Jet Set Radio HD on the way, Skies of Arcadia and Shenmue next?

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Huge thanks to CG over at the Madboards for the heads-up – according to Gematsu (here and here), a Sega source has unofficially confirmed that HD ports of Shenmue 1 and 2 have been finished up for well over a year, pending a decision on where the franchise will be going.

Unbelievable news.

No technical details have been leaked, but given past Dreamcast HD ports, I’ll make the assumption we’ll see a widescreen-enhanced 720p port of Shenmue 1 and 2 coming via PSN and XBLA. In a perfect world, Sega would also make the games entirely bilingual so we can swap to Japanese audio. As amusing as the terrible dubbing in the first game was, it’ll be nice to play it in Japanese with English text – to date I’ll admit to having played through the Japanese version of Shenmue on the DC a few times, and there were a couple of spots where I struggled owing to my rubbish command of Japanese… though some perseverence won out 🙂 To my credit, I don’t recall hitting any FAQs for those playthroughs either, which I thought was cool.

Shenmue 2 is another story – there wasn’t a localised version available in the US owing to some exclusivity rights courtesy of Microsoft, but in PAL territories we (unexpectedly) won out with a Japanese language/English text localisation which was fantastic to play through. While the Xbox port apparently looked a bit nicer, the language was locked to the English dub, which is a downer in my view.

Where the stories get interesting is that it suggests Sega are sitting on the games while they decide what they want to do with the franchise, perhaps indicating Shenmue 3 may actually see the light of day? As long as they can port the Yakuza game engine to the XB360, that would probably give enough tools to allow Shenmue a release on current platforms without too much legwork.

Beyond this, the news on Skies of Arcadia is an extra splash of awesome – Rieko Kodama’s amazing RPG deserves a HD port at the least, and a full remake with all the trimmings preferably (or perhaps a sequel?). The game was arguably one of the best RPGs of the previous generation, with the superb Valkyria Chronicles taking in plenty of motifs that subtley (and not-so-subtley) hint at its inheritance of Skies’ DNA (the other big contributor is of course the Sakura Taisen series; given the development team behind Valkryia Chronicles though, the above historical linkages make perfect sense).

If the news of these HD ports prove true, it would would mark a remarkable return to form for Sega, demonstrating the company’s ability to start treating its strong back-catalogue with the kind of respect they deserve (perhaps the first time post-corporate takeover/bail out), especially by returning to the fanbase that did its best to keep the company afloat during its difficult years. Sonic CD on PSN/XBLA, Sonic Generations, Sonic 4: Episode 2, Jet Set Radio HD, Shenmue 1 and 2 HD, Skies of Arcadia HD, Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown… and now the possibility of Shenmue 3?

Bring on the blue skies.

Although following the progressive manner in which they approached Sonic CD, it would be amazing if they followed suit with Bombergames’ superb Streets of Rage Remake v5. Now that’s a title that would be amazing to have in sprite-blocky glory on my PS3.

Sonic The Hedgehog 4: Episode 2 trailer looks fun

So, the above is a teaser trailer for Sonic 4: Episode 2, and it does look much better than episode 1, which I downloaded a while back and find myself hating the more I played it. For every step that made the game fun and exciting, it followed up with cheap deaths and terrible stage design that was more interested in punishing you rather than giving you options to explore without the fear of death nipping at your heels. The controls were also a bit wonky, the music needed work (Gecko Yamori remixed the first stage’s song on the Mega Drive’s audio chipset and it sounded so much better) and the fact you lose speed when you’re in a spin (and coupled with the face you break out of a spin when you roll into the air – WTF?) broke the entire game, at least in my book. That’s probably part of the reason why I still haven’t finished it, which I really want to do before episode 2 comes out.

So, it’s with mixed feelings that I’ve watched the above preview, because after Sega’s double-whammy at Christmas in the guise of two excellent Sonic games (Sonic Generations and Sonic CD on PSN/XBLA), I’m hoping we might get a better, more refined and enjoyable Sonic title with this release.

Sonic Generations continues to pique my interest

I continue to be impressed by the refreshing direction Sega are taking with Sonic Generations – I’ve talked before about my initial excitement, but the latest E3 trailer seems to be marrying the concept of “old and new” with some success, at least as far as demo footage is concerned:

I’m worried about getting excited about a new Sonic game – Sonic Unleashed was an awful concept and Sonic 4 was flawed, but watching the 2D portion of that video just looked so good! Then Kris over at Silicon Era gave a great write-up of some hands-on with the game, and this continues to feed my proverbial fires of excitement about this game.

But I continue to be tentative. Old fart gamers like myself have a troubled history in trying to adapt to Sonic in 3D (despite genuinely liking the Dreamcast games back when they first came out), so you’ll have to excuse my skepticism. Skepticism that’s tempered by enthusiasm, but a skeptic I remain nonetheless.

The trailer above assures me we’ll see the game later on this year. Let’s see what the next few months bring, then.

Props to Silicon Era for linking the E3 trailer in with their recent piece on the game, as I’d missed it in my previous trawling.

Is Sega on the right track with Sonic Generations?

Over on the Madboards, gaming discussion has turned to the upcoming and recently announced Sonic Generations, Sonic Team’s latest Sonic game for Xbox 360 and PS3.

The initial trailer certainly had my interest piqued, but after checking out an update at Eurogamer, and a subsequent hands-on and new trailer at IGN, my interest is a little bit more than piqued – I might actually be getting excited 🙂

The premise seems to be you have the ability to fire through each and every level as “classic” Sonic and “modern” Sonic. It’s all very post-modern really. The catch is that playing as classic Sonic sets the game to play as a 2.5D platformer with a physics engine theoretically similar in feel to 16-bit Sonic titles, whereas playing through the level as modern Sonic looks like its bringing back a hybrid 3D/2.5D playing field, not unlike the good bits out of Sonic Unleashed or (apparently, because I haven’t played it yet) Sonic Colours.

It’s still early days, with the game slated for a late-2011 release. Sonic Unleashed showed promise (though the werehog disaster will haunt us for years to come), Sonic 4 was fun, Sonic Colours apparently isn’t terrible – could we be seeing a return to form for the series? Mind, considering that Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic 2006 were incredibly rubbish, the only way is up, right?

If this turns out well, I think Sega should give Rieko Kodama a team of genius programmers and talented artists and bring back Phantasy Star for another whirl. Then they can give us a fun Streets of Rage brawler and a proper strategy RPG in the Shining Force series using the same engine they developed for the sublime Valkryia Chronicles.

A fanboy can dream, right?

Thanks to CG from the Madboards for posting the original link!