My analysis of Saturn's failure

For the indoctrinated it may have been Earth shattering but for me it was just another item in a long line of failures following Super Mario Bros. 3.

Back then, I knew one person who had tried it and felt just like you. But damn for the rest of us it was a whole new world. Tomb Raider and Crash were just starting to figure things out, and sm64 leapfrogged them completely.

The key was the level design. Nobody really had that figured out. The inspiration was there in most games that had open maps like metroid and fps games that used items to gate things and get you around, but even that was changed appreciably for SM64. Those worlds were super dense and the way the stars got more obtuse and not simply "harder" as you went along in a given world was brilliant.

Sometime in the last 30 years you must have noticed your opinion on this is an outlier!!
 
Back then, I knew one person who had tried it and felt just like you. But damn for the rest of us it was a whole new world. Tomb Raider and Crash were just starting to figure things out, and sm64 leapfrogged them completely.

The key was the level design. Nobody really had that figured out. The inspiration was there in most games that had open maps like metroid and fps games that used items to gate things and get you around, but even that was changed appreciably for SM64. Those worlds were super dense and the way the stars got more obtuse and not simply "harder" as you went along in a given world was brilliant.

Sometime in the last 30 years you must have noticed your opinion on this is an outlier!!
Objectively speaking those worlds are relatively barren while being too geometric and the way acquiring stars and entering new levels is segmented kills the pacing. The biggest issue though is moment to moment gameplay. Say what you will about Crash Bandicoot's level design but controls were on point. Same can be said about Banjo Kazooie though its level design was also incredible by comparison. While I can understand being blinded by the light at the time of release you need nostalgia goggles to overlook all of its flaws even a few years after.
 
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Objectively speaking those worlds are relatively barren while being too geometric and the way acquiring stars and entering new levels is segmented kills the pacing. The biggest issue though is moment to moment gameplay. Say what you will about Crash Bandicoot's level design but controls were on point. Same can be said about Banjo Kazooie though its level design was also incredible by comparison. While I can understand being blinded by the light at the time of release you need nostalgia goggles to overlook all of its flaws even a few years after.

I play it all the time! Well, considering how long it's been. My last time was on the 3d all stars release. It plays great. I actually think it's a little better than odyssey thanks to the levels.

Never really played banjo, though... Maybe I should catch up on that.
 
the important is 1995, Arc the Lad and Namco Museum Vol. 1, Rayman and MK3 are games from 1995 as well as Astal, Golden Axe The Duel and Shinobi X. Do you realize that if Namco Museum Vol. 1 and Arc the Lad sold more than 1 million copies, would it be too much to ask for Sega's 2D games to also sell 1 million copies? On the Sega Saturn, only three games (Sega Rally, Daytona, and VF2) outsold Sonic 3D Blast, a game that sold 700,000 copies.

3d blast was the 4th best seller? No fucking way!

That shows as well as anything what a miss it was to not have a real 3d Sonic inside the first year. Damn.

Thanks to this thread I was in Sonic jam last night and running through the challenges in Sonic world. That this is like 1/3rd of the way there. Nights is another third and Idk what the other third is. I'm trying.
 
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