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SEGA’s 3D Classics for the Nintendo 3DS return to the West in 2015! [Updated]

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Via Nintendo Insider comes the awesome news that SEGA’s line of 3D Classics for the Nintendo 3DS are not dead in the West! Set to return in early 2015, fans of SEGA’s classics can expect 3D After Burner II, 3D Fantasy Zone, 3D OutRun, 3D Fantasy Zone II and 3D Thunder Blade to release monthly to Nintendo’s eShop. Each game will be priced at £4.49/€4.99/$5.99.

3D After Burner II will lead the pack, and those who played M2’s previous 3D Classics titles should know that we can expect it and the other titles to kick some serious ass. What is not known at this time is if we can also expect the Master System rereleases of OutRun 3D and Space Harrier 3D to release to the West. Currently these ports are exclusive to the SEGA 3D Classics retail release due later this year in Japan.

Update: Official press release after the break!

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Prototype of unreleased SEGA shmup Hammer Away found

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So here’s a nice surprise: three people in Portugal have found a prototype of an unreleased shmup by SEGA for the System-18. Meant to be released in 1991, this game never found it’s way in arcades for unknown reasons. So it’s great that we can finally see what the game is like. While the arcade board the game was found on was damaged, the fanatics managed to get it working by putting the chips on a working System-18 prototype.

Not only that, we can soon play it for ourselves. The group has dumped the game’s code into a ROM and MAME is already capable of playing the game. While the ROM isn’t up yet, we likely won’t have to wait long until it can be downloaded. Another video showing the attract mode can be found after the jump.

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Sonic and friends rescue a cat from a tree in a new Sonic Boom commercial

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Regardless of your opinion of SEGA’s upcoming Sonic Boom franchise, you gotta admit it’s nice to see some creative SEGA TV ads. Unlike past adverts for Sonic titles, which used actors in body costumes, the Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric TV ad features CG renderings of Sonic and his friends in the real world, using their teamwork to rescue a real cat (not Big, sadly) from a tree. Sonic Boom the TV show is set to air this coming Saturday at 7am EST, while the Wii U and 3DS games are set for a November 11th release in the US, and a November 21st release in Europe. The comic book is in stores now, and you can read our full review right here. Stay tuned to SEGAbits and Sonic Retro for all your Sonic Boom news, reviews, and information.

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The Year of the Console – This is Cool, This is SEGA Saturn Month!

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2014 has been a fantastic year for SEGA hardware anniversaries, with the SEGA Genesis turning 25, the SEGA 32X turning 20, the SEGA Pico turning 20 as well, and the Dreamcast turning 15. This month marks our final Year of the Console month long celebration as we turn our sights towards the SEGA Saturn, which turns 20 years old on November 22nd. All month long we’ll be celebrating SEGA’s under-appreciated 32-bit console with video reviews, let’s plays, podcasts, classic ads, retro reviews, and more!

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Sega Amusements bringing DiRT Showdown to arcades with less DiRT

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Sega Amusements has announced that they’ve teamed up to bring DiRT Showdown to arcades, just without the DiRT brand slapped onto it. Probably because of legal reasons, or because it’s not much like the other DiRT games anyway.

A picture of the arcade cabinets was put on Facebook as well, which can be seen below. If you want to play this game and there aren’t any arcades nearby where you live, then you can still buy the original game for Xbox 360, Playstation 3 or Steam.

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Sonic Boom Rise of Lyric: A new and action-packed Japanese trailer arrives

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Get Excite! A brand new trailer for Sonic Boom: rise of Lyric (AKA Sonic Toon: Ancient Treasure) has just hit the internets. This Japanese trailer not only manages to show off some exciting gameplay footage, but some brand new areas and an all new multiplayer “party” mode is shown as well. Just listen to the enthusiasm in that Japanese announcers voice! This Japanese trailer has me more excited for the game than any English trailer has done so far. Will Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric live up to this trailer’s hype? We’ll know come November 11th in the U.S.

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All Japanese Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F 2nd DLC is coming West

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The official US Playstation Blog has confirmed that all of the Japanese DLC for Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F 2nd will be made available for the Western release!

The EU Blog has also confirmed the DLC.

According to the blog, SEGA will “be releasing content every two weeks or so for nearly six months straight,” with three categories of DLC available:

  • UI Skins: $0.99, but free for the first 39 days after release
  • Costume Modules: $1.99 each
  • Rhythm Game Songs: $2.99 each

If that wasn’t enough, some special “sales initiatives” are being launched which gets you all the content as it’s released, as opposed to buying separately.

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SEGA’s Valkyria Chronicles officially announced for PC – here are the details!

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When a PEGI rating leaked that Valkyria Chronicles was heading to PC, the internet exploded. Our news story brought in ten times the usual traffic, and “Valkyria Chronicles” was trending worldwide on Twitter. SEGA finally confirmed the news with a tweet that more news is to come, and the news has finally arrived! Read SEGA’s press release after the break!

Update: You can now pre-purchase the game on Steam, and if the concept of pre-ordering a digital title is silly to you, note that you save 10%

Update 2: Get Games Online has the game for 25% off

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“Hi☆sCool! Seha Girls” anime Episode 4 is here, and so are our impressions

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It’s that time again: Hi☆sCool! Seha Girls has a new episode out, and it’s available now on Crunchyroll!

We’re back into the world of games in this episode, as the girls enter Space Channel 5 on the Dreamcast, to save Professor Asobin’s friends who have been taken hostage by Morolians; with the help of Space Diva Ulala of course! The girls must also raise their ratings up to 100%; it won’t be easy however, as they face setbacks such as Mega Drive’s struggle to dance and the fact the World Cup qualifiers are being broadcast at the same time!

It then turns out that the first of Asobin’s friends is actually Jeffry from Virtua Fighter! His mere presence manages to up the ratings of the Seha Girls’ broadcast; but then Dreamcast uses her internet capabilities to find other ways of getting 100%. And the result leaves Saturn… parading around in swimwear. It was only a matter of time before we got some fanservice folks.

…and hey, it’s Saturn so I’m not exactly going to complain.

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Sonic the Hedgehog fan game Sonic: After the Sequel is today’s featured article on Wikipedia

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Every day, Wikipedia posts a featured article on their main page. This article could be just about anything, given the size of Wikipedia, so for the day’s featured article to be a SEGA related thing is pretty rare. Rarer still, when that featured article is a SEGA fan work. Today, Sonic the Hedgehog fan game Sonic: After the Sequel made Wikipedia’s main page! Developed in 2013 by Felipe Daneluz (LakeFeperd), the game is based on the series official canon, taking place between the official games Sonic 2 and Sonic 3. You can learn more about the game at Sonic Retro and download it yourself at the official site. A big congrats to LakeFeperd!

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Yakuza Zero Releases in Japan on March 12, 2015

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According to SegmentNext, Toshihiro Nagoshi recently announced a March 12, 2015 release date for Yakuza Zero in Japan. As far as known Japanese release dates for other games are concerned, Yakuza Zero comes out two weeks earlier than Sword Art Online: Lost Song for PS3, and comes out within a two week range earlier than Final Fantasy Type-0 HD, Senran Kagura: Estival Versus, and Disgaea 5 for PS4. It isn’t currently releasing simultaneously with any other title. The game will also be priced at ¥8,190.

Yakuza Zero is a prequel title that allows players progress through story mode campaigns as either Kazuma Kiryu or Goro Majima that the pasts of the iconic Yakuza characters. Be sure to check out this extended story trailer if you have not done so already!

Credit for the featured image goes to this AnimeNewsNetwork writeup.

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UK Charts: Bayonetta 2 debuts and Alien: Isolation still charting

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Its the holiday season, so you know the sale charts are on fire as new released games continue to make their mark on the UK charts. This week we have the debut of Bayonetta 2 and Alien: Isolation staying on the top ten. Check out the chart below:

FIFA 15
Minecraft: PlayStation Edition
The Evil Within
Destiny
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor
Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel
Bayonetta 2
Forza Horizon 2
Alien: Isolation
Skylanders Trap Team

Considering that Bayonetta 2 is competing against games that debuted on multiple consoles and debuting on a new platform that hasn’t be selling a truck load of units (especially compared to the first Wii), I’d say this is a good debut.

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Is SEGA’s Valkyria Chronicles heading to PC? A recent PEGI rating says it is! [Update: Confirmed by SEGA]

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While there have been whispers of Valkyria Chronicles heading to PC, a recent PEGI rating for the game has appeared that all but confirms that the game will be hitting PC soon! The rating is for Europe, but it is likely that the game will be releasing to the United States and other territories as well. This is exciting news for fans who wished to see more recent SEGA classics on the PC platform, and once we learn more we’ll be sure to share. In the meantime, here is a screen grab of the rating:

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Update: SEGA has confirmed it! Interesting choice of photo they picked, given it’s the same one we used when originally posting the news. 😉

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SEGAbits at Sonic the Comic-Con 2014: The Write Up

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Today, that being Sunday 26th October 2014 where I am, York here in the UK saw a plethora of Sonic fans descend upon it for an event dedicated to a certain blue hedgehog: or more specifically, his comic book based endeavours.

I’m quite sure a lot of our readers are familiar with the work of Archie Comics, and their long-running series of Sonic comics; in fact, this was the first form of Sonic in print that I discovered, through the Sonic Mega Collection. However, those outside of the UK missed out on another important part of Sonic’s history: Egmont Fleetway’s Sonic the Comic. 

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Nintendo and Playboy team up to promote Bayonetta 2

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After Marge Simpson appeared in Playboy, nothing phases me anymore. Which is why when I learned that Playboy and Nintendo of America have teamed up to promote Bayonetta 2, the idea didn’t surprise me. In what looks to be a web exclusive, Playboy model Pamela Horton dressed as Bayonetta for a photo shoot which has been posted on Playboy’s Facebook page (which is SFW) as well as their official site (which is NSFW). The official site contains one photo that didn’t make the cut on Facebook, as it ias the most revealing of the photos. However, none of the images contain full nudity and are likely more toned down that what you can expect from the game itself. The Facebook page urges fans to vote for their favorite photo, though we have no idea what they plan to do with the winning photo. Now if only Playgirl held a Ryo Hazuki photo shoot.

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