The Saturn Appreciation Thread

[Down by Law]

What annoys me is the placement of the Saturn logos on the spine don't even match up. I do like the later DVD style cases before DVD was a thing style cases though.

 

[Ninja Doctor]

That is a nice jap Saturn collection indeed. 

[shiffy]

This is maybe not as exciting as the recent Atomiswave+Dreamcast news, but in a similar vein Ced (creator as the Fenrir ODE) seems to be having a crack at converting ST-V games to run on the Saturn. This early work looks promising based on his tweets.

 

 

 

[Down by Law]

 

Nice video here showing how the Saturn used the two VDP chips to great effect - just too late in the generation to make a real difference but interesting nonetheless 

[Kevvy Metal]

59 minutes ago, Down by Law said:

 

Nice video here showing how the Saturn used the two VDP chips to great effect - just too late in the generation to make a real difference but interesting nonetheless 

 

Sega Lord X is a great YouTube channel, with a lot of content posted, most of it totally fun and interesting 

[Spoonman]

I wanted to play some Saturn last night and my (admittedly modded) Saturn often won’t get past the boot screen, and freezes. Or it freezes in the menu, before I even open the lid to put a disc in.

 

It’s worked fine for years—any idea what could be the issue? I opened it up and blew any dust out (didn’t really see any), and don’t see any leaked or bloated capacitors...

 

On 09/10/2020 at 16:35, klargon said:

Having just fired it up, I think I have bigger problems than just the video signal! Random freezes on boot up and I can’t actually get a game to fully load. Maybe it’s done for. Would be a shame, as it’s chipped and has both region and 60hz switches.

 

Just read the above, going back through the thread. Any luck?

 

Bit of a bummer as my fully PAL unit is boxed up in Norfolk and I am here in south Germany. Japanese Saturns are not exactly cheap to come by.

[ulala]

28 minutes ago, Spoonman said:

I wanted to play some Saturn last night and my (admittedly modded) Saturn often won’t get past the boot screen, and freezes. Or it freezes in the menu, before I even open the lid to put a disc in.

 

It’s worked fine for years—any idea what could be the issue? I opened it up and blew any dust out (didn’t really see any), and don’t see any leaked or bloated capacitors...

 

 

Just read the above, going back through the thread. Any luck?

 

Bit of a bummer as my fully PAL unit is boxed up in Norfolk and I am here in south Germany. Japanese Saturns are not exactly cheap to come by.

 

I have one of these also, that’s temperamental on booting.

 

I should have just got a Japanese Saturn in the first place, I do t run that many pal games and usually at 60

[Spoonman]

I actually have a wallet of bootleg CDs at my brothers place in Manchester, that I bought in around 2003 with this very modded Saturn for about 50 quid or something. There are a lot of CDs, so the guy doing it really didn’t value his time!

 

Speaking of valued time, I’ve no idea what to do here. A separate issue is the SCART cable I’ve bought works nicely at 50Hz but at 60Hz it is jumping all over the place. I am more likely to blame this Saturn than the cable, at this stage.

 

Is it the PSU, motherboard? I’d love to have it working—Saturns aren’t cheap any more.

 

https://forums.hexus.net/gaming/332633-sega-saturn-shaky-display-freezing-between-loads.html

 

Could be the PSU :/

[Camel]

If it's the power board, you can buy a replacement Pico board pre-soldered for your model of Saturn and you basically just plug it in.

 

The 'your model of Saturn' and 'pre-soldered' bits are important if you don't want to do any soldering yourself.

 

These used to be available on eBay; worth checking if they still are.

 

[Down by Law]

14 hours ago, Spoonman said:

I actually have a wallet of bootleg CDs at my brothers place in Manchester, that I bought in around 2003 with this very modded Saturn for about 50 quid or something. There are a lot of CDs, so the guy doing it really didn’t value his time!

 

Speaking of valued time, I’ve no idea what to do here. A separate issue is the SCART cable I’ve bought works nicely at 50Hz but at 60Hz it is jumping all over the place. I am more likely to blame this Saturn than the cable, at this stage.

 

Is it the PSU, motherboard? I’d love to have it working—Saturns aren’t cheap any more.

 

https://forums.hexus.net/gaming/332633-sega-saturn-shaky-display-freezing-between-loads.html

 

Could be the PSU :/

 

When you say it's jumping all over the place, do you mean like a fast vibrating effect?

 

If so, if you can change the colour output on your TV from pal to NTSC 3.38 or 4.43 that will fix that.

[fat flatulent git]

Are there any rally games on the Saturn, besides that rather well-known one?

 

If so, are any of them any good?

[MikeBeaver]

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sega-SaturnPSU-Board-and-PSU-12V-Power-Supply-Replacement-Kit-For-SEGA-Saturn/114582136855

 

I've just fitted one of these, bloody brilliant. Took 5 mins to install and worked a treat

[Riven]

3 hours ago, Tomcat said:

Are there any rally games on the Saturn, besides that rather well-known one?

 

If so, are any of them any good?

 

No, SEGA Rally is your lot, there aren't a huge amount of racers on Saturn once you take away all the SEGA Arcade port.

 

3rd party wise you have Fomula Karts, Need for Speed, Impact Racing, Andretti Racing, Highway 2000 / Wangan Dead Heat, and a couple of others, best off road game is Hardcore 4x4 which is alright I'd say, not a patch on SEGA Rally mind. Can't remember if Choro Q Park has a rally section or not it's been years since I last played it.

[Klatrymadon]

I'm hoping to pick up the Touge King games and the Arcade Racer wheel soon - will let you know if the former are any good!

[merrychan]

Recently got a Brook Wingman SD adapter and it's proper brilliant, with the latest firmware I can plug in my PS3 SF4 Fight Stick TE, press select and circle and it maps to the stick correctly.

 

Edit : Tried with 360 HRAP EX-SE and it doesn't seem to match like the PS3 stick so might need an explicit remap.

[Treble]

Recently got in a Hori Fighting Stick SS (not that SS...) and it's excellent. Identical in feel to the PlayStation Hori stick. Give me a shout if you fancy it. 

 

 

 

I should also be getting a Saturn in soon,and can easily add a new PSU (as per  @MikeBeaver 's link) so hit me up if interested in either. 

 

Also have no problem getting hold of white Saturns either, if so desired! 

[Klatrymadon]

Haha, I'm actually talking to someone about buying the Playstation version from them at the moment! I really shouldn't be after either, since I have a Retro Board and therefore a stick solution for most of my older consoles, but I have an inordinate fondness for the Fighting Stick series. If you're still flogging it in a couple of weeks I might give you a shout!

 

I think the stock joystick in both is based on an LS-56, which is why they both feel great.  (Ed: actually, I can't find anything at all to confirm this - ignore me!)

[fat flatulent git]

15 hours ago, Riven said:

 

No, SEGA Rally is your lot, there aren't a huge amount of racers on Saturn once you take away all the SEGA Arcade port.

 

3rd party wise you have Fomula Karts, Need for Speed, Impact Racing, Andretti Racing, Highway 2000 / Wangan Dead Heat, and a couple of others, best off road game is Hardcore 4x4 which is alright I'd say, not a patch on SEGA Rally mind. Can't remember if Choro Q Park has a rally section or not it's been years since I last played it.

 

Thanks.  I've got a few racers on Saturn, but always fancy more retro rally action.

 

Actually my local shop cleared out all its Saturn stuff recently.  I got a boxed console and about 70 games for 8000 yen.  The games are mostly tat, but not too bad for that price.

[fat flatulent git]

Here's what I got.

 

 

 

 

 

Plenty of stuff I'm not interested in and multiple copies of touge king but lots that I do want to play.  One of those special editions has a memory card, so that will be useful.

[Zio]

If it’s not cool me posting something like this in here, let me know and I’ll edit, but if anyone’s ever want to see it without, you know, actually playing it, I’m streaming Panzer Dragoon Saga on Twitch this week.

 

I finished disc one earlier today, but starting disc two from 8pm - 10pm tonight, then will be continuing from 2pm tomorrow and again on Thursday.

 

If you are interested, you can join in at twitch.tv/brixtonrifles

[MikeBeaver]

On 15/03/2021 at 19:37, Zio said:

If it’s not cool me posting something like this in here, let me know and I’ll edit, but if anyone’s ever want to see it without, you know, actually playing it, I’m streaming Panzer Dragoon Saga on Twitch this week.

 

I finished disc one earlier today, but starting disc two from 8pm - 10pm tonight, then will be continuing from 2pm tomorrow and again on Thursday.

 

If you are interested, you can join in at twitch.tv/brixtonrifles

Well, that will give me something to watch at work tomorrow, shame I missed this or I'd have been there at the time, tried playing it several times and never got into it, so watching someone else for the story will do me nicely

[Spoonman]

On 27/02/2021 at 11:27, Camel said:

If it's the power board, you can buy a replacement Pico board pre-soldered for your model of Saturn and you basically just plug it in.

 

The 'your model of Saturn' and 'pre-soldered' bits are important if you don't want to do any soldering yourself.

 

These used to be available on eBay; worth checking if they still are.

 

 

Thanks! I ended up buying this from a guy in France: https://dragoncity17.wordpress.com/2019/06/22/sega-saturn-sat-psu/ , and ended up doing the soldering myself. 

25 euros, plus shipping, then i had to get a power supply...

 

On 13/03/2021 at 10:13, MikeBeaver said:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sega-SaturnPSU-Board-and-PSU-12V-Power-Supply-Replacement-Kit-For-SEGA-Saturn/114582136855

 

I've just fitted one of these, bloody brilliant. Took 5 mins to install and worked a treat

 

I should have just bought the above, tbh. Doh! Oh well. I guess I supported this Frenchy with whatever he is doing.

 

On the flip side, it totally sorted out the boot issues I was having with the Saturn, so I imagine the original PSU has a bad cap or two.

 

 

The SCART flicker though, appeared to be from the low-cost SCART-HDMI convertor I was using. I have a cheapo RGB cable in-use though, and there's still a little but of "movement"  of the image, but until i get it on a CRT I am not going to investigate further.

[Riven]

  

On 14/03/2021 at 03:15, Death Adder said:

Actually my local shop cleared out all its Saturn stuff recently.  I got a boxed console and about 70 games for 8000 yen.  The games are mostly tat, but not too bad for that price.

 

Not a bad selection of games, sure quite a few Japanese visual novels in there, but Cyberbots is awesome, Puzzle Bobble 2 & 3 are great, Winter Heat, Side Pocket 2 and quite quite a few more decent titles, some great RPG like Lunar and Black Matrix. By the way that one with the memory card is Tokimeki Memorial ~Forever With You~ that includes two hidden shooter games on it Twinbee Time Attack and Psyth both well worth unlocking!

 

Here's a video of Psyth, it's not that long, but very addictive has a very complex scoring system for what is a mini-game in a dating simulator from Konami:

 

 

[amc]

Been enjoying a bit of Saturn gaming on my phone. Yeah, probably not most peoples preferred way to play but it's all jiving together very nicely, Yaba Sanshiro 2 Pro, near 7" screen so 4:3 isn't so tiny, good controller along with a 1080p resolution setting. Apart from a slight graphical glitch on the track in Sega Rally they all play amazingly well so far. That upscale really draws the image together, smooth and sharp. On a phone. Nuts.

 

I had a Saturn back in the day, think it came with Bug! It actually overtook my PS1 as my platform of choice when Sega Rally and VF2 came out, had some ace nights with friends on those. I actually bought Tomb Raider on Saturn as soon as it was released and was the envy of my only friend who was interested in videogames. Not my only friend but the only one who actually owned a machine and actively bought games, still the same predicament now. He was well jell, for about a week and then the game was released on PS1. That envy did a switcheroo once I saw how improved the game seemed over on PlayStation. I still played the game to completion on my Saturn and enjoyed it immensely but it was the beginning of the end of my preferring the Saturn to PlayStation. Sold it and about twenty games around summer 97. It was strictly N64, PS1 and a Voodoo PC for the rest of the 90s, although I did get my DC in September 99 so not strictly true.

 

Anyway, been into watching a lot of stuff on the Saturn the past year or so, SLX is a great channel, and I've definitely been impressed with the quality of a lot of titles that came out and passed me by, a lot seem to be JPN releases so not surprising but still.

 

Currently playing Virtua Racing (which I bought at the time and being a big, big fan of the Arcade machine was thoroughly disappointed, I remember it being very poor in comparison, think I enjoyed the SVP powered game more in fact) and have been very surprised. It's actually a decent game. I don't know whether the emulation improves something, handling or performance etc but it definitely doesn't seem like the same rough playing game I remember. Maybe it having been a PAL disc and this being an NTSC iso has something to do with it. Also playing Bulk Slash. Seems great fun so far. Got Astal lined up too.

 

Gonna check out your vids @Riven as you seem to have a few obscure Saturn games on there and I'm on the hunt for recommendations.

 

See a lot of chat on Burning Rangers, some say it's a flawed gem. Wonder if emulation adding a bit of sparkle and clarity may help it along. Will give it a punt later.

 

Great fucking machine that although I abandoned it I definitely paid it its dues back in the day, and in return it gave a lot of fun in its short run with me. Hell I even bought Nights and the pad and V Cop and the gun day one. Wish I'd gotten into my copy of Guardian Heroes though. I recently completed it on 360 and had a smashing time. Went completely over my head in 96. Think I only played it for an hour or so. Daft.

[Dudley]

I've defended Saturn VR at length but in very short it works better when you realise it's not an arcade port at all (they weren't given any code) but really a home only sequel with a decently lengthy grand prix mode.

[Klatrymadon]

I'll delete this if it's not okay to discuss such things here, but how good is this this repro likely to be? I've only had the odd cartridge-based repro and have no idea what the quality of the CD is likely to be like in this case...

 

Cheers!

[Ketchup]

I was gona say surely it’s just a CD-R but the disc looks authentic potentially so maybe it’s just the case and manual that’s a repo?

[Jei]

Nope the disc is repo too. The ‘old school’ logo on the disc is the company that produce them.

 

You’ll still need a modded machine or pseudo to play them

[Klatrymadon]

Cheers, both! I'm not necessarily interested in buying it, just wanted to know if they were printed on anything better than CD-Rs. I have a Japanese Saturn with no modchip, so I couldn't play it at present anyway...

[Jei]

I’m sure you won’t be the only one asking

 

When you need that Saturn modifying give me a shout!