New Sega Saturn owner need some good games to play

[ScottyDont00]

Never had a saturn before so I'm pretty excited to finally have one.

 

A few questions:

 

1. Looking at eBay prices I am thinking about skipping CIB and just going for disc only. Good idea?

 

2.) Do the import games look the same as the US versions?

 

3.) Better plan to play imports: Action Replay cart or get a Japanese system?

 

4.) Good games to play that cost less than $50?

 

Thanks!

[Jess Ragan]

1) If you just intend to play the games, sure. Saturn games come in huge, easily broken cases anyway. I used to have a bunch of them and they're only good at taking up space.

 

2) Japanese Saturn games come in jewel cases, just like Playstation games do. There's a gold bar along the spine with the JPN Saturn logo.

 

3) Action Replay Plus, unless you plan to buy one of the whopping two Japanese Saturn games that come with a ROM cartridge (my advice: don't).

 

4) Virtua Fighter 2 was a pack-in and shouldn't cost you much at all. As for Japanese games, shop around on EBay and some decent deals should turn up.

[Nutsy Doodleheimer]

Race Drivin' is my favorite. You must own the Action replay 4M cart to play it as it is a Japan release game only.

[Reaperman]

saturn games are *very* picky about condition. Go for CIB because the owner took care with his things. Surface scratches are fine, but any foil damage and you will really notice it in-game.

 

I'd go for the mod chip over an action replay. I've had much better luck with burned games than commercial ones lately. Though you do probably still want the replay for the save backup and ram. The replay requires disk swapping for its import features which is a pita.

 

One other thing I will mention is that saturn looks just amazing over scart, and the cables are pretty easy to find.

 

It looks like it's especially hard to find a lot of the us games that have traditionally been inexpensive right now.

I mostly do racers, so here's my under $50 list--which is oddly also and under $20 list too:

• sega rally championship (plus netlink version is better and not too expensive, but seems oddly scarce right now)
• manx tt superbike
• virtua racing (which I feel is the strongest, though ugliest, of the three racers)

If I could only have one saturn game for the rest of my life, it'd be VR. Looks aside, the career mode plays like a much more modern game than other saturn racers:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3sMZYIfRn8

 

Edited October 18, 2015 by Reaperman

[Nutsy Doodleheimer]

I also forgot to mention Bug and Bug 2 are really good. The prices are not too high, but under $50.

 

Sent from my SGH-T699 using Tapatalk

[CatPix]

saturn games are *very* picky about condition. Go for CIB because the owner took care with his things. Surface scratches are fine, but any foil damage and you will really notice it in-game.

 

I'd go for the mod chip over an action replay. I've had much better luck with burned games than commercial ones lately. Though you do probably still want the replay for the save backup and ram. The replay requires disk swapping for its import features which is a pita.

 

One other thing I will mention is that saturn looks just amazing over scart, and the cables are pretty easy to find.

 

It looks like it's especially hard to find a lot of the us games that have traditionally been inexpensive right now.

I mostly do racers, so here's my under $50 list--which is oddly also and under $20 list too:

• sega rally championship (plus netlink version is better and not too expensive, but seems oddly scarce right now)
• manx tt superbike
• virtua racing (which I feel is the strongest, though ugliest, of the three racers)

If I could only have one saturn game for the rest of my life, it'd be VR. Looks aside, the career mode plays like a much more modern game than other saturn racers:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3sMZYIfRn8

 

 

There is a way to "flash" an Action Replay 4M cart to run burned games without chip. You lose the 4M save space, but you can have Memory cards aside I guess.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/SegaSaturn/comments/32rerh/easy_guide_to_play_backupsimports_on_saturn/

 

This should cover all your Saturn needs as it also allow to play games from any region.

[Austin]

Disc-only is fine if you're OK with not having the box or manual. I personally started going disc-only because I no longer care about collecting. Also, once-common, overlooked and cheap Saturn games are getting a little expensive for my tastes now.

 

Action Replay is the best way to play the imports, in my opinion. The cart is extremely useful--it acts as a region bypass, but it also has a large memory card built in, has cheat code support, and has the built in RAM for the imports that support it (X-Men Vs. Street Fighter, Dungeons and Dragons collection, etc).

[English Invader]

Sega Rally Championship

Virtua Cop 2

Sega Ages (arcade perfect ports of Outrun, Space Harrier and Afterburner II)

Alien Trilogy

Sonic R

Daytona USA

Daytona USA: Championship Circuit Edition

Baku Baku

Puyo Puyo 2

Marvel vs Street-Fighter

Metal Slug

Sega Worldwide Soccer

Nights into Dreams

Tomb Raider

Soviet Strike

Tempest 2000

[xenomorpher]

If you like shooters Galactic Attack is pretty cheap and fun to play. The on rails Panzer Dragoon games are worth checking out and they're fairly inexpensive too. Powerslave is a cool and unique FPS that I recommend checking out too. There is also a port of Resident Evil that has a battle mode not found in any of the Playstation versions.

[Jess Ragan]

Hot damn! I had no idea that an Action Replay Plus could be flashed like that. Is there a way to get these at a reasonable price? Mine is stuck in MI along with my Saturn...

[phoenixdownita]

About flashing Pseudo Saturn:

http://assemblergames.com/l/threads/saturn-proof-of-concept-bootloader-pseudo-saturn.52526/

 

You can also flash a MemCard+, they are crappier but they work all the same for Pseudo Saturn flash BIOS (and Pseudo does both boot copy + region patch BUT it is not 100% compat).

At present also Pseudo breaks compatibility with the Mpeg cards, if you care about that.

 

BTW MemCard+ does region free on its own but it is not advertised, it only works the first time from the CD loading screen not if you drop back into it by opening the tray but in this regards it is the same as the AR4in1, same thing for the direct saving feature (only works first time, AR4in1 does not have this feature at all).

 

You need an AR4in1 for the 4M of extra vid memory (or a 4M card).

(also an AR4in1 does not require any swap for the region free)

I do not know if flashing Pseudo in an AR4in1 looses the 4M feature, I think NOT but I have not tried. Flashing the MemCard+ looses direct saving (which is unreliable anyway so ... not a big loss if you ask me)

 

A mod chip is a good investment and then a region free BIOS.

(the 2 together are 100% compatible and leave the slot free for whatever you need: ROM, RAM, Backup).

 

Regarding the 2 games that use a ROM card I have both and just don't bother.

 

Finally there's a new cart in the making that would emulate all of it, the 4MB/1MB of the AR4in1, the ROM (for KOF95 and Ultraman) Pseudo, region free and maybe more:

http://assemblergames.com/l/threads/yet-another-homebrew-saturn-card.55860/

 

Finally most of the Sat games are better in NTSC version but a few were optimized for PAL and actually are better in PAL because they had more time to "bake" (Sega Rally being one of those although a later re-release in Jap made up the slack anyway)

Edited October 19, 2015 by phoenixdownita

[teh_lurv]

1. Looking at eBay prices I am thinking about skipping CIB and just going for disc only. Good idea?

 

...

 

4.) Good games to play that cost less than $50?

 

 

1. Another alternative to consider is importing the Japanese versions of the game which are usually vastly cheaper than their US counterparts. House of the Dead for example can be imported from Japan for about $20-25 while the US version sells for over $200.

 

4. Here is a quick list I threw together. If you're a fan of 2D fighting or shmup games, the Saturn is a great system to own.

 

Virtua Cop

Panzer Dragoon

Panzer Dragon Zwei

Vampire Savior [JPN]

X-Men vs Street Fighter [JPN]

Cyberbots [JPN]

Groove-On Fight [JPN]

Donpachi [JPN] - kinda on the edge of $50

Galactic Attack

[byonddrivn]

I have had a Saturn for a few years but I haven't given it much use since I only own 4 games. I bought an Action Replay about 2 months ago and it still sat. I just modded it last week and, wow, am I loving it. I'm a big 16-bit fan and the Saturn gives me a lot of those types of games but with better graphics & sound. The prices for games are a little high for me right now so I'm "test driving" quite a few before I drop cash on ones I might not like.

 

Right now I'm getting into

Astal- gorgeous 16 bit style platformer

Guardian Heroes - is it a fighting game, a platformer, a RPG? It's all 3!

Metal Slug

Shinobi Legions - seems cool but haven't played much

Mass Destruction

Panzer Dragoon & Zwei

Lots of good shooters, Radiant Silvergun, Galatic Attack, Keio 2, Blast Wind

Mr. Bones - seems odd but cool

The 2D fighting games look great

Some great RPGs, I found English translation versions of Dragon Force 2, Albert Odyssey, & all 3 scenarios of Shining Force 3

 

I don't know the pricing on any. I also don't get into FPS so I can't recommend any. The driving games have left me wanting but I do like Sega Rally Championship which I own.

[+Cafeman]

Good article on the subject here:

 

http://www.racketboy.com/retro/sega/saturn/the-best-sega-saturn-games-under-25

 

I love playing my Saturn. I loved it more before HDTV's. Nothing like playing Sega Rally Championship and hearing that wonderful music , with Joe Satriani ripping into some great melodic riffs. The feel of your tires on the dirt, and it doesn't take forever to play either.

 

The big games for me have always been NiGHTS, Sega Rally, Daytona, Virtua Racing (yes I do now love this version), Astal, Burning Rangers, and the 4meg RAM w/Marvel vs SF. Oh, and Saturn Bomberman (probably not cheap).