Name: Star Trek: The Next Generation - Echoes from the Past
Platform: Sega Genesis / Mega Drive
Region: USA
Media: Cartridge
Controller: Gamepad
Genre: Action, Adventure
Gametype: Licensed
Release Year: 1994
Developer: Spectrum Holobyte, Inc.
Publisher: SEGA
Players: 1
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The Romulans request permission to enter the Neutral Zone in order to search for a team of their researchers that they claim has gone missing. The USS Enterprise is sent to monitor their activities and find out their real motives.

Gameplay is divided into three parts: commanding the Enterprise from the bridge, controlling an away team on a planetary mission and combat with other ships.

From the bridge you can control all of the ships main functions. Conn: Set course to a different planet or sector. Communication: Communicate: with other ships. Sensors: Receive information on your surroundings or planets you are orbiting. Computer: Access a database that contains lots of information on planets, races, technology, your crew etc. Engineering: If the Enterprise got damaged during combat, you can use this command to allocate resources to the different parts of the ship that need to be repaired. Briefing Room: Receive orders and information on your current mission. Tactical Station: Engage in combat. Transporter: Assemble an away team and beam it down to a planet (which is only possible if your current mission requires it).

Before starting an away mission, you have to assemble a team of four crew members that differ in strength and in tactical and technical ability. Some crew members also have special abilities, Dr. Crusher can heal other crew members, Geordi and Data can see in the dark and Data can survive without air. Away missions are shown from a top-down perspective and you can control each team member individually or order different members to follow your currently selected character around. Most away missions are a mixture of simple (real time) combat and puzzle solving that usually consists getting hints from tricorder readings and finding objects that have to be used in the correct way.

Ship battles are also seen from a top-down perspective and let you attack enemy ships with phasers and photon torpedoes, while keeping an eye or your shields and trying to dodge you enemy's torpedoes. If your ship too heavily damaged you can surrender and hope that your enemy spares you.

While the SNES and Genesis versions are essentially the same games, there are some noticeable differences. The Genesis version plays considerably faster during ship battles and on away missions as well as on the bridge (meaning it takes much less time to repair the ship). There are many graphical differences and the map layout for away missions is slightly different from the SNES version as well.

Trivia:

Though information on a Borg cube is present in the ship's database, and a sprite set for the vessel is resident in the game's memory, it does not appear in-game at all.

The game misspells Senatorious several times, providing a confusing list of spellings for the race.

This is one of the few Star Trek games in which Klingons do not make an appearance.

This game was released for both the SNES and Sega Genesis; though the plot and most gameplay elements were maintained, there are many significant differences that cause gameplay discrepancies. The Genesis version has diplomatic sequences wherein the player reasons with various entities (ranging from Romulan commanders to miners on a desolate moon), and the results have profound outcomes on the course of play. The SNES lacks this feature entirely, and the sequence at the end of the game where Jean-Luc Picard speaks with the IFD's interface-analogue is eschewed, and replaced with what amounts to a single "congratulations" screen, with no resolution to the story. Also, the SNES version makes mandatory a mission that is secret in the Genesis version (it is very difficult to unlock and requires a lengthy diplomatic exchange with a Chodak captain; the mission is exceptionally difficult, and is made more harrowing by the fact that only one attempt at the mission is allowed and failure means the opportunity to complete the mission is lost forever, but it is not part of the Genesis storyline and the game can be completed in its entirety without the player even knowing about this mission). It is a mark of pride to be able to complete this mission at all, and due to its uncalled-for level of difficulty, it nearly renders the SNES version unplayable. Other differences include the order in which events occur, changes to level maps, a limited amount of phaser energy and an unbreathable atmosphere in the Oriens Gamma IIIB mines in the SNES version (which further augmented its already obscene difficulty, the latter forcing the player to begin each of its sections, which were thickly-laden with monsters, using Lieutenant Commander Data, who, being an android, is not required to respirate, to restore air circulation for other crew members), and the absence of Dr. Beverly Crusher's medkit in the Genesis version, which allowed the player to heal other members of the awayteam during the course of away missions.

The spud-like monsters resident in the Oriens Gamma IIIB mines do not attack Deanna Troi. Ostensibly this is because she is an empath.

The game sports a number of ensigns and lesser crewmen who do not appear in the televised series and in fact were created specifically for this game. Each of these crewmen is actually one of the game's designers, dressed in Starfleet uniforms, their visage pixelized and incorporated into the game as portraits seen when selecting crewmen for awayteams. Incidentally, there are two mutually-exclusive sets of non-canon crewmen for each game, and the SNES version includes Ed Semrad, who was then an editor for Electronic Gaming Monthly. His reason for appearing in the game is not known.

http://www.mobygames.com/game/genesis/star-trek-the-next-generation-echoes-from-the-past
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation:_Echoes_of_the_Past