The Sega Saturn topic

[Danny]

I would like to applogise about the long post and about to write.... here goes!

If you wish to comment on anything Sega Saturn please do so, if you've played the games mentions i would also like to know what you thought of them.

In case you did'nt know, I a huge Sega Saturn fan. Now this topic is not going to be one of those "\/\/hy 73h S47u|2n 0wnz j00!" topics, no this is just going to be a post on the reasons (or more like the games) that I still keep my Sega Saturn plugged into my T.V screen.

When I first got my Sega Saturn 'way back when' I used to think that the Sega Satun's hardware was the shizzy. I figured out after about a year of owning the machine I learned to dredd the back-up battery failures that the machine would have due to the battery running out (duh?) so I diecided that it would be best to purchase a back-up cart which could hold an astonishing 8mb of save files on! Although it was a worth while purchase this cart was also quite unstable and would currpt itself once in a blue moon, fairly annoying I think you'd agree.

But the games that I brought for the system would make up for the hardware short commings.

The holy grail of the saturn in my opinion was it's multiplayer games. There is a small trillogy of games was of games which I brought which is the reason why I still play this system with my friends even today because no other system has been able to replicate the experiance since.

Deathtank Zwei
http://www.ja011b8931.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/airstrike.jpg
Many people over looked this game, many wanted on a demo disk, but the simple matter of fact was Labotomy were cleaver, they wanted you to buy there games thus to unlock this with ease you had to buy Duke Nuke'em and another Labotomy ported game (either quake or powerslave) or the other option... shoot every toilet in the game on Duke Nuke'em! Deathtank itself was awsome, many considered it to be the main game over Duke Nuke'em, ask anyone why they would want to purchase Duke Nuke'em on the Saturn today and they would proberbly say "for Deathtank!...".

The game itself could host upto and amazing seven players at once, the idea was pretty much like cannon ball crossed with worms. the objective was to destroy the other players using weapons that you have purchased for you're rather simple looking tank. There was one problem though, everyone else's objective wa the same and to make things even more intresting every one could move and fire at the same time making the game much more frantic and fan to play as any Deathtank player will tell you... nothing, not even worms come close to the excitment that this game brings.

The game was divied into round just like counter-strike say (some of which would be speacal for instants blitz rounds would enable the player to reload much quicker than normal!)... every round the player would start with the weapons they brought and any they did'nt use from previous rounds. The weapons and equipment range from the humble machine gun, used for close quater fights to jet packs usfully for flying out of the way of heavy bombardment or airstikes. the ultmate weapon of corse was the almighty "Death Head", which was pretty much only avoidable if you placed beind the firing player or if you had a sheild, the weapon was exspensive by very effective in the right hands and could turn the tide of the match with ease.

Although you could buy weapons just like in counter-stike before the round starts you would need money. thats were killing the enemy and winning rounds comes into play becuase doing both would give you money, money of which you could buy more weapons for you deathtank but not all weapon can be brought. Sometimes during the rounds you might see white dot inbeded into the ground, these are weapons pick-ups! pick them up and you'll have a weapon that can-not be brought in the shops, most of which are more powerfull than the stuff that you can get though the item menu shop heh.

Deathtank Zwei happens to be my favourate game on the Sega Saturn and it really shines when played... also this game had the the coolest theme tune ever! (http://freespace.virgin.net/death.tank/multimedia/Intro.mp3)

Saturn Bomberman
Defenatly the greatest verson of Bomberman ever made, this game kept to it's 2d roots unlike the rather sub-standard 3d versons that came out on the N64 and PSX (thats my opinon sorry lads). Not only did this game stick to it's roots Hudson decided to push the boat out with this game with great anime cut scenes in story mode which made playing single player have more purpose and gave the player that extra "drive" to complete the game, no other Bomberman game has had these anime cut scenes since, (which is a shame because they were really good!) also more game modes (anyone remeber the endurance mode were you dressed up in Dragonball Z attire?) and even a massive 10 player mode which you really needed a big T.V for.

Everything about this title oozed quality and that it really showed that Hudson put a lot of effort into the Saturn port. In multiplayer mode the players were greated with differnt looking character just like of the megadrive verson (not just differnt colors), the single player mode was awsome because you could play it co-op with a friend and the levels were huge, many of which had little feature and mini-games to play to earn extra points and such.

Hudson also included the animals for the player to play with in single and multiplayer modes, just like the megadrive verson. each with there own specal ablities these creatures were important for the player to win the game since even the usless pink monsters that just dances (that right it's dances!) is usefull as an shield for the player if they get cought out by a bomb blast! (ok that sounded cruel and I would'nt condone using animals in real life as "anti bomb blast shields" but i think these monsters were brought up for such a purpose! :) )

Now if you have a Sega Saturn and a multi-tap get this game and even if you don't have a multi-tap and you still love bomerman get this game because once you do, you'll reliase that this particular verson shines though the other remasterings offered up by the other modern consoles.

Guardian Heroes
http://www.sega-saturn.com/saturn/software/thumb/gh-02.jpg
An awsome fighting game that had lashings of RPG eletments thrown in. This is proberbly the most crazyest scrolling fighting ever! The amount of enimies, explosions and flying rabbits on the screen could confuse a lot of people but thanks to it's fatal fury style 3 planes system, the game keeps a lot of the depth of most 2d fighting games (thus the fighting does not get repetitive!) while keeping the fanticness and carnage of the scrolling beat-em-up's have (so you don't get bored!).

This game had two main modes free battle mode (1-6 players) and Story mode (1-2 players) I first go into single player in detail.

Story mode allowed the player to choose from 4 characters (a 5th would become avilible when the player completed this mode once!) wach with there own fighting styles, stats and personalities. The story starts were the group of heroes find a magical sword, but then get attacked by the royal troops hunting for the sword, a Red knight breaks though one ofthe side pannels of the Inn you staying at and warns you to run away, your advanture starts from there... and when I mean adventure and do mean adventure, though out the game you are presented with choices, depending on what choices you take will take you to differnt levels and ultimatly differnt endings.

The game's story is turly fantastic (unlike my spelling), you get a real sense of importance in deciding what to do next and you neevr fell disapointed or cheated when it comes to the differnt endings all of which very wildly. Another thing about Story Mode is that it has a lot of replay vaule, to obtain characters in "free battle mode" you must try out differnt choices during story mode so that you may encounter differnt enimies for example if you choose to meet randy's master in the forest you'll be fighting woodland creatures while if you were to attack the castle head on you'll proberbly unlock gaint robot's and banishers (enemy healers) which is very cleaver stuff really.

Near the beging of story mode, the play obtains "the golden warrior", a monster which aid's the player to fight the baddies which is really cool. You can give him cammands from "don't attack" to "defend me" and right down to "go berzerk" were the monster unleshes his most powerfull moves one of which called "genercide crush" which is an huge Explosion which is very damaging but can only be done once a level but take hed, if the golden warrior kills the enimies you won't get exp, so choose which mode you set the warrior on carfully!

As you play in story mode (and in free battle although you're exp is pre-determined on that mode but the player can set the levels of each character) you can level up you're character RPG style and depending on what stat you increase will change how powerfull his magic is or how quick the character wil become for example, this gives the game some real depth and the player wil have to think carfully in story mode about what stats to increase otherwise they may end up with a rather generic but weak character.

In free battle mode there are over 64 fighters to play as although you only have 6 to start with but that can be changed by either entering the debug mode cheat or completing story mode a few times (well a bit more than a few ifyou want all the characters! heh). These battles are one of battles and are often very fun to play. The good thing is about this game is that every character in the game no matter how big or small, are al playable in this mode, complete with all special moves. The characters range from huge village gods, end baddies, Gobblins, Trolls, Royal Knights, Robots the "story mode heroes" even Randy's rabbit is playable and of course the standard villagers whom are fairly weak in compairson to the other charcters.

The game for me, still keeps me from play many of the modern games that I've purcahsed just because of it story mode, although we (i mean me and my friends) often have 6 player battles on this game in between play games of Deathtank and halo 2.

thats the end... for now, need a break going to write up about the "single player games" that kept me hooked at some point in the feature

remeber if you got something to shout about which concerns the Sega Saturn then do it here :)

[WorknMan]

A friend of mine had a Saturn and played it quite a bit. IMHO, the biggest strength of the Saturn was actually the import titles. Get yourself a 4-in-1 (a gameshark device that was also a RAM expander and I forget what else) and you can play Japenese imports such as Bubble Symphony, Radiant Silvergun, Japan Pro Wrestling (awesome multiplayer wrestling game!) and arcade-perfect translations of most of the Capcom 'vs' titles that were released at that time (the PS versions were all crap). Plus, the Japanese Saturn controller absolutely owned - if you play fighting games on your Saturn and don't have one of these, you're missing out.

As for American titles, I remember when I saw Panzor Dragon Zwei for the first time - my jaw hit the floor. What a beautiful game. Also, IMHO, Guardian Heros was grossly overrated - I never understood the appeal.

To me, the Saturn was much like the Dreamcast - a system with some great games that never got the attention it deserved. I think if the system had a bit more 3D prowess, it would've gone a lot further. IIRC, when the company that made Tomb Raider (forget the name) decided not to port the second game over to the Saturn, that was the beginning of the end.

[Darksol]

Guardian Heroes ownz on so many levels I don't where to start. That game alone practically justifies owning a Saturn in my opinion.

[Chewchilla]

IMHO, the biggest strength of the Saturn was actually the import titles. Plus, the Japanese Saturn controller absolutely owned - if you play fighting games on your Saturn and don't have one of these, you're missing out.
Playing import titles was pretty much my only reason for owning a Saturn - Dead Or Alive, Sega Ages, the Capcom collections, the shooters, and all of the great 2D fighters. If you are into 2D fighting games, you need to own a Saturn AND a Dreamcast.

[Danny]

Yeah... dead or alive was much better on the saturn was'nt not? :)

Also have you Guardian Heroes players noticed Nicore's the female healer's name? I sure that's a typo for Nicole lol

[Rhetrynyl]

I have a Saturn, and it is probably the last console that had real magic on it for me. The Dreamcast came close once or twice, but everything on the Saturn was magic. Even if it was crap, it was still magic.

I bought Gaurdian Heroes and... I still can't see what the fuss was all about. I hate random fussy battles like that, it's why I don't like Super Smash Brothers either.

Best games for me were Sega Rally (still the best racing game ever, if you think othewise you are wrong). Virtua Fighter 2 was Godly. I went from a SNES to Virtua Fighter 2. That kind of transition doesn't happen any more. I admit the game did make me break controllers and I even ruined the disc in a fit of rage, but it was still amazing at first.

Tomb Raider 1 was a truly phenomenal game. It is cool to bash Tomb Raider now, but TR1 was utterly amazing from start to finish. I can even play it now. I know the PSone version was better, but I didn't have a PSone so I don't care.

Even though I never liked Panzer Dragoon (at all, ever) or ever understood why I was supposed to like NiGHTS, or for that matter, understand what I was actually supposed to be doing in the game AND I hate RPGs with a violent passion I still rank the Saturn in the top 5 consoles.

[WorknMan]

I went from a SNES to Virtua Fighter 2.

VF2 was the bomb. Fighting the last boss under water and the music that went along with it was amazing.


Tomb Raider 1 was a truly phenomenal game. It is cool to bash Tomb Raider now, but TR1 was utterly amazing from start to finish.

I played the Saturn and the PS1 versions. I didn't like them then - I don't like them now. IMHO, as far as 3d platformers go, SMB64 was much better, and that's not saying much.

[Shane R. Monroe]

I had a good time with I, NINJA until the levels started repeating, etc. proving what era of video games it REALLY belonged in - but overall, I don't care for 3D platformers.

[Rhetrynyl]

I never really liked Mario 64. I bought an N64 and got Goldeneye with it, didn't pick up SM64 until much later and by then the hysteria surrounding it had gone. I played it at the wrong time and found a game that was quite boring. By then I had owned Tomb Raider for a few years.

I played a demo of TR first and loved it. I hadn't thought much of it before that so it was truly a case of getting my hands on it made me like it. I CAN'T HELP HOW I FEEL DAMNIT! *runs away crying*.

[B_Rik_Schitthaus]

Guardian hero's is an amazing game (see my post in wow moments) ive played through almost every route i even got super han :). Good choice danny.

I bought a saturn as soon as it came out and although it soon became very apparant that the playstation was going to become the dominant platform i never regretted my decision.

Im always looking for magic in games that indefinable element that some consoles and games have and some dont. I did eventualy buy a playstation in 98 when the support for the saturn had gone.

The playstation was a dead experience for me there was no magic in any game that i played at all. But the saturn had it in droves with games like nights, guardian heros, panzer dragoon etc.

The saturn has become my main focus for collecting with about 40 games (and still going) For me it is on par with the experience that i had when i first bought an amiga. Pure Magic.

[Turbo2Xs]

Best games for me were Sega Rally (still the best racing game ever, if you think othewise you are wrong).

There was something really cool about this game that even years later the graphicly superior SR2 hit the PC just doesn't have. In 2p mode with the time delay set to 2 secs, you could race for well over an hour against your opponent... :eek: Real edge of your seat stuff.

I also liked Bug3d as it was pretty novel for a platformer to be sorta3d then. And Bust-A-Move was awesome 2. Better than perfect arcade (NG?) port.

Other than a handful of others, I wasn't to taken with the Saturn. That could be because I spent $480 on it the day it came out...

Still got it tho :D

[Danny]

Another game that I managed to pic up about a year ago was Parodius Deluxe, damn I love that cd!... both Parodius and Fantastic Journey (Parodius 2) were on that disk and both were ported over correctly and with a decent and easy to navigate menu screen unike some retro collections!

Me and a few friends also had a league of "robopit" recently... that was funny as hell and I even managed to win, we would of played Virtua On but for some reason we have really taken to Robopit just because it's simple yet with the ablity to customize you're own robot... I have a built gaint yellow roborabbit armed with a sword and a shield... you don;t see that every day :)

I could of purchased Buring Ranger the other day... but decided not to bother because although I knew it was a fire fighting game and it was supposed to be "awsome!" I've never really read or played much of it!

Anyway best get back to playing MGS2 substance so that I can get on and play MGS3 :)

[B_Rik_Schitthaus]

ahh Burning rangers the saturns swan song, same here it didn't really appeal to me. But i'll buy anything if its cheap enough. How much did parodius delux set you back?

[jamcat]

Nah, was too pissed off at Sega for getting burned by them on the 32X that I wasn't going to give the Saturn a chance.

[Turbo2Xs]

Jamcat;

Then why bother commenting on this thread? The thread isn't "Do you like the Saturn?"... Stop hijacking threads... but - Oh wait... maybe thats how you get such a high thread count, makes you feel cool and you sleep better.

/rant off

[Deanster]

saturn bomberman was like the best bomber man ever made, guardian heroes ( go randy ) and dragon force pritty much own :D

[Danny]

Parodius Delux I obtained for £7 from ebay... you can generaly get it for around £10 now and I would strongly recommend this game to you but then again I'm a big Parodius/shrump fan! :D

Oh yeah I almost forgot, Saturn bomberman is my fave' then it's closely followed second by the Neo-Geo verson with cpu helpers great graphics/sounds/enemy design for the time.

[B_Rik_Schitthaus]

yeah ill look out for parodius. Looks like the Gamestation bargins have dried up, House of the Dead £25.00, sonic R £20 and discworld £13. But they've got 3 copies of actua soccer at £2 each ooooooo :p

[Danny]

...But they've got 3 copies of actua soccer at £2 each ooooooo :p

DEAR GOD NO!!!

lol no seriously, I think I'll actually keep with my end of the bargin and acutally write up about some of those other Saturn games that were not 6+ players some time soon... :)

[B_Rik_Schitthaus]

lol, dont worry i'd rather smear my scrotum in jam and dip it into a mound filled with brazillian fire ants.

I reacently got saturn bomberman (disc only :( ) for £2.67. Defiently the best one made. I wonder if anyone used the 10 player mode with all 10 players. God help you if you died first.

I tried it on a 14" screen lol "your that spec of dust in the left corner".

[davykelly]

I love my Saturn....I'm on my second one now.

Death Tank Zwei and Saturn Bomberman are the best single screen multi-player (>2 players) games going...

Sega produced two great Olympic sports games for Saturn - Athlete Kings and Winter Heat.

I have all 4 Parodius games too. The Deluxe pack and also the amazing Oshaberi Parodius (complete with commentators!) and Sexy Parodius. Other great shooters - Radiant Silvergun, Layer Section , Darius Gaiden and Darius 2.

There's the well known greats such as Sega Rally, VF2, Panzer Dragoon Zwei, Fighter's Megamix and Nights, and the Capcom vs games but there's also some weird and wonderful stuff too....Twinkle Star Sprites, Stakes Winner 2 and Baku Baku.

Then there's Virtua Cop (1 and 2)......

The Saturn also got great ports of Puzzle Fighter and Tempest 2000.

[lion2]

Virtua Fighter 2 and Guardian Heroes are easily my favorite Saturn games. Damn I wished Sega would've made Virtua Fighter 4 multiplatform.

[Flare]

is there a decent Sega Saturn emulator out there? I missed out on that machine, which everybody speaks wonders of.

I wish there was a Saturn emulator that you could run in the Dreamcast.

[essexlad1975]

I gotta admit, I place the Saturn as one of my favourite machines, I think I've even got it kicking around somewhere along with my games *lol*

I think my best games that were released on the Saturn had to have been Sega Rally Championship, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Torico, Sonic Jam, Mysteria, Cyberia, Command & Conquer and Ultimate MK 3.

[B_Rik_Schitthaus]

is there a decent Sega Saturn emulator out there? I missed out on that machine, which everybody speaks wonders of.

I've tried about 4 saturn emualtors and none of them work very well. Saturne is generally considered the best although most games (if you can find them) only reach the menu screen. But give it a try they might have updated it since i last looked.

[davykelly]

Apparantly because the Saturn architecture is so complex (twin processors not including the graphics processor) and the fact that all sorts of weird tricks were done to squeeze 3D out of a 2D machine means that the emulation has to be perfect to get anything working and also PCs aren't powerful enough to do the job yet.


....and what about the Saturn controller - one of my favourites.

[Danny]

Fighter's Megamix is common? Most people I speak to about the Sega Saturn and it's great beat-em-up's most people only meantion VF2 or Last Bronx. (that's right no Fighting Vipers for you!...)

Well anyways Fighter's Megamix and Dragon Force as well as a few others games that apeared on sega's black wonder will be apearing on this thred shortly in review form! :) (if you can call them that!)

[davykelly]

Fighter's Megamix was everywhere in the UK - was it not so widespread in the US? It really is a huge game (wrt to game modes and characters etc). My understanding is that it was done instead of VF3 (there are some VF3 moves in there).

[B_Rik_Schitthaus]

lol the daytona car pwned. Stick it in fighting vipers mode and it was of the best 3d beat em ups of that generation.

[Deanster]

saturn was a classic console that had some amazing numegs in them. It was the best 32 bit system but ywt due to advertising it never made it,sega was really bad for that... :(

[TheGrandPubaa]

is there a decent Sega Saturn emulator out there? I missed out on that machine, which everybody speaks wonders of.

I wish there was a Saturn emulator that you could run in the Dreamcast.
http://ljsdcdev.sunsite.dk/

This guy is porting Yabause to the Dreamcast. So far it boots the bios, but no games run. Still, we might see a Saturn emu eventually. Best system for it, really.

[Danny]

Part Deux - The reasons why I played the console solo.

This might have to be a mutiple post since it's going to be long and also very time consuming for me to wright up - sorry!

Now it's not every day that you have you're friends around for a bit of a video gaming session, I'm dedicating this section to the games that I mainly played either by myself or with one of my siblings/closest friend whom pretty much came around my house all day.

PLEASE NOTE THAT GAURDIAN HEROES WOULD BE ON THIS LIST BUT I'VE ALREADY COVERED IT BEFORE IN THE PREVIOUS POST!

Dragon Force
http://i149.exs.cx/img149/7676/df4bw.gif

Dragon Force is the RPG game practically justify's owning a Sega Saturn own it's own thanks to it's breath taking 2d graphics and unique gameplay that has not been reproduced buy any other game on any other system... in short if you want to play a game like this one, you'll need a Sega Saturn!

Dragon Froce's storyline is very complex since each of the main characters, their henchmen and even some of the not-so-relevent and all of secret characters have a background story of there own. The basic story is this, you as on of the 7 chosen to be in the "Dragon Force" must lead you're country (each of the seven have there own country) and unite against the evil Goldark whom has declaired war on evey state in the land while you must also defeat the long forgotten evil of the land which was defeated by the original "Dragon Force" with the other 6 "Dragon Force" members... so in other words now would'nt be a good time to go book my on hoilday on the island then?! :)

Eventualy when you complete the game a few times you'll unlock the two "rouge states" as fully playable counties and if that was'nt enough there are many, many hidden characters to obtain ranging from petty theifs leaders to vampires which command mighty zombie armies and there are even dragon lords to find, each character can be gain expirance, learn new spells and be upgraded with medals so that they can command more troops in the battle field, Dragon Force is one very deep RPG let me tell you.

Now on to the gameplay. The gameplay of Dragon Force is split into two parts since it's real time but also turn based (weird eh!). Before the turn starts you have to deal with domestic affairs which is not as boring as it sounds believe it or not. Basically this is the time of the game were you can upgrade you're kingdom, you can give out medals to generals whom you think deserve it, integrate captured enemy general's and ask them to join you're army, search the castle grounds for items/generals and even upgrade the castle themselves allowing them to hold more "spare" troops for you're commanders to use. At this time of the game even though this can be done anywhere in the game would be the ideal time to save the game since "in turn" saves tend to take up more memory card space than the "before turn" saves.

Also sometimes before the turn starts or when you've captured a leader you are presented with storyline which is accompanied with wonderfully anime pictures which complement the story. This give the game more feel, unlike FMV which you can say will age fairly badly over time depending on it's quality, the quality of Dragon Forces anime stills will always look good no matter how many times you look at them even after all this time.

Now for the actual "in turn" gameplay. Basically you are presented with a map of the area with everybody's castles being shown and all of which are connected by roads. The Idea is that you're supposed to capture the other 6 members of the "Dragon Force" who are all leaders of the initially controllable countries at the start of the game so this means you'll have to invade their kingdoms and capture them. Depending on what leader you're playing as some leaders will have a different attitude towards you and will either fight with every inch of there lives or actually be glad you came into their castle and will hand over control of there kingdom to you. Now for some might say the most important part of the game, the battles. To initiate a battle basically all you have to do is assemble a team of 1-6 generals and send them in to the enemies castle. To win a "fight" you must defeat the general, problem he/she will almost always have troops protecting them!

Now each general controls a different type of solider (there 13 different types of troop if I remember correctly) and they have different strengths and weaknesses so it's up to you to select the best generals to take out that castle because in the later battles this will really matter when every commander you meet will have 100 solider's at there command. The battles are also very tactical and requires you to give "orders" to you're troops thus meaning you don't get to control them directly but hey this is a tactical RPG not a slash-em-up!

These battles as you can see above are very epic and even though you can only give orders to you're troops and can't actually move yourself, you can how ever use "spells" providing you have enough "spell points". These range from the now famous sonic boom's which wipe out hordes of enemy troops to spells that resurrect you're own troops. Spells are basically another factor to consider when fighting an general because if he/she has sonic boom and you charge you're troops in a tight formation in the center of the screen, you're screwed quite frankly!

I really can't say enough about how much this game means to Sega Saturn fans well maybe I can. Dragon Force [pal] fetches £50 ($100) on ebay these days, and that's if you're getting it cheap because once in a blue moon it reaches £70 ($140). I've had this game since I got my Sega Saturn, I'm on my second copy since my friend scratched the first one (I was not a very happy bunny let me tell you!) and is still my most played single player Sega Saturn game today thanks to how uniqe the game is... I strongly recommend at least playing this game over a friends house once, then you might understand what I'm talking about.

sidenote
I'm aware that there is a new PS2 clone of this game comming out. I also know of Draong Force 2 which was far greater than the first but only relaised in Japan since the Saturn was on the way out in the west at the time of relase in the East which is a real shame because it could od made Sega's system go out with a BANG!. The reason Why I don't have Dragon Force 2 is simple, I really like the story behind these games and since the story is in Japanese and my understanding of that language is fairly patchy I've not bothered to pick it up. But on the plus side Sega are planing to re-relase a Dragon Force but I'm not sure if it will make it to the west, I'l put my money on yes since the game is such a classic...

http://ages.sega.jp/df/

check it out! :)

[Danny]

p.s: yeah that took me 2 hours to write that... no more for today lol

[Turbo2Xs]

I am going to play this once I get a battery and a save cart. The manual that comes with game is very nice too. Its a shame so few games come with spiffy manuals anymore...

[Danny]

yeah the manual is cool, tells you a lot about the characters which you might of not of known by just playing the game.

[B_Rik_Schitthaus]

I am going to play this once I get a battery and a save cart.

ahh the saturns achillies heel :p

a Wonderful, passoinate and detailed review thankyou.

I really dont know if i can afford to buy the saturn original (although i'd love to)
i dont suppose you know how accurate to the original the PS2 version is?

[Danny]

ps2 verson is in fact better than the saturn verson with more characters and detailed and hi-res graphics, definatly worth a look if it comes out to the west...

[Danny]

something intresting for us saturn fans...

Do you want the full experance of playing Dragon Force just like on the Saturn on you're ps2, well you might want one of these!

http://www.rakuten.ne.jp/gold/sls/sp/

I want one! :)

[Danny]

Oh btw, I know this is kinda of a shameless plug but my website has some good saturn related MP3's and gaming reviews (ok only 3 reviews for now but that will grow, trust me), most of which are better than the ones put up onto this board.

[Infamous]

Dragon Force was great
Another one was Iron something (can't remember the name), war game, it was great.
Sega Rally, VF 2, Guardian Heros,

What I really can't figure out, and what is sure to boggle the minds of many is....
why they never ported E.T. for the 2600 to the Saturn.

The Saturn should have been able to handle that game. Oh well.

[B_Rik_Schitthaus]

Sega Rally, VF 2, Guardian Heros,

I love sega rally I still havn't played a driving game that comes close to it.

[Danny]

Yeah, was anyone else dispointed with Sega Rally 2?

To me anyway, it did not have the speed or the thrills (behave!) that I got playing the origanal.

Another game that I played a lot and still do with friends is a game called Robopit. OK so it was also released on the PSX but I always had it for Sega's machine because it was a damn site cheaper and easier to find than it's PSX counter part.

Well anyway think of Fightbox but done like 7 years before and is actualy very good fun to play. We still have championchips on that game now and again.

p.s: FIGHTERS MEGAMIX, YEAH!

[B_Rik_Schitthaus]

Yeah, was anyone else dispointed with Sega Rally 2?

To me anyway, it did not have the speed or the thrills (behave!) that I got playing the origanal.

Yeah your right it didn't have the same feel to it as the first one the handling felt way off. I did'nt feel the stages had quite the same level of design as the first either. It's still a good game though.


p.s: FIGHTERS MEGAMIX, YEAH!

Outstanding game I played 30 matches in a row last night. Hyper mode makes the game explode :D

[davykelly]

I am going to play this once I get a battery and a save cart. The manual that comes with game is very nice too. Its a shame so few games come with spiffy manuals anymore...

You only need one or the other...the battery powers the console's internal memory storage (lasts at least 2 years). The cartridge (which has a LOT of memory) does not require a battery - in the console or otherwise.

[Danny]

well actualy you do need both because one day you're battery will go out, and all your saved data will be lost. Also the memory carts are not a relable as the Sony Playstation cards, it's best to back your data up on both just in case one packs up!

[BurgerTyme]

I love sega rally I still havn't played a driving game that comes close to it.

I agree. After reading this thread I want to go out an get another Saturn just to play Sega Rally. I remember playing hours on end just trying to shave a 1/2 sec. off my time. Burnout 3 would be the only "racing" game I like more than Sega Rally.

[davykelly]

well actualy you do need both because one day you're battery will go out, and all your saved data will be lost. Also the memory carts are not a relable as the Sony Playstation cards, it's best to back your data up on both just in case one packs up!

But you can use a cartridge without the battery (games give you the option to use system or cartridge memory)....Having no battery can be a pain because the system clock comes up when you power up though.

That's funny - I've have had no problems with the cartridge - didn't know there was an issue with them. The internal memory isn't big enough to have many game saves on anyhow. I use it for my export games and back that up to the 5-in-1 cartridge save area every so often (which doesn't support direct saves from games).

[Danny]

Mate trust me, I have three firends nearly rip out there own hair because the card curpted itself or earsed itself, they are not very stable hence thats why I brought a thrid party one which in the 3 years I've had it, it's not earsed itself or curpted itself once yet. *touch wood* Yeah those 4 or 5 in 1's are very usfull, in fact that is the memory card that I'm using atm the only problem being though that you can't save on Panza Dragon Saga on it though because it don't like AR's in the mem card slot.

Been playing the pardious deluxe pack today on the Sega Saturn, man the more I play that game the more and more I think that the creators (konami) were on drugs or wacthin way to much manga lol

[B_Rik_Schitthaus]

I agree. After reading this thread I want to go out an get another Saturn just to play Sega Rally. I remember playing hours on end just trying to shave a 1/2 sec. off my time. Burnout 3 would be the only "racing" game I like more than Sega Rally.

Do it now there about $25 with sega rally and you wont regret buying it. Lol I've been playing it for 10 years trying to shave 100ths of the times

[davykelly]

Mate trust me, I have three firends nearly rip out there own hair because the card curpted itself or earsed itself, they are not very stable hence thats why I brought a thrid party one which in the 3 years I've had it, it's not earsed itself or curpted itself once yet. *touch wood* Yeah those 4 or 5 in 1's are very usfull, in fact that is the memory card that I'm using atm the only problem being though that you can't save on Panza Dragon Saga on it though because it don't like AR's in the mem card slot.

Been playing the pardious deluxe pack today on the Sega Saturn, man the more I play that game the more and more I think that the creators (konami) were on drugs or wacthin way to much manga lol

Wow....had no idea...Maybe the problems were sorted out for PAL land. I've honestly never experienced or heard of those problems.

Parodius is one of my favourites......I also have Oshaberi and Sexy Parodius for Saturn too.
Oshaberi is if anything even weirder than Fantastic Journey - it has running commentary!

Sexy Parodius introduces branching levels depending on mission success or failure (e.g. collect X coins). Excellent stuff.

[Danny]

Yeah is "Sexy Pardious" called "Fantasic Journey" because if so I have it in the Pardious double pack I got, if not it looks like I'll be trawling the internet later lol.

Yeah I got Sega Rally (hey who has'nt!), playing that game two player is a real joy, the races thanks to the "catch up" system are always very close.

EDIT: "Fantasic Journey" is in fact "Parodius Da!"

[davykelly]

OK - as far as I know , this is the naming:

On the Parodius Deluxe pack you get 2 games: the original Parodius (called Parodius Da in Japan) and the sequel Fantastic Journey (Gokujou Parodius in Japan).

There are 2 other titles available for Saturn:

Oshaberi Parodius (sometimes called chatting Parodius because of the mad commentary)

Sexy Parodius - the last in the series, and one of the most beautifully crafted 2D shooters I have ever played.

Go here http://www.armchairarcade.com/aamain/forum_viewtopic.php?7.8391 for my review of the series on Saturn I posted to the Armchair Arcade forums.

This naming is for Saturn only - for instance the SNES got the original Parodius (which may have SNES exclusive levels) and I THINK its version of Fantastic Journey is called Ultimate Parodius, which has some levels from Oshaberi Parodius thrown in ..very confusing.

[chrisbid]

kindof on topic, last weekend i found my best thrift store find ever

on a shelf, i found a bare oval-button sega saturn with a 30 dollar price tag, i replied with a blah, and kept looking around. in a shopping cart of new unshelved merchandise, there was small box of lame SNES sports games, however in that pile there was a 5-in-1 saturn cart with no price tag. this alone made purchase of the saturn worthwhile, as those carts sell for 25 new. i dug further in the basket and found a transparent (skeleton?) import controller. that clued me into the fact that the previous owner of the saturn was on the hardcore side. so i purchased all three of these for the 30 dollar price tag on the saturn.

once i got home, everything worked great, but on a whim, i tried to play a backup copy of radiant silvergun. low and behold the muther booted right up. i had just nabbed a modded sega saturn at a thrift store for a paltry 30 bucks. obviously, i already had one (why else would i have a backup game to try out), but this will make for some excellent trade bait if i go philly classic show in the fall (im in ohio, so a west coast trip for CGE would be a lot more expensive)

[B_Rik_Schitthaus]

good find, well done :D

[WorknMan]

i dug further in the basket and found a transparent (skeleton?) import controller. that clued me into the fact that the previous owner of the saturn was on the hardcore side. so i purchased all three of these for the 30 dollar price tag on the saturn.

Was that a Japanese Saturn controller? I swear - that controller is probably hands down the best non-analog 6-button controller known to man. It truly is a thing of beauty :)

[davykelly]

I love the Saturn controller in all its forms...there seems to be 2 versions here in PAL land - the later version is a slightly better shape with a bigger movement on the shoulder buttons...the dpad on both is a delight.

I have a Sega arcade stick too for Saturn (brilliant build quality) which is great for fighters and shmups but I don't use it all that much.

Haven't made much use of the 3D controller outside of Nights.

[B_Rik_Schitthaus]

The saturn pad i use (the one with the two bumps at the back) used to do my hands in but now i think its a great pad. I never got the analog pad its one of the few regrets i carry :p

[Danny]

I Haven't made much use of the 3D controller outside of Nights.

You don't have burning rangers then? :P

Yeah I'm gonna have to do some more reviews on some Saturn games soon, I've good a nice collection so it should not be to hard. :)

[Danny]

Here is something I know that all you Sega Saturn fans out there can not be without.

http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-1v-15-Action%2BReplay%2B4M%2Bplus-70-1b2.html

Was just checking this site the other day and found this, I drolled a bit, looked at the price and then I clicked the "add to basket button". Very good price for what the card does and it's new! My order should be reaching me within a week so I let you people know how it goes then :)

p.s: I also maanaged to get a brand new NeoGeo Pocket Colour link Cable for less than $2 lol, ROCK ON!

[Danny]

Oh I got my Real Bout fatal fury Speical, Samurai Showdown 4, Dungeons and Dragons collection and street fighter alpha 2 a couple of days ago but I've only really got the chance to play 'em today and wow they are wonderful games, I'll try and get a review on them up A.S.A.P!

[Danny]

Yey sorry I'd thought I'd bring this topic back from the dead to announce I brought two classic/great shumps for my Sega Saturn. DoDonPachi (the first ever "manic" shump apreantly) and "Sexy Paridous" for the Sega Saturn, both of which I'm really looking forward to owning/playing since I've been playing both on MAME for some time now and only really just gotten around to purcashing them.

[davykelly]

Here is something I know that all you Sega Saturn fans out there can not be without.

http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-1v-15-Action%2BReplay%2B4M%2Bplus-70-1b2.html

Was just checking this site the other day and found this, I drolled a bit, looked at the price and then I clicked the "add to basket button". Very good price for what the card does and it's new! My order should be reaching me within a week so I let you people know how it goes then :)

p.s: I also maanaged to get a brand new NeoGeo Pocket Colour link Cable for less than $2 lol, ROCK ON!

I have one of these and it is excellent. The only downside with it is that although there is a big piece of backup memory for game saves it is not supported in software (i.e. as if a normal save cartridge was in the slot). This means I have to use the Saturn's on-board save area for import games. Its no big deal though. I just use the 4-in-1's game save area for backing up the on-board area - the memory management front-end in easy to use.

[Danny]

Yeah I know about the whole "reset and back up the data onto cart" deal with these cards but at least the memory card don't delete itself like the offical ones do... very annoying.

I going to review another Sega Saturn game soon, proberbly Real Bout Fatal Fury Special. It's a very nice game, totaly makes buying one of those little bad boys worth it :)

[Danny]

Oh just for you Saturn fans I've brought you all a very funny but festive japanise sega saturn advert... enjoy!

http://gameads.gamepressure.com/tv_game_commercial.asp?ID=918

oh and for anyone thinking that they can just not play a sega saturn, beware because Segata Sanshiro will come after you and make you play one (in his own special little way!)

http://gameads.gamepressure.com/tv_game_commercial.asp?ID=33

Happy Holidays!

[lunar]

Hi Danny, how did Saturn port of DoDonPachi (sequel to DonPachi) compare to the arcade version?

The action replay 4in1 cart is a very cool device, although there have been 1 or 2 occasions where the console hanged while I was exiting the file manager and when I resetted some saves had been wiped :(

A bit late but has anyone played Christmas NiGHTS? It was a freebie that Sega distributed during the '96 holiday period. Although in essence it was a 1 level demo with a christmas theme, there were alot of unlockables and easter-egg stuff. For example, you would get different scenery depending on the time of day you were playing, also there were some unique messages/title screens if you played on certain days such as Christmas Day or New Year's Day (you can also adjust the internal clock to see them :)). Some other things included artwork and being able to run around the level as Sonic (novelty :)).

[Darksol]

A bit late but has anyone played Christmas NiGHTS? It was a freebie that Sega distributed during the '96 holiday period. Although in essence it was a 1 level demo with a christmas theme, there were alot of unlockables and easter-egg stuff. For example, you would get different scenery depending on the time of day you were playing, also there were some unique messages/title screens if you played on certain days such as Christmas Day or New Year's Day (you can also adjust the internal clock to see them :)). Some other things included artwork and being able to run around the level as Sonic (novelty :)).

I played it once over at my cousin's place. Freakin awesome! The game was slick, and was a perfect posterboy game at the time for analog control.

[B_Rik_Schitthaus]

A bit late but has anyone played Christmas NiGHTS? It was a freebie that Sega distributed during the '96 holiday period. Although in essence it was a 1 level demo with a christmas theme, there were alot of unlockables and easter-egg stuff. For example, you would get different scenery depending on the time of day you were playing, also there were some unique messages/title screens if you played on certain days such as Christmas Day or New Year's Day (you can also adjust the internal clock to see them :)). Some other things included artwork and being able to run around the level as Sonic (novelty :)).

Yep I got it free with mean machines sega and it is a fantastic novelty, love the music and the cheesy christmas stories. The time and date based features where nice, including the 25th of december 2099 nuclear winter one.

[Danny]

Yeah I got Xmas Nights to free with a magazine. The game is worth £10 now which is fairly shocking indeed even though it's a brillant game.

Oh yeah to answer some of the other questions that have been asked before and I'm sorry for not answering earlier.

Yeah with the memory card problem sometimes that happens due to two reasons. Either the card is either not been firmly placed in the backup card slot properly or you ended up getting a dodgey pre '98 card which have been reported not to work properly i.e dodgey saving and not working with the 4mb ram required games. If you card is a later try and get a refund from the seller, most will understand the situation if it's not a fully working card.

Oh about DoDonPachi. The gameplay is exsact but the explosions are a little pixelated but meh slightly pixelated explosions have never killed a game off before and it should'nt stop you from getting this game although sayinf that they look a lot better in the "TATE" mode ;) . Seriously though if you have an import friendly PSX then get it for that system since it's explosions are a little more accurate. The Saturn have an exclusive Saturn mode which has one extra level in it and it also has a TATE mode which means you can play it on veritcal standing t.v's just like in the arcade.

I hope that helps.

[Flare]

Anyone knows what is the status of Saturn emulation? Is it running 100%?

Can anyone recommend what the best emulator is?