Saturn Shen-Mue & other unreleased Saturn talk

Are you saying that a copy of Shenmue in its 32-bit guise might be in the hands of a collector? I was under the impression AM2 had incredibly good security, and that the leak of Propeller Arena was a one-off. This might have destroyed my faith in their ability to keep cancelled games locked away, but on the other hand it also means I can remain faithful that my own personal holy grail - Saturn Virtua Fighter 3 - will see the light of day... hopefully sooner rather than later, as I really want to know if it could possibly have surpassed the previous console conversion in this series!

I'm not really sure how developers were able to utilise the Saturn's audio processor while still maintaining sound in their games, but several later titles managed to achieve this very feat. Either there wasn't any sound completed when Shenmue was still a Saturn project or somebody at AM2 decided not to feature it in the only video footage available, so we can't tell for sure how this game would have got around what I presume was a major issue. Then again, has anybody noticed the number of leftover tracks in the Dreamcast version or the Shenmue-like track in Fighters Megamix? That game also "recycled" the desert stage from Saturn VF3 Revision 1, and I use such a word loosely because this particular build lacked true 3D backgrounds - these were supposedly reintroduced for the later update, as it took advantage of further development time and new techniques (possibly involving the sound chip).

Anyway, one thing I know for sure is that AM2 were at the absolute cutting edge when it came to pushing the Saturn's performance levels way beyond a certain rival product. With just a little extra marketing, a few months of patience and maybe a year's delay to the Dreamcast launch (in order to allow its key first generation titles a bit more time in the proverbial oven), Sega could have given its underrated 32-bit system a fantastic send-off. Instead, we're left clutching at straws and discussing what might have been. When this once great company finally gives up the ghost, I recommend it uses that last phrase as its epitaph...

P.S. I've been reliably informed that "Shenmue Saturn Version" probably never made it onto a disc, and in all likeliness it's being stored somewhere within AM2's headquarters on magnetic storage tape. Of course, if Yu Suzuki himself confirmed that the video was taken from the game running on a stock Saturn then obviously a prototype disc may just exist after all - could this be further proof that more was done to the game after its initial cancellation for this specific platform, as has been rumoured in the past? How I'd love to get my hands on that tape/disc/whatever!

 

If we're mentioning Virtua Fighter 3 here, I have two screenshots [somewhere] that show something that could have been the Sega Saturn version of the game. Each of the screenshots presents a portion of the background. Pai's rooftop and Lion's stage. The screens show low resolution textures with no additional post processing effects. Polygon count also seems like something a Saturn could handle. If Soul Edge for PlayStation could manage 3D backgrounds, detailed characters and smooth animation, with enough good coding, Sega's console could do it too.

I'll post the screens as soon as I can find them [at work at the time. I have them at home somewhere on one of the CDs].

 

Aparently from google searching the article that talks about saturn shenmue being in the hands of someone is the article about "Us" actually.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/45/39

"Until the day that companies realise that people are interested in these games and would love to see them, archiving such information and media will remain a relatively underground task." And so, I assure everyone I won't mention that people are playing Shenmue on the Saturn, Robotech on the N64, or running the halls of Biohazard 1.5."

Not really a smoking gun is it.

 

The Saturn has 2 sound units on a single die, one of which is a standard-issue M68k variant. It controls the SCSP, which I know less about, but I'm pretty sure it's got some kind of DSP in there.

Regardless, with tight enough code a single CPU can be used for many purposes, processing sound is just one of these. The SNES SPU (SPC 7000) was used to do more general calculations (by Rare I believe).

 

I just checked out the aritcal too. Though I think the person speaking was giving examples of stuff only certain people are probably playing. However doug opus who worked on robotech publicly released the beta on his website.

 

x

 

If that footage of Shenmue running on the Saturn really was sourced from a disc in a stock system, it's not too hard to see where people may have started getting confused. After all, the video shows elements from what later became the first (and only) two chapters of the series in its Dreamcast form, so if you presume the remaining fourteen episodes were spread as equally this may be where the eight-disc rumour came from.

However, my reason for thinking this may not be correct is the suggestion by none other than Yu Suzuki himself that a proper second chapter - based on Ryo's travels from Japan to Hong Kong - was intended to be referenced in later games yet never actually seen... although considering how much even his overall vision for the story was changed over the development of Virtua Fighter RPG/Akira's Quest/Project Berkeley/Shenmue, perhaps at one point this was meant to be experienced?

Damn, it's all far too confusing!

If anything, the leak of something from the project's 32-bit days (presuming there is something out there after all) may reveal answers to our questions regarding any use of the sound chip. I'm only speculating here, but since AM2 didn't adopt the ADX format until on the Dreamcast it's reasonable to assume they were still using Redbook or chip-generated tracks. On that subject, I once read somewhere that Saturn VF3 had all of its audio - including all of the music, character speech and impact effects - streamed from disc into memory. Surely if the Saturn's audio processor was handling the polygonal backgrounds, where did the sound get stored? Are there any other "redundant" caches that would have been useful, or can we safely conclude that somebody has once again confused the actual DSP and SCU?

This is getting excessively technical for me!

To bring some closure to at least one of the many subjects running through this thread, does anyone know for sure if Burning Rangers or Panzer Dragoon Saga used the DSP or SCU? According to former STI member Chris Coffin, Sonic X-Treme (the "Project Condor" version, that is - more unwanted baffling terms for the uninitiated!) used the sound chip for processing better transparencies than just the usual fake/dithered effect most programmers favoured and it's suggested that NiGHTS also featured a similar method, though not exclusively for alpha blending (that is the term, right?)...

I really need to give my brain a rest!

 

Just a quick point to let you know that Some later Saturn games do indee use the ADX sound format as well as an earlier version of CRI'S MPEG SOFDEC.

Yakumo

 

Grandia Prelude uses ADX compression [booted it up yesterday]. Segata Sanshiro and Wachenröder use it aswell I think. Or one of them at least. I'm not sure about the SofDec though. Which games used that?

 

Chisako Moritaka Media disc used MPEG SOFDEC and so does Vatlva and two of the Sakura Taisen discs. There are also probably more. All of those titles also make use of the MPEG cartridge for even better full screen FMV. Gungriffon and other titles such as Wangan Dead Heat that use the MPEG cartridge use normal PC style MPEG.

Yakumo

 

x

 

As for Sega Saturn -> DreamCast and the software "recycling", years back I poked around Unreal Tournament's binaries and found "Sega Saturn" come up more than once in the main executables I think. I posted the screens from hex editor containing the text, but I couldn't find it now.

It's not that hard to find if you want to check it out for yourself. I have no idea what Sega Saturn code they used in Unreal Tournament for DreamCast though.

 

There were many Dreamcast games that started off life as Saturn productions, including Rez (formerly known as Kandinsky Project) and Sonic Adventure, which even contains some programming code native to the 32-bit platform - but please don't quote me on that as I'm only recycling what I've been told in the past. Of course, you should all know by now that Sonic Team got quite far into the development process of its own Saturn project, with elements forming the Sonic World portion of the Jam compilation. However, try not to become too confused between this and Sonic X-Treme, as that game's creation is already more than complicated enough - just look at the "Project Condor" and Chris Senn/Ofer Alon-produced versions, made independently by two separate units within Sega Technical Institute.

P.S. Burning Rangers and Deep Fear both used the ADX format, though I should just point out that no genuine screenshots from Saturn Virtua Fighter 3 are known to exist. In fact, the four images supposedly from its final, second revision that were printed as part of a brochure given out by Sega at its stand during the Tokyo Game Show in 1998 were actually taken from the original Model 3 arcade version... and that wasn't even the final build, which is why some have mistaken the downscaled graphics for a Saturn conversion in the past! If anything, I expect it would have looked rather similar to how VF3 currently appears when emulated, although probably not at the same resolution or frame rate.

 

I always wondered why there was no game that used the brilliant Sonic Jam engine. It seemed a waste, to use this kind of engine just to create "menu" of sorts.

As for Virtua Fighter 3 Saturn, I'll post the screens and you can see for yourself and say what you think. I'll dig them up over the weekend. As far as I remember, they were about 640 x 480. They might have come from an early build, or may have come from the Saturn version. Who knows. They're just screens.

 

where can i read that "Chris Coffin" info?

 

x

 

I'm not entirely ruling out the existence of genuine screenshots from the Saturn version of Virtua Fighter 3, but I have many 640x480 images of the Dreamcast prototype (as shown at the second New Challenge conference) that look so rough they could easily be mistaken for the game in its previously unseen 32-bit guise. Based on what I've been able to find out, both revisions of Saturn VF3 ran in the system's standard 320x224 resolution at 30fps. In fact, the only major difference from the first complete build is an increased polygon count, which allegedly reached in excess of 750,000 per second - considerably more than a stock console's official maximum specification and nearly as good as the Model 3 arcade board! For comparison purposes, it's been rumoured that "Shenmue" was pushing somewhere closer to 1m polygons a second, albeit with a drastically lower rate of between 12 and 15fps. Does anybody know what performance levels Panzer Dragoon Saga was able to manage, as that seems the closest visually to these unreleased titles?

P.S. Somebody just let me know if you want those pictures uploading...

 

I have never seen the two builds of the Saturn VF3. The DC ones you speak of also sound interesting, so feel free to post them or else (j/k)

Azel PD: RPG (SAGA) should be at the 20-25 rate to my belief, although i have long since i last set my eyes on that masterpiece

 

I'll post those screenshots from the 80% complete version of Virtua Fighter 3tb on the Dreamcast tomorrow, along with early (in other words, very VERY rough-looking) pictures from Sega Rally 2, Sonic Adventure, Metropolis Street Racer and Geist Force as well - providing anyone is interested, that is!

I've never actually seen either of the two supposed revisions of Saturn Virtua Fighter 3 (or heard of anybody who has witnessed them with their own eyes), but they were once described in some detail on a forum that has long since disappeared. From what I can remember, here are the basic facts:

VF3 Revision 1 (not its actual title, by the way) was completed on 8th July 1998 and rejected by Sega due to the upcoming release of Genki's version for the Dreamcast. This build apparently lacked any 3D backgrounds and was similar visually to the elements of VF3 that made it into Fighters Megamix, with alternating models used for in-game sequences and winning poses. Running in the Saturn's basic 320x224 display mode, VF3 R1 moved 500,000 polygons at 30 frames per second.

Undeterred by their previous effort's rejection and worried that Genki's 128-bit work might not be up to AM2 standard, Yu Suzuki and his team retreated back to their studio and gave Revision 1 of Saturn Virtua Fighter 3 a serious update. The result, known - not too surprisingly - as Revision 2, was once again turned down just days before the game had been scheduled for pressing in advance of a release on 5th September 1998. As with the previous revision and contrary to rumours at the time, it did not require any form of hardware upgrade.

In fact, AM2 had managed not only to re-intergrate the polygonal terrain and backgrounds (albeit without much of the detail seen in the Model 3 original) but had found a way of utilising the Saturn's SCU DSP to increase their product's final geometry rate to 750,000 polygons per second, which definitely isn't bad for a system that was only supposed to have moderate 3D capabilities! According to those in the know, AM2 had also managed to get a PAL version up and running in this short time, though whether a simultaneous Japan/Europe release was actually on the cards is still unknown for sure.

As a direct result of my own previous investigations, I have managed to put a few rumours about this game to their proverbial beds. For example, it was suggested that the UK official Sega Saturn Magazine had negotiated with Sega of Europe to include the full version of Saturn VF3 R2 as a cover disc on a special final issue, dedicated entirely to this game with a world-exclusive review, players' guide and AM2 interview, plus a showcase looking at its troubled development (presumably including as much about the non-appearance of the mysterious upgrade cartridge so often linked with VF3 in its Saturn form). Keeping with SSM, they were also supposed to have seen the final build in action backstage during the 1998 Tokyo Game Show, but once more this turned out to be completely false - unless you conspiracy theorists believe the former staff members are still under some type of gagging order...

Finally, there was a brief mention of Saturn VF3 (or just VF3 as it was listed back then - that was before AM2 wanted to differentiate their product from what they felt was an inferior Dreamcast game) on a release table on Sega of Japan's site with 5th May 1998 set as its date. Since it has already been claimed that even the first revision was still under development at this point, it's safe to say the reason that date vanished so quickly is because somebody within Sega knew it would be impossible to meet that deadline. The last mystery concerning VF3 R2 is the fact that a final copy was indeed sent for pressing, only to be recalled later once Sega decided a 32-bit version may harm sales of Genki's Dreamcast treatment. Where is this? Probably in the same hands as the person with Shenmue Saturn Version or safely locked back up in the AM2 vault along with the completed port of Sonic The Fighters - another game "sampled" in Fighters Megamix and ironically also briefly given the same initial release date as VF3!

P.S. Sorry for writing so much, but it's best I share what I know just in case somebody here can elaborate on or even disprove much of it!

 

was there a home port completed ?