Sega Saturn in 2022 - Bad Idea?

[Wools]

If all the bills are all paid each month & you have spare funds for hobby stuff then i say go all in, any of us could drop dead tomorrow live for the now.

Very much this. Life's too short to stress about the little things and you'll be in the ground over ther things you never saw comming, like that out of control Vauxhall or the Tax Invoice for an Analogue console.

Regarding the price rise of old games, I feel it's a permant thing and is caused by all old games becomming vintage. People want their childhood and as time goes on, what was once just an Xbox console with a dog ear'd copy of Halo, is now someone's first game and worth £150 for a mint copy. Sealed? That's £500 for you, Sir.

Although it's hard to fathom anything costing more £120 for a mint copy of Saga or a new copy of Garou: Mark of the Wolves, time waits for no one and what was once 50p in CEX is now a vintage copy of a well regarded classic. So that's £50. It won't change as everything gets old and people want the classics.

[speedlolita]

I don't think anyone born in the last 30 years really cares about the VCS though, which isn't true of more recent titles.

You have many outlets of education for old games now, and with so many older franchises either having new entries today or being the clear inspiration for indie titles I don't see the lack of interest dying any time soon.

The sealed WATA crap is an entirely different kettle of fish IMO. I feel like more than ever people are buying games to keep because of increased scarcity. I'd prefer it to not be this way because even loose GBA games are crazy but that's how I see it.

This is all largely why I've taken a step back and bumped up what methods I have for playing ROMs, I don't own a single Saturn game and I intend to keep it that way. With projects like no-intro and redump I think now is one of the best times to be someone interested in old games, and I'm here for it.

[Hirst]

I think price spikes are largely caused by the rise of US-style "game collecting" where people are just filling shelves with everything in the hope of creating a big permanent collection, also probably a bunch of chancers buying into the hype over that sealed Mario 64 WATA scam. If games are being bought, played and then put back on the market then the prices don't go up that much (only steadily with age). If they are bought and left on somebody's shelf forever the price goes up through scarcity.

The good news is that it probably won't last forever - anything along similar lines has been a bubble that eventually burst. Something similar happened with Atari VCS/2600 games years ago and now most of them are worth sod all. I don't think it'll be as extreme as that but given time people will start thinking "this is silly" and start selling up once the novelty wears off.

[Asura]

It's mad that more 'standard' gaming consoles have hit Neo Geo levels prices of old.

I'm still convinced this was caused by COVID. As soon as the pandemic hit, the price of even pedestrian PS1 games skyrocketed; I think there are a lot of people out there who, in a depressing moment, went to eBay to buy a PS1 and a copy of Tekken 2 as a kind of nostalgic panacea.

Problem is I used to think they would crash once this was over as all those people go back to their normal, more outdoorsy lives and decide they've bought a load of dead weight... But now I'm not so sure.

[nakamura]

It's mad that more 'standard' gaming consoles have hit Neo Geo levels prices of old.

[importaku]

If all the bills are all paid each month & you have spare funds for hobby stuff then i say go all in, any of us could drop dead tomorrow live for the now. If there really are some of the rare mega expensive titles you want to play try doing so through emulation and start saving up if it's one you truly love for the sane priced stuff go for the originals. As retro consoles go saturn is not that expensive compared to a lot of the others, a lot of the games are easy to find and still a hell of a lot cheaper than ps1 stuff i know this annoying fact from trawls of ebay. When i was parodius hunting the ps1 versions were way harder to find in greater volume and way more expensive. For saturn sexy parodius was eeeeeverywhere "titles may vary"

[speedlolita]

I tend to just use final burn alpha for the odd SF title. Even 3s, which I own the board of.

[dataDave]

Unless you want to collect the arcade boards and MVS/AES carts for that stuff the MiSTer is the next best option. Followed by the Saturn.

[Asura]

Eh?

The Saturn ports of X-Men COTA and MSH vs. SF say hello!

And that's just for starters. I'm pretty sure that the RAM cartridge allowed for other near-enough 1:1 ports on the Sega Saturn...but yeah, I suppose you have some sort of a sit-on-the-fence point...

"Few", as opposed to none. I mean there are certainly some which are nigh-on indistinguishable, like the ST-V ports.

[Nu-Eclipse]

I mean few of the Saturn's arcade ports have their "best" version on the machine, but many of us love them regardless.

Eh?

The Saturn ports of X-Men COTA and MSH vs. SF say hello!

And that's just for starters. I'm pretty sure that the RAM cartridge allowed for other near-enough 1:1 ports on the Sega Saturn...but yeah, I suppose you have some sort of a sit-on-the-fence point...

[Asura]

Same with SFII on SNES. I prefer it over the arcade.

So basically...you don't like SFII at all, then?

C'mon maaan

If there's anything to take away from the Saturn love it's that the "best" version of a game, for all of us, isn't necessarily the one which is best by an objective measure. I mean few of the Saturn's arcade ports have their "best" version on the machine, but many of us love them regardless.

[Nu-Eclipse]

Same with SFII on SNES. I prefer it over the arcade.

So basically...you don't like SFII at all, then?

[Neon Ignition]

I first came to the Saturn properly right toward the end of its life. I had primarily stuck with N64 then followed on with the PS1 thanks to the volume of games. In the end though I think the Saturn was the best one overall, it's possibly my bets regarded Sega console too. There's so much likeable about it and whilst it lacks a lot of AAA key titles it's absolutely drowning in fascinating smaller titles that remain fun to this day whereas by comparison the technical issues of N64 games have spoiled a lot of them and the PS1 line up is for me much more bland in retrospect.

[danstan21]

I picked up my first (but not last) Saturn console off these forums about 8 years ago, and it's still plugged in under my telly. Layer Section, Soukyugurentai and Darius Gaiden are three excellent and pretty affordable shmups that define the system for me. I can also vouch for them looking excellent via the OSSC.

[tokyochojin]

Short answer sure with an if, long answer no with a but.

Sure, if you have deep pockets or are happy with using a Rhea or other such device.

No, but it's a fantastic system, arguably having the finest selection of 2D titles and a selection of games that captures a feeling of a period of time more than no other. However, as mentioned above most of the games have been rereleased elsewhere, usually offering a much better play experience. The best titles cost a fortune nowadays, and that's even if you can get a collection in a condition (particularly PAL games) that would warrant shelf space.

Personally, it's always a system that will have a place under my telly but jumping into Saturn collecting now requires an almost AES mentality to collecting. Almost all the negatives are mute though if you have an ODE and the system still looks good on modern TVs.