The Genesis Mini Will Include A Fan-Made Game [Update]

Sega has revealed the final batch of games on its Genesis Mini, and there’s one particularly surprising inclusion: a game that’s never been seen before on Genesis, seemingly made by a fan. It’s a beautiful-looking port of the 1987 Taito arcade shoot-em-up Darius, which never had a Genesis version back in the day.

The developers of the Japanese Mega Drive Mini revealed the new game on a livestream early this morning, and Sega of America confirmed that it would also be included on the Genesis Mini as well. The livestream panel noted that this version of Darius uses a 32-megabit ROM size, which would have made for an incredibly expensive cartridge back in the late ’80s or early ’90s. (Its sequel Darius II, which was ported to Genesis back in 1990, used an 8-megabit ROM, which was considered large for the time.)

What Sega did not note on its livestream, or anywhere else, was the origin of this new version of Darius. The internet’s most knowledgeable Genesis nerds immediately recognized the port as the work of a hobbyist programmer named Hidecade, who had been publicly sharing updates about the unofficial project as recently as last year. Again, although it’s not confirmed that Hidecade’s port is the one being used here, it is exceedingly unlikely that there would be an entire second port of Darius. Also, the screenshots (including the HUD, which had to be redesigned for the Genesis screen) look identical. (Update, 9/3/19 12:00 p.m.: Sega has since officially confirmed that the game is based on Hidecade’s work.)

Moreover, it seems that Hidecade has gone through and scrubbed all references to the project from his personal pages, including Twitter, his blog, and YouTube. In the livestream, Sega simply said that the game was being developed by M2, the developer of the Genesis Mini software, and supervised by Taito. (Kotaku has reached out to Sega and will update this story if it returns comment.)

While it’s disappointing that the apparent fan-based origin of Darius is not being announced publicly (or at least, not yet), it’s not that surprising. Hobbyists tend to work anonymously or under pseudonyms in Japan, so it’s possible that this situation is what is preferred for all parties involved. Either way, it’s very exciting to see a fan-made project embraced, made “official,” and released by the original copyright holder. It would be great to see this happen much more often.

The $80 Genesis Mini will be released on September 19. While Sega originally said that its mini console would have 40 games, today’s announcement actually brought it up to 42. The other surprise game was Tetris, which will not be the unreleased Genesis version from back in the day, but an all-new, better version. Here’s the final list, with this week’s new games at the end.

1. Sonic The Hedgehog
2. Ecco the Dolphin
3. Castlevania: Bloodlines
4. Space Harrier 2
5. Shining Force
6. Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine
7. ToeJam & Earl
8. Comix Zone
9. Altered Beast
10. Gunstar Heroes
11. Earthworm Jim
12. Sonic The Hedgehog 2
13. Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse
14. World of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck
15. Contra: Hard Corps
16. Thunder Force III
17. Super Fantasy Zone
18. Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master
19. Streets of Rage 2
20. Landstalker
21. Mega Man: The Wily Wars
22. Street Fighter II: Special Champion Edition
23. Ghouls ‘n Ghosts
24. Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle
25. Beyond Oasis
26. Golden Axe
27. Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium
28. Sonic The Hedgehog Spinball
29. Vectorman
30. Wonder Boy in Monster World
31. Tetris
32. Darius
33. Road Rash II
34. Strider
35. Virtua Fighter 2
36. Alisia Dragoon
37. Kid Chameleon
38. Monster World IV
39. Eternal Champions
40. Columns
41. Dynamite Headdy
42. Light Crusader

Update, 9/3/19 12:00 p.m. Eastern: Contrary to what Sega told Kotaku on the day that this story was originally published, it has since revealed that the version of Darius on the Genesis Mini is, indeed, based on the work of fan creator Hideki “hidecade” Konishi. As such, we have reverted the prior update below and restored this story to its original form.

Update, 2:56 p.m. Eastern: Sega has told Kotaku that the version of Darius on the Genesis Mini is a totally new version ported by the developer M2, and not based on the fan work. However, since the Mini version bears striking similarity to the fan-created port, it still seems possible that there is a connection between them. We have updated the headline and first paragraph of this story.