Garou: Mark of the Wolves Coming Soon to PS4 & Vita

Following hot on the heels of The Last Blade 2, another beloved Dreamcast/Neo Geo fighter is making the leap onto Sony's next generation family of consoles - this time it's Garou/Fatal Fury: Mark of the Wolves. As reported on the official European PlayStation blog, SNK's seminal one-on-one fighter will come with cross-buy and cross-play meaning you'll only have to buy it once, and will have access to the game on both Vita and PS4 (yes, I'm looking at you Darius Burst Chronicle Saviour).

Not sure about the sidebar artwork...

Garou is widely regarded as one of the finest fighting games on the Dreamcast and features some truly outstanding animation and gameplay. Indeed, it was praised very highly on our recent DreamPod fighting special and while the game never received a PAL release it can be found in both NTSC-U and NTSC-J flavours for a reasonable price on occasion.

Artist's impression.

One of the most interesting features of this remaster (if you can call it that - the original is already pretty masterful) is the inclusion of online multiplayer; so if like me you have no friends, you can still battle against other real people via the wonders of the internet. From the PlayStation blog:

"For this title, we at SNK have decided to adopt Code Mystics’ proprietary netcode once again, which was used on our previous Neo Geo classic The Last Blade 2 and received praise from both fans and the press.

The team in Vancouver is doing a fantastic job on Garou’s online multiplayer, giving new life to a legendary fighting game classic and ensuring the online gameplay brings SNK fans and series newcomers a great experience similar to the good ol’ days in the arcades."

- SNK via PlayStation Blog

There's no release date as yet, but interestingly the blog entry also alludes to further SNK games coming to Sony's platform in the future. Garou 2 anyone...?

Source: PlayStation Europe Blog

Back In My Play Celebrates 'Summer of Dreamcast'

Back In My Play is a US-based retro-gaming podcast presented by Kevin Larrabee, and covers all manner of topics. Previous episodes have featured interviews with industry giants like former Sega of America chief Tom Kalinske and veteran developer Mike Mika; while other episodes have covered such varied subjects as the Mega Man series, The Legend of Zelda and Japanese game music. Kevin's co-hosts also come from a wide variety of backgrounds and include writers Josh Hillyer and Greg Sewart; the latter of whom is a former Electronic Gaming Monthly journalist.

Recently, Back In My Play started a new series looking at all aspects of Dreamcast collecting and history titled the 'Summer of Dreamcast,' and episodes have all focussed on a different topic of Dreamcast fandom. From the hosts' first encounters with the system, to the various launches around the world and even an interview with Yu Suzuki. I was also invited to appear on an episode in the Summer of Dreamcast series and I had a great time shooting the breeze with Kevin about the UK advertising campaigns, my memories of the launch and also some PAL exclusives and indie/homebrew gems you may have missed - this is episode 401 detailed below! You can find all of the episodes of Back In My Play's Summer of Dreamcast by following the links below:

Back In My Play: Summer of Dreamcast
Sega Dreamcast 101: US History, Hardware and Accessories
Sega Dreamcast 201: US Dreamcast Games
Sega Dreamcast and Shenmue 1-3 w/ Ryan Payton
Sega Dreamcast 301: European and Japanese Games/Hardware
Sega Dreamcast 401: Homebrew, European Market, More (Featuring me!)

You can also find Kevin's Patreon page here - if you like what you've heard on any of these podcast episodes, be sure to donate if you can!

Dreamcast Magazine Issue 14

Issue 14 of Paragon Publishing's Dreamcast Magazine hit store shelves on 5th October 2000 and featured a menacing Ryo Hazuki staring out from the cover. Other big games name checked include Jet Set Radio, Le Mans 24hrs and Ultimate Fighting Championship. Unlike many previous editions, Issue 14 doesn't really showcase many unreleased gems although both Gun Valkyrie and Heroes of Might & Magic III are previewed.

One of the most interesting tidbits of news involves a referenced interview in which Yuki Naka reveals an early name for the Dreamcast that was considered by Sega was the 'Sega G-Cube,' while another mentions a patent lawsuit involving Sega and a company called Optix Media. A quick Google search reveals nothing about this patent dispute, and neither does the article.

The Unsolved Mysteries of Leona's Tricky Adventures

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Here at the 'yard, we're big fans of Leona's Tricky Adventures - one of the finest and most polished indie games released on our favourite little box of tricks. You can find our review of the game here, and if you hurry, there's still time to enter our recent competition to blag yourself a free copy.

However, even in our high esteem for the game, we still recognise that it has some imperfections. One of the main criticisms leveled at the game (mainly vocalised from the bleary-eyed, pasty-skinned, obsessive-compulsive completionist shut-in minority at the back of the room, who've toiled away through sleepless nights to finish every puzzle and find every gem) is that the end of the game isn't entirely satisfactory. It seems as if KTX had big plans for Leona's Adventure, and not all of this grand vision was realised in the final product. This means the game has a kind of incomplete feeling towards the end, with a number of dead ends and mysteries left unsolved to confuse and bewilder the hapless player seeking to satisfy that itch of achieving a state of 100% complete nirvana.

Hopefully, these loose ends in the story will be addressed in a potential (and hoped for) sequel, but until then, here is a dossier of screenshots highlighting the things you can safely ignore on your quest to beat the game into total submission. This will save you the trouble of wondering around the game world aimlessly looking for that next puzzle fix (like my bleary-eyed pasty-arse did). Be warned, end of game spoilers are featured heavily.

DreamPod - Episode 35

[iTunes][Stitcher][Buzzsprout][UK Podcast Directory][YouTube]

Music in this episode comes from Duranik's amazing shmup Sturmwind. Yuan Works' Wind and Water: Puzzle Battles can be purchased here; the Propeller Arena petition is here; and further details on the Xbox controllers is here. As ever, if you like what you've heard please consider leaving us an iTunes review and our Patreon is located here.

Check out Back In My Play's Summer of Dreamcast series here, and there'll be a full feature on the series once the episode featuring me (Tom) is released. One last thing I forgot to mention on the podcast is that I did an interview with Adam Lundgren of Swedish Dreamcast site Dreamcast Sweden, so please go there and have a look at that too.

Competition: Win Leona's Tricky Adventures For Dreamcast!

Leona's Tricky Adventures hit the Dreamcast earlier this year and wowed us with its great music, endearing visuals and engaging puzzling/adventuring gameplay. We did a massive review of KTX's fantastic indie release recently, and a developer interview - tap/click the links below to find out more:

On the back of this, we've teamed up with KTX Software to offer five lucky people the chance to win a brand new, sealed copy of Leona's Tricky Adventures for the Dreamcast! Want in on this action? Just click the button below and enter the competition. And once you've done that, head over to KTX Software's website and Steam store to check out the other great games they offer!

New VMU Game Street Race Available Now

A few months ago we brought you news that Instagram/DCJY Facebook group member @guacasaurus_mex (or Tom Napiorkowski, as his human friends call him) had successfully ported Flappy Bird to the humble Dreamcast VMU. Looks like Tom's been busy since then and has just released his next game to make use of the removable storage nugget: Street Race. This is quite an ambitious title for the tiny dot matrix and humble Sanyo LC8670 CPU beating at the heart of the VMU, but somehow Tom has managed to cram 6 different tracks, grey scale graphics and rudimentary audio effects into Street Race.

There's a gameplay video below and you can download the CD image file here or the SD reader file here. Both work in a similar fashion to the Flappy Bird files in that you need to use the bundled VMU Tool software to add the Street Race file to your VMU. This is impressive stuff from Tom/Guac, and we can't wait to see what else he creates for the Dreamcast's unsung hero.

It should also be noted that the download files for Street Race contain the original Flappy Bird game too, so there are now two reasons to get those VMU battery supplies stocked up!