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Sonic the Hedgehog Movie delayed into February 14, 2020

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Are you surprised to hear that the Sonic the Hedgehog movie is being delayed? You shouldn’t, if you have been keeping up the studio announced it was redesigning the blue blur after the negative backlash the debut trailer received. Jeff Fowler posted the above image saying:

“Taking a little more time to make Sonic just right.#novfxartistswereharmedinthemakingofthismovie” – Jeff Fowler va Twitter

One of the biggest backlash from online personalities was the fact that the studio was going to make VFX artist and designers work overtime to fix a design issue that shouldn’t have been approved anyway. I guess his hashtag is telling people that no one was overworked or ‘harmed’ during the making of the movie. Do I believe it? Hard to say but wouldn’t be too shocked when negative stories pour out of the movie. Here is hoping that Paramount Pictures gets it right. I will say that seeing the new art that we posted above from the studio, it does seem that Sonic is now wearing gloves?

What are your thoughts on the the movie being delayed into February 14, 2020.

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Community Gaming Night: Race with SEGAbits in Team Sonic Racing!

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Want to join SEGAbits for some online racing sessions this weekend in Team Sonic Racing? Then come on up, over and down and race with the SEGAbits team and show us what you’re made of! We will be playing Team Sonic Racing on Playstation 4 this Sunday, May 26th at 7pm EST (6pm CST). All you have to do to join is to add the following PS4 gamertags: “angelcoma” “BarrytheNomad” and “KoriSX15” for us to add you to our lobby. Race you all soon!

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SEGA Sammy unveils Virtua Fighter and House of the Dead Scarlet Dawn: Battle Genesis for Casinos

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SEGA Sammy had recently revealed two SEGA IPs at Global Gaming Expo Asia 2019 to be used as casino equipment under the Battle Genesis name which was trademarked last year by the company. The two SEGA IPs to be used under the Battle Genesis name are “Virtua Fighter” and “House of the Dead Scarlet Dawn” and will be released in Asia this summer. Besides the announcement, there are currently no news on how the casino games operates. What are your thoughts on the Battle Genesis announcements? Be sure to leave us a comment below!

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SEGA AGES Wonder Boy in Monster Land “coming soon”, new information revealed

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The Wonder Boy series has had a lot of love lately from multiple developers, such as the remake of Monster World III and the spiritual sequel Monster Boy and The Cursed Kingdom, and the SEGA AGES series will continue that with arguably the most pivotal game in the series, Wonder Boy in Monster Land.

Wonder Boy in Monster Land departs from it’s predecessor by adapting RPG elements, such as currency and item management, which would become the norm for future installments. You play as Bock Lee Temjin (aka “Tom-Tom”), as you are tasked with clearing through 12 levels with their own unique set of items, monsters, and secrets. SEGA AGES Monster Boy in Monster Land adds some additional features, including the ability to exploit the “rattle joystick” trick using a single button, Money Hungry Mode where the “rattle joystick” trick is sealed off and your score is recorded, and several “challenge” modes. These modes include Sphinx Challenge where you’re tasked with killing the Sphinx in the shortest time, Monster Castle Challenge where you have to clear the final dungeon as fast as possible, and Fireball Challenge where you have to play through the game using only the Fireball weapon and can die in a single hit.

SEGA AGES Wonder Boy in Monster Land is slated for a pricing of ¥925 (roughly $8.50), but with no official release date. Curiously, the copyright mentions LAT, a seemingly unknown company unrelated to other companies like the original developers Westone (aka Escape) or developers for the recent Wonder Boy titles like LizardCube or Game Atelier.

[Source: Official Website, Twitter]

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M2: Complete Works interview/retrospective by My Life in Gaming, goes into detail over M2’s history

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M2 might be a familiar name for SEGA fans out there. Indeed, this modest development studio has worked with SEGA for more than a decade helping to bring their older titles to modern system, from the “Complete Collection” installments in the SEGA AGES 2500 series to the SEGA 3D and SEGA AGES series on Nintendo’s more recent systems. But their history goes far back, from their modest days of porting games such as Gauntlet and Gunstar Heroes back in the 90’s. The YouTube channel My Life in Gaming has recently done an interview/retrospective with key staff members such as M2 CEO Naoki Horii and Chief Programmer Tetsuya Abe to talk about their personal experiences with working at M2, including the enduring relationship between SEGA and M2 and their general philosophy of adding something extra to these re-releases. The video itself is over an hour long, so there’s plenty to digest, complete with English subtitles for convenience.

If you liked the above video, maybe also subscribe to My Life in Gaming if you’re a fan of technical aspects of video games or retrospectives.

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Cotton series to get a reboot by BEEP, Sharp X68000 version of Cotton: Fantastic Night Dreams to see re-sale

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For those that like SEGA’s Japanese roster of titles, you might of heard of the Cotton games, a series of shmup titles by Success that have seen releases in arcades with SEGA’s hardware, and on SEGA’s consoles between the Mega Drive and the SEGA Dreamcast. The games typically follow the misadventures of a young witch named Cotton and her fairy companion Silk. Cotton’s most defining trait is her obsession with a special candy called Willows, to the point that she will fight tooth and nail to get as many Willows as possible, which Silk exploits to motivate Cotton to save the kingdom.

The series has been dormant for decades now, with only the odd cameo in doujin/indie titles such as Trouble Witches Origin and Umihara Kawase Fresh, but a new installment in the Cotton series has been announced by retro video game store BEEP. This new installment is tentatively called “Cotton Reboot”, and will be available on for sale at an unspecified date for Steam, Nintendo Switch, and Playstation 4. Not much information has been revealed about the game itself, but it has been described as being a remake of the Sharp X68000 version of Cotton: Fantastic Night Dreams, which was chosen over the original arcade version due to it having balance changes and extra polish. In addition, the original Sharp X68000 version will also get a re-sale, both the original and a special rearrange version that features new content. New features include the ability to play as Pril from the doujin Trouble Witches series, and a new “BEEP Edition” in the options that allows for turbo fire. This re-sale version will start orders in June, packed with in it’s original Sharp X68000 disk format and a separate disk for the “arranged” version.

[Source: Official Website, Famitsu, Famitsu Interview]

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Skies of Arcadia Limited Edition Soundtrack CD & Vinyl go up for pre-order

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It looks like Wayorecords will be publishing a very impressive looking limited edition vinyl and CD for Skies of Arcadia, the cult hit Dreamcast JRPG (with it getting a port later on GameCube).

The company is set to release three versions including the CD edition, Vinyl Edition and a music box! Some of these have limited runs including a vinyl in blue will only get 500 units printed and the first ‘music box’ will only have 250! If you are a SEGA collector, you should probably act quickly and swiftly. I will say that the vinyls are a bit pricey, coming in at about 55 USD but it does have a ton of cool extras. The music box on the other hand costs 280 USD!

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Classic Disney Mega Drive Platformer Cold Shadow Returns on Steam and GOG

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Disney threw a surprise today on PC digital download services by bringing back two of their classic platformers today. One being the PSOne/PC adaptation of Disney’s Hercules the other being the PC version of a classic Mega Drive game starring private investigator with a secret ninja alter ego, Maui Mallard played by Donald Duck. Or just Donald Duck. Whatever you call him in your region, Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow a.k.a. Donald in Maui Mallard returns on Steam and GOG.

The PC version, built off of the original Mega Drive/Genesis version, was enhanced with increased sound quality including Michael Giacchino’s soundtrack presented in CD redbook audio. Trying to run the PC version as-is today from an original copy will be impossible without the use of Virtual Machines as this version was made for Windows 95 before graphics libraries such as Direct X existed. Luckily this digital release has been reworked to run on modern Windows operating systems and plays exactly as it did back in 1995.

It joins Disney’s previous efforts to re-release it’s catalog from 3 years ago. This release is especially great for those in the US as the NTSC version of Cold Shadow never saw release on the Genesis due to a console exclusivity deal with Nintendo at the time.

Download it today on Steam or GOG.Com.

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SEGA Talk #18: Fighters Megamix (1996)

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Our celebration of the SEGA Saturn continues on SEGA Talk as we discuss the Virtua Fighter and Fighting Vipers AM2 all-stars fighter Fighters Megamix! George and Barry discuss the game’s development, how it compares to other AM2 fighters of the time and the many crazy hidden characters featured in the game.

Make sure to leave us a positive five star review on iTunes, it always helps!

Support us on Patreon! Get an exclusive pre-show, early access, your SEGA memories played at the end and more!

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If you want to give us feedback, suggest a topic for the next podcast or want to ask a question for us to answer on the next episode you can add  them as a comment below or send theme directly to our email. Make sure you use subject line ‘SEGA Talk’ and as always, thanks for listening!

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Team Sonic Racing Review – Roadside Assistance (PS4, Xbox One, Switch, PC)

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Nearly ten years ago, SEGA and the Sheffield based developer Sumo Digital teamed up to bring Sonic and a number of SEGA franchises to the world of mascot kart racers. Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing was a hit with fans of SEGA, Sonic and drift-focused racing games and only two years later the studio returned with the even more successful Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed. Transformed not only outdid the previous game in fan service, but also in ambition. Players controlled transforming vehicles with three distinct modes in tracks that would change with each lap. After a seven year break, SEGA and Sumo Digital are back with Team Sonic Racing. Fans are undoubtably wondering what to expect from this third outing, though the lead up to the game has probably put fans in more of a place of uncertainty than excitement. Is Team Sonic Racing a worthy follow-up, or is it a step back for the series?

Continue Reading ➜

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SEGA News Bits: SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive Mini Announces 10 New Titles Including Mega Man: The Wily Wars

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SEGA has announced ten new titles for the upcoming SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive, which means we now know 30 of the 40 total titles that will come in the upcoming plug and play console. On this episode of the SEGA News Bits we look at the past titles, the ten new titles and a look at some regional exclusives!

If you want to support this type of content, you can check out our Patreon!

If you enjoy our SEGA News Bits segments and want to support us: Give us a sub and give this video a thumbs up so it shows up on more like-minded fans YouTube recommendations. You know, how that YouTube algorithm is.

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Madou Monogatari II (Sorcery Saga II) gets English fan patch for SEGA Game Gear

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If you never heard of the dungeon crawler by Compile, developers of Puyo Puyo, I don’t blame you. The games stars our good girl Arle Nadja, while the first game was about her graduating kindergarten (seems harder in Japan, right?) this one she is 16  years old as she goes to a distant Ancient Magic School to study. For some reason a man she meets along the way knocks her out and throws her in a dungeon, now you have to use your skills to escape. Yep, that got dark fast.

“The Madou Monogatari games are a series of dungeon crawlers by Compile, originally released for Japanese computers and later ported to many other platforms. They’re known for their distinct style of magic-oriented combat, with no HP or MP meters, individually-crafted attacks for every enemy, and prolific use of voice samples. They should also look very familiar to Puyo Puyo players – Puyo Puyo began as a spinoff of Madou Monogatari and imported most of its original cast from the series.” – Via Romhacking.net

You can patch the English translation patch via here. You can also check out the first game which got translated back in 2010.

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Game Freak’s Pulseman illustration video now Western friendly with English subtitles

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If you’re a regular visitor to our little SEGA corner of the internet, you probably like to revisit some titles that you might have missed in the 90s and it seems that Game Freak’s Pulseman was pretty slept on in the 90s.

The video above has Pulseman director Ken Sugimori drawing Pulseman as he gives details into the character’s creation, what inspired him and why they made him as a direct opposition to Sonic the Hedgehog‘s design. Kind of funny that Ken Sugimori says that Sonic the Hedgehog had a ‘western look’ when I felt like Sonic the Hedgehog was a mix of classic Mickey/Felix the Cat mixed with a Japanese twist. But I guess Ken is right, its quite obvious that Sonic was inspired by early American mascot cartoons.

Love Ken Sugimori’s Mega Drive jacket. Very cool.

[Source: Siliconera]

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SEGA acquires Two Point Studios, developer of Two Point Hospital

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SEGA-Sammy has announced that Two Point Studios will be joining the SEGA Europe family.

According to the press release, this buyout came out from SEGA Europe’s Searchlight program which is a internal initiative intend to find talent and intellectual property opportunities. Expect a lot of new ‘Two Point’ franchise games in the near future:

“It’s a landmark step for Two Point Studios and we’re thrilled to be joining the Sega family, We’re looking forward to executing the next phase of our plans as we continue to evolve Two Point County. It’s a hugely exciting time to be a part of Two Point and we are here today thanks to the hard work, passion and dedication of our small, but amazingly talented team here in Farnham and the incredible fans that have supported us throughout and guided our continued development of Two Point Hospital.” – Mark Webley, Two Point Studios co-founder

Two Point Studios is a brand new studio created by Mark Webley and Gary Carr who worked on titles like Theme Hospital (which Two Point Hospital is a spiritual successor), Black & White and the Fable series for Bullfrog Productions and Lionhead studios.

Continue Reading ➜

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