp

Mega Drive Mini hacking tool Project Lunar isn't brand new, but version 1.0.5 - launched yesterday - is the first revision that ran everything I threw at it, and therefore it needs to be shouted to the heavens that YOU CAN NOW PLAY ANY MEGA DRIVE GAME ON THE MEGA DRIVE MINI.

Initially, stone-cold classics like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist and lesser-known masterpieces like Dashin' Desperadoes were "problem games" - they either didn't run or didn't run properly. Now, though, you can opt to have games bypass the packed-in emulator (m2engage) and utilise classic Retroarch cores (picodrive, etc). This means you can boot from the UI to Retroarch, then exit back to the UI, which is very nice. Of course, this means you could also run games from other systems like SNES or PlayStation on your Mega Drive Mini, but that would obviously be monstrous. However, 32x and Sega CD support are indeed in - I tested this by throwing on and running the appalling Knuckles' Chaotix - and because they're Sega consoles connected to the Mega Drive, their addition is morally acceptable.

I had to pick a single game to sum up the entire library, and have opted for Dinosaurs For Hire. Please direct all complaints to my fundament.

There is a limitation - at present you can still only add roughly 60 games on top of the extant 40-odd, but a future update is going to add folder support, making this problem a thing of the past. Personally, I'm going to fill a seperate folder with Master System games. It counts, because you could play them on the Mega Drive via the Power Base Convertor attachment.

Download Project Lunar here and follow the simple instructions to make that Mega Drive Mini sing. It really is a marvellous new world of tiny consoles we've ushered in. No doubt the TurboGrafx Mini will be getting a similar treatment, though that thing's line-up is so good I can only dream up a handful of additions I'd like to see. But I digress. Stay tuned for more fawning over "Classic Minis" from me when that thing launches!