There has been a lot of progress in the “SegaSonic Bros scene” over the past 24 months – that’s actually a sentence I thought I’d probably never write.
If you’re not familiar with SegaSonic Bros (aka Sonic Brothers), it’s an unreleased falling-block puzzle arcade game that was supposed to be released in the early ’90s, but was scrapped due to poor location testing in Japan.
In 2016, it was revealed that arcade board collector ShouTime had a functional arcade board, and the game was playable to the public during the California Extreme 2018 convention.
Finally, the game has been made available for download online for the first time thanks to Dustin O’Dell. The game is completely playable, but there are some issues, which are detailed below.
(Via RetroRGB)
Update: Revision 2 ROM Released: https://mega.nz/#!eH5ghKhb!YlxdWnLpPPVNpjVE34au0Y9n-1Y_lptnXwTq_Ptrv70
Fixes the music stopping after receiving an emerald
Known issues
“Key test” on the options menu is broken.
Press start twice to exit Game isn’t translated & the Japanese/English option doesn’t work.
A 2nd player joining in can cause the Robotnik sprite to corruptMinor polish issues
Either player can pause/unpause the game no matter who paused it
The greying out of pieces doesn’t work with the white Sonics from the later levels (uses a different palette)
2P VS. mode has a continue prompt that doesn’t work (yet)Notes
Please report anything with the game not working otherwise though. I’ve tested it on what I have but MD hardware varies a lot too. If it works well for you on hardware, please post what hardware you’re using (and get some pictures!)High score saving should work as well but this isn’t super thoroughly tested so please report any problems you might have with this also.
