Retro Fix:- Sega Saturn
With E3 fast approaching, The Newb Review has taken the opportunity to look back over the years to see the kind of excitement to come out of E3′s past, to predict what we could be seeing in the near future.
This year marks E3s 15th anniversary as well as the 15 year anniversary of a much maligned and often forgotten console, the Sega Saturn. Luckily enough for you, our devoted readers, our very own Alan Parish is quite a fan of the Sega Saturn.
Thus, he has decided to put together an article to explain exactly why he feels the Sega Saturn does not deserve the derision it so wrongfully receives, and attempt to explain exactly why it failed oh-so spectacularly.
SO WHAT WENT WRONG?
The Sega Saturn was originally slated for an American launch on September 2nd 1995, which led industry newcomer Sony to announce their upcoming PlayStation home console for a date of September 9 1995, a mere 1 week after Sega were set to release the Saturn.
Now it’s not entirely clear whether this caused Sega to worry about their release date or whether the September 2 date was a ruse all along, but on 11 May 1995, at the world’s first E3, Sega pulled a fast one and announced out of the blue that the Sega Saturn was available that very day; giving them a 4 month jump on the Sony machine. Surely this promised to give Sega a huge advantage. It may well have done if only they had handled it better.
Sega entered into an exclusive deal with specific American retailers. These retailers did not include Wal-Mart and KB Toys, who were the two biggest retailers of the time. Understandably, they were rather annoyed and in response decided to promote the PlayStation over the Saturn.
Also, with the E3 surprise attack, it seems Sega forgot to tell the third party companies; all hard at work developing games for the Saturn for the original September release. As such, the Saturn launched with a massive 3 games, and no new titles to be released for another 4 months.
Finally, the Saturn launch wasn’t the only big news coming out of E3 ’95. Just a few hours after the Saturn was launched, at a price of $399, Sony held their own press conference to announce the launch price of the PlayStation at $299.
All of this alongside a lot of boring technical issues, which made it really hard to program games for the platform meant the Saturn was practically still-born in the US and Europe.
One of Sonic Teams more interesting 3D games
WHAT’S SO GREAT ABOUT SATURN?
Whenever I tell people I am a huge fan of the Saturn I always get the same response; ‘WTF WHY?’ It’s almost as if I tell them I like to punch puppies in the face or that I really like Dating Sims. Personally I feel the Sega Saturn had some of the more inventive, fun and best looking games of the 32/64 bit era.
The saturn was a fantastic 2D system and showed this off with some excellent looking 2D sprite based games. These games had some of the best and smoothest animations ever seen. Games such as Street Fighter Alpha 2 look incredible on the Saturn and there are games such as Dragon Force and Guardian Heroes which are exclusive to the Sega Saturn.
But don’t think it was a weakling when it came to 3D, Sega gave the Saturn two processors (making it the worlds first dual core games console) and it used quadrilaterals to render polygons instead of triangles. Admittedly, this did come back to bite sega in the arse, as it made the Sega Saturn much harder to develop games for. But when developers got it right, games could look so much better. It’s just a shame it was not around long enough for us to truly see what it could do.
The Saturn was not a complete failure around the world. Before the American launch it was actually doing fairly well at holding off Sony in Japan. As such, the import scene for the Saturn is a huge part of its appeal. Sega are a company who seem to be much more willing to take risks, so there are quite a few really interesting games. Notable releases include:
- Burning Rangers: a game where you play as a futuristic firefighter tasked with saving innocent people from burning buildings. Unique and fun.
- Panzer Dragoon Saga: An epic 4 disc RPG/Rail Shooter hybrid with a great story and fantastic action
- Nights into Dreams: A really original platforming game with a good sense of speed and a unique premise
- Radiant Silvergun: Quite possibly the best top down shooter to have ever been created
- Dragon Force: A strategy RPG with huge 100+ character battles
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Dragon Force had an unprecedented number of characters on screen at once
As well as these unique and interesting games, the Saturn was easily the best console for arcade conversions such as Street Fighter Alpha 2, Metal Slug and all of Sega’s own arcade games.
I think the one thing I really like about the Sega Saturn is that it wasn’t afraid to be different. Whilst it does have it’s fair share of PlayStation ports, the best and most interesting games were only available for the Saturn.
Given how safe the industry has become in recent years; churning out shooter after shooter and constantly rehashing old ideas, it’s nice to go back to the Saturn and play something that was daring and risky. This is the reason I love the Saturn and at the same time possibly the reason it failed. Daring adventurous games don’t always sell. It’s also worth noting that Shenmue started life on the Sega Saturn.
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- One of Radiant Silvergun’s quieter moments
wow! my opinion on the Sega Saturn has completely been turned around! i like everyone else didn’t really think much of it, i felt it was a failure. But this article has shown me the error of my ways, thank you Alan, thank you. I almost feel ashamed i never played the console now, or if i did its a very distant memory now, i was always a big nintendo fanboy up until the wii, thats when i started to lose hope.
Panzar dragoon saga is like gold-dust in the world of video games too, so alas i will probably never play that either. I have been nostalgia’d to death.
that advert is epic too, that’s the kind of marketing i like.
I was the proud owner of a brand new Playstation in 1996 at the cost of £300. Secretly I always prefered the Saturn but I had to give in to the peer pressure of my School friends…There were only one lad in the village who dared to buy a Saturn and he got a constant barrage of abuse from us PS owners lol.
I can say I did have the pleasure of owning A Saturn after picking it from Gamestation on the cheap when I left home in 1999 and it was by far more fun than the Playstation, better graphics, nicer looking console and heaps of character. Just let down by software really, my favourite games I had for it were Resident Evil, Daytona USA and Quake.
Great article, thanks.
@Lee burnham: 2 words. Clockwork. Knight. Saturn had some wicked games!