Over the past week, Sonic Frontiers has been sweeping the vote in The Game Awards’ Players’ Voice Award, with SEGA’s game advancing to the final round. Now, with just a day left, Sonic’s best game in over a decade is less than 20% behind Genshin Impact, a free-to-play game that wasn’t even released in 2022. Sonic deserves this win, so click on over to vote for Sonic Frontiers!
Anybody remember that canned prototype of Segapede (later called Astropede) that was being developed at Sega Technical Institute and later shown publically for the first time ever by former Sega of America artist Craig Stitt? That was just a video of the pitched prototype in action, but now Craig has found a development ROM in his own archives and well known game development archivists Hidden Palace have released that rom to the public. Now, instead of just looking at the pitch video, you can try it for yourself.
You can go to Hidden Palace’s web page for Segapede to download the ROM for use in your favorite emulator or Genesis flash cartridge. There, you’ll also find a long write-up of the history of Segapede’s development and cancellation and a bevy of hand drawn concept artwork. Just keep in mind there’s not much to do in the game because it was an early prototype.
So do you think this might’ve become a cool game? Tell us what you think in the comments below. (Assuming you’ve clicked into the article instead of just seeing this on the main Segabits page wall.)
Genesis/Mega-Drive fans are about to be eatin’ good for a while with all the lovely new games, re-releases, and other interesting projects in development for the console. It’s almost like it’s out of retirement. That’s about to look much more true now that a longstanding developer that’s actually made games for the console in its heyday is now working on a new one for the first time in about 28 years.
Revealed in a tweet by Yuzo Koshiro, who needs no introduction among Sega fans, he and his development studio Ancient (Developers of Streets of Rage 2 and Beyond Oasis on Genesis) are now hard at work on a brand new horizontal scrolling shmup for Genesis. While we don’t know how far along in development this, as of now, untitled game is, Koshiro-san makes it clear this is being made in the spirit of actual official Genesis releases from the 90’s and 80’s and that it will be his first time composing music for a new Genesis game since Beyond Oasis from 1994. (Known as The Story of Thor outside North America).
Hear more about Koshiro-san’s intentions after the break.
SEGA has dropped a bombshell on fans in the form of a MASSIVE Sonic Frontiers DLC roadmap for next year! The content, which is free for all platforms, will drop in three updates. While SEGA is not giving specifics just yet, they did reveal this image and the below description:
The title’s 2023 content roadmap details plans for a series of future content updates to the new open-zone, action-packed adventure. These three content updates will include new features, modes, character skins and more. All three updates will be free to all Sonic Frontiers owners.
Today, SEGA announced a huge rollout of Sonic Frontiers content for 2023. But before we get into that, there is a special holiday treat for fans hitting December 21, 2022. The DLC, dubbed “Holiday Cheer Suit” will be free for all platforms and “offers new apparel for Sonic to wear and bring some holiday spirit to the Starfall Islands”. So you want Santa Sonic in a snowy setting? You got it!
Grab your six foot sword, drab yourself in black and get ready to slay demons as we dive into Sword of the Berserk: Guts’ Rage on Dreamcast! We dive into the manga that started it all, look at the world and go Berserk on this episode of SEGA TALK!
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If you want to give us feedback, suggest a topic for the next podcast or want to ask a question for us to answer on the next episode you can add them as a comment below or send theme directly to our email. Make sure you use subject line ‘SEGA Talk’ and as always, thanks for listening!
Retro-Bit sure is on a roll now. Hot off their recent announcement of their Valis Collection, Retro-Bit has now announced their official western cartridge debut for Advanced Busterhawk Gley Lancer, one of the most beloved shumup classics released exclusively on Mega-Drive in Japan only. Pre-orders are now open from several different stores in both North America and Europe until December 27th, 2022. North American Genesis fans can pre-order from Limited Run Games and Castlemania Games. European Mega-Drive fans can pre-order from Nedgame, Xtra Life, Dragonbox Shop, Spel & Sant, and Strictly Limited Games.
Check in after the break for more information and a nifty trailer.
There aren’t many widely celebrated classics on Sega Genesis/Mega-Drive quite like Streets of Rage 2. The beat-em-up classic exclusive to Sega’s 16-bit juggernaut still holds up perfectly well the way it is, but some fans have set out to modernize the game in Unity 3D with some amazing new enhancements, made through reverse engineering.
Streets of Rage 2 New Era is a brand new fan-developed port of the original game for PC and Mac that builds on it with new 4-player multiplayer, widescreen, and even online co-op. It is a complete experience currently at version 2.0 at the time of this writing. The game requires you to have an original Streets of Rage 2 ROM file in order to play. This is only to get around the legal issue of making the game freely available while Sega, the rightful copyright holders, still sell Streets of Rage 2. New Era does not rely on emulation to run or enhance the game. It recommends that you buy Streets of Rage 2 on Steam where, along with every other game in the Sega Genesis Classics Collection, it comes with a freely accessible ROM file ripe for the taking in that collection’s installation files.
Check in after the break for extra info. Otherwise, head to the game’s web page to download the game.
According to Japanese news site fnn, Sonic the Hedgehog creator Yuji Naka has been arrested for insider trading involving the Dragon Quest Tact mobile game. According to the news site, Yuji Naka used insider information while working at Square-Enix about (then) unannounced “Dragon Quest Tact” mobile game which was being developed jointly by Square-Enix and Aiming for mobile devices.
Yuji Naka allegedly used this information to purchase over 10,000 shares of Aiming stock for approximately 2.8 million yen (about 20k USD). Yuji Naka left SEGA way back in 2006 to form Prope, he would then join Square Enix in 2018 and then left after Balan Wonderworld bombed. Yuji Naka even had heated words for Square Enix claiming they don’t value games.
For now we wait to see more details. Quite a journey that Yuji Naka has taken in the last few years.
Netflix has dropped a new trailer for Sonic Prime, the streaming series set for a December 15th release date on Netflix. The new trailer details the show’s plot, including a very Sonic SatAM alternate reality where Eggman has completely taken over. Or should I say… EggMEN? The trailer also showcases several alternate worlds called Shatterspaces, which is likely going to contribute to the episodic nature of the show with a new Shatterspace each week.
Check out the trailer above and mark your calendar for December 15th!
Sonic Frontiers continues to do well globally, we reported how it was performing in the UK and Steam yesterday, today we can see how well it’s been performing in Japan thanks to the latest Famitsu game charts. Unsurprisingly the Switch version was the best selling SKU this time round, but both the PS5 and PS4 SKUs managed to make the top ten.
We’re sad to report that Akira Nagai, Managing Director at SEGA from 1965 to 2004, has passed away. Nagai was one of the longest serving managing directors and representatives at the company, initially starting out in jukebox distribution in 1963 at Nihon Goraku Bussan and continuing in amusement machine sales in the 1980s. During the 1990s, Nagai managed SEGA’s Amusement Theme Park concept which went on to establish several Joypolis venues in Japan in addition to others. Fans might best remember his likeness from a cameo as a Yakuza boss in the first Shenmue game.
Akira Nagai passed on November 15, 2022 at age 79. If you would like a deep dive on his career, please read his full article on SEGA Retro.
The Sonic & SEGA Fan Jam Remix convention has concluded, but our coverage hasn’t! Following our recap on SEGA News Bits Live here is another bit of the convention, the full audio I recorded of the Shenmue & Arcade All-Stars panel which featured a reunion of the Shenmue voice actors Corey Marshall, Eric Kelso and Lisle Wilkerson. Enjoy this historic moment in Shenmue history!
Strap in and get ready to save SEGA as we venture into the year 2025 and cover the Dreamcast Japanese exclusive Segagaga! We discuss the cameos, parodies and more!
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If you want to give us feedback, suggest a topic for the next podcast or want to ask a question for us to answer on the next episode you can add them as a comment below or send theme directly to our email. Make sure you use subject line ‘SEGA Talk’ and as always, thanks for listening!
The biggest moment at this past weekend’s Sonic & SEGA Fan Jam Remix was the Shenmue & Arcade All-Stars Voice Actors Panel featuring the reunion of Corey Marshall, Lisle Wilkerson and Eric Kelso of Shenmue fame.
This is the first time all three have been together since recording audio for Shenmue II over 20 years ago. I was on hand as moderator, which was probably a SEGA fan “career” highlight for me.
Give the full panel a watch and enjoy!