Author Archives: George

Japanese PSN leaks “Lost Judgment” early, sequel to Judgment

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As you know, back in March SEGA filed a trademark for the name ‘Lost Judgment‘, which lead people to speculate that SEGA will be making a sequel to Judgment (or Judge Eyes in Japan). Since then SEGA has released the next generation ‘Remaster’ of Judgment and has been teasing a sequel on social media (which is set to be reveal tomorrow).

But Japanese PSN can’t wait, it has updated its store page to show off the sequel right now. The game in Japan will be called “Lost Judgment” according to the leak. The Japanese PSN has been on fire since they also leaked Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown early. We also know that the game will feature a season pass in Japan, according to the site page.
The game is set to launch in Japan on September 21st on both PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5! As far as the Western name for the game? I guess we shall see if we will get Judgment 2 or Lost Judgment; tomorrow at 7am PST!

 

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Wonder Boy: Asha in Monster World hitting Western PS4 & Switch May 28, PC on June 29

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It looks like the Monster World IV remake, Wonder Boy: Asha in Monster World, is set to launch both physically and digitally on PS4 and Nintendo Switch on May 28th in the West (North America, Europe and Australia). PC gamers will have to wait until June 29th to get their hands on it.

The game is set to retail for $39.99, which seems a bit high considering Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap remake of Wonder Boy III launched for half the price.

You can read the overview of this remake release, via the publisher ININ after the jump:

[Via: Gematsu]

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Streets of Rage 4 reveals Max Thunder as playable, part of ‘Mr. X Nightmare’ DLC

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Dot Emu has announced the ‘Mr. X Nightmare’ DLC where they teased the DLC having three new playable characters. The last announcement had Estel Aguirre as playable and this time its Max Thunder. While its not a surprise, since the publisher put up a silhouette image of the upcoming characters, its nice to finally get it confirmed.

But who will be the 3rd and final character? Everyone’s money is on Mr. X’s bodyguard Shiva, which has been a fan favorite character for decades. Considering that the DLC deals with Mr. X returning, having Shiva as a playable character would be pretty awesome.

This was announced today because its Streets of Rage 4′s 1st year anniversary. Time sure flies by….

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Yakuza 0 Vinyl Pre-Orders Open, Including a Double Deluxe LP and a Six Record Limited Edition

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Looks like Laced Records has opened up pre-orders fro the Yakuza 0 vinyl soundtrack. The company is set to ship the records in October 2021 and this will include:

The cheaper, deluxe record is set to include 27 songs, with on record being green and the other light blue. It will also including songs like “Fever ☆ Time,” “Ignite Your Spirit,” “Koi no Disco Queen,” “One-Eyed Slugger,” and “Setsuna No Ningyohime〜Heart break​ mermaid〜【Full Spec Edition】.”

Now the Limited Edition Six Record Set will offer 90 songs with each record getting its own sleeve and its own ‘color-in-color’ design. If you want “Bakamitai”, you gonna have to spend more money on this edition.

[Via: Siliconera]

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Cancelled Dreamcast Castlevania: Resurrection prototype released to the public

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Remember when the story came out that someone found a old pre-E3 Castlevania: Resurrection prototype? Castlevania: Resurrection has always been one of those missing titles that was suppose to come out and nothing happen. It was thought to be lost to time, but now everyone can play the pre-E3 demo thanks to the owner putting the disc up for free. He did try to eBay it, it even got to over 20k, but he took the listing down when people warned him Konami could go after him.

It seems that this demo disc was meant to be seen by gaming journalist, back in the day and is considered a “pre-E3 demo”.  The guys over at the SEGA Dreamcast Info Preservation Games has a huge write up on prototype.

Download Castlevania: Resurrection here!

Wonder if we will be seeing other prototype builds of this title come out? I sure hope so. Any other ‘cancelled’ Dreamcast games you guys would like to see prototypes of?

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SEGA Japan announces its selling NFT digital content, upsets the internet so much they start trending

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It really looks like the years of hard work to create good PR has all gone to waste, maybe! SEGA Japan announced it was going to partner up with ‘double jump .tokyo’ to create NFT digital content and utilize blockchain technology this upcoming summer. This obviously caused a huge uproar, so much so that it sent SEGA to trending on the front page of Twitter. Oh boy.

For those not in the know and never heard of “NFT”, it stands for ‘Non Fungible Token’. So that doesn’t explain much, but what does it do and what does this have to do with ‘blockchains’ and Crypto? Basically NFT’s right now are a digital way of buying a painting or piece of artwork that only you own and will forever live on the blockchain. For example if SEGA puts an official Sonic piece of artwork, they can allow users to bid with Crypto to see who ‘owns it’. Right now the biggest NFT market is ‘Open Sea’, which lets you browse and explore how the whole thing works.

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SEGA Japan officially allows Japanese users to monetize videos on YouTube and Twitch

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SEGA Japan has released new streaming guidelines for Japanese audiences, which will now allow individual users to monetize videos and streams of SEGA owned games through YouTube and Twitch.

Its actually kinda crazy that SEGA didn’t allow this before considering how games like Yakuza got huge brand awareness in the West due to streamers and YouTubers making videos on the games. But it seems that SEGA in the past allowed users to create videos, but not profit from them. It seems that SEGA is also encouraging players to add reaction faces and comments, but also asking for spoiler tags on videos that ruin story moments. They have also asked not to do unrelated edits that would obscure actual gameplay, which seems a bit vague?

This whole guideline sadly isn’t applying to Atlus or western developed titles such as Total War, but if its a success for SEGA; we can all assume this will all change.

[Via: Siliconera]

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“Cotton Guardian Force Saturn Tribute” announced for PS4, Switch

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It looks like City Connection will be releasing a shoot ’em up collection being titled Cotton Guardian Force Saturn Tribute for the PS4 and Nintendo Switch! This was done at the Shooting Game Daikanshasai event. The collection is set to launch on September 30, 2021 in Japan with a standard and special edition. Pre-orders open on April 27th.

The collection is set to gather the SEGA Saturn ports of the Cotton games which will include:

The collection will have all the modern emulation bells and whistles including save state, rapid fire, ability to rewind, online rankings, and more. The team is also working on Cotton: Reboot, which is due to come out later this year as well.

Who would have thought 2021 would have the Cotton series return?

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Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios teases ‘JUDGEMENT DAY’ on May 7th, Sequel to Judgment?

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Ryu Ga Gotoku’s Yakuza side game Judgment might bet a sequel, at least if the new countdown website launched by the studio is to be believed. The page teases ‘JUDGEMENT DAY’ on May 07, 2021 at 7:00AM PDT! On the page there is a teaser that features footage from the newly re-release Judgment remaster (which changes up lighting and other aspects of the PS4 title) and even has a link to a upcoming ‘live event’ set for that day.

Quite frankly Judgment is a great title by the studio and I personally have wanted to see the franchise continue in some aspect. It looks like we might be getting that considering that SEGA just re-released the title on next generation consoles, the fact that we got the ‘Lost Judgment‘ trademark and now this teaser site?

Let’s go!

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‘SUPER MONKEY BALL BANANA MANIA’ Rated by the Australian Classification Board

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There has been quite a bit of rumors on the fact that there will be another Super Monkey Ball game. Some of the rumors call it Super Monkey Ball Retro but it seems the Australian Classification board, which rates games for the region, has let it slip: SUPER MONKEY BALL BANANA MANIA!

So what do we know? The game will be rated PG and have mild violence, with online interactivity. The title will also be ‘multiplatform’ and the rating was done earlier today.

It seems SEGA is gearing up to have a epic year if all those rating leaks are anything to go by including: Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown and Lost Judgment.

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SEGA closes sale on SEGA Amusements International and what it means for the future of western SEGA arcades

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Back in March, SEGA Amusements’ Roger Penninton left the company after 31 years of service. Considering how SEGA’s Japanese management device was hit hard during Covid-19 which ended up selling 85% of the company back in November of 2020. I had a gut feeling big changes were also coming to SEGA Amusement International and I was right.

While most people write off SEGA Amusement International (prior where known as SEGA Amusement Europe) as just a company that distributes SEGA’s Japanese arcade games to the West; they actually have development teams that are creating original titles. One of the recent titles included Daytona USA 3 (or is that Daytona Championship USA?). All the way back in 2016, the company even wanted to try their hands at making OutRun 3!

So who bought SEGA Amusements International and what does this mean for the future? Oddly enough, the management team working within SEGA Amusement International including industry veteran Paul Williams. For what I read, nothing much will change as the company will still be ‘SEGA Amusements International’, still distribute SEGA’s arcade titles outside of Japan and still work on their own original titles.

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New Wonder Boy: Asha in Monster World Trailer highlights voice actors

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For the first time in Wonder Boy history, the in-game characters will actually have voices in Wonder Boy: Asha in Monster World, a remake of the 1994 SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive classic Monster World IV. I’ve been pretty iffy with this title but slowly, as each trailer releases, its been getting me more interested. My only issue is the game costing $39.99, considering Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap cost half of that when it released.

Regardless, this new trailer is showing off some of the Japanese voice actors that will be voicing the colorful cast of characters.

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Sakura Wars: Columns 2 English Fan Translation Launching May 3rd

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If you’ve been around the SEGA Dreamcast scene, you’ve probably been seeing some past Japanese only games receive English fan translated patches. Now it has been confirmed that the English fan patch for Sakura Wars: Columns 2 will be launching on May 3rd. 

While the gameplay of Sakura Wars: Columns 2 is, well Columns, it also has a story mode with decision making, much like a full scale Sakura Wars title. Its nice to check off another previously Japanese title off the list as getting a English translation.

Keep your Dreamcast ready, Sakura Wars: Columns 2 launches May 3rd, 2021!

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SEGA PlayStation 3 PSN Titles To Buy Before Sony Shuts Down the Store

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Come August 27th, 2021, the PlayStation Network Store for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable and PlayStation Vita will be closed forever. That means all those great, PSN exclusives titles (and other easier to get digital titles) will be gone for good. At least, the ability to buy them legally. I thought it would be cool to look at some of SEGA’s PSN titles that are worth buying, some being exclusive, others not so much.

Sadly some of SEGA’s digital backlog has already disappeared, namely OutRun 2006: Coast to Coast (PSP) and After Burner Climax (PS3) due to licensing issues. But SEGA still has a few cult classics that are must buys, lets look at those titles:

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SEGA of America Producer and Designer Michael Latham, best known for Eternal Champions, passes away

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SEGA of America’s Michael Lathan has passed away, as reported by SEGA-16’s twitter account. Michael started his gaming character at Rainbird Software where he would localize computer games for the American market, he would then move to Mediagenic where he was a producer for Ghostbusters II and Tongue of the Fatman before the company went bankrupt in 1991.

“It was simply the most fun of any job I ever had. Everything just exploded, and for a young guy in the business it allowed me to do so much so fast. I entered the company as a producer, quickly moved up to run my own production group, and even became a VP before the age of 30, thanks to the unbelievable growth and talented people I worked with. It’s so hard to have all the right people in the right places, and when you do, you get hit companies and products. We were on movie sets, meeting with sport teams, going backstage at concerts – all kinds of exciting projects – and the development teams were still small and you really knew everyone you worked with unlike the mega development teams of today’s games.” – Michael Latham talks working at SEGA during the early 90s

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