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[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

What's everyone's thoughts on silhouette mirage?

Personally, I think Silhouette Mirage is fantastic, everything that one expects from Treasure and then some. It's closest to Gunstar Heroes in style and execution, so if you're looking for a wild, over-the-top action-shooter, you can't do any better than this. This title ranked #29 in the Sega Saturn Magazine JP readers' poll, if that counts for anything.

The visuals are absolutely gobsmacking in the their scale and variety, featuring every scaling, rotation, distortion and lighting effect in the book. You can tell that Treasure was having a lot of fun pushing out every pixel art effect they could imagine. Couple that with their trademark absurdist, surrealist humor and wild sense of color design, and you end up with arguably the finest-looking 2D videogame ever made. It's worth the ride just for the eye candy.

Gameplay is fairly simple but slightly confusing at first. The dual "silhouette" and "mirage" colors affect whether you weaken an opponent's life or spirit energy bars, and added with a large variety of attacks, give players great freedom in how they advance. If you just wish to smash through levels as quickly as possible, that can be done. If you wish to beat up opponents and steal their money (the "cash bash") to buy more power-ups, that is also possible.

Most Western gamers know Silhouette Mirage from its Playstation version, which was released in the USA by Working Designs, who took it upon themselves to make several key gameplay changes that completely ruined the whole experience, like having power-up weapons drain your spirit energy bar. The PSX translation also pares back many of the graphics and looks considerably weaker than its Saturn cousin. Oh, and the US voice acting is terrible. Ugh.

Prices for Saturn imports have dropped a lot in recent years. Where this game once sold for over $100, a quick glance at Ebay shows several copies available for under $60, a far more reasonable price. Of course, "backup" copies are found online, but if you're a true collector, you'll want to have the retail disc in your library so you can show off to family and friends.

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

Here are a few quick screenshots of Galaxy Force II, which was released as part of the Sega Ages series. This Saturn translation of the arcade classic was handled by Appaloosa, of Ecco the Dolphin and Three Dirty Dwarves fame. They did an excellent job at pushing the Saturn's 2D superpowers to the absolute limit, and demonstrating the overwhelming power of Sega's arcade Y board.

Personally, I think this is a terrific roller coaster ride, but that's also its main weakness. This was created to be an amusement ride, complete with giant sit-down cabinet that banks and turns as you play. Playing at home while sitting on the couch takes away some of that experience, and that loss is felt more keenly than in similar Sega classics like Afterburner or Power Drift. The difficulty is also paced for short games, requiring you to pump more quarters into the machine. A 1CC run will be highly difficult, if not impossible.

When I was a child, we all played videogames on Atari 2600, and we'd have a stack of cartridges at hand to pop in and out of the machine every five minutes. A quick sugar hit, flavor's gone, toss it out for the next candy piece, rinse and repeat. That's pretty much what Galaxy Force II is all about, a quick thrill ride that holds your attention on your way to the comic book store or burger shop.

 

[alf717]

Hey, some one is making another ODE for the Saturn. Hopefully they will be able to mass produce more then 10 a year unlike the other ODE that exists.

 

[Kazza]

Here are a few quick screenshots of Galaxy Force II, which was released as part of the Sega Ages series. This Saturn translation of the arcade classic was handled by Appaloosa, of Ecco the Dolphin and Three Dirty Dwarves fame. They did an excellent job at pushing the Saturn's 2D superpowers to the absolute limit, and demonstrating the overwhelming power of Sega's arcade Y board.

Most of the coverage of that port seems to be a little bit on the negative side, expressing disappointment that a 1995 console couldn't perfectly reproduce a 1980s arcade game. Then again the machine was a beast at the time (3 68000 processors?), so perhaps a hit to the framerate should have been expected.

So I just tried sega rally for the first time in like 25 years

1) damn it's hard
2) damn those graphics are blurry
3) damn no racing game has ever felt better than this it is still phenomenal

I happened to come across a arcade machine last year and was surprised that I remembered the course layouts so well. I almost got to the third track on a single credit and think I would have gotten even further if I could have used a Saturn pad rather than a wheel.

Here's a great gameplay video of Assault Suit Leynos 2, the direct sequel to the Genesis/Mega Drive cult classic (titled Target Earth in the USA). It's a 2D action-shooter with a difficulty curve that's off the charts, but if you're a fan of these kind of games, you'll absolutely love this one.

There are loads of enemies, weapons and explosions, as well as some massively large boss battles. You can select from a number of different mechs and can customize your weapon power-ups, including lasers and flamethrowers. You are also armed with a shield which is extremely useful in heavy firefights. Finally, you are joined with several others in mechs who pipe in with dialog now and then. All the dialog is in Japanese, and as best as I can tell, nobody is asking me to do a barrel roll. So that's nice.

Saturn is blessed with a large roster of giant robot videogames, nearly all of which are excellent and worth playing. If you're looking for something along the lines of "Sega Genesis On Steroids," this one will nicely fit the bill.

That looks really good. I tried playing the Megadrive version on my Asian Mini console a couple of weeks back, but it was way to hard and I died on the very first level. I will give it another chance the next time I'm in the mood for a really challenging game. In hindsight it's a bit of a shame that those consoles leaned into 3D so much, it meant that we missed out on a lot of "Genesis on steroids" type experiences. I would have loved to have seen a Ristar 2, Rocket Knight Adventure/Sparkster sequel, Contra sequel, Vectorman 3, Ranger X 2, as well as any new IPs. Can you recommend any other "Genesis on steroids" games?

Speaking of Galaxy Force before, did the Saturn get any original super-scaler type games? The only one I can think of is Street Racer (or does that use some polygons too?)

 

[The Brooklyn Brawler]

Been playing some street fighter zero 2

Never really been a huge fan of street fighter but this is just so.......playable!

Can get to Gouki but he kicks my arse gonna ha e to keep practising!

Loving it so far so glad I got a Saturn again

 

[The Brooklyn Brawler]

Here's the saturn hooked up to my 43" 4k TV via composite cables (the only connections I have right now)

It's a bit blurry up close BUT it's a lot better than I expected it to be

 

[Kazza]

Fan recreates Burning Rangers with Unity

https://youtu.be/sB1-PZCgeSgYouTube user, Andreas Scholl, demostrated a tribute demo of Burning …

segabits.com

YouTube user, Andreas Scholl, demostrated a tribute demo of Burning Rangers, one of Sonic Team’s earlier titles for the Sega Saturn, through the use of the Unity Engine featuring a recreation of the first level and Tillis as a playable character.

He also adjusted the vertex coloring of the shader and the general light settings to resemble closer to the Sega Saturn visuals which is very impressive.

 

[Kazza]

Here's the saturn hooked up to my 43" 4k TV via composite cables (the only connections I have right now)

It's a bit blurry up close BUT it's a lot better than I expected it to be

That actually looks pretty decent.

 

[The Brooklyn Brawler]

That actually looks pretty decent.

Its blurry/blocky up close but so much better than I expected.

Guessing it will look better on a smaller HDTV as well?

 

[Kazza]

He really liked it. Worked perfectly with the Saturn, PC and Switch (I don't remember him mentioning other platforms). $35

 

[The Brooklyn Brawler]

Next on my list to buy is Shin Shinobi Den

Have seen mixed reviews but I think it looks great and I am an absolute sucker for games with digitized graphics.

I still think of digitised graphics as the be all and end all of "next gen"

It's real people! And you can move them!!!

 

[Turnbl]

He really liked it. Worked perfectly with the Saturn, PC and Switch (I don't remember him mentioning other platforms). $35

Yep, been using this for the last week, very responsive and works nicely with the original Saturn.

 

[Evil Calvin]

My Saturn battery died. I just swapped out the battery in the Saturn console last week and decided to start a great game over again.

I restarted Panzer Dragoon Saga again, as I fell off it about 15 years ago. I started it up and it took about 45 minutes to reach a save point. Graphics are a bit rough but the gameplay is great and unique. The voice acting is all Japanese with English subtitles. It's pretty cool how your dragon changes shape in real time as you change its appearance via a slider.

I found the game at a Toys R Us back in 1998 when it was released. I knew it would be hard to find as all of the games at the end of the Saturn's lifespan had low print runs and were pretty rare. I didn't see the hanging sales slip on the video game picture wall (they would have enough slips as copies in stock, with a picture of the box art above it.). I didn't even see the box art either. I found out a few years later when I worked there that, if they only had a copy or two they wouldn't even bother making a spot for it on the wall. I walked to the pick-up window, where they had a shelf of games behind the employee. I asked if I could browse the shelf and they obliged. I leaned in and scanned the shelf. Boom!! There it was! One copy of Panzer Dragoon Saga!!. I got it and thoroughly enjoyed my time with it. I got stuck in the game and gave up after a few months. The PS1 was out, as was N64, and I had a PC so I had my hands full with a lot of great games. 1998 was a big year for games, so I dropped PDS for shinier, newer games such as:

Half Life, Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Resident Evil 2, Xenogears, Parasite Eve, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Metal Gear Solid, F-Zero X, Brave Fencer Musashi, Gex: Enter the Gecko, Suikoden, Turok 2, Crash Bandicoot: Warped, Tomb Raider 3, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, Starcraft, Baldur's Gate, South Park on N64 (yes it isn't great but I played it).

There were a lot of great games that year and many are bonafide classics but I actually am most fond of Panzer Dragoon Saga. I can't wait to continue playing the game and finally finish it!!

 

[Evil Calvin]

Fan recreates Burning Rangers with Unity

https://youtu.be/sB1-PZCgeSgYouTube user, Andreas Scholl, demostrated a tribute demo of Burning …

segabits.com

Looks good but where's the 'Burning' part?

 

[Kazza]

Next on my list to buy is Shin Shinobi Den

Have seen mixed reviews but I think it looks great and I am an absolute sucker for games with digitized graphics.

I still think of digitised graphics as the be all and end all of "next gen"

It's real people! And you can move them!!!

I think it's an underrated game, far from the best Shinobi game, but good nonetheless. I didn't buy it back in the day because I was disappointed that it wasn't 3D (yeah, I was one of those people), but did enjoy playing it a couple of years ago. The digitised sprites look pretty decent for the human characters, but look pretty naff for the creatures (that dinosaur in level 2 looks like a toy - maybe it was!). I have a bit of a soft spot for digitised sprites too (I remember being blown away when I first saw Pit Fighter), but in hindsight I wish they had gone for a sprite based game. The worst part of the game for me is how there is little transition within levels. In Revenge and Shinobi 3 you usually have 3 separate locations per level, but Shinobi X seems to have just one single location per level (I only managed to get to level 4 which is another slight issue - it's pretty hard, significantly more so than Revenge). I think I just have to get used to the gameplay (more emphasis in melee combat rather than throwing knives/stars).

Still, a good game (the cut-scenes are great too)

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

Here's the saturn hooked up to my 43" 4k TV via composite cables (the only connections I have right now)

It's a bit blurry up close BUT it's a lot better than I expected it to be

I've been saying this for quite some time: Composite is perfectly fine for playing Sega Saturn. Obviously, there will be a slight smudginess and pixelation, depending on the quality of the upscaling on your TV set, and that's going to be a little more with 4K HDTV. The advantage of using composite is that it will preserve the "mesh transparency" effect, resulting in a smoothed image. With S-Video or anything above, you'll see a mass of pixels.

For me, I'm using a 2016 Sony Bravia that has excellent upscaling and filtering settings that don't cause input lag. Mind you, I've seen lesser (and older) HDTVs would just destroy standard-definition gaming consoles. I think that was one reason why so many gamers hated the NIntendo Wii, because it looked so jaggy on a cheap LCD TV, even though it looked perfectly crisp and clean on CRT.

For all classic games, your best bet is a good CRT display, and if you're really gung-ho for the sharpest picture quality on HD/4K, the fancy upscalers are really good. But those puppies cost hundreds of dollars, all while that composite cable is sitting around and looks really good.

 

[Kazza]

Does anyone know what the "Sega Memory usage guide" is and why the console has to be so long in order to accommodate it?

 

[Kazza]

I'm guessing this is from summer 1995 (although I can't see what game they are playing). Do anyone ever see this truck?

 

[The Brooklyn Brawler]

What's the best king of fighters or fatal fury to get?

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

What's the best king of fighters or fatal fury to get?

I like Fatal Fury 3 the best, but keep in mind the Saturn version has some noticeable load times.

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

What's the best king of fighters or fatal fury to get?

Fatal Fury 3, or Garou Densetsu 3: Road to the Final Victory, as it's known in Japan, is widely recognized as the weakest entry of the series on Sega Saturn. Unlike its peers, it does not use the 1MB RAM expansion cartridge, resulting in long loading times and cut animation frames. It received mixed reviews from magazines at the time. Computer & Video Games gave it a 2/5 score, and Sega Saturn Magazine JP gave it scores of 7-3-8.

Real Bout received better reviews. CVG rated it 3/5, and SSM JP rated it 8-9-8. Real Bout Special is widely regarded as the best of the three. Joypad from France rated it 93/100. It is unknown if the game was reviewed in SSM JP, as Sega Retro doesn't have any scanned copies.

If you're going to collect one Fatal Fury title, then Real Bout Special is the best bet. However, as all three discs are available for little money, it would be easy to grab the entire set and decide for yourself. Also, bear in mind that fighting game fans are crazy spoiled on Saturn, so take any critiques with a grain of salt.

As for King of Fighters, I think all three entries, '95, '96 and '97, are all excellent and worth collecting. As I wrote in my Essentials II post, KoF '97 is the best of the bunch, the most polished and refined, but my heart tells me KoF '96 is my favorite. For me, that's the one where the series finally came into its own and became great. But you can't go wrong with any of them

Bear in mind that KoF '95 comes with a ROM cartridge which includes game data and frame animation. This is one of only two games to use such a device (the other being Ultraman), and it results in a flawless translation of the Neo-Geo arcade. It easily stomps over its Playstation cousin and makes for a great technical showpiece for Saturn. However, playing this game means yanking the Pro Action Replay out of the cartridge slot, which earns a firm no-no from this videogame critic.

For the record, my favorites in each SNK series would be Mark of the Wolves and King of Fighters '98.

 

[The Brooklyn Brawler]

Thanks for such a detailed reply!

 

[The Brooklyn Brawler]

I posted pics earlier of street fighter running on my 43" 4ktv

Whilst it looks ok, other games like sega rally are almost unplayable. It's just too much of a blocky mess.

So I've been looking for a small crt that I can store away and just bring out when needed and sit on a table.

Not been able to find any but I just picked up this little oddity.

It was advertised locally on a buy/sell site as "computer monitor with inbuilt TV tuner and speakers.

It's an LG Flatron model 15LA70. Not much info on it online alert from saying it's an "LCD/TFT television"

Its 15" and interestingly the screen is 4:3 as opposed to widescreen so I think it's going to be pretty much ideal for what I need

I will try and get some pics of the saturn running on it later

 

[Alexios]

That looks nicely preserved, good luck.

 

[The Brooklyn Brawler]

It's incredible the graphics are perfect. Sega rally looks incredible compared to the big TV and the text for example on the action replay screen is crystal clear.

Even Barry white covered in butter wouldn't be this smooth

 

[Noboru Wataya]

After hearing so many good things about this controller, I decided to take the plunge. I’m looking forward to wireless Saturn gameplay! From what I can tell the biggest downfall is the lack of click to the bumpers.

 

[The Brooklyn Brawler]

How is the Saturn version of metal slug?

It's on Ebay for £29.99

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

Here's a fresh batch of screenshots of Daytona USA Circuit Edition, the JP release that made many additions and refinements over the Western version (Champion Circuit Edition) that was rushed out the door. I bought my copy for $10 and it's still very affordable and well worth purchasing. It's also an excellent demonstration of how far Saturn could be pushed when skilled programmers are given proper time and resources, better than Sega Rally and a worthy showpiece for the console.

If you have two Saturns and steering wheels, you can play with the link-up mode, which is probably the best feature in Daytona CE. Each player has a full screen to themselves instead of a tiny split-screen window, and computer cars are still present. It's unfortunate that so few videogames ever used that cable, and this is clearly the best one.

I still prefer the original Daytona, thanks to its wonderfully suicidal computer cars and excellent handling, but there's no denying the charms to the Japanese update. The less said of the Western CCE, the better.

 

[Alexios]

But that's still on the Sega Rally engine and handling very differently to actual Daytona, no? Or did the JP release make it proper Daytona?

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

But that's still on the Sega Rally engine and handling very differently to actual Daytona, no? Or did the JP release make it proper Daytona?

Daytona CE is built from the ground up using the Sega Rally engine, I believe. The handling in the Western version is a mess, almost as if the wheels were taken off the cars and you were scraping the chassis around the tracks. The JP edition fixed the steering somewhat to something closer to the arcade Daytona. It still isn't perfect, nor is it as good as AM2's Daytona conversion, but it works very well with analog controls. The steering wheel is probably the best option.

Obviously, I would highly recommend that all Saturn owners have both versions: the Western Daytona USA, the JP Daytona CE.

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

Here are some photos of All Japan Pro Wrestling Featuring Virtua, Sega's 1997 pro wrestling videogame based on the successful Japanese league. It features a solid cast of characters from Japan and America. The inclusion of Jeffry and Wolf from Virtua Fighter might seem a little odd, a way of Sega pushing their marquee franchise onto everything, but these characters were both based on real-life athletes: karateka fighter "Bear Killer" Willie Williams and pro wrestler Jim Steele. Sega had even brought in Steele with full Wolf makeup to promote this game in Japan.

The instruction manual does an excellent job explaining the fighting system, which is very similar to Virtua Fighter and follows a similar rock-paper-scissors style. The best feature is the poster which shows all of the moves and flow charts for each wrestler, allowing players to learn proper attack strategies. This is an essential study aide for players.

This game is available for very little money. I picked up this disc on Ebay for five dollars, basically just the price of postage. It looks fantastic with polygon shading, 3D arenas and motion captured wrestlers. The presentation is excellent and the gameplay is extremely deep, rewarding skill above button mashing. Highly recommended.

 

[The Brooklyn Brawler]

Here are some photos of All Japan Pro Wrestling Featuring Virtua, Sega's 1997 pro wrestling videogame based on the successful Japanese league. It features a solid cast of characters from Japan and America. The inclusion of Jeffry and Wolf from Virtua Fighter might seem a little odd, a way of Sega pushing their marquee franchise onto everything, but these characters were both based on real-life athletes: karateka fighter "Bear Killer" Willie Williams and pro wrestler Jim Steele. Sega had even brought in Steele with full Wolf makeup to promote this game in Japan.

The instruction manual does an excellent job explaining the fighting system, which is very similar to Virtua Fighter and follows a similar rock-paper-scissors style. The best feature is the poster which shows all of the moves and flow charts for each wrestler, allowing players to learn proper attack strategies. This is an essential study aide for players.

This game is available for very little money. I picked up this disc on Ebay for five dollars, basically just the price of postage. It looks fantastic with polygon shading, 3D arenas and motion captured wrestlers. The presentation is excellent and the gameplay is extremely deep, rewarding skill above button mashing. Highly recommended.

Have you played fire pro wrestling s: 6 man scramble?

If do what do you think of it?

Fire pro D on dreamcast is my favourite game of all time. I think it's even better than fp retruns and fp world. The controls on D just feel better

 

[The Brooklyn Brawler]

Ordered myself an s-video cable today

The composite already looks damn good on my wee TV but want to see what the difference is

 

[alf717]

Ordered myself an s-video cable today

The composite already looks damn good on my wee TV but want to see what the difference is

If you end up with a good set of S-video cables the quality should go up by a large margin. I speak mostly from using them on CRTs though. I found S-video to be my stopping point when it comes to retro video quality. The time and money needed to invest in RGB cables, scalers, converters and multi-switches was too much of a cash pit to invest in.

To add I ordered an S-video cable from eBay a while back and it turned out the audio leads were swapped. Red which should be the right channel was left and visa versa.

 

[Noboru Wataya]

Just received my retro bit controller and I’m amazed at how it feels. It’s almost perfect. The wireless works a treat and will result in me jumping into Saturn games more often as a result. I hope they give the Dreamcast a wireless controller, not sure how that would work with the VMU though.

This is a must buy

 

[Kazza]

Tomorrow will be the the anniversary of the Japanese release of the Saturn. Did anyone else import a console back then? Sega Lord X says he paid over $700 for a two game bundle (he still thinks it was worth it):




I found it funny when he mentioned being blown away by the spaceship in the Saturn music player - I was too!

 

[Kazza]

Interesting thread about Saturn development kits:

I've managed to get my hands on a Sega Saturn Cart.Dev Rev B in the last few days to begin Sega Saturn development with. It came with a giant binder that Sega used to give with the Cart.Dev featuring material for developers. One of the front pages is a flyer they included with the cost breakdown, showing how much cheaper it was to develop on the Saturn now that they offered an in-house Cross Products SNASM kit. Keep in mind that this is the cost breakdown for the "Cheaper" Cart.Dev Rev B, not the original Sophia dev box, and it doesn't include licensing fees or cert fees required to publish a title. This is for ONE dev kit:

Saturn Dev cost:
Sega Saturn Dev System I w/Hitachi E7000PC ICE - $30575
Cart.Dev development kit - $4800
Programming Target Box - $7475
Sound Target Box - $4800
Saturn Cart.Dev SIMM Buffer Board - $275
Modified Saturn for Cart.Dev - $700
Saturn Virtual CD Emulator Kit - $ 8100
Mirage Saturn CD Emulation System - $3000
Hitachi E7000PC Kit - $15000
SH2 CPU Board - $200
Yamaha 4x CD Encoder - $2500
Write-once blank CD box of 5 - $75

Total cost: $77,500

The flyer also suggests an SGI Indigo 2 workstation for 3D modeling, which is not included. That, in 1995, was about a $100k rig.

The same poster later says that the total cost of an N64 development kit was $56,029.

The cost of a Sega Saturn development kit back in 1995

I've managed to get my hands on a Sega Saturn Cart.Dev Rev B in the last few days to begin Sega Saturn development with. It came with a giant binder that Sega used to give with the Cart.Dev featuring material for developers. One of the front pages is a flyer they included with the cost...

www.resetera.com

Here's a video of what looks to be the same kit:




Game development seems to have been expensive back then.

 

[The Elite]

It's strange to see a Saturn community thread so active.

I finally received my Japanese Saturn and a Retrobit wireless controller. Loving it so far but only have Virtua Fighter 2.

I missed the original Saturn release but I love owning actually hardware to play games on. Looking forward to an eventual mass produced ODE solution.

 

[Naibel]

The Saturn/Dreamcast community is certainly very passionate and has been for quite some time. Those machines were criminally underrated back in their day and deserve a long overdue revaluation. It warms my heart, as a longtime Saturn fan, to see them experience among many circles such a surge in popularity.

The fact that Saturn's gonna turn 25 tomorrow also helps. Milestones like these are a surefire way to kindle the flame of passion. That was the case with the Dreamcast last year, it is the case with the Saturn now.

Next year, maybe I'll have a PS2 phase, with its 20th anniversary and all. But then again, Sony certainly doesn't have with me the same aura that Sega has, despite me loving the PS2.

 

[Naibel]

Oops, doublepost, my mistake.

 

[The Brooklyn Brawler]

After realising I will never ever afford all the top Saturn games I updated my AR card with pseudo Saturn kai last night.

Took a while as I couldnt find the switch you have to tape down. Turns out my jap Saturn is one of the very first model 1 consoles and theres no switch. Its built into the lid rather inside the console you just pop off the top to do the swap trick but leave the lid alone.

All working so far but a few games take a few tries to load up and fmv/intros are stutters.

Not sure if its cause I used cheap cdrs or something else

 

[The Brooklyn Brawler]

This also means that after 24 years of waiting I also got to try shin shinobi den. Love it.

Its rock hard but its everything I hoped it would be. I know it gets crapped on but I love it

 

[Kazza]

This also means that after 24 years of waiting I also got to try shin shinobi den. Love it.

Its rock hard but its everything I hoped it would be. I know it gets crapped on but I love it

It's a difficult game, so don't be afraid to play on easy mode (which seems to just increase your life bar a little). I'm normally not much of a fan of playthroughs, but this one is really good. I love his passion for the game (his raging at the more frustrating parts is fun to listen to as well).

 

[The Brooklyn Brawler]

It's a difficult game, so don't be afraid to play on easy mode (which seems to just increase your life bar a little). I'm normally not much of a fan of playthroughs, but this one is really good. I love his passion for the game (his raging at the more frustrating parts is fun to listen to as well).

Only had a quick go as was trying a lot of discs never even thought of checking options for difficulty level

I wonder if you can remap the controls as I feel that block would be better as "A"

 

[Kazza]

Only had a quick go as was trying a lot of discs never even thought of checking options for difficulty level

I wonder if you can remap the controls as I feel that block would be better as "A"

It looks like you can:

 

[The Brooklyn Brawler]

Fantastic thanks for that will give it another go later.

Took about 6 attempts to get it to load. Stuttering and freezing constantly

Read so.ething about adjusting laser or something?

 

[Kazza]

Fantastic thanks for that will give it another go later.

Took about 6 attempts to get it to load. Stuttering and freezing constantly

Read so.ething about adjusting laser or something?

Hmm, I remember having a problem with my Saturn laser back in the day. I used to manually push it to the centre using my finger, then it would load games ok (this may not be the best way to fix the problem and do so at your own risk). Of course, if other games are working fine then it's probably a problem with the disc.

 

[Kazza]

I already posted a Saturn 25th anniversary thread on the main gaming forum here, but thought I might as well add it to our community forum too:

The Sega Saturn launched in Japan on the 22nd of November 1994 for 44,800 yean (around $450), exactly 25 years ago today. In contrast to the infamous US launch, it was massive success, selling out it's initial stock of 200,000 units on day one, and by the end 1995 it was still in pole position in terms of sales, even ahead of Sony's Playstation:

Despite it's launch massively outperforming that of the US the year after, in terms of launch games, the Japanese launch was actually much inferior, with Virtua Fighter and Myst being the only two standout titles, the other three consisting of a basic puzzle game, a mahjong game and an FMV game:

The games released in the months leading up to the western launches weren't much better either, with only a trickle of decent games making their way to the shops, most notably Clockwork Knight a few days after launch, Panzer Dragon in March 1995, Daytona USA and Astal in April, Cyber Speedway in May and Shinobi Legions in June. Even the advertising. Much like Mario 64 in the US, it seemed that the main launch title, Virtua Fighter, was enough of a draw for Japanese consumers.

While Japanese Saturn advertising is indelibly linked to the legendary Segata Sanshiro, my research reveals that he didn't actually appear in the earliest Saturn ads. Much like the US ones, the Japanese launch ads were strange mix of futuristic, dystopian settings and strange looking crazy people:

​

It's interesting that Sega of Japan copied the American slogan, "welcome to the next level". That wasn't the only inspiration they took from their US counterparts. Despite having initial reservations about Sega of America's strategy of directly attacking Nintendo, the Sega of Japan of 1994 weren't above throwing shade at their competitors, as this anti-Sony Playstation ad shows:

The monkeys must have proved popular, as they turned up in other ads too, including this funny one for the excellent SRPG, known variously as Mystaria, Riglord Saga and Blazing Heroes, depending on your region:

Of its third party support, few were as important to the Saturn as Capcom and its 2D fighting games, and this young lady seemed to be a regular fixture in their ads of the time:

Of course, perhaps no ad was more important to the Saturn's early success in Japan as this one for the arcade smash hit Virtua Fighter:

The early Japanese Saturn ads are an interesting bunch, and worth watching here, if you have a spare 10 minutes.

I'll finish with recommending this recent video from Sega Lord X, where he discusses his experience importing the Japanese console on day one:

​

And don't forget to check out out excellent Neogaf Saturn community page:

NeoGAF Official SEGA SATURN Community

SEGA SATURN: AN OVERVIEW (October 22, 2019) -- Sega Saturn is Sega’s 32-bit home videogames console. It was released in Japan on November 22, 1994, the United States on May 11, 1995 and UK/Europe on July 8, 1995. It was the direct competitor to Sony Playstation, Nintendo 64, Atari Jaguar and...

www.neogaf.com

Happy 25th birthday Saturn!

 

[Kazza]

The official Japanese twitter account wishing the Saturn a happy 25th birthday:




They've been posting and re-posting various other Saturn stuff throughout the day too. I'm glad to see them making such a big deal of it. It gives me hope of seeing some kind of collection or mini console in the future.

 

[Kazza]

During the research I did for the thread I came across these early Saturn ads:










While Segata Sanshiro is still the undisputed king of Saturn ads, Sega actually put out some good stuff before he arrived on the scene. I'm particularly fond of the monkeys in the first video.