Sega Sammy has released their financial results for what was a fairly quiet Q1 for the company. Japanese tax increases and advertising costs took a toll on their bottom line, while their games divisions, including arcade, console, and mobile, all struggled due mainly due to a lack of new content. In short, Sega Sammy has certainly seen better days, though some big titles coming up should help them regain at least some of their traction.
Phantasy Star Online 2: Episode 3 is coming out on August 27 in Japan. It will feature a new planet to explore, a casino for the lobby, new skills for old classes and an entirely new class in the Bouncer. It will also feature new characters and enemies, and the one featured above should be interesting to fans familiar with the classic Phantasy Star games.
Meet Nyau! Nyau is an enemy to be introduced in Episode 3, clearly inspired by the party character Myau from the first Phantasy Star game. According to Siliconera, Nyaus have high defense, so to battle them more efficiently you’ll need to make them vulnerable by destroying their weapon when they drop it. This will prompt Nyau to mourn the loss and be open for attacks. Nyaus are reportedly still strong on offense by themselves and can summon bosses, so speed will be of the essence. Also, if you manage to break a Nyau’s weapon you may have a chance for an item drop!
Credit to this PSUBlog entry for the image capture.
The team behind the indie RPG Elysian Shadows returns to the Swingin’ Report Show following the launch of their Kickstarter. As discussed in early June, the game is heading to the SEGA Dreamcast, but this time the team has many more details and ideas for the beloved SEGA console. Check out our interview to hear the team’s plans for the game, what SEGA titles influenced them, and how far they’re potentially willing to go to support the many Dreamcast features and accessories. You can find their Kickstarter here, or search “Elysian Shadows” on Kickstarter.
The wait is now over as SEGA has announced that their new fighting title, Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax, is set for release on November 13th for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita. The video showcases characters special moves and impact skills including the newly additional characters with a new theme song,（I’ve）の新曲「belief」, sung by Kawada Mami.
Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax is a 2D arcade fighting game published by SEGA which brings together selected characters from light novel series published under ASCII Media Works‘ Dengeki Bunko imprint. The project is a collaboration between SEGA and Dengeki Bunko as part of the 20th year anniversary of the light novel imprint.
The game also features various SEGA cameos with Akira Yuki and Pai Chan of the Virtua Fighter series as bosses and SEGA themed levels based on SEGA’s iconic franchises.
Be sure to tune in on SEGAbits for more Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax related news and events this fall.
That’s right, gang! My Life with SEGA has decided to celebrate the ill-fated 32X on its 20th anniversary by rehashing its not-so-exciting adventures in a galaxy far, far away.
Star Wars Arcade! Yeah, baby! This time, AJ is not alone. AJ and his faithful sidekick Mickey Mac, are going up against the Galactic Empire in a desperate attempt to see the fuckin’ ending!
If you wish to see the original solo – pardon the pun – review of Star Wars Arcade, you can find it after the break!
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Knuckles Chaotix was the black sheep Sonic game of its era. Standing as one of the few major releases for an infamous peripheral, Chaotix had strange team based game play that played with Sonic physics in a way no game has done before or since, it featured an eclectic cast of characters that stand out even by modern Sonic standards, and it didn’t even feature Sonic or Tails among them. Even so, Knuckles Chaotix does contain one element that would be very familiar to any classic Sonic fan: a spectacular soundtrack.
Speed Slider is quintessential Sonic sound, chaotic and fast. It perfectly captures the speedy nature of its stage and the colorful, cheerful atmosphere of the game itself. Despite how infamous the 32X’s sound capabilities are, Knuckles Chaotix proves what the hardware was capable of in the right hands. In the hands of the Chaotix development team, the 32X sang.
Stick with us throughout the month as we examine some other great soundtracks from the 32X!
We teased you in July about Phantasy Star Nova getting a demo on the Japanese PSN Store and now we get news that the game will allow 4-player co-op via local wireless connection.
Sadly though SEGA says this demo release will not showcase its character creation aspect or even story progression. I guess they want us to wait till the full game.
For those waiting on the full version of this title it will be coming out in Japan this November. The demo hits the Japanese PSN story on August 12th. We will most likely post some hands on impressions when it does hit. No release date announced outside of Japan (sorry 🙁 ).
If you remember the teaser site Atlus launched a few months ago with the giant tree? It was actually for a Etrian Odyssey game, specifically the remake of the second in the series. The 3DS remake will be titled, ‘Etrian Odyssey II Untold: The Knight of the Fafnir‘. Hit the jump to look at the characters and first trailer on the old-new game.
Last weekend saw an extravaganza of rarely seen footage of more multiplayer madness with SEGA featuring me and some of my friends. Last time we went through several Sonic games from the Game Boy Advance line-up rummaging for chao, racing to the finish, exchanging fists and more. This time we’ve not only gone back to Sonic Advance 3 with a full house of four players, we also got to check out the multiplayer mode of the Game Boy Advance conversion of Jet Set Radio from the developers behind the GBA version of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2. Finally our last surprise was us racing in the future with San Francisco Rush 2049 on SEGA Dreamcast.
Also appearing only on Twitch is a silent longplay of Knuckles’ Chaotix running at 60 frames per second as part of SEGAbits’ 32X month. If you missed out on these liveshowings, be sure to subscribe to us on Twitch or YouTube for updates when we go live again or to catch up on our previous showings.
The teaser website for the next Yakuza title has just launched. It features text that steadily appears and fills up the screen, culminating with the image shown above. Gematsu reports that we can expect a formal reveal via niconico on the 24th of August at 9 P.M. Japan time. Details are scant on the game itself, but we do know that the game is in development for both the PS3 and PS4, and that it will not be a spinoff title.
The Yakuza franchise keeps moving forward in Japan, but outside of Japan the rest of the world still lags with Ishin and 5 not being localized. Please consider learning about and supporting the Day of the Dragon (August 8th) to show your support for bringing Yakuza games outside of Japan!
Credit to Gematsu for the teaser website image capture.
Although Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie is not a SEGA related movie, there is no doubt that James Rolfe’s creation has made an impact on retro SEGA gaming, bringing obscure video game classics and atrocities to the forefront of people’s minds by highlighting the aggravations and rewards of classic games and hardware. While I sit firmly in the pro-Nerd camp, I’ll admit that as a SEGA fan I’m a little annoyed by how James’s over-the-top Nerd persona has affected how modern gamers view some of SEGA’s more controversial add-ons like the SEGA CD and 32X. I don’t blame James however, as I think viewers of his videos simply need to realize that his videos are part parody and the ideal way to form an opinion is to try the games and hardware out for yourself.
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie, which is releasing in theaters throughout the US and Canada as I write this, had its East Coast premiere last night in Phoenixville, PA. I was able to snag tickets before the show sold out, and after standing in line outside the historic Colonial Theater (home of The Blob), I and over six hundred other fans packed the house and James kicked off the movie that he described as eight years of his life in two hours. So did James’s efforts pay off?
Throughout the 90s, SEGA were the kings of video game slogans. “Welcome to the Next Level”, “Genesis Does What Nintendon’t”, “A little bit too real”, “It’s Thinking”. These are slogans us fans still use proudly to this day. Unfortunately for the 32X, “Just stick it in your Genesis!” did more harm than good. Today’s ad features the return of our edgy friend from SEGA’s SEGA CD commercial in which he famously interrupted a teenager watching television to aggressively ask him why he didn’t own a SEGA CD. The SEGA CD ad was loud, in your face, and incredibly memorable for all the right reasons. The 32X follow-up? Not so much.
A couple of weeks ago SEGA forum member king_ruckus came up with the idea of the “Day of the Dragon” – a fan initiative that asks people to send letters to SEGA offices (to be received on the 8th) expressing their desire to see the franchise brought back to life in the West. It’s been a year and a half since Yakuza 5 was released in Japan, and there is no word on localization for Yakuza: Ishin, either. With the next Yakuza title already in development, fans are understandably worried. Keeping this in mind, king_ruckus looked up the mailing addresses for the London, Tokyo, and San Francisco offices so fans can send the letters to the offices of their choosing.
Keep in mind that while the Day of the Dragon is technically set to be August 8 (next Friday,) the spirit of king_ruckus’s idea is such that the letters arrive during the week of August 8. This allows not only for the variation in personal schedules, but for the sending of letters from different parts of the world to the desired SEGA offices. Please consider sending mail to SEGA! Also, get #DayOftheDragon or #BringYakuzaWest trending if you’ve got Twitter, and check out this Facebook page if you’ve got Facebook! To check out the addresses for the three above-specified SEGA offices, hit the break!
The Elysian Shadows Kickstarter has officially launched. Dubbed a “next-gen” 2D RPG, the game is slated to hit a number of platforms including our beloved SEGA Dreamcast. We spoke with the team back in June, and they definitely sound committed to the project – which will only happen if they hit their $150,000 goal. The Dreamcast release starts at the $49 level in the Standard Edition which comes in two flavors, signed and unsigned. The signed edition is limited to 100 copies. The $125 level features a Collector’s Edition of the game with several physical goodies that are only digital in the lower tiers. As far as stretch goals, should the project hit $400,000, the team plans to create a monster training VMU mini-game, while $500,000 will open to game up to the modding community (Dreamcast included).
Make sure to check out the project, and if it appeals to you, show your support!