The Final Days of the Sega Saturn

[Music] as most of you know the sega saturn did not have a very successful run in the united states the region never took to the virtual fighter series and most of the popular games in japan were never released there sega put a fair bit of resources behind the platform in 1995 and 1996 but by the time 1997 rolled around the writing was on the wall despite being outsold heavily by both sony and nintendo that year lots of great games still made their way out to eager fans 1997 brought some great games like super puzzle fighter 2 capcom's street fighter themed puzzle game that uses falling gems to attack your foe it was a great looking game that sported some cool animations and a great soundtrack die hard arcade also got a release that year sega's in-house beat em up that was loosely based on the classic film it enjoyed a fairly popular run in the arcade so the saturn version was sought after because of the small amount of games that represented the genre especially ones that use 3d polygons the mega man series got two entries that year with both 8 and x4 showing up both games were great successes on the saturn easily rivaling would have been on the playstation lunacy was a surprise late in the life of the saturn a full motion video game with a spooky and mysterious setting and story don't let the looks fool you this is actually a really good game the incredible fighters megamix made its way to the united states that year a mix of sega properties using the virtual fighter and fighting viper style of gameplay it was a great game that showed sega knew how to make something other than bare bones arcade ports a handful of really good rpgs made their way out including both albert odyssey and shining the holy ark while both were quite solid they couldn't have been more different albert odyssey was a traditional hand-drawn japanese rpg that looked more like something from the super nintendo while shining the holy ark was a first person rpg with pre-rendered assets i really enjoyed them both sports games kept coming with the addition of sega's excellent world series baseball line now all the way up to 1998 this one introduced polygon players for the first time mortal kombat trilogy was an interesting release combining fighters and elements from a number of games in the series into one package it was the kind of game you loved to get in between the aaa first party stuff the 10 player saturn bomberman made its debut that year one of the craziest party games you've ever seen while most systems had a version of bomberman to call their own you had never seen it quite like this sonic jam was there to finally give us a look at a real 3d sonic world a bittersweet edition of what could have been capcom's resident evil graced the platform after delighting playstation fans the previous year it was a good port overall and still captured most of what made the game special in the first place capcom also released marvel superheroes a 2d fighter based on the arcade version it had its issues with slowdowns but was still a great game with some really impressive animation last bronx was released late in the year and really showed us what could have been done with sega's hardware with 3d fighters it had taken two years but they had figured out how to get great looking 3d backgrounds using the vdp2's abilities lobotomy software got both duke nukem 3d and quake out towards the end of the year two first-person shooters that really blew away the fan base neither game should have existed and yet here they were for our enjoyment despite the continued news that sega was in terrible financial trouble and a replacement was coming much sooner than expected 1997 had been a great year to own a saturn it was a good thing too because it all went to hell in 1998 with 1998 coming into focus it was clear sega meant to replace the saturn in the near future this destroyed its meager market in the united states while the saturn had always received less games than the playstation things took a horrific turn for the worst almost overnight the faucet was simply turned off sega of america led by one bernie stoller had basically let everyone know that they were killing the saturn outright and that only a handful of games were left to be released only two non-sega published saturn games were released that entire year electronic arts had supported the saturn far more than most people realize they released more than two dozen games and published a few more the last of the saturn releases in the u.s was nhl 98 in january the series had been immensely popular on the genesis so it's no wonder it continued to endure ea's ports to the saturn begin to deteriorate a bit with the move to 3d players a game like madden had 2d sprites for players and the vdp-2 drawing the field so things typically stayed smooth and played great games like nba live 98 really began to suffer because it used fully 3d engines that clearly taxed the saturn a lot more and with the budget likely being tiny for these ports it just wasn't a good game nhl 98 though managed to stay fairly competitive visually and even had some nice shadows and player models the frame rate does get a bit choppy but never to the point of being unplayable it's fully licensed and loaded with teams and players you'd expect of the era and also included a ton of modes and options for you to explore in fact from a hardcore fans perspective it's the most complete hockey game on the platform the playstation version ran smoother but the saturn version definitely sent the series off with a bang tyrion gets shoved by gilchrist textile passes it gilchrist gets the puck to tarian he passes it at center coding to the net terrion winds up codeine passes rebound vernon saves he plays the next release was in february and came from sega themselves winter heat was sort of a sequel or continuation of decathlete a series of olympic-style sporting events that you compete in to be number one decathlete had been summer games while this one of course covers the winter events you get to compete in the likes of speed skiing slalom skating bobsledding and even skeleton the graphics here are quite a bit more dynamic than what we saw in decathlete so it doesn't use the same high resolution mode it still looks good though and the variety of events really make the replayability sky high it supports up to four players too so if you have some friends it makes for one hell of a good party game it's based on the stv titan arcade version and is extremely easy to play don't let that convince you that it isn't competitive though my friends and i damn near killed each other over this one saturn fans would have to wait all the way until may before they got their next chance to buy a game and that came in as the classic arcade light gun shooter the house of the dead sega farmed this port out to tantalus interactive and something must have gone horribly wrong because it's about as ugly as a saturn game gets piss-poor textures models and a shoddy frame rate all come together to really hurt the overall presentation but it's a real testament to the appeal of this one because despite the abysmal visuals it's still really fun to play they have the core of the content intact so while it may not look much like the arcade it manages to play just like it this really does make a difference in this game's appeal unlike sega's virtual cop series this doesn't use the saturn's mouse so if you have an hdtv play it with the 3d analog control pad it's much smoother and accurate though it's still no replacement for a crt in the stunner the japanese version is dirt cheap compared to the us release but you do need to contend with some green blood if you go that route [Music] a few days after the house of the dead was released the saturn got pander jagoon saga the third and final entry into the team andromeda produced series this one was a big change to the formula we had seen in the first two games they had been on rail shooters with a sparse story team andromeda turned everything on its head by making this one into a story-heavy turn-based strategy rpg you control edge as he fumbles around in complete ignorance of the world around him that all quickly changes as you find yourself atop a mighty dragon from there you explore battle and ultimately unlock the key to the mystery of azel i'm gonna let you guys in on a little secret here i hated this game when i first played it i wanted another shooter not some pansy ass role-playing game i wanted to attack it will while the screen was spinning and shaking all around me it would not be until a while later that i actually gave it a real chance and while i did come to enjoy it i still don't hold it very high on the saturn's list of best rpgs the limited release of this one means that it's not cheap to own today it's coveted by many a saturn fan pushing prices for a u.s version up around a thousand dollars or so [Music] about a month after saga was released burning rangers made its way out in june this was sonic team's final game on the us saturn a 3d action platformer that had you exploring burning buildings saving victims and battling giant bosses they used the saturn to create some impressive fire effects and light sourcing making you think with another six months in the oven it could have been even more impressive this game is in terrible need of a remake or a reboot i really think sega could do some incredible things with this on modern hardware again the japanese version is much cheaper but not having the navigation in english makes for a much harder experience around to the other side of the plant site go up at the end of july we got the very last official sega saturn release from sega themselves shining force 3 was a more traditional turn-based strategy rpg and a sequel to the much beloved games on the sega genesis it now featured a fully 3d environment with 2d sprites for the characters battle scene switches everything over to 3d polygons and adds cool effects like light sourcing and transparencies the story takes place around a war that was brought about by sinister forces working it from the outside your job is to bring this to light and expose the conspiracy of course the original japanese shining force 3 was broken up into three episodes with the us release only being the first the other two remain japanese exclusives in regards to official releases but they did get fan translation some years later they continued the story from different points of view though the gameplay and setup remained mostly the same the us version is expensive so if you're interested in the series i highly advise getting the fan translations together and burning them to disk or using an ode [Music] the final game released for the sega saturn in the united states was magic knight ray earth it was released in the middle of december and its history is a heck of an interesting story the original japanese version was released in august of 1995 quite early in the life of the system it was developed internally at sega cs and had both a regular and special edition working designs came in in 1996 and wanted to translate the game for the us the problem was that some of the original source code was lost and they needed to rebuild it coupled with some licensing approval issues it took over two years for the game to make its way west ironically what had been an early japanese game ends up being the last game released for the system at all in the united states this one is an action-adventure game very similar in structure to the likes of zelda combat takes place in real time while you explore the different areas it's got beautiful 2d art some really nice special effects and it's chock full of voice acting cut scenes it was limited in its release so of course it's crazy expensive these days [Music] as the saturn chapter in sega's history came to a close in the u.s it opened up the story of the dreamcast with a massive mistake right off the bat with the regular releases for the saturn market essentially ending with the close of 1997 it meant that sega had no real presence there for nearly two years sega was out of sight and out of mind as sony and nintendo lapped up former sega fans by the millions indoctrinating an entire generation while sega readied its next hardware by the time the dreamcast showed up in september of 1999 there was nothing of substance left of sega's mighty american empire almost immediately sony began flooding the gaming media with news of the playstation 2's unprecedented power dvd support and third-party games you'd never see on sega's offering the damage had been catastrophic to sega's brand which was already in sharp decline while i do not presume to know how things would have played out otherwise i can't help but to feel that with sega's brand on life support as 1997 closed taking a 13-month hiatus with next to nothing on the market was a really bad move there were still many many games left in japan that could have been brought over in small batches to keep the market aware sega existed especially since a few of these were some killer fighting games that needed very little in the way of localization the saturn went out of the u.s market the way it had come in sega of america wanted nothing to do with it and its customers suffered for it the effect it had on consumer confidence simply never recovered the european saturn market ended in 1998 as well but it got more games including a handful of exclusives the japanese market would go on strong in 1998 before fizzling out in 1999 well after the dreamcast had already arrived sega's strongest market for the genesis had been the united states yet it treated that region's customers the worst when it came to the saturn there is something to be said about the way a company treats success but i think it's just as important how it treats a failure almost 2 million americans had stuck with sega through its ups and downs that generation and to say thank you sega gave us all a big middle finger i'm single lord x thank you guys for watching and i will catch you next time [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Sega Lord X

Views: 160,235

Keywords: segalordx, sega lord x, sega saturn, sega genesis, sega dreamcast, mega drive, megadrive, game gear, 32x, mega cd, genesis, saturn, 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

Id: 0YgbyMOlHrs

Length: 17min 47sec (1067 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 12 2021