Mad but They Did It

Sega’s Typing of the Dead is a totally stupid idea executed wholeheartedly.

Sega always had its roots in the arcades. In the West we saw it clearly in their console games – ports of arcade classics or new games that followed the same templates.

When Sega dropped out of the console hardware race, we felt like they’d sort of given up and started to fade away.

When you come to Tokyo, you discover the truth: Sega’s highstreet presence is so strong that the console lineage seems like a footnote to the legend.

Here, whole buildings say “Sega” in Sega colours, and they’re full of essential-cultural-touchstone modern Sega games.

Here’s one little remnant of the console days, when Sega’s home games enjoyed a back-and-forth with the arcades: The House of the Dead reimagined with Dreamcast keyboards in place of guns.

Mad but they did it. Which is Sega at its best.