General Questions and Information Thread

There is a German version of Lord of the Sword, I think I've seen a French manual too. This German trade catalogue lists both Lord of the Sword and Rambo III. So I think those are just in need of more reviews to be added. Air Rescue is interesting, maybe they just didn't send out any review copies to the British press, as it doesn't seem to make much sense for Sega Europe not to release it in the UK.

 

Thought I had these saved somewhere ... now to see if I have a German Rambo III saved ...

 

Air Rescue listed in UK catalogue. Rambo III is also listed in this French catalogue, but the uploaded version seems to be missing a lot of pages (todo).

 

Linked this here before some months ago, but still not sure on how to get some of these BBC Archive videos on the wiki (namely the feature on Sega/UK games industry on The Money Programme, Newsround SegaWorld feature, Dreamcast breakfast news clip). Would of course be easier if it was just a VHS rip on YouTube, but also much lower quality.

 

A Portuguese catalogue turned up overnight - it'll end up on Sega Retro at some point, but for now:

https://archive.org/details/catalogo-multi-mega-europa/page/n5/mode/2up

Hey it's Ristar Feel!

https://archive.org/details/catalogo-multi-mega-europa/page/n7/mode/2up

And the unreleased Mega Drive wheel! I thought they just changed a few colours and turned it into a Saturn controller, but no; a completely different base (and mode button).

 

More European than Portuguese ... the guys of RetroArquivo have it since last December... and I thought we already had it , but not ... go for it!!!

 

Ran into Sega of America's "Software Development Standards" document. We've had it for years (and a similar Dreamcast version) but I hadn't actually read it. We ought to be documenting some of the rules and see if they were broken, but it's a bit of a faff.

Anyway a fun curiosity: Sega prohibited the use of the term "RPG".

https://segaretro.org/index.php?title=File:ST-151-R4-020197.pdf&page=50

"RPG" and "role playing game" were (and maybe still are?) trademarks of Bandai in Japan. In the US, "RPG" was tradmarked by IBM (because of a programming language), so the advice was to avoid using the acronym.

So instead, Japanese games use "ロープレ" or "role play", and in the US... nothing... until they forgot. It was presumably resolved at some point since Sega's Japanese archive was happy to use the term years later.


Also, as I suspected, A+B+C+Start is a software reset. It should go back to the title screen, unless you're on the title screen where it goes back to the BIOS-sorry - "Audio CD Control Screen"

 

The Shenmue promotional videos also use the term "RPG". I don't think this stuck around for long at all (was it ever even enforced?)

 

Looks like Sega got permission from Bandai:

https://segaretro.org/index.php?title=File:SegaDreamcastSoftwareCreationStandards_US.pdf&page=111

And they were forced to give credit whenever the term was used:
https://segaretro.org/images/d/d9/PDS_Saturn_JP_Box_Back.jpg
This was a thing in Japan until at least 2002. Rules seem to have been more lax for the US and Europe - presumably nobody cared or trademarks didn't really exist.

Apparently Segagaga makes fun of this by deliberately including a trademark message whenever the term "RPG" comes up in conversation, but from what I'm reading, Bandai's claim to the term was wobbly and may never have applied to video games (and was abandoned entirely at some point (2007?).

I get the feeling that, rather than challenge Bandai, publishers just worked around it. Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy seem to avoid using the term, while Nintendo didn't give a damn with Super Mario RPG. Alternatively, Sega invented this rule and were the only ones to follow it. Who knows.

 

That document's a can of worms. Updating our Saturn 6-player adaptor coverage and... well



Because grammar is for losers, this is actually known as the "6Player" in the US.

"Great for multi-player sports games like NFL '96"

There is no "NFL '96" for the Saturn. There's a non-Saturn NFL '95 and an NFL '97 (and the Acclaim-published NFL Quarterback Club '96), but no Sega game. I can imagine one was planned though - better get hunting.

 

This go for the section of "small appearances of Sega in places where you wouldn't even bother to check out and won't even change anything we now, but there they are nonetheless":

My sister bought a book by Liam Wong called TO:KY:OO, full of photographs the guy took of the city when he went to Japan for the first time; one of those phots is of a Sega place, and, given the treatment the photos on that book got, it won't be anything new about what it is, but it's indeed about Sega being in a piece of artwork.

I'll ask her to (ironically) take a photo of it if you want, but I'd recommend finding a cleaner way to get that picture, and scanning the book would destroy it, so I won't do that.

 

Someone has added this to the SOR2 and 3 wiki pages, but for anyone who missed it: Yuzo Koshiro recently tweeted that Axel's special move name/vocal shout is "Ground Upper". (Not "Grand Upper" or "Bare Knuckle".)

 

Interesting. But looking into this a bit more: apparently it's a complex issue and multiple companies filed trademarks for variations of RPG for different uses (trademark applications must include the specific field of use, e.g. video games, or toys, or whatever). According to Japanese Wikipedia, Sega owned the trademark for "ロープレ" in relation to video games. According to this site (and here), Bandai filed the trademark for "R.P.G" in 1982 for toys and related products, and in 1999 filed the trademark for "RPG" in relation to email and phone communication. It's not clear how important the dots are in Bandai's 1982 filing.

But there seems to be a lot of doubt on the Japanese internet about the truth of the matter, since there are numerous instances of companies using "RPG" freely (such as with Super Mario RPG). I think it's likely that Bandai could not have defended the trademark in court, but that didn't matter to the legal departments at some publishers like Sega who would rather avoid the issue altogether.

 

Was written as "Ground Upper" in the PS2 JP Sonic Gems Collection when set to English. I had been wondering for years if that was what it was supposed to be or if Gems mistranslated it (it also refers to Skate's blitz being a "Head Bat".

 

Just doing some rounds of ebay to make sure Sega Retro has all the things.

We don't have this thing:



From that one time Sega invented its own pseudo-currency, the Sega Game Card. What's a "Super Game Z"?



Sega Super Circuit in its earliest incarnation. I'm not totally up to date with story behind this - I did some digging a couple of years ago but more has been dug since.



I mean you tell me what's going on here.



Who are these characters? Well if you've spent any time on the internet you'll already know but it's the "Imagin(e) Family": Imajin, Lina, Mama and Papa and the other ones that I'm too lazy to look up and translate poorly - the mascots of Communication Carnival Yume Koujou '87.

...

Who were playable in Yume Koujou Doki Doki Panic, a video game released a week before the event.

...

Super Mario Bros. 2, or Super Mario USA as it later became in Japan.

It's not entirely surprising - it's not like Nintendo had the rights to the characters, and while I don't know much about the Yume Koujou '87 event itself, the fact there's so much stuff on the internet suggests it must have been pretty big. But it's fun that the two big rivals in the video game space were using similar tactics to promote video games. Or psudo-games with a video in Sega's case.

 

Incorrection

The "game" was called "Mach Vision" (マッハビジョン), while the pavilion was known as Super Game Z.



While I'm not yet sure who was running the project, design work was headded by Makoto Kobayashi, an artist who... draws lots of things and probably means something to someone. Anyway artists are great because they tend to put things in books or online:



Not sure what the timeline is, but the final units have Sega stickers on them, which could suggest the concept arrived on Sega's door quite late. In Mach Vision, all the players use OutRun cabinets that still say OutRun, and you drove around a glorified oval against three other "Mach Z" vehicles. Kyosho, for the record, are Japanese RC car manufacturers, so chances are Sega weren't involved much there either.


Merchandise!

Anyway this event was sponsored by two Japanese TV companies so there's bound to be loads of footage out there.



Sega Super Circuit from 1989 was a bit more advanced:





Raised sections, five (redesigned) cars (altough the concept art shows six!), and other, more advanced things (like an (automated?) lap time board). No more Nissan or Yume Koujou, and the OutRun cabinets actually say "SEGA SUPER CIRCUIT" on them.


It's difficult to know what was going on here, but judging from the two aerials the I'd guess the radio controlled car bit operated separately to the camera, and while the specs claim it's a CCD (i.e. it's digital), I would guess the transmitted video signal is analogue, which is why there's almost constant break-up when viewing the screen. As you can probably guess, there needed to be staff on-site at all times to control the race, and move the cars about should they get stuck... which was probably very common with Mach Vision because of the wedge shape of the vehicles.

It appears there was only ever one design of Sega Super Circuit, which they hoped to sell, but I don't think it was ever seen outside a few temporary events. It looks like a maintenance nightmare and probably wasn't financially viable, and you can only drag the technology of 1987 so far into the 90s before people stop caring. I reckon with a few Raspberry Pis you could make your own... or buy Mario Kart Live I guess.

 

Evolution time:



This was the first glimpse of the Sega-branded "Sega Super Circuit", literally on the show floor of Amusement Machine Show 1988 (October-ish?). It has a completely different layout to the "final" version, being more of an "L" shape with a bump in the road, and only had three cars.


Next stop: Yokohama Hakurankai, or the Yokohama Exotic Showcase '89.



oh god



Tomorrow. If I can sleep.

 

It's cool as fuck!!! ... and now I want to know more about it... I had no idea that this existed... where are our experts in Japanese?

 

That "Gulliver Hall" is awesome.

More pics of the Yokohama Expo: https://4travel.jp/travelogue/11617370

The 80s were awesome.