[BFWWIWA] Issue #1 - Sega Saturn
- Thread starter Foxi4
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I'm quite surprised this was never mentioned in the OP, but what is/was the homebrew scene like for the Saturn? Could we burn emulators and roms to a CD and play them via some sort of boot disc? I could do exactly that with my PS2 and SwapMagic, played SNES games without sound. I hear the Dreamcast was a beasly homebrew machine, running Windows CE at it's core. Is this true?
The Saturn's homebrew scene "exists", but it's rudimentary. There's a couple of emulators and games for it out there, but not a whole lot due to the complex architecture. You can easily burn homebrew to discs and boot them as you'd boot any CD-R. I'll try to add a section about it later after I look into what's available.
The Dreamcast was compatible with Windows CE, but it was not embedded and not all games utilized it. It was an odd setup where select games contained a modular Windows CE release, each Windows CE-Powered game would only have the modules it required to function which minimized the strain on the system. This was optional though, you could develop games specifically for the Dreamcast hardware without using the CE core. In other words, you had two devkits to work with - the Windows CE-based one and the native Dreamcast one.
Due to the fact that the Katana SDK was leaked into the depths of the Internet, Dreamcast homebrew is far more numerous, roboust and popular, to the point that the system still gets commercial unlicensed releases to this day.
True, Panzer Dragoon Saga was practically Sega's answer to Final Fantasy VII and it's met with praise all-around each time it's mentioned. Unfortunately, this is more of an overview article than a review one - mentioning each and every notable game on the system isn't really feasible.
Wow, this thread got me thinking about another thing I've always wanted for the Saturn .... an s-video cable. This has always been a difficult thing to find - the official Sega cable AFAIK was never sold outside Japan, and while there are 3rd party cables that work just fine, they're scarce and usually sell for about 5x-10x what they should. Unlike the Gamecube component cable (for example), there's nothing special about an S-video cable for Saturn - there just weren't very many made.
Looks like someone in China decided to respond to the demand ... just ordered one of these for $10 ($6 and $4 shipping, ugh.)
http://www.amazon.com/Retro-Bit-Sega-Saturn-S-Video-Cable/dp/B00FEO58G8/
Same thing's available on ebay. Assuming it works, bargain of the century. If it turns out to be junk, one less trip to McDonald's. I think it's worth taking a chance.
Edit: in other words, darn you Foxi, you just cost me 10 bucks! LOL
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Looks like someone in China decided to respond to the demand ... just ordered one of these for $10 ($6 and $4 shipping, ugh.)
http://www.amazon.com/Retro-Bit-Sega-Saturn-S-Video-Cable/dp/B00FEO58G8/
Same thing's available on ebay. Assuming it works, bargain of the century. If it turns out to be junk, one less trip to McDonald's. I think it's worth taking a chance.
Edit: in other words, darn you Foxi, you just cost me 10 bucks! LOL
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Thanks, this is some juicy info. I have always liked optional and modular systems, it certainly lends flexibility to developers. I'm a hardware junkie, and can't program to save my life. XD
Foxi4
I had forgotten and actually been searching for a fantastic game my parents rented for my Saturn when I was a kid. For years I have been searching for it, but I had forgotten the name.
Thank you for clearing the mystery for me. That game is called Burning Rangers. Finally.
And it is a fantastic game. One the best I ever played actually.
I had forgotten and actually been searching for a fantastic game my parents rented for my Saturn when I was a kid. For years I have been searching for it, but I had forgotten the name.
Thank you for clearing the mystery for me. That game is called Burning Rangers. Finally.
And it is a fantastic game. One the best I ever played actually.
I'm glad that the thread actually spur some interest in the system - you don't get to hear a lot about it anymore these days, which is a shame considering what it has to offer and I'm happy to see that people enjoyed it.
Upon popular demand, I've included a short section about homebrew with two videos showing what the system can do in this regard. After some research, it turns out that the homebrew scene, although very small, is actually pretty active, or at least was. I'll have to dive into it in my spare time, some of the stuff released is quite interesting.
EDIT: Seeing that I can't possibly pack more videos into the OP, I'm going to throw one here:
It's the Game Basic kit I've mentioned in the new Homebrew section and it looks like a lot of fun.
Upon popular demand, I've included a short section about homebrew with two videos showing what the system can do in this regard. After some research, it turns out that the homebrew scene, although very small, is actually pretty active, or at least was. I'll have to dive into it in my spare time, some of the stuff released is quite interesting.
EDIT: Seeing that I can't possibly pack more videos into the OP, I'm going to throw one here:
It's the Game Basic kit I've mentioned in the new Homebrew section and it looks like a lot of fun.
If all goes well, this sort of thing is going to be a monthly feature posted whenever gaming news slow down to keep things spicy.Fascinating. I mean, it's everything a person would want to know about the Saturn. And I'd be even more thrilled if you wrote an article describing all the games for the system.
As far as a Saturn Essentials list, you can find one here - even though it's aged, it features plenty of notable Saturn titles. Also thanks, I'll keep on doing my best to entertain the community. 
That's funny. In Phantasy Star Online 2 there is a Emergency Quest where the theme song of Burning Rangers runs in the background. It's a Catchy song! I've set it up in my ingame room to play the whole time.
And yeah the quest has something to do with fire.
Generally you discover so much Sega stuff in Phantasy star Online 2, it's gorgeous!
Just look at this list full of music they imported to this game: http://pso2.cirnopedia.info/room_03.php#nav
That's debatable, backwards compatibility doesn't make or break a system, especially when everybody and their dog already own the previous one.
I'll have to agree with Magnus87 though.
I mean, it probably wouldn't have SAVED the Saturn anyways, but it would have helped out immensely with its sales.
Wouldn't be the first time that backward compatibility is the decisive feature, to make me buy a gaming system. Regardless of having the original system or not.
I just got one recently. I remember when it came out, my dad's friends son had it and he was so adamant that it was better than our Playstation because it has multiple processors.
I always viewed the Saturn like the Jaguar. It was ahead of it's time and far too expensive for the commoner.
I always viewed the Saturn like the Jaguar. It was ahead of it's time and far too expensive for the commoner.
Well, at the time, for me it was mostly a problem with the fact that I was still a young brat and perma-broke.Why wouldn't you want a Sega Saturn
Looking back now? I know that if I go down the path and manage to buy a Saturn, I know I am going to want at least a 5-in-1 cart for it, and a modchip with multi-region BIOS installed, either pre-mod or installed myself. Why? most of the games I would want the system for weren't always released here in the states, even though most would be. Notable imports would be the Saturn versions of stuff like X-Men vs. SF and MSH vs SF. Heck, if I could I would even try to get that MPEG card and see if it would work on a US console. It's only too bad that its only real networking option was the ridiculously priced NetLink modem, which was limited to 28.8Kbps... if it at least had a LAN adapter like the dreamcast available, it might have even been possible for some kind of net-booting option of games, too. As it is now, I seriously doubt the dial-up modem available to the system would have the requisite bandwidth.
Maybe. But backward compatibility is a fairly recent thing in the video game market (and not necessarily a 100% good thing). Nothing had backward compatibility back then, and nobody expected it. I guess you could say the MD/Genesis had backward compatibility with the Master System, but that was only if you bought the separate peripheral pass-through thingie. Nintendo wasn't doing backward compatibility at all, and Sony wasn't quite yet even in the picture yet. I'm not saying you're wrong, because if the Saturn had backward compatibility with the MD/Genesis and/or SMS, it would have been a major HOLY SHIT! moment for all of us back then. The idea didn't really catch on as "normal and to be expected" until the 2nd gen of optical media consoles came out.
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It's funny how developers are able to overcome any difficulties now, and back then they would just choose the easy way of sticking with one processor, or would abandon the platform altogether. Both PlayStation 2 and 3 were supposedly difficult to code for, but the platforms were so immensely popular, developers would just put in the extra hours and figure things out. Naughty Dog didn't even bother with Sony's tools for the PS3 and built their own. From scratch. And no one is to say Uncharted didn't turn out good.
People tend to blame Saturn's architecture a lot, but it was really the architecture combined with the reality of the '90s. It's not that Saturn couldn't produce PlayStation quality games, it's the developers who couldn't be bothered, especially later on, when the profit wouldn't match the amount of work required. Looking back at the early PlayStation games, they didn't outclass Saturn titles. People always focus on Gran Turismo, Tekken 3, Metal Gear and other games that came much later, and by that time, there was no major developer interested in producing quality 3D on the Saturn.
In the case of Naughty dog, they are a second party dev... meaning they were on Sony's bankroll anyway, and had far stronger access to Sony's resources for support than say... Capcom or VALVe.
It is well known that Sony SDK's - especially at launch - are terrible. It is only because Sony managed to move enough systems that they were otherwise forced to adapt when there were clearly better alternatives.
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