Yu Suzuki’s Air Twister is now available on Apple Arcade

Yu Suzuki’s return to arcade gaming arrives today in the form of Air Twister, an Apple Arcade exclusive. Now before you moan and groan about it being on Apple products only, as revealed in our exclusive interview with Yu Suzuki it was Apple who asked him and his team for an arcade-style game. Apple is also listed in the game’s credits as a producer. So without Apple, this game would not have happened.

If you have an Apple Arcade subscription, the game is available to play now! I’ve tried it myself on an iPhone, iPad, Apple TV and iMac and all platforms play the game very well. My preferred method is a gamepad on the TV. I’ve tried the old iCade arcade stick and sadly it does not work due to how the iCade maps its buttons. Still, I am certain a bluetooth flight stick or arcade stick would work.

Stay tuned to SEGAbits for more Air Twister news!

Shining Force: Heroes of Light and Darkness is no longer in development

SEGA along with Vespa announced it was working on Shining Force: Heroes of Light and Darkness, based on the classic Shining Force franchise, way back in August 2021. Since the announcement, they’ve announced that it was suppose to get a full launch the first half of this year, as well as a beta before this period that never happen!

Its said that the reason that Shining Force: Heroes of Light and Darkness has suspended development is because the lack of funds and how long the negotiations for the Shining Force IP have taken with SEGA. According to Game Braves, SEGA never finalized the use of the Shining Force IP or at least full use of the IP. We know many classic characters were making their return in this game but the company also wanted to make original characters. No idea where the disagreement came since we’ve seen smaller companies license IPs such as Alex Kidd, Wonderboy, Panzer Dragoon and more.

Vespa is turning its attention and development to King’s Raid 2, a popular in-house IP already developed and owned by the company. Personally I want the return of classic Shining Force SRPG goodness, but not in a mobile game. Considering Camelot Software want to make a Shining Force IV, why not go for a real follow-up with the original team?

SEGA trademarks ‘Humankind’ in Japan

The guys over at Gematsu posted up more company trademarks, as you know previously SEGA trademarked ‘Romance: Seven-Colored Adventure Story and now they are trademarking “Humankind”. Gematsu did make a note that Take-Two is going to debut a new game called Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey at The Game Awards 2018 in a few days. We know SEGA has a history of working with Take-Two in publishing and pushing their games in Japanese market. Who knows.

Sadly all these trademarks are vague without a description on what sort of platform they will be used on. At this point SEGA is so diverse it can be a Pachinko, Mobile or Console game. What do you want to see from this new trademark? What do you think it is? Let us know in the comments below.

Ristar joins SEGA Forever line-up

Ristar3Sonic Team’s Ristar might have only had one game, but it was a pretty damn good one. The stretchy armed platformer featured fantastic music, vibrant and colorful world. The game was also more of a slower platformer, having Sonic Team take a break from Sonic the Hedgehog games was a nice change of pace. If you never played the game, I feel like you should try it on a better emulator than what is being offered right now on SEGA Forever, but if a mobile phone is all you have then you can give the game a try for free, with ads. If you like what you played, you can always keep it ad-free for only $1.99. I have downloaded and played it a bit, the emulation on this title is a bit better, but still having issues with sound (on my Android device).

Download:
PlayStoreiTunes

It seems that Ristar had a sneak launch, while SEGA Forever teased the game, they haven’t officially announced it coming out. No trailer like they did for The Revenge of Shinobi last week and no tweet (as of writing this). If you want to learn more about the future of the SEGA Forever line of games, check out our interview with Danny Russell (Mobile Games Community Manager at SEGA).

The Revenge of Shinobi joins SEGA Forever

The Revenge of Shinobi comes to SEGA Forever’s mobile line-up. This is a new “censored version” that has been around since the SEGA Vintage Collection era, which changes Joe Musashi’s face in the title screen due to the face basically resembling Sonny Chiba. Some hardcore fans take issue with this change because the original ‘Sonny Chiba copied face’ seems angry and bold while the edited version of Joe Musashi looks rather sad. Its also funny to note that the SEGA Forever trailer above even makes a joke about it being changed.  You can see bothf faces below (Left original, right the new one):

revengeofshinobicomparasionface

The Revenge of Shinobi isn’t new to censorship, considering that the game has been heavily changed in the past due to copyright infringement on popular IPs such as Godzillia, Spiderman and even Batman. The Revenge of Shinobi is considered to be one of the best sequels of all time, adding much more depth than the original arcade Shinobi ever had. The Revenge of Shinobi also featured a critically acclaimed soundtrack by Yuzo Koshiro (Streets of Rage series) which should be enough to download and try it. The only thing is, have they fixed the audio in the emulation? Like all SEGA Forever titles, the game is free to play with ads and $1.99 to keep ad-free forever.

[Google Play | iTunes]

Sonic CD goes free-to-play with ads

Sonic-CD-2.0Sonic CD has now been updated to version 2.0, which changed the app from a paid game to a free-to-play game with ads. The issue with this is, that if you bought Sonic CD before going free-to-play, you will also be getting ads and be asked to pay $1.99 to remove them. According to developer Christian Whitehead this was all SEGA’s doing since he’s been busy working on Sonic Mania.

SEGA has yet to come out and comment on the change, but I seriously think this is just a error that will hopefully be resolved. If not it would be a really slimy move to charge loyal paying customers $1.99 to remove ads that you recently updated into their already purchased $2.99 game. Anyway, what do you think of Sonic CD going free-to-play with ads? If you paid for the Sonic CD, do you feel burnt that you now has ads?

UPDATE: Sonic Social Media manager Aaron Webber has confirmed that a fix has rolled out for those who purchased Sonic CD and still got ads. Let us know if you guys are still having issues in the comments below!

[via Touch Arcade]

Crazy Taxi: City Rush releasing this Thursday to iOS

Crazy_Taxi_City_Rush_preview_01

Want to play Crazy Taxi: City Rush on your iPhone and/or iPad? No problem, SEGA has announced that the game will be releasing globally tomorrow to the App Store. Soon fans can experience their new mobile, free-to-play revised take on the Crazy Taxi franchise.

Even though the new game borrows heavily from popular mobile games like Temple Run, don’t think that this entry has disregarded the Japanese team that created the originals. Kenji Kanno, creator of Crazy Taxi, has been overseeing development and lately been doing quite a bit of interviews on the web speaking about the game. The game is developed by Hardlight Studios who developed Sonic Dash, another title that was highly influenced by Temple Run (and Sonic Jump that takes notes from the popular mobile game Doodle Jump, though it should be noted that an earlier version of Sonic Jump released that pre-dates Doodle Jump).

This game is also supposed to be released on Android, but like always Android users must wait.

Michael Pachter says 0% chance for SEGA/Apple console


Wait, people out there want something like this? Michael Pachter’s an infamous gaming analyst who has a show on Gametrailers called “Pach-Attack” where he answers readers’ questions. One of those questions happened to be what the chances were of a SEGA/Apple console.

Micheal Pachter opened it up by insulting SEGA’s content, saying that they have nothing ‘compelling’ to offer. Now I understand why users online keep on calling him a stupid fuck.

Isn’t this guy always wrong or does he just state the obvious? I assume more of the obvious with clueless comments. Only America would pay you for a job like this.

Streets Of Rage 2 out now on iOS

From out of seemingly nowhere, Streets Of Rage 2 appears for download on the Apple iPod Touch and iPhone. The game will cost you $2.99/€2.39/£1.79/AU$ 3.99 and includes Bluetooth multiplayer, and the Japanese version, Bare Knuckle 2.

The article also mentions that Golden Axe 2, Golden Axe 3, and Streets Of Rage 3 will be available this spring. Cool beans.

[Source: SEGA]

Kingdom Conquest released for iOS devices, it’s free!

A few months back we brought you some early info on SEGA’s new combination town strategy game and 3-D dungeon crawler Kingdom Conquest. Well today, that game is available to download for FREE via the iTunes app store and can be played on any iOS device. Learn more about the game here, and if you own an iOS device download it NOW! It’s free, it’s a new IP and thus far from what I’ve played it’s pretty cool!

Chu Chu Rocket hitting the iPhone in late October

Forgive me for not thinking of a cat and mouse pun for the headline. Via SEGA’s e-newsletter comes an official word on when we can expect the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch to get Chu Chu fever: late October! Considering the iDevice’s are getting Sonic 4 next week, October will be a big month for SEGA on the App Store. Pricing hasn’t been announced yet, but $7.99 to $9.99 seem to be the magic numbers for other new App Store releases from SEGA.

[Source: SEGA Pass]

Kingdom Conquest early reviews, screens and info

A few beta testers for Kingdom Conquest have already submitted their ratings and they have been pretty positive. The game has two parts to it, one being a up town strategy game and the other being a 3-D dungeon crawler. When you go dungeon crawling  with friends you will be able to find items to equip your army with and help you win more land.

“at first i thought this game will be like any other game, but i was wrong… the developer team is genius to ever create a game like this !” – dimaz91

I agree with dimaz91, when I heard about the game I thought it was going to be crap. But it seems that SEGA has got this down. Glad, more quality software for everyone. The game carries a 9+ rating for Fantasy Violence and Infrequent/Mild Realistic Violence.

[Source: iTunes]
[Thanks: Liam via email]

(Product description after the break)