Author Archives: Big Elk

Retro-Bit announces new Undeadline Collector’s Cartridge for Genesis/Mega-Drive; pre-orders open until August 10th, 2025

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When there’s an ultra-rare, ultra-expensive, and especially Japan exclusive shooter for Genesis/Mega-Drive, you can bet your bottom dollar that Retro-Bit will try to bring it to the western world as one of their Collector’s Cartridges, as they have done a few times before. This time, they’ve set their sights on the monster filled shmup known as Undeadline (1991).

Pre-orders have already begun in North America and Europe for this ghoulish shooter, which is at a big time bargain compared to trying to track down even a loose cartridge of the original Japanese copy of this cult Mega-Drive classic. This comes licensed from the current rights holder D4 Enterprise and with a brand new English translation made in cooperation with D4.

Come on down past the break for a closer look at this game and for pre-order links.

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Fundraiser started to rescue and preserve hundreds of Sega 3DS and DS game prototypes before August 2025

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Video game preservation organizations Obscure Gamers and Video Game Preservation Museum are in the midst of a public fundraiser to help them bring in £61K to rescue some 300 prototypes and showroom demos of classic Sega games on Nintendo DS and 3DS from becoming e-waste. This includes never-before-seen early builds of memorable DS/3DS Sega classics such as Sonic Colors DS, Sonic Generations 3DS, some Mario & Sonic Olympics games, and even a DS build of Project R, better known as Rhythm Thief & The Emperor’s Treasure, which would release on Nintendo 3DS instead of DS in 2012.

Sadly, even with multiple fundraisers set up to pool money, they have not made it far reaching their goal by now, and they must raise the necessary funds before the start of August 2025. Otherwise, they may not have another chance to rescue all this precious Sega history before it returns to the e-waste bins they were pulled from. There’s still plenty of time as of this writing, so it’s too soon to give up now. We encourage you to give whatever money you can spare to help with this noble preservation effort. Obscure Gamers have promised that your money can be refunded in August at your request if the fundraiser fails, so you at least have nothing to lose if they lose, other than tons of important information on the development of these games that could be documented online for all to see, as well as the digital rom files themselves for you to try out.

Links to the various fundraisers, as well as a list of every game prototype hanging in the balance, will be below the break here.

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Gamescare announces a December 2025 release date for their new FPGA Genesis/32X console: the GF-1 Neptune

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The Brazillian company GamesCare have announced a December 2025 release window for their hotly anticipated Genesis/32X hybrid FPGA console: the GF-1 Neptune. At the moment, pre-orders are not yet available and no price has been announced, though they have stated it will be average for consoles of this nature. Given the usual cost of most FPGA consoles, I would estimate somewhere in the ballpark of $200-300 USD, but we’ll see soon. (Expect tariffs to be an issue as well) They have also promised that crowdfunding will not be part of their plans.

This announcement was made public through GamesCare’s Twitter, along with a link to a signup page for their new email newsletter. You can sign up there to hear when more info comes out. The link will be right below the break.

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Sega’s Japan exclusive Mega-Drive turn based strategy game The Hybrid Front receives a fan translation

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Sega’s classic cyberpunk turn-based strategy game for Genesis/Mega-Drive, The Hybrid Front (1994), has finally been fan translated.

This translation was 7 years in the making, as the team of fans responsible, Nebulous Translations, had announced this translation back in 2018. Due to some difficulties with packing English text into the game’s visual interface, which was intrinsically designed for kanji-heavy Japanese to be written out vertically, the translation patch took a lot longer to put together in the team’s spare time. After much difficulty, a translation patch is now available for the public to download and try. The Hybrid Front and its surprisingly in depth story and dialogue for its time is now far more accessible to curious English speaking fans.

If your interested in trying it for yourself, strategize your way past the break for the download link.

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Ichiban’s Holiday crossover DLC for Dave The Diver now available until 2027

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The time limited Ichiban’s Holiday DLC for Dave the Diver, which facilitated a crossover with Like A Dragon’s Ichiban Kasuga meeting the crew at the Blue Hole in Dave the Diver, has had its timed availability extended. Originally only available from April 2025 until October 2025, it will now instead remain available for purchase on all platforms until the end of 2026. While we’d still much rather have this permanently available, It’s good to have a much larger window of opportunity to obtain the DLC to go with the game. Regardless, you will retain access to the DLC if you purchase it any time before it goes away. Ichiban’s Holiday will still set you back an extra $6.99 USD, but will occasionally go on sale, so keep it in your wishlist if you prefer to wait for a discount. (It’s already discounted on Steam, as part of the ongoing Steam Summer Sale.)

This bit of good news comes from a special video announcement for Dave the Diver’s 2nd anniversary celebration. In the video, it was stated that due to negative feedback from how quickly the DLC would be delisted, developer Mintrocket had convinced Sega and RGG Studio to allow them to keep this DLC available much longer than originally agreed upon. As an extra bit of good news, the free Godzilla DLC, which was delisted last year, is also back and available for free as before, and a sneak peek was also given at a new In The Jungle DLC expansion planned for 2026. The game and DLC are now also available on the Epic Games Store and a free Nintendo Switch 2 update is planned for the Nintendo Switch version.

You can view the video announcement right after the break below. (Turn on subtitles for RGG director Masayoshi Yokoyama’s congratulatory message to Mintrocket.)

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New top-down Genesis/Mega-Drive shooter Sovietborgs now crowdfunding on Indiegogo

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Developer Retro Sumus are back with an all-new action shooter coming to Genesis/Mega-Drive called Sovietborgs. Spaniard developer Retro Sumus were previously known for their amazing 3D Dreamcast shooter Xenocider, released in 2021. That game, one of the first fully 3D indie games on Dreamcast, was a visual tour-de-force and a great tribute to Space Harrier and Sin & Punishment. With Sovietborgs, they’ve set their sights not just on Genesis, but aim to bring the game to Dreamcast and even MS-DOS and Neo-Geo. Quite the ambitious project indeed, and they’ve brought Sovietborgs to IndieGogo for the funding needed to make it happen.

Sovietborgs leverages pre-rendered 3D graphics, much like Vectorman or Sonic 3D Blast, to bring you into an alternate reality in which the Soviet Union became the dominant civilization following the Cold War. You’ll be controlling three mercenaries called “Sovietborgs” all at once to wipe out all the vicious mutants in every level. The game will play like a top-down shooter, but there are in-between levels more like a horizontal scrolling shmup as well. The music is inspired by the Strike trilogy and Command & Conquer: Red Alert and composed by the same Juanjo Martin who composed the music for Xenocider.

If you’re just itching to throw money at this game’s Indiegogo and get a copy of the game in the process following its completion, then journey on down past the break and find out what to expect from this campaign.

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Digital Eclipse head of production Stephen Frost expresses desire to work on a Saturn fighting game collection

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Digital Eclipse is name that holds a spectacular reputation among fans of retro gaming. The Atari SA owned development studio has been behind some of the most highly regarded retro game collections in recent years, including Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection, Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration, and their most recently announced games Golden Tee: Arcade Classics and Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection. (Of note to Sega fans, that upcoming Mortal Kombat collection… sorry, I mean “Kollection…” will include the Genesis/Mega-Drive, Game Gear, and even 32X ports of multiple Mortal Kombat titles)

When speaking with Games Industry.biz regarding their work on Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection, Digital Eclipse head of production Stephen Frost mentioned he’d love to be able to do a collection of Sega’s fighting games on the Sega Saturn. This isn’t a confirmation that any such project is actually in development, but it is cool to hear nonetheless.

You can see his exact quote past the break here.

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Remaining Sega Forever mobile games being hit with End-of-Service announcements UPDATE: Annnnnnnd they’re gone

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Recorded from the Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode II mobile app

The final nail in Sega Forever’s coffin has just been pounded in. The once-promising initiative out of Sega Europe to bring classic Sega games back on mobile devices as free, ad-supported games had already been quietly discontinued years ago and several games were delisted and left with their online services disabled in 2023. Now, most of the remaining games are meeting the same fate.

Like before, this comes without any official announcement from Sega outside of this end-of-service notice popping up within the affected games, along with a link directly to Sega’s website. Each of the games will remain playable offline and tied to your Google Play or Apple account if you had previously downloaded them, but they will no longer be updated, so it’s only a matter of time until they do become unplayable as Sega will no longer make sure they keep up with ongoing Android or iOS updates. This has actually already happened with each of the games that were delisted the last time since we reported on it two years ago. The topical games here are still available on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store as of this writing, so you may as well download the remaining games if you haven’t already and enjoy them while you can. As part of this update, all online features will be shut down, which amounted to leaderboards and, for the Genesis/Mega-Drive games, save-states saved onto the cloud. Local save data will remain accessible. The option to pay $2 USD to disable ads, which will now be disabled anyway, is also gone.

Check past the break for a list of the affected titles.

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Melodies Zone celebrates Sega’s 65th anniversary with a new fan remix album

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June 3rd was the 65th anniversary of our lord and master favorite video game developer and publisher, Sega, and to celebrate the occasion, the video game fan cover music label Melodies Zone is releasing an all new Sega album. Melodies Zone’s new Sega fan remix album, simply titled “Sega 65th Anniversary”, contains 20 fan covers from Sega’s storied history, from artists like Kamikaze Bitch, A-bug, Chief Takinawa, and Klaymore.

From Sonic to Shenmue to Super Hang-On, you’ll hear some of your favorite songs in a new light thanks to these talented and passionate fan musicians. Expect a lot of loud metal guitar, thumping dance beats and synths, vocals for the songs that have them originally, and one relaxing lo-fi remix to sit down and take a breather to after 19 more exciting tracks kept your heart pumping.

Wanna hear it for yourself? You can find out how from right beyond the break.

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Sega looking at Shinobi: Art of Vengeance as a chance to fully revive the Shinobi franchise

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Here’s a declaration of confidence in a new game that you don’t hear often from Sega or their partners. Sega and Lizardcube are working right now on Shinobi: Art of Vengeance with the aim for this to be the smoking gun that brings Shinobi back as a top IP at Sega. We think they got a fighting chance so far.

That sentiment was shared by Game Informer (A publication that can relate to dying and then rising from the ashes) as they wrote an article about the hard work being done to not only make a great game out of Shinobi: Art of Vengeance, but for it to be so great that it can potentially bring Shinobi as a whole back to its long lost status as a franchise on the level of Sega’s best, like Sonic the Hedgehog. Certainly no easy task, in fact Sega have tried it 14 years ago with Shinobi (3DS), only for the momentum from that game to have quickly fizzled out despite people generally liking that game well enough. If that game couldn’t pull it off, how could Art of Vengeance do it? Sega’s content production department director Kagasei Shimomura and Lizardcube CEO and creative director Ben Fiquet feel they’ve cracked the code.

Wanna hear what got them fired up to get Shinobi back in style? Slip on in past the break and find out for yourself.

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Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. has “exceeded expectations” in North America; now more popular than VF5 Ultimate Showdown

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Pat yourselves on the back, VF fans in North America. Legacy Virtua Fighter Project Producer Seiji Aoki has found himself pleasantly surprised with the latest version of Virtua Fighter 5’s sales performance in the region so far. He even says it “exceeded expectations” already and that it’s done much better sales-wise than Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown had done on PlayStation 4 since its release way back in 2021.

This news comes from an interview with him and New Virtua Fighter Project Producer Riichirou Yamada at Event Hubs. Here’s what Aoki-san had to say exactly about the matter.

“Compared to Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown, VF5 R.E.V.O. has been enjoyed by a significantly larger number of players. In particular, its popularity in North America has exceeded our expectations. Moving forward, we plan to implement various initiatives and updates to ensure that even more people around the world can pick up and enjoy the game. Our goal is to continue growing and further developing the VF community.”

If that’s not impressive enough, recall that on Ultimate Showdown’s release, it was given away free to PlayStation Plus subscribers for a while. R.E.V.O. was discounted a couple of times, but never free as of this writing. Still, fans spoke with their wallets and their message was heard loud and clear. Maybe it was the long requested rollback netcode that sweetened the deal? Maybe just the simple fact that a Virtua Fighter game was available officially on PC for the first time since Virtua Fighter 2 28 years ago? Whatever the case may be, we’re not complaining.

Wanna see more? Walk the walk past the break.

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Dreamcast online shooter Outtrigger now back online thanks to Dreamcast Live

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We’re live with a new Dreamcast Live update, as Outtrigger’s online multiplayer is now back in action thanks to Dreamcast Live. This is all thanks to Dreamcast Live legends Shuouma and Flyinghead, who also recently brought Sega Tetris and Speed Devils: Online Edition back online through Dreamcast Live.

Similar to the story of Speed Devils Online, Shuouma began work getting Outtrigger online years ago, but was unable to finish the job by himself. Years later, he showed Flyinghead the work he had done and he finished it for him. Now we all get to enjoy some online Outtrigger action once again through a DreamPi or a Dreamcast Broadband Adaptor, for those lucky enough to own the latter.

Check out some more info beyond the break and then get to blasting in Outtrigger.

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Sega Saturn turns 30 years old in North America

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The year is 1995. Movies such as Billy Madison, Bad Boys, Desperado, Jumanji, and Toy Story hit theaters. TV shows like Fraisier, Babylon 5, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the Earthworm Jim cartoon, and the Street Fighter and Darkstalkers cartoons premiered on TV. Anime such as Saint Tail, Slayers, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, and Virtua Fighter premiered in Japan and Ghost In The Shell premiered in Japanese and UK theaters. Songs like “Gangsta’s Paradise” by Coolio, “Fantasy” by Mariah Carey, “Waterfalls” by TLC, “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” by Smashing Pumpkins, and everyone’s favorite holiday song that they never get sick of hearing after midnight every November 1st: “All I Want For Christmas Is You” also by Mariah Carey, topped the charts. Video games like Chrono Trigger, Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest, Command & Conquer, Rayman, and Time Crisis came out. Sega released Genesis games like Beyond Oasis, Comix Zone, and Garfield: Caught In The Act and arcade games like Virtua Cop 2, Fighting Vipers, and Cool Riders. We were also 5 years away from entering the 21st century. We’d come a long way, but were we ready for the future?

Sega Saturn released on this day in North America three long decades ago, but as many of us know, it wasn’t originally supposed to be this day. It was originally decided to launch the console in September of 1995, but Sega of America surprised everyone by moving the launch up to May, a costly mistake that kneecapped the Saturn at the starting line. Even so, Saturn goes down in history as a beloved 32-bit system with some impressive games that stood the test of time, such as the Panzer Dragoon series, NiGHTS Into Dreams, Sonic R, Mr. Bones, Guardian Heroes, Burning Rangers, Fighters Megamix, and ports of incredible arcade games like Virtua Fighter 2, Virtua Cop 1 & 2, Fighting Vipers, Sega Rally Championship, and The House of the Dead. Saturn went woefully unappreciated all around the world other than Japan, however, and sold somewhere between 9 and 17 million consoles worldwide, putting it third place behind the competition of the time, but that doesn’t mean we have nothing to celebrate today.

Join us, if you will, beyond the break for a look back on the Saturn’s history and its impact on the gaming world today.

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Retro-Bit re-opens pre-orders for Toaplan Shooters Collector’s Edition Vol. 2 set of Genesis/Mega-Drive games, now without Twin Cobra

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Remember when Retro-Bit opened pre-orders for a new collector’s set of Toaplan Genesis/Mega-Drive official reprints, only to quickly call it off because of an unforeseen licensing issue? It seems they have now worked out that licensing issue and the set is now available to pre-order once again. Sadly, Twin Cobra (1991) seems to have been the source of that licensing snafu and has been removed from the set, leaving only Slap Fight MD (1993) and Grind Stormer (1994). Fortunately, those two games are the ones with extra modes exclusive to the Genesis versions, when Twin Cobra had no such additions.

The entire set has been readjusted and is available for pre-order at the usual retailers in North America and Europe. Due to it going from three games down to two, it is now available for the reduced price of $139.99 USD instead of $159.99 USD, with the individual games still being $59.99 USD. Anyone who really wanted Twin Cobra should be allowed to request a refund if they left their old pre-order in place. Anyone who still has a pre-order open and can live without Twin Cobra will still have their pre-order honored.

For more info on the new Collector’s Set, as well as pre-order links, come on down past the break.

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Supersega’s long, crazy history as a crowdfunding scam

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Image credit: Time Extension

You might recall last Summer when we talked about the announcement of a new FPGA console called the SuperSega. It was proposed as a console that could accurately run games from any original Sega console off of it’s original media, even Dreamcast games. I was cautiously optimistic as I wrote about the console, though the general consensus online, including from our own commenters, was that the SuperSega was destined to be vaporware. After a few short months, a couple of sketchy video demonstrations of the SuperSega hardware, and some ultra sketchy pre-orders that took way more money from people than they agreed to pay, it’s looking like it’s worse than even the naysayers thought at the time. Gotta give them credit.

We might be late in talking about this now, but because I had already reported on the SuperSega as if it was potentially going to be a legitimate product, we may as well take some time to go over all that had transpired regarding this new console since my original article. Join us after the break. It’s gonna be a long one.

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