The Official Sega Saturn Thread!

[cybercylon]

The Mode isn't too hard to install into a Saturn. If you have ever replaced some components in a PC like the HD, Ram, PCI cards, etc, it isn't too much harder than that. The part that took me the most time was placing those two wires to hook up to the PSU.

[Hwlngmad]

18 hours ago, Cafeman said:

The Satiator is expensive but looks like a great solution.  My Saturn doesn't want to spin the disc any more so I'm thinking about going all-digital solution and actually selling off my disc games.  

Definitely going with the MODE or Satiator would be good choices.  I know that my Nvidia Shield TV does  good job with Saturn stuff overall, but it is not 100% perfect.  Still, there are solutions out there depending which direction you want to ultimately go.

[newtmonkey]

Fenrir is also a good (inexpensive) choice if you have a compatible console (20-pin drive cable).

Edited March 11, 2021 by newtmonkey

[Steven Pendleton]

Random question: does anyone have Cotton 2? Recently the game seems to have no voices for me for some reason. The disc looks fine to me, so I'm not sure what the problem is. Maybe it has compatibility problems with the Skeleton Saturn or something like Out Run does on some revisions. I suppose I can try removing my 4MB RAM cart or trying it on my white Saturn to see if it makes a difference, but I doubt it.

 

Well, I removed the RAM cart from the Skeleton and tried it and it worked perfectly. Then I put the RAM cart back in the Skeleton and it still works perfectly. How confusing...

Edited March 17, 2021 by Steven Pendleton

[DragonGrafx-16]

4 hours ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Random question: does anyone have Cotton 2? Recently the game seems to have no voices for me for some reason. The disc looks fine to me, so I'm not sure what the problem is. Maybe it has compatibility problems with the Skeleton Saturn or something like Out Run does on some revisions. I suppose I can try removing my 4MB RAM cart or trying it on my white Saturn to see if it makes a difference, but I doubt it.

 

Well, I removed the RAM cart from the Skeleton and tried it and it worked perfectly. Then I put the RAM cart back in the Skeleton and it still works perfectly. How confusing...

I could try it when I get home from work. It would be a burnt copy though.

[IntelliMission]

I've been watching Pandamonium's awesome series of videos where he tries to review all 246 Saturn games released in the States and was surprised when I learned that the Saturn had problems running Sim City 2000 (a 1993 game).

 

In fact, all 5th generation consoles (except perhaps the N64) had these kind of issues with PC ports, something that did not happen in previous or later generations. So I did some research to find out whether these consoles could and should have came out with a faster processor.

 

It appears 66 mhz PCs were advertised in 1994, but they were probably high end. And in 1993, minimum requirements of MS-DOS games included 25 or 33 mhz processors.

 

So apart from the unfortunate fact that most Saturn games ignore the second 20 mhz processor, which technically place them below the minimum requirements of many 1993 PC games, it looks like two factors caused this:

 

1) Normal processor speeds doubled from 33 mhz to 66 mhz in only one year around 1993-1994, when the consoles were designed.

 

2) Before 3D acceleration cards were common, PC games relied on the processor exclusively (this is why Doom was so hard to port even to 32 bit consoles and new, 3D engines were created).

[Steven Pendleton]

On 3/18/2021 at 2:29 AM, DragonGrafx-16 said:

I could try it when I get home from work. It would be a burnt copy though.

I don't think that should make a difference... probably. Maybe I just had a bad connection with the RAM cart or something, but it seems to be fixed now and I finally played the whole game by using a ridiculous amount of credits. Fighting game commands don't belong in shooting games...

 

Anyway, I'll be curious to see what happens. I'm not sure what Saturn setup you have, but I'm using Skeleton Saturn + real Cotton 2 + 4MB RAM + HD Retrovision + OSSC.

Edited March 19, 2021 by Steven Pendleton

[DragonGrafx-16]

On 3/19/2021 at 12:13 AM, Steven Pendleton said:

I don't think that should make a difference... probably. Maybe I just had a bad connection with the RAM cart or something, but it seems to be fixed now and I finally played the whole game by using a ridiculous amount of credits. Fighting game commands don't belong in shooting games...

 

Anyway, I'll be curious to see what happens. I'm not sure what Saturn setup you have, but I'm using Skeleton Saturn + real Cotton 2 + 4MB RAM + HD Retrovision + OSSC.

Finally tried it just now and it worked just fine on my Model 2 NA Saturn (using Psuedo Saturn cart). 

[NinjaWarrior]

Go to the 12 min. mark, Is this really true about CD-R's wear down the Laser?

 

 

[DragonGrafx-16]

Seems bullshit to me. Sure CD-Rs can wear out the laser such as with the Dreamcast but that's because of an exploit in the console and using the incorrect disc format. Consoles that use actual audio CD formats like PC Engine CD, Sega CD, Saturn shouldn't really hurt it. I've never heard of an audio CD player stop working because of burnt discs.

[newtmonkey]

I dragged my Saturn out of storage specifically to play Tactics Ogre, but ended up updating my Fenrir ODE and playing a bunch of games.  My random thoughts:

 

Tactics Ogre

I've played Final Fantasy Tactics, which is basically Tactics Ogre 2, but this is the first time I put any time into this version of the game.  Really good!  I've been trying to limit myself to one battle per day, because I feel like I could easily become addicted to this game.  It's basically the best version of the original version of this game, as the PSP version is so different in mechanics that it's like a different game.  It runs at a higher resolution than the SFC and PSX versions and has a fantastic upgraded soundtrack (that's all synthesized by the Saturn hardware itself; not streamed or redbook audio).  Very impressive stuff.

 

Other games

There are a LOT of great shooters on here.  The Capcom and Konami collections are great, still worth playing today even over MAME etc. due to 1) no lag and 2) exclusive screen modes in some games.  I'm not a huge one-on-one fighter fan, but there's a lot of good stuff on here.  The biggest hole in the Saturn library is RPGs.  You've got Grandia, the Lunar remakes, Tengai Makyo IV, Azel aka Panzer Dragoon RPG, the Wizardry remakes (the PC versions are just better, yes even Wiz 1-5 in CGA), Dungeon Master Nexus, and Shining the Holy Ark... and I think that's about it.  Now, there are some fantastic RPGs in that list, but it's way too short.  There are several action RPGs and tactical RPGs of course, but if you want a deep turn-based RPG to really sink your teeth into, the PSX is the system to play that generation.

[NinjaWarrior]

I would love to have the Satiator

[Steven Pendleton]

So my copy of Magic Knight Rayearth arrived today, and yes, it is the ultra-cheap Japanese version (1000 yen = somewhere around $9 USD). I've been hearing about how good this game for a few years but never bought/played it until now. I've played it for a little over an hour so far and it's okay. Sprite animations are nice and the cutscenes lifted directly from the anime probably looked incredible for a home console game at the time of release. Still way too early for me to judge this game so far beyond saying that the graphics are nice, but what do you think of it? I hope it's not one of those "localized version = ultra-rare + ridiculously expensive = best game ever!!!!!!!!" types of things, but it seems solid enough so far.

[+Black_Tiger]

MKR isn't anything special, but it's worth playing through once every five years.

 

The North American version goes for a lot just because it was localized/ruined by Work Designs. It came out so late that when I bought it the week that EB got it, I think that the Dreamcast or at least demo stations might have been out.

[Steven Pendleton]

2 hours ago, Black_Tiger said:

MKR isn't anything special, but it's worth playing through once every five years.

 

The North American version goes for a lot just because it was localized/ruined by Work Designs. It came out so late that when I bought it the week that EB got it, I think that the Dreamcast or at least demo stations might have been out.

Yeah, I am getting that feeling from it in general. On the subject of Working Designs, I absolutely refuse to play anything that they have butchered. What a garbage company with garbage practices. I am glad they are gone and I hope they never come back.

[Hydro Thunder]

2 hours ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Yeah, I am getting that feeling from it in general. On the subject of Working Designs, I absolutely refuse to play anything that they have butchered. What a garbage company with garbage practices. I am glad they are gone and I hope they never come back.

?  I am honestly shocked to hear this.  At least what I knew of them, they were beloved for bringing over games that others wouldn't, and terrific games at that.  I adored their US Sega CD versions of Lunar and Vay, and Dragon Force on the Saturn is incredible.  The humor is priceless, and the packaging was just top notch for a "regular price" game.  I am not arguing it, just saying I'm surprised to hear that opinion on their games, always thought they were fan favorites.  

[Steven Pendleton]

2 minutes ago, Curious Sofa said:

?  I am honestly shocked to hear this.  At least what I knew of them, they were beloved for bringing over games that others wouldn't, and terrific games at that.  I adored their US Sega CD versions of Lunar and Vay, and Dragon Force on the Saturn is incredible.  The humor is priceless, and the packaging was just top notch for a "regular price" game.  I am not arguing it, just saying I'm surprised to hear that opinion on their games, always thought they were fan favorites.  

They absolutely destroyed every game they localized by completely ruining the difficulty levels, and I think there were a few games that they completely broke a few features or something like that. There are patches out there to undo the damage of their needless tampering with the games' difficulties, but as far as I know, there are no fixes for their... "translations", if they can be called that, so I play the Japanese versions instead.

[newtmonkey]

@Curious Sofa

WD was loved back in the day for being one of the few companies out there willing to localize niche Japanese games, specifically 2D RPGs of course, when the entire industry was doing its best to push 3D games only.  People were just happy to have access to these games, and of course no one realized at the time that the translations were not always 100% loyal to the source text (for example, they began adding goofy pop culture references more extensively as time went on) and that the company sometimes (not every time) adjusted the difficulty upward to sometimes disastrous effect.

 

The issue comes down to translation versus localization.  Some people will accept nothing but a 100% faithful translation of Japanese video games and anime/manga, even if the original text itself is dull or awkward and a literal translation would be similarly dull or awkward.

 

In contrast, in most other fields and on a professional level (even with professional video game translations), localization is generally preferred.  Whether I am subtitling a movie or translating a research paper my clients expect me to retain the meaning but localize it in a way that does not require the audience to know Japanese culture and elements of style to understand the final product.  They also often expect me to deliver a natural-sounding translation, even if the original text is awkward, redundant, or otherwise poorly written.  This, in effect, means that I am rewriting rather than translating, as I am either adding or removing information.

 

You could definitely argue that WD went too far in some or even many cases.  In the worst cases, they completely ignored the text and just wrote their own thing, though they generally limited this to text from random townspeople.  I guess your stance on the matter depends largely on whether you believe there is inherent value in translating throwaway dialog as closely as possible, or if adding some levity in a way that doesn't impact anything "important" makes for a more entertaining read.

Edited April 11, 2021 by newtmonkey

[BawesomeBurf]

I've only played their Lunar games on PS1 and Dragonforce on the Saturn and loved all of them. The pop culture references are funny IMO, and I could care less if it's 100% accurate to the original script. I just want something entertaining, and that's exactly what I got with their games.

[ClassicGMR]

On 3/9/2021 at 10:40 PM, cybercylon said:

The part that took me the most time was placing those two wires to hook up to the PSU.

That WAS frustrating. It should have been easier than they made it for such a small but important part of the install.

 

11 hours ago, newtmonkey said:

I guess your stance on the matter depends largely on whether you believe there is inherent value in translating throwaway dialog as closely as possible, or if adding some levity in a way that doesn't impact anything "important" makes for a more entertaining read.

It's actually even more base than that for me. I never played or knew about the Japanese versions so the games they brought to us were just "great". I had nothing to compare it to so the releases WD gave us were among my favorites.

[+Black_Tiger]

On 4/10/2021 at 10:37 PM, newtmonkey said:

You could definitely argue that WD went too far in some or even many cases.  In the worst cases, they completely ignored the text and just wrote their own thing, though they generally limited this to text from random townspeople.  I guess your stance on the matter depends largely on whether you believe there is inherent value in translating throwaway dialog as closely as possible, or if adding some levity in a way that doesn't impact anything "important" makes for a more entertaining read.

Even by WD standards, MKR had a lot of really bad dialogue in it. For years WD diehards accussed me of making up or exagerating some of the examples I remembered, until Joe Redifer posted a few screenshots of them on one or two forums.

 

WD localizations started out great. Exile and Cosmic Fantasy 2 were within the right tone and didn't have as much bad acting as future efforts. Vasteel's cinemas were always going to be boring, but I'm glad they didn't turn into Terrence and Phillip.

[zetastrike]

3 hours ago, Black_Tiger said:

Even by WD standards, MKR had a lot of really bad dialogue in it. For years WD diehards accussed me of making up or exagerating some of the examples I remembered, until Joe Redifer posted a few screenshots of them on one or two forums.

 

WD localizations started out great. Exile and Cosmic Fantasy 2 were within the right tone and didn't have as much bad acting as future efforts. Vasteel's cinemas were always going to be boring, but I'm glad they didn't turn into Terrence and Phillip.

When bringing a game over, WD always seemed to follow a formula vs the original:

1) All your characters are weaker, all enemies are stronger

2) Enemies give you less exp and less money

3) Equipment is more expensive

4) Exp requirement for levels is greater (could be because of #2)

 

They went above and beyond with the saving system in Lunar 2.  The script changes don't bother me that much, but completely breaking the pacing of the games they brought over is unforgivable.

[Steven Pendleton]

So I have played Magic Knight Rayearth for about 5 hours and I think the game is just okay at best. I honestly got kind of bored and decided to play Thunder Force instead and ended up putting more time into just Thunder Force IV alone. Glad I bought those Gold Packs because damn do I love Thunder Force! V is okay, but it's kind of mindless when you get the Hunter... which is literally the second thing the game gives you after only around 15 or 20 seconds into the very first stage.

 

Anyway, eventually I'll finish Magic Knight Rayearth, probably next week, as I have a project for work that I must finish by Friday. Then I think I'll finally put some time into Princess Crown, as I've had this thing sitting here for like 8 months completely unplayed.

Edited April 14, 2021 by Steven Pendleton

[+-^CrossBow^-]

1 hour ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Anyway, eventually I'll finish Magic Knight Rayearth, probably next week, as I have a project for work that I must finish by Friday. Then I think I'll finally put some time into Princess Crown, as I've had this thing sitting here for like 8 months completely unplayed.

I enjoyed my time with MKR and I can see it being one of those easier to play action RPGs I'm likely to revisit from time to time. I really wish Princess Crown would get that full translation done for it already. It looks to be amazing and from the videos I've seen, I can see how Vanillaware went back to the Princess Crown formula when creating Odin Sphere (Which I really enjoyed and was one of the few games I've wanted to get all achievements for).

 

[Steven Pendleton]

9 hours ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

I enjoyed my time with MKR and I can see it being one of those easier to play action RPGs I'm likely to revisit from time to time. I really wish Princess Crown would get that full translation done for it already. It looks to be amazing and from the videos I've seen, I can see how Vanillaware went back to the Princess Crown formula when creating Odin Sphere (Which I really enjoyed and was one of the few games I've wanted to get all achievements for).

 

Yeah, Magic Knight Rayearth to me seems like a simplified Zelda clone, I guess. I'm not sure if I'll ever replay it, though. I put it in my Saturn last night before I went to sleep, so it's in there right now and I do have some time before I need to start work, so I might play it for a while today.

 

Princess Crown... I don't know. I only played up until the tutorial for some reason. I think my brain just didn't want to read Japanese at the time, so I decided to play it later and never got around to it. No voice acting to help with unknown kanji, either, so it's completely up to my own knowledge to understand everything in the game or not, but it doesn't seem too complex in the first few minutes of the game. Maybe I'll find stuff I can't read/understand later. That would be annoying.