Sega Saturn seems headed to the worthless pile

Each to their own I guess. Magic Knight was one if the first Saturn games in development to be fair. I have video footage on a VHS tape from a very early bulid running on what seems to be a windows OS. At that satge the game had no audio and was nothing more than a few map screens.

 

I don't think Fighting Vipers looks terrible. It doesn't look as good as the arcade, but not bad. You're also forgetting games like Virtua Fighter 2, Fighters Megamix, Street Fighter Alpha/Zero, Panzer Dragoon 1 and Zwei, and the Sega AGES series, just to name a few - and those were all released internationally.

But I agree with you on one point; you're better off buying Japanese games/systems.

 

That was something about MKR that I always found odd. I remember hearing about the game shortly after getting my Saturn in 1995. Flash forward several years and it's the last game ever released in the US. It seemed like the game was perpetually coming. I guess years of expectation kinda left a bad taste in my mouth. I was craving something like Zelda on the Saturn at the time, and I hoped MKR would scratch that itch.

Luckily, the system is also home to Legend of Oasis, aka Story of Thor 2. Terrific game that gave me exactly what I was looking for.

FWIW, I totally agree with you about the US Dub of MKR. My japanese is rusty, but it's good enough to get through a standard RPG. I would definitely play the original version over the US version if I ever replayed the game, because the dub was atrocious.

 

There is truth in those words. The crap to gem ratio for the Saturn is strong over here. Sport games or pack in titles are usually the order of the day when you find games and the cases are usually trashed. Not a fun system to hunt for. TG-16 or 3DO are the only ones that are worse.

 

I honestly don't see your point. Saturn had always been an importer's console, hence the humble domestic (US/PAL) success and the big hustle in Japan. In Japan it's easy and cheap to get very good games, even nowadays.

 

Yeah, that is exactly what it is, all Rayearth games are crap for one reason or another except for the Super Famicom one, the game gear one is the worst. The Saturn version didn't have to be bad, the problem was more due to it being a near launch title and being a cash in, Working Designs should have never translated this one, the partially missing source files should have told them that, they also had to change the names of several characters due to not being able to license them. How the hell they got the license to the game but not the characters is beyond me. I still don't understand how this game wormed it's way into the 3rd most expensive slot. BTW I am a big fan of the anime searched for this for 5 years before finding it on Ebay... when it was worth about $30

 

Yes. Also, the Japanese releases always had much better cover art - no surprise there. By comparison, the US Saturn cases and cover art look like shit. Though I remember at the time thinking they looked really cool. I never had a Saturn when they were still making them. I actually sort of wanted a Saturn, but it was way too expensive when it first came out. By the time prices of 32-bit generation consoles had lowered a bit, I was more interested in the PSX and N64.

 

Also, one of the best online stores ran by a guy named Yakumo stopped trading. I miss your Saturn store many titles I couldn't get or were expensive on eBay I was able to buy from you.

 

Saturn stuff may be cheap and readily available in Japan where it was sucessful but it's not the case here in the US. It's the same for any console, where if it bombs and fails it becomes expensive and harder to find later on. Even the expensive games have risen in price in the past few years, like PDS (around $250 then to around $400 now) or Saturn Bomberman (around $40 then to around $100 now).

 

The original VF seems to be rarer than VFR. I always see the latter. Not always the former.

 

And just to add my two pennies here another reason i blame on the Saturn not being a tread anymore because lack of Translators not highly interested enough on the Japanese exclusives and instead wacking their ding-a-lings all over Famicom & Super Famicom games all the freaking time! (which i personally don't mind SFC games being Fan translated really) and not enough Mega Drive, Saturn & Dreamcast titles :/ such a huge downer imho.

 

it's all them generic craptastic samey jrpgs they seem to love and fap over constantly. they're all a big load of "meh"

 

Translating Sega Saturn games is no doubt a bit harder than Famicom and Super Famicom titles. I would like to see numerous Saturn titles translated too. Maybe someday.

 

This is good news for me If it's cheap it means I can buy more accessories and games (instead of pirating more)!
I've dreamed of having a saturn ever since I first saw the spacy tv-commercial in Russia back in the nineties. But then it was also space-like expensive. I haven't really had a good opportunity to buy one for several reasons but I'll definitely buy it some day!

 

Well though at least Princess Crown is getting a English Translation soon finally! but other than that so far not many other, I guess it's hard to say and face that the translators are all Nintendo Fanboys from what i see & not many Sega Fanboys True it's hard but at least can they try if had enough members & hackers who know how to extract Saturn ISOs files or software made for doing it! P.S Do anyone like Japanese text adventure games? cuz i'm interested

 

I'd love to know where I can get a Saturn core system (w/ hookups) for less than $40 shipped!

I really miss my old model 1 I got in high school...nothing beats buying a handful of japanese saturn games for dirt cheap on ebay and getting them delivered on the same day. It's better than christmas!

 

Two things. First, even if many of the good games didn't get imported originally, there's still a lot of mainstream Saturn titles. Games like Virtua Fighter 2 and Daytona were fixed and re-released by SEGA. Even the mediocre games are $20, $30 nowadays. Is the Saturn and its games *that* rare in US/Canada? Is the demand so high that the prices are therefore very high? Honestly I don't think so, I just think that the only people wanting them are the hardcore collectors, similar to TG-16.

Second thing, I agree the Japanese games have much better cases/artwork, being just a normal CD case they are easy to store as well. You don't really need a Japanese system though, as there are several inexpensive methods for playing JPN games on a US Saturn.

 

I was surprised to find out the memory card plus that came with my first Saturn system actually enabled you to boot Japanese games. Very handy as long as you aren't trying to play any RAM Expansion games.

 

Seriously, why isn't there a Segagaga translation patch yet for dreamcast?