Altered Beast
Altered Beast might not be one of the most popular games
on this list and many real old school gamers will probably be unaware that ever
became a franchise at all being that there was no less than 14 years between
the original 1988 arcade game and the Game Boy Advance only sequel.
Scrolling beat ‘em up games came and went in the late
eighties and early nineties but Altered Beast had one very unique concept that
kept it fresh. This was the unique ability of your character to transform into a
series of different beasts, all with their own unique abilities, by collecting
a series of power-ups. Who can forget that classic speech announcing it too?
After the 2005 PlayStation 2 game Project Altered Beast,
which took the game into 3D, we never saw the series again. Not really a
surprise when you consider how lacklustre that title was however. The main
character Neff was one of many classic gaming characters to appear in Walt
Disney’s homage to arcade gaming Wreck It Ralph however.
Surely with the transformation element alone Sega have the basis of a great game here, maybe something along the like of Dark Stalkers would work rather well?
Shinobi
At one point in time Shinobi was one of Sega’s hottest
properties; from the original 1987 coin-op through the 3 excellent Mega Drive
games onto the sophisticated Saturn sequel the series captivated audience
everywhere.
The well-rounded mix of fighting and exploring in the
Shinobi games always worked well and with each new game came fresh new
challenges that kept the series well ahead of the competition. And while the
difficulty level was often set quite high, the games could always be mastered
if you invested enough time in them.
After 1995 the series seemed to fall away, although
nobody is really sure why. We had two games for the PlayStation 2, in 2002 and
2003 respectively, but neither managed to capture audiences as the earlier
games had done. A Shinobi reboot was released on the Nintendo 3DS handheld in
2011 to rather mixed reviews and Sega hasn’t gone back since.
So what would Sega need to do to get Shinobi back to the top of people’s most wanted lists? I can’t help but think it of something along the lines of Assassin’s Creed, but with ninjas obviously!
Galaxy Force
With the advent of proper virtual reality devices finally
becoming affordable, everyone is looking to jump on the V.R. bandwagon. While
one classic Sega game has already made its way to PSVR, the superb Dreamcast
and PS2 shooter Rez, surely the other ideal game from Sega’s back catalogue to
give this treatment to would be Galaxy Force?
The original Galaxy Force arcade game first hit arcades back
in 1988 and wowed audiences with its 3D graphical effects and custom hydraulic
cabinet. An enhanced sequel soon followed and both games were ported to numerous
home platforms with mixed results, with only the Saturn and PS2 versions having
the hardware to really pull it off.
It wowed audiences once again in 2013 when Galaxy Force
II was selected as one of the first games in Sega’s 3D Classics series for the
Nintendo 3DS. This iteration was so impressive that it far surpassed the
original arcade game in fact.
So can Sega up the ante once more by turning Galaxy Force into a fully immersive VR experience? We can only dream . . . .
Space Harrier
Another franchise on that was recently featured, to great
effect I may add, in the line-up for the Nintendo 3DS Sega 3D Classics range
was Space Harrier. We haven’t actually got a completely new game in this series
since the year 2000. Incredible when you consider how popular the games were
back in the day.
Space Harrier was one of the first arcade games to show
off Sega’s powerful Super Scaler hardware along with titles such as OutRun and
After Burner. This coin-op system allowed Sega to produce games with incredibly
impressive 3D effects that were ideal for a third person shooter such as this.
A viable model for the enhancement of Space Harrier would
be the excellent After Burner Climax from 2010. That title kept all the
original gameplay intact from the original while adding in multiple paths, new
weapons and nice customisation options too.
Undoubtedly one of Sega’s most famous and spectacular franchises, it just seems like an obvious choice for a reboot doesn’t it?