On this SEGA News Bits, George and Barry discuss the recent news of SEGA of Japan announcing the revival of major IPs during their “Road to 2020” business presentation. What franchises could they be referring to? Find out as we dig through the news archives to uncover an old survey that just might hold the answer!
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Who called it? For the past month or two, we’ve been speculating that the third gameplay style in Sonic Forces is a character creation system not unlike Phantasy Star Online. Today, SEGA and the Sonic the Hedgehog YouTube channel revealed just that! Per the video description:
In a world where Eggman has taken over, even two Sonics will need some help. For the first time in the series’ history, create and play as your own custom character in the war to take back the planet.
The third character seems to play like both modern and classic Sonic, but with the added ability to use gadgets like flamethrowers and grappling hooks. Also revealed was a gameplay sample of the unnamed avatar in action, which you can see after the break. What are your thoughts on this reveal? Let us know in the comments below!
[UPDATE] We’ve added the press release as well, found after the break, which details the customization system and what animal species you can expect. Also, we’ve added some new screens and concept art!
Sonic Mania is a game that embraces old school aesthetics, so it is fitting that fellow SEGA and Sonic fan Ineedmorcowbell created a Sonic Mania skin for the old school program Winamp. Initially released in 1997, Winamp is a freemium media player for Windows, Android, and macOS. If you had a computer between 1997 and now, chances are you downloaded this program and still have it on your machine. What Ineedmorcowbell’s skin does is turn the entire player into Studiopolis Zone.
Ineedmorcowbell has this to say about the project:
After watching game play of Sonic Mania’s Studiopolis Zone, and seeing the Hornet Van. I felt like it needed to dance! This whole project was built around getting that Van to dance! From there, I designed how all the windows and standard features would be reskinned. There is all kinds of animations like the clouds moving, or lights glowing, to the projector playing different animations that react to the music.
All the sprites for this skin have been redrawn by myself! I used the debut, and various game play videos to collect the sprites to use, then redrew them in a much lower resolution. Similar to the original Genesis games. To produce a much crisper look then just using them straight from the videos. The only things that I didn’t redraw were some of the animations for the projector that use the developer logos and intro for the game. Christian Whitehead was redrawn because the original design was very seizure inducing. The Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles Head was done in illustrator.
I spent a lot of time and work really hard on this, so let me know what you think!
The SEGAbits Swingin’ Report Show is back, bringing you an interview with Maarten Brands, CEO of Cook & Becker who is behind the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog 25th Anniversary Art Book! In this, his first public interview talking about the book, Maarten goes into the history of the international art dealership Cook & Becker, how the SEGA partnership began and what fans can expect from the Sonic art book.
We’ve long sung the praises of Platinum Games’ Vanquish, so you can guess that we here at SEGAbits are very excited to see the announcement of the game coming to PC. When the game released in 2010, it earned an A grade in our written review.
Set to release May 25th, and available to pre-order now on Steam, the PC version of the game promises a fully unlocked framerate, HD resolutions up to 4K and all DLC. What more, if you own Bayonetta on PC you get 25% off Vanquish and pre-ordering gets you a Deluxe Digital Edition which features a digital art book, OST sampler, avatars, and wallpapers.
At long last, The Top 100 SEGA Games list is here! Those who follow the site know that this ginormous list has been a long time coming. Back in October 2015 we began gathering top 25 lists from the SEGAbits community and the SEGA fan community as a whole for what was at the time intended to be compiled into a list of top 50 SEGA games. The reason for a list was a reaction to a certain big name gaming site that released a top 100 video games list without a single SEGA title. How IGNorant.
Seeing as a ranked top 25 list is a lot to ask, we gave fans all of 2016 to submit lists that followed strict guidelines. Games had to satisfy two of the following: be published by SEGA, be developed by SEGA, IP owned by SEGA. Also games had to be released between 1960 and October 19th, 2015. Once the lists were collected, we had over fifty lists of top 25 games. That’s over 1,250 entries covering nearly 300 games! Now, after six months of compiling, counting, sorting and writing up descriptions we are finally very happy to present to you The Top 100 SEGA Games!
Special thanks to the SEGAbits writing team for pitching in to tally votes and write descriptions when I felt that the task was impossible. And of course, special thanks to SEGA for making the games we love.
Bayonetta released in early April to PC, and on this SEGA News Bits George and Barry take a look at the sales figures. Are Bayonetta‘s numbers Heaven or Hell for SEGA? What games could we see released next? Find out on this witchy News Bits! Want to win a copy of Bayonetta for PC? Enter our contest which runs through May 11th!
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We’re excited to announce that we’ve teamed with SEGA to give away some Bayonetta Steam PC codes! Bayonetta is the hugely successful Platinum Games developed third-person action game starring the eponymous shapeshifting badass witch Bayonetta. Armed with her four guns – Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme – Bayonetta takes on the angelic hordes of Paradiso in order to discover the truth about her past. Bayonetta was our favorite game of the year when it released, and it continues to be one of the best games of the past decade. The new PC version promises to be the definitive version, with stunning graphics running at a solid 60 fps.
We have two contests running at once, and one copy will be given away in each, meaning that you can enter in both to double your chances of winning. Should a winner be selected more than once, we will select another winner in one of the contests so that nobody gets more than one copy of the game.
Here’s how to enter:
SEGAbits.com:In the comments section of this post, tell us why you love Bayonetta. Either as a character or as a franchise. When leaving your comment, please use a valid email address in the email field so we can contact you. Email addresses are not public.
The release will contain the original 13 episodes produced by TMS Entertainment using the MikuMikuDance animation software. The series stars three girls who meet for the first time at the start of a new semester in a brand new school. But these aren’t just any girls, and this isn’t just any school! They are personifications of the SEGA Dreamcast, Saturn and Mega Drive consoles. The series features a ton of fan service, including former SEGA mascot Professor Asobin who appeared during the SG-1000 days. Asobin is voiced by none other than former SEGA game designer and programmer Yuji Naka. You’ll also see, as teased on the cover, Virtua Fighters, Opa Opa, Puyo Puyo, Sonic and more!
Night Trap is coming back to the PS4, Xbox One and (possibly) PC thanks to developer Screaming Villains and Limited Run Games. The former attained the license to remaster the game for modern hardware, and the latter is releasing the game physically to PS4 in cool SEGA CD-inspired packaging. On this SEGA News Bits, Barry and George react to the announcement and share their thoughts on rereleasing controversial games.
Note: It cost the original Kickstarter team $250,000 to buy the rights, the Kickstarter needed $330,000 total to cover the rights, rescan of film elements, development and production.
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Well this is a surprise! It has just been announced that Night Trap, the famous (some would argue infamous) FMV game made popular on the SEGA CD and SEGA CD 32X, is returning to the PlayStation 4 just in time for the 25th anniversary. Remastered by Screaming Villains, the game will release digitally and physically thanks to Limited Run Games. What is really cool, and of interest to SEGA fans, is that the Limited Run Games cover art emulates the classic American SEGA CD and SEGA CD 32X box art complete with the blue and yellow candy cane stripes! The physical release should hit the company’s website soon.
Back in 2014 we had the privilege of interviewing Digital Pictures co-founder Tom Zito, the man behind Night Trap. At the time, Tom and a small team were attempting a remaster titled Night Trap ReVamped, though sadly the Kickstarter failed to reach its goal. We don’t know if Tom and his team have any influence in this rerelease, but we’ll reach out and see what’s up.
Update: We just learned that the owners of the Night Trap license – presumably Tom Zito and Night Trap, LLC since they had already bought and paid for the rights prior to the ReVamped project – granted developer Screaming Villains the license after they posted to YouTube a video of the game running on a mobile phone. You can watch what we believe to be the video after the break.
Update 2: Tom Zito plays no part in this rerelease, so it is unknown at this time who the license holder is.
Update 3: The game will also release to Xbox One, though no sign of those SEGA styled boxes from Limited Run Games.
Covering SEGA news for coming up on 9 years now, I have to say that after some really dark times when the notion of no physical releases from SEGA was a possibility, it feels really good to post up simple articles like this one. Puyo Puyo Tetris is now available on Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 in the Americas, and is set to release on April 28th in Europe. Featuring gameplay from two iconic puzzle games, Puyo Puyo Tetris offers up several single and multi-player as well as online play. Those who buy the Nintendo Switch version at and around launch will receive a special Launch Edition featuring Puyo Puyo and Tetris themed keychains, while the PS4 version comes in a Standard Edition.
SEGA has just released over a minute of gameplay showcasing Classic Sonic’s Green Hill Zone stage in Sonic Forces and… tell me again why this was said to not be Sonic Generations 2? The clip should feel very familiar to those who played the 20th anniversary game back in 2011, right down to the models and assets, though there are a few alterations. The background features a sandy area and enemies are new. Also, the music is new to my ears, though I swear I caught a whiff of Sonic 4‘s Splash Hill Zone.
Eagle eyed fans may catch a glimpse of a bubble shield and it appears Sonic performs a Drop Dash, Sonic Mania‘s signature move, at 1:25.
Check it out for yourself and share your thoughts in the comments below. Also, after the break check out some newly released screens!
If you were a child of the 80s and 90s, there is no doubt that you saw the logo for DIC Entertainment after countless animated shows. From Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Ghostbusters, and Inspector Gadget to the Care Bears and Dennis the Menace, DIC produced some of the most memorable syndicated cartoon shows for over two decades. Now, three Australians are hoping to create a documentary on DIC and an obscure animated show created by the company in the early 90s called Twins of Destiny. The documentary, English Dub – A DIC Entertainment Story, is hoping to hit a lofty goal of nearly $19k in less than 12 days with $2,000 raised so far. You can check out the trailer and read their plans over on their Kickstarter.
Was there any doubt that Yakuza was ending? Well, Yakuza 6 has long been labeled as “the final chapter of Kazuma Kiryu”, so some have speculated that the series would take a break and the team would work on something else. During the Famitsu Awards, however, series general director Toshihiro Nagoshi confirmed that another Yakuza title is happening.
While not many specifics were given, it was said that he will not be walking back on the promise of the latest game being Kazuma Kiryu’s final chapter. Nagoshi made it clear that he wants to make a new Yakuza and that he did not want to narrow it to a single title, we could be seeing multiple games. The Yakuza 6 engine, dubbed the Dragon Engine, was said to be completed with the development of a second or third title. The timeframe for the reveal of the next game was given as “the not too distant future” and that there will be an opportunity to talk about the game early in its development.
What do you think about more Yakuza games? Would you want another prequel title, a true Yakuza 7 with a new main character, or perhaps a reboot focusing on a totally different cast?
