Sega Forever – if nothing else this bit of artwork, and the trailer, is godly

Retro gaming fans may have just got the best news ever: the chance to play every Sega game ever made for absolutely nothing.

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Update:

The first five apps are live now, so that’s Sonic The Hedgehog, Altered Beast, Kid Chameleon, Phantasy Star II, and Comix Zone available to download for free on iOS and Android.

There is no central ‘Sega Forever’ app, but if you search for that name in the app store it’ll list all the games at once – so you don’t have to look for them separately.


Original story:

It’ll take a while till every game is available, but the eventual goal of Sega Forever is to offer every game Sega has ever made via smartphone and tablet – and all for free too.



Sega Forever will launch this week (either today or tomorrow, depending on where you are) on iOS and Android and will be free-to-play, making its money through short adverts that play before you start a game.

In the future there’s also plans for a subscription service, where you won’t have to put up with ads, but for now you can just opt to pay £1.99 for each game to get rid of them.

The games that will be available this week include Mega Drive games Altered Beast, Comix Zone, Kid Chameleon, Phantasy Star II, and Sonic The Hedgehog.

Every game will be playable offline, and includes modern features like cloud saves, online leaderboards, and Bluetooth controller support.

The plan is to release a new game every two weeks, and to eventually incorporate titles from every Sega console, including the Saturn and Dreamcast.

We recently spoke to Sega exec Mike Evans about the project, which was all his idea, and he even has plans to include games previously not released in the West, such as infamous Dreamcast game Segagaga.

Altered Beast – the Mega Drive arises from its grave

‘We’ve never before done something that really crosses all of the different gaming eras, and isn’t prejudice against someone because they grew up in the ’80s versus the ’90s’, Evans told us. ‘And so what we’re trying to do is look at how we can take content that spans two decades and make it all available in the same place.’

Top 10 Sega retro games we want to see 1. Streets Of Rage (Mega Drive)

Fans have been crying out for years for the whole Streets Of Rage trilogy to make a proper comeback, so it surely won’t be long before this makes an appearance. The hope is that if it’s popular Sega might even be convinced to make a new one. 2. The Revenge Of Shinobi (Mega Drive)

We’ve already played this one on mobile, when the Sega Forever project was first being previewed in secret, so we assume it must be one of the first new games to be added after this week. Vectorman was another shown at the same time, although to be honest we never liked that much. 3. Gunstar Heroes (Mega Drive)

One of the greatest 2D shooters ever made and arguably the best game ever by frequent Sega collaborator Treasure. This is one we’d bet on seeing pretty early on, as it’s always turning up in Mega Drive collections. 4. Jet Set Radio (Dreamcast)

Mike Evans specifically mentioned this as being part of the Sega Forever plan, since it’s a good example of a more modern game with more complex controls. Plus, it’s, you know, really good. Getting the rights to the whole soundtrack will be an issue though, just as it has been for previous reissues. 5. Panzer Dragoon Saga (Saturn)

Not only is the Sega Saturn console almost impossible to emulate (because it was bodged together with odd bits of hardware in a rush to compete with the original PlayStation) but Sega has lost the original source code to what is, to many, one of the best role-playing games ever. So if this turns up on Sega Forever you’ll see the fan rejoicing from orbit. Streets Of Rage II – surely it’s a no-brainer? 6. Virtua Fighter (Saturn/Dreamcast)

Despite its cutting edge (at the time) 3D graphics Sega’s premier fighting game series has always enjoyed some choice home conversions, and we’d love to see at least one of them make a return via Sega Forever. 7. OutRun (Mega Drive)

The Mega Drive conversion of OutRun wasn’t actually that good, so hopefully this will be an excuse for Sega to convert the original arcade versions of some of their classics – and not just the home versions. If they do then add Super Hang-On, Space Harrier, and After Burner to the list. 8. Golden Axe (Mega Drive)

They’re not exactly the deepest of games but there are few Sega games as iconic as this brain dead old beat ‘em-up. The later sequels did get a bit more involved though, and if they can get the co-op working at the same time then that’d be fantastic. 9. The House Of The Dead (Dreamcast)

Originally a coin-op lightgun game, this would actually work really well on a touchscreen, as you could just tap instead of shooting with a gun. A version of the wonderfully weird Typing Of The Dead would also be great, where you have to type in vaguely suggestive phrases to obliterate the undead. 10. Shining Force III (Saturn)

All the original Shining Force games are great – one of the best mixes of strategy and role-playing there’s ever been, but Shining Force III is a holy grail for fans as it was released in three parts in Japan and only the first one made it to the West. With Sega Forever though you could finally collect the set.

With only one game every two weeks it will take a long time until everything is available – with Saturn games warned to be at least two years away – but the promise is there. Other than the slow release schedule though the other issue is that none of these games were ever designed to work on a touchscreen, and they were already extremely difficult even with a proper controller.

‘We’ve spent a lot of time, and we still haven’t finished, trying to get the experience as good as possible on the device itself’, says Evans. ‘But one of the decisions that we made is that not everyone is going to want to play on a touchscreen, so if you’re that engaged in the content you can cheaply buy a Bluetooth controller. If you’re setting up with your TV back at home you can even have a console-like experience in your living room.’



There won’t be any attempt to add new difficulty levels or aids though, other than just lowering the difficulty within the game itself. ‘We haven’t gone in and changed the original ROM itself, we’ve kept them as faithful emulations. Which was important in making this project work commercially’, says Evans.

With Sega also working in conjunction with fan groups, such as Sonic expert Christian Whitehead, Sega Forever does seem an impressively ambitious and all-encompassing project. Whether it’ll work out only time will tell, but at least you’ll be able to try it for free.

Of course he had to be involved

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