Yakuza 0 takes us back to Japan during the 1980s, offering up a brand new tale in the Yakuza franchise. But with so many titles in the franchise, can Yakuza 0 offer up enough content to make it worth your money? Is this a safe game for newcomers? Hit the jump button and find out.
25 years has past by for the Puyo Puyo series (27 if counting Madou Monogatari). Originally the series was conceived as a modest puzzle game in the same vain as Dr. Mario or Tetris on the MSX and Famicom Disk System, before making it big with the arcade games Puyo Puyo and Puyo Puyo Tsu. Even after the demise of Compile at the beginning of the new millennium, SEGA would still keep up the legacy of the franchise with the occasional new game and merchandising. Enough so that Puyo Puyo is considered one of SEGA’s “core” franchises in Japan.
Now that it’s the 25th anniversary of the Puyo Puyo series, naturally a new game would be released to compliment this milestone. However the new game in the series, Puyo Puyo Chronicles, takes a slightly different approach from the norm while at the same time trying to keep things familiar for long time fans. Is it a worthy milestone celebration chronicling the series strengths, or a sign that this chronicle should end?
Playing at the Next Level: A History of American Sega Games was written by Ken Horowitz, who runs the long running SEGA-16 fansite. As a longtime Sega fan and lurker on various sites, especially before I started this blog, I was a huge fan of what Ken was doing at Sega-16. One of the biggest resources the site offers is a review for almost every single Sega Genesis game published. That’s quite the feat. While his work on getting a review for almost every single Sega Genesis game is amazing, I truly love his website because he interviews some of the most interesting people from Sega’s glory days. I first heard about the site when doing research on Sega Technical Institute, after finding his interview with Roger Hector about his time being director of the studio I started checking daily for more Sega historical content. Ever since then I have been a huge fan of the site, when I heard Ken was writing a historical Sega book we invited him on our podcast (listen to that below).
Prior to sitting down to write out this review for Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice, the third Sonic Boom game and the second to appear on the Nintendo 3DS, I told myself I would not fall into the reviewers trap of carting out some year that pinpoints when the Sonic series “went bad”. Not only have far too many reviewers done this already, but often I feel they are incredibly misinformed. Sonic Boom was, and is, a product of SEGA of America. While Sonic Team members do have their names attached to the multimedia project, credit really should go to select SEGA of America staff, OuiDo! Productions, Big Red Button and Sanzaru Games. Past games like Colors, Generations and Lost World were completely separate, both in canon and production, and as such I think it is unfair to say that the failings of Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric should sully the main brand.
Sonic Boom was a chance for SEGA of America to fully control a piece of the Sonic pie, and while some elements of the multimedia experiment fell flat, others were and are actually quite enjoyable, namely the TV series and the short lived Archie Comics adaptation. When Sonic Boom is at its best, it evokes the old Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon and early Archie Comics. Light, funny and self-aware whilst retaining the sense of adventure. Does Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice fall into this category? Did Sanzaru Games learn from their previous title? Am I going to ask questions with the promise of answers if you click “Continue Reading”? Find out in my review of Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice!
Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse is not quite a sequel, side story, or even an expansion to the well-received Shin Megami Tensei IV.
If you took the movie Die Hard and filmed a What If ending showcasing what could happen if Reginald VelJohnson’s character Sgt. Al Powell had infiltrated the Nakatomi Plaza instead of waiting on the sidelines, then you would find yourself in a similar situation. Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse uses this What If scenario to fine-tune the gameplay from its predecessors and treat players to a very satisfying RPG for the Nintendo 3DS.
SEGA’s Hatsune Miku: Project Diva X takes its popular IP based video game series to the PlayStation 4 for the first time, also available on PlayStation Vita. This review will be based on me playing Hatsune Miku: Project Diva X on the PlayStation 4 and it being the first game in the series for me all I ask is: please be gentle! What did I think? Is this a good starting point for people that have been sitting on the sidelines for the last few years?
Lights, camera, action because it’s time to review Hatsune Miku: Project Diva X.
Its the final minutes until the big 25h anniversary party for our good buddy, Sonic, but wait! Those aren’t rings falling from the sky, its a bunch of weights and a myriad of bombs which means its the last few rounds of Saturn Bomberman before we share our verdict on the game. In the last part of the episode, the group talks about the sudden death mode, discovers a connection with Bomberman and wrestling and share our strategies of playing the game. Also how did people play the game in the mid to late nineties? The round table discussion features my friends Chance, Krys, Randy and Chelsea.
Did you play Saturn Bomberman back in the day? How did you set up the game to play with friends? Do you think other Bomberman games do the job better? Be sure to sound off in the comments!
I have been complaining that SEGA should bring over the 7th Dragon series since it debuted on the Nintendo DS way back in 2009 and now we finally got our first entry with 7th Dragon III Code: VFD (which has been confirmed to be the last entry as well). The7th Dragon series had SEGA veterans like Rieko Kodama (Phantasy Star, Skies of Arcadia fame) and composer Yuzo Koshiro (Streets of Rage series, Etrian Odyssey) involved to help craft the long running series. While we missed out on first couple games and a couple of spin-off titles; its nice to finally get to play a official localized version of the game.
But was the last game really worth the wait? Well, let’s find out.
SEGA released Valkyria Chronicles on PC two years ago and now they have another port of their 2008 SRPG, this time on the PlayStation 4. So how does the game hold up and is it worth your time again? Let’s get started and find out!
Expectations are a nasty thing. They can warp and twist and turn your perception of what something is, focusing instead on what it’s not. I had that sort of reaction to the SEGA Genesis & Mega Drive Classics Hub at first. But I sat back, and I thought about it, and I realized it wasn’t totally fair to judge it on the fact that it was a lackluster front-end with wasted potential. But then there came the other issues.
Genesis Classics Hub is not the worst presentation of an emulation machine I’ve ever seen, but it feels so below average that I wonder what the point of the upgrade even was. Hit the jump to find out why.
SEGA 3D Classics Collection is the latest in the long line of compilations that SEGA loves to produce. For years the company has to rereleased various titles in a neat packages for convenience, often times Genesis titles from the golden days. Examples include both Sonic Mega Collection and Sonic Gems Collection, SEGA Genesis Collection, and SEGA Smash Pack. However, few of these compilations were released on handheld systems, and often times arcade games would get the short end of the stick. So SEGA 3D Classics Collection is a bit special in this case since it has several games that you don’t normally see in these compilations like Power Drift, Puyo Puyo Tsu, and Maze Walker.
If you have been on this blog and read my writing over the years you would know that I’m a huge fan of SEGA’s Yakuza franchise and was really pleased to hear that they decided to bring over Yakuza 5 even though it’s been out since 2012 in Japan. After years of contemplating whether or not to just import the game and play with an online guide, I decided it was best to wait. Now that Yakuza 5 has an official English release, was the wait worth it?
The Legend of Legacy piqued my interest when I heard that the team behind the game (Furyu) was billing the title as a spiritual sequel to the SaGa series of games, a series of RPGs that I played many moons ago. Did I enjoy them? Hard to tell since I was quite young when I played them but the name always stuck with me over the years. I was excited to start this long RPG trip and ready to see if the game will live up to its ‘Legacy’ namesake. Well, does it? One way to find out…
What happens when you mix popular light novel characters and popular SEGA franchises in one crossover fighting game? You get Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax,a crossover fighting game developed by Japanese game developers French Bread & Ecole Software who have worked on the Melty Blood series. The game is published by SEGA and features various light novel characters from ASCII Media Works’ Dengeki Bunko imprint as a celebration of the publication’s 20th anniversary. Not only does the game feature light novel characters, SEGA fans will be very pleased to see what this game has to offer when it comes to fan service. Be sure to hit the jump for my review of Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax!
If you read last week’s preview, you’d know that I was feeling quite positive about what I had experienced in playing SEGA’s latest Nintendo 3DS title Hatsune Miku: Project Mirai DX. Now that I’ve had an additional week, I’ve experienced a bit more of what the game has to offer. Rhythm modes have ramped up the difficulty factor, I’ve been able to experience the game’s StreetPass/SpotPass functions, and it was even a certain vocaloid’s birthday. SO without further ado, let’s turn on the lights, grab a mic, and hit the stage for our review of Hatsune Miku: Project Mirai DX!