Latest Posts

SEGA Tunes: Ristar’s Planet Freon – Ring Rink

by

As we near Christmas day, I knew a festive Tuesday Tunes was in order. The Sonic the Hedgehog franchise is filled with great wintery tunes, but I felt Sonic has been covered far too much on Tuesday Tunes (and for a good reason, Sonic music is awesome!). Christmas NiGHTS would be perfect, but it’s too obvious. Shenmue‘s Christmas tunes would be perfect, but we’ve aleady covered them. And that’s when it hit me, Sonic Team’s Ristar has an excellent winter tune. The game’s fifth stage, Planet Freon, is a planet made entirely of ice and snow. But you won’t find Imperial Walkers and Wampas on this ice planet, instead you’ll find downhill skiing and a bizarre alien enemy chucking snowballs. The music for the first portion of the stage begins almost as if you’re about to hear Jingle Bells, but what follows is a catchy tune with solid drum beats and a peppy tune perfectly suitable for a winter wonderland. So as the sun goes down on this Christmas eve, why not revisit this SEGA Genesis classic? It’s the best present you can give yourself.

2 Comments

Art contest winners announcement coming soon

by

seasonofcolorslogo

I hate making an announcement of an announcement, but we’ve been getting some questions regarding this so I wanted to make a front page announcement.

This was originally supposed to happen last weekend, but I got caught up in other things and didn’t have time to choose a winner. We got some great entries after I last checked the submissions so I had to give some additional thought to who the winner will be. I will be going over all of the submissions and I will hopefully be able to announce a winner very soon. Though to answer some questions:

Any entries we got before today are valid for the contest and submissions meant for other things are also valid. See you soon with an announcement!

No Comments

SEGA Cinema Holiday Special: Sonic Christmas Blast

by

Welcome to the third SEGA Cinema! In celebration of the holiday season, Barry the Nomad and Sonic Retro staff members David the Lurker and Bartman settle in around the fireplace, sip eggmanog, and enjoy two episodes of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. The first is the holiday special “Sonic Christmas Blast”, which released three years after the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog aired. The special was planned to be titled “An X-Tremely Sonic Christmas” to tie in with Sonic X-treme. But when X-treme was scrapped, the title was changed to tie in with Sonic 3D Blast.

The second bonus episode is entitled “Sno Problem”, a wintery themed adventure that sees Sonic and Tails taking on Robotnik who has unleashed his Ultra Freeze-O-Matic on mobius. His grand scheme? Watch and find out!

We’ve also added a few surprises, so sit back and enjoy! Like this video? Subscribe to the SEGAbits YouTube channel!

No Comments

Sonic Talk Lost World Holiday Special

by

[ MP3 Download ]

On a special holiday edition of Sonic Talk, me, Nux and GX get into a long discussion about Sonic Lost World along with our experiences with the PS4. Also, we have an interview with Aaron Webber about the game as well. This interview was done before the fix so some complaints are now old. All that, and I sing a brand new Christmas song just to torture everyone! (As if the audio wasn’t bad enough in this episode). WARNING! LOST WORLD SPOILERS AHEAD.

vgrA u vQkr wP IC WUJQo

No Comments

Arcade Review: After Burner Climax

by

After Burner Climax Header

As a SEGA fan, my loyalty has been tested to the breaking point at times. Let’s face it, SEGA has had to make some tough decisions and has made some terrible games over the years, especially over the last fifteen. In 2007 SEGA had lost much of my loyalty after turning out a rash of bad games including the infamously awful Sonic the Hedgehog. Then one day, I walked into a local arcade, played After Burner Climax for the first time and all was well.

Continue Reading ➜

2 Comments

3D Streets of Rage and 3D Shinobi III now available on the eShop

by

shinobi-3-return-of-the-ninja-master

Today, the last of M2’s 3D SEGA ports are now available on the 3DS eShop. Both Shinobi 3: Return of the Ninja Master and Streets of Rage can now be had for $5.99 each, completed with new 3D visuals, a classic “SD TV” viewing mode and a level select. If you’re interested in playing some of SEGA’s best games from the 16-bit era, check them out!

2 Comments

Sonic Lost World Wii U DLC available now – Yoshi’s Island Zone

by

The latest Nintendo Direct broke the news that free DLC is available now for the Wii U version of Sonic Lost World. The unique DLC features a new zone which takes place in Yoshi’s Island, aptly named Yoshi’s Island Zone. Footage shows Sonic running through a 2D Yoshi’s Island, taking out Mario enemies whilst followed by a line of collected eggs. This surprise DLC is quite interesting, as it opens the door to possible future DLC in which Sonic enters other video game worlds from both Nintendo and SEGA franchises. Iwata hinted that Zelda could be next.

Never would I think that someday there would be a game featuring Sonic, Yoshi, and NiGHTS. Download the DLC today and let us know what you think of it!

7 Comments

SEGA Tunes: Panzer Dragoon Orta’s Eternal Glacies

by

The goal of any good video game soundtrack is to compliment the atmosphere and improve the immersion. As far as I’m concerned, few soundtracks accomplish this better then Panzer Dragoon Orta’s. Given that it’s Christmas time, it seems only fitting that we feature a track from a snow level, Orta’s lonely, beautiful Eternal Glacies. Much like the level itself, the track is beautiful, subdued and majestic.

1 Comment

Yogscast May Have Slipped About Ryo Hazuki in Sonic Transformed

by

transformedRyo

Shenmue 3 still isn’t a thing, but the Yogscast may have revealed S0L’s surprise a little early. During their recent stream around 40 minutes in they had a character select screen that looked larger than normal, and of all the faces to be on there besides Simon was none other than Ryo Hazuki as seen here, and went so far as to have him in a race.

He isn’t steering a forklift but he’s riding an arcade cabinet playing OutRun instead. I assume it’ll transform into a WaveRunner cabinet on water and an After Burner II cabinet in the air.  No dates have been revealed or any other details, but Sega fans can rest assured that their demands for more Ryo and more SEGA stars are indeed being met.

UPDATE: Or maybe the hovercraft mode is Ryo riding a Hang On cabinet to keep in theme with the works of Yu Suzuki.

7 Comments

SEGA Memories: Fred Durst pimps the Dreamcast

by

segabits seganet limp bizkit

In an act of sheer epic randomness, one of my buds recently reminded me of one of SEGA’s most unlikely of past sponsors. It was back during the Dreamcast era, as many of their publicity stunts were. SEGA was trying hard to get their online service, SegaNet, to gain traction. To do so, they enlisted the help of none other than a certain popular band… one who had just made it ridiculously big with a song called Nookie.

Yes, I’m talking about Limp Bizkit. Believe it or not, they’re actually still around today, but there was a time when they were at the top of the music industry, and that time coincided with the final months of the Dreamcast.

With their album, Chocolate Starfish and the Hotdog Flavored Water, set to release in October of 2000, Limp Bizkit was preparing to embark on a major tour. SEGA, seeing their golden opportunity, chose to serve as one of the tour’s sponsors. It might seem ridiculous now, but at the time this was actually a huge snag for them, as Limp Bizkit and their form of rap metal was on the edge of releasing what would become the fastest-selling rock album on record; an honor that it, amazingly, still holds to this day.

For more, including a quote from SEGA from back then, read on.

Continue Reading ➜

1 Comment

Round Table: What’s next for the Fantasy Zone franchise?

by

FZRT
 
We wrap up Fantasy Zone week with a special SEGAbits Round Table in which we look to the future of the Fantasy Zone franchise. As this week has taught us, Fantasy Zone is a small, but highly imaginative franchise with fantastic music, difficult yet addicting gameplay, and an enduring protagonist. But what about the future of the franchise? Does Fantasy Zone‘s simplistic arcade-style gameplay have a place in 2013 and beyond?

Continue Reading ➜

BK MmWQJPU foeu MU L p SacF

4 Comments

Tons of Virtua Fighter News from VF20th NicoNico Live Stream

by

1461869_634936846570136_306606796_n

From last night’s stream, NicoNico Live featured the celebration of Virtua Fighter’s 20th Anniversary. The event was held in Tokyo Joypolis Park hosted by Sexy Saitou and Asapon. AM2’s Daichi Katagiri, VF’s game coordinater, made an appearance as well as other special guests such as Tekken series producer, Harada and former AM2 head, Yu Suzuki on pre-recorded video to share their thoughts and experience with the series. During the stream, SEGA announced a ton of awesome Virtua Fighter news to celebrate the series anniversary. What to know what they are, hit the jump young grass hoppers.

Continue Reading ➜

b BovgAj B c lJkyGBtS vlZj

4 Comments

SEGA in the Media: Opa-Opa & Zillion

by

opa-zill1

Before Sonic, before ToeJam & Earl , before Joe Musashi and even a few months before Alex Kidd, SEGA’s mascot was a sentient little spaceship called Opa-Opa, hero of the Fantasy Zone. Though there’s some debate regarding who was the “true” mascot before Sonic came around, I personally put myself in Opa-Opa’s camp. Why? Well, aside from cameoing in a bunch of SEGA games from the ‘80s, a few of which you can read about here, Opa-Opa was also a supporting character in an anime SEGA partially funded, Zillion.

Zillion is a 1987 sci-fi anime from Tatsunoku Productions. It centers around White Knight J.J. and his fellow White Knights Apple and Champ as they defend the earth colony Maris from the evil Nozas, an alien race intent on wiping humans off the face of the planet. The White Knights battle the forces of evil with their signature weapon, the Zillion Weapon System, a Master System light gun (literally, complete with the cord) capable of destroying the Nozas, who are otherwise invulnerable to human weaponry.

Continue Reading ➜

6 Comments

Watch Vidya Retro’s Recorded Sonic 2 Livestream

by

When Sonic the Hedgehog 2 came out on iOS and Android, we hosted a livestream showing off the game for a whole four hours showing off the the new features. Obviously there are spoilers present in these videos, so watch at your own risk. We get the emeralds, stumble upon Hidden Palace, look at unused content and run a few races online.

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Debug Mode] [2 Player Mode]

Continue Reading ➜

SrFtNw TsvgHsYfOT

No Comments