Mega Drive

Homebrew Genesis/Mega-Drive port of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night demo now available

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Genesis/Mega-Drive homebrew developers are at it again. For a long time now, retro game developer and YouTuber Pigsy, has been hard at work porting Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, the legendary sidescrolling adventure from the PlayStation and Saturn, to the Sega Genesis. Call him crazy, but he’s made some great progress, and now he’s ready to prove it with a playable demo that you can download right now. Pigsy has made a video of the demo, shown above, but also prepared a demo that’s able to run on real Genesis hardware using an Everdrive flash cartridge. You can also play it with an emulator or with the MiSTer FPGA console too.

You can check the description of the video above for the download links, or find them here past the break.

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Holiday Sega In The Media: Sega Genesis featured in “Merry Axe-mas” music video by Ice Nine Kills

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Well, it is now December 26th, 2023. We at Segabits hope you all had a Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday, as well as a Happy New Year.

Though it may be a little late, I’d like to share with you all a festive music video that featured a Sega Genesis. This is the 2018 song “Merry Axe-Mas” by the Boston, Massachusetts metal band Ice Nine Kills. These guys are known for lyrics inspired by horror films, with this song in particular being inspired by the 1984 slasher horror film Silent Night, Deadly Night. In the music video, a young child named Spencer receives an ominous Genesis game cartridge from “Santa’s Claws”. The game has him playing as Santa himself and slaughtering everyone in his way with reckless abandon while, in the real world, ol’ St. Nick shows up and brutally murders Spencer’s parents behind him while he’s too fixated on the game.

Check in after the break to see the actual music video, plus a few of the Sega details you might miss.

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Eliminate Down Genesis/Mega-Drive cartridge reprint announced from Retro-Bit; Pre-orders open now until January 2nd

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It’s Retro-Bit time again, but I can’t say I predicted they’d pick up this game. Eliminate Down (1993) is coming back in style with an all-new collector’s cartridge, officially licensed for its first ever official release in North America and Europe, and playable in any Genesis/Mega-Drive console or associated clone console. This should resemble Retro-Bit’s other recent collector’s cartridge releases, including Gley Lancer, El Viento, and Sol-Deace. Pre-orders have already begun in North America via Castlemania Entertainment, Rondo Products, and Limited Run Games, and in Europe via 8BitMods, Dragon Box Shop, RetroCables, Spel & Sant, Strictly Limited, XtraLife, and Zed Labz.

Update: New pre-order links are available. North American customers can now also pre-order from Canada-based store PNP Games (Which Americans may wanna consider as the US Dollar is currently more valuable than the Canadian dollar) and Europeans can now also pre-order from Arcade Dreams and Just For Games.

Check in past the break for more info and for a bit of history on Eliminate Down.

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Hunter Girls kickstarter campaign cancelled, refunds issued, and game cartridges now on sale at PSCD Games website

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Some of you may recall Hunter Girls, a new Genesis/Mega-Drive game being developed by PCSD Games, which launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the game’s development. On July 30th, 2023, their Kickstarter campaign was launched and then was successfully funded on August 29th. Despite the fact that the game has completed development and cartridges have been manufactured, PCSD Games has been forced to cancel shipment of all Kickstarter rewards due to an unanticipated issue with the firm that managed their Kickstarter campaign, Meridian 4. Fortunately, PSCD Games is currently assisting fans in obtaining refunds from Meridian 4 and will instead sell the game cartridges through their own website.

Check in after the break for extra info on this kerfuffle.

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Fanmade R-Type Genesis/Mega-Drive port demo out now

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You know what the Sega Genesis/Mega-Drive needed? A port of Irem’s 1987 arcade shooter R-Type. The Master System and NES had one. Even the Turbografx-16 had one. Well, one fan developer, TheRoboZ, decided to rectify that and develop their own brand-new R-Type conversion for the Genesis, and they currently have a demo available for the general public to test out.

This new fan port, titled Mega R-Type, will be a full conversion of the arcade game with all-new features, such as the exclusive stage from the Master System version and a few customization choices from the Turbografx-16 port and even the recent R-Type Dimensions remake. The music has also been remixed, although the original arcade game’s music has also been adapted for the Genesis FM sound chip, and both options are available in-game. This demo is limited to three levels to play, but you can still see the music player and all of the customization choices. The demo also adapts for 60hz and 50hz, so PAL Mega-Drive fans can play without concern.

Download the demo from the Mega R-Type page on itch.io, then open it with your preferred Genesis emulator or flash cartridge—such as the Mega Everdrive series—in your original Genesis/Mega-Drive console. After that, be sure to leave some feedback for TheRoboZ to consider by joining the Mega R-Type community on itch.io by clicking the “Join the community” button at the bottom of the page. You can also follow TheRoboZ on Twitter and provide feedback there. Be sure to also tell us what you think of the demo in the comments and check out a few choice screenshots beyond the break.

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Official Genesis/Mega-Drive 99Vidas port “Mega 99Vidas” announced; physical cartridge coming soon

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Announced just yesterday in their QByte Connect 2023 showcase, Brazilian game publisher QByte Interactive have announced an official Genesis/Mega-Drive port of 99Vidas, a classic indie beat-em-up that they released to modern platforms in 2016. No release date was given yet, but they have made it clear that they intend to make this available as a working Genesis cartridge, giving enthusiasts of original hardware something new to look forward to.

Check in after the break for more info on this exciting new retro game and the original 99Vidas game.

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Several Sega Forever mobile games unceremoniously delisted + End of Service announcement

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Remember Sega Forever, and how that started out in 2017 as Sega Europe’s initiative to bring classic Sega games to mobile app stores as free, ad-supported games? Well, Sega Forever is now “Sega For-never,” as more than half of the games released through Sega Forever have now been delisted from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store without so much as an official announcement. On top of that, the games now display an “End of Service” message like the one shown above saying that the games will remain playable, but will lose their online features, which amounted to save states being stored online, leaderboards, and offering you the option to pay $1.99 USD to play without ads. It also has a “More Info” button to show you where else the games available through Sega Forever can be played, but it only currently leads to Sega’s home page. (The above message comes from the Space Harrier II Classic app. I have not been able to confirm if the non-Genesis games display a message like this.)

Check in past the break to see what the remaining games are, as well as some more unsettling news…

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Earthion releasing for Genesis/Mega-Drive and modern consoles in 2024 from Limited Run Games

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Looking forward to the new Genesis/Mega-Drive scrolling shooter from Yuzo Koshiro and Ancient known as Earthion? We have learned from them and Superdeluxe Games at this year’s Tokyo Game Show that Earthion is on track to release in 2024 both as a cartridge for Genesis consoles and on modern consoles from Superdeluxe Games and Limited Run Games. The former will handle Japanese distribution and the latter will distribute the game internationally. Put some money aside for that now if you want it.

Of course, when more concrete info comes out about when you can buy the game and how much it will cost, we’ll be sure to let you know as we come closer to 2024. Until then, tell us in the comments below how excited you are for this game.

Before we leave you to absorb this news, here’s an interesting fact about the “YKGGG” sign shown with the Sega font in the intro of Earthion straight from Koshiro-san.

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Jurassic Park: Classic Games Collection from Limited Run Games adds two Sega Genesis/Mega-Drive Jurassic Park games; is still up for pre-order

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A while back, Limited Run Games announced their partnership with Universal Pictures to make the Jurassic Park: Classic Games Collection on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5/4, and Xbox, a compilation of all the official Jurassic Park games on NES, SNES, and Game Boy using their all new Carbon Engine emulation platform. We didn’t talk about this at the time because it wasn’t relevant to Sega in any way, until now. Just today, Limited Run Games has announced the collection will now also include the two Sega Genesis/Mega-Drive games: Jurassic Park (1993) and Jurassic Park: Rampage Edition (1994). Life finds a way for Sega Genesis to get its dues after all.

Fortunately, Limited Run Games’s pre-order period for the collection is going on until October 15th, 2023, so you still have plenty of time to pre-order a physical copy of the game if you’re interested. There are standard editions and two different collectors editions available. Photos of each are below. (The extras in the two collector’s editions are the same for every console.) You can select and pre-order them from LRG’s Jurassic Park: Classic Games Collection page.

Will you be picking up this collection? Were you interested in it before the Sega games were added? Tell us in the comments below, won’t you?

And while you’re at it, listen to Barry and George talk about the original Jurassic Park game on Genesis in their latest Sega Talk episode.

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SEGA Talk #126: Jurassic Park (1993)

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The SEGA Talk episode 65 million years in the making, as we take a drive through Jurassic Park on the SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive! Its Raptor vs Man on this adaptation of Steven Spielberg’s classic film (which in turn, was an adaptation of a book)!

[iTunes – Stitcher – YouTube – RSS – 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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Gunslugs for Genesis/Mega-Drive has opened pre-orders for physical copies

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Ready for another new Sega Genesis game? The new Sega Genesis/Mega-Drive version of Gunslugs is now available to pre-order in physical cartridge form, complete with box and manual. You can order it from The Retro Room Games right now as either a complete set for $44.99 USD, or just the cartridge and nothing else for $24.99. At the same time, a limited edition Gunslugs t-shirt is also available to pre-order for $20, but only until August 7th, so act quick if you want one. (EDIT: Despite the t-shirt page saying the shirt will not be available past August 7th, it is actually still there. If you try to order one, let us know in the comments if it works.)

Slug your way past the break for extra info.

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Hunter Girls, a brand new Genesis/Mega-Drive game, launches on Kickstarter

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We return once again to Kickstarter with an all new game for a Sega console. An all new action runner called Hunter Girls, starring three hunter girls of course, is in development for Sega Genesis/Mega-Drive from retro game publisher PSCD Games and has launched on Kickstarter. They have a surprisingly modest financial goal of $4,991 USD and has already made more than half of that goal by the time of this writing.

As an unusual style of game for a console as old as the Sega Genesis, Hunter Girls plays like an endless runner game that you may have played on a mobile device before, though Hunter Girls is not endless. This game stars, by order of their formation within the game, Agnes with her sword and shield, Kim with her bow and arrow, and Flora with her magical staff. All three girls run together automatically and each has their specialty for dealing with enemies in their paths, similar to The Lost Vikings, which is cited as an inspiration on the Kickstarter page. You’ll have to use each girl’s skills at the right time to direct them past each enemy, because if even one of them is attacked, you’ll have to start the level all over again.

Throughout the game, you’ll be treated to full screen cutscenes that flesh out the journey of these titular hunter girls, which are quite detailed and should be enticing enough to get you to check in after the break just to see them.

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SEGA Talk #122: Instruments of Chaos Starring Young Indiana Jones (1994)

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SEGA Talk throws you the whip on this episode as we talk about the SEGA Genesis game Instruments of Chaos Starring Young Indiana Jones! How did this Chicagoland developed game come to be? What are the origins of Indiana Jones and the TV series that details his early days? Run away from a boulder and find out on this episode of SEGA Talk!

[iTunes – Stitcher – YouTube – RSS – 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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Retro Game Books’ “Video Game Maps: Genesis & Mega Drive” releases physically and digitally

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From Retro Game Books comes a new book focusing on video game maps from the SEGA Genesis and Mega Drive era, appropriately titled Video Game Maps: Genesis & Mega Drive. The book is the second video game maps book from Brian Riggsbee, the first focused on NES and Famicom games. This book features maps from over 100 Genesis and Mega Drive games, includes memories from thirty gamers and, oh yeah, features a foreword written by yours truly!

You can snag the physical version for $40, and it features 226 full color pages in a paperback format and includes a sticker of the cover art. The digital version, meanwhile,  can be had for $4.95. Having paged through it myself, it’s a really great selection of printed and pixel art maps from the past and is a great overview of that era of SEGA.

But don’t take my word for it!

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Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack updated with Crusader of Centy, Ghouls n’ Ghosts, Landstalker, and The Revenge of Shinobi

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On June 27th, 2023, Sega added Crusader of Centy, Ghouls n’ Ghosts, Landstalker, and The Revenge of Shinobi to Sega Genesis – Nintendo Switch Online. Japan, of course, gets the same four games at the same time.

All four 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 each game.

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