It’s the new years, so that means that everyone is looking back at their favorite things to come out in 2018 and talk about what they want to accomplish for the future. The Japanese site 4Gamer has decided to interview over 195 Japanese developers and ask them what they liked in 2018 and their message to fans in 2019
I’m posting the SEGA and developers responses below:
In a new article in Retro Gamer looks back at Sonic Adventure, goes into details about how Sonic the Hedgehog transition from 2D to 3D and the making of Sonic Adventure. After this whole reminisce and looking back at the work Sonic Team did with the first Sonic Adventure, Takashi Iizuka says:
“It was the first high-speed 3D action game that also featured scenario highlighted with six different stories, the A-life Chao, six unique styles of gameplay – it is a unique offering even 20 years after its release… However, it was the very first 3D game that we worked on and looking at it now I can see the rough edges it has, which really makes me want to remake it again.”
While on the other hand Kazuyuki Hoshino said he would like to continue the series with a new game. But what would you rather have? A new Sonic Adventure 3 or a remake of Sonic Adventure? I wouldn’t be shocked if Sonic Team tries going back to the Sonic Adventure brand considering fan demand is high and that Sonic Mania was a highly successful experiment that was pushed to its success by its enthusiastic fans, its not hard to see SEGA wanting to try capturing that lighting in a bottle another time with Sonic Adventure-type remake.
Below we have a few new screenshots showing off more of Streets of Rage 4’s art style. So far the screenshots don’t show anything brand new, still only includes Axel and Blaze. I guess we will see more announcements come 2019.
In the latest Famitsu magazine, they covered a SEGA Games’ recruitment talk where they recruited for new planners, producers, programmers and designers. One of the guest speaking at this event was Shun Nakamura, Producer of Sonic Forces and director of Sonic Team/SEGA CS2 where he revealed that Sonic Team/SEGA CS2 are the ones making the upcoming Shin Sakura Wars game announced last year.
During the speech Nakamura did mention that SEGA has finally re-organized the teams behind the new Sakura Wars and Valkyria Chronicles game, which where folded into Sonic Team/SEGA CS2 years ago. It really did seem for awhile that SEGA was killing off smaller teams to fold into Sonic Team, since Sonic the Hedgehog was so massive. But now it seems SEGA is happier to reorganize these teams and allow them to work on older IPs? Is this good?
So far the only people we have really heard talk about the upcoming Sakura Wars game has only been Toshihiro Nagoshi and now Shun Nakamura, really want to see the people actually working on the game talk about it. But I guess we shall see next year what the new Sakura Wars will be like.
[Via: Siliconera]
SEGA’s Judge Eyes (Judgment in America) came out in Japan this month and now we have the games first weeks sales. The game came in third place on the chart behind Super Smash Bros Ultimate (still on top) and the newly released God Eater 3. While both these established franchise got the two top spots, Judgment did pretty well for a new IP selling 148,773 units in just three days. For example God Eater 3 sold 150,523, so SEGA was just 2,000 sales away from topping a well established Japanese brand. Judgment will hit English speaking countries, with a English dub, this summer.
Hit the jump to see the full media create sales charts starting on 12/10/18 through 12/16/18:
Hey, @yakuzagame fans- Project Judge is now Judgment, and it’s coming west this summer! #KFGShowcase pic.twitter.com/URs2cldPiq
— Kinda Funny (@KindaFunnyVids) December 8, 2018
Judge Eyes (in Japan) got its official name revealed in the West, the game will be called “Judgment” in America and Europe. We also found out that the game will release in English speaking countries this upcoming summer. Huge news if you are a Yakuza fanatic, like yours truly.
One of the bigger surprises? The new trailer features a English dub. Yup! Check it out. I kinda joked about this game getting a English dub after Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise got one. Nice to have options.
It was just announced the other day that Joker from Persona 5 will be featured in Super Smash Bros Ultimate as the first character in the season pass. This obviously got people excited and unsurprisingly started rumors about Persona 5 heading to Nintendo Switch. This rumor comes from MysticDistance, a writer for Persona Central and KHInsider which he said:
To be honest, this rumor seems to be a fan just making a very obvious guess. I mean he only got this top secret information about Persona 5 coming to Nintendo Switch after the big Joker reveal was done out of nowhere. If he made it before, that would be something. If Persona 5 is being brought to Nintendo Switch, it will 100% have a new title and new features. Atlus already talked about how its company policy to add more content every time a game is re-released, thus why we have stuff like Persona 4: Golden and Persona 3 Portable differing from the original releases. The domain talk also lines up since back April 2017 we discussed new domains that hinted at possible Persona spin-off titles including P5AG (After Golden?), P5D (Dancing?), P5R (Ruby?) and P5U (Ultimax?) I won’t be too shocked if this is true considering Atlus always does this. My only beef is that they should make the new, definite version on all platforms including Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. Get those sales!
[Via: GoNintendo]
It was just announced at The Video Game Awards that Persona 5‘s main protagonist, Joker, will be added to Super Smash Bros Ultimate. This wouldn’t be the first time Atlus and Nintendo crossed paths, prior to this Atlus developed the Nintendo crossover title Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE and now Nintendo has included Joker in Smash Bros! That means that the Persona franchise is just bound to get more fans.
Can you see a Persona 5 re-release on Nintendo Switch soon? I can.
The guys over at Gematsu posted up more company trademarks, as you know previously SEGA trademarked ‘Romance: Seven-Colored Adventure Story’ and now they are trademarking “Humankind”. Gematsu did make a note that Take-Two is going to debut a new game called Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey at The Game Awards 2018 in a few days. We know SEGA has a history of working with Take-Two in publishing and pushing their games in Japanese market. Who knows.
Sadly all these trademarks are vague without a description on what sort of platform they will be used on. At this point SEGA is so diverse it can be a Pachinko, Mobile or Console game. What do you want to see from this new trademark? What do you think it is? Let us know in the comments below.
The Japanese only PlayStation Awards have announced all the winners, a few included SEGA made/owned IPs like Persona 5 and Yakuza: Kiwami 2. Persona 5 was one of the only two recently released titles in Japan to sell over a million copies earning it the Platinum Prize. To get this award you have to ship over a million units, which could include digital sales. The only other game to get the Platinum Prize was The Last of Use Remastered! On the other hand Monster Hunter: World got the ‘Quadruple Platinum Prize’ which means it sold over 4 million units! That’s Japan and Asia only, which is freaking insane.
To show you how big this is for the Persona franchise, we found out that God of War, Gran Turismo Sport, Marvel’s Spider-Man, and Call of Duty: WWII all managed to get the Gold Prize, which means they sold just over 500,000 units (under a million of course). Those are all big titles. As for Yakuza: Kiwami 2, it was part of the top ten titles voted by Japan and Asian users (games released from October 1, 2017 through September 30, 2018). My only issue is that games that didn’t come out in this time period (Assassin’s Creed Odyssey) got into the top ten user voted list. You can check out all the awards given over at Gematsu.
Microsoft has announced a few new Xbox 360 games that will be playable on the Xbox One thanks to backwards compatibility. Out of the three new games, two of them are published by SEGA. If you read the title you know they are Sonic Team’s Sonic Unleashed and Rebellion’s Alien vs Predator. Like always, if you already own the Xbox 360 discs or the game’s digitally, you canstart playing them today on Xbox One for free. If you don’t have the Xbox 360 games, you can buy them right now on the Xbox Live Marketplace.
While we can whine about what each console is doing right or wrong, I love that Microsoft really focused on backwards compatibility and even offered a avenue for publishers to make money on last generation software with no effort on their part. I don’t know if this is a huge system seller for Microsoft, but Its cool for fans that wanna go back and revisit games like Sonic Unleashed, which I know a lot of you might want to do.
If you guys didn’t know, we actually got Shenmue I & II early in the West. Some folks say we got it early to bug test it for its Japanese release, who knows. What we do know is that Shenmue I & II hit Japanese store shelves on November 22, 2018 and charted number for on the Japanese Media Create charts. The top spot was given to Pokemon: Let’s Go Pikachu/Eevee! (which seems to track both games as one) but the impressive debut this week came from EA’s Battlefield V which garnered 110,653 sales in its debut week, really making Shenmue I & II’s 37,529 units seem rather weak. But at the end of the day, Shenmue I & II is a port and Battlefield V is a brand new game, so comparing them sales wise is useless.
You can check the full media create chart on Gematsu or after the break:
It seems that SEGA has a announcement for the upcoming Kinda Funny Games Showcase that is taking place over on Twitch this upcoming September 10 AM PT, what it could be is just a guess.
So what do I think it is? Most likely the announcement for the Dragon Engine Yakuza games coming to PC which includes Yakuza Kiwami 2 and Yakuza 6. I wouldn’t expect a new game announcement or anything, just because Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios announces new games in Japan, not Western shows like Kinda Funny Showcase. It could also be the release dates for Yakuza 3, 4 and 5 in the West, which would make sense since Kinda Funny Games is ran by Greg ‘I love PlayStation’ Miller (not making a sly remark, the man loves PlayStation). It would also be nice to get a Western finalized name for Project JUDGE. What are your thoughts?
Looks like SEGA has some new IPs to show off in 2019 considering they just filed for a trademark in Japan for “Romance: Nanatsu Iro no Boukendan” which roughly translates to “Romance: Seven-Colored Adventure Story” While this news has brought some jokes that SEGA is finally making a Sonic the Hedgehog dating sim, I actually think this might be a cutesy mobile or arcade game aimed at the Japanese market. Its nothing new for SEGA since they have been at it since Oshare Majo: Love and Berry.
But maybe I’m wrong and this is a larger, more mainstream project. I guess we will find out soon since we don’t really know much more about the project outside of its name.
[Via: Gematsu]
The SEGA Dreamcast is one of my favorite consoles released, while we got the console in North America with the iconic release day of September 9th, 1999; over in Japan they got the Dreamcast almost a year earlier on November 27, 1998! While it isn’t the 27th quite yet in North America, it is in Japan where the anniversary takes place. This anniversary got me thinking about what I would consider my favorite Dreamcast Japanese only release and I think I narrowed it down…
My favorite Dreamcast import is Napple Tale: Arsia in Daydream, a fun little 2.5D platformer developed by Chime and published by SEGA only in Japan. The game was notable for trying to cultivate a ‘feminine sensibility’ by hiring a staff of mostly females which really gives the game a very unique feel to it. One of the bese aspects of the game is also the soundtrack which was composed by Yoko Kanno which featured a ton of great tracks.
But what I really want to know is what is your favorite SEGA Dreamcast import and why? Let me know in the comments below!