Retro

New visual coding program for Genesis/Mega-Drive, MD Engine, coming soon

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Look. I get you, Sega fans. You saw all these cool new homebrew games for Genesis/Mega-Drive coming out and you wanna make a game just like those, but you don’t know how to write code for Genesis. Thankfully, Two Black Cats have got you covered.

MD Engine is a new visual coding program made for easy development of games for Sega Genesis. A visual coding program, much like Game Maker or Clickteam Fusion, allows for the development of video games with an interface that allows for you to build a game with visual assets and menus without having to rely so much on writing code. With this, and a bit of patience and inspiration, you should be able to make your very own new Genesis games without having to write one line of code.

MD Engine was made as a fork of GB Studio, an open source visual coding program for making games for Nintendo’s Game Boy (Color) handheld. It uses much of the same interface and menus, so MD Engine should look familiar to anyone who has worked in GB Studio. However, MD Engine touts some extra special features that are not available even with GB Studio, such as exporting your game as a special PC or HTML5 game with extra features not possible on Genesis, such as a widescreen visual mode and CRT visual filters. Of course, if you just want to make a game ROM that can play on Genesis consoles or in Genesis emulators, you can do that as well.

Be sure to take a dive past the break to find out more about how MD Engine could help you make the Genesis game of your dreams.

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Earthion Review – Ancient Returns to the SEGA Genesis

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Where does the time go? It only feels like yesterday that I reported on the one and only Yuzo Koshiro being hard at work on his first new Genesis/Mega-Drive game since 1995’s Beyond Oasis, which we later heard would be named Earthion. Now, before I even knew it, Earthion had released on Steam and just came out for modern consoles earlier this month. Limited Run Games also started pre-orders for physical copies of the game on those modern platforms until September 28th, as well, but have yet to open pre-orders on cartridges for your old Genesis consoles. (Sorry for not letting you know sooner.)

Yuzo Koshiro’s studio Ancient has been kind enough to offer us a review code for Earthion on Steam, and I have run the game through its paces many a times. Now that the wait to experience this modern Genesis classic is finally over, it’s time for me to report on how this shooter turned out. Suffice it to say, the game pushes the Genesis to limits never thought possible, but is the game fun to play? Find out now after the break.

(Neither Ancient nor Limited Run Games have influenced this review or seen it before it has gone live.)

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Unseen photos of Micheal Jackson, made for an unreleased Sega game, surfaced from a developer interview

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Sega fans will know that the infamous King of Pop Micheal Jackson had quite the interesting history with Sega during the 90’s, but this may be something many of you weren’t privy to.

In a recent interview with designer Kazunori Sasaki with News Post-Seven, as reported on by MJ Vibe, Sasaki-san spoke about how he met with Jackson during his HIStory World Tour stop in Japan in December 1996 to do some photography and motion capture work for an unreleased game, presumably a new entry in Sega’s Digital Dance Mix game series for Saturn. The above photos of Jackson were taken during that shoot and were never publicly shown before. (The Ghost album cover has been available to the public for many years, but News Post-Seven just attached it to the pictures, for some reason.)

For those unaware, Digital Dance Mix was a planned series of rhythm games with each entry themed after a single popular singer. However, only one game in that planned series ended up releasing exclusively in Japan, based around the Japanese pop singer Namie Amuro. Apparently, she was popular enough to be known as the “Queen of J-Pop“, so she and Jackson may have been equals, depending on who you ask.

For more info from the interview, be sure to moonwalk right past the break.

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Atari CEO Wade Rosen expresses desire to remaster Panzer Dragoon Saga and Snatcher

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Have you played your Atari today? A better question would be “Have you played Panzer Dragoon Saga or Snatcher today?”

Under the leadership of Wade Rosen, Atari SA has been busy reviving tons of retro game franchises. From famous Atari classics like Yars Revenge, Centipede, and Missile Command, to obscure Atari classics like Caverns of Mars and Fatal Run, to even Bubsy, which Atari SA acquired only two years ago, Atari’s making one impressive comeback. Atari SA owned developers Digital Eclipse and Nightdive Studios are even bringing back classic games not owned by Atari, such as Mortal Kombat and Outlaws, which makes Mr. Rosen’s wishlist of classic games to remaster a bit more plausible than you’d expect.

In a recent interview with VGC, Wade Rosen expressed his personal desire to arrange remasters of Panzer Dragoon Saga, Snatcher, and Ogre Battle. Of course, this is not to be taken as confirmation that Atari SA or any companies under its ownership are currently working on such remasters.

You can see his exact quote right below the break.

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Irena Genesis Metal Fury is 90% finished; new Summer demo released just for Kickstarter backers

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*Ahem* Now that we got your attention, it’s time for an update on a promising indie Genesis/Mega-Drive shooter that was kickstarted all the way back in 2021. Perhaps at least a few of you remember this one?

Irena Genesis Metal Fury, henceforth Irena for short, is an all new indie scrolling shooter that’s been in active development for Genesis from White Ninja Studio since before launching their Kickstarter, which succeeded in reaching its goal. They ended up raising €62,240, almost double its goal of €35,000. (About $40,708.96 USD, adjusted for inflation) This was thanks, in part, to an impressive demo they worked on and launched simultaneously with the Kickstarter. Thousands of Genesis shooter fans downloaded and played that demo and were so impressed they couldn’t wait to fund its completion.

Four years later and White Ninja Studio’s fortunes took a drastic turn. They had gained new publishers, Mega Cat Studios for North America and Broke Studio for Europe, only for those publishers to drop the game this year. Last year, they also suffered the passing of the game’s lead artist OHKO. The project lead also took an extended break to preserve their own mental health amidst all these challenges, something we could all use now and then. Even so, the team soldiered on, including OHKO in his last remaining days, and even as the team missed several projected release dates, they’ve announced now that the game is 9/10 of the way to completion and a new, updated demo just for Kickstarter backers is now available. This comes in a recent update to Kickstarter backers on August 23rd, 2025, where news of the loss of their publishers was also shared.

You can check your Kickstarter account or your email if you were a Kickstarter backer, where you’ll hear the news directly from White Ninja Studio. For everyone else, go right past the break to hear more.

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Indie Genesis/Mega-Drive developer Kai Magazine Software caught tracing artwork in their games

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When someone who loves developers making new games for old consoles as much as I do has something negative to say about one of them, you know it’s bad news.

Some of you may not know about developer Kai Magazine Software. I have only written one article about them, that being about their then upcoming Genesis/Mega-Drive action RPG The Secret of Four Winds. Now it turns out they were exposed for stealing art from several artists online and some retro games and tracing it to use in their own games, including The Secret of Four Winds. They’ve also allegedly been stealing art in a less direct way by using AI-generated art in their games too.

SNES fan translator Krokodyl noticed this and showed his findings on Bluesky Social. He had managed to find several examples of traced over art in Kai Magazine Software’s games Life On Mars, Metal Dragon, The Secret of Four Winds, and their newest game currently up for pre-order: Death & Lead, shown above. Sorry if this is how you first learned about Death & Lead. (It’s how I first heard of it.)

So, if you’d like to see all the art these varmints pilfered from innocent artists and some of the best games in video game history, mosey on down to the link below at sundown.

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Special interview with Retro Sumus, creators of Sovietborgs and Xenocider

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Some of you may remember Sovietborgs, the hot new Genesis/Mega-Drive top-down shooter being developed by Retro Sumus, previously known for their work on modern Dreamcast classic Xenocider. As of this writing, Sovietborgs’s Indiegogo campaign is still live and they are halfway toward their monetary goal to finish the game.

As their crowdfunding campaign soldiers on, we’ve had the lucky opportunity to speak to the people hard at work on Sovietborgs. This way, all of you, whether you’re excited for the game or still on the fence about supporting it, can get a look within the minds of this USSR themed 3D shooter and see what inspired them in their work.

Join us after the break as we learn about this history of Retro Sumus’s developers and what inspired them both technologically and creatively. As a special bonus, you can also see some photos of the game at this year’s Retrocon, which took place in São Paulo, Brazil from July 25-27th, 2025.

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Retro-Bit announces new Undeadline Collector’s Cartridge for Genesis/Mega-Drive; pre-orders open until August 10th, 2025

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When there’s an ultra-rare, ultra-expensive, and especially Japan exclusive shooter for Genesis/Mega-Drive, you can bet your bottom dollar that Retro-Bit will try to bring it to the western world as one of their Collector’s Cartridges, as they have done a few times before. This time, they’ve set their sights on the monster filled shmup known as Undeadline (1991).

Pre-orders have already begun in North America and Europe for this ghoulish shooter, which is at a big time bargain compared to trying to track down even a loose cartridge of the original Japanese copy of this cult Mega-Drive classic. This comes licensed from the current rights holder D4 Enterprise and with a brand new English translation made in cooperation with D4.

Come on down past the break for a closer look at this game and for pre-order links.

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Fundraiser started to rescue and preserve hundreds of Sega 3DS and DS game prototypes before August 2025

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Video game preservation organizations Obscure Gamers and Video Game Preservation Museum are in the midst of a public fundraiser to help them bring in £61K to rescue some 300 prototypes and showroom demos of classic Sega games on Nintendo DS and 3DS from becoming e-waste. This includes never-before-seen early builds of memorable DS/3DS Sega classics such as Sonic Colors DS, Sonic Generations 3DS, some Mario & Sonic Olympics games, and even a DS build of Project R, better known as Rhythm Thief & The Emperor’s Treasure, which would release on Nintendo 3DS instead of DS in 2012.

Sadly, even with multiple fundraisers set up to pool money, they have not made it far reaching their goal by now, and they must raise the necessary funds before the start of August 2025. Otherwise, they may not have another chance to rescue all this precious Sega history before it returns to the e-waste bins they were pulled from. There’s still plenty of time as of this writing, so it’s too soon to give up now. We encourage you to give whatever money you can spare to help with this noble preservation effort. Obscure Gamers have promised that your money can be refunded in August at your request if the fundraiser fails, so you at least have nothing to lose if they lose, other than tons of important information on the development of these games that could be documented online for all to see, as well as the digital rom files themselves for you to try out.

Links to the various fundraisers, as well as a list of every game prototype hanging in the balance, will be below the break here.

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Gamescare announces a December 2025 release date for their new FPGA Genesis/32X console: the GF-1 Neptune

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The Brazillian company GamesCare have announced a December 2025 release window for their hotly anticipated Genesis/32X hybrid FPGA console: the GF-1 Neptune. At the moment, pre-orders are not yet available and no price has been announced, though they have stated it will be average for consoles of this nature. Given the usual cost of most FPGA consoles, I would estimate somewhere in the ballpark of $200-300 USD, but we’ll see soon. (Expect tariffs to be an issue as well) They have also promised that crowdfunding will not be part of their plans.

This announcement was made public through GamesCare’s Twitter, along with a link to a signup page for their new email newsletter. You can sign up there to hear when more info comes out. The link will be right below the break.

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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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