Yakuza 0 takes us back to Japan during the 1980s, offering up a brand new tale in the Yakuza franchise. But with so many titles in the franchise, can Yakuza 0 offer up enough content to make it worth your money? Is this a safe game for newcomers? Hit the jump button and find out.
Released back in 2014, Sega Mega Drive/Genesis: Collected Works fast became one of our favorite SEGA art books of all time. Created by Darren Wall of Read-Only Memory, the book covers SEGA’s famous 16-bit console, featuring development and concept illustrations for the console’s most popular franchises, original developer interviews and previously unseen hardware production plans. Much of the materials – drawn from the Sega of Japan archives – has never been released before. The book also features dozens of interviews with the people who made our favorite Mega Drive/Genesis games.
Now, Read-Only Memory plans to put the book back into production with a reprint. To do this, they’ve returned to Kickstarter with a new campaign which offers copies of the book as backer rewards, as well as some cool new items including a Mega Drive branded bookmark and a stylish tote bag. Worth noting for those who backed the first time, the tote bag is available in a tier of its own, and it is also bundled with a copy of the book and the bookmark.
If you missed out the first time, or if you want to support Read-Only Memory again, we highly suggest checking out their campaign. A lot of hard work and fan-driven passion went into the project, as evidenced by our interview with Darren Wall. After the break, check out our unboxing video featuring Darren and the writer of “Console Wars” Blake J. Harris.
SEGA of Japan has announced two streams for January 24th, one for FreshLive and another for NicoNico. The streams will be about three games, the upcoming Sonic Mania, and the recently released Valkyria Revolution and Yakuza 6 in Japan. Both the FreshLive and NicoNico streams will be live on January 24th at 8:55pm local time, or about 6:55am EST/3:55am PST. If you have interest in any of these titles, please have a gander, especially for potential new information about Sonic Mania.
Over the past week there has been rumors circulating that Archie Comics would be losing the license to Sonic the Hedgehog, effectively cancelling the long running series. The rumors began when fans noticed that the Archie store was deeply discounting back issues and trade paperbacks by 75% and both Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic Universe were dropped from the subscriptions page. The deep discounts are no sign for alarm, Archie has discounted sales all the time, but the missing subscription pages are a big red flag.
Earlier today, SEGA Amusements shared a trailer for their upcoming Daytona USA sequel Daytona 3 Championship USA. Upon the trailer’s release, fans were quick to notice that the logo and title had been altered to be simply Daytona Championship USA. I’ll admit, I caught it when I made the initial news post but I brushed it off as being either a mistake on SEGA’s part or a localized name for the game in the UK. But after a bit of clicking around on the SEGA Amusements website, it does indeed look like they have dropped the “3” in favor of a more simplified name.
No reason for the game has been given, but I’d guess they felt that the second game was so long ago (19 years) and not as well known as the original that the “3” just complicated things. Dropping the numbers on franchises seems to be a thing seen across the board, with home console games and movies dropping numbering. The game is still the third Daytona USA, and it will feature three new tracks in addition to the three original Daytona USA tracks.
In anticipation of tomorrow’s EAG International Expo in London, SEGA Amusements has released a new trailer for Daytona 3 Championship USA showcasing the return of the classic Daytona USA track Three-Seven Speedway. From the trailer above you can see some changes they’ve made to the classic track, including a change from classic to modern Sonic carved into the hillside and the lack of the slot machine – an unfortunate element that had to be dropped so that the game could appear in as many arcades as possible due to gambling restrictions in certain regions. But hey, it has the layout and the iconic music and we can’t wait to play it when Daytona 3 Championship USA begins to appear in arcades later this year!
What?
The 2017 Game Developers Conference is just a little over a month away, and just last week it was announced that Japanese game designer Yoot Saito is set to host a behind-the-scenes look at the hit Dreamcast game Seaman in a Classic Game Postmortem. Yes, that’s right, I said “hit”. Despite the quirky nature of Seaman, it went on to become one of the most popular Dreamcast games in Japan – even outselling Shenmue!
The postmortem is set to be an hour long, and given Saito’s unique ideas for games it is sure to be an incredibly interesting discussion. The conference runs from February 27 to March 3, and date and time for the Seaman postmortem are still to be determined. You can learn more about the postmortem and GDC 2017 here.
What do you say when the words “fan-made Sonic 2006 PC port” jump at you? What sort of images, reactions, and most importantly, questions, pop into your head when this prospect meets your mind? Is it perplexing? Audacious? Blasphemous? These were of course all reactions I saw when news broke of a demo for a full fan-made recreation of the ill-fated and infamous Sonic 06 in Unity. However, much against others’ reactions, mine was of…curiosity.
Rather than stick with a few fleeting moments of “hey that’s a thing”, the very idea stuck to me so hard that it gave me a jolt of energy. Not because I like Sonic 06, god no, but because I am a huge lover of weird games and weird ports. And to me, a Unity port of this maligned title was far too weird to pass up. So, faced with a lack of information, and a thirst to spread the good will of odd, ambitious projects, I went straight to the source. Ladies and gentlemen and others, I present to you, hopefully everything you’d want to know about the ins and outs of the Sonic 2006 PC port, from the mouth of its current leader, Gistix!
Following the announcement that Puyo Puyo Tetris is coming to the Americas and Europe to PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch, we now have pre-order listings to share! Puyo Puyo Tetris can now be pre-ordered for $29.99 on the PlayStation 4 and for $39.99 on the Nintendo Switch. Amazon Prime members get 20% off, making both a very good deal.
It has been noted by SEGA staffers that should Puyo Puyo Tetris sell well, Puyo Puyo Chronicles for Nintendo 3DS could follow.
Sonic Mania is coming to Nintendo Switch, and now you can pre-order the Collector’s Edition of the game for the upcoming home console. As with the other Sonic Mania Collector’s Editions coming to PS4, Xbox One and PC the list price is $69.99 and Prime members save an additional 20%. The edition comes with a deluxe collector’s box, a 12″ statue with SEGA startup audio, a SEGA cartridge cast with golden ring and a metallic collector’s card with download key.
If you’re going with the Switch version, you can pre-order the Sonic Mania Collector’s Edition here. The game is due out Spring 2017, and Amazon lists a placeholder date of May 31, 2017.
Recently after the Nintendo Switch Presentation, the developers at DotEmu announced that the remake of the SEGA Master System classic, Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap, would be coming to the Nintendo Switch in 2017 via the game’s official blog. As stated on the blog, the developers were approached by Nintendo secretly to port the title for the Nintendo Switch and it is expected to run at a silky 60 fps.
No further details were given on Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap beyond that its coming Nintendo Switch, the developer also assured readers that the game will be released on other consoles and teased a announcement for the release date. What are you’re thoughts on Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap coming out on the Nintendo Switch?
Following the Nintendo Switch conference, and Nagoshi’s presentation which offered little information on upcoming games, SEGA shared some cool announcements. Puyo Puyo Tetris is coming to PS4 and Switch in the Americas and Europe, and Sonic Mania is confirmed to be releasing to the Nintendo Switch in the spring of 2017, in addition to the already announced PS4, Xbox One and PC platforms. This makes the Switch the only handheld version of the game, in a sense. However, one downside is that there appears to be no collector’s edition of the game for Nintendo Switch owners, unless of course SEGA reveals one in the coming weeks.
More information as we hear it.
From the Nintendo Switch Presentation, different titles were shown off for the upcoming system, including Super Mario Odyssey, Arms, Splatoon 2, and Xenoblade Chronicles 2. However in the middle of a montage highlighting different titles, Puyo Puyo Tetris was briefly shown as among the titles. Soon enough, SEGA themselves would confirm the game is indeed coming to Switch, titled Puyo Puyo Tetris S. It’s also implied that the game is getting a localization based on it’s presence in the presentation, which would tie to a previous report about Puyo Puyo Tetris trophies appearing in English on PSN.
[UPDATE] It is now officially confirmed Puyo Puyo Tetris is going to be localized for the Playstation 4 and Nintendo Switch.
[UPDATE 2] We have a trailer! Check it out after the break!
The Nintendo Switch itself is launching on March 3rd, 2017 for the retail price of $299.99.
SEGA game designer, producer, director, as well as the current Chief Creative Officer of Sega Corporation Toshihiro Nagoshi took the stage at Nintendo’s Switch presentation to… well, say that he was there and that SEGA had Switch on their radar. Nagoshi said: “SEGA sees a tremendous amount of appeal in Nintendo Switch and will intend to be present on the platform, and similarly I as an individual creator sense a new kind of appeal with this game hardware. We will consider new games for Nintendo Switch and will present them soon. This new hardware is taking on a new challenge and has a lot of appealing points and I would like to take advantage of this new concept and I would like to create a new interesting game.”
Following the discovery that SEGA Europe registered ShenmueHD.com, we learned that SEGA had also registered ShemnueGame.com (misspelling intentional) and ShenmueRemastered.com. On this SEGA News Bits, George and Barry enter the dojo to discover what this all means. Is SEGA planning a rerelease of Shenmue and Shenmue II? Give the show a watch to hear our findings!
If you enjoy our SEGA News Bits segments and want to support us, give us a sub. If you are already subscribed you can always like the video.