Sega Nearly Rejected Gunstar Heroes

BlameTheWizards

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Sega Nearly Rejected Gunstar Heroes



What nearly killed the Treasure run-and-gun classic? World Series Baseball's huge batter.

Its hard to find a gamer who's played Sega Genesis gem Gunstar Heroes and hasn't loved it. But the inaugural game from developer Treasure almost didn't see the light of day when it was first shown to publishers at Sega. Speaking with website Sega-16, former Sega of America producer Mac Senour described how 12 previous producers and associate producers had passed on the game.

"If I didn't pick it up, it was going to be rejected," he said. "I played it for five minutes, maybe less, and threw the controller on the floor and said 'this is game of the year.' Every one in earshot laughed." Where did the trepidation come from? The game's tiny sprites. "Gunstar had small characters. We had just published, or were about to publish, World Series Baseball with a huge batter," said Senour. "All the games were showing off something the developers of Spider-Man had discovered, a way to make double high sprites. Gunstar didn't use this and so the others passed. I saw it as something different."

Senour eventually persuaded his coworkers to back the game. As fans well known, Gunstar Heroes went on to become a critical and commercial success, paving the way for future games from developer Treasure such as Ikaruga, Guardian Heroes and Radiant Silvergun. Gunstar Heroes was rereleased for the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade in 2009.

There was one change to Gunstar Heroes Senour requested of Treasure before picking it up for the Genesis, though. "There's a boss in a military uniform, and in the original version he was Hitler. I asked them to remove the mustache or change the character," he said. Because as good as Gunstar Heroes is, even it <a href=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4EfcQQXYcA>can't be Wolfenstein 3D.


Source: Sega-16 via <a href=http://www.polygon.com/2013/10/25/5028338/how-sega-almost-rejected-genesis-classic-gunstar-heroes>Polygon

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Rad Party God

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Feb 23, 2010
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I seriously don't know how well this sold on the Genesis or even the XBLA re-release, but I'm glad they went on with it, it's quite a unique little shooter that nobody should miss.

And quite an interesting contrast compared to Alien Soldier with it's emphasis on boss battles and bigger sprites.
 

Saltyk

Sane among the insane.
Sep 12, 2010
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I've often heard that the days of the Genesis were like the Wild West of games. EA actually reversed engineered it to make a developer kit and actually threatened SEGA saying they would sell the developer kit to other studios at a lower price unless SEGA was a bit more generous with their deals. SEGA caved. And it was a good thing for EA. When they got their hands on an official developer kit, they realized they had some major screw ups which would have crashed games.

I'm sure I'm missing some details, but it was a long time ago that I read that and don't remember it all.

Anyway, Gunstar Heroes. Someday I need to play this game... I keep hearing good things.
 

Moloch Sacrifice

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Ah, yes, Gunstar Heroes... otherwise known as "homing+laser+hold fire".

Honestly though, I think I spammed my way through the entire game with that strategy. Did it work for anyone else?
 

bjj hero

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Whatever happened to treasure? I loved this and guardian heroes like family.

While were waxing nostalgic, who do I have to sleep with to get a shining force remake?
 

mistwolf

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bjj hero said:
Whatever happened to treasure? I loved this and guardian heroes like family.

While were waxing nostalgic, who do I have to sleep with to get a shining force remake?
They are currently gauging interest in PC ports of some of their older games through Greenlight. Looking, it looks like it breezed through (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=183195387), and I know they had to reassure fans that they intentionally went that route to guage interest, not as some kind of Valve snub to them. People got really hot about it! Apparently if Ikaruga passes (Which, as I said, it already has now) and does well (This depends on all of us, y'know, buying it ;) ) they want to do other games. :)
 

toastdieb

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bjj hero said:
Whatever happened to treasure? I loved this and guardian heroes like family.

While were waxing nostalgic, who do I have to sleep with to get a shining force remake?
It's not a remake, but the original is emulated on the Sega Ultimate Genesis/MegaDrive Collection for 360/PS3. I bought the collection exclusively for Shining Force, but it also has Shining in the Darkness and Shining Force 2.
 

bjj hero

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toastdieb said:
bjj hero said:
Whatever happened to treasure? I loved this and guardian heroes like family.

While were waxing nostalgic, who do I have to sleep with to get a shining force remake?
It's not a remake, but the original is emulated on the Sega Ultimate Genesis/MegaDrive Collection for 360/PS3. I bought the collection exclusively for Shining Force, but it also has Shining in the Darkness and Shining Force 2.
Ive still got my genesis with SF, SF2 and shining in the darkness. May break it out tonight.