The good news is that the service is certainly not dead and SEGA is still committed to bringing its back catalogue of retro goodies to smartphones and tablets, but the team is shifting focus slightly. It looks like SEGA Forever will now concentrate more on games that are natively coded for iOS and Android, rather than emulated, as the team explained in a post on its mobile page:

“Over the past eight months we’ve been observing how SEGA fans have been playing the 18 SEGA Forever titles that have been released so far.

“While we originally intended to focus largely on emulated titles, we have observed that our native ports are the most played games (Sonic The Hedgehog, Sonic The Hedgehog 2, Sonic CD, Crazy Taxi, and Virtua Tennis Challenge).

“Therefore, we’ve decided to make some changes to appeal even more to the audience that is most interested in this project. While we will continue working on emulated titles – with a surprise or two that you haven’t been expecting – our plan this year is to focus on porting titles natively.

“As a result of these changes, the cadence of releases will reduce. However, the next SEGA Forever title will be rolling out soon!

“The mobile team wants to thank fans from all around the world: in only eight months SEGA Forever titles have been downloaded more than 40 million times. This is only the beginning!”

I think it’s going to be interesting to see where this will take SEGA Forever. On the one hand the idea of emulated games sounded decent enough, as it could allow SEGA to publish games relatively quickly (not needing to code them specifically for the devices), but in practice SEGA Forever’s emulation hasn’t always been well received, with several issues particularly in the early weeks/months of its launch.

So, perhaps concentrating on native ports of retro titles could be the best thing for the service. From what’s been said, it looks like we won’t be seeing any Saturn or Dreamcast titles in the near future (sadly), but I’m sure looking forward to the “surprises” mentioned above.

Who’s Sonic gonna call? pic.twitter.com/VWnbTHOjWG

— SEGA HARDlight (@SEGAHARDlight) February 16, 2018

Soon later, Bandai Namco tweeted out a video of Pac-Man receiving a call from Sonic himself.

An invite? Who could this be from? Either way, we're SO IN! pic.twitter.com/7MnwbZDkSr

— Bandai Namco US (@BandaiNamcoUS) February 16, 2018

We will have to wait probably a few weeks before SEGA announces it officially. Sonic Dash success has more than 100 million downloads, with over 14 million players every month.

Developed by Treasure, Gunstar Heroes was originally released on the Mega Drive/Genesis way back in 1993. It also received a fancy 3D update by M2, as part of the SEGA 3D Classics range on the Nintendo 3DS some 20 years later.

As always, SEGA Forever titles are free to download, supported by adverts. Or you can choose to buy the game and remove all advertising.

If you’re reading this on your Android or iOS device, click this magical link to visit your preferred store and download the game, now! http://sega.vg/iDyD30hk11m

There’s some more SEGA Forever news (see below) but first, here’s some Gunstar Heroes screenshots and some lovely pieces of artwork, courtesy of our friends at SEGA Europe:

But wait, there’s more SEGA Forever news for our mainland European friends! The recently released Beyond Oasis (aka. Story of Thor) has just received a ‘continental’ update, now featuring Spanish, French, and German localisations of the game. This is great news, as it’s a story-driven adventure game and has a decent amount of text, so non-English speaking folk will hopefully enjoy a better experience with the game.

If you missed out on Beyond Oasis, here’s another magical link for you to download it: http://sega.vg/LirI30fNk77

This one… This one hurts.

On Friday, SEGA fans all over the world mourned the loss of a time-honored SEGA icon, Danica Patrick.* Patrick had long, storied career with SEGA, making appearance in both Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing Transformed and the Sonic Universe comic tie-in for Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing Transformed.

Danica Patrick will also be remembered for her contributions to the marketing world, revolutionizing commercials in sexy fashion for Internet hosting company, Go Daddy. She would also be remembered by SEGA fans for her knocking Toejam & Earl out of the roster for Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing Transformed, but she was roundly forgiven on account of her being smoking hot.

You may notice some diehard SEGA fans having a rough time dealing with this, so please be kind to those in the broader SEGA community who are coping with such a shocking, devastating loss. It’s never easy to say goodbye. Sometimes it’s even very, very hard. Like rock hard…

*UPDATE: Upon further research, it was actually announced Friday that Danica Patrick was, in fact, only retiring from NASCAR, not that she had died. At least now I can feel less like a necrophiliac when I pay tribute to all my screencaptured Go Daddy commercials. To the printer!

Source: The Washington Post

Originally starting with OutRun, Dashy Crashy has also seen additional cars and game modes based on: Daytona USA and Initial D. Now the game has seen an update featuring SEGA Rally – which excites me in particular, as it’s my all time favourite racing game! Woo!

Check out the video above to see Travis Ryan, former Sumo Digital developer and one of the main team at Dumpling Design working on Dashy Crashy, playing the game.

As mentioned, the new vehicles bring with them new racing styles/modes that mix up the normal gameplay of Dashy Crashy. Plus there’s quite a few more to come it seems.

If you’re interested in Dashy Crashy, then be sure to check it out on the AppStore and Google PlayStore, or visit the game’s website, here.

For those who aren’t familiar with the game, it’s a 2D platformer and you play as Ristar, an anthropomorphic star with stretchy arms (used for attacking enemies and grabbing ledges/poles/ladders). The story varies slightly between the Western and Japanese versions of the game (though it looks like SEGA Forever’s release is just the Western one). Essentially an evil space pirate, Kaiser Greedy, has used mind control to make different planets’ leaders obey him. In the English version Ristar’s father is a Legendary Hero, who is kidnapped by Greedy and Ristar goes on a quest to restore peace to the galaxy and save his father.

The slightly more exciting news is that, with the release of Ristar, it looks like SEGA has spent time updating the emulator. Gameplay/frame rates seem to be smoother than other SEGA Forever releases and there’s also some new features, such as customisable controls. plus the option to switch between original and smooth graphics (see gallery below).

I know things like the customisable controls are something that SEGA fans have been asking for, so it’s good to see that SEGA is missing and rolling out regular updates like this.

You can buy Ristar on the AppStore and GooglePlay now.

Previously, Virtua Tennis Challenge on mobile devices cost $5, but on July 11, 2017 Sega decided to make it a free game for their Sega Forever service. However, there’s a catch—in-game ads. Like with other Sega Forever games, players can cough up a one-time $1.99 purchase to unlock an ad-free version.

Virtua Tennis Challenge features a slew of different game modes with up to 18 virtual stadiums around the globe and 50 playable characters. In addition, players can challenge their friends in multiplayer mode via Wifi or Bluetooth connectivity.

Get Virtua Tennis Challenge on Google Play and iTunes.

You can watch the brand new trailer above featuring all of your favorite current and past WWE superstars. WWE Tap Mania is available on the App Store and Google Play Store for free.

Press Release:

SAN FRANCISCO, LONDON, and STAMFORD, CONN., 20th July, 2017 – SEGA Networks Inc. in partnership with WWE, today launched WWE Tap Mania, an action-packed mobile game that is now available worldwide* to download for free with in-app purchases on the App Store for iPhone and iPad and Google Play Store for Android devices. Developed by Cambridge, Massachusetts-based studio The Tap Lab, WWE Tap Mania features an expansive roster of past and present WWE Superstars facing off in the ring in high-octane live events and daily challenges.

In WWE Tap Mania, the action is immediate as players can get right into the ring; tapping to unleash signature moves on opponents, and collecting Superstar cards in order to assemble the ultimate team and take down the competition. Superstars can be levelled up to increase power and characters can be customised, allowing players to create signature moves that fit their own personal playstyle.

Included in the action are Legends and Superstars such as The Rock, John Cena, Triple H, Undertaker, Brock Lesnar, Roman Reigns, Sasha Banksand The Miz, with play-by-play commentary by WWE announcers Michael Coleand Corey Graves.
#UnleashTheMania! Battle the best, build your team, and take on the world to top Leaderboards and become a WWE Champion today! Download WWE Tap Mania now from the App Store for iPhone and iPad and Google Play Store for Android devices.

To stay up-to-date, follow WWE Tap Mania on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
WWE Tap Mania’s launch trailer is visible here

The iOS and Android versions of WWE Tap Mania are available to download here

But it looks as though the service’s launch titles, are available in the GooglePlay store already! It’s definitely in the UK, because I have access to them, and some parts of America and South America – though not everywhere it seems, as some of our team can’t see them still.

Now, we assumed by all the details we’d gathered over the weeks and even with SEGA’s official announcement, that SEGA Forever was going to be a single app, which provided the means to download and play classic SEGA titles, but now we’re not so sure.

When you type ‘SEGA Forever’ into the search, a lot of SEGA and SEGA-related titles appear and that includes individual apps for the launch titles announced for SEGA Forever, namely: Sonic 1, Phantasy Star II, Altered Beast, Kid Chameleon and Comix Zone (Note: actually I had to search separately for Comix Zone, but it’s there!).

Now, these aren’t just the standard apps, when you boot up the games, you are greeted with the SEGA Forever info box and a new menu screen, from which you launch the game. You have the option to sign up to a SEGA-zine, which appears to be some form of newsletter, offering artwork, hints and articles about “your favourite SEGA games.”

You can also click on the ad-free button, which takes you through to a payment screen to unlock the game for £1.99. Though, it looks like this doesn’t totally stop *all* adverts, as the information box specifies that you will still see adverts for SEGA games – that might sound a little ‘off’, but I get SEGA’s approach and in some ways, as a SEGA fan, I don’t mind seeing the odd advert about other SEGA games on the service. 

Speaking more about the ads, on the menus you see basic ads for other apps or service, like JustEat and you also get pop-ups for games, which tend to appear as you initially load the app (before the menu screen really pops up) or just before you start the game; so far, in game there are no ads. I saw the Crazy Taxi Gazillionaire advert about 4 or 5 times in my quick play on the different games, although, humorously I did also see one for Super Mario Run – well if Nintendo is paying for the advert, I guess SEGA can finally benefit from Mario’s popularity!

On the menu screen, you also have the ability to connect to Facebook and annoy the crap out of your friends by sending them invites. Yes, I’m afraid the days of game-invites on social media are not over. But I think we’d all rather see an invite to a game like Streets of Rage, over Candy Crush!

You also have some other standard menu options, such as seeing the game credits and high-scores – but you can also send a message… I’m not entirely sure who you are sending the message to though – as it wasn’t clear. I’m going to go ahead and assume it’s just a message to SEGA, but it doesn’t actually say.

Check out the gallery below for more information and go ahead and check out the GooglePlay store to see if you can grab these games a day early!

These games are free-to-play and you can play them ad-free through an in-app purchase of $1.99; Each game will be a standalone app. SEGA Forever’s lineup will include games from every console era, including:

• SG-1000
•  Master System
•  Genesis/Mega Drive
•  Game Gear
•  SEGA Saturn
•  Dreamcast

The first five games launch June 22nd and they are:

• Sonic The Hedgehog
• Altered Beast
• Phantasy Star II
• Comix Zone
• Kid Chameleon

Each game will include added features such as: 

• Leaderboards
• Cloud Saves
• Offline Play
• Controller Support
• Community News Feed
• SEGA Forever menu screen languages in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Russian and Brazilian Portuguese