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[Thad]

Pier Solar is available for preorder again.  $50 with shipping (lower 48 I assume).  If you're a big spender there's also a $25 soundtrack set, including a disc you can stick in your SegaCD for improved music (though if you're not, you can just burn your own -- leastways, as long as one of those download links still works; the first 3 are dead).

I don't know how the game actually plays, but I like the way it looks, and I love the idea of a new, fan-made Genesis game enough to plunk down $50 sight unseen.  Will tell you how it is once I get it -- apparently they're supposed to start shipping on the 16th, though they've already been delayed so I won't know for sure until I get a shipping confirmation.

[Mothra]

Hrm, no reviews for this, really.

LOOKS real nice.

[Thad]

Wikipedia's got this:

The game was well received. Pier Solar first magazine review was published by Spanish multiplatform game magazine Games Tribune in their January 2011 issue (published December 28, 2010), scoring 90%. It was Games Tribune's first review of a 16-bit game ever. A preview article had already been published in their previous issue. Dutch multiplatform game magazine Power Unlimited covered Pier Solar in their May 2011 issue with their first full-fledged review of a Sega Megadrive game since the late 1990s, scoring it at 90% with a Gold Award.

Nothing in English, though.  (EDIT: Some fan reviews via search.  Need to get my ass to bed and don't have time to read any, but man, those screenshots...yeah, I AM impressed they squoze that kinda life out of un-lock-on'd Genesis hardware.)

Tangentially, there's also Beggar Prince.  Not quite the same thing; it's not an original game, it's a fan translation of a mid-1990's-vintage Chinese RPG.  But it's still a "new" Genesis RPG that got released as a cartridge post-End of the Millennium.

No indication that it'll get another run, though.  Wonder if the English ROM is out there.  Would rather support the translators -- wonder why they don't just sell the ROM; given that it's not a first-party Sega title I doubt it would provoke any more legal smackdown than the cartridge version did.

[Kayma]

I've been interested in this for awhile. I know the fact that this is a Genesis game is most of the point, but I really wish they'd squeeze all they can out of the cart, then port the damn thing to something I don't have to play three feet from the TV.

[Kayma]

First person who tells me to hunt down a Nomad gets dead.

[Mothra]

dogg you gotta get some nomad up-ins

[Smiler]

More like MOREMAD am I right?

[Thad]

I've been interested in this for awhile. I know the fact that this is a Genesis game is most of the point, but I really wish they'd squeeze all they can out of the cart, then port the damn thing to something I don't have to play three feet from the TV.

Not an ideal option (it costs 75 euro for fuck's sake), but I linked this awhile back: Retrode lets you mount a Genesis (or SNES) cart as a USB drive.

...well, it beats Nomad, anyway.

But yeah it would sure be nice if they at least sold it as a ROM.  Actually porting it would be better still.

[Brentai]

In theory it's trivial to dump onto Virtual Console.  It's just a matter of whether the publishers can acquire the appropriate licenses without running into some entity that isn't even going to take their offer seriously.

[Thad]

I have a hard time imagining the ROI would be worth it.  Especially with the Wii effectively dead at this point.  (Though of course there are various Genesis titles in the MS and Sony stores, too, indicating they've got perfectly functional emulators as well.)  PC would be the way to go.

[Thad]

...welp, appears the thing's finally shipping.  Must admit to a certain frustration that they charged me full price four months before actually getting the thing in the mail.  And then I never got an E-Mail saying it was ready and they needed my shipping info; I just happened to punch the site up and see an announcement.  (EDIT: Oh, the E-Mail address I signed up with is down.  Fuck.)

But, y'know, it's a new operation; they're still working the kinks out.  I'm willing to cut them some slack for a few bumps along the road at this stage in the game.

Will let you know what I think of the game once I get it.

[Thad]

Welp, I WILL say that once they finally said "It's shipping" it shipped and got here fast.

Only had time to fuck around with it for around half an hour, but some quick initial impressions:

It looks as good as I've ever seen a Genesis (cartridge) game look.  Like, I didn't know the Genesis could display that many colors at once.

Music...well, for starters I think it's great that (1) it's got an optional CD soundtrack and (2) if you don't want to pay for it they have it up for you to burn it yourself.  Judging entirely from the start screen and first town, they're talented amateurs; I like the choice of samples (good use of oboe) but it does come off a little generic and repetetive.

Far as pacing?  Well, I think they made some 8-bitty errors in storytelling.  I'm firmly of the opinion that an RPG shouldn't start with you wandering around town for half an hour gathering party members and equipment.

The dialog gets a little verbose in places, and there's a text crawl.  It moves pretty fast -- and you can speed it up by holding a button on the D-pad, without the risk of accidentally hitting Next, which is nice -- but I still believe text crawls are an inherently awful idea and I can't begin to understand why they ever existed in the first damn place, let alone why they continue to do so.

That said, the dialog itself IS pretty solid; one of the lines made me chuckle, which is more than I can say for the entirety of Breath of Death 7, which is supposed to be a comedy.  This is a game created by (1) native English speakers who (2) clearly love the genre but (3) can poke fun at its tropes without looking like they're trying too hard.  The protagonists seem like charming goofballs.  At a snap judgement I'd say it has a similar flavor to the GBA translation of FF5, which is of course a compliment.

The menus are slick, and you can save anywhere.

Haven't had time to delve into magic or combat but the guys in the training room make them sound like pretty interesting systems.

And the packaging is great.  Nice plastic box like the old Genesis games; comes with a color manual, poster (mine was a little bent but I'm not too bothered), and stickers.  Really good presentation and I have already showed it off excitedly to family.

That's it so far; don't know when I'll get back to it (still have Xenoblade to finish plus my Xbox is due in the mail today) but this is a pretty cool thing at first blush.

[Thad]

Meant to post this earlier, but it's coming to Xbox, PC/Mac/Linux, and...Dreamcast.  So, for those of you who wanted a non-Genesis version, there are several coming.

...and no I never got much past the beginning of the game.  Which is nothing against the game, just that I have trouble getting around to games.

[Thad]

Game's got balance issues.

I mean, you expect fights to be tough on an RPG where you can save anywhere.  But this isn't the kind of well-balanced strategic fight you get in, say, Breath of Death 7 (at least, not early on).  This is the kind of thing where there are only two possible enemy parties you're going to run into and if you get ambushed you're going to get the shit kicked out of you.  You only have one character who knows a healing spell, she only has enough MP to cast it three times, it is literally impossible to get to an inn from here, and even if you're well-stocked on healing items you're bound to run out and be stuck in a fucking loop of constant saving and hoping your next battle doesn't start with the monsters getting a free turn.

And I'd be better-stocked on healing items if I hadn't used them up my LAST time through the cave, when they didn't bother telling you you need a fourth party member to get through the end and you have to talk to the same people multiple times to find that out and get him to join.

Seriously, I cannot put "Cannot advance until you talk to the same person multiple times" on the Unforgivable Sins list enough times.

All that said, I'm still impressed with the craft of the game, it does a lot of things right, and Lord knows I've played worse games that WEREN'T created by amateurs.  This is discouraging but I don't think it'll stop me playing.