The Sega Mega Drive Classics Hub itself puts the player into a 3D environment of a Sega fan’s bedroom in the early nineties. The player can then boot up the in-game CRT TV, choose the game they want to play off a virtual shelf, and load up the Mega Drive to start playing.
Neat.
All Mega Drive games will also have Steam Workshop support, allowing players to create and share mods of the retro games.
I wonder how this will work in practice? Will the mods simply be hacked ROMs requiring programming knowledge to create or will some kind of editor be released for specific games?
Access to the hub itself will be free for players who own one of any of the Sega Mega Drive Classic titles available on Steam, as listed below.
I notice a mysterious absence of the Sonic titles from that list. Are Sega planning something else with these? (e.g. Sonic CD style remakes?)
Emulation and Roms are so widely used; I don’t see people paying for this…If you’re a gamer someone, eventually, has told you about emulation or showed you how to play a rom. Let’s see how the user mods are…
Curiously, there’s no mention of the title for the US, given that the console was named Genesis there. I’ve asked, and they were going to look into it, but haven’t really received a response. It’d be really odd if it was called Mega Drive Classics Hub in the US.
I’m not sure that I understand this concern. Most PC games can be torrented quite easily. People buy games from Steam because it’s convenient or because they wish to play the games legitimately. I suppose there would be more incentive to buy the games from Steam if they added Steam features such as achievements and cloud saves though.
It’s just that the selection of games seems pretty limited. Seems like a nice idea, but I would like to see custom levels from the Sonic the Hedgehog series…
IMO it sounds very gimmicky and more like a covert advertisement for the ability to buy Mega Drive games on Steam rather than a feature you’d actively use. I’m sure they won’t include how frustrating the European boxes can be to open, for example.
I tried it. The bedroom UI is nothing special, but it’s a nice throwback to the time when games were distributed on cartridges. If you’ve bought a number of games, they’re lined up on a shelf in boxes which is something that you might miss a little if you only buy digital games. By default the games will be played on a curved screen, representing the old CRT TVs, although this setting is customisable. I believe you can skip this UI entirely as there is a quick launch option, but I haven’t tried it.
I’d like to see third party games released for this. It would be cool to have Rocket Knight Adventures on the virtual shelf next to Sega’s games (which was what my shelf looked like back in the day).
Personally I want Sega to look ahead more instead of looking back. The only retro games Sega should focus on, IMO, are those that aged extremely well (due to unique art that never ages).
Sega should keep making games of such quality in my ever-so humble opinion. Artistically Phantasy Star Online 2 still looks great IMO.
Having said that, I am glad that Sega are still alive to even see the future.
I’d prefer a spiritual successor to Skies, rather than a direct sequel. The story of Skies of Arcadia was wrapped up nicely and geographically there isn’t much more of that world to explore. The gameplay of Skies of Arcadia was already quite traditional back in the Dreamcast era; a game with random battles and turn based mechanics would struggle in today’s market. If you’re going to change the gameplay, setting, and characters, is it still Skies of Arcadia? A modern, open world game with similar themes and setting could be epic.
Skies had a self-contained story. There’s a lot of truth to that story too (especially when it comes to the Gigas).
I don’t believe the gameplay of Skies would be a good return on investment in today’s market given that it is rooted in turn-based RPGs that came from a different time such as Phantasy Star which require a lot of patience.
I would much prefer for Sega to simply survive through these dark economic times at the moment.
I think it would be a great idea if we saw some of the main characters again though. I was hoping that Garian would show up in Time Stalkers, but I guess he’s still trapped on Jailer’s Island. Or maybe he changed his name and decided to start again somewhere.
Anyway, I have no plans to give up on Sega. I will try to keep up to date with Sega in the future.
Okay, but there is one option left for a sequel (I know Vyse wouldn’t be able to resist): Why not have Vyse and crew explore the Moons? They still have Fina’s ship right?
And you need a new story/villain right? Well what about the mystery and ominous presence of the Dark Moon suddenly appearing in the sky?
And yes, the battle system would have to change. I would prefer something along the lines of a Kingdom Hearts/Final Fantasy 15 action rpg battle system. Hey, if they revived Shenmue this is not out of the question…
That was really the culmination of someone’s persistence. The story was never finished. We might see a conclusion to the story now, whereas Skies never really left itself open for a sequel.
Edit: It’s a minor miracle that Shenmue 3 is even being made.