Retronauts Episode 131: SEGA's arcade history - Into the ’90s

I thought I had memories of seeing Virtual-On back in the day, but it was CyberSled, thanks for mentioning it!

Eino Keskitalo

Amongst Golden Axe nerds (I am one of them), The Revenge is often considered the pinnacle of the series, and it does have lots of crazy graphical effects, cool stages and face melting ( literally) magic attacks. New Yorkers can currently play this game at the Manhattan Barcade. Virtua Fighter was an absolute revelation first time I saw it at Disney World Florida. I could not believe how cool those flying kicks looked as the camera panned out. The sequel was even more incredible. Such a graphics powerhouse! I remember being so amazed at the "drunken" animations of the Shun Di character. It's a real shame that SEGA has abandoned this series as it was a way bigger deal than Tekken at one point, especially in Japan. As for Daytona.. What hasn't already been said about one of the seminal driving games of all time? I also see this machine all the time to this day. Still popular with crowds! I for one was really into light gun shooters back in the day and Virtua Cop was really something. Like an interactive action movie! But I also agree that this was one of the times when Namco totally outdid SEGA with the Time Crisis series. SEGA's own House of the Dead would also soon supplant the more vanilla Virtua Cop. And speaking of Namco, I never played Virtual-On in the arcades but I did play Namcos tank battle version which was called CyberSled. Same controls with the two flight stick joypads. The character designs of Virtual-On are really wonderful, with lots of personality. Hajime Katoki who designed the robots, is a veteran "mech" designer with credits on Gundam, the Patlabor series and even Policenauts, so he really knew his ways around drawing cool looking mechs. I never played GunBlade but was really into it's sequel LA MachineGuns, which might appear on some episode perhaps? Anyways... in hindsight, I can't believe SEGA did not focus on making a dedicated 3D home console during this era given their expertise in the arcade. The slapdash Saturn was ill equipped to handle conversions of these titles after all.

Man... Not much to add other than that I absolutely love so many games on this episode. This is the era and realm in which SEGA was the coolest game company in the world. I mean, their arcade games was so cutting edge they enlisted military technology for pete's sake! <a href="https://kotaku.com/5774638/how-the-collapse-of-the-soviet-union-led-to-one-amazing-arcade-game" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://kotaku.com/5774638/how-the-collapse-of-the-soviet-union-led-to-one-amazing-arcade-game</a>

Still better than the one that devolved into racial slurs.

Beefington von Barnstorm

Here is the GameFAN review of Cybermorph allegedly written on LSD: <a href="http://www.ibiblio.org/phil/fnordchan/cybermorph.txt" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://www.ibiblio.org/phil/fnordchan/cybermorph.txt</a>

Robert Negoesco

Thanks, I always get those mixed up. We'll clarify on the inevitable 5th SEGA arcade retrospective…

Retronauts

I really love these episodes--I've rarely played any of the games mentioned (I never got a chance to spend time in the arcades growing up), but I really enjoy hearing about them.

Zack Handlen

Great ep, good to hear Sega talk! One quick thing - the Daytona Car was unlockable in Fighters Megamix on the Saturn, not Fighting Vipers. Megamix was a mixture of both VF and FV + other weird stuff. Vipers had Pepsiman though. Virtua Fighter was the realistic fighter, Fighting Vipers was the one with armor (&amp; weird weapons, like a skateboard / guitar), Last Bronx is the realistic weapons based fighter (Nunchuck, Bo staff etc)

Ryan Langley

Well... there it is.

Retronauts

In reference to why Virtua Racing was F1-based, Sega was a sponsor for a time. <a href="http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2016/03/feature_the_day_sega_took_over_an_f1_race_and_senna_lifted_a_sonic_trophy" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2016/03/feature_the_day_sega_took_over_an_f1_race_and_senna_lifted_a_sonic_trophy</a>

Chris

Yeargh! Fixing now.

Retronauts

There's a blank spot, seems like it's missing music, around 1 hour 32 mins. I love that Ben and Benj duo

Love these Sega eps.

Dave Caffrey

Cool, I've been looking forward to this one. I am a fan of the Jeremy/Ben/Benj combo! :)

Aleisha