PTE62: Saturn Twenty

[Yakumo]

Again the west never got the best of the Mega CD really. Many games apart from those made by Core were just ****ty cartridge ports with a CD soundtrack or crappy FMV added. The most impressive Mega CD games all came from japan apart from Core Design stuff. Urusei Yatsura is a wonderful showcase of what CD media could be used for. It's like watching a cartoon but all the work is done by the Mega CD. It's not FMV but real hardware generated graphics. Very impressive.

The 32X on the other hand was just a stupid idea. That should have been released as a stand alone console if at all. The hardware was pretty nice for what it was but the lack of suport because Dev's knew the Saturn was on it's way was what really killed it.

[sj33]

One other great thing about the Saturn: the Saturn magazine. It was probably my favourite gaming magazine of all time.

It was the last good gaming magazine really. The last one that still had that 'Mean Machines' feel to it, except Saturn Magazine was more mature in many ways. It still felt like a 'by gamers, for gamers' magazine, but they weren't afraid to dig into the technical side of gaming (it was the forerunner to what Rich Leadbetter now does with Digital Foundry), and covered plenty of import stuff despite being the official magazine. I think they are largely responsible for the Saturn lasting as long as it did in the UK.

The demise of Saturn Magazine coincided with the mass growth of the internet though, and gaming magazine soon struggled to find their relevance.

[dvdx2]

The Saturn has more great games than the PlayStation

Are you smoking crack or something ?

[dataDave]

Nah, he's right. I have around 20 forever classics on my PSone compared to around the 40 or so I'm going to have to hunt down when I eventually get another Saturn.

[dataDave]

Nah, he's right. I have around 20 forever classics on my PSone compared to around the 40 or so I'm going to have to hunt down when I eventually get another Saturn.

That RRP was a real killer... I was still at school at the time and it being so expensive meant I was never going to get one before starting work and getting some serious brass together.

[Neon Ignition]

Same boat here re games, if I had to tally the best each system had for me, I'd end up with Saturn on top

[Team Andromeda]

Many games apart from those made by Core were just ****ty cartridge ports with a CD soundtrack or crappy FMV added

.Some of the best games came from the west and it was 1 man called John O'Brien who really showed with his Batman Returns 3D engine, what the Mega CD could do - with scaling and rotation that wouldn't have looked out of place in a coin-up and it played just as good as any (if not most) arcade check point racers . It's still to this day the most impressive looking Mega CD game out there. Also the likes of Jurassic Park, Heart Of the Alien, Eternal Champions (of the deepest fighters at the time) , Dune, Fifa, Rise of the Dragon (though Game Arts did convert it I think) were really good Mega CD games from the west and not by Core and sometimes just adding a CD track or better audio could really help a game like it did for Sensible Soccer, NHL 94, Ecco on the Mega CD

It's just such a shame SEGA of Japan never did a Strider game for the Mega CD or ported OutRun, Spacer Harrier, Power Drift, After Burner II to the system

[CMcK]

Although the Mega CD seemed well suited to do ports of games like Out Run and After Burner it just doesn't have the bandwidth to deliver 60fps arcade smooth gameplay. Realistically we would have seen 25fps versions of these games which might have been a bit too jerky for that kind of twitch gameplay.

[Asura]

Same boat here re games, if I had to tally the best each system had for me, I'd end up with Saturn on top

Really?

Even as a massive fan of the machine from the time, I don't want to seem contentious, but I'm wondering if we're letting nostalgia blind us a bit here.

Given, I'm taking with a very UK-centric view, having only played a few of the bigger Saturn imports (like Capcom's "vs" games).

Comparing the Saturn's heyday to the same time period for the Playstation would leave the Saturn coming out on top, I'm sure (I mean the PSX had many titles but so many were games like Agile Fighter or Krazy Ivan - pretty much dross). The PSX went on for years afterward though, during which we saw the likes of Squaresoft's output, games like Ridge Racer Type 4, Wip3out, Tekken 3...

[DeathAdder]

I never really got into the Saturn, at the time or retrospectively, preferring N64 and PS.

Love Manx TT though

[Neon Ignition]

It's purely from a personal stand point but probably yup. For me so many PS1 games were caught up in the Sony love hype of the time and didn't live up to it. Don't get me wrong, PS1 has many great games and some stone cold classics but overall the Saturn key games speak to me more and are ones I'd be more likely to want to revisit,

[Team Andromeda]

Although the Mega CD seemed well suited to do ports of games like Out Run and After Burner it just doesn't have the bandwidth to deliver 60fps arcade smooth gameplay. Realistically we would have seen 25fps versions of these games which might have been a bit too jerky for that kind of twitch gameplay.

OutRun only run at 30 fps even in the Arcades . For sure they wouldn't have looked or moved as good, but if they used the system the way John O'Brien engine did with Batman Returns (which run at a smooth 20 to 22 fps or so) they could have been the best consoles versions around and having OutRun or Super Hang-On music score played directly of disc and be Arcade perfect music would have been a huge deal in the early 90's (for me anyway)

[Asura]

OutRun only run at 30 fps even in the Arcades . For sure they wouldn't have looked or moved as good, but if they used the system the way John O'Brien engine did with Batman Returns (which run at a smooth 20 to 22 fps or so) they could have been the best consoles versions around and having OutRun or Super Hang-On music score played directly of disc and be Arcade perfect music would have been a huge deal in the early 90's (for me anyway)

Probably for you (and for us). Still, OutRun was already six years old by the time the Mega-CD came out. I imagine the "mass market" would've seen it the way they saw the Mega-CD version of Streets of Rage - an old game with some improved sound.

[Team Andromeda]

Probably for you (and for us). Still, OutRun was already six years old by the time the Mega-CD came out. I imagine the "mass market" would've seen it the way they saw the Mega-CD version of Streets of Rage - an old game with some improved sound.

The Mega CD was never going to be mass market , but having the best home versions of the likes of Super Hang On or OutRun in 1992/3 would have been a big deal to any SEGA fan (hell it was a bid deal having Arcade perfect ports on the Saturn with OutRun/AB II , who after all were the ones that would buy SEGA systems 1st and foremost

would've seen it the way they saw the Mega-CD version of Streets of Rage - an old game with some improved sound.

That's a bit different for one they was a much improved sequel and the other, only some speech sound effects were improved in the Mega CD version, other than that it was exactly like the cart (even down to the music)

[Kit]

Really?

Even as a massive fan of the machine from the time, I don't want to seem contentious, but I'm wondering if we're letting nostalgia blind us a bit here.

They are defo.

I love the Dreamcast but I'm not going to sit here and say 3/4 of the games on the machine weren't awful playstation ports.

The only console I've gone back to (without playing heavily during its hay day - so I don't have my rose tinted glasses on) and seen classics is the PSP and Mega Drive.

Saturn has two or three I agree and quality 2d fighters but apart from that it's just not that good.