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[A Black Falcon]

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.

Hmm, perhaps so, but Wipeout 64 is based on Wipeout and Wipeout XL, and released well before Wipeout 3. Wipeout 64's draw distance is definitely not worse than the first two games on PS1/Saturn, and the game is doing more -- on PS1 or Saturn the games are one player only (or two players via link cable and two systems, on PS1), but on N64 you have four player splitscreen. Two player splitscreen can be done with a full field of cars and background graphics, too, which is great. Three or four player mode is cut back though -- it reduces the field to four cars and disables trackside graphics (so it's just the track in a black void). Still, it works. Wipeout 64 is the only Wipeout game ever with a 3 or 4 player splitscreen mode.

But yeah, I should have either checked Wipeout 3 again, or just said that about the Wipeout games which precede Wipeout 64. I'm sure the N64 could have done something that looks as good as or better than Wipeout 3 too, but Psygnosis was, of course, Sony systems-only by that point.

 

[starwarsfan541]

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.

Check out the supermodel emulator if you have a good pc it runs a good bit of the Model 3 game pretty well

 

[Alex Anderson]

Excitebike 64 vs. Winter Heat

I can't decide!

 

[Celine]

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.

I really cannot think about a ps1 game that influenced 3D game design more than stuff like Mario 64, Wave Race, Pilotwings, Goldeneye and OoT that generation.
Maybe Driver with its freeroaming city ? But then again GTA3 grandaddy was on N64.

Also dualshock was a reaction to N64 controller and as far as I know only one game required it (but could be wrong).

I'm not doubting the huge impact Sony and PS1 had on console gaming but I really think that as far as 3D game design goes Nintendo gave the biggest contribution that gen.

 

[jhmtehgamr20xx]

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.

I think there's a video on Youtube for it, actually. There's definitely one for Shenmue Saturn.

Didn't look too bad but hard to tell if it was as good as Tekken 3 b/c of the image quality.

Here's the vid (not real time footage sadly): http://youtu.be/ya1YXGkwRP4

Acclaim had always sucked in the nes and snes era, but after Turok I never fucked with another Acclaim game again. Shame on me.

You must not have played Iggy's Wreckin' Balls yet. I assure you, that is a very good Acclaim-published game (Iguana-developed).

 

[jhmtehgamr20xx]

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...

This is one of the absolute worst ways to argue the worth of practically anything.

 

[Principate]

This is one of the absolute worst ways to argue the worth of practically anything.

TBF it's the only remotely objective manner. Everything else is a massive grey territory.

 

[SmokedMeat]

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

I had to go back and watch some videos of model 3 arcade titles and wow, my memory had them looking better lol

 

[N4Us]

It's not apples and oranges. We are comparing the fighting games on both systems and the fighting selection on n64 was slim pickins. Outside of MK and KI, those wrestling game cash grabs were all you had

You were replying to

Wrestling was huge back then, especially to a kid like me and those AKI wrestling games are still held in high regard as the best in the genre so yeah they were kind of a big deal.

Yeah I'm not seeing any 'traditional' fighting games mentioned here.

 

[Snakeyes]

As a kid, all of my friends had N64s. Every single one. It blew my mind when I got older and realized Playstation dominated that gen, because no one I knew had one. I hadn't even heard of the Saturn as a kid. I swear I didn't see Saturn boxes at Blockbuster. They still had Genesis games, but never Saturn.

Yeah, same here. Only one of my best friends and a girl I knew owned a PS1. The former barely touched it after getting his N64.

On topic: At the time, N64 by a country mile. It was home to a multitude of next-gen experiences that simply weren't possible on the Saturn or even the PS1.

Looking back on both systems now, I feel that they're a lot closer thanks to all the obscure Saturn gems. The N64 still edges it out though, and both are better than the PS1. Just my personal opinion based on the list of retro games I'd eventually like to own.

 

[MrCunningham]

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...

For some reason the draw distance stuck to me more than it did in say, Wipeout XL on the PS1, but then again the track design in XL were designed better to mask popup than the first game. Wipeout 64 did use a mix of tracks from the first two games. As for the textures, looking at Jett's video, they don't look as bad as what I remembered them. Though some of those mountain side textures do look a bit lower resolution than what you would find in the PS1 game.

Overall, really good game, but it is kinda odd that it lacked a grand prix mode.

 

[oneida]

I had to go back and watch some videos of model 3 arcade titles and wow, my memory had them looking better lol

Model 3 was unbelievable... in the context that it launched Mario 64 era.

 

[Synth]

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.

The Dreamcast should have been able to do Virtua Fighter 3tb in its sleep. The problem was Genki's port, not the hardware.

with respect: i can certainly see an argument for revolutionary things like the lock-on camera in ocarina

Technically (although you didn't hold a button for it), Virtual On did z-targeting first. Man, Sega gets robbed of everything, lol.

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

No one gave a shit about the system. People voted with their wallets, sales prove that.

This is a stupid argument, and unless you're happy to admit that the WiiU is a dire console (with a current line up worse than what either the X1 or PS4 had at launch), and that the Gamecube was the worst of its gen, then you shouldn't be making it. It's completely possible for a console with a strong library to fail in the market if the manufacturer for it is in a weak position. Especially if it shares a demographic, and many games with another console held by a much stronger company (PlayStation).

Anyone pointing to sales, is pretty much conceding that they have no real argument to make for the library.

I think there's a video on Youtube for it, actually. There's definitely one for Shenmue Saturn.

Didn't look too bad but hard to tell if it was as good as Tekken 3 b/c of the image quality.

Here's the vid (not real time footage sadly): http://youtu.be/ya1YXGkwRP4

I don't think obvious FMV footage really shows anything of what the Saturn build would have been. It certainly would not have looked like that graphically with no external help.

 

[Y2Kev]

As a kid, I was a much bigger N64 fan. The B tier (well, on N64 the B tier was more like a C or D tier) games kept me so happy. I remember so many stinkers that I loved. Shit like Buck Bumble, Battletanx, Glover, Chameleon Twist, Aidyn Chronicles: The First Mage, etc...those games were probably not very good but I loved them.

I didn't really get into Saturn until later. I think Saturn is missing a marquee exclusive title in the platformer genre, which really was the calling card of the 32 bit gen. I can't dock it for not having RPGs vis-a-vis the N64, that's for sure.

As an adult, I find it much easier to play a greater number of Saturn games but I still think that top tier of N64 games is always going to be playable and enjoyable. Nothing on Saturn had the cultural impact or created the, I dunno, collective institutional memory of gaming the way OoT or SM64 did, but the Saturn's lineup of games is really deep and varied and great.

 

[kodecraft]

BEFORE the N64 came along, I loved the Saturn.

The Saturn is the most underrated console to me. It still has a special place in my gaming heart.

 

[Mammoth Jones]

Saturn was one of those systems that just amazed me with its performance at the time. Especially the imports. Playing marvel vs street fighter. Guardian heroes. Just fantastic games.

But n64 was just the better system. Had more classics and much more of an impact on gaming for me.

 

[crozier]

N64 is my favorite console ever to this day.

Mario 64
Banjo Kazooie
Blast Corps
Goldeneye
Starfox
Turok
Mario Kart

So, so many fond gaming memories that I will carry for life. What I wouldn't give (I'm broke, though) for a spot-on controller for emulation...

 

[evilromero]

N64 =Best console ever.

I wish games were still made for it.

Same. I would so buy Mario 64 2 and Metroid 64.

 

[McLovin]

N64 had way more cool games on it.

 

[kodecraft]

N64 had way more cool games on it.

DEFINITELY an opinion.

 

[bishopcruz]

That is right nowadays, but at that time, 3D was not blurry, it was new and exciting.

Look at this video, 2D will never get old, but for the inexperienced, in the 90s, it looks no different for most of the games than the continuation of SNES or megadrive

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwOv61e8kqA

Which bothered me then, and still bothers me now. Back then it was saying that the 2d stuff looked barely better than the SNES (Because, THIS was totally possible last gen.)

Now it's the same thing with the new gen. The more things change...

Also, no one has mentioned the REAL reason Saturn is better than the N64

He died for our sins.

 

[mollipen]

Saturn over N64 easily. I think there were five games total I cared about on the N64. Meanwhile, I had a modded while Saturn and a huge library of both localized and import titles.

I mean, just the SNK stuff alone was reason to have a Saturn. And while N64 had some of the best wrestling games of human existence, the Saturn had 6-Man Scramble.

 

[Howard Ballou]

*-**I actually really wanted a Saturn for a while as a kid. But then I saw screenshots of Super Mario 64 in a game magazine at a grocery store. My mind was blown, and I completely forgot about Saturn. So I patiently waited months until Christmas when I could finally get my parents to bestow upon me the glorious Nintendo 64. Super Mario 64 and Wave Race 64 were culmination of my short existence. "How could video games ever be better than this???" I asked myself.

A month later, I went to a friend's house. He had kept the Sega Saturn faith, and received his console over the holidays. There I played NiGHTS into Dreams, Virtua Cop, Virtua Fighter 2, and Daytona USA. I had a great time. Like, it was fucking awesome. While I didn't regret choosing N64, there was no doubt in my mind that Saturn was really good in its own right.

Looking back, I'm very glad that went with N64. Some of my favorite games of all time came out on the console, and I feel like the console shaped my tastes to this very day. I never ended up getting a Saturn, but I always respected it as a great console.

THAT IS MY STORY

* I got a Playstation later to play RPGs.

** I had a Genesis in the 16-bit days (in addition to SNES), so Saturn wasn't my first exposure to Sega.

 

[StartSomething]

Grandia would mostly have made sense in the West if Sega hadn't been such incredible idiots as they were in 1997.

There was a reason why it wasn't released in the west

In 1997, everyone knew that Final Fantasy VII was turning out to be the monster hit that had been expected; furthermore, everybody thought they knew what Saturn RPG that Sega had in its Japanese arsenal to best counter it. This was none other than Grandia by GameArts, which was released in December of 1997 to eager Saturn gamers in Japan and was already being hailed as a masterpiece and a milestone insofar as the use of 3D environments in an RPG was concerned. To the surprise and anger of Western gamers, though, Sega passed on Grandia in 1997 and instead opted to translated and release the first installment of its own Shining Force III series. This seemed to fly in the face of all reason, if you were an eager Saturn gamer or RPG addict following the videogame market that year. It was quite a different story in the corporate boardrooms of the companies involved. What most Western gamers do not understand is that Grandia for Saturn did not do all that well in Japan. It may have been one helluva game, in fact the best RPG ever created for the console and one of the all-time RPG classics, but it didn't exactly take the Japanese market by storm. Grandia for Saturn only sold some 350,000 copies during its original market lifetime - large numbers for a Saturn game to be sure, but nowhere in the ballpark compared to what Square's Final Fantasy VII was doing. That, combined with the sad reality that Saturn had failed in the West, was the reason why both Sega and GameArts agreed not to do an English language port of the game. Their sales projections showed that they couldn't make enough money off of an English language port in the West, where the Saturn market was already small and shrinking daily, to justify the expense of the translation effort. On 10 January 1998, Sega angered RPG fans worldwide when it announced that Grandia for Saturn would never be translated into English for a Western release. It is a grudge that both Sega diehards and RPGers hold against Sega even to this day, made all the more painful by an obviously inferior English-language port for PlayStation released by Sony approximately two years later.

http://www.eidolons-inn.net/tiki-index.php?page=SegaBase+Saturn+p5&bl=y#The_case_of_the_missing_software

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.

There was a reason why Bernie Stolar acted the way he did.

On 31 March 1997, Sega submitted its annual consolidated financial reports to its stockholders. Sega had against all odds still managed to pull off a profit, but was a paltry ¥5.57 billion (US$46.4 million) - less than half of what the company had made the year before. Sega had not done this badly in the videogame market since before the days that the Genesis came on to the scene. As it would turn out, 1996 would be the last year that once-mighty Sega would post a net profit.

By August, Sony's market share had effectively doubled, and Sony had without question taken the lead away from Sega in Japan. Sony now dominated the videogame market in a fashion that had not been done since the late 1980s, when Nintendo had unleashed the 8-bit NES on a skeptical American audience. There was absolutely no chance that Sega could ever catch up with Sony, nor did it have the financial resources anymore to battle Nintendo for second place.

By the end of August, Sega of America's financial situation was so bad that president Bernie Stolar ordered the company to discontinue all television advertising starting the following month. It was a move Sega could ill afford - after all, television ads had been the backbone of Sega's earlier promotions - but Stolar could read the numbers as well as anybody. Sega simply couldn't affort the kind of multimillion dollar, multimedia blowout for which it had become known in days past. Stolar was berated by both industry pundits and hardcore Sega gamers for his move, but he neither regretted his decision nor apologized for it. In all fairness, Stolar's move probably didn't hurt Sega as much as others made it to be. By this time, it was pretty obvious who was dominating the American console markets - and it wasn't Sega. Not by a long shot, and Stolar deemed it unnecessary to waste precious company resources on a battle he knew he couldn't win. He was already looking beyond the Saturn ... but few of his critics at the time realized that.

http://www.eidolons-inn.net/tiki-index.php?page=SegaBase+Saturn+p4&bl=y

 

[Ryu Hayabusa]

Easy for me, SEGA Saturn.

Virtua Fighter Remix
Virtua Fighter 2
Fighting Vipers
Fighters Megamix
SEGA Rally Championship
Panzer Dragoon
Panzer Dragoon II Zwei
Panzer Dragoon Saga
Daytona CCE
Decathlete
Formula Kart
Shining Force III
Shining Wisdom
Shining in Holy Ark
Virtua Cop series
Radiant Silvergun
NiGHTS into Dreams
Manx TT
Clockwork Knight series
Guardian Heroes
Dragon Force
Astal
Magic Knight Rayeart
Alberto Oddyssey
Three Dirty Dwarves
The Story of Thor 2
Saturn Bomberman
Deep Fear
Virtual-On

I don't know, so many exclusive games.

 

[A Black Falcon]

There was a reason why it wasn't released in the west
http://www.eidolons-inn.net/tiki-index.php?page=SegaBase+Saturn+p5&bl=y#The_case_of_the_missing_software

Well yeah, as I said, the game couldn't have released before mid or late 1998. Obviously, with how dead the Saturn was at that point, everything else being as it was the game would have been another game like Burning Rangers, PD Saga, or Shining Force III -- a game with shipments, and sales, only in the tens of thousands. And looking at that, I can understand how they would pass, unfortunately.

However, if Sega HADN'T given up back in Spring 1997, things could have been entirely different. Look at how the Saturn sold a half million systems in the US in late 1996, and consider how much they could have sold between '97 and '99 ('97 and '98, particularly, since in Japan Sega stopped supporting it at the end of '98), when N64 and PS1 hardware sales peaked. Sure, they were certain to finish third, but they were NOT certain to sell only like one and a half million systems in the US!

Some of the games Sega would have needed to sell more Saturns already existed, they just needed an actual marketing budget and no SoA head trying to kill the system -- PDZ, Burning Rangers, and the like -- but Grandia is certainly another one of the big ones they should have had in '98.

There was a reason why Bernie Stolar acted the way he did.

http://www.eidolons-inn.net/tiki-index.php?page=SegaBase+Saturn+p4&bl=y

There is no possible way to come up with an excuse for what he did. There just isn't. Yeah, that's his reasoning, but it's critically flawed reasoning which makes no sense.

I mean, the result of his reasoning was Sega not having a console on the market for 15 months, and a system which was essentially dead for a full year before that, going back to the beginning of Stolar's time as SoA head (he got the position in about March or April '97). His idea, that somehow letting people forget about Sega for several years would be a good idea and that they could make up for it with a great Dreamcast launch, proved to be a conceptual failure. That article there ignores the fact that Sega having to try to make up for that gap really hurt them. Stolar insisted that it wasn't a problem, but he would; any sane analysis would say that it hurt them. Sega had to struggle to try to convince people to give Sega a chance again, and that wouldn't have been as bad if they hadn't ditched the Saturn so early. The DC had a good launch in the US, but sales fell off after that and didn't really recover; in the US the N64 (and PS1 as well of course) actually outsold the Dreamcast in every single month of 2000.

Yes, Sega did not have the money of the other players, and maybe their defeat as a hardware manufacturer was inevitable, but scaling things down and leaving over a two year period was a crippling blow Sega never recovered from. They needed a Saturn that could have survived up until the DC's launch. Basically the gamble would be to hope that your increased hardware and software sales would compensate for the higher costs of continuing to seriously compete. And I'm sure they would have sold at least a million more Saturns in the US, and quite likely several million. Remember, the '97 through '99 holiday seasons were the N64 and PS1's sales peak; just do about as well as you did compared to the others in '96 the next holiday season, that would mean a lot of units. Yeah, that marketing, new bundles, etc. would cost money, but I think that would have meant more good than bad for Sega. I just don't think that Sega had nothing past 1996 that could compete. Their 1997 library wasn't the greatest, but it was better than their Western sales that year suggest! And that's even more true for '98.

The alternative would be to just give up then and there. I like the Dreamcast, it's a great system, but their strategy with it didn't make sense, not with their financial situation.

 

[fvng]

You must not have played Iggy's Wreckin' Balls yet. I assure you, that is a very good Acclaim-published game (Iguana-developed).

One game changes nothing. acclaim was second only to LJN in terms of the quality of their output. There's a reason they are gone

 

[nkarafo]

One game changes nothing. acclaim was second only to LJN in terms of the quality of their output. There's a reason they are gone

Turok, Shadowman and Forsaken were great though.

 

[Boogiepop]

Since the Saturn's Japan exclusive games seem to come up a good bit in this thread, I figure it's worth noting that N64 also had at least a couple, such as the original Animal Crossing, the first two Custom Robo games, and of course Sin and Punishment.

Also, people keep saying N64 only had crap like Clayfighter and Quest 64 for Fighting games and RPGs, but at the very least there was Smash Bros. and Paper Mario. The system may have been very weak in those genres (and Paper Mario didn't arrive till way at the end of the console's life), but it's not like it didn't at least have those significant games. It's also a shame to see people boiling the console down to "just 10 good games." Even as someone who's been a little down on the console lately (after revisiting Banjo Tooie and starting back up DK64, I'm starting to wonder how Rare was ever considered great, but there's at least Kazooie to keep me from calling them pure crap, and I still need to do a playthrough of Conker and Jetforce Gemini), I can recognize it has a solid, though not exceptionally large, library beyond that.

But more importantly: someone mentioned Japanese Saturn collecting maybe being cheaper? I don't mind playing in Japanese (yay for learning the language), so that may finally be a way to approach the console if true.

 

[nkarafo]

Also, people keep saying N64 only had crap like Clayfighter and Quest 64 for Fighting games and RPGs, but at the very least there was Smash Bros. and Paper Mario.

Mace the Dark Age and MK4 were great too. I'm not comparing them with the likes of Fighters Megamix but certainly Clayfighter isn't the representative of fighting games on N64

There was a lack of RPGs though, although that came as a blessing for me. I really don't like Jrpgs (consoles had mostly that and only a few western RPGs).

 

[tronic307]

Japanese Saturn. The Saturn NA lineup was wack, period. I wonder whose idea it was to leave most of the 2D games in Japan? I beat all the good games on the N64, but to me it felt like the Atari 2600 of 3D. Wasn't really into 3D until 6th gen.

 

[kunonabi]

Mace the Dark Age and MK4 were great too. I'm not comparing them with the likes of Fighters Megamix but certainly Clayfighter isn't the representative of fighting games on N64

There was a lack of RPGs though, although that came as a blessing for me. I really don't like Jrpgs (consoles had mostly that and only a few western RPGs).

The Fighter Destiny series was pretty damn solid.

 

[oneida]

But more importantly: someone mentioned Japanese Saturn collecting maybe being cheaper? I don't mind playing in Japanese (yay for learning the language), so that may finally be a way to approach the console if true.

in every instance, the jp release is cheaper than the NA or pal release. notable instances include Panzer Dragoon Azel, Burning Rangers, Shining Force III, Magic Knight Rayearth, Mega Man 8, etc... if it's expensive in the west, it's cheap in the east, where these games weren't rare at all.

 

[fvng]

Turok, Shadowman and Forsaken were great though.

ugh Turok, hated it. Ugly game, poor level design, and first person shooters with excessive/needless platforming elements are always bad, even back then. Just awful. Never played Shadowman though i can't comment on that, but they didn't have the best output.

There was a lack of RPGs though, although that came as a blessing for me. I really don't like Jrpgs (consoles had mostly that and only a few western RPGs).

Keep in mind the n64 was pretty hands off on RPGs during a time when there was a JRPG Renaissance happening on the ps1, even if you didn't like jrpgs, they were weren't delivering on an important front during that time. Your only option was Quest 64 which was total trash.

 

[Boogiepop]

in every instance, the jp release is cheaper than the NA or pal release. notable instances include Panzer Dragoon Azel, Burning Rangers, Shining Force III, Magic Knight Rayearth, Mega Man 8, etc... if it's expensive in the west, it's cheap in the east, where these games weren't rare at all.

Oh awesome. I'll definitely look into that when I get some spare cash then. After all, it doesn't look like Sega's going to port them anywhere anytime soon!

 

[sixteen-bit]

Keep in mind the n64 was pretty hands off on RPGs during a time when there was jrpg Renaissance happening on the ps1, even if you didn't like jrpgs, they were weren't delivering on an important front during that time. Your only option was Quest 64 which was total trash.

Ogre Battle 64 was nice. But yeah PS1 had Ogre Battle and Tactics Ogre for that matter.

 

[kunonabi]

in every instance, the jp release is cheaper than the NA or pal release. notable instances include Panzer Dragoon Azel, Burning Rangers, Shining Force III, Magic Knight Rayearth, Mega Man 8, etc... if it's expensive in the west, it's cheap in the east, where these games weren't rare at all.

Pretty much why I just buy Japanese Saturn games. Well, that and American Saturn cases are terrible.

 

[nkarafo]

ugh Turok, hated it. Ugly game, poor level design, and first person shooters with excessive/needless platforming elements are always bad, even back then. Just awful.

Yes you already expressed your opinion. Turok was still a great game though. I absolutely loved it. It was critically acclaimed and tons of people love it. Now, i don't like Nights either, i actually hate it. Its one of the most overrated games for me. It was awful. It made me sick. I'd rather have needles shoved in my eyes... see? But i'm not pretending that its not a good game for many people or it wasn't an important Saturn release. Its just not my cup of tea.

Shadowman was like Zelda's evil twin (N64 magazine quote). A HUGE game with great atmosphere. It was like an adventure/horror game. But some of its parts were truly sickening

Spoiler

especially the prison with those exploding head inmates

It was also one of the few games that had a nice high resolution mode without sacrificing the frame rate.

I disagree that they had such awful output. Was it the greatest? No, but your LJN comparison is just hyperbole.

Your only option was Quest 64 which was total trash.

There was also Ogre Battle and Paper Mario. People already mentioned those, i have no idea why you ignore them and you only mention the worst one? It seems to me that you try so hard to underplay anything good on the console while being loud about its bad games and making hyperbolic posts.

 

[Clemsontigers35]

I only had an N64 at the time, so I have to say N64. It was clear, even then, that the upper echelon of games were really a preview of things to come, like Goldeneye, Mario, Banjo Kazooie, etc. That said, Saturn had some great games as well. The big problem that Saturn has (actually, I think Xbox one has the same issue), is that Sony's console could do everything that they did, sometimes even better, and at a lower cost. For virtua fighter there was tekken. For virtua cop, sony had time crisis. Tomb Raider and Resident evil are better on ps1, etc. Back then, and even today, its tough to sell saturn over PS1. Though Sega Rally will always be a classic

 

[Gaylord Sweetwood]

Sega Saturn by a country mile. 2D fighters + jrpgs. If Sega got their act together and didn't try to mimic Sony with Stolars policies he initiated, then I would have easily picked it over PSOne.

 

[Arkam]

When I was a kid, the Sega Saturn may as well not even have existed. Not I, nor any of my friends even cared about the system.

Too busy playing Mario Kart 64 and Goldeneye deathmatch.

Easy answer.

Done and done.

OP is kinda insane to even be making this comparison. They miss this gen entirely? PSX Vs N64 was a fierce battle and not as one sided as they believed. Saturn was a footnote at best

Had both PSX and N64 and spent 75% of my time on my N64.

 

[nkarafo]

Keep in mind the n64 was pretty hands off on RPGs during a time when there was jrpg Renaissance happening on the ps1, even if you didn't like jrpgs, they were weren't delivering on an important front during that time. Your only option was Quest 64 which was total trash.

Keep in mind that the Saturn was designed as a 2D powerhouse during a time when 3D graphics Renaissance happening on that generation, even if you don't like 3D games and you prefer the 2D ones they weren't delivering on an important front during that time. Your only option was some inferior 3D engines with no transparencies and incredibly small draw distances compared to the competition.

Everyone makes mistakes.

 

[fvng]

I disagree that they had such awful output. Was it the greatest? No, but your LJN comparison is just hyperbole.

Nah, I still stand by that. Look at their games in the last 10 years of their existence, just really poor shit, and growing up in the 80s and 90s, they always had a terrible reputation with video games, they pumped out shitty licensed games like it was nobody's business.

There was also Ogre Battle and Paper Mario. People already mentioned those, i have no idea why you ignore them and you only mention the worst one? It seems to me that you try so hard to underplay anything good on the console while being loud about its bad games and making hyperbolic posts.

That's true, and Paper Mario was excellent. One of the few n64 games I like. I don't mention Ogre Battle because I prefer the ps1 version, but at least it made an n64 appearance. Games like that were like 1% of 1% of the N64's library.

 

[Tiktaalik]

Sad to say that among my friends Saturn was not in the conversation in any way whatsoever. I recall whenever I read about some Saturn game in a magazine it was always like I was reading about something from a far away country that I'd never experience.

Finally at some point I did some group project with someone at school and went to his house to work on the project and I was amazed to see a Saturn at his house. We played a bit of Tomb Raider as I recall.

 

[nkarafo]

Nah, I still stand by that. Look at their games in the last 10 years of their existence, just really poor shit, and growing up in the 80s and 90s, they always had a terrible reputation with video games, they pumped out shitty licensed games like it was nobody's business.

RARE also has an awful output the last 10 years. We are talking about the N64 here though. Then RARE was among the best. Acclaim/Iguana had a decent outpun on the N64. But you haven't played most of their games there, even though you seem to have a strong opinion. I would recommend Shadowman but there is a slightly better version on Dreamcast/PC. Don't touch the shitty PS1 version though.

 

[fvng]

Keep in mind that the Saturn was designed as a 2D powerhouse during a time when 3D graphics Renaissance happening on that generation, even if you don't like 3D games and you prefer the 2D ones they weren't delivering on an important front during that time. Your only option was some inferior 3D engines with no transparencies and incredibly small draw distances compared to the competition.

Everyone makes mistakes.

Right but I'm talking about N64's lack of RPGs, I wasn't even talking about Saturn in any respect regarding RPGs, I think you got your wires crossed somewhere

RARE also has an awful output the last 10 years. We are talking about the N64 here though. Then RARE was among the best. Acclaim/Iguana had a decent outpun on the N64. But you haven't played most of their games there, even though you seem to have a strong opinion. I would recommend Shadowman but there is a slightly better version on Dreamcast/PC. Don't touch the shitty PS1 version though.

I'm not clear on why you're bringing up Rare, so they had terrible output too, and?

I'm aware of those Acclaim games' reputations and general reception, even though I didn't play most of them and my personal experience with Acclaim is pretty negative at best

 

[A Black Falcon]

One game changes nothing. acclaim was second only to LJN in terms of the quality of their output. There's a reason they are gone

Sorry, but Acclaim's N64 games were mostly fantastic. The Turok series, Shadow Man, Iggy's Reckin Balls, Forsaken 64, All-Star Baseball... those are all great! Acclaim may have been mediocre at best on the 3rd and 4th gen consoles (NES, SNES, etc.), and on the PS1 as well, but on the N64, they were one of the best on the platform.

And yes, the Turok games are great. They're all high on the list of the best 5th gen console FPSes, no question. Turok 2 is probably the most popular one, but 3 is actually my favorite, followed by 1 and then 2 (and Rage Wars, the arena battle one, is good too). They're all quite good though. I just find 2 too hard...

I didn't play Acclaim's 3rd or 4th gen (or PS1) games, so from my memories, Acclaim was a good developer. They were great on the N64 and good on the GC/Xbox/PS2 (as long as you avoided their bad stuff like BMX XXX), and then they sadly went under.

Oh yeah, and Acclaim published some great Saturn games as well -- not only Mortal Kombat and NBA Jam games, but Acclaim was also the US publisher of great titles such as Darius Gaiden and Galactic Attack. They released some bad Saturn games as well, but they also had some good ones.

Nah, I still stand by that. Look at their games in the last 10 years of their existence, just really poor shit, and growing up in the 80s and 90s, they always had a terrible reputation with video games, they pumped out shitty licensed games like it was nobody's business.

Acclaim shut down in 2005, so their "last ten years of existence" would be 1996-2005. The first half of that, 1997-2000, was Acclaim's best period ever, their N64 days when they made some of the best third-party games on the system. N64 Acclaim was as good as just about anybody. In the 6th generation they did decline, and that ended up resulting in their bankruptcy, but still they made some good games here and there -- XG3 is great, XGRA is one of the best racing games ever made (it's my #1 favorite racing game of the 6th generation!), Turok Evolution is decent, The Red Star and Vexx are pretty good, etc.

Since the Saturn's Japan exclusive games seem to come up a good bit in this thread, I figure it's worth noting that N64 also had at least a couple, such as the original Animal Crossing, the first two Custom Robo games, and of course Sin and Punishment.

Yeah, the N64's Japan-exclusive library is relatively small at only ~80 games, and certainly can't come close to the Saturn's Japan-exclusive library, but there are some pretty good import N64 games. The best ones would be those you mention there, plus also Bangaioh, probably. Some others worth a look include Susume! Taisen Puzzle Dama, Wonder Project J2, Shiren the Wanderer 2, the two N64 Puyo Puyo games, SD Hiryu no Ken (Flying Dragon (N64)'s sequel), and more.

Also, people keep saying N64 only had crap like Clayfighter and Quest 64 for Fighting games and RPGs, but at the very least there was Smash Bros. and Paper Mario. The system may have been very weak in those genres (and Paper Mario didn't arrive till way at the end of the console's life), but it's not like it didn't at least have those significant games. It's also a shame to see people boiling the console down to "just 10 good games." Even as someone who's been a little down on the console lately (after revisiting Banjo Tooie and starting back up DK64, I'm starting to wonder how Rare was ever considered great, but there's at least Kazooie to keep me from calling them pure crap, and I still need to do a playthrough of Conker and Jetforce Gemini), I can recognize it has a solid, though not exceptionally large, library beyond that.

DK64 is one of the best 3d platformers ever made. I've always loved it and I always will. Absolutely exceptional game across the board, and it's my favorite Rare game on the N64 as well. I agree about Paper Mario, though -- yeah, that's a very good game, one of the better RPGs of its time for sure. It's too bad that there aren't any other good JRPGs on the N64 (Ogre Battle is a strategy game), but at least there's one great one.

But more importantly: someone mentioned Japanese Saturn collecting maybe being cheaper? I don't mind playing in Japanese (yay for learning the language), so that may finally be a way to approach the console if true.

Japanese shmups are very expensive, but yeah, a lot of other games are cheaper in Japanese.

 

[nkarafo]

I'm not clear on why you're bringing up Rare, so they had terrible output too, and?

Because your "bad output the last 10 years" argument doesn't make sense. Just because a developer is bad now doesn't mean they were always bad. And i mentioned RARE as an example.

 

[fvng]

Because your "bad output the last 10 years" argument doesn't make sense. Just because a developer is bad now doesn't mean they were always bad. And i mentioned RARE as an example.

I am saying they were bad for a large portion of their existence... I'm not talking about the last 10 years from NOW (2004 to 2014) I'm talking about the last 10 years of their existence, let's just wrap this up saying I wasn't big on their games, and I'm arguing that they were always bad, especially going as far back as the NES era, but whatever. Even if their n64 output was above average, I wasn't a particular fan of theirs because I am judging their entire output for the lifespan of the company. Even if they were a solid publisher for the the duration of the n64 era, that's still a small fraction of their existence.

Sorry, but Acclaim's N64 games were mostly fantastic. The Turok series, Shadow Man, Iggy's Reckin Balls, Forsaken 64, All-Star Baseball... those are all great! Acclaim may have been mediocre at best on the 3rd and 4th gen consoles (NES, SNES, etc.), and on the PS1 as well, but on the N64, they were one of the best on the platform.

Acclaim shut down in 2005, so their "last ten years of existence" would be 1996-2005. The first half of that, 1997-2000, was Acclaim's best period ever, their N64 days when they made some of the best third-party games on the system. N64 Acclaim was as good as just about anybody. In the 6th generation they did decline, and that ended up resulting in their bankruptcy, but still they made some good games here and there -- XG3 is great, XGRA is one of the best racing games ever made (it's my #1 favorite racing game of the 6th generation!), Turok Evolution is decent, The Red Star and Vexx are pretty good, etc.

I respect your opinion, I'm not going to tell you your tastes are wrong, at best I can only say that I wasn't a fan of their output.

 

[Boogiepop]

DK64 is one of the best 3d platformers ever made. I've always loved it and I always will. Absolutely exceptional game across the board, and it's my favorite Rare game on the N64 as well.

In some ways I was kind of almost feeling it at first and liking it more than Tooie at least (though that's not saying), but jeez are there some serious issues with that game. I'll just leave it at saying that much of today was spent wandering around the terrible lighting of the factory and lagoon levels (this game is ungodly dark), and trying to deal with broken stuff like Beaver Bother and trying to take an underwater Banana Fairy picture through bars. But that's a story for another thread, once my friends and I manage to finish off the game.

At the very least I can give Rare props for Goldeneye and Perfect Dark, though. I don't find them much fun nowadays just because the way controls have advanced makes them feel awkward, but I can definitely respect what they were, especially at the time of release.