Reloaded was the Sequel to the Gremlin's titles Loaded on PS1, PC & Saturn. The sequel was never released on the Saturn but there was an official demo. While the game is clearly at an early stage it's still interesting to see the Saturn version. It was released on a Gremlin Demo Disc and also labelled as Saturn Power No.2: https://www.satakore.com/sega-saturn-demo,,T-12313H-50,,Saturn-Power-N-.-2-EUR.html This video is from the Saturn Power No.2 version of the disc and recorded at 1080p for high quality. I've no idea how finished the Saturn version was when it was canned, but maybe one days we will get to see the final Saturn build.
Yeah it's one of those games I'd love to know how far it got before it was canned, as someone who used to work in the industry I'm debating if it's time I started reaching out to some of my contacts to help try and preserve some of these now long axed Saturn game 20 years plus. That's if the code or any build of the game remains. I know it was confirmed in an interview that Blood Omen Legacy of Kain was completed on Saturn but the developer couldn't get a publisher so axed the finished port. As a little off topic also uploaded a HD video of the official Fighting Force video on Saturn Power No.1 as well.
Since the editorial team at the UK's official Sega Saturn Magazine took delivery of what they later described as a review copy, it's safe to say Reloaded was fully completed for the console (along with other similarly cancelled titles including Chill, Adidas Power Soccer and the aforementioned Blood Omen: Legacy Of Kain, which even received its own print advertisement in the US). Although it's been a while, I do remember one detail being that Reloaded on the Saturn allegedly suffered from quite bad slowdown in placed compared to its predecessor, with this more due to the conversion team looking to rush their product out before its intended host platform was deemed no longer viable by management rather than any technical shortcomings.
It's funny how many companies dumped Saturn projects around the 1996-1997 period. I remember Shiny showing Wild 9's earliest showing the Saturn version of the game, which ended up canceled.
You make a lot of assumptions in there, best to take what SSM said with a pinch of salt, unless we can see the code for said copy of the game in action. They may have just being talking about the demo, it was well known magazines in the 90s would do some nasty tricks to try and get one over the competition, reviewing demos was one such trick. Unless I hear from the SSM team directly I'll keep an open mind. There are a lot of suspected canned western Saturn games from the era, as many publishers wouldn't even publish quick ports, which makes me wonder if Sony did a deal or other dirty tricks to block Saturn releases, to encourage users to buy PlayStation consoles.
I think the canceled Saturn ports had more to do with the system's shrinking base, at least among US developers. Shiny's president said that they'd canceled Wild 9 for the Saturn partly because Sega hadn't dropped the console's price to match the PlayStation and Nintendo 64. Even Capcom gave up on the Saturn in the West by 1998, though they kept supporting it in Japan.
Although he didn't specifically mention Reloaded (probably because he wasn't directly asked about this particular game), former SSM editor Richard Leadbetter confirmed during an interview with the Sega Saturn UK website that his team reviewed quite a few titles completed then cancelled at the last minute for similar reasons, including the aforementioned Chill and Fighting Force. On the subject of Reloaded, a normally reliable prototype collector once told me that both this and Adidas Power Soccer were out there in safe hands along with a fascinating pre-alpha build of a released game they were able to describe in great detail. Unfortunately, they're not at liberty to share the contents of such a disc as a result of how it was obtained, though I was sent a screenshot to help verify its existence... Without saying too much, it's a later period AM conversion at such a preliminary stage of its development that AI opponents had still yet to be implemented, plus your own "character" model lacked texture mapping. Believe me, it's amazing what people have been preserving all these years - just look at how long it took Resident Evil 1.5 to surface after many presumed that was destined to never see the light of day! P.S. I forgot that the short-lived Saturn Power also received a final test copy of Reloaded, which they briefly advertised as something they'd be giving away in a subscription offer, as confirmed via an interview previously discussed on this very forum: http://assemblergames.com/l/threads/reloaded-saturn-info-anyone.33492/#post-504299
I still have all the Saturn Power magazine they make a good read with SSM as you can see all the fighting between the two magazine. So they certainly got a more complete build, might not be a final build however. Chill was another game I remember last night as I still have the SSM preview as was Olympics Games. (Which got reviewed and never released, some debate about if the PS1 code was reviewed or not) Safe hands means nothing if the build isn't archive and stored on the internet, as a developer once told me if it's not public, one house fire later and its all gone, the more public it is the better. Still usually one or two of the development team keep hold of a copy for most games. Without a secure archive facility we will end up losing a lot of this stuff in the long run, which is what I fear.
I'd rather not say too much (because I don't know if the owner of this prototype wants to deal with requests for them to share it), but the conversion was done by CRI, if that's enough of a clue...
I was a huge fan of SSM and felt they were always pretty reliable. I remember in one of the latter issues they mentioned a 'Drivers Megamix' conversion, similar to how Fighters Megamix was a blend of VF2 and Fighting Vipers they speculated it was to be a mix of the first party driving games released for the Saturn. Not sure how that would have worked in practice . I don't think I've ever heard anything about it other than through SSM, anyone else recall it?
The reason Drivers Megamix was only covered in SSM is because of that being something of an EMAP tradition to print "exclusive" stories every April, if you get what I mean. Stablemate magazine C&VG also printed a few infamous examples, like the code that supposedly allowed you to play as a naked Lara Croft. Ironically, the so-called Nude Raider patch later became a fan-made reality, while the Saturn conversion of Sega Touring Car went on to include both immediately playable cars from its predecessor Sega Rally as hidden extras, so you could argue that Drivers Megamix saw the light of day in some form. Later, we got the SCUD Race and Daytona USA 2 courses in the Xbox port of OutRun 2, though an actual Drivers Megamix would have been welcome... Indeed, there's no reason why Sega still couldn't give us such a thing if licensing issues prevent the upcoming Daytona sequel from being released on home systems!
According to Sega Retro's article on the CSK Research Institute, they only ever produced four Saturn titles, with just one of these - Cyber Troopers Virtual On - being an AM conversion, yet they're named in both the actual credits for this mystery fifth game and its own page at the same website (along with the equivalent Satakore entry). How curious...
