Two Mega Drive Games – New Additions (Virtua Racing…)

Posted by Sega Dude on October 19, 2012
Posted in: Collection New Additions, Games, Mega Drive (Japanese). Tagged: , , , , , , , . 8 Comments

Here are two new additions for the collection. Both are for the Japanese Mega Drive.

Osomatsu-kun – Hachamecha Gekijō is crazy. It’s a fun addition to the collection because it’s not very language dependent and it’s so bizarre. The graphics are nice but as a platformer it’s just OK. It actually reminded me of Kato & Ken for the TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine. Although it’s not that weird.

Osomatsu-kun – Hachamecha Gekijō

I didn’t notice right away but the cart has some damage. A small portion of it has a white mark as if that area had been rubbed away. I would have said it was in Excellent condition but instead I’ll say it’s in Very Good condition.

Virtua Racing I got because I was curious about the only Mega Drive game that has a special processor(chip) built onto the cart to help render the graphics. This additional chip is why Virtua Racing can’t be emulated.
But like most games that were once amazing mostly because of their graphics Virtua Racing isn’t all that exciting anymore. What I did notice is that Virtua Racing does appear to be pretty smooth which I imagine would have been pretty impressive back in the day.

Mega Drive - Virtua RacingVirtua Racing

Everything is in great shape except there is a little bit of damage along the top edge of the front cover. Just like Osomatsu-kun – Hachamecha Gekijō I’m going give Virtua Racing a rating of Very Good instead of Excellent because of its small blemish.

Osomatsu-kun – Hachamecha Gekijō – $5.00
Virtua Racing – $5.00

Plus about $10.00 for shipping.

My Sega Ages 2500 Phantasy Star Collection

Posted by Sega Dude on October 12, 2012
Posted in: Collection New Additions, Games, Mega Drive (Japanese). Tagged: , , , , , , . 13 Comments

Maybe you’ve noticed that I’m so completely thrilled by being able to play the English translated Phantasy Star Generation 1 for the Playstation 2. If you have noticed, you’d be right.

I’ve been so happy to finally play this game that I jumped online and bought a copy of Sega Ages 2500 Phantasy Star Complete Collection. It’s a compilation of Phantasy Star I, II, III and IV as they were on the Genesis/Mega Drive, in Japanese and for the Playstation 2. I wont be playing this disc on my PS2 but I will enjoying having it in my collection.

My Playstation 2 Phantasy Star Collection

I doubt we’ll ever see a remakes like Phantasy Star G1 and G2 for Phantasy Star 3 and 4 but I’ll keep hoping. I waited 15 years for the remake (even though I didn’t know it was coming) and another 10 years for the English translation and I’ll eagerly wait for the Sega Ages 2500 Phantasy Star Generation 3 and 4.

This new addition cost me $50 with shipping. Which is why I haven’t picked it up until now. I needed the extra excitement before I was willing to spend so much.

Update: If you look in the comments below you’ll notice that justinwl informed me that this Japanese Phantasy Star collection actually contains the English versions of Phantasy Star 1-4. You’ll still need a Japanese PS2 or a modded PS2 in order to be able to play this disc but having the English included is a huge plus.

Watermelon Team’s Project Y Concept Art

Posted by Sega Dude on October 5, 2012
Posted in: Community, Games, Genesis (North America), Mega Drive (EURO), Mega Drive (Japanese). Tagged: , , , , , , . 7 Comments

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.

http://www.magicalgamefactory.com

Sega Ages 2500 Phantasy Star Generation 1 in English AND on your Modded Playstation 2

Posted by Sega Dude on September 28, 2012
Posted in: Community, Translation. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . 26 Comments

In English for the Playstation 2

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.

SegaDude@RetroMegabit.com

Sega Ages 2500 Phantasy Star Generation 1 in English

Posted by Sega Dude on September 23, 2012
Posted in: Community, Translation. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . 4 Comments

English Translation by Kyence

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!

Phantasy Star G2 maybe in English someday soon?

In addition to this wonderful translation I found out from the Phantasy Star Cave that a translation for Phantasy Star Generation 2 is under way. These are very exciting times 😀

I thought my beloved Phantasy Star adventure was long over… Here’s to a new beginning.

No One Wants To Play SEGA With Harrison Ford

Posted by Sega Dude on September 16, 2012
Posted in: Community, Sega Master System. Tagged: , , , , , , . 2 Comments

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.