Here is Sega’s official statement:

“SEGA and D3T indeed had started exploring the feasibility of a full HD remaster for Shenmue I & II. That being said, we soon realised that this was a project with its own set of challenges. Working with original animations and characters but meshing them with enhanced HD visuals gave us a game that we felt would not meet the standards that Shenmue fans expect and deserve. Rather than going ahead with a release that may disappoint fans, we chose to focus on bringing the classic game to PC and modern consoles, so that new players could experience Shenmue’s original charm.”

I buy it. A faithful port with enhancements was the right way to go about it.

I am not a fan of meshing old animations with half baked modern visuals, Yakuza Kiwami is a prime example. I don’t like that in a remake. If I am to buy a remake I’d prefer that it be like Capcom’s Resident Evil remakes.

If Sega can’t do a remake from scratch then I will gladly take an enhanced port over a half old – half new mesh of a game.

I still fondly remember when I wrote for Dreamcast-Scene back then, and our website, along with other hosts who offered to download it, crashed. To this day, the Beats of Rage (BOR) Engine is a favorite tool among aspiring homebrew game devs and has its own thriving community.

In 2009, Senile Team transitioned from humble homebrew development to full-blown indie development with the commercial release of Rush Rush Rally Racing (R4) — one of the best racing games on the Dreamcast, and, to date, the only indie racer. The game was later given an enhanced port to WiiWare where it quickly ascended to the top of the sales chart.

For almost a decade, Senile Team has been flying below the radar, but they have started to rumble once more, with the recently release of a deluxe version of R4, titled Rush Rush Rally Reloaded, which is currently on sale. They also have a sizzling platformer currently in development Intrepid Izzy, our editor in chief Chris Powell has written a fantastic article detailing its development.

Needless to say, we’re all really excited for this upcoming gem, and to whet our appetites even more, Senile Team has started their own behind-the-scenes development vlog. The first episode shows off the game running on Dreamcast, but in addition to the actual game, you get a really cool look into Senile Team head honcho Roel Van Mastbergen game rig and work station. In the reflection of the TV, a poster of the Japanese cover art of the original Sonic The Hedgehog hangs centered in the room.

The first “devlog” perfectly showcases the colorful and imaginative world Izzy will have to journey through holding true to their promise of featuring “gameplay and graphics are like a wonderful marriage between classic and modern gaming.”

The second vlog is much more detailed, similar to Elysian Shadows (another highly anticipated Dreamcast game whose developer also has a YouTube dev series AiGD), we learn fun facts such as Senile Team has their own custom animation software. Unlike most Dreamcast games which run using the KallistiOS Development library (the indie equivalent of Katana), Senile Team use their own custom game development kit.

The devlog is a must watch for aspiring game developers and those who can’t wait to get their hands on the upcoming platformer.

For more information be sure to visit Senile Team’s official website, like them on Facebook and follow them on Twitter! Also take your parents phones and have them follow and like them as well. This article is not a paid endorsement

Hopefully we will have more information on Intrepid Izzy and Senile Team in a future issue of Mega Visions Magazine.

More info from the YouTube video Desciption:

A video captured from a webcam of SLaVE running on the Sega Dreamcast. It was recorded from a webcam on the local PC, using DCLoad-IP to transfer the 3DGE program to the Dreamcast with CDFS redirection of the SLaVE ISO. This allows us to view 3DGE’s output in realtime, which has aided with debugging for a long time now. Plus, less wear and tear on the laser during our intense Crunch mode

Showcasing the first 5 grids of SLaVE on real hardware. Not only that, but the sheer amount of customization our 3DGE engine brings to the Sega Dreamcast console. Fully customizable controls (keyboard/mouse, DC Pad, Twinstick, force-feedback — all fully supported), customizable video options (television/monitor aspect ratio size, dynamic lights), resolution tweaking (320×200 or 640×480 with VGA, 320×200 with plain AV/television), gameplay modifiers/options, Sprite smoothing (or go oldschool with pure raw unfiltered pixel graphics, which actually increases framerate slightly) — the works! Play how you want to play. =)

Note from the lead programmer, Corbin (Coraline):

Apologies for the poor quality of the video. Once my capture card comes in then I’ll record better footage, but honestly it might not be worth it — the release date is so close now it might be better to let the world see for themselves at this point

SLaVE is a masterpiece of both design and technology, and it works perfectly on the Dreamcast. If only I had a mouse and keyboard, I would have totally PWNED it, since I’m so lame I never really figured out how to play properly with a controller. Oh well, I didn’t do too bad!

Only a few more issues to be worked out as witnessed in this footage capture (Skybox generation, minor speed issues with dynamic lights), but I sincerely hope this proves beyond a matter of a doubt — SLaVE is so close now — those pre-orders will be worth it my friends!!

If you have not, head to http://www.goatstore.com to secure your copy of SLaVE today! Available only for a limited time while supplies last!

SLaVE is © Jay X Townsend. Developed by Jay X Townsend in collaboration with Isotope SoftWorks.

The Isotope Logo, name, and 3DGE are all © Isotope Softworks. 3DGE is by and © Isotope SoftWorks and Contributors, licensed under the GPLv2. The GOAT Store Logo and name are © Goat Store Publishing, LLC. Sega and the Dreamcast logo are registered trademarks of Sega Corporation.

As you would expect from the title, the trailer delves deep into the world and mythology of the game. While it doesn’t really show much gameplay, there’s a ton of screenshots and samples of the game’s soundtrack.

We have not done a news story on Elysian Shadows since its Kickstarter campaign was announced back in August 2014 (I suggest you check the link out, if you are not up to speed on this ambitious project). The game was successfully funded within weeks of the crowd funding campaign going online and caused quite the media stir. Including an appearance by Falco, Tyler, Patryk and Connor on SEGA Nerdcast 55, where Connor gave us an exclusive sneak peak of his boss theme, followed by another appearance on Nerdcast 59 featuring more of Falco than one would want to see.

It was originally given a tentative release date of December 2015; however, it doesn’t appear the game will be releasing anytime soon. Unlike other crowdfunded games or indie Dreamcast projects where developers simply underestimate the challenges of game development, the Elysian Shadows team had to deal with … well, not having a team.

With the exception of programmer and project creator Falco Girgis and Poland-based artist Patryk Kowalik, all the original seven developers pictured above left the team. Falco and Patryk were the only two members still in the team. While the duo kept working on the game, the big news coming out of the studio consisted of all the drama that had lead to the dissolution of the team.

Ironically, former members of the team started developing Towards the Pantheon, which looks like it’s really far in development and should be coming out in Fall 2017. The project is spear headed by Canada-based musician Connor Linning and Russia-based artist Leandro Tokareveski. Tyler Rogers and Daniel Tindall are also credited. Connor informed us that unlike Elysian Shadows, which relies on an engine the Elysian Shadows Team developed themselves, he is simply using GameMaker Studio to develop Towards the Pantheon, which makes a Dreamcast port difficult. Nonetheless, the game is looking great with his signature music and fervent desire to integrate survival horror elements into an RPG.

Circling back to Elysian Shadows, the project team had experimented with a few developers and have now finally settled down with brothers Jeremy and Brandon Likes. Both of whom were backers of the project, with Jeremy serving as sound engineer and Brandon handling community management, level design and video production.

Elysian Shadows also has a YouTube series titled “Adventures in Game Development” that chronicles the game’s development dating back to 2007. While there is no trailer outside of the Kickstarter video, there’s hours of in-development footage featured in the show, which is actually where we found the “Legends and Lore” trailer and requested Brandon to publish it outside of the show. Elysian Shadows currently seems to be moving forward despite it not having a firm release date.

French developer Orion has been circling the Dreamcast scene for many years. I first discovered him on the DC Emulation Forums, where he was potentially fishing for a publisher by demoing cross-platform builds of his four games: Alice’s Mom’s Rescue, Elansar, Philia, and Yopez IceStar. Shortly thereafter, he was discovered by the undisputed German heavyweight champion of the indie Dreamcast scene, Rene Hellwig of Hucast Games. Even though Hucast is primarily known for releasing various iterations of Dux/Redux, they have been stepping up as a European distributor after the fall of Redspotgames, and that is a good thing.

In January 2015, they made their Dreamcast debut with a cutesy (expect to read this word a lot in my articles), sprite-based 2D retro platformer titled Alice’s Mom’s Rescue. Alice’s Mom’s Rescue was evidently inspired by Lewis Carroll’s children’s’ book, Alice in Wonder Land. Those who have read my piece on the Wind & Water re-release know that I am open to 8-Bit games on SEGA’s 128-Bit console. What I am not open to, however, is them being full-priced games.

Alice’s Mom’s Rescue was released for Dreamcast for approximately US$30 and US$50 (original price is Euro’s) for regular and limited editions, respectively. The regular editions was given the typical Redspotgames faux Japanese jewel-case treatment, where as the Limited edition came in an NGDT style faux Japanese DVD case. As always, the limited edition featured an alternate box art and was paired with the soundtrack CD. The game was considerably uneconomical, considering it can be bought for a fraction of that price on numerous other downloadable platforms such as Mac, Windows, Linux, and more.

Hucast did receive criticism from the community and allegedly from the developer as well (could not find a source, just internet gossip), who stated that the game was overpriced. All things considered, I think the publisher did a serviceable job with the game. This was Hucast’s first time publishing a 3rd party game and while the price tag may be high, it could potentially be justified. 8-bit or not, this is the first commercial Dreamcast platformer in “donkey years” (I don’t know what donkey years are but it sounds pretty long).

In August 2015, Hucast took the criticism in stride and bundled Elansar & Philia, which makes sense as both are point-and-click adventure games and Philia is the sequel to Elansar. The game was only available in a single standard DVD case edition and was commercially released for US$ 29.99 (which makes each game $15).

Fast forward to June 27th, 2016 and it appears that Orion has decided to go fiercely independent, or Hucast has opted out of publishing the game. Whatever their motivations might be, the final game from the November 2014 DC Emu post has been quietly released independently by Orion. Here’s the fun part; the final game was Yopaz Icestar, a simple 2D puzzle game. Surprisingly, Orion released two more games in the Orion Puzzle Collection.

To bluntly share my impressions, the absence of a publisher is immediately felt. There has been almost no marketing efforts beyond a game page on Orion’s official website. The website, which seems to have escaped from the 90s, includes an amateurish and poorly edited game trailer. Orion’s Puzzle Collection includes the aforementioned Yopaz Icestar, Yopaz 3D (A 3D remake of IceStar, duh!) and lastly, Turtle Chomp. Even with brief gameplay footage, I have not been able to discern what the game is about, and its official description, “a little surprise, a fun and casual puzzle game full of Internet meme & Omnomnomnom” doesn’t help me understand anything either.

I will be honest, Yopaz 3D does look like an attractive game, especially since it comes with a level builder however the games steep €30 (Approximately $34) price tag is uneconomical even with shipping and tracking included. Those interested in a more economical puzzle game can check out Yuan Works recently re-released Wind & Water: Puzzle Battles for $15 with shipping. American players may also want to check out the original GSP Puzzlers from the early days.
We have contacted the developer for a review copy and will share our impressions with you, if and when we receive a copy.
Editor Note: Special thanks to Forbes Longden for providing us the photograph of the game spines and confirming that the game disc has the exe files to boot up on a PC.

Yuan Work’s little known Wind & Water: Puzzle Battles (W&W:PB) is what I consider the most underappreciated game on the Dreamcast. Originally released in November 2008, the game’s sales can be likened to E.T. for the Atari 2600. The silver lining for Wind & Water, however, is that the publisher opted to give away unsold copies of the game for free at trade shows instead of burying them in the desert.

So what is this Wind & Water: Puzzle Battles?

Wind & Water: Puzzle Battles is an adorable, chibi-anime-style, pixel-art, action-puzzle, role-playing game developed for the handheld device GP2X by two brothers in Costa Rica.

Go ahead and take a minute to process that last sentence.

You may be wondering, “What the flip is a GP2X?” It’s a Linux-based handheld game console and portable media player released only in South Korea in 2005, sold via import stores across the world. What made the console special was that its primary source of games was 16-bit emulation and homebrew.

The champion of emulation and homebrew home consoles back then was our beloved Dreamcast. Hence, the Dreamcast scene had a strong affinity towards the little Korean handheld. In 2003, Max Scharl (founder of DCS and RedSpotGames) was demoing a prototype for a GP32 (predecessor of GP2X)/DC link cable at various trade shows in an effort to find a distributor.

Fast forward to 2007 and Scharl had launched his own independent game publishing company Redspotgames where he persuaded Yuan Works to remake the game for Dreamcast.

Unlike our American indie Goat Store publishers (GSP) who were taking a casual homebrew “not for getting rich” approach towards independent development, Scharl took an aggressive professional approach and went as far as ushering the trend of packaging indie games as Japanese commercial games, deceptively blurring the lines between indie and licensed.

This approach may have been lucrative for NGDT’s shm’ups, which fit seamlessly into the steady stream of licensed “shmups” that were still being released for the console, but it inadvertently functioned as the first nail in the coffin for the Costa Rican puzzler.

… and why was it an abysmal failure?

Unfortunately, Scharl failed to capitalize on this unique offer and focused his efforts on demoing the game at events such as Game Convention. The game was released to little fan fare on November 1st, 2008. For roughly US $50 (paired with international shipping which costs a little over $10), you end up paying an obscene amount for a retro game. Alternatively, there was Play-Asia selling the game for $40.

Nonetheless, the game was anything but economical, especially compared to all the other GSP puzzle games.

To be fair, the game was exponentially better in quality than most of the GSP puzzlers and the production values were better than most commercial games. For example, the game came with a beefy, 40-page, full color manual with all text translated in English and Japanese!

Most commercial games don’t even offer so much. Scharl went about marketing W&W with a lot of passion but completely in the wrong direction. Various strategies were employed to move W&W, such as bundling the game with other shmups, but it wasn’t enough. A year later, Redspotgames dropped the price. However, they still weren’t able to move their stock and eventually gave the remaining copies of the game for free at trade shows.

The final nail in W&W’s limited print run was just like the Dreamcast: the game was ahead of its time. W&W came out a couple of years before the 8/16-bit retro revival via PSN/XBLA.

The Dreamcast market was simply not ready to appreciate the beauty of old school pixel art because we all wanted shiny polygonal games; The whole movement of looking at pixels as art had not kicked off yet. I was a vocal critic of Wind & Water and lambasted the game without ever playing it.

I was uneducated about the chibi, anime-art style and made several posts discouraging people from buying the game. I overlooked the beautiful little things like a playable character modeled after the VMU or the cutesy story that was meant to educate gamers about the hurdles in game development. I hope to make amends for that mistake with this feature.

Legacy

Dreamcast Vlogger Adam Koralik has described Wind & Water as the most underrated Dreamcast game. Benzaie from That Guy with the glasses (Nostalgia Critic’s Company) has called it the best indie Dreamcast game and has “placed it on par with Chu Chu Rocket.” GagaMan from Dreamcast Junkyard was the voice of reason, who finally forced me to take off my 3D-tinted glasses and enjoy the 240p 2D pixel art.

The commercial failure of W&W had severely detrimental effects on the future of Yuan Works. The indie Dreamcast scene was flourishing and Hucast had just released Dux, which sold out in a few months. NG:Dev.Team had released Last Hope: Pink Bullets, which also sold pretty fast. Even Fast-Striker released in 2010 sold out. Yet, Wind & Water could not sell without being bundled with those those games.

In my discussions with Yuan-Hao, he told me that he questioned himself as a developer because of the game’s failure. Conducting a postmortem on W&W, Yuan-Hao realized the failure of the game was not in development but in marketing. Hence, he started studying marketing and with that his own marketing business, which grew into a lucrative business, effectively pulling him away from game development.

Wind & Water had a lasting impact on the future of indie games. Scharl clearly learned a valuable lesson from the game. When he published Senile Team’s Rush Rush Rally Racing in 2009, it was released in two editions. The deluxe came with color manuals and an OST CD, while a regular edition came with black and white manuals. Additionally, the game emphasized fun, retro gameplay over cutting-edge graphics.

In 2011, Yuan Works released the game as freeware on Windows so that everyone could enjoy it. I briefly played the PC version, and realized I must own this game, so I spent many years hunting the game down. Last year, I was finally able to find myself a brand-new, sealed copy to add to my Dreamcast collection.

Resurrection

Fortunately for all of you, you do not need to buy this game from an overpriced auctions at eBay, because the loving folks at DragonBox Shop have persuaded Yuan Works to let them handle republishing of the game.

This isn’t their first foray in Dreamcast publishing as they released Retro Guru’s Fruit’y: Playing with Edibles last year, but they have worked hard at persuading Yuan Works and have released the game at a sensible price of $10 (depending on July 4th Euro exchange rate). DragonBox and Yuan Works said they hope that the low price will help compensate for international shipping prices.

Since July 4th, 2016 is America’s Independence Day, I would formally request independent developer Yuan Works to collaborate with independent publisher Goat Store and do us Americans all a solid and release the game domestically!

(Editor’s note: Featured image courtesy of Aaron Foster, aka Gagaman, from Dreamcast Junkyard
Article has been updated once since last posted. We erroneously wrote that this was Dragon Box’s first game in the original publication)

If you thought the Dreamcast releases were going to slow down as we get later into 2016, think again because a new Kickstarter campaign was just launched by indie developer Retro Sumus to bring a new title to our beloved Dreamcast.

Xenocider is a 3D arcade action game with retro-futuristic aesthetics, currently in development for Dreamcast, Windows, Mac, Linux and 3DS. An innovative approach to the on-rails shooter genre and the first 3D arcade game for the Dreamcast in over a decade, Xenocider is a personal 3D homage to the classic Space Harrier, with a little influence from Galaxy Force and Sin & Punishment thrown into the mix.

The game tells the story of Xara, a cyborg from a remote planet turned into the ultimate weapon of mass destruction thanks to her superhuman strength and speed and her combat skills in extreme environments.

The Kickstarter went online on May 9th and in the next 24 hours has attracted 192 backers, securing about $15,000. The target goal for Xenocider’s Kickstarter is $92,000 by June 9th. If the project is successful, we can expect the game to be released in December 2017. Judging how efficiently, Retro Sumus is operating I expect this to be a game that will be released with in the projected timeframe.

Even though the game is in early stages of development a playable Dreamcast demo is available for potential backers to burn on a CD. Backers have a number of rewards that they can choose from but the relevant one to us the actual pressed Dreamcast game is up for $50 on par with Elysian Shadows and Pier Solar.

Retro Sumus is the independent video game studio from Dreamcast scene veteran Daniel Lancha better known as Chui. The enigmatic Chui has been an essential resource to the scene, since its inception with his work on running emulators on the console.

Lately, he has collaborated with several indie studios. From Isotope Softworks (SLaVE, Hypertension) to WaterMelon (Pier Solar), Chui has most recently helped Hucast finish Ghost Blade when they lost their programmer.

Hence, it was an inevitability that Chui would start his own studio. He has put together a team composed of talented artists (Abel Del Dedo and Marina Rodriguez) , programmer (Oscar Peleaz) musician (Juanjo Martin) and last but not the least a marketing man Carlos Oliveros who has been sharing regular progress of the game routinely at almost every Dreamcast and SEGA related forum. WaterMelon co-founder and Pier Solar co-creator Tulio Goncalves is also serving as a producer and publisher.

For more information check out the Kickstarter or the game page on DCS.

The general opinion within the community is that the delays were made to allow Kadokawa time to port the game on to 3DS. Since the Wii has become a relic faster than Nintendo Gamecube, Kadokawa decided to port the game to WiiU. Since it’s release the game has been panned by critics. The end result has been worse than SEGA’s port of Platinum Games Bayonetta to PS3. Fortunately, Yuji Naka insisted on the inclusion of his original Wii version along with the first print run of the Wii U version. Our resident graphic artist Kopke, who has played both versions of the game was vocal about defending the Wii version on Episode 91 of Sega Nerdcast. It seems mainstream websites such as Kotaku are echoing his sentiments as well.

YouTuber BlazeHedgehog has uploaded an excellent comparison between the Wii and Wii U. It is an in depth yet concise play through I highly recommend watching it.

For those unfamiliar with Dynamite Dreams, it’s basically a Bomberman-inspired action-puzzle game designed by French developers Julien Desquenne (aka Patbier) and Nicolas Pochet (aka Poche) with musical contributions by Philippe Vendi. A company in Europe had the rights to the name Dynamite Dreams and they forced the game developers to change the name.

The game was originally conceived as a mini game for a platform game known as Alice Dreams. Due to legal obstacles, the developers had decided to revert back to the original name and added “Tournament” to its title. With that trivia out of the way, let’s have a look at the game’s Kickstarter.

Alice Dreams Tournament is a unique Kickstarter in many ways:

First and foremost, this is the first true Dreamcast Kickstarter as Redux, Leona’s Tricky Adventure,  and Pier Solar have been PC ports. This is the first game on Kickstarter which has been built from the ground up for Dreamcast.

But that’s not all that is unique about Alice Dreams Tournament. This is the first Kickstarter that is not looking to fund its development. That’s right, Alice Team is not looking for you to back their project so that they can develop the game. As we have reported, the game’s development status has been 90% complete since 2013.

So why the Kickstarter?

Well, there are a number of reasons:

No publisher is attached to the project, so backers are basically enabling them to handle production responsibilities. Alice Dreams Tournament is possibly the first Kickstarter video game that is looking to fund production instead of development!

In addition to the game’s physical production, backers also have the opportunity to fund a brand new Dreamcast peripheral called the VMU lamp:

The above video demonstrates an early prototype. The VMU lamp plugs into the rear slot and towers above the VMU, illuminating it in the dark. This is an important accessory for the game as there are game modes in Alice Dreams Tournament that utilize the VMU for game play. The lamp is sold for $77/€69 and comes bundled with the collector’s edition of the game which costs $55/49€ on its own.

Lastly, for $106/€95 you can be in the game! Similar to what Yuan Works did for Wind & Water: Puzzle Battles, Alice Team will add you into the game as a playable character and you will get a copy of the Collector’s Edition!

For more information check out this trailer:

Anything else

The Kickstarter launched on 26th September 2015 with a modest goal of $9,559/8,942€ which was successfully achieved on the first day.

The regular edition for the game can be pre-ordered for $34 ($28 for early birds).

Additionally a two-disc Collector’s Edition, which comes with a beta for the platformer, can be pre-ordered for $55.

Backers who preorder via Kickstarter will also get their name in the game’s credits.

Since Alice Team has attained their targeted funding, they have revealed two stretch goals: “More VMU Interaction” for €14,000 and a”Making off” for €18,000. As of press time, Alice Dreams Tournament has attained $15,300. If you would like to buy a copy of Alice Dreams Tournament, click here!

Source: Kickstarter via Dreamcast-Scene

Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs is an all-new 2D 16-Bit style run’n’gun shoot-’em-up that is based upon the original series from 1986. The Kickstarter debuted on September 5th 2015 with a target of $75,000.

The Dreamcast release was initially a stretch goal, but strong response from the fans convinced the developers to make the Dreamcast version a core part of the Kickstarter. To celebrate the announcement, they also released a downloadable Dreamcast Demo (with screenshots, music and VMU support) that potential consumers could burn and boot up on Dreamcast.

On Thursday, October 1st 2015, the team successfully reached their target and have stretch goals for rewards exceeding $200,000, but there is still time to contribute to their project!

There are two versions available for the SEGA Dreamcast: A $49 regular edition and a $100 2 disc limited edition.

Yesterday, Water Melon developer of the illusive Pier Solar and publisher of the upcoming Elysian Shadows revealed that they have signed on as publishers for the game. They are a fitting match as the developer plans to port the game to SNES.

The Dreamcast port of the game is scheduled for Q2 2017

To learn more about the anime, video game, and everything else, head on over directly to their Kickstarter which ends on October 5th!

Source: Dreamcast-Scene