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Sega Saturn Appreciation and Emulation Thread

IrishNinja

Member
damn, im towards the end of Albert but if they actually cut down the encounter rate, that's cool but shit id never wanna play it before that
 
Anyone know if that guy someone linked some pages back who figured out to install virtually unlimited custom internal SRAM memory ever posted any updates or made it available as a mod? Would be great not have to worry about batteries and RAM carts anymore.

Also, I have an extra copy of Radiant Silvergun in excellent shape complete with both spine and registration card which I will be selling soon. I figured I'd give my fellow Saturn peeps here first dibs before I post it about a week from now in the Buy/Sell thread. $200 shipped, PM me if interested. U.S. buyers only please.
 

Teknoman

Member
Everyone loves outrun right? I'm thinking about throwing out another friendly high score challenge here. Then jumping thread to thread with other games to keep a rotation going.

I mean the majority of Saturn owners here should have it... Or should I include PC engine and Genesis side too?
 

dock

Member
I love my sega Saturn, and it breaks my heart that it looks like ass on my newest TV, despite using a good Scart cable.

I'm curious about the cheap component to Scart adapters, but I'm sceptical.

My laptop runs the emulator okay, and I have discs, and USB Saturn pad, but it isn't the same as using the real hardware.
 

IrishNinja

Member
...man what the fuck are you doing on a Saturn SCART cable that makes it look less than majestic? like, burning rangers gonna look like booty even in the minds eye of the lead programmer; but 2D fighters? SHMUPs no sane man can afford? arcade ports? check ya setup fam, shit should be golden
 

Khaz

Member
I love my sega Saturn, and it breaks my heart that it looks like ass on my newest TV, despite using a good Scart cable.

Are you sure you're not using Composite? Plug your cable in your first Scart socket, the one labelled RGB, not AV.
 
Really starting to get tired of the word "RARE" being used on just about every game listing. It's like it gives the seller the excuse to list $20-$30 higher.
 

piggychan

Member
I love my sega Saturn, and it breaks my heart that it looks like ass on my newest TV, despite using a good Scart cable.

I'm curious about the cheap component to Scart adapters, but I'm sceptical.

My laptop runs the emulator okay, and I have discs, and USB Saturn pad, but it isn't the same as using the real hardware.

Might be a case where you might need to tone down the sharpness and contrast
 

dock

Member
Might be a case where you might need to tone down the sharpness and contrast
Perhaps... It's been a while since I tried my Saturn on this TV, so I'll give it another go. I did try messing with the settings, but it's possible I was missing something crucial.
 

dock

Member
I got my Saturn working on my TV!
Long story short, I swapped for a new SCART cable.

No amount of settings changing would fix it... but changing the RGB SCART cable did! I don't know why this cable worked okay with my old LCD TV, but not my new one, but swapping the cable for the 'spider' cable has worked wonders.

Now I have a different dilemma, which is that I own two Japanese Saturns, but at least half of my games are PAL. I have an action replay cart but it doesn't seem to work. I do own a couple of multi-region saturns, but they're elsewhere in the country at my mum's house in storage.


I have the big problem of having a huge TV, enough controllers and adapters for 10 player bomberman, but I don't know ten people that I'd like to invite over. :|
 
Eh. It's better with an 8 player setup since you can choose any stage you want then.

They've had some meets and conventions here in Norway where they've done 8 player ones.
 

dock

Member
Eh. It's better with an 8 player setup since you can choose any stage you want then.

They've had some meets and conventions here in Norway where they've done 8 player ones.

Yeah, 8 player is generally my preference too!

I like to play it in teams of two, which mean that when someone dies they have a team-mate to try to help out. A Mad Bomber can be pretty effective teammate, and sometimes can return to the playfield by killing the active players.

I'm sure I'll rustle up a bunch of players, but I'm conscious that lots of people I know were often quite reluctant to play Bomberman.
 

dock

Member
Further Saturn adventures!

Tested further, I think that Saturn Scart cable was wired to composite only, so it is now in the bin.

Despite video out being pretty good, my TV does not like hi-res mode, and flashes black every few seconds. This rather scuppers bomberman 10 player.

Also, the cartridge slot on both of my Saturns (two JP Saturns) is pretty flaky. Meanwhile, the video output on one seems to overheat and shut off. :( this is the one labelled 'this is cool', ironically. Old hardware, huh?
 

Khaz

Member
Some model1 have a dodgy psu that overheats after a while, and makes the screen display horizontal rolling lines until it cools down. Maybe that's your problem? It can be sorted by soldering a capacitor on it.
 

piggychan

Member
Further Saturn adventures!

Tested further, I think that Saturn Scart cable was wired to composite only, so it is now in the bin.

Despite video out being pretty good, my TV does not like hi-res mode, and flashes black every few seconds. This rather scuppers bomberman 10 player.

Also, the cartridge slot on both of my Saturns (two JP Saturns) is pretty flaky. Meanwhile, the video output on one seems to overheat and shut off. :( this is the one labelled 'this is cool', ironically. Old hardware, huh?

the sega saturn hardware is a lot more reliable than some other's I could mention. unless it was abused by a previous owner...
 

Wereroku

Member
the sega saturn hardware is a lot more reliable than some other's I could mention. unless it was abused by a previous owner...
The cartridge slots are a given though. If they are used enough eventually they will break down. That's why it's best to stick to one cart and just leave it in.
 

piggychan

Member
The cartridge slots are a given though. If they are used enough eventually they will break down. That's why it's best to stick to one cart and just leave it in.

ah yea that slot is a bit temperamental. I find I have to spend quite a bit of time aligning carts in that slot before the saturn begins to recognize something is in there...
 

Seik

Banned
Kinda went crazy on Hit-Japan's Ebay store and made bunch of offers.

He accepted them all, oh well, it's been a while since I bought Saturn games anyway. Also, these are pretty good deals to me. :D

w3bsEHq.png


I'll be trying that DragonForce II patch the moment I have the game here.
 
So about 15 min ago I went to copy another save to my RAM cart and no matter how many times I blow on and reinsert the cart I get this:

7BCE8CB9-900D-437C-BC92-1D827FFAE43D-9753-000009222C784099_zpsjso0jdrl.jpg


"Copy item to cartridge/system" selections are grayed out and can't be accessed. Only two things that can be chosen are to remove an item from system memory or to clear the cart. And when I choose to clear the cart it says 0 items and then "Not cleared." Is my RAM cart hosed? It's a standard Japanese Sega plain gray RAM cart:

3541BAF6-4F3B-434B-AD95-CCBE4AB887EC-4750-0000052DD347558C_zps166fcac4.jpg
 

Sixfortyfive

He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
Do a thorough cleaning of the cartridge and cartridge slot. Compressed air, >90% isopropyl alcohol, etc.
 
Do a thorough cleaning of the cartridge and cartridge slot. Compressed air, >90% isopropyl alcohol, etc.

I don't have any rubbing alcohol right now but I used a swab on the cart and then unleashed a ton of compressed air repeatedly into both the slot and cart and it's the same. Also, now if I try to boot an import game (have a switch modded system) while the cart is inserted I get this screen below which seems to be warning something about the RAM, but American games will still boot with the cart in:

EFD7E8D6-87CF-48E5-8280-5B561E1580BC-9816-0000092952462F49_zpsmr3txiqn.jpg
 

dock

Member
3yXfmTm.jpg


Hats off to whomever at Konami named this boss Corn Chiwa.

This was largely a test to see how scrolling looked on my TV. It looks perfect.

I extended the screws on my cartridge port and it now works reliably, with the Action Replay cart allowing me to play my UK games on my white JP Saturn. I changed the save battery too, so it should be good now.

Tempted to play through Exhumed again, despite the weird old L+R strafe controls.
 

Khaz

Member
I'll be trying that DragonForce II patch the moment I have the game here.

Eh, their patching system is a mess. I ended up downloading a Japanese iso and patching that instead. Worked perfectly.


Tempted to play through Exhumed again, despite the weird old L+R strafe controls.

Tsk tsk, shoulder-strafe means you can circle strafe shoot enemies. It's better than keyboard only (you can't circle strafe with Alt-strafe) and second only to kb+m.
 

Skulldead

Member
Finally finished Albert Odyssey tonight. It's a good game but certainly has some flaws. The story was pretty interesting and the music was outstanding. Easily some of the best town, bar, inn, & shop music I've heard. The graphics were decent but when it came to the spells, it seemed to fall a little flat & seemed lazy.

What I didn't like and I usually don't mind is random battles but parking me in a 8 floor tower maze with 2-way teleports right before the final boss is just cruel. Also the save points are spread out in some areas where you easily could go an hour and a half with out an option to save.

After I finished I read the translation notes on the last page of the manual and Working Designs made some interesting changes to the game. For one they shortened the time load times going into and out of a random battle from 8 seconds down to 6. Also shortened the random encounters and added more experience per battle to even it out. Finally at the end when you fight 3 bosses in a row the Japanese version didn't issue experience points after each victory but the game required you to be several levels up. So they added several experience points in between. It may not sound like much but I appreciate the changes and probably would not have enjoyed the game as much if they weren't made. My 2 cents.

It's pretty cool they up the exp rate vs down random encounter rate... BUT they didn't balance MP usage and make the game a breeze in term of MP management. Also they remove very challenging aspect of the game by making leveling way too fast, you're always a little overlevel for each boss, so escape random encounter don't really punish. But still they had good intention behind, i can't really blame them...
 

IrishNinja

Member
yeah, i still gotta sort a translation-patched DF II disc, no hurry since i'm still sleeping on 1 though

Kinda went crazy on Hit-Japan's Ebay store and made bunch of offers.

He accepted them all, oh well, it's been a while since I bought Saturn games anyway. Also, these are pretty good deals to me. :D

w3bsEHq.png


I'll be trying that DragonForce II patch the moment I have the game here.

shit man, all of those are good, congrats!
 

cj_iwakura

Member
Kinda went crazy on Hit-Japan's Ebay store and made bunch of offers.

He accepted them all, oh well, it's been a while since I bought Saturn games anyway. Also, these are pretty good deals to me. :D

w3bsEHq.png


I'll be trying that DragonForce II patch the moment I have the game here.

Great price on DF2. Keep in mind the patching process is kind of sketchy right now. Faust is working on it, but he'll hook you up if you check Verve's MB.
 

Khaz

Member
Damn, the double arcade stick is more expensive than the console itself!

Funny how they didn't even bother to update the colours of some accessories, like the cheap arcade stick or the flight stick. They just knew they wouldn't even sell the old stock ^^.
 

Beartruck

Member
Kinda went crazy on Hit-Japan's Ebay store and made bunch of offers.

He accepted them all, oh well, it's been a while since I bought Saturn games anyway. Also, these are pretty good deals to me. :D

w3bsEHq.png


I'll be trying that DragonForce II patch the moment I have the game here.

Yeah, Hit japan is usually really good with it's offers. I can usually drop the game's price by almost a third depending on what it is.
 

Seik

Banned
Eh, their patching system is a mess. I ended up downloading a Japanese iso and patching that instead. Worked perfectly.

Great price on DF2. Keep in mind the patching process is kind of sketchy right now. Faust is working on it, but he'll hook you up if you check Verve's MB.

I'm a bit sad to read this, though I'll do what's needed for it to work, I love doing that kind of stuff anyway. :p

yeah, i still gotta sort a translation-patched DF II disc, no hurry since i'm still sleeping on 1 though

Still sleeping on my copy too, I'm currently playing Xenogears, though I'd like to attack DF afterwards.

EDIT: Also, I'll probably try these out on SSF and post some screenshots, like old times, I feel like it's been forever since I last did this. Letting myself goooooo. D:

EDIT2: Rereading the thread from the beginning just for fun, man wtf was wrong with me playing with that aspect ratio. sixteen-bit was pissed at me for it, too. I fixed the OP but there's still some scars of this left in later posts. :lol
 

Khaz

Member
I just started to play Blazing Dragons, a point and click adventure game by Terry Jones, with voices from Terry Jones, Cheech Marin, Harry Shearer and Joseph Rye. I quite enjoy it, even though it shares almost nothing with the TV series of the same name except the concept and humour (none of the voice actors are in the TV series) as apparently the game was designed way before the series. So far the voice actors are very good, the humour is there, and the story is not what you would expect from knights and dragons. It has a hint system too, so I expect tough puzzles but I know I won't be stuck on one if I don't want to.

Although it's a console exclusive, surprisingly, it still plays very well, notably thanks to this controller: the Ascii Grip X

320px-ASCIIGripX1.jpg


When sitting on the couch, this thing is just excellent for this type of game. I just hold it in one hand while sipping on a cup of tea with the other. A mouse couldn't have been better as it would have needed a flat surface to operate (and the game doesn't support the Shuttle mouse anyway.) Any game that doesn't need twitch reflexes, like adventure games and RPGs, are just perfect for this controller.

So, yep. Good game, good controller, very nice experience.

Just a warning though, if you are interested in buying the PAL version: the game was pressed with either English, French or German voice-overs. The only way to tell them apart is the language in the little yellow bubble on the cover saying "Starring the voice of Terry Jones" in the target language. Nothing else on the cover or even on the disc indicates which language it will play in. I don't know how it goes for the PAL Playstation version, but the Saturn one is the superior version in PAL land, for the simple fact that it can be flicked to PAL60 without a hitch.

795px-BlazingDragons_Saturn_EU_Box.jpg

(This is a German box)
 
Just wanted to second that hit-japan is a great eBay dealer, always get good service from them.

Edit: Also, I have an extra U.S. copy of Galactic Attack I'm selling, in great shape. $35 shipped. I've posted it many times in the buy/sell thread with no takers so figured I might as well offer it here (Radiant Silvergun is taken now).

Anyways, looks like I'm just gonna have to buy a new RAM cart. :/
 

BTails

Member
I remember really enjoying Blazing Dragons when it came out. I rented, and beat it, on Playstation. Growing up playing Sierra and Lucasarts point and clicks, this felt awesome to have something so similar on consoles.

I'll have to pick this one up... Maybe get the Saturn version this time.
 

InfiniteNine

Rolling Girl
A friend is helping me get a white Japanese model so I'll be able to finally play some Saturn games. :) I just need to figure out how I can capture the signal and output to my monitor for now.

Anything essential I might need operation-wise for a first timer to the system? o: I'll take game suggestions too but mostly just want to make sure I have everything I need to enjoy some Parodius.
 

piggychan

Member
A friend is helping me get a white Japanese model so I'll be able to finally play some Saturn games. :) I just need to figure out how I can capture the signal and output to my monitor for now.

Anything essential I might need operation-wise for a first timer to the system? o: I'll take game suggestions too but mostly just want to make sure I have everything I need to enjoy some Parodius.

*GASPS* :p arodius

you might need a new CR2032 battery for back up and internal clock etc.
th


My saturn parodius games
P1020555.jpg
 

dock

Member
InfiniteNine, remember that some games need a 4MB cartridge. The SNK games often need a 1MB cart, but many of them will work okay with the 4MB cartridge. Also, Saturn cartridge slots can be temperamental but there are workarounds to make them behave.

*GASPS* :p arodius

My saturn parodius games
P1020555.jpg

I concur! It runs like ass on the PS1 in comparison, and is a delight to play in 2015.
(I have Parodius Deluxe on JP and EU edition, as it's my favourite of all of them).
 
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