Starless

It wasn't a flop in Japan... but it still wasn't enough to cover for Sega's losses. Their real moneymakers were overseas.

In fact, the overseas failure of the Saturn caused then-CEO Isao Okawa to call for Sega to stop making consoles. It didn't work, obviously, but you have to wonder... instead of "what if the Dreamcast won", what would've happened if Sega never made the Dreamcast?

I would take anything Victor Ireland says with a grain of salt.

That said, it wouldn't shock me if SegAm had some insane office politics blocking PS IV — even if I find it unbelievable. 90s Sega was a mess on every corner of the globe, no matter what fake historians with their brains permanently fried by 2D shmups try to tell you. (Hey John Harrison, how ya doin'?)

Much as I sincerely hate Rocco Botte, this sucks to see. Hope they can climb back out of this rut. They're an excellent team of artists/comedians.

I would rather a game stay out of circulation than be re-released by LRG.

The only people who believe "the wrong console won" are people who want to repeal Article 9.

Hey, John Harrison, how ya doin'?

Lords of Shadow is better.

Bad nostalgia is when people are fully owned by nostalgia for five games and nothing more. So yes, it exists!

@MegaManFan The Callisto Protocol was just not released in Japan because CERO refused to rate it.

Resident Evil is still heavily censored in Japan to remove most of the blood and gore.

Kid Icarus: Uprising got a rating bump because of one camera angle that could've been construed as an upskirt shot — in Japan.

And don't even get me started on the Saori Incident.

You're completely right. It's all so frustrating, but there's no satisfactory answer. Knowing what I know about Japanese game development, blaming everything on simple "Western interference" is just infantilizing; but what the hell am I supposed to do about it? I don't work at ESRB, CERO, or PEGI.

"AI-powered light gun" has to be a buzzword. How does that work?

The Japanese game scene is full of bad blood. Koji Ogata is just one of the few to go public about it. I kind of agree with his criticisms, but LOL if he didn't open a whole can of worms.

Thank you, Seiichi Ishii — and ***** Katsuhiro Harada.

Can't wait for the Twitter retro-grifters to pull a Grummz over this.

Gonna check this out. I've long craved something to wash off the stench of SoR Remake...

SoR4 is good but retreads 2 too much.

Takes a lot of bravery to call an old game bad in this day and age, but thank you for speaking the truth. Really sick of the toxic positivity around the 'retro' scene.

I never liked Haunted Castle, no matter how many times I beat it. I might give Revisited a try... Konami aside.

@SnowyAria That's fair, thank you for your insight. I'll check your channels out.

Good stuff.

Won't be touching it, though. Playing Saturn rots your brain.

@KitsuneNight But there are plenty of non-Japanese games that are as "so bad it's hilarious" as this game, and they don't get the same treatment. You'd think Felipe Pepe would've done an oral history of The Town With No Name by now? Or does he know something I don't...?

The concept of "kusoge" has always baffled me. I'm supposed to treat this awful game as art because it's from Japan...?