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Sega Saturn Appreciation and Emulation Thread

IrishNinja

Member
see i remember asking vic if he called any friends with trucks to come through, but i could've sworn he said something about the majority of it having to be actually destroyed =/
 

piggychan

Member
So what is 'the' JRPG to play on the saturn... can or should this particular JRPG be neglected? or is it a must play for any JRPG fan.

There is also

Shining Wisdom - I didn't like this much to be honest, the constant having to mash the button in order to keep running was annoying me.

Mystaria: The Realms of Lore, aka Blazing Heroes/Riglord Saga - a very early turn based strategy game with a little inspiration taken from Lord of the Rings

Legend of Oasis aka story of thor 2. Pretty decent action RPG by Ancient

Dark Saviour - it's ok. Very short but has multiple different replaying paths.

If you don't mind importing;

Grandia Digital Museum
Grandia
Lunar 2 Eternal Blue
Lunar Silver star story complete MPEG (this requires an MPEG card to get the almost full screen FMV)
Tengai Makyou IV - the apocalypse


There are lots more jrpgs to import but the language barrier might be a problem..
 

Khaz

Member
Oh yes I very much enjoyed this game when I played it. The idea of having two hours to finish it and being unable to pause makes it much more akin to the evening film on tv: you sit in front of it, play to the end and get one ending, all in two hours or less. It did age poorly visually though. It's still creepy but some 3D models show their age I think.

I would recommend it, as it's something interesting to experience that was never really done again in modern media. If you can get over the visuals and put yourself in the mood, it's still a good game in its own genre.
 

IrishNinja

Member
speaking of, my intent was to play it through once or twice at my own pace, and then try again with the action replay or whatever that shuts down the clock, just to see how it's supposed to be. thoughts?
 

UMGAWA

Member
I finished the game right around 13 hours. Disc 3 and 4 aren't very long.

yeah, i took my time & looked everywhere and still clocked in just over 20 hours. get all the D units, its worth it!

Awesome, thanks to you both. Thanks for the tip IrishNinja.

I dream of walking into a thrift store & finding a pile of Working Designs games in a bin at a $1 each.

So do I, then I wake up staring at a web browser with ebay up. *sigh*
 

Teknoman

Member
Well there was that time a few months back I got Virtua Fighter 2, Daytona USA, and Virtua Racing complete from a thrift store and in great shape... and I did get my Einhander from one...Its definitely possible...
 

Khaz

Member
speaking of, my intent was to play it through once or twice at my own pace, and then try again with the action replay or whatever that shuts down the clock, just to see how it's supposed to be. thoughts?

I'd do it once or twice at your own pace, then once more with a non-spoilery walkthrough to experience it completely.
 

Beartruck

Member
Stories about finding Saturn games in bargain bins piss me off. My personal experience was that a Music store in the mall I went to in the late 90's had Saturn games, and me being a dumb kid, I thought they were sega CD games with different labels(Pre-internet in my household). They were also 20-30 dollars on average so I passed them up. The worst part is I'm pretty sure Panzer Dragoon Saga was sitting on the shelf there.
 

oneida

Cock Strain, Lifetime Warranty
I paid $30 for burning Rangers (disc only) and $50 for shining force 3 at a local comic shop a few years back
 
I love my analog controller. It's so comfortable.

If you ask me, the DC controller was a downgrade.

I like it, I just feel strange holding it in the first times, but the more I use the more I get a good feeling with it


I already had an analog controller, but I didn't bring it with me when I moved to Japan
 

mr jones

Ethnicity is not a race!
From cheapest to most expensive:

Shining the Holy Ark
Dragon Force
Shining Force 3
Panzer Dragoon Saga

Albert Odyssey is decent but it's the kind of game I'd recommend picking up from a bargain bin when you were done with everything else, not for the $70-$100 that it goes for these days. Pretty standard 2D RPG with decent 16-bit presentation values, typical Working Designs humor, average gameplay, and somewhat long load times.

Dragon Force you're going to get the most value for, considering the multiple characters you can play as. It's basically New Game +++. However, its more SRPG, than the typical JRPG.

There is also Magic Knight Rayearth, which plays kind of like Secret of Mana. If you're going to go after the high-priced Saturn RPGs, those are the two I would recommend.

As coveted as PDS is, it's really a short RPG, despite the amount of discs. It is also hard to go back to, after beating it.

Shining Force ends on a hugh cliffhanger, because it's a 3 part game, and only the first one was translated. The other 2 are Japanese only.

It's been so long since playing Shining the Holy Ark, that... yeah I got nothing.
 

Khaz

Member
I'm planning to use the analog stick with some racing games, it should work better or not ?

I guess only you can answer that. I tried using Analogue and the Arcade Racer Joystick with Sega Rally and Daytona USA, but I really can't do shit with them. But it's not a failure of the controllers, more like years of playing with the digital controller. I also tried Sega Touring Car, but with this one I'm terrible whatever controller I'm using.
 
ok, I should have here with me all the games mentioned (maybe not Manx TT) , so if I can find the time I will make a comparison between digital and analog
 
Shining Force ends on a hugh cliffhanger, because it's a 3 part game, and only the first one was translated. The other 2 are Japanese only.

Worth pointing out that SF3 scenarios 2 & 3 are pretty cheap in Japan, and they have been fan translated, so they can be bought, ripped, patched and played on an emulator. There's also a patch for us/uk scenario 1 to rewrite the cliffhanger since the ending was changed in the west as sega already knew they would never bring out s2 & s3.

http://sf3trans.shiningforcecentral.com/
 
How much of the ending is changed from the western release? Does anyone know?

Yep. From memory (been a while), in the amended english release

Medion convinces Domaric to leave for now.

In the original Japanese version:

Domaric ain't going ANYWHERE.

If you contact legalize freedom at the link I gave above he'd be able to fill you in more accurately.
 
Dragon Force you're going to get the most value for, considering the multiple characters you can play as. It's basically New Game +++. However, its more SRPG, than the typical JRPG.

There is also Magic Knight Rayearth, which plays kind of like Secret of Mana. If you're going to go after the high-priced Saturn RPGs, those are the two I would recommend.

As coveted as PDS is, it's really a short RPG, despite the amount of discs. It is also hard to go back to, after beating it.

Shining Force ends on a hugh cliffhanger, because it's a 3 part game, and only the first one was translated. The other 2 are Japanese only.

It's been so long since playing Shining the Holy Ark, that... yeah I got nothing.

I wasn't too impressed with Magic Knight Rayearth. It's one of the most expensive Saturn games out there and unless you're a big fan of the anime or manga, it's just another decent Action/RPG. It's a lot like Albert Odyssey in that it would be a good purchase if it was up on a modern digital download service for $10 but it's a really hard sale for the going prices.

Panzer Dragoon Saga is relatively short for an RPG and it doesn't have great replay value, but it's also very high quality and very unique. Well worth playing once if you can afford it.

In theory, Dragon Force is incredibly long. In actual practice, I felt I was done with it long before playing through everybody's scenarios since the actual moment-to-moment gameplay doesn't change that much. It's a great game though.

Shining the Holy Ark is just a good solid dungeon crawler with set characters at a price that isn't incredibly high.
 

Exr

Member
Just found a game I forgot I even had for Saturn while looking at my shelf. Anybody here hear of a wrestling game with cameos from VF characters? The cover had Jeffrey and Wolf on it and it says something about New Japan Pro Wrestling. I like me some old wrestling games but I'm assuming this one is garbo.
 
Just found a game I forgot I even had for Saturn while looking at my shelf. Anybody here hear of a wrestling game with cameos from VF characters? The cover had Jeffrey and Wolf on it and it says something about New Japan Pro Wrestling. I like me some old wrestling games but I'm assuming this one is garbo.
Shidoshi's co-host on GVGP seemd to enjoy New Japan Pro Wrestling featuring Virtua, and from what I gather from the podcast is well versed in wrestling games
 
Just found a game I forgot I even had for Saturn while looking at my shelf. Anybody here hear of a wrestling game with cameos from VF characters? The cover had Jeffrey and Wolf on it and it says something about New Japan Pro Wrestling. I like me some old wrestling games but I'm assuming this one is garbo.

Giant Swing Forever~
 

Teknoman

Member
So the only other options for a replacement Saga case is to find one for Enemy Zero(?) or just get a plain ol 4 disc DVD case and make cover art? I wonder if there was a way to mod a normal Saturn case for 4 discs?
 

Mzo

Member
So the only other options for a replacement Saga case is to find one for Enemy Zero(?) or just get a plain ol 4 disc DVD case and make cover art? I wonder if there was a way to mod a normal Saturn case for 4 discs?

The case is a normal case. The discs come in black paper sleeves that stack inside the case.
 
Paper sleeves are so tacky, lol. I remember for the NA release of Lost Odyssey the 4th disc was packaged in a paper sleeve under the manual clamp lmao.
 

Peltz

Member
Is there a list of games that are compatible with the analogue controller?

P.S. Never saw the Japanese version of that controller. It's gorgeous.
 
There's a decent size retro game convention near me early April. There's at least two import game vendors I want to take advantage of to start up my Sega Saturn collection.

I want to get the standards like
Sega rally
Virtua cop 1 and 2
Virtua fighter
Panzer dragoon 1 and 2
Xmen vs sf

Any other Japanese game recommendations? Stuff that isn't too text heavy and is cheaper than the us versions?
 

oneida

Cock Strain, Lifetime Warranty
There's a decent size retro game convention near me early April. There's at least two import game vendors I want to take advantage of to start up my Sega Saturn collection.

I want to get the standards like
Sega rally
Virtua cop 1 and 2
Virtua fighter
Panzer dragoon 1 and 2
Xmen vs sf

Any other Japanese game recommendations? Stuff that isn't too text heavy and is cheaper than the us versions?
pass on VF and get VF2 instead.
I think everyone should own galactic attack and darius gaiden.
 
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