A Look at Elusive Dreamcast Titles on Vidya Retro


Watch live video from VidyaRetro on TwitchTV

This week on Vidya Retro we look at what could have been after the passing of the Dreamcast as we take a look at unreleased games and other elusive Dreamcast products as well as a pre-show look at the Android version of Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing.

Games covered include released and unreleased Dreamcast games, as well as games running on commercial and homebrew emulators through Dreamcast such as Half-Life, Bleemcast! with Metal Gear Solid, Propeller Arena – Aviation Battle Championship, Wacky Races, Fur Fighters, Sam & Max: Hit the Road and Doom II – Hell on Earth.

Commentators include Sonic Retro members Bartman3010, TimmiT, Overlord, Cinossu and David the Lurker. Listen as they trudge up old Dreamcast information from the US Dreamcast magazine and guess review scores for Dreamcast games.

SEGA reveals new 2D Fighter: Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax

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Earlier this year, we reported that SEGA would be teaming up with Japanese light novel publisher Dengeki Bunko on several projects in celebration of the novel publisher’s 20th anniversary. This celebration was kicked off with the announcement of the “SEGA Hard Girls” novel series earlier this year. Today, the next collaboration between the two companies has been announced: Dengeki Bunko Fight Climax.

DBFC will be a 2D fighting game that crosses over DB’s most popular characters, along with some of SEGA’s cast. At the moment, the only characters confirmed for the game are Asuna and Leafa from “Sword Art Online and Shana and Wilhelmina from “Shakugan no Shana”. No SEGA characters have been confirmed, though Valkyria Chronicles has been mentioned.

At the moment, a platform and release date for the game hasn’t been confirmed, but more details should be revealed when the game is shown again at the Dengeki Bunko Autumn Festival on October 6th.

We’ll be reaching out to SEGA regarding chances of localization, so stay tuned for that. Given the relative obscurity of many of Dengeki Bunko’s franchises, combined with the fact that these licenses are spread across several different licensors in America, it is unlikely this game will be heading west. It was this same issue that kept the Jump Superstars crossover series from heading west, despite it containing a variety of popular characters including Naruto and DBZ’s Goku. On the other hand, some of Dengeki Bunko’s franchises have found some popularity among America’s anime fans. The most popular among them, Sword Art Online, currently airs on Adult Swim’s Toonami block. So, if the rights can be sorted out, localization may not be completely out of the question. Just don’t hold your breath.

You can check out some footage for the game here. You can check out more screenshots below.

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Puyo Puyo Tetris trailer solves the ‘how it plays’ puzzle


We announced that SEGA was planning the ultimate puzzle crossover earlier this week and now we have a trailer (above) of the game in action. Knowing that both Puyo Puyo and Tetris have their own rules, how would SEGA combined them? It seems that one player will be able to play either Puyo Puyo rules or Tetris rules or vice versa.

As far as the trailer go, it is really in the vein of ‘Puyo Puyo’ with bright cheerful tone that reminds us of Puyo Puyo Fever. At TGS SEGA showed off ‘swap mode’ that will have players switching between Tetris and Puyo Puyo games or the option to play Tetris vs Tetris/Puyo vs Puyo. The game is set to release in Japan on the Playstation 3, Playstation Vita, Nintendo 3DS, and Wii U sometime next year.

Check out the SEGAbits YouTube channel trailer – OutRun Edition

To celebrate 150 uploads, nearly 1,000 subscribers, and a new addition to the SEGAbits YouTube channel team, we’ve created a special trailer showcasing all that our channel has to offer. “A new addition?”, I hear you ask? Yes, Tracker of TrackerTDGaming and Sonic Wrecks will be joining the SEGAbits team! His first contribution will be a new video series for the channel entitled “This Is Saturn” – a show that celebrates all things SEGA Saturn.

So OutRun, don’t walk, to to the SEGAbits YouTube channel and subscribe today if you haven’t already!

Sonic Talk #23: Laptop vs. 3DS case

This week, Nuckles’ Laptop is brutally engaged in Mortal Kombat with his 3DS case (With Mortal Kombat music playing over it). We discuss more on the Ouya since I have one now, making your animal characters swear at others in Animal Crossing New Leaf, and why Blinx: The Time Sweeper isn’t nearly as bad as critics made it out to be. We then go into Sonic news, my trip to Sonic Boom West Coast Chapter and a long discussion on the Sonic/Mega Man crossover “Worlds Collide”. Nuckles ends the podcast by swearing at our listeners. (Yeah. Good way to keep what little listeners we have.) Go 3DS case! Smash that laptop and silence its loud fan forever!

Read on for show notes.

[ MP3 Download ] [ iTunes ]

Phantasy Star Online 2 still coming West

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Some of you guys may have caught the rumor from TSSZ News that Phantasy Star Online 2 was unlikely to come west, citing an unnamed source. Curious, we at SEGAbits decided to try and get an answer straight from the source, so we e-mailed Kellie Parker over at SEGA and this was what she had to say:

Originally slated for an early 2013 launch, SEGA can officially confirm that PS02 has been delayed. We don’t have any specifics but will update everyone as soon as there are more details to share.

There’s nothing vague about this statement: PSO2 is still coming, but a date has not been decided. This is more or less just reiterating what SEGA already said months ago. For those who’ve been worried by reports from SEGA-Addicts and TSSZ indicating otherwise, this should put their minds at ease.

This wouldn’t be the first time SEGA went hush-hush on a delayed project. Both Rhythm Thief and Anarchy Reigns received the silent treatment in 2012 shortly after SEGA’s restructuring, leading many to believe the localization of both projects had been canceled, despite confirmation from employees within SEGA that both games were still coming. SEGA has also demonstrated that they have no issue simply telling fans a game isn’t coming, as they demonstrated earlier today when they confirmed NOVA wasn’t coming west.

Currently no plans for Phantasy Star Nova in the West

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If you were looking forward to playing Phantasy Star NOVA in English, you may be out of luck. The website SEGA-Addicts just reached out to Kellie Parker for a statement regarding PSN’s status in the West and this is what she had to say:

There are currently no plans to release Phantasy Star Nova in the Western market. Should this change, we will ensure the information is shared as soon as possible.

It’s disappointing to hear that SEGA currently has “no plans” to bring Nova west. The game will be the first Phantasy Star game since the Genesis titles to primarily focus on single player. Provided the game is as fun as it looks, it’s a real shame it might not be coming our way.

Could we see more Virtual On in 2015?

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Virtual On recently had a ‘memorial talk show’ live on Nico Nico where SEGA designer Mori Yasuhiro and model makers Volks and Hasegawa talked about the franchise’s history and creation of the model toys for the franchise. They showed off some matches and then Mori made some comments about the future of the franchise.

“Virtual On is still alive! Something might wake up [on Virtual On’s 20th anniversary]” – Mori Yasuhiro

What does this mean? Who knows. I guess we will find out sometime in 2015 when the franchise celebrates its 20th anniversary. Do you guys think there is a market for a brand new, next generation Virtual On?

Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing finally debuts on Android

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Seems like SEGA took their sweet time porting over Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing to Android, especially when you consider the fact that the game came out two years ago. But hey, it’s here now and you can own it for $1.99! This is port of the DS version, cleaned up for higher resolution phones.

The game just came out and reviews aren’t that positive. Out of three reviews, two of them have been one stars and the other was three. Hopefully SEGA addresses issues of lag and other complaints.

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Yakuza Ishin’s TGS gameplay trailer has lots of slicing and dicing


SEGA has released two trailers for the upcoming Playstation exclusive, Yakuza Ishin. The first one and the one we embeded above is the gameplay trailer showing off the combat system, forging system and a few other tidbits.

Now the other trailer is the story trailer, this one uses the intro from the cinematic trailer shown off at the Sony conference, which was also awesome.  The game comes out in Japan on both Playstation 3 and Playstation 4 on February 22nd, 2014.

SEGA in the Media: FOX’s “Dads” takes the Dreamcast hostage

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FOX’s live action sitcom Dads, from Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane, is one of the fall season’s worst shows reviews-wise. Perhaps the production crew knew they had a stinker on their hands and threw a Dreamcast into the set dressing. Hey, if it worked for The Drew Carey Show, it could work for them. The series follows two guys named Warner and Eli who are successful video game developers who are forced to have their fathers move in with them, thus explaining the Dreamcast sitting on Seth Green’s desk. Why a modern game developer would have so many pieces of 90’s era hardware on his work desk is unknown. Perhaps they’re indie Dreamcast developers? In any case, save yourself the trouble watching the show and just enjoy the image above.