Well I'm here to tell you: "You're wrong"! This console is a beast in its own right. Although, most of the Sega Saturn's catalog never made it out of Japan, America got roughly ⅓ of the total 1028, games released, here and of that only 15 of them were solely released in North America by the time Sega had moved on to the Dreamcast. In the end of the Saturn's lifespan there were more canceled games for the Saturn than there was exclusive North American releases.
My experience with the Saturn up, until recently had been very little. I had bought my console 2nd hand from a friend a few months before his untimely death and stored this machine away in its original box for the last 20 years. Jeff, the guy I bought it off of didn't have it long or played it very much. He essentially did what most American gamers did, bought a Playstation and then a Playstation 2.
So finally 30 years after the Saturn made its debut to America, after hearing about Optical Drive Emulation (ODE), I finally broke it out of its cardboard cage after being trapped in a closet for 20+ years, ordered a Saroo ODE pre-loaded with some random games on a microSD card from China! At first I didn't know what to think. As I said beforehand, my experience with the Saturn was very little, aside from some of the Model 3 Sega Arcade games Virtua Fighter, Sega Rally, Daytona USA, to name a few.
I loaded up the Saroo, hit the power switch and after loading and navigating the pages of games and about 30 minutes of playtime.... I instantly filled with regret! Regretted having not spent much time with the Sega Saturn or its Games library! I tried out the obvious games, Sega Rally, Daytona USA and Virtua Fighter and then onwards to some Capcom fighting games of Street Fighter Alpha, X Men: Children of Atom and Marvel VS. Capcom! I was totally mindblown of the quality of the games and the way they played. I wish I would have been an earlier adopter of this system after all these years of ownership having neglected this awesome console!!!!
So now with an ODE equipped in my Saturn, amd after a week of getting it set up & downloading games that weren't included on the card, I have finally came up with my main mission: To Play Every American Release as they came out!!! All 258 games!!!
Keep in mind there are a few rules to this whole process I feel is the fair way of doing things that I'll list below. There are a few titles that I'll be playing adjacent to this whole mission in spare time or for fun that isn't an American Release, these do not count towards the overall goal. I want to experience the Saturn as the average gamer in 1995 would've as the games were trickling out to the market. The only advantage that I have here is I don't have to wait for the next release(s) to hit, they all are loading from a memory card so that cuts the loading time, and I have the benefit of Bluetooth technology and am not tethered to the console with a 6ft cord hooked to the controller.
1) - I have to play American released titles (other regions games can substituted in lieu for better soundtracks, optimized difficulty or general accessibility to said titles) but I have to play them all, in order of release and cannot move on from the batch of a maximum of 3 games at a time, in rotation, until 1 has been beaten or is able to be moved on from, then it can be replaced by the next game on the list in order it was released in America.
2) - I have to try to beat every title I play to the best of my ability and the games functionality as some games are unbeatable or have no completion or finally. There will be certain criteria that has to be met in order to "move on" to the next title to get through the 258 officially released titles that graced the hardware.
a) - I can only use resources that were available at the time of the Saturn being on the market. Meaning, no YouTube video hints, no GameShark codes (as the cartridge slot is occupied by the Saroo), no codes or cheats (only in game exploits can be used), no save states or other save files generated by other players or trainer programs or hacks!
b) - Sports games are pretty well an infinite experience, I have to play and win against the computer in a best of 3 matches to count a sports game as played. Racing games don't have to be completed 100% or hold top records, but I do have to race every available track, win podium placement (track, series) in order to move onwards to the next title.
3) - Unreleased games and homebrewed games do not count towards the final goal of playing them all, as they weren't officially released nor were available for purchase before the Saturn was discontinued in North America.
Eventually, I will get through them all. Unfortunately I'd rather play the games from physical disk, but the used market prices for many of these games goes well over $1,000 (Magic Knight Rayearth, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Megamall 8 & x3). So luckily the Saroo mitigates the loading times, but not always compatible with every game in its current state of firmware. Which brings me to the next portion of this goal, to aid the Saroo team in compatibility checks for playability for the complete title in question to assure others the ODE is in fact compatible with the retail released games and to document issues and incompleteness of compatibility. This is eventually going to improve the overall usefulness of the ODE in question.
I may end up documenting this project via YouTube in a series of videos and reviews for the hardware, papherials and games. There will most definitely be "in print" semi regular posts made here in my blogging...
The 1st batch of games: Launch Titles
Bug!
Clockwork Knight
Daytona USA
Panzer Dragoon
So stay tuned, save this page, subscribe to my YouTube , and check back regularly as I conquer Mt. Saturn!
Thanks for your time and reading this!
