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[VGEsoterica]

Lol forgive the title but it’s truly how I feel.

The Sega Saturn was a hot mess. Sure it had the capability to keep up graphically with the PS1, but only when you had “god tier” programmers coding for both Hitachi SH-2 processors in tandem while ALSO dealing with VDP 1 and VDP 2 correctly. So basically...almost nobody actually did that haha

Yet just like that friend who’a life is a mess but you still enjoy hanging out with...Saturn is still an awesome experience and is by far my favorite console out of that generation. Sure it doesn’t look at good all the time compared to the PS1 and N64, and yes it never got a proper Sonic game...but outside of that it’s still an awesome machine that has a plethora of great games for it. Granted those games are getting more expensive by the day but you can either a) collect Japanese versions or b) plenty of options for ODE / Side loading games into it.

Clearly Sega failed with Saturn, but I definitely feel like it’s so much better than it’s given credit for. Dreamcast seems to get all the love when it comes to “awesome hardware with great games that didn’t succeed” while I think Saturn deserves the same treatment.

curious what people’s top 10 Saturn games are? Or at least their favorites. I made the videos on my ten favorites to release later, but I always love hearing what others think are the best.

I still remember the day I got my Saturn. Bought one with birthday money when I got addicted to playing The House of the Dead at my local arcade and realized I could just save my quarters and play at home lol

 

[VGEsoterica]

so you can hear more about the “hot mess” alphabet soup of processors lol. Or see me take some hardware apart or the mods I’ve done to it

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

I liked SEGA as a kid but I only vaguely remember trying the Saturn in its heyday. I got into the system a few years ago because of the huge library of arcade-perfect and nearly-arcade-perfect ports the system got. Great 2D system and not a bad 3D system when the devs put in the extra necessary effort.

 

[Starlight Lotice]

Top 10? I think I only have 10 games with two as PSN titles.

Nights into Dreams
Virtual On
Groove on Fight
Burning Rangers
Panzer Dragoon Zwei
Panzer Dragoon
Dragon Force
Guardian Heroes
Daytona USA
Cotton 2

 

[VGEsoterica]

Top 10? I think I only have 10 games with two as PSN titles.

Nights into Dreams
Virtual On
Groove on Fight
Burning Rangers
Panzer Dragoon Zwei
Panzer Dragoon
Dragon Force
Guardian Heroes
Daytona USA
Cotton 2

Guardian Heroes is one of my fav beat em ups of all time!

 

[MrA]

Lol forgive the title but it’s truly how I feel.

The Sega Saturn was a hot mess. Sure it had the capability to keep up graphically with the PS1, but only when you had “god tier” programmers coding for both Hitachi SH-2 processors in tandem while ALSO dealing with VDP 1 and VDP 2 correctly. So basically...almost nobody actually did that haha

Yet just like that friend who’a life is a mess but you still enjoy hanging out with...Saturn is still an awesome experience and is by far my favorite console out of that generation. Sure it doesn’t look at good all the time compared to the PS1 and N64, and yes it never got a proper Sonic game...but outside of that it’s still an awesome machine that has a plethora of great games for it. Granted those games are getting more expensive by the day but you can either a) collect Japanese versions or b) plenty of options for ODE / Side loading games into it.

Clearly Sega failed with Saturn, but I definitely feel like it’s so much better than it’s given credit for. Dreamcast seems to get all the love when it comes to “awesome hardware with great games that didn’t succeed” while I think Saturn deserves the same treatment.

curious what people’s top 10 Saturn games are? Or at least their favorites. I made the videos on my ten favorites to release later, but I always love hearing what others think are the best.

I still remember the day I got my Saturn. Bought one with birthday money when I got addicted to playing The House of the Dead at my local arcade and realized I could just save my quarters and play at home lol

it required more than that, according to coding secrets/game hut you had to send the coordinates of polygons to the dsp to actually get decent number of them, among other crazy things.

I love the saturn though, going to install an ode soon so I can play shining force 3 again without cd read errors every 10 seconds.

 

[McCarth]

I gotta say, that's the best description of the Saturn I've ever heard. I will forever simultaneously love and hate that damn console.

 

[nush]

It was the only machine that did the reverse when it came to importing games. Usually you import games at the start of a consoles life due to release dates. For the Saturn you imported because the most awesome games were never getting localized.

The Saturn is a fantastic gamers console.

 

[VGEsoterica]

It was the only machine that did the reverse when it came to importing games. Usually you import games at the start of a consoles life due to release dates. For the Saturn you imported because the most awesome games were never getting localized.

The Saturn is a fantastic gamers console.

I bought a Japanese copy of Deep Fear from my local EB games in the 90’s because even they were importing games for Saturn owners. First and only time I’ve seen a mainstream retail chain do something like that for a console.

I imported a Japanese Dreamcast in early 1999 because my kid brain could not wait to play Sonic Adventure. I was hands down the coolest freshman that year Lolol

 

[MrA]

I bought a Japanese copy of Deep Fear from my local EB games in the 90’s because even they were importing games for Saturn owners. First and only time I’ve seen a mainstream retail chain do something like that for a console.

I imported a Japanese Dreamcast in early 1999 because my kid brain could not wait to play Sonic Adventure. I was hands down the coolest freshman that year Lolol

radiant silver gun was 20 dollars at be at one point, what a time

 

[RAIDEN1]

The Saturn project was a disastrous move by Sega, instead of worrying about the 32x they should have re-focused on making the Saturn the most cutting edge console there was, able to handle with ease games like Daytona USA, but instead for some reason whoever designed the system seemed to forget what made the Genesis great to work with in the first place...

 

[TheContact]

The Saturn was an amazing console. Virtua Fighter blew me away, and Guardian Heroes and Nights into Dreams were my favorite games of that era.

 

[Genx3]

Best 2D Console ever.

Astal where have you been?

 

[kingpotato]

More than 10, but I have fond memories of playing:

Nights into Dreams
Panzer Dragoon Zwei
Daytona USA
Astal
Bust a Move 3
Clockwork Knight
Darius Gaiden
Fighters Megamix
Marvel Superheroes
Saturn Bomberman
Scud the Disposable Assassin
Three Dirty Dwarves
Sonic R
Virtua Fighter 2
X-Men Children of the Atom

 

[Sephimoth]

Loved it, warts and all. Some of my favs:

Tomb Raider (born on Saturn!)
Virtua Fighter 2
NiGHTS
Sega Rally
Panzer Dragoon Saga
Burning Rangers
Sonic R (cringe yet nostalgic OST)
Quake
Saturn Bomberman
Shining Force III
Die Hard Arcade
House of the Dead (awful port, especially beyond the first level)
Street Fighter Zero 3 (import)

I just want them to make a mini version, but probably won't happen since it's hard to emulate. Don't need since I have an original with a decent library, but I like shiny things and convenience.

Sega need to think about doing remasters of some of these, like Panzer Dragoon Saga.

 

[nush]

radiant silver gun was 20 dollars at be at one point, what a time

I paid less than that for the STV cart, even my disc version was around 40GBP new.

Remember back when the XBLA version was released and all the non collectors were smelling their farts about how it would devalue the Saturn version? In 2020 what the average price for it now?

 

[Genx3]

The original Panzer Dragoon, Sega Rally, Virtua Fighter 2, Astal, Dark Stalkers Night Warriors, Daytona USA, are the games that I remember the most.
I think I owned a Saturn for about 2 years before selling it off.
Still regret that sale.

Best Fighting game Controller packed in with a console.

 

[mejin]

Several games I wanted never came to US market. Really sad.

 

[Birdo]

Sega Rally.

 

[small_law]

I loved it. I still hold a candle for Last Bronx.

 

[Genx3]

Loved it, warts and all. Some of my favs:

I just want them to make a mini version, but probably won't happen since it's hard to emulate. Don't need since I have an original with a decent library, but I like shiny things and convenience.

Please Sega do it!
Give us a mini version of the Sega Saturn!!

 

[Genx3]

I had the Black Sega Saturn they sold in the USA. Bought it on Launch day Sega snuck up on us in May.

 

[VGEsoterica]

More than 10, but I have fond memories of playing:

Nights into Dreams
Panzer Dragoon Zwei
Daytona USA
Astal
Bust a Move 3
Clockwork Knight
Darius Gaiden
Fighters Megamix
Marvel Superheroes
Saturn Bomberman
Scud the Disposable Assassin
Three Dirty Dwarves
Sonic R
Virtua Fighter 2
X-Men Children of the Atom

Clockwork Knight is such a fun yet weird and kind of creepy game lol

 

[Orta]

I loved my Saturn. Clearly knew Sega were being slaughtered at the hands of Sony (not to mention by their very selves too) much to the delight of its blow-in fanboys and a massively, hugely biased media (Edge magazine was a fucking disgrace in particular, though we had the legendary Sega Saturn Mag writers on our side and best of all, the utterly mental UK: Resistance guys too) but that only enforced my siege mentality and rabid loyalty to Sega. Despite that their were so many highlights, most of them listed throughout this thread. I relented and bought a Playstation but it was always a distant second to my Saturn. If it wasn't for the continuation (aka fucking Sony buying the exclusive rights) of the Tomb Raider franchise for their console I wouldn't have bothered buying one.

 

[teezzy]

I owned a Saturn long after its heyday. Even bought myself one of those RAM carts. I was so excited! I wanted to see what all the hype was!

I owned the following games:

- NiGHTS into Dreams
- Enemy Zero
- D
- Clockwork Knight
- The Mansion of HIdden Souls
- Daytona USA

NiGHTS was okay I guess. Wii version was way more fun. Clockwork Knight, D, Enemy Zero, The Mansion of Hidden Souls... these didn't hold up very well.

Daytona USA was the most fun thing I'd played on the system and its a fucking NASCAR game.

My buddy was looking for a Saturn and I couldn't have sold him mine and my collection faster. What a lump of garbage. Genesis and Dreamcast were awesome though.

Supposedly this thing has good arcade ports. But like, who gives a shit?

 

[The Pleasure]

Best thing about the saturn?

CAPCOM PRESENTS........

 

[Hudo]

My Top 11:

Burning Rangers
Elevator Action Returns
Panzer Dragoon Saga
Panzer Dragoon
In The Hunt
Soukyugurentai
Battle Garegga
Die Hard Arcade
Space Hulk
Road Rash
Rayman

 

[Saber]

Never was much of a fan of Saturn. Even at that time I simply ignored(you could barely find one tbh).

But years later I tested and played Shinning Force 3, although not by official means. That game alone made me rethink about Saturn and that even made me watch some longplays of Saturn games, mainly Panzer Dragoon.

 

[VGEsoterica]

I owned a Saturn long after its heyday. Even bought myself one of those RAM carts. I was so excited! I wanted to see what all the hype was!

I owned the following games:

- NiGHTS into Dreams
- Enemy Zero
- D
- Clockwork Knight
- The Mansion of HIdden Souls
- Daytona USA

NiGHTS was okay I guess. Wii version was way more fun. Clockwork Knight, D, Enemy Zero, The Mansion of Hidden Souls... these didn't hold up very well.

Daytona USA was the most fun thing I'd played on the system and its a fucking NASCAR game.

My buddy was looking for a Saturn and I couldn't have sold him mine and my collection faster. What a lump of garbage. Genesis and Dreamcast were awesome though.

Supposedly this thing has good arcade ports. But like, who gives a shit?

I still play D once a year around Halloween. It might be aged but I still enjoy it. Then again I love all of WARP and Eno's games so I am definitely not an impartial reviewer lol

 

[Potato Chip PRO]

I still think that Astal has the most beautiful artwork in the Saturn's library.

 

[JonnyMP3]

Only real thing I remember about the Saturn was that awful control pad they brought out that looked like a satellite dish. That thing was huge!

 

[Ceallach]

My favorite 10(which are actually more than 10, but whatever)

Mobile Suit Gundam Blue Destiny Trilogy
Magic Knight Rayearth
Panzer Dragoon Trilogy
Virtua Fighter 2
Daytona USA Championship Circuit Edition
Last Bronx
Guardian Heroes
Virtual On
Fighters Megamix
Radiant Silvergun

 

[Kamina]

We need a Saturn Mini

 

[VGEsoterica]

Only real thing I remember about the Saturn was that awful control pad they brought out that looked like a satellite dish. That thing was huge!

They switched the controller at some point to the smaller Japanese version. You'd think nobody would ever make the "monster sized controller" mistake again but then Microsoft trotted out the "Duke" for the OG Xbox

 

[JonnyMP3]

They switched the controller at some point to the smaller Japanese version. You'd think nobody would ever make the "monster sized controller" mistake again but then Microsoft trotted out the "Duke" for the OG Xbox

The Atari Jaguar pad wasn't small either. But yeah, I remember as a kid going into a Toys R Us or something and playing on a Display unit. And all I can remember is that the control pad was just so big and awkward to use comfortably, probably a huge negative for their sales tbh... But then Sega fixed everything with the Dreamcast's pad.

 

[GymWolf]

My father gifted me a saturn for chrismas when i was little...it was a surprise, i was expecting 2 snes games and he thought that a 3d console would make me more happy...boy he was wrong

The only legit thing i enjoyed in that console was the green demo disc inside the console with the olympic game demo, the soccer game demo and the demo of nights...also the trailer of three dirty dwarwes...

Oh and virtua fighter 2 and fighter megamix.

 

[LarknThe4th]

Would love to get a Saturn, always felt it had such a unique lineup, would have been nice to see it do better cause AM2 where doing insane shit with it by the end Virtua Fighter 2 looked sensational

I like your analogy so I will expand it Saturn is the friend who is a bit off the rails, Playstation is the friend who lives next door and ya always hang with them, and the N64 is the friend who ya know is a bit more worldly but he lives a bit further away and ya only hang with him a few times a month

 

[Naibel]

Saturn was just, pun intended, on its own planet specs-wise and library-wise. Its focus on 2D, arcade ports and niche genres killed the console in the West, but is now a blessing in disguise for all the retro-gamers of today. So much to play and enjoy, so much games with layers and layers of gameplay depth. I now boot up my Saturn a lot more than my PSX (which is also a fantastic machine mind you).

Making a TOP 10 for it is quite the task, but I'm gonna do it !
Totally subjective, and I haven't played every Saturn game of course:

Sega Rally
Street Fighter Zero 3
Radiant Silvergun
Soukyugurentai
Saturn Bomberman
Guardian Heroes
Panzer Dragoon Zwei
Panzer Dragoon Saga
Nights: Into Dreams
Bulk Slash

 

[Romulus]

What's crazy to me is how much potential the last 3 iterations of sega hardware had, even the 32x. But it just felt like Sega went out their way to fuck each of then up.

 

[GenericUser]

Dumpster fire? U take that back!

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

I think Saturn's difficulty in coding is usually overstated tbh. Yes, it was a lot more to wrap your hands around compared to PS1, but if you were a dev who was used to working on arcade hardware like some of SEGA's boards at the time, it was just a natural evolution. Keep in mind this is the same company that had guys like Yu Suzuki program a 3D fighter in assembly language on their first dedicated 3D arcade board back in '92/'93...so by that notion I guess they felt the Saturn was something they could handle.

And more often than not, they did. A few 3rd parties as well such as Treasure really helped make the system shine. Labotomy Labs in particular did some fantastic stuff as a 3rd-party, SEGA honestly should've purchased them as a 2nd-party team after games like PowerSlave. Also this is the same era that also had systems like the Jaguar, with its incredibly weird RAM memory bugs and register errors making it, IMO, a harder system to program for from the looks of it. By and large Saturn at least didn't have any outright bugs in its design, just bottlenecks and not-quite-desired implementations.

That said, PS2 was arguably even more difficult to program for, and had a ton of its own co-processor components to it. Devs by and large, though, sucked it up and banged out fantastic games there. It all comes down to install base saturation and the financial ability of the platform holder to spend as much cash as needed to hit suitable dev environment for 3rd-parties, both of which things Sony was able to do (and do again with PS3), but not SEGA, partly due to being a much smaller company without the resources of a corporation like Sony (especially during the mid '90s/early '00s when Sony were arguably at their peak in terms of being a powerhouse brand in multiple consumer electronics and entertainment areas).

 

[Kokoloko85]

Saturn is amongst my top 5 fav consoles.

Great Multiplayer.
Probably the best JRPG’s outside the Playstation 1 and Snes ( its joint favourite for me )

Some awesome arcaade titles like Virtua Fighter, Virtual On, Sega Rally, Virtual Cop etc
And it had the better versions of the 2d fighting games than its Playstation counterpart. Games like Xmen vs Street fighterf, Street fighter Alpha, Dark savour etc etc


My top 2 favourite games of all time are also Saturn Games. And 6 of them in my top 20
Shining Force 3 series and Guardian Heroes

1. Shining Force 3 All the parts
2. Guardian Heroes
3. Panzer Dragoon Saga
4. Street Fighter Alpha 2
5. CastleVania Symphony of the Night
6. Grandia

Im just gonna list whatever comes to my head first now lol

Legend of Heroes ( another of my favourite RPG’s)
Dark Saviour
Albert Odessy
Dragon Force 2
Lunar series
Langrisser
Y’s
Devil Summoner
Clockwork Knight
Sakura Taisen

Capcom vs games
Virtual Fighter 2and Fighters Megamix

Saturn Bomberman
Radiant Silvergun
Burning Rangers
Baku Baku Animal. one of the best of the genre
Die Hard Arcade
Dayatonaaaa
Sega Rally

 

[kingpotato]

We need a Saturn Mini

Recently picked up the Genesis mini and I was pleasantly surprised at the quality! If they did that with the Saturn and manage to pack in 20+ games with the same care and love, I would be on board! Maybe this thread is helping to identify the essentials

 

[I Love Rock 'n' Roll]

All are japanese versions :
- Virtua Fighter 1 & 2
- Sega Rally plus
- Darius 2
- Saturn Bomberman
- Dragon Ball Z Shinbutohden
- Astal
- Panzer Dragoon 1 & Zwei
- Vampire Savior
- Parodius-Da! Deluxe Pack
- Sega soccer 98
And:
- Yumimimix Remix & Dinosaur Island
- Hattrick Hero S
- Anarchy in the nippon
- Real Bout Fatal Fury Special
- Street Fighter Collection (with zero 2 gold)
- Nights
and so many many other.

I still play SegaSaturn every 2 or 3 days. ❤

 

[SpiceRacz]

On top of all the great games on Saturn, there's a lot of mediocre games that I love, like Bug!, Clockwork Knight, Virtual Open Tennis, etc.

Also need to give a shout out to the GOAT soccer game:

 

[VGEsoterica]

Saturn is amongst my top 5 fav consoles.

Great Multiplayer.
Probably the best JRPG’s outside the Playstation 1 and Snes ( its joint favourite for me )

Some awesome arcaade titles like Virtua Fighter, Virtual On, Sega Rally, Virtual Cop etc
And it had the better versions of the 2d fighting games than its Playstation counterpart. Games like Xmen vs Street fighterf, Street fighter Alpha, Dark savour etc etc


My top 2 favourite games of all time are also Saturn Games. And 6 of them in my top 20
Shining Force 3 series and Guardian Heroes

1. Shining Force 3 All the parts
2. Guardian Heroes
3. Panzer Dragoon Saga
4. Street Fighter Alpha 2
5. CastleVania Symphony of the Night
6. Grandia

Im just gonna list whatever comes to my head first now lol

Legend of Heroes ( another of my favourite RPG’s)
Dark Saviour
Albert Odessy
Dragon Force 2
Lunar series
Langrisser
Y’s
Devil Summoner
Clockwork Knight
Sakura Taisen

Capcom vs games
Virtual Fighter 2and Fighters Megamix

Saturn Bomberman
Radiant Silvergun
Burning Rangers
Baku Baku Animal. one of the best of the genre
Die Hard Arcade
Dayatonaaaa
Sega Rally

The Capcom fighting games were awesome on Saturn, all down to the 4MB RAM expansion card. Funny both Nintendo and Sega had RAM expansions yet PS1 was stock its entire life with no upgrades

 

[kingpotato]

I can't speak to the Nintendo because I don't remember playing any of the arcade fighters on the n64, but all the Capcom games of this era ran much better on the Saturn than PS1. Also virtual fighter 2 was one of the most solid 3d fighters of the gen as well.

 

[Genx3]

Only real thing I remember about the Saturn was that awful control pad they brought out that looked like a satellite dish. That thing was huge!

The Atari Jaguar pad wasn't small either. But yeah, I remember as a kid going into a Toys R Us or something and playing on a Display unit. And all I can remember is that the control pad was just so big and awkward to use comfortably, probably a huge negative for their sales tbh... But then Sega fixed everything with the Dreamcast's pad.

You guys are talking about the Saturn Nights Analogue Pad that was packed in with Nights into Dreams.

That was not the stock controller.

The Sega Saturn Stock Controller is to this day the Best Fighting game controller made by an OEM and packed into the box. It had 6 face buttons arranged perfectly for fighting games and 2 bumpers on top.

 

[Ceallach]

You guys are talking about the Saturn Nights Analogue Pad that was packed in with Nights into Dreams.

That was not the stock controller.

The Sega Saturn Stock Controller is to this day the Best Fighting game controller made by an OEM and packed into the box. It had 6 face buttons arranged perfectly for fighting games and 2 bumpers on top.

The analog pad is fucking phenomenal. It has one of my favorite analog sticks of all time and the DC controller was a huge step back.

And yeah the JP and second Saturn controller were awesome. Not a fan of the controller that launched in America tho

 

[Miles708]

Panzer Dragoon Zwei is Sega's artistic apex (and, by reflex, the entire industry's artistic apex) and the entire console is worth even for that game alone.
Other than that, awesome and miraculous arcade ports like Sega Rally and Virtua Fighter 2 are a sight to behold even to this day (even if I always preferred Last Bronx).

Also, the Saturn is the last console of with a serious ThunderForce chapter (the best "metal" horizontal shoot'em up series ever) and, i don't care what anybody says, Sonic R is, was and will always be an awesome game with awesome gameplay and awesome music.

Lastly, Exhumed was the prototype of the "perfect" console FPS way before Halo.