The makers of the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive game Pier Solar (created in 2008) are currently busy working on their next Genesis title. At the moment its working title is Project Y.
Project Y is still a long way off but it is exciting to know that games are still coming out for the Genesis/Mega Drive.
We don’t yet know what this new post-apocalyptic world will look like but here’s a small glimpse of what’s to come for this beat’em-up, shooter, RPG:
You look’in at me?
The following have less polish but that’s ok. I really do enjoy seeing the evolution of a game. It’s great that the Watermelon Team is willing to share these early stages of their game with us.
Project Y Concept Character
Project Y Concept Character
Prepare to be Man Handled!
More details about Watermelon Team’s Project Y can be found on their site. Be sure to check it out and join their forums. They are great at taking feed-back from fans.
From reading the forums on the Phantasy Star Cave it seems to me that playing the English translated Phantasy Star Generation 1 with the Playstation 2 emulator PCSX2 is a good option for a lot of people. For myself when I first tried PCSX2 it worked but there were graphical issues. These issues I experienced were not show stoppers but the game world looked like a puzzle made up of squares that weren’t quite touching; giving it a disconnected grid look. The PCSX2 emulator is a bit complex and before I was willing to mess with (aka learn) it, I wanted to see if I could get the translated game to run on my modded Playstation 2 instead.
The good news is all the work is already done. From the Phantasy Star Cave downloads take your pick of the Lutz or Noah edition of the translated game. The only difference between the two is that in one the Esper (Wizard) character is call Lutz like the original Japanese version and in the other version the Esper is called Noah like in the original English version.
Write your version of choice to a CD and you’re ready to play it in your modded Playstation 2!
And to be fair you should already own an original copy of the Japanese Sega Ages 2500 Phantasy Star Generation 1.
*Your Playstation 2 does have to be modded in order to play a game that is on writable media (a blank CD).
For myself I made my own ISO image of Phantasy Star Generation 1 from my own Japanese original disc (I made this ISO image with ImgBurn). Once I had my ISO image of the game I download Delta Patcher lite and the Noah English edition patch. Patching my ISO of the Japanese game with the English changes was very easy to do. Below is a screen shot of what it looked like.
The next step was to write this now patched ISO image to a CD using ImgBurn. I used a Verbatim CD and wrote it as slow as my writer would allow; which was 16x (I also set ImgBurn to verify the disc). The game is just over 68 MB so in just a few short moments the burn was done.
I inserted the patched and burned game into my modded Playstation 2 and I was honestly surprised when it actually worked.
My Burned English PSG1 for PS2
Check it out… it actually works 😀
Live on my PS2 – Intro
Live on my PS2 – Town
Live on my PS2 – Fly
Oh no, we’re not done yet. Check this out. It looks like more fans have started on translating the Japanese Sega Ages 2500 Phantasy Star Generation 2 into English as well 😀
Screen shot from PCSX2 Emulator
I skimmed over a lot of the fine details about creating an English PSG1 on CD so if you have any questions feel free to leave a message here or send me an email. I’m happy to help if I can.
And don’t forget that everything you need is here Phantasy Star Cave PSG1.
I never thought I’d see this day. In 2003 Sega of Japan released a remake of the Sega Master System Phantasy Star for the Play Station 2. The full title of the remake is Sega Ages 2500 Phantasy Star Generation 1. It offered beautifully remade graphics and music as well as including new content and a much more developed and detailed story. Unfortunately the planned English version of this release was canceled not long after it’s announcement and I was crushed.
Over the years there has been a lot of talk about translating this game and even though I have known of (and greatly enjoyed) the Phantasy Star Cave I didn’t find about this until I stumbled onto a fellow wordpress blogger at The Sega Source and this Sega Source post.
Thanks to the Kyence an incredibly motivated Phantasy Star fan all of us can now enjoy this release in English.
If you have any interest (and you should 🙂 ) head over to the Phantasy Star Cave for details on a Playstion 2 emulator and the translated Phantasy Star Generation 1.
Below are two screen shots taken from the Phantasy Star Cave showing off the English translation in action.
For those who are familiar with the original Phantasy Star; in one short sentence you can see the staggering differences in this remake. Both in the dialog and the graphics.
I know I’m biased but the game looks great. I feel very fortunate to have one of my all time favorites remade like this. It’s been about 10 years since the Japanese remake came out and I can still hardly believe that this English translation is real. Thank you Kyence!
A little more of this wonderful translation and showing off more depth even from NPCs.
Kyence posted an excellent video shown below. In it he describes what he did and is essentially giving us a behind the scenes look at this project. After watching this video it’s clear that this was a very challenging task for many reasons.
In addition Kyence has an other video called PSG1 Translation – Myau & Odin which was also an enjoyable and insightful watch.
Phantasy Star G1 now in English thanks to Kyence. Thank you!
We all know the Internet can be a crazy place full of totally bizarre and whacked out stuff but I haven’t seen something that felt this weird since the first time I saw ‘badger badger badger‘. And lucky for me this nugget is wonderfully Sega themed.
I never played Nintendo growing up; we were a Master System family.
I spent a brief time searching to see if the above is actually a quote from Harris Ford. Maybe from some talk show interview? But I couldn’t find anything to support that notion. For all I know this is entirely from the head of Brandon Bird. I also think it`s been around for a long while but it is new to me and I might buy a print.
Either way, I love it. The artist did a fantastic job capturing a great likeness of Harrison with a superb ‘bummed out’ look about him. I could not help but get a good chuckle from it.
Brand Bird has done at lot of unique pieces which I spent a good amount of time browsing at www.brandonbird.com.
For a long while I’ve known about modifications for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive. There are several very practical things you can do to a Genesis. I’ve kept these ideas at bay because I don’t have any soldering or electrical skills. But despite this I’m slowly starting to warm up to the idea. This first step is a simple one. I’m going to create a list of the mods I would like to have on a Genesis.
The simplest mod for a Sega Genesis is to widen the cartridge slot so that you can insert Japanese Mega Drive games. For anyone who can’t stand of the idea of cutting into their Genesis then the story might end right here.
But for me I have several Genesis consoles and my original system is already modded. My original modded Genesis slot has been widened and regular Japanese Mega Drive games can fit into it. However, those fat Sun Soft cartridges cannot. Not even close. So the plan is to buy a dremel and expand my Genesis slot enough to fit what I believe to be the largest cartridge created for the system.
Here’s TheDamoMonster who does a great job showing us how this is done.
So what do you get for your efforts? You get a Genesis that can accommodate the larger size of the Japanese Mega Drive games. And with the exception of about 62 games that have region locks built into them you’ll be able to play all other Japanese Mega Drive games on your Genesis.
Thanks to markvergeer who put together a list of 62 games that have region locking encoded on them. These games will run only on systems that match the intended region of that cart.
Twenty one of these games were made in 1992 and 1993. The remaining forty two games where made in 1994 or later. Considering the size of the Genesis/Mega Drive game library the amount of region locked games is thankfully pretty small.
Now, back to my mod wish list. And of course we already know number on the list:
1) Widen Genesis cartridge slot to accommodate the largest Japanese Mega Drive Sun Soft carts.
2) Install Region/Language switches.
3) Install composite Video and Audio jacks.
4) Over clock the Genesis.
The region and language mods will ensure we’ll be able to play all games and possibly see first hand the difference in some games that vary from region to region.
Installing composite jacks will hopefully profide the best audio and visual experience you can have on the Genesis. I believe SCART is a better option available to PAL regions.
I only read about over clocking the Genesis recently and it’s something that will only be noticeable in a few scenarios; such as in Sonic split screen mode or when Sonic loose 100+ rings and the system really slows down when trying to draw all those sprites! I’m sure there are other good example of games that could use a little more horse power but you get the idea 🙂
Old retro video games are still getting lots of love. I enjoyed this College Humor video so much I wanted to share it with anyone who might have missed it.
You look’in at me?
Project Y Concept Character
Project Y Concept Character
Prepare to be Man Handled!
In English for the Playstation 2
Retro Megabit 