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Sega Saturn Appreciation and Emulation Thread

jerry1594

Member
Khaz, is there a comparison between the real and fake ones? I got some in 2014 and last year, including the one that came with Puyo Puyo pc, and they've been perfectly fine with me, with the exception of the dpad's being kind of stiff and a bit creaky, at least compared to the ps2 versions which are flawless. They just need some silicone grease maybe?
 

Khaz

Member
I don't own any recent one. There have been some reports that the plastics used were different, cheaper and more fragile, but I have no personal experience.

I'd say if you want a Saturn USB controller but are disappointed by its build quality, just swap the board with an original vintage Saturn controller. I believe they are mostly compatible.
 

jerry1594

Member
I think the dpads on them are comparatively stiff with my actual Saturn controllers. I'll try them all out and maybe swap out the dpad's though. Even stiff I'll take them over any other controller any day.
 

Saturn Memories

Neo Member
I was hoping to get a few more Saturn USB controllers. Is there a trusted source for these? Do I have to be concerned about cheap knockoffs?

The legitimate SLS controllers are pretty nice, but quite expensive these days. The knockoffs are poor build quality. I would suggest getting an adapter from Raphnet. I've personally tested them with various digital pads, the 3D controller, and the racing wheel. The site claims it also works with twin sticks and the shuttle mouse.

http://www.raphnet-tech.com/products/saturn_usb_adapter/
 

D.Lo

Member
I wonder how that game even came to be.

"Hey, let's make a 3D Final Fight spinoff for the Saturn even though the Dreamcast came out two years ago!"
well, it was on Saturn hardware in the arcade, and the Saturn was more popular than the DC in Japan. So they threw it out there I guess.
 

MikeMyers

Member
Oh right, well the arcade version was in 1999, so still after Dreamcast's Japanese debut.

Even more stranger, it was apparently Capcom USA's game, but seemed to have been made for the Japanese market in mind.
 

Khaz

Member
PA.05413.001.jpg


Got a new Saturn game: Fantasic Pinball.

It's basically the Devil Crash of the 32 bit generation (Techno soft, the developer behind this game, did the Mega Drive conversion of such game), only with a big change in mood.
The setting of the pinball boards are in fact filled with funny fantasy elements lifted from the manga industry of the time.
There is just one board but divided in three different sections (hell, earth, heaven) with lots of elemets and there are various challenges to beat.
This game ooze of 90' arcade gaming charm which is a big compliment (even the engrish in the title add to the charm).
It can be found for very cheap (bought for a total of 13 euro) for now
but after this post I expect the price to increase lol

Hey, that's cool and all, I like it, but do you happen to know what all the menus mean?

Also I have some weird glitches in the earth table, the castle in the background has black rectangles all over it. They don't appear immediately, but like one second after the gameplay starts. Really weird.
 

televator

Member
Time to stop being lazy. I bought a mod chip like 2 years ago and never got around to installing it. At first it was out of fear of soldering, but I've done a few soldering jobs by now, and I'm more confident. I'll just need a fine tip for my iron.
 
Went to MAGfest today, and picked these up:

20160220_2159138xlf2.jpg


Finally got the game where you fight as a car.

Also Jill Sandwiches. (Wish it had the box, but oh well)
 

televator

Member
Just ordered an hss-0150 RAM cart off eBay. The Saturn will be my most accessible way to play Metal Slug while maintaining good performance. The godly Saturn controller is icing on the cake.
 

IrishNinja

Member
man, there's so much about Burning Rangers i wanna love - but it's rough! ive run through level 1 (of 4, it's admittedly not long looking) several times, and i always die somewhere...some rooms just decide to blow up on me, even when i'm not spending too much time looking for injuries...and that's when the combination of the platforming controls & camera stuff just gets brutal. god forbid you're in one of those pits & trying to get back out, constantly bumping your head & landing in fire...ugh. great game otherwise though! high on my list of long overdue for a modern remake.

related: another longshot, but anyone know of a place that reprints cover inserts? manuals would be awesome, but i just want a BR case insert that doesn't look like this bootleg one i made at kinko's from the same bad scan going around most places (segaretro/etc). i'd be totally okay with someone marking up such a thing as a reprint or whatever if they wanted, i'd just love the option here but don't know of any resources.

Time to stop being lazy. I bought a mod chip like 2 years ago and never got around to installing it. At first it was out of fear of soldering, but I've done a few soldering jobs by now, and I'm more confident. I'll just need a fine tip for my iron.

godspeed if you haven't yet, post back your results if you did man!

Went to MAGfest today, and picked these up:

Finally got the game where you fight as a car.

Also Jill Sandwiches. (Wish it had the box, but oh well)

oh man, i had some friends going this year - wish i could've made it. good pickups, any other saturn stuff about there for non-insane prices?

Sorrow and heartbreak in Legend of Oasis:

bwahaha, harsh
 

IrishNinja

Member
man, that looks alright to me - especially compared to this mess


worse yet, even when i edit it to the proper dimensions for said Saturn case, the spine just looks wrong/short of where it oughta be. just sloppy all around, and that's the exact copy i find at any site claiming to have it, ugh.

Shining Force CD has an off-shade of faded blue, but at least fits okay...bums me out since ive the disc & manual for it, but again, no other options i can find at the moment. BR really looks like booty buttcheeks, though.
 
oh man, i had some friends going this year - wish i could've made it. good pickups, any other saturn stuff about there for non-insane prices?

One or two booths had some imports. Saw less then 10 US Saturn games total, and most were random garbage. Same but less for Sega CD games, other then a copy of Snatcher that someone sold to a vendor during the event. They wanted $400 for it after buying it for $250 and it was beat up as fuck.
 
man, there's so much about Burning Rangers i wanna love - but it's rough! ive run through level 1 (of 4, it's admittedly not long looking) several times, and i always die somewhere...some rooms just decide to blow up on me, even when i'm not spending too much time looking for injuries...and that's when the combination of the platforming controls & camera stuff just gets brutal. god forbid you're in one of those pits & trying to get back out, constantly bumping your head & landing in fire...ugh. great game otherwise though! high on my list of long overdue for a modern remake.
It took me a while to figure out how to get "good" at Burning Rangers, but the idea is you wanna keep shooting flames when possible, since that drags the danger meter downward. This does mean you need to keep moving briskly enough such that you can find flames to shoot, of course, as sticking around a room with no flames is a good way to let the danger meter slowly creep up over one of the 20% divisions that you can't go back under.

Also, remember to use your standard shot more than the charge shot, because the standard shot gives you crystals, which are both basically Rings from Sonic (and thus should help with your dying issue) and the currency you need to save people with. At the same time, you'll probably want to use the charge shot to attack bosses and enemies (what few there are) with.

And don't make the mistake I keep making with abusing the jump/dash button. The game has Zelda-style autojumping, but the fact it has a button that contextually acts as a jump button in a platformer always throws me off. ("Contextually", because if you're holding a direction at the time, you're more liable to just roll in that direction, even if you meant to jump. Kind of a failure of control design IMO, overloading buttons like that, but still better than the shit they pulled with some of the Sonic games following BR...)

Honestly, the game's begging for a port of some sort. The framerate is so sluggish, the camera unhelpful, and the control scheme in need of revision, that I think the game'd benefit from a port much more than NiGHTS would. There's a good game buried in here, somewhere, and the jank that's burying it is mostly due to them pushing right up to the Saturn's limits, more than bad game design..

oh man, i had some friends going this year - wish i could've made it. good pickups, any other saturn stuff about there for non-insane prices?
A couple, but mostly stuff I already owned, like NiGHTS, Christmas NiGHTS, Sega Rally Championship (CIB) or Tempest 2000 (CIB).

But since I was buying X3 for the SNES, I was hesitant to buy too much more. (Although I saw Power Stone 2 CIB at another booth, and probably should've bought that... $100, tho.)
 

IrishNinja

Member
...other then a copy of Snatcher that someone sold to a vendor during the event. They wanted $400 for it after buying it for $250 and it was beat up as fuck.

ahahahaha, of course they did

It took me a while to figure out how to get "good" at Burning Rangers, but the idea is you wanna keep shooting flames when possible, since that drags the danger meter downward. This does mean you need to keep moving briskly enough such that you can find flames to shoot, of course, as sticking around a room with no flames is a good way to let the danger meter slowly creep up over one of the 20% divisions that you can't go back under.

ahh, see i was taking far too long looking for people, i imagine the level lighting up was its way of hurrying me along, yeah

Also, remember to use your standard shot more than the charge shot, because the standard shot gives you crystals, which are both basically Rings from Sonic (and thus should help with your dying issue) and the currency you need to save people with. At the same time, you'll probably want to use the charge shot to attack bosses and enemies (what few there are) with.

yeah, they really do feel like sonic's rings! i was so mad when i'd have like 30-40 and lose em to a random fire i barely saw, but you're able to recclaim a bunch if you move quick...and i really only get mad if i find a victim and can't port them out. and good advice, i'm only charge shotting bosses so far!

And don't make the mistake I keep making with abusing the jump/dash button. The game has Zelda-style autojumping, but the fact it has a button that contextually acts as a jump button in a platformer always throws me off. ("Contextually", because if you're holding a direction at the time, you're more liable to just roll in that direction, even if you meant to jump. Kind of a failure of control design IMO, overloading buttons like that, but still better than the shit they pulled with some of the Sonic games following BR...)

Honestly, the game's begging for a port of some sort. The framerate is so sluggish, the camera unhelpful, and the control scheme in need of revision, that I think the game'd benefit from a port much more than NiGHTS would. There's a good game buried in here, somewhere, and the jank that's burying it is mostly due to them pushing right up to the Saturn's limits, more than bad game design..

hmm...yeah, its weird: i was totally doing what the tutorial said & pushing down or whatever when you hear the backdraft noise works...unless there's something overhead, or the room you're in is going to shit, then it's just a gesture at best, so i've been trying to double jump about & find higher ground when that happens, but man does the camera wanna fight me sometimes, haha. and totally agree, it really does feel like a slightly more ambitious game than the hardware was ready for at the time, no surprise given Naka's work in that era too!
 

JLynn

Member
I'm in a Sega group on Facebook where some guy posted his Working Designs Saturn collection. After obeying my thirst I read the post and saw that former WD programmer Tim Trzepacz posted. After thanking him for his work I asked him how in the heck did they reprogrammed Magic Knight Rayearth. He didn't answer that. Instead he answered what he was responsible for.

Originally Posted by Tim Trzepacz


I did an awful lot of work on Rayearth over the course of 2 years, including writing software to generate lip flap movements from recorded audio dialog, a map editor to remove extra sprites that caused slowdown, tools to replace audio in the Cinepak movies without recompressing the video (they lost the source video...), and to replace the logo video in the middle with the English language logo, command line tools to generate bitmaps of text place names, to squash them to fit in the allowed number of pixels, and then convert to 16 colors and insert back in the binary, and many, many other things. I think it was one of the best games Sega made for the Saturn, and I suspect that if I didn't keep pushing it, Victor would have dropped it.

This leads me to believe the amount of stuff Sega of Japan gave them were very little and the HDD crash fucked them up royally and Tim and the rest of the WD programming team were wizards.
 
I appreciate their efforts. Quite enjoyed that game.

Speaking of WD, the place I got RE, Megamix and MMX3 from also had Albert Odyssey CIB... for like $160 or so. I assumed it wasn't actually worth that much, but I'm wondering...
 
I appreciate their efforts. Quite enjoyed that game.

Speaking of WD, the place I got RE, Megamix and MMX3 from also had Albert Odyssey CIB... for like $160 or so. I assumed it wasn't actually worth that much, but I'm wondering...
Hmm. I really liked Albert a lot. It's a little grindy and some maze like dungeons can be frustrating with random encounters, especially towards the end, even though WD toned them down. I would be fine with that price as long as that copy is mint.
Edit: I always put it in my top 10 Saturn games. I'm sure I'm in the extreme minority tho
 

StevieWhite

Member
Hmm. I really liked Albert a lot. It's a little grindy and some maze like dungeons can be frustrating with random encounters, especially towards the end, even though WD toned them down. I would be fine with that price as long as that copy is mint.
Edit: I always put it in my top 10 Saturn games. I'm sure I'm in the extreme minority tho

I haven't played it since 99, but I have very fond memories of AO. Has a pretty epic boss fight in it (the purple Mohawk dude, can't remember the name). Leave the system running while you're at school level stuff.

In other news, just retrieved my mission stick fron a box in my folks' basement. Looking forward to putting it through the paces again. Aside from panzer 1/2, any recommendations?
 
I actually just tried RE1.

I died to a dog.

(Saw it coming, of course. Thought process went something like "Oh, hey, windows. Is this where the famous jumpscare happens? Ah, yeah, definitely where the jumpscare happens. Wow, I can't knife this thing worth shit. Oh. I'm dead.")

Weird that there's no customizable control scheme. Only using A/B is kind of strange. Stranger still is how A is Cancel and B is Accept in the pause menu.
 

televator

Member
Yeah, I suppose. I just think I'm spoiled from playing REmake so many times over. Shit was truly frightening the first few times. The first time I saw a crimson bust through a door, I had to stop and take a break. lol My heart was pounding.

Edit: Oh and that one time a hunter decapitaded my sorry ass by jumping from the second story. I got rekt!
 

Galdelico

Member
I actually just tried RE1.

I died to a dog.

(Saw it coming, of course. Thought process went something like "Oh, hey, windows. Is this where the famous jumpscare happens? Ah, yeah, definitely where the jumpscare happens. Wow, I can't knife this thing worth shit. Oh. I'm dead.")
Hahaha, priceless. :D

Weird that there's no customizable control scheme. Only using A/B is kind of strange. Stranger still is how A is Cancel and B is Accept in the pause menu.
That's probably reminiscent of the Japanese, original PlayStation control scheme, where X cancels and O accepts.
 

gelf

Member
RE1 being comical sometimes is part of the reason it still appeals to me. I installed that original voices mod on PC REmake when it came out faster then you can say "Jill sandwich".

If I had any talent for making games my dream project would be to make a deadpan wonky B movie game in the style of RE1.
 
GoF rocks. How do you like it?

I love the "Dodge" feature, and a lot of the tag-team options are very cool too. Plus, the music is some top-tier stuff (Really dig M.A.D. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daaknzdUzvM)

I need more time with it to see where i rank it among the pantheon on Saturn fighters, but its pretty high up there right now.

For the record, this is the first Power Instinct series game i ever played.
 

entremet

Member
How is Last Bronx? Looks like another VF2 engine game a la Fighters Megamix and Fighting Vipers.

I really enjoyed both of those.
 

StevieWhite

Member
How is Last Bronx? Looks like another VF2 engine game a la Fighters Megamix and Fighting Vipers.

I really enjoyed both of those.

Last Bronx is fun, but I don't think it has as much bang for your buck... unless you can read Japanese and you can fully reap the benefits of your bonus disc.

Looks stunning though.
 
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