Newly released on vinyl and with brand new artwork created by Data Erase, Christa Lee’s Welcome to the Fantasy Zone is “a loving tribute to the games of SEGA, the artists who worked on them, and the composers who made them sing.” Let’s unbox (unsleeve?) this SEGA fan creation and give it a listen!
Purchase vinyl on Ship to Shore Phono Co. | Purchase digitally on Bandcamp | Follow Christa Lee on Twitter
SEGA has now launched their mobile app SEGA Slots world wide. This lets you play ‘some of the fastest, most addictive slots machines around!’ according to their product description. These addictive slots machines just happen to have some of our favorite SEGA IPs attached to them. While its cool to see our favorite characters being represented, its a tad sad that they are stuck in a casino style mobile gambling game.
Product Pages: Play Store – iTunes
Regardless SEGA Slots, as of launch, has the following Classic SEGA IPs represented:
For SEGA fans that are big fans of the First of the North Star (Hokuto Ga Gotoku) series, SEGA of Japan have now done a long form stream showing off over an hour of gameplay. As you can tell from the gameplay, Hokuto Ga Gotoku is very much a licensed Fist of the North Star game built on top of the Yakuza 0 engine. This isn’t the first time that SEGA has done something like this, Yakuza Kiwami was built this way. I just find it weird that they kept a lot of the same UI design from the Yakuza series, would have been cool to see reworked maps and other UI designed by the manga creator instead of just reusing the Yakuza look.
Hokuto ga Gotoku is coming out on PlayStation 4, in Japan on March 8 with a standard and “Century’s End Premium” edition. SEGA hasn’t mention anything about this game coming out outside of Japan… fingers crossed!
[Via: Gematsu]
Today, both SEGA and SEGA Europe Twitter accounts (why are they have separate accounts still is best left for another article) shared a teaser image of “16th January” and a lightbulb. What could this mean? While it could mean anything really, there are a few clues here. For starters, this image comes from SEGA Europe. The ordering of days before month is a dead giveaway. The lightbulb, meanwhile, is commonly used to evoke an idea. How does one get to an idea? By thinking. The SEGA Dreamcast had the well known slogan “It’s Thinking…”. Could the lightbulb be the idea that the years of thinking is leading to? Could this be SEGA’s tease for impending Dreamcast ports? It’s possible. [Update: Or not? Read on!]
SEGA announced today via a live stream that the long running SEGA AM2 developed arcade game, Border Break, would be coming to PlayStation 4. Finally! The third-person mecha action arcade game hit the scene way back in September 9, 2009 and since then has had over 16 huge updates. The latest one being called Border Break X Zero, that came out earlier this year.
Border Break will be a free-to-play game download and also get a physical release over in Japan. Of course, this was just announced via a live stream so we don’t know if this game would make it over to the States. Since I’m a massive SEGA-AM2 fanboy, I of course, really want this game to come out over here. The first Beta for Border Break starts next month, so it seems this port has been in the works for awhile! What a great surprise.
If you are one of the many people excited for the upcoming PlayStation 4 Fist of the North Star (Hokuto Ga Gotoku), you might have something to play while you wait. If you didn’t know SEGA has created and published several Fist of the North games in the past, their first title was Hokuto No Ken (Fist of the North Star in Japanese), which released on the SEGA Master System (Mark III in Japan) in 1986. The game did make it outside of Japan as Black Belt, dropping all licenses to the manga. SEGA would later release a sequel to the game, which we got as Last Battle.
Fist of the North Star (SMS) Translation
As far as the Fist of the North Star Master System game, the title was actually one of the early games programmed by famed Sonic the Hedgehog co-creator Yuji Naka. Looking at all the past SEGA published Fist of the North Star video games makes me want SEGA to port the 2005 arcade/PlayStation 2 game by Arc System Works. Please SEGA? While its cool to have a English patch, I don’t think you really need it to play the game.
The SEGA Master System version of the game will also be playable in the upcoming PlayStation 4 game, as an unlockable. No idea if the new one will make it over stateside. I guess we can only hope.
Last month we shared the news that Retro-bit would be creating USB, bluetooth and classic controllers for the SEGA Genesis, Saturn and Dreamcast, with the products debuting at CES 2018. Well CES 2018 is happening now, and images of the Retro-bit SEGA products are online! The community section of the RGT 85 Facebook page and Madlittlepixel show us just what we can expect from the new line of products. After the break, let’s check out the images and see what we can see!
SEGA has announced a Phantasy Star Online 2 milestone for the PlayStation Vita version of the game, amassing over 1.5 million downloads since the game debuted on the handheld in February 2013. I assume these also counted the physical print version of the game that have been printed in the past.
To celebrate the milestone, Phantasy Star Online 2 will have a commemoration campaign later this month. More details to be announced later. Of course Phantasy Star Online 2 has been released for PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, PC, iOS, and Android. Only in Japan. There is also Phantasy Star Online 2 Cloud coming to Nintendo Switch in Q1 2018.
Like always, wish this game made it west. Oh well, you know.
[Via: Siliconera]
Nintendo’s UK site has posted an article for the upcoming Bayonetta 1 + 2 Nintendo Switch port. The article is a fairly generic press release with no new news until one drops down to a small blurb at the end.
By tapping in compatible amiibo (sold separately), you can instantly unlock a number of Nintendo-themed costumes for Bayonetta to wear, weapons to use and more!
The Nintendo costumes in Wii U versions of the games required one to save up Halos and buy them at Rodin’s shop. Now you can simply spend your Dogecoins on Nintendo amiibos and unlock your design outfit when you fire up the game the first time. It’s okay, we know you’re going to unlock the Star Mercenary outfit first. For reasons.
Seen above (click for high res version) is new art from Yasushi Yamaguchi aka Judy Totoya, the character designer of Sonic the Hedgehog’s trusty sidekick Miles “Tails” Prower. Yasushi’s design came out of an internal competition at STI where numerous designs were submitted, including a rocket-powered turtle named Boomer, but in the end Yasushi’s two-tailed orange fox named Miles Prower won out. As Tails turned 25 years old with the 25th anniversary of the release of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 in November, 2017, Yasushi decided to create new art to celebrate. Yasushi also revealed some facts about the character’s creation, seen after the break!
Sega Dreamcast: Collected Works, an upcoming book from Read-Only Memory, is the followup to SEGA Mega Drive/Genesis: Collected Works. Successfully backed on Kickstarter late last year, Read-Only Memory sent a new years update to backers and boy is it an exciting one! Read-Only Memory received a large amount of production materials from SEGA of Japan, including several never-before-seen pieces from popular Dreamcast games. Included in the haul are:
Read-Only Memory will spend the coming weeks sorting through all the materials and identifying pieces to include in the book, with the final cut of the book to be laid out in a few months. Also revealed is that photoshoots for the Hardware Showcase chapter of the book will be taking place in the next few weeks, featuring everything from consoles to the fishing controller to the Samba de Amigo maracas. If you’re the proud owner of a Dreamcast hardware rarity you think should make the final cut, please do drop Read-Only Memory a line!
We here at SEGAbits can’t wait to get our hands on the book, and in the meantime we’re working to get Darren Wall of Read-Only Memory back for another Swingin’ Report Show podcast.
We’re only a week into 2018 and we already have our first indie Genesis/Mega Drive (and Dreamcast) game about to be successfully backed on Kickstarter. With a little over two days to go, the top-down arcade style shooter Xeno Crisis is $80,382 pledged of its $27,138 goal. As the campaign nears its end, the team has released a new video showcasing more gameplay footage including footage of the new female marine and 2 player co-operative play.
You can check the campaign out for yourself here, and as always read everything and think about it before backing.
The Treasure classic Gunstar Heroes has been added to the SEGA Forever mobile lineup, available to download now on Google Play and the App Store. If Gunstar Heroes on iOS sounds familiar, it’s because the game released to that platform 7 years ago. Those who have previously downloaded the iOS version of the game will be able to restore their purchase for the premium SEGA Forever version. A new addition to the mobile version is cross-platform local multiplayer over Wi-Fi. You can interact with the SEGA Forever team on Twitter at twitter.com/segaforever and follow them if you’re so inclined, as they post some pretty cool stuff.
We’re a bit late in newsing this, as the game released to around the busy holidays, but better late than never!
New year, new indie games! As we return from the holiday season, we look ahead to what indie developers have in store for our classic SEGA hardware in 2018. Thanks to SEGAbits Forums member Berto, we have a helpful topic which compiles all the upcoming SEGA indie games for 2018. Keep Berto’s topic bookmarked, as he will be updating it throughout the year as new games are announced.
Clicking on the games names after the break will bring you to the respective crowdfunding campaigns, pre-orders and ROM/ISO download links should they be available. So what indie SEGA games are coming in 2018?
Nearly a year ago today, I shared a list of indie games coming to classic SEGA consoles in 2017. While I’m hard at work on a 2018 list, which includes some who didn’t make their 2017 deadline, I wanted to report on the Kickstarter campaign for the upcoming SEGA Mega Drive/Genesis and Dreamcast game Xeno Crisis. Releasing in both physical and digital formats, the game is an arena shooter for up to two platers and takes inspiration from games like Smash TV, Contra, Mercs, Granada, Alien Syndrome, Zombies Ate My Neighbors, Chaos Engine and Shock Troopers. Currently, the game is in the prototype stage and the plan is to release the game in October of 2018 to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the Mega Drive.
The campaign ends in 5 days, and currently they have $68,726 pledged of a $27,038 goal. You can learn more about the project here, and as always with a Kickstarter campaign, read everything carefully before making your mind up on backing or not.