StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
I never had a Saturn, but anyone play that war sim Iron Storm? Was it any good? I remember seeing a box at a store and videos show it similar to a PC sim like Allied General.
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xpresstuning
Member
Astal IS a tech demo, as far as i'm concerned. The japanese original was far easier, i don't think the game was meant to be anything but an early push to see what the 2D capabilities of the Saturn were.
I don't think anyone overrates it anymore, haven't seen any praise for it anywhere for years now that almost everyone who has a passing interest in playing Sega Saturn games has already played it. Astal's gameplay is barebones and a little on the slow side, but it's a fun romp through brilliant art design and music. Worth playing it once for sure, and definitely the japanese version.
I don't think anyone overrates it anymore, haven't seen any praise for it anywhere for years now that almost everyone who has a passing interest in playing Sega Saturn games has already played it. Astal's gameplay is barebones and a little on the slow side, but it's a fun romp through brilliant art design and music. Worth playing it once for sure, and definitely the japanese version.
cireza
Member
Astal is a nice platformer but nothing special. It certainly isn't better than Clockwork Knight are many others on the console.
Guardian Heroes (not Legends) has an awesome soundtrack, but in terms of gameplay, I find it really average. The level-up system is poor, you get levels by launching spells even if they don't hit, you don't really know what stat to boost, and enemies are sent of flying way too easily while not taking much damage at all, which leads to never ending fights especially end-game.
Dungeon & Dragons is also not that great. You are interrupted all the time and managing inventories has no place in a BTA. Super annoying.
Honestly, in terms of BTA, my go-to game is Die Hard Arcade. Nothing beats it. I find that it is the only really good game in the genre on the console.
pramod
Banned
Funny you should mention that, I was just about to post that I was digging through my Saturn collection last night and found Iron Storm, and realized I have actually never played it. I'm going to boot it up finally and let you know how it goes.
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Naked Lunch
Member
Its fantastic. Its just another entry of the Daisenryaku series if you ever played those. PS2 and the OG Xbox had a port in the US.
Basically Advance Wars on steroids - and the saturn version is the WWII variant obviously.
Only problem with the Saturn port is im pretty sure you needed a memory pack to actually save as the space required was ginormous.
Im still pissed we havent gotten a Daisenryaku port to modern consoles with online play. Theres been a recent port to Steam but the series would find an audience on consoles. People starving for some Advance Wars type games.
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cireza
Member
An issue the CPS2/3 conversions all have on Dreamcast is the fact that Capcom decided to retain the correct aspect ratio for sprites. CPS2 displays 384 columns instead of the usual 320 on our TVs. So every single port on Saturn has larger sprites than what you would see in the arcade. But that's fine, as it is pixel-perfect, and of course you WILL prefer pixel-perfect. On Dreamcast, they decided to scale them to have the proper ratio, which leads to blur, and this is the main reason I dislike the CPS2/3 ports on Dreamcast (Marvel vs Capcom is another one).
Naked Lunch
Member
Interesting. I was going to mention that the DC characters seemed much smaller to me from memory. Youve explained it.
The Saturn port is unreal though - even if I prefer Alpha 2, 3 is still an awesome game with tons of characters and stages. Timeless.
Marchizmo
Member
That game was awesome, I remember getting it for Christmas or my birthday.
fart town usa
Banned
Given the choice between Guardian HEROES (my bad, lol) and D&D, I prefer D&D. I have a repro of D&D but when I actually want to play it, I just go the Wii U route cause it's in English.
DHA is a classic through and through. I was one of the few kids at my middle school who had a Saturn and DHA, that's the game that literally helped me find a social circle in middle school. I got lost in the shuffle in 7th grade with all kids from various elementary schools merged into one and a kid in gym class said he heard I had a Saturn and DHA, we hung out and I was adopted into his friend group. Some of the best people I've ever had the pleasure of calling friends and still more or less best friends with the kid who approached me about owning a Saturn.
Damn good memories.
fart town usa
Banned
Dude, STHA is seriously one of the most impressive games from the 32-bit generation, regardless of console.
The first person exploration, the enemy sprites, music, pixie system, etc. For me it's easily the most underrated game on the system simply because a lot of people don't seem to mention it when discussing must own Saturn games in YouTube comments. I was guilty of it myself until a few years back. Top 3 Saturn game for me.
And then you have Shining Wisdom, man what a disappointment that game was, lol. My brother and I spent months trying to track that game down during the Funcoland days, definitely not the Zelda clone we thought it was going to be. An ISO of the game is like 50mb. Shows too, that game is so underwhelming.
fart town usa
Banned
Good to know. I hate dealing with emulators but I do love what they provide for people. Glad to hear that Saturn emulation seems to be pretty stable these days. I think the Saturn core for Mister is making good progress too.
sachos
Member
Looking into it, it seems it was released on modern hardware in the Darius Cozmic Collection on Steam, PS4 and Switch.
Kruza
Member
Yeah, the Sega Saturn 3D controller works very well for Panzer Dragoon Zwei and Burning Rangers.
It's also excellent for Sega Touring Car Championship!
Eddie-Griffin
Banned
Sega was exploring having another company make a machine with their brand on it a few times, including the 3DO and the M2.
Problem with the Saturn is Japan made Sega continue supporting it without looking for a fast replacement until 1997 so there's really no case where Sega would have pulled on the Saturn earlier as long as the initial success in japan blinded them from not seeing they couldn't save the Saturn, at start 0f 1996 Sega had no reason to believe Saturn would end up in the ditch, in fact, Sega was still a big deal at the start of 1996, until around November where they suddenly were in debt, failed projects everywhere, bad decisions, and flopping outside of Japan much harder than they were expecting.
So really, you'd have Sega pull out in 1997 but that would burn their local japanese base which were actually supporting that would have supported the Saturn another year, so that might hurt mindshare, but i guess that's a trade-off.
RAIDEN1
Member
Even so despite the strong success and their one and only success in Japan if I am not mistaken, in the long run it didn't stop the company from becoming close to extinct come 2001.. they ultimately had no choice but to be a software developer in the end if they wanted to survive in some shape or form..
Alexios
Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
Many games support it, most of the later racing games like your mention and Drift King 97 (which on PS doesn't support the dual analog/shock controller) and the Sega Rally and Daytona later versions etc. This list is a bit padded as it doesn't do anything worthwhile in some of the games but yeah:
https://segaretro.org/3D_Control_Pad#Compatibility
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Eddie-Griffin
Banned
I wouldn't say strong because the initial success died pretty fast starting in 1997, however, the issue with the Saturn was Japan wasn't strong enough to ake up for the Saturn failing everywhere else. Software sales also ended up being heavily reliant on Virtual Fighter to get people to the console and I think Sega not really putting other popular games they had on the forefront of the consoles, like Sony did with the same games they both had, really hurt them there.
In other places where there was no VF, there wasn't strong momentum for the first few years to build from. Only strong momentum in the launch window/year and then Sega started falling behind pretty quick.
I do however agree that once they messed up with the Saturn their chances of being able to compete without being a software developer was low, the 3DO showed the costs even for a new entrant with support form at the time major worldwide famous electronic manufacturers with connections was still eventualy an issue. It took 3DO too long to drop the price then it started selling well, but then new consoles came and under cut it, so they had to drop the price even loser than them (PSX) and while that increased sales a lot actually, it also meant money was being lost at a rapid pace. 3Do was the canary in the coal mine.
Look at how much money the first Xbox lost just because of a slight production and pricing issue with two partners for only two parts of the hardware, primarily Nvidia.
That's not an environment Sega could really compete in, even Nintendo had to change strategy, and they had their handheld money to supplement their moves and cover their mistakes, Sega by late Saturn had no arcades, no handhelds, no PC stuff, and no edutainment stuff bringing them any significant money to make up for decisions that bled them red for their consoles.
I'm surprised when you look at the full context of the Dreamcast form the decision for it, to it's launch, and discontinuation, that the console even lasted as long as it did until that point in 2001.
RAIDEN1
Member
Well technologically speaking circa 2001 the dreamcast wasn't exactly obselete.... it had decent enough tech under the hood...under the circumstances....but yeah soon as Metal Gear 2 came out...the writing was on the wall..
nkarafo
Member
I never understood why so many people put this game so high in many best looking 2D games lists. Everything looks too large and chunky with very few frames of animation. And the art direction is pretty meh.
I get how it does some nice tech things like large sprites and transparencies but dunno, something like Rayman or Keio looks much better IMO.
RAIDEN1
Member
Yeah but at the time, this was the Rayman for that generation....
nkarafo
Member
What do you mean? Rayman was the same generation as Astal.
RAIDEN1
Member
Oh right, sorry, I thought Astal released a lot earlier....anyway Astal is doing a lot more special fx wise, compared to Rayman...so it gives it an edge
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nkarafo
Member
True, tech wise Astal does more. Heck, Rayman was initially a Jaguar game even. But my issue with Astal is the art direction mostly. Especially how the main character looks and how it's sprite is so short and wide.
RAIDEN1
Member
Maybe the sprite size was intentional, unlike say Crash Bandicoot who doesn't have a neck due to the PSX limitations...
fart town usa
Banned
Played through the Japanese version of Deep Fear twice this weekend and typed out a guide the 2nd time. Gonna flesh it out a bit with screenshots and other bits of info before releasing it to the zero people that care, lol.
First time I played through the whole game, it's pretty solid but nowhere near as good as RE or SH. What Deep Fear has going for it is surprisingly solid movement and combat mechanics but the game is kinda meh due to the janky nature of the enemies and mediocre story. There's rarely any kind of tension and no puzzles, just fetch quest backtracking type stuff. The music is good too but rarely plays. The game is just sound effects for the most part. Also, no replay value for the most part. No alternate endings, no special guns to unlock, etc.
However, still definitely worth checking out, it's one of the better obscure RE clones from that era. Also, it truly has some of the worst voice acting I've ever heard, it makes OG RE look like a masterclass in voice acting, lol. It's worth a playthrough just to get some laughs from it. It is staggeringly bad.
I'd like to condense some of that above footage and make a "nuking my account" type gif for applicable threads. Add OP to the guys face and the Gaf logo to the dive suit, lol.
Playing through Shining the Holy Ark right now, man I love that game, it's just so damn impressive to me.
First time I played through the whole game, it's pretty solid but nowhere near as good as RE or SH. What Deep Fear has going for it is surprisingly solid movement and combat mechanics but the game is kinda meh due to the janky nature of the enemies and mediocre story. There's rarely any kind of tension and no puzzles, just fetch quest backtracking type stuff. The music is good too but rarely plays. The game is just sound effects for the most part. Also, no replay value for the most part. No alternate endings, no special guns to unlock, etc.
However, still definitely worth checking out, it's one of the better obscure RE clones from that era. Also, it truly has some of the worst voice acting I've ever heard, it makes OG RE look like a masterclass in voice acting, lol. It's worth a playthrough just to get some laughs from it. It is staggeringly bad.
I'd like to condense some of that above footage and make a "nuking my account" type gif for applicable threads. Add OP to the guys face and the Gaf logo to the dive suit, lol.
Playing through Shining the Holy Ark right now, man I love that game, it's just so damn impressive to me.
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Eddie-Griffin
Banned
Not really, people put way too much impact on games that weren't really relevant to the Dreamcast itself failing. Many of the most popular PS2 games of the time weren't really significantly better, and in many cases worst, than Dreamcast games on average, as PS2 was somewhat difficult to develop for and had several weaknesses that none of it's other competitors had.
By late gen when the Dreamcasts hardware would become a major issue, I would imagine a Dreamcast 2 would already be released or announced to be released by then. But the real problem with the Dreamcast was that lack of a killerapp(s).
RAIDEN1
Member
I thought Sonic Adventure and Soul Calibur were the killer apps?
Badlucktroll
Member
cireza
Member
Played through the Japanese version of Deep Fear twice this weekend and typed out a guide the 2nd time. Gonna flesh it out a bit with screenshots and other bits of info before releasing it to the zero people that care, lol.
First time I played through the whole game, it's pretty solid but nowhere near as good as RE or SH. What Deep Fear has going for it is surprisingly solid movement and combat mechanics but the game is kinda meh due to the janky nature of the enemies and mediocre story. There's rarely any kind of tension and no puzzles, just fetch quest backtracking type stuff. The music is good too but rarely plays. The game is just sound effects for the most part. Also, no replay value for the most part. No alternate endings, no special guns to unlock, etc.
However, still definitely worth checking out, it's one of the better obscure RE clones from that era. Also, it truly has some of the worst voice acting I've ever heard, it makes OG RE look like a masterclass in voice acting, lol. It's worth a playthrough just to get some laughs from it. It is staggeringly bad.
I'd like to condense some of that above footage and make a "nuking my account" type gif for applicable threads. Add OP to the guys face and the Gaf logo to the dive suit, lol.
Playing through Shining the Holy Ark right now, man I love that game, it's just so damn impressive to me.
Personally it is my favorite game of the genre from this era. I know that you love RE and I don't want to belittle this series, however I just can't stand the constant back and forth with the tiny inventory anymore. Like entering a room to find another one of these key items and not having any space left to pick it up, which means having to go back to the save room with all the loading times, to make room, going back to pick the item etc... And then discovering in another room that you did not bring the key item required there.
Deep Fear is a much more straight forward game. I really like the setting and there are a couple clever ideas in the game. I agree that the enemies feel a bit random, and there isn't any replayability to it.
Worth checking on Saturn, one of the more ambitious releases.
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fart town usa
Banned
lol, you're good. Yea, Deep Fear is cool, I really appreciate the production value and how well it controls. I have a 3D pad ordered from Japan, I'll definitely be playing through it again and experimenting with more things. I found all the files but I noticed in the manual that there are two shoguns. I only got 1 so I'll need to go back and find the other.
It's a solid game, just damn goofy with the voice acting and the stiffness of the characters during CG movies. Some of the set pieces in the CG movies look like actual assets from the game though and it looks fantastic, game has a great visual style.
Also, the Japanese manual has a great piece of mistranslation. The Commander of the Big Table, his name is Clancy Dawkins. The manual has his name as CRANSY DAWKINS. Engrish anyone?
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Eddie-Griffin
Banned
Not really, these games were not ever killer apps in terms of high sales and console movers. Soul Calibur didn't even sell a million copies and Sonic Adventure has a decent start but then didn't prove to move many units so Sega diversified with various other game bundles, including NFL which became very popular in the US.
When you exclude sports nearly all the best selling Dreamcast games, were games near the launch window or in it. Other than NFL2K.
This shows Sega was having problems finding games to stick and bring consumers to the platform, something they have always had issues doing but was broken temporarily by the success of the first two sonic games and the Genesis games that became big hits third-party wise after 1992.
Sure, there was an audience for what they had but you had many popular games on the DC people will mention on this board that didn't sell much at all or move many units. Then you had games like Shenmue that did have some popularity, for the first game, but it was mostly because of the marketing pushing it as a tech showcase in an adventure format on consoles, but it didn't have long-term stability and we saw with the sequel that it just wasn't able to duplicate the same advantages the first game had.
Even in Japan where several of the DC games at the time, especially 1999 and early 2000, were ports of big arcade titles, still crashed and burned when they released on the DC, along with the DC itself, and Europe wasn't consistent enough. Europe has a few places were interest in the DC was there but the games to get people to pull the trigger just weren't there long-term.
Where as in the US it's strongest market, NFL2K would become the only game late stage to still be able to move a lot of sales and a significant amount of consoles. There wasn't any games non-sport that looked like they could accomplish that 2000 onward in the US.
Sega needed more killer games tot he general public and they just didn't have it. I know for some people subjectively especially on boards like these, they will compare Dreamcast 2000 to PS2 2000 and say wow DC was much better, but the issue is the general consumer. The games have to appeal to them, or the softcore gamers to move units, and those people would wanted to play Ridge Racer V, Timesplitters, Smugglers Run, and Fantasvision than Mvs.C2, Skies of Arcadia, Powerstone 2, and Code Veronica.
Just how it was.
fart town usa
Banned
Well boys....I went and did it, I got a Satiator ordered up. Website says they ship within a week. I was worried that they might be on backorder.
So effing stoked. So many games I've been wanting to try but it's so damn hard (expensive) to gain ease of access when dealing with actual hardware.
Component cables should arrive in February, got a retrotink 2x arriving in the mail tomorrow. Now I just need to upgrade my internet so I can stream on twitch and potentially make $10s of dollars.
So effing stoked. So many games I've been wanting to try but it's so damn hard (expensive) to gain ease of access when dealing with actual hardware.
Component cables should arrive in February, got a retrotink 2x arriving in the mail tomorrow. Now I just need to upgrade my internet so I can stream on twitch and potentially make $10s of dollars.
Fat Frog
I advertised for Google Stadia
Gone ? Sega consoles never die. New Dreamcast, Megadrive games every year... New Saturn games will come for sureSega Saturn, gone but not forgotten
Crayon
Member
It's a necessity for gracious living.
In Cold Blood
Banned
Saturn was an excellent console.
It was good to have all of Segas arcade hits to play at home, and there was a ton of great exclusive games.
There was a developer called Scavenger Games and these guys knew how to code the console as good as Sega did. One games was Amok if I remember rightly.
They went out of business but the console needed a few more studios like them working on games for them
It was good to have all of Segas arcade hits to play at home, and there was a ton of great exclusive games.
There was a developer called Scavenger Games and these guys knew how to code the console as good as Sega did. One games was Amok if I remember rightly.
They went out of business but the console needed a few more studios like them working on games for them
Crayon
Member
I think they might have done scorcher, too. Geez I'd really like a copy of Amok. Hey let's check ebay real quick..... Okay I'm back. It's not too bad.
In fact I just bought it.
Team Andromeda
Member
Why are people giving this horrible person the time of day. She along with a scum husband should have no place on here
nkarafo
Member
The Dreamcast had great "killer games", there was no issue there. It's just that the PS2 was a far more appealing investment, especially thanks to the Playstation brand name and also the DVD. Plus, many gamers had lost faith in Sega after the Sega CD, 32X and Saturn. Despite all this, the DC did well initially, before Sega themselves pulled the plug.
PanzerCute
Member
I am not watching a video with such a thumbnail.
Hope they mention Riglord Saga / Mystaria. That game was incredible.
Edit : oh and Steep Slope Sliders. My favorite snowboarding game of all time.
Hope they mention Riglord Saga / Mystaria. That game was incredible.
Edit : oh and Steep Slope Sliders. My favorite snowboarding game of all time.
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Evil Calvin
Afraid of Boobs
Saturn Bomberman
Panzer Dragoon Saga
Dark Savior
These were my favorites
Panzer Dragoon Saga
Dark Savior
These were my favorites
Crayon
Member
Ah, my copy of Amok has arrived. It's complete, okay condition. They disc has some moderate scratching but might be alright. Guess we'll see whenever I get a chance to boot it up.
The converter cart i got doesn't not have a backup battery which was a dumb mistake that I never corrected. Make it annoying to manage saves and I have to change those little batteries in the consoles.
The converter cart i got doesn't not have a backup battery which was a dumb mistake that I never corrected. Make it annoying to manage saves and I have to change those little batteries in the consoles.
Badlucktroll
Member
I think my older brother got a saturn for christmas and they took it back and got a playstation
Crayon
Member
Welllll.... That would have been my advice lol.
Kazekage1981
Member
Has anyone noticed that Capcom 2-D fighting games like street fighter alpha, xmen children of the atom: the sprites on sega saturn look unusually big/bigger compared to PS and Arcade?