Strengths & Weaknesses of the Sega Saturn

[Music] as you guys know the sega saturn is my favorite game system of all time no other console has given me as many great memories as sega's 32-bit monster telling that to the folks that have never played the machine before or have little experience with it often elicits bewilderment in confusion i'm not some knob in that didn't own the playstation or nintendo 64. i supported and played both those consoles enjoyed them immensely and still choose the saturn as my favorite of the bunch as a kid i had been blown away by arcade games and the saturn was a home console after my own heart after five years of sigou lord x saturn questions are still the number one correspondence i get from viewers on my channel this is particularly true of the people looking to own and collect for the console for the very first time the interest in the saturn seems to be higher now than it has been since it was first available on the market if i'm proud of anything i have accomplished here on youtube at the very least i hope i have contributed to improving the reputation of this great gaming system with all that in mind i've decided it's time to do a video that covers the greatest strengths and weaknesses of the saturn i want this to be a sort of general outline or very first step for those looking at buying or playing the machine today we've got eight categories to go over so let's get started [Music] one question i get constantly about the saturn is whether or not it's worth pursuing just for the games released in the west the answer to that is pretty specific to the individual but one thing is an unmistakable fact the japanese library is a major reason to own a saturn japan was the saturn's most successful region financially and has the largest amount of game titles by a huge margin it was here that the platform saw its most potent third party support as well whether it's fighters shoot-em-ups platformers or anything in between you have so many more options from japan many of these were arcade ports or arcade style games in general so they are easy to pick up and play even if you can't read a lick of the language many japanese releases also tend to be significantly less expensive than their north american and pow counterparts street fighter collection in the us has gone up to absurd prices while the japanese edition is nowhere near as much japan also had releases that you would never have seen in the us no matter how much better the saturn would have done there psychic killer taramaru was a very japanese piece of software that's worth looking into as was something like astra superstars an aerial fighting game with gorgeous animation and massive sprites but the positives of the japanese library go well beyond the retail arena in the last few years homebrew enthusiasts have begun translating and fixing a large number of titles that were originally japanese exclusive you can now play stuff like police knobs dragon force 2 and grandia and many other great games fully in english what all that means is is that if you have any interest in the sega saturn whatsoever the japanese library is going to offer you a ton of options that really enhance your overall experience that doesn't mean north american and power releases have nothing to offer but it does mean you are greatly short changing the saturn by not exploring all its options [Music] this one here needs a little bit of an explanation when i say western developed library i mean specifically projects that were developed or commissioned by sega of america for the north american and powell territories these titles were meant to balance and augment the japanese offerings coming in but they just ended up being complete wastes of money and a bunch of poor running poor looking and poor plane coasters that robbed dedicated gamers of their hard-earned money this is the stuff like gin war which is no better than the early 3do software released two years prior blackfyre a helicopter shooter that made atari jaguar games look like the most advanced software on the market and of course there was congo which had you wandering around similar looking stages with garbage visuals for unreasonable amounts of time so bad was this turd i'd much rather play the slideshow version of doom on the saturn any day of the week even when a western project wasn't god-awful it still ended up less than great the unusual scud the disposable assassin had a load of potential as a side-scrolling action rom but just ends up drowning in its own repetition and lack of excitement sega also completely whipped on its sports franchises while the japanese developed world series baseball franchise was nice it took a few tries to get the nba and nhl up to par unfortunately for nfl fans sega themselves dropped the dried-up dog turd known as nfl 97 on us an unforgivably bad release that still chaps my ass to this very day as much as i harp on this point not everything was terrible three dirty dwarves was a winner with some fun multiplayer and the american executives had the good sense to recognize that lobotomy software was something special as a general rule however be wary of western developed titles on the saturn quite often they are not worth your time or money [Music] while owning a saturn during its run one of the coolest and most appreciated options you had was expanding your console to do things it couldn't do on its own thanks to the cartridge interface on the saturn it allowed all sorts of cool add-ons to enhance your gaming experience the first and most obvious in this category are the ram expansion carts there are one in four megabyte options to add all kinds of cool stuff to your favorite saturn titles some games use them optionally while some require them but the end results were always appreciated in capcom titles like the awesome street fighter 03 you get arcade quality animation dramatic battle options no other version offered at the time and plenty of different modes to try out snk even dropped its classic run and gun metal slug on the saturn using the ram expansion a solid version for those of us that couldn't afford the neo geo original the ram carts also gave us access to a number of titles from the saturn's arcade counterpart the stv titan a number of these games didn't use the ram carts at all and needed cuts to make the transition those that did use the extra ram however like groove on fight were much closer to their original arcade versions the ram expansion wasn't the only thing you could get for the cartridge slot however there were also regional bypass devices you could get to play games outside your country as well as cheat devices that allowed you to change the fundamentals of your favorite games making them easier or tougher depending on your needs the saturn also had a video cd card you could score to watch video cds this one didn't use the cartridge slot but rather a hidden port behind the battery door while this is much less interesting these days because of the absolute breadth of digital content available it was still quite cool to sit back and watch a movie on your saturn finally and this was huge back in the day the saturn had a functional web browser and online capable game library thanks to the netlink adapter in fact the very first time i ever browsed the internet was on this device a glimpse at a future that would change the world of gaming forever [Music] remember that battery door i mentioned to you earlier it also leads to one of the things i came to hate about the saturn the save memory battery i considered this a huge bonus early on but in recent years it's been much less desirable while on the surface this seems like a cool feature especially since you don't need memory cards to save a game and it also controls the system's internal clock the battery doesn't last very long and worse when that battery goes you lose everything you had saved this means that the dozens of hours you had in shining force 3 or dragon force are now gone never to be seen again you can remedy this a number of ways but it requires more money spent to do it you can get a dedicated memory card for the cartridge slot that holds a lot more saved data but if you use the ram expansions often that means having to swap the carts frequently you can also get a fram mod that completely negates the need for a battery at all if you can't do the mods yourself you'll need to pay someone else to do it for you and i have seen enough sloppy soldering jobs in my time to tell you not everyone that says they can solder should actually be doing it the biggest issue here though is the cartridge slot the saturn is notoriously finicky when it comes to this mainly after years of having cheap third-party carts slammed into it over and over it's actually quite easy to encounter some major issues getting your saturn to recognize the various types of cartridges i've seen some so bad it would take a dozen tries before they'd work for some of you this is a non-issue completely for others this could be a huge headache that comes with additional time and cost [Music] one thing that sega got right about the saturn was its controller a full six button face two shoulder buttons and one of the best directional pads your thumb has ever felt while this controller excelled at fighting game motions it was quite good with just about any other genre you could throw at it it was in many ways just a slight redesign of the sega genesis 6 button arcade pad but that's a good thing because that controller was incredible itself this generation was also where we saw the widespread acceptance of analog control and while it may look a tad funky the saturn's 3d control pad was a winner as well this was the granddaddy of the dreamcast design though it keeps the great directional pad and six button interface that means you can still use it for all those fantastic two-dimensional games 3d games that use the analog wheel are mostly compatible with it as are the dozens of games designed specifically for it there's a few games like sigaturing car that play significantly better with it so be sure to add one if you take up saturn ownership a word of warning if you buy an oval button sega saturn that was released in north america or pal regions sega changed the controller for these areas and it's not nearly as nice in my opinion the d-pad feels weird i hate the shoulder buttons and the overall feel in your hand is all wrong it's not the worst controller i've ever used but compared to the japanese model it's simply nowhere as nice [Music] as i mentioned earlier we need to revisit that cartridge slot durability topic this is no joke and will likely be a concern to many of you over the life of your saturn especially if you purchased your saturn used because many of these systems saw years of unlicensed products being used in them the pins have taken one heck of a beating pcbs that were too thick unbeveled and generally of lower quality have done tons of wear and tear add in the oxidation of time on the pins and it's a recipe for a slot that gives you all kinds of trouble i own a saturn that has been in my collection since 1999 and it still gives me trouble when switching cartridges i am a fan of using dedicated memory devices so i change them often and it usually takes up to half a dozen tries to get a good connection not all saturns are like this fortunately but it's still a concern if you plan on using unlicensed devices on your saturn make sure the pcb is beveled and the thickness is not out of spec there are game shark and four-in-one cartridges that are just awful for your saturn so do your homework keep diligent with your purchases and make informed decisions otherwise your poor saturn will fight you every step of the way whenever you slap a cartridge in the slot if you find that you have purchased the saturn that gives you trouble with cartridges very gently clean the pins the better contact you have the easier it is to offset any damage your saturn may have seen before it came into your possession [Music] while the cartridge slots section may have you on edge about picking up a saturn for the first time let me reassure you the rest of the system is actually quite well built unlike many early cd-rom based hardware the saturn is quite robust when it comes to its overall durability while no electronic device that is nearly 30 years old is immune to failure the saturn has been rock solid if the cd-rom is a worry there are now multiple devices on the market to replace it typically leaving you with a saturn that is good to go for many years of use i also get questions about using a japanese system with us voltages in japan ac outlets output 100 volts which is slightly less than what we have here in north america don't worry though the internal power supply of the saturn is quite well designed and easily handles the slight increase in voltage i own many japanese units and have never had one fail at the power supply of course if you are in a region that uses a significantly different ac standard like many european nations you will need a step down converter for the japanese units also of interest for you guys that may worry about it the saturn main board does not have a ton of capacitors that can leak so you rarely need to worry about pcb damage in that regard keep your saturn clean and most will give you many years of enjoyment [Music] our final section of weaknesses may come off as something trivial to some but i consider the cases in north america and in powell regions to be quite unappealing my friends and i jokingly referred to the us variants as the garage case or comically oversized jewel cases that were unreasonably fragile these came from the sega cd which suffered the same design powell cases are even worse because they were a mix of cardboard and plastic and eventually just started falling apart from the most basic of use they both look fantastic on a shelf but in practice they are a nightmare to deal with i've broken a hinge on a us case just opening the damn thing up in contrast the small and easy to replace japanese jewel cases are so much easier to deal with they don't have the shelf presence of their western counterparts but not having the headache and expense of replacing them every time is well worth the trade-off if you aren't afraid of a disc only collection there are many cheap options for cases out there dvd style reproduction cases are common as are custom jewel cases if you don't care either way this won't be an issue at all but for those of you looking for complete original products be prepared to spend extra on third-party replacements to keep everything in tip-top shape certainly collectors will focus on this more than others but it will impact anyone looking to keep their library original [Music] so what do you guys think what would you add as a strength or weakness for the saturn would you change anything i went over i also wanted to say i purposely avoided the issue of cost as a negative as we all know buying retro games in this modern environment is crazy expensive there are complete inbox games going for well over a thousand dollars regularly for the saturn and dozens more going for hundreds of dollars each fortunately the arrival of secondary options have made owning real hardware an affordable reality for many slap in a cheap optical disk emulator like the mode or satiator and you can have the entire saturn library for just a few hundred bucks there is also the option of just burning your own games and using either a mod chip or an action replay to bypass the copy protection both are cheap alternatives to buying expensive gray market originals finally i am often questioned about the very best way to hook up a saturn to a modern television like a lot of old game systems the saturn works and looks best on a decent crt but if you don't have the space or motivation to deal with that you're gonna want a rad 2x you may have to wait for this little guy but the 480p image quality and lack of meaningful latency means an hdmi connection at a great price if you are the type of gamer who needs an option for multiple systems look into the retrotink line of products these devices have all worked great for me and i highly recommend them over the cheap hdmi adapters you see at places like amazon owning a saturn in 2022 can be a very good experience as long as you know what to expect going in educate yourself on your options and i guarantee you one heck of a good time i'm single lord x thank you guys for watching and i will catch you next time [Music] you

Channel: Sega Lord X

Views: 74,601

Keywords: sega saturn, saturn, sega genesis, segalordx, sega lord x, sega dreamcast, mega drive, megadrive, game gear, 32x, mega cd, genesis, master system, sega, sega cd, gameplay, review, movies, retro games, retro gaming, video games, ps4, xbox, wii, nintendo, gamecube, n64, ps1, ps2, ps3, psp, vita, switch, atari, sega saturn games

Id: mqWdaXfUSf0

Length: 20min 40sec (1240 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 22 2022