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SEGA Talk Podcast #52: SEGA Channel (1994)

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SEGA Talk is taking a break from games to talk about one of the earliest digital rental services ever to launch, the Sega Channel. How did SEGA get games beamed from you cable provider on to your Sega Genesis/Mega Drive? What was reception like and how did it work? Let’s explore on this episode of SEGA Talk!

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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!

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Crunchyroll and Adult Swim announce Shenmue: The Animation, 13 episode anime series

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It looks like the Shenmue: The Animation is a real thing thanks to Crunchyroll and Adult Swim, as they have announced that they are teaming up to distribute the production outside of Japan and mainland China on the Crunchyroll and Adult Swim platforms.

The series is set to have 13 episodes and chronicles the adventures of Ryo Hazuki as he finds his father’s murderer. According to the press release you will visit Yokosuka and Hong Kong metropolis. So it looks like the first season is going to cover all of the first game and probably some of the sequel.

Hit the jump for the press release:

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Sega Saturn Japanese exclusive SRPG “Valhollian” getting fan made English translation

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The fan translation team known as Meduza Team (recently they translated Linkle Liver Story and provided widescreen hacks for Shining Force III, Powerslave and Dead or Alive) have announced they are working on a English translation for Valhollian or better known as “Zanma Chouougi Valhollian” . This Sega Saturn exclusive SRPG came out in 1998 and was developed by Datt Japan which only worked on two previous Sega Saturn games, Virtual Casino (1996) and Monster Slider (1997).

Quite frankly surprised this title never got a proper translation and release in the West since the game did sport some really cool looking polygon graphics and seems to have a pretty interesting cast of characters. Check out the video above on the work they’ve done on the game so far. Pretty interesting project and worth keeping an eye on if you are looking for more Sega Saturn goodness.

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Virtua Fighter to have a collaboration with Goonya Fighter for Nintendo Switch

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According to a Dengeki Online article, a collaboration between the party fighting game, Goonya Fighter, and SEGA’s 3D fighting game series “Virtua Fighter” was announced. For those who are unfamiliar with this indie game, Goonya Fighter is a 4 player party fighting game for Nintendo Switch which involves flopping your opponents and features 3 game modes, 90 battlefields, and online gameplay.

While the collaboration date for the crossover is unknown at this time, we do know that a few of the Virtua Fighter cast will be making appearances as skins based on the Twitter post from the official Goonya Fighter Twitter account. The cast consists of Akira Yuki, Pai Chan, Lau Chan, Sarah Bryant, and Wolf Hawkfield.

With all of these collaborations happening, I do hope that they give more exposure to younger audiences for SEGA to revive more of their classic titles to modern gaming. What do you all think? Let us know in the comments below!

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SEGA announces Project B.L.A.C.K as Sakura Revolution -Flower Blooming Maidens-, an action RPG for iOS and Android smartphones

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Seems like the recent Sakura Wars trademarks that were filed months ago are coming true as SEGA has officially announced that Project B.L.A.C.K and Nippon Dakkan will be called Sakura Revolution -Flower Blooming Maidens-. an action RPG smartphone title presented by SEGA and Delightworks during their official live stream.

We are shown an animated story about the game and it’s characters.. As we all know, the Great Emperor Group B.L.A.C.K is a team of young female artists who want to help fight for the future of Japan. Among them, the performances of song and dances by 12 aces called “Noble 12” are supreme and mesmerizing. The acronym of B.L.A.C.K stands for Brilliant Legislative Artistic Celebrity Knights. which features a modern day setting starring Shino Sakura was born in Aogashima, a remote isle in the Izu island chain. She’s an innocent and unfinished maiden whose mother is [redacted].

Sakura Revolution -Flower Blooming Maidens- is set to be release for iOS and Android smartphones this year in Japan. We’ll keep you updated with more information on the game as more details are released. Here is some gameplay footage of the upcoming smartphone title. (Special thanks to HDKirin for capturing it during the stream)

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SEGA at Tokyo Game Show 2020 Website Released; Cosplay Contest & Broadcast held on 9/25 to 9/27

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This year’s Tokyo Game Show will be held online with SEGA launching a new website and will be broadcasting live during the show from September 25th to the 27th on SEGA Atlus TV. Their also hosting a cosplay contest during TGS 2020 where fans can submit their SEGA/Atlus related cosplay creations during the entry period by following the Japanese SEGA Official Twitter account and using the hashtags #SEGATGS2020Cosplay and #SEGATGS2020 with past cosplay also welcomed for entry.

What SEGA/Atlus games and announcements are you expecting this year at Tokyo Game Show 2020? Let us know in the comments below.

 

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SEGA looking for the right time to bring Yakuza Ishin West

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The last few years have been a great time to be a Yakuza fan with the series’ rise to success over here in the west. It seems SEGA America is taking the series more seriously by investing in these titles, for example Yakuza Like a Dragon will feature a full English dub. In a recent interview with ‘Rocket Beans Gaming’, SEGA’s Senior Localization Producer Scott Strichart explained that SEGA America and Japan want to bring Yakuza spin-offs to the West but needs to find the right time:

“We’re interested in doing what Japan’s gonna do at this point. We absolutely recognize there are some holes in the backlog that we want to do and Japan wants us to do. It’s literally just a matter of finding space for them on the slate. Like you said there’s over saturation issues, do we stop doing new things to put out old things? Do we put out the old thing in the middle of working on the new thing? Then say please buy both? There’s definitely an issue there with over saturating the market. That’s where we’ve kinda landed on that unfortunately. As much as we all wanna do it we need to find the time and space.”

So this doesn’t confirm that its happening, but it at least confirms that SEGA Japan and America are interested but don’t want to over saturate the market. It makes sense, there has been quite a bit of Yakuza releases these last few years with them even releasing all the once exclusive PlayStation 3 games on PlayStation 4.

[Source: Tojodojo]

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How To Make Sega Ages Releases More Appealing

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[If you want to see more content like this, I’d appreciate if you guys subscribe to my YouTube channel. Have a few interesting videos in the works!]

SEGA Ages has been the longest running retro line in SEGA’s history starting up all the way back on the Sega Saturn in 1996, the series would evolve itself into the Sega Ages 2500 series on PlayStation 2, then become Sega Ages Online in early 2012 on PlayStation 3 & Xbox 360. SEGA would later rebrand the series as ‘SEGA 3D Classics’ for the Nintendo 3DS but switched it back to SEGA Ages when they launched the series on Nintendo Switch back in 2018. Since then SEGA has announced and released 19 retro titles on exclusively to Switch with its latest one being Herzog Zwei, a real-time strategy game for the SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive.

During the announcement of Herzog Zwei the team mentioned that this could be the last release for SEGA AGES as they don’t have any plans for future releases. So I went ahead and asked you guys on the SEGAbits Twitter what SEGA Ages could change to make the titles more appealing and I feel like we are on the same track on changes we would love to see if SEGA continues moving forward with even more releases into 2021 and some issues with the brand that they could fix.

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SEGA teases Project “B.L.A.C.K.” – Wonderful Future; more details coming September 2nd

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SEGA has created a website and teased a new project titled, Project “B.L.A.C.K” – Wonderful Future, which is about a group of young female artists who want to help fight for the future of Japan. Among them, the performances of song and dances by 12 aces called “Noble 12” are supreme and mesmerizing. The acronym of B.L.A.C.K stands for Brilliant Legislative Artistic Celebrity Knights. Nothing else about the game is known at the moment besides the main characters but we do know that the game will involve Sakura Wars composer, Kohei Tanaka, in some capacity and more details on the game will be announced on September 2nd.

This game could be related to the previous article regarding several trademarks for the Sakura Wars brand and Sakura Wars fan, Rachael, discovered that the black emblem contains the kanji “Dai Teikoku” meaning Grand Imperial which could be a reference to the base of the Imperial Combat Revue from the main series. What do you think that this game could be a spin-off to the Sakura Wars series or an entirely different thing? Let us know in the comments below.

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Sonic 2 ex-artist shows off unapproved SEGA pitch for ‘Spellcaster’ fighting game

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We have been covering all the SEGA Technical Institute pitches that Sonic the Hedgehog 2 artist Craig Stitt has been posting over at the SEGA Retro Gaming group on Facebook. First he showed off his pitch for Sonic’s partner called Boomer, then he showed off Astropede and now he is showing off a pitch Craig Stitt did with programmer Dave Sanner back in SEGA’s 16-bit days. The game was set to be called ‘Spellcaster’ and was meant to be a two player combat game based around the use of magic. The gimmick would be that the game would have a musical component in that players had to press button combinations to cast a spell but each button would play a musical note.

The idea would be that players would have a easier time doing complicated button combinations if they were based around sound. According to Craig Stitt, the pitch was put together after Sonic Spinball was completed and was rejected, this is when Craig Stitt began working on his Astropede pitch. Check out some of the artwork Craig Stitt did for Spellcaster below:

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Puyo Puyo Tetris 2: The Ultimate Puzzle Match announced; Pre-Order Launch Edition for rare in-game Item Cards for Skill Battle Mode

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SEGA has announced today that Puyo Puyo and Tetris will be reuniting once again in Puyo Puyo Tetris 2: The Ultimate Puzzle Match coming to Nintendo Switch and the Xbox One family of devices, including Xbox Series X, and PlayStation®4 on December 8th, with the PlayStation®5 version coming Holiday 2020 and Steam version coming early 2021.

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EXCLUSIVE: Sonic & Knuckles Rock the Rock Revisited with Chris Tang – Beating the Previous Record!

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High Score is a new documentary series on Netflix charting the history of video games. While the whole series is recommended to SEGA fans, the fourth episode in particular is a must watch. The episode, titled “This is War”, covers the console wars of SEGA’s push to outsell Nintendo in the United States. SEGA all-stars, and friends to the site, Tom Kalinske (former President and CEO of SEGA of America) and game designer and gaming tournament champion Chris Tang are featured in the episode. Chris is known best to Sonic fans as the winner of SEGA and MTV’s Rock the Rock competition in 1994.

Following the Netflix series debut, I got to talking to Chris and he revealed to me that the production of the documentary prompted him to revisit Sonic & Knuckles and redo the Rock the Rock’s finals competition run. The rules being collect the most rings in Launch Base Zone in 3 minutes as Knuckles. Chris, always the competitor, wanted to go up against himself and see if his current skills and abilities could outdo his previous win. After a day of practice, Chris fired up his recording devices and recorded this run that we are proud to debut exclusively here at SEGAbits!

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Ninjala to feature Sonic the Hedgehog Collaboration

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The developers behind Ninjala, a free-to-play online multiplayer action game developed by SOLEIL and published by GungHo Online Entertainment for Nintendo Switch which features modern day ninjas participating in a tournament with ninja gum as weapons, revealed on the 8th Dev Diary that they will include their first in-game collaboration with Sonic the Hedgehog as part of a celebration of surpassing 4 million downloads. The developers of Ninjala will have more news share regarding the collaboration on a later date.

What are your thoughts on the Sonic the Hedgehog Collaboration in Ninjala? Will you be playing the game with friends when it arrives? Let us know in the comments below.

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Sakura Wars Acoustic Music Concert “Sakura Evening” to feature live streaming

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The Sakura Wars Acoustic Music Concert “Sakura Evening” will be held at the Asakusa Hana Theater in Japan on September 25th and October 2nd. The concert will be performed by none other than Chisa Yokoyama, known as the voice actress for Sakura Shinguji of the main games in the series along with Yaksha in the latest entry. The concert will also have Kazue Ikura (Leni Milchstrasse VA), Ai Orikasa (Ayame & Kaede Fujieda VA), and Urara Takano (Maria Tachibana VA) performing at the event.

Due to concerns of the conoravirus, viewers will have the option to watch the concert via live stream with two performances each day, 4 performances in all. Tickets for the live stream will be available on August 29th for 3,000 yen. Click here for more information on the concert with Google Translate.

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