well that's sort of splitting hairs, because I think battle arena toshinden is terrible anywhereMenegrothx wrote:Atleast Battle Area Toshinden is horrible on the Saturn compared to the PS1 version from what I've read. Not sure if's the same with Wipeout. I assume Silhouette mirage and SOTN are equally good on the Saturn though.
but yes, the Saturn port isn't as good as the PSX original. It's mainly a visual hit - the characters use less polygons and the backgrounds are less complex, but the games play the same. Which is to say they don't play anywhere near as good as Virtua Fighter or Tekken.
Wipeout, the first one, is alright on the Saturn. It's noticably choppier than the PSX version. however, Wipeout 2097 (also called Wipeout XL) is awesome on the saturn. It lacks transparencies, and runs slightly slower (25 fps on the saturn compared to 30 fps on the PSX) but it uses the Manx TT engine which is quite powerful. It features much better texture work with less warping or swimming compared to the PSX version, and best of all, it's the only version of the game that supports an analog controller - either the NiGHTS pad or the Saturn racing wheel. Playing 2097 with a racing wheel makes the entire game feel different. Terrific port.
Silhouette mirage is miles better on the saturn. Not just because of a ton of cut visual effects in the PSX version (mainly the ones that relied on the Saturn's dedicated 2D hardware that the PSX couldn't replicate) or missing background laters, but because Working Designs changed the gameplay in significant ways. The game mechanics are intricate and I don't feel like explaining, but you can look up the changes to the gameplay if you'd like. The changes they made turned the game into a slow, plodding game focused on collecting treasure, and it becomes possible to get stuck in areas of the game without the ability to die or restart without turning the game off. Saturn version all the way.
The saturn version of SotN doesn't use the Saturn's 2D hardware. The Playstation didn't have any dedicated 2D hardware, thus when it did 2D games, it would use flat polygons that always faced the screen and applied textures with masks on them to act as sprites. The Saturn had dedicated 2D hardware for all this sort of stuff. SotN was a PSX game first, and when Konami ported it to the saturn, rather than rewriting chunks of the game engine to use the Saturn's 2D hardware, they just used the Saturn's 3D hardware to fake 2D, like they did with the PSX. This eliminated the Saturn's ability to do transparencies or light sourcing, for example, and also induced slowdown. However, the game itself is still excellent given that it's SotN, and the saturn version is a remix with a 3rd playable character - Maria - as well as 2 new sections of the castle and a bunch of unique items and bug fixes (like the rainbow cloak, exclusive to the saturn version). A bit of a push.
The point wasn't which versions are better, only that the games existed on the saturn as well, though.
