Is the Sega Saturn overrated?

[equalsign]

Didn't that Aliens game only use half of the system's power? Interesting what they were able to do.

[Soldier Blue]

Am I the only person who's played these games, because it seems the only games anyone plays on their Saturn is Shmups and I honestly never play Shmups so I'm probably the strangest Saturn fan ever.

Nah plenty of us play the fighters and brawlers on the system as well.

There are also some interesting FPSs on the system:
Powerslave
Quake
Duke Nukem.

[Runefaust]

...I honestly never play Shmups so I'm probably the strangest Saturn fan ever.

I haven't played a single shmup on my Saturn (note, my Saturn) so you're not alone in that respect. My Saturn library is made up exclusively of fighters and RPGs. I aim to expand upon it someday, but for now my game collecting ways are focused on the Genesis, NES and Super Famicom.

[Majors]

Alien Trilogy quite possibly the best FPS game of the generation, and Titan Wars (Solar Eclipse in North America), still my favourite On Rails Shooter of all time.

AT and SE were multi-platform, are you saying they are BETTER on Saturn? I would not use those two games to showcase the system or as an argument defending it's "over rated-ness". I'm not saying they are bad or fun to play...just sayin'

If imports are out of the equation, then just like the US market showed, the Saturn was a failure and it's over-rated. I think prior post already explained this. I've been importing my games since 1990, when I got NES multi-carts so to me region(importing) is not a factor when gaming or deciding if a system is good or not.

Didn't that Aliens game only use half of the system's power? Interesting what they were able to do.

Every game, other than Virtua Fighter 2(some one back me up?), only used one of the twin Hitachi's CPUs. Program/coding multi-threaded games is hard, across different processors, even harder. I think when Sony re-released it's dev kit for PS1 making game creation easier, games took off.

[TornadoCreator]

Alien Trilogy quite possibly the best FPS game of the generation, and Titan Wars (Solar Eclipse in North America), still my favourite On Rails Shooter of all time.

AT and SE were multi-platform, are you saying they are BETTER on Saturn? I would not use those two games to showcase the system or as an argument defending it's "over rated-ness". I'm not saying they are bad or fun to play...just sayin'

Yes actually, the Saturn controller is the most comfortable and the graphics are smoother. Plus to claim these games are multi-platform games is disingenuous. Titan Wars was a Saturn exclusive in North America, Japan, Australia and UK, getting a limited release port on the PSOne a year later and only in mainland Europe. It's as good as an exclusive for all practical purposes, so no Solar Eclipse isn't multi-platform, because that's the American name and in that region it was Saturn exclusive. As for Alien Trilogy it was a Saturn and PSOne game but just look at this comparison.



There's not a great deal of difference sure, but it is smoother, the aiming is better and the lighting is clearly superior on the Saturn version, this is especially obvious in the last 30 seconds of the video where the PSOne version is too dark to make anything out, yet the Saturn maintains a consistant light-level throughout whilst still managing to make the area appear "dark". The biggest clincher though is the Sega Saturn had VASTLY superior sound to the PSOne and for a game like Alien Trilogy, the sound makes all the difference, half the atmosphere is built by the music and the sound.

So yes, I definately think it's worth judging the Saturn based on those games. Becides, since when did multi-platform games not count? Are you going to not play the on the Saturn just because they came out on something else as well... that's daft. Unless the other version is vastly superior or there's a major difference in price we should include all Saturn games, after all, it's silly to assume everyone owns a Jaguar, 3DO and PSOne as well, so maybe they want to consider multi-platform games, I know I do.

If imports are out of the equation, then just like the US market showed, the Saturn was a failure and it's over-rated. I think prior post already explained this. I've been importing my games since 1990, when I got NES multi-carts so to me region(importing) is not a factor when gaming or deciding if a system is good or not.

Didn't that Aliens game only use half of the system's power? Interesting what they were able to do.

Every game, other than Virtua Fighter 2(some one back me up?), only used one of the twin Hitachi's CPUs. Program/coding multi-threaded games is hard, across different processors, even harder. I think when Sony re-released it's dev kit for PS1 making game creation easier, games took off.

Fighters Megamix also used both CPU's, and I've heard mixed reports about Daytona USA using both.

[Reprise]

Alien Trilogy is rubbish anyways.

I sold that piece of crap years ago and never looked back.

[TornadoCreator]

Alien Trilogy is rubbish anyways.

I sold that piece of crap years ago and never looked back.

Philistine!

[Breetai]

^Yeah I think people who have only played 5 games from a console shouldn't judge whether it is good or not

Unless it's a console that only has five games, anyway.

I can only think of one console that only has five games. One is just okay, another is good, the other three are great or excellent.

I therefore judge the console as absolutely amazing, because it is backwards compatible with the console that proceeded (and, strangely, succeeded it).

[TornadoCreator]

^Yeah I think people who have only played 5 games from a console shouldn't judge whether it is good or not

Unless it's a console that only has five games, anyway.

I can only think of one console that only has five games. One is just okay, another is good, the other three are great or excellent.

I therefore judge the console as absolutely amazing, because it is backwards compatible with the console that proceeded (and, strangely, succeeded it).

OK, now I'm unsure what console you mean. I was thinking maybe the Sega 32X as it had 5 CD-32X games which you may be counting as a different system... I can't think of any other console with only 5 games and backwards compatibility.

[CFFJR]

I can only think of one console that only has five games. One is just okay, another is good, the other three are great or excellent.

I therefore judge the console as absolutely amazing, because it is backwards compatible with the console that proceeded (and, strangely, succeeded it).

I'm racking my brain and I have no idea what system you're talking about here.