Sounds very 80s. I guess that's the distinction, Mega Drive sounds 80s, Super Famicom sounds 90s.
Same focus change with the games, Mega Drive is largely best at 80s style games - basically kickass arcade action games you play in a single sitting with pumping rock/electro style soundtracks. Even headliner Sonic is an 80s style arcade game in most ways, no saving, you play more and get better at the game. There are RPGs but it definitely wasn't the system's focus from a design standpoint. Of course there are exceptions, but it's pretty much what the system was designed for.
Whereas Super Fami was the paradigm shift in Japan that moved the focus of games to be longer, bigger, more variety and more cinematic, but in a more approachable way than the more dense PC games did. This was led from the front - even the launch Mario game has battery save, adding/expanding Zelda-like features with a world map with secrets everywhere making it into a big non-linear adventure instead of just a mostly linear action game. Almost all Nintendo games had saves from then on. This is the direction things went after that, especially from the Japanese side, and of course more and more cinematic RPGs with orchestral sample based movie-like scores which became pretty much the calling card of the system especially in Japan. PC Engine CD was the big thing in 88 as well with a similar focus, though with more of a multimedia bent, but it straddled that line as it was big in old-paradigm arcade machine too.
TL;DR Mega Drive basically IS 80s arcade in a console, in audio, video, and gameplay focus (via the CPU), while Super Fami's focus was deliberately less arcade and more the hybrid action adventure.
arkagis.com
www.youtube.com
