Here’s something so nutty it might actually have worked: a few years back Sega’s Australian studio pitched an idea for a series of remakes called “Sega Reborn”, which wouldn’t just recreate classic games like Golden Axe and Altered Beast, but somehow tie them into the same, single universe.
While the idea was obviously never picked up, hitting various roadblocks between the Queensland studio and company HQ in Japan, it’s certainly an interesting one to take a look at, now that…we’ll never actually get to play them.
The over-arching universe would see the games, set thousands of years apart from each other, release under the unified Sega Reborn label. While not strictly remakes – they’d include new content and would make a few changes here and there – for the most part they’d follow the same progression through the story and levels as the original games.
Except for the meta story, of course, which was going to be subtle, and implemented as more of an underlying mythology (mostly for marketing) than as key parts of each individual game’s plot.
Below you’ll see a video of Golden Axe pitch (remember: this was a rough pitch made in Unity, not a finished product), and I’ve already mentioned Altered Beast, but other games that were due for the Sega Reborn treatment were Streets of Rage and Shinobi.
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16 responses to “Sega Australia’s Crazy Pitch For Modern Remakes Of Its Classic Games”
Why can’t they just make Shenmue 3…
Because the Dreamcast is no longer manufactured.
Jokes aside: I think Sega has its focus else where.
Yeh don’t see the point of linking the games stories, but that Golden Axe remake looks sweet!
If they had a unified game engine and core mechanics, they could have allowed players to bring characters into multiple games. Add 4-player online co-op and an RPG/levelling element to the characters, and you’ve pretty much got a beat-em-up version of Disney Infinity.
…AN ONLINE, BEAT-EM-UP VERSION OF DISNEY INFINITY. Guess Sega doesn’t want my money.
Had that video ended with some magic it would have been top notch. I like the idea of remaking some old games with a new facelift but keeping the underlying structure in tact, devs need to get out of the mindset that a remake requires sweeping changes to the formula. I would probably increase the pace a little bit though but hey, it’s Golden Axe and it looks good.
edit*
Though I would do them as a bundle Classics Reborn or something and include about 5 games in their new look as well as including the original and allow us to choose between the old soundtrack and the new (which you know is going to come, and you know just won’t sound the same)
only if they remake wonderboy games
This, all of the this
Also Alex Kidd.
OH GOD WONDERBOY 3
What? That video looked badarse, I would buy that.
*Faints*
I’m all for it, but I’d argue that Altered Beast is a game that would be much better off forgotten forever.
Altered Beast was awesome.
If it was the only game you had because it was a pack-in and you were eight or so at the time then yeah, I guess it was ok.
I can only assume you speak of a ported version, as the Arcade game was indeed awesome.
I had it on Mega Drive and Master System.
The Master System version left a lot to be desired, but playing Altered Beast and Golden Axe on Mega Drive are some of my fondest gaming memories.
As a rule, SEGA IP’s never make a generational leap.
All their recognised IP’s are directly linked to generations of systems. You very, very rarely see any SEGA game remade/redesigned/rejigged successfully on the next generation of hardware. Even Sonic struggles beyond the 16bit era and it might only be now with this new game coming out on Wii U and 3DS that the series gets close to it’s stature of 20+ years ago.
Alex Kidd couldn’t even make the genrational gap between 8 and 16bit successfully, let alone the myriad of other 16bit IP’s that never got proper sequels on Saturn.
It’s the way SEGA treat their games like which is the glory and pain of being a SEGA fan. You rarely get new sequels that are soul destroyingly awful (sans Sonic, of course) but by the same token your memories of classic titles rarely get tainted by modern revisions that lose the original’s magic.
segan scyber and psp