The rest of this post is shamelessy copied:

So what is Pier Solar? When was it released
It's a brand new RPG for the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive
Shipped from China about December 13th or 14th 2010.
More info at http://www.piersolar.com/

So it's a new Genesis game. Is it really on a cartridge?
Yes it's actually on a cartridge. It has a an audio CD too.

So is it a Sega CD / Mega CD game too?
No it's not
No it is strictly a Cartridge game, the CD just has enhanced audio on it.

So what's unique about it?

It's a 64Mb cartridge. Larger than any other Genesis cartridge. Phantasy Star IV was 24Mb One of the versions of Street Fighter II was 40Mb

It's the only Genesis game to come with an enhanced audio CD. If you don't have a Sega CD fine, the cartridge will play just fine with regular music like any normal cartridge. If you do have a Sega CD the cartridge can access the CD and stream some of the highest quality(at least in bit rate) PCM music ever heard on the Sega CD.

This is a feature that has never been done before.

Someone already posted a youtube video comparing the cartridge music to the CD music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dudBuSkj_QY


They also made 3 versions of the game.
They are all region free and should work on any official hardware originally manufactured by SEGA.
a US version featuring the red Genesis logo, and English, Spanish, and Portuguese languages.
A EUR version featuring the blue Mega Drive logo and English, French, and German languages
a JPN version featuring the Mega Drive log and English, Spanish, French languages and Japanese menus.
The Japaneses version was supposed to have only English and the Japanese languages on it but the Japanese translation was canceled due to not being able to find a proof reader. French and Spanish were added later as replacements

Can I play the audio CD on a standard CD player?
No. But it should have some extra content you can access on a PC.
Lunar the Silver Star uses redbook audio that you can play on a CD player.
Lunar 2 Eternal Blue uses PCM audio, you can't play it on a CD player.
Pier Solar also uses PCM audio. But supposedly at a bit rate so high that only a few FMV games streamed at comparable bit rates and that was video.

What about the 32X
It's supposed to have a small “Easter Egg” only accessible when played through the 32X system.

No color or graphic enhancements though.

So where did this game come from? How did it happen?

Slightly modified from Sega Wikia

Pier Solar and the Great Architects is the first game made by Water Melon Development, a development team that originated in the homebrew gaming scene of Eidolon's Inn and focused on releasing new games to the Sega Mega Drive.
Pier Solar will be the very first all new game to appear on the Sega Mega Drive and Sega CD in this millennium. It is not a port, not a translation, and has no ripped content whatsoever.


Development of the game started in 2004 as a mini-game starring the members of the homebrew website Eidolon's Inn, such as Kega Fusion-developer Steven Snake. It soon became an effort to create a full role-playing game in the style of Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger, and Phantasy Star IV. A fully playable demo of the game was released on September 1, 2008.
The first big announcement of the game was made in 2007 in an interview with the popular Mega Drive fansite Sega-16. On October 29, 2007 a teaser was released. On January 13, 2008 the game was officially named Pier Solar and the Great Architects, and an official website and forums were launched. Since then the game has been reported about on many gaming-related websites.
More info at
[url="http://www.sega-16.com/feature_page.php?id=249&title=Interview:%20Pier%20Solar%20Team"]Interview: Pier Solar Team[/url]
[url="http://www.sega-16.com/feature_page.php?id=358&title=Preview:%20Pier%20Solar%20&%20the%20Great%20Architects"]Preview: Pier Solar & the Great Architects[/url]


After the demo was released, Later in the fall of 2008 they started taking Pre-Orders. Then an artist left the project, and didn't want any of his artwork used. And the project was delayed

And now finally on December 13th/14th 2010 it shipped out.


SO WHATS THE STORY ABOUT

Taken from Sega Wikia
''In a prospered and peaceful town called Reja, there live three best friends: Hoston, Alina and Edessot.
Young and curious, they want to go on a herb-seeking quest to help cure Hoston's father's illness.
Little do they know ... it will be the beginning their lifetime journey where they will learn
the true meaning of friendship and the thrill of adventure.
This journey will demand their courage and wisdom to solve the long lost mystery while
they face the forces of destruction by the evil man who is trying to change the world for his own good.
Trough his escapade, they will be reborn as great heroes to protect the universe from a mistaken purpose.


It's SOLD OUT?
Yes, it sold out during the pre-order stage. But they redesigned the official website http://www.piersolar.com/ to feature a GIANT ORDER NOW button on it. So I assume they wouldn't have done that if they weren't going to have something available soon.

They also mentioned this on the official piersolar.com forums

http://www.piersolar.com/board/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=1490
Q. The website says the game is not available at the moment (sold out), can I order the game now?
A. No, you must wait until it gets available again, if you register to this message board, you will receive notification.

Q. Is there an estimated date that the game will become available?
The game will be available again. We will make announcement early January 2011.



SCREENSHOTS






Packaging and BOX ART










I think this is one of the coolest things I've ever seen and plays right into my nostalgia bone.

And the soundtrack is some godly sh*t. LISTEN TO THE TITLE SCREEN:

I'm not sure if my Sega even works. But it looks like I need to find out. I tried to click the 'order now' link just to see the price, but it doesn't seem to be working at the moment.

I remember hearing about this once before. I sorta lost track of it though, and was wondering if it was still happening. The idea of someone making a game on these older consoles is pretty cool, and it's nice to hear that it got finished.

Shame we missed out on the pre-orders. Let's hope they get more in. If anyone sees it in stock be SURE to post here so all can enjoy I will try to do my part!

In fact...

There! Now their page is one of my home pages.

I knew that some indie developers still manufactured original dreamcast games, but this is the first time I've seen something made for an older system than that. I am definitely interested.

FYI, guys, the reprint edition is up!

Damn! I just bought a laptop today. Hopefully it will still be available in two weeks (payday)

I totally just bought it. 45 bucks is a very fair price if you ask me.

Bought it.

Too bad I don't have a Sega CD. I'd like to take advantage of the enhanced music. But oh well, I'm sure I'll still enjoy it. (Besides, I have the Genesis model that doesn't work with Sega CD.)

Actually, I'm fairly sure I'm going to enjoy the older sounding music. That's kind of the whole point, right? Playing a game made for a console that's decades old...

True, true.

This is very interesting and cool. Wish I still had a sega cd (or working gen for that matter).

And I'd honestly play it twice for both version of music >.<

Hopefully, it'll actually be worth playing twice.

Has anybody gotten this, yet?

I haven't yet got that email. And today is the 15th. Also, I still haven't tested to see if my Genesis even works.

anyone get any of the games yet? id like to see an lp of it just to see what all the fuss is about.

So, when this topic was first made, I expected everything in the game to be original, but after watching some gameplay videos, I've found that that is not so.

I've heard several sound effects from other sega games, most notably I've recognized several sound effects from the Sonic games.

I also recently watched a pretty long in depth review of the game, and the reviewer said the game suffers from seemingly pointless quests (he said the reason for doing something in the game is usually, "We can't tell you yet"). He also said the characters don't have any real background, that several characters have no clear personality, that there are tons of unclear plot points.

He said that at first the game isn't that visually impressive but that the game looks better the farther you get. But he complained that there is very little enemy variety, and a lot of the time the enemies don't even get a color swap, they just get stronger, and that a lot of the battle animations look exactly the same for multiple attacks.

In terms of gameplay, he said that the game is pretty difficult at the beginning, and said that you shouldn't be surprised to run out of healing items, even if you buy 100 of them, and that is just to make it from town to town. He said that the game becomes incredibly easy later on though. He said that at several points you are forced to play seemingly random minigames (including a Bomberman clone) to move the story along.

His biggest complaint was that the game was pretty archaic, even compared to other Genesis RPGs; there are few diversions from the story, the game almost forces you ahead, there is no way to escape dungeons, and even when you gain the ability to travel (I assume with a vehicle), backtracking requires you to go back through dungeons.

In spite of all this stuff, he did like the combat (borrowed heavily from the Lunar series), and the soundtrack.

Over all, he said the game is pretty good deal for only $35, and is a good first try from the developers, but said the game is far from as perfect as most people thought.

From his review, I think the dumbest thing I heard about the game was this:

"For a game with as much dialogue as Pier Solar has, you'll be amazed that you'll get lost fairly often in this game too. As characters often don't clearly point out where to go, or what to do, as they'd rather TELL A JOKE ABOUT THE SNES HARDWARE"

All I have to say to that is that I don't understand why expectations were so high for a game that is supposed to be the equivalent of a game released over a decade ago. I don't expect any more or less than what I would have seen back in the day.

Good news though, I got my copy in. And the packaging is really super nice.

Bad news is... my Sega does, in fact, not work. I have a friend who has a working Sega, so I'm going to get him to let me borrow it for a while. As soon as I get it from him, I'll report back.

Nice to know you got yours in. I'm still waiting on mine. I hope my payment went through. I haven't recieved any notifications in it since I payed.

The reason expectations were so high was because the game was hyped by the people who made it as an awesome game better than anything anyone had seen before on the Genesis. But instead people got just an OK game.