Support NeoGAF

[biggersmaller]

And don't you hope for an updated port (a la PS2 Nights?). I'd say that's still a profitable venture; if not in the west, then most certainly in Japan.

PS2 Nights was a huge shocker for me, I would love to have it come out here (or at least not region lock the damn thing)

 

[Symytry]

PDS is the best game ever made. Futatsugi is the man. There will never ever be a port to any other system of this game...I remember reading a while back an interview with Futatsugi on 1up and he pretty much said that the source code for the Panzer games is no longer in existence, or fragmented at best.

 

[FauX]

200 bucks?!!!

Do this with that amount of money, any option:
a) Buy a Ds with some games
b) Buy a PSP with one game
c) Buy a Wii

 

[kswiston]

200 bucks?!!!

Do this with that amount of money, any option:
a) Buy a Ds with some games
b) Buy a PSP with one game
c) Buy a Wii

Or:

1) buy PDS.
2)Beat it.
3)Resell it for what you paid.
4) Proceed on to one of the first two choices above (Wii is not $200. Why not mention 360 arcade if you were going for "close to $200?).

 

[callous]

Is $200 no big deal to you? If so, yes. Otherwise, no. There are a ton of RPGs that are as good as PDS and they can be had for a lot less. I'm glad I played it because it's got a unique atmosphere and design, a decent story and it doesn't follow all the stereotypical standards, but it has in no way become a standard I judge other RPGs by. Oh, and it sure hasn't aged well technically speaking.

Get Persona 3 before it's $200 instead!

 

[Xisiqomelir]

Get Persona 3 before it's $200 instead!

PDS:FES isn't coming to NA though.

 

[callous]

PDS:FES isn't coming to NA though.

Lies!

 

[Red Blaster]

Get Persona 3 before it's $200 instead!

I checked the going rate for Persona 3 on ebay after reading this and was surprised to find used copies are already fetching 70-80 dollars.

 

[iapetus]

Panzer Dragoon Saga is an awesome, one-of-a-kind experience that's easily one of the best games of all time.

No, there were quite a lot of short, linear cutscene-heavy RPGs in that generation.

 

[fernoca]

No game is worth more than it's retail value
Is like people are putting a price on sentimental value or on an e-penis..
"OMG, many people say that that game is amazing...let me buy it at $1,000..because it must be that good"

"Woohoo, I just found it..now I'm going to pay $500 for a game that is jut going to be placed on my shelf, shrink wrapped so it doesn't lose it's mint quality and make my collection just..perfect."

Among other things..

 

[Slavik81]

There's no way they actually lost the code. That's just too inept to believe.

Losing the source code? It's more common than you'd think.

Is it not possible to reverse engineer a game? I don't think I've ever even seen game data, so I have no idea.

You lose a LOT of information when you compile. Decompilation would probably be harder than re-writing the code.

 

[regs]

I scored a saturn with PDS and a few other games for $20 off a friend a few months ago :lol

 

[∀ Narayan]

Losing the source code? It's more common than you'd think.

Indeed.

It's just a damn shame that, of all source codes, Panzer Dragoon Saga had to be lost.

They could always reverse engineer it. But I imagine that would be pretty difficult.

 

[Death_Born]

They could always reverse engineer it. But I imagine that would be pretty difficult.

They could always remake it.....

 

[eve241]

No, there were quite a lot of short, linear cutscene-heavy RPGs in that generation.

Apart from the RPG part you could say that to loads of special games. Like Ico or SoTC for example.


PDS's strengths don't lie in it's RPG nature.

 

[biggersmaller]

No, there were quite a lot of short, linear cutscene-heavy RPGs in that generation.

Short is sometimes sweet for me, so keeping that in mind is the shortness of the game at least good for the game? I would rather a short and entertaining rpg, than a drawn-out story that doesn't go anywhere except in the beginning and ending 5 hours.

 

[Baryn]

I would like to know what emulator it is you use. my stack of saturn games next to my broken saturn make me cry.

SSF

There's a chance it will be difficult to get working, and there are no enhancement features as in other emulators, but what you get is a true-to-the-original experience. You need a pretty powerful machine (lets's say at least 2Ghz CPU, 1GB RAM and a half-decent GPU).

As for other emulators, I've seen there is at least one other decent emu out there, but the game compatibility count is not as high - I'm not sure if it's a great deal less however, I've just been going with what works as far as Saturn emulation is concerned.

 

[JumpJeff84]

Never played Saga, but for what its worth, I think Shining Force III on the Saturn is worth $ 200, easily.

 

[Barkley's Justice]

hey guys. 3 pages in. have we decided if it's worth $200? not worth reading this thread, thats for sure. ok, thanks!

 

[A Black Falcon]

Disagreed on both counts. Here's why:

1. SSF 0.8Alpha R4 now emulates it all perfectly. Full screen (1680x1050), 60fps, with v-sync, and a great sound buffer. There are no frills to it; it just delivers the game as if your playing it on a saturn.

2. Piracy? Here's a legal work-around: buy the japanese version for cheap on ebay (around $40), and run an english patch on it. SSF only accepts CD's - not iso's! Well worth checking out.

SSF 0.09 Alpha R4, you mean? That's the newest version. And yeah, it plays legit Saturn discs. Of course you can use ISOs too if you use a virtual drive.

As for a translation patch... is there one? I've never heard of it.

hey guys. 3 pages in. have we decided if it's worth $200? not worth reading this thread, thats for sure. ok, thanks!

That depends on if you have the money to spend $200 on a single game, really.

 

[Tsubaki]

Never played Saga, but for what its worth, I think Shining Force III on the Saturn is worth $ 200, easily.

1/3 of a game is worth $200? Not so sure about that.

 

[mr jones]

Never played Saga, but for what its worth, I think Shining Force III on the Saturn is worth $ 200, easily.

You have a very odd opinion. :|

 

[Basch]

In my opinion, money is only worth as much as the owner makes it. So to that end, if anybody is willing to part with $200, then PDS is probably one of the better reasons to do so.

You have a very odd opinion. :|

Actually, I've heard a lot of people say the same thing. It seems the two get equal amounts of attention/clout. It goes back and forth which one is better all the time. Maybe they both could be just that good.

 

[M3d10n]

SSF

There's a chance it will be difficult to get working, and there are no enhancement features as in other emulators, but what you get is a true-to-the-original experience. You need a pretty powerful machine (lets's say at least dual core CPU, 512GB RAM and a low-budget ATI or Nvidia GPU).

As for other emulators, I've seen there is at least one other decent emu out there, but the game compatibility count is not as high - I'm not sure if it's a great deal less however, I've just been going with what works as far as Saturn emulation is concerned.

Fixed. It is heavy on the CPU (software renderer), but can run with little RAM and on virtually any 64MB videocard.

SSF history is really interesting. It was one of the first Saturn emulators that could emulate anything other than the BIOS, along with GiriGiri and Satourne. But the SSF author always aimed for accuracy, using software rendering instead of the HLE used by the other emus, so the emulator ran very slow on every computer back then, and with no sound.

Shima, SSF's author, always kept updating his emulator and while the compatibility increased on nearly every update, the speed was always abysmal (so slow he didn't bother with sound for years). Also, whenever he upgraded his computer, he would rise the minimum system specs to require stuff like SSE and SSE2 as soon as they were available. He got lots of shit and dickheads spamming his forum with "your emulator sucks" posts for that.

Then eventually CPUs got faster. Shima rewrote the software renderer and the dynamic recompilation engine to take advantage of multicore CPUs and now SSF is, by far, the best Saturn emulator there is, while the other emulators have fallen into obscurity. The software renderer is state-of-art: it is so accurate that sometimes I think got my Saturn attached to my monitor. It'll also run fullspeed on pretty much any CoreDuo you can buy. Heck, I get full speed on most games on my measly Athlon64 X2 4000+.

The only glitches I've encountered were with Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter. The game itself ran at solid 60fps, but the sound was stuttering for some reason. Maybe it's something to do with the RAM cart emulation.

Anyway, SSF is a godsend since I can't keep the old reliable hooked up all the time.

 

[Chris Michael]

Absolutely no game is worth 200$.

 

[iapetus]

Absolutely no game is worth 200$.

The buying-a-console-for-one-game thread disagrees with you.

Never played Saga, but for what its worth, I think Shining Force III on the Saturn is worth $ 200, easily.

I prefer this answer. I suspect the story-over-gameplay crowd will prefer PDS (assuming they like the story) and SFIII wins out for gameplay-over-story, which is where I stand.

 

[D-X]

It's worth it

 

[Tarazet]

Why does it matter? It's like buying a bar of gold, except you can actually have a good time with it before selling it again. If you want the experience, pay the money and then turn it around again.

(Yes, I have a copy. It has been through a fire though so it's not worth as much as it was before.)

 

[basik]

anybody wanna buy my PDS? I dont wanna sell it but I need the money... seriously its in my top 10 games, I love it because it reminds me of the nausicaa manga, well worth the price I paid for it when I got it off ebay because the price hasnt dropped at all. PM me if interested.

also I'm not a real junior here check my post history I've been around gaf forever.

 

[bjork]

Then you no doubt have seen the buy/sell thread?

 

[Nikorasu]

Fixed. It is heavy on the CPU (software renderer), but can run with little RAM and on virtually any 64MB videocard.

SSF history is really interesting. It was one of the first Saturn emulators that could emulate anything other than the BIOS, along with GiriGiri and Satourne. But the SSF author always aimed for accuracy, using software rendering instead of the HLE used by the other emus, so the emulator ran very slow on every computer back then, and with no sound.

Shima, SSF's author, always kept updating his emulator and while the compatibility increased on nearly every update, the speed was always abysmal (so slow he didn't bother with sound for years). Also, whenever he upgraded his computer, he would rise the minimum system specs to require stuff like SSE and SSE2 as soon as they were available. He got lots of shit and dickheads spamming his forum with "your emulator sucks" posts for that.

Then eventually CPUs got faster. Shima rewrote the software renderer and the dynamic recompilation engine to take advantage of multicore CPUs and now SSF is, by far, the best Saturn emulator there is, while the other emulators have fallen into obscurity. The software renderer is state-of-art: it is so accurate that sometimes I think got my Saturn attached to my monitor. It'll also run fullspeed on pretty much any CoreDuo you can buy. Heck, I get full speed on most games on my measly Athlon64 X2 4000+.

The only glitches I've encountered were with Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter. The game itself ran at solid 60fps, but the sound was stuttering for some reason. Maybe it's something to do with the RAM cart emulation.

Anyway, SSF is a godsend since I can't keep the old reliable hooked up all the time.

A thousand times this. SSF is one of my favorite pieces of software on my machine outside of MAME. It works with all my original saturn discs perfectly and with a saturn usb controller I can tell almost no difference. The only game I have that isn't 100% perfect is Silhouette Mirage.

Anyway, Azel..er, PDS. There are some games I would gladly pay $200 for...PDS is not one of them. I do love the game to death though and have many fond memories of it. Definitely one of the best JRPGs I've played. Thankfully Japanese copies of Azel are going for 30-40 bucks on ebay. If your conscience gets in the way, you could always pick up a japanese copy and download the english version to play on SSF. :|

 

[Zonar]

Panzer Dragoon Saga is an awesome, one-of-a-kind experience that's easily one of the best games of all time.

With that said, it's not worth more than $70.

For someone who owns a copy I have to agree with this. I love rpgs (check my gamertag:Zonar) and PDS is my all time favroite but at the end of the day its just a game. Like others have said buy it and sell it back. That way your only out $30.

Spoiler

I'm not selling mine for anything less then $500! I LOVE THIS GAME!!!!!!!

 

[Mileena]

No single game is worth $200.

 

[DDayton]

No single game is worth $200.

The Neo Geo crowd might disagree with you, there.

 

[duk]

$200 is a very good blow job j/p

the game will hold it's value or go up, so get it

 

[∀ Narayan]

They could always remake it.....

Yeah, then Sega would go out of business. No one would buy it - even if it was remade.

 

[Gilgamesh]

So they lost the source code. Big deal. They can't port it to run natively now. Code a fucking emulator, then. Doesn't GameTap use one?

For god's sake Sega, just re-release it in some form.

 

[adversesolutions]

Enjoy your frameskip, miserable compatibility and bad sound. Oh, and piracy.

I don't disagree with you that Saturn emulation is probably really poor atm. But I have to ask, if a game is sold out and the maker has no intention to remake it, then what is the objection to piracy? Maintaining an absurd secondary market where people have to pay 200 dollars just to play a great game? I really don't get the logic.

 

[∀ Narayan]

I don't disagree with you that Saturn emulation is probably really poor atm. But I have to ask, if a game is sold out and the maker has no intention to remake it, then what is the objection to piracy? Maintaining an absurd secondary market where people have to pay 200 dollars just to play a great game? I really don't get the logic.

Me, neither. But other than that, I won't say anymore.

 

[Community Forum]

Oh how I love it when year-and-a-half old threads get bumped, and people reply to posts like everythings normal lolz.

 

[OnPoint]

Oh how I love it when year-and-a-half old threads get bumped, and people reply to posts like everythings normal lolz.

I imagine that most people don't check the dates. Serves them right.

 

[B.K.]

So they lost the source code. Big deal. They can't port it to run natively now. Code a fucking emulator, then. Doesn't GameTap use one?

For god's sake Sega, just re-release it in some form.

Sega already has a Saturn emulator for PSP. They should just release the game on PSP.

 

[Gilgamesh]

Oh how I love it when year-and-a-half old threads get bumped, and people reply to posts like everythings normal lolz.

Because my first reaction when coming into a thread is to check through the post dates and times.

Sega already has a Saturn emulator for PSP. They should just release the game on PSP.

Day one.

 

[PepsimanVsJoe]

The game looks awful today though. Even if you turned on every filtering trick in a Saturn emulator you'd be left with what looks like origami dipped in mud.

Just watch one of those LETs PLAY walkthroughs on the internet. I hear they play games so you don't have to.

 

[Raistlin]

You can have mine for $200 bucks np, its just sitting in a storage box

.

 

[Dash Kappei]

$200 is a very good blow job

Well, then yesterday I scored a deal better than the guy above paying $20 for his PDS

 

[Nikorasu]

I imagine that most people don't check the dates. Serves them right.

Oh yeah joke's on us lololol





=|

 

[OnPoint]

Oh yeah joke's on us lololol





=|

It is if you make a fool of yourselves responding to questions that are over a year old and have likely been solved.

 

[TheSonicRetard]

SSF 0.09 Alpha R4, you mean? That's the newest version.

No its not. SSF 0.10 Beta is.

 

[RevenantKioku]

It wasn't worth the $10 (¥1000 or so) I paid for it. I'll finish the game some day but blegh.