The development of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 continues to be one of the most well documented stories in gaming history. The Video Game History Foundation have now preserved artwork from 2 ex-SEGA Technical Institute artists and discover a whole host of content from the game’s early development that we’ve never seen before. See below for a full list of the discoveries that they’ve made:
– Dark Empire was a cancelled STI Mega Drive game that was shelved due to Sonic 2 getting green-lit
– Maps of the concept stage Genocide/Cyber City by Tom Payne have been scanned that give us a better understanding of what this stage might have looked like
– A working demo of Genocide/Cyber City has been produced with Hez of Sonic the Hedgehog Classic fame, who has also been working on his own preservation of Wood/Secret Jungle Zone
– All of Tom Payne’s artwork has been made available to browse on Archive.org by clicking here
– The Sand Shower mock-up screen is actually animated and viewable on Brenda Cook’s VHS portfolio alongside a Wood/Secret Jungle Zone mock-up
– Brenda Cook’s VHS portfolio also reveals a completely unseen Winter-themed zone which is a palette swap of Sand Shower that now features snow and Christmas trees
– Brenda Cook’s VHS portfolio has been entirely preserved on YouTube and is available to watch by clicking here. It also contains artwork for a deleted Sonic Spinball stage
You can watch the entire video on all of these discoveries from The Video Game History Foundation via the embed below:
Famed Shining Force and Landstalker character designer Yoshitaka Tamaki has died aged 55 after battling lung cancer.
Tamaki actually passed back in July, but his family have only just made the news of his death public after a private mourning period.
Tamaki’s character design credits are featured in Shining in the Darkness, Shining Force, Landstalker, Shining Soul 1&2, Feda Remake: The Emblem of Justice, Time Stalkers, Shining Force: Resurrection of the Dark Dragon and Shining Force Neo.
SEGADriven would like to send our condolences to Tamaki’s friends, family and colleagues. He leaves a legacy that will never be forgotten.
ZPF is a brand new horizontally-scrolling shooter for the Mega Drive that has been in development for quite some time now. The three person team of Gryzor Rozyrg, Mikael Tillander and jgvex.eth have been toiling away on this impressive-looking shmup since 2020, and they are now close to launching a Kickstarter campaign to secure funding for the last stage of development, as well as give players the opportunity to secure a boxed version of the game which will now be published by Mega Cat Studios.
Mega Cat Studios have been very active in the indie Mega Drive space, publishing games like Coffee Crisis, Phantom Gear, Tanzer and Romeow & Julicat. You can view ZPF’s entry on the Mega Cat website by clicking here. You can also subscribe to the Mega Cat newsletter for updates on ZPF and the Kickstarter as soon as it happens via this same page. Check out the latest development update on ZPF via the embed below:
Developed by independent studio Overrated Future, Planet B is a brand new Mega Drive game that offers something a little different. The game is promising procedurally generated worlds and rogue-like action, which is something very unique when it comes to Mega Drive games. You can watch the game’s reveal trailer below:
Planet B by Overrated Future is currently set to be releasing, “in a near future”. The game will be getting a physical release but it is not currently available to pre-order at the moment. We hope to share more about Planet B as further information becomes available.
Gamtec’s independent Mega Drive RPG Legend of Wukong is getting a new lease of life through the Evercade EXP and Evercade VS retro systems.
Originally released in Taiwan in 1996 and then translated to English by Super Fighter Team in 2008, the game is one of the rarest independent Mega Drive releases and has been out of print for many years. The game will now be included in Piko Interactive Collection 3 for the Evercade alongside other Mega Drive games like Zero Tolerance and Sword of Sodan. You can watch the full reveal trailer for Piko Interactive Collection 3 by clicking the embed below:
The original sound designer for Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker, Hiroshi “JIMITA” Kubota, has shared some unreleased original songs that were planned for inclusion in the game but eventually excluded. These songs were intended to flesh out the soundtrack as SEGA were initially only prepared to pay the license fees for 3 of Michael Jackson’s songs at the time, but this changed during development and were no longer needed as a result.
2 of the songs were intended for the game and the other was composed around the same time but never planned to be used as a part of the soundtrack. You can check them all out via the embeds below:
Previously scheduled to release in July 2022, Bitmap Books have sadly had to cancel the release of their The Unofficial MD/Gen: A Visual Compendium book after SEGA have threatened the publisher with legal action.
Creative director Sam Dyer has issued a statement that says the company cannot risk potential legal action by releasing the book as the company cannot afford the costs as a small business. SEGA are reportedly not negotiating with the company despite them previously giving Bitmap Books their official stamp of approval for their Master System: A Visual Compendium book from 2019.
The move is a strange one from SEGA who have largely ignored unofficial publications based on their intellectual properties in the past. Dedicated SEGA fanzines like SEGA Powered continue to see publication without SEGA’s approval alongside Hardcore Gaming 101’s excellent SEGA Arcade Classics books.
Bitmap Books are looking for a way to release the PDF of the completed book for free so fingers crossed all the work done for The Unofficial MD/Gen: A Visual Compendium book doesn’t go to waste. This entire situation is a massive loss for video game preservation as history books like these become important archival documents for generations to come. SEGADriven send our condolences to Bitmap Books and the plethora of writers involved in this now cancelled publication.
Developed by Mauro Xavier AKA CFX, the first playable demo of his Final Fight MD port is now available to download. It’s quite a generous first offering that allows you to play up to the boss fight with Sodom/Katana.
Final Fight MD can be played on real hardware using a flash device or under emulation. The Mega Drive infamously never received a port of Final Fight, but a version was released in 1993 on the Mega CD called Final Fight CD.
Thanks to the amazing programming talent of Ian Michael and artist Adam Burrell, we now have an unofficial Dreamcast collection of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games that aims to be the Dreamcast equivalent of the recently released Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection. This Dreamcast version compiles all the SNES, NES, Game Boy and Mega Drive titles together with surprisingly great emulation. The only games it doesn’t feature are the original arcade ports for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Turtles in Time.
Also included are the Spectrum ports of the first TMNT console game and the arcade conversion which goes above and beyond the scope of the official compilation. We also get ROM hacks of Streets of Rage 2 that include the turtles as playable characters, alongside 2 Beats of Rage games themed around TMNT. There’s also an extensive video gallery which allows you to watch 2 full episodes of the original 1987 animated show, alongside some really deep cuts like the making of feature for the Coming Out of Their Shells tour amongst other videos.
Yuzo Koshiro has revealed that he is working on a new Mega Drive game with an unnamed designer who he previously collaborated with on Beyond Oasis/The Story of Thor.
While development is seemingly early, Koshiro has shared 2 screenshots of the game which appears to be a horizontally-scrolling shoot-em-up.
There is currently no word on when the game will release or whether it will get a physical release. Koshiro has previously worked on physical Mega Drive games that have been published by Columbus Circle, like 16 Bit Rhythm Land which released back in early 2019.
Koshiro has mentioned that the primary release will be for Mega Drive but that other platforms could follow.
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