Streets of Rage 4 to reveal fifth playable character next week


Streets of Rage 4‘s publisher Dotemu has teased that they will be showing off a fifth playable character for the game. According to them the new character will be revealed with a “little” surprise… maybe? They have also confirmed that Streets of Rage 4 and Windjammers 2 will be playable at PAX East Boston.

Some people would suggest it might be Eddie “Skate” Hunter, but seeing as this game already has Cherry Hunter, Eddie’s sister and Adam Hunter; how many Hunters do we need? Some say this could be the return of Max Thunder, but he isn’t little at all. Maybe a Streets of Rage 3 character like Dr. Gilbert Zan or Roo? Eh. We shall see.

Who do you think the fifth playable character for Streets of Rage 4 will be?

SEGA’s Two Point Hospital and Yakuza 0 coming to Game Pass on February 25 & 26

If you are a Xbox One fan that has been waiting for the release of Yakuza 0 and Two Point Hospital (maybe if you read this site, not this one) on Game Pass, your wait is almost over. According to Microsoft Yakuza 0 will hit on the 26th while Two Point Hospital will hit on the 25th of this month. Both these games will also be playable on PC, not just Xbox One! Win, win?

If you didn’t know Game Pass is Microsoft’s game service where you pay monthly for a ‘free’ catalogue of games, each month they continue to add more and more.

Catherine: Full Body rated for Nintendo Switch in South Korea


If you have been waiting for more Atlus goodness on the Nintendo Switch, we might be getting Catherine: Full Body since it was rated by the Game Rating and Administration Committee in South Korea. This is pretty big considering that SEGA and Atlus released ‘Catherine: Classic‘ on PC, while the updated Catherine: Full Body was only on PlayStation 4. It seems it won’t be exclusive for long.

According to the listing it was submitted on January 16, 2020 and finalized on January 22, 2020. Unsurprising the game got a 18+ there. It will be interesting to see if Atlus adds new content to this version of Catherine: Full Body, but we shall see.

This also fits with a survey that Atlus ran for Japan where they asked fans if wanted Catherine: Full Body on Nintendo Switch.

[Source: Siliconera]

Streets of Rage 4 to be offline co-op, will keep online co-op ‘in mind’

If you are planning on buying Streets of Rage 4 to play the game online with your old buddies that have moved around the world, you might want to hold that excitement because a user on the Steam forums have asked the developer behind the game if they will feature online co-op and this is what he had to say:

“Going to be local co-op actually but we’ll keep the online coop idea in mind.”

Not really much to discuss but you’d think having online co-op in 2020 would be a no brainier. I do know that Steam now has a feature called ‘Remote Play’ that allows users to play multiplayer offline games, online with the feature. I don’t think PlayStation 4, Xbox One or Nintendo Switch has these, so it seems this could be a negative for the game. Personally I play most of my games offline, but what do you think?

Sonic the Hedgehog Movie gets its own Build-a-Bear Plush

The Sonic the Hedgehog movie is finally releasing in less than a day, so its about that time we see more merchandise being released. Right now Build-a-Bear has listed the option of making a Sonic the Movie plush of our blue boy. You can see both listed on the North American and European websites. The prices range from $29 to $53 bucks, depending on which version you get (if he has shoes or a ring).

Like everyone else, its nice to see merchandise after they redesigned the character, I couldn’t even imagine what this poor Build-a-Bear would have looked like if they used the nightmare fuel Ken Penders design.

Unboxing Yakuza Remastered Collection Day One Edition

Now that we finally got the Yakuza Remastered Edition released the other day, I took some time to unbox the Day One edition. This Day One Edition comes with some extras, most exciting for fans is the Yakuza 5 PlayStation 3 USA replica case. In this video I compare the USA case versus the Japanese Yakuza 5 cases to see the differences.

If you guys like the unboxing, I would appreciate if you guys gave my personal channel a sub! Thanks.

As a shock to no one, there are no plans for SEGA AGES Sonic 3 & Knuckles


Going to be honest, I picked this story up because our favorite Sonic the Hedgehog movie hater Tristan Oliver (no relations to John Oliver) picked this up from a Game Watch interview with SEGA Ages head honcho Yosuke Okunari and Naoki Horii where they talk about the upcoming SEGA AGES Sonic the Hedgehog 2 release.

While its awesome we are getting SEGA AGES Sonic the Hedgehog 2, everyone wanted to know if there would be plans to give the same treatment to Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles. Especially since SEGA AGES Sonic the Hedgehog 2 will have Knuckles playable. Sadly, according to M2, there are no plans. According to the team, the second wave will be decided by SEGA but as hardcore Sonic the Hedgehog fans know; SEGA has stopped Sonic 3 & Knuckles releases because of copyright issues with Michael Jackson’s estate.

The twitter account @gosokkyu did a translation on how they got Knuckles in SEGA AGES and goes into detail on how the game was coded and how ‘lock-on’ technology worked and even how M2 didn’t know about Sonic Mania Plus content until it was announced.

Space Channel 5 VR launches on February 25 on PlayStation 4


We have finally got a solid date for Space Channel 5 VR Kinda Funky News Flash!, it will be coming out on PlayStation 4 on February 25, 2020 (in North America, day after for Europe), this was confirmed by PlayStation twitter account, which linked to the store page. For a long time Space Channel 5 VR was shown off by SEGA at SEGA’s TGS booth but now it looks like SEGA isn’t going to be publishing this title; according to the product page the developer Grounding Inc will also publish it. Which is a shame.

According to the official site for the game, they still don’t have a solid release date for Viveport, Steam VR or Oculus Quest. So far it seems that PlayStation 4 fans will get first dibs on Space Channel 5 VR Kinda Funky News Flash!.

 

SEGA & M2 announce new Shoot ’em Up ‘Ikusaba’ & M2’s SEGA Classics coming to Arcades – JAEPO 2020

In the recent Japan Amusement Expo, where companies show the upcoming Japanese arcade platforms and cabinets, SEGA and M2 had a brand new shoot ’em up to show going by the temporary name of Ikasaba. While there are some screenshots shown, not much is known about this upcoming shooter. M2 is set to put out more information in the near future.

M2’s Ikusaba is set to launch in Japanese arcades on SEGA’s ALL.Net P-ras MULTI Version 3 (APM3) this upcoming Fall 2020. Its one of the upcoming 11 titles that were announced for this platform, check out the other titles:

  • Guilty Gear Strive
  • Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax Ignition APM3 ver.
  • Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late[cl-r]
  • Otoshoo DX
  • Umihara Kawase Fresh!
  • Rolling Gunner
  • Koihime Enbu RyoRaiRai Version3
  • Goonya Fighter
  • Sega Classics (temp. name) (1st game: Fantasy Zone)

[Source: Siliconera]

Phantasy Star Online 2 will be coming to Steam

If you have a gander at the online manual for the North American release of Phantasy Star Online 2, you will notice that the PC version is listed as coming to Steam along with Microsoft Store version.

Launch PC game version

When the download is complete, you can proceed to launch the game by doing the following:

  • Steam
    • Open the Steam client and search for “Phantasy Star Online 2” under the “Library” section, then click “Play.”
    • If you opted to create a desktop shortcut, simply double click on the shortcut to launch the game.
  • Windows 10
    • Open the start menu and search for the “Phantasy Star Online 2” app shortcut.
    • If you opted to create a desktop shortcut, simply double click on the desktop shortcut.

As you already know, this weekend will be the start of the Phantasy Star Online 2 closed beta, from February 7 to the 9th only on Xbox One.

Phantasy Star Online 2 won’t be region locked, at least for now…

We are getting closer and closer to the release of the Phantasy Star Online 2 closed beta, which launches on February 7th. While Phantasy Star Online 2 is only officially coming out in North America (at least this Microsoft published servers), some European fans have asked if they will be blocking players from outside of the North America:


Quite frankly, I don’t see why Microsoft doesn’t just open this server to anyone that wants to play it in English. I mean, technically anyone can join the Japanese servers and is it bad to have a popular game? I think it would be good for Microsoft’s brand more than anything.

[Via: Siliconera]

Phantasy Star Online 2 closed beta starts February 7, 2020

If you are excited for the Western Xbox One closed beta, which starts on February 7th and goes through the 8th, then you’re in luck since we got more details about the event including ‘exclusive closed beta missions and items’. According to Microsoft you will be able to pre-load the game on February 3rd, if you want to start playing the first nano second the game goes live. You can sign up for the closed beta via the ‘Xbox Insider Hub’. 

Closed Beta Test Schedule

  • Starts: Friday, February 7th, 5 PM (PST)
  • Ends: Saturday, February 8th, 11:59 PM (PST)
  • Official Website: Opens Friday, February 7th, 10 AM (PST)

The beta will also have ‘Urgent Quests’ during the closed beta which include the following missions:

Yakuza 7 launch day numbers weakest in main series, 20% drop from Yakuza 6

Yakuza 7 (Yakuza: Like a Dragon in America) is changing a lot of things that were considered bread and butter for the franchise. This includes a new lead character and a change from real time action to turn base combat. Unsurprisingly this has lead to a drop in launch sales. Does this mean that this whole new direction has been a failure? Not really, it will depend on how the game sales overtime and we still have to launch it outside of Japan. Who knows, in the West, this being a soft reboot might help it.

 

Check out the tweet by Game Data Library on Twitter for a sales chart: