Saturn

My Life With SEGA hits the streets in The Crow: City of Angels

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Ah yes, that age old question: does an awful movie yield an awful video game? Find out in this week’s My Life With SEGA episode, as AJ suffers though (blast! I already gave it away) the SEGA Saturn game The Crow: City of Angels.

“Abashed the Devil stood and felt how awful….well, AWFULNESS is!”

Yeah, I know that’s not the line, but it’s so much more appropriate. Why, you ask? How can the one and only game based on the craptacular sequel to one of the greatest comic-to-film adaptations be anything less than incredible?

Watch it and know my pain.

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Twelve minutes of NiGHTS into Dreams… HD!

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Jeff Beckham, Digital Brand Manager at Sega of America, stopped by Gamespot’s live show to present 12 minutes of NiGHTS into Dreams… HD gameplay. Ignore the dumb host, who seems to know next to nothing about SEGA’s Saturn classic, and soak up the lovely HD visuals. Take note that the menu screen mentions “Presents” and has a few blanked out menu options. Looks like we’ll be getting Christmas NiGHTS integrated into the rerelease. Hooray! No price is set yet, but Mr. Beckham makes it sound like fans will be pleased with the price point. If it’s anything like other SEGA Heritage releases, it’ll be $10. Thanks to reader celsowm for the heads up!

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Reminder – Guardian Heroes is up on XBLA Today!

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One of the best side scrolling games of all time has finally landed on XBLA, Guardian Heroes is a side scrolling beat’em’up with RPG elements made by the sprite masters of the 90’s, Treasure!

Guardian Heroes on XBLA has been given a HD makeover with new magic effects and online multiplayer. Best of all it will only cost you 800 Microsoft points whilst a mint condition copy of the game for Sega Saturn could set you back over $100 dollars!

It’s a freaking steal and having had it since I woke up this morning I can safely say it’s well worth the price of admission! So go on, treat yourself to a great game. Not to mention if enough interest is shown in the game Sega/Treasure has said they would like to make a sequel! DO IT!

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SEGA Sequel Saturdays: Clockwork Knight

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Clockwork Knight and Clockwork Knight 2 were both games that were released early on in the Saturn’s life. Since the Saturn didn’t make too big of a splash, these games aren’t well known to most mainstream gamers and that is a shame.

So what is Clockwork Knight and why does it deserve a new entry? Well, hit the jump and find out.

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Retro Review: Burning Rangers

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The year was 1998, and the Sega Saturn was on its way to obsolescence and breathing its last. Sega decided to give the system one last hurrah with some very limited edition games. Panzer Dragoon Saga, Burning Rangers and Shining Force III (I think) were released at a very limited 5,000 copies each. If you didn’t pre-order these babies, you were paying through the nose later. In fact, I payed $100 for my used copy last year. Does Sonic Team’s future fire fighting game still hold up or has its charm burned away?

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Retro Review: Sonic 3-D Blast (Saturn)

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(Re-Edited from Shigs Sonic Stadium Review)

Many of you may only know Sonic 3-D Blast through the Genesis version, which you either played back in the day or on the Mega Collection. If that’s the case, then sadly, you’ve been playing the far inferior version. Yes, the level design is the same, but graphics and sound can make a big difference in your enjoyment of a game. Sonic 3-D Blast was originally intended to be a Genesis only game developed by Traveler’s Tales with some help from Sega of Japan. However, the Saturn was suffering not only in sales, but from a complete lack of any Sonic titles. Sonic Extreme was in development Hell at the time and would not make Christmas release. (Then again, it would not make ANY release, as it was cancelled shortly afterwards). In seven weeks, Sega managed to port the game over to Saturn, polish up the graphics, change the music from Jun Senoue’s tunes to new,  jazzy ones by Richard Jaques, and add what is arguably one of the best bonus stages in Sonic history.  That’s quite a feat for a seven week port!

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SEGA Retrospective: The Commercials of Segata Sanshiro

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In celebration of Saturn month, I knew we had to feature the excellent Segata Sanshiro ad campaign from Japan. Initially I thought I’d share a few of the best commercials, but then I came across this video gem. From bestdamnpodcastever.com comes this cool mini-documentary on Segata Sanshiro. The video gives a few fun facts about the campaign, a little history, highlights some of the best commercials and ends with an awesome music video. Check it out… unless you want to be placed in a headlock.

SEGATA SANSHIRO!

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Guardian Heroes port to be handled by Treasure

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When Guardian Heroes was originally announced for XBLA, many were wondering who SEGA was going to contact to handle the porting duties. Some, like I, assumed that due to the fact that it was going to be an XBLA exclusive, that it would be handled by Treasure themselves. The first screenshot though had many wondering and believing that Backbone, a company that has enjoyed numerous porting duties from SEGA, had earned the job. However it has been revealed by Siliconera that Treasure themselves are working on the port, so those who wanted the original developer can rest assured that Treasure themselves have returned to port the SEGA Saturn classic title.

[Source: Siliconera]

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Is that a SEGA arcade in your pocket?

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A little over a month ago I went to my family cabin in northern Minnesota. It had been nearly seven years since I had last been there, and yet when I went back to the same bargain warehouse that I had been to back in 2003 I found the exact same SEGA Tiger LCD handhelds that I had seen hanging on the pegs all those years ago. Guess nobody wanted them.

The Tiger SEGA Pocket Arcade line hit stores during the Saturn years at a time when the clunky old Tiger handhelds were on their way out. Tiger, it seemed, was struggling in a world of Game Boy Colors and was attempting to use the names of big name SEGA Saturn console titles to sell cheap little flip open handhelds. I’m going to assume Tiger failed as a good number of these were found at an overstock warehouse, marked down from $15 to $8 to a final $4.79.

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The Last Boss: Red Eye

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Red Eye is an unwilling agent for the notorious Redrum gang (Try reading that backwards! Mind blowing right?) from Sega’s 1996 fighting game Last Bronx. In a move befitting an evil organisation with such an evil name, their method for recruiting Red Eye (formerly known as Ken Kono) was to offer him something called the Redrum challenge (which I can only assume is a blind taste test of various cola brands). He refused them, and so they naturally set him on fire, causing him to go insane and rather than suffering horrible burns, his skin just turned an odd shade of bright red. He also got a pair of cool night vision goggles, giving him that little bit of extra weirdness/style to cement his image as the ‘crazy evil guy’ of the game.

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