Did you know they still make games for the Mega Drive? (And, for that matter, the Dreamcast, and a few other popular consoles?) Not many, sure, and they tend to be mostly shmuppy in nature, but the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis did receive a purportedly massive RPG in the year 2010. It's called Pier Solar, and it looks a bit like Lunar: Silver Star Story mixed with a SNES Final Fantasy (or at least, it does to me). The devs claim it's the "biggest 16-bit RPG ever" due to its whopping 64MB cartridge, and it's finally out on PC next week. We'll be getting an 'HD' version that blends pixel art with high definition art in a clashing and kind of ugly way, but you will be able to swap back to pure pixel art at the touch of a button.
Pier Solar HD is a director's cut of the anachronistic Mega Drive original, thanks to a Kickstarter that hit all of its stretch goals a couple of years ago. JRPGs are particularly fond of high numbers, so we can expect "50+ hours of gameplay, over 300 locations, nearly 500 unique treasure chests, and over 800 NPCs"—you can see why developers WaterMelon needed that extra big 64MB cartridge (most were only 12MB in size during the Mega Drive era).
Pier Solar HD is coming to PC (along with PS3, PS4 and Ouya) on September 30th, and you'll be able to find it on Steam (well, if Steam's new algorithm thingy decides to show it you). Here's a link to the Pier Solar page, just in case. It's also coming to Mac, Linux, Wii U, Xbox One and Dreamcast (!) further down the line.
I've stuck a recent trailer below. Thanks, Eurogamer.
