Classic Disney Mega Drive Platformer Cold Shadow Returns on Steam and GOG

Disney threw a surprise today on PC digital download services by bringing back two of their classic platformers today. One being the PSOne/PC adaptation of Disney’s Hercules the other being the PC version of a classic Mega Drive game starring private investigator with a secret ninja alter ego, Maui Mallard played by Donald Duck. Or just Donald Duck. Whatever you call him in your region, Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow a.k.a. Donald in Maui Mallard returns on Steam and GOG.

The PC version, built off of the original Mega Drive/Genesis version, was enhanced with increased sound quality including Michael Giacchino’s soundtrack presented in CD redbook audio. Trying to run the PC version as-is today from an original copy will be impossible without the use of Virtual Machines as this version was made for Windows 95 before graphics libraries such as Direct X existed. Luckily this digital release has been reworked to run on modern Windows operating systems and plays exactly as it did back in 1995.

It joins Disney’s previous efforts to re-release it’s catalog from 3 years ago. This release is especially great for those in the US as the NTSC version of Cold Shadow never saw release on the Genesis due to a console exclusivity deal with Nintendo at the time.

Download it today on Steam or GOG.Com.

SEGA News Bits: SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive Mini Announces 10 New Titles Including Mega Man: The Wily Wars

SEGA has announced ten new titles for the upcoming SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive, which means we now know 30 of the 40 total titles that will come in the upcoming plug and play console. On this episode of the SEGA News Bits we look at the past titles, the ten new titles and a look at some regional exclusives!

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Madou Monogatari II (Sorcery Saga II) gets English fan patch for SEGA Game Gear

If you never heard of the dungeon crawler by Compile, developers of Puyo Puyo, I don’t blame you. The games stars our good girl Arle Nadja, while the first game was about her graduating kindergarten (seems harder in Japan, right?) this one she is 16  years old as she goes to a distant Ancient Magic School to study. For some reason a man she meets along the way knocks her out and throws her in a dungeon, now you have to use your skills to escape. Yep, that got dark fast.

“The Madou Monogatari games are a series of dungeon crawlers by Compile, originally released for Japanese computers and later ported to many other platforms. They’re known for their distinct style of magic-oriented combat, with no HP or MP meters, individually-crafted attacks for every enemy, and prolific use of voice samples. They should also look very familiar to Puyo Puyo players – Puyo Puyo began as a spinoff of Madou Monogatari and imported most of its original cast from the series.” – Via Romhacking.net

You can patch the English translation patch via here. You can also check out the first game which got translated back in 2010.

Game Freak’s Pulseman illustration video now Western friendly with English subtitles

If you’re a regular visitor to our little SEGA corner of the internet, you probably like to revisit some titles that you might have missed in the 90s and it seems that Game Freak’s Pulseman was pretty slept on in the 90s.

The video above has Pulseman director Ken Sugimori drawing Pulseman as he gives details into the character’s creation, what inspired him and why they made him as a direct opposition to Sonic the Hedgehog‘s design. Kind of funny that Ken Sugimori says that Sonic the Hedgehog had a ‘western look’ when I felt like Sonic the Hedgehog was a mix of classic Mickey/Felix the Cat mixed with a Japanese twist. But I guess Ken is right, its quite obvious that Sonic was inspired by early American mascot cartoons.

Love Ken Sugimori’s Mega Drive jacket. Very cool.

[Source: Siliconera]

SEGA acquires Two Point Studios, developer of Two Point Hospital


SEGA-Sammy has announced that Two Point Studios will be joining the SEGA Europe family.

According to the press release, this buyout came out from SEGA Europe’s Searchlight program which is a internal initiative intend to find talent and intellectual property opportunities. Expect a lot of new ‘Two Point’ franchise games in the near future:

“It’s a landmark step for Two Point Studios and we’re thrilled to be joining the Sega family, We’re looking forward to executing the next phase of our plans as we continue to evolve Two Point County. It’s a hugely exciting time to be a part of Two Point and we are here today thanks to the hard work, passion and dedication of our small, but amazingly talented team here in Farnham and the incredible fans that have supported us throughout and guided our continued development of Two Point Hospital.”Mark Webley, Two Point Studios co-founder

Two Point Studios is a brand new studio created by Mark Webley and Gary Carr who worked on titles like Theme Hospital (which Two Point Hospital is a spiritual successor), Black & White and the Fable series for Bullfrog Productions and Lionhead studios.

Super Monkey Ball coming back? SEGA Japan trademarks Tabegoro! Super Monkey Ball

SEGA Games has just trademarked the name Tabegoro! Super Monkey Ball in Japan, if you didn’t know Tabegoro means ‘ripe, ‘in season and/or ‘good to eat’. Makes perfect sense for a brand new Super Monkey Ball game, considering how delicious those bananas look.

Its crazy that the last ‘non-mobile’ title was Super Monkey Ball: Banana Splitz on the Playstation Vita way back in 2012. I remember one of the first titles we reviewed for this site was Super Monkey Ball: Step & Roll on the Wii, so its been a long, long time since we had a new Super Monkey Ball. Are you excited to go ape around in the Super Monkey Ball world?

[Via: Gematsu]

Sonic Movie Trailer Breakdown – What You Might Have Missed

Just wanted to do a Sonic the Hedgehog movie breakdown of the latest trailers, giving you guys some commentary on what stood out to me. If you guys find anything else interesting in the trailer that I might have missed or any other constructive feedback; let me know in the comments below.

If you guys like the breakdown, I would appreciate if you guys gave my personal channel a sub! Thanks.

Sonic the Hedgehog live-action movie to get character design change after internet backlash

Sonic the Hedgehog director Jeff Fowler just tweeted out that he has heard the criticism and that you cant expect a change in Sonic’s character design.

No idea how much of a change we will be seeing, considering that the movie is set to release this upcoming November. Also the fact that this terrible design made it this far into production shows you how clueless Hollywood is sometimes. I guess we will be keeping you posted on all things Sonic Movie news…

Platinum Games moving to self publishing and working on two new IPs

While Platinum Games started life with a huge publishing deal with SEGA where they published four games including Bayonetta, Mad World, Infinite Space, and Anarchy Reigns. This exclusive relationship sadly came to an end in 2012, since then Platinum Games has worked with publishers such as Nintendo, Square-Enix, Konami, and even Activision. It seems that Platinum Games has bigger visions for their future as they are dipping their feet into self-publishing with two new IPs they are working on:

“I know a lot of people say that, but the game we’re working on truly is unlike anything else. Even for our varied history of veteran game developers, this is something that has never been designed before. So from a game design perspective, we’re very excited right now.” – Atsushi Inaba (Platinum Games, Executive Director and Producer)

According to Inaba they want to move away from publisher funding and be even more independent. In the interview they talk about how Platinum Games doesn’t outright own its IPs like Bayonetta (which is partly owned by SEGA) and these two new unannounced IPs will be 100% owned by Platinum Games. Platinum Games also said they are not done working with other publishers and are even open to co-publishing options.

[Source: Gematsu]

Sonic the Hedgehog Movie Official Movie Trailer Debuts, Revealing Robotnik’s Final Form

We have been covering a lot of Sonic the Hedgehog movie news, including having the first reveal of Jim Carrey as Robotnik and revealing that the Sonic Movie trailer would hit the internet today (look above!). We also did a pretty popular SEGA News Bits video going over the leaked plot details (if you don’t mind spoilers!) and now we got the first official look at the movie! If you dislike spoilers, you might want to hold off watching the trailer, because towards the end they reveal Jim Carrey as Robotnik… but his final look that is supposed to be a surprise.

So what do you guys think of the debut trailer for the Sonic the Hedgehog movie? Is it as bad as a lot of people have been predicting? So far the YouTube like/dislike ratio is mixed, leaning towards disliked.

 

SEGA News Bits: We Leak Jim Carrey as Robotnik in the Sonic Movie

On this SEGA News Bits, things go full circle as we become the very SEGA news we cover! That’s right, a reader sent us a news tip that the Sonic movie trailer will release on April 30th and we got a look at Jim Carrey as Doctor Robotnik. So we did what any fan site with an ounce of sense would do and tweeted it out. We discuss the Robotnik’s look, the internet’s reaction and how our tweet blew up and appeared on tons of entertainment news sites.

If you want to support this type of content, you can check out our Patreon!

If you enjoy our SEGA News Bits segments and want to support us: Give us a sub and give this video a thumbs up so it shows up on more like-minded fans YouTube recommendations. You know, how that YouTube algorithm is.

Puyo Puyo eSports releasing internationally as Puyo Puyo Champions, coming to all major platforms on May 7th

Puyo Puyo eSports is getting a localization, renamed as Puyo Puyo Champions and will be available in western territories on May 7th, effectively confirming a previous rumor about SEGA trademarking “Puyo Puyo Champions” back in November. In addition to the Playstation 4 and Nintendo Switch versions previously released in Japan, Puyo Puyo Champions will also get new versions for the Xbox One and Steam, with the console versions all getting digital releases.

For reference, Puyo Puyo Champions is a Puyo Puyo game that caters to a competitive crowd. It trims the fat, providing players with the bare necessities, focusing heavily on the recurring Tsu and Fever rules from past games only and small quality-of-life additions to streamline Puyo matches further. Both offline and online will provide several multiplayer options, such as a new tournament mode and the ranked mode from Puyo Puyo Tetris making a return.

Puyo Puyo eSports to receive a physical release on July 27th in Japan


Puyo Puyo eSports has been available on the digital stores for both the Nintendo Switch and the Playstation 4 since October 25th 2018. But for those that want physical copies instead, SEGA has been nice enough to announce that both the Playstation 4 and Nintendo Switch versions will receive a retail release on July 27th for ¥1,990.

The contents are the same as the original digital version. This includes the ability to play with Tsu and Fever rules, along with both offline and online options, such as a tournament mode for offline and the ranking system for online. However, in addition, Puyo Puyo eSports will receive a new update that brings back the Lesson Mode from past Puyo Puyo games. This mode will go into detail over various aspects of how to play Puyo Puyo, ranging from the basics such as rotating to more complex tactics like how to build specific chain types, overall useful for new players. Both the digital release and the upcoming physical release will receive this update in the future.

[Source: Game Watch]