Customer Reviews

Sega Saturn System - Video Game Console

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The Sega Saturn achieved much success overseas, but it never really took in America thanks to Sony's Playstation. Originally designed as a replacement for the aging Sega Genesis, the Saturn was to be designed to be the ultimate 2-D system, that was until Sega learned of Sony's plans. However, there are a lot of good qualities about the Saturn: the game library features over 300 games, the Saturn system itself is the most trouble free system ever made, the 3-D Analog controler (which was an early prototype of the Dreamcast controler) was the best on the market, the best conversions of 2-D games are on the Saturn...it was the first system to introduce online play... and it's library of RPG's is fantastic. All in all, the Saturn may have not been the best system, but it was pretty good...

I own or have owned many game systems. Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Genesis, Playstation, Game Gear, Nomad, and now Gamecube and PS2. But My two favorite systems are undoubtedly the Dreamcast and the Saturn. And my favorite of the two is undoubtedly the Saturn.

The saturn was a well-built machine. Despite its internal workings being less than perfect in some ways (it was designed to work with squares rather than triangles when rendering, and had multiple processors sharing the main load) it also had some surprisingly good ideas (like built in memory for game saves and an expansion slot for memory upgrades and save backups). But what really impressed me about the hardware is the fact that even though the machine has been extinct for years, every one that I've encountered works perfectly. Now I'm sure that some of them just plain gave out, or were dropped or something. But I have never had a Saturn not load a game. I have never seen a Saturn freeze up or crash. I have never seen one stutter while playing movies. And my playstation started doing those things years ago (I finally had to get rid of it and pay for a replacement). Also worthy of mention is the fact that the original saturn controller is what I consider to be the finest designed controller in all of video game history. I fits my hand PERFECTLY. Playing games like Panzer Dragoon II, or Rayman with this controller is simply amazing. And speaking of Panzer Dragoon II...

The Saturn had what I consider to be the greatest selection of games ever. The best version of Rayman (my favorite side-scrolling game ever) is on the Saturn. Radiant Silvergun (what many consider to be the best shooter ever) is for Import Saturn. Nights into Dreams (the greatest game Sonic Team ever made) is for Saturn. And what about Sega Rally (quite possibly the greatest rally racing game ever)? Truly, when you take the imports into consideration, the Saturn had an outstanding selection of games. Whatever you want, you can get. Want fighting games? Strategy games? Side-scrollers? Arcade racing? RPGs? The Saturn delivers. Big Time.

The Sega Saturn is truly a system for the hardcore. And many games for it can be had for as little as three or four dollars. And with the system itself running about $30.00 or thereabouts for one in good shape, everyone should have one. Now if only the Price of the import games would drop a little on ebay...

Excerps from http://www.gamepilgrimage.com/SATPScompare.htm

Performance "gap"

Another popular theory on why the Saturn failed to capture the masses' interests is that it didn't have comparable 3D performance to the PS1. The Saturn, is significantly more powerful than the PS1 in 2D capabilities, but it is also able to run at higher resolutions (640x224, 704x480), and capable of higher resolution and color count textures with less effort. The Saturn is more capable of these things because it has 66% more Video RAM. On the Saturn, as is true on any hardware, more RAM allows for higher color, higher resolution texture mapping, and higher screen resolution. Combine this with the specs directly from Sega and Sony's web pages, showing that both systems were capable of similar polygon performance, shows clearly that the Saturn was no slouch in the 3D department either.

The catch is that Sega achieved comparable polygonal performance with the Saturn by including more processors in the Saturn, which made development more difficult at first than it would be on the more simple PS1. In addition to having better developer support from Sony than Sega gave for the Saturn, and better more mature development kits, the PS1 also had built in special effects in the form of transparency and gouraud shading. This allowed the PS1 to generate lightsourcing and transparent special effects or polygons with a minimum hit to the system's polygon performance. Since the Saturn had to generate these effects through sheer processing muscle, developers of Saturn games usually had to lower the resolution to 320x224 in order to program effects similar to those on the Playstation. What this all means is that because the PS1 could just "turn on" light sourcing and transparency, the effects were achieved with uniform results across any game that used them, while the same effects on the Saturn were subject to the quality of the code, written by each individual developer, to display it.

Uniformity is a good thing, the PS1 had that over the Saturn because of its development kits and simple but effective design. Even though some developers were able to achieve comparable or even unique effects in Saturn games, because other games failed to have comparable effects, and some developers chose to release incomplete, buggy, and unoptimized games, the Saturn gained the reputation of not being as "good at" 3D as the Playstation was.

Perception gap

On a side note, but on the topic of public perception and system performance, the specs listed here for the PS1 are taken directly from the Sony web page. Sony had claimed for 5 years that the PS1 could display 500,000 texture mapped gouraud shaded or 1.5 million flat shaded polygons per second (22 + 23), which was never true. Contrast this with the fact that Sega in particular, while being well known for hyping their systems as the "next level" or having "High definition graphics", or even their games as being "arcade perfect", has never falsified their system specs on any console. This fact didn't stop the media from trying to undermine their marketing by making claims that Sega was exaggerating their specs. The same media zenes never questioned Sony's announced specs for either of their consoles, even though both of Sony's system's pre-launch specs were clearly massively exaggerated(24).

In 1995, Developers were happy to achieve 80-90,000 polygons per second in game (27), and gouraud shading those polygons meant only 16-colors or less on the texture maps. Yet, during the same time period game magazines, and developers like Electronic Arts, were publicizing (28) that the Saturn could only do 60,000 polygons per second while the PS1 could do 360,000. The former number was the actual performance of the launch Saturn title Daytona, the later was a theoretical number that the PS1 never achieved. It is, however, these numbers that are emblazoned on the minds of gamers and magazine editors to this day. It is impossible to say how much this false public perception of the performance differences affected the outcome of the 32-bit system wars, but it is undeniable that it was extremely influential.

"Just a 2D system"

Another possible cause for the idea that the Saturn was primarily a 2D game system with moderate 3D capabilities is that there are quite a few 2D games that were made for it, in comparison to the PS1's library. Sony forced developers to make PS1 games exclusively 3D until some years after the Playstation's release. Combine the library differences with a couple of Industry rumors about the President of Sega of Japan deciding the architecture of the Saturn over a golf game with a buddy from Hitachi, and the same President "scrambling" to revamp the Saturn's 3D capabilities immediately after Sony publicized the PS1's specs (mind you, the 500k/1million specs, not the real ones) and you have a theory run wild with speculation that proponents will defend to their deaths. Because of this, and the fact that 3D gaming caught on and completely replaced 2D gaming in this generation, Sony has been credited as the company to bring gaming into 3D.

Pioneering the next generation...

A similar thing happened with a different type of gaming only a couple of years before. Sega released the Sega CD to allow gamers to experience Laserdisc style FMV adventures in the home at typical console prices. Sega even aided Digital Pictures, a company that had experimented with FMV games using VCRs in the 80's, in porting over most of its titles to the Sega CD. The problem most often cited for why this type of game didn't take off is that it was too early. The Sega CD's color palette caused FMV to look murky or grainy. While higher color video was possible later in its life, when Cinepak and Truvideo were written, it was too late in the public and media's mind. With the Sega CD's and FMV style gaming's lack of success behind them, Sega did choose to make the Saturn the ultimate 2D hardware, and to focus heavily on 2D gaming for the Saturn because of it.

Nobody could have predicted that rudimentary 3D games, with graphics that warp, textures that block up when they approach the screen, and color count per texture comparable to the 8-bit NES's color palette, would have completely replaced 2D games with higher color counts, greater animation, and all around better aesthetic value. It wasn't until the Dreamcast and PS2 that 3D games contained a comparable image quality to this generation's 2D games, and 2D games had been the entire video game market since its conception.

Some of the pioneers of polygonal 3D video games in the arcades and on consoles were Atari, with Stun Runner, Hard Drivin' and Race Drivin', Sega with the first polygonal 3D Fighter, Virtua Fighter, Virtua Racing, Virtua Fighter 2, Daytona, Sega Rally, Virtual On, and Virtua Cop in the arcades and at home, and Namco with their Ridge Racer and Tekken series. In addition to those games, LHX Attack Chopper was released by EA on the Genesis in 1992, and StarFox among lesser 3D titles for the SFX chip was released by Nintendo and designed by Argonaught on the SNES in 1993. Sony Imagesoft was the only Sony Videogame department at the time, and they focused primarily on FMV for the Sega CD, and 2D games like Hook.

Relevant Facts and Background

In 1995, Sega was the darling of the Industry and the company most scrutinized by politicians and the media. By Summer of 1998 Sega's winning streak was officially over. In three short years, Sega had turned over its American office's management, which had been present since 1990 and responsible for the success of the Sega Genesis. Sega of America had been placed under direct management by its Japanese office, and given a new figurehead, Bernie Stolar. Bernie Stolar proceeded to aggravate what few loyal developers Sega had in the West, losing Working Designs over a simple Entertainment Expo booth dispute. He was also responsible for the slowing the flow of Japanese RPGs and other localizations to a trickle, and eventually canceling the system over a year before Sega's launch of the Dreamcast in September of 1999. Stolar has also gone on record stating his opinion of the Saturn and its library in a simple but familiar phrase, "it did not have very good games" (1, 5). With a friend like that, the Saturn didn't need any enemies.

Meanwhile, also in 1995 a new company was about to join the fray of game console manufacturers in the United States. This company had worked closely with the former management of Sega of America, with whom they had developed "criteria for what the next optical platform ought to be" (2). When this occurred, prior to 1992, this company had no hardware division for video games and had only one small publishing house responsible for multiplatform ports and FMV titles on the Sega CD like Sewer Shark. When Sega of Japan rejected their plans, they began work on a CD-ROM upgrade for the Super Nintendo (3). Nintendo unceremoniously dumped them at a major Entertainment Expo, announcing that Phillips would instead develop their add-on. Months later this company announced a stand alone system with 3D specs that shocked the Industry, although they were bloated in comparison to the system's actual capabilities (4). This system became the Playstation, and Sony, it's manufacturer, dominated the worldwide markets for over a decade. More can be said on how and why this happened, but the reason was not because of the Playstation's absolute superiority in hardware or software.

Conclusions

Popular opinions and media generated "history" have omitted relevant facts in regard to this generation. The Saturn and Playstation were released within a few months of one another, were at the same price as one another by the time both consoles were on the market, and had similar software release numbers and quality. Both systems were designed and finalized by the middle of 1993, and had similar technical problems to overcome in creating a fully 3D system as a consumer level product. When they launched in Japan by Christmas of 1994, they were both considered cutting edge, and both sold relatively well in relation to one another for several years. As is true in all generations, owning one and not the other meant excluding oneself from many of the best titles of the generation, because most of the best titles each generation are console exclusive.

Ahh the Sega Saturn. It was Sega's first forray into the bright world of 32-bit, and due to some picky U.S. fans...sank like a rock. But why you ask? Read on.....

The Sega Saturn was originally designed to be a 2D system as the succesor to the Sega Genesis. However, once word got to Sony, and the Playstation was in development, the Saturn was quickly updated with a dual 3D coprocessor design. The Saturn was launched in Japan November, 22, 1994 with tremendous success and a huge fanfare. Things looked good for the Saturn. May 1995 Sega had a surprise launch of the Saturn, much to the dismay of U.S. retailers. The Sega Saturn quickly became a household name! Everyone who was anyone wanted one and Panzer Dragoon was a instant classic. Then a couple of weeks later SEGA released it's development kit to U.S developers. The developers were not happy at all. Both revisions of the development systems were buggy,
unreliable, and a pain in the [behind] to program for. Needless to say, games were scarce, GOOD games were rare, and overall the Saturn looked doomed. The death of the Saturn came in 1998, when SEGA released the far superior Dreamcast. OK enough history and now why to buy a Saturn. The Saturn had a bunch of great games, namely SEGA Rally, Virtua Figher 2, Dead Or Alive 2, Baku Baku, Waku Waku 7, Duke Nukem 3D and many more. If you're a RPG nut, Saturn has the wonderful Grandia, and Panzer Dragoon Saga. Duke Nukem 3D is acclaimed the best console port (and not at all censored!) and Dead Or Alive 2? Well ahem.. you figure it out. :)
The Saturn also was the first with NETPLAY thanks to X-Band, and it also had the STUNNER, a light gun with Virtua COP. Also it had Sega Rally, (the ultimate racing game until Gran Turismo)and it even had a port of Gex and Resident Evil! The only thing it didn't have was a (original)Sonic game, that and a fair chance in the console arena. :( At [money] this is a steal, and should be in everyone's collection, if it isn't already.

This system didn't last very long, but in 1995, it was the most powerful one out there. Not only did it have the best graphics, three 32 bit RISC processors (whatever that means, i read it off the box), but it has some pretty awesome games and sound. It plays Sega Saturn games and audio CDs. This is a great system and a must have for anyone who is interested in video games. Why? For games like Nights into Dreams (which I reviewed) and Panzer Dragoon (which im gonna review once I have the scratches taken off of my disc). I also highly reccomend buying the 3D controller. This system is not the best, but it beats many others. So buy it. See for yourself.

The Sega Saturn was orginally planned and concieved as a replacement/update for the 16 bit Genesis system. It was to have the best 2-D graphics of it's day, better than anything Nintendo was workign on. Then, Sony entered the game with the PlayStation which introduced the idea of 3-D console capabilities. Sega decided to change the focus of the Saturn towards a 3-D experience. Therefore the internals of the Saturn were redesigned to accomodate the shift in planning. The system launched before the PlayStation, early 1994 in Japan, and May of 1995 in the U.S. At first intital sales for the console looked pretty good, and going into 1996 the Saturn was out-preforming the PS. The early Saturn days saw some great software such as Panzer Dragoon, Daytona USA, Sonic 3D Blast, and Nights into Dreams. The PlayStation however also had great games, and by the end of 1996 had caught up with Saturn in sales. In 1997 the PS took firm control of the lead with the release of Final Fantasy 7 an amazing game that increased sales of the PS exponentially. While the PS was soaring, the Saturn began declining, the games werent as good, several titles that should have been brought over from Japan were not localized, and the system gradually lost support among 3rd party developers. By mid- 1997 the Saturn began its fall from grace. 1998 saw some of the last great games come out for the system, these included Panzer Dragoon Saga, Shining Force 3 and Burning Rangers. With the annoucement of the Dreamcast, Sega's next-gen console, the Saturn was essentially dead in the U.S. Sega stopped supporting it in the fall of 98'.
All in all you could say the Saturn was a failure. It certainly didnt do well commericaly and it lost Sega a lot of money, though it did have some very good games and if it had been supported correctly, might have had a chance and topping the PS. It had decent system specs, and had some great developers especially from Sega making games for it. The control pad was pretty good as well, better than PS1 IMO. I would recomend getting it, just for the games, though the graphics are very obsolete these days. But IMO it was a good console.

The sega saturn system is so cool I think you should all bye one.
It has memory up to 500mb,CD rom drive,Easy controlls,And can play music CD's. I have one my self.But playstation took over them so they dont make them anymore even the game's. So I bye from ebay and cash-converters. I had to bye a secondhand one and I wish I had a new one. I love sega saturn so much I think it's better than playstation2!

Okay so the origins of Sega Saturn is still up to debate... from everything as it was not supposed to have 3-D to it was supposed to be the ultimate 2-D system... and mere upgrade to the Genesis... to it was Sega's answer to unload it's arcade games (Which were hits at the time and a big deal) for cheaper... to be honest I think there is truth in all those stories... but I'm not sure I put 100% stock into any of them. The bottom line of the matter is Sega released the Saturn in the 32 bit- 64 bit era and it's a great machine. So me being an owner of all 3 of the big systems of that era(Saturn, Playstation, and N64) I'm going on a limb and saying the Saturn may have been the best system of it's time overall.

Disadvantages the Saturn had against Playstation. (Note I'm only comparing the 2 top 32 bit machines here)

Sega... in general was one disadvantage for the Saturn. The company made some bad choices here in America... including an early release to certain stores.. which made other sells outlets angry and pretty much drop Sega's stuff right from the get go (I believe Toys R Us and Wal Mart were 2 such stores though I may be wrong but they did P.O. some big name stores for the time I remember) It also made 3rd party developers mad. In addition there are parts in the hardware that not even Sega managed to take advantage of.

Third Party Developers... Basically the early release combined with the Hardware made 3rd party developers angry... (They said that the system was to hard to make games for)

Basically in the end despite what Sony Frat boys say these two things were the death of the Saturn... (Sega's choices and not as many games being released)

Graphics... Basically since nobody could actually take advantage of the Saturn's Capabilities this led into a lot of third party games (that are 3-D anyway) to look better on the Playstation than the Saturn. (Don't believe me do a side by side comparison with Fox's Croc: Legend of the Gobbos sometime. The Playstation version even the Demo copy I have looks a lot better)

The Advantages Saturn has over the Playstation.

Graphics... This is actually a double edged sword for Saturn because while the 3-D didn't do so well Saturn (On so many games) whooped the Playstation in the 2-D department and considering that a lot of the top arcade hits were 2-D the Saturn delivered the hits(For it's time) You cannot get better translations of Street Fighters or X-Men Children of the Atom and quite a few others.

Loading times.. Once again despite what the Sony frat boys say the Saturn is quicker to load 99.9% of the time and once they load they don't have nearly as much slow down or skipping as any Playstation title.

The ability to read discs... :P literally when I got my Playstation I had a game I played a lot... the game ended up with one scratch... one scratch... My PS decided it couldn't read the disc. Well, I got rid of said Game(Wild Arms) and got another game... but literally if your discs has a scratch or dust or anything what so ever your PS may decide it can't read the disc... or it starts slowing down or skipping a lot... like wise my Saturn discs have some scratches, finger prints and what not and still the system and disc plays like it's brand new... no skipping... no slowdown(Except on one game but from what I read on the reviews of that game it's a problem with all the copies an in game problem if you will).

Reliability.. Basically most Saturn's that were not dropped from some great height or taken a sledge hammer to are most likely still spinning discs today... that's more than I can say for about 75-80% of the originally launched Playstations.

The ability to save a game right from the box... Basically the Saturn featured a battery(Think watch battery) in the back of the system that allowed you to save games... while it didn't have a lot of memory in it and you actually had to buy a back up cart(If you wanted to save more than a few games anyway) it was better than what the Playstation had... (Nothing you had to buy cards for a additional 25 dollars if you wanted to save your games)

Sega... Ahhh hah... you see what happened here... another double edged sword thing... the bottom line of the matter as far as games go... Sega was clearly the better first party.

Okay with that all out of the way... do you want to buy this system.

Yes. If you are a hardcore gamer... it's a must.

Games worth playing:

While there is a lot of great games for the Saturn here are my top picks.

Panzer Dragoon Series(Including Saga) Worth every penny you'll spend on them.

X-Men: Children of the Atom... Hands down the best version of this game. (Actually any Street Fighter Marvel Superheroes and what not are all better here)

Shining Series (Another expensive series of games in which there is 3.. but all are good and you won't be sorry you have them)

Legend of Oasis( A prequel to Beyond Oasis and one of the best 32 bit games ever created... combination of fighter and Zelda games that works)

Virtual Fighter Series(Minus Kids or whatever)

Blazing Heroes... (An often overlooked game that is a Tactics style RPG that is a lot of fun)

Those are just a few of the many great arcade classics found on sega saturn. They have been replicated on other system, but they are poorly not up to arcade standard.

By purchasing a ram card which doubles as a Japanese game converter, you can play classic arcade fighters WITH ZERO SLOW DOWN!!!! I've played a few of the 2-D fighters on sega Dreamcast and I've noticed a little slow down. That's why I still keep my saturn to play old 2-D fighters. You can purchase a Japanese ram card for a very cheap price on auction websites.

There are many other great games which do not require a ram card. Like Virtual Cop parts 1 and 2 where you can shoot bad guys and hear them scream in agony.

There is also an excellent 3-D fighting game named Fighters Megamix. Fighters Megamix takes characters from two separate games, and places them all into one game. With over 25 characters to use, this game is actually better than the Playstation 2 Virtual Fighter 4. Virtual Fighter 4 has only 16 characters.

Ahh the Sega Saturn. It was Sega's first forray into the bright world of 32-bit, and due to some picky U.S. fans...sank like a rock. But why you ask? Read on.....
The Sega Saturn was originally designed to be a 2D system as the succesor to the Sega Genesis. However, once word got to Sony, and the Playstation was in development, the Saturn was quickly updated with a dual 3D coprocessor design. The Saturn was launched in Japan November, 22, 1994 with tremendous success and a huge fanfare. Things looked good for the Saturn. May 1995 Sega had a surprise launch of the Saturn, much to the dismay of U.S. retailers. The Sega Saturn quickly became a household name! Everyone who was anyone wanted one and Panzer Dragoon was a instant classic. Then a couple of weeks later SEGA released it's development kit to U.S developers. The developers were not happy at all. Both revisions of the development systems were buggy,
unreliable, and a pain ...to program for. Needless to say, games were scarce, GOOD games were rare, and overall the Saturn looked doomed. The death of the Saturn came in 1998, when SEGA released the far superior Dreamcast. OK enough history and now why to buy a Saturn. The Saturn had a bunch of great games, namely SEGA Rally, Virtua Figher 2, Dead Or Alive 2, Baku Baku, Waku Waku 7, Duke Nukem 3D and many more. If you're a RPG nut, Saturn has the wonderful Grandia, and Panzer Dragoon Saga. Duke Nukem 3D is acclaimed the best console port (and not at all censored!) and Dead Or Alive 2? Well ahem.. you figure it out. :)
The Saturn also was the first with NETPLAY thanks to X-Band, and it also had the STUNNER, a light gun with Virtua COP. Also it had Sega Rally, (the ultimate racing game until Gran Turismo)and it even had a port of Gex and Resident Evil! The only thing it didn't have was a (original)Sonic game, that and a fair chance in the console arena. :(...this is a steal, and should be in everyone's collection, if it isn't already.