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Sega Saturn Appreciation and Emulation Thread

No mention of Flying Dragon?

Oh yeah, that game is fun too, though I don't like it quite as much as the two I mentioned. SD Hiryu no Ken Densetsu, its Japan-only sequel, is better -- the framerate is much smoother. Even I can really tell the difference. The game has a definite language barrier, but it's worth it if you like 3d fighters.

If we're gonna settle for slimpicking here, you could have at least mentioned Killer Instinct.
I don't like KI. I am hopelessly bad at combos, so it's kind of a nearly unplayable series for me. SD Hiryu, Flying Dragon, and Mace are good (for the generation) games, though, and SSB is great. They'd be good for the time on any platform that gen. "For a platform that gen" is an important qualifier though, of course; none of the 5th-gen systems can do great 3d fighting games, really, the tech just wasn't there yet. It's only with the Dreamcast that you start to see much in the way of 3d fighters that really hold up.
 

MikeMyers

Member
none of the 5th-gen systems can do great 3d fighting games, really, the tech just wasn't there yet. It's only with the Dreamcast that you start to see much in the way of 3d fighters that really hold up.

Uh...

virtuafighter2saturnj.jpg


Great port, much better than the DC port of VF3. Fighters Megamix is another great 3D game from that era.
 
VF2 is a perfect example of what I mean, that game is horribly dated compared to just about any modern 3d fighter. I've never liked the VF series too much, though they are fine games I guess (though I wouldn't score them that high), but VF4 (or 5) is way better than 1 or 2. Fighters Megamix and Fighting Vipers are sort of like VF but with some additions and worse framerates. All have dated controls compared to modern fighters, usually lower framerates, etc etc. The same is true with 3d fighters on the N64 and PS1.

I mean, there's a reason why my favorite 3d fighting game on a 5th-gen console is Evil Zone for the PS1 -- traditional 3d fighting games just aren't that great on 5th-gen platforms. N64 games like Fighter's Destiny or SD Hiryu aren't much worse than my favorite standard 3d fighters of the generation, Fighting Vipers and DOA, and are better than Tekken (which is, and always has been, a bad series in my opinion!). Evil Zone is the only 5th-gen 3d fighter I'd give an A grade. (not counting SSB and such of course, that's flat 2.5d.) It's totally different from any other fighting game, and that's a good thing. It also plays fast and smoothly, rarely for a 3d fighter of that time.

Aren't combos easy to do in those games? I can do them well in KI Gold getting 5-10 hits and sometimes higher on average.
"Easy" for people who are good at doing combos, maybe, sure. I can't do that stuff. I like fighting games, but memorizing and then being able to repeat long strings of inputs? Forget it!

I have only played KI Gold like once ever, but I do have the SNES game and it's really hard because it demands you learn combos, combo breakers, etc. in order to play. It's not much fun, I don't like KI.

For example, I've only ever been able to complete, like, two of the challenges in the combo training mode in KOF XIII... they start out crazy and then quickly go to impossible.
 

MikeMyers

Member
Eh, I think VF2 and Fighters Megamix are still good today. SaturnGAF agrees, since we recently voted Fighters Megamix as the best game on the system recently. :p

But in all seriousness, I think only DOA1 may not have aged well. I prefer the PSX Tekken's over the new ones, and since Soul Calibur ran on PSX hardware in arcades, you could technically count that.
 

MikeMyers

Member
What a silly generalization.

Well you could at least try to explain your reasoning instead of trying to belittle my post.

I was just pointing out how MK games sold better than SF on Genesis, yet was vice versa on Saturn. Likewise SF sold more than MK on SNES, which was opposite on N64 because Capcom sadly didn't port SF over there. For the record, I like both SF and MK, as well as all 4 systems mentioned.
 

MikeMyers

Member
Well, if your Saturn can play imports, you could always just settle for the cheaper import version. It's not like its a text-heavy game.
 

Timu

Member
Well, if your Saturn can play imports, you could always just settle for the cheaper import version. It's not like its a text-heavy game.
Yeah it can play imports, though I tend to go for the US version whenever possible unless the game is only in Japan. However, since I hear the Japanese version is cheaper, I may as well go for that version.
 

Celine

Member
Well you could at least try to explain your reasoning instead of trying to belittle my post.

I was just pointing out how MK games sold better than SF on Genesis, yet was vice versa on Saturn. Likewise SF sold more than MK on SNES, which was opposite on N64 because Capcom sadly didn't port SF over there. For the record, I like both SF and MK, as well as all 4 systems mentioned.
Should I explain that what you like doesn't depend on what platform it is on but on the gameplay itself?
 

MikeMyers

Member
I think we are having miscommunication here.

I'm merely pointing out that on the Genesis, MK games outsold SF. On the Saturn, SF games outsold MK games. The opposite can be said on Nintendo's platforms. A realization I only came to after reading that thread.
 

Celine

Member
I think we are having miscommunication here.

I'm merely pointing out that on the Genesis, MK games outsold SF. On the Saturn, SF games outsold MK games. The opposite can be said on Nintendo's platforms. A realization I only came to after reading that thread.
Yeah, probably miscommunication (I was probably put off by you writing "SNES fans", "N64 fans","Genesis fans", "Saturn fans").

I still don't understand your surprise though.
America was (is) MK main market and we all know how Saturn fared there.
 

MikeMyers

Member
Yeah, sorry about that, should have said "owners" instead of "fans."

You're correct that the the Saturn wasn't really popular in markets where MK main audience is, but it wasn't something I had thought about until recently. Actually though, I wonder if the SF games outsold MK games, even if you only go by US software sales? I'll have to look into that.
 

oneida

Cock Strain, Lifetime Warranty
VF2 is a perfect example of what I mean, that game is horribly dated compared to just about any modern 3d fighter. I've never liked the VF series too much, though they are fine games I guess (though I wouldn't score them that high), but VF4 (or 5) is way better than 1 or 2. Fighters Megamix and Fighting Vipers are sort of like VF but with some additions and worse framerates. All have dated controls compared to modern fighters, usually lower framerates, etc etc. The same is true with 3d fighters on the N64 and PS1.

I mean, there's a reason why my favorite 3d fighting game on a 5th-gen console is Evil Zone for the PS1 -- traditional 3d fighting games just aren't that great on 5th-gen platforms. N64 games like Fighter's Destiny or SD Hiryu aren't much worse than my favorite standard 3d fighters of the generation, Fighting Vipers and DOA, and are better than Tekken (which is, and always has been, a bad series in my opinion!). Evil Zone is the only 5th-gen 3d fighter I'd give an A grade. (not counting SSB and such of course, that's flat 2.5d.) It's totally different from any other fighting game, and that's a good thing. It also plays fast and smoothly, rarely for a 3d fighter of that time.
How exactly is VF2 dated, and what makes 4 and 5 way better than 2 for you? For the record VF2 is 60fps on Saturn.

Yeah it can play imports, though I tend to go for the US version whenever possible unless the game is only in Japan. However, since I hear the Japanese version is cheaper, I may as well go for that version.
The Japanese version of Last Bronx is definitely the one to get! It's got a second disc with training modes which are absent from the western release. Really cool game with a neat mechanic: virtually every attack in the game is guard-cancellable, which leads to some nasty throw mixups!
 

Conezays

Member
Everytime I enter this thread I get horribly hyped about the games that are en route in the mail :p Fighters Megamix is that good, eh? I'm apparently weird and even enjoyed the original VF so can't wait for that.

Played Game Tengoku last night and am definitely a little disappointed coming off of Radiant Silvergun. Maybe the lack of insane difficulty and short length made me feel a bit meh about it. Still, nice enough music and graphics; the gameplay just didn't hook me in the same way RS did.

This made going through the options immensely easier for any interested:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_inlHSSFzN...jlJ3-A/s1600/gameParadise_menuTranslation.jpg

If there's any site/resources out there that do similar for other imports, would love to see!
 

MikeMyers

Member
Mortal Kombat vs. Street Fighter sales age in America

MK2 - 54,000
UMK3 - 92,000
MKT - 20,000

SF2 - 11,000
SFA - 47,000
SFA2 - 41,000

SF: The Movie - 107,000

Credit to Terry Travis/Square2005 for that one.

I admit, I'm not sure what to think of this, LOL.

How exactly is VF2 dated, and what makes 4 and 5 way better than 2 for you? For the record VF2 is 60fps on Saturn.
I get the feeling it's more of a "I personally did not enjoy 3D Fighters until 6th gen" rather than "5th gen machines could't really handle 3D Fighters."
 

piggychan

Member
Everytime I enter this thread I get horribly hyped about the games that are en route in the mail :p Fighters Megamix is that good, eh? I'm apparently weird and even enjoyed the original VF so can't wait for that.

Played Game Tengoku last night and am definitely a little disappointed coming off of Radiant Silvergun. Maybe the lack of insane difficulty and short length made me feel a bit meh about it. Still, nice enough music and graphics; the gameplay just didn't hook me in the same way RS did.

This made going through the options immensely easier for any interested:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_inlHSSFzN...jlJ3-A/s1600/gameParadise_menuTranslation.jpg

If there's any site/resources out there that do similar for other imports, would love to see!

Spend a bit more time with it. You do need to play around with the settings I think there was an option to slow the bullets down so they were easier to avoid. I actually quite liked it even though the story was very strange and if I recall correctly a young usherette that runs a video game center gets warped into the video games world to fight an evil villain that wants to destroy and take over her arcade games center. So the games levels are based around puzzle, SHMUP, pinball, music karaoke etc...


But regrettably it's one of the few games I decided to sell along with Shinrei Jusatsushi Taromaru, Magic Knight Rayearth, Albert Odyssey, Prikura Daisakusen, Assault suits Leynos II and Keio Flying Squadron 2 many years ago in order to strip down some of the games and just stick with the ones I was playing often.
 

Gyrian

Member
It's kind of interesting to me how many brand new Saturn games can still be had today, many still fairly inexpensive.
I've accumulated a handful of Japanese ones over the past few months, which I'm thinking to open up for Christmas. I wasn't able to resist and have slightly cheated with Night Warriors, though!

The VF2 conversation reminded me of this since that's one of the ones I've grabbed. And Megamix, too!
 

Khaz

Member
But regrettably it's one of the few games I decided to sell along with Shinrei Jusatsushi Taromaru, Magic Knight Rayearth, Albert Odyssey, Prikura Daisakusen, Assault suits Leynos II and Keio Flying Squadron 2 many years ago in order to strip down some of the games and just stick with the ones I was playing often.

If you had sold them today you would have funded your retirement.
 

piggychan

Member
If you had sold them today you would have funded your retirement.

Haha I don't even want to know how much they go for now but I sold most of those just before youtube arrived and I wished I had kept them and made youtube vids before they were auctioned off. Strangely enough with regards to Taromaru I think there might be a printing problem with the cover of the instruction booklet as it tends to apear mottled I think once it's exposed to the air. My copy it turned out that 85% of the cover the sandy color began to fade and buyers were asking me why my instruction booklet cover had dark splashes and I realized those dark splashes/patches was the original color. I kept all my games in a box away from sunlight when not in play.
 

Conezays

Member
Spend a bit more time with it. You do need to play around with the settings I think there was an option to slow the bullets down so they were easier to avoid. I actually quite liked it even though the story was very strange and if I recall correctly a young usherette that runs a video game center gets warped into the video games world to fight an evil villain that wants to destroy and take over her arcade games center. So the games levels are based around puzzle, SHMUP, pinball, music karaoke etc...


But regrettably it's one of the few games I decided to sell along with Shinrei Jusatsushi Taromaru, Magic Knight Rayearth, Albert Odyssey, Prikura Daisakusen, Assault suits Leynos II and Keio Flying Squadron 2 many years ago in order to strip down some of the games and just stick with the ones I was playing often.

Nice hoarde you had there. And yeah, I seemed to enjoy it a bit more when just going for a 1-continue run; playing with unlimited continues made it too easy.

I need to bar myself from ebay; currently looking at the Thunder Force series :p They all look great.

Street Fighter Zero 2 arrived!

Interested to hear how you find this; I played lots of SF2 Regular, Turbo, Super, etc. but never much of the Zero/Alpha series.
 

MikeMyers

Member
Wait. In a thread about 2d games Sony USA blocked, someone mentioned a rumor that Capcom would make RE2 to make a Saturn exclusive if Mega Man 8 did not come to America.

Any truth to this?
 
I dunno anything about that Saturn-exclusive bit, but I have heard they threatened to withhold RE2 if Sony didn't play ball with Mega Man, yeah.
 
How exactly is VF2 dated, and what makes 4 and 5 way better than 2 for you? For the record VF2 is 60fps on Saturn.
VF2 may be 60fps, but most of those other games aren't. And regardless of framerate, most 5th-gen 3d fighters play slowly. Almost none have modern controls schemes either -- either they only let you move around in 3d via attacks, as in VF1 or 2, or you have a face or shoulder button or two dedicated to 3d movement, as in Mace, Fighters Megamix, etc. The pacing of most 5th-gen games is so different from newer fighters, and it's different in a slower, worse way. Those weird floaty jumps you see in VF1 and 2 don't reappear in newer 3d fighters either, thankfully. 3d fighting game gameplay changed between the 5th and 6th generations, but it has not changed again. I think that shows that it's the DC era that mastered how 3d fighters should play. Changes post-DC do exist -- DoA2 controls a bit differently from 4 or 5, for example -- but 4 and 5 have some differences between them also. 2 is the first DoA game recognizable as modern DoA.

The normal modern 3d fighter control scheme of up and down to move in 3d didn't really exist yet. I like the games which do let you move in 3d better than VF1/2/etc's very limiting style, but neither one is as good as the control schemes you see in games from DoA2, Soul Calibur, etc. and on. The difference in controls is huge, just as important a difference as the difference in speed and gameplay.

On that note, DoA1 v. DoA2, Soul Blade v. Soul Calibur, Rival Schools v. Project Justice, those are other fantastic examples of how mediocre to bad 5th-gen 3d fighters are compared to their fantastic 5th-gen sequels. DoA1 is one of my favorite 3d fighters of the generation, but it's really mediocre and not that great compared to any of its sequels. Soul Blade is a below-average game with an amazing sequel. Just like with DoA, the DC game is the first Calibur game recognizable as playing the way modern Soulcalibur games play. And Rival Schools is a bad game, worse than Soul Blade, yet Project Justice is even better than Soul Calibur, I'd say! I got Rival Schools first and thought it was bad, which is why I was so surprised when I got Project Justice a few years ago and loved it.
 

oneida

Cock Strain, Lifetime Warranty
VF2 is absolutely not slow if played correctly. 30 sec rounds and you'll very rarely see timeouts. as for movement, crouch dash really opened everything up, but it's more restricted than VF3 which has the most open ended movement of any non-arena 3D fighter.
 

MikeMyers

Member
Third best fighting game of all time. After 3rd Strike and 2nd Impact.

The next 10-ish in my list are all SNK lol.

I would agree with this if we were strictly talking 2D Fighters, but my personal top 10 fighting games would at least include entries of that 3D Fighting game by that little company we know as Sega. :p
 

Khaz

Member
Game Sack did a new video about pinball video games, and for some reason they didn't like Necronomicon. I have to say I completely disagree with their opinion: it and Last Gladiators are probably the best pinball games on any console. But hey, it's a scoring game without an end goal (a true arcade game) so I understand some people don't like this sort of things.
 
VF2 is absolutely not slow if played correctly. 30 sec rounds and you'll very rarely see timeouts. as for movement, crouch dash really opened everything up, but it's more restricted than VF3 which has the most open ended movement of any non-arena 3D fighter.
Well I just went and played VF2 for a while. And yes, you are right that it isn't as slow as most other 3d fighters that generation. It's still very dated, though, in controls, movement, gameplay, etc. It's not bad, but I don't like it much, either. It still has that weird movement (those jumps...), lacking 3d-move options (via moves only, not up/down), the style of play is different from newer 3d fighters, etc. Fighting in VF2 is very different from a newer game in a lot of little ways, and the newer games mostly play better in my opinion. And of course, like all VF games I find it kind of boring. I like stuff like fireballs, ridiculous bosses with their crazy backstories, etc! Removing all that stuff makes VF worse than other (mostly 2d) fighting games, not better. And seriously, VF1/2's jumping is weird, in a bad way. I don't really like that most later 3d fighters have almost no jumping, but VF1/2 moonjumps aren't much better. Hitting the opponent can be fun, but it's too limiting compared to newer fighting games. I know some people prefer VF2's style, but I am not one of them.

Oh, I don't know what you are talking about when you talk about crouch dash, I don't play VF games much.

Last, the issue of round lengths. Speed and round time aren't necessarily connected -- regardless of game speed, if single hits are going to do as much damage as they do in games like VF or Tekken, rounds are going to be very short, and I really dislike that style of round-length design! VF rounds aren't short because the game plays fast or slow, they are short because hits do too much damage. I know that you don't want rounds to go on forever either, but really dislike how short the rounds are in many 3d fighters, and VF is the game that started that. Playing VF2 for now just instance, there are way, WAY too many single hits that do 50% damage. That much damage should be something only for tough combos, super moves, and the like, not regular grabs! That's ridiculous, and I think it's kind of bad design. Tekken is a series which I have always greatly disliked (Tekken 3 is the only Tekken game I've played I would give a passing grade to, and it's barely above average at best -- and I have Tekkens 3, 4, 5, and 6), and one of many reasons why are the way-too-fast rounds that series has. I like the style of 2d fighters like Street Fighter or, even better, SNK games the best; those ten-second rounds you see in Tekken or VF 1 and 2 are way too fast. DoA1 rounds can be too fast as well, but I think they do balance things a bit better in the later games of the series, though it's still a lot shorter than SNK game rounds. I know 2d and 3d fighting games have different paces, but I like the pacing of the top 2d fighters more than that of the top 3d fighters.

Soul Calibur debuted in arcades where it ran on PS1 hardware if I remember corrrectly.
Sure, but isn't the DC version supposed to be hugely improved over the original arcade release?

WTF! Soul Blade is a great game. One of the best 3D fighters that came out of the 5th gen.
Soul Blade is slow, mediocre looking, and incredibly boring to play. Just staying awake until the matches end is a struggle sometimes, to only slightly exaggerate... I do think there are times that I quit before finishing a match because of how boring the game is. I may find the VF series boring as well, but even the worst VF game isn't as boring as Soul Blade. I don'[t know if I can think of anything positive to say about Soul Blade other than that it plays. It's definitely a game I PS1 fans like to massively overrate, both in gameplay and its CG intro; I remember people in college insisting that the Soul Blade intro looked so cool at the time. I don't see it, but I don't see much quality in the game either. Soul Blade isn't TERRIBLE, but it's below average, really bland, and isn't any fun to play. At least it did well enough to get a sequel, though...

Eh, I think VF2 and Fighters Megamix are still good today. SaturnGAF agrees, since we recently voted Fighters Megamix as the best game on the system recently. :p
... That's kind of crazy. Fighters Megamix is okay but not great; even just in the fighting game genre there are many, many 2d fighters on the Saturn better than any pretty much any 3d fighter of the generation... 2d fighters on the Saturn hold up. 3d, not really. (But at least that's better than the PS1 where neither kind does!)

Third best fighting game of all time. After 3rd Strike and 2nd Impact.

The next 10-ish in my list are all SNK lol.
I don't think I'd have many 3d fighters in my fighting game top 10 either. It'd certainly be almost all 2d games, since I definitely think that 2d fighting games are better than 3d ones. (Oh yeah, and SNK is awesome. Last Blade 2 is my favorite fighting game. And my favorite Capcom fighter is CvS2, a game that has a lot of SNK characters in it...)
 

IrishNinja

Member
Game Sack did a new video about pinball video games, and for some reason they didn't like Necronomicon. I have to say I completely disagree with their opinion: it and Last Gladiators are probably the best pinball games on any console. But hey, it's a scoring game without an end goal (a true arcade game) so I understand some people don't like this sort of things.

yeah, i think that's another one CGR put me onto - it's amazing, love the style even if i can't get very far
 

MikeMyers

Member
Had some serious issues with the RAM cart today. Console got frozen at the AR screen. :/

I don't remember the gameplay being too different in Soul Calibur arcade, the Dreamcast version certainly had better graphics and more content. Though the latter was kinda expected for a home version of a Namco fighter.

I love Fighters Megamix. I replayed it today and still feel like it holds up.
 
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