While not as impressive as last year’s offerings at Brasil Game Show 2024, Sega’s booth had a slew of new and upcoming games for attendees to check out, including an eagerly anticipated remake and a fan favorite springing out into their own seafaring adventure.
Beautifully set up and full of shining lights and people dressed up as the company’s iconic characters for photo ops and whatnot, Sega had one of the event’s most bustling spaces for sure. Sure, their list of games this time wasn’t as impressive as last year, but let’s give credit where credit’s due, it alone had more than most of the other booths most definitely.
Let’s get these ones out of the way before diving into the 2025 stuff: Metaphor: ReFantazio, out on the 11th, was there and fully playable. I have already had the opportunity to play through the entire thing over the course of the last few weeks and it’s one of P Studio’s best efforts in a while. An incredibly intelligent take on the Persona formula, the end result being a game that’s got an amazingly deep politically charged story, fantastic characters, and gripping gameplay. You should all most definitely play it right now.
Then there’s Sonic X Shadow Generations. It’s a re-release of Sonic Generations with a new campaign strapped in, starring Shadow the Hedgehog, with his own quirks and a whole lot of speed. With Generations being one of the last good Sonic games ever released, it makes sense for Sega to take the same route as Nintendo did with Super Mario 3D World where they created a brand new scenario along with an established hit. While not particularly different from the core 3D Sonic gameplay in the main game, Shadow’s section is blazingly fast and equally fun to get through. The game will be out on the 22nd, by the way.
Now, to something I’m sure our buddy Gareth will get a kick out of: Two Point Museum. I got to play its initial section and the setup there wasn’t ideal, as the desk the computer with the demo was running out of was at sitting height, with no chair, and a keyboard and mouse. For as uncomfortable as that was, I had enough time to see that it’s following the same formula as the previous two games, wherein this time you get to put together a museum and its many exhibitions. The humor and wittiness that Two Point games are known for was at full effect there and I’m anxious to see what comes out of it once it’s out in 2025.
Closing it all off is the next step in Like a Dragon. Surprisingly enough, Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii looked complete, an impressive feat considering that Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth with its huge 100+ hour campaign is hardly an year old at this point. The new game takes place shortly after the end of that one, with Goro Majima washing up ashore in Hawaii. With no memory at the start of his past life, he gets caught up in the wake of the events of the previous title, eventually taking up the mantle of a ship captain and following the pirate-y ways.
The most fun out of the demo was seeing what old Goro had up his sleeve when it came down to fighting. Back to the brawling we are with this one, and Majima relives his Yakuza 0 days by offering two distinct styles to good around with, both extremely fast and powerful, the first being more melee-based, with spins and flying kicks that reminded me of his break dance routine of that game. The second has him wear his captain garb and don double swords along with a gun. Taking a cue from Like a Dragon Ishin!, this one is amazing for handling groups of enemies as our antihero can damage a bunch of goons at once and what’s most enjoyable about it, blazingly fast.
Outside of all the violence there are the usual array of activities to be done, such as karaoke, food delivering, and your run-of-the-mill side quests that the series is known for which I’m sure you are all hankering to do. I came out of the demo feeling extremely well about Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii. Knowing that it’ll be out in late February really lights a candle under my ass to finally get off of it and finish Infinite Wealth, hopefully in time to get in while it’s still hot next year.
Eduardo is a jack-of-all-trades and master-of-none when it comes to videogames and someone who likes talking about them a whole lot. You can find him on Twitter and Bluesky.
