Help! Saturn's color is shifting and fading to black&white

[greg]

OK, so this is not my weekend of luck for Sega consoles. My friends and I were playing some multiplayer Bomberman on my Saturn and the color would shift to some weird alternate colors and then go to black and white for several moments, and then go back to color. What could be causing this? I have an S-Video cable, so I can get my RCA cables and see if I can eliminate the cable as a factor. Strange, huh? Oh yeah, and it's a white J-Saturn.

[pakopako]

Could be the TV, could be the console as well, but most often it is the cable. Either its the wiring or just a loose or dirty connection.

Also, neat sig. I think you've covered most SNES/SFAMI anime-licensed game. (Though it would be impossible to cover all the anime-styled ones like Makeruna Makendo 1 + 2 or another one of Satoshi Urushiara/Masaya's games: Der Langrisser. Also, in Ranma 1/2: Chougi Ranbuhen, all the characters try to remain true to the manga moreso than the anime; Musk Prince Herb included.)

(And what is Same Game? A GBC title?)

(More side notes.. urgh, I should stop reading your website... you can grind between stages in Patlabor. The higher your levels, the more attacks you get from Pistols to Shotguns, from Fists to Batons, and you get some trademark Judo moves as well.)

[greg]

Also, neat sig. I think you've covered most SNES/SFAMI anime-licensed game.
....
urgh, I should stop reading your website...

No, don't stop reading! I'm glad you like the site. I have games like Makeruna Makendo (Kendo Rage) that I have yet to review. Heck, I have a ton of SFC games I own that I have yet to review. I used to receive reader-submission reviews, but those tapered off and haven't received one in a long while. I'm finishing up a review on Popful Mail currently, and I have so many other SFC games I have yet to review. As for anime-licensed games, I started the site in 1997 as just a review for anime games, then grew into just import games in general. I was heavily influenced by a cool website called Anime PSX, and unfortunately that website is 10 years dead. I really wish I could have adopted that site if the guy who ran it was going to call it quits. As far as I could find at the time, my site was the first Super Famicom-dedicated site on the Net, although other sites have since popped up (one claiming to be the first SFC site ever, lol).

Same Game is a Hudson puzzle game that is basically identical to one game that Alexey Pajitnov made, but with Hudson characters like Bonk, Bomberman, Milon, etc. That review has been "coming soon" for years since I was going to review it, but never got around to it. It uses one of those Satellaview cartridges with a removable character cartridge.

OK, I am going to clean the plug on the S-Video cable and swap it out with an RCA cable to see if the B&W fading will get fixed. I've determined that it isn't the TV, thank God, because we were playing multiplayer Bomberman 3 for the SFC and there was no color problems. I don't get home until late tonight, so I'll test out the Saturn tomorrow.

[greg]

I've been busy, so I never posted an update. I connected my Saturn's S-Video cables directly to the front inputs on my TV and I did not have the same problem. It's possible that the problem may be with the Sony S-Video switch box I have. When I get more time, I'll try putting other consoles into that input to see if they turn black & white too.

[Sideroller]

I've had a similar problem with my Genesis where I would turn it on and it would immediately be black and white. usually I would have to reinsert the cartridge and reset the game a couple times.

I don't think I ever fixed it - but I'm pretty sure it was a bad cable connection. Right now I'm away from home but when I get back I'll probably look at it. Let me know how yours turns out.

[Zombie_X]

I had a few cheap S-Video cables that did this. I would guess it's the cable.