SEGA Announces Huge Retro Revival: New Jet Set Radio, Crazy Taxi, Streets of Rage and More

JET SET RADIOOOOOOO! 

This was my favorite announcement of the show. Jet Set would've been enough, but the others were great, too. Shinobi seems to be a Metroidvania, so I into that. SOR and Golden Ace seem to be trying something new so I'm curious about them.

JET SET RADIOOOO

I wanted to say that too. It's definitely top of my list out of these games. I admit I never played Shinobi but it looks so good, they all do look promising.

I found an official (I think) quote from SEGA where they say Sonic's success these years made it possible, most likely, besides the movies, they are talking about Frontiers, which is good of course, but also a shame because these games all look (so far) better and bigger than Frontiers sadly. I guess the rumor that SEGA is hiring a ton of people for the next titles is promising, for Sonic and SEGA IPs. They also promised "even more franchises".

This is the source btw:

https://www.crunchyroll.com/news/latest/2023/12/8/sega-legacy-game-series-revival-initiative

And quote

Quote

“In recent years, Sonic the Hedgehog has forged new paths for SEGA, bringing the franchise to life and reaching new audiences in ways we had only dreamed of in the past. Building off that success, we are digging into our legacy and reimagining several franchises to bring these games to more audiences around the globe. Today's announcement is just the start of our initiative. First and foremost, our ambition will be to create great games with memorable characters and worlds. We hope fans of all ages will look towards our future with anticipation as we release these projects in the coming years.”

Yay! I love that these IPs are coming back with new games! Another Allstars game would be perfect now.

All-timer announcement. Wasn't expecting a brand new 2D Shinobi outing, especially not with that artstyle. Is that the Streets of Rage 4 team? I wonder if that means Yuzo Koshiro will do the soundtrack, since he did work on Shinobi II. 

All of the games shown here seem like they're a ways off, but I'm over the moon that they exist at all. This exact confidence is what I've wanted to see out of Sega for so long. Genuinely feels like the sky's the limit with this announcement. Really looking forward to more details on all of this in the future, especially Jet Set Radio and Shinobi.

The production values of these all look sky high. Why doesn't Sonic look anything like this? SEGA's really investing hard here. 

I'm so excited every single game on this list. Jet Set Radio comes out on top of course, but they're all crazy exciting. These are legacy IPs that absolutely have potential in the current gaming landscape. And nobody expected a blowout of teasers/announcements like this. This is so cool. 

Wait a sec...

Is that The Supreme titan?

38 minutes ago, Blue Blood said:

 Why doesn't Sonic look anything like this?

There are probably still a couple of guys out there still recovering in the ICU from the strain Unleashed put on the art team. Asking for bleeding edge graphics on a game like Sonic really isn't as simple as it sounds.

Which is why they should lean on the art-style instead

Anyway, Crazy Taxi really is peaking my interest. Out of all of them, it looks to be the one stepping out of its comfort zone the most, and innovating on what mat the original so much fun. I am seriously looking forward to that games take on multiplayer. If they can find a way to keep cabbies closer together on the map (maybe by limiting the number of available customers or encouraging stealing passengers from your opponents by ramming them or something) then you could have a real winner on your hands.

EDIT: Also I saw a Bugatti, a Lambo and an F150 inspired taxi. Yes please.

WOAHHHH. Not gonna lie, Golden Axe and Crazy Taxi look pretty cool. I'll probably wait for them to go on sale before I buy(considering they'll probably all run at about $60 each), but I'll be looking to give all of these a fair shot! It's always nice to see how much time and effort is put into other SEGA games.

Honestly, a big power play for SEGA to just drop all of these in one shot, and I can see Jet Set Radio easily being a release next year, considering we know it’s been in development since at least 2021, if not prior to that. Still was kinda hoping for a Dreamcast Mini, but I’ll take this. Would love if we could get a JSR Future remaster to hype up the new title.

Also would like to take this time to shill Bomb Rush Cyberfunk and recommend anyone who likes Jet Set Radio to give it a shot. Great gameplay similar to JSR Future, fun visual style, and absolutely killer soundtrack.

This better mean we're also getting a new NiGHTS game.

Seriously though, what a power play. It's good to see that Sonic's newfound success has finally given SEGAVthe confidence to have more of a go with other IPs of theirs after quite some time!

YAY!!!  Most excited for Jet Set, but glad to see so many familiar faces returning! This made my day! If only Skies of Arcadia was on that list, everything would be perfect. But hey, now I have more hope than ever that dream may come true as this proves SEGA hasn't forgotten about their other series.

I like the confidence from sega, and since the genesis represents my favorite era from them it's cool to see those games return. I hope these games all get breathing room of their own soon though. This was all so much at once I'm still seeing a bit of confusion about what was actually announced and where. There's probably enough sega stuff in the pipeline for them to have more of their own showcases now. Maybe early next year?

Shinobi from Lizardcube/guard crush is basically a dream game for me so my attention mostly went. Nothing else stuck out to me as bad though aside from...one that I'll save for last.

Streets of Rage 4 is IMO Sega's very best game in 20 years so I'm expecting a similar level of quailty from Shinobi. Hopefully they pull it off. The franchise has been confused on what to do with itself since the genesis and I'm hoping this puts it back on the map for good. Seems like there's a new combo system, GORGEOUS visuals that call to mind the original's mix of traditional japanese imagery with a hard sci fi twist. In the same way SOR4 basically became THE beat-em-up to the mainstream I'm hoping this is the same thing for action platformers.

There's not much to say about JSR yet but it looks a bit more kinetic and weighty which were my main requests after playing Bomb Rush Cyberpunk and JSRF this past year. I also like the redesigns/artstyle more here than I did in the leaked art. A lot of the original staff is returning and combining their creativity with RGG's eye for polish. I'm optimistic about this one. A series like this getting a second chance is basically unheard of so it's exciting to see its essence kept without much in the way of compromises. The big skating revival that was supposed to kick off with THPS turned into a bit of a graveyard so I'm hoping this game does well and inspires developers to come back to the genre.

Golden Axe looked the furthest along out of the 3D stuff, pretty well defined artstyle and the gameplay mechanics looked satisfying and snappy. I'm not a fan of the IP but if they can spin it into a new 3D action game then I'll have to try it since that's my favorite genre.

Crazy Taxi, artstyle wise looks a bit barren but the idea of online cops vs taxi drivers immediately hooked me in. Lots of potential there to be excited about.

Finally, my sweet baby, my pride and joy Streets of Rage. What the hell am I going to do with you?

Streets of Rage 4 is my favorite game of all time, so I'm a little disappointed to say that this looks slow, muddy, and kind of boring off of a glance. This is the one they'll have to try the hardest to sell me on. I'm not convinced SOR needs to be a 3D cinematic beat em up when the entire point of the game is spacing your attacks and good crowd control. I think keeping the simple camera system of the originals like the dreamcast prototype did would have been better.

....Still, while I did really want a sequel to Streets of Rage 4, it's also so fleshed out there's no obvious places for it to improve! So maybe a shakeup is just what the series needs. I'll give them a chance. I'm just not really feeling it so far. Hopefully they're holding back something that brings it together.

I have my nitpicks but the fact that I can even talk about all this shit at all is exciting and a sign of the times I know some of us have been clamoring for, where Sega kept their major publisher status alongside the other gods of the 90s. Credit where it's due though, this is less the start of something and more of a culmination of a pivot they started YEARS ago. The amount of classic SEGA IPs getting new entries shot up after 2017 or so. Off the top of my head I can think of Yakuza, Sakura Wars, Super Monkey Ball, Streets of Rage, Samba de Amigo, Phantasy Star Online and Space Channel 5. The entire time we've heard rumblings of new JSR, Crazy Taxi and VF games. They heard what we wanted eons ago. It just takes a while for these things to manifest especially in the modern game development landscape.

I'm hoping it all works out for them. I'm mixed on a lot of their modern output but the sega genesis formed the foundation of my gaming tastes all those years ago and has a host of stuff I still revisit today. A part of me has always wanted to see them "win" even if it was rare I thought they deserved it. I'm really feeling optimistic about this though. we'll see.

I assume Frontiers was during the movies success and therefore before the spike in interest for Sonic and SEGA, before they got all the money, which Frontiers, Persona, etc. helped to make, and then they decided to hire more people and increase price and budget for their titles, as they said in interviews recently, which means next Sonic and Persona games will get more budget as well. I wonder what Super Monkey Ball with a budget also looks...

By the way, it's clear this line up is the start of their so-called "super game" initiative. This is it.

Actually seeing all of this drop at once was like a fever dream.

I’m still struggling with this, because I don’t think I’ve seen this ever happen, multiple high profile revivals of long dormant IPs all announced at once is INSANE. And every single one of them looked good or at least interesting, of these are all good I will definitely pick them all up because I wanna support these fun off-beat Sega IPs that deserve it.

JET SET RADIOOOOO still doesn’t feel real, even though this leaked I still can’t believe it’s actually real. Hideki Naganuma NEEDS to be brought on this, like it’s a no-brainer

Dude the moment I saw this live, I lost my MIND. Sega hitting us with multiple title revivals!

SEGA kinda stole the show, ngl.

I loved all these games growing up and I'm ready to love them again.

Shinobi will be the GOAT here, no question. LizardCube (SoR4) already hinted that they're the ones making it. The artstyle already looks fantastic, get Yuzo Koshiro to compose, nail the gameplay and it's another homerun.

I read that JSR got the original creators BACK, so it's also in good hands. Hopefully they can get Naganuma too, ain't Jet Set Radio without him.

Streets of Rage... In 3D... After 4?.... Well... If they took heavy inspiration from Sifu, this could totally work. I'll remain skeptical.

Golden Axe also in 3D... Even more skeptical here, but that if it's a soulslike? This could be good.

Crazy Taxi. It's Crazy Taxi, man. Arcadey fun for the whole family. Add new modes, a punk rock soundtrack and we are fucking in.

"AND MORE".

Please remake Skies of Arcadia and / or SA?