I gave the Saturn a chance 15years ago and to this day it's my favorite 5th gen console. And this comes from someone as a kid who had all their nostalgia from the competition. The Dreamcast is also one hell of a console. If only they didnt bleed out of money. So much could have been achieved.
@@rebeccasam3434I enjoyed the Sega CD back in 1992 and 1993 at a friend's house. I enjoy it these days on my retropie and with all the titles available to me, it's ever more fun.
SEGA should've stuck with the Kalinske plan of Sega CD+SVP (already completed by January 1994), then go halfsies with SONY on the PlayStation. They would've made billions off of that deal and would still be a major player today.
Fuck yeah dude, I'm really glad to see the Saturn going through somewhat of an unearthing in the west, now that emulation is finally near perfect, and with modern gaming turning so many people away for MANY reasons. Between sick videos like this, Stop Skeletons from Fighting's videos on the system and it's software, Modern Vintage Gamer, SEGA Lord X, and of course Pandamonium's insane project of reviewing every US Saturn game, it's sort of dreamlike to see a console I've been obsessed with for nearly a decade now, despite being born at the tail-end of it's Japan life, finally being recognized and celebrated in a more widespread way
And, fairly or unfairly, the rise of modern gaming to me was always associated with the Playstationification of video games. The original Playstation brought in a very different (and profitable) demographic, that had quite different tastes. And this also was around he same time the arcades were dying. In a way, the gaming scene in the Switch era would be far more favourable to Sega's style (which is why they have been re-releasing thir old catalog) as you have a large market of people in the West who appreciate things like JRPGs, Metroivania games, anime etc that in the 90s just didn't exist in any sizeable number. In fact the issues that both Sega and Nintendo had in this era show how different the Japanese and Western markets were back then. Something easy to forget now where a lot of Japanese culture has become mainstream in Western markets.
I was a massive SEGA fan during the 80s and 90s, they could do no wrong in my eyes. Bought the Saturn day one and was very happy. But eventually my head was turned by Sony when more triple AAA titles began to release on that console. Soon I was playing on a PS1 more then the Saturn.
Great video. Also great 3DO highlight. Lots of people don't realize that the 3DO did actually very well in Japan considering it being American designed hardware. It sold 2x more than the OG Xbox in Japan. The Saturn is a great system, and I thoroughly enjoy exclusives like V.R. & AMOK. Underrated system out west, in the shadow of the PS1 and N64.
I loved my Saturn but it had its downfalls of titles, Doom anyone ? haha. But i dug this over the playstation. I owned one with a cart that allowed me to play burned games and i got a HD that had every Saturn game on it. Was awesome. 99% of the games worked. Great system. 🙂
@@seganutt That Panasonic name on the 3DO systems helped a lot. I bet a lot of Japanese thought it was a Japanese console because of the Panasonic endorsement.
Excellent video. The Saturn is kind of a perfect example of history being written by the victors, so much has been said about all the things it did "wrong" and how Sega should have done this or that or worked with so-and-so that it's totally overshadowed the things it did well. It's a great machine, it has loads of fun games and if anything, it's commercial failure in the west has made it a far more interesting console all these years later than it's competition.
I don't like the saying history is written by the victors, because it's not - its written by historians. It just so happens in our case, most gaming historians are from the west, so therefor we get a scewed telling of the story. Similar to how in the EU micro computers reigned supreme over consoles, but that isn't really talked about except from EU gaming historian, or that the NES saved gaming. But gaming was fine in both JP and EU regions, just the NA market suffered from lack of quality/standards, but since popular gaming historians are from the west its tend to be believed that the NES just saved everything. Anyways I love the Saturn's library, glad more videos are being released about it because it deserves more, and with new translations being released slowly, now is a great time to look into the library, both OB MotBQ and LoCT being translated/being arguably the best version of the games is super nice, along with Grandia I, Policenauts. Even more obscure games like Yumimi Mix Remix is a really cute/fun visual novel.
Finally, some Saturn love. Out of all of my consoles I own, the Saturn is the one I always bust out. Sadly it's been a while since I could use it since it's cables have been obsolete for a while now with HDMI being the more prominent option nowadays. But luckily my gaming PC can be hooked up to the TV with a good Saturn Emulator and the problem is solved. To this day my family and I play some Baku Baku Animal and just have a great time. Too bad that game hasn't been re-released after the Saturn and Game Gear Ports. Pretty disappointing but one can only hope for a Saturn Mini to come and fill that Saturn Shaped void we all have.
I’m thrilled the genesis mini 2 at least has some SEGACD games on it! Seems like emulation of a SEGACD or Saturn would be hard, with how many chips both systems have, and that emulation can’t really nail genesis perfectly lol
The way in which you edit your videos is original, unique and insanely good. I can tell you really put effort into your videos, so my personal standpoint is that you are HEAVILY underrated. Keep up the great, and entertaining videos!
I've loved the Saturn since day one, and owned almost every heavy hitter ever produced for it, save for a few. It is hands down my favorite console ever. I can't tell you how thrilled I am every time a quality Saturn video hits.
Its worth adding that most of the people that owned the pc engine cd transitioned to the saturn when that console was dead. Much like the dreamcasts fanbase exodus to the original xbox. Also dragon quest was probably an even bigger blow or just as big as FF7 not having it on their console. A game what they could have had if one could believe it was Breath of fire as the Sega president at the time had went to university and was friends with the creator of that series but they still let that one slip as well.
Saturn is great. If you weren't around back then it's hard to fathom that a major console was being sold but so few people had one or even knew someone with one. I don't have any memories of people talking negatively about it, most people just went with PSX or N64. My brother and I got one in 1997 cause they were so cheap, it was hard to find the games we wanted but we had a blast with it all the same. Bought another in 2009 and I'm really glad I did, it's so outrageously expensive to collect legit games.
I always thought it was weird hearing how the saturn wasn't really originally planned to do 3d because I absolutely loved the Saturn's 3d games and still do. Plus look at all the games they had in the arcades at the time in the 90s. I still remeber seeing virtua fighter running for the first time at an arcade in dorney park, an amusement park in Pennsylvania. It had an incredible inpact on me. It was just indescribably amazing. From virtua fighter and the fighting vipers games to daytona to die hard arcade and pretty much everything else. I love the saturn and the arcadey vibes of all its games. Dreamcast too. I wish so much sega's story hadn't played out the way it did. I miss them being around in the console industry. Thanks for the super interesting video.
Great video. I'm not sure if there is a term for it but I feel like there is a lot memory "retcon" that occurs with the Saturn (and endless other things). By that I mean a narrative that develops after the fact that people start then pretending was the prevailing sentiment at the time. I feel like I had a very unique situation in that both my best friend and myself had launch year Saturns and then Playstations in rural U.S. We were the only two people in our school that we know of who had Saturns. In the real world from the perspective of two 12 year olds who had both consoles: 1. The Saturn's 3D performance blew us away. I think the most compelling game was actually Panzer Dragoon. It truly felt like something other worldly and the future of gaming and the Saturn did that first. 2. There was no feeling of notable graphical superiority from the PS1 in those early days. We had some cross platform titles like Tomb Raider and of course competing titles like Tekken and Virtual Fighter. Did we recognize and discuss differences in graphics? Of course, but it was more often that each console just did things differently and it rarely impacted our impression of playability. 3. The biggest failure of the Saturn to us 12 year olds in the U.S. was by far the limited library and release of games. The U.S. Saturn library still had a great list of top tier games once it was all said and done but it missed out on tons of those "pretty decent" games to fill in the gaps. After the initial batch of launch games it was more than TWO MONTHS before ANY other game came out. I don't mean a top tier game. I mean ANY game lol. You got Panzer Dragoon and Virtua Fighter (and Pebble Beach Golf Links lol, thanks dad) and then two and half months later you got Bug...and then a few more weeks and Myst. That's 3 months after launch and you only had two new games to pick from, neither of which were at the top of anyone's list lol.
So happy for you that you finally got this video done! It's also great btw! Your style and aesthetics are damn good, and the topic is pretty interesting, as it's pretty unique and offers originality compared to most UA-camrs who talk about the Sega Saturn. As a Saturn-fan, I approve!👍
Got a Japanese Saturn and installed an ODE. I’ve been obsessively playing shining force 3 and Batsugun and Galactic Attack…just such a cool fucking console, I absolutely love it. I think I knew one or two people who had one growing up, but never got to play it till now. Uncovering such a massive library of dope games is something that other people who are interested should take the plunge and do. Sick video, thanks
This is such an amazing video about one of the most underrated systems. The quality of the video made me shocked you didn’t have thousands and thousands of subs. Im subscribing now!
One thing you forgot about the PS1/Saturn price comparison is that the Saturn also came with in built memory for game saves, so PS1 owners would have had to have bought not only a game, but a memory card too.
This “299” shit drives me crazy. After memory cards and a game, PS1 was about the same $ as the Saturn that comes with a game and save space. Apples to apples it's maybe $380 vs $399.
@@DaveB038I do expect there was some impact though, since people would look at $299 and think “Oh wow that’s wayyyy cheaper!” and buy a PS1 then realised “Oh crap, I gotta buy extra stuff.”
Yeah but any real Saturn owner would end up buying the memory backup cart because those batteries lasted 2-3 years tops before they died down. Honestly I didn’t like the whole watch battery internal memory thing especially because a game like virtua fighter 2 or any sports game would pretty much take all the blocks by themselves with one save.
As a kid, think about staring at your friends dumbfounded trying to explain exactly that to them… and they respond “Yeah, Saturn is just too expensive.” Pointing to Sony ads/VideoGame Mag narratives, as they proceed to spend +50 bucks more than a saturn, on launch to get toshiden or ridge racer + an extra memory card. In those moments was the first time I questioned if I was real and under stand the root of my CTE.
Great video! I have a soft spot for late 00s Sega with Dreamcast being my favourite time to be a gamer. But I rebought a Saturn with a HDMI adapter and an ODE recently and am loving exploring games I never even knew about back then. I really want to try Layer Section now, it looks incredible!
Later Section 2 is also very good. Just be sure to use composite cables on a crt. Otherwise the transparencies won’t work and you’ll have a bunch of mesh everywhere.
I bought the Sega Saturn in Australia on launch day from Game Xpress in Maroochydore, even though i pre-ordered, i had to settle for the $799 pack that came with one controller and Virtua Fighter, because all the $899 packs (came with two controllers, Virtua Fighter, Clockwork Knight, and Daytona USA) were sold out before i got a foot in the door. I still remember walking in there later in the day to collect it, and being told by the guy working there that i was the last person in Australia that would be getting a new Saturn for a while, since everyone else had collected their machines way earlier in the day and apparently there was a big line up at the door when the store opened. I also bought Pebble Beach Golf and Daytona USA, but i had to wait a bit over a week for Daytona because apparently it wasn't available here in Australia on actual launch day (if anyone bought the $899 pack they may be able to confirm that?) it got posted out to me direct from Sega Ozisoft. Due to saving up to buy more Saturn stuff leading up to launch, and my addiction to Daytona USA in the arcade, i had been avoiding arcades for a long time, and playing Daytona USA at home for god knows how long i could've sworn to christ it was everything the arcade version was but with more features, it would've been easily 9 months or more before i set foot in an arcade and saw a real Daytona machine again, and i was blown away by how different it really did look, but still super impressed with how close to the same it played using the Arcade Racer steering wheel. Sega did themselves no real favours by having others release their top arcade games like Virtua Racing (and i'll say Daytona CCE because AM2 didn't make that one, and it was a totally different game as a result) because when you look at the likes of Virtua Fighter 2 and Virtua Cop 1 and 2 you see just how close to perfect those games could be in the home, you know very well the other titles could have been significantly more awesome had they have been given that same first rate treatment from those that actually made the original. This same thing carried on over to the Dreamcast with a few top arcade games there, 3 massively missed opportunities come instantly to mind... I enjoyed this video mate, thanks :)
Great video! I felt like the Sega Saturn is one of the most underrated consoles of all time. I played Earthworm Jim 2 on the Saturn and even though I wondn't call it the best version of the game, it's still a really solid port!
Out of curiosity, what’s the best version? I didn’t even remember it was on Saturn, but I’d assume Saturn would be the best version, or tied with something else, considering it was built around Genesis and looked good there, and Saturn is bajillions of times better. I loved Saturn, and definitely wish I could go back and pick up tons more games…and have stuff localized! Panzer Dragoon Saga and dragon force need to be ported/emulated elsewhere!!! (A remake ter but similar visuals would be fine, but I don’t want them radically changed)
Honestly I'm so glad that there's finally a video on the Saturn that isn't just all about "Wow, look at this cool game, now go buy it" that then completely destroys the prices for that game because someone believes it now to be worth something. I'm a victim of the Saturn; I got it chipped and still I paid good money for a legitimate copy of Elevator Action Returns, a game I would argue to be the best game on the system. Short, sweet, and visually smooth but still very beautiful with its 32-bit 2D art. Up there also sits Lunar 2, the arguably better of the two Lunar games (and a personal favorite on my part), as well as the various Puyo games and the variety of Taito games. My Saturn is one of the most important things that sits in my library, and while I don't collect for it much anymore since the covid "retro gaming" bubble caused the prices to skyrocket, I'm still glad I have what I have... and a healthy supply of CD-Rs.
Great video thanks. As a contemporary Sega Saturn boy and with a passing interest in the renewed takes on the console from the retro gaming community, it is super interesting to see a take from someone relatively new to the console. I'd actually disagree with you about the SS being ignored in favour of the PS1 by the retro community - there is tonnes of great content out there, and I see the SS generating more interest than the PS1 and N64 in various online polls, so I'd suggest your interest is actually part of a new trend rather than a voice in the wilderness! Supporting the SS at that time was a lot of hardship with occasional flashes of glory. I agree that the hardware wasn't really the issue - I think that the powerful early commercial lead of the PS1 meant that games were developed for its hardware strengths, which meant Saturn ports were almost invariably compromised affairs. That in turn lead to reputational damage. Sega could still compete, because of its first party arcade titles, which had a very high profile. Sadly, these opportunities were sometimes missed. You mention House of the Dead - that was a disappointment at the time. If you look at Quake, and imagine that team behind HOTD instead?? Tantallus weren't bad; their Wipeout and Manx TT ports were good, but this was arguably beyond them, and perhaps they weren't given the development time they needed.
At the time, i went sega all the way for the 32 bit generaiton. I was there at launch in europe, and have such fond memories of my time with the system. I played tomb raider there, resident evil, nights into dreams, D, panzer dragoon and so, so much more. Loved every second of it.
The Panzer Dragoon games were great (and sooooo much better looking and playing than starfox) but panzer dragoon saga was amaaaaaazing. Loved Nights! definitely my favorite of the Mario 64/nights/crash bandicoot mascot war.
Thank you! Wonderful video. I almost didn't click on it because I expected more the type of BS content you so accurately describe from other ignorant YT-bers on here, but I was more than pleasantly surprised. Excellent content, man. I hope for more Saturn content in the future, the Saturn will always be my favorite console of all time!
I get the feeling that the Saturn is slowly increasing in popularity in the retro games community this last couple of years, in my country I frequently see listings for Japanese Saturns and I seen some of them get sold pretty quickly. I'm looking into buying a Dreamcast and Saturn because they look like pretty unique systems with tons of games to enjoy.
I loved the saturn, I got it about a year after I got the PS1 and it was excellent and outside of some of the PS1 biggest hitter probabaly played it more often. The saturn had build in memory also unlike the PS1. I thought most 3d games were ugly back then and was looking foward to what 2D would look like in the 32 bit era and was pissed off that the media was pushing for 3d only, The issue with games on both was that SEGA used quads, If they used triangles it would have looked closer. THe Saturn also had some Amazing 3d games like Virta Cop, Virtua Fighter 2 and Panzer dragoon Saga.
By the way love the video, I have my Saturn, I start to do imports, everything for the 4 Meg ram cart X-Men versus Street fighter, marvel superheroes versus Street fighter, vampire savior, Street fighter zero 3, the King of fighters 96,97, all that stuff, fell in love with my Saturn,i still have it, so thanks for making this video, I appreciate it.
Fantastic, really enjoyed this well researched and put together video. Big fan of the saturn my favourite console, it an underappreciated machine but it got a quality library and l love the 3d style of it 😊.
I bought my first Saturn and Dreamcast around 7 years ago and I absolutely love these consoles. There's something really special about the way they render 3D. I find the "roughness" of the Saturn's 3D output really attractive, especially on a big CRT TV with RGB cables.
I finally jumped into the Saturn library and imported one and several games. I'm really interested in the Japanese library and that it will give me a bit of a push to learn more Japanese. I've noticed that there is more hardware support on the Japanese side of things. There are many Japanese games that take advantage of the backup ram cart and utilize the 3d controller that isn't supported in the western versions. I can't get over how good the Hall effect thumbstick is on the 3d controller or in my case a white mutli-controller.
Perhaps the biggest way the difficulty with 3D hurt the Saturn is in its lack of groundbreaking event titles. You mentioned the lack of a mainline Sonic title, but basically every groundbreaking title that generation had to be 3D (as evidenced by Virtua Fighter in the early Japan era). While many of the 2D games of that generation are quite respected now, I think only SotN really made major waves during the generation at the time, and possibly some 2D fighters. It wasn’t that no one was playing 2D games, but rather those were the only ones that could usually capture the imagination of a lot of consumers. PS1 had plenty of those, and even N64 had Mario 64, Goldeneye, Ocarina, and a few others. I’m generalizing a fair bit, but I think there’s some truth to it.
Honestly when the Saturn came out in Europe where I lived at the time, I was more than happy with my Mega Drive and my mindset was "Why would I buy a new console for like 10 games at best?". The Mega Drive was still going strong with a bunch of new awesome games and a bunch of old ones I hadn't played. Then after the MD was over I just bought a high end PC (for the time). And most of the PS1 games had PC ports anyway, that were better.
Thanks so much for dedicating so much time to compile this information together and packaging it into this great video. It must have taken ages, but it's worth it!
I bought a Saturn and some games from a guy with an addiction problem. I got the console and like 4 or 5 games for $100, and it was fairly new back then. I loved it.Loads of great games!
Superbly well-done video! As someone with a strict diet of Nintendo (from NES through SNES and to N64), I'd pretty much scoffed at SEGA offerings and Genesis marketing gimmicks - until the price came way down on a Saturn near it's end and I snapped one up (I'd always secretly envied VF2 & Sega Rally). Suddenly my N64 was collecting dust, I was soon enough in-line on 9.9.99 for a Dreamcast on launch-day, and I'd only "heard" about Game Cube. Sega Saturn is still my favorite gaming system of all time (even over the Dreamcast).
Go Sega Saturn ❤❤❤!!!! For me for arcade titles at home nothing beats the Saturn and NeoGeo absolutely nothing. Amazing video on the Saturn keep up the good work. 😊
That even surprised me at the time, as I’d had a DVD player for years at that point, and wouldn’t want to wear out a game system doing that, but I know I keep hearing it. If true I wonder if it hurt gamecube too.
@@rebeccasam3434 DVD wouldnt wear out a DVD drive system.. the reason games consoles optical drives fail is the constant seeking and random access wear on the drive.... DVD is very light weight (sequential reads).. really would not be an issue..
Great video I really enjoyed it. I discovered the saturn very late on and it is now one of my favourite consoles. I would recommend to anyone getting a modded 60hz one to get the best experience with the majority of great games being Japanese exclusives. There is a thriving community around still working hard to translate Japanese games and improve on the system which is great for people who are only recently discovering it and it's library
The saturn / ps1 was the foundation of "development time costs" problem, and proof that you effective development time management will always profit over higher quality in the gaming industry in the long term. But I adore my saturn to this day, and was hardcore saturn since day one.
I had a Saturn in America and most of my games were imports. Loved all the fighting games that were on the system. I liked the system way more than my ps1.
@@SNARC15 I ordered every street fighter game (both zeros, X-men vs, marvel vs). Every neo geo fighter, dungeons and dragons double pack, castlevenia symphony, DBZ. Loved the mid 90s. Plus all the games that were state side. Saturn had some really good ones.
I bought my Saturn at launch in the UK, as an upgrade to the Megadrive and still play Saturn games to this day: now with the M.O.D.E installed. My all-time favourite machine. I was a working adult (age 27) when the Saturn launched, so I was lucky enough to be able to get all the games I wanted (wife permitting). Sega Rally was then, and is now, my go-to title. Great video.
I bought my Saturn in the winter of 97 over the PlayStation (which I got in 98, instead), and never regretted it. They were practically giving them away at FuncoLand then and I was able to get the system along with Guardian Heroes, SFA2, Battle Arena Toshinden Remix (for free), Virtua Fighter 2, and the terribly renamed Galactic Attack for around 120 bucks. This video really did that system justice.
SEGA just needed to take more advantage of Saturn's strengths, mainly its advantage in 2D graphics and creating original games in 3D utilizing the software tools they developed for games like Virtua Fighter 2. They also needed to share these tools with 3rd party developers or provide better support. Oh well, it's all hindsight now.
Great and informative video my man, just purchased my first Saturn and picked up panzer dragoon 1&2 can only dream about saga but definitely chasing guardian heros, burning rangers & dungeons and dragons collection And then some decent shoot em ups.
Panzer dragoon saga is an amaaaaazign experience IMO. It and dragon force need to get ported to new systems WELL (and I don’t want many changes to how they look and play)
The Saturn also has a special place for me because of two games I discovered in the summer of 1998: Shining Force III and Panzer Dragoon Saga. Both of those games completely changed what I thought was possible from a video game (I had never really played or heard of JRPGs before them) and changed my tastes forever.
Excellent video, even though some recent comments by some of the old SEGA Japan execs and developers seem to indicate that indeed there were some last-minute decisions made, beyond "simply" bolting on the second SH-2. By the way, very inspired use of the Time Trax soundtrack 🙂
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I think a lot of people weren't born at the time or were too young, and don't remember magazines actually praising the Sega Saturn games. AMOK, Dark Savior, Panzer Dragoon and Panzer Dragoon 2, the Street Fighter games, a lot of those got great reviews and extensive articles in game magazines in the mid 1990's. The bad mouth about the Sega Saturn didn't really start to surface until the UA-cam, with people spouting the same things over and over.
@6:46 it was also the case that low level/assembly programmers typically favored certain chips/archetectures for their specialty. It seems like with the west with DirectX and Sony as well were working with higher level general programming languages that required lower and more generalized tech expertise by comparison. It seemed this was the generation where this trend caught momentum...
Well said there. The Saturn is a powerhouse and one of the greatest console's ever made. So many fantastic Japanese exclusive games. As 2D games from this era are pretty much the only ones to have aged well, hindsight says that the Saturn is the undisputed king of this generation for me. The golden age of Sega was gaming Nirvana 👍
Fun fact (I wish I could remember where I read this). The textures in HotD were not intended to be the final ones. Essentially, the developer showed the work in progress to their boss saying something along the lines of 'of course the textures are not finshed and many are place holder. To which they were told 'nonsense, just ship it'.
I found someone on this Saturn forums who claims to have a contact with a dev who worked on the game, saying it was 60% complete, only to be forced out the door by SEGA of Europe so they had some more banner titles before September '98. segasaturngroup.proboards.com/post/36818/thread I don't know how true this actually is, I haven't been able to verify with a primary source, at least not with a quick google search lol, but that's something interesting worth looking more into, for sure 👀
The Saturn is an amazing system, sadly I didnt give it a shake as a kid because Final Fantasy, oh and I got a PS1 from my school which was basically an excuse to rent games, Sony knew what they were doing. Sadly Sega had too much infighting with American and Japanese Divisions both wanting different futures. I think if Sega of America embraced the Saturn instead of trying to do the whole 32X thing (and I love the Mushroom Cloud despite the fact that it was a bad idea) and Embraced the Saturn, Embraced RPGs and sold itself on having the best experience overall when it came to games, I think History would have played out differently. oh and Sonic, while Sonic Jam is an amazing port of the Genesis titles and even the 3D Blast port is good for what it is, being 3D blast a flagship title for the mascot would have made more Sega lovers jump on the ship I think. All of Sega hardware is Iconic, but I think the Saturn is the best system with the worst Reputation.
Are you kidding? Hideki Sato on changing the SEGA Saturn design to respond to PlayStation: The Saturn actually had just one CPU at the beginning. Then Sony appeared with its polygon-based PlayStation. When I was first designing the Saturn architecture, I was focused on sprite graphics, which had been the primary graphics up to that point. So I decided to go with polygons (due to the PlayStation). However, there weren’t any people at Sega who knew how to develop such software. Of course, we had Yu Suzuki in the arcade department, but I couldn’t just drag him off to the console department. He was developing titles like Virtua Fighter and Virtua Racing. The expertise of all of the developers we had was in sprite graphics, so there seemed no choice but to go with sprites. Nevertheless, I knew we needed polygons. Using various tricks, adding a geometry engine and so on, I changed everything. In the end, just like the PlayStation, we had pseudo-polygons built on a sprite base. I felt no choice but to design a sprite-based architecture. Having said that, after some significant progress, pseudo-polygons did represent a “jump” in graphics in a certain way. There was a distinction of sorts. The processor was very powerful and could support 4,000, even 5,000 sprites, and I thought we could make the graphics work using a sprite engine after adding the Yamaha and such. It seemed like we were finally nearing completion. Then, the final PlayStation was revealed. It supported 300,000 polygons. Well, that was ultimately a bunch of lies, but… When you compared the Saturn with the PlayStation, we were completely missing something. The response that I chose was to add another SH processor, so we ended up with two SH-2s. By chance, the SH supported two-way cascaded data transfer. You could add a second processor and connect them in a cascade and get multi-CPU performance. When you get to about the PlayStation 3, multi-processors had become common, but the Saturn was the first home console to use multi-processors. So I added a second SH-2, but I felt that the ‘impact’ was still weak. Well, the SH-2 is a 32-bit processor, and we had two of them, so we could call the Saturn a 64-bit machine. It’s a dirty way of getting to 64-bits. But we revealed the CD-ROM-based Saturn using 64-bits as our sales point.
I think the truth is that trying to "bust the myth" of the Saturn being messily redesigned as a direct response to the comparably (to the original design, and of course only in raw polygon output) mega powerful PSX puts you dangerously close to your own argument containing just a kernel of truth. It's true that 3d was originally in the design, but we're basically talking about an afterthought, not even on the same level as a 32x. Half as powerful, actually. Just tossing in a second processor, like the man even said, was not an ideal solution. It was a terrible one! Many developers never even bothered to try to get both procs working together and there are infinite interviews on how difficult it was to get them working together well. Noone knew how to do it! Even really late stage games like Burning Rangers struggled with it. This thing.. this thing was awesome and I love it, but it was about as easy to program well as the Atari Jaguar.
@@jcaseyjones2829 it feels like it was 10 years too early. Well, actually N64 has two CPUs also, and I’ve heard some devs say it’s harder to use than Saturn, but with Xbox 360 we FINALLY got developers actually using multiple CPUs well (though probably also with much better tools) If the second sh2 being added is true, I’m still not sure what that says about it’s 3D capabilities one way or the other.
@@jcaseyjones2829 from a hardware perspective, the second CPU is actually not so bad of a solution. The SH-2 is a much better processor for handling 3D math than the mips used in the playstation (much faster multiply and a divider that ran in parallel iirc). That's why the PS1 had the geometry engine). The missing link was good tooling and experience with a multi processor setup back then.
Pretty sure the Jaguar was the first home console to use multi-processors (and that "dirty trick" is exactly how they got to 64-bits), but I can't blame some Japanese engineer for not knowing this.
Fantastic video. Work checking out Exhumed (Powerslave in the US) and Duke Nukem as examples of 3d games the Saturn did remarkably well and arguably better than their Playstation counterparts 👍
I got my Saturn a short while after its UK launch and it's still working well to this day. I actually did some emailing with the guys behind House of the Dead, they informed me that they had to cut the development short in order to get it out by the release date, which had been brought forward, so they weren't able to iron out all the graphics, basically what we got was approximately 70% complete! As graphically better than the first Wipeout game, I actually preferred the original Wipeout over Wipeout 2097, mainly as 2097 had no goal to it, there were available tracks, you raced them... that was it! With the original Wipeout, if you didn't place, you had to try again to access the next race, then when you finally won all the races, you were treated to an ending, 2097.... nothing! Boring! Similar with Steep Slope Sliders, great fun to play, but there was nothing to play for! Oh, I also preferred the replacement music tunes of the first Wipeout game to the ones on the PlayStation! As much as I am a fan of the original musicians, those weren't of their finest selections! Plus Wipeout on the Saturn handled way better than the PlayStation! Here the biggest reason for its lackluster performance, was SEGA of Europe, all the games we yelled at them to release, they ignored, eg Dead or Alive, originally made for SEGA, we never got a release here in Europe for the Saturn, but it did on the PlayStation, and it made bank, similarly with Grandia, made for SEGA, released in Europe only on the PlayStation, where it netted Sony a smeg tone of cash, again, it was a game us Saturn players were yelling at SoE to release. If SoE had just released the games the players were wanting, then SEGA's fortunes would have been a lot better!
Ever since I've had access to UA-cam years years years years ago I hunted down every single video and information I could regarding the Sega Saturn it's one of my favorite consoles in the entire world and just like a lot of other people growing up I had a PlayStation so I truly missed out on it as well as we weren't able to afford having 2 Consuls at that time so I missed out totally I remember reading the magazines and everything about information about so many awesome games that I wish I could play but now that I'm an adult I'm thankful that I have a Japanese Sega Saturn American Sega Saturn as well you like 40 physical games that I've been collecting for years now, and there's a lot of great, awesome, elusive shooters in that collection. But back to the point, I love how you did this video, and like I said, I thought I had seen every video across your video. I can't even imagine the research and time it took to get all this set up, and I must say, congratulations, sir. You have earned a subscriber!!!!!!
I gave the Saturn a chance 15years ago and to this day it's my favorite 5th gen console.
And this comes from someone as a kid who had all their nostalgia from the competition.
The Dreamcast is also one hell of a console.
If only they didnt bleed out of money. So much could have been achieved.
Sega pissed it all away. It's a bummer
SEGACD is massively underrated too. Both the hardware and library, even if it deserved to be more than it was.
@@rebeccasam3434I enjoyed the Sega CD back in 1992 and 1993 at a friend's house.
I enjoy it these days on my retropie and with all the titles available to me, it's ever more fun.
SEGA should've stuck with the Kalinske plan of Sega CD+SVP (already completed by January 1994), then go halfsies with SONY on the PlayStation. They would've made billions off of that deal and would still be a major player today.
Fuck yeah dude, I'm really glad to see the Saturn going through somewhat of an unearthing in the west, now that emulation is finally near perfect, and with modern gaming turning so many people away for MANY reasons. Between sick videos like this, Stop Skeletons from Fighting's videos on the system and it's software, Modern Vintage Gamer, SEGA Lord X, and of course Pandamonium's insane project of reviewing every US Saturn game, it's sort of dreamlike to see a console I've been obsessed with for nearly a decade now, despite being born at the tail-end of it's Japan life, finally being recognized and celebrated in a more widespread way
The Saturn was special
I just wanna thank u for this comment i didnt know about the pandamonium reviews! Big ups
And, fairly or unfairly, the rise of modern gaming to me was always associated with the Playstationification of video games. The original Playstation brought in a very different (and profitable) demographic, that had quite different tastes. And this also was around he same time the arcades were dying.
In a way, the gaming scene in the Switch era would be far more favourable to Sega's style (which is why they have been re-releasing thir old catalog) as you have a large market of people in the West who appreciate things like JRPGs, Metroivania games, anime etc that in the 90s just didn't exist in any sizeable number.
In fact the issues that both Sega and Nintendo had in this era show how different the Japanese and Western markets were back then. Something easy to forget now where a lot of Japanese culture has become mainstream in Western markets.
I was a massive SEGA fan during the 80s and 90s, they could do no wrong in my eyes. Bought the Saturn day one and was very happy. But eventually my head was turned by Sony when more triple AAA titles began to release on that console. Soon I was playing on a PS1 more then the Saturn.
The Saturn gave us Sakura Wars so I will always love this 'failure'.
I was 14 or 15 year's old when I got sega saturn as Christmas gift. .will never forget. Still my favorite console
Great video. Also great 3DO highlight. Lots of people don't realize that the 3DO did actually very well in Japan considering it being American designed hardware. It sold 2x more than the OG Xbox in Japan. The Saturn is a great system, and I thoroughly enjoy exclusives like V.R. & AMOK. Underrated system out west, in the shadow of the PS1 and N64.
Ture that about 3DO shame Microsoft can't say the same about Xbox in Japan 😂
I loved my Saturn but it had its downfalls of titles, Doom anyone ? haha. But i dug this over the playstation. I owned one with a cart that allowed me to play burned games and i got a HD that had every Saturn game on it. Was awesome. 99% of the games worked. Great system. 🙂
@@ctcards2636 But then you have Hexen, Duke Nukem, Powerslave, and Quake. All of which look and play better on the Saturn.
@@seganutt That Panasonic name on the 3DO systems helped a lot. I bet a lot of Japanese thought it was a Japanese console because of the Panasonic endorsement.
Sega ceded EVERYTHING outside of Japan in order to "win" the tiny market of Japan with the Saturn. Sega sure was obsessive back then.
Excellent video. The Saturn is kind of a perfect example of history being written by the victors, so much has been said about all the things it did "wrong" and how Sega should have done this or that or worked with so-and-so that it's totally overshadowed the things it did well. It's a great machine, it has loads of fun games and if anything, it's commercial failure in the west has made it a far more interesting console all these years later than it's competition.
I don't like the saying history is written by the victors, because it's not - its written by historians. It just so happens in our case, most gaming historians are from the west, so therefor we get a scewed telling of the story. Similar to how in the EU micro computers reigned supreme over consoles, but that isn't really talked about except from EU gaming historian, or that the NES saved gaming. But gaming was fine in both JP and EU regions, just the NA market suffered from lack of quality/standards, but since popular gaming historians are from the west its tend to be believed that the NES just saved everything.
Anyways I love the Saturn's library, glad more videos are being released about it because it deserves more, and with new translations being released slowly, now is a great time to look into the library, both OB MotBQ and LoCT being translated/being arguably the best version of the games is super nice, along with Grandia I, Policenauts. Even more obscure games like Yumimi Mix Remix is a really cute/fun visual novel.
@@carefulman3673
It's written by historians who occupy positions in institutions and within a cultural context established by the victors lol.
I couldn't imagine how much time and effort you've put into making this video. Really great video as always :)
Finally, some Saturn love. Out of all of my consoles I own, the Saturn is the one I always bust out. Sadly it's been a while since I could use it since it's cables have been obsolete for a while now with HDMI being the more prominent option nowadays. But luckily my gaming PC can be hooked up to the TV with a good Saturn Emulator and the problem is solved.
To this day my family and I play some Baku Baku Animal and just have a great time. Too bad that game hasn't been re-released after the Saturn and Game Gear Ports. Pretty disappointing but one can only hope for a Saturn Mini to come and fill that Saturn Shaped void we all have.
I’m thrilled the genesis mini 2 at least has some SEGACD games on it! Seems like emulation of a SEGACD or Saturn would be hard, with how many chips both systems have, and that emulation can’t really nail genesis perfectly lol
You can buy something to convert the signal to hdmi.
The way in which you edit your videos is original, unique and insanely good. I can tell you really put effort into your videos, so my personal standpoint is that you are HEAVILY underrated. Keep up the great, and entertaining videos!
I've loved the Saturn since day one, and owned almost every heavy hitter ever produced for it, save for a few. It is hands down my favorite console ever.
I can't tell you how thrilled I am every time a quality Saturn video hits.
Now all we need is a Saturn mini! 😀
Asmuch as I love the chunky old boy it does take up bit of space huh?
Its worth adding that most of the people that owned the pc engine cd transitioned to the saturn when that console was dead. Much like the dreamcasts fanbase exodus to the original xbox. Also dragon quest was probably an even bigger blow or just as big as FF7 not having it on their console.
A game what they could have had if one could believe it was Breath of fire as the Sega president at the time had went to university and was friends with the creator of that series but they still let that one slip as well.
AMOK is also a pretty good example on what the saturn could do, although it has a bit more of a voxel kind of thing going for
Saturn is great. If you weren't around back then it's hard to fathom that a major console was being sold but so few people had one or even knew someone with one. I don't have any memories of people talking negatively about it, most people just went with PSX or N64. My brother and I got one in 1997 cause they were so cheap, it was hard to find the games we wanted but we had a blast with it all the same. Bought another in 2009 and I'm really glad I did, it's so outrageously expensive to collect legit games.
I always thought it was weird hearing how the saturn wasn't really originally planned to do 3d because I absolutely loved the Saturn's 3d games and still do. Plus look at all the games they had in the arcades at the time in the 90s. I still remeber seeing virtua fighter running for the first time at an arcade in dorney park, an amusement park in Pennsylvania. It had an incredible inpact on me. It was just indescribably amazing. From virtua fighter and the fighting vipers games to daytona to die hard arcade and pretty much everything else. I love the saturn and the arcadey vibes of all its games. Dreamcast too. I wish so much sega's story hadn't played out the way it did. I miss them being around in the console industry. Thanks for the super interesting video.
The exclusives still are better than many games today
Great video. I'm not sure if there is a term for it but I feel like there is a lot memory "retcon" that occurs with the Saturn (and endless other things). By that I mean a narrative that develops after the fact that people start then pretending was the prevailing sentiment at the time.
I feel like I had a very unique situation in that both my best friend and myself had launch year Saturns and then Playstations in rural U.S. We were the only two people in our school that we know of who had Saturns.
In the real world from the perspective of two 12 year olds who had both consoles:
1. The Saturn's 3D performance blew us away. I think the most compelling game was actually Panzer Dragoon. It truly felt like something other worldly and the future of gaming and the Saturn did that first.
2. There was no feeling of notable graphical superiority from the PS1 in those early days. We had some cross platform titles like Tomb Raider and of course competing titles like Tekken and Virtual Fighter. Did we recognize and discuss differences in graphics? Of course, but it was more often that each console just did things differently and it rarely impacted our impression of playability.
3. The biggest failure of the Saturn to us 12 year olds in the U.S. was by far the limited library and release of games. The U.S. Saturn library still had a great list of top tier games once it was all said and done but it missed out on tons of those "pretty decent" games to fill in the gaps. After the initial batch of launch games it was more than TWO MONTHS before ANY other game came out. I don't mean a top tier game. I mean ANY game lol. You got Panzer Dragoon and Virtua Fighter (and Pebble Beach Golf Links lol, thanks dad) and then two and half months later you got Bug...and then a few more weeks and Myst. That's 3 months after launch and you only had two new games to pick from, neither of which were at the top of anyone's list lol.
So happy for you that you finally got this video done!
It's also great btw! Your style and aesthetics are damn good, and the topic is pretty interesting, as it's pretty unique and offers originality compared to most UA-camrs who talk about the Sega Saturn.
As a Saturn-fan, I approve!👍
Got a Japanese Saturn and installed an ODE. I’ve been obsessively playing shining force 3 and Batsugun and Galactic Attack…just such a cool fucking console, I absolutely love it. I think I knew one or two people who had one growing up, but never got to play it till now. Uncovering such a massive library of dope games is something that other people who are interested should take the plunge and do. Sick video, thanks
Played Layer Section for the first time yesterday and it was a blast! Very engaging.
woah, small channel, few views, and yet this video is very good. not obnoxious at all and just sharing a perspective that most gamer bro's lack.
This is such an amazing video about one of the most underrated systems. The quality of the video made me shocked you didn’t have thousands and thousands of subs. Im subscribing now!
One thing you forgot about the PS1/Saturn price comparison is that the Saturn also came with in built memory for game saves, so PS1 owners would have had to have bought not only a game, but a memory card too.
This “299” shit drives me crazy. After memory cards and a game, PS1 was about the same $ as the Saturn that comes with a game and save space. Apples to apples it's maybe $380 vs $399.
@@DaveB038💯 well said
@@DaveB038I do expect there was some impact though, since people would look at $299 and think “Oh wow that’s wayyyy cheaper!” and buy a PS1 then realised “Oh crap, I gotta buy extra stuff.”
Yeah but any real Saturn owner would end up buying the memory backup cart because those batteries lasted 2-3 years tops before they died down. Honestly I didn’t like the whole watch battery internal memory thing especially because a game like virtua fighter 2 or any sports game would pretty much take all the blocks by themselves with one save.
As a kid, think about staring at your friends dumbfounded trying to explain exactly that to them… and they respond “Yeah, Saturn is just too expensive.” Pointing to Sony ads/VideoGame Mag narratives, as they proceed to spend +50 bucks more than a saturn, on launch to get toshiden or ridge racer + an extra memory card.
In those moments was the first time I questioned if I was real and under stand the root of my CTE.
Great video! I have a soft spot for late 00s Sega with Dreamcast being my favourite time to be a gamer. But I rebought a Saturn with a HDMI adapter and an ODE recently and am loving exploring games I never even knew about back then. I really want to try Layer Section now, it looks incredible!
Later Section 2 is also very good. Just be sure to use composite cables on a crt. Otherwise the transparencies won’t work and you’ll have a bunch of mesh everywhere.
I bought the Sega Saturn in Australia on launch day from Game Xpress in Maroochydore, even though i pre-ordered, i had to settle for the $799 pack that came with one controller and Virtua Fighter, because all the $899 packs (came with two controllers, Virtua Fighter, Clockwork Knight, and Daytona USA) were sold out before i got a foot in the door.
I still remember walking in there later in the day to collect it, and being told by the guy working there that i was the last person in Australia that would be getting a new Saturn for a while, since everyone else had collected their machines way earlier in the day and apparently there was a big line up at the door when the store opened.
I also bought Pebble Beach Golf and Daytona USA, but i had to wait a bit over a week for Daytona because apparently it wasn't available here in Australia on actual launch day (if anyone bought the $899 pack they may be able to confirm that?) it got posted out to me direct from Sega Ozisoft.
Due to saving up to buy more Saturn stuff leading up to launch, and my addiction to Daytona USA in the arcade, i had been avoiding arcades for a long time, and playing Daytona USA at home for god knows how long i could've sworn to christ it was everything the arcade version was but with more features, it would've been easily 9 months or more before i set foot in an arcade and saw a real Daytona machine again, and i was blown away by how different it really did look, but still super impressed with how close to the same it played using the Arcade Racer steering wheel.
Sega did themselves no real favours by having others release their top arcade games like Virtua Racing (and i'll say Daytona CCE because AM2 didn't make that one, and it was a totally different game as a result) because when you look at the likes of Virtua Fighter 2 and Virtua Cop 1 and 2 you see just how close to perfect those games could be in the home, you know very well the other titles could have been significantly more awesome had they have been given that same first rate treatment from those that actually made the original. This same thing carried on over to the Dreamcast with a few top arcade games there, 3 massively missed opportunities come instantly to mind...
I enjoyed this video mate, thanks :)
Great video! I felt like the Sega Saturn is one of the most underrated consoles of all time. I played Earthworm Jim 2 on the Saturn and even though I wondn't call it the best version of the game, it's still a really solid port!
Out of curiosity, what’s the best version? I didn’t even remember it was on Saturn, but I’d assume Saturn would be the best version, or tied with something else, considering it was built around Genesis and looked good there, and Saturn is bajillions of times better.
I loved Saturn, and definitely wish I could go back and pick up tons more games…and have stuff localized!
Panzer Dragoon Saga and dragon force need to be ported/emulated elsewhere!!! (A remake ter but similar visuals would be fine, but I don’t want them radically changed)
Earthworm Jim 2 on Saturn IS the best version of the game though.
@@shaggymcdaniel3216 I’d be surprised if it wasn’t, though I didn’t even remember it was on Saturn, just the previous gen versions.
Honestly I'm so glad that there's finally a video on the Saturn that isn't just all about "Wow, look at this cool game, now go buy it" that then completely destroys the prices for that game because someone believes it now to be worth something. I'm a victim of the Saturn; I got it chipped and still I paid good money for a legitimate copy of Elevator Action Returns, a game I would argue to be the best game on the system. Short, sweet, and visually smooth but still very beautiful with its 32-bit 2D art. Up there also sits Lunar 2, the arguably better of the two Lunar games (and a personal favorite on my part), as well as the various Puyo games and the variety of Taito games. My Saturn is one of the most important things that sits in my library, and while I don't collect for it much anymore since the covid "retro gaming" bubble caused the prices to skyrocket, I'm still glad I have what I have... and a healthy supply of CD-Rs.
"299"* Where the * was both a memory card and game. Ohhhh shoot, now we are at 399 territory.
Just placed dibs on Galactic Attack for our Channel Longplay Archive.
Great video thanks. As a contemporary Sega Saturn boy and with a passing interest in the renewed takes on the console from the retro gaming community, it is super interesting to see a take from someone relatively new to the console. I'd actually disagree with you about the SS being ignored in favour of the PS1 by the retro community - there is tonnes of great content out there, and I see the SS generating more interest than the PS1 and N64 in various online polls, so I'd suggest your interest is actually part of a new trend rather than a voice in the wilderness! Supporting the SS at that time was a lot of hardship with occasional flashes of glory. I agree that the hardware wasn't really the issue - I think that the powerful early commercial lead of the PS1 meant that games were developed for its hardware strengths, which meant Saturn ports were almost invariably compromised affairs. That in turn lead to reputational damage. Sega could still compete, because of its first party arcade titles, which had a very high profile. Sadly, these opportunities were sometimes missed. You mention House of the Dead - that was a disappointment at the time. If you look at Quake, and imagine that team behind HOTD instead?? Tantallus weren't bad; their Wipeout and Manx TT ports were good, but this was arguably beyond them, and perhaps they weren't given the development time they needed.
At the time, i went sega all the way for the 32 bit generaiton. I was there at launch in europe, and have such fond memories of my time with the system. I played tomb raider there, resident evil, nights into dreams, D, panzer dragoon and so, so much more. Loved every second of it.
The Panzer Dragoon games were great (and sooooo much better looking and playing than starfox) but panzer dragoon saga was amaaaaaazing.
Loved Nights! definitely my favorite of the Mario 64/nights/crash bandicoot mascot war.
@@rebeccasam3434same
Thank you! Wonderful video. I almost didn't click on it because I expected more the type of BS content you so accurately describe from other ignorant YT-bers on here, but I was more than pleasantly surprised. Excellent content, man. I hope for more Saturn content in the future, the Saturn will always be my favorite console of all time!
I get the feeling that the Saturn is slowly increasing in popularity in the retro games community this last couple of years, in my country I frequently see listings for Japanese Saturns and I seen some of them get sold pretty quickly. I'm looking into buying a Dreamcast and Saturn because they look like pretty unique systems with tons of games to enjoy.
Well done! You have a new subscriber!
I loved the saturn, I got it about a year after I got the PS1 and it was excellent and outside of some of the PS1 biggest hitter probabaly played it more often. The saturn had build in memory also unlike the PS1. I thought most 3d games were ugly back then and was looking foward to what 2D would look like in the 32 bit era and was pissed off that the media was pushing for 3d only, The issue with games on both was that SEGA used quads, If they used triangles it would have looked closer. THe Saturn also had some Amazing 3d games like Virta Cop, Virtua Fighter 2 and Panzer dragoon Saga.
By the way love the video, I have my Saturn, I start to do imports, everything for the 4 Meg ram cart X-Men versus Street fighter, marvel superheroes versus Street fighter, vampire savior, Street fighter zero 3, the King of fighters 96,97, all that stuff, fell in love with my Saturn,i still have it, so thanks for making this video, I appreciate it.
Thanks for showing the Saturn some love!
Great video, very great perspective. Thanks for sharing.
Truly impressive video. Someone did their homework, and it shows.
Good job with this. The Saturn salutes you!
Fantastic, really enjoyed this well researched and put together video. Big fan of the saturn my favourite console, it an underappreciated machine but it got a quality library and l love the 3d style of it 😊.
I bought my first Saturn and Dreamcast around 7 years ago and I absolutely love these consoles.
There's something really special about the way they render 3D. I find the "roughness" of the Saturn's 3D output really attractive, especially on a big CRT TV with RGB cables.
Wow, I'm a huge Saturn fan and I had never even heard of SteamGear Mash before, that's great I have to try it
I finally jumped into the Saturn library and imported one and several games. I'm really interested in the Japanese library and that it will give me a bit of a push to learn more Japanese. I've noticed that there is more hardware support on the Japanese side of things. There are many Japanese games that take advantage of the backup ram cart and utilize the 3d controller that isn't supported in the western versions. I can't get over how good the Hall effect thumbstick is on the 3d controller or in my case a white mutli-controller.
A great video, good to see the system get a fair review, it was very underrated.
I think the saturn soundtrack is AMAZING! I love the repitivie style, it puts me in a trance and gets me into the race!
Perhaps the biggest way the difficulty with 3D hurt the Saturn is in its lack of groundbreaking event titles. You mentioned the lack of a mainline Sonic title, but basically every groundbreaking title that generation had to be 3D (as evidenced by Virtua Fighter in the early Japan era). While many of the 2D games of that generation are quite respected now, I think only SotN really made major waves during the generation at the time, and possibly some 2D fighters. It wasn’t that no one was playing 2D games, but rather those were the only ones that could usually capture the imagination of a lot of consumers. PS1 had plenty of those, and even N64 had Mario 64, Goldeneye, Ocarina, and a few others. I’m generalizing a fair bit, but I think there’s some truth to it.
Honestly when the Saturn came out in Europe where I lived at the time, I was more than happy with my Mega Drive and my mindset was "Why would I buy a new console for like 10 games at best?". The Mega Drive was still going strong with a bunch of new awesome games and a bunch of old ones I hadn't played. Then after the MD was over I just bought a high end PC (for the time). And most of the PS1 games had PC ports anyway, that were better.
Just discovered your channel and watching the video right now. Really like what I see & hear!
Thanks so much for dedicating so much time to compile this information together and packaging it into this great video. It must have taken ages, but it's worth it!
I bought a Saturn and some games from a guy with an addiction problem. I got the console and like 4 or 5 games for $100, and it was fairly new back then. I loved it.Loads of great games!
Superbly well-done video!
As someone with a strict diet of Nintendo (from NES through SNES and to N64), I'd pretty much scoffed at SEGA offerings and Genesis marketing gimmicks - until the price came way down on a Saturn near it's end and I snapped one up (I'd always secretly envied VF2 & Sega Rally). Suddenly my N64 was collecting dust, I was soon enough in-line on 9.9.99 for a Dreamcast on launch-day, and I'd only "heard" about Game Cube. Sega Saturn is still my favorite gaming system of all time (even over the Dreamcast).
Go Sega Saturn ❤❤❤!!!!
For me for arcade titles at home nothing beats the Saturn and NeoGeo absolutely nothing.
Amazing video on the Saturn keep up the good work. 😊
Great job on this video, very well produced and scripted! I hope this blows up and starts a successful future of content for you :)
The failure of dreamcast was failing to include dvd player. I know so many families purchased Sony purely for the DVD player.
Yeah, I knew at least 3 people back in the day who never owned a single PS2 game, but had a PS2 as the family DVD player for years.
That even surprised me at the time, as I’d had a DVD player for years at that point, and wouldn’t want to wear out a game system doing that, but I know I keep hearing it.
If true I wonder if it hurt gamecube too.
@@rebeccasam3434 DVD wouldnt wear out a DVD drive system.. the reason games consoles optical drives fail is the constant seeking and random access wear on the drive.... DVD is very light weight (sequential reads).. really would not be an issue..
Great video I really enjoyed it. I discovered the saturn very late on and it is now one of my favourite consoles. I would recommend to anyone getting a modded 60hz one to get the best experience with the majority of great games being Japanese exclusives. There is a thriving community around still working hard to translate Japanese games and improve on the system which is great for people who are only recently discovering it and it's library
The saturn / ps1 was the foundation of "development time costs" problem, and proof that you effective development time management will always profit over higher quality in the gaming industry in the long term. But I adore my saturn to this day, and was hardcore saturn since day one.
I had a Saturn in America and most of my games were imports. Loved all the fighting games that were on the system. I liked the system way more than my ps1.
Importing both X-Men vs. Street Fighter and Thunder Force V were some of the best investments in my game collection.
@@SNARC15 I ordered every street fighter game (both zeros, X-men vs, marvel vs). Every neo geo fighter, dungeons and dragons double pack, castlevenia symphony, DBZ. Loved the mid 90s. Plus all the games that were state side. Saturn had some really good ones.
I bought my Saturn at launch in the UK, as an upgrade to the Megadrive and still play Saturn games to this day: now with the M.O.D.E installed. My all-time favourite machine. I was a working adult (age 27) when the Saturn launched, so I was lucky enough to be able to get all the games I wanted (wife permitting). Sega Rally was then, and is now, my go-to title. Great video.
I miss the days of the Saturn, great memories!
The Saturn would have been exactly what I wanted in a system at that time compared to N64 and PS. I only wish I knew back then what I know now.
Amazing video righting the wrong conceptions of the saturn. Thanks for your hard work!
_NiGHTS into Dreams..._ was the best game on Saturn and its music was Sega Sound Team's greatest work of art.
Change my mind...
I bought my Saturn in the winter of 97 over the PlayStation (which I got in 98, instead), and never regretted it. They were practically giving them away at FuncoLand then and I was able to get the system along with Guardian Heroes, SFA2, Battle Arena Toshinden Remix (for free), Virtua Fighter 2, and the terribly renamed Galactic Attack for around 120 bucks.
This video really did that system justice.
Great video. I foresee this channel growing BIGLY in subscribers!
13:43, well said. This is a great video, one of the best Saturn retrospectives on YT.
SEGA just needed to take more advantage of Saturn's strengths, mainly its advantage in 2D graphics and creating original games in 3D utilizing the software tools they developed for games like Virtua Fighter 2. They also needed to share these tools with 3rd party developers or provide better support. Oh well, it's all hindsight now.
Great and informative video my man, just purchased my first Saturn and picked up panzer dragoon 1&2 can only dream about saga but definitely chasing guardian heros, burning rangers & dungeons and dragons collection And then some decent shoot em ups.
Panzer dragoon saga is an amaaaaazign experience IMO.
It and dragon force need to get ported to new systems WELL (and I don’t want many changes to how they look and play)
Great video, well done! My favourite console..😢❤
The Saturn also has a special place for me because of two games I discovered in the summer of 1998: Shining Force III and Panzer Dragoon Saga. Both of those games completely changed what I thought was possible from a video game (I had never really played or heard of JRPGs before them) and changed my tastes forever.
A very high level retrospective of my 2nd favorite system (Genesis being the 1st)
Excellent video, even though some recent comments by some of the old SEGA Japan execs and developers seem to indicate that indeed there were some last-minute decisions made, beyond "simply" bolting on the second SH-2. By the way, very inspired use of the Time Trax soundtrack 🙂
The thing I remember most about my Saturn, is that it did my favourite 2D games in a way Playsation simply couldnt match!
Awesome vid! You did Segata proud with this one! ^_^
A retro gaming Aussie UA-camr?
Suddenly my thumb has a twitch reflex to press the Subscribe button 😂
Awesome content mate!! Looking forward to more.
Awesome production value, Sticky! Good stuff ;^)
Hello, I am a Koopa. Your channel just popped up in my feed so you should know you're probably going to get traffic redirected here by the almighty algorithm
Excellent video. As a Saturn owner of many years I learned a lot. Amazing effort.
As a big fan of the Saturn, I can't thank you enough for making this video!
I think a lot of people weren't born at the time or were too young, and don't remember magazines actually praising the Sega Saturn games. AMOK, Dark Savior, Panzer Dragoon and Panzer Dragoon 2, the Street Fighter games, a lot of those got great reviews and extensive articles in game magazines in the mid 1990's. The bad mouth about the Sega Saturn didn't really start to surface until the UA-cam, with people spouting the same things over and over.
Great video and nice sharp gameplay recordings.
Wow, ABSOLUTELY STUNNING video and production!!!! Instant sub mate keep it up 🔥
Who the hell are you and why don't you have many many more subs!???? Great work!!! I especially like the classy presentation!
Fantastic video. I’m tired of these ridiculous myths about how “stupid” Sega was.
you put in a lot of work into this, my conscience made me subscribe
Great video mate. I can't imagine how long this would have taken to make, holy shit. 👍
@6:46 it was also the case that low level/assembly programmers typically favored certain chips/archetectures for their specialty. It seems like with the west with DirectX and Sony as well were working with higher level general programming languages that required lower and more generalized tech expertise by comparison. It seemed this was the generation where this trend caught momentum...
this is a very well put together video, epic job gamer ! ! 😎
Well said there. The Saturn is a powerhouse and one of the greatest console's ever made. So many fantastic Japanese exclusive games. As 2D games from this era are pretty much the only ones to have aged well, hindsight says that the Saturn is the undisputed king of this generation for me. The golden age of Sega was gaming Nirvana 👍
Fun fact (I wish I could remember where I read this). The textures in HotD were not intended to be the final ones.
Essentially, the developer showed the work in progress to their boss saying something along the lines of 'of course the textures are not finshed and many are place holder.
To which they were told 'nonsense, just ship it'.
I found someone on this Saturn forums who claims to have a contact with a dev who worked on the game, saying it was 60% complete, only to be forced out the door by SEGA of Europe so they had some more banner titles before September '98. segasaturngroup.proboards.com/post/36818/thread
I don't know how true this actually is, I haven't been able to verify with a primary source, at least not with a quick google search lol, but that's something interesting worth looking more into, for sure 👀
The Saturn is an amazing system, sadly I didnt give it a shake as a kid because Final Fantasy, oh and I got a PS1 from my school which was basically an excuse to rent games, Sony knew what they were doing. Sadly Sega had too much infighting with American and Japanese Divisions both wanting different futures. I think if Sega of America embraced the Saturn instead of trying to do the whole 32X thing (and I love the Mushroom Cloud despite the fact that it was a bad idea) and Embraced the Saturn, Embraced RPGs and sold itself on having the best experience overall when it came to games, I think History would have played out differently. oh and Sonic, while Sonic Jam is an amazing port of the Genesis titles and even the 3D Blast port is good for what it is, being 3D blast a flagship title for the mascot would have made more Sega lovers jump on the ship I think. All of Sega hardware is Iconic, but I think the Saturn is the best system with the worst Reputation.
Definitely your best video.
Probably the best video on YT about SEGA Saturn. Really well done. 👍
Are you kidding?
Hideki Sato on changing the SEGA Saturn design to respond to PlayStation:
The Saturn actually had just one CPU at the beginning. Then Sony appeared with its polygon-based PlayStation. When I was first designing the Saturn architecture, I was focused on sprite graphics, which had been the primary graphics up to that point.
So I decided to go with polygons (due to the PlayStation). However, there weren’t any people at Sega who knew how to develop such software. Of course, we had Yu Suzuki in the arcade department, but I couldn’t just drag him off to the console department. He was developing titles like Virtua Fighter and Virtua Racing. The expertise of all of the developers we had was in sprite graphics, so there seemed no choice but to go with sprites. Nevertheless, I knew we needed polygons. Using various tricks, adding a geometry engine and so on, I changed everything. In the end, just like the PlayStation, we had pseudo-polygons built on a sprite base. I felt no choice but to design a sprite-based architecture. Having said that, after some significant progress, pseudo-polygons did represent a “jump” in graphics in a certain way. There was a distinction of sorts. The processor was very powerful and could support 4,000, even 5,000 sprites, and I thought we could make the graphics work using a sprite engine after adding the Yamaha and such.
It seemed like we were finally nearing completion. Then, the final PlayStation was revealed. It supported 300,000 polygons. Well, that was ultimately a bunch of lies, but… When you compared the Saturn with the PlayStation, we were completely missing something. The response that I chose was to add another SH processor, so we ended up with two SH-2s. By chance, the SH supported two-way cascaded data transfer. You could add a second processor and connect them in a cascade and get multi-CPU performance. When you get to about the PlayStation 3, multi-processors had become common, but the Saturn was the first home console to use multi-processors. So I added a second SH-2, but I felt that the ‘impact’ was still weak. Well, the SH-2 is a 32-bit processor, and we had two of them, so we could call the Saturn a 64-bit machine. It’s a dirty way of getting to 64-bits. But we revealed the CD-ROM-based Saturn using 64-bits as our sales point.
I think the truth is that trying to "bust the myth" of the Saturn being messily redesigned as a direct response to the comparably (to the original design, and of course only in raw polygon output) mega powerful PSX puts you dangerously close to your own argument containing just a kernel of truth. It's true that 3d was originally in the design, but we're basically talking about an afterthought, not even on the same level as a 32x. Half as powerful, actually. Just tossing in a second processor, like the man even said, was not an ideal solution. It was a terrible one! Many developers never even bothered to try to get both procs working together and there are infinite interviews on how difficult it was to get them working together well. Noone knew how to do it! Even really late stage games like Burning Rangers struggled with it.
This thing.. this thing was awesome and I love it, but it was about as easy to program well as the Atari Jaguar.
Because it also pretended to be 64 bits, get it?
"Where did you learn to joke?"
Shut up, green head.
@@jcaseyjones2829 it feels like it was 10 years too early. Well, actually N64 has two CPUs also, and I’ve heard some devs say it’s harder to use than Saturn, but with Xbox 360 we FINALLY got developers actually using multiple CPUs well (though probably also with much better tools)
If the second sh2 being added is true, I’m still not sure what that says about it’s 3D capabilities one way or the other.
@@jcaseyjones2829 from a hardware perspective, the second CPU is actually not so bad of a solution. The SH-2 is a much better processor for handling 3D math than the mips used in the playstation (much faster multiply and a divider that ran in parallel iirc). That's why the PS1 had the geometry engine). The missing link was good tooling and experience with a multi processor setup back then.
Pretty sure the Jaguar was the first home console to use multi-processors (and that "dirty trick" is exactly how they got to 64-bits), but I can't blame some Japanese engineer for not knowing this.
Fantastic video. Work checking out Exhumed (Powerslave in the US) and Duke Nukem as examples of 3d games the Saturn did remarkably well and arguably better than their Playstation counterparts 👍
I got my Saturn a short while after its UK launch and it's still working well to this day. I actually did some emailing with the guys behind House of the Dead, they informed me that they had to cut the development short in order to get it out by the release date, which had been brought forward, so they weren't able to iron out all the graphics, basically what we got was approximately 70% complete!
As graphically better than the first Wipeout game, I actually preferred the original Wipeout over Wipeout 2097, mainly as 2097 had no goal to it, there were available tracks, you raced them... that was it! With the original Wipeout, if you didn't place, you had to try again to access the next race, then when you finally won all the races, you were treated to an ending, 2097.... nothing! Boring! Similar with Steep Slope Sliders, great fun to play, but there was nothing to play for! Oh, I also preferred the replacement music tunes of the first Wipeout game to the ones on the PlayStation! As much as I am a fan of the original musicians, those weren't of their finest selections! Plus Wipeout on the Saturn handled way better than the PlayStation!
Here the biggest reason for its lackluster performance, was SEGA of Europe, all the games we yelled at them to release, they ignored, eg Dead or Alive, originally made for SEGA, we never got a release here in Europe for the Saturn, but it did on the PlayStation, and it made bank, similarly with Grandia, made for SEGA, released in Europe only on the PlayStation, where it netted Sony a smeg tone of cash, again, it was a game us Saturn players were yelling at SoE to release. If SoE had just released the games the players were wanting, then SEGA's fortunes would have been a lot better!
Ever since I've had access to UA-cam years years years years ago I hunted down every single video and information I could regarding the Sega Saturn it's one of my favorite consoles in the entire world and just like a lot of other people growing up I had a PlayStation so I truly missed out on it as well as we weren't able to afford having 2 Consuls at that time so I missed out totally I remember reading the magazines and everything about information about so many awesome games that I wish I could play but now that I'm an adult I'm thankful that I have a Japanese Sega Saturn American Sega Saturn as well you like 40 physical games that I've been collecting for years now, and there's a lot of great, awesome, elusive shooters in that collection. But back to the point, I love how you did this video, and like I said, I thought I had seen every video across your video. I can't even imagine the research and time it took to get all this set up, and I must say, congratulations, sir. You have earned a subscriber!!!!!!
this was my childhood, thank you
Amazing work, great video!