Could the SEGA of today do its legacy any justice with new installments?

[CrazyT]

SEGA has been doing pretty well with the ports and remakes, but as the title says, do you think SEGA of today could do any of the classics from their console era justice today with new installments?

Think golden axe, steets of rage, shinobi, jet set radio or even shenmue 3. It's funny because some of the ones I listed have already been attempted and either ended up average or terrible.

People keep asking shenmue 3 but for some reason I think it would never meet its potential today. Its not that I think there wouldnt be a great team for Yu Suzuki to work with, but the old SEGA was just something else. Seriously SEGA was simply amazing and no bit of nostalgia devalues that statement imo.

It's a shame but I think the answer is no. I think they wouldn't be capable to make a good shenmue 3 anymore. Things have changed too much. What do you guys think?

[Pao]

Shenmue was made by AM2, which is still awesome today.  If Suzuki makes Shenmue 3 with AM2, it should be great!

I think the Sega of today can do justice to its past franchises, but they should let the good teams handle it (Yakuza Studio, the Valkryia guys, AM2...).

[Aki-at]

Yakuza 5 is better than anything they made prior, so yes, certains teams could do justice.

Can't beat taking on latex ladies in crazy head on racing taxi battles. Or punching a bear in the nuts.

[Nameless 24]

I honestly have no idea if they are capable of recreating or even making a sequel to their franchises anymore.

If they did, I'd be sceptical.

[Centrale]

Think about it this way. If you're a young up-and-coming programmer, designer, or artist, are you going to be most passionate about reworking an old property, or making your mark with your own new visions and ideas? Sega isn't going to reclaim any old glories by remaking old games. They will always excel by looking to the new.

They've had the right idea in outsourcing remakes, although the execution has usually not been up to the original standards. But in some cases, when an outside developer has a lot of passion for an older IP, and the results are good, as with Shinobi 3DS.

[Trippled]

It simply goes both ways.

Outrun, Panzer Dragoon Orta turned out to be awesome revivals while some other didn't turn out right (Altered Beast PS2)

[tarpmortar]

It depends, I think Shenmue 3 if given to AM2, Yu was given the control he needed and the game was given enough time in the oven? I think it could be great. Streets of Rage would be a tough one to revive well just because the beat em up genre has struggled so much since its peak. Golden Axe was handed to an awful team but to be faithful to the original would face the same issues SoR would. It'd be hard to please SoR fans like myself because I'd want a more simplistic well executed beat em up like SoR2 and to do a beat em up, nowadays, it seems like you have to add things like equipment. Even then, the only new beat em up success stories that come to mind are Castle Crashers and Scott Pilgrim.

Shinobi on 3DS was a solid game imo, not as good as the Genesis titles but I liked it. People forget Shinobi was for the most part a B-tier SEGA franchise, it had some great games but it was also over-utilized as an IP on Mega Drive/Genesis imo. The Saturn entry (legions) was also rather disappointing. Jet Set Radio is a toughie because a new game would likely be way too easy to even be good and take more after JSRF vs. JSR, while JSRF is a good game it has no real challenge. Ideally they'd mate the more understandable JSRF controls to the graffiti and time limits of the original.

Out of all these games the one I'd be most hesitant of is JSR, the first is arguably the best 3D platformer ever, Shenmue 1 and 2 are my favorite games ever but I feel more confident SEGA of today could handle Shenmue 3 than JSR3.

[TimmiT]

Think about it this way. If you're a young up-and-coming programmer, designer, or artist, are you going to be most passionate about reworking an old property, or making your mark with your own new visions and ideas? Sega isn't going to reclaim any old glories by remaking old games. They will always excel by looking to the new.

The existence of fangames says otherwise. Or how half of all indie games try to be like older games.

[mylifewithsega]

Shinobi on 3DS was a solid game imo, not as good as the Genesis titles but I liked it. People forget Shinobi was for the most part a B-tier SEGA franchise, it had some great games but it was also over-utilized as an IP on Mega Drive/Genesis imo. The Saturn entry (legions) was also rather disappointing.

I love Shinobi Legions. I play it more than the original. That's saying a lot for me, because I fucking adore that first game.

[Nameless 24]

The existence of fangames says otherwise. Or how half of all indie games try to be like older games.

Fan games? From my experience with them, they don't feel at all polished or creative. For the most part, they remake many of the assets from the original games. If they created more of their own unique assets and somehow evolved the gameplay so it plays like a sequel, then you'd have a point, but overall, the fangames will merely be a very slight re-tooling where the main idea is to only recreate the basic ideas of what made the originals great, and won't expand into creating unique ideas so that the game feels like a true sequel. Whether the game is good or not is irrelevant.

What Centrale says is absolutely right. You need a team who can try these new ideas out and create a sequel both worthy of the title AND evolve gameplay mechanics to reflect that.

As for Indie Games, they are merely inspired by the games they grew up with, they don't try and follow Mega Man, Pac Man, Sonic, Metal Gear Solid, Tetris etc all that much, which is why games like FEZ and Cave Story feel fresh whilst incorporating an idea of mechanics that were probably inspired by Metroid. An Indie developer, however...wouldn't get the same opportunities to recreate a SEGA IP due to their ideas being completely against what SEGA would want.

[Centrale]

I love Shinobi Legions. I play it more than the original. That's saying a lot for me, because I fucking adore that first game.

Yeah, I agree -- Shinobi X/Legions seems to me to be an unfairly maligned game. True, the live action cutscenes are low budget and look dated. But the gameplay itself is tight. The digitized gameplay characters look great and animate fluidly. There's an added defensive element that wasn't present in previous titles, which increases the depth and difficulty. And the European version, Shinobi X, has a great Richard Jacques soundtrack that he has stated was a tribute to the Yuzo Kashiro style of Revenge of Shinobi.

I think the only poor Shinobi game was the Cyber Shinobi for the Master System. I don't know what happened with that one. All the other games in the series, IMO, range from great to masterpieces. Even the spin-off, Alex Kidd in Shinobi World, is surprisingly good.