SEGA Talk Podcast #31: The Revenge of Shinobi (1989)

The SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive action classic The Revenge of Shinobi is the focus of this SEGA Talk episode. Barry and George discuss the game’s development, the difficulty, the various revisions and the impact the game made on the Shinobi series as a whole. While not available on the SEGA Genesis Mini, the game was included on the Japanese and Asian models and is available in the west via the SEGA Genesis Classics collection for PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox One.

Note: Due to a setup error, George is speaking through his computer mic. Please forgive us for his audio quality.

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SEGA News Bits: SEGA Opens Official Online Shop in America

SEGA has officially launched their SEGA Shop store in the Americas, allowing the company to extract even more of your hard earned cash in exchange for more SEGA goodness. On this episode of the SEGA News Bits we discuss our thoughts on the SEGA Shop, we talk about some of our favorite items and discuss IPs we would like to see represented on the online store in the near future. Give the episode a listen and let us know what you think of the newly launched SEGA Shop in the comments below!

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The Revenge of Shinobi joins SEGA Forever

The Revenge of Shinobi comes to SEGA Forever’s mobile line-up. This is a new “censored version” that has been around since the SEGA Vintage Collection era, which changes Joe Musashi’s face in the title screen due to the face basically resembling Sonny Chiba. Some hardcore fans take issue with this change because the original ‘Sonny Chiba copied face’ seems angry and bold while the edited version of Joe Musashi looks rather sad. Its also funny to note that the SEGA Forever trailer above even makes a joke about it being changed.  You can see bothf faces below (Left original, right the new one):

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The Revenge of Shinobi isn’t new to censorship, considering that the game has been heavily changed in the past due to copyright infringement on popular IPs such as Godzillia, Spiderman and even Batman. The Revenge of Shinobi is considered to be one of the best sequels of all time, adding much more depth than the original arcade Shinobi ever had. The Revenge of Shinobi also featured a critically acclaimed soundtrack by Yuzo Koshiro (Streets of Rage series) which should be enough to download and try it. The only thing is, have they fixed the audio in the emulation? Like all SEGA Forever titles, the game is free to play with ads and $1.99 to keep ad-free forever.

[Google Play | iTunes]

Data Discs shows off upcoming Panzer Dragoon & Revenge of Shinobi vinyl releases

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Data Discs have announced their next two SEGA vinyl releases, and both are sure to please fans of classic SEGA music. First up is the 1995 SEGA Saturn classic Panzer Dragoon, presented as a double 180g LP cut at 45rpm and housed in a single pocket 425gsm mirror board sleeve with accompanying lithographic insert and silver laminated OBI strip. If all that sounds too technical for you, you can see just how lovely it is in the photo above and in the gallery below. The release features the complete score from the late Yoshitaka Azuma, along with three bonus tracks of alternate synthesizer versions. Three editions are available (all priced at £22.99) including a 180g 2xLP on frosted clear sky blue and grey vinyl limited edition, a 180g 2xLP on sky blue vinyl and a 180g 2xLP on classic black vinyl.

Developer Retrospective: A look back at the games of SEGA’s Overworks

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Last week when we kicked off Overworks and WOW Entertainment month, we took a look back at how SEGA organized their many internal development teams over the years. Among those teams were Overworks and WOW Entertainment, two separate teams that released games from 2000 through to 2004 when they were merged and became SEGA WOW. This week, we will be taking a look back at the games released by Overworks. While the Overworks softography is small, especially compared to giants like SEGA AM2, in the span of four years Overworks released some truly classic titles.