Retro topic: Sega Saturn game library

SubCog

SubCog

Radeon 8500 64mb
I've had my Saturn for decades, but have never really dived deeply into it. Of course I've played Nights into Dreams and the Panzer Dragoon games, and I've often heard people talk about the amazing SHMUPS and fighting games available on the platform. But the library is much deeper than it seems at first, and I keep finding gems that I've never heard of before.

In this thread, I'll showcase some Saturn games that I think are worth taking a look at. I kindof love this era of early 3d gaming, lots of quirky concepts, many of which are experimental and half-baked.
 
AMOK

The last couple weeks, I saw people on the Saturn forums talking about a game called AMOK, which I'd never heard of before. I ordered a copy off of ebay (for $10, btw), and geez this game is great, and WAAAY better than it has any right to be.

It's a 3rd person mech shooter. Great graphics, very smooth performance, great controls, feels more modern than I would expect. I'm super impressed with this game. Oh, and it runs on a flippin' voxel engine.

[yt]UgQyznkvxk8[/yt]
 
Nights into Dreams.

One of the most well-known and popular games on the platform. Lots of great things to say about this one. Beautiful graphics and animation, smooth gameplay that's alot of fun, and a high skill ceiling. Also supports anamorphic widescreen if your CRT supports it!

It's an early vision of what 3d gaming might look like. Most of the game runs on a 2d track that winds through a 3d world, but there are bits of true 3d gameplay mixed in. Lots of clever ideas explored, especially with the boss fights.

It's structured a bit like an arcade game. There's only a handful of levels, and they're fairly short, meant to be played and replayed over and over again to master them.

There's been several re-releases on different platforms, including PS2, xbox360, PS3, and Windows, with improved HD graphics. Somehow this game doesn't translate well to HD, and loses alot of it's magic if it's not played in 240p on a CRT.

This was an important mascot game for the Saturn, as Sega could never make a proper Sonic game happen.

[yt]r0IdFOeMnTk[/yt]

There's a sequel on the Wii, but it's a mixed bag that mostly sucks.
 
Last edited:
Bug!

Another early vision of gaming in 3d, in a pre-analog controller era. Colorful graphics, lots of interesting gameplay ideas, but the controls can be a bit clunky. The gameplay is repetitive and can be a bit flat. I don't think I've ever played past the first couple of levels... but I come back from time to time because I enjoy those first couple levels. maybe someday I'll sit down and pound through the whole game, although it's pretty challenging, and not always in a good way.

The story is funny, as the bug character is actually a movie star on a film set filming a movie.
[yt]dJVzyr8NT1A[/yt]


Bug Too!
More of the same. The "filming a movie" thing comes out stronger in the levels in this game.

[yt]r7jkmDL4Iiw[/yt]
 
The Saturn is famous for having tons of great SHMUPS. Here's a few that I think are cool.

Soukyugerentai, aka Terra Diver
Gorgeous 3d art design in a time when most SHMUPS were still very 2d.
[yt]kMWhT7G_k9g[/yt]


Batsugun
Amazing arcade port.
[yt]m6evnbPqvN4[/yt]


Radiant Silvergun
Crazy amount of weapons that are always available.
[yt]6jTE6vDfDB0[/yt]
 
Saturn Bomberman

Supports 10 players, if you have enough multi-taps. It's often featured at retro gaming events such as PRGE (I play it every year there), and it's flipping awesome!

[yt]4Ipvb65ENJI[/yt]
 
Dragon Force
An epic display of Saturn's sprite-scaling power! Large turn-based battles between dozens of characters.

[yt]hIdlvWIvSe0[/yt]
 
Love Radiant Silvergun, its a masterpiece. Ikaruga is its more accessible spiritual successor but does not quite live up to it IMO.

3d gaming was definitely in its awkward early stages during the Saturn. Hard to go back to most of them nowadays, much like 3d gaming on PS1 or N64. Although, I think 2d graphics looked amazing on it so that's what I stick to. Along with the great SHMUPs you already mentioned, here's a few more I love:

Hyper Duel
Battle Garegga
Blast Wind
DoDonPachi
Layer Section (Galactic Attack is NA version)
Shienryu
Strikers 1945
Thunder Force Gold Packs

Of course most of these are super expensive to get physical versions of, so I rely on emulation to play them. But here's my modest physical collection:

0P4Z0WM.jpg
 
Street Racer

I've never actually played this one, but the comparisons between it and it's PS1 version are so fascinating I had to post it. You can see the Saturn version heavily utilizes it's sprite-scaling tech, all on a flat plane... sortof a super version of the SNES mario kart. PS1 has more depth to it's terrain, but is missing a ton of detail in the various objects in the environment. Sortof a perfect case-study of what each console was good at.

[yt]JCgqI2EwI7s[/yt]

Oh yeah, and it supports 8-player splitscreen.
mednafen-2012-07-17-14-25-39-544.jpg
 
Meteor_of_War said:
Love Radiant Silvergun, its a masterpiece. Ikaruga is its more accessible spiritual successor but does not quite live up to it IMO.

3d gaming was definitely in its awkward early stages during the Saturn. Hard to go back to most of them nowadays, much like 3d gaming on PS1 or N64. Although, I think 2d graphics looked amazing on it so that's what I stick to. Along with the great SHMUPs you already mentioned, here's a few more I love:

Hyper Duel
Battle Garegga
Blast Wind
DoDonPachi
Layer Section (Galactic Attack is NA version)
Shienryu
Strikers 1945
Thunder Force Gold Packs

Of course most of these are super expensive to get physical versions of, so I rely on emulation to play them. But here's my modest physical collection:

0P4Z0WM.jpg
Click to expand...

Impressive collection. I probably only have ~5 legit Saturn games, and I don't own any of the large jewel cases.

I think I have:
  • Nights into Dreams
  • Panzer Dragoon
  • Panzer Dragoon Zwei
  • Battle Arena Toshinden
  • AMOK
 
I always wanted the Panzer Dragoon games, but could never quite find them. I remember seeing them in the stores back in the 90's, including Saga, but i was a broke high school kid at the time and had to be very selective with the games i bought.

Then years later trying to find them second hand has been near impossible. I'd say they are as hard to find in the wild as TG16 games. Think i only ever came across them for cheap only once or twice in all my hunting years.

This is why emulation is great and so important for game preservation.
 
Sold off my whole Saturn library a few years back, prices were to good to pass up, still have my Saturn though.
 
I sold one or two of my Saturn games over the years, and almost all my Sega CD games, back before I decided I wanted to keep them as a collection. Some good ones too like Albert Odyssey (Working Designs). I don't really regret it too much though. I'm worried to keep these in my collection, they are valuable and so fragile. I'm always thinking I'll somehow break the cases by breathing too hard on them, or the threat of disc rot will affect them rendering them useless.

Hard to let them go though, aside from the few I found in the past decade I've had the rest since the 90's.
 
Meteor_of_War said:
I always wanted the Panzer Dragoon games, but could never quite find them. I remember seeing them in the stores back in the 90's, including Saga, but i was a broke high school kid at the time and had to be very selective with the games i bought.

Then years later trying to find them second hand has been near impossible. I'd say they are as hard to find in the wild as TG16 games. Think i only ever came across them for cheap only once or twice in all my hunting years.

This is why emulation is great and so important for game preservation.
Click to expand...

With the Phantom mod chip I burn the games I want and play them on original hardware.
I don't want to damage my originals so I burn them and play them the same way. Die Hard Arcade is another one of my favorites.
ktt3pCV.jpg


Guardian Heroes is cool too.
Spu2jGt.jpg
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top