Surgical Strike for the Sega CD-32X: a mystery finally solved

Hello dear readers and welcome back to the game room, where we go looking for the truth about obscure games that nobody has cared about for over 20 years (and even back then they probably didn't care). I apologize once again for not posting anything in a while, I've been studying to take a big test soon and video games have kind of taken a back seat. However, I did just get my tax returns back recently, and as such I planned on going on a video game spending binge pretty soon, so once I come back with a massive haul, I'll do a nice big post about it. For now though, I want to revisit a certain unanswered footnote in gaming history that has bugged me for quite a long time: the mystery of Surgical Strike for the 32X.

If you read my post from a while back about completing the 32X library, you already know my feelings about this long lost game, but I'll give a quick recap if you don't feel like reading that: back in the 90s, when Sega was still desperately trying to keep their doomed add-on consoles chugging along, a number of CD games were released that utilized both the Sega CD and 32X simultaneously with the Sega Genesis to produce the "ultimate" gaming experience.

While that description is obviously questionable, what isn't questionable is that five CD-32X games were indeed released for the console, which were all just slightly upgraded versions of their original Sega CD counterparts. None of them are very interesting in their own right and they pretty much proved to be the last dying gasps of a console that had overstayed its welcome in the market. However, where our mystery begins is with an advertisement on the front of a Sega CD game called Surgical Strike, which touted a free copy of the advanced CD-32X version for gamers who sent in a mail-in coupon included with the game. Unsurprisingly, very little hype was generated for this, and the CD-32X version was never even put into production. Or...was it?

As you may know, I'm somewhat of a 32X aficionado, if you will. Yes, I know the thing is pretty much a mushroom-shaped hunk of garbage, but it just has this odd appeal to me. I can't really explain it. Anyway, that appeal is what inspired me to collect all 36 games that were ever released for it, as well as a few that weren't even released in America. However, my quest for completion has always had this one strange caveat to it: what about Surgical Strike for the CD-32X?

The reason I ask this question is because many websites, including GameFAQs and Wikipedia, list Surgical Strike as an official CD-32X release. However, it is one of four games that is listed as exclusive to other countries (the other three being Darxide and FIFA '96 in Europe and San Goku Shi IV in Japan). This piqued my interest while collecting, since I'd obviously have to obtain it in order to have the complete worldwide collection, right? However, in all my years of researching, I was never actually able to confirm that the game was ever released at all. I was able to procure copies of FIFA and San Goku Shi, and though I don't have a copy of Darxide, I have seen it floated around for sale on rare occasions. However, I have never once seen a copy of Surgical Strike for sale, and any pictures of it I have found on the internet all seem to be of the same beat up copy. This led me to believe, for a while, that the game was never actually released in Brazil and that the one copy that has cropped up in pictures from time to time was likely just a prototype or something. However, it seems I was wrong.

While surfing the random dark corners of the internet, I happened to stumble across this article from two years ago, which did a fantastic job outlining the very mystery I just described. It provided a wealth of historical background and testimonials from insiders of Sega's South America distributor Tec-Toy, who were said to have released the game in 1995. Indeed, as the article points out, the game was released in 1995 in very limited quantities. Considering the economic turmoil of Brazil in the 90s that was described by the article, it seems like a small miracle that it even managed to happen at all. That being said, it's no surprise that only 500 units were sold, according to the article. That would certainly explain why it has scarcely ever been seen or spoken of over the last 20 years.

An already obscure and quite frankly mediocre game released in minuscule quantities into South America, for a combination of three different consoles that I'm sure exceedingly few people even had in Brazil 20 years ago. It's no wonder very few copies have ever seen the light of day.

However, this does confirm a very strange and fascinating mystery that I've long kept in the back of my mind. It also leads me to believe that if one were to ever get their filthy little hands on such a rarity and add it to their library, they might have the greatest and most distinct 32X collection the world has ever seen. While I can't even imagine what the logistics involved in attempting to hunt down a copy would look like, one can always dream. And if there's multiple copies out there, who knows? It's good to always stay open minded. And you know what, a quest isn't a quest without some shining light at the end of the tunnel with mysterious and mythical properties attached to it. Thanks for reading.