Author Archives: George

SEGA trademarks Valkyria: Azure Revolution and V-Gaje

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That’s right folks, SEGA has trademarked ANOTHER name related to its Valkyria Chronicles franchise (Valkyria of the Battlefield in Japan). First we had Valkyria of the Blue Revolution last month and now we have Valkyria: Azure Revolution. According to Gematsu this could be the official English title for the game but it would be weird if they drop ‘Chronicles‘ from the game’s name. Wouldn’t Valkyria Chronicles: Blue Revolution work out better?

SEGA also trademarked ‘V-Gaje’ which is mean’t to be a abbreviation of “V-Gadjet”? Not much is known regardless. It seems that SEGA has some announcements to make come 2016, maybe we should be just a tiny bit excited. Just a tiny bit.

TMs-Valkyria-Azure-Rev

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SEGA posts sales profits despite having fewer sales

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SEGA-Sammy has posted their detailed financial report for the last six months, spanning from April to September 2015. If you guys didn’t know, April 1st is when SEGA’s massive restructure happen and around June is when SEGA of America did their big move. Not only that but the company hasn’t been releasing as much software as they used to, but they still manage to make profit even with a decrease in sales.

SEGA-Sammy reports 1.2 billion in net sales, which happens to be a decrease of 2.5% over the same six month period in 2014, where they reported over 1.3 billion. Yet SEGA-Sammy posted a profit of $7.9 million, compared to losing $23 million in 2014.

SEGA-Sammy said that digital games just happen to be one of the big money makers for the company which happen to them get out of the red. What games did good? Lets look.

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Sonic Generation PC mod let’s you play as Mario

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Well, I think saying that it only lets you play the game as Mario is short changing the PC mod being titled ‘Super Mario Generations’ by its creator. The mod also brings new bosses, new hub world NPCs, and of course Mario but with new improved animations.

Got to hand it to fans who continue to make mods for Sonic Generation, I love this sort of stuff even if it does have Mario in it (not that there’s anything wrong with Mario).

Find out more via Sonic Retro or Moddb page!

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SEGA News Bits: Sonic 25th Anniversary game to play like classic games?

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SEGA is getting ready to celebrate Sonic the Hedgehog’s 25th Anniversary next year and their new marketing director in Europe has dropped a hint on what to expect that new game to play like. According to him the new Sonic the Hedgehog games will be more inspired by how they “played in its heyday.” What is Sonic’s heyday? What does this all mean? Let’s talk about that. Read the original story here.

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Yakuza 5 screens shows off side-activities and play spots

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Yakuza-5_2015_10-30-15_015SEGA’s Yakuza series has been well known for its side-activities and play spots sprinkled throughout the game.  But no game takes it further than Yakuza 5!

The game has activities like rhythm dancing, hunting bears, drinking, gambling, trying to get SEGA swag from a UFO catcher, playing Taiko Drum Master in arcades, and even driving taxis! So much to do, so little time.

Check out the screenshots after the jump. Yakuza 5 will hit PSN in Europe and North America sometime this month.

[Via: Gemastu]

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Review: The Legend of Legacy (3DS)

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The Legend of Legacy piqued my interest when I heard that the team behind the game (Furyu) was billing the title as a spiritual sequel to the SaGa series of games, a series of RPGs that I played many moons ago. Did I enjoy them? Hard to tell since I was quite young when I played them but the name always stuck with me over the years. I  was excited to start this long RPG trip and ready to see if the game will live up to its ‘Legacy’ namesake. Well, does it? One way to find out…

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SEGA News Bits: New Valkyria Chronicles game trademarked?

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Did SEGA just trademark a new Valkyria Chronicles game? If you recall we ran a story on SEGA’s trademark for ‘Valkyria of the Blue Revolution‘, which many have speculated to be SEGA trying to bring back the franchise. Me and Barry sit down and discuss what we think of the whole situation. Sit back, sit down and join the discussion in the comment section.

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Wii U hardware sales officially surpass the Dreamcast

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The Wii U and Dreamcast have a lot of things in common, for one they both have secondary displays on the controller and the other is that they both didn’t sell as expected. The Wii U, in its third year on sale, has finally surpassed sales of the Dreamcast. The SEGA Dreamcast reached sales of 10.6 million units 18 months after release, Nintendo just announced that the Wii U reached sales of 10.73 million units recently.

While the Dreamcast did reach a higher number of sold units at a faster rate, it was also heavily discounted from its original MSRP launch price compared to Wii U, which has had a minor $50 re-configure bundle price drop. I remember after the Dreamcast got discontinued how you could get a bundle with a few games for around $50 dollars, as stores where trying to get rid of them.

[Source: NintendoLife]

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SEGA hints Sonic 25th Anniversary game could be inspired by classic games

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ClassicSonicSEGA really has changed the way they handle PR for their Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, admitting to wrongs and promising a brighter future for the franchise. So far they are keeping that promise and recently went as far as delaying Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice into 2016 (shall see if its a better game for it).

The other day Marketing Week interviewed SEGA Europe’s marketing director Jon Rooke who also admitted to Sonic the Hedgehog‘s recent poor track record of games and suggested that the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog game will be “more inspired by how it played in its heyday.”

“Sega has publicly apologised to the fans as the quality of console games in the Sonic franchise hasn’t been acceptable over recent years. It’s been tough translating that iconic side scrolling 2D experience from the 90s into 3D but Sonic is still huge for us so the new games will be more inspired by how it played in its heyday.” – Jon Rooke, SEGA Europe Marketing Director

Honestly this isn’t the first time I have been hearing call backs to Sonic’s heyday, they do it with marketing trailers all the time. I guess we shall see soon enough if this is all just talk.

[Via: TSSZNews]

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Hatsune Miku: Project Mirai DX sold 24k copies in America on its debut month

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Hatsune Miku Project Mirai DXAccording to NeoGAF user creamsugar (who is NeoGAF famous for leaking NPD sale numbers), Hatsune Miku: Project Mirai DX sold a total 24,000 units (estimated, physical only) in all of September. The game came out on September 8th, this would mean that it would have had 22 days on store shelves. Is this good or bad? Well, seeing as how Hatsune Miku: Project Diva f  on Playstation Vita sold 16,000 units back in 2013 and that was good enough for SEGA to bring more after that, I would say its good enough.

One of the reasons that these games don’t have to sell more than, lets say, something like Yakuza is because of the cost of translation. The more words, the more money. Of course there is more factors but that’s another topic for another day. What do you guys think? Is 24k too low for a niche rhythm game?

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Play Shenmue on Dreamcast in widescreen

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ShenmueWidescreenHackWe know that Codebreaker codes change aspects of games, from infinite lives to instant unlockables. But did you know that you can use a code on games to get them to display in ‘anamorphic widescreen’? Assembler Games forum user S4pph4rad decided to release his anamorphic widescreen codes for Shenmue I & II and this lead to quite a few users contributing back.The idea is to have codes for most of the games, if possible.

“Similar to the codes for other platforms, this is anamorphic widescreen so you’re not getting higher resolution. Some additional changes could probably be made like shrinking the HUD too, but this is the simplest solution. Consider these version 1. There’s still some pop-in occasionally near the edges of the screen, but it’s not as bad as when you use an emulator to extend the visible area. That could probably be fixed with deeper analysis into how it decides when something goes out of range.” – S4pph4rad from Assembler Games

You can read all about the process of Anamorphic widescreen over here and if you want to check out more progress on codes for other games check out Assembler Games’ forum thread. This is all a work in progress, of course and the community is submitting codes to other Dreamcast classics.

Hit the jump for the Shenmue I & II widescreen codes!

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Phantasy Star Generation 2 gets full English fan translation

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PhantasyStarGenerationPart2The Phantasy Star fansite pscave.com has finished fully translating the Japanese only Phantasy Star Generation 2, which is a remake of the SEGA Genesis/Megadrive JRPG Phantasy Star II. This (and the first Generation game) was part of the Sega Ages 2500 series of remakes that got released on the Playstation 2.

Version notes: 

“This version is an open beta. Many pieces of equipment and techniques have had their names revised from their previous incarnations. Namely, many appeared to be German words spelled phonetically in Japanese (i.e., “Nish” is was actually spelled in Japanese as “Harnisch” which is German for “Armor.” Thus, it was decided many techniques will not be seen as they were in previous games like PSO or earlier. This was a collaborative effort with the members of the PSCave forum. A document noting specific changes for reference will be provided with the translated ISO (CRC32: C10FD10C) and the patch.”

You can always download the full English translated ISO of the game here. According to PSCave, the original game was distributed on CD and not DVD, so if you’re going to burn it to play on a modded Playstation 2 then burn it on CD. You can always play it on PCSX2 emulator, which is a lot less of a hassle.

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Hatsune Miku: Project Diva X’s Quest Mode adds RPG like loot drops

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hatsunemikuprojectx1SEGA is hard at work with their new Hatsune Miku: Project Diva X video game, which is set to add a bit of a RPG touch to its new Quest Mode evolving various attributes and some looting system. Live Quest Mode consist of different elemental areas such as: Neutral Area, Cute Area, Cool Area, Beauty Area, and Chaos Area.

The game happens to use Modules and accessories that have their own elements, so if you happen to use them with the element on the stage it will boost your voltage rating (see featured image above) and will earn items more effectively.

Modules will also give you skills that will help you out. For example there is a “Recover” type skill that helps you cover missed inputs and a “Rate Up” skills that add more to your voltage gain. There is even module skills that affect module drop rates. Hit the jump to see some tracks and modules used in the upcoming game.

[Via: Siliconera]

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These are Yakuza 5’s fab five protagonists

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Yakuza5promoTry to say the title of this article five times fast in a Japanese accent! SEGA has released the following recap for Yakuza gamers that have waited too long for Yakuza 5 to actually release in the West. How long has it been? Three years? No problem, SEGA has you covered with their latest recap, so you don’t miss a beat.

Troubling is that SEGA still has no concrete release date, which is odd considering how close November is (a little over a week away). Lets look at the five characters you’ll play as after the break.

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Yu Suzuki says convincing SEGA to let him do Shenmue III was easy

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Shenmue3Yu Suzuki has done a couple of interviews about Shenmue III the other day, one of the more interesting ones was with Dual Shockers one in which they asked him about how hard it was to get the rights for the project which Yu Suzuki said:

” It’s difficult to explain. I am the one who created Shenmue, so Sega allows me to take decisions for the game. They trust me because I know more about the workings of the game more than anyone else. There were no problems. Sega is very helpful and collaborative with me. They hope the best for Shenmue III. I actually still work for Sega as an adviser, so we have a very good relationship.”

Dualshockers also posted a video of Yu Suzuki explaining the “AI Battling” which was a goal during their Kickstarter. Check out that video here. If you’re a big Yu Suzuki fan, I’d suggest you give the interview a read and if you’re Yu Suzuki and you are reading this, how about you answer our emails, bro?

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