I was a big sega fan as a teenager - got the megadrive, saturn and dreamcast. Followed all their series religiously; from megadrive Sonics, Shining series, Panzer series, sonic teams saturn Nights and Burning Rangers, Sega Rally, phantasy star 2 right through to Online, megadrive Ecco through to dreamcast. Loved their series and had many a school ground arguement over why they were better than the N64 and playstation.
Then they fucked me.
Started with not releasing the entire Shining Force 3 trilogy outside Japan. Fair enough, I thought, if the fan base is to small it wouldnt be a wise business decision. So I lived with it in the vain hope it would be ported to dreamcast. Little did I know that they had treated its developer Camelot like a dog and they had defected to Nintendo as a 2nd party developer. But instead of searching for developer that would love and care for the series the way Camelot did (much like 343 are doing for Halo) sega just farmed it out. Ive watched in horror, frustration and now helplessness as sega has tore the series to shreds. Almost as if staring at Camelot and the series fans and saying "Watcha gonna do?"
And the fun didnt stop.
I wanted to see Nights in full 3D on my shiny dreamcast. If only sega could hear my wishes... they would have told me to fuck off, we dont care.
But they did hear my pleas and announced a brand new Nights game... as a Wii exclusive. The warning signs were there but I was to blind to see them. No Yuji Naka to steady the helm, who had left Sega at this stage to form his own company, and lots of garbage about motion controls making the game better than sliced bread.
(I remember an interview in Sega Saturn Magazine in late 1996 where he explained his reasoning behind not including voice acting, which was all the rage at the time. Magazines were even marking a game down for nkt including this next gen novelty. He explained that it would not fit in the game, make it disjointed and break the magic the game had. This even extended to having no dialog in the game either - the story was told without voice or written word. And it worked.)
I was blindly excited for the Wii Nights. I ignored previews and reviews. I got it home. I switched it on. And then I wanted to smash something. Sega had not only fucked me off with the shining series but they had now ass raped my beloved nights. It had full, horrible voice acting that I tried to ignore. It had a story that even resident evil would scoff at. I had been betrayed again.
Then there was the Panzer series. After Team Andromeda left sega (theres a pattern here I just cant see it) they decided to skip the HMS dreamcast and put the new game on the Xbox. And it was shite and it flopped. Another series gone.
What else... what else... oh yes. Sonic. How he has survived tbis long on a diet off shite and mediocrity ill never know. The last few games have been quite good (colours and generations) but I cant see that lasting.
Ive had enough now. I could go on but im so pissed off now I need to go and shake this mood.
Not looking to have an arguement with anyone but, like clint eastwood said, opinions are like assholes. Everbodys got one. Well this is mine. Sega have fallen so low I dont recognise them anymore. They have destroyed a lot of good series and survive off Football Manager, Aliens franchises (though not for long) and Sonic (how hes survived I have no idea).
So there you go. Sorry about the length of this.
Fuck you Sega.
