The SEGA Appreciation Thread

[Danj86]

I hope this is okay with the mods, but I liked a concept from a topic that was made today that became locked because it was basically a list thread.

I want to change the theme slightly to remove any list element. That being said, here's a picture to act as a banner that we all should be familiar with.

With Sonic & Sega All-Star Racing Transformed in the works, it almost seems appropriate.

The main theme is to maybe share your personal favourite franchise (Thats not Sonic) and personal favourite character (Thats not from Sonic) that are part of the Sega family. It can also be a place to share news from Sega and up and coming games, as well as the companies past and back catalogue of consoles.

However, I must insist that if your going to share who or what are your favourites from Sega, to please give details as to why. It'd be quite interesting. I don't want this to be a simple list thread, and I do enjoy reading peoples reasons for being into stuff.

Why exclude Sonic?

Well, because of the name of the stadium of which we are all members of, makes me assume that he'd be at the top for most of us. But that may not be the case...you know what happens when you assume, right?

So...with that being said, it's only fair for the OP guy to go first. (that's me)

But for me, the favourite franchise/character are the samething. One of the key reasons is this simple yet cool song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mct7atbP6X8

Funnily enough "simple yet cool" also describes the character designs of the Bonanza Brothers.

Meet Mobo (red) and Bobo. (blue)

I was so happy to learn that their appearance hadn't changed when they appeared in SATR. I often think about Lego when I see these guys. And Lego has a wide appeal right? Then the shades. They imply a badassness, while no legs makes me smile when I see them walking along.

Then the game itself. It's like a non violent shooter mixed with sneak-em-up aspects. Your just knocking people out with plastic bullets and walking past sleeping guards. I always deliberately fall over the soda cans, just because the animation makes me laugh, and it still does after all these years. That goes for the rake too.

That humour element is constantly present in the game, it's another reason why I think so highly of it. Crashing in the mine carts, squashing guards with those traps and the fly that only shows up when your hugging a wall. Not to mention squashing guards by opening doors, there's been times when I tried to have a guard follow me to a door, so I can open it on his face, only to have it backfire, and be squashed yourself. It's always freakin' hilarious. I haven't even mentioned the silly stuff during the credits, the fat guy that throws bombs, dressing as a statue to lose pursuers, falling through a trap door and landing head first and the thing the brothers shout after being hit that sounds suspiciously like "dickhead."

So thats my entry.

What Sega franchise do you like the best? What character? What console? What was the first Sega game you played? When did you become a Sega fan? What would you like Sega to do more of in the future?

These are all things to think about when making your posts. Feel free to add any kind of Sega information into this topic also, if you want to.

[Scott]

For me, it has to be this little guy....

Vectorman 1 was pretty good, but everything done in the first was greatly improved in the sequel. Must have been about 15 when I found out about the canned-sequel, back then, I was annoyed by it, but these days, I don't blame SEGA.....

It's ugly, horrible, why is he a mech? He's an orbot, you can't spell orbot without orb! But it had potential. I could see a Vectorman 3 being an FPS if done right. Just let Retro get their hands on it and give it the Metroid Prime treatment!

But with todays games, theres too many FPS games, so the second option IMO, would be to give it the Shinobi 3DS treatment, that could do wonders, but after seeing Shinobi 3DS in action, I wish SEGA would revive most of it's dead franchises (they are still original to this day).

Other than that beautiful series, my second favourite is a hard choice. I'm stuck with a choice of either Golden Axe Series/ Shinobi Series/ House of the Dead Series. A little less on House of the dead due to HoTD 4 coming out on PSN only >.> Thanks SEGA...thanks...

Another brilliant gem is Gain Ground! Brilliant game, brilliant music!

[Stritix]

I like the Sonic franchise the most...then again, I haven't tried any of the others. My favourite character is by far, Shadow the Hedgehog. He's certainly the most interesting, and best designed character (in my opinion). I became a fan in 2005 when I first played the Sonic Heroes demo. I'd like to see SEGA creating more original content in the future. Recycling the Unleashed gameplay over and over, and also using the nostalgia card constantly doesn't cut it any more for me.

Edited May 26, 2012 by -L-

[Naysu]

sonic top of course, grew up with that sonic adventure chao garden, played my dreamcast to death, became interested more with the character Knuckles probably with SA2 and Sonic x, i loved his design, his back story, everything.

As for non sonic, probably my second favourite genesis game was Flicky, I had no idea it had anything to do with sonic because this was before i knew anything about sonic, but i loved that game so much, the music was great, the game was challenging and fun, and i loved the little chicks with the glasses haha XD

my number 1 favourite genesis game was Marble madness, but that doesnt really count as there aren't really characters in the game... but again, its the music and the fun simple gameplay (i guess good music really does strike a chord with a lot of people and makes a game better by a long shot)

Edited May 26, 2012 by Naysu

[Solkia]

WOOO!

[Nepenthe]

The only non-Sonic Genny-exclusive game I can remember loving dearly was Alien Storm. During the Contra days, it was a great substitute when I didn't feel like completely throwing myself to the wolves, and the art direction, music, and humor of the thing was so uncanny and unique that a lot of the imagery and melodies stuck in my head years after forgetting the title. At the very least I'm glad Scooter is getting some action in the fighting crossover and that Alien Storm overall's been getting a bit more exposure. As far as I know, it's not all that well-known a title, is it?

But yeah, my Genesis was used mainly for Sonic, cross-platform titles, and Disney and Warner Bros. tie-ins when they were actually good. The upgrade to the Saturn yielded little more than playtime with NiGHTS as well as some demo compilation with Clockwork Knight, Virtual On, and Baku Baku on it, both of which I played regularly until bits of the Saturn went missing. My Dreamcast came the Christmas after the console died, introducing me to Crazy Taxi and Virtua Cop 2. In short, Ulala, Alex Kidd, Opa Opa, whomever's in Phantasy Star and all of these peeps that are being pimped in the Sega crossovers are completely foreign to me. I feel like a terrible person.

[Naysu]

youve just reminded me of Alien Front, i dont know if that was a sega game but it was on the dreamcast, i used to play that a lot, but found it really hard :/

[Octarine]

I'm vaguely familiar with a few of SEGA's non-Sonic franchises, but there aren't many that I particularly cherish. I mean, I've played a few of the Panzer Dragoon games, Skies of Arcadia, Ristar, Phantasy Star IV (one of my favourite 16-bit RPGs, and there's some tough competition in that category, but I was never compelled to check out any of the other installments), Vectorman (which I'm completely awful at), ChuChu Rocket!, the Jet Set Radio games, a few others... I have fond memories of a lot of them, but I still tend to feel kind of dumb when the hardcore SEGA fans get going.

I mean, I've never played a NiGHTS game. That's ridiculous. I should probably get around to it one of these days; Journey of Dreams might not be a great introduction to the series, but there've been a handful of copies in every Wii bargain bin I've ever seen.

[Lady Soniko]

Nuff Said.

Crazy levels, Set in Tokyo, a huge backlog of characters (most of them playable!) and unforgettable music, the JSR franchise is sorely missed and i crave for a third next gen title to be made, its starting to get some love with the port this summer, and making it into both All Star racing games but that'll probably be it, SEGA are just hyping it, but i hope they do something with the IP in the future, as far as i'm aware it was the only game to actually pull off the neon cell shaded colour scheme, and the design of everything, from vehicles, to buildings and people's clothing was truly an art form in itself.

Panzer Dragoon

more amazing music, addictive gameplay and a very story driven styled game that not many people took notice in due to the spoken language being foreign, i played this game to death as a child but only ever tackled easy mode that takes you to level 4, i had no idea until... say 5 years ago that Panzer Dragoon had more than 4 levels if you raised the difficulty to normal, it has a quirky art style i mean, its set in the future, yet everything looks like stone, the Dragon's armor, the Gun's the riders use its just really strange but its amazingly good, the various locations are vast and different from each level, no two levels are the same, from a sunken ruined city, to a vast stormy desert with giant sand worms, to ancient catacombs to lush greenlands to intense sky fleet air battles, to storming the imperials fortress at nightfall, its truly a marvel and produced 3 games, Panzer Dragoon, Panzer Dragoon Zwei and Panzer Dragoon Orta, SEGA said Orta was the final installment for the series and they wouldn't be going back to the IP at all, kinda like what they did with Death Note, PD is another game i crave to be revived even if its not part of the original Arc and is completely different in Story and setting i don't care, i want it!

Edited May 27, 2012 by Peacock

[JezMM]

Aside from providing me with Sonic, SEGA did actually nearly ruin my life around the end of high school, and again only a year or so back.

And I am forever grateful for it.

Here was the theme song to my social life for two several-month-long portions of my life:

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Ughhghgh still makes me crazy nostalgic.

Edited May 27, 2012 by JezMM

[Solly]

I was pretty late to the party with this game. I played the Legends version on the gamecube in 2010, but it easily climbed to my top 10 list. It's got some great characters, a fun battle system, cool special moves, and a real sense of adventure.

I'm really not crazy about JRPGs. I can't get into them much, besides the Mario ones, but this game left a real impression on me. The world was huge, and you got to explore it. There was so much to discover.

Not to mention the music was totally rad. Certain boss battle themes(see below) would change with the tide of battle.

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It has its flaws, but I would still reccomend people play it if they haven't.

[killemoff]

The biggest issue with Skies of Arcadia was how poorly distributed it was. In Portugal, i remember roaming all the stores i could find, no one had even HEARD of the game....

And of course, the DC shelves were full of crap. I never ever saw this for sale, nor the Gamecube version here.

But i still managed to get my hands on a "copy". Not proud of it, but i'll be damned if the HD version turns out to be true, you bet i'll there to with my Euros.