I never thought Swamp Thing for Sega would see the light of day, nor did I think I’d ever get the opportunity to play it. Plans to release the game were scrapped after the NES and Game Boy games were released. I recently found a download of the game at Sega Retro.

Here is a photo of the prototype cartridge. As you can see, it is pretty beat up.

Game play is much more fun than that of the NES and Game Boy versions. Swamp Thing has more range of motion and abilities. His energy/life meter is represented by the tree at the bottom of the screen.

He jumps

He punches with with both hands

He can morph into a log and roll over his foes

He can turn into a little, red-eyed, green bat and avoid dangerous situations

When Swampy falls into a hole…

he goes to hell and swims. Notice the skulls with attached spinal chord. Nice touch

I’m still exploring the game and its capabilities but so far I’ve encountered a good deal of UnMen as well as lumberjacks, hard at work in a tree.

There is also a level inside of (what I can only assume is) a Sunderland Corp. warehouse.

Unlike the NES game, if you die, you can continue!
(If you’ve ever played the Nintendo version of the game, you will truly understand how exciting this feature is)

and if you do well, you can actually save your score using Swamp Thing’s extra long reach.