Sega Saturn. It was good.

[Jerzy Bondov]

I had a Sega Saturn. I didn't have or want a PlayStation, with its cool games for popular people. I didn't want Crash Bandicoot or Final Fantasy VII. Those games were quite clearly total bollocks. People were just pretending to like them because it was cool to be a PlayStation guy. Meanwhile people like me, able to form their own opinions, not interested in following the crowd, were free to enjoy the delights of the Sega Saturn with its rich and deep library of five good games.

I'm joking, there's loads of good games on it. Saturn emulation still isn't quite there, because they made the console in some stupid complicated way with like five teams who didn't talk to each other (or something), but it is now at the point that my phone - my fucking mobile telephone!! - can do a passable job. Worth a look in my opinion. Here's some good Saturn games:

• CastleVania: Symphony of the Night
• Quake
• Alien Trilogy
• Resident Evil
• Lemmings 3D
• Sonic 3D
• Tunnel B1
• Wipeout 2097
• FIFA 97

Funny little bit I did there.

If you would like to, you may now use this thread to talk about the Sega Saturn.

[popcorn]

Anyone who wants to play Panzer Dragoon Saga[nb]HIGHEST-RATED SEGA SATURN GAME, BEST JRPG EVER[/nb] but not pay the 80 billion quid for an ebay copy, PM me.

[madhair60]

I used to like making fun of the Saturn but let's face it the fucking thing is loaded with some of the absolute pinnacles of 2D gaming. It's also still - STILL - the best way to play the classic Sonic games.

[Mr_Simnock]

The Sega Saturn was apparently difficult for developers to get games out of that ran quickly/smoothly but when you look at the hardware it had it was perfectly suited for 2D games if nothing else.

[Jerzy Bondov]

I used to like making fun of the Saturn but let's face it the fucking thing is loaded with some of the absolute pinnacles of 2D gaming. It's also still - STILL - the best way to play the classic Sonic games.

With Sonic 3 & Knuckles I agree but I've been playing the iOS ports of 1, 2 and CD on my Apple TV[nb]This is the mark of a REAL gamer, none of your PS5 shit here[/nb] and that's the best for me. I suppose it's less faithful given that it's in widescreen, but I don't find that jarring at all.

I never played Dragon Force. Is that good?

[Huxleys Babkins]

With Sonic 3 & Knuckles I agree but I've been playing the iOS ports of 1, 2 and CD on my Apple TV[nb]This is the mark of a REAL gamer, none of your PS5 shit here[/nb] and that's the best for me. I suppose it's less faithful given that it's in widescreen, but I don't find that jarring at all.

Yeah, I can't go back after playing the Taxman ports. Everything running in fluid 60fps, 3D rendered special stages, lovely stuff.

I'd also recommend Sonic 3 A.I.R. which adds a lot of QoL improvements to Sonic 3 & Knuckles. It's not quite at the level of the Taxman games, but it's bloody close:

https://sonic3air.org/

[popcorn]

Recent rumor has it that a Sonic 3K rerelease is happening soonish (after years of no rereleases following legal troubles about music), though who knows if that's complete bullshit

[Thursday]

Nobody actually had a Sega Saturn, I'm not saying it wasn't good, I'm just saying nobody ever played one, and anyone who claims to is lying.

[popcorn]

My Saturn has packed up recently. I did look into trying to get it repaired a while ago but gave up fast. If anyone has any recommended people/services who do console repairs I'm all ears.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Saturn Uranus

[Consignia]

I think got my Saturn for £15 in Cash Converters along with Daytona USA. Then I got like 10 games for £30 from Loot including Sonic Jam, which I think was the game I got the most play out of.

Some years later long after my Saturn departed I eyed one up in a flea market in Brighton for months. It had one of those special analogue controllers that let you play Nights. Alas I was a poor student who could barely afford to live week to week at the time, but what could have been...

[JamesTC]

Yeah, I can't go back after playing the Taxman ports. Everything running in fluid 60fps, 3D rendered special stages, lovely stuff.

I'd also recommend Sonic 3 A.I.R. which adds a lot of QoL improvements to Sonic 3 & Knuckles. It's not quite at the level of the Taxman games, but it's bloody close:

https://sonic3air.org/

Honestly think that Sonic 3 AIR is better than any official release could ever be. Bin the Jackson music and get the beta music back to where it deserves to be. Launch Base Zone is an absolute banger. So many customisation options too. If anybody has the Steam version of Sonic 3 and Knuckles then they have to download this mod.

[popcorn]

It had one of those special analogue controllers that let you play Nights.

I still love that pad. Really comfortable. Way better than the DC pad, aka the worst pad ever.

[madhair60]

Way better than the DC pad, aka the worst pad ever.

I sliced my palm open on that fucking thing

[Jerzy Bondov]

My Saturn works great except the drive door spring is fucked and you have to put a book on top or it thinks it's open and games won't start. Maybe I should try to fix it. It was ex-rental from Blockbuster but luckily it's a Saturn so I doubt anyone ever used it before me.

I didn't even know until years after I'd packed it away that it has internal storage. It's powered by a watch battery and you need to pull the tab out when you get it. Mine had never had the tab removed and I just assumed it had no storage. Bought a big fat memory card.

[beanheadmcginty]

My mate had one (his parents got him every single console, he of course treated them like shit). We used to mainly play Guardian Heroes. The fact that you could play as any character in the game in the big rumble mode never got boring. Coughing pensioner was my favourite.

[Mr_Simnock]

I've still got one, I need a scart to HDMI thing to get it play on my OLED telly. I think the pad I have for it doesn't work, the games that still load up keep pausing all the time, must still be good second hand ones to grab. One thing I have always liked from Sega is, Mega Drive onward, loads of interesting different variety of box colours and details etc, great for collecting.

[Pinball]

Look up Saturn Phoebe. It is possible to play all the games on an SD card in the Saturn (as well as many other consoles). ODE (optical drive emulator). The latest, that works in Dreamcast and Saturn, is this:

https://shop.terraonion.com/en/home/17-Terraonion_MODE_Dreamcast_Saturn_ODE.html

The Saturn was a lovely console IMO :-)

[wooders1978]

My brother won one when it was launched, jammy buggar

[Sebastian Cobb]

One of my mates had one, complete with the quite chunky arcade joystick and arcade gun, they traded it in for a PSX in the end.

I can't remember all the games they had for it, but I do remember playing Sega Rally and the Die Hard Trilogy shooter. They got the shooter for the PSX but it was crap in comparison.

[St_Eddie]

I can't remember all the games they had for it, but I do remember playing Sega Rally and the Die Hard Trilogy shooter. They got the shooter for the PSX but it was crap in comparison.

Die Hard Trilogy?  The PSX version is definitive.  Did your friend not have the Playstation lightgun (G-Con)?

[evilcommiedictator]

There's a Twitch streamer I watch by the name of Sharpie who is currently playing all NA Saturn games one after another.
This is after 5 years of playing through all NA Mega Drive and Genesis/Master System games.

[Thursday]

Die Hard Trilogy?  The PSX version is definitive.  Did your friend not have the Playstation lightgun (G-Con)?

I had a cheaper, but cooler alternative

[Sonny_Jim]

Saturn emulation still isn't quite there, because they made the console in some stupid complicated way with like five teams who didn't talk to each other (or something),

Goes off to look up the Saturn architecture

The system has not one but two Hitachi SH-2 CPUs running at ~28.63MHz each. While both physically identical, they are placed in a master-slave state, where the first one may send commands to the second one.

Hmm, OK.  Not great, but it's pretty common to have more than one CPU, usually one to read the joysticks, handle the sound chip
and other boring tasks whilst the main CPU does all the hardcore calculations.  It does seem weird that they put the same CPU in twice though.  I guess they got to say the magic '64 Bits'[nb]Not actually 64 bit.  See also 'blast processing'[/nb].  I can see it being a massive pain in the arse trying to keep both CPU's busy, especially as it appears you have to feed all the instructions through the first one.

this console had eight processors to take advantage of

Pfft, fuck that.

At first, Sega didn't provide complete software libraries and development tools (in fact, the initial documentation was inaccurate) so the only way to achieve good performance was through harsh assembly.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck that.

Die Hard Trilogy?

I played it recently just to check if the voice acting was as bad as I thought it was.  Check out the Samuel L Jackons on this

[Waking Life]

I played it recently just to check if the voice acting was as bad as I thought it was.  Check out the Samuel L Jackons on this

That video is a nostalgia blast. The first game was pretty ropey (at the time) but the other two were great fun. I hadn't seen Vengeance when I played three so I took it all at face value and assumed the film was just cars driving over bombs before they exploded properly. Bonus marks for the pedestrians going up in flames even when you stop the bomb. Eggs, omelette.

(Sorry, I never had a Saturn and played 2 with the d-pad; it worked fine).

[Sebastian Cobb]

I had a cheaper, but cooler alternative

That's what my pal had for their PSX.

They had this for the Saturn, which was better:


But I don't think the peripherals were the only difference.

[MojoJojo]

Goes off to look up the Saturn architecture
Hmm, OK.  Not great, but it's pretty common to have more than one CPU, usually one to read the joysticks, handle the sound chip
and other boring tasks whilst the main CPU does all the hardcore calculations.  It does seem weird that they put the same CPU in twice though.  I guess they got to say the magic '64 Bits'[nb]Not actually 64 bit.  See also 'blast processing'[/nb].  I can see it being a massive pain in the arse trying to keep both CPU's busy, especially as it appears you have to feed all the instructions through the first one.

https://youtu.be/CPaNNiB2H-s has some stuff about how the dsp works. It's not too bad but you'd expect better tooling now. I think the main difficulty was managing the data buses to feed all the processors so they can do useful work.

[St_Eddie]

But I don't think the peripherals were the only difference.

You're correct, the Saturn version was inferior in multiple ways; worse framerate and worse visuals (blockier 3D models and no true transparency effects on explosions - only the "mesh" compromise which the Saturn was infamous for).  Proof.  The game was primarily developed for the Playstation.  The Saturn version was a port developed alongside it and came out a few months after the PSX version.

[popcorn]

Shut up Eddie!!!! Saturn is better than the Phony GayStation

[popcorn]

I have an enormous amount of affection for the Saturn, even though there aren't really that many games I truly love on it. 90s Sega was a bizarre company from which strange miracles emerged - they tried so hard to be cool but always came off weird instead, in the best way. Nights, Panzer Dragoon (not the first one), Burning Rangers, Phantasy Star Online, Shenmue, Jet Set Radio, Crazy Taxi... a plethora of mental magic. Sonic wasn't bad either.

By comparison, the original PlayStation always had the feeling, to me, of a lifestyle console for people who read FHM. That's unfair, because there's a lot of weird and magical stuff on PS1 too, and more likely comes from my dislike of RPGs, fighters and racing games, which seem to make up the majority of the classic PS1 library.

PS2 was ace though.