Obscure Sega consoles of the early to mid 90s

[ptolemy]

30 year old boomer here who owned many of Sega's bizarre failed consoles throughout the 90s and was obsessed with games like Sonic CD, Panzer Dragoon, Nights into Dreams, Chaotix etc
Anyone else actually have a Mega CD, 32X or a Saturn growing up and if so what did your library look like
The Saturn was probably my favourite of the bunch, played the original Tomb Raider and even Myst on that thing lol

 

[†††]

They weren't obscure at all

 

[Falksi]

They weren't obscure at all

Not in terms of reputation. But in terms of households owning them? I'd say they were.

I was a SEGA fanboy until '91, then when Sonic 1 disappointed me hugely & Final Fight was available on the SNES I bought one, & split my love equally between the two (often trading one with my mates Amiga here & there, as it suited us)

We had a group of 8 mates, all who gamed. 7 had a Megadrive, 4 had a SNES. Only 1 of the 8 - Phil - ever owned either a 32X, Mega CD or Saturn. I used to borrow the Mega CD off him when he went on hols somewhere (he was a TOP bloke, and sadly passed away from a tumour 2 years ago).

I really struggled to take to any of those SEGA consoles or add ons. Snatcher, Nights into Dreams, Panzer Dragoon, Virtua Cop, and Baku Baku were the only games I remember REALLY enjoying. And even then not enough to buy the system.

Tbf, it came at an age where beer & women had taken top spot in terms of "entertainment", so that contributed too.

There's a long answer you never asked for.

 

[ptolemy]

They weren't obscure at all

Lol ok

 

[ptolemy]

They weren't obscure at all

Not in terms of reputation. But in terms of households owning them? I'd say they were.

I was a SEGA fanboy until '91, then when Sonic 1 disappointed me hugely & Final Fight was available on the SNES I bought one, & split my love equally between the two (often trading one with my mates Amiga here & there, as it suited us)

We had a group of 8 mates, all who gamed. 7 had a Megadrive, 4 had a SNES. Only 1 of the 8 - Phil - ever owned either a 32X, Mega CD or Saturn. I used to borrow the Mega CD off him when he went on hols somewhere (he was a TOP bloke, and sadly passed away from a tumour 2 years ago).

I really struggled to take to any of those SEGA consoles or add ons. Snatcher, Nights into Dreams, Panzer Dragoon, Virtua Cop, and Baku Baku were the only games I remember REALLY enjoying. And even then not enough to buy the system.

Tbf, it came at an age where beer & women had taken top spot in terms of "entertainment", so that contributed too.

There's a long answer you never asked for.

Great stuff congrats on getting to play Snatcher that’s one I really wanted to play back in the day but could never find a copy

 

[MRY]

We had a group of 8 mates, all who gamed. 7 had a Megadrive, 4 had a SNES. Only 1 of the 8 - Phil - ever owned either a 32X, Mega CD or Saturn.

I would say the SNES/Genesis ratio was more Nintendo-tilting in my growing up, but otherwise this resonates with my experience: knew lots of kids with Genesis, almost none with an of the add-on systems or Saturn. But we certainly had heard of all the systems, and I remember being very tempted by the jRPGs on them.

 

[Falksi]

They weren't obscure at all

Not in terms of reputation. But in terms of households owning them? I'd say they were.

I was a SEGA fanboy until '91, then when Sonic 1 disappointed me hugely & Final Fight was available on the SNES I bought one, & split my love equally between the two (often trading one with my mates Amiga here & there, as it suited us)

We had a group of 8 mates, all who gamed. 7 had a Megadrive, 4 had a SNES. Only 1 of the 8 - Phil - ever owned either a 32X, Mega CD or Saturn. I used to borrow the Mega CD off him when he went on hols somewhere (he was a TOP bloke, and sadly passed away from a tumour 2 years ago).

I really struggled to take to any of those SEGA consoles or add ons. Snatcher, Nights into Dreams, Panzer Dragoon, Virtua Cop, and Baku Baku were the only games I remember REALLY enjoying. And even then not enough to buy the system.

Tbf, it came at an age where beer & women had taken top spot in terms of "entertainment", so that contributed too.

There's a long answer you never asked for.

Great stuff congrats on getting to play Snatcher that’s one I really wanted to play back in the day but could never find a copy

Funnily enough I replayed it again around 3 years ago.

Still really enjoyed it, although the first 2/3rds are definitely the stronger. The last 3rd becomes a bit too oddly paced.

Definitely a game which I loved back in t'day, and still worth playing if you can get it on emulation mate.

 

[Falksi]

We had a group of 8 mates, all who gamed. 7 had a Megadrive, 4 had a SNES. Only 1 of the 8 - Phil - ever owned either a 32X, Mega CD or Saturn.

I would say the SNES/Genesis ratio was more Nintendo-tilting in my growing up, but otherwise this resonates with my experience: knew lots of kids with Genesis, almost none with an of the add-on systems or Saturn. But we certainly had heard of all the systems, and I remember being very tempted by the jRPGs on them.

It was just weird wasn't it?

I think the 3-D shift was jarring for some, it was for me. Suddenly you had these consoles who's graphics & gameplay had been mastered, and they decided to shift all that with games such as Skewer Shark & Make My Video leading the line. It made no sense.

I'd been wanting a PC for years at the time, and that was another reason I decided to ignore all SEGA stuff after the Megadrive. For the sake of an extra 12-18 months I could save up a bit more, and get a PC instead, and boy am I glad I did.

 

[MRY]

Wikipedia says Genesis sold ~31M, Sega CD ~3M, and 32X ~800K.

My recollection was that the problem was that Sega CD and 32X were barely better than the SNES and had very few exciting titles. With the Saturn, Sega had already lost a lot of credibility and it felt like another better SNES with worse titles, in contrast with the Playstation, which was something novel.

 

[Tigranes]

30 year old boomer here

Never seen anyone who volulntarily puts themselves in boomer zone, but OK

I was a SEGA devotee with Genesis & Gear, though honestly I think a lot of it was just 'first console' bias + popamole 'Sonic lets me play at 8000km/h, fuck that slow ass fat plumber'.

And then early 3D happened both on consoles & PC, and I just couldn't. Everything was so god damn fucking ugly and platformers in particular felt like an exercise in sadism after getting used to Castlevania or even Jazz Jackrabbit.

Luckily, at that point I moved around a lot, ended up with only a PC at one point, and thought this new thing coming out called Baldur's Gate looked interesting...

 

[Nirvash]

Excluding the mega drive, sega hardware was very ambitious but failed at basic level, and fuckload of pointless upgrades/revisions.

Game gear had the colors but no battery life at all, nomad was even worse.
The saturn was geared for... 2d graphics when 3d was the next big thing.

 

[ptolemy]

30 year old boomer here

Never seen anyone who volulntarily puts themselves in boomer zone, but OK

I was a SEGA devotee with Genesis & Gear, though honestly I think a lot of it was just 'first console' bias + popamole 'Sonic lets me play at 8000km/h, fuck that slow ass fat plumber'.

And then early 3D happened both on consoles & PC, and I just couldn't. Everything was so god damn fucking ugly and platformers in particular felt like an exercise in sadism after getting used to Castlevania or even Jazz Jackrabbit.

Luckily, at that point I moved around a lot, ended up with only a PC at one point, and thought this new thing coming out called Baldur's Gate looked interesting...

I had a misplaced sense of brand loyalty to Sega throughout childhood due to my love of Sonic which motivated to me go the extra mile in trying to get hold of all of Sega's hardware during this period. I remember completely missing the 32X's UK release as it was discontinued so quickly. The PS1's stellar library is what eventually caused me to walk away from Sega, specifically the release of FFVII. Never owned a Dreamcast as a result.

 

[JDR13]

I had both a Saturn and a Dreamcast. I remember buying the Dreamcast just to play Resident Evil: Code Veronica because it was supposed to be an exclusive or so I thought.

Panzer Dragoon Saga on the Saturn was great. I actually still have an unopened copy. That's gotta be worth some bucks.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

I assumed this topic would be about the Master System, which sounds like a cool system, but I never really played anything on it, even during the time I was playing a crapton of Sega games. Did it have anything good on it?
The 32X's problem is the same problem the Atari Jaguar had, no games. That Sonic game, that mecha game...uh...a boxing game. I think in order to be successful, a console needs to have enough games worth buying to effectively match the console's price, and a lot of consoles back then never reached that. The CD add-on at least had some cool stuff that wasn't just JRPGs and FMV games. Shame nobody translated that third Shadowrun game...
Has Saturn emulation improved at all? I remember back in the day when I tried emulating the console, whichever emulator I was using at the time just didn't want to work. I think it was the only decent one at the time. Its got more than a few interesting titles, including Deep Fear and I think there was another survival horror game on the console?

 

[Falksi]

From my POV when I was growing up, the 32X just seemed an expensive & pointless addition, with no major benefit. The Megadrive was still churning out perfectly great games, and the slight upgrade you got with this wasn't enough for it to be worth the purchase.

The Mega-CD I was well hyped for, but then they released this promo vid (starts properly around 2:40......)



.........and I, despite the awesome Steve Vai soundtrack, I was left thinking "WTF?!?"

• Skewer Shark - Looked OK, cool in some ways but ropey FMV and the gameplay looked none-existent. Which was the case.
• Batman Returns - Looks like a Megadrive game. All based around racing, and with shit bouncing-off bridges gameplay too. Considering Batman Returns looked better on the SNES, this was a bizarre flagship choice.
• Make My Video - WTF?!?!? Nig-nog rap simulator? OK, this is where my interest in the system really started to take a hit
• Night Trap - Looked shit, another FMV nothing game, but this at least had young fit women & "vampires", so I though it might be good for a laugh.
• Cobra Command - Again, where's the gameplay? Looked like Skewer Shark with cartoon graphics instead of FMV ones.

And, as a massive Final Fight fan, the release of Final Fight with the Mega-CD to me actually highlighted how out of touch with progress it was. As good as the game is, it had already been bettered by Streets of Rage 1-3 on the Megadrive, and I it made everything feel like a step backwards.

By the time the Saturn arrived I already had a PC, and had a lovely balanced setup - PC for depth & RPGs, Megadrive for Arcade blasts, SNES for JRPGs & everything else in between. And none of it's games other than Virtua Cop & Daytona really appealed to me. The early era od 3-D gaming - to me - felt like a big step down from the mastered 2-D 16-bit era.

 

[ptolemy]

Cobra Command - Again, where's the gameplay? Looked like Skewer Shark with cartoon graphics instead of FMV ones.

I also had Cobra Command, holy shit the fmv video compression quality on that game was so bad it was borderline unplayable lol

 

[JDR13]

Has Saturn emulation improved at all? I remember back in the day when I tried emulating the console, whichever emulator I was using at the time just didn't want to work. I think it was the only decent one at the time. Its got more than a few interesting titles, including Deep Fear and I think there was another survival horror game on the console?

I played Panzer Dragoon Saga on an emulator (SSF) some years ago, and it worked fine.

The only thing I didn't like was that it didn't offer any resolution upscaling or AA, etc, like most emulators do. That may have changed by now.

 

[Pound Meat]

First Sega console I ever owned was Dreamcast, which is still my favorite console ever. I later got a Genesis 3 for $20 at Target.

When I was a kid back in the '90s I couldn't afford much of anything gaming wise, and now that I'm an adult everything's a goddamn fortune. The 32x (much like the Jaguar) makes me sad because it died so quickly and most of the games were barely more than shovelware, so we'll never really know what the system was capable of. Just imagine another timeline where the system kept going another 3 or 4 years. Who knows what marvels we could have had.

 

[Xmantis]

I wanted a Saturn as a kid, we had a Genesis and I played NiGHTS at a Saturn kiosk at the toy store and thought it was awesome. I remember the Saturn being really expensive, we ended up getting an N64 which turned out to be great. I ended up buying a used Saturn with NiGHTS sometime in the 2000s from Funcoland and I was surprised the flying gameplay was 2D, my dumb kid brain convinced me you could fly around in 3D. Still a cool and unique game, nice style to it.

Oh yeah we got a Dreamcast on release to play Sonic Adventure. I don't remember hearing anything about the Sega CD or the 32x but I wasn't that savvy as a kid, I maybe browsed a game magazine once in a while.

 

[oddech_wymarlych_swiatow]

Saturn is at least as good as PSX and two leagues above extremely overrated N64. Every time I hear that it was a 'failed console' I go apeshit.

PS. Few months ago I bought original Saturn MKII Pad + Xintput/DirectInput adapter and it is BEST pad fighting games and I also mean modern ones (tested on MKX, MK11, USF4 and SF5).

Oh, and this pad + MyFlash Adapter + Mednafen / Beetle = best modern Saturn experience.

 

[Citizen]

Dreamcast = peak SEGA. Change my mind

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

Old school Sega fan here.
I grew up with Sega consoles after my parents got me a Master System. A choice I rather came to regret to be honest because I could have asked for a Megadrive!!!!! (yeah I was stupid as a kid)
I got one later but it doesn't take away the feeling of regret that I made such a bonehead move.

Back in the day I wanted a Game Gear too but I was a bit divided about its library as the Game Boy at the time despite its lack of colors had a more extensive library.
Looking back, I feel should not have bothered with any of them.

I remember when I first saw the Mega CD in the stores, running a demo of Sonic CD, that I desperately wanted my mother to get me one so that I could play that game.
Unfortunate my stupid little mind wasn't developed enough at the time to consider the titles I would later get to enjoy more such as Snatcher.
Anyway, my mom refused to get me a Mega CD as it was way to expensive.
Truth though is that I do not mourn that much never having owned one at the time when I played some of its games later. Sonic CD was not the next big Sonic entry that I thought it would be for me, a lot of the games that got released here in the Netherlands were those awful FMV/barely interactive "movie" games other people here have also mentioned, or Megadrive games that got an extra level, intros and outros, and better music.
Some very interesting games in the States never got released here in Europe.

One of the few games I would have enjoyed playing at the time was probably The Terminator as it was way better than the crappy Megadrive game.

I had a misplaced sense of brand loyalty to Sega throughout childhood due to my love of Sonic which motivated to me go the extra mile in trying to get hold of all of Sega's hardware during this period

Yep same here.

I would eventually also own a Dreamcast, to play Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, but in particular to play Ecco the Dolphin as I loved the first two games despite their insane difficulty and discomfort it gave me on the Megadrive.

 

[ultimanecat]

Had a Sega CD and a 32X as a wee one (divorced parents meant lots of birthday and Christmas gifts). Sega CD was really good for what it was, in hindsight probably not worth the price but Snatcher and Sonic CD remain some of my favorite games of the entire 16-bit generation. 32X was almost entirely garbage, though. Probably the best game I had was Star Wars Arcade, and that wasn’t great.

I’m hardly a Sega fan but I’d comfortably argue that the Dreamcast has one of the most consistently good libraries of games of any console ever. I’d also argue that Sony’s marketing was full of shit and it took a couple years after the Dreamcast died for anything on the PS2 to start surpassing what the DC could do graphically.

 

[Lutte]

The saturn was geared for... 2d graphics when 3d was the next big thing.

The playstation 1 had the same problem. The PSX isn't even capable of properly calculating the geometry of polygons, hence every 3d games on it exhibiting a very unique behavior of constant warp in movement.
Emulators in recent years managed to make it possible to run fixed versions of PSX games and the change is dramatic :



The original PSX controller didn't have analog sticks too, they only had a DPAD and were made for 2d movement. And ultimately the console was so incapable on the 3d front that some developers were inspired to use very creative tricks to make convincing games, like Silent Hill and its fog being made into a world-building feature rather than just being treated as a basic hardware limitation.

Sega made a lot of mistakes but missing the 3d boat wasn't one of them. In fact I'm not sure the saturn really does much worse than the PSX when games are properly developed for it, like Sega Rally. The saturn's biggest trouble is that developing for it requires understanding multi-processor architecture in an era where multi-threading in games wasn't really a thing. A dual processor machine in a home console. It's a madman thing for the early 90s.

Saturn is at least as good as PSX and two leagues above extremely overrated N64. Every time I hear that it was a 'failed console' I go apeshit.

N64 was a failed console in terms of game library, but it was pretty decent hardware wise. It's the least eye-sore for 3d games in that era IMHO, games don't look like an aliased mess, and the view distance isn't so sordid as to make things pop from literally in front of you (compare games like Ape Escape on PSX to Mario 64 and you'll get what I mean)

IMHO 3d gaming only started being bearable on consoles through the N64 and the Dreamcast. The DC was wonderful. In fact, it may have lacked some of the special things the PS2 could do in terms of lighting/effects/particle, but I preferred DC visuals for being far less aliased and cleaner, and the average DC 3d title tended to have better framerate.
The story of the dreamcast is a very sad one. It failed in the market purely for reasons that were outside its own. As a piece of hardware it was a damn fine one. But Sega had failed people's trust too many times in the past, had issues with marketing, and sour relations with some important third party developers like EA.

http://segabits.com/blog/2013/05/20/monday-memories-ea-not-supporting-the-dreamcast/

According to Benie Stolar, EA would support the Dreamcast only if there wasn’t any sports titles competing against them.

That sort of thing was really, really bad for Sega. Sports titles were one of the main drivers of consoles.

 

[oddech_wymarlych_swiatow]

N64 was a failed console in terms of game library, but it was pretty decent hardware wise. It's the least eye-sore for 3d games in that era IMHO, .

But in terms of 2D, Saturn destroys both N64 and PSX combined. Late '90 was full of mindless hate against 2D and Saturn was 2D powerhouse.

Oh, and Jaguar too.