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[Teknoman]

Happy Birthday! Old enough to drink away those feelings of failure.

But seriously, people often rip on the US library, and while it was limited compared to the Japanese side, we did get a lot of classics: Fighters Megamix, Nights into Dreams, Panzer Dragoon series, and all those arcade ports.

I actually like some of the PC ports too. I was introduced to Crusader No Remorse through the Saturn. Off World interceptor wasnt that bad either.

 

[MikeMyers]

Forgot to mention, but I mentioned to my professor about it being the Saturn anniversary (he's a big gamer), and he was talking to me about the Saturn launch. Supposedly there was a lot of hype for the next Sega system but the Saturn just kinda came and he never found one. Only got his Saturn in a retro store long after even the Dreamcast was discontinued.

Was it really that poorly distributed?

 

[blast processed]

Forgot to mention, but I mentioned to my professor about it being the Saturn anniversary (he's a big gamer), and he was talking to me about the Saturn launch. Supposedly there was a lot of hype for the next Sega system but the Saturn just kinda came and he never found one. Only got his Saturn in a retro store long after even the Dreamcast was discontinued.

Was it really that poorly distributed?

It was around, but it occupied the same crevice in the retails stores that the PSP, Vita and WiiU did.

 

[socksfelloff]

Happy Birthday! Old enough to drink away those feelings of failure.

.

Saturn's been getting liquored up north of the border for the past 2 years.

It was around, but it occupied the same crevice in the retails stores that the PSP, Vita and WiiU did.

I remember going into Toys R us sometime around launch. Saturn had a Kiosk next to the N64. The difference was the N64 line was massive due to it running Mario 64.
The saturn was running some bug game.


Needless to say I ended up with an N64

 

[Moor-Angol]

did you try to click on the picture I posted ?

I always use thumbnail cause a large picture is a pain in the ass when you read a forum using a mobile phone

 

[sixteen-bit]

there's an option to hide photos on mobilegaf and just tap to show them

 

[blast processed]

did you try to click on the picture I posted ?

I always use thumbnail cause a large picture is a pain in the ass when you read a forum using a mobile phone

I know, it was a joke. If you quote the picture it'll be slightly larger and we can click to enlarge without another page opening up.

 

[Galdelico]

did you try to click on the picture I posted ?

I always use thumbnail cause a large picture is a pain in the ass when you read a forum using a mobile phone

Wow, SIAE surely has a LONG record of fucking up our game covers. XD

 

[JLynn]

How is Fire Pro Wrestling on Saturn? Playable for someone who knows zero japanese?

Yes! 6 Man Scramble was one of the first games that had multiple translation FAQs on the then new GameFAQs site and they're still there. There's also multiple YT videos about it.

Magic Knight Rayearth down! cheers to cj_iwakura, i'm not longer a poser for having your sticker on my memory cart, haha...for real, it's a bummer it's so expensive, cause it's legit a fun action RPG & definitely more enjoyable than Shining Wisdom, or to cross over to straight RPG's also by Working Designs, Albert Odyssey. i've never even seen the anime, and this was fun.

i frequently switched characters to examine stuff & see their reaction, which really played into their troupes & such...though goddamn, when you realize that literally every single new area not only has 3 diary entries (one by each of them), but that almost all are voiced over as well...you start to see why this thing showed up so very late. Vic must've been a madman to push for that! i only listened to a handful myself, but will definitely give them more attention if i replay it down the road.

Also each of the diary entries were penned in the girls' handwriting. You can easily tell Hikaru's penmanship is not as smooth as Umi's and Fuu's.

Also don't forget there was a huge HDD crash at Sega at the time and the amount of date WD received were bits and pieces. WD had to reprogram a good chunk of the game. I recently asked WD programmer Tim Trzepacz 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.

 

[Saturn Memories]

It was around, but it occupied the same crevice in the retails stores that the PSP, Vita and WiiU did.

I wouldn't say that. I can remember going to places like Toys 'R Us and Electronic Boutique in early 1996 and seeing Saturn games taking up plenty of real estate. Well, with Toys 'R Us, there were never any physical cases out for consumers (same with all games), but the cover art was pinned to the wall along with those little slips of paper you grabbed and took up to video game desk to be scanned. I don't remember PlayStation's selection being too much bigger at that point. They also had a demo unit set up where you could play Panzer Dragoon, but they always had the sound muted! I never did get PD until after the system's lifetime. And EB had a few standing POS displays for Saturn games. I remember a multiplat one for Gex and another for Astal.

 

[blast processed]

That's the way it was in my area and I'm on the east coast. Saturn had the weakest presence out of them all. Saturn was back cornered most of its life here. It didn't stand a chance with that Mario 64 kiosk around.

 

[MikeMyers]

I remember going into Toys R us sometime around launch. Saturn had a Kiosk next to the N64. The difference was the N64 line was massive due to it running Mario 64.
The saturn was running some bug game.


Needless to say I ended up with an N64

Bug? Shoulda been Nights, Panzer Dragoon Zwei, or Fighting Vipers.

 

[piggychan]

Bug? Shoulda been Nights, Panzer Dragoon Zwei, or Fighting Vipers.

Those games came out I think later. It took a while for developers began to figure out the hardware as the early games.... Well lets just say everyone was sold on Ridge Racer and Tekken.

Playstation just had polygon machine that could handle transparencies with ease and FMV that was smooth and full screen. None of the early Saturn games had anything to match those.

 

[MikeMyers]

Those games came out much later. It took a while for developers began to figure out the hardware as the early games.... Well lets just say everyone was sold on Ridge Racer and Tekken.

But they had an N64 there and that didn't come out til 1996.

 

[piggychan]

I think the problem was also the price point of the saturn.

 

[MikeMyers]

200 by 1996 with 3 free games. Lack of Sonic and N64 hype probably killed it in the US.

 

[sixteen-bit]

I think the problem was also the price point of the saturn.

Playstation with that drop the mic moment @ $299

 

[blast processed]

But they had an N64 there and that didn't come out til 1996.

Panzer Dragoon was released in 95 so that should have been shown instead Bug at launch. I only remember seeing Nights but that was much later.

 

[KC-Slater]

I just remember (anecdotally) people were burnt out on Sega after the 32X and Sega CD. None of my friends had faith that the system was a safe investment, especially at $499 Canadian. Many people were holding out for the N64, or willing to take a risk on the newcomer, Sony. Incidentally, people being weary of Sega's support of the Saturn, ended up being the console's North American undoing. Sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Don't get me wrong, people were impressed when they saw the Saturn in person, but they had unrealistic expectations of the N64, because Nintendo's hype-machine was insane.

 

[MikeMyers]

The 32x should just not have existed.

 

[cj_iwakura]

Magic Knight Rayearth down! cheers to cj_iwakura, i'm not longer a poser for having your sticker on my memory cart, haha...for real, it's a bummer it's so expensive, cause it's legit a fun action RPG & definitely more enjoyable than Shining Wisdom, or to cross over to straight RPG's also by Working Designs, Albert Odyssey. i've never even seen the anime, and this was fun.

i frequently switched characters to examine stuff & see their reaction, which really played into their troupes & such...though goddamn, when you realize that literally every single new area not only has 3 diary entries (one by each of them), but that almost all are voiced over as well...you start to see why this thing showed up so very late. Vic must've been a madman to push for that! i only listened to a handful myself, but will definitely give them more attention if i replay it down the road.

another odd new year's resolution was to beat 10 Sega games this year...and this was # 8, so i'm definitely ahead of schedule! granted, i stacked them with mostly shorter stuff here & there, but while i still wanna power through D (maybe Enemy Zero?) for some halloween Kenji Eno love in October, i clearly saved the best for last & decided i'd try both scenario 1 of Shining Force III (now that i've properly beaten 1/CD/2 & Ark) and Dragon Force! neither are on the short side - especially DF, with all those different countries - but we're not even halfway through the year, so i think those are my best bets, and will totally finish off the major titles in my Saturn backlog as well - opening up time for other important things like Guardian Heroes alternate paths, haha. which do ya'll think i should do first? to be honest, I'm heavily leaning toward DF.

Late, but congrats.

DF: not now, but right now, like, call me when you do, I'll totally drop by.

 

[MikeMyers]

Essentially - Most (or all?) old consoles output natively at 240p (240 lines of resolution). "Normal" SD resolution is usually 480i (480 lines of resolution). Old TVs could handle this properly, newer TVs less so.

Assuming you're using a CRT TV, games' graphics on PS2 will look noticably softer than on the Saturn.

How do you mean? 240p normally means 320 horizontal X 240 vertical progressive pixels. 480i/p means 640 horizontal X 480 vertical either interlaced or progressive pixels; sometimes 720 horizontal X 480 vertical progressive pixels.

In 480i, a complete interlaced frame is made of 2 separate fields. Each field being half of the picture at 480 pixels in height that extend in "lines" horizontally 640 pixels, but with only 240 "lines" (counting once every other line) being filled with picture information. One filed contains picture information on the odd lines counting vertically, and the other contains picture information on the even lines counting vertically. Each field alternates every 30Hz (2 fields X 30Hz = 60Hz for the complete frame) and weaves together in a staggered presentation to produce the interlaced frame.

A typical 480i CRT treats 240p as a single interlaced field. It takes the original progressive image and pulls it apart line by line vertically and stretches it horizontally to fill one field. The other field is completely blank and does not contain the information necessary to complete a totally filled in frame. The end result is a single field that refreshes every 60Hz with blank lines produced by the missing field (often incorrectly referred to as scan lines). This is sort of a hack that I think wasn't really intended by TV manufacturers. Game companies however, took advantage of this. They could display low resolution progressive images that save on computing power but still look quite sharp on a CRT.

Now what is going on with originally 240p games being displayed as 480i from the PS2 is that 2 fields are produced from the original 320 X 240p picture. This is obviously different from the single field method of a CRT. This creates a picture with no "scanlines" and is not the intended way for the game to be presented. You lose perceived sharpness because the 320 X 240 original picture has now been stretched both vertically and horizontally to produce a faked 480i frame.

Ah I see. So basically the resolution isn't that great?

 

[bishopcruz]

The reason that Saturn distribution sucked was because of the boneheaded way that Sega launched the system. Only 4 retailers got the system at launch because of the surprise may release. You could only get a Saturn at Electronics Boutique, Babbages, Software Etc. and Toys R Us. Of those that didn't many, like Kay-bee toys, a fairly major mall bound toy chain at the time, refused to ever carry the system. They pissed off Wal-Mart something fierce too IIRC.

It was possibly the biggest mistake in gaming history when it comes to console launches.

 

[MikeMyers]

Well, that's just here in the the US, right? I mean there was no surprise launch in Europe, and it still seemed to struggle there.

Took N64 less than year to surpass Saturn's entire lifespan in the UK, despite how dominant the Mega Drive was there.

 

[blast processed]

Well, that's just here in the the US, right? I mean there was no surprise launch in Europe, and it still seemed to struggle there.

Took N64 less than year to surpass Saturn's entire lifespan in the UK, despite how dominant the Mega Drive was there.

That Mario 64 sold tons of consoles alone and Sony was fresh and new. A lot of people were tired of Sega's crap, so it's no surprise. Sega dun effed up too many times. In the end the system is still better than the N64.

 

[IrishNinja]

Also each of the diary entries were penned in the girls' handwriting. You can easily tell Hikaru's penmanship is not as smooth as Umi's and Fuu's.

Also don't forget there was a huge HDD crash at Sega at the time and the amount of date WD received were bits and pieces. WD had to reprogram a good chunk of the game. I recently asked WD programmer Tim Trzepacz how in the heck did they reprogrammed Magic Knight Rayearth. He didn't answer that. Instead he answered what he was responsible for.

god, so much of what WD had to deal with sounded like a nightmare...sometimes i really do get why Vic was so soured on sega by the saturn's end. the shit bernie pulled with the memory carts was shitty too.

I just remember (anecdotally) people were burnt out on Sega after the 32X and Sega CD. None of my friends had faith that the system was a safe investment, especially at $499 Canadian. Many people were holding out for the N64, or willing to take a risk on the newcomer, Sony. Incidentally, people being weary of Sega's support of the Saturn, ended up being the console's North American undoing. Sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Don't get me wrong, people were impressed when they saw the Saturn in person, but they had unrealistic expectations of the N64, because Nintendo's hype-machine was insane.

yup - again, diehard sega fan, but literally none of what i loved on the genesis looked to be there, and the $400 price tag was nuts. i played the Virtua Fighter port on a kiosk at EB and was absolutely not sold...to this day, i kinda wonder if i'dve made it happen if that was Panzer Dragoon, though. that game absolutely spoke to me.

Late, but congrats.

DF: not now, but right now, like, call me when you do, I'll totally drop by.

maaaan
might gotta take you up on that offer soon! for real, when i was in college & all sour grapes about missing out on the saturn, i had buddies back then swearing that DF was reason enough to get the system. it's crazy that i'm finally gonna play it this year...might be taking you up on that offer!

The reason that Saturn distribution sucked was because of the boneheaded way that Sega launched the system. Only 4 retailers got the system at launch because of the surprise may release. You could only get a Saturn at Electronics Boutique, Babbages, Software Etc. and Toys R Us. Of those that didn't many, like Kay-bee toys, a fairly major mall bound toy chain at the time, refused to ever carry the system. They pissed off Wal-Mart something fierce too IIRC.

It was possibly the biggest mistake in gaming history when it comes to console launches.

it's funny how little of this i knew until the mags got into it a bit later...kaybee was a big stop for me (at several malls & buy comic shops, plus i recall them dumping some games on the cheaper end sometimes) and then boom, it's playstation/nintendo town in there and sega didn't even exist...i wanna say they stayed that way for the whole gen, can't recall if they stocked DC stuff later or not but it was surreal

 

[MikeMyers]

i played the Virtua Fighter port on a kiosk at EB and was absolutely not sold...to this day, i kinda wonder if i'dve made it happen if that was Panzer Dragoon, though. that game absolutely spoke to me.

Still the best 3D fighter on the market until VF2 though.

 

[oneida]

did somebody say vf2

 

[Timu]

One day...a youtube playthrough of Virtua Fighter 2 has to happen, whenever it'll be Akira or Sarah.

 

[IrishNinja]

Still the best 3D fighter on the market until VF2 though.

as a huge sega & suzuki fan: it just never clicked for me. i enjoyed tekken way more, and i know that's sacrilege to some, haha. and that rushed port did it no favors.

that said, i'd watch VF2 all slack-jawed when it hit my local arcade, that game was/is gorgeous

 

[MikeMyers]

Tekken came a bit later though, around the time Saturn was getting VF2 actually.

The original major 3D Fighter for the PSX was Battle Arena Toshiden, which IMO isn't as good as VF Remix which was out by then.

 

[Timu]

Battle Arena Toshiden

My 1st 3D fighting game funny enough.

 

[IrishNinja]

yeah, i missed saturn in the day though - tekken 2 showed up not too terribly long after i finally got a PSX, and that (and later 3) was my fighter of choice that gen. from every angle, i thought toshinden looked like butt though

 

[MikeMyers]

I know, but I'm trying to say is that Toshiden would be more of VF1's rival game, while the Tekkens would be VF2/Megamix rival games. If that makes sense.

 

[Khaz]

I remember here people being amazed at the PS1 3D capabilities, It's the novelty that sold it to them. FF7 then sealed the deal.

 

[Flizzzipper]

I was 14 or 15 when I went to pick out either the Playstation or Saturn. I was coming from the Genesis. I didn't follow gaming back then and I was really confused about Sega with the CD/32x Saturn. I bought a playstation and Twisted Metal. It was cheaper too right.

 

[Lightning Count]

About to boot up the Saturn I got on ebay, starting with VF2, be fun going back from VF5FS.

 

[AmyS]

Visually, this was a major improvement over the first Saturn release:

And yes I know, this version is somewhat better:

 

[JLynn]

god, so much of what WD had to deal with sounded like a nightmare...sometimes i really do get why Vic was so soured on sega by the saturn's end. the shit bernie pulled with the memory carts was shitty too.

WD had a good relationship with Sega Japan and their JP partners, especially RED. According to Vic, RED wanted WD to localize Sakura Wars and they apparently got the blessing of Sega Japan, but something happened and the plans fell through. WD and SOA had a strained relationship when Stolar took over. I remember the E3 debacle being beyond the breaking point between their relationship.

As for the RAM carts, X-Men vs. Street Fighter could've expanded the market!

 

[IrishNinja]

WD had a good relationship with Sega Japan and their JP partners, especially RED. According to Vic, RED wanted WD to localize Sakura Wars and they apparently got the blessing of Sega Japan, but something happened and the plans fell through. WD and SOA had a strained relationship when Stolar took over. I remember the E3 debacle being beyond the breaking point between their relationship.

As for the RAM carts, X-Men vs. Street Fighter could've expanded the market!

haha, knew what that link was before i clicked it, still glad

 

[Khaz]

Visually, this was a major improvement over the first Saturn release:

Technically better, true, but I'll always miss the original car models. The blue Hornet is iconic.

 

[MikeMyers]

The Saturn version of the OST is so good too.

 

[oneida]

as a huge sega & suzuki fan: it just never clicked for me. i enjoyed tekken way more, and i know that's sacrilege to some, haha. and that rushed port did it no favors.

that said, i'd watch VF2 all slack-jawed when it hit my local arcade, that game was/is gorgeous

it's cool if you like tekken more, VF is a tough sell until you get the swing of it anyway.

VF2 a rushed port though? i don't think so... unless you're talking about VF1.

 

[Galdelico]

it's cool if you like tekken more, VF is a tough sell until you get the swing of it anyway.

VF2 a rushed port though? i don't think so... unless you're talking about VF1.

I believe so.

 

[oneida]

then yeah, totally - pity that game never got a real port, and the closest is 32X.
it's pretty in its own way and even though it's the worst game in the series i still think it's pretty novel.

 

[cj_iwakura]

Using the Saturn for the Summon Night 5 OST, and I love the CD player UI. Funny how systems have gotten less impressive with that as time goes on(if they even bother having the functionality, looking at you Wii).

 

[blast processed]

then yeah, totally - pity that game never got a real port, and the closest is 32X.
it's pretty in its own way and even though it's the worst game in the series i still think it's pretty novel.

Look at this cheap shit.

 

[IrishNinja]

it's cool if you like tekken more, VF is a tough sell until you get the swing of it anyway.

VF2 a rushed port though? i don't think so... unless you're talking about VF1.

I believe so.

exactly that - though ive still not yet played remix, which i hear fixed a lot of it & was good

 

[Awakened]

Progress on Saturn emulation in Mednafen is happening. Considering how good Mednafen's Playstation emulation is, this is exciting. SSF has some annoying limitations and Yabause's compatibility still leaves a lot to be desired.

 

[oneida]

Look at this cheap shit.

lau was sooooo strong in VF1 and 2