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Sega Saturn Appreciation and Emulation Thread
- Thread starter Seik
- Start date
Damn. That Saturn owner has good taste.
InfiniteNine
Rolling Girl
Reorganizing my room towards all my consoles and stuff are by my PC and got a nice line up of consoles going on here. 
Still need to unplug the Dreamcast, 360, PS2, PS3, PS4, and Wii U and move them over to the shelf above.
Still need to unplug the Dreamcast, 360, PS2, PS3, PS4, and Wii U and move them over to the shelf above.
InfiniteNine
Rolling Girl
Works just fine! Otherwise I couldn't play Shining the Holy Ark or Panzer Dragoon Saga on it.
InfiniteNine
Rolling Girl
Well most of my games are Japanese with the exception of Holy Ark and whatever JonathanNemo lends me.
Sixfortyfive
He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
Pretty sure it's the reverse (240p game, 480i menus), but it's been a while since I checked.
InfiniteNine
Rolling Girl
You're right my Framemeister tells me when it switches.
Saturn Memories
Neo Member
Here's an interesting question for those of you who owned a Saturn back in the '90s... What games were in your original collection? My old games were:
Bug!
Bug Too!
Command & Conquer
Daytona USA
Daytona USA: Championship Circuit Edition
Fighting Vipers
Galactic Attack
Lost World: Jurassic Park, The
Myst
NHL All-Star Hockey
NiGHTS into Dreams
Off-World Interceptor Extreme
Road Rash
Sim City 2000
Solar Eclipse
Sonic 3D Blast
Tomb Raider
Virtua Fighter
Virtua Cop
Virtua Cop 2
World Series Baseball
I started collecting Saturn games again around 2006 or so. The original intent was only to buy back a few of the ones I really enjoyed as a kid, but it quickly snowballed. Ten years later and now I own over 230 titles, lol.
Bug!
Bug Too!
Command & Conquer
Daytona USA
Daytona USA: Championship Circuit Edition
Fighting Vipers
Galactic Attack
Lost World: Jurassic Park, The
Myst
NHL All-Star Hockey
NiGHTS into Dreams
Off-World Interceptor Extreme
Road Rash
Sim City 2000
Solar Eclipse
Sonic 3D Blast
Tomb Raider
Virtua Fighter
Virtua Cop
Virtua Cop 2
World Series Baseball
I started collecting Saturn games again around 2006 or so. The original intent was only to buy back a few of the ones I really enjoyed as a kid, but it quickly snowballed. Ten years later and now I own over 230 titles, lol.
sixteen-bit
Member
My Saturn library didn't start until 2005 or so. I found the system at goodwill for $10 and a school friend heard about this and gave me his old games; Clockwork Knight, Myst, and Sonic Jam. Right now I'm at 70-ish titles with the aforementioned 3 games + Dragon Force being my only NA releases and the rest are JP imports.
Funny i've just finish it 2 weeks ago. Really a great dungeon crawler, enough challenging, never too hard, never too easy, have to manage MP consummation and inventory. Without the spell to reduce encounter, they happen way too often. But my biggest concern was the amount of slowdown in the game, the more you advance in the game, the worse they became. At the end nearly every spell or attack are sloooooooowwwwwww, and later some enemies became sponge and take a while to kill. With 2-3 tweak. this game could be one of best in the genre.
That's the white AR Plus we were talking about a few posts/pages ago: the model with parallel port on top, that also works as a 1M/4M ram cart and memory backup unit (other than allowing you to play games from different regions).
Even though my collection isn't as huge as yours (I'm around 115), I pretty much re-bought every game I had back in the days. From the most common (yet beloved) ones, such as Dead or Alive, Virtua Fighter 2 and Golden Axe: The Duel, to the more expensive and difficult to track down nowadays (Astra Superstars, The KoF Best Collection, Street Fighter Zero 3...).
I wasn't into collecting yet, so I super stupidly sold my Saturn and all my games, in order to buy my first Japanese Dreamcast and the hottest launch titles. I still miss a few of them, specifically Steam Hearts (lol) which I don't really plan to buy a second time, Dracula X (which I got and played on my Japanese PlayStation, but I'd still like to have for the Saturn too) and X-Men vs Street Fighters (quite possibily my next retro pick-up).
And yeah, stuff like 'I'll only buy again what I've got at the time' is a giant lie we love to repeat to ourselves. We all know the snowballing is right behind the corner.
I got my Japanese Mega Drive 2 + Mega CD 2 combo this week, and holy shit I'm already scared of what will happen from now on.
blast processed
Member
Nights
Daytona
Virtua Cop 1
Virtua Fighter/Remix
Fighting Vipers
Die Hard Arcade
Cyberia
Panzer Dragoon
I think that was it. I was more into PC gaming at that time and used the Saturn for Arcade ports.
Daytona
Virtua Cop 1
Virtua Fighter/Remix
Fighting Vipers
Die Hard Arcade
Cyberia
Panzer Dragoon
I think that was it. I was more into PC gaming at that time and used the Saturn for Arcade ports.
Got mine back in 96 japanese import. I was sold on VF2, then came sega rally and Virtua Cop. Independent stores such as CEX, Advance Console Entertainment and Raven Games were providing modding services so importing was easy.
My original games
japanese release:
VF2
Virtua Kids
Fighters Megamix
Fighting Vipers
Sega Rally
Virtual Cop I & II
AStral Superstars
Xmen VS Street Fighter
Marvel VS Street Fighter
Vampire Hunter
radiant Silvergun
Cotton 2
Street Fighter Alpha 2
Street Fighter Collection
Capcom Generations 2
Vampire Saviour
Akumajo Dracula X
Puyo puyo sun
Grandia
Dead or Alive
Sakura Taisen
Wonder 3 Arcade Gears
Samurai Showdown IV
Bomberman Fight
Waku Waku 7
UK releases:
Saturn Bomberman
Keio Flying Squadron
King of Fighters 95
Panzer Dragoon Saga
Shining in the Holy Ark
Shining Wisdom
Shining Force III
Winter Heat
Dec Athlete
Burning Rangers
Sonic R
Parodius
panzer dragoon saga
Mystaria the Realms of Lore
Dragon Force
Exhumed
USA releases
Guardian Heroes
Albert Odyssey legend of Eldean
Dark Savior
panzer dragoon zwei
Saturn games with dynamic res are becoming more annoying to record than 480i PS2 games!
I just did a test, it's 480i in game.
Note that de-interlacing works as well. If this was in 240p I would be using my scan doubler, but I don't have to use it once. How do you even get 240p during gameplay anyways?
Even if it's right, how come only gameplay is 480i on my end while everything else is a mix of 240p and 480i? I thought gameplay was said to be 240p, what happened to that?
Shadow Hog
Member
Going by that screenshot, what it looks like to me is 640x480 backgrounds and HUD, 320x240 arena and fighters.
And yet the output is 480i.
In 480i I can only record in 30FPS unless I use a converter/upscaler/de-interlacer.
Sixfortyfive
He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
Those captures do not look right.
Wut? They are exactly what the capture card detects, and it doesn't lie either. Fighting Vipers, Virtua Fighter 2, Last Bronx and Fighters Megamix are 480i during gameplay or else I would had them in 240p if they were that besides menus and credits. They are right based on what my capture card detects, otherwise I wouldn't be complaining about them. Unless someone can do a 240p and 60FPS capture of Fighters Megamix gameplay then maybe I'll believe, but for now this is what I have.
And those pics don't have de-interlace on either.
Shadow Hog
Member
Well, yeah. If you have 480 rows of image to display, you're not gonna be using 240p.
InfiniteNine
Rolling Girl
Actually tried it again and yeah the character select screen and the the match betweens seem to be the only 240p output there. Sorry about that remembered wrong there.
I worked at a locally-owned video store throughout high school, so I managed to pick up my Saturn around '97 after they decided to sell all their rental games and consoles off, because they weren't doing well. Their loss was my gain, as I managed to snag two launch consoles and the following games:
-Virtua Fighter
-Virtua Fighter 2
-Virtua Cop
-Virtua Racing
-Daytona USA
-Astal
-Street Fighter Alpha
-Street Fighter Alpha 2
-Street Fighter: The Movie
-Panzer Dragoon
-Panzer Dragoon 2
-Fighters Megamix
-Bug!
-Bug Too!
-Off-World Interceptor Extreme (lol)
-Bust-A-Move 2 Arcade Edition
-Sim City 2000
-World Series Baseball
-Golden Axe: The Duel
-NHL All-Star Hockey
-Sega Worldwide Soccer 97
-NBA JAM T.E.
-Mortal Kombat 2
I later acquired a copy of Christmas NiGHTS (from a magazine, I think? It came in a cardboard sleeve...) but not the original title, nor the 3D Controller pad, and picked up a few other common games like Sega Rally and Virtua Cop 2. Titles became exceedingly hard to find in my area, especially stuff that wasn't early first-party or terrible shovelware like Off-World Interceptor Extreme. None of my friends owned a Saturn, and the culture at the time felt very similar to that of owning a Master System (which I recall from elementary school), in that few people outside of hardcore gaming-culture seemed to know that the system was still around, or even existed in the first place.
My first import game was from my local Babbages, and it was X-Men Vs Street Fighter. Babbages started carrying import titles very late in the Saturn's lifecycle, but they were around $90-100 each, Canadian at the time. I recall I modded one of my Saturns myself, by scrapping off the trace, and soldering a connection crudely myself, basically tricking the system to think it was J-NTSC. (Side note: it's still alive and kicking, and I used it as the host for my RHEA.) I was able to pick up a 'Import Key' cartridge that allowed me to play my domestic games on it, and since the system was modded to play Japanese-titles already, it freed up the cart-slot for my 4MB RAM cart to place X Vs SF. The second import game I bought was some terrible Dragon Ball Z game, which I was super psyched for, but ended up being awful. I returned it that same day, and exchanged it for Metal Slug, which I still own!
Most of the cases and instruction booklets of my North American Saturn games are in brutal shape on account being from a rental store, but I still have them all. I find myself collecting Japanese copies of Saturn games because of the ease and affordability to find them in very good shape. It's also much more convenient to swap out their jewel cases for a fresh one, if necesssary.
That video store was very good to me, and was the source of most of my Sega hardware and software, including a 32X and most of its library, the aforementioned Saturns and games, and a pair of Dreamcasts.
Sixfortyfive
He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
The HUD is messed up. It's like you've got the field order reversed or something.
blast processed
Member
This was the same with my area. Everyone I knew was N64 or Playstation or still rocking an SNES. People I did talk to about it always asked why, no good games? Funny how things don't change.
Blame the interlacing on that.=p This is what it looks line de-interlaced with bob on top and high motion on the bottom:
Saturn Memories
Neo Member
A GameShark will work too. It lets my Japanese Saturns play the few US titles I own.
I started off with a few domestic titles too but quickly decided to pursue imports instead. The price, packaging, expanded library made it a no-brainer.
Unless it's an RPG or adventure game, I'll never understand why people seem so determined to collect US and European Saturn games. Why pay more? Why deal with the crappy packaging? Why endure non-optimized PAL conversions?
Even though my collection isn't as huge as yours (I'm around 115), I pretty much re-bought every game I had back in the days. From the most common (yet beloved) ones, such as Dead or Alive, Virtua Fighter 2 and Golden Axe: The Duel, to the more expensive and difficult to track down nowadays (Astra Superstars, The KoF Best Collection, Street Fighter Zero 3...).
I wasn't into collecting yet, so I super stupidly sold my Saturn and all my games, in order to buy my first Japanese Dreamcast and the hottest launch titles. I still miss a few of them, specifically Steam Hearts (lol) which I don't really plan to buy a second time, Dracula X (which I got and played on my Japanese PlayStation, but I'd still like to have for the Saturn too) and X-Men vs Street Fighters (quite possibily my next retro pick-up).
And yeah, stuff like 'I'll only buy again what I've got at the time' is a giant lie we love to repeat to ourselves. We all know the snowballing is right behind the corner.
I got my Japanese Mega Drive 2 + Mega CD 2 combo this week, and holy shit I'm already scared of what will happen from now on.
Swear to God, I had no interest in video game collecting at the time, so I wasn't trying to fool myself or anything. I just remembered games I enjoyed as a kid and wanted to play them again. In time, I probably would've bought some of my old Genesis games too, but I just kept finding myself drawn back to the Saturn every time I looked at more games.
Little nine-year-old me didn't have a clue about importing back then. I probably would've bought a bunch more / better stuff if I did, heh.
blast processed
Member
Wat? Jewel cases are ugly and boring and blend into the shelving. Sega CD & Saturn case, are bold & beautiful. they sit there and say "play me, love me".
I have the AR Plus (no outlet on the top though). I just thought it was interesting that a lot of people, including me, use the AR to play Japanese games on their US Saturns while this person plays US games on a Japanese Saturn.
On a flip note, I read this at another forum.
"My advice: break off the end of a Q-tip and jam the neck of it in between the back of the cart and the Saturn so that the cart is in there VERY snugly with no wiggle room. This has made a successful connection for me almost every time. I've had literally dozens of Saturns go through my hands and the majority (over half) of them have had a hard time reading carts. The Q-tip trick has worked on every system I've tried it on."
Thoughts? Any truth to it?
Ha. Where I was it was either you had "a Sega" or a PlayStation. SNES and N64 were non-existent.
Lets see if I remember correctly...:
Astal
Dark Savior
Guardian Heroes
WWF In Your House
NBA Jam Extreme
Street Fighter Alpha 1
Battle Arena Toshinden Remix
Nights into Dreams
Sonic 3D Blast
Off World Interceptor
D
Crusader No Remorse
Daytona USA
VIrtua Cop
Area 51
Rise of the Robots 2
Christmas Nights
Fighters Megamix
Virtua Fighter 2
Tomb Raider
Considering that my tastes havent really changed that much, i'm surprised I missed then main RPGs that released for the system. Unless I switched up to PS1 that fast. I know I had an N64 and still had my SNES and Genesis at the time.
Bar81
Member
Nothing out of the ordinary. Given how fugly the western units are and the plethora of special edition releases in JP I would think that a lot of people would be using JP units. I've been using a This is Cool model as my primary machine for 10+ years.
InfiniteNine
Rolling Girl
Well JonathanNemo helped me get this beautiful White Saturn and I'm really great for it since I think it's the nicest looking one.
Yep, but - even if you own a Japanese console - don't overlook at the convenience of having a device that works as a RAM cart with 1M/4M auto-switch, and as a memory backup in one go. These AR Plus were pretty popular around here back in the days, and I remember reading alot about them on NTSC-uk/Bordersdown forums as well.
cj_iwakura
Member
I still have my Saturn collection.
I started in 96. I've added a few things, but my favorite games are ones I've always had(Dragon Force, MKR, Albert Odyssey, Burning Rangers, NiGHTS, Shining the Holy Ark, Shining Wisdom). In later years I picked up a few imports and oddball titles.And I got my first import when I was 16: Sailor Moon Super S Various Emotion. Always was a huge fan.
(Shout outs to Ms. Haruna's Classroom.)
RoryDropkick
Member
My first games were:
Last Bronx <JP>
VF2
Daytona
Darius Gaiden
I had bought the system with money from my first part time job in '97. Later on that year I picked up Taromaru <shoulda never sold that dammit> and a few others that I still own. My original Saturn was a US Model 1 with language switch installed. I also used a Action Replay 4 in 1 for a while as well. It eventually died and now I use a JP Grey model.
I love the way they look, but they were so poorly designed. They are brittle and break super easily. So many of my NA cases are in such terrible shape (through no fault of mine), and it breaks my heart that I can't easily/cheaply replace them. The only reason they were so big in the first place, was to gain consumers' attention on store shelves, (which ended up backfiring and pissed retailers off.)
Aesthetics are important to me when it comes to game collecting, and whereas I am not overly concerned about spine cards or having all of the original inserts, I want the case and booklet to walk a fine line between, "this is in really great shape" and "I actually play this."
I have said it before, and I may be in the minority, but I maintain the NA Saturn is the nicest looking of the colour-ways . Once you go black...
Shadow Hog
Member
...you realize you miss gray-colored electronics because everything is black these days.
(Well, that's me, anyway.)
Let's see. Memories are a bit fuzzy, considering it was my last console, and the first console that I started retro collecting for: I switched to PC in october 97, missing all the 1998 super expensive gems, and starting collecting in the early 2000s.
Dark Savior
Daytona USA
Digital Pinball
Fighters Megamix
Fighting Vipers
Le Manoir des Ames Perdues
Mystaria: The Realms of Lore
NiGHTS into Dreams...
Panzer Dragoon
Sega Rally Championship
Tomb Raider
Virtua Cop 2
Virtua Cop
I don't see many crap in here, I'm quite pleased with my 14yo self taste in gaming. Even Mansion of Hidden Souls, that I had in a sale, was quite enjoyable: the gameplay itself is good, the story is original, and the voice acting (in French!) was laughingly bad. I keep telling myself to get it in English too, just to know if it is as cheap.
Dark Savior
Daytona USA
Digital Pinball
Fighters Megamix
Fighting Vipers
Le Manoir des Ames Perdues
Mystaria: The Realms of Lore
NiGHTS into Dreams...
Panzer Dragoon
Sega Rally Championship
Tomb Raider
Virtua Cop 2
Virtua Cop
I don't see many crap in here, I'm quite pleased with my 14yo self taste in gaming. Even Mansion of Hidden Souls, that I had in a sale, was quite enjoyable: the gameplay itself is good, the story is original, and the voice acting (in French!) was laughingly bad. I keep telling myself to get it in English too, just to know if it is as cheap.
BlazeHedgehog
Member
I think, in order of games acquired, mine was something like:
- Christmas NiGHTS (before I got the console!)
- Bug! Too! (with the console)
- Daytona USA Championship Circuit Edition
- Battle Arena Toshinden Remix
- NiGHTS: Into Dreams...
- Sonic 3D Blast
- Shining the Holy Ark
- Legend of Oasis
- Myst
- Die Hard Trilogy
- World Series Baseball
- Astal
- Fighters Megamix
- Sonic Jam
- Virtua Fighter 2
- Clockwork Knight
- Sonic Jam (JP)
- NiGHTS: Into Dreams... (JP)
- Christmas NiGHTS (before I got the console!)
- Bug! Too! (with the console)
- Daytona USA Championship Circuit Edition
- Battle Arena Toshinden Remix
- NiGHTS: Into Dreams...
- Sonic 3D Blast
- Shining the Holy Ark
- Legend of Oasis
- Myst
- Die Hard Trilogy
- World Series Baseball
- Astal
- Fighters Megamix
- Sonic Jam
- Virtua Fighter 2
- Clockwork Knight
- Sonic Jam (JP)
- NiGHTS: Into Dreams... (JP)
KDash31987
Member
Most of my games were bought back then. After the '90s, I've only bought two US games (Last Bronx, Virtua Racing), and 4 Japanese ones (Fighting Vipers, Puyo Puyo Tsu, Samurai Shodown III, X-Men vs. Street Fighter).
-Daytona USA
-Daytona USA: Championship Circuit Edition
-Fighters Megamix
-The Legend of Oasis
-Marvel Super Heroes
-Mortal Kombat II
-Night Warriors: Darkstalkers Revenge
-NiGHTS into Dreams
-Christmas NiGHTS
-Panzer Dragoon
-Panzer Dragoon II: Zwei
-Panzer Dragoon Saga
-Sega Rally Championship
-Sonic R
-Street Fighter Alpha 2
-Tomb Raider
-Virtua Cop
-Virtua Fighter Remix
-Virtua Fighter 2
-Virtual-On
-World Series Baseball II
This is how I do it to, play western games on japanese Saturn with the AR Plus
Shadow Hog
Member
My initial lineup? Probably this, circa 1997 or 1998:
I did have one brief opportunity to expand it in England that I passed up... I swear I saw a copy of either Panzer Dragoon Saga or Zwei at the only store in England I had semi-regular access to that sold NTSC-U titles, and didn't buy it because I was an idiot kid who hated RPGs and shmups - even though it was the only Saturn game I think I ever saw there. I'm really hoping it was Zwei and that my brain is only misremembering it as being Saga, because I picked the former up fairly early on in my collecting career. If it was Saga, though, then I cannot kick my younger self enough.
- Bootleg Sampler (demos of Clockwork Knight 2, Sega Rally Championship and World Series Baseball)
- Daytona USA
- FIFA Soccer '97
- MechWarrior 2
- NiGHTS into Dreams... Sampler
- Pebble Beach Golf Links
- Virtua Cop
- Virtua Fighter 2
- Wipeout
I did have one brief opportunity to expand it in England that I passed up... I swear I saw a copy of either Panzer Dragoon Saga or Zwei at the only store in England I had semi-regular access to that sold NTSC-U titles, and didn't buy it because I was an idiot kid who hated RPGs and shmups - even though it was the only Saturn game I think I ever saw there. I'm really hoping it was Zwei and that my brain is only misremembering it as being Saga, because I picked the former up fairly early on in my collecting career. If it was Saga, though, then I cannot kick my younger self enough.
You know, I wonder if anyone actually uses the AR Plus for the cheat codes, lol.
InfiniteNine
Rolling Girl
Well I had to use them to skip the RAM cart check for PDS. lol