Shinichi "Touma" Higashi, the former Sega artist perhaps best known for creating the character Fang the Sniper in the Game Gear title Sonic the Hedgehog: Triple Trouble, has teamed up with Sega to create a bunch of new vinyl figures based on Sonic and friends.

Higashi, in case you're unfamiliar with his career, first joined Sega in 1993 and went on to contribute to a ton of Sonic games as an artist during his time at the company, including Sonic Chaos, Sonic Drift, Tails Adventure, Sonic 3D: Flickies' Island (the Saturn version), Sonic Jam, and Sonic Adventure; that's in addition to several notable non-Sonic-related projects like NiGHTS into Dreams, Burning Rangers, and Skies of Arcadia.

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The video game preservation website Hidden Palace has just released a prototype of Sega Technical Institute's dragon-based real-time strategy game Dark Empires, in collaboration with the Sega Retro researcher Alexander Rojas.

Dark Empires began life at Sega Technical Institute in 1990, shortly after the North American studio was established by Mark Cerny, making it one of the company's earliest projects.

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While some people still criticise Sega's decision to effectively split Sonic 3 into two releases by holding back content for Sonic & Knuckles, I still think it's one of the coolest hardware gimmicks of all time.

Being able to 'unlock' bonus content by combining cartridges is something that appeals to me for some reason (which is why, when a new Evercade cart lands, I always spend a few minutes seeing if combinations unlock any secret games).

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Update : Since we posted this initial story back in September of 2023, we've been trying to get in touch with Sega Europe and, in particular, Sega Forever lead Danny Russell in order to get some clarification on what is happening with the retro-focused channel, which mysteriously went dark in August of last year.

We can now report that Russell appears to have left Sega, or is at least in the process of doing so.

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We've been keenly following the progress of Brazilian developer Mauro Xavier's Final Fight MD over the past year or so, and it seems that the talented chap isn't done with the game just yet, despite recently adding an impressive three-player mode.

Xavier has now revealed footage of the game's '1P+ mode', which goes in the opposite direction; it's limited to solo play only, but adds in 7 on-screen enemies at once – the standard two-player mode is restricted to 6.

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If you've been following recent events in the world of video games, you'll be aware that big things are happening over at Xbox HQ.

Microsoft has been slowly but surely increasing the number of titles it releases on rival platforms, and this trend has arguably reached its apex with the news that Halo is coming to Sony's PS5.

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The Saturn version of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night gets a bit of a bum rap these days.

Sure, it's not as technically accomplished as the PS1 original (Konami Nagoya handled porting duties, rather than the original team at KCE Tokyo), but it does have Maria as a playable character – as well as some new areas and music.

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Sega Sammy's music production label, Wave Master Inc., is gearing up to release a new 2-CD Fighting Vipers soundtrack next month in Japan, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the classic Sega AM2 arcade fighting game (thanks @gosokkyu for the spot!).

Released in arcades back in 1995, Fighting Vipers was a 3D fighting game developed for Sega's Model 2B-CRX system board and was inspired by the company's earlier work on the Virtua Fighter series. It focused on a story about a group of young warriors called Vipers, who enter an urban fighting competition to test their strength and settle their own personal vendettas.

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A new "visual engine" has been released which should mean even more homebrew games will become available for the Mega Drive / Genesis.

MD Engine has been forked from the popular GB Studio, and has been created "to enable users with minimal or no programming knowledge to make games," according to the team behind it.

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As you may be aware, recently we spoke to the former vice president of sales at Nintendo of America, Bruce Lowry, about what it was like launching the NES in the States, his time at Sega, and his reasons for returning to Nintendo to help the company try to better establish its position in Europe.

As part of our chat, Lowry was kind enough to share some of the details about what it was like preparing to launch Sega's Master System console against the NES in 1986, revealing an interesting story in the process about how the console first got its name.

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Orc Face Games, the developer of the Dreamcast homebrew title HarleQuest, has announced it is now possible to buy a physical compilation disc featuring the 10 best homebrew games from the Dream Disc '24 game jam, with the price of it being no more than the cost of shipping.

In case you missed our original coverage of its announcement back in December of last year, Dream Disc '24 was a game jam that originally took place between December 20th, 2024, and January 3rd, 2025, and was aimed specifically at the Dreamcast homebrew community.

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You may remember back in May that we told you about a new Sega Saturn emulator on the block called Ymir from StrikerX3, which was looking extremely promising.

Well, since then, a new update has been dropped for the emulator (update v0.2.0) just yesterday, with this brand-new release reportedly bringing further improvements to its compatibility with the Sega Saturn's library of games.

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French modder VBT has ported Delphine Software's iconic Flashback: The Quest for Identity to the Sega Saturn and is looking to the homebrew community for help testing and polishing the port.

Taking the Macintosh CD version of the game as his starting point, VBT has used the Reminiscence engine to bring the game to Sega's 32-bit console.

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The Saturn is no stranger to expensive games; many of the console's best titles were only distributed in Japan, and those that did get a Western release were often subject to tiny print runs, which has driven up their value in recent years.

However, the console's rarest and most expensive video game is one you couldn't actually walk into a store and buy back in the day – and The Sega Guys have the full lowdown.

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The SAROO ODE flash cart for Sega Saturn made some real waves when it started getting mainstream attention last year, and it's abundantly clear to see why; this cheap device allows you to run your Saturn games from a MicroSD card, but, unlike other Optical Drive Emulators, doesn't require any internal modification to the console.

As a result, SAROO has become the most popular ODE for the system, so any new firmware is obviously going to be of interest to lots of people – but, as reported by Sega Saturn Shiro, you might want to keep this latest update at arm's length.

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Another new Sega Master System game is on the way from the talented homebrew developer @badcomputer0 — the creator of modern Master System games like Frontier Force and Blast Arena.

Astro Climber, as the new game is called, is designed to be a simple arcade platformer for the Sega console; it is comprised of 32 stages, and has players climbing a tower filled with all sorts of dangerous enemies and tricky platforms (conveyor belts, falling floors, etc), which gradually make the game harder the further along you get.

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The arrival of 8BitMods' VMU Pro is imminent, and the company has just opened up its developer portal to anyone interested in creating apps for the next-gen memory card.

You can register your interest on the official site if you're keen to make apps for this new device. A dedicated VMU Pro Store will be launching in November.

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Retro Hammer has just released a demo for its upcoming Sega Genesis / Mega Drive title, NightVein.

Coded by Wesley Marques and featuring art by Yargo and music by Diggo Silva, NightVein is a top-down action title which has you fighting off all kinds of undead enemies using a combination of melee and projectile attacks.

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Released in arcades in the mid-'90s, Sega's Virtual On: Cyber Troopers immediately caught the attention of coin-op fans thanks to its unique twin-stick control method, intense arena-based action, and selection of eye-catching mechs designed by Hajime Katoki (famous for his work on the Mobile Suit Gundam series).

Ported to the Saturn at the close of 1996, the 32-bit console struggled to accurately replicate the grandiose nature of the arcade version (although Sega did go the extra mile and release a bespoke twin-stick controller for domestic use).

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Back in 2022, we reported on the fact that a homebrew coder by the name of Retro Encoder was porting Data East's legendary 1988 RoboCop arcade game to the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive.

The project went somewhat quiet until very recently, when Retro Encoder released a playable demo of the game that matches the coin-op pretty faithfully when it comes to visuals, but is lacking any kind of interactivity with enemies.

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A museum based in Bologna, Italy has recently come into possession of the blueprints to a Sega game from the 1970s that has long been considered "lost" (the video game historian/preservationist Damiano Gerli recently informed us).

Heavyweight Champ was a boxing game that Sega originally released in the arcades back in 1976 (and is not to be confused with the company's 1987 game of the same name). Many historians consider it today to be a groundbreaking title in the history of gaming, with the game reportedly featuring what is widely regarded to be the first depiction of hand-to-hand combat in a video game, as well as the first ever depiction of a person of colour in gaming.

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Modding classic systems with new features is big business these days, and there are a dazzling number of aftermarket mods and upgrades available.

If you're in the Sega camp, then you'll want to take a look at Delta Island's Mega SmartDrive, which is described by its maker as "the ultimate accessory to turn your Sega Megadrive / Genesis into a smart, modern console while preserving its charm."

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Chiptune musician Laurent Crouzet has started a GoFundMe page to help Final Fight MD and Driftin' Rage developer, Mauro Xavier / MXRetroDev.

Crouzet says he was inspired to create the page (with Xavier's permission) after the pair worked together and it became clear that the Brazilian homebrew developer was facing serious challenges, both personal and financial.

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Golden Axe launched in 1989 and provided a welcome change to the standard belt-scrolling brawler format.

Instead of controlling a leather-clad vigilante in some grim cityscape, you assumed the role of three fantasy warriors, battling across a fantasy world not entirely dissimilar to that seen in Robert E. Howard's iconic Conan novels (and the subsequent Hollywood movies).

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We recently reported that Sega used the British Police to recover a selection of dev kits and consoles it had "negligently disposed of" from a business owner who resells items from office clearances.

The person in question purchased the items, along with a selection of undumped games, from a company which was contracted by Sega to clear out its premises ahead of a move to a new HQ in the UK.

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