Why I love... The Sega Saturn

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There was a choice to be made in the year 1994 and Sega or Sony was it, the new kid on the block and the ex-new kid on the block. In the years leading up to the birth of the true 32-bit era (the Amiga CD32 doesn’t count) the world’s largest video game home console companies made many mistakes. Thanks to Nintendo’s reluctance to enter the CD-ROM market earlier in the decade they inadvertently created the monster that would become the PlayStation brand. Sega blundered their way through a series of peripherals for the Megadrive/Genesis in an attempt to ward off the upcoming 3DO, CDI, and the blooming PC-CD-ROM scene. This only really succeeded in confusing and damaging the trust of their current user base when finally their true 32-bit successor was released.

However, Sega’s biggest mistake would be their reluctance to anticipate the blooming 3D polygon market. The Sega Saturn was at first a 2D-focused console and upon the news of the super-powered Sony PlayStation, Sega haphazardly implemented 3D chips into its motherboard. I’ve read stories of how the machine operated like two different systems at once and struggling developers were forced to learn to utilize its two processors and the many chips to harness the power of the console. Sadly, it is this very architecture that would hinder the system throughout its lifespan, so much so that even executives within Sega denounced its technology.

In an attempt to halt Sony’s growing momentum, Sega released the Saturn several months earlier than originally announced at the price of £400 with pack-in Virtua Fighter. This was expensive and one of many reasons why early adopters waited for the PlayStation after Sony slyly announced their console would be £100 cheaper (minus a pack-in title). The launch window of games for the Saturn did not help either. Many third-party releases were not on the shelves from day one because of the suddenly shifted release date. I remember Virtua Fighter, Daytona USA and Clockwork Knight being the only launch titles, and the two arcade ports were incredibly choppy and visibly rushed to meet the street date. I was initially blown away by the sight of these two arcade stalwarts on a home system, but when the PlayStation appeared in Keddies of Southend soon after, sporting its excellent conversion of Ridge Racer and (the actually rubbish but great looking at the time) Battle Arena Toshinden, the difference in graphical horsepower was instantly apparent. Furthermore, only a select few retailers in America were stocked by Sega for the release date meaning outlets such as Walmart, Best Buy and KB Toys were left out. KB Toys would even refuse to stock further Sega products, hurting the appearance of the Saturn even more.

Sounds like a depressing story doesn’t it? Going from slaying the dragon (Nintendo) in Europe to being beaten at the starting line by Sony, Sega was in trouble. However, what the Saturn lacked in mainstream success, in retrospect, it more than made up for with a quirky and interesting catalogue with some excellent titles. As I mentioned earlier, the frustrating hardware forced developers to be creative and some truly unique games were born out of this. Panzer Dragoon was the first of these and wowed all onlookers in my local game stores with its unique setting, stunning music and movie-quality CGI cutscenes. Reviews at the time were staggeringly positive, lauding the quality of its story and the fact that for a change, a game with so much video had the gameplay to back it up.

There were naysayers, of course. The playground console wars continued from the 16-bit era and many PlayStation owners mocked the Saturn for its rubbish 3D rendering despite the beauty of Panzer Dragoon. It took Sega Rally and Virtua Fighter 2 to finally shut everyone up. Both conversions were stunning, with Virtua Fighter 2 particularly looking incredibly smooth. Tekken may well have been the more successful of the original 3D fighting game franchises in Europe but the secret was out. The Saturn could do 3D and do it quite well, just with a bit of hard work.

And here is what killed the Saturn. The hard work. Many developers shunned the system and opted instead for Sony’s fancy, trendy and more user-friendly rival. The third-party support soon began to dry up. Before the release of Sega Rally and Virtua Fighter 2, Sega attempted to appease their fans for the lacklustre conversions of Virtua Fighter and Daytona by releasing new, improved versions in Daytona USA Championship Circuit Edition and Virtua Fighter Remix. With superior titles on the horizon, the impact of both games was minimal. Sony’s marketing campaign was so strong, in television and magazines, that it made the Saturn look like an uncool, ugly brat stuck in the corner of the playground. Curiously, the company’s primary mascot was mostly absent from thanks to the cancellation of Sonic Extreme, the touted first foray into 3D for the hedgehog. Fans were left with just a hint of what a Sega Saturn 3D Sonic game would be like in the overworld of 16-bit compilation Sonic Jam and were forced to make do with an enhanced port of the isometric Megadrive game Sonic 3D and racing game Sonic R. During a period when many developers were transitioning from 2D to 3D, the difficulty in moving from generation to generation is understandable and yet Sega’s lack of foresight is, sadly, unforgivable.

Funnily enough, certain PlayStation games began to appear on the Saturn. Die-Hard Trilogy, Destruction Derby, and Wipeout were all converted much to the pleasure of the core Saturn audience. But when the Nintendo 64 finally hit the shelves, Sega was left with a paltry 9% of the market share and began to look towards its next console and make another series of mistakes. Both the Saturn and the Dreamcast were home to a slew of excellent arcade conversions which were always improved over their previous iterations in the arcade. The problem was that arcades were dying in the late 90’s and console gaming was becoming more involved. Arcades and credit-based fifteen minutes of fun were yesterday’s news and sprawling epics were the new trend with the likes of Grand Theft Auto, the mass market release of Final Fantasy 7 and Metal Gear Solid. Nobody cared about Sega’s port of Touring Car or Manx TT Superbike.

So where around the fence do I stand? At the time I was a proud PlayStation owner who was very happy with Tekken and whatnot. But every so often, out there, over that fence in the pages of C&VG, Sega would make me insanely jealous. Their ports of 2D fighting games were superior to the Playstation’s own. Street Fighter Alpha 2 and Marvel Super Heroes had me foaming at the mouth. Panzer Dragoon Zwei, Nights into Dreams, Fighters Megamix, and Burning Rangers were all incredibly interesting console exclusives that I always wanted to try. I wanted to own a Sega Saturn so much but with the limited income of a fourteen-year-old, it was impossible. The PlayStation, with its massive library, simply was the better choice. I don’t even think I knew anyone who owned a Saturn. If they did, they likely traded it in.

Meanwhile, the Japanese market saw many Saturn games that never made it to the rest of the world. Many games were released in small quantities in the UK and US and because of that, now reach ferociously extortionate prices for collectors, despite their NTSC Japanese releases asking acceptable prices for the most part. The system sold far better in Japan than anywhere else, probably thanks to Segata Sanshiro, the closest the system got to having a mascot. The ads were frankly brilliant and featured Sanshiro threatening the public for not owning a Saturn. Why did Sega not apply this most excellent marketing campaign idea to the West?

Sega also released a ram cartridge for the Saturn that enabled arcade-perfect conversions Street Fighter Alpha 3 and Darkstalkers 3. I should add that these conversions were the only arcade-perfect ports at the time and featured no in-game loading times whatsoever. Future conversions included Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter, King of Fighters 96 and 97, and Samurai Showdown. If you were into 2D fighting games (like me) the Saturn was the most desired console. Did I mention how jealous I was as a kid?

Sega also released their current crop of arcade exclusives including Virtua Cop 1 and 2, a rather ropey port of House of the Dead, Last Bronx, Fighting Vipers, Athlete Kings, Virtual On, and many more. A personal favourite and a game I never forgot after drolling over it in the pages of C&VG was the aforementioned console-exclusive Fighters Mega Mix. It's essentially Virtua Fighter versus Fighting Vipers with a small collection of random Sega characters thrown in. Playing it years later, it is an excellent cross-over brawler.

Regarding peripherals, I would strongly suggest owners opt for the second Japanese arcade stick, as the worldwide release variation was an inferior design. The multi-tap is also a must for multiplayer action with the very famous Saturn Bomberman, which allows (with two multitaps) ten players to battle!

Above, the Japan-only Virtua Stick. Glorious!

And the worldwide released, original design.

So, aside from the reasons above, why do I love the Sega Saturn so much? I think partly it was to do with never owning one myself as a kid and the jealousy I felt due to certain games. It’s common knowledge but the true jewel in the crown for Saturn owners is Panzer Dragoon Saga, the third in the series. Moving the franchise away from its rail shooter roots and embracing RPG elements, Saga is one of the greatest games of all time and a true artistic triumph for its team and console. In comparison to the most popular games on the PlayStation, like many of the Saturn’s most beloved, it was wonderfully creative, forward-thinking and boasted an incredible story and setting.

Due to being so expensive and reading about it so much in multi-format magazines that cared, the Saturn felt like a forbidden machine. As an avid arcade goer, sure Tekken and Soul Calibur, Rival Schools and other 3D fighters were great, the PS1’s awful 2D fighter library was a huge problem for me. I remember Maximum Magazine printing the differences between the PS1 and Saturn ports of Street Fighter Alpha 2 and it was concerning. My favourite arcade game at the time, X-Men Versus Street Fighter, was not even a tag game on PS1 unless you played the same characters! I never even bothered buying it. The Saturn version, with the ram cart, was arcade-perfect and featured every single frame of animation. Then there was Guardian Heroes, an RPG sidescroller with multiple lanes, special moves, anime cutscenes and incredible 2D sprites and animation that would never be replicated on Sony’s machine. The fact that it even had a six-player versus mode(!) where you can play as any of the main game’s characters and enemies made me so envious that, years later, it was one of the first games I bought when I finally got my machine.

For a console to succeed it needs a wide breadth of games in multiple genres to please as many people as possible, including an array of AAA titles and a large, well-thought marketing campaign to advertise the facts. The Sega Saturn lacked many if not all of these facets. Some of the magazine ads from the time did not even feature in-game graphics as the main subject of the design! When you are trying to promote your exclusive titles, you must show the game and not attempt an edgy cultural statement to appear cool.  I don’t think I even realized that the below ad was for a game at the original time of reading, and Panzer Dragoon Zwei of all titles, a melancholic, beautifully realised narrative about the power of friendship and understanding between two very different creatures. This advertisement reads like some kind of weird sexist thing. Truly awful.

The Saturn is an odd console to look back on. Much like the Dreamcast, many of its best games were arcade ports released in an era when arcade perfection was sought after and yet was not what shifted units by the end of the generation’s cycle. Its first impressions were not so great in contrast to the Playstation and yet when many Playstation exclusives came to the Saturn, they were much better conversions than launch day Daytona USA and Virtua Fighter. History tells us that Sony hit the ground running and left Sega behind at the starting line, and Sega was unable to catch up.

Despite being the home for so many unique games, the console just wasn’t attractive enough to the average gamer. Sony’s marketing was more effective, cooler by the standards of the 90’s and the cast of Tekken, Final Fantasy VII and Metal Gear Solid were so much more engaging. Wipeout appealed to the older generation of clubgoers, and despite getting a Saturn port, its legacy is generally related to the early era of PlayStation. Its use of licenced music, also a factor in Gran Turismo’s perception, enabled a reach beyond the average game at the time, touching, and even creating a mainstream market beyond. What was Sega’s answer to Gran Turismo? Gran Theft Auto? Tomb Raider, ironically remembered as a PlayStation title, was first released as a Saturn title in Europe. Revisionist history at its finest.

Due to the nature of the machine’s architecture, many of its best games were 2D and sprite-based and this did contribute to the machine’s success in Japan. Western print media often cited that 2D games were old hat and created a strange discourse that lasted for many years until the emergence of indie games in the 2000s. Imagine a time when Castlevania Symphony of the Night was not reviewed as well as it is respected today. In a world where indie games represent such a huge portion of the market and the metroidvania, roguelike and cosy genres are even more prevalent than massive open-world action games, the Saturn may well have been successful worldwide. The general public did not care that the Saturn ports of Capcom or SNK’s 2D fighters were not only superior to the PlayStation versions but at times actually arcade-perfect. They were playing with beach balls, dinosaurs, and traversing across the globe searching for the mythical Soul Edge instead.  

Overall, this article might seem somewhat damning. The fact is, the Saturn was flawed. A true underdog, maybe the biggest in the history of gaming. That fact makes me love it even more. Its greatest games are often absolute genre highs or hidden gems. Despite Sega being creatively on top of their game, the Saturn did deserve its fate thanks to the multiple company-wide blunders. The price, the fact that the console was only available through select retailers, and the very architecture of the machine, all led to the stunted birth of the console in the West. Still, it is a wonderfully unique system with an intriguing set of games to try, if you are willing to pay the price to collect. Emulation has been patchy for years, some games work well, many do not at all. It really is a sad state of affairs for a machine that has always deserved so much more love than it got during its lifetime.