Racketboy

The latest issue of Japanese games mag Famitsu contains good news for SEGA fans like me who have been waiting for some of their old favorites on newer consoles. The magazine reports that the PS2 will soon have a bunch more retro titles from Sega’s library.

The games mentioned as Sega Ages re-releases are:
Panzer Dragoon (with graphical upgrades)
Last Bronx
Dynamite Deka [Die Hard Arcade]
Advanced Daisenryaku [Iron Storm]
Space Harrier 2
Quartet
Gunstar Heroes Treasure box (Gunstar Heroes, Alien Soldier, Dynamite Headdy)
Galaxy Force II
Sega Memorial Selection (Head On, Tranquilizer Gun, DokiDoki Penguin Land)

It was not stated how many of these games will be included together on one disc, or how they will be grouped.

In the last year or so, I haven’t been terribly excited about Sega’s choice of games to be included in the Sega Ages series, but these are definately worth getting excited for. The Panzer Dragoon series is a worthwile venture and hopefully this reissue will be a success so we might see a reissue of the sequal, Panzer Dragoon Zwei and the rare and adored RPG, Panzer Dragoon Saga. It’s a shame that the PS2 ports wouldn’t be on the same platform on the XBox sequal, Panzer Dragoon Orta.

By far the most exciting news, though, is Gunstar Heroes Treasure Box, a selection of games from twitch gameplay maestro developers Treasure, originally published by SEGA on the Genesis/Megadrive. Naturally, it includes Gunstar Heroes, the platform/side scrolling shooter which I know many Retrogaming readers are familar with. Also included in this collection are Alien Soldier, another space platform/shooter which was a rarity on the Genesis, and Dynamite Headdy, a rather surreal platformer.

I’ve been waiting for some Treasure reissues for quite some time, and it couldn’t get much better without emulating newer titles like Guardian Heroes, Radiant Silvergun, and Mischief Makers. To find out more about Treasure’s gems, check out this page at ClassicGaming.

It is understandable that Radiant Silvergun and some of the others are not included since they were not published by Sega originally like Gunstar Heroes was on the Genesis. It’s a shame though, since Radiant Silvergun on the PS2 would sell like hotcakes as people are getting sick of paying hundreds of dollars for the Saturn version on eBay

Anyway… I’m really looking forward to the PS3 now just so I can have a nex-gen system and play there PS2 games (I just can’t bring myself to buy a PS2).