Streets of Rage 4 artists release Garou: Mark of the Wolves 2 concept art video, now I want this to be real…

Garou: Mark of the Wolves is one of my favorite fighting games along with its cousin Street Fighter 3rd Strike, both games had a very unique style and as you also know Lizardcube’s games’ Streets of Rage 4 and Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap also have a unique art style. So, Lizardcube artist’s Ben Fiquet and Julian Nguyen-You released a 20 plus minute video showing how they create these retro gaming concept art pitches, this time with Garou: Mark of the Wolves 2.

Its interesting because they really got the game to resemble the original game in tone of colors but the art style that has now become signature Lizardcube is still there. I think they did a good job of having a great blend and personally would be stoked if Lizardcube made Garou: Mark of Wolves 2. Hey, SNK, you watching this?

Yeah, but Lizardcube is probably too busy with a new Shinobi, right?

Taxman’s Sonic the Hedgehog 1 & 2 Definitive Mobile Ports Finally get Decompiled by Fans Allowing Unofficial PSVita and PC ports

I will admit that I’m not really well versed on how this whole reverse engineering works, but thankfully twitter user Rubberduckycooly does and has now decompiled Christian “Taxman” Whitehead’s Sonic the Hedgehog 1 & 2 mobile ports, which are considered by fans as the definitive versions of these titles.

You can check out Rubberduckycooly’s github page for future updates on this project.

This project would allow us to run Sonic the Hedgehog 1 and 2 mobile ports on other platforms natively. So far we have seen people posting that its working on Windows, Mac, Linux, and the PlayStation Vita! This could also mean we can get fan ports on other hacked handhelds or consoles as well, but we shall see where the project goes. From what I understand, rubberduckycooly used the Sonic CD SDK base to get these ports on PC, Vita; so we shall see what happens in the future.

Really though, why hasn’t SEGA released these versions on all current consoles? Am I the only one that things its a waste to keep them mobile only?

GENDA SEGA Entertainment dethrones Taito taking their Guinness World Record for “Most Claw Crane Game Machines at a Single Venue”

It looks like SEGA continues to gather up world records in the arcade space, previously they had the impressive Guinness World Record for “Most Prolific Producer of Arcade Game Machines with over 500 different games”. Now SEGA went on to dethrone Taito’s world record for the most claw machines in a single venue. How many machines did it take? Exactly 477!

Now we can get into semantics since this is actually ‘GENDA SEGA’, which as we all know is basically GENDA using the SEGA name for the arcade space. According to the Guinness World Records page:

“The most claw crane game machines at a single venue is 477 and was achieved by GENDA SEGA Entertainment Inc. (Japan) at Sega Shinjuku Kabukicho in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan on 7 January 2021.

The venue is a two-floor arcade that almost solely houses claw crane game machines and the attempt was for PR purposes since the arcade has recently been refurbished and reopened.”

Not a huge fan of claw machines but I do like the idea of having SEGA’s name in the world record book even if its GENDA SEGA.

Storm Collectibles adds Streets of Rage & Golden Axe figures to their line

It looks like Blue Fin Brands’ Storm Collectibles will now add Streets of Rage and Golden Axe to its ever growing line-up of video game figures. The selection of figures is sort of interesting, while it makes sense to have someone like Axel Stone on here, its interesting that they went with the Streets of Rage 4 look. Also for Golden Axe we got none of the main heroes but instead we got Death Adder (makes sense) and a Skeleton? A bit random?

Even so these figures look pretty awesome, I have to admit. Check out the Golden Axe Skeleton and Street of Rage 4’s Axel Stone product pages.It seems that I can’t find the product page for Death Adder, so keep checking the product page here.

Astro City Mini Review: The Perfect Way To End SEGA’s 60th Anniversary?

The years come and go, it is now 2021 and I finally put together a review for SEGA Toy’s Astro City Mini. The unit has a lot of things going for it that makes it a must own device, but at the same time has some glaring flaws that we need to discuss. Check out the video above and if you want to see more, subscribe to my YouTube channel.

What are your thoughts on the Astro City Mini? Let us know in the comments below!

Persona 5 Strikers – All-Out-Action Trailer takes the Phantom Thieves to a whole new level!; Digital Deluxe and Standard Editions Included

Atlus West had dropped a new gameplay trailer for Persona 5 Strikers showcasing each character’s specific skills and summoned Personas during combat. Players can strengthen their skills and abilities and fight with their own style. All of the Phantom Thieves members are fully playable and each character has their own unique suite of wide-ranging, flashy spells and magic to clear out big hordes of enemies.

Also if you pre-order Persona 5 Strikers Digital Deluxe Edition for $69.99, you’ll get the following:

  • Exclusive access to the game four days early, on February 19
  • Bonus Content Digital Download
    • Digital Art Book
  • Digital Soundtrack – Over 40 songs included
  • Behind-the-Scenes Video – Making of the Music “You Are Stronger” and “Towards a Dream”
  • Persona Legacy BGM
    • Persona 1 and Persona 1 PSP remake
  • Persona 2 Innocent Sin and Persona 2 Eternal Punishment
  • Persona 3 and Persona 3 Portable
  • Persona 4 and Persona 4 Golden
  • All-out Attack Pack
    • Boost Skills Pack
  • Basic Affinity Skills Pack
  • Ally Buff Skills Pack
  • Armor Pack
  • Persona Points
  • Enemy Debuff Skills Pack

Standard Edition is also available for $59.99 All pre-orders, digital or physical, come with access to the Bonus Content Digital Download.

Persona 5 Strikers is coming to PlayStation®4, Nintendo Switch™ and Steam® on February 23rd.

Pre-order Persona 5 Strikers Digital Deluxe Edition
PlayStation Store | Nintendo eShop | Steam Store

Pre-order Persona 5 Strikers Standard Edition
Best Buy | GameStop | Amazon

Free Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 Update Available; Play as Sonic the Hedgehog and 3 additional characters with new modes

A free update went live for Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 with four new playable characters to choose from which includes: Liddell, Mr. Accor, Fish Prince and Sonic the Hedgehog. A brand new “Boss Battle with Everyone” mode has also been included in the free update along with new BGM and icons to change around. It’s nice to see a change around with Sonic as a playable character in a official Puyo Puyo game and hope to see more iconic SEGA characters as free DLC if this title becomes really successful globally.

Puyo Puyo Tetris 2: The Ultimate Puzzle Match is now available for Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One®, Xbox Series X, and Steam.

 

‘Irena Genesis Metal Fury’ Kickstarter launched, a metal shoot ’em up for SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive

A new studio making new shoot’em up Irena Genesis Metal Fury for the SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive have launched their kickstarter. According to the Kickstarter page the game is influenced by SEGA classics such as Thunder Force III/IV, Aero Blaster, Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master, and Contra Hard Corps. Looking at the footage above, its definitely obvious.

As most SEGA fans know, these new studios pop up and promise big Kickstarter retro projects but most turn into nothing. The team seems to understand this and have at least put up a proof of concept demo, which you can download here.

If the game is fully funded (which seems likely right now, its half way to its goal with 29 days left. ), it will get a 7 level game with cut scenes including dialogue, 3 upgradable weapons, multiple speed modes, and a ton of other features.

If you are a big SEGA fan collector, there is some really great priced physical goods given out like the $55 dollar pledge with the physical game cartridge with manual and a bunch of cool digital goodies. Check it out before its gone since some of these rewards are limited (and moving fast).

Ground Zero Texas – Nuclear Edition Revives SEGA CD Classic – Announced for PS4 and Steam

Screaming Villains, who released HD ports of Night Trap, Double Switch and Corpse Killer – FMV games made famous on the SEGA CD – is back at it with an HD release of Ground Zero Texas.

The game will release digitally March 2nd, 2021 to PlayStation 4 and Steam, and there will be a physical Limited Run Games release which will be available for pre-order on January 22, 2021. We can assume there will be both standard and collector’s editions as they have gone for the previous games.

SEGA Talk Podcast #61: Arcade Candy Cabinets (1986-2005)

Barry and George take a break from talking about SEGA software and shift the focus to SEGA’s legendary “Candy Cabinet” line of multi-purpose arcade cabinets which included the famous Astro City and many more. Let’s dive deep into Japanese arcade history on this hardware episode of SEGA Talk Podcast!

Support us on Patreon! Get early access, tell us what games to cover, and have your SEGA memories read at the end and more!

[iTunes – Stitcher – YouTube – Play Music – RSS – Download]

If you want to give us feedback, suggest a topic for the next podcast or want to ask a question for us to answer on the next episode you can add  them as a comment below or send theme directly to our email. Make sure you use subject line ‘SEGA Talk’ and as always, thanks for listening!

Japanese only Yakuza: Black Panther on PSP gets English fan patch after 6 years of work


The PSP exclusive Yakuza: Black Panther (also Black Panther: Yakuza New Chapter) or as its known in Japan Kurohyou: Ryu ga Gotoku Shinshou came out way back in September 2010. The franchise got a sequel and even a TV show based on the new, younger leading character. Sadly due to low software sales in the west we never got a localization of this spin-off franchise. There has always been a really good online guide you can use but now you can play it with a fan made patch.

CD Romance patched English ISO

How complete is the patch? Well, its only translated the main story from start to end, but substories haven’t been translated yet. At least this is the feedback I’ve gotten which has made me personally made me want to wait for the full project to be translated. You can check the translation team’s GBA Temp thread.

For those of you that have been waiting for these games to be translated, you can thank: Aegehn, Fshadow, KHHSubs, and FlyingClimber for putting years of hard work getting this released!

Unboxing SEGA’s Astro City Mini and Game Center Style Kit

SEGA released its SEGA Astro City Mini Arcade unit to close out its historical 60th anniversary. Today we will be unboxing and giving you my early impressions of the unit, while I work on a full review that should be up on here by Monday! I also got the ‘The Game Center Style Kit’ which adds a fully functioning piggy bank bottom, stool and marquee with stickers.

What have been your guys’ impressions of SEGA Toy’s Astro City Mini unit?

Atlus confirms 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim a success, teases Persona 25th Anniversary project coming 2021

Famitsu published their New Year card messages from 44 Japanese company, which many teased about what will be going on in 2021. One of these companies that let out some information on their 2021 plans was Atlus, which stated:

“13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim received high ratings and numerous awards, as well as surpassed 300,000 total sales in the year since its release.

“In addition to Shin Megami Tensei V and Project Re Fantasy (title tentative), which are in active development, in 2021 we’re also planning a ‘Persona 25th Anniversary’ commemoration project. Please look forward to it!”

I’ve been playing 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim and having a great time, good to see it succeed even though I think it deserves a lot more sales than 300,000. I’m also looking forward to finally getting a real title for Project Re Fantasy and maybe even have it release!

As far as what the ‘Persona 25th Anniversary’ project will be, it will most likely be a Japanese only affair but we shall see.

[Source: Gematsu]

Unboxing: Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog Animation Legends Blind Bag Part 3

Back again, this time with a captain’s hat! It’s another blind bag of animation cels from the 1993 cartoon Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog from Animation Legends.

The company promises that you are guaranteed to have an A rated cel (80% – 100% of a character), and the remaining cels will be randomly selected with a B (cel visibly shows less than 80% of a character) or C (cel might include parts of a character but these cels mainly include scenery or other aspects of the show) grade. I ended up ordering another 15-pack and above you can check out my third unboxing.

If you like what you see, hit up Animation Legends and check out their offerings. Many cel packs are currently 50% off, and as an added bonus you can use promo code SEGABITS10 to take an additional 10% off your purchase!