The SEGA Forever lineup expanded today with the SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive version of Golden Axe, available free-to-play now on iOS and Android devices. Like Ristar, this release features improved emulation, new screen modes, customizable controls and controller support. As an iPhone 7 owner, the game plays much better than the first wave of SEGA Forever titles. No doubt helped by the improvements to the emulator. It’s a shame this isn’t the superior arcade version, as I would love to eventually see the excellent Golden Axe: The Revenge of Death Adder.
It seems that this fix will work with both AtGames Genesis machines with a SD slot and the newly released Brazilian TecToy Mega Drive since both of these machines share the same processor. It seems TecToy will apply this as an update on their devices while AtGames hasn’t said anything. Maybe they don’t care?
Put both files from the rar inside the games folder
Go to main menu and choose Neto_Boot_Loader.BIN, play it as you would any game.
Done: No more bad sound
You can check out the differences in sound from the video above. Thanks for Usagijojo on our Discord for bringing this up. Give it a try, its not perfect but its a lot better than what you had.
Sonic 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).
Factor 5 is a rather interesting company. With the many project that came and went, notably the Turrican and Star Wars Rogue Squadron series, along with a rollercoaster of failed projects and bad business mistakes that eventually shut down the studio, until a recent surprise revival in 2015. But regardless, it was an ambitious studio, to the point that staff would even create their own devkits to gain an edge over the competition.
SEGA has officially revealed their SEGA Forever launch, which will offer an array of SEGA titles. While at launch SEGA Forever is sticking with SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive titles, the service makes promises of exploring a ever expanding catalog of retro games from across all SEGA platforms. On this episode of the SEGA News Bits we take a look at all the information we know regarding SEGA Forever’s launch, its promises, our thoughts the project and take a look at all the teased upcoming games in their launch trailer. It seems opinions for SEGA Forever has been mixed since it was shown off officially this morning.
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SEGA Forever has officially been revealed, the service has been a mystery to fans since it was leaked a while back as it was being tested. We even did a SEGA News Bits on SEGA Forever (expect a follow up one now that the product has been fully detailed) on what the service could be. But what is it? According to the press release, which you can read in full after the break, SEGA Forever is a mobile name for classic SEGA re-releases on both Android and iPhone. Prior to this, a rumor came around that it was supposed to be ‘a subscription service’, but this press release says you get the option to play either free, ad supported version of the game or unlock it forever (SEGA Forever) for $1.99.
They promise to cover the following SEGA consoles:
SG-1000
Master System
Genesis/Mega Drive
Game Gear
SEGA Saturn
Dreamcast
The service will launch on June 22nd with the following five games, new releases every couple of weeks:
Sonic the Hedgehog
Altered Beast
Phantasy Star II
Comix Zone
Kid Chameleon
The press release also goes into the fact that the games will support leaderboards, cloud saves, offline play, controller support, community news feed, and a ton of languages for menus. So the real question is, what is you opinion on SEGA Forever? Is this what you expected, another re-branding service for retro SEGA re-releases?
On this episode of the SEGA News Bits we discuss the Top 100 SEGA Games list we posted up earlier this month, so if you haven’t checked it out give it a gander. Join us to listen to us rant about how the list was put together, which games surprised us on the list, which games didn’t make the list, how SEGA games are under-appreciated on other top gaming lists, and much more. Sadly we don’t cover all the top 100 SEGA games that are represented on the list, that would take too long, but I hope the games we talked about was entertaining enough. Let us know if you agree or disagree with the top 100 SEGA games list and what your top three SEGA games would be in the comments below.
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Remember SEGA’s 1993 fighting game Eternal Champions? The title was highly marketed by SEGA America as an ultra violent fighting game that was highly influenced by Mortal Kombat. It seems that Eternal Champions’ original producer Michael Latham has been working on a new fighting game which is set to be the spiritual successor to Eternal Champions and its being called “Eternal Successors“. Have to say, its a pretty damn good name.
Michael Latham said he was trying to get the official rights from SEGA, which they haven’t done anything with since the 1994 release of Eternal Champions: Challenge from the Dark Side on SEGA CD (1996 if you count loose spin-off title X-Perts). Michael also shared some test renders of what the game would look like running on Unreal Engine 4. If you want to give Michael Latham some feedback on Eternal Successors, check out his shoryuken forum thread here. He says that they are trying to do justice to the original SEGA Genesis color pallet with the renders and they have done a good job, I think. Not sold on the paint like filter, but the color scheme is pretty great.
More information for those that never got to play Eternal Champions, the character with the yellow helmet is Trident from the first game, the other character is hard to tell since they have been ‘overtkill’ which is basically a fatality in Eternal Champions. Seeing as it looks like a female wearing high heels, I will have to guess its Shadow Yamoto. The stage that is being rendered is also known as ‘Trident’s Stage’, you can check the original stage here and compare it with the renders.
On this episode of the SEGA News Bits we discuss the newly announced 2D brawler for the SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive titled Paprium. The game is being developed by Watermelon Games, who are best known for Pier Solar and pre-orders for Paprium are available now. The game is set to push the SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive to its limit with large sprites, tons of enemies on screen and an 80 meg cart. Now that’s playing with power. Check out the episode to hear us discuss Paprium, its art style and discuss all the different versions available. Are you picking up Paprium? Which version are you getting? Let us know in the comments below.
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In addition to this list, Berto has also compiled a handy list which links to the respective crowdfunding campaigns, pre-orders and ROM/ISO download links. So what indie SEGA games are coming in 2017?
While not much information has been revealed, Data Discs posted this morning on their social media channels that their next release was going to be the Gunstar Heroes soundtrack. If you didn’t know we are huge fans of the Gunstar Heroes soundtrack (game too) and will be the perfect addition to Data Discs’ outstanding collection of SEGA records.
Are you looking to support interesting indie SEGA Genesis titles and want to see more games for the platform be developed? The team at Mega Cat Studios has now launched their kickstarter page for a brand new title called Coffee Crisis. Pledges start at $25 dollars giving you a PC download code and all the way up to a grand. M$ad Cat Studios has set their fundraising goal at $10,000, which at the time of writing this they are almost at 50% of their goal. So how much for the limited edition boxed SEGA Genesis version of Coffee Crisis? You will be dropping $55 buckaroos, with a ‘estimated ship date’ of December 2016.
TecToy has announced a limited edition Mega Drive for Brazil that will come pre-loaded with 22 SEGA games. On this episode of SEGA News Bits, George and Barry talk about TecToy’s answer to the NES mini, the console’s features and run through the list of games. Is the console and its games worth R$ 399,00 ($125 USD)? Give the video a watch and sound off in the comments below!
While I wrote about what SEGA could learn about the NES Mini, I made reference to a lot of TecToy releases of the Mega Drive. TecToy has re-released the Mega Drive over in Brazil many times, but this time they are taking a note from the NES Mini and keeping the original form factor. Above is the photo of their limited edition Mega Drive.
The limited edition Mega Drive will come with 22 pre-installed games, support original cartridges, come with one controller and a micro SD slot. Sadly the limited edition Mega Drive only supports composite output. That means no HDMI port. The 22 pre-installed games are a mix bag, while you have your Golden Axe and Shinobi titles, it seems lots of big names are missing. Hit the jump to see all 22 pre-installed games. This console is being aimed at a different audience than us, so maybe these titles are more popular in that region.
The console is up for pre-order now on TecToy’s website, they are charging R$ 399,00 ($125 USD). Which is more than double the price of the NES Mini, is having a working cartridge slot worth the extra cash?
Strategy game enthusiasts should rejoice – a Vixen 357 English fan translation was released earlier this month. You can download the latest patch for the game over at Romhacking.net.
Vixen 357 was released for the Japanese Sega Mega Drive in 1992. This strategy game features grid-based battlefields where you fight with in or out of giant mechs. You gradually build an army of the giant robots which are key to decimating your opponents. Losing a crew member in battle faces a harsh punishment, as they remain dead for the rest of the game unless you reload your save.
Anime-inspired still cutscenes such as the ones seen in Phantasy Star IV tell the story in between battles.
Vixen 357 was developed by Masaya, the same company behind Sega classics like the original Assault Suit Leynos and Langrisser games, among many others. Now you can patch the original game and try it out in your favorite emulator or load it on your flash carts and see what we missed out on.
