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Sega Saturn Appreciation and Emulation Thread
- Thread starter Seik
- Start date
So then it wouldnt be a problem just going with the Japanese version? Green blood isnt a deal breaker or anything.
Seven Force
Banned
Probably your best bet, yeah. Pretty sure the US version's a bit on the expensive side, anyway.
Yeah the only english Saturn games I own so far are: Dragon Force, Galactic Attack, Fighters Megamix, and Beyond Oasis
Interesting. I never thought about this, but I certainly can't think of any exceptions save super basic stuff like, uh, the ringsides in Fighting Vipers and Last Bronx (lol).
The backgrounds in Last Bronx were 100% 2D, only the characters used polygons (ground was mode 7 as usual). They did design the 2D backgrounds in a very clever way, however. I never played Vipers, but I always assumed it used the same engine as Fighter's Megamix, which ran at 30fps due to the walls and gouraud shading.
The Last Bronx backgrounds were 2D, but I was talking about the arena half-walls.
Also, I booted up both Fighting Vipers and Fighters Megamix within the month and both run at 60 (with Megamix dropping more than Vipers). Which is weird, because I had it in my head in the past that they ran at 30 myself.
Also, I booted up both Fighting Vipers and Fighters Megamix within the month and both run at 60 (with Megamix dropping more than Vipers). Which is weird, because I had it in my head in the past that they ran at 30 myself.
Seven Force
Banned
A neighbor of mine was clearing out some of their electronics this morning and had a few things for sale, including this, for only $40:
Couldn't resist picking it up even though I already have a copy. (A non functioning copy, in all fairness.) Doubly so, since the online prices seem to have jumped up last I checked.
Couldn't resist picking it up even though I already have a copy. (A non functioning copy, in all fairness.) Doubly so, since the online prices seem to have jumped up last I checked.
ExitPlanetDust
Member
Damn... nice price.
Seven Force
Banned
I used to play it a lot back when it first came out. My parents had bought the game because Panzer Dragoon Saga (the game I had originally asked for) was sold out at pretty much every Software Etc. in the city, haha.
I wasn't really good at taking good care of my discs when I was younger though, so a lot of my games from back then are missing cases, are scratched up, and in BR's case both. And most of the Saturn games I did keep in decent condition were packed away in a basement that got wrecked when Hurricane Sandy hit a while back. :/
So trying to rebuild my collection's been one hell of an uphill battle, but it's always nice when good fortune rears it's head like it did today.
I wasn't really good at taking good care of my discs when I was younger though, so a lot of my games from back then are missing cases, are scratched up, and in BR's case both. And most of the Saturn games I did keep in decent condition were packed away in a basement that got wrecked when Hurricane Sandy hit a while back. :/
So trying to rebuild my collection's been one hell of an uphill battle, but it's always nice when good fortune rears it's head like it did today.
Robert at Zeboyd Games
Banned
So what are the best Saturn games that run on SSF and don't cost a fortune? Used to have a Saturn back in the day and I thought I'd get back into it now that I don't have to use actual hardware (hated how the save batteries died so frequently).
So far, I just have Shining the Holy Ark (which appears to run flawlessly on SSF).
So far, I just have Shining the Holy Ark (which appears to run flawlessly on SSF).
Omegasquash
Member
Man...Christmas just took place and NOW this thread comes back. Thankfully my collection isn't piss poor. Shining the Holy Ark might just get booted up tonight. Cheers to a phenomenal game not being ridiculously pricey.
Freshmaker
I am Korean.
Last Bronx says no.
Robert at Zeboyd Games
Banned
To answer my own question, it looks like Dark Savior is relatively cheap. I remember thinking the multiple route system it had sounded pretty interesting.
Genesis Knight
Member
So this year I played through all the Gundam Gaiden games for Sega Saturn. They're super common, cheap as dirt, and VERY fun, but there isn't much discussion of them (probably because they're so short and simple). Anyway, I wrote down a list of differences between the games as I was playing through them; figured I'd throw them up here before I lose that piece of paper. Maybe someone will be interested.
Kidou Senshi Gundam Gaiden I: Senritsu no Blue
The basic game.
Kidou Senshi Gundam Gaiden II: Ao wo Uketsugu Mono
Flashier map and mission briefing.
Brake button to cancel dashing.
Backwards dashing is supported.
Character portraits during conversations.
Improved graphics. Noticeable in enemy melee, for example.
Voices during the mission.
CQ combat now supports multiple slashes in a combo.
Text scroll and graphics for story progression.
Different mobile suits - grenades, missiles, more boost.
Stage select option after you beat the game.
Kidou Senshi Gundam Gaiden III: Sabakareshi Mono
In-engine polygonal cutscenes.
Corridor levels in addition to wide-open spaces. The Brake button comes in handy!
A duel in space with new weapons and different controls - (A) to switch hi/low planes.
Part of the ending is in English.
A stage select, as in part 2.
A MS Viewer to look at the game's 3D models.
An unlockable "simulator" fight or duel vs. the RX-78-2. Extremely tough!
Kidou Senshi Gundam Gaiden I: Senritsu no Blue
The basic game.
Kidou Senshi Gundam Gaiden II: Ao wo Uketsugu Mono
Flashier map and mission briefing.
Brake button to cancel dashing.
Backwards dashing is supported.
Character portraits during conversations.
Improved graphics. Noticeable in enemy melee, for example.
Voices during the mission.
CQ combat now supports multiple slashes in a combo.
Text scroll and graphics for story progression.
Different mobile suits - grenades, missiles, more boost.
Stage select option after you beat the game.
Kidou Senshi Gundam Gaiden III: Sabakareshi Mono
In-engine polygonal cutscenes.
Corridor levels in addition to wide-open spaces. The Brake button comes in handy!
A duel in space with new weapons and different controls - (A) to switch hi/low planes.
Part of the ending is in English.
A stage select, as in part 2.
A MS Viewer to look at the game's 3D models.
An unlockable "simulator" fight or duel vs. the RX-78-2. Extremely tough!
I've always been curious about those, but the last time I thought about them was in the pre-youtube era. I'm assuming they're related to the DC game that came out in the states. Outside of that, all I know is that they're 3D action games, pretty much.
aaand I just checked out a video of III on YouTube and it looks pretty impressive for the hardware. Huh. Might have to play.
aaand I just checked out a video of III on YouTube and it looks pretty impressive for the hardware. Huh. Might have to play.
Genesis Knight
Member
They form a four-game series along with Gundam 0079: Rise From the Ashes. There was a related manga as well.
The great thing about the Saturn Gundam Gaiden games is that they are very similar to things like Bulk Slash and Gungriffon in concept (Mode 7 floors, mechs, etc) but they have HUGELY simplified execution. They're ridiculously fast, short, and intense. Perfect for sitting down and playing in an afternoon. Minimal investment, maximum reward. They're like the cereal box pack-ins of the mech game world.
The Dreamcast game is a different animal (more traditional mech combat game, think Mechwarrior 3000) and honestly not as much fun. It's deeper, but also slower, more difficult, more tedious. But short, too.
Armoured Priest
Member
A friend was paring down his Saturn collection, and gave me his copy of Burning Rangers as a birthday gift (I gave him Deadly Premonition and Baynoetta...he's a fan of Twin Peaks and likes stylized action games). It was the last must have US Saturn game I was looking for for my collection.
papersleeves
Member
cj_iwakura
Member
I bought Burning Rangers when it came out, and love it to death. So much content.
Weird that it became so sought after, but I'm not complaining.
Weird that it became so sought after, but I'm not complaining.
You lucky, lucky man.
I got my copy this month, paid $150 for it and I considered it was a 'descent' deal.
Your Saturn collection's coming around REALLY nicely!
I have the Japanese version of Burning Rangers, though I didn't know the American version went up in price at the time either. I should boot it up as I haven't really dug into it as much as I should.
Shadow Hog
Member
Getting back to the "fully polygonal at 60FPS" thing, Clockwork Knight and its sequel run at 60FPS. Granted, most of the game's objects are sprites and the distant background is prerendered, but the actual foreground that the game takes place on is fully polygonal, as well as all the bosses.
Phonomezer
Banned
I lahv Burning Rangers!
fart town usa
Gold Member
Japanese Saturn- Bought it off a guy for $100 while I was living in Singapore. Had a US one as a kid, back when toys r' us were selling them for cheap.
Mod chip w/pro action replay / s-video
The trinitron there, found it in mint condition, with the remote for $16 at a local goodwill. I about flipped when I saw it. I went in there the other week and there was another mint trinitron but it was literally like twice the size. I'd never seen one that big before. I would have needed a truck to haul it back to my apartment.
I freaking love my saturn, it's easily my most prized gaming console/collection. The panzer dragoon series is amazing, albert odyssey is one of my favorite jrpg's of all time and I think resident evil looks better on it.
Saturn > Dreamcast
edit-
I should also add that i have a crap ton of japanese games not pictured. Mostly fighters and shmups.
Mod chip w/pro action replay / s-video
The trinitron there, found it in mint condition, with the remote for $16 at a local goodwill. I about flipped when I saw it. I went in there the other week and there was another mint trinitron but it was literally like twice the size. I'd never seen one that big before. I would have needed a truck to haul it back to my apartment.
I freaking love my saturn, it's easily my most prized gaming console/collection. The panzer dragoon series is amazing, albert odyssey is one of my favorite jrpg's of all time and I think resident evil looks better on it.
Saturn > Dreamcast
edit-
I should also add that i have a crap ton of japanese games not pictured. Mostly fighters and shmups.
Your Saturn collection's coming around REALLY nicely!
I have the Japanese version of Burning Rangers, though I didn't know the American version went up in price at the time either. I should boot it up as I haven't really dug into it as much as I should.
Thanks man, I've been working on it since a while.
Japanese Saturn- Bought it off a guy for $100 while I was living in Singapore. Had a US one as a kid, back when toys r' us were selling them for cheap.
Mod chip w/pro action replay / s-video
The trinitron there, found it in mint condition, with the remote for $16 at a local goodwill. I about flipped when I saw it. I went in there the other week and there was another mint trinitron but it was literally like twice the size. I'd never seen one that big before. I would have needed a truck to haul it back to my apartment.
I freaking love my saturn, it's easily my most prized gaming console/collection. The panzer dragoon series is amazing, albert odyssey is one of my favorite jrpg's of all time and I think resident evil looks better on it.
Saturn > Dreamcast
edit-
I should also add that i have a crap ton of japanese games not pictured. Mostly fighters and shmups.
Great collection!
Haha, you're just like me. My Saturn collection feels like the most important one to me as well, so many awesome titles.
Just took two shots of my collection, it was mainly for the insurance I'm about to get, but why the fuck not.
EDIT: Btw guys I think it's great that this thread is still alive after almost one entire year, it feels good to know there's still passionate Saturn fans around.
Phonomezer
Banned
I see Albert Odyssey!
I never got to play that ;_; Is it good?
I never got to play that ;_; Is it good?
Alexios
Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
I wish I knew of some of these games back then, my saturn wouldn't have seemed as lacking. I loved it but even magazines here weren't talking about these, the only imports I had heard of were jrpgs I couldn't enjoy even if I imported, like grandia and super robot wars. Oh, and shmups and 2D fighting games. Bulk slash and those gaiden games would have been so cool to have despite the language barrier. Going to go read previous pages for more stuff I missed.
fart town usa
Gold Member
I absolutely love it.
Has some awesome music and great sprites. It basically advanced SNES graphics.
Some people were mad at working designs and their translation. It contains alot of humor that some people didn't care for. I like it though, if you're familiar with working designs you'll have an idea of what I'm talking about.
It's a great RPG to relax at too, you level up relatively fast and one of the characters who is a strong attacker is also your best healer, it's not a very challenging game but immensely enjoyable.
Only downside to the game is that it takes about 4 seconds to load in and out of battles, that can get annoying when you're level grinding. From the translation notes within the manual though, it says the working design team improved on the load times when compared to the japanese game.
It's a must own if you like snes jrpgs and have a saturn.
Phonomezer
Banned
Sounds great, thanks for that.
I remember reading all about it in EGM when I was a kid and getting super excited for it. Unfortunately, I don't think it was released in my region. One day, one day...
fart town usa
Gold Member
Thanks man, I've been working on it since a while.
Great collection!
Haha, you're just like me. My Saturn collection feels like the most important one to me as well, so many awesome titles.
Just took two shots of my collection, it was mainly for the insurance I'm about to get, but why the fuck not.
EDIT: Btw guys I think it's great that this thread is still alive after almost one entire year, it feels good to know there's still passionate Saturn fans around.
Thanks. Yours is probably the best I've ever seen.
Yea, I play my saturn on a somewhat regular basis. It's such a great system. I was literally the only one out of my friends who bought a saturn over a PSX and we used to have such a blast playing Die Hard Arcade and Fighters Megamix. I used to have so many hard to find games but I sold them all when I was 13. Such a dumb mistake. I've been slowly working at getting them all back but they're so expensive now.
Genesis Knight
Member
Nom. Had a bit of a fright initially as the entire picture had a green tint, so I opened it up to check to see if anything was loose and found it had adjustable potentiometers. A tiny bit of tweaking and I'm playing Cotton 2 in glorious 240p RGB. Feels good man
How did you tweak them? Mine's a little funky, too.
Also, I want to buy Cotton 2 or Cotton Boomerang, but I don't know which and I don't really understand the differences. Any opinions?
Nice emulator, I never thought Burning Rangers was so good.
I've never owned a Saturn in it's early days. It was really expensive back then in Belgium.
I've just bought one a couple of months ago for just €20 and +/- 12 games on ebay for €60.
This is my Saturn Collection at the moment.
I need a RGB SCART for it though, that RF Switch sucks.
Why is Burning Rangers so expensive anyway? Is it really that rare?
I've never owned a Saturn in it's early days. It was really expensive back then in Belgium.
I've just bought one a couple of months ago for just €20 and +/- 12 games on ebay for €60.
This is my Saturn Collection at the moment.
I need a RGB SCART for it though, that RF Switch sucks.
Why is Burning Rangers so expensive anyway? Is it really that rare?
Yeah, I got mine at the time when Game Nation in Mechelen was doing a special promotion.
About €280 or so with 2 games and 2 controllers. So I got a great deal there.
I was able to select Sega Rally and Fighters Megamix, which had just been released that week.
You really need to pick up one of the 2nd generation controllers as well, since they are so much better than the original ones you got with your system.
They are still some of my favourite controllers ever.
By fully polygonam I mean a game where the entire screen is covered by perspective-transformed polygons, like racers or 3rd person 3D games. In Clockwork Knight most of the screen is filled by 2D VDP2 backgrounds and camera-parallel quads/sprites.
2D sprites in Saturn games are made out of the same quads as 3D polygons, and of course it can push a few hundreds of them without issue at 60fps. But a few dozen perspecive distorted quads covering the entire screen is enough to drop it to 30fps.
Ingueferroque
Banned
Nice emulator, I never thought Burning Rangers was so good.
I've never owned a Saturn in it's early days. It was really expensive back then in Belgium.
I've just bought one a couple of months ago for just €20 and +/- 12 games on ebay for €60.
This is my Saturn Collection at the moment.
I need a RGB SCART for it though, that RF Switch sucks.
Why is Burning Rangers so expensive anyway? Is it really that rare?
You need to buy some Japanese Saturn controllers, stat! Two PAL releases I recommend for you are Die Hard Arcade and Dark Savior.
What do you think of Golden Axe Duel? It has amazing art and music, too bad the gameplay is a bit stiff.
I's not bad only a bit slow though.
SkylineRKR
Member
Resident Evil on the Saturn is absolutely better looking. The characters seem to have more detail, their are built from different polys. The backgrounds are supposed to be slightly better because of the Saturn's higher res. Then there is the battle mode, and I think the load times are quicker.
RE on Saturn was not a dirty PSX port at all, Capcom did a good job on that one. Saturn RE is my favourite version of RE1, bar REmake.
Ingueferroque
Banned
Saturn RE also had some kind of multiplayer mode, no? Or am I crazy?
Nope. I played the Saturn version to death and the characters look worse than the PSX version, mostly due to the lighting. The colors on the Saturn version are a also bit more harsh.
Nice collection Elfish. I don't have a single PAL Saturn game, but damn I love those cases, way more durable, like the genesis ones.
Btw, to all of you, Biohazard (JAP Resident Evil) on the Saturn is the best version because it have Chris smoking and the Battle Mode. At first I would have said that the US version is the best but they censored Chris in the intro, so Japanese it is. D:
Btw, to all of you, Biohazard (JAP Resident Evil) on the Saturn is the best version because it have Chris smoking and the Battle Mode. At first I would have said that the US version is the best but they censored Chris in the intro, so Japanese it is. D:
Ingueferroque
Banned
Cardboard PAL cases were pretty bad, the manual would touch the CD which would come loose and get scratched, though final generation PAL games had really nice Plastic boxes.
Seeing all these Saturn collections makes me want to take an updated pic of mine!
Albert Odyssey reminds me of 32-bit FFVI and Chrono Trigger sprites to be sure! Another game that's on my backlog, but I agree, the WD translation really brought some life into it. And given that it's a Sunsoft game, and the time it was released, Galaxy Fight's Roomi makes a cameo appearance as one of the towns' shopkeep.
A miracle my one PAL Saturn game, Keio Flying Squadron 2, came to me unscathed. Case IS flimsy though.
Albert Odyssey reminds me of 32-bit FFVI and Chrono Trigger sprites to be sure! Another game that's on my backlog, but I agree, the WD translation really brought some life into it. And given that it's a Sunsoft game, and the time it was released, Galaxy Fight's Roomi makes a cameo appearance as one of the towns' shopkeep.
A miracle my one PAL Saturn game, Keio Flying Squadron 2, came to me unscathed. Case IS flimsy though.
The newest episode of Game Sack is about the Saturn. It's pretty good.
I really need to get some more Saturn games. Is Shining Wisdom any good?
I really need to get some more Saturn games. Is Shining Wisdom any good?
Woah, great video right there.
It pretty much shows everything that needs to be seen, especially in the end.
Most people would steer you towards Boomerang, mostly because it's a remixed version of C2 with slightly better graphics and more characters, but personally I prefer regular C2. The thing about Saturn Cotton games is that they're almost puzzles games as much as they are shmups where you can use single special shots with specific d-pad motions (like a fighting game) that seal enemies in a bubble that you can carry and manipulate in different ways depending on the element you used to seal them. its the main scoring mechanism in the game and the larger you make it gives you points and when it pops it returns an equivalent amount of health back to you as a pickup. its also your most effective weapon as you can launch it into enemies to chain them and take out groups or minibosses instantly. C2's difficulty is reflected by the focus on the seal mechanic - the player's hitbox is very large and the overall pace is pretty relaxed. It still gets fairly difficult, but it ramps up naturally.
Boomerang changes it up into more of a straight up shooter, Adding multiple characters, bombing, and significantly ramping up the number of enemies and the speed of the game. It's fun, but it still has the huge hitbox and is simply too manic for it's own good. It's great but I've always had more fun with regular C2. You lose all the story bits and fun end level skits in boomerang, if that matters to you.
As for the SCART converter, if you open it up there will be a handful of pots you can turn with a screwdriver that adjust various things like saturation and sharpness. The one closest to the Y out should be the blue/green balance. They only turn a quarter of the way in each direction, it only took 1/8th turn to the left on that one to get rid of the green tint.
japanese psx biohazard has smoking chris too. also nice gouraud shading on psx > battle mode.
Shadow Hog
Member
Clockwork Knight does not have awful music >:O
I love what they did with Craig Stadler. I hate Pebble Beach Golf Links, though.