Sega Saturn — A True 32-Bit Gem

[darkwitchclaire]

if people know about the saturn, it's for one of two reasons:

• it's a major symptom of sega's disorganization during the mid 90s that did a lot to hurt its reputation in the west
• it's a 2d powerhouse with arcade ports the ps1 couldn't dream of

these days i find myself more and more attached to the saturn. in japan, it found its niche with arcade games, rpgs, visual novels, and anime titles and was most well known for introducing the sakura wars franchise. what are some of your favorite saturn games?

[Enbyeon]

The Saturn has always been a blindspot for me and I never got around to grabbing a used one before retro prices got horrendously inflated. Hoping to get more into it once my MiSTer arrives. I'm down for any recommendations that aren't Guardian Heroes, since I have the XBLA version of that.

[Mixi Blacksand]

It's a console that's always been on the periphery of my knowledge. There's been a few games that grabbed my interest - Panzer Dragoon, Burning Rangers, Dark Savior, Bulk Slash with its high effort fandub - but as someone who doesn't have much interest in arcade games, jrpgs, visual novels, and anime titles, I've never really been enticed to sit down and really get to know it. Would love to know other games on it that break that mold.

[skie]

if people know about the saturn, it's for one of two reasons:

• it's a major symptom of sega's disorganization during the mid 90s that did a lot to hurt its reputation in the west
• it's a 2d powerhouse with arcade ports the ps1 couldn't dream of

these days i find myself more and more attached to the saturn. in japan, it found its niche with arcade games, rpgs, visual novels, and anime titles and was most well known for introducing the sakura wars franchise. what are some of your favorite saturn games?

I bought one specificaly for nights into dream

[DustStar]

Dragonforce and Saturn Bomberman were always favorites of mine on the system. At some point I really want to try Burning Rangers as well.

[Gabu]

still waiting for an Assault Suit Leynos 2 fan translation.... someday....

[RueAzure]

Some part of me wishes we could get a leak of the Shenmue prototype for Saturn, when it began its life as the Virtua Fighter RPG, Project Berkley...

[Ribbon]

I definitely want my first Saturn experience to be Shining Force III whenever I get zhe urge to play anozher strategy game. Will keep an eye on zhis zhread for y'all's recommendations because yeah no I know nozhing about what's good and cool. - Tabi (ey/it)

[DustStar]

If you're interested in strategy games, once again I cannot recommend Dragon Force enough. It's a great game especially once you get the hang of all of its mechanics.

[Ribbon]

If you're interested in strategy games, once again I cannot recommend Dragon Force enough. It's a great game especially once you get the hang of all of its mechanics.

Oh hell yeah, been really interested to try out grand strategy games too, adding it to za list! - Tabi

[Foxxhoria]

I love the Saturn. While its development and release was troubled, I do think it's a true successor to the Mega Drive. Such 2D power, and such great arcade ports, it really exemplifies how cool Sega can be. Of course, we all know the flip-side of that that it demonstrates too, but we don't have to spoil its moment heheh.

It is a shame that most of its games got stuck in Japan however, yeah. But, for that reason, I modded mine with a region switch and a modchip, so I can just burn discs and play. And then along came the Saroo, and I got one of those as well, so I don't have to use up more than 200 discs to check out its entire library!

I also absolutely love the 3D Controller, I'd say it's my favourite games controller ever, so much so that I built an adapter so I'd be able to use it on the Mega Drive whenever I need six buttons :3

[FoxyBeatnik]

I absolutely love the Sega Saturn. Had once since I was a kid (everyone else had Playstation) and have loved it ever since. I recently hooked it back up to a CRT I have and started collecting for it once again. Even managed to snag a copy of a game I had been wanting since I was a teenager: Shining the Holy Ark. Had an absolutely blast playing through that one.

[SlushieCat]

I love the Saturn for giving us NiGHTS into Dreams... It's one of the greatest games of all time (even though I vastly prefer the PS2 remaster lol).

There's another game that's really cool that's also on other platforms and got a remake. It's called Baroque. It's a first person action rpg dungeon crawler roguelike where you play a clone descending the Nerve Tower to destroy god or something. The story is very confusing. I'm usually really disinterested in roguelikes and roguelites but Baroque managed to capture me. I've yet to beat it but I want to some day. It's just so weird and interesting. The Saturn and PSX versions were Japan exclusive and only very recently got a fan translation, but the remake on PS2 and Wii did come out in the west for some reason. It also became a third person game, but you can still toggle to play in first person.

[plumpan]

Sega Rally never gets old.

Some day I'll complete my challenge of setting times fast enough to make the top 3 in a cross magazine time trial contest done in japan after the game's launch. I made some chosts about that. Those times are fast.

I've always found the saturn very interesting from a physical point of view. It's very much just a box. Not in a bad way, just a big contrast to Nintendo and Sony doing a lot of visual design and shapes with it. The Saturn has a lot of empty space in side compared to the SNES/PS1/N64. But something about it is very appealing.

I also love the idea of someone having bought one back in the day and actually using it as a primary CD/VCD player.

[Flygon]

I definitely want my first Saturn experience to be Shining Force III whenever I get zhe urge to play anozher strategy game. Will keep an eye on zhis zhread for y'all's recommendations because yeah no I know nozhing about what's good and cool. - Tabi (ey/it)

Having spent about 3-5 (counting this is kinda weird) months beating Shining Force III blind, all four discs worth of it, it is definitely worthwhile.

[EpsilDelta]

Sega Rally never gets old.

This, plus a ton of other racing games for the platform, make it a solid system to me. The racing wheel for it, while somewhat jank, actually makes a lot of games feel... good? The port of Virtua Racing with the wheel is actually really dope.

[SasYeti]

Going back to a lot of systems, I honestly probably love the Saturn the most. Its such a weird thing and a shame a lot of the really neat games were Japanese only.