Welcome to another unexciting episode of The Weekly Five where we create top five list on all things SEGA. I’m your host George and this week we will be talking about Virtua Fighter facts. This is a weird thing to do considering anything can be a fact, so I’ll try to keep it interesting. Who knows, maybe you’ll learn something new.
This will also be my last AM2 related Weekly Five for the rest of the year, so I hope you guys enjoy it! Let’s dive right in.
Here we go again.
First it was Europe, now SEGA of America is getting hit with some major restructuring. In a statement released earlier today, SegaSammy Holdings announced an “Implementation of structure reform” for SEGA of America. Included in this are some potential layoffs in the forms of “voluntary Retirement” and the San Francisco office moving to a new location in Southern California. Also, there will be a more narrow focus on the “amusement business” division.
However, it’s not all bad news. There will be a reinforcement in the “Sonic and merchandising businesses” and the PC and Mobile divisions will be getting a stronger push possibly due to strong current sales in those markets. The full statement can be found here.
I hope that not too many people are affected by the downsizing and those that do find themselves out of a job, that they find a new one quickly. I guess we shall see how this goes for SEGA.
The arcades were a big part of Japan’s youth group up in the 80’s and 90’s, so its no surprise that a Japanese drama show based around these time periods would be created. No Continue Kid: Our Game History (ノーコン・キッド ～ぼくらのゲーム史～) is a TV show revolving around Reiji Watanabe, who in 1983 isn’t very interested in arcade games. The only reason he has to put up with them is because his father owns a game center. Reiji sees a girl he likes come in daily named Fumiyoshi Takano, she usually plays Xevious and leaves. Reiji decides to give this Xevious game a try to impress her and gets the best local player, Akinobu Kido (who goes by ‘Kid’, his high score handle) to teach him.
The show focuses on the friendships of these characters along with a new ‘Game Center’ trends throughout the decades (this show spans from 1983 to 2013 in 12 episodes) and even some console gaming love. Today we will be looking at some of the SEGA centric episodes including one for Columns, Fantasy Zone and two whole episodes based around the Virtua Fighter 2 fighting phenomenon. Let’s take a dramatized trip to the arcade scene in Japan from the 80’s through the 90’s, SEGA style!
So, for my first article proper on the site, I figured why not talk about my favorite gaming event of the year, MAGFest, which just wrapped this past weekend at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland. In its thirteenth year, this gaming festival was primarily started as a celebration of music in gaming and all the video-game inspired bands that have risen up in the past decade or so, but has grown to become an all-encompassing celebration of gaming culture at large. From gaming developers, artists, journalists, personalities, and even other aspects of geek culture, it truly has something for everyone.
This week on My Life with SEGA, Andrew Rosa takes a request from YouTube viewer Darius Truxton and looks back on the North American SEGA CD pack-in bundle from 1992. This includes the side-scrolling space shooter Sol-Feace, SEGA Classics Arcade Collection, Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective and Rock Paintings (CD+G disc).
Yes, we got a lot of software back in the day. Six games and an audio CD that contains graphics! That sounds pretty sweet, right? We’re lucky if we get ONE game with our consoles these days. I can’t imagine how much a similar package would cost now. Now join me in 1992 when my brother blew $300 on a CD add-on that GamePro magazine listed as the “7th-worst selling video game console of all time”….
Yeah, who cares what GamePro thinks anyway. It’s not even a magazine anymore.
Like this video? Subscribe to the SEGAbits YouTube channel.
Virtua Fighter was a ground breaking game for its time and was going up against some of the biggest fighting games made in that era. SEGA needed the whole game to be excellent and in my opinion they got a great complementary soundtrack to go with the revolutionary gameplay.
The first theme we are looking at is Akira’s Theme, this one is more up beat than they would later use. This one doesn’t seem like a theme for a character usually shown meditating and honing his martial arts skills. This is just a good action track, that gets the blood flowing. Its what I would love to hear when I’m in a middle of a fight and any move I make can win or lose the match. Great track, but as Akira’s theme, probably not. Seems the developers agreed as they would give him a more epic tune in Virtua Fighter 2.
As SEGA-AM2 Month enters the final week, we thought it would be fitting to shine the spotlight on the developer’s longest running and most influential series – Virtua Fighter. One of SEGA-AM2’s defining traits is their ability to create “pure” gaming experiences. Looking at their catalog, they seem to have a penchant for taking a simple concept – be it fighting, racing, flying, or shooting – and translating it to a near-perfect 3D arcade experience. I hesitate to call SEGA-AM2’s games simulations, as gameplay is simple enough for any player and often AM2 titles have a bit of an elastic reality. Virtua Fighter didn’t have any gimmicks – there were no fatalities, weapons, adjustable bouncing breasts, or cutscenes. Players simply chose their fighter, each with their own defining style and moves, and fought. This why the term “pure” feels like the best way to describe their many games, and why the Virtua Fighter series is the purest fighting game franchise to ever exist.
Kicking off 2015 in style, This is Saturn celebrates SEGA AM2 month on SEGABits with a look at Fighting Vipers!
One of the very first episodes of This is Saturn covered Fighters Megamix, a crossover between Virtua Fighter 2 and Fighting Vipers; however, the original release of Fighting Vipers actually has some considerable differences to its representation in Fighters Megamix, and so it’s time for Liam to head back to Armstone City to punch some more people in the face, all whilst discovering the true significance of… Pepsi?
And what’s this about a sequel?
So, an overlooked classic, or a poor attempt to recreate the success of Virtua Fighter? Find out, in this episode of This is Saturn!
This is Saturn is a video series created by British teenager Liam ‘TrackerTD’ Ashcroft, aiming to give an alternative and in-depth look at the good, the bad, and the ugly of SEGA Saturn gaming, all whilst maintaining a somewhat strong accent.
Like this video? Subscribe to the SEGAbits YouTube channel
The SEGAbits Swingin’ Report Show returns for 2015, featuring brand new interviews with talented people connected to and inspired by SEGA! On our 74th show we’re joined by Super Systems Softworks, developers of the 80s and 90s inspired racer Drift Stage. Chase Pettit (Programmer), Charles Blanchard (Art), and Hugh Myrone (Music) talk about the genesis of the project, their inspirations, and their plans for the final version of the game. We also take a trip down memory lane, talking about our favorite and least favorite racing games, as well as memories of SEGA-AM2’s classic OutRun.
Visit Drift Stage’s Kickstarter page, give the demo a try – and if you like what you see, back the game!
Demo: supersystems.itch.io/driftstagealpha
Official Site: driftstagegame.com
SEGA-AM2 could really thank most of its success to how popular the game Hang-On was in 1985. This game really opened up for all those other popular SEGA-AM2 peusdo 3D scaler games that we all love today like Space Harrier, Out-Run, Afterburner, and many more.
The track above is called ‘Theme of Love’ and love is probably what kids in the mid-eighties felt when they played this game for the first time. Every time I hear any music from a early SEGA-AM2 games it just fills me with nostalgia and Hang-On‘s Theme of Love does it the best. It just does everything right and is an excellent piece of music.
It was that time again, this morning of January 17th 2015; to go on another 3 hour drive for a Sonic convention! Perfectly fine by me of course… but then, I wasn’t the one driving. This time, I was heading down to Weston Super Mare, a town right next to the British coast; and I was right next to the British coast, as today at the Grand Pier, Sonic fans arrived for one awesome convention; Weston Super Sonic ’15!
And don’t worry folks, my convention photography is still pants!
As I arrived at the venue and greeted a few friends, I found myself already caught up in an event for the day; watching the first round of the quiz! For those unaware, JonoD of VGMAwesome and Jamie Eggeman of the Sonic Show (yes, Eggeman!) have had a long running rivalry in Sonic trivia quizzes; such led to the unfortunate destruction of a First4Figures Knuckles statue, somehow. Anywho, the questions got more challenging than I thought they would; particularly when “what corner of the box is the barcode for Sonic 1 in?” was asked. Fun times overall; that said, since I was a bit late the first round was soon over.
Once that was over, I bought my first piece of merchandise; an A4 print from Duncan Gutteridge, the incredible artist that produced artwork for some of the Sonic Adventure Gamebooks in the 90’s, as well as the Sonic 1993 calendar; the print I bought was from the book “Metal City Mayhem,” and is easily one of my favourite pieces of Sonic artwork; I’ll need a frame ASAP! I later returned to Gutteridge to buy an A3 print; both prints were signed, to boot!
Hello and welcome to another exciting edition of The Weekly Five where we make a list of various SEGA topics. I’ll be your awesome host, George and today we will be looking at five SEGA-AM2 arcade exclusives that deserve a home port. I used console in the title, but honestly I’ll take these ports on PC as well.
Let’s get started.
After Burner is just one of those franchises by SEGA that took American arcade goers by storm due to the sheer speed of the game, the eye catching cabinet, and its highly detailed (for the time) graphics. I truly believe that After Burner is just one of those arcade games that don’t get enough credit by gamers today, so jump into your F-14 Tomcat and blast through our After Burner retrospective. You never know, you might learn something!
Before SEGA AM2 brought Shenmue to Dreamcast owners everywhere, they created a Japanese RPG in the late 80’s for the SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive. That title would help SEGA-AM2 dip their feet into the console market, that first game was Sword of Vermilion. The game was a early Genesis/Mega Drive title and was one of the spotlight games in SEGA’s timeless “Nintendon’t: advertisement campaign.
While Sword of Vermilion was ambitious for its time, it wasn’t really known as a great game and possibly one of the lesser known games by the publisher. But regardless of that status, the soundtrack for this game is actually great. Composed by Hiroshi Kawaguchi (After Burner, Out Run, and more) and Yasuhiro Takagi (Virtua Racing, F355 Challenge and more), both composers who where literally at the top of their game during this time period.
Looking back, the SEGA Saturn ad campaign in America was nowhere near as memorable as the Genesis and Dreamcast era campaigns. While the Genesis ads were funny and subversive, and the Dreamcast ads were magical and, dare I say “dream-like”, Saturn’s ads were both weird and forgettable. While some ads did stick in many people’s minds, I’m not sure it was for the right reasons. The “Fly Plaything, Fly” commercial, for example, was a risky move that didn’t pay off. SEGA did indeed beat Nintendo years prior, but in no way did SEGA’s Saturn topple Sony’s Playstation. As much as a Saturn fan that I am, I have to concede that it was the Saturn that was “not ready”.
Other Saturn era ads, like this week’s featured commercial for SEGA-AM2’s Virtua Cop, went with the gritty “is this a game, or is it real life” route. While 3D games were quite impressive at the time, and Virtua Cop is a fantastic game, it was far from being “a little too real”. In fact, those who bought and played the game would discover that Virtua Cop, much like AM2’s other games at the time, existed in a quirky arcade-like world where over the top things like a seemingly endless army of identical henchman and criminal leaders in helicopters shouting “meet your maker!” are common occurrences in the life of a cop. Had SEGA played up the frantic over-the-top gameplay of Virtua Cop, showing that the game is far from “a little too real” and was in fact like nothing you have ever played before, then maybe they might have had a better ad.
After the break, check out some Virtua Cop print ads from around the world! Could somebody explain that “Bum Bum Bum” ad to me?