Here's a look at the new & improved homebrew Doom for Sega Saturn. It's still early in its production, so expect further improvements to follow in the future. But what's here sure looks terrific, far better than the retail disc that was infamously kneecapped by John Carmack.
Also, just for kicks, I'm also posting a video of Doom on Atari Jaguar, playing on a CRT for extra style points. This is an excellent translation that was not only programmed by Carmack himself, but also served as the code base for all future console and portable translations, including PlayStation and GameBoy Advance. Let this be your reminder that Atari Jaguar is awesome and you should probably own one by now.
A Side-by-Side Comparison of Duke Nukem 3D for Sega Saturn and Duke Nukem 64 for N64 (Nintendo 64).
A side-by-side comparison between the original version released in 1997 and the 2025 hack version that improves the original's framerate.
In this video, we take a side-by-side look at Daytona USA running on the Sega Saturn compared to the original arcade version.
Many people argue that this port left a negative first impression of the Saturn's 3D capabilities, especially when compared to how the PlayStation handled its own arcade ports at the time — like Ridge Racer on the PS1, for example.
It's up to you to decide: did this port really hurt the Saturn's reputation, or is it overblown?
A side-by-side comparison between the first and last versions of Daytona USA for the Sega Saturn. On the left is the 1995 Vanilla version, and on the right is the 1997 Circuit Edition, released exclusively in Japan.
Side by Side Comparison with Dual Longplay of Street Fighter Alpha 2 Game for Sega Saturn and PS1 (PlayStation) on Real Hardware.
A side-by-side comparison between J. League Jikkyou Honoo no Striker for Sega Saturn and Jikkyo J. League: Perfect Striker for Nintendo 64.
0:00 Opening
00:59 Intro
04:53 Alien Trilogy
09:35 Congo The Movie
13:24 Doom
17:52 Duke Nukem 3D
21:56 Ghen War
28:10 Hexen
31:56 House of the Dead
37:50 Gundam Side Story
40:33 Powerslave
45:43 Quake
51:05 Special Riot Police
54:18 Virtua Cop 1 & 2
1:00:28 Outro
If all those count (ok stretching it with the rpgs lol) then Gungriffon and sequel should really be there near the top tooOut of the games from that video, Lobotomy Trilogy is the best, as we all know. Alien Trilogy is also excellent. Gundam Side Story Trilogy is fantastic & absolutely kicks. Hexen isn't bad but the frame rate could be better. Virtua Cop 1&2 are fantastic, and House of the Dead is great despite being a rush job.
Ghen War is awful but at least they tried. Congo is just awful. Doom was deliberately sabotaged by Carmack (of all the times for Romero to go on vacation). I never played Special Riot Police, it seemed slight but maybe it's okay-ish? Like I'd stop playing Powerslave to find out.
Other first-person Saturn games of note:
- Magic Carpet. Get the JP version, which improves the graphics a bit & adds analog control.
- Tunnel B-1. This is a great 3D showpiece for Saturn. Controls need a little tweaking & I wish the racing wheel was supported, but this game looks & plays great, best on CRT.
- Scorcher & AMOK. Two excellent show-off games for Saturn. Yeah, AMOK is 3rd person but I wanted to sing its praises.
- Mechwarrior 2. Excellent adaptation of the PC classic. It's another great Saturn game that features all those cool lighting & shading effects that 90s kids were obsessed with. It's better than its PSX cousin.
- Shining the Holy Ark. I love this one, my favorite dungeon crawler on Saturn.
- Dumgeon Master Nexus. Another great dungeon adventure, an update of the Atari ST classic with some terrific polygon visuals.
- Baroque. Baroque! What more needs to be said? It's a Saturn masterpiece.
- Dragon Master Silk. Another dungeon crawler, this time featuring anime girls. Not as polished as the others but still very good.
Personally I found some value in BLAM! Machinehead too, the bleak atmosphere was immersing and it's overall like a heavier slower paced AMOK basically, in first person. Flying games like Stellar Assault SS (ok it's probably the best of this bunch by a big margin, I should have mentioned it way earlier like other stellar games in these lists) and Thunderstrike/hawk II too. Darklight Conflict is decent (and the leaked The Last Dynasty is okay). Space Hulk I guess was not great but a game like that with more freeform less corridory action gameplay could be rad, loved the 3D render sprites.Ooh, yeah, I knew I was forgetting at least a couple more. Gungriffon is fantastic, the sequel aha some good moments. And Bulk Slash has that fantastic translation with all the bells and whistles.
Personally I found some value in BLAM! Machinehead too, the bleak atmosphere was immersing and it's overall like a heavier slower paced AMOK basically, in first person. Flying games like Stellar Assault SS (ok it's probably the best of this bunch by a big margin, I should have mentioned it way earlier like other stellar games in these lists) and Thunderstrike/hawk II too. Darklight Conflict is decent (and the leaked The Last Dynasty is okay). Space Hulk I guess was not great but a game like that with more freeform less corridory action gameplay could be rad, loved the 3D render sprites.