The First 4 Figures Facebook page is teasing an upcoming statue in the Sonic Diorama series of statues. Dubbed “The Tornado”, this impressive piece is to feature Sonic, Tails, and the Tornado bi-plane. Pre-orders are set to open Tuesday 10th Feb 2015 at First4Figures.com. Though no price is known yet, the previous Sonic Generations diorama sold for $299.99 and measured 12” x 10” x 12”. Let the countdown begin!
It really is hard to believe that this site has been around for half a decade and it really passed by quickly. In that time the site has grown and changed so much, hopefully most of it for the positive. I don’t usually go too far into depth when it comes to my anniversary posts, but this time I decided to give you guys some background on how SEGAbits came to be. I hope you guys enjoy.
So Atlus just released this trailer for Persona 5, and it looks nothing like any Persona game before. Aside from plenty of new and returning gameplay elements, the game has a new style that barely any game has ever pulled off before. The closest thing that I could think of is Rhythm Thief combined with Catherine. It just looks fantastic.
Persona 5 will be released on Playstation 3 and Playstation 4 later this year and has already become my most anticipated game of this year.
So your asking yourself when SEGA announced a new Toejam and Earl, considering they published all three previous titles. The answer, they aren’t. SEGA actually doesn’t own the IP to Toejam and Earl. While we know very little on the new title, including who is publishing it, we do know its happening. Posted a few days ago on the official Toejam & Earl Facebook page:
Greetings from Funkotron! We haven’t been posting as often lately because we’ve gotten really busy with the new TJ&E game. We will be making some announcements in a probably 3 or 4 weeks, when we have something we can show, and will be able to share lots of information with you.
Personally I wouldn’t be surprised if we see some sort of crowd funding happening. Greg Johnson (designer and IP holder for the series) also posted the following concept art sketches. When the game is announced, the developer will most likely be HumaNature Studios (HNS), a indie studio being headed by Greg Johnson himself.
Atlus has released the opening theme of Persona 4: Dancing All Night on Youtube, and it does a fantastic job living up to the music quality standards past games in the series have set. Persona games usually have great music, and it looks like Dancing All Night won’t be an exception as it adds some nice disco flavor to the soundtracks the games have. The vocalists of previous Persona games, Shihoko Hirata and Lotus Juice also make a return here.
While a specific release date hasn’t been announced yet, Persona 4: Dancing All Night will be released later this year for the Playstation Vita. You can expect more Persona news soon, as the Persona Channel livestream will bring more reveals tomorrow.
Hi-sCool! Seha Girls (or Sega Hard Girls) has been released digitally over in the West thanks to CrunchyRoll, but now that the show is over fans can expect a physical release. No information on if the series will be released on both DVD and Bluray or what.
The series will be published by Discotek Media and was confirmed via their Facebook earlier today. Here is the picture of the cover (which is the same one on the CrunchyRoll page), featuring quite a bit of SEGA cameos that you can find in the full show.
You can also find our written impressions on some of the episodes here.
Sonic Runners is going to be Sonic Team’s big Sonic the Hedgehog mobile developed game and SEGA has finally released the first teaser trailer. You can watch it above. The trailer basically goes through the history of Sonic Team developed Sonic games and starts off with a counter, counting down the years to 2015…
Something to note: The trailer only shows off the retro series and Sonic the Hedgehog 4 (if you count that as part of the retro series). Could this game be more influenced by older retro style Sonic games instead of the recent games?
SEGA also launched a site for the game which revealed that the game will be released in 2015 in Japan for free with premium items available. The game will be available for iPhone 4S and above, iPad 2 or later running iOS 7.0 or above. If you are on Android, you will have to be running OS 2.3 or later (Which means almost any Android phone released can play it.)
The site features an image of Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles running through Sonic Lost World‘s Windy Hill with Chao and the Mother Wisp from Sonic Colors DS floating above. Could the classic clips and Sonic 4 indicate that Sonic Team sees Sonic Runners as a successor to the originals, or hint toward a gameplay style? What’s with the Chao and Wisps?
UPDATE: An interview between Iizuka and Famitsu lists a end of February release for the game in Japan. From what we can understand from the interview, characters will run forward on their own and Eggman will make appearances during stages which there appears to be 50 of at first (if we are reading the translation correctly). Tails and Knuckles are also playable, but Sonic is the only character initially available. Famitsu also went hands-on with the game, mentioning a cutscene featuring Sonic, Tails, and Eggman. Jumping appears to vary based on where you tap on the screen, possibly indicating that you tap on enemies to homing attack. The Eggman boss battle appears to have Sonic throwing or knocking back Eggman’s projectiles to defeat him.
What are your thoughts?
Jace Hall who is a co-founder and former CEO of Monolith Productions, the developer behind the first two Condemned games has revealed on Facebook that he wants to bring the franchise back. Jace Hall says that he owns the IP and is looking for a proven indie developer that wants to bring the series back.
I am contemplating finding an interested and proven Indie development team AND PROVIDING IT TO THEM, so that they can take over the franchise and move it forward.
As an indie, it can be very hard to get marketing/media attention for a title that you work on. This franchise is already quite known, has market demand, and is in an innovative genre/category. – Jace Hall via Facebook
Condemned: Criminal Origins (Condemned: Psycho Crime in Japan) came out in 2005 as a Xbox 360 launch title worldwide for the console, with a PC port the following year. Shortly after the release of the game, Warner Brothers Studios announced it would make a film adaption called ‘Unforgettable‘. The film had a projected 2008 theatrical release date, but was canceled way before that.
While we didn’t see a Condemned film in 2008, we did see a sequel titled Condemned 2: Bloodshot. This game would not only be released on the Xbox 360, but also on Sony’s Playstation 3. Sadly there wasn’t a PC release of the sequel. Since the sequel didn’t sell as well as the first game, the franchise was put on hold. But maybe it will come back without co-publisher SEGA? What do you guys think about this?
When we kicked off Virtua Fighter week, we took a look back at the main titles from the series. Despite being only five games long, thanks to the many revisions, updates, and upgrades as well as arcade to home console ports, what was five games felt more like ten. While Virtua Fighter didn’t dip into bloody fatalities or energy blasts, there did exist the metallic cyborg final boss Dural. Despite this, Virtua Fighter could be described as a fighter that tends to keep things in the realm of the real world. So where did SEGA-AM2 unleash their pent-up wackiness? In the spin-offs of course!
From 1996 through to today, Virtua Fighter has done everything from turning their adult roster into children, to crossing over with other SEGA fighters and even sharing the ring with a rival franchise! Join us as we look back on the many spin-offs, cameos, and crossovers that the franchise has produced over the years.
If you thought Virtua Fighter in arcades and on the SEGA Saturn was as real as it could get, Tiger Electronics asks you to think again! Released in 1995, Tiger’s R-Zone (not to be confused with Pizza Hut’s P’Zone) was a portable headset and attached controller that promised a virtual reality experience, but ended up just delivering a headache. Unlike other Tiger Electronic LCD games, R-Zone took cartridges.
Each cartridge contained a transparent LCD display, projecting the game onto a mirrored surface placed just inches from the players eye. As was the norm for VR at the time, red was the color of choice. Leeching off of popular franchises to survive, the R-Zone featured Men in Black, Jurassic Park, Batman, Star Wars, and SEGA’s own Virtua Fighter. Don’t let the ad above deceive you, despite being right in your face, R-Zone’s Virtua Fighter was as far from virtual Virtua Fighter as one could get. Wait… did that kid say “brain chop”?!?
The original creator of the Wonder Boy/Monster World series, Ryuichi Nishizawa, is working together with Game Atelier and FDG Entertainment to make a new game in the series called Monster Boy and the Wizard of Booze. Series composer Shinichi Sakamoto also returns for this new game. It doesn’t look like SEGA is involved, but it’s still very exciting news nonetheless.
This new sequel seems to have a lot in common with Game Atelier’s cancelled Kickstarter game Flying Hamster II, which was going to be a tribute to the Monster World series. It’s especially easy to compare the UI in the two games, and the silhouettes on the Monster Boy teaser site also look a lot like the transformations seen in Flying Hamster II. So it looks like that stuff from that game will be re-purposed for Monster Boy. You can expect the game later this year for PC, Playstation 4, and other unannounced platforms.
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.
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.
Another localization from SEGA is hitting Western consoles this year! Announced on the official Playstation blog, the light novel 2D fighter Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax is set for a Western release exclusively to PS3 and PS Vita in Summer 2015, both digitally and at retail for the US and digital only for Europe. If you want to know what the game is all about, we’d advise you check out Kori-Maru’s 2014 SEGA Game of the Year pick and read SEGA’s announcement at the Playstation blog.
Between this, the SEGA 3D Classics, and Yakuza 5 – it’s a great time for localizations from SEGA West!
The Sonic the Hedgehog franchise is not new to fan-made remix albums, and given the quality of Sonic music, I can’t blame the many artists out there for being inspired to put their spin on classic tracks. But every once in a while a really special remix album hits, and Dj CUTMAN’s “Spindash” is one of those. The album, licensed by SEGA, is a fitting tribute to SEGA’s blue mascot featuring diverse styles of music and even ventures outside of the 16-bit era to remix tunes from Sonic Adventure 2 and Sonic Colors.
“Spindash” is available now on Loudr, iTunes, Amazon and Google Play. Dj CUTMAN performed at this past weekend’s MAGFest, and SEGAbits was there! We’ll have coverage from the event up on the site soon, in the meantime check out the album and after the break, read the press release.
