Is the Sega Saturn a good or a bad console?

[Halfling Rodeo]

For a kid growing up in that time, interested in RPGs, no, that's not enough. Same with the Genesis. Same with the Dreamcast. We can look back all we want and say "oh, there's hundreds of RPGs all over to place to play now," but when you're someone who took a gamble on a single console that was going to usher you through your childhood, and your main focus was the joy of RPGs, then all of the Sega consoles were woefully lacking in that regard.

Funny how butthurt so many of got about it though.

If you wanted RPGs you just bought a playstation or a gameboy. There's no need to make a big dramatic thing out of it.

 

[Beans00]

For a kid growing up in that time, interested in RPGs, no, that's not enough. Same with the Genesis. Same with the Dreamcast. We can look back all we want and say "oh, there's hundreds of RPGs all over to place to play now," but when you're someone who took a gamble on a single console that was going to usher you through your childhood, and your main focus was the joy of RPGs, then all of the Sega consoles were woefully lacking in that regard.

Funny how butthurt so many of got about it though.

The phantasy star games(minus the 3rd one) on master system/genesis(megadrive outside north america) were better then 90% of other jrpgs.

1>4>>2>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>3


I guess super nintendo had more but I don't consider having to play 7th saga or breath of fire any type of bonus.

 

[flyingjohn]

It is the second best 5th gen console and generations above Dreamcast/N64/3DO in terms of library. For any hidden gems/Rpg/Strategy you need to play the Japanese only games.
Just to demonstrate a insanity. Did you know that Saturn has the only translated version of daisenryaku wargame series until the 2006 ps2 version?
It is called iron storm and is pretty good.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Surprised to see no mention of Guardian Heroes. Probably my favourite title on the system. Best walk along beat-em-up game ever released, even better than Shadows over Mystara or Dragon's Crown. Also has a pvp arena mode that lets you play as anything in the game, from villagers to huge flying bosses.

Dark Wizard is a cool title too, though I've never actually gotten too far in it because I spoiled myself on all the unit upgrades and secrets and got bored having nothing to look forward to.

 

[Nutmeg]

Surprised to see no mention of Guardian Heroes.

Literally mentioned in the third post, by moi. It is a good game yes. I've always loved Han's art. Underrated.

Best walk along beat-em-up game ever released, even better than Shadows over Mystara or Dragon's Crown

Different sub-genres as Guardian Heroes has discrete planes, and SoM is hardly the best in it's genre anyway, IMO -- all the items interfere with the action too much. Don't know much about Dragon's Crown, but it's worth noting that the prequel Princess Crown can be found on Saturn.

Dark Wizard

This is a Sega CD game no?

 

[Eirinjas]

Surprised to see no mention of Guardian Heroes. Probably my favourite title on the system. Best walk along beat-em-up game ever released, even better than Shadows over Mystara or Dragon's Crown. Also has a pvp arena mode that lets you play as anything in the game, from villagers to huge flying bosses.

Dark Wizard is a cool title too, though I've never actually gotten too far in it because I spoiled myself on all the unit upgrades and secrets and got bored having nothing to look forward to.

Dark Wizard is a SegaCD title, but yes it is awesome.

 

[Jrpgfan]

It is a dead console.

It was born dead.

It had some good games though(shining force 3, panzer dragoon, nights into dreams...)

 

[Eirinjas]

It would have done better had they stuck to the original release schedule and dropped the price to make it more competitive. The SDK would've matured, there would have been more games at launch, and they would have earned more consumer trust. Instead, Sega burned game dev studios, retail outlets, and consumers by releasing it early. C'est la vie.

 

[Azdul]

Its main problem wasn't the 3D, it was the PS1 being cheaper, Sony having a ridiculously good market entry strategy (good deals for indies/3rd parties, cheap dev kits, a lot easier development with a C library that was well documented) which lead to a very big library that was bound to have something for everyone, while Sega had a bad case of internal stupidity and lack of cooperation between Japan and the US branch.

Try to write C library in 1994 for a platform with 8 heterogenous processors and 3 separate buses - that will not completely kill the performance. Assembly is the only way to go.

Saturn was a great platform - just human programmers are too stupid - unable to visualize 8 things happening at once.

To be fair - some hardware designs of the 90's - like Sega CD or Jaguar - were genuinely broken and not just incomprehensible for <150 IQ humans. Saturn's design - just like PS2 or PS3 - was not broken - just challenging. Nevertheless we still ended up with Sony and Microsoft selling rebranded PCs as 'game consoles' 30 years later.

Stupid human programmers.

 

[Hellraiser]

Try to write C library in 1994 for a platform with 8 heterogenous processors and 3 separate buses - that will not completely kill the performance. Assembly is the only way to go.

You're missing the point and bigger picture I was mentioning there. The problem wasn't the lack of a C library itself. The problem was Sony tried to please developers as much as possible and went the extra mile in this and other areas (similar to how Epic was luring/bribing developers to the EGS with a lower cut on sales in order to compete with Steam), while Sega actively pissed them off on top of acting like a two-headed ogre that can't decide if it wants to go left or right, because Japan and the US wanted different things. With Nintendo also pissing off developers merely acting non-retarded could have snatched any company 2nd place that generation. Acting competently, especially in the extent Sony did with their rather brilliant plan (supported by a few major advantages it had over the established brands that it did leverage, such as being co-developer of the CD format, large cash reserves, global brand recognition), made for a perfect storm reshaping the market.

Saturn's design - just like PS2 or PS3 - was not broken - just challenging. Nevertheless we still ended up with Sony and Microsoft selling rebranded PCs as 'game consoles' 30 years later.

Challenging isn't something you want when you run a business making software, you avoid it if you can and go for it only if risk vs possible return size is really stacked in the direction of return. You risk delays or worse, corners might be cut and performance may suffer and your brand name with it. And for the console manufacturer the primary source of revenue are royalties from copies sold. The more games third parties make and sell, the more Sony, Sega etc. made. So hardware being challenging (which is relative within the context of contemporary competition) meant it was broken from a business point of view.

The PS2 could afford this because it was riding on hype and PS1 brand, Sega shitting the bed essentially gave them an uncontested market until the in shambles Nintendo (kept alive primarily by handhelds/pokemon, disgraced and out of favor due the N64 and earlier shenanigans) and wildcard Microsoft came along. The cost vs benefit analysis done by a publisher/developer when deciding on the target platform was clearly in favor of Sony despite being "challenging". Honestly Sony was lucky it did that good with the PS1 and their competitors ended up being crippled or dead.

The PS3 meanwhile shows how much the context of the market matters and being first to market as well. The x360 launched earlier. Suddenly nobody gives a shit about "gitting gud" to squeeze all they can from the power of the cell(tm) and they just half assed it, with the X360 leading in the market (unless you count the Wii...), until Sony actually stepped in and gave better tools for multiplatform oriented developers and got ahead in the end IIRC. This IMO would have also been the fate of the PS2 if it had real competition from the start, and not the easy mode handicap from the competition that it did.

 

[Häyhä]

It's the console I can still today play Virtua Cop 1 & 2 with a lightgun on a CRT television at home. That's my answer.

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

People will say it’s a good console like the n64 in hind sight but you truly had to have been there during the time and having to wait extremely long periods of time between good releases while the PlayStation would get a ton all the time. I’m talking about the US versions though, Japanese Saturn I heard was the bomb.

Good consoles if you just pick all the good games up after the fact, bad consoles if you relied on it during the time for your sole gaming experience.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Despite Sega's legendary mishandling of the Saturn in the West, it was a very good console, but its appeal can't really be understood fully in light of widely available emulation of arcade games, etc. Nutmeg said pretty much all I wanted to say.

For fighting game fans in the mid 90s, Saturn was almost a revelation because of the RAM cart and perfect conversions of Capcom vs. fighters. The Saturn port of VF2 was a technical marvel given hardware limitations (even if vastly inferior to the Model 2 original, despite what fanboys who don't know anything about anything will tell you) and, of course, it was an exclusive. There were competent ports of Dead or Alive and many other games. The Saturn pad with its 6 face buttons also helped. One curiosity is a game called Anarchy in the Nippon, a Virtua Fighter clone by one of the famous Tetsujins (renowned Japanese VF2 players), Ikebukuro Sarah. It's kind of shit but amusing.

Its shmup library is amazing, with the Saturn having superior versions of titles that also came out on the Playstation, such as the excellent Thunder Force V and Soukyugurentai. Of course, Radiant Silvergun was exclusive at the time and for some people it's one of the best shmups ever (I don't like it that much, although I can appreciate the many things it tries to do).

I like the Camelot SRPGs even though I'm not crazy about the prerendered sprites or the art direction. All Shining Force 3 episodes (only one was released in the West) are good. Azel is a really good game.

All in all, a very worthy console with a great library. It shits all over something like the N64 from a great height. Market outcomes don't tell the whole story at all.

 

[Nutmeg]

Anarchy in the Nippon

Never heard of this. Interesting

such as the excellent Thunder Force V

Speaking of Technosoft shmups, and I have been waiting for an excuse to bring this up, they also released an excellent port of their only (real) arcade title Hyper Duel, which, along with a more faithful conversion, came with a "Saturn Mode" with most of the art (including the character art!) redone and, even more importantly, a shot lock button for when the player ship is in mecha (multidirectional shooting) mode so that the player can strafe, changing the nature of the game entirely. Excellent port of an excellent game -- considered by many as Technosoft's best shmup, it's certainly in my top 3 from the developer (along with Thunder Force 4 and Elemental Master on the Mega Drive).

Technosoft also released Blast Wind, their only vertical shmup, exclusive for the Saturn. It was originally developed for, but never released to, the arcades. I've not played it at all just yet but it has a reputation of being as good as anything else from the dev, so it makes my backlog.

 

[Vlajdermen]

It's almost exclusively 2d shmups, fighting games, and sugoi desu games, and how you feel about the saturn will depend on how you feel about those genres. In my case, I'm not a fan of any of the three

Expand your horizons. You are missing out on some of the deepest and most replayable games ever made.

I tried, it just didn't gel with me. That's not to say I'll never try again some time down the line, but I'm in no rush.

 

[Nutmeg]

It's almost exclusively 2d shmups, fighting games, and sugoi desu games, and how you feel about the saturn will depend on how you feel about those genres. In my case, I'm not a fan of any of the three

Expand your horizons. You are missing out on some of the deepest and most replayable games ever made.

I tried, it just didn't gel with me. That's not to say I'll never try again some time down the line, but I'm in no rush.

Yeah fair. But it's not a big jump from playing Panzer Dragoon 2 on the Saturn to playing Gunlock on the Saturn. In fact, Gunlock was one of the inspirations for Panzer Dragoon and Panzer Dragoon took one of its key mechanics from Gunlock (it's obvious which one).

Just make sure to set up tate mode properly. This is what it should look like if you set things up properly:



And below is what it looks like if you don't.



I use a monitor arm and set things up so that I rotate my screen physically when I play verts to maximize screen space and maximize the number of usable pixels for my CRT shaders.

 

[Hellraiser]

Despite Sega's legendary mishandling of the Saturn in the West, it was a very good console, but its appeal can't really be understood fully in light of widely available emulation of arcade games, etc.

The problem in the first place was that the arcade at home experience appealed to some very specific group of gamers and this wasn't '89 anymore where you could sell the Megadrive/Genesis with such a marketing strategy alone (and in the end Sega made Sonic because it knew it needed other things than appeal to the arcade crowd to sell more megadrives, which it forgot about with the Saturn apparently). It's actually even worse if you remove the modern day context of arcade emulation and consider that you had to pay almost 60 dollars for something like Daytona and almost 70 for VF2 back in the day. I can imagine paying that kind of cash only if I knew I would spend who knows how many hours in two player mode with bros.

Of course you could maybe rent the games, but here I imagine this might not have been a widely accessible option due to the overall adoption rates. It's a vicious circle.

 

[Nutmeg]

The problem in the first place was that the arcade at home experience appealed to some very specific group of gamers and this wasn't '89 anymore where you could sell the Megadrive/Genesis with such a marketing strategy alone (and in the end Sega made Sonic because it knew it needed other things than appeal to the arcade crowd to sell more megadrives, which it forgot about with the Saturn apparently).

Not sure what you're saying here.

On the one hand you're using "arcade at home" to mean literally arcade ports, as you don't consider Sonic as an "arcade at home" type game.

That's fair, internally consistent.

But then you claim that the Saturn didn't have any (presumably Sega developed) game like Sonic, which wasn't arcade at home. But it had Nights, from the same team. You could argue that Nights is a game in the arcade format, but by the same standard so is Sonic.

So, not sure what you mean here.

 

[Cologno]

I remember getting one, then dad knocked over a beer on it. He seemed more pissed about spilling beer than destroying the console. It stopped working after that. I know my brother and I didn't play it much and I don't even remember what we played. Come to find out it had a decent library. Just seemed like a console that never got the chance it deserved.

 

[Falksi]

Honestly,

For a kid growing up in that time, interested in RPGs, no, that's not enough. Same with the Genesis. Same with the Dreamcast. We can look back all we want and say "oh, there's hundreds of RPGs all over to place to play now," but when you're someone who took a gamble on a single console that was going to usher you through your childhood, and your main focus was the joy of RPGs, then all of the Sega consoles were woefully lacking in that regard.

Funny how butthurt so many of got about it though.

This is just a POV of someone who's not that familiar with their respective RPG libraries.

People state the SNES as the "superior RPG machine" over Genesis, but find me....

• A SNES RPG which gives you better space exploration than Starflight?
• A SNES RPG which gives you a better CRPG adventure than Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday?
• A SNES RPG series which gives you several better strategy RPGs than the Shining Force or Langrisser games? (SNES Der Langrisser is an abomination especially with it baby-weak challenge)
• A SNES RPG which gives you better cinematic cut-scenes than Lunar 1 & 2 or Phantasy Star 4?
• A SNES RPG which gives you a better dark-fantasy adventure than The Immortal?

Both systems are on par when it comes to action-puzzle RPGS (Landstalker=Illusion of Gaia, Beyond Oasis=Terranigma etc. ), but the SNES is literally only for people who wanted a very specific type of turn-based JRPG, and even then the SEGA Genesis held it's own with the Phantasy Star and Lunar series. Not to mention SEGA usually has the better versions of games such as Shadowrun too.

 

[Nutmeg]

(SNES Der Langrisser is an abomination especially with it baby-weak challenge

Based and correct opinion. Shame because Langrisser 2 was one of the more (most?) challenging SRPGs of its generation.

 

[Nutmeg]

A SNES RPG which gives you a better dark-fantasy adventure than The Immortal?

Haven't played The Immortal but the SFC did have Shin Megami Tensei which I've completed a year or two back and it's p. good for what it is. It also had sequels (2, If...) and remakes of prequels -- I've only briefly played Kyuuyaki Megami Tensei 2, and it was also good for what it was.

Dark Half I've only just checked out, but it seemed good. I liked that it actually had some form of pressure and I actually died. Very rare.

Lastly, there's Sword World SFC 2 which is based on a Japanese tabletop game and has art by Jun Suemi and is abnaxus endorsed so it must be good.

 

[Falksi]

A SNES RPG which gives you a better dark-fantasy adventure than The Immortal?

Haven't played The Immortal but the SFC did have Shin Megami Tensei which I've completed a year or two back and it's p. good for what it is. It also had sequels (2, If...) and remakes of prequels -- I've only briefly played Kyuuyaki Megami Tensei 2, and it was also good for what it was.

Dark Half I've only just checked out, but it seemed good. I liked that it actually had some form of pressure and I actually died. Very rare.

Lastly, there's Sword World SFC 2 which is based on a Japanese tabletop game and has art by Jun Suemi and is abnaxus endorsed so it must be good.

SMT I'd throw in with turn-based JRPGs rather than Dark Fantasy myself. It's certainly anime-toned.

Dark Half I didn't like, although it was one of the few RPGs I played which I didn't give that much time to either, so I may have not given it a fair go.

Sword World sounds interesting though, not familiar with that one, must give it a go. Appreciate the heads up!

(SNES Der Langrisser is an abomination especially with it baby-weak challenge

Based and correct opinion. Shame because Langrisser 2 was one of the more (most?) challenging SRPGs of its generation.

Yup, that bridge battle on the SEGA system took me 5 attempts lol. On SNES I finished the game without ever losing a single commander. Weak as piss.

 

[Viata]

Problem with SMT is that no one outside Japan even knew about it. SMT 1 was released on SNES, Sega CD, PC-Engine, PS1 and GBA before people even learn about it when playing SMT 3.

 

[Nutmeg]

It's certainly anime-toned.

In the best way possible:

More

Now that's some quality anime.

While Kazuma's later art was amazing as well, it's quite different from his early art, which has a charm of its own.