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[Synth]

still woulda had a better library than 32X

lol yea. If that VF3 had been the ONLY game ever to release on it, I'd have been happier with it than my 32X.

 

[oneida]

My biggest gripe with Sega is how they ruined the launch games of the DC.

VF3TB and Sega Rally 2, I was expecting so much from it

In the end, model 3 games are currently a bit lost in space and time.

I agree. Model 3 was lost to time - too advanced for the Saturn but effectively ancient by the time DC came around. I would love to play an arcade perfect port of 3tb someday!

 

[IzzyF3]

I only had the PSOne at the time and never to to play much of Saturn or N64, but when I'm thinking about going back to play games from that gen, I'm always thinking about Saturn. Games like Dragon Force, Panzer Dragoon 1, 2, and Saga, and whatever other JRPG they released on that console seems to be this important hole in my gaming history. And then Saturn also has Guardian Heroes and Radiant Silvergun.

Not contributing from a perspective of actually playing the consoles, but if I was given the choice of Saturn or N64 today, I'd take Saturn for sure.

 

[Celine]

Oh, I definitely understand the dynamics of why this scenario couldn't have happened, it's obvious that in many ways the Saturn library even benefitted from Sony's efforts (as it was the more applicable of the others to port towards). I'm just trying to create a fantasy setting where the games line up of both was identical. So the Saturn would still have Tomb Raider, Die Hard Trilogy, Street Fighter, Destuction Derby, Toshinden and Wipeout, along with all Sega's offerings. The N64 would also still have all its games... and nobody gets Final Fantasy VII, lol. I just feel that when taken in isolation the Saturn's lineup was significantly stronger than that of the N64... but many people don't consider half of its library because they instead bought a PlayStation for those games. It's like if we look at the PS4 and Xbox One today, and imagine that the PS4 doesn't exist and that all the games they currently share were actually Xbox One exclusives... the line up would be viewed very differently to how it tends to be today.

Multiplatform games definitely count, I mean you can still play them.
Exhumed is still one of the best 3D game on Saturn despite being available on PS1 and PC.

Oh about FFVII someone definitely would get it, even without PS1

I remember once going into an independent games store, and purchasing a used copy of Virtua Fighter 2 to replace my previous scratched one. The guy behind the counter was like "You sure you don't want Virtua Fighter 3 instead?".. I was all "da fuck?". He then told that there was to be an expansion for the Saturn named 'Saturn B' that would enable it to run Model 3 games, and VF3 was to be a launch title. And that it needed to be imported and would cost £300.

It's probably a good thing I didn't have £300 just laying about that day, else I probably would have gotten fleeced pretty hard, lol.

A port of VF3 was indeed planned for Saturn and from what I understand it was even completed and didn't required any addon.
But we'll probably never know.

 

[Moon_frogger]

Come on guys. I realize a hardcore group of gamers like gaf are going to appreciate the depth and breadth of saturns quality library but the sheer overwhelming brilliance of games like mario and Zelda can't be over stated.

Put it this way, if I had to erase one system and all it's games from history I wouldn't be erasing the n64

 

[clutch.as.it.gets.]

I was an N64 guy. Loved my steady stream of Rare games.

 

[Synth]

Multiplatform games definitely count, I mean you can still play them.
Exhumed is still one of the best 3D game on Saturn despite being available on PS1 and PC.

Oh about FFVII someone definitely would get it, even without PS1

Yea, I'm aware that it would have gone somewhere.. but for the point being made, I needed the libraries unchanged. There would be no point to what I said, if we were just going to start evaluating based on where we believe Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid etc would land.

A port of VF3 was indeed planned for Saturn and from what I understand it was even completed and didn't required any addon.
But we'll probably never know.

Yup, I know a version was planned. I can totally picture them having a build of it up and running at HQ... too ashamed to show it to the world, lol. We got Fighter's Megamix out of it though it seems, so no hard feelings.

Come on guys. I realize a hardcore group of gamers like gaf are going to appreciate the depth and breadth of saturns quality library but the sheer overwhelming brilliance of games like mario and Zelda can't be over stated.

Put it this way, if I had to erase one system and all it's games from history I wouldn't be erasing the n64

And for me it would be the opposite. I don't even like Zelda, so that blows a massive hole in the rather limited N64 library for me. Hell, if I had to erase any one console from Sega, Nintendo, Sony or MS... other than the Master System, the N64 would be the easiest choice for me.

 

[Fularu]

What I said is that they were the company with the most experience in 3D, and probably the arcade division was quite jaleous of losing its prerogatives.

What Sony achieved, they should have tried to do the same. It seems until the last minute, saturn was not designed for 3D and the last minute addition of processor was a counter move against Sony. What did they think when they designed the saturn as a 2D mainly powerhouse (and using quads in 3D ...).

in 94, the were not poor, they were opening game center everywhere and the genesis was selling well in the west. To me they wanted to keep the status quo with 3D mainly in the arcades, and Sony disturbed all of that.

The first Model 3 game came out a full 2 years after the Saturn's release.

What killed the saturn was that it used quads instead of triangles (like the Model 2 hardware). That made it extremely difficult and costly to develop for (and the tacked on second SH2 chip didn't help one bit, which is why very very few games ever used it)

 

[Riky]

Saturn had HyperDuel, Silvergun, Saga and Shining Force III. So for me it wins, but I adore the Rare output on N64 so it's a close run thing.

 

[petran79]

Because they didn't have (almost) any first party support they did everything they could to attract third party developers (something Sega and especially Nintendo would never do because for them third-party developers were rivals) building easy to use tools, eventually paying/asking for ports if they were exclusive to other platforms and marketing other companies games (Final Fantasy VII is a good example), buying exclusives or renowned game studios.

Sega made huge blunders with the Saturn, by not releasing Grandia in the West. It would give FFVII serious competition.

At that time Sega was the dominant company worldwide if you include gamers from all continets and arcade machines. Nintendo was never dominant in Europe anyway

it takes a really huge effort to lose all those people to Sony with just one system.

 

[PepsimanVsJoe]

Come on guys. I realize a hardcore group of gamers like gaf are going to appreciate the depth and breadth of saturns quality library but the sheer overwhelming brilliance of games like mario and Zelda can't be over stated.

Doesn't matter much to me. I'm not a fan of the 3D Zeldas.
It's kinda strange really. Ocarina of Time was basically the reason why I sold my Saturn for an N64 way back then. I finally got around to playing it and...ehh..hmm.. I completed it but was ultimately disappointed.

Didn't even own Mario 64 during that time (I got the console sans games for $75. My first purchase was Star Fox 64). Sure I eventually rented and played through it, but I never liked it enough to get all 120 stars over and over. I recognize that it's a fantastic and revolutionary platformer, I just don't actually enjoy playing it all that much.

In any case while I can recognize the quality that these games possess, I'd rather play other stuff.

 

[Celine]

Sega made huge blunders with the Saturn, by not releasing Grandia in the West. It would give FFVII serious competition.

It didn't make sense for Sega to release Grandia in the west.
Grandia wouldn't give any serious competition to FFVII.

By 1998 Saturn was dead everywhere but Japan.
The last Saturn releases by Sega was due more to please the fans more than to make bucks (thus the limited run).

Why pay money to translate a RPG done by another company (thus you need to pay royalties to that other company) when your system is dead?
Sega translated their own last games and issued a limited print.

 

[MrCunningham]

Ok, i respect that but its not that the N64 didn't have a good Wipeout port... I do believe that it was better than the Saturn one.

Wipeout on the Sega Saturn was actually a really great port of the PS1 game and in some ways I liked it more than the PS1 version. The Playstation game did have more visual effects and slightly nicer graphics, but the Saturn game actually felt a little faster and had slightly better vehicle handling. Though the Playstation version did have multiplayer using two Playstations and two TV's, while the Saturn game did not.

Wipeout 2097 (Wipeout XL) was also released on the Saturn, but never in North America. This version actually looked pretty nice but had a poor framerate.

Wipeout 64 was a good game, to be honest. But it was a mix match of both Wipeout 1 and Wipeout XL from what I remember. I also remember this game having a lot of pop up and the textures looked very basic low resolution and blurry due to the N64's filtering and cart limitations. But the music was surprisingly good and it did have 4 player local play. The game did have heavy loading too, but I think it was because of decompression due to the soundtrack. It wasn't my favorite version of Wipeout, but it was underrated as far as N64 racers go.

Quake/Duke are also N64 games.

Duke Nukem 3D is an interesting case for both the Sega Saturn and N64. Neither are accurate PC ports.

The Saturn game was built on Lobotomy's Slave Driver engine, and because of that was polygon engine and not sector based like Build. Since the Build engine wasn't real 3D, you could have some really odd "impossible" geometry in the map layouts. In the Saturn version the maps were set up in real 3D space, and the layouts were altered to be quite different. Also, Slave Driver lacked things like moving sectors, so things like moving tram cars, spinning gears and swinging doors were absent from the Saturn game. I never thought it was a bad port, but it still lacked a lot from the PC game. Pretty awesome that this one had Netlink support, but I never had a chance to use it. Also Saturn Duke does have Death Tank Zwei, which alone could make this port worth owning.

The N64 game most notably had heavy censorship and took out the strippers and foul language. But also, the level design was heavily altered in a lot of maps, adding things that weren't in the PC version. In the second map for example, they added a complete Duke Burger restaurant, while removing all the red light district strippers and sexual material. Also the weapons were heavily changed. Duke 64 did have two player split screen co-op which was quite awesome for its day, and it was the only 32/64 bit console port to have this and 4 player split screen death match. There wasn't any in game level music though. But I actually liked this port a lot, despite the censorship.

The PS1 game was a straight port of the Build engine game. It did have a new CD soundtrack though. This one was the most accurate console version of Duke 3D before the XBLA version existed, but it had some big framerate issues.


Quake on the Saturn fared much better, and also used the Slave Driver engine. I actually think in some ways it was a better port than Quake 1 was on the N64.

RE2 was a port made by some other developers. Like i said, Capcom didn't give a damn about the N64.

It was ported by Angel Studios, who is now known as Rockstar San Diego these days.

I did have the N64 port of RE2 back in the day, and it was great. Yeah, the FMV video did suffer from compression, and some of the 2D backdrops were a bit lower resolution. But the character models had nice filtering, and the loading time was slightly faster. The game also had nice Doubly surround mix and the control scheme actually worked very well on the console.

 

[Windforce]

Saturn, easily. I have no idea why it did so badly in America, in Japan the Saturn was quite the beast and put up a good fight against N64. Probably outsoldN N64 in Japan, too. Shining Force III was game of the generation for me.

Dragon Force was amazing, so were Panzer Dragon Saga, Albert Odyssey, Virtua Fighter 2 and Fighters Megamix. Saturn also had the best 2D fighters, arcade perfect ports from Capcom and SNK. SF Alpha series, X-Men vs SF, Marvel Super Heroes, King of Fighters, all the sprite heavy stuff that PlayStation and N64 wouldn't do as well as the Saturn.

It had me covered in my 2 favorite genres - fighting and RPGs. The controller was also mindblowingly good for arcade fighters. Perfect.

Back then I owned Saturn and PlayStation, but never felt the need to own a N64...

 

[IrishNinja]

That said, I'll say one more thing about arcade-y titles in general... They don't really require skill, they require repetition to learn the patterns and some good twitchy hands. The reason the "good" people didn't seem to spend as many quarters is because they already spent as much and more than the "baddies".

The ONLY exception to this is the impromptu tournaments that would spring up from arcade fighting games... but playing them single player? Same thing.

aside: this is a terrible meme which needs to die. almost makes me wish i had YT editing skills to do a video/series on the awful/incorrect things people associate with "arcade-y" gameplay, especially in the gen we're talking about here where risk/reward type of exploration & gameplay was nearly decades away from the quarter-munching design it gets lumped in with by far too many.

 

[ScOULaris]

I think the fact that the people voting for the Saturn in this thread have to point to a lot of Japan-only releases to support their argument is telling enough. The N64 definitely left a lot to be desired when it came to having certain genres well represented on the system, but there's no doubting that it was the more significant of the two both in terms of sales and the legacy it left behind.

Saturn just never got a fair shake outside of Japan, so it wasn't able to realize its full potential. Sega's absurdly botched launch strategy for the Saturn in the US was partially to blame, I feel.

 

[Freshmaker]

It didn't make sense for Sega to release Grandia in the west.
Grandia wouldn't give any serious competition to FFVII.

By 1998 Saturn was dead everywhere but Japan.
The last Saturn releases by Sega was due more to please the fans more than to make bucks (thus the limited run).

Why pay money to translate a RPG done by another company (thus you need to pay royalties to that other company) when your system is dead?
Sega translated their own last games and issued a limited print.

Stolar still kinda ruined things there by driving off Vic.

I think the fact that the people voting for the Saturn in this thread have to point to a lot of Japan-only releases to support their argument is telling enough.

Most of the people listing games are talking about games that were released worldwide.

 

[kunonabi]

I think the fact that the people voting for the Saturn in this thread have to point to a lot of Japan-only releases to support their argument is telling enough. The N64 definitely left a lot to be desired when it came to having certain genres well represented on the system, but there's no doubting that it was the more significant of the two both in terms of sales and the legacy it left behind.

Saturn just never got a fair shake outside of Japan, so it wasn't able to realize its full potential. Sega's absurdly botched launch strategy for the Saturn in the US was partially to blame, I feel.

Pretty much. The N64 was an important building block in how games have developed especially in terms of using 3D space while the Saturn was more a culmination of old school gaming with it's huge focus on 2D games and arcade hits. It was really the end game of classic Japanese game design.

I'll certainly through my hat in with the Saturn being the better console overall but if were talking about growing up in that generation it's a little harder to call. I played a good deal of the saturn at my friends place but I didn't buy one for myself until years later. It was just too expensive to keep with the import scene at the time.

As problematic as the N64's lifespan was a lot of my favorite games are on that system which is more than I can say for the GC and some other consoles.

 

[IrishNinja]

^stolar & vic could be a whole other thread, heh

I think the fact that the people voting for the Saturn in this thread have to point to a lot of Japan-only releases to support their argument is telling enough. The N64 definitely left a lot to be desired when it came to having certain genres well represented on the system, but there's no doubting that it was the more significant of the two both in terms of sales and the legacy it left behind.

really thought we were talking library/overall strength, again not sales-age (where N64 did good mostly in america, saturn in japan etc), legacy by which GAF members had access to it in the day, etc. why would JP releases be "telling enough"? do they not count? if this thread was about botched moves by nintendo & sega that gen, it'd be tremendously longer but since it's not these caveats make no sense.

Pretty much. The N64 was an important building block in how games have developed especially in terms of using 3D space while the Saturn was more a culmination of old school gaming with it's huge focus on 2D games and arcade hits. It was really the end game of classic Japanese game design.

I'll certainly through my hat in with the Saturn being the better console overall but if were talking about growing up in that generation it's a little harder to call. I played a good deal of the saturn at my friends place but I didn't buy one for myself until years later. It was just too expensive to keep with the import scene at the time.

As problematic as the N64's lifespan was a lot of my favorite games are on that system which is more than I can say for the GC and some other consoles.

i can dig much of this post, but if we're being serious about which 32-bit gen machine truly influenced 3D game design, it was hands-down the PSX. for the purposes of this thread focusing on these 2 i guess i get it though.

Man I wish I could be a saturn gamer but the games are far too expensive.

yeah...like the turbo, imports are far kinder. i'm all for emulation or simply having your system modded for backups to experience it, personally.

 

[GayForMaster]

Man I wish I could be a saturn gamer but the games are far too expensive.

I've got a saturn with zero games lol, I've always wanted sonic jam but I couldn't get it because of its ridiculous price. I actually picked up Panzer Dragoon from some unknown website for $25 (CIB). Hoping I actually get it CIB rather than a generic case or some shit.

 

[Freshmaker]

^stolar & vic could be a whole other thread, heh

True, but we lost a few games due to Stolar's rather backwards take things.

 

[fvng]

Saturn, easily. I have no idea why it did so badly in America, in Japan the Saturn was quite the beast and put up a good fight against N64. Probably outsoldN N64 in Japan, too. Shining Force III was game of the generation for me.

Dragon Force was amazing, so were Panzer Dragon Saga, Albert Odyssey, Virtua Fighter 2 and Fighters Megamix. Saturn also had the best 2D fighters, arcade perfect ports from Capcom and SNK. SF Alpha series, X-Men vs SF, Marvel Super Heroes, King of Fighters, all the sprite heavy stuff that PlayStation and N64 wouldn't do as well as the Saturn.

It had me covered in my 2 favorite genres - fighting and RPGs. The controller was also mindblowingly good for arcade fighters. Perfect.

Back then I owned Saturn and PlayStation, but never felt the need to own a N64...

So good man, the Saturn was a hardcore gamer's wet dream. Games like Mario Kart, Mario Kart, Diddy Kong Racing simply don't stack up.

 

[IrishNinja]

True, but we lost a few games due to Stolar's rather backwards take things.

absolutely..over at his forum @ gaijinworks vic once named the titles we didn't get too, i forget but i wanna say one was sakura, another was hyper duel? might be remembering wrong but its tragic either way

 

[TaroYamada]

When I was younger N64 but looking back, if I had to pick between the two, Saturn. It has a lot more games I'd care about now like Virtua Fighter 2, Saturn Bomberman, Dragon Force, Guardian Heroes, etc. N64 was really light on genres I care about but I'd probably give it points for a better library of 3D platformers, adventure and FPS but as somebody who's looking back now as a PC gamer, I have something of a distaste for analog-based FPS anyways.

 

[Rulp]

Oh man, how could I not mention the Saturn controller. The Saturn controller is simply one of the best controllers ever. It feels so damn good, especially for fighting games. N64 controller is a bit awkward, but manageable.

 

[LeleSocho]

I think i saw once or twice a Saturn irl and always at shops and never owned by someone so yeah N64 easily.

With time and internet i learned that Saturn had an handful of titles that match my tastes very well but i never seen it been worthwhile to buy.

 

[reson8or]

Owned a N64 during its run. Aside from a few games, found it extremely underwhelming. Purchased a Saturn soon after getting rid of the 64, it remains one of my favorite consoles ever to date.

 

[kess]

The Saturn doing as well as it did in Japan was quite a feat considering there was no support from Namco and tepid support from the other majors. Square only went with the biggest game in town back then, too.

 

[Solid SOAP]

I honestly never heard of the Saturn until I became really interested in Sonic around when Sonic Adventure 2 Battle came out on the Gamecube. I never knew anyone who had or wanted one.

 

[jeremy1456]

Oh man, how could I not mention the Saturn controller. The Saturn controller is simply one of the best controllers ever. It feels so damn good, especially for fighting games. N64 controller is a bit awkward, but manageable.

The second controller for it was amazing.

 

[GalacticAE]

...

Is your av from some sort of Sega music collection? I was reading about it on some blog and the person described it as cheesy; but a euphoric Sega cheese. I've been wanting to listen but I don't know where to find it.

 

[Alcoholikaust]

it has easily the weakest library of a nintendo console, assuming the WU has some more gems before its end.

you haven't played the virtual boy-

N64 may not have as many games but with soo many amazing first party titles it overshadows the Saturn easily

(I own 75 n64 carts and 130 Saturn discs)

 

[Vladmiris]

I would say N64 for me, if just because it was the first console I owned where I played games seriously. Ocarina of Time, Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Majora's Mask, Mario 64...the list goes on. I only played Saturn at my friend's house and then it was only Virtual Fighter 2 and a light-gun game whose title I cannot recall. After reading this thread, though, I regret never having experienced the Saturn. Can someone recommend some good emulation sites? Is it still possible to find an actual Saturn and all these titles online? Someplace that is not Ebay?

 

[Celine]

i can dig much of this post, but if we're being serious about which 32-bit gen machine truly influenced 3D game design, it was hands-down the PSX. for the purposes of this thread focusing on these 2 i guess i get it though.

If N64 is included in that 32-bit gen then I strongly disagree.

Man I wish I could be a saturn gamer but the games are far too expensive.

I've got a saturn with zero games lol, I've always wanted sonic jam but I couldn't get it because of its ridiculous price. I actually picked up Panzer Dragoon from some unknown website for $25 (CIB). Hoping I actually get it CIB rather than a generic case or some shit.

I have a japanese Saturn and so only buy japense games.
Many of those are really cheap.

Great games like Sega Rally, Virtua Fighter 2 and Layer Section/Galaxy Attack can be found very cheap no matter what format you choose.

The second controller for it was amazing.

Pure sex for 2D gaming.

 

[SmokedMeat]

I agree. Model 3 was lost to time - too advanced for the Saturn but effectively ancient by the time DC came around. I would love to play an arcade perfect port of 3tb someday!

Huh? Dreamcast couldn't do an arcade perfect Virtua Fighter 3. Model 3 was some powerful shit for its time. I'd wager more powerful than Dreamcast.

 

[fvng]

you haven't played the virtual boy-

N64 may not have as many games but with soo many amazing first party titles it overshadows the Saturn easily

(I own 75 n64 carts and 130 Saturn discs)

'soooo many' really? 14 internally developed first party games (many of which did not stand up to the test of time) are not better than the cumulative cream of the crop of Saturn's library.

2nd party games: Rare's output was spotty as hell as well, and didn't match the diversity and quality of Saturn's library, and the bulk of those Rare games do not stand the test of time. (Goldeneye and Perfect Dark are still fun)

This seems to be the repeated argument of this thread.. "yeah there weren't that many good games on N64, but the games that WERE good, were SO good that they overshadow the competition"

That's a pretty weak argument

The way I see it is, I am quantifying the number of solid/great games on Saturn stacked up against the list of quality n64 games and Saturn always comes up ahead (again assuming we are talking about Japanese games as well, but I think that's already understood in this thread)

10 really good games is not better than 40 or 50 great games. I will take the latter everytime

 

[Asparagus]

No competition, Saturn wins hands down. It just had a larger and more varied library of games.

I wish more of them got a western release

 

[IrishNinja]

you haven't played the virtual boy-

N64 may not have as many games but with soo many amazing first party titles it overshadows the Saturn easily

(I own 75 n64 carts and 130 Saturn discs)

i said console tho

If N64 is included in that 32-bit gen then I strongly disagree.

with respect: i can certainly see an argument for revolutionary things like the lock-on camera in ocarina, and Mario 64 was undeniably a tremendous influence when it dropped. again, i'm not trying to take from these things.

but the PSX pushed so many more big 3D titles, dual analogs and overall did far more to expand the market than sega & nintendo combined, and im a big fan of both. the overall influence cannot be overstated, i think.

 

[GamerJM]

So, sort of a different question: How many games would you say interest you on each console?

There's probably somewhere in the range of 20-30 Saturn games I'm interested in playing. There's probably over 40 N64 games I'm interested in playing. For reference the PS1 probably has somewhere in the range of 80-90 games for me.

Also, I will say that I think the Saturn has by far the best controller of that era.

 

[funkypie]

Wait, what?

EDIT: I see I'm not alone at being taken aback at the irony here considering just how superior Saturn Bomberman is widely considered to be.

Nah those 2D bombermen were ok, but the 3D element along with all the extra features you could do without collecting power ups made 64 one superior.

 

[RAIDEN1]

No contest on this one, the sales of the respective consoles speak for themselves as to which console was the better ...

More better question would be what was better between the Saturn or the Neo Geo? Both were "2d powerhouses" ...that would be a better comparison...

 

[DarkoMaledictus]

I'll have to go the other way... Sega Saturn. I owned one back in the day and played the crap out of it. Just for the great schmups and amazing 2d games! Also it had Panzer Dragoon Saga and Grandia. No contest in my book!

 

[SmokedMeat]

No contest on this one, the sales of the respective consoles speak for themselves as to which console was the better ...

More better question would be what was better between the Saturn or the Neo Geo? Both were "2d powerhouses" ...that would be a better comparison...

No contest. The sales of the respective consoles speak for themselves as to which is better.

More better question would be which was better between Neo Geo and Virtual Boy?

 

[Flakster99]

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
If the Sega Saturn had games worthwhile to play, where were they and would we have honestly cared?

No one gave a shit about the system. People voted with their wallets, sales prove that. My friends and I were in college at the time of the Saturn/N64/PS1 release, we owned all the systems, and even the fucking 3DO managed more play time than the Saturn due to Road Rash.

Import this. Import that. Obscure anime art. Lack of retail presence. Short shelf life. The N64 offered plenty of options which were more than good enough. It easily had the best wrestling and sports games. The better co-op library. The better platformer library. RAREWARE. The Saturn wasn't even in the same zip code as the N64.

 

[Deleted member 74300]

Saturn loses due to Shining Force 3 scenario 2 and 3 never being localized among the many other games stuck in Japan. Why Sega why?

 

[Shikamaru Ninja]

Multiplayer gaming on the Nintendo 64 was unparalleled at the time. You could own just a handful of games, and literally be entertained for years with your friends. There was nothing like it.

I personally think the console had a great amount of sleeper games from Western developers that were actually exclusive. Alongside all Nintendo published gems.

 

[Flakster99]

Multiplayer gaming on the Nintendo 64 was unparalleled at the time. You could own just a handful of games, and literally be entertained for years with your friends. There was nothing like it.

An extremely good point to which I can absolutely attest to. Replay value was indeed a trait the N64 dominated in.

 

[A Black Falcon]

Wipeout 64 was a good game, to be honest. But it was a mix match of both Wipeout 1 and Wipeout XL from what I remember. I also remember this game having a lot of pop up and the textures looked very basic low resolution and blurry due to the N64's filtering and cart limitations. But the music was surprisingly good and it did have 4 player local play. The game did have heavy loading too, but I think it was because of decompression due to the soundtrack. It wasn't my favorite version of Wipeout, but it was an underrated as far as N64 racers go.

Wipeout 64 doesn't have any more popup than any of the PS1 or Saturn Wipeout games have... and I don't know what you're talking about with the textures, they look fine. It's my favorite 5th gen Wipeout for sure...

Sega made huge blunders with the Saturn, by not releasing Grandia in the West. It would give FFVII serious competition.

At that time Sega was the dominant company worldwide if you include gamers from all continets and arcade machines. Nintendo was never dominant in Europe anyway

it takes a really huge effort to lose all those people to Sony with just one system.

Grandia would mostly have made sense in the West if Sega hadn't been such incredible idiots as they were in 1997. See, the Saturn had an okay year in 1996 in the US. Sure, it sold less than the PS1 by a lot, and the N64 started out selling more than the other two, but Sega actually did okay and sold almost a half million Saturns that holiday season... and then essentially abandoned the system by mid '97. Sure, monthly Saturn sales were bad, far below PS1 or N64 sales, but as 1996 shows, they could have had an okay next couple of holiday seasons if they'd kept trying, as they did that year.

Instead, they listed to Bernie Stolar and his gang of naysayers, and tanked the console. "Saturn is not our future" and all that, and no new big marketing campaigns, no new bundle to follow up the quite successful 3-in-1 bundle from 1996, and lots of cancelled games. Given that Sega completely stopped trying to seriously push the Saturn, and hired someone who wanted it dead as Sega of America's new CEO in spring '97, it's no surprise that sales immediately crashed hard and never recovered. But if they'd kept trying, since holidays 1997 through 1999 were the peak of hardware sales that generation, I really do think that the system could have at least doubled its US sales, maybe more. It'd still have died out in '99, probably, but it probably could at least have made it through that year with decent sales... looking at how it did in '96, I do think it was possible. There are some people insane enough to defend what Bernie Stolar did. It's pretty crazy. Sure, Sega's biggest mistakes with the Saturn happened in 1994-1995, not 1995-1996 [releasing the 32X, disastrous Saturn launch in the US, hardware that was hard to develop for and too expensive, etc.], but the decent sales in '96 show that the system could have held on to a semi-competent third-place finish, had they not given up.

As for the N64, the big "what if" there is, I'd say, about the 64DD. Sure, I guess "N64 with CD drive" would be one too, but that's not actually likely, while either canceling the 64DD or releasing it sooner definitely is. I think that releasing the N64 as it was was a mistake; the system has almost no games, wasn't released in the market where most N64s were sold (the US; remember, 2/3rds of worldwide N64 [and GC] sales were in the Americas), and it probably reduced the number of games releasing on the N64 itself at a time when the system had a thin enough library. The only reason I can imagine why Nintendo actually released the thing was because they'd said they would and didn't want to go against that, but that just isn't a good reason. If the 64DD could not be ready for a 1998 launch with Ocarina of Time as its big exclusive, it should have been canceled then and there. It probably would have been for the best if it'd just been dropped, though releasing it earlier, and worldwide, might have worked too. If OoT required it, that'd certainly have sold the things... but really, I don't know that it was necessary. The only advantage it has over carts is more space for save data, and while that's nice for some of the games it has, it's not worth the drawbacks, such as the use of magnetic media, that it is an expensive addon, etc.

Really, the N64's library would have been better off with no 64DD. It'd have meant more games. Even just actually releasing the thing earlier and worldwide might have helped too, though, if 64DD licensing fees and disk production costs were lower than that of carts... but either way, something needed to happen that wasn't what they did.

 

[jett]

Wipeout 64 doesn't have any more popup than any of the PS1 or Saturn Wipeout games have... and I don't know what you're talking about with the textures, they look fine. It's my favorite 5th gen Wipeout for sure.

I'm going to regret getting into this, but Wipeout 64 most definitely has considerably more popup than Wip3out.

Wipeout 64

Wip3out

It's just abundantly clear.

 

[oneida]

Huh? Dreamcast couldn't do an arcade perfect Virtua Fighter 3. Model 3 was some powerful shit for its time. I'd wager more powerful than Dreamcast.

Soul Calibur and Dead or Alive 2 looked a generation better than VF3tb, although I concede that the stages in 3tb look better.