• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Sega Saturn Appreciation and Emulation Thread

Xbudz

Member
Ul4mUSi.jpg


Love my Saturn.
 

cj_iwakura

Member
I had a thought; any interest in a monthly 'Finish a Saturn game' thread like the PS1/PSN thread?

I have the perfect candidate if so, but it's kind of rare.
(Albert Odyssey: Legend of Eldean)
 

woodypop

Member
I had a thought; any interest in a monthly 'Finish a Saturn game' thread like the PS1/PSN thread?

I have the perfect candidate if so, but it's kind of rare.
(Albert Odyssey: Legend of Eldean)
I don't have Albert Odyssey, but I think I might be interested in something like this.

Link to the PS1/PSN thread? (to see how this works)
 

Teknoman

Member
Yes, I believe this is the case, too. I think I've got a third party S-video cable around somewhere.

It supports S-video, but I think you have to have an actual Saturn S-video cable (with saturn input), and not just a normal cable. Unless thats what you meant by third party.

I had a thought; any interest in a monthly 'Finish a Saturn game' thread like the PS1/PSN thread?

I have the perfect candidate if so, but it's kind of rare.
(Albert Odyssey: Legend of Eldean)

As long as you dont pick Panzer Dragoon Saga :p I'd be up for it too (the thread in general, dont have Albert Odyssey yet).
 

woodypop

Member
It supports S-video, but I think you have to have an actual Saturn S-video cable (with saturn input), and not just a normal cable. Unless thats what you meant by third party.
Yeah, it has an actual Saturn input, but I don't think it's an official SEGA cable. If I remember correctly, I got it off ebay years ago and didn't get any official packaging with it. I'll have to try to dig it out when I'm at home later.
 

Ramune

Member
I had a thought; any interest in a monthly 'Finish a Saturn game' thread like the PS1/PSN thread?

I have the perfect candidate if so, but it's kind of rare.
(Albert Odyssey: Legend of Eldean)

That just might do it. I've been meaning to finish that game. I'm probably just reaching the midpoint, but I can't recall for sure. Just hope I have my save still. Either on the Action Replay, but if it's on my Dragon Force Memory cart, I'll probably have to start over. No big deal, but that AR cart's connectors are a bit bigger than official carts and might make other carts unreadable since the pins are too far apart. This may be pretty simple, but is there a way to realign the cartridge slot's connectors?

Yeah, it has an actual Saturn input, but I don't think it's an official SEGA cable. If I remember correctly, I got it off ebay years ago and didn't get any official packaging with it. I'll have to try to dig it out when I'm at home later.

Likewise, it's what I have hooked up to my TV as well. Not official, but works just fine. I'll take ANYTHING above Composite if it's supported.
 
Finally got a copy of Marvel Super Heroes Vs. Street Fighter. Needed to get it since I wasn't entirely sure if I had the Action Replay cart that has problems playing it. Guess I can buy Vampire Savior without hesitation now.

That is the case for Outrun (there's a remixed CD audio option only in the Japanese version), but I don't know if Space Harrier or After Burner II have any differences between the US and individual Japanese releases...

Afterburner II's standalone JP release definitely had an option for slightly remixed music. I think Space Harrier was identical for both regions, though.

2) does it support s-video right outta the box? ive seen cables on ebay but ive also seen adapters that needed soldering, which is kind've a no-go for me. i'm not looking to invest in upscalers or SCART at the moment, so s-vid is about as good as i think i can get.

Saturn definitely does S-Video out of the box. Good luck finding the cables, though. They seem to pop up online less frequently with each passing year.

3) what all do i need for accessories? i was told this would cover most of my bases (RAM, storage for saves, import use, cheats etc), was debating the DC looking NiGHTS controller as well, and i also so the official arcade stick for cheap. any other suggestions?

Just make sure to get a Model 2 Saturn controller along with the Action Replay (and 3D Controller, if you plan on getting NiGHTS down the line) and you'll be set.
 

Teknoman

Member
Yeah, it has an actual Saturn input, but I don't think it's an official SEGA cable. If I remember correctly, I got it off ebay years ago and didn't get any official packaging with it. I'll have to try to dig it out when I'm at home later.

Cool, in the CRT thread someone posted about third party saturn s-video working just fine.

Finally got a copy of Marvel Super Heroes Vs. Street Fighter. Needed to get it since I wasn't entirely sure if I had the Action Replay cart that has problems playing it. Guess I can buy Vampire Savior without hesitation now.

Saturn definitely does S-Video out of the box. Good luck finding the cables, though. They seem to pop up online less frequently with each passing year.

Heh same situation/test I used for my action replay. Going to have to hunt down some cables too...especially since Racketboy is sold out. On a related topic, I need to find a SNES/N64/Gamecube S-video cable. Official are too rare, and I havent seen any Hori.
 
Heh same situation/test I used for my action replay. Going to have to hunt down some cables too...especially since Racketboy is sold out. On a related topic, I need to find a SNES/N64/Gamecube S-video cable. Official are too rare, and I havent seen any Hori.

I was lucky enough to find someone the Saturn cables on eBay back in December. Hopefully they get some more in stock soon.

So, here's a question to anyone who purchases JP region games (Which is probably nearly everyone that regularly posts in here, heh): Do you care about having the spine card with your games? I got my first one today with MSHvSF, and while I don't really care if I have them one way or the other, I know some people that absolutely won't buy a game if the spine card isn't a part of it.
 

Teknoman

Member
Not really. It's cool if it comes with the spine card, but there really isnt anything to do with them after you get the game. I guess you can slide it in the front if it doesnt make the cover look funny.
 

cj_iwakura

Member
That just might do it. I've been meaning to finish that game. I'm probably just reaching the midpoint, but I can't recall for sure. Just hope I have my save still. Either on the Action Replay, but if it's on my Dragon Force Memory cart, I'll probably have to start over. No big deal, but that AR cart's connectors are a bit bigger than official carts and might make other carts unreadable since the pins are too far apart. This may be pretty simple, but is there a way to realign the cartridge slot's connectors?

Sometimes if you pull the cart forward(i.e. towards you) it reads it again. I have to tinker with mine, but it eventually reads.


I almost got to the end when I bought it, but I've never finished it.
I don't have Albert Odyssey, but I think I might be interested in something like this.

Link to the PS1/PSN thread? (to see how this works)


http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=511094


And I don't own PDS either, so I wouldn't pick that. :p
 

IrishNinja

Member
okay, thanks for the help so far guys! yeah, a few cheaper s-vid cables were sold several weeks back, nothing at the moment sadly.

the unit i'm looking at, the seller says the battery's dead. any idea which one it uses, and is it easy to replace? maybe i should've done this for my poor dreamcast so it'd stop asking me what today's date is all the time
 

woodypop

Member
the unit i'm looking at, the seller says the battery's dead. any idea which one it uses, and is it easy to replace? maybe i should've done this for my poor dreamcast so it'd stop asking me what today's date is all the time
Yup, easy-peasy to change. Uses the common CR2032 battery.
 
okay, thanks for the help so far guys! yeah, a few cheaper s-vid cables were sold several weeks back, nothing at the moment sadly.

the unit i'm looking at, the seller says the battery's dead. any idea which one it uses, and is it easy to replace? maybe i should've done this for my poor dreamcast so it'd stop asking me what today's date is all the time
Saturn uses a CR2032 battery, which is cheap and easy to replace. There's a door on the back of the console that opens to replace it.
 
Sega Saturn is so good. Does anyone still regularly stream Saturn games? I came across a Saturn Bomberman tournament stream once.

Best ever.
 

Kainazzo

Member
Because I like to fill up expansion slots, is there any place around that still sells Saturn VCD cards for MPEG decompression (this)? Should I ever see one pop up on eBay, what's a rational price range for it?
 

Teknoman

Member
Sega Saturn is so good. Does anyone still regularly stream Saturn games? I came across a Saturn Bomberman tournament stream once.

Best ever.

Maybe not streaming, but once I get some decent equipment I might put some youtube stuff up. I know its not the same as something live though.
 

IrishNinja

Member
damn...trickier finding a saturn s-video cable than i thought! i had bad timing with those auctions.

looking again the system i'm eying brings an RF adapter...ugh, i gotta find this thing quick, any ideas?
 

Teknoman

Member
I saw some S-Video cables earlier...but they were UK auctions only... If I find anything, i'll give you guys a heads up.


I wonder if they're this hard to find in Japan as well...
 
I grew up with pretty much all the major systems and most of the best games for them, and I'm still of the opinion that the saturn was/is the greatest console ever made. Even though when I was younger I'd lean more towards the snes or ps1 but as time has made me realize which games aged well and which didn't. Saturn had probably the best console game ever made which was Guardian Heroes and the second best console game ever made which was Panzer Dragoon Saga (from a game play and design perspective for both). And while it had some other games that still hold up as do other systems, the fact alone that I feel the way I do about the games for the system is what makes it so amazing for me. It's odd because growing up I liked sega, nintendo and sony but was never a huge sega fan, but really liked the games on sega systems a lot. It wasn't until I was older when I realized just how important an impact they had on me.

It always angered me growing up and even now how people will disregard sega from their glory days. They really have no idea how good sega had it, and hell even sega had no idea how good sega had it. :p
 

IrishNinja

Member
You can at least get composite AV cables from racketboy http://www.racketboy.com/store/sega-saturn/sega-saturn-av-cables.html

He carries the s-video cable but it shows out of stock.

yeah, good looking out - i just added the s-video cables to my wishlist, hope they email me if they get any! it's a great site.

I saw some S-Video cables earlier...but they were UK auctions only... If I find anything, i'll give you guys a heads up.


I wonder if they're this hard to find in Japan as well...

thanks a lot Tekno, i'd appreciate it man. and to the last line - i forget where i read it, but i wanna say the people that were selling several often said they'd brought them from japan? could be wrong.

it doesn't look nearly as bad as say gamecube component cables, just that stock is low at the moment. i mean, here's 4 from somebody in my home state for less than $20 just a week or so ago.
 
I guess I'm glad I upgraded to S-Video when I did?

I mean, shattered illusions of transparencies from dithered meshes aside, it was a pretty good upgrade. Not that composite, in the Saturn's case, was all that bad, but still, I like my pixels as clean as can be, but wasn't really in the market for a SCART RGB->component converter, so this was a good compromise.
 
Picked up Vampire Savior and a replacement Model 2 controller (My old one's been broken for a while, so I've been using my Model 1 & 3D Controllers instead) today. Gonna have to see if I can print out a back cover & spine since I'm really anal about having those with my games.

i mean, here's 4 from somebody in my home state for less than $20 just a week or so ago.

That's the seller where I bought mine from, actually. Around December or so, they had about 20 of 'em in stock. Hopefully they get some in soon.
 

woodypop

Member
Picked up Vampire Savior and a replacement Model 2 controller (My old one's been broken for a while, so I've been using my Model 1 & 3D Controllers instead) today. Gonna have to see if I can print out a back cover & spine since I'm really anal about having those with my games.
I am absolutely floored that the US got a localization of Night Warriors back in the day. That game was so freaking awesome, and the fact that it included a mode to view hitboxes was absolutely unreal.
 

Stooo

Neo Member
Hey guys, is the Bubble Bobble / Rainbow Islands collection worth picking up? Are we talking arcade perfect conversions?
I thought is was quite rare but seems to be around only £12 on eBay these days...
 

GulAtiCa

Member
Bust bought Mega Man X4 CIB for $66. Looking forward to that showing up.

Are there any good shooters for the system? (I don't mean FPS, I mean side shooters, etc)
 
Haha I do not want to debate my friend but I prefer Thunder Force V over Soukyugurentai while Layer Section trumps both of them on dollar-to-awesomeness ratio ;)

Yikes, TFV? Damn. I'm a huge Thunder Force and Technosoft fan but aside from the music Souky has TFV beat. For one, it runs smoothly and doesn't look like ass. :p

Layer Section / Galactic Attack is a good choice too. Not as cheap as it used to be.
 
Soukyugurentai is my favorite shmup of all time. Something really cool about it. Incredible layers of 3D rendered sprites give the game a sense of depth that I only experience with Layer Section (when it comes to sprite based shoot em' ups). I love the weird ass 1970s space-punk aesthetic and the ridiculously non-aerodynamic ships zipping and spinning about while that Japanese industrial music pulses in the background. The difficulty is just right. Not as insane as Garegga, but still very Raizing. Oh and it's nice to play a vertical shmup that doesn't require you tossing your TV on its side every now and again.
 
What's the best shmup for someone who doesn't really ever play shmups? I'm always interested in improving my Saturn library, but there's an entire genre that's really well represented on the Saturn that I haven't touched. The closest thing I have to them are the Panzer Dragoon games, which are lock on rail shooters.
 
What's the best shmup for someone who doesn't really ever play shmups? I'm always interested in improving my Saturn library, but there's an entire genre that's really well represented on the Saturn that I haven't touched. The closest thing I have to them are the Panzer Dragoon games, which are lock on rail shooters.

Layer Section is great, and not too crazy.

Guardian Force is also a good choice, not expensive and has an interesting control scheme.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnZQOArzztI
 
Layer Section is great, and not too crazy.

Guardian Force is also a good choice, not expensive and has an interesting control scheme.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnZQOArzztI

Guardian Force is like $80. It's rather expensive.

I fully support Layer Section as a first shmup attempt. Not too hard and really captivating.

I would also consider Cotton 2. Very beautiful and beginner friendly with its life bar.

Some might think of this as a crazy idea, but I've enlighten many peoples to the shmup sub-genre by showing them Dodonpachi. I can't recommend it enough. Might seem overwhelming at first, but it's really not as the game is more than fair with the bombs provision.
 
Man, I can't agree with Guardian Force or Cotton 2 for newbie shmup recommendations. Guardian Force is expensive and a bit generic, and Cotton 2 is expensive and tough.

Start with Galactic Attack if you can't play JP games, or Soukyugurentai or Gunbird if you can.
 
Man, I can't agree with Guardian Force or Cotton 2 for newbie shmup recommendations. Guardian Force is expensive and a bit generic, and Cotton 2 is expensive and tough.

Start with Galactic Attack if you can't play JP games, or Soukyugurentai or Gunbird if you can.

Cotton 2, although certainly not cheap, isn't all that tough, well not as much as Souky anyway. Also, calling Guardian Force generic but then going on recommending Gunbird feels weird to me, to say the least. I would put Gunbird in the same field as Strikers 1945 in term of "generic-ness".
 
Top Bottom