Next month, Sega will once again prove correct the old adage that not all good things last forever. The publishe??r plans to delist over 60 classic Sega Genesis and Dreamcast games on December 6, 2024.

Sega games are being removed from digital stores across all major platforms, affecting PC via Steam, Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch. Steam users will be hit the hardest as 60 games are getting removed from the storefront. Xbox users will lose 11 Genesis games with Mega Drive Classics. PlayStation and Switch users will lose Mega Drive Classics.

Sega prepares to unplug 60 games in December

Sega hasn't explained why the games are getting the boot. The FAQ page on its support site?? is sadly rather barren, confirming what games are being delisted, the date and time of their departure, and whether or not you can still play the titles you already own. You can, by the way. So, hurrah!

The likely reason for the upcoming delist-a-geddon is that Sega may be preparing a new suite of bundles for its classic games. The Sega Mega Drive and Genesis Classics collection has been bouncing around for over 14 years. It's been the best way to experience Genesis roms without paying collectors absurd prices or hoisting the sails. The same can be said for its Dreamcast Collection. While a smaller bundle with only six games (plus NiGHTS), it was still the preferred way to gather classics like Sonic Adventure DX and Crazy Taxi.

There's still plenty of time to pick up any Sega Genesis and Dreamcast games you want before they're delisted. On Steam, buying the Dreamcast Collection as a bundle applies a hefty discount to the total.

The timing of the news is certainly peculiar, especially in light of Sega's recent enthusiasm over revitalizing its dusty IPs with new games and adapting some of them for TV and film. Here's hoping the company is planning for some new way to exp??erience these golden oldies. Game preservation enthusiasts don't need any more roadblocks than they have a?lready.

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It’s been 25 long years since the release of the Dreamcast (in North America), Sega’s short-lived but beloved little console. That’s about the time that society began to slide downhill. To celebrate this (the c??onsole, not the slide), Limited Run Games has some great swag to take you back to the before times.

The big push they’re doing is mostly behind the trading cards, which they say are the “coolest trading cards to grace your eyeballs and touch your fingertips.�Wow, it sounds like I wrote that. Although, I probably would have said “touch your eyeballs�or to give it even more of a vaguely creepy sound. There are 200 cards featuring Dreamcast art that you can smear across your retina. You can buy a hobby box with 20 cards for $24.99 or a booster box with 120 cards for $124.99.

I don’t collect cards and never have. Is that normal pricing for trading cards? The booster packs look like VMUs and there are some?? cool card storage options. H??old on, I can’t get over the price. And then you can pay for sleeves and a box?

The other gear seems a lot more reasonable to me. There’s a skateboard deck for $74.99, a pin, a coin, and a keychain. There’s a hat for $31.99 and a hoodie for $54.99, which seem like fair prices. Everything seems priced right, but the cards give me pause. But, like I said, I know nothing about trading cards. They should have made it a CCG so we could pit Crazy Taxi against Space Channel 5.

Pre-orders are open now, with the shipping date for the items p??redicted?? for March 2025. That production time sounds very Limited Run Games. I’m not throwing shade. I like LRG for the most part, but you grow to expect long lead times.

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Twitter user playsegasaturn has posted images from Gamescom displaying a Sega Saturn ??arcade stick and a prototype wireless Dreamcast controller. These haven’t been of??ficially announced by the company and seem to be in an early state, but they’re a good indication of future plans.

The arcade stick is somewhat similar to the console’s Virtua Stick (it’s displayed next to a Virtua Stick box) while also being evocative of the Sega Astro City control panel. It has 8 buttons and (confusingly) labeled for both Switch and other platforms. There’s a large number of sync options on the dial for?? xinput, dinput, Switch, Sega Saturn, and so on.

Besides that, there is the wireless D??reamcast controller. It looks to largely be a similar form factor as the standard-issue console controller. However, there are additional face buttons and a different stick and d-pad. Notably, there is no window for a VMU display. However, there is also what looks like the preliminary mold for something that would contain a VMU. Either way, it looks like a very early prototype, and it could change. I don’t know why it would have such a large face without the VMU window, so I imagine it just isn’t implemented yet.

Neither device has yet received Sega’s approval, so things may change to meet their vision. Retro-bit has previously released replica Genesis and Saturn controllers, and have even released a new wireless Saturn controller with added analog sticks.

I could honestly use a wireless Dream??cast controller. Living rooms have changed, and I have had to buy cable extenders for my wired ones. On the other hand, I don’t need a new stick. I’ve done modifications on the one I currently use to make it suit my preferences, and they take up a lot of space. However, if the design changes to something closer to a Sega Astro City panel, then I may be enticed.

No? word o??n when we’ll see either of the controllers.

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Everyone loves the Dreamcast. Okay, when the console needed people to buy it, it seemed like nobody loved the Dreamcast, but everyone loves the Dreamcast now. It was Sega at their best. The Genesis had some identity issues, and the Saturn compounded on them, but the Dreamcast presented a confident and focused Sega as they plunged ??toward the spot on the ground where they were about to leave a crater.

Like many people, I skipped out on the Dreamcast during its initial run, but I’ve been making up for it ever since. However, I never got around to Space Channel 5, one of the more unique experiments that came out for the system in?? 1999.

So, why now? I’ve been watching GameCenter CX again, and there’s an episode where Arino makes an attempt at it, and he’s just so bad. Completely awful. I wanted to see if I’d be similarly as bad, and o?f course, I’m not.

[caption id="attachment_397527" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Whaaaao!

1999 was still very early in the evolution of the rhythm genre, and Space Channel 5 shows its age. You play as a reporter for the titular future TV station, Ulala. She travels from one crisis to another perpetrated by the Morolians, an alien race of adorable Gumby people. They’ve been going aroun??d forcing people to dance, so it’s up to Ulala to go and save ??the day.

Which is a strange thing for a reporter to do. The whole news pro??gram thing doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense, but it ties into the twist at the end, so whatever.

Gameplay involves being in various situations where dance moves play out in front of Ulala, and she must repeat them. It’s a lot like the old Simon games where you have to repeat a sequence of colored lights. It’s also a bit like Parappa the Rapper, but without the visua??l cues, and tha?t kind of drives me crazy.

[caption id="attachment_397528" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Space Cats

You repeat dance moves by pressing a direction on the stick or either the A or B button. You use the A button to zap aliens and the B button to sa??ve people. The scenes change between shootouts, dance-offs, and hostage situations, which is an absolutely bizarre mix. The dance-offs give you a healthbar ?that gets whittled down whenever you make an error in a section, but for everywhere else, you just need to keep your ratings up. You need to push ratings up past a certain threshold by the end of each level or you fail and have to repeat it.

It can be a bit harsh. You only need to make one mistake during a section of dance-off for you to lose a heart. Likewise, you might not know until the final tally if your rating will meet the threshold to pass a missi??on. Whenever you fail at one of these criteria, you’re pushed back to the start of the level. They aren’t very long, but I could only stand to hear Ulala say “Fab-u-lous�so many times before I needed to take a break.

Likewise, there are only four levels. While you’re unlikely to beat all of them on your first try, getting through Space Channel 5 do??esn’t really take long. Unless you're a Japanese comedian with no rhythm. After that, there isn’t a whole lot of replay value. You get a harder mode, but I found this absolutely maddening?.

[caption id="attachment_397530" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Blood on the dance floor

Don’t get me wrong, I found Space Channel 5 to be a pretty ??enjoyable game. It’s interesting in its absurd flamboyancy. It’s like a late �0s Britta??ny Spears music video on some mind-opening hallucinogens.

The strangest part is when you rescue “Space Michael,�which is a cameo appearance by Michael Jackson. By the late �0s, you were either holding onto the notion that Michael Jackson was still cool, or you found him deeply creepy. It’s really unclear which side Space Channel 5 is on because, for one thing, it’s a celebrity cameo, but I don’t know how anyone could see his appearance as cool. To put it charitabl????y, a skin-tight chrome bodysuit doesn’t suit him.

On the other hand, I really had trouble with the lack of visual cues present on screen for a lot of the segments. There are some places where you can see how many button presses you need for each direction. But a lot of the time, it falls on you to memorize. I can do that. Mostly. However, I can’t predict when the game is going to throw it ??back to me. Sometimes, it will be going through a steady pace of a few prompts before sending it back to you. Then it'll suddenly switch to throwing out one or two prompts before switching rapidly, and it’s impossible to prepare for.

From Parappa the Rapper to Rock Band, most rhythm games have a visual way of telling you when you need to press buttons. That mechanic hadn’t been proven necessary by 1999, and it hurts the fun of Space Channel 5.

[caption id="attachment_397531" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

The show's been cancelled

It also has a weirdly immemorable soundtrack for a rhythm game. It’s not bad, but it really gets lost behind the “Left, shoot, right, shoot, up, shoot, shoot.�I’m not saying it’s a huge issue, it just ??puzzles me that a rhythm game wouldn’t have more focus on providing a killer soundtrack.

It might sound like I didn’t enjoy Space Channel 5, and that’s not true. I have reservations, but I think it’s an interesting landmark in the gaming landscape. I mostly respect it because it’s such an extravagant presentation of something bizarre. Parappa the Rapper feels like an easygoing experiment, whereas Space Channel 5 busts through the door and starts pe??lvic thrusting while chanting its own name.

So few games have been so confident of their weirdness and so secure in their flamboyancy. Space Channel 5 is the unemployed couch surfer you defend by saying they have a “great personality.�I’m honestly curious about the VR-only Space Channel 5 VR: Kinda Funky News Flash simply because I honestly don’t believe that the sheer naked style of the first two Space Channel 5 games can convincingly be replicated today.

For?? other retro titles you may have missed, click right here!

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Teach a man to fish

Sega Bass Fishing is a classic arcade game from 1997 that, as the title suggests, has players pulling out their rods, bait, and fishing lines. For a limited time, Sega is givin?g the game away for free on Steam, and there aren't too many hoops to jump through to acquire it.

[caption id="attachment_393059" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via Sega.[/caption]

How to get Sega Bass Fishing for free

Since its release, Sega Bass Fishing has bee?n ported to several systems, including the ?Dreamcast, Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii. It's a dated game, so the minimum spec requirements won't be taxing any modern PCs.

The only thing you need to do to grab your free copy of Sega Bass Fishing on Steam is to sign up for Sega's newsletter. There isn't too much personal inform??ation needed except your name, birth date, country of residence, and email address.

Before submitting the sign-up form, remember to tick the box at the bottom to indicate that you want a copy of the game. You have un?til July 31 to sign-up for the ?game. The codes for it will be mailed out starting August 1.

Interested in more classic arcade games? Grab the Dreamcast Collection bundle on Steam. It comes with a host of nostalgia-inducing titles including Crazy Taxi and Sonic Adventure 2.

The post Sega Bass Fishing is free via newsletter appeared first on Destructoid.

Modders doing what Sega don't

We never got a taste of Sega’s 2000 Dreamcast title, Rent-A-Hero No. 1. But fans have stepped in where the company let us down by creating a very comprehensive translation? of the title.

Originally released in Japan in May, 2000, Rent-A-Hero No. 1 was?? a game that got lost in the implosion of the Dreamcast. Sega eventually ported it to Xbox in 2003, but since that was when the company’s support of Microsoft was starting to waver, it never made it across the pond. This is despite the fact that som??e reviewers at the time were actually provided with copies of the translated version.

Rent-A-Hero No. 1 is an action RPG about a 16-year-old who gets a set of armor that allows them to take a part-time job as a super-hero. Perhaps Sega never wanted to market it over here because of its deep roots in Japanese culture. That’s less of a problem in today’s world of Yakuza and Persona titles, but? at the time??, it was enough to give publishers pause.

Rent-A-Hero No. 1, is actually a remake of the 1991 Genesis/Mega Drive title that also was never localized. You know, it’s never too late, Sega.

Until they realize that, a hefty team of unofficial modders (dubbed the Rent-A-?Modders) did a pretty outstanding job at handling the localization. Beyond translating the text, the team added many exclusive features, including new models and animations, VMU graphics, and secret modes. It’s a hefty little patch that has a lot of love behind it.

You can find the patch, as well as the full credits of the Rent-A-Modders, right here on their Github.

The post Lost Dre?amca??st classic Rent-A-Hero No. 1 gets fan translation appeared first on Destructoid.

Industry mourns key figure in gaming history

Bernie Stolar, former president of Sony Computer Entertainment America and Sega of America, has passed away. The sad news was first announced by Stolar's friends before being verified by news outlet Gamesbeat. He was 75.

Stolar, who first entered the video game industry in 1980, had a stellar career that saw him work alongside ?multiple gaming giants, often being a key figure in the conception, licensing, and release of some landmark hardware. Getting his break with Atari, Stolar would play a key role in th??e company's coin-op division, before eventually transitioning to lead developer on the company's handheld console, Atari Lynx.

Later in the 1990s, Stolar would be a founding member of Sony Computer Entertainment America, operating as vice president within the fledgling company and working as a licensor for the formative catalog of the company's new PlayStation brand. Stolar is credited with having brought Crash Bandicoot, Ridge Racer, Battle Arena Toshinden, and Spyro the Dragon to the game-changing console.

Having seen Stolar's success with the brand, Sega of America brought the Calif??ornian native on board to help develop and launch its next major hardware release, Sega Dreamcast. It was during his time as president and COO of Sega that Stolar acquired studio Visual Concepts, eventually leading to the first iteration of the 2K Sports brand �which still exists today under the ownership of Take-Two Interactive.

Having had a hand in the rise of Atari, PlayStation, Dreamcast, and many other recognized lines, Stolar stepped away from the gaming wing of the industry in the mid-'00s, instead choosing to work within mar?keting companies such as Adscape Media, GetFugu, and Zoom. While perhaps not as recognizable as some of his more media-facing peers, Stolar's time in the industry was key to the launch of some of the 20th century's most iconic brands. In particular, the successful la?unch of Sony PlayStation changed the entire business almost overnight, and Stolar's role in this cannot be overstated.

We at Des??tructoid offer our condolences to ?his family and friends.

The post Former Sony and Sega ??president Bernie Stolar passes away appeared first on Destructoid.

Economy crash puts paid to retro hardware rereleases

At the weekend, Sega Japan announced that it was releasing a new piece of portable hardware in the form of the Sega Mega Drive Mini II, a pint-sized edition of the 1993 console that will come pre-loaded with 50 Sega Mega Drive and Mega CD classics. Given that the Mega Drive Mini already exists,?? some fans might be puzzled as to why Sega has not instead focused on releasing a scaled-down model of its 199?4 console, Sega Saturn, or its 1998 big brother, the Sega Dreamcast.

Speaking with Famitsu, Sega ??hardware producer Yosuke Okunari offered up the unfortunate news that a Sega Saturn Mini or a Sega Dreamcast Mini are both very unlikely to ever see the light of day. Okunari understands that the audience is there for such consoles, but states that a combination of expensive c??omponents, further hampered by the COVID-19 pandemic's effect on manufacturing costs, has simply made the project uneconomical from both a production and finance perspective.

Okunari also suggested that the components used by Sega's Mini consoles are not quite up-to-spec in regards to running Sega Saturn titles �a console that is notoriously difficult to authentically emulate. Okunari jokes that the process of producing a Sega Saturn Mini in 2022 might see it launch with a price rivaling that of modern-day consoles. So it seems, for now at the very l?east, the Mega CD is as far as we are going in regards to the Sega Mini range.

The Sega Mega Drive Mini 2 launches in Japan October 27, priced at ¥9,980 (roughly $75 USD). Sega is yet to confirm whether this edition will also be released in the west. For more details on the console, check out @gosokkyu's Twitter thread translating/paraphrasing the Famitsu interview.

Sega producer says high costs? are preventing a Dreamcast or Sat?urn mini [VGC]

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Good to go!

The Army Men rollercoaster is a ride I’m very familiar with. Wait, “roller coaster�is maybe a bit too generous. What is mostly down rather than up? A log flume. I’m very familiar with the Army Men log flume. I can assure you, there is a high and a lot of lows as you get splashed in the face with gross amusement park water. I’ve covered some of the lows, but how abou??t we climb the conveyer belt to take a good look at the parking lot.

In terms of the series' majestic views, Army Men Sarge’s Heroes is what I typically peg as the best. It was decent but janky on the N64. While the cameraman is a drunken hog, the level design is pretty fly, the gameplay is uneven but fun, and the concept itself is a winner. Weirdly, it was revisited on the Dreamcast, the only Army Men title to land there. It took what might be the best Army Men game and made it better.

Importantly, Army Men Sarge’s Heroes is a port of the N64 version. There was another version released on PS1 and PC which was substantially different and tangibly not as good. The only benefit in that version that doesn’t land on the Dreamcast is pre-?r?endered cutscenes. The N64 used poorly pantomimed cutscenes, and the port carries them over, including their strange motion quirks. The cutscenes are voiced over now, but it would have been nice to have the nicer pre-rendered ones.

Aside from that, it’s the N64 version. Helmed by Michael Mendheim, his idea for the series was to introduce a more character-based framework. True to its name, this was the title that introduced mainstay protagonist Sargeant Hawke and his company of�heroes. All of them were voiced by Jim Cummings. Many future games in the franchise would revolve around these characters; everything from Army Men: Air Attack to Army Men RTS.

The Army Men series has almost invariably revolved around the war between two factions of mass-produced plastic men: Green and Tan. The original Army Men game just had you traverse environments that were in scale with you green dude: the plastic world. Army Men 2 introduced the concept of o?ur world �where the plastic figures are only a few centimeters tall �existi??ng as a parallel universe.

Army Men Sarge’s Heroes continues this concept while taking things into the ?third-person perspective, and the use of the other world is well done. You catch your first glimpse of a gigantic bathtub in the third level, then they’re sprinkled in occasionally before the game ends with a grand finale through someone’s house. It helps keep you going, if only to see the next other world level.

The level design is fantastic; easily the feature of Army Men Sarge’s Heroes that holds up today. While t??he levels play out in a rather linear fashion, they’re peppered with nooks and crannies where you can stock up on ammunition for your more exotic weapons. The use of the other world is phenomenal, as you climb their impressive verticality and meander thro?ugh environments that would be mundane if they weren’t massive.

As a third-person shooter, Army Men Sarge’s Heroes is almost delightfully straightforward. Maybe not as straightforward as something like MDK, but generally, y?ou point your good man at the bad men and fir??e and everything gets taken care of.

The AI is a special kind of dumb. To be fair, I think there may have been some steps taken to improve it from the N64 version, but it is still extremely basic. A lot of the time,? they’re just triggered to spawn and run to cover. Then their feet are just glued there and they won’t move until they die. Walk towards them with your flamethrower blazing and they’ll ??just stoically watch, popping off the odd shot.

You can still get yourself killed pretty easily, but this mostly happens when you don’t take a moment to look at your surroundings. It can be hard to tell which of your opponents is wielding a bazooka or knee-mortar until it’s too late. Death can come quickly in Army Men: Sarge’s Heroes, and when it happens, it’s back to the beginning of the level. Th??e stages aren’t exactly marathons, but it can be a bit of a pill when a?? helicopter sneaks up on you.

Speaking of helicopters, some of the more charming bugs of the N64 version remain. Most ha?ppily is the one where, with some careful manipulation of the joystick, you can reverse Sarge’s strafe so he starts moonwalking. It’s the funkiest way to show an enemy your superiorit?y.

On the other hand, the collision detection isn’t quite so warming. At a basic level, vegetation and other oddly shaped objects in the environment wil?l just block shots that should clearly pass through. The strangest examples, however, are with vehicles. The hit detection extends a fair distance above and below tanks and helicopters. You can launch your bazooka well abov?e the top of a tank’s turret and it will register as a hit. Same goes for helicopters.

What sucks, however?, is that vehicle wrecks have been added to this version. On the N64, a vehicle would explode then quickly disappear. On the Dreamcast, a twisted version of their model is left behind, and they feature the same hitbox. So if a helicopter goes down between you and the enemy soldiers, you’ll just be hitting the wreck instead of your intended target. It’s a cool aesthetic addition, but also a pain in the butt.

Where Army Men Sarge’s Heroes is most successful is how faithful it is to the pastime of playing with toy soldiers. Magnifying glasses and firecrackers show up. There’s even a Creepy Crawlers oven that is used to melt toy soldiers into spiders, which I tried when I was a kid and that doesn’t work. The oven just uses a lightbulb that doe?sn’t get hot enough to mel?t a plastic soldier.

There’s a lot of care taken to replicate the look and feel of the toys. The Dr??eamcast version goes a bit too far in its graphical overhaul. In the N64 version, Sarge was a normal-looking soldier with Sarge’s face pasted on it. Here, he’s the barrel-chested dude he appears as in cutscenes and promo art. Likewise, a lot of the environment textures have been redone, and they change the feel of some of the levels.

Still, this is the best way to experience Army Men Sarge’s Heroes, if only because you don’t have to de?al with the sluggish camera of the N64 original. It takes what was already great about the N64 version and polishes out some of what wasn’t so great. It’s the best way to play the best game in the series.

Fo?r other retro titles you may have missed, click right here!

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Another collectathon for your remaster collection

What does partying like it's 1999 look like, anyway? It's maybe not the first thing that comes to mind, but playing Shadow Man �a dark action-adventure game from the PS1, Nintendo 64, and Dreamcast days �is a fine choice. Courtesy of Nightdive Studios, the game is back on consoles today, following a PC remaster that first rolled onto Steam in April 2021. Kicking off the new year, Shadow Man: Remastered is playable for $20 on Xbox One, PS4, and Nintendo Switch, ??with the lat?ter coming slightly later: January 17.

You can follow those storefront?? links to nab your preferred digital edition �the old skull-and-shades combo is bound to transport you back to a si??mpler time.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=Swwe0ooh9eY

I distinctly remember one of my childhood friends, whose brothers and dad all loved Resident Evil and Silent Hill, showing off this strange voodoo world. It creeped me out, legitimately. And with the way some of these atmospheric or outright sinister 3D games f??rom the '90s have aged, I feel like it can still get under my skin a bit in 2022.

What's the console situation like? According to the developers, Shadow Man: Remastered has 4K/60FPS ??support on PS4 and Xbox One, and gyro aiming on Nintendo Switch.

For a more thorough take on Shadow Man: Remastered and how well it has aged, check out Zoey's full review from last year �or at least this line: "It can be run in widescreen and 4K, and there are some n?ew post-processing effects. It still looks old, but it's been glossed up. More substantially, censored and cut content has been re?stored, including three levels [with new music and SFX for said levels] and a number of enemies. It's more than just simply upscaling the game, it's legitimately the definitive version of the title."

_{This screenshot is such a mood.}

As someone who was (and admittedly still is) obsessed with tracking down Golden Bananas in Donkey Kong 64 and Jiggies in Banjo-Kazooie, I am pretty into the prospect of firing up Shadow Man: Remastered on a random weekend to collect a bunch of Dark Souls.

I'm sure I'm repeating myself at this point, but it's neat to see "less obvious" games like this resurface on modern platforms. If you're just here for the hits, though, there's Turok!

I?? wonder what else Nightdive migh??t be able to freshen up...

The post Shadow Man: Remastered jus??t popped up on PS4 and Xbox, and Switch is next appeared first on Destructoid.

Time to lock 'n' load that VMU, friends

Today sees the launch of a brand new game for, of all platforms, the Sega Dreamcast. Intrepid Izzy is a colorful cartoon?? adventure now available to purchase from British indie publisher Wave Studios... And it's already sold out!

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=njRslo5jQGA

Developed by Senile Studios �the team behind classic brawler Beats of Rage �Intrepid Izzy is a 2D side-scrolling platformer that sees that titular hero negotiate a spritely fantasy universe, fighting off enemies, solving puzzles, and engaging with a variety of *checks notes* sentient fruit, all while rocking a wardrobe of awesome outfits. Sporting fully hand-drawn visuals, high-resolution graphics, and running at a speedy 60 frames-per-second, Intrepid Izzy looks like good, old-fashioned fun and a wonderful love letter to the golden age o???f platform gaming.

Intrepid Izzy is the latest in a long line of passionate indie releases launched on Sega's misunderstood masterpiece. While the final "official" Dreamcast title launch was 2004's Puyo Pop Fever, there has been a slew of releases developed and released on the whirring dervish, such as Xeno Crisis, Magic Pockets, Giana's World, and The Textorcist. Unfortunately, the desire for Intrepid Izzy has seen the Dreamcast edition sell out almost immediately, which is great news for Wave Game Studios, but disappointing for those still looking to experience our magenta-haired gal's escapade on the classic console. Hopefully, more copies will be made available in the future. Your best bet is to follow Wave Game Studios on Twitter and keep an eye out for potential updates.

For everybody else, you can check out Izzy's exciting adventures via a PC port, now available on Steam.

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Unfinished sequel now available online

A little bit of gaming history has been made available for the Castlevania community. Konami's cancelled 2000 sequel, Castlevania Resurrection, is now available online, a build of the unfinished Dreamcast title having been uploaded by archivist Comby Laurent.

As reported earlier this month, Laurent, owner of the Sega Dreamcast Info Games Preservation website, acquired the prototype build via auction, and has generously decided to dump the ROM online, giving Castlevania fans the opportunity to get a taster of one of the Gothic franchises' long-lost chapters. In the build, players take up the whip of hero Sonia Belmont, and can battle a small selection of demons in several locations including a sinister chapel and an ornate hallway. It's hardly a full game, but it is an important piece of Castlevania history.

A prequel to the original Castlevania, Castlevania Resurrection was a third-person action-adventure developed by Konami for the Sega Dreamcast circa?? 2000. The finished game would have seen So??nia and a debuting Victor Belmont assault Dracula's castle in yet another platform-leaping, whip-cracking adventure. Konami pulled the plug on the project once the Sega hardware failed to take-off as predicted, with the title reportedly well on its way to completion before being consigned to the junk drawer.

Thanks to the work and generosity of Laurent, however, this small? but significant piece of gaming histo?ry is now publicly archived, following decades of obscurity. Good work.

The post Cancelled Dreamcast pr?oject Castlevania Resurrection released to the pub?lic appeared first on Destructoid.

What could have been

A forgotten piece of Castlevania history seems to have been recovered. Preservationists have recently found a playable demo of Castlevania: Resurrection, a canceled 3D Castlevania game for the Sega Dreamcast.

Dreamcast preservationists (via Polygon) got their hands on a disc that seems to predate E3 1999, when Castlevania: Resurrection was reportedly shown behind closed doors. A video shows a presenter booting up the game,?? accessing a menu, and running around 3D environments in this ol?d prototype.

The story would have featured Victor Belmont and Castlevania Legends protagonist Sonia Belmont, teaming up across time to deal with Dracula. According to an old interview with art director Greg Orduyan, it would have been point A to B, closer to side-scrolling games th??an any sort of free-roaming. However, it ended up getting canceled.

For preservationists, it's neat to have this record of a game that existed, even if only in a prototype. And it's a little odd to think of an alternate timeline where Castlevania's legacy continued on to the Dreamcast, especially when the series has been so quiet as of late. At least we have some other series still tryin??g to keep the torch alight.

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On January 31, 2001, it died

It's important to remember the classics. And the Dreamcast was an absolute staple console. To many, it was the best sy??stem eve?r made.

While we remember how great it was, it's also fascinating to reminisce on its history, and the decline of Sega as an absolute hardware powerhouse. Just about 20 years ago, Sega announced that they would discontinue the Dreamcast and become a third-party developer. It was a ??pretty big deal at the time!

As several recent documentaries have contended, the Sega and ??Nintendo rivalry was legendary. It got a little less exciting once Sony entered the picture and creamed both of them with the absolute might of the or?iginal PlayStation, but for a time, the competition between the two was fierce.

But when Sega essentially gave up, it was a monumental year for another reason. Just 11 months later, Sega would release Sonic Adventure 2 on the GameCube in Japan. This is the first time, as a third par??ty developer that Sega would provide Nintendo with a massive first-party IP. Sonic on a Nintendo system? It was surreal at the time.

Kids now probably just think of Sonic as "that mascot that is on every system." And to some extent, when a good Sonic game comes along, proliferation is good! But losing Sega in the hardware race was? a big blow,? as less competition generally allows for a certain degree of laurel resting from the other big dogs.

I miss Sega in that sense, and their wacky penchant for memory cards with screens on them (Sony did it too!), but I'm glad they??'re still ar??ound in any capacity.

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It'll likely happen eventually

A theoretical Dreamcast Mini loaded with Sonic Adventure, the hard-to-find Power Stone titles, Crazy Taxi, Jet Grind Radio, SoulCalibur, Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and more? It sounds like a dream come true.

Well, a lot of folks have been anticipating the march of more minis for a while, it's just a matter of when. And while Sega has mentioned the Dreamcast Mini?? by name, they've significantly moved the goalposts on "when."

Speaking to Famitsu (as translated by Nintendo Life), Sega creative producer Yosuke Okunari? notes that in their quest of "considering" more concepts like the Genesis Mini, ideas like the SG1000 and Dreamcast have been brought up. Okunari also says that while the Game Gear Micro is "only available in Japan," the next mini project will have a "much greator" scope, and likely arrive worldwide.

This is all very "planning stages" stuff here, as Okunari explain?s that even if there was another micro-console, it would be at least another year out due to the "high cost and time" factors involved. So you're saying there's a chanc??e?

Sega [Famitsu via Nintendo Life]

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Will it stick this time?

[Update: Kenji Hiruta finds the overwhelming support for Skies of Arcadia "impressive," and vows to "organize all [the] comments and submit [them] to Sega directly." Who knows if anything will happen here, but? it's something!]

At one point, Skies of Arcadia was my favorite ga?me of all time. It lives in my memory constantly, despite the fact that it was essentially laid to rest on the Dreamcast and GameCube, but talk of a revival or re-release pops up every so often and I'm always here for it.

Dating as far back as 2008, Sega has been including Arcadia characters and environments in various games, from Senjou no Valkyria to a full course in Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed. In 2012, Sega renewed the trademark for the series, but nothing materialized. Last year, producer Rieko Kodama opined about how much she loved the game, and how it was a "childhood dream come true."

There's clearly a lot of love for Skies of Arcadia both within Sega and the general gaming fandom, but nothing has happened yet. Adding fuel to the fire, developer Kenji Hiruta, who proudly worked on the game, said that he "strongly" wants to develop a sequel this week. He's even running a giveaway involving Itsuki Hoshi (the game's original illustrator), where if you retweet him here, he'll send a signed picture to a fan.

Hiruta believes that this will get a sequel on Sega's radar "if the movement expands." While man??y people have tried for the past decade and change, it couldn't hurt to try again.

Kenji Hiruta [Twitter]

The post (Update) There’s Skies of Arcadia sequel talk yet again and I am here for it appeared first on Destructoid.

I hate them meeces to pieces

I have to admit, this is one of those franchises I'd long considered lost to time. But it appears, against the odds, that the classic Dreamcast puzzler Chu Chu Rocket! is preparing to make a comeback, bringing its addictive cat-and-mouse gameplay to Apple Arcade.

For those of you who missed the 1999 original or its handheld ports, Chu Chu Rocket! tasks players with guiding a string of charging mice (or "ChuChus") to safety, keeping them from e??ngaging with the strangely globulous cats (or "KapuKapus") wandering the playfield. Players do not have direc??t control of the ChuChus, and must rearrange the structure of the stage to provide a safe path to the goal, which is a spaceship because why not?

Publisher Sega has announced that Chu Chu Rocket! Universe will contain instantly recognisable gameplay from the original release, simply brought up to speed with modern visual technology, over 100 new 3D worlds, and a variety of original tiles - such as teleporters and switches. Universe will also see the retu?rn of the franch??ise's funny and addictive multiplayer mode.

Chu Chu Rocket! Universe will launch with Apple Arcade later this month. You can read more about the platform in our article looking at yesterday's Apple event.

20 years later… it’s time to go ChuChu crazy all over again! ðŸ­ðŸ­ðŸ­

With new 3D puzzles to explore and the frantic multiplayer you all know and love, ChuChu Rocket! Universe will be launching its way onto @AppleArcade soon! #AppleEvent📱 pic.twitter.com/l3IaFRqFqi

— SEGA (@SEGA) September 10, 2019

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Dreamcast, Final Fantasy VIII, say no more

1999 migh??t be one of t??he best years of video games on record.

This is the year we got EverQuest (which took Ultima Online's MMO dreams to a new level), oddball risks like UmJammer Lammy, Aliens versus Predator PC, the celebrated Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike in arcades, Gran Turismo 2, Lunar (one of the greatest JRPGs of all time), Ape Escape, the indomitable Counter-Strike, System Shock 2, brawler classic Gauntlet Legends, Crash Team Racing, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Jet Force Gemini, and countless others. On second tho??ught, I'm pretty much ready to crown it right now, even though 2004 and a few other choice years come close.

The reasoning is sound: if we include 9/9/99 in that equation, 1999 really rocks the house. That's the day Final Fantasy VIII and the Dreamcast came out.

I've told this story before, but every time I do, it brings a Smile to my face. I can still remember going into my local EBX (RIP Babbages, RIP Electronics Boutique) at my favorite mall and picking up my pre-order for Final Fantasy VIII and the Dreamcast. I had saved up everything I could from shoveling snow and relative holiday money, and it was the first time I had really spent a ton of my own cash at a store for games (I would get a job at 15?? just to feed my gaming habit, and ended up paying for my own college degrees with what was left over years later).

It was a pretty magical day, but I did the unthinkable: instead of tearing into a brand new console, I sat down and beat Final Fantasy VIII first. It was magical, to say the least: a whole new world to get lost in, a new cast. I had been playing JRPGs since Dragon Warrior and the first Final Fantasy, but VIII ended up quickly becoming one of my favorites of the series. Plus, a lot of people weren't interested in it, so it ruled not having to go to school and be hounded to bring in my discs (this is how a lot of people at my school played Final Fantasy VII, by using my ?discs when people were done wit?h them).

In-between those sessions I would head over to a buddy's house to pore over the Dreamcast. We beat Sonic Adventure in one sitting (and with that knowledge, would help at least two other friend groups beat the game in the next few months), and quickly started experimenting with Soulcalibur and Power Stone tech. Over time, the Dreamcast would cement itself as one of the most adventurous consoles ever released, ??but it was already a powerhouse and a force to be reckoned with on day on??e.

But 1999 didn't just begin and end with September. I still had my weekly Tony Hawk H-O-R-S-E battles with a friend of mine on PS1. Another group started to take up Counter-Strike. And yet another collective, my fighting game circle, was still playing Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter and all of the versus games that came before it.

We can all look back at those times and think "it didn't get any better than that." But as we all find out when we get older, the "golden years" concept is kind of a myth. Things have gotten better since then. We've had the pleasure of playing hundr?eds more games that are up there with the greats of 1999. And during lull periods, we can still go back to those classics, because they will forever exist as a part of g?aming history.

I'm always looking to the future, but I'll ne?ver for??get 9/9/99.

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'POWERFUL'

Power Stone is one of my favorite franchises of all time. It cemented my love of brawlers forevermore, and the second entry in particular is one of my most-played games to date. It also had some pretty legendary talents behind it, like Hideaki Itsuno (of Devil May Cry fame), as well as Takeshi Tezuka, who helped make the series happen in the first place. The Guardian caught up with both of them, drawing out some interesting development facts and the sentiment that they??'d like to see the series ?live on one day.

Istuno says that he's mostly responsible for the unique 19th century setting, as he wanted to push the "romance" aspect of the period, with influences from Indiana Jones to Jackie Chan. You can see the former very clearly in the sequel with the whole "giant boulder" motif of the Tomb Area stage.

Itsuno also recalls how he used skills he picked up from developing Rival Schools (among other fighters) to really fine-tune the mechanics, but he also shared the same school of thought of Smash Bros. creator Masahiro Sakurai, in that he wanted it to appeal to everyone (mission acc?omplished). He did this with a large focus on non game-breaking items and a lack of input-specific attacks, adding two layers of acces??sibility for newcomers.

Tezuka also just comes right out and says that he'd love to see the series on modern platforms, using the ever-popular adage "it would be a great fit on Switch." What are the odds of that happening? Well Itsuno himself waxes nostalgia for series he's worked on every few years or so, and already wants to try to get a new Rival Schools off the ground: this is on top of him resurrecting the Devil May Cry series once again with DMC5. Also, the last time we saw a proper Power Stone entry was in PSP form?? in 2006, so it's not like this is a hot property on Capcom's radar.

Still, I believe. Even a remaster of the PSP collection (1+2) on Switch would be a treat: seeing a new generation grab hold of this series would be something. For all my Power Stone friends out there: who was your main? I have to go with my man Ryoma (who basically had the Silver Samurai as his Power Stone-boosted alter ego).

Power Stone: the Dreamcast brawler that f?oresaw Fortnite and Overwatch [The Guardian]

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A tribute to Sega's beloved underdog

When I was a kid I used to lie around in the grass and ask myself questions like "What makes a Sega game special?"Of course, the answer to that question depends on what era of Sega you're talking about. When they started in with home consoles, Sega touted themselves as the company that would do things that Nintendo wouldn't. They'd allow Mortal Kombat to be bloody on their console. They gave Sonic the angry eye??brows to contrast against Mario's baby-faced naivete. They embrace?d adolescent angst and mischief in ways that their rivals steered away from.

That changed in the Saturn and Dreamcast eras, when the publisher started looking to films like Monty Python's Meaning of Life and events like Burning Man for inspiration.  Recreating reality with dream-like charms became their calling card. They swung for the fences with games like Jet Set Radio, Shenmue, Rez, and NiGHTs just as?? their life in the home console production world was about to end. 

Sayonara Wild Hearts shares a little bit with each of those games in ways that never felt like direct homages; more like it was a secret, unreleased game that fit in right alongside them. Like Shenmue, it's about a love sick young adult who's having trouble figuring out where they fit in the world. Like NiGHTS, Jet Set Radio, and Rez, it's about racing against yourself, co?mbining flight sim and rhythm game mechanics to bring sight, sound and feel into?? a cohesive whole. 

The only place where Sayonara Wild Hearts' Dreamcast influence might be a little too on the nose is right at the start, where it flips you over in the middle of your bedroom and dumps you right into the night sky. It'?s literally casting you into a dream, but before long, you'll forget all about that, skateboarding, then flying, through space picking up collectibles as you gradually learn to defy gravity. 

It's all easy and stress free at first, but before long, you run afoul of a gang of girls on motorcycles who can throw fireballs ou?t of their hands. This will definitely lead you to lose/die a?? few times, but there isn't much backtracking. Time rewinds to just before you took the L and you get to dust yourself off and try again with what you learned from your mistakes. It makes for a game that is constantly moving your forward, even when you have to go back for a second or two. 

The downside is, you won't feel truly challenged until you see what you got for a grade. Again, like NiGHTS and Rez, you won??'t feel much pressure from the game unless you choose to self impose it. If you want to go back and try for higher scores, you're going to have to master some fast-paced precision flying, driving, and QTE fighting sequences. Combat is mostl??y rhythm driven, with timed button presses being essential for dodging and laying out attacks. The good news is, beating a rival gang allows you to literally break their hearts. 

Sayonara Wild Hearts is being published by Annapurna Interactive, the movie studio that backed Her, Sorry To Bother You, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, and Booksmart. Like those films, the game values emotional honesty and a devotion to craftmanship in equal measure. It's rare that after I've played a game for 12 minutes I'm sure it's going to find an ??adoring audience on day one, but for this wild heart, I have to make an exception. I'm 100% certain that each and every one of the Dreamcast's many fans will eat this one up

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Rage in a cage

Here's a nice bit of pretend playing: Rage 2 is "coming to Dreamcast." Of course, t??hat's not strictly true. But Bethesda is running a promotion that d??resses everything up in costume and keeping a straight face.

Bethesda's giving this custom Rage 2 machine away to one lucky person who follows the Rage account and retweets the following tweet:

Follow and RT for a chance to win this custom Dreamcast -- and yes, it actually plays #RAGE2! //t.co/0PRi91zYfI pic.twitter.com/oNRYt5sJW2

— RAGE 2 (@RAGEgame) May 1, 2019

There's some trickeration at play because the only functional thing about this Dreamcast is the case. The rest has been stripped out and replaced by a custom PC that's loaded up with Rage 2; it also has HDMI output to easily hook to a monitor. It still has a distinctly late-90s/turn-of-the-millennium flair, the pink Rage 2 logo splayed across the black ?shell almost like some sort of middle schooler's trapper keeper that has way too ma?ny doodles and stickers.

Rage 2 launches on May 14, meaning this is all coming to a head rather quickly. Bethesda is picking the winner sometime on Monday, May 6. Time is of the essence. One of you -- I don't care which one -- go and win this thing right now. Believe it and you can achieve it. Envisi??on it hard enough and maybe your dreams will be cast. 

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Yes

I talk about the Dreamcast a lot.

I feel like a crazy person when I tell people "I remember back on 9/9/99, we had a grand old time with Soulcalibur, choosing plays on a tiny screen in NFL 2K and Sonic Adventure." That was like, forever ago. But my memor??ies of the Dreamcast didn't die there. I built up a sizable collection these past 20 yea?rs and still play it frequently. So yeah, I'm interested in this upcoming "Next Gen Dreamcast controller" project.

Described as a "modern take on the original Dreamcast controller," the id??ea ??is that you'll get extra shoulder buttons, a more "responsive" d-pad, and a new analog stick. Oh and VMUs/Jump Packs will work, plus the 10-foot cord comes out the top so you don't need to "tuck" it into the remote. I'd get at least one of these.

Note that is is a hardware Kickstarter: those things go wrong all the time, right? Well, Retro Fighters has come through before with three other projects, so this is less of a gamble. You have 27 days to decide a?nd they're already well past their $13,000 goal with over $60K at the time of p??ublishing.

Next Gen Dreamcast Controller [Kickstarter]

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it's already on Dreamcast, PC, Wii U, PS4 and Xbox One.

Given that it's already out on pretty much every other platform, Ghost Blade HD coming to Switch makes sense.

Developer Hucast Games has announced that it's going to be Switch-bound sometime in 2019, and te?ases the addition of Tate (vertical) mode, which is basically expected for every Switch shmup at this point. It'll also sport online leaderboards, achievements and will retain its two player mode on Switch, as well as netting a physical edition.

As I said in my review of the PS4 edition, Ghost Blade HD is a slightly above average shooter, but? more shmups on any platform is? always a good thing.

Hucast Games [Twitter]

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Phoenix Power

In an industry that does basically nothing to preserv??e the past, Sega has been an outlier. On basically any platform imaginable, you can obtain a decent chunk of Sega's first-party output from the Genesis and a few select games from other platforms. It seems like every time a new console generation rolls around, a new Sega compilation is in the works?.

Nintendo's popular Switch is no exception. The Switch is receiving not just the Sega Genesis Classics collection, but downloadable eShop releases of select Genesis games in the form of the Sega AGES series. Differing from the all-in-one package, these releases add features to Sega's classic games while also providing regional variants and some light online functionality. Some might balk at the hefty price tag, but AGES ?could be considered the defini?tive releases of each title.

Around the time when Sonic the Hedgehog and Lightening Force were hitting the Switch, I was given a chance to ask Sega's Rieko Kodama about her work on Sega AGES and her history with Sega. For those unaware, Kodama-san is recognized as one of the first successful woman game designers in the industry. She is known for her work as a graphic designer on Alex Kidd and Sonic the Hedgehog and as the main artist for Phantasy Star on the Master System. She now is the lead producer on the Sega AGES releases for Switch.

There are many stories around the internet of how Kodama-san got into the games industry. Seeing as how I didn’t want to repeat previously known information, I figured I would take a different path with my que??stions. To start off, I asked what piqued her interest in video games, in general. She told me:

"I was still in grade school, and I would play the arcade games like Space Invaders, Pac-Man, and Xevious. At the time, my family ran a kissaten [a tea shop]. Our shop was like a cross between a café and bar, serving a??lcohol in the evenings. You could say that games were very close to my heart." She gravita?ted towards films and literature with sci-fi themes, which also spilled over into her choice of games.

During her time in high school, she found an interest in advertising. She had envisioned designing marketing material for products, which fueled her desire for art. In her college years, she initially was stuck between pursuing graphic design and archaeology (she had a fondness for Egyptology). This led to her flunking out of college but quickly deciding to fully go into her passion for art. After enrolling in a trade school, she soon discovered she enjoyed graphic design and saw the burgeoning video game ??industry as a chance to push her talents.

Through connections with one of her colleagues, she was hired by Sega in 1984. While there, she learned how to create sprite work under Yoshiki Kawasaki, the sprite artist on Sega's Flicky. After a few years, she got the chance to work on Alex Kidd Miracle World and the original Phantasy Star. This kick-started her career to eventually becoming a director ??and producer on futu??re Sega titles.

During that time period, employees at Sega weren’t allowed to use their actual names during a game's credits. As such, she went by the pseudonym of "Phoenix Rie." While I still haven’t uncovered the true secret of the name, she did tell me, "It's based on the name of a manga character?? I liked at the time." In other interviews, she has stated she is too embarrassed to divulge anything more, so we're a little bit closer to understanding the true meaning.

As for how involved she was with Sonic the Hedgehog, arguably Sega's most famous creation, she said, "Mr. Ohshima [lead character designer] designed everything, from the setting to the concept art. I helped express his designs as pixel art." Her work was more influential in Phantasy Star, which is why she would eventually go on to direct Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium.

That would end up being the last game she directed, though. After the release of that title, she transitioned into the role of producer for such titles as Skies of Arcadia and 7th Dragon. As Kodama-san put it, "I was a director on Magic Knight Rayearth, and I also started working as a producer around that time. I was involved with all aspects of the title, from marketing to sales, so it was a very valua??ble learning experience." It seems she was more curious in tackling other aspects of game design instead of locking herself? into a single role.

Even with her stepping away from the director's chair, she doesn't seem to have given up thinking about more traditional game development. Since she had experience with Sega's previous mascot, Alex Kidd, I was curious how she would approach a theoretical reboot of the series. She explained, "It's difficult to come up with a character design, but I think a 3D Alex who freely races around in helicopters or on motorcycles w???ould be appealing. However, modern players may not really take to boss fights where you battle via rock-paper-scissors."

She even still has Skies of Arcadia on her? mind, though more with how pleased she was with the end result. "After the Dreamcast version, we released a GameCube version with additional story and characters, places to explore, and even bug fixes," Kodama-san recalls. "I feel like we made the game we wanted to make. However, if I had to say one thing, it's that the two combat systems were somewhat complex, so I do wonder if we couldn't make that part easier to play."

With the Sega AGES line, Skies of Arcadia may eventually see a release on Switch. Sega has stated it claims to make a wide selection of its classic titles available on the eShop and she echoed that sentiment. ??"We want to continue providing retro SEGA titles for the latest hardware," she described.

"We've chosen the Switch, which can be played on a stationary TV set or as a handheld system, because we believe it to be the appropriate console for our retro game archive. It can even be played in a vertical orientation, allowing us to recreate the experience of vertically oriented arcade games such as Gain Ground. I think the different ways players c??an use the Joy-Con is also an interesting experimen??t."

That last bit got me really thinking. I was curious what her thoughts were on Sega's exit from the hardware business. It may have happened close to 20 years ago, ??but she had provided work for some of the biggest mascots the company has ever had. "I have precious memories of every platform. I personally don’t feel sad that SEGA is no longer producing hardware," she stressed, "but I know that there are players who have been asking us t??o make new hardware. I feel honored and extremely grateful that fans would say that."

As for now, Kodama-san will continue her work on the Sega AGES line with the next release being Phantasy Star on December 13, 2018, in Japan. Eight more titles have been confirmed for the collection, though there are no release dates lined up. Sega has teased the possibility of Saturn and Dreamcast game??s, so we could end up seeing a lot of her wo?rk get resurrected.

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Sailors in HD

The recent release of Shenmue I + II for PS4, Xbox One and PC has left many wondering what a full remaster/remake of the legendary title would look like. Was Sega ever working on s??uch a pro?ject? Turns out it was. As uncovered by Eurogamer's Digital Foundry, Sega was initially going to rework Yu Suzuki's groundbreaking titles with new assets and graphical options, but it seems the publisher didn't want to go that route.

Either because of budgetary constraints or a short development time, work on the full remaster was scrapped in favor of giving us a more faithful representation of what Shenmue is. Still, this video shows us what could have been and the results are pretty staggering. I won't say it transforms Shenmue, but it would have? made it a little more enticing for those of us without nostalgia goggles.

Revealed: Sega's cancelled Shenmue HD remake - with fully updated graphics [Eurogamer]

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I see...

[UPDATE: Sega has recently released a tweet announcing that the Shenmue I & II patch has been delayed, it will now be released sometime during the week of September 17. The publisher apologised for the delay?, saying that they wanted "to ensure you get the best game experience possible".]

Last month saw the long-awaited re-release of Sega's classic Dreamcast RPGs Shenmue I & II on modern platforms. Though the r?emasters had pretty faithful translations, they aren't without their fair share of bugs, including cut-scene issues, missing prompts and the notorious "First Person Glitch".

Sega Europe has announced on their twitter that a patch is currently in development for the PlayStation 4?? and Xbox One editions of the game. Although ?no details were give as to what the patch is specifically designed for, one can hope that it will work to eradicate some of the issues mentioned above.

No exact date was given for the patch's arrival, with Sega simply stating that it would be coming late next week, and tha they would share further information on the update soon. Shenmue I & II is available now on PS4, Xbox One and PC

Shenmue fans. There is a console pat?ch incoming late next week for both Xbox one and PS4. Thanks for your patience in waiting and we'll have some more details to share on the exact release timing soon.

— SEGA Europe (@SEGA_Europe) August 31, 2018

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Baka mitai

For nearly as long as I’ve been playing Yakuza games, I’ve always read comments from fans saying, “These games are like Shenmue”. At first glance, that definitely sounds accurate. I even remember making such a claim after playing the demo for Yakuza 3, which  reminded me a lot of what I had heard about Sega’s Dreamcast classic. It has tak??en me until now to see how wrong that statement is.

For those unaware, I’ve never personally owned a Dreamcast. My friend had one and I’ve played games on it, but the consumer distrust that Sega bred after the release of the Saturn got to me even in my youth. I absolutely loathed Sega’s 32-bit system and I didn’t want anything else to do with their consoles for the f??ores?eeable future. Maybe it was just my nine-year-old self being hyperbolic, but I wrote off the Dreamcast long before it was even announced as coming west.

While that may or may not be a tragedy, it was how I felt at the time. That decision ended up causing me to miss out on some crazy and memorable games from Sega’s final console, most notably Shenmue. I’ve never had a frame of reference for properly comparing Yu Suzuki’s magnum opus to Yakuza, but after reviewing the two games this past week, I can finally make a declarat??ive statement.

Shenmue and Yakuza are really not that similar.

To an outsider, a cursory look might trick you into thinking both series are the same thing. Shenmue has you traveling around Japan and China in a semi open-world manner. You can talk to people, play mini-games, enter shops to buy items and even fight guys on the street. Yakuza is limited to Japan (with different cities), but everything else I mentioned above is accurate of Kiryu Kazuma’s journeys. The execution of these ideas ???is where the two series differ.

The main goal with Shenmue was to create an environment and atmosphere that could be mistaken as real. The famous concept behind Yu Suzuki’s epic is an acronym known as “FREE”. This stands for “Full Reactive Eyes Entertainment,” and it was a core philosophy that Suzuki and his team worked to embed in everything Shenmue had. If you wanted to talk to a random person, that should be possible at all times (and even fully voiced). If you wante??d to chill out and play some arcade games, that should be possible whenever you felt the urge.

There was a story with main characters in Shenmue, but the real desire was to expand the possibilities of gaming by presenting entirely new dynamics not feasible on older hardware. This can be seen in how progressing through the main campaign of the first Shenmue puts more of an emphasis on mundane activities over bare-knuckle brawling with thugs. For a martial arts game, Shenmue features very little fighting and a weird focus on living out Ryo’s real life. It even culminates in him getting a job to pay for a tick??et to China, which is?? the kind of stuff kung-fu films gloss over.

Shenmue even presents different scenarios based on when you appear to specific locations or on what in-game day you’re finishing a main story sequence. There is a tremen?dous amount of missable cutsc??enes and content because real life has much the same thing. If you aren’t at a bar on Christmas Day, you might miss the chance to profess your undying love to your high school sweetheart.

For the Yakuza series, the main goal was to create a gaming experience geared more towards adults. At the time when Yakuza released in Japan, Sega was famously dealing with financial woes. The failure of the Dreamcast was still fresh (with Shenmue playing a huge role in that) and market trends were showing Sony and Nintendo making pushes towards teenagers. Microsoft had also jumped into the console market and it seemed like the medium wa?s starting to “grow up”.

Instead of trying to create a game with mass appeal, Yakuza series producer Toshihiro Nagoshi wanted to make a game specifically for the Japanese market. Sega wasn’t doing well in any regard and Nagoshi figured honing in on something only they could provide would r??esonate with a home audience. After some extensive research (a.k.a. drinking at dive bars in Tokyo) and hiring a famed Japanese crime novelist, Nagoshi’s team set out to properly replicate the Japanese underworld and show that gaming could move past being simply high scores or quarter munching.

With that, the very opening of the first Yakuza should show you how different both teams approached game design. Yakuza sets up a clear story, has intense cinematic direction and incredible voice acting and always guides the player through the journey to maintain proper pacing of it??s plotline. There are side distractions, sure, but you likely will never be without an idea of how to progress in Kiryu’s story.

The emphasis that Shenmue puts on fleshing out its setting of Yokosuka, Japan is not present in Yakuza’s fictionalized version of Tokyo. There is a layer of authenticity to how Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios’ created Kamurocho (Yakuza’s main setting), modeling it closely after Tokyo’s own Kabukicho district, but you never have the same level of interaction as present in Shenmue. Nago??shi’s team certainly wanted to create an environment you felt connected to, but wisely stepped away from detailing too much of it and focused more on fleshing out other aspects of the game.

Even the side activities in Yakuza don’t take center stage. You could make that same argument for Shenmue, but Yu Suzuki’s vision includes waiting around for multiple in-game hours while time passes and new events can occur. This necessitates doing something to kill time, which is where the arcade cabinets (or gacha dispensers) come in. In Yakuza, the only? thing stopp??ing you from progressing is walking to the next waypoint.

Beyond that, even the pedestrians present in Yakuza bear little resemblance to Shenmue’s obscene level of detail. Since there isn’t much story purpose in talking with random bums or little children in Yakuza, the game doesn’t allow you to do so. Some NPCs might give a single line of dialogue, but that is it and you’re on your way. In Shenmue, you’ll be t?alking to seemingly every?one since the game demands you piece clues together on your own.

The action sequences, as well, play out with entirely different design methodologies. Shenmue uses an engine repurposed from Virtua Fighter (of which the game originated as a prequel to the fighting series) whereas Yakuza could be more closely linked to Streets of Rage. Shenmue wants you to practice your martial arts, focus on skills that you find useful and execute them like a true master of kung fu. Yakuza just lets you smack dudes in a visceral manner with simplified inputs and combo strings. You even get RPG-lite systems that see Kiryu level-up, where Shenmue is mostly about your own journey with conquering its control s??cheme (though moves will get stronger as you use them).

What you prefer is entirely subjective, but each game feels nothing alike. I guess removing layers and layers of nuance will reveal the central idea of “Martial-arts action,” but the execution is key. Both games couldn’t feel less alike if Sega tried. Even the quick-time events play out differently, with Shenmue relegating entire sequences to them while Yakuza uses them to pun??ctuate devastati?ng finishers in combat.

Could one even say any aspect of the two series' is similar? For sure: there is definitely some crossover between the two series. In action, though, you really don’t get the same thing playing one over the other. Both are targeted at? a different audience and mindset and that is completely okay.

What drew me to falling in love with Yakuza was split between the writing of its characters and its mixture of old-school, arcade gameplay design with new technology. What I enjoyed from my time with Shenmue was how it made you feel organically connected to its game world and the respect it paid to martial arts philosophy. Any influence that is present is likely because Nagoshi worked as a supervisor to Suzuki while Shenmue was being made.

Really, though, just stop comparing the two series. Each does something totally different and it is really diminutive to try and say they are the same. If Yakuza is Shenmue, then Deadly Premonition is Shenmue. Resident Evil 4 is Shenmue. Heavy Rain is Shenmue. The impact of Sega’s legendary game can be felt in so man???y titles that you can see it in even the most far removed of genres. That doesn’t suddenly mean that these games are similar to Yu Suzuki’s.

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Both games locked to 30 FPS

Now that we have a release date for the Shenmue I & II remaster, more details about the compilation are coming out and it could be a cause for concern from diehard fans. In an FAQ on the official Shenmue website, Sega has made it clear that the version of Shenmue II being used for this new port is based on the Xbox port that came out in 2002. While that version is perfectly fine (bar a few graphical oddities), a lot of people consider the Dreamcast version to be the d?efinitive release.

Sega's stated reasons for going with the Xbox version comes down to the more advanced graphical features present from that port. From a technological standpoint, the Xbox version was an improvement over the Dreamcast one but mostly faltered from th??e limitations of 2002 graphical engines. In this modern era,  I could see things like the substandard motion blur and awkward anti-aliasing being dramatically better a?nd likely resulting in an image closer to the Dreamcast original.

One aspect that people will likely not be happy about is the framerate. Both Shenmue I and II will be locked to 30 FPS. This is down to the way each game was programmed on the Dreamcast. Since Shenmue was a technical tour de force on release, Sega had to make sacrifices to even get the game running at a decent click. Instead of cutting back on graphical details, they opted to lock the framerate to 30 FPS and tied a lot of game logic to that slower rate. Since the?se ports aren't full remakes, we won't be getting a ??60 (or uncapped) FPS option.

At least true widescreen is being added, though cutscenes will remain in their original letterboxed formats. All of the bonus arcade games have made the cut and the PC version will feature mouse and keyboard support on release. You'll also be able to make use of the save feature that let you carry over your Shenmue I progress into II.

Some of the drawbacks are disappointing, but I'd rather have these games preserved than just languishing on older platforms. Since I'm in love with the Yakuza series and people compare it to Shenmue all the time, I'd love to just have a chance to play these games without having to spend an exorbitant amount of cash on older hardware. At least we won't have ?much longer to wait.

Shenmue FAQ [Sega]

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Sega wants to know

As spotted on Sega Forever's Facebook page, Sega has gotten the Very Good idea to make replica Mega Drive and Dreamcast candles. There's just one que??stion: what scent should they have?

Folks have been chiming in with suggestions like Streets of Rage roast chicken, Shenmue cherry blosso??ms, chili dogs, and "the smell of the '90s dust left in one of the Mega Driv?e cartridges."

I'll go with?? a safe bet: give me that unmistakable fresh-out-the-shrink-wrap new-?game smell.

Whoever comes up with ??Sega's favorite response will earn themse?lves one of each candle.

Sega Forever [Facebook via Game Informer]

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Nani!?

Shenmue is a strange game that always fascinated me. The open-world adventure follows Ryo as he pursues his father's killer a??cross Japan and China, but sometimes he's on an urgent search for sailors, and others he's just hanging out by that old capsule-toy machine.

Much like the Dreamcast itself, Shenmue was ahead of its time in a lot of ways. An open world with a large cast of characters, tons of mini-games, and brawler-style combat might have been a little ambitious for the Dreamcast. I was late to the party on getting the console, but when I did, Shenmue was one of the first games I picked up.

A few years later I would finally get around to playing Shenmue II on the original Xbox and spent a long time feeling bad that the story would more than likely never see its conclusion. With Shenmue III aiming for a 2019 release date and remasters of the original two games on the way, it finally looks like Ryo's tale of revenge will be concluded, but I ju?st don't think I care anymore.

Last year I finally took the plunge and played my first game in the Yakuza series. I started with Yakuza 0 and quickly realized it was everything I ever wanted from Shenmue and more: an open world filled with side activities, in-depth? storytelling, and street brawling action. The journey of Kazuma Kiryu captured me almost immediately, and I'm kicking myself for not picking it up sooner. 

For the uninitiated, Yakuza follows the horribly unlucky Kiryu, a ruthless Yakuza turned world's greatest dad, as he does his best to live a peace?ful life all while getting caught up in the ?politics of power struggles between organized crime syndicates in Japan.

The two series tell incredibly different stories. One is a martial arts tale of redemption, the other a gritty crime story. But Yakuza fully realizes the spirit of what Shenmue wa??nted to be: a game with a vast?? world of fleshed-out characters and its fair share of wacky bullshit.

While Yakuza's storytelling is top notch, it isn't the main reason the series was able to hook me so quickly. Kamurocho, the red-light district where most of the major story beats of each game take place, is full of life and side activities to enjoy. SEGA arcades are filled with UFO catchers and real video games. I spent about four hours just sitting around playing Puyo Puyo in Yakuza 6.

Shenmue, much like Yakuza, had its share of leisurely activities to enjoy. Ryo can play darts, billiards, and in Shenmue II he can even enjoy Outrun and Space Harrier at the arcade, two games also playable in Yakuza 0. The most famous Shenmue side activity is the forklift race, a daily event ??Ryo can participate in once he accepts a job moving containers down at the shipping ?yard.

Yakuza also introduces a more intentional brand of weird than Shenmue ever managed to achieve. Any odd shit happening on Ryo's adventure always seemed like the result of poor localization or the rough character models. Yakuza, ?however, pumps up the weird in most of the game's substories, side missions that ??usually focus on aiding folks around the city.

One such mission in Yakuza 0 sees Kiryu help a dominatrix learn how to be good at her job while another in Yakuza 6 has him find stray cats?? for a local cat cafe because in between beating up street punks, Kiryu moonlights as Kamurocho's Witcher. 

Shenmue made a fantastic blueprint for what at the time seemed like the most bizarre video game imaginable. Years later, Yakuza would come along and prove that it could be done bigger and better. It had a rocky start overseas including an attempt at some pretty high-profile voice actors for the English version (Mark Hamill played Goro Majima), but recently starting with the release of Yakuza 0, the series seems to be finding a dedica?ted audience outside of Japan.

Weird games will always fascinate me, and Shenmue is at the top of my list. I'm sure part of that strange air is due to the localization efforts of the time, and I'll probably keep an eye out to see if Shenmue III retains any of that weirdness -- but it's hard to get excited about the new game, or the remasters, now that the? Dragon of Dojima has worked his way into my ??heart.

Yakuza has been everything I ever wanted out of Shenmue, and I'm sure Peter Glagowski would agree I'm an idiot for not picking up the series sooner. For now, I'm far more excited about the upcoming Yakuza remasters than a new Shenmue. I'd recommend any f??an of the curious Dreamcast game who still hasn't taken the plunge into Kamurocho make it a priority.

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