Sega Saturn Love
Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2014 5:55 pm
So who here has a Saturn? When it first came out, I didn't think much of it because Sega management seemed hell-bent on making the console suck. I bought a Playstation instead. It wasn't until around 1997 when I discovered a shmup called Gunbird in the arcade. I played that and Power Instinct 2 that night in the arcade, both distributed by Jaleco. I e-mailed the company and asked their customer relations department if they were ever going to release those two games on the Playstation. The man who replied said that Jaleco only released the coin-op versions of these games in the USA, and that both had already been published by Atlus in Japan. He said that Power Instinct 2 was released on the Playstation in Japan and was not going to be released in the US. He said the same for Gunbird on the Saturn. He told me that if I am into such games, he recommended me to get a Saturn and start importing games for it. He was the first to tell me that the Japanese Saturn is a veritable treasure trove of fantastic 2D games.
Around that time, the game store chain Software Etc (which had been owned by Waldenbooks and was bought out by EB Games and then finally Game Stop, IIRC) had given up on Saturn and started carrying import Saturn games. People were fed up with Sega's lamebrain decisions at the time by keeping all sorts of fantastic games in Japan and assuming that all we cared about were sports games. You could get games like X-Men vs Street Fighter at their store in the mall... for a very expensive price.
In Gilbert, AZ, there is (was?) a store called Game Zone that specialized in imports. There I saw some fantastic games like Elevator Action Returns. In the summer of 1998, They had the Macross: DYRL shmup for only about $20, so I snagged it. I joked with the owner of the store, "Gee, all I need now is a Saturn to play it on!" He asked if I cared to buy one, but I said that I would soon be going to Japan for a month and couldn't afford one. So he offered me a killer deal on a used Saturn, and I ended up buying it, along with an ST-Key cartridge to play imports. Then a bit later when I left for Japan in July, I bought Gunbird and some other Saturn games, such as Puzzle Bobble 3 and Strikers 1945.
Like the SNES, the Saturn was so easy to play imports on! By using a cartridge, you can bypass the region lockout code and play imports. Eventually, after I had lived in Japan for a while, I went ahead and just got a white Japanese Saturn because I only owned a few US games for the console. Several years ago, I gave my black American Saturn to my friend for his birthday as well as some of the games for it.
My most recent Saturn purchase was the controller for Densha De Go. I'd bought the game for only a hundred yen several months back, but I waited until I had the controller to play it. While it is fun, the graphics are pretty terrible. The train tracks flicker off and on, revealing the ground texture instead. The gameplay is good, but unfortunately the port wasn't handled by Taito themselves, but instead Takara (not known for good video game programming). It's pretty fun, if you're a train maniac. I've actually learned the basics of how to control a train, with the throttle and brakes. You get bonus points for sounding the horn before entering tunnels (and crossing bridges, I think). My daughter likes screeching to a sudden stop because a window pops up, showing a woman passenger lose grip of the rings and fall over, legs up. Just keeping with your schedule is demanding enough, let alone bringing the train to a stop right at the mark and not going past it.
So what are your favorite Saturn games and memories? For me, after that first trip to Japan in 1998, I would have my girlfriend (who had been my pen pal before that trip, and later became my wife) buy Saturn games for me. I think it was the summer of 1999 when she sent me some games I'd asked her to buy for me. One was Radiant Silvergun, which she bought for only 3,000 yen in used-but-mint condition! Another was Asuka 120%, a fun all-female fighting game. I had her mail them to my friend's place in San Diego where I was staying for a couple of weeks. My friend and I played those games like crazy that trip. (I used to vist him each summer and we would attend the San Diego Comic Con together).
There's a YouTube channel called Game Sack that covers various retro gaming topics. Their video on the Saturn was pretty great, and their "Left In Japan" series covers some other great Saturn games. If you look up "100 import-only Saturn games in 10 minutes", you can find the video I made.
Around that time, the game store chain Software Etc (which had been owned by Waldenbooks and was bought out by EB Games and then finally Game Stop, IIRC) had given up on Saturn and started carrying import Saturn games. People were fed up with Sega's lamebrain decisions at the time by keeping all sorts of fantastic games in Japan and assuming that all we cared about were sports games. You could get games like X-Men vs Street Fighter at their store in the mall... for a very expensive price.
In Gilbert, AZ, there is (was?) a store called Game Zone that specialized in imports. There I saw some fantastic games like Elevator Action Returns. In the summer of 1998, They had the Macross: DYRL shmup for only about $20, so I snagged it. I joked with the owner of the store, "Gee, all I need now is a Saturn to play it on!" He asked if I cared to buy one, but I said that I would soon be going to Japan for a month and couldn't afford one. So he offered me a killer deal on a used Saturn, and I ended up buying it, along with an ST-Key cartridge to play imports. Then a bit later when I left for Japan in July, I bought Gunbird and some other Saturn games, such as Puzzle Bobble 3 and Strikers 1945.
Like the SNES, the Saturn was so easy to play imports on! By using a cartridge, you can bypass the region lockout code and play imports. Eventually, after I had lived in Japan for a while, I went ahead and just got a white Japanese Saturn because I only owned a few US games for the console. Several years ago, I gave my black American Saturn to my friend for his birthday as well as some of the games for it.
My most recent Saturn purchase was the controller for Densha De Go. I'd bought the game for only a hundred yen several months back, but I waited until I had the controller to play it. While it is fun, the graphics are pretty terrible. The train tracks flicker off and on, revealing the ground texture instead. The gameplay is good, but unfortunately the port wasn't handled by Taito themselves, but instead Takara (not known for good video game programming). It's pretty fun, if you're a train maniac. I've actually learned the basics of how to control a train, with the throttle and brakes. You get bonus points for sounding the horn before entering tunnels (and crossing bridges, I think). My daughter likes screeching to a sudden stop because a window pops up, showing a woman passenger lose grip of the rings and fall over, legs up. Just keeping with your schedule is demanding enough, let alone bringing the train to a stop right at the mark and not going past it.
So what are your favorite Saturn games and memories? For me, after that first trip to Japan in 1998, I would have my girlfriend (who had been my pen pal before that trip, and later became my wife) buy Saturn games for me. I think it was the summer of 1999 when she sent me some games I'd asked her to buy for me. One was Radiant Silvergun, which she bought for only 3,000 yen in used-but-mint condition! Another was Asuka 120%, a fun all-female fighting game. I had her mail them to my friend's place in San Diego where I was staying for a couple of weeks. My friend and I played those games like crazy that trip. (I used to vist him each summer and we would attend the San Diego Comic Con together).
There's a YouTube channel called Game Sack that covers various retro gaming topics. Their video on the Saturn was pretty great, and their "Left In Japan" series covers some other great Saturn games. If you look up "100 import-only Saturn games in 10 minutes", you can find the video I made.