Does Sega make anything actually worth playing these days?
I’m genuinely curious.
Well, despite having not played it, Bayonetta is meant to be good and that’s published by Sega.
Again, haven’t played it, but I’ve heard good things about Spiral Knights. Again, published by Sega.
Total War: Rome 2 is another title via Sega that I haven’t played but hear good things about.
I have played both Vanquish and Sonic Generations, both fun games. Especially Generations, they really nailed the 2D sections. Why they can’t just recreate that boggles my mind.
Thanks for the reply.
Next question: is there anything left of the old Sega?
I checked out Shining Blade and Shining Ark and didn’t like the direction they went in. Nevertheless the gameplay might have potential as a true console game.
I didn’t realise there was an arcade perfect conversion of Virtua Fighter 2 on Xbox Live and PSN.
I can’t believe that VF2 is 20 years old. The art didn’t age. Damn this brings back memories. I liked VF2 in the arcades. I loved the artwork. The following games never managed to excite the imagination like VF2 did.
Sonic is still insanely popular I see.
I just bought Sonic 4 i & ii on XBL so I’ll have to see if they’re any good. Generations might’ve spoiled me a little though.
Not interested in any other Sega stuff, although I wish I had a quality Dreamcast emulator.
The last great games from Sega I remember purchasing were just HD versions of past games:
Nights into Dreams HD
Sonic CD HD
I bought Sonic Lost World and was utterly disappointed. Too much Mario and not enough Sonic. Sold it on Ebay.
…So aside from Alien: Isolation which looks promising, they really haven’t made anything new and innovative. Nothing coming even close to the creativity, charm, and originality of days past. 
I have to be honest with you guys. I really miss the Saturn. I’m going to see if mine still works.
I might check out Sonic Generations too, but I would love to play an arcade perfect version of VF2. That was an incredibly unique fighting game. The art has not aged. Maybe I’m just being nostalgic though.
Sega announced… Shining Resonance for the PS3.
shining.wikia.com/wiki/File:Shin … rtwork.png
shining.wikia.com/wiki/File:SR_SS3.png
The art looks incredibly generic. It’s disappointing to say the least.
[quote=“legaiaflame”]Nights into Dreams HD
[/quote]
I didn’t like the original because I couldn’t stand the graphics. I hated seeing net curtain effects everywhere. I’m glad they remade it. The Saturn didn’t do Nights justice.
The greatest games that Sega ever made always seemed to be restricted some way in what the hardware was capable of.
e. g.
Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles/Sonic CD
Panzer Dragoon Saga
Knights into Dreams
Shining Force Saturn series
Sonic Adventure
Skies of Arcadia
Shenmue
Others I can’t think of right now…
I think this in turn caused developers to come up with innovative and out of the box solutions. Since the games were more confined due to hardware limitations, they were on a somewhat smaller scale. Developers could focus more on the detail/art direction (within a single limited space), gameplay mechanics and game design.
It seems during most circumstances, less is more and quality over quantity rings true. It seems to me (on an unrelated Sega note) that’s why games like ICO and Shadow of the Colossus are so loved and considered works of art.
The problem I see now is: games have become too large for their own good; created on a massive scale. Within most games you are now required to have a huge world or open world mechanic. Instead of showing you art and design coming together smoothly, trees and buildings are randomly placed or generated across vast distances.
As a result, we get bland uninspired design. Things looking generic, too spaced out or empty, not enough detail, and more so than not, lacking an original and compelling art direction.
P.S.
Although, Zelda WiiU is looking quite stunning I might add! 
I agree legaiaflame. Also, due to the expectation that games must be long to provide value for money, they are often stretched out more than necessary and can feel generic as a result. Constraints of many kinds can help shape a game into art.
Maybe limited hardware forced people to be creative. I think that some people are just more talented than others. If Lobotomy were hired to convert Doom to the Saturn, for example, it would have been the best conversion and would have looked great too because the Saturn was good at blending 2D sprites with 3D backgrounds.
I think the Saturn and DC were the end of an era. It’s a casual or nothing market now with few exceptions.
I’d love to believe that people just want to make great games and not just maximize profits but the rest of me just knows better.
I think there are still some developers out there, but they’re the smaller ones that don’t have so many overheads to worry about. That’s where the creativity and inspiration comes from these days.
Browse Kickstarter and Steam Greenlight and you’ll see lots of creativity from indie developers. Larger publishers will not take the same risks because they cannot justify the costs of less profitable games to their shareholders.
[quote=“Shadow”]
I think there are still some developers out there, but they’re the smaller ones that don’t have so many overheads to worry about. That’s where the creativity and inspiration comes from these days.[/quote]
Some very unique and well made games I’ve recently played are:
Child of Light
and
Lifeless Planet
Again, these games seem to have a limit to their design and are somewhat confined. They Just feel more complete and have a definitive design that doesn’t stretch miles in every direction. Everything is held together within certain boundaries and the games feel polished.
I feel this thread is lacking an incredibly snarky mention of PSO2.
I haven’t played it. Any good? I enjoyed playing the original on the Dreamcast; it worked surprisingly well with a 56K modem.
PSO2 is doomed to remain in Japan from what I gather.
Yup doomed to remain in Japan. Despite them doing an English translated version but only releasing it in South East Asia.
You can get an English patch and play on the JP servers but it’s not really worth it in my opinion. I gave it a go, it was fun but the amount of non-translated stuff was too much to enjoy it.
Not much , but Sonic Generation is lovely and I tell make sure to check out Binary Domain - Its a stunning title that takes the best bits from the likes of Blade Runner and Terminator films and then from games like Gears of wars and Ninja Gaiden II and puts it all into one package .
Its most prob the best game SEGA made since Orta and a game that feels SEGA and features some of the best boss battles you’ll ever see .
PSO2’s tale is a little more insulting than “doomed to remain in Japan”. Literally the ENTIRETY of Sega’s response when asked about a western release has been “It’s delayed” and it has been that way for, again literally, YEARS.
I have no doubts that they have no intentions of a western release, at least not anymore, and the dismissive non-answer about the situation doesn’t engender any support.