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Sega Saturn Appreciation and Emulation Thread

K

KC-Slater

Member
D.Lo said:
Japanese discs have the sublime consistency too, with the silver slice with Saturn logo on the lower half of every single one. They're just too classy. Nintendo cribbed the motif for the similarly classy gamecube discs.
Click to expand...

I've posted about this before, but I'll mention it again -- SOA's inconsistent branding drives me bonkers!

The US Saturn *may* be the closest they have come to packaging brand consistency (even the Dreamcast switched up the colour scheme mid-cycle from white to black) but the Genesis is easily the worst offender.

The 32X came close, but the pantones are off on a bunch of the boxes (compare the yellow spine of DOOM to Space Harrier for example) and Activision had to fuck things up by going with clamshells instead of cardboard boxes. (Sega should've gone with clamshells to begin with, but Sega is gonna Sega...)

The state of the SOA packaging is a metaphor for the way Sega managed their operations, IMO.
 
D.Lo

D.Lo

Member
KC-Slater said:
I've posted about this before, but I'll mention it again -- SOA's inconsistent branding drives me bonkers!

The US Saturn *may* be the closest they have come to packaging brand consistency (even the Dreamcast switched up the colour scheme mid-cycle from white to black) but the Genesis is easily the worst offender.

The 32X came close, but the pantones are off on a bunch of the boxes (compare the yellow spine of DOOM to Space Harrier for example) and Activision had to fuck things up by going with clamshells instead of cardboard boxes. (Sega should've gone with clamshells to begin with, but Sega is gonna Sega...)

The state of the SOA packaging is a metaphor for the way Sega managed their operations, IMO.
Click to expand...
Yeah it shows a company in desperation.

Master System is the worst of the lot. To start with, only one sku was even called the Master System at the beginning. The basic package was called the 'Sega System' and the deluxe sku (with gun etc) was the MS. Games had NO Master System branding or any reference to MS on the box or manual, they were simply 'Sega' games, and the console itself was the 'power base'. This itself was a problem in Australia because we already had Sega games, for the SC3000.

To start with they went with the simple grid motif plus dumb picture, with game name in standard typeface on the cover and spine, which was consistent, but annoyingly the game cases vary in width slightly. Then within a year or so the simple picture got more elaborate, taking over most of the case. Then the game titles got logos on the front and spine instead of the standard typeface. By the time the system was being called the Master System, the grid was basically erased, and now games had a red/blue Sega MS logo and anything goes for the box.

In Japan, there was the consistent red Sega MyCard line for cards, and every single retail cart game released was in identical 'Gold Cartridge' branding. The only exceptions were the only two third party games from Tecmo, which were the same motif but 'Silver Cartridge'. Mega Drive and Saturn were similarly completely consistent their entire lives in Japan.
 
M

MurderOfPoes

Neo Member
D.Lo said:
All of them had it until the late 2000s, so they won't be very rare at all, just not for sale new. I've been using the same one for maybe 20 years now lol, and never once considered using the parallel port.
Click to expand...

Yes, I misspoke. Can't seem to find any second hand deals for that specific model in Europe, makes me think people are not too keen in getting rid of with it.

sixteen-bit said:
I want to load psuedo saturn on mine via the serial port since I only have model 2 saturns and have no luck with the disc swap method. Is that even possible?
Click to expand...

Not sure, from what I understand the serial port is for moving save games back and forth, which are probably stored in a separate memory from the main AR software.

Edit: And right after I replied, I got to this page: http://ppcenter.webou.net/satcart/#gamers

Action Replay | Parallel Port, @10KB/s | 4MB RAM | Cheap, easy to buy
Click to expand...

Problem is, they seem to warn you about a small brick chance when flashing the cart, so it's important that your USB to Parallel connection is stable.
 
K

KC-Slater

Member
D.Lo said:
Yeah it shows a company in desperation.

Master System is the worst of the lot. To start with, only one sku was even called the Master System at the beginning. The basic package was called the 'Sega System' and the deluxe sku (with gun etc) was the MS. Games had NO Master System branding or any reference to MS on the box or manual, they were simply 'Sega' games, and the console itself was the 'power base'. This itself was a problem in Australia because we already had Sega games, for the SC3000.

...To start with they went with the simple grid motif plus dumb picture, with game name in standard typeface on the cover and spine, which was consistent, but annoyingly the game cases vary in width slightly.
Click to expand...

I am actually a fan of the aesthetic of the early American Master System branding. I think it looks very clean and restrained, but I can certainly recognize that it totally missed the mark in terms of communicating the product. It looks more like a design student's modern/minimalist movie poster redesign than an actual product package.

I liked the Genesis black grid boxes. It's too bad that Sega wasn't stricter about enforcing it on third-parties, or even maintaining brand cohesion themselves.

While I hate the font choice on EU/US Saturn boxes, I like the NA white spines. The black spines on the EU cases look abysmal. They look like the laziest photoshop palette swap ever!

The JP packaging on Saturn games rules, as does the logo.

I have around 36 completed Japanese games and 12 incomplete North American games. Better packaging/form factor, easier availability and cheaper cost make collecting them a no-brainer.
 
G

Galdelico

Member
D.Lo said:
Mine:

Japan: 112
US: 0
PAL: 0
Click to expand...

Pretty much the same here. 127 Japanese games, 2 American ones so far (they'll be 5, if I manage to get all those I have in my wishlist), and a grand total of zero PAL titles. Quite an awful European Saturn owner and collector, I assume. :)
 
D.Lo

D.Lo

Member
KC-Slater said:
I am actually a fan of the aesthetic of the early American Master System branding. I think it looks very clean and restrained, but I can certainly recognize that it totally missed the mark in terms of communicating the product. It looks more like a design student's modern/minimalist movie poster redesign than an actual product package.
Click to expand...
Yeah I like the consistency too. Really the only fail is the pictures are terrible. But what sucks is the way the strong branding fell to the wayside so rapidly.

Jake from State Farm said:
I love the Saturn, but come on man.
Click to expand...
You said last page you have no Japanese games though? Like I said last page, to me 70% of the best Saturn games were Japan only. Saturn >>>> Mega Drive by far for me.
 
M

MikeMyers

Member
Hard to say which I like better. Mega Drive is definitely better for platformers, and maybe beat em ups, but Saturn got a lot of great arcade conversions by Sega.
 
K

koopas

Member
MikeMyers said:
Hard to say which I like better. Mega Drive is definitely better for platformers, and maybe beat em ups, but Saturn got a lot of great arcade conversions by Sega.
Click to expand...
I'm going to say that the Genesis library is overall the better library, but the Saturn has higher highs and lower lows than the Genesis.

If that makes any sense.
 
B

blast processed

Member
D.Lo said:
Yeah I like the consistency too. Really the only fail is the pictures are terrible. But what sucks is the way the strong branding fell to the wayside so rapidly.

You said last page you have no Japanese games though? Like I said last page, to me 70% of the best Saturn games were Japan only. Saturn >>>> Mega Drive by far for me.
Click to expand...

I made that comment based off of US only, which is what I assumed he was referring to. I forget that The Saturn library is unbalanced compared to the Genesis, release wise around the world. But if you compare both US libraries, Genesis by far.
 
D.Lo

D.Lo

Member
Jake from State Farm said:
I made that comment based off of US only, which is what I assumed he was referring to. I forget that The Saturn library is unbalanced compared to the Genesis, release wise around the world. But if you compare both US libraries, Genesis by far.
Click to expand...
Yeah Saturn is extremely constrained if looking at US only. It's a system known for shooters and fighters, and 80% of the best of each were Japan only, including most of its most famous games like Radiant Silvergun, and Xmen vs Street Fighter.
 
D.Lo

D.Lo

Member
always crazy bacon said:
I'd agree with this. Genesis was at the expected level of hardware for the 16bit gen, whereas the Saturn wasn't.
Click to expand...
That's a completely meaningless statement. 'Expected' only makes sense in hindsight. The SG1000 was the 'expected' level of hardware for 1983, it was an exact match for the most powerful/best graphics console in the world at that point, the Colecovision. But the Famicom was released with vastly more graphical potential, and now the SG1000 far behind what was 'expected' and Sega had to rush out another console (the Mark III) that met the now reset 'expectation'.

The Saturn was the most powerful 2D AND 3D console available when it launched. It was far ahead of all consoles released that generation to that point (3D0 and Jaguar). The Playstation was better designed and had slightly better 3D performance but worse 2D performance. Of course the N64 was much more powerful but it came out 1.5 years later.

The PS beat the Saturn not because of power, but other things. It did better FMV (not even about actual gaming, but became ultra important because Japanese developers were soon obsessed with FMV), it had better development tools, and its design was scalable so Sony could cut costs quite quickly, undercutting the complex Saturn.
 
K

koopas

Member
I just picked up Blazing Heroes (not Mystaria) and started to read up how the Mystaria copyright infringed on something here is NA. Having trouble finding out any differences if any.

Anyone know if there are really any differences between the two? Which one is more difficult to find?
 
M

MikeMyers

Member
Well a lot of Sega's early console games felt like answers to what was on Nintendo systems. For example as much as I like Streets of Rage it's clear it was a response to Final Fight.

Saturn games just feel more unique even if it might be for an acquired taste.
 
C

celebi23

Member
So, whats the best Saturn emulator these days? I'm still using Yabause because I think that, and OpenEmu which uses Yabause as a base for Saturn emulation, are the only ones that run on Mac OS X.
 
J

JDH

Member
Just got my Saturn in from eBay. The photos made it look clean and in very good condition, yet upon receiving it, it looked like an animal died and a cat puked in there.

How some people treat their consoles is appalling.

Luckily I was prepared with my APC and alcohol. I literally had to throw away a cloth after cleaning just the cables (yeah that bad)

dsfg.gif
 
T

Timu

Member
JDH said:
Just got my Saturn in from eBay. The photos made it look clean and in very good condition, yet upon receiving it, it looked like an animal died and a cat puked in there.

How some people treat their consoles is appalling.

Luckily I was prepared with my APC and alcohol. I literally had to throw away a cloth after cleaning just the cables (yeah that bad)

dsfg.gif
Click to expand...
That's disgusting. Yeah ebay can be strange with that, when I got an xbox to replacement the other one the dvd drive never opened properly, it's like the person didn't even test the damn thing, and the dvd drive got worse to the point of it not being usable.

Though it's just bad luck so getting another one should be fine, but I got one that works better now.
 
J

JDH

Member
Timu said:
That's disgusting. Yeah ebay can be strange with that, when I got an xbox to replacement the other one the dvd drive never opened properly, it's like the person didn't even test the damn thing, and the dvd drive got worse to the point of it not being usable.

Though it's just bad luck so getting another one should be fine, but I got one that works better now.
Click to expand...

I've ordered usually new things from eBay. This is my first console, but luckily it's in perfect working order and the internals are in good shape. Of course a lot of the external blemishes were not visible in the photos, but nothing broken.

I'll probably look for another one down the road that's in better shape as i'm pretty anal about scratches and scuffs :p I'm just too cheap to pay for a mint console right now (plus Canadian dollar blows balls)
 
D.Lo

D.Lo

Member
Anyone ever play through Linkle Liver Story?

I got it for $1 and played for a few hours last night, decent looking 16-bit style action RPG. Very little of the RPG either, playable with no Japanese knowledge (everyone should learn Yes/No/Save though lol).

Not anything particularly special but I was surprised by it.
 
J

jerry1594

Member
Anyone got any weird/unique games they'd recommend? There's way too many games to choose from, and single player games really don't hold my interest much latey, so I'm looking for something that does something special. Stuff that looks weird, has you fight a giant shoe or whatever I'll take, but I'm not necessarily looking for that. It does the same thing as the sea of other games, but with weird stuff. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Fun is fun and something fun with cool visuals is great.
Bonus: games with cool graphics on the Saturn. Pu-Li-Ru-La looks amazing but from what I gather it's really easy and short. I kind of want to get Fantasy Zone but I already have the collection on ps2.
 
C

colonyoo

Member
For weird-ish games I like Jung Rhythm a lot, it's a really blatant PaRappa the Rapper clone with music that isn't nearly as good and really bad low budget mid-90s CG. Won't cost you much either.

I also like Shin Shinobiden, it's not the weirdest but the live action cutscenes are really goofy and the live action pre-rendered graphics in general are just funny to look at. It's a decent game underneath it all, too.

Fighters Megamix is super low-cost and lets you pit a palm tree against the Hornet car from Daytona USA, it's never a choice you can go wrong with.

There's also the Parodius games, lots of gorgeous pixel art and wacky scenarios, though being shmup titles on the Saturn probably bumps their price up a bit.

Also a lot of the stuff in the Hell/Bad Saturn Games videos here probably qualify as "weird/unique", though for their own obvious reasons.
 
F

FN-2187

Member
Pizarro said:
Anyone got any weird/unique games they'd recommend? There's way too many games to choose from, and single player games really don't hold my interest much latey, so I'm looking for something that does something special. Stuff that looks weird, has you fight a giant shoe or whatever I'll take, but I'm not necessarily looking for that. It does the same thing as the sea of other games, but with weird stuff. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Fun is fun and something fun with cool visuals is great.
Bonus: games with cool graphics on the Saturn. Pu-Li-Ru-La looks amazing but from what I gather it's really easy and short. I kind of want to get Fantasy Zone but I already have the collection on ps2.
Click to expand...

My favourite weird Saturn game is probably mr. Bones. It hasn't aged that well and it's pretty difficult, but there's never been anything quite like it.
 
L

Laevateinn

Member
Pizarro said:
Anyone got any weird/unique games they'd recommend? There's way too many games to choose from, and single player games really don't hold my interest much latey, so I'm looking for something that does something special. Stuff that looks weird, has you fight a giant shoe or whatever I'll take, but I'm not necessarily looking for that. It does the same thing as the sea of other games, but with weird stuff. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Fun is fun and something fun with cool visuals is great.
Bonus: games with cool graphics on the Saturn. Pu-Li-Ru-La looks amazing but from what I gather it's really easy and short. I kind of want to get Fantasy Zone but I already have the collection on ps2.
Click to expand...

It's probably obvious but you should get Cho Aniki.
 
IrishNinja

IrishNinja

Member
that really is a gorgeous gift - ive been playing christmas nights every holiday season for years now, but i need to get back to the regular game one day!
 
Bucket-o-roadkill

Bucket-o-roadkill

Member
I've discovered the joys of Mednafen, what an exciting prospect.. I've got the core for Retroarch and I'm really impressed by the early progress made here.

I've come across a bit of a game breaker in terms of my enjoyment though. My favourite games on Saturn full stop are VF2 and Fighters Megamix, both of which I feel are basically in an unplayable state with this set up. I cannot find any way of lessening the absurd interlacing present with motion during the fights. It really is stopping me from being able to even play the games properly, let alone enjoy them. Does anyone else here share this opinion or is there even some sort of fix that I'm missing?!
 
L

Leynos

Member
I'm getting a bad itch to play Assault Suit Leynos 2 again, but I had to sell my Saturn, and all of my Japanese games a few years ago in a desperate, but doomed attempt to keep a roof over my young daughter's head.
I know, I know, what kind of Assault Suit fan am I when I don't even have the game anymore? Forgive me.

koopas said:
Getout.gif
Click to expand...

Armoured Priest said:
Better than being homeless.
Click to expand...

Too bad it didn't work out so well for me. :(

Any benefits in getting a Japanese model over a US one, other than being prettier? I would, of course, get an Action Replay 4-In-1 to also play US games. I would love to go SCART, but TVs with SCART inputs are difficult to find in the US so I will stick to S-video.
 
S

SkyMasterson

Member
MikeMyers said:
So which Saturn classics are turning 20 this year?
Click to expand...

The few off the top of my head would be:

Die Hard Arcade(One of the main reasons that I bought a Saturn!)
Enemy Zero
Lunacy
Resident Evil(Not as bad as people say, in fact in some ways better because of some exclusive content)

Edit:
Wiki says: 67 games were released on the Saturn in the U.S. and only 7 in 1998.

and Die Hard Arcade will celebrate 20 years this Feb. 28th here in the U.S. Man I love that game!
 
T

Teknoman

Member
Leynos said:
I'm getting a bad itch to play Assault Suit Leynos 2 again, but I had to sell my Saturn, and all of my Japanese games a few years ago in a desperate, but doomed attempt to keep a roof over my young daughter's head.
I know, I know, what kind of Assault Suit fan am I when I don't even have the game anymore? Forgive me.





Too bad it didn't work out so well for me. :(

Any benefits in getting a Japanese model over a US one, other than being prettier? I would, of course, get an Action Replay 4-In-1 to also play US games. I would love to go SCART, but TVs with SCART inputs are difficult to find in the US so I will stick to S-video.
Click to expand...

If you've got a TV that takes component, I think I have another Scart to component converter laying around that I could send you. I'd have to find it first though. You'd probably have to mess around with the pots on the inside with a screwdriver to get the colors right too.
 
A

Awakened

Member
Bucket-o-roadkill said:
I've discovered the joys of Mednafen, what an exciting prospect.. I've got the core for Retroarch and I'm really impressed by the early progress made here.

I've come across a bit of a game breaker in terms of my enjoyment though. My favourite games on Saturn full stop are VF2 and Fighters Megamix, both of which I feel are basically in an unplayable state with this set up. I cannot find any way of lessening the absurd interlacing present with motion during the fights. It really is stopping me from being able to even play the games properly, let alone enjoy them. Does anyone else here share this opinion or is there even some sort of fix that I'm missing?!
Click to expand...
There are some deinterlacing shaders you can use. From the updater in the main menu, make sure your shaders are updated. Then load the core and a game and hit F1 to open the menu and go to shaders. Scroll down and set Shader Passes to 1, then select Shader #0 and go to shaders\misc\bob-and-ghost-deinterlace.cg. Then Apply Shader Changes. You can then use the Save Game Preset option in the Shader menu to make the game you have loaded default to that shader.

You could also use a shader preset like shaders\crt\crt-easymode-halation.cgp, which is a CRT shader that automatically detects and deinterlaces high res games by default. For that you use Load Shader Preset instead of setting shader passes. I'm not 100% sure it works with Mednafen-Saturn though. If the core doesn't output resolution for high res games like the PSX cores does, the shader might not enable deinterlacing.

You have to be using a nightly for some of those options to be there.
 
Bucket-o-roadkill

Bucket-o-roadkill

Member
Awakened said:
There are some deinterlacing shaders you can use. From the updater in the main menu, make sure your shaders are updated. Then load the core and a game and hit F1 to open the menu and go to shaders. Scroll down and set Shader Passes to 1, then select Shader #0 and go to shaders\misc\bob-and-ghost-deinterlace.cg. Then Apply Shader Changes. You can then use the Save Game Preset option in the Shader menu to make the game you have loaded default to that shader.

You could also use a shader preset like shaders\crt\crt-easymode-halation.cgp, which is a CRT shader that automatically detects and deinterlaces high res games by default. For that you use Load Shader Preset instead of setting shader passes. I'm not 100% sure it works with Mednafen-Saturn though. If the core doesn't output resolution for high res games like the PSX cores does, the shader might not enable deinterlacing.

You have to be using a nightly for some of those options to be there.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the post, some useful shortcuts in there, I was going through the menus each time. I had tried the bob and ghost one and although the interlacing is obviously cured, it seems to react with a horrible flicker? Almost like looking at an old CRT screen with a low refresh rate, almost painful to watch.. Anyone else notice that??

I don't pretend to have a huge Saturn collection, but I am a HUGE 2D fighter fan and the Saturn doesn't mess around in that regard. The fact that Megamix and VF2 suffer with this is quite annoying.

Sega Rally is pretty much flawless though, that godly digital steering.. Sega magic at its finest.
 
M

MikeMyers

Member
SkyMasterson said:
The few off the top of my head would be:

Die Hard Arcade(One of the main reasons that I bought a Saturn!)
Enemy Zero
Lunacy
Resident Evil(Not as bad as people say, in fact in some ways better because of some exclusive content)

Edit:
Wiki says: 67 games were released on the Saturn in the U.S. and only 7 in 1998.

and Die Hard Arcade will celebrate 20 years this Feb. 28th here in the U.S. Man I love that game!
Click to expand...
Also, the Saturn port of X-Men Vs. Street Fighter is 20 this year.
 
C

Conezays

Member
Haven't had enough time to enjoy my Saturn lately but did manage to place an order on a new and never opened black 3D pad. My love of these controllers will never cease! Will go nicely with my mint white one :) Hope Saturn GAF is well.

$_57.JPG
 
K

koopas

Member
Conezays said:
Haven't had enough time to enjoy my Saturn lately but did manage to place an order on a new and never opened black 3D pad. My love of these controllers will never cease! Will go nicely with my mint white one :) Hope Saturn GAF is well.

$_57.JPG
Click to expand...
Much better than the DC pad in my opinion. Nice score
 
T

TheShinobi

Neo Member
Hey first post on Neogaf!!! I recently got my first Sega Saturn, the grey Japanese version, with a fair number of games and I am extremely happy with it so far. However I've been playing a lot of xmen vs street fighter and the R button on my controller just seemed to stop working completely, has anyone else had problems with the shoulder buttons on the Saturn controller?
 
L

Laevateinn

Member
TheShinobi said:
Hey first post on Neogaf!!! I recently got my first Sega Saturn, the grey Japanese version, with a fair number of games and I am extremely happy with it so far. However I've been playing a lot of xmen vs street fighter and the R button on my controller just seemed to stop working completely, has anyone else had problems with the shoulder buttons on the Saturn controller?
Click to expand...

I don't know if I've ever had that problem but if you're handy I would recommend taking it apart and seeing if there's something obviously wrong with it.
 
C

Conezays

Member
Laevateinn said:
I don't know if I've ever had that problem but if you're handy I would recommend taking it apart and seeing if there's something obviously wrong with it.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I would try opening it up with a screwdriver and using isopropyl alcohol with a cloth or q-tip on the affected areas. I've dealt with similar situations with Genesis and PC-Engine controllers in the past year that otherwise looked and seemed fine.
 
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