PTE62: Saturn Twenty

[Neon Ignition]

In terms of thei rpgs, it's not Square specific but generally yep, most are menu's with dressing so a lot for me boils down to how compelling the story is. I do miss Squares more genre wide output, it wasn't always good but they usually had an interesting hook.

As for Rally: Answer to both queries:

[dvdx2]

Not to mention Square put out a ton of excellent non-RPG games on the PS1 with iS:Internal Section (which Rez borrowed some bits from), Bushido Blade and Einhander - I think it represents their strongest period to date.

I forgot to mention einhander...a stunning game, technically amazing. No shooter on the saturn can even touch this ( although the saturn has some great shooters). Infact i'd put the ps1 infront, if comparing shooters

[Guts]

I always get Einh?nder and Ehrgeiz mixed up in my head. Damn Square and their germanophilia.

[Neon Ignition]

I think the only two games that I never got round to playing were Enemy Zero and Deep Fear, heard mixed thoughts on both so always held off

[J0e Musashi]

I was more enthralled at taking my Saturn home than I was my PS1. It comes from the credit chime of VF1.

I spent a good hour in CEX Rathbone trying it out before purchasing. It was something special though. The power of it was immense for the few weeks before I saw Ridge Racer. It was ?649.99 for the unit, ?79.99 for VF1, and ?59.99 for an extra controller. I cut in my SFC and AES Robo Army towards it iirc.

When everyone went home from my house after the first night, I watched the attract mode so many times. That music was so awesome. A console costing more than ?500 was a big deal back then too. It was still special once it came out over here, because it was a different colour.

VF2 was an incredible game at the time. It was only ?39.99 on import too.

Late 1994 was my best time in gaming ever. Saturn, PS1 and Neo-CD all came out before Christmas.

[CatCopter]

I saved for ages for my pal Saturn it cost ?345.72. from Beaties and I bought a copy of virtua fighter 2 and then had to wait an extra week to play it as it took that long to track down an RF cable.

[speedlolita]

Didn't they ship with a SCART cable? I assume your TV only had RF lol.

I love my three Saturn. I'm a PlayStation kid through and through (born 1990) but I definitely enjoy explore what was released in Japan for the Saturn when I was playing 50Hz PlayStation games.

[Team Andromeda]

Scanlines look amazing in old screenshots.

That what made Mean machines . The best screen shots I ever seen (still to this day) the F-Zero Screen shots inthe their review completely sold me on the game and the Superfamicom .

I hate all of those American 90's platformers

I agree to a point, but Bug II I thought was a clever and decent game and I liked the humor .

However, the ps1 has bundles of more games myself and my friends wanted to play

I say it's like the Mega Drive Vs the Snes. The MD had by far the better support in the West and had more good games worth playing, but the AAA games on the Snes were untouchable . Same goes for me with the Saturn and PS: PS had the better support and more games worth playing, but the AAA Saturn games were untouchable .

the saturn had its fair share of ropey conversions; Layer Section II (a port of my fav shooter Raystorm) was pretty rubbish

Layer Section II was running on the Tatio Version of the PS board for the Arcades . By the same token it's not like PS port of Souky on the ST-V board wasn't a patch on the Saturn version

[Asura]

Yeah, a lot of these statements about it being the best 32-bit consoles seem to be attached to a statement like "best for fans of Sega arcade titles", which makes it a bit of a tautology - the Sega console is the best one for Sega games, well that's not really a surprise. You may as well say the PS1 was the best console for Squaresoft-style RPGs that got a Western release; it may be true, but it's also self-evident.

EDIT: Out of interest, if I wanted to obtain a "flash white" Saturn today, ideally one switched to play games of any region and work with a UK plug (without a stepdown box), how would I go about getting it and how much would it cost?

[dvdx2]

I remember getting my mate who was working, to take the saturn out on credit for me (i was a mature student and skint). Daytona was the best thing since sliced bread, (despite being almost unplayable nowadays). VF tournaments were a plenty, but last gladiators pinball stole the show. I remember a large chunk of my student loan going on wayyyy overpriced saturn PAL games.....

Jez, was that nearly 20 years ago?

[sj33]

Didn't they ship with a SCART cable? I assume your TV only had RF lol.

I love my three Saturn. I'm a PlayStation kid through and through (born 1990) but I definitely enjoy explore what was released in Japan for the Saturn when I was playing 50Hz PlayStation games.

I remember I got a new TV for my bedroom (14" portable CRT) for my birthday before getting a Saturn because I needed a Scart socket. But by time I actually got a Saturn of my own (rather than playing mate's consoles), the machine came with an RF cable anyway, and I had to buy a Scart cable!

I was a Saturn gamer through-and-through - it was the natural progression for me as a MegaDrive gamer, and absolutely nothing compared with those screenshots of Saturn games as somebody with a MegaDrive. I of course had friends with PlayStations and played plenty (this resulted in me getting games like Resident Evil, WipEout 2097 and Pandemonium on the Saturn after being hooked on my friend's PlayStation versions), but I did eventually get a Playstation of my own in 1998 - Resident Evil 2 was just too big to miss out on.

I have absolutely no regrets being primarily a Saturn owner back then. I've been able to go back and explore the Playstation games that I missed out on, whereas I think much of the charm of Saturn gaming would be lost if you didn't experience many of these games back in the day.

[speedlolita]

Don't get a white one Asura, get a grey one!

The original HST-3200 is so much nicer than any other Saturn.

[Neon Ignition]

Other than the standard black model only other colour I ever saw was the first Saturn I ever physically saw which was the import grey one. I prefer black to that colour, but the white always looked nice.

[S3M]

4 tracks and 3 cars?

I'm only aware of 3 tracks and 2 cars. Sega Rally Plus?

Your not that good at Sega Rally then. as the arcade has four courses you get to drive on Lakeside if you're top after finishing the third race, Lancia Stratos was also a secret car in the saturn version.

As much as I loved Squaresoft and Enix RPGs on the PSone they were just going over old ground from the SNES era. Need to draw up a huge vs list at some point and just see what we all think, I myself have around 200 hundred great PSOne games not released on the Saturn so it would be a interesting list.

[speedlolita]

I've never actually finished first I am ashamed to say. I've been getting better though, having more and more time remaining.