Pier Solar box art!

So, people who ordered Pier Solar got a special email today. The packaging is well into production, and the gang over at Watermelon are showing it off! I like that the guys over at Super Fighter Team work their asses off to give Sega Genesis fans the authentic Genesis experience, with the clam shell case and all, but I think the Watermelon team just did them one better. Check out the glossiness!



I suspect that this means that it's a cardboard case, but I can't really tell. It looks like it's an open-up case like the clam-shell. Maybe it's one of those collector's edition boxes, like the ones that Working Designs use to make.

Or better yet, maybe it's secretly a Gaijin Works production, and any day now, project leader Tulio Adriano will pull his rubber mask off to reveal that he's really Vic Ireland!

And Vic will be like, "Nah-ha! I'm back! Tremble in terror as I insert pop culture references into a fantasy setting! All the songs in the game shall be sung by Jenny Stigile! Nay-ha-ha!"

Oh, come on. That would be awesome, and you know it! Don't listen to those 1-Up Network guys. They love pop culture references in their RPGs, especially ones like the Ebonics joke in Albert Odyssey. You know that Nick Sutner and Jeremy Parish secretly listen to their Lunar soundtrack CDs to get their Stigile fix.

And besides, I just needed to digress long enough to Google-bait Jenny Stigile. She's posted on my blog before, and even though I make jokes about her, she's a really good sport. To be honest, I'd love to have another game with her in it, especially if we could have yet another outtake reel of her doing nothing but fart jokes.

Come back to video games, Jenny. It's been a dull and dreary world without you. ...Okay, enough off-topic gushing.

I'm really digging this new support that Sega Genesis has in these small-time game enthusiasts. Even though Beggar Prince was kind of a glitchy game, it was pretty good. I could have done without the instant death traps, but those are forgivable. I've not yet had a chance to order Legend Of Wu-Kong, but it looks fairly decent. Not as graphically pleasing as Beggar Prince. (Whoever did the cut scenes should be flogged.)

Despite its delay, I still think that Pier Solar is the most exciting indie project to come out for the Genesis, largely because the game is entirely homebrew, and because it's made in loving tribute to games like Lunar, Chrono Trigger, and Final Fantasy VI. And I think the delay has kind of stolen Super Fighter's thunder, because if they hadn't delayed the game, then The Legend Of Wu-Kong would have had the distinction of being "the last Genesis game". Pier Solar has swiped that distinction back by simple pushing the release date back a few months.

Actually, it kinda is the last game, regardless of what comes out in its wake. Of the software that's been available for Sega Genesis in the last two years, Pier Solar is the only game that's entirely new, and it's probably going to be quite some time before we get another project like this to come along.

I actually hadn't been to the Pier Solar website in a while, so I haven't seen anything of the game since the original demo. I'm pleased to see that they replaced all of the terrible character artwork in the game with quality images. They also tidied up the text boxes so that they have their own unique feel. they were a bit generic-looking in the demo.

Of course, I'm dying to play this game so that I can experience it with the CD audio. The audio in the demo uses the Genesis FM synthesizer, which is kind of bland by today's standard.

The game will work on any model Sega Genesis from any region. It has enhanced audio for Sega CD, which when booted with the cartridge, will enable enhanced music and sound effects. This is only Genesis game ever that uses by the cartridge slot and the CD drive simultaneously, which is something that Sega never tried, oddly enough.

Water Melon is still taking pre-orders, so rush on over there and buy yourself a copy!

http://www.piersolar.com/