Nintendo and Sega aired a surprise Nintendo Direct this afternoon to announce that Sega’s 3D Classics games — retro Genesis titles redone to take advantage of the 3DS’ stereoscopic 3D screen — are finally coming to North America and Europe.
The Western release for these titles was first announced via a European Nintendo Direct broadcast, but Sega has since confirmed that these titles are coming to the North American e-Shop as well. These games came out in Japan awhile ago, and I’m surprised that it’s taken Sega this long to release them overseas.
You can view the full Nintendo Direct below (Sega stuff starts at 5:13.)
Here’s a full list of the games being remastered for Sega’s 3D Classics series:
– 3D Altered Beast
– 3D Ecco the Dolphin
– 3D Galaxy Force II
– 3D Shinobi III
– 3D Sonic The Hedgehog
– 3D Space Harrier
– 3D Streets of Rage
– 3D Super Hang-On
Sega’s 3D Classics still feature the same gameplay and graphics as the original Genesis/Mega Drive versions, but now support stereoscopic 3D for additional depth effects. All of the games feature save states and the ability to remap the controls, but some games feature new gameplay improvements: for instance, unlike the original Genesis version, you can use the spin-dash from Sonic 2 in Sonic 1.
I’m not really sure that some of these games really need stereoscopic 3D effects — I doubt Altered Beast is going to be any less crappy with the 3D effects turned on — but it’ll be interesting to see if the 3D effects improve the pseudo-3D titles, such as Space Harrier and Super Hang-On. These titles got mixed reviews when they were released in Japan (I’ve heard that the 3D effects on Sonic 1 are barely noticeable,) but considering that the handheld Virtual Console doesn’t support Genesis (yet,) the 3D Classics series might be the only way to play these classic titles on a 3DS.
At the very least, I’ll probably end up getting Shinobi III, because Shinobi III is always awesome, lackluster port or not. That game is better than your mom.
There’s no definite release date for these games yet, but Sega says they’ll hit the 3DS e-Shop sometime soon.
Source: Official Sega Blog
