Dreamcast

Streets of Rage 4 cancelled Dreamcast concept art makes its way online

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SEGA is well aware of the cult following that their Streets of Rage series possesses, so they have tried to resurrect the franchise but it always ends up being canceled for one reason or another. It seems that SEGA had a plan to release Streets of Rage 4, we had the first prove of this by leaked footage that was released a few years ago (you can view it here). The game was to be on the Dreamcast and was being developed by Ancient & SEGA with Yuzo Koshiro returning to do the soundtrack. The game was sadly canceled.

We have finally gotten more information on the canceled project thanks to Yuzo Koshiro posting concept art on his twitter account. He posted two sketches one showing off the four lead characters, which have some resemblance to members of the original cast but are actually all new heroes. Another photo shows off ideas for combos, on this photo we actually get the names of the Axel looking guy, who is called Burn and is the son of Axel (aka Axel Jr.). We also see the female character who’s name is Erie and happens to be a ‘Shinobi’.

What do you guys think of the canceled concept art? Do you think SEGA made a mistake cancelling this project or is this something that was going to be met with backlash? Let us know in the comments!

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Sonic Dreams Collection: Fan made ‘unreleased’ Sonic Dreamcast prototypes

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It seems that Arcane Kids, the programmer behind 2013’s Bubsy 3D tribute is now he doing a similar release for Sonic the Hedgehog. He is releasing the ‘Sonic Dreams Collection‘ over on his new site ‘hedgehog.exposed‘ (password is: grandpa). Yes, the site is hosted via Tumblr. You can try Sonic Dreams Collection on both Windows and Mac OS.

According to Arcane Kids’ own description:

“The Arcane Kids$ salvaged FOUR playable prototypes, some concept art, and countless top-secret SEGA files.”

The four ‘salvaged playable prototypes’ include:

  • Make My Sonic ’96: Change colors, size of body parts and more.
  • Eggman Origins ’97: Not working, needs to be connected to ‘Seganet’.
  • Sonic Movie Maker ’98: Play director in various scenes featuring a dark story line.
  • My Roommate Sonic ’99: Hang out with your roomate Sonic while Eggman gives you instructions via phone texts.

While they are passing off the collection as obtained unreleased games via a developer kit purchased via Ebay, the release is clearly created using Unity and doesn’t run on Dreamcast hardware. Its a nice tribute release to make the rounds online. If you want to see someone with a unenthusiastic voice play the leak, hit the jump.

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Developer Retrospective: The winning combination of SEGA and Compile

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As summer winds down, we thought it would be the ideal time to shift the focus of our Year of the Developers feature to third party Japanese developers who have worked with SEGA in the past to bring us countless classics. We are, of course, referring to the legendary developers Compile, Treasure and Westone. While these three developers existed on their own outside of SEGA, their collaborations with our favorite company utilizing beloved SEGA home console and arcade hardware went a long way in cementing their statuses as some of the best third party developers of the 80s and 90s.

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Grandia II HD hits PC this year, new screenshots revealed

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We announced prior that Grandia II HD was getting a new PC port based on the Dreamcast version (best version) of the game. Now we know that publisher GungHo Online Entertainment plans to release Grandia II HD sometime this year via  GOG and also on Steam.

The HD version will have updated graphics for HD displays, include Japanese voice acting (along with English dub), controller support and a new, harder difficulty mode. Grandia II came out on the Dreamcast in 2000 and was considered one of the best RPGs released on the console. A few years later it got a PS2 and PC port, but both these ports where noted for being inferior to the Dreamcast version. Glad that the world (outside of Dreamcast owners) will get to re-experience Grandia II the way it was mean’t to be enjoyed.

Here is what the game will look like: 

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Round Table: How much did you pledge to Shenmue 3?

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It is hard to grasp that it has been over 14 years since Shenmue 2 came out and left us all with that cliffhanger in the end of the game. There has been a strong fan reaction for a third installment and Yu Suzuki stood at Playstation’s E3 stage to finally give fans what they have been asking for. Ys NET launched their Kickstarter campaign which broke funding records, cementing that fans are willing to give their hard earn cash in order to see a third installment of their favorite franchise. In this week’s Round Table we talk about how much we funded and why. You can let us know how much you funded in the comments below.

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Shenmue Gaiden: A fan made visual novel gets announced

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Two Shenmue fanatics (Shensun and Esppiral from Shenmue Dojo) have been working together for a greater part of a year on the fan creation of Shenmue Gaiden, a non-canon Shenmue visual novel. This is the sequel to a fan project that was released a year ago called ‘Shenmue X chapter 1‘, but the creator suggest this project will be better and by the looks of the promotional artwork he might be on to something.

It is expected for the visual novel to have a demo this year with a release sometime in 2016, the game will have two plot stories that deal with Ryo and Shenhua reaching their destination after their long walk in the forest and a young girl who asks them for help. To read more about the plot and see other in-game screenshots, hit the jump or click here.

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Shenmue 3 Kickstarter Ends At $6,333,295, 69,320 Backers

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The Shenmue 3 Kickstarter campaign has officially ended, earning a total amount of $6,333,295 with 69,320 backers.

Fourteen years after Shenmue II was released, and following two failed attempts at reviving the franchise (Shenmue Online and Shenmue Gai), Yu Suzuki was welcomed to Sony’s E3 2015 stage to officially announce the beginning of the Kickstarter campaign for Shenmue 3. Breaking the Guinness World Record for the fastest video game to reach $1 million through crowdfunding in one hour and 42 minutes (as well as initially crashing Kickstarter’s site), Shenmue 3 continued to break records by being the second fastest Kickstarter campaign in all categories to raise over $1 million. Less than nine hours later, Shenmue 3 continued to drop jaws around the world when it reached $2 million, its 100% funding goal. Since the announcement, the money has continued to flow in, raising almost $1 million more on its last campaign day.

The game has also become the most funded video game in Kickstarter History, a record previously held by Bloodstained, the third most funded Kickstarter campaign in the “Games” category, and, most impressively, the sixth most funded Kickstarter project of all time.

The Kickstarter campaign should be considered a massive success, and now we can all rest (if only for a little bit), and await a steady flow of Shenmue 3 news until December of 2017!

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Fan launches demo for his Phantasy Star Online Remaster project

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If you had a Dreamcast growing up, you probably had a copy of Phantasy Star Online somewhere. Even you, the guy that bought it because it had an exclusive demo of Sonic Adventure 2 in the case. If you spent hundreds of hours playing the game online, then you will be happy to know that Youtube/Reddit user Glader has been working on a remake project for the original Phantasy Star Online game.

You can click here to check out the demo he has launched, above video talks about the project. It seems that the project is very early in development, right now its just a proof of concept showing off the core features. According to the video, it is being developed on Unity 5. Very interesting project, what do you guys think?

[Via Nichegamer]

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Seaman creator on Iwata, talks about canceled Seaman 3DS game

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We know that Seaman creator and IP right holder Yoot Saito has been trying to get a Seaman game off the ground for a long while. We know that in early 2008 he tried to revive the game on mobile devices with Gabo, where your fish is more evolved into an actual ape, this is a year after Seaman 2 released on Playstation 2 in Japan. The game never got a release. We also know that as early as 2012 that Nintendo had been thinking about reviving Seaman on the 3DS and in 2013 Nintendo even tradmarked ‘Mysterious Pet: Legend of the Fish with a Human Face’, which sounds like a game we all know and love. Yoot Saito finally spills the beans on Seaman 3DS which he admits he was working on for awhile, in his farewell post to late Satoru Iwata.

He also talks about how he first met Iwata back in 1996 and how he gave him the job of looking for different types of games for Nintendo platforms. Saito also talks about how his suggestions lead to the Wii controller’s speakers and how him and Iwata experimented with StreetPass technically back in the original Gameboy days. It is a really a fantastic read and shows you why Satoru Iwata will be sorely missed in the video game industry. He was one in a billion. Read the translated blog post after the jump!

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BlitWorks tells fans to continue asking SEGA for Shenmue and Jet Set Radio Future HD ports

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Spanish video game website GameSpek recently interviewed the Barcelona, Spain based company responsible for many ports, including SEGA fan favorite Jet Set Radio.

As we all know, before the Shenmue III E3 2015 announcement, the on again/off again Shenmue franchise was constantly surrounded in a wide array of rumors, some concerning ports or high definition remakes of the first two games having been started on, or even fully completed. These rumors never came to fruition, but now we have some official insight into the status of these Shenmue ports. Says BlitWorks:

“Then we thought it would be a good idea to showcase Sonic CD, Jet Set Radio and Shenmue working on the emulators to Sega, with the prospect of a commercial release for the consoles of that time. They showed interest in Sonic CD and Jet Set Radio“.

When asked if they had anything else to say to fans, BlitWorks said:

Thanks to you! We would like to tell SEGA games fans that they don’t cease to ask for ports of great games like Shenmue or Jet Set Radio Future, we are the first ones that would like to port these games. In change.org or similar webs there are several requests about that.

They also discuss Jet Set Radio‘s removal from iOS, and more. Check out the full interview here.

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This is how Shenmue would play if it was a 8-bit Mega Man game

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Youtuber and animator Peter Sjöstrand put together the above video combining his love for Mega Man and Shenmue into one ultimate fanboy video. The video features iconic moments and locations like the Rush turning into a forklift, QTEs and even a capsule toy machine boss fight.

As a big Mega Man fan growing up, if Ys NET ever made a retro style Shenmue game, I’d buy the crap out of it.

If you want the best possible version of Shenmue 3, don’t forget to contribute via their Kickstarter. Only 4 days left and its nearing 5 million, half the total it needs to become a ‘truly open world’.

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Yu Suzuki’s Twitter Q&A Part 2: Shenmue 3 in-game footage won’t be shown until 2017

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Last time Yu Suzuki was answering fan questions on twitter, I searched his twitter to find all the questions and answers to give them to you. This time, someone on Shenmue Dojo beat me to it. So you can check out the answers questions here or hit the jump for the complete transcript.

Some of the interesting bits includes a sketch of Akira in  High School from the cancelled Virtua Fighter RPG, Saying that we won’t see in-game footage of Shenmue 3 until 2017, and even confirmed that the game will be based on reality, unlike what that Shenmue Online trailer lead us to believe.

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Developer Retrospective: From the Gridiron to the Basketball court, these are the games of SEGA’s Visual Concepts

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This month we will be celebrating the games of Visual Concepts, a western developer that is best known for the creation of the 2K Sports franchise of games. Not only did they have a long history battling EA on the Dreamcast; but they continue to battle against the EA Sports brand video games even after leaving our favorite publisher. What better month than July to focus on this largely overlooked and talented US-based development team. After the break, let’s look back at the games and history of Visual Concepts!

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Yu Suzuki’s Shenmue 3 Kickstarter Twitch Q&A: Looking into adding physical PS4 copies

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It seems that the world needs to know more and more about the Shenmue 3 KickStarter as each day passes, so Awesome Japan got Yu Suzuki to do a live Twitch stream answering fan questions regarding the KickStarter. While the stream had some issues starting up and the quality in the video being behind times it did answer quite a few important questions.

One of the biggest requests is for Shenmue 3 is a physical copy on the Playstation 4, so far they have only been offering up a digital copy for Sony’s newest machine; while the PC got both digital and physical. Yu Suzuki says he is looking into adding it as a tier.

Yu Suzuki also clarified how some of the mechanics work on some of their stretch goals, like the ‘character perspective system’ will let you play as Shenhua and Ren in Baisha. Another question he answered was about how much story would be cut from Shenmue 3 and according to Yu Suzuki he decided not to cut much of the story out; thus Shenmue 3 won’t not conclude the saga after all. 

He also announced via Twitch that he would be adding a few grab bags of old Shenmue merch as rewards, but those where gobbled up rather quickly.

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Shenmue 3’s Kickstarter has been funded

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Shenmue 3 is Real

No more waiting. No more false hope. Shenmue 3 is alive, it’s coming, and one day we’re all going to get to play it. As of a few moments ago, Shenmue 3 reached its $2 million goal on Kickstarter, breaking all sorts of records along the way.

Shenmue 3 has become the fastest game on Kickstarter to break $1 million dollar and the fastest to reach a $2 million funding goal, hitting it in less than hours with more than 24,000 funders. The game’s funding moved so quickly in its opening hours that it practically broke the kickstarter page, hitting prospective funders with errors.  It’s also currently on track to outpace Bloodstained, which recently became Kickstarter’s most funded game ever at $5.5 million. For comparison, Bloodstained required 24 hours to reach half of Shenmue 3’s initial funding goal.

Of course, this is just the beginning. With more than 30 days left in the campaign, the project as more than $2 million worth of stretch goals lined up, ranging from Shenmue 1 & 2 cinema shorts at $2.5 million to an expanded Baisha village and additional mini games at $4 million. According to the Kickstarter page, we’ll be hearing more about these stretch goals after initial funding. We’ll post more details as they come in!

Shenmue 3 is being developed by Yu Suzuki’s independent studio YsNet. It is currently unknown how (or if) SEGA is involved, and whether any outside parties are will be performing publish duties or providing outside funding. The game is currently scheduled for a December 2017 release. For additional information on the project and its developers, check out the official kickstarter page and the game’s website. For a look at a list of all the known stretch goals, check out the image below the break!

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