G.rev’s Senko no Ronde 2 will be getting a playable Temijin virtualoid from SEGA’s Cyber Troopers Virtual-On (also Valken from Assault Suits Valken but that isn’t a SEGA game so shush). Of course the Virtual-On tie-in with Sanko no Ronde 2 is part of SEGA promoting the upcoming A Certain Magical Virtual-On PlayStation 4 game that launches early next year.
I do wonder if this DLC will make it outside of Japan, considering that Senko no Ronde 2 is already available to buy both on PlayStation 4 and PC. More on both collaborations will be shown during their live stream at the Tokyo Game Show 2017 on September 23 at 15:00 JST. You can watch it via Twitch.
It seems that SEGA will still continue to use Denuvo DRM in their upcoming PC port of Sonic Forces. The Steam page for the game has updated confirming that it will be using the anti-tamper DRM software that has a lot of people online rather heated. If you guys didn’t know, Sonic Mania got a two week delay to launch late with Denuvo DRM. One of the big issues with all of this is that SEGA never warned customers that Sonic Mania would feature the infamous DRM. The only other new thing listed in the Sonic Forces steam page is that the port will be co-developed by Sonic Team and Hardlight (in-house studio that made the Sonic Dash series), at least I take this news that the PC version is a port.
As for my opinion, I have quite a few games with Denuvo DRM and really can’t tell the difference between Denuvo or any other form of DRM. While may be the case for me personally, it isn’t the case with online users. The Denuvo DRM carries baggage associated with it and SEGA using it, in my opinion, is a bad PR move. What are your thoughts on Denuvo DRM and Sonic Forces? Are you still going to get the game on PC or are you thinking of dropping it altogether?
SEGA has just announced that Shadow the Hedgehog will be playable in upcoming Sonic Forces. While you can replay Modern Sonic stages with him, he will also have his own story that serves as a prologue to Sonic Forces via Episode Shadow. This DLC will be free for everyone and seems to add more layers to Sonic Force‘s story. On this episode of the SEGA News Bits we discuss our thoughts on Shadow the Hedgehog being playable, our predictions for Episode Shadow prologue story and discuss what other characters in Sonic’s history deserve their own episode story. Let us know what you think of Episode Shadow the Hedgehog in the comments below.
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Just the other day SEGA announced Phantasy Star Online 2 Cloud for the Nintendo Switch, via the Japanese Nintendo Direct. On this episode of the SEGA News Bits we will discuss what separates Phantasy Star Online 2 Cloud from the regular versions, our thoughts on lack of SEGA exclusives for the Nintendo Switch and our overall opinion on how Phantasy Star Online 2 missed its ability to release in the West. Give the episode a gander and let us know what you think of this announcement in the comments below.
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The SEGA Japan YouTube channel unleashed a brand new Sonic Forces trailer, this one being titled ‘Promotion Trailer’. The brand new trailer featured brand new cutscenes, teased a brand new stage, showed of Rogue the Bat, and even gave us more hints about Infinite’s origins. On this episode of the SEGA News Bits we break down the brand new Sonic Forces trailer and try to find neat things that you might have missed. If we missed anything, you can go ahead and let us know in the comments below. What did you guys think of the new Sonic Forces trailer?
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Spotted by eagle eye Sonic fan @DaPatMac on Twitter, it seems that Tomy Corporation are gearing up for the Sonic Forces Figure Pack which I guess will feature numerous characters in figure form. I know, we don’t much outside the items name and price of $24.99. I would assume the Sonic Forces Figure Pack would be something like this Sonic Boom figure pack that featured five characters. Would be interesting to see which characters make the cut for the pack.
The Gamestop page for the Sonic Forces Figure Pack says it releases tomorrow, yet the site doesn’t even have a product picture. So for Sonic Forces fans reading this, what Sonic Forces character do you want to see represented in this figure pack?
Humble Bundle is teaming up with Capcom, SEGA and Atlus to deliver a bundle of their PC games for a very affordable price. Like every Humble Bundle released in the past, this will have three tiers:
Pay $1 or more:
Rollers of the Realm (Atlus)
Zeno Clash II (Atlus)
Sonic Adventure 2 (SEGA)
Bionic Commando (Capcom)
Citizens of Earth (Atlus)
Beat the average, $6.49 to unlock the previous and:
Renegade Ops (SEGA)
Sonic Generations (SEGA)
Resident Evil 4 (Capcom)
Dead Rising (Capcom)
Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure (Atlus)
Pay $12 to unlock the previous and:
Motorsport Manager (SEGA)
Devil May Cry 4: Special Edition (Capcom)
All titles redeem on Steam. This bundle will include four SEGA published games, four Atlus published games and four Capcom published games. This bundle also gives you bonuses like 50% off select Capcom, SEGA and Atlus game which includes The Deadly Tower of Monsters, Dawn of War III or Street Fighter V.
The good people over at Gamasutra ran an article covering the ‘rise of the Nindies’, talking to developers that have been porting indie developed games to NIntendo’s Switch platform. One of the developers featured in the article is LizardCube, the developer of Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap, which released on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, and of course Nintendo Switch earlier this year. While the article talks about more than sales, the interesting bit was that Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap has sold more on the Nintendo Switch than PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC combined!
“more copies of Wonder Boy on the Switch than the three other platforms we released on combined.” – Omar Cornut from Lizardcube
While they didn’t get into specifics on how much Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap has sold on console platforms, according to Steamspy the game has only 8,141 owners which isn’t great at all. I really do think that the game deserves way more sales than that. As for ‘The Rise of Nindies‘ on the Nintendo Switch platform, I feel that a lot of these sales could be attributed to the fact that the Nintendo Switch platform is new at the moment, the real test in sales will come after the platform gets more Nintendo related titles. I surely hope that the momentum keeps it, I feel that the Nintendo Switch is the best platform to play these great indie games! What are your thoughts on this news?
SEGA has launched their Tokyo Game Show 2017 website, showing off what games will be playable, only shown in video and which games will have press conferences. Not all SEGA games at Tokyo Game Show 2017 will be playable, sadly. So, lets get to it and see what we will see more of later this month.
Fist of the North Star – (Stage show, photo spot, trailers and gameplay videos)
A Certain Magical Virtual-On – (Playable, stage show, trailers and merchandise)
Hatsune Miku Project DIVA Future Tone DX – (Playable, trailers and merchandise)
Sonic Forces – (Playable, stage show, trailers, and merchandise)
Phantasy Star Online 2 – (Playable, trailers, stage show, merchandise, and photo spot)
Yakuza Online – (Trailers)
Dx2 Shin Megami Tensei: Liberation – (Playable, Stage Show and Trailers)
Translation is a bit iffy, but it seems that the stage shows will be streamed online from what I gather. We shall keep you updated on that via our twitter and on this blog. We will be having a writer at Tokyo Game Show, so expect a SEGA News Bits video and write up discussing some of these playable games.
As you might have seen on the interewebs, people weren’t too keen with SEGA’s decision to put Denuvo DRM in Sonic Mania for PC. I think the biggest insult for people was SEGA not mentioning the unpopular DRM on their store page (later updated), only having people purchase the game before finding out Denuvo was included. While I understand that companies are scared of their games being massively pirated, especially a title like Sonic Mania which is only a mere 300mb in size, they got to understand that there isn’t a DRM in the world that will keep pirates out long term. For example, Tekken 7‘s Denuvo DRM was cracked in just four days.
People are hoping that now that pirates have cracked Sonic Mania‘s Denuvo DRM, that SEGA will remove it just due to its unpopularity and the fact that its not solving the issue it was implemented to solve. This is something that RiME developer, Tequila Works did when their game’s DRM was cracked. While I personally wouldn’t even know if the game had Denuvo DRM or not without the internet telling me, especially now with the offline fix, its just a bad PR move to include it in your game and hope its removed sooner than later. In the last eight days of release, Sonic Mania on PC still hasn’t reached 100k sold on Steam. Its getting close. But to ask you guys, do you guys think Sonic Mania’s Denuvo DRM actually helped the game’s sales in the last 8 days or hurt it? Let me know in the comments below.
Sonic Mania has a ton of Easter Eggs. A ton! But a obscure one was found by Sonic Retro’s own Neo Hazard, who figured out that using the Sonic 3 & Knuckles stage select code when playing Hydrocity, you will unlock a voice sample within the stage from popular Youtuber VideoGameDunkey when hitting the boosters. Check the video above for an example.
How to unlock: When you find a hook in Hydrocity, input the Sonic 3 & Knuckles level select code: Left, Left, Left, Right, Right, Right, Up, Up, Up. You will hear a ring sound, now just find one of those hand booster creepy things and hear Dunkey in all his Sonic Mania glory.
I wonder if SEGA higher ups knew that Sonic Mania would be using a Youtuber’s voice sample and if they actually cleared this with Dunkey man himself. He did gush over how great Sonic Mania was, so maybe he’ll be cool with it. What are your thoughts on Sonic Mania having Easter Eggs evolving YouTubers?
Sonic Mania on PC has received a 31.8 MB update that will fix a bug with its Denuvo DRM where you will be able to play offline. According to SEGA it was always mean’t to be played offline which upset people online.
Sonic Mania on PC also didn’t tell people, prior to release, that it used Denuvo Anti-tamper DRM, but they have now updated their steam page now telling users. Personally, SEGA made a bad move going with Denuvo, considering the baggage the DRM has had over the last few years; if they just used something like SteamWorks it would have been a non-story. Personally I have had no issues with Denuvo, but I totally see why people dislike the DRM. What do you think of the whole situation?
Well, at least you can play Sonic Mania offline now. Woot?
Tomorrow the Sonic Mania PC version will be coming out and fans that have waited might be excited to find out that the PC version will include new bug fixes that haven’t appeared in the console versions. Not only that, Sonic Mania PC version will encourage modding, unlike rumors that have been spreading since the game was delayed. The rumor was that SEGA held the PC port back so they can add protection against modifications.
“SEGA encourages its users to express their creativity and enhance the experience of our games through the creation of modifications (including but not limited to new items, weapons, characters, models, textures, levels, story lines, music and game modes) for use with the Product (“Mod” or “Mods”)… and users that create Mods”
As for Sonic Mania PC supporting Steam Workshop, it seems that is not the case. According to Sonic the Hedgehog PR guru, Aaron Webber, there are no current plans to support Steam Workshop. If this is something that is important to you, I suggest you write a 180 character tweet over to Aaron and let them know how you feel!
SEGA has revealed the new Tag Team Mode for Sonic Forces. On this episode of the SEGA News Bits we discuss our thoughts on the Tag Team Mode, the Sonic Forces level design and our thoughts on the custom character designs shown so far. If you are looking forward to Sonic Forces, give it a listen and if you disagree with us let us know in the comments why. We really want to hear differing views and in the end of the day its just our opinion. Thanks for watching.
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[UPDATE] The official Sonic the Hedgehog channel has released a new video of the tag gameplay, seen above. After the break, check out the Japanese stream video.
[UPDATE 2] New screens after the break!
With Sonic Mania released to the masses (well, aside from the PC version) Sonic Forces details have begun to release via Famitsu and Gamescon, and while I expect something from SEGA of America soon, I didn’t want to pass up newsing the new mode revealed for the game. In addition to Classic Sonic, Modern Sonic and the Custom Hero the game will include a Tag mode where players control both Modern Sonic and the Custom Hero, giving players the opportunity to see their creation running alongside Sonic.
At the moment, only a Modern Sonic team-up is confirmed, no word on Classic teaming with the Custom Hero. The Tag mode allows players to use both Sonic and Custom Hero’s abilities, meaning you can speed and boost like Sonic, and use the Wispons. Also, as seen in the video after the break, the duo will have the opportunity to fist bump into a special boost mode in which the vocal theme Fist Bump plays. If you’d like a peek at the controls, take a look at this Twitter post. Nothing too revealing, but it’s worth checking out.
Other details revealed include confirmation that Sonic Forces will be at Tokyo Game Show with special guests and new content and, as confirmed by SEGA, Sonic Forces is set to release November 9th, 2017 in Japan.
