Genesis

Lost Genesis/Mega-Drive RTS from Sega Technical Institute, Dark Empires, recovered and preserved

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Another unreleased Genesis game long thought lost has now been found and preserved thanks to The Hidden Palace.

Dark Empires, which was being worked on alongside Kid Chameleon at Sega Technical Institute in 1990, got cancelled in order to get the studio to work on Sonic the Hedgehog 2 instead, as we had learned thanks to The Video Game History Foundation back in 2023. While Kid Chameleon made it to store shelves, Dark Empires wasn’t far enough along to get in the hands of Genesis/Mega-Drive owners everywhere. Thankfully, former STI artist Craig Stitt had found a pre-release copy of Dark Empires among his personal archives and shared it with Hidden Palace.

Interested in learning more? You can see more after the break, including the link to download the prototype.

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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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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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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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SEGA Talk #165: Toy Story (1995)

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Open the toy box, because on this SEGA Talk we’re unboxing Toy Story for the SEGA Genesis! How did this multiplatform licensed game wow players in 1995? How does it compare to the movie of the same name? Is there a snake in my boot? Watch and find out on this toyetic SEGA Talk!

[iTunes – Stitcher – YouTube – Download]

Support us on Patreon! Get early access, have your memories read on the show, select the games we talk about!

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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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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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SONIC WEEKLY: Sonic & SEGA Fandom w/ KORI-MARU

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This week, we’re joined by KORI-MARU to reminisce about Sonic the Hedgehog and other favorite SEGA franchises. We also cover DC x Sonic the Hedgehog #2 (with a spoiler warning and skip option), and the recent episodes of Chao Tales. All that plus your weekly Rings of Saturn update too. This is a fun one, folks!

For more episodes, search SONIC WEEKLY on your podcast service of preference.

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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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