The Sega Saturn appreciation thread

[sheath]

Untextured polys would have been better looking than most of House of the Dead Saturn offered.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

No, it's pretty much the same throughout. The problem with the game is that they changed the blood to green and the textures are really grainy. Considering how great Virtua Cop 1&2 looked, HOD looks much poorer in comparison. It's still as fun to play as the arcade game though.

Here's a quote from SegaSaturn.co.uk that details it being released unfinished:

I recently conducted an interview for my upcoming Saturn project with a programmer at Tantalus who revealed many fascinating details about how the Saturn conversion of The House Of The Dead was allowed to be released in a 60% complete state. The fact is that development was far ahead of schedule, and as a result management at Sega made the choice to issue the game on time rather than risk delays while Tantalus put in the all-important last-minute details. For example, the reason many polygons are missing (especially on certain enemies' torsos) is because the models being used were still early versions thrown in and meant to have been optimised later. Also, virtually all of the texture mapping in the last two stages is placeholder material that was due to be improved massively as the project neared completion, with another hope of everyone at Tantalus being the mid-stage disc accessing could also have been removed in their planned final version.

Thanks to a prototype copy of this game in public hands, it's obvious some improvements were made during its production, but you can't help feeling the end result might have easily been comparable with Virtua Cop 2 as opposed to scrappier third-party lightgun efforts such as Crypt Killer. Finally, my source for all of this information claimed that relations between Sega and Tantalus were never the same after this disappointing effort - surely the powers that be at Sega knew very well what to expect based on the decisions they made? Either way, everyone at Tantalus is proud of the speed they were able to get HOTD up and running at, though equally upset at how business choices prevented them from being able to put out a title worthy of its past Saturn work... for the record, everyone was especially proud of how close WipEout 2097 was compared with the PlayStation edition and they would have loved to have been given a chance at porting its follow-up as well, had the Saturn not long since been killed off by then!

[Breetai]

Also the performance SuperPad 8: Better than both official controllers.

I've owned it on both the Saturn and the Genesis (it is the exact same pad on both, except for the shoulder buttons). It is in no way better than either of the two (or three, if you count the 3D pad) official Saturn pads. Well maybe the d-pad is if you dislike the US model 1 d-pad. I guess the ergonomics is a preference also, but I simply do not agree that it is better. The d-pad on the model 2 pad is perfect, the buttons feel right and are just in the right spots for me, and the shoulder pads click as they ought to.

Still, there is nothing wrong with the Super Pad 8. It's very good, to be honest. That, or the Propad (same as the SG Propad 6 on the Genesis), are some of the best 3rd party pads you can get. I just disagree about the Super Pad 8 being better than what Sega offered.

Very few 3rd party pads are better than 1st party ones, IMO. Exceptions are the ASCIIpad on the SNES, Hori sticks on various systems (Neo Geo, Saturn, etc.), the ASCII fightpad on the DC (for fighters, of course), Hori mini-pads on the N64, the TAC-2 on the 2600, and that's probably about it. MAYBE the Hori 6-button pad on the PC Engine, but the Ave6 and RX pads are as good as far as I can tell.

Yes, Hori and ASCII have made great stuff. Both have acted as second party as well.



As for the Saturn, I rented it a few times throughout the summer of 2005 (and the 3DO). Eventually I got my own in 2006. I was smart enough to buy Dragon Force when it was new. I was already a huge Lunar fan from having a Sega CD, so anything from Working Designs caught my attention then. I got a PS1 after Symphony of the Night came out. I got into Saturn imports in 2000 when I got to university and got a modded white JP Saturn (from HK) and a bunch of Japanese bootlegs. It was then that I discovered the shooters on the system and got more into the fighters (especially the SFZero games (I liked 2 more than 3!) and Vampire Savior), and never looked back. The only model of Saturn I have never owned is the Saturn Navi unit, other than PAL units. Currently, I just have a modded US model 2 Saturn with an Action Replay for imports. I guess I've got around 75 or so games now (about 50/50 US/JP), but I used to have double that. I sold everything a few years ago and started from scratch again a year and a half ago. It's the FOURTH time I've done this. Either the Saturn or the PC Engine is my favourite system overall.

[Da_Shocker]

Here's a quote from SegaSaturn.co.uk that details it being released unfinished:

That is one thing I really hated about Sega and what I respected Nintendo about. Sega would rush the fuck out of any games. Nintendo on the other hand would delay games for months if they weren't finished.

[gamevet]

Here's a quote from SegaSaturn.co.uk that details it being released unfinished:

I can tell you this; The texture quality is about the same on all 4 levels of the game. They may have been able to polish it up a little, but to say that those textures were just placeholder seems sort of strange, since they seem to match what was in the arcade game, but with poorer quality. The texture quality is just as bad on the first 2 levels, it just doesn't stand out as much since part of those levels are outdoors.

House of the Dead is more demanding of the Saturn hardware than Virtua Cop was, because VC used a lot what appears to be flat shading, while HOD used texture mapping.

[TVC 15]

Always take Anthemia posts on Sega 16 with a pinch of salt, hes a very enthusiastic poster that has provided absolutely no evidence for any of his claims, its getting a bit tiring hearing him wax lyrical about certain practices, policies and history at Sega, his defence is an offer of some 'project' combining all of his sources and information together in the future, he's mentioned doing that for the past 5-6 years. It would be nice if he put as much effort into his highly detailed, journalistic narrative posts as he would into possibly releasing some of this information, detailing sources and providing interviews.

House of the Dead is more demanding of the Saturn hardware than Virtua Cop was, because VC used a lot what appears to be flat shading, while HOD used texture mapping.

In fairness though, Tantaulus weren't bad, but where hardly one of Sega's A teams doing the port. I still could have looked better. I think one of Chillys posts in those long winded, dry tech threads pointed out due to the Saturn's bizarre rendering, textured polys render about as fast or only slightly slower than flat shading anyway.

[gamevet]

In fairness though, Tantaulus weren't bad, but where hardly one of Sega's A teams doing the port. I still could have looked better. I think one of Chillys posts in those long winded, dry tech threads pointed out due to the Saturn's bizarre rendering, textured polys render about as fast or only slightly slower than flat shading anyway.

I don't want to turn this into another technical discussion about hardware. We're here to appreciate what the Saturn has to offer.

But anyways, you'll notice that most Saturn games have blocky looking textures. There's no texture smoothing to make it look better, so it pretty much looks like a blocky mess when you get close to the textured objects. Wing Arms is a good showcase for how to handle textures in a Saturn game, since it does some nice tricks to make the stuff off in the distance look better. Once your plane is near a canyon wall or the ocean, you'll see the blockiness of the textures, but from a further distance they look decent.

[zetastrike]

I just bought my first Saturn today. I'm really excited about it. Question, though: Every time I turn it on without a disc in it, it prompts me to set the clock. Does that mean the battery is on it's way out? I checked the memory manager and it remembers my records in Manx TT Superbike, so yeah. I'm not sure what to think.

[gamevet]

The battery is dead.

[NeoZeedeater]

What was with Sega and battery issues with their last two consoles? The Saturn ones drain super fast and the Dreamcast's VMU will scream at you every time you turn the system on if the battery's dead.

[sheath]

I would like to know that as well. My launch Sega CD 1 has no issues at all, but I have to pack up my saves in the Saturn and if I didn't have a Nexus 4x and a third party memory unit I would be screamed at every time I booted my Dreamcast.

[gamevet]

What was with Sega and battery issues with their last two consoles? The Saturn ones drain super fast and the Dreamcast's VMU will scream at you every time you turn the system on if the battery's dead.

The Saturn battery is okay. Sure, it only lasts about a year and a half, but it's only a $2 battery.

The DC VMU is pretty much worthless outside of the console. I quit putting batteries in those a year or 2 after the system came out, because they only last about a month.

[NeoZeedeater]

The Saturn battery is okay. Sure, it only lasts about a year and a half, but it's only a $2 battery.

It sucks if you want to keep your save files.

[Moirai]

The Saturn battery is okay. Sure, it only lasts about a year and a half, but it's only a $2 battery.

The DC VMU is pretty much worthless outside of the console. I quit putting batteries in those a year or 2 after the system came out, because they only last about a month.

Maybe if the dreamcast had lasted longer they would have come out with rechargeable ones. (and backlit ones)

[jerry coeurl]

The first battery that I put in my Saturn when I got it back in 2004 lasted me until last year. I think that's a pretty good lifespan.