Retro

Sega’s Japan exclusive Mega-Drive turn based strategy game The Hybrid Front receives a fan translation

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Sega’s classic cyberpunk turn-based strategy game for Genesis/Mega-Drive, The Hybrid Front (1994), has finally been fan translated.

This translation was 7 years in the making, as the team of fans responsible, Nebulous Translations, had announced this translation back in 2018. Due to some difficulties with packing English text into the game’s visual interface, which was intrinsically designed for kanji-heavy Japanese to be written out vertically, the translation patch took a lot longer to put together in the team’s spare time. After much difficulty, a translation patch is now available for the public to download and try. The Hybrid Front and its surprisingly in depth story and dialogue for its time is now far more accessible to curious English speaking fans.

If your interested in trying it for yourself, strategize your way past the break for the download link.

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New top-down Genesis/Mega-Drive shooter Sovietborgs now crowdfunding on Indiegogo

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Developer Retro Sumus are back with an all-new action shooter coming to Genesis/Mega-Drive called Sovietborgs. Spaniard developer Retro Sumus were previously known for their amazing 3D Dreamcast shooter Xenocider, released in 2021. That game, one of the first fully 3D indie games on Dreamcast, was a visual tour-de-force and a great tribute to Space Harrier and Sin & Punishment. With Sovietborgs, they’ve set their sights not just on Genesis, but aim to bring the game to Dreamcast and even MS-DOS and Neo-Geo. Quite the ambitious project indeed, and they’ve brought Sovietborgs to IndieGogo for the funding needed to make it happen.

Sovietborgs leverages pre-rendered 3D graphics, much like Vectorman or Sonic 3D Blast, to bring you into an alternate reality in which the Soviet Union became the dominant civilization following the Cold War. You’ll be controlling three mercenaries called “Sovietborgs” all at once to wipe out all the vicious mutants in every level. The game will play like a top-down shooter, but there are in-between levels more like a horizontal scrolling shmup as well. The music is inspired by the Strike trilogy and Command & Conquer: Red Alert and composed by the same Juanjo Martin who composed the music for Xenocider.

If you’re just itching to throw money at this game’s Indiegogo and get a copy of the game in the process following its completion, then journey on down past the break and find out what to expect from this campaign.

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Digital Eclipse head of production Stephen Frost expresses desire to work on a Saturn fighting game collection

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Digital Eclipse is name that holds a spectacular reputation among fans of retro gaming. The Atari SA owned development studio has been behind some of the most highly regarded retro game collections in recent years, including Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection, Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration, and their most recently announced games Golden Tee: Arcade Classics and Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection. (Of note to Sega fans, that upcoming Mortal Kombat collection… sorry, I mean “Kollection…” will include the Genesis/Mega-Drive, Game Gear, and even 32X ports of multiple Mortal Kombat titles)

When speaking with Games Industry.biz regarding their work on Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection, Digital Eclipse head of production Stephen Frost mentioned he’d love to be able to do a collection of Sega’s fighting games on the Sega Saturn. This isn’t a confirmation that any such project is actually in development, but it is cool to hear nonetheless.

You can see his exact quote past the break here.

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Remaining Sega Forever mobile games being hit with End-of-Service announcements UPDATE: Annnnnnnd they’re gone

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Recorded from the Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode II mobile app

The final nail in Sega Forever’s coffin has just been pounded in. The once-promising initiative out of Sega Europe to bring classic Sega games back on mobile devices as free, ad-supported games had already been quietly discontinued years ago and several games were delisted and left with their online services disabled in 2023. Now, most of the remaining games are meeting the same fate.

Like before, this comes without any official announcement from Sega outside of this end-of-service notice popping up within the affected games, along with a link directly to Sega’s website. Each of the games will remain playable offline and tied to your Google Play or Apple account if you had previously downloaded them, but they will no longer be updated, so it’s only a matter of time until they do become unplayable as Sega will no longer make sure they keep up with ongoing Android or iOS updates. This has actually already happened with each of the games that were delisted the last time since we reported on it two years ago. The topical games here are still available on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store as of this writing, so you may as well download the remaining games if you haven’t already and enjoy them while you can. As part of this update, all online features will be shut down, which amounted to leaderboards and, for the Genesis/Mega-Drive games, save-states saved onto the cloud. Local save data will remain accessible. The option to pay $2 USD to disable ads, which will now be disabled anyway, is also gone.

Check past the break for a list of the affected titles.

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Dreamcast online shooter Outtrigger now back online thanks to Dreamcast Live

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We’re live with a new Dreamcast Live update, as Outtrigger’s online multiplayer is now back in action thanks to Dreamcast Live. This is all thanks to Dreamcast Live legends Shuouma and Flyinghead, who also recently brought Sega Tetris and Speed Devils: Online Edition back online through Dreamcast Live.

Similar to the story of Speed Devils Online, Shuouma began work getting Outtrigger online years ago, but was unable to finish the job by himself. Years later, he showed Flyinghead the work he had done and he finished it for him. Now we all get to enjoy some online Outtrigger action once again through a DreamPi or a Dreamcast Broadband Adaptor, for those lucky enough to own the latter.

Check out some more info beyond the break and then get to blasting in Outtrigger.

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Sega Saturn turns 30 years old in North America

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The year is 1995. Movies such as Billy Madison, Bad Boys, Desperado, Jumanji, and Toy Story hit theaters. TV shows like Fraisier, Babylon 5, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the Earthworm Jim cartoon, and the Street Fighter and Darkstalkers cartoons premiered on TV. Anime such as Saint Tail, Slayers, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, and Virtua Fighter premiered in Japan and Ghost In The Shell premiered in Japanese and UK theaters. Songs like “Gangsta’s Paradise” by Coolio, “Fantasy” by Mariah Carey, “Waterfalls” by TLC, “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” by Smashing Pumpkins, and everyone’s favorite holiday song that they never get sick of hearing after midnight every November 1st: “All I Want For Christmas Is You” also by Mariah Carey, topped the charts. Video games like Chrono Trigger, Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest, Command & Conquer, Rayman, and Time Crisis came out. Sega released Genesis games like Beyond Oasis, Comix Zone, and Garfield: Caught In The Act and arcade games like Virtua Cop 2, Fighting Vipers, and Cool Riders. We were also 5 years away from entering the 21st century. We’d come a long way, but were we ready for the future?

Sega Saturn released on this day in North America three long decades ago, but as many of us know, it wasn’t originally supposed to be this day. It was originally decided to launch the console in September of 1995, but Sega of America surprised everyone by moving the launch up to May, a costly mistake that kneecapped the Saturn at the starting line. Even so, Saturn goes down in history as a beloved 32-bit system with some impressive games that stood the test of time, such as the Panzer Dragoon series, NiGHTS Into Dreams, Sonic R, Mr. Bones, Guardian Heroes, Burning Rangers, Fighters Megamix, and ports of incredible arcade games like Virtua Fighter 2, Virtua Cop 1 & 2, Fighting Vipers, Sega Rally Championship, and The House of the Dead. Saturn went woefully unappreciated all around the world other than Japan, however, and sold somewhere between 9 and 17 million consoles worldwide, putting it third place behind the competition of the time, but that doesn’t mean we have nothing to celebrate today.

Join us, if you will, beyond the break for a look back on the Saturn’s history and its impact on the gaming world today.

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Retro-Bit re-opens pre-orders for Toaplan Shooters Collector’s Edition Vol. 2 set of Genesis/Mega-Drive games, now without Twin Cobra

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Remember when Retro-Bit opened pre-orders for a new collector’s set of Toaplan Genesis/Mega-Drive official reprints, only to quickly call it off because of an unforeseen licensing issue? It seems they have now worked out that licensing issue and the set is now available to pre-order once again. Sadly, Twin Cobra (1991) seems to have been the source of that licensing snafu and has been removed from the set, leaving only Slap Fight MD (1993) and Grind Stormer (1994). Fortunately, those two games are the ones with extra modes exclusive to the Genesis versions, when Twin Cobra had no such additions.

The entire set has been readjusted and is available for pre-order at the usual retailers in North America and Europe. Due to it going from three games down to two, it is now available for the reduced price of $139.99 USD instead of $159.99 USD, with the individual games still being $59.99 USD. Anyone who really wanted Twin Cobra should be allowed to request a refund if they left their old pre-order in place. Anyone who still has a pre-order open and can live without Twin Cobra will still have their pre-order honored.

For more info on the new Collector’s Set, as well as pre-order links, come on down past the break.

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Supersega’s long, crazy history as a crowdfunding scam

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Image credit: Time Extension

You might recall last Summer when we talked about the announcement of a new FPGA console called the SuperSega. It was proposed as a console that could accurately run games from any original Sega console off of it’s original media, even Dreamcast games. I was cautiously optimistic as I wrote about the console, though the general consensus online, including from our own commenters, was that the SuperSega was destined to be vaporware. After a few short months, a couple of sketchy video demonstrations of the SuperSega hardware, and some ultra sketchy pre-orders that took way more money from people than they agreed to pay, it’s looking like it’s worse than even the naysayers thought at the time. Gotta give them credit.

We might be late in talking about this now, but because I had already reported on the SuperSega as if it was potentially going to be a legitimate product, we may as well take some time to go over all that had transpired regarding this new console since my original article. Join us after the break. It’s gonna be a long one.

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Physical copies of new Master System indie game, Frontier Force, coming soon from 2Minds

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The hot new Master System indie shooter, Frontier Force, which I had written about here just two days ago, will soon be available in a boxed physical cartridge form from 2Minds, a new publisher for indie games on Master System and Game Gear. The game will be packaged much like any old retail release for Master System, complete with box, reversible color inlay, manual, poster, and cartridge for use in any Master System or Master System cartridge adaptor for Genesis/Mega-Drive, Mark III, or Game Gear. It will cost €50 (Currently $56.78 USD).

For links to order the game, check in after the break below.

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New indie shooter “Frontier Force” released for Master System

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We love new games released for Sega consoles here at SegaBits, and this is one you won’t want to miss. Homebrew developer Badcomputer has just released an amazing new shmup for Master System called Frontier Force. The game sees your Space Harrier-looking character on the ground firing upwards at enemy forces with six different weapons, five of which have limited ammunition that requires replenishing. The game boasts some incredible graphics with plenty of detail and parallax scrolling, more than you saw in most official Master System games at retail back in the day. It also features an incredible soundtrack by chiptune musician Crisps as well as a printable digital manual.

The game is now available as a digital ROM file for your favorite Master System emulator or to run on a flash cartridge on any Master System, Mark III, or Master System-compatible Genesis/Mega-Drive console for only $5 USD from Badcomputer’s itch.io page, which will be linked beyond the break below.

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Japanese Saturn classic Princess Crown now finally fan translated

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After more than a decade of work from several fan translation teams, Atlus’s beloved Sega Saturn classic RPG Princess Crown (1997) is finally translated into English. The final release of the translation is available to download now and patch into your digital copy of the Saturn game files that you mysteriously obtained.

As reported by Sega Saturn Shiro!, release candidates of the translation were made public at the start of this month of April 2025. On April 18th, the final version of the translation had been completed and put up on the Github page for the project. Before all that, though, a different group consisting of SamIAm and CyberWarriorX had began efforts to translate the game and uploaded an unfinished build in 2014, only to leave their efforts for the current team to eventually pick up and build upon last year, making this a rather special translation in and of itself.

If you love this classic game from the team who would, years later, bring you games like Dragon’s Crown and Unicorn Overlord, then you’ll want to check out this fan translation for sure, so head on in after the break for the download link.

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Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack updated with Streets of Rage, ESWAT: City Under Siege, and Super Thunder Blade

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On April 11th, 2025, Sega added three early Sega Genesis/Mega-Drive games: ESWAT: City Under Siege, Streets of Rage, and Super Thunder Blade, to Sega Genesis – Nintendo Switch Online. Japan gets the same three games at the same time.

All three games are immediately accessible to Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscribers following a quick patch update to the app. For more info on each game, check in after the break for a synopsis on all of them.

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Shenmue wins BAFTA award for “Most Influential Video Game of All Time”

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It’s about time Shenmue got the recognition it rightfully deserves.

In a shocking turnout, Yu Suzuki’s darling Dreamcast epic Shenmue (1999) has just won a BAFTA game award for the “Most Influential Video Game Of All Time”. Over 2,800 people sent in text responses for what game was most deserving of this coveted award, rather than the British Academy of Film and Television Arts nominating a bunch of games of their choosing. Out of 20 other highly influential and well known video games that the public vouched for, including Super Mario Bros. (1985), Doom (1994), Minecraft (2011), Half-Life (1998), and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998), the majority ruled that Shenmue was the rightful winner.

If you’d like to see what BAFTA had to say about Shenmue, check in after the break.

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Sega Genesis Wumbo announced exclusively for North America and Sega Mega-Drive Micro announced exclusively for Japan (April Fools)

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In a most bewildering twist, Sega have announced their next big vision for mini consoles, and I do mean big. They’re returning, once again, to the Sega Genesis well with the announcement of the Sega Genesis Wumbo for North America exclusively and the Sega Mega-Drive Micro for Japan exclusively. Nothing has been announced yet for Europe.

Both consoles are essentially the same thing as the two Genesis Mini consoles before them, but now with a new and unexpected gimmick. Japan’s Mega-Drive Micro will be half the size of the original Mega-Drive Mini. It will be so small, in fact, that it will come with a special, separate USB-C adapter for both HDMI out and power input, as the console will be too small to fit an HDMI port and a power port on it. North America’s Genesis Wumbo will be twice the size of an original Model 1 Genesis console (Not the Genesis Mini. The original Genesis console from 1989). Controllers will also follow suit, with the Mega-Drive Micro’s controller being half the size of an original controller while the Genesis Wumbo’s controller will be double the size.

Sega have not yet announced a release date for the two consoles, but they have announced a starting lineup of ten games. Have a look past the break to see what those games are, along with more information.

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Phantasy Star II getting a fanmade port to the Amiga platform

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These are interesting times for retro ports. First, we had folks porting games to Sega consoles from other platforms, then someone ported Shinobi and Golden Axe to SNK’s Neo-Geo platforms, and now someone wants to bring Phantasy Star II (1989) to the Amiga platform. I’m certainly not against it.

Homebrew developer RetroLover is now hard at work on an Amiga conversion of the seminal and very influential Genesis/Mega-Drive JRPG Phantasy Star II. That game is their favorite RPG of all time, and this is their way of paying tribute to it and the Amiga platform. The game is being rebuilt in Scorpion Engine, which is made for development of Amiga, Genesis, and even Neo-Geo games, but RetroLover is aiming to make this as faithful to the Genesis original as possible. They’ll still be adding enhancements to make it easier to play through, such as an improved battle system based on that of Phantasy Star IV (1995).

For now, though, the port is still early in development. However, RetroLover has released a demo for the public to try and is open to feedback. If you have a way to run Amiga games, I’d say give it a go. You can find a link to download it below the break.

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