Because turning down $500 for something that's essentially completely redundant for you would be incredibly stupid?
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Sega Saturn Appreciation and Emulation Thread
- Thread starter Seik
- Start date
Because turning down $500 for something that's essentially completely redundant for you would be incredibly stupid?
Shadow Hog
Member
I was thinking more along the lines of "selfish", honestly.
That too.
So you're saying there will be a PDS GAF contest soon? Got it.
$310 about a month ago.
Holy hell. Thanks for the input.
I've wanted to play it for so long but have never pulled the trigger. Is it really worth the $300-350 price tag?
$275 here like a month ago. I can't believe I dropped that much coin on one game but it was in good condition and all of the money I spent was money returned to me I thought I'd never see again.
Now to start on the expensive Japanese games I want!
Genesis Knight
Member
Are you surprised?
This is impossible to answer. Different for everyone. If you just want to play the game, our posts should make it clear you can buy it, beat it, and resell it for at least what you paid for it.
Shadow Hog
Member
I'll just note that it's over in 12 hours. It's an amazing game, but it's short to a fault. On the other hand, it doesn't outstay its welcome, that way.
It very much is mode 7 on steroids. We used it to great effect in Street Racer on the Saturn which may no have been the greatest game ever but I was very proud of the cool effects we achieved with the mode 7. The coder I worked with at the time managed to interrupt the drawing to allow 3 or 4 layers iirc, so we had the road for the track itself, then the clouds in the sky as well as cloud shadows on the floor. My memory is a bit hazy on this it was my first job in the industry and it was a very long time ago. I think we had fog on Franks stage as well as water with reflections of the clouds on Surfs stage.
Can't believe you actually got to develop on the Saturn. I wish Sega still had consoles. By the time I joined the industry Sega was already out T_T The closest I can get to developing on the Saturn now is working on mods like translation projects and such lol
I was working at Toys R Us as a teen when PDS came out. The day of release, they dropped it down to 20 bucks (as well as Shining Force 3). I went to buy all the copies when some poor young gent came in the store. He was desperately looking for the game and heard that we had copies. I gave him one as I couldn't bear to have a fellow RPGers heart broken. Sold them all some years ago, the price has always been high...even at 300+ now that isnt much more than they were going for 10+ years ago.
Oh man If only I had a Saturn at the time.
Ingueferroque
Banned
I bought PDS at the European launch, after experiencing the first disk through the Official UK Saturn mag. An amazing time.
I was a massive Sega fan boy as well so I was pretty made up about getting to work on the Saturn and did everything I could to make the Saturn version much better than the PS1 version
The video below shows the variety of effects we had with the mode 7, mostly involving interrupting the cloud layer and allowing it to appear as either shadows on the road, reflections or fog.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSqKubHcQ4k
Looks bloody rough these days though. I think I had a stupid limit on the 3D objects like 8 verts per object so I had to build things in chunks and stick them together and texture them in the tool.
Shame, there are only 6000 copies of the first print of the US version of PDS you should have kept one at least. It's rarer than the PAL version but the PAL version is much more collectable due to the slip case and awesome art.
I really thought about it...but at 18, having 4 copies of a game worth 1000 dollars is too tempting to resist. When you're in college and broke, a 1000 dollars is basically a kings ransom haha. I guess the only thing I ever regret selling was a collection of Lunar 1 and Lunar 2 for Sega CD, copies of each of the different artwork CDs. I'm just glad I got to play PDS and Shining Force 3 when they came out, that was reward enough for me I think. Some other soul is probably still enjoying those copies I sold today (I hope!)
Genesis Knight
Member
They're probably in a glass bookcase in someone's basement.
I was a massive Sega fan boy as well so I was pretty made up about getting to work on the Saturn and did everything I could to make the Saturn version much better than the PS1 version
The video below shows the variety of effects we had with the mode 7, mostly involving interrupting the cloud layer and allowing it to appear as either shadows on the road, reflections or fog.
Looks bloody rough these days though. I think I had a stupid limit on the 3D objects like 8 verts per object so I had to build things in chunks and stick them together and texture them in the tool.
Damn that's awesome. Thanks for sharing. So was it really as bad to develop on as the internet says? From my experience, most machines are kind of a pain to develop on so was it really that much worse?
It is worth it if you are a collector. Most collectors take a holistic approach. Yeah, certain games are expensive, others are relatively cheap. Add all the hardware costs together, then add in the games then do a division for a price per title. Invariably price-per-title comes out pretty reasonable. No use dwelling on the cost of the few expensive games. But those do help fill out and round out a collection.
I can tell you my little Saturn collection is about 50 titles strong. There are some heavyweights in there (things like PDS, Hyper Duel, Psychic Assassin) but I've only spent about $3200 over the years...including a new Import Saturn, the big Twin Stick, a couple of other smaller sticks. But, average price per game, with all the hardware included, works out to only a little over $60 a piece.
Wow I used to have that mag too and I remember buying a copy of the game brand new in Virgin store. Back then when Richard Leadbetter lead the charge on the Official Sega Saturn mag.
Yes, the Saturn was 'special' it was really quite powerful it's dual CPUs could absolutely destroy the PS1 if you invested the effort. However as is well documented, it couldn't draw polys in the traditional sense it drew distorted sprites as quads (no triangles at all, well you could do 4 point tris but it looked wierd). The drawing chip in the Saturn was not upgraded when they added the extra processor so it could basically calculate nearly twice as much as it could draw. Also the chip that did transparencies was broken! It was basically a massive rush job to beat sony to market, botched hardware, broken chips poor documentation. I'm surprised and amazed some devs got so much out of the hardware. Oh another quirk we exploited was that it drew textures (bent sprites) in one rotation much faster than another, so we used the CPU grunt to pre rotate the textures to give us more fill rate!
Well, the long and short of it is that the Saturn could make great looking 2d games, the Playstation was better at 3d. Personally, I think 3d started too early and looked like crap, should have waited another generation...in the mean time, we would have had fantastic looking 2d games. I think that is partially what Sega was banking on. Instead, we got Bubsy 3d.
The most fondly remembered game of that generation is Castlevania SOTN. Those are the types of games they should have concentrated on. Instead, most of that gen is archaic on the level of the Atari 2600.
sixteen-bit
Member
speaking of SOTN, that crap Saturn port hurts my soul
VARIA
Member
PDS actually runs quite well in an SSF emulator with even a crappy PC ( I've run it on a 2007 dell without a proper graphics card with no issues).
So you can buy the Japanese version and (legally?) play the American version on your PC.
It does indeed look special. I remember seeing the big fish go transparent under the water. That was around the time when all the PlayStation fan boys just loved to say "Saturn can't do transparency. This clearly showed that it could along with many other games. But yeah, even now with the fantastic water seen in GTA5, the water in Panzer Dragoon Zwei while looking nothing like real water still manages to look fantastic even now.
If it was built on the Saturn from the ground up, it would have been glorious.
And I first played through it 2 years ago. Wished the system had been successful because it had a lot of cool effects that the PSone couldn't do.
I always loved he look of Saturn Street Racer. To be fair it wasn't a very good game (well, on the SNES is was good) but it sure did impress. You are right about the reflections by the way.
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
I never got it to work on my own NA Saturn.
Other PAL games worked fine, though Guardian Heroes had some annoying graphical glitches.I never got it to work on my own NA Saturn.
It works fine on NA but you need to enter and activate the AR code detailed on this page:
http://www.thewilloftheancients.com/articles/panzer-dragoon-saga-action-replay-codes
This is how I played the PAL disc 1 demo on an NTSC system.
I have the action replay cart for my Saturn, so I should be good to run the import, right?
Genesis Knight
Member
Craiglist out here in NC is crap for Saturn. Ebay is a black hole that sucks everything into it.
VARIA
Member
It definitely should. I use Action Replay to play the JP versions of X-Men vs Street Fighter & Castlevania: SOTN. Looked up the eBay prices for the JP version of PDS and wow, what a difference to the American version. Now I feel tempted to get the game.
sixteen-bit
Member
it's like 1/10th the price or less
Sixfortyfive
He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
Yes, but it may take some getting used to.
cj_iwakura
Member
Yes, I don't own a 3D pad and I can beat NiGHTS just fine.
And define obscure? Most of the good stuff isn't really. Sakura Wars, Devil Summoner, Soul Hackers, Dragon Force II, Tokimeki Memorial. They'd top my list.
Mr. Luchador
Member
Did they ever translate the 2 other episodes of Shining Force? Were they ever made?! What happened to the guy who fell off the bridge!?!?
cj_iwakura
Member
Mr. Luchador
Member
Oh great, I'll have to get around to playing them!
I can't remember, this happened over 10 years ago when I played it. I just remember a fight on the bridge, and 1 character falling off the bridge and being swept away by the current. I assume his story is told in part 2 or 3.
Also - what was the point of that egg character?
I can't remember, this happened over 10 years ago when I played it. I just remember a fight on the bridge, and 1 character falling off the bridge and being swept away by the current. I assume his story is told in part 2 or 3.
Also - what was the point of that egg character?
It's playable, but you'll be missing out on some of the better stuff.
The analogue controller for the Saturn is like none that have come after, and to be honest, I find it only usable for NiGHTS. Didn't like the feel with other games that supported it.
But for NiGHTS, it's absolutely perfect. Extremely light and smooth which helps so much in conveying the sense of flight and drift.
So I'd highly recommend picking up a 3D pad to play it with. After getting used to it for a while, I doubt you'll be disappointed or want to play the game with digital controls ever again.
As for obscure games, perhaps Mizubaku Daikouken (Liquid Kids), but you might have that one on PC-Engine already.
If you like pinball games, I love Digital Pinball: Necronomicon.
Baku Baku Animal gets forgotten by most, which is a shame.
Twinkle Star Sprites is brilliant.
If you like Columns, you can't go wrong with Columns Arcade Collection.
blizzardjesus
Banned
$60 3 years ago,
I was working at gamestop, some guy comes in and is like "I bet you cant guess what rare games I got in my bag?" I'm like I can't, He pulls out a complete PDS. I'm like "OK how much do you want."
Hes like i want to sell it but i dont want to deal with ebay, so i'm looking for offers, the retro store down the hall wasn't sure what to offer." I tell him what its worth($150+) and tell him the most I could offer for it was $50.
He thinks about it for a bit and really wants to buy a 360. After a bit he says ok deal, tell my manager i'll be right back.
We go to the Atm, In my mind i'm like he's gonna ask for more. so I take out $60 and say this is the most I gan give. With the promise that I would keep it and not resell it. We shake on it, and I still have it.
sixteen-bit
Member
$60 in 2010 is a great price for PDS. Congrats.
blizzardjesus
Banned
Friend at the retro store was pissed, his co manager thought it was funny.
Most i've payed for a saturn game is $120 for radient silvergun, at a game craze in rochester like 10 years ago.