I haven’t heard it anywhere official, just people mentioning in various places that there are legal issues around the involvement of Michael Jackson and / or Brad Buxer with the soundtrack.
Sega always deny that they used any of the MJ songs, but Ice Cap Zone at least sounds exactly like an old unreleased Brad Buxer song for the Jetzons, that I think was unearthed in recent years?
Could all just be rumours and speculation, but would explain why Sonic 3 is not even on the AtGames system.
The great thing about this list is that it doesn’t include all the popular but mediocre games that genesis fans love, like ToeJam and Earl, Aladdin, Mortal Kombat II, Vectorman, and so on. I hate western lists because they make the genesis look so inferior to the snes by comparison.
This list isn’t perfect, of course. It is missing Shadowrun, Ranger-X, Streets of Rage 3, Granada, Arcus Odyssey, and some of my other favorites, but at least it includes the likes of MUSHA, Thunderforce IV, and Gauntlet IV.
I am surprised by the complete lack of Shinobi though.
I have a lot of affection for High Seas Havoc, flawed as it may be. It’s exactly like every other generic mascot platformer except it’s got some actually good level design in there. And you need to have some representation of random animal mascots to give new generations the authentic experience of the 16 bit era.