Interview

Special interview with Tim of Walaber Entertainment, creator of Parking Garage Rally Circuit

by

You may remember us reporting on Parking Garage Rally Circuit, an upcoming indie racing game coming soon to Steam, which is styled after a Sega Saturn game and could actually become a Saturn game if it gets enough sales on Steam. After that article, I have reached out to Tim of Walaber Entertainment, the studio developing Parking Garage Rally Circuit, for an interview with the man behind the game. He has kindly taken time out of his busy schedule to answer a few questions about the game for all our readers.

Join us after the break to hear about Tim’s history with Sega Saturn, his inspirations for Parking Garage Rally Circuit, and a bit more of what we can expect to see in this game when it launches on Steam sometime this year.

Continue Reading ➜

No Comments

Interview: “Like a Dragon: Yakuza” Actors Ryoma Takeuchi & Kento Kaku, Executive Producer Erik Barmack

by

Thanks to the production team of the upcoming streaming series Like a Dragon: Yakuza and Prime Video, SEGAbits was given the opportunity to interview Series Lead Ryoma Takeuchi and Co-Star Kento Kaku, and series Executive Producer Erik Barmack.

In a round table setting, joined by fellow video game fan sites, we asked the creative team about how the project began and the challenges of portraying characters like Kazuma Kiryu (played by Ryoma Takeuchi) and Akira Nishikiyama (played by Kento Kaku). You can see their answers to our questions after the break or watch our video interview above, and stay tuned to SEGAbits for more coverage of the series as we near the October 24th release date on Prime Video!

Continue Reading ➜

No Comments

SEGAbits Exclusive Interview with Veteran SEGA Designers Akihito Hiroyoshi & Yumiko Miyabe

by

During our visit to Japan for the Tokyo Game Show, we seized the opportunity to meet and engage in conversation with former veteran SEGA Designers, Akihito Hiroyoshi—renowned as the character designer for classic SEGA AM2 arcade games such as Arabian Fight and Virtua Cop—and Yumiko Miyabe, the former art director for the Space Channel 5 series.

These interviews unveiled insights into their early lives, careers during their tenure at SEGA, and personal hobbies. By clicking the link, you can delve into the interviews and explore behind-the-scenes artwork from the games they passionately crafted during their time at SEGA.

Additionally, the interviews are available in video format, with links provided here for Akihito Hiroyoshi and Yumiko Miyabe. A special acknowledgment goes to our fellow writer, Dakota, for video recording, as well as SEGA fans, Martin Hemmingway and Scott Hamby for translating the interviews. *Please note: images provided in the interview are copyrighted and may not be reproduced without permission*

Continue Reading ➜

3 Comments

Calling All SEGA Enthusiasts: Ask Your Questions to Former Designers Yumiko Miyabe and Akihito Hiroyoshi

by

Fellow SEGAbits writer, Dakota, and I are planning to make a trip to Japan from September 17th to September 28th for Tokyo Game Show. During our trip to Japan, we plan to interview former SEGA designers, Yumiko Miyabe, known for her work as Art Director for the Space Channel 5 series, and Akihito Hiroyoshi, known for his work as character designer for SEGA AM2 classics such as Arabian Fight and the Virtua Cop series.

Our exclusive interview will delve into their remarkable careers in the gaming industry, exploring their early beginnings, the notable games they helped design at SEGA, and even their current hobbies. We warmly invite you to participate by submitting your burning questions for Yumiko Miyabe and Akihito Hiroyoshi. We will keep everyone updated on the interviewing process. If you have any questions for them to answer, let us know either in this Twitter thread or leave them here in the comment section below.

3 Comments

Special interview with Ross Kilgariff, the creator of Harlequest!

by

 

Many of you probably remember the announcement of Harlequest!, a brand new action RPG in development for Sega Dreamcast that is now live on Kickstarter. As of this writing, there are 5 days remaining for the Kickstarter to raise as much money as possible.

Since I have written that article, I have gotten the opportunity to speak with the game’s main creator, Ross Kilgariff (ross:codes) to learn more about him and the inspirations behind Harlequest! Check in after the break to hear more from the man himself. Special thanks goes to Ross for reaching out to us for this opportunity.

Continue Reading ➜

3 Comments

SEGAbits @ SAGE 2022: Interview with Noah Copeland on Sonic Triple Trouble 16-BIT – PART TWO

by

[READ PART 1]

Welcome back to the second part of our two parter interview with Noah Copeland, the director of Sonic the Hedgehog: Triple Trouble 16 bit. On our last interview we chatted about how Noah gained an appreciation of the SEGA Genesis and his background in the fangame development scene. Hit the break to read the rest of the interview!

Continue Reading ➜

2 Comments

SEGAbits @ SAGE 2022: Interview with Noah Copeland on Sonic Triple Trouble 16-BIT – PART ONE

by

As part of our SAGE coverage, we managed to get a hold of Noah Copeland to come have a chat with us about the development of his fangame Sonic Triple Trouble 16 bit. This love letter to the classic Game Gear game released to much fanfair last month, remaking the original games visual to fit perfectly with it’s classic Mega Drive counterparts, featuring the ability to switch between Sonic or Tails as well as multiple playable characters. Hit the break for the first of two part interview with Noah as he goes into more detail about the fan games history and development ideology!

Continue Reading ➜

No Comments

Interview with Yu Suzuki: Air Twister and His Return to Arcade Rail Shooters

by

It goes without saying that Yu Suzuki is one of the most influential figures in video gaming. Yu Suzuki was instrumental in the development of full body motion controls, 3D racing, 3D fighting, open-world gameplay and QTE. Even if you have never played one of his titles, which you really need to rectify right now, you have played a game that includes one of his contributions to the gaming industry.

Space Harrier, one of Mr. Suzuki’s early arcade titles, was a third-person rail shooter set in a fantasy environment. The player controlled a jet propelled cool blonde dude, shooting down everything from geometric shapes to robots to one-eyed woolly mammoths. The game was such a success that it was one of Japan’s top two highest-grossing upright arcade games in 1986. The other title was Mr. Suzuki’s Hang-On, released a year prior. Now, in 2022, Yu Suzuki is returning to the world of third-person rail shooters with the Apple Arcade exclusive game Air Twister which is set to release on June 24, 2022.

Mr. Suzuki was kind enough to grant us an interview to talk about the upcoming title, and as luck would have it we are releasing this on his birthday! So before we kick things off, we would like to wish Mr. Suzuki a happy birthday and thank him again for taking the time to answer our questions.

Continue Reading ➜

No Comments

[Exclusive] Classic SEGA Interview: Smilebit’s Takayuki Kawagoe talks Jet Set Radio Future with Xbox Nation Magazine

by

This interview originally appeared in the premiere issue of Xbox Nation Magazine. Stay tuned for scans of the magazine itself later this week!

Takayuki Kawagoe – Smilebit
Past projects: General development, project manager for various 16-bit titles, and head of the Saturn software lineup. Sega Rally 2 and JGR (Dreamcast), along with many others.
Xbox projects: Gunvalkyrie, JSRF: Jet Set Radio Future, Panzer Dragoon.
Favorite food: Any fish, Korean BBQ, and Italian food
Favorite movie: “Some Kind of Wonderful,” and any kung fu movie starring Jet Li.
Favorite music: Beastie Boys, De La Soul, Peter Gabriel, Joe Strummer/The Clash, Jim Foetus, Malcolm Mclaren, The Smiths, Nay Nays, Kyoko Koizumi, Robert Wyatt, Elvis Costello, Serge Gainsbourg, electro pop, hip hop, Latin beats, reggae, punk, and ’80s music in general.

XBN: Please describe your role in the development of Jet Set Radio Future?

Takayuki Kawagoe: As the producer for JSRF, I motivate my staff, consult with them, decide which direction the project should take, balance the budget, promote the title, etc.. Regarding the content in the game: because this is the second title, I trust Mr. Kikuchi (director) and Mr. Ueda (art director) with most of the finer details of the game. That said, I get my words in their works…I’m their “nagging father”…

Continue Reading ➜

No Comments

Exclusive: Panzer Dragoon Remake interview with Producer Benjamin Anseaume

by

For over a year, we’ve been anticipating each bit of word, footage, and image of MegaPixel, Forever Entertainment, TA Publishing, and SEGA’s from the ground up remake of Panzer Dragoon. For those unfamiliar, Panzer Dragoon was an early SEGA Saturn title that gained acclaim for its unique setting, shake-ups in the rail shooter genre, and challenging gameplay. It spawned two more rail shooter sequels and a full role-playing game before being put to rest with the series finale, Panzer Dragoon Orta for the Xbox. For the nearly two decades since, fans have wanted to return to that science fiction fantasy world and see the series brought back with as much aplomb as possible.

Then, at the end of 2018, it was revealed that a little-known French-based publishing company and development house MegaPixel Studio were set to release remakes of Panzer Dragoon, and its sequel, Panzer Dragoon Zwei. Since then, we’ve seen art, we’ve seen gameplay, we’ve seen its due arrival on Switch and Steam, but we still had burning questions. To sate our (and especially my) own curiosity, I reached out to Benjamin Anseaume, producer on the remake project, to ask him several things. Learn about extra game content, the process of getting the game into the developer’s hands, and even get a glimpse at what the original creator of Panzer Dragoon, Yukio Futatsugi, thinks of the new project!

All this and more, after the jump!

Continue Reading ➜

6 Comments

Swingin’ Report Show #95: Developer Kiyoshi Okuma – World Series Baseball 2K2, Gauntlet Legends, Strike Blazinger

by

Game developer Kiyoshi Okuma joins us on this episode of the SEGAbits Swingin’ Report Show podcast to discuss his work on N64, Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, Xbox and PC games. Kiyoshi has worked on games that include World Series Baseball 2K2, Gauntlet Legends, The Sims 2 as well as the upcoming Strike Blazinger!

Want more information on Strike Blazinger? Visit the official website!

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

[Download] [RSS] [iTunes] [Archive]

No Comments

M2: Complete Works interview/retrospective by My Life in Gaming, goes into detail over M2’s history

by

M2 might be a familiar name for SEGA fans out there. Indeed, this modest development studio has worked with SEGA for more than a decade helping to bring their older titles to modern system, from the “Complete Collection” installments in the SEGA AGES 2500 series to the SEGA 3D and SEGA AGES series on Nintendo’s more recent systems. But their history goes far back, from their modest days of porting games such as Gauntlet and Gunstar Heroes back in the 90’s. The YouTube channel My Life in Gaming has recently done an interview/retrospective with key staff members such as M2 CEO Naoki Horii and Chief Programmer Tetsuya Abe to talk about their personal experiences with working at M2, including the enduring relationship between SEGA and M2 and their general philosophy of adding something extra to these re-releases. The video itself is over an hour long, so there’s plenty to digest, complete with English subtitles for convenience.

If you liked the above video, maybe also subscribe to My Life in Gaming if you’re a fan of technical aspects of video games or retrospectives.

No Comments

SEGAbits at E3 2018: Team Sonic Racing demo gameplay and developer interview

by

SEGA had a variety of games on display at this year’s E3, and probably the most interesting one (namely because we didn’t have a Japanese version to compare it to) was Team Sonic Racing. Our E3 reps got a chance to demo the game as Omega from Team Dark and Sonic of Team… well, Sonic of course. Following the demo, lead designer from Sumo Digital Richard Acherki was kind enough to take a few minutes to answer some questions we had about the upcoming game.

Continue Reading ➜

No Comments

Swingin’ Report Show #90: Game Designer and International Video Game Hall of Fame Inductee Chris Tang

by

The SEGAbits Swingin’ Report Show is back with returning guest Chris Tang! Chris is a game designer and gaming tournament champion, and was recently inducted into the International Video Game Hall of Fame. SEGA fans know Chris as the winner of SEGA’s Sonic & Knuckles Rock the Rock competition in 1994, and before that Chris was a finalist in 1990’s Nintendo World Championships. Since then, Chris has worked on games at Atari and Capcom, including Gauntlet IV, Primal Rage, Street Fighter III, Rival Schools and Power Stone. Chris is also the yearly announcer for the Tetris World Championships and originator of the BOOM! Tetris for Jeff meme.

Currently, Chris is hard at work on Flight Armor Project: STRIKE HARBINGER (working title – subject to change), a new game inspired by classic SEGA titles like Space Harrier. The game combines the fast paced forward flying gameplay of Space Harrier with the RPG and combat elements of Phantasy Star while utilizing a unique arcade control structure that evokes Virtual On. The game is developed by HitSparks Games, and features the work of senior artist Kiyoshi Okuma, whose past work includes Gauntlet: Legends, World Series Baseball 2K2, The Sims 2 and Darkspore.

I sat down with Chris for an update on the development of Flight Armor Project: STRIKE HARBINGER, including the incredibly fun two player mode, and to discuss more of his past career, his work as an announcer for the Tetris World Championships and his recent induction into the International Video Game Hall of Fame.

Want more information on Flight Armor Project: STRIKE HARBINGER? Visit the official website!

[Download] [RSS] [iTunes] [Archive]

No Comments

Swingin’ Report Show #89: Sonic Mania – Tee Lopes, Composer Interview

by

On this episode we chat with Tee Lopes, composer for Sonic Mania, who answers our burning questions about his career before working on a SEGA game, how he landed the Sonic Mania job, and how one goes about composing for video games. We also try to get some soundtrack secrets out of him, and we’ll let you be the judge on how well we did. If you loved the music of Sonic Mania and are a video game soundtrack aficionado, or if you just like an hour of video game chat, this episode is a must listen!

You can learn more about Tee Lopes and follow his work by checking out his website teelopesmusic.com, following him on Twitter, subscribing to his You Tube channel, and if you want the best possible aural experience of Sonic Mania make sure to check out the official vinyl (and included digital music download) from Data Discs.

[Download] [RSS] [iTunes] [Archive]

2 Comments