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Shenmue III’s ending will set up a sequel, confirms Yu Suzuki

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SEGA and Shenmue fans have been fighting to get a third installment and closure to the series since back in the early 2000s. Lots of fans where delighted when it was announced that Yu Suzuki, the original creator for the Shenmue series would be asking fans to kickstart Shenmue III. The internet was on fire, with lots of people assuming this would be the last chance to ‘finish the fight’ against famed villain Lan Di.

In a interview with GamersFlag, Yu Suzuki was asked if the ending for Shenmue III would be open (much like the last two games) and suggest there would be a Shenmue IV. This is what Yu Suzuki had to say:

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What to expect from SEGA Forever in 2018 – Changes are coming!

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SEGA Forever, SEGA’s mobile initiative to bring classic SEGA games to smart devices, has updated the SEGA Mobile blog with details of what we can expect from the collection in 2018. Over the past 8 months, 18 titles have been released under the SEGA Forever banner, including emulated titles and native ports. Interestingly, it is noted in the post that the native ports (Sonic The Hedgehog, Sonic The Hedgehog 2, Sonic CD, Crazy Taxi, and Virtua Tennis Challenge) have been the most played.

As such, SEGA has decided to make changes to SEGA Forever to appeal to gamers most interested in that aspect of the project. While emulated titles will still release, including some surprises, the main plan will be to release more native ports. As such, the amount of titles regularly released will reduce (no doubt due to the amount of work a native port requires when compared to emulation) however the next titles in the lineup will release soon. The post also notes that over the course of 8 months, there have been over 40 million downloads. Impressive!

You can follow SEGA Forever on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and check out their official website.

Read the full post here, and in the comments below let us know your thoughts on this shift in focus!

[Source: SEGA Mobile Blog]

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Crazy Taxi Gazillionaire changes its name to…

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The Crazy Taxi social media accounts have announced that Crazy Taxi Gazillionaire will be changing its name to… Crazy Taxi Tycoon. The game can now be found on the App Store and Google Play under the new name. No reasoning is given, however I’m certain it has to do with how difficult “Gazillionaire” may be for people to spell and the fact that it doesn’t quite tell you what the game is all about. Crazy Taxi Tycoon is more on the nose and a welcome change.

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SEGA manages to squeeze into the Ralph Breaks The Internet: Wreck-It Ralph 2 teaser trailer

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The teaser trailer for the sequel to 2012’s Disney animated feature Wreck-It Ralph, titled Ralph Breaks The Internet: Wreck-It Ralph 2, has released. The first film was covered by us quite a bit, as SEGA had a sizable presence as Sonic the Hedgehog, House of the Dead, Altered Beast and other franchises made cameos and Sonic himself made the poster and home video release cover art. Ralph Breaks The Internet: Wreck-It Ralph 2 will see Ralph venture into the internet, leaving the world of arcade references for jokes about eBay and iOS games. To be honest, I am not liking the direction the sequel is taking. A large part of what made the original so fun were all the classic game references, and I just don’t see cameos of popular websites to have any nostalgic value.

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The Alliance Alive 3DS demo goes live in North America

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Atlus has released a demo for their upcoming The Alliance Alive game on the 3DS, the demo is now live on the North American eshop. The Alliance Alive is being done by the same team (Cattle Call) that made The Legend of Legacy, which we reviewed and thought it was just alright. While it seems that Nintendo and other developers are moving development onto the Nintendo Switch, Atlus still has at least four titles being released for Nintendo 3DS this year.

For European fans, you will be able to download the demo on March 1st. The Alliance Alive hits physical and digital on March 27, 2018.

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Hokuto ga Gotoku gets a great review score from Weekly Famitsu

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The latest issue of Weekly Famitsu has reviewed SEGA’s Hokuto ga Gotoku, the Yakuza Studio’s take on a Fist of the North Star game. The following are the review scores in the latest issue:

 

  • Crossing Souls (PS4) – 7/8/8/7 [30/40]
  • Fortissimo (PS Vita) – 8/8/8/8 [32/40]
  • Hokuto ga Gotoku (PS4) – 9/9/9/8 [35/40]
  • Immortal Redneck (PS4, Xbox One) – 7/7/8/7 [29/40]
  • Lucky Dog 1 (PS Vita) – 8/8/8/8 [32/40]
  • Tower of Babel (Switch) – 7/6/7/7 [27/40]
  • Your Four Knight Princesses Training Story (PS4, PS Vita, Switch) – 8/7/7/7 [29/40]

As for the legitimacy of the scores, a lot of people online agree that Famitsu is a industry magazine that always gives good scores to high bidders. Is it true? Who knows, but I had some hands-on with the Hokuto ga Gotoku demo and quite enjoyed it myself. Now we just wait to see if the game heads west…

[Source: Gematsu]

 

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Yakuza 6 demo pulled from PSN due to it being the full game

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[Update: Have confirmed that there was no exploit, SEGA just uploaded the full game onto PSN instead of a demo. Way to go!]

Oops, if you read our story about the Yakuza 6 demo coming to PSN today and happen to be wondering why it isn’t showing up on the in-game store, now we know. According to Destructoid, the game unlocked the full version (for free) when downloaded. According to Destructoid (and SEGA) people used an exploit and according to other users on twitter it was never locked down (seems doubtful). If you didn’t know the demo weighed in at more than 36GB, of course this mean’t the demo was the full version of the game locked down as a ‘trial’. Once you purchased the full game come April, it would unlock the full game without re-downloading the data. SEGA posted on their Facebook about pulling the demo but didn’t go into detail.

This also puts into question why SEGA would delay Yakuza 6: The Song of Life from March to April, if the game is translated and playable already. Some people think that maybe SEGA had manufacturing issues with the physical copies of the game that lead them to delay it so everyone gets the game day one. Maybe they thought it would sell better if it was delayed, though this doesn’t make sense considering Sony’s God of War is also launching in April. But it seems that some people have unlocked the full game already, thanks to this exploit and are enjoying it for free. What are your thoughts? Did SEGA screw this up?

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SEGA ranked 3rd best publisher of 2017 by Metacritic

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The people over at Metacritic has ranked the best publishers of 2017, determined by the quality of titles released during the 2017 calendar year. SEGA came in 3rd only being beaten by Bethesda Software and Nintendo. According to Metacritic, SEGA’s average score for the year was 75.5%! The worse rated game was Valkyria Revolution with a 55% score and the best was Bayonetta on PC with a 90%. SEGA bested big publishers like Activision Blizzard, Capcom, Ubisoft, Sony, and Square-Enix.

This is more proof that SEGA has been heading down the right direction since they had their huge restructure back in 2015 and got their new CEO Haruki Satomi who promised to earn gamer’s trust again by releasing more high quality software. What are your thoughts on SEGA’s output in 2017? Let us know in the comments below!

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SEGA News Bits: Hokuto ga Gotoku Demo Hands-On Impressions

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SEGA has released their demo for Yakuza Studio’s Hokuto ga Gotoku (Fist of the North Star). The demo had two different modes to try out, one that taught you the basics, while the other mode sends you on a quest to fix your newly acquired vehicle.  On this episode of the SEGA News Bits we discuss our impressions of the demo, how the driving works, how the combat is different from past Yakuza titles and what we noticed in our initial play through of the demo. Check out our video and have you tried out the demo? Let us know in the comments below.

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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Yakuza 6 demo out tomorrow, is over 36 GB in size

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The Yakuza 6: The Song of Life demo is hitting PSN on February 27, 2018 and since some regions are ahead of us due to timezones, they can already try out the demo. For example, the English demo has now hit the Australian PlayStation Store revealing that the demo will be 36.53 GB in size! Yeah, its a big one.

So what is in this demo? The Yakuza 6: The Song of Life demo is a prologue. This lets you go through the intro segment where they teach you the basics in controls, what Kazuma Kiryu is doing now and why he is taking care of Haruka’s son, Haruto. Also your save data from this demo will carry over to the full game when it comes out April 17, 2018. This demo is basically the same one they released for the Japanese release.

So what do you think? Too big? Are you picking the demo up to give Yakuza 6: The Song of Life a early look?

[Source: Siliconera]

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Two Point Hospital gets official gameplay with developer commentary

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The upcoming SEGA and Two Point Studios game, Two Point Hospital got some official gameplay with commentary by developers Ben Huskins and Mark Webley. In this gameplay video they show you the basics of creating a hospital in the game, discuss basic gameplay ideas and much more.

From the press release:

“Marvel as the hospital springs up before your very eyes with emergent-cy gameplay there for all to see! You’ll get an idea of patient flow through the hospital and how your soon-to-be multi-million dollar healthcare facility will evolve over time with the introduction of diagnosis rooms, hi-tech treatment areas for all manner of wacky illnesses and a wide-ranging cast of ‘characters’.”

Outside of this, you can also sign up for the Two Point Hospital pass here, where you’ll get updates on new videos and even free in-game items.

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Shenmue III Magic Monaco 2018 Trailer leaks online

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The new trailer for Shenmue III that was shown behind close doors at the Magic Monaco 2018 event yesterday has leaked online. The trailer is using a lot of the same footage found from last year’s trailer but now shows off what QTEs will look like in this brand new title.

Not only that but this new Shenmue III trailer also shows the return of the Boxing arcade game from Shenmue 1. Regardless of all the new stuff shown the footage looks far from final and a ton of animation, mainly facial, is still missing. Considering its been 3 years, who knows how long this game is ‘still in the works’ for.

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Shenmue III update reveals improved graphics and new characters

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Shenmue III has revealed its 80th Kickstarter update and even with 80 whole updates a large part of the game is a big mystery. On this update we got four new screenshots of the game, one of them showing off a brand new character. That new character can be seen above.

Outside of that we have a screenshot featuring a young kid, an elder man and that bad guy we saw in the trailer released last year. First thing I noticed is how improved most of the characters faces are and how more animated they look. Especially the young kid in the gallery below. I still have some issue with how Ryo Hazuki is designed, something is really off about him. It isn’t the graphics, but more how the facial structure and hairline are placed. Seems a little off compared to the way he was designed in past games. But who knows, maybe I’m crazy? What are your thoughts on the brand new screenshots?

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Valkyria Chronicles 4 getting Japanese PSN demo on February 26

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Oh boy, SEGA is releasing these Japanese demos faster than I can keep up. Just a few days ago we got the Hokuto ga Gotoku demo on Japanese PSN, now less than a week from that one we will be getting a Valkyria Chronicles 4 demo. According to SEGA they will be unleashing the playable demo they have been showing at events in Japan. The demo releases on February 26, 2018.

According to early players, the demo allows users to play from the prologue all the way through chapter 2. It also seems that the save data can be transferred over to the full game when its released (in Japan). So if you are going to import the game, you can continue where the demo ends and not replay it from the start.

Valkyria Chronicles 4 on PlayStation 4 is launching in Japan on March 21, 2018. As for us Westerners, we get the game later in 2018 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. I also hope SEGA releases a similar demo for all platforms, since I think it will move more copies.

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SEGA shows an hour of Shining Resonance Refrain English gameplay

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Yo, I heard you guys like Japanese games but don’t know Japanese. Relax, SEGA got you covered with this double live stream featuring Yakuza Kiwami (which is out already) and the first look at Shining Resonance Refrain in English! About an hour of the gameplay was shown via SEGA’s official live stream. You can check it out above (1:04:00 into the stream)

We also did a SEGA News Bits discussing the announcement which discusses all the details including the game’s launch day edition, pricing and new platforms. Shining Resonance Refrain will be coming this Summer on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC. That’s quite a bit of platforms. If you are picking it up, what platform will you be playing it on?

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