Yes, we’re pretty late to this news but I think it’s worth sharing because I love hidden little oddities.
2 additional stages have been discovered lurking in the source code for Sonic the Hedgehog 2 Remastered for iOS. The first is Egg Gauntlet Zone which basically acts as a boss rush. You can see footage of it below:
Sadly this zone is no longer playable as a recent update removed removed the stage’s art assets.
Next up is Proto Palace Zone. This stage recreates a faithful yet completable version of Hidden Palace Zone that was featured in the Simon Wai Sonic 2 Beta ROM. What’s more interesting about this stage is it can still be accessed to regular owners of the game. Here’s some instructions on how to do this:
1) Access the Sonic 2 level select code by tapping the letters in the SEGA logo from left to right, then put two fingers on the title screen.
2) Enter the debug code 01,09,09,02,01,01,02,04 into the sound test section.
3) Then follow this with this code: 03,03,03,0B,10,10,10,04
You can also check out footage of this zone in action below:
Japan exclusive arcade fighting game Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax will receive an update which adds two new characters.
The 2 characters in question are Taiga Aisaka from Toradora! and Miyuki Shiba from The Irregular in Magic High School. You can see screenshots of the two in action above.
There are currently no plans to bring Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax to the West and a console version has not been announced. TOUGH LUCK LOSERS
If you’re not aware of SEGA’s Japanese media franchise Sakura Wars then we might need to explain before move on: the Sakura Wars series mainly consists of a series of video games based around tactical warfare and keeping character relationships positive through a dating simulation element. The series has largely stayed Japan exclusive but has also strayed into other media like film, television, novels, manga and stage shows.
The stage show aspect is where today’s news comes from as SEGA have released an adaptation of the most recent stage show on DVD. You can see a trailer for the release below (WARNING: there is a lot of singing and overly cute voices):
UPDATE
A big thanks to Patrick Gardner on our Facebook page who has explained that this show is the first to showcase the Paris and New York Divisions of the series. The show follows the events of Sakura Wars 3 and features 3 new characters.
The Creative Assembly are going through pain-staking efforts to bring the cast of Alien Isolation to life and instead of creating virtual characters and simply hiring voice actors to voice them, they have employed a real cast of actors whose likenesses are being scanned into the game and their acting is also being motion captured. You can see a glimpse of these efforts in a new behind-the-scenes video available below:
Strange observation: all the in game characters seem to be very sweaty and I’m not really sure why.
Alien Isolation comes out on the 7th of October 2014 for PC, PS4, PS3, Xbox One and Xbox 360.
We don’t normally talk figures on SEGADriven because it can be a bit dull, but SEGA have published their financial results for the year ending March 31st 2014 and it does make for some interesting reading.
Here’s SEGA’s top sellers from the past year:
1) Total War: Rome 2 – 1.13 million copies sold
2) Football Manager 2014 – 790,000 copies sold
3) Sonic Lost World – 710,000 copies sold
4) Company of Heroes 2 – 680,000 copies sold
5) Ryu ga gotoku Ishin! – 390,000 copies sold
SEGA’s profit was 30.7 billion yen (178 million pounds) for the financial year. This profit was down 8.2% on last year.
SEGA have also confirmed a continued focus on digital with further support for Phantasy Star Online 2 (get on that Western release guys!) as well as casual gaming for mobile devices.
A surprise release from SEGA Japan! The Japanese branch of SEGA are currently location testing a new arcade fighting game based on the Shining franchise. The game is called Blade Arcus from Shining and features a surprisingly small cast of 6 characters, especially for a modern fighting game.
The characters are:
Rage from Shining Blade
Sakuya from Shining Blade
Xiao-Mei from Shining Hearts
Altina from Shining Blade
Ryuga Wong (new character exclusive to Blade Arcus)
Pairon Wong (new character exclusive to Blade Arcus)
3 new soundtrack collections of Out Run music have appeared on Amazon.
The 3 collections also feature the new songs by Manabu Namiki and Chibi-Tech that were added to 3D Out Run which is currently Japan exclusive. We can only hope that their inclusion in these collections means a Western release is on the cards.
Volume 1 contains music from Out Run, 3D Out Run and Turbo Out Run, volume 2 contains the full soundtrack to OutRunners and volume 3 contains the full soundtracks to all the iterations of Out Run 2.
SEGA’s Japanese iOS game Dragon Coins has been brought to the Western iOS App Store and Android Google Play Store. The game is free to download but those dreaded in-app purchases rear their head in the form of coin purchases. £6.99 gets you a sack of coins (snigger) and £2.99 gets you a bag.
The previously Japanese exclusive mobile game is a strange hybrid of Pokemon-esque RPG monster battling and those 2p machines you see down the arcade.
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