Regarding Sonic The Hedgehog 3 Remastered – Guest Post by Stealth

[The following is a guest post about the Sonic 3 Remastered campaign written by Stealth, who with Taxman made the Retro Engine versions of Sonic 1 and 2 which can currently be bought for iOS and Android. They had also made a proof-of-concept of Sonic 3 running in the engine on the iPhone. This was originally posted on Stealth’s own blog, so it’s written in a way you can expect from a post on a personal blog.]

Intro

Before I start, I’ll first say that I’m speaking as an individual, and not on behalf of any other party, team, business entity, etc. As such, I will speak only for and of myself, without regard to other parties who may want to remain uninvolved.

With the exception of the anniversary presentation from October, I’ve remained relatively silent on the subject of remastering Sonic the Hedgehog 3. Naturally, this is expected of me as someone who has already contracted with SEGA, would be a part of the Sonic 3 remastering project, and would potentially perform work under contract for SEGA again in the future, however, I no longer feel that it’s appropriate to maintain near-complete silence in contrast to my own personal feelings as an individual and as a fan of classic Sonic the Hedgehog.

Yakuza Fans: The Day of the Dragon is August 8!

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A couple of weeks ago SEGA forum member king_ruckus came up with the idea of the “Day of the Dragon” – a fan initiative that asks people to send letters to SEGA offices (to be received on the 8th) expressing their desire to see the franchise brought back to life in the West. It’s been a year and a half since Yakuza 5 was released in Japan, and there is no word on localization for Yakuza: Ishin, either. With the next Yakuza title already in development, fans are understandably worried. Keeping this in mind, king_ruckus looked up the mailing addresses for the London, Tokyo, and San Francisco offices so fans can send the letters to the offices of their choosing.

Keep in mind that while the Day of the Dragon is technically set to be August 8 (next Friday,) the spirit of king_ruckus’s idea is such that the letters arrive during the week of August 8. This allows not only for the variation in personal schedules, but for the sending of letters from different parts of the world to the desired SEGA offices. Please consider sending mail to SEGA! Also, get #DayOftheDragon or #BringYakuzaWest trending if you’ve got Twitter, and check out this Facebook page if you’ve got Facebook! To check out the addresses for the three above-specified SEGA offices, hit the break!

Sonic the Comic Artist Ferran Rodriguez is attending Weston Super Sonic 2015

Upcoming UK Sonic convention Weston Super Sonic has announced that Spanish artist Ferran Rodriguez will be in attendance at the event.

Ferran’s art style was recurring throughout the UK Sonic the Comic’s run, and covered a wide variety of material throughout the series, such as covers, comic strips, and pin-ups. Ferran is flying in from his home in Barcelona just to be at the convention – now that’s dedication!

In addition to Sonic, Ferran has also done work for Disney, Nickelodeon the Angry Birds license, and other properties and brands – quite the resume.

This guest announcement is just one of quite a few that Weston Super Sonic has made; they previously announced that fellow Sonic the Comic legends Richard Elson and Nigel Kitching will also be in attendance, and that Mike Pollock, voice of the nefarious Doctor Eggman will be conducting a live Skype Q&A at the event. Exciting stuff for UK Sonic fans!

Also planned are speedrun tournaments for SA2, art contests, cosplay contests, and other events to keep fans entertained throughout the day. The convention takes place Saturday 17th January 2015 at The Grand Pier in Weston-Super-Mare, England, and SEGABits will be there to provide coverage! 

The official site for the convention can be found here. Currently donations are being accepted until September, and a mere £5 is all it takes to guarantee entry.

Will you be attending? Let us know in the comments!

Sonic Boom heading to New York, no Summer of Sonic this year

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Start spreading the news! Sonic Boom will be heading to New York on October 4th. Along with this news from Sega comes the sad news that Summer of Sonic will be on hiatus for this year. This is very sad news for Sonic fans in the U.K. who’ve come in droves year after year to the event. One bit of good news is that Summer of Sonic has inspired other, smaller Sonic conventions to appear such as Weston Super Sonic (returning on January 17 2015) and Sonic Revolution in Buena Park (on June 15 2014). Read on for a statement from both Summer of Sonic and Sega.

Segalization’s Q&A with UDON Entertainment Available for Viewing!

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It’s finally here! Our Q&A with UDON’s Matt Moylan is available for viewing at Segalization. Click here to check out the informative Q&A session on UDON’s work with a variety of SEGA properties.

I’d like to thank Segalization contributor SuperSonicEX for reaching out to UDON, Matt Moylan, Stacy King and the rest of UDON for being willing to participate, SEGAbits and its readers for their participation in this effort by submitting their own questions, and my fellow Segalization colleagues for their help in making the final article possible.

We hope you enjoy reading the Q&A!

Increase the number of SEGA releases for the PC petition passes 10k signatures

The fan run initiative to increase the number of SEGA games on PC have passed a milestone with their online petition, amassing over 10,000 signatures – 10,219 at the time of this article. The petition respectively asks that SEGA “consider releasing more games (to PC), particularly from your Japanese division”, naming Bayonetta, Vanquish, and Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown as potential games. If you haven’t signed the petition yet, we urge you to head on over to their page today and add your name to the growing list. We’re over halfway there, folks!

Segalizaton taking questions for UDON Entertainment interview

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Update: Interview has been completed. Thanks for your contributions!

SEGA fan and Segalization contributor SuperSonicEX captured an amazing opportunity for a Q&A with UDON Entertainment! UDON Entertainment is responsible for, among other things: translation and publishing of the three Valkyria Chronicles art books, the History of Sonic the Hedgehog, and the Eyes of Bayonetta, alongside various Hatsune Miku and Vocaloid media.

We currently plan to send in our questions sometime this Wednesday, March 26th, but Segalization would like to give SEGA fans a chance to send in questions of their own for UDON to answer! For anyone interested in submitting a question, hit the jump to see the currently planned questions (so as to avoid overlap) and additional notes on how Segalization will handle any submitted questions.

Tommy Tallarico to be special guest at Sonic Revolution

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Composer of many Sega Genesis games, contributor to Sonic and the Black Knight soundtrack and co-founder of Video Games LIVE!, Tommy Tallarico has just been announced as a special guest at Sonic Revolution on June 15. Tommy will be discussing his work and will be answering questions for the fans. Sonic Revolution posted the following on their Facebook status.

We’re proud to announce that composer Tommy Tallarico of Video Games Live fame will be a special guest at our event. Mr. Tallarico will be talking about his work with Sonic music (he was one of the contributors to Sonic and the Black Knight’s soundtrack) as well as video game music in general. The audience will be more than welcome to ask him questions!

“Sonic Revolution” Sonic fan convention announced for June 15th

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You may remember hearing of a small Sonic fan gathering in Orange County last year called “Sonic Boom West Chapter”. It was put together by several So Cal Sonic fans including Tanner Bates who you may have heard on our latest episode of Sonic Talk. It was during that gathering that the plans for Sonic Revolution was put in it’s early stages. Since then, I’ve become a part of this group and have helped (a little) in bringing Sonic Revolution into a full fledged convention.

The Sonic Revolution convention has now been announced for Sunday, June 15 at the Holiday Inn at Buena Park, California (close to Disneyland). While we’re still gathering more guests for the event (Sonic Boom producer Stephen Frost has shown interest), so far we have the producers of the upcoming fan film Sonic prologue coming in with an exclusive clip and a Q&A. Also, Sonic cover band Serenity Seven will be on hand for music. There will also be an artists alley you can register a booth (for free) and giveaways and more prizes.

Tickets will be available (for free) March 1st. For more info and to keep up with new information, check out the event page on Facebook here.

SEGAbits & Segalization partnership

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Hi SEGAbits readers! Some of you may have heard about Segalization, our new fan campaign that focuses on promoting the localization of Japanese Sega games. The project has already gone live a while ago, and today we’d like to formally announce a new partnership with our friends at SEGAbits. Other than having both websites link to each other, this partnership means you may find Segalization staffers occasionally contributing articles to SEGABits, which may or may not involve titles or news related to Segalization’s mission. In this first article, we’d like to talk a bit about the origins and goals of our campaign/website.