(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to Game Sack. That's right. We're talking about the
Sega Saturn this time. - Good times ahead. Well, as a Nintendo
fanboy, I really don't know a lot about the Saturn so maybe Joe here can fill me in and you people out there
that don't know a lot either. - Okay, let's take a
quick look at the system. (dreamy music)
The Sega Saturn. (whirring) The Sega Saturn launched in
Japan of November of 1994 and everywhere else in 1995. The US launch surprised
the hell out of everyone but you can bet I picked
mine up right away and loved it. The system had a whole bunch of processors making it pretty tough to program for. While most people considered
it inferior at 3D, it was, in fact, a 2D monster. The console also had a cartridge slot which could be used to increase the amount of backup RAM for saving your games. In fact, most games could save
directly to the cartridge. There were also cards that increased the memory of the system but we'll talk more about those later. In the back of the system, behind a panel, you could access the internal battery and also add an MPEG video card. These cards were only available in Japan and allowed certain
games to display MPEG-1 quality full motion video. The Saturn had, in my opinion, the best controller ever and they later released a cool
analog controller as well. All in all, the Sega Saturn sold around nine and a half million units total with nearly 600 released games. (upbeat music) - Joe, that was some really
informative information on the Saturn there.
- Damn straight. - But, you know, I don't know. - What? - It's all right, I guess. - What do you mean it's all right? It's awesome, man. - Compared to the Ultra 64, you know, I don't know.
- Oh geez. (laughing) Ultra 64, I can't believe
you're still calling it that. - Well, I like that name. - Okay, anyway.
(Dave chuckles) We've got some games to show you and you picked the first one. - I did, a launch title
as a matter of fact. - Yeah, so let's take a look. - [Dave] Clockwork Knight
was the release title for the Saturn in 1995. Back then it was refreshing
to see a new platformer showing off the prowess of a new system. Back in 1995, this game looked fantastic. To me, it was like Donkey Kong Country taken to the next level
in terms of graphics as all the game sprites looked great. Everything's very colorful and the levels had the perfect atmosphere. The game plays good, although Pepper Chew or whatever the hell that knight's name is kinda controls sluggish. He can move quickly and attack enemies just fine, but something isn't connecting
in terms of control. It's nothing major, mind you, and the game is still very playable. There are no checkpoints in the levels and if you run out of lives completely, you've got to start from
the beginning of the world and not the stage you were working on. The music in this game is, well, well, it's not good. Seriously, just turn down the volume to minimize the aural pain. Playing this game again for this review, I felt that while it's
still very playable, it just doesn't have the same appeal to me as it did in 1995. (goofy upbeat music) Clockwork Knight 2 came
out in the same damn year. Talk about a fast turnaround. I guess it shouldn't be surprising as all the controls are exactly the same with nothing new added in this department. There are new levels to
play through, of course. Some of them even have forced scrolling. Graphically, it's similar to the first and there are some nice
effects here and there. Again, the music is really, really bad and it even shares some of the same tunes with the first game. The only thing they
really added to this one is a Boss Rush mode. You can fight all the bosses in a row if that makes you feel tough. (goofy upbeat music)
(Knight screeching) - [Joe] Psychic Killer Taromaru is a side scrolling action
game by Time Warner. It was released only in Japan and is one of the more
hard to find titles. If you do find it, be prepared
to pay out the ass for it. Anyway, the game mostly uses
polygons for its backgrounds and sprites for everything else. It takes place in ancient, mythical Japan and everything is really creepy. You have a little thing
as your targeting system. Get close enough to an enemy and it'll lock on while you
mash away at the fire button or hold down for a more powerful attack. You can change nearby targets with the L or R buttons. This game throws a ton of
enemies and attacks at you but you can deflect many
of them with a shield which you get by pressing the Y button. Even so, you're still
probably gonna get hit a lot. Once your life runs
out you turn into a log because, of course, you
know, that makes sense. If you choose the play as the other guy, you turn into what I
guess is a brown tomato on a stone when you die. The gameplay here isn't awful but, really, it could
have been much better. Sometimes it's kind of frustrating but they give you a ton of continues so if you're willing to use 'em, you'll probably beat the game. What I do like is that the game goes almost completely uninterrupted from the beginning all
the way to the end boss. The only time the screen
breaks away even for a second is when you get swallowed
by this giant frog. You find yourself inside his stomach and you're still battling him. Oh look, even his tapeworms
wanna take you down. The graphics are all pretty good. I think they could have
been a little better if they stuck with 2D instead of polygons but, for the most part, everything works to give you a really creepy vibe. The music is appropriate with a lot of Japanese sounding stuff but here and there it gets kind of good. So is this game worth the price? Definitely not. However, if you can
get it for $50 or less, don't pass it up, but that's
just not gonna happen. (dramatic music)
(lasers blasting) - [Dave] Pebble Beach Golf
Links is, in my opinion, one of the most fun golf
games I've ever played. You laugh, but I'm serious. This game introduced one
of the coolest features to a golf game that I just love and I'll get to that in a second. The game starts the ever
exciting Craig Stadler. - I'm Craig Stadler. It's a great day for golf and there's no place like Pebble Beach. - [Dave] And you play on the only course available in
the game, Pebble Beach. Playing the tournament mode, you're treated to a flyover of each hole and a description of the hole and how it should be played by the very famous Craig Stadler. - Hit the ball over the
gorge in your second. Relatively easy birdie. - [Dave] You tell 'em, Craig. You chose from one to
four players and a caddy and it's off you go. The digitized characters
look pretty goofy these days but back when this game was
new, they looked amazing. Setting up and hitting
your shot is very simple and you'll get the hang of it right away. Now, to the feature that I loved the most and even to this day still
enjoy, it's the ball cam. After hitting your
shot, the camera follows the ball through the air
and, as stupid as it seems, I can watch it endlessly. For you people that don't
care for such things, you can turn this off in the options menu. As you play and make great shots, Craig will come on and
tell you how he feels. - Great shot! Right down the middle! - [Dave] He will even taunt you at times. - Think you can get it inside mine? - [Dave] Well, at least I
thought he was taunting me, but now I feel that he
might be prepositioning me for something I'm not quite willing to do. - Think you can get it inside mine? - [Dave] Please don't ask me
that anymore, Mr. Stadler. Anyways, graphically the
game is what you would expect from a 1995 golf simulation. It's still very playable, mind you, but it's just not nice to look at anymore. The music is great. I like the soft jazz soundtrack and it really fits the game. If you want a golf game for the Saturn, you can't do any better than this one. (pleasant music) - I'm not too comfortable with this. - [Joe] One thing that
was cool about the Saturn was its ability to use cartridges and CDs. A couple of games came on both cart and CD and both were required to run the game. An example of this is
The King of Fighters 95. It's a port of the Neo Geo game where you can pick
teams of three fighters. The cartridge contains all
of the background graphics but the sprites and music are all loaded off of the CD. This helps to reduce loading time a bit and also helps to keep the
level of animation pretty high. Obviously, if you want to play this game you're gonna need either a Japanese Saturn or a region modified console, as your cartridge based
region bypasses won't work. This game was pretty cool but it needed to load every time you changed characters during a bout. Then there was the one
megabyte RAM cartridge which effectively allowed the Saturn to have three megs of RAM. Quite a few games used this,
like The King of Fighters 96 and King of Fighters 97. Another game that required
the one meg RAM cart was Metal Slug, which is
a pretty darn good port from the Neo Geo. Unlike the wimpy PlayStation version, it can fit the entire level in without having to stop to load. Oh look at that! It keeps going without pausing the action! Hell yeah! Many games could optionally take advantage of the RAM cart to increase
animation or whatnot. For example, all versions
of Marvel Super Heroes will let you enable a three meg RAM mode if a cart is inserted. Here's the game without the extra memory. Notice the Hulk's animation. Now here's the game with the RAM cart. Notice that there's more
frames of animation. And when Sega and Capcom got serious, they came out with the
four megabyte RAM cart which allowed the Saturn
to have a whopping six megabytes of RAM. The first game to use this was one of my favorite fighting games,
X-Men vs. Street Fighter. The game is, for all intents
and purposes, arcade perfect. The character animation is awesome and the stages often have multiple scenes. There's next to no loading at all when you're playing this game. I do wish it had more stages, though. (upbeat music)
(grunting and shouting) Capcom then came out with Vampire Savior, AKA Dark Stalkers 3
which required the cart. This helped make the game the best version of Dark Stalkers on any
console, in my opinion. Street Fighter Zero 3 also
known as Street Fighter Alpha 3 also used a four meg RAM cart. This is a great version of the game and, you know what, it might
just be the best version. And, of course, let's not forget Marvel Superheros vs. Street Fighter. This is another great one, though I feel it takes too many elements from the X-Men game. The backgrounds are all almost identical and I think they could have worked a bit harder on that aspect but it's still an awesome game. (upbeat music)
(grunting and thudding) You can also use the
four megabyte RAM cart to play games that used a one
megabyte cart but be careful. Some games, like King of Fighters 96, can get some glitchy graphics
when using the four meg cart. Games like this require that
you use the one meg cart. Here's a list of all the
RAM cart compatible games. I hope you can read fast or know how to work that pause button
because, and it's gone. (upbeat music)
(grunting and thudding) - [Dave] Saturn Bomber Man is
pretty much what you'd expect from a Bomber Man game and that's quality. I absolutely love this series even though there's probably more of them than Mario games, but the thing is you probably only need to maybe have two or three
of them in your collection. That's because they all have
almost identical gameplay with the only major difference being the backgrounds of the levels. Saturn Bomber Man stands
out in this respect as it has one feature that
really makes it different. I'll get to that in a minute. So if you haven't played
Bomber Man, shame on you. It's a great game and you should
feel really bad right now. Anyways, the object of
Bomber Man is to blow up your enemies and obstacles
by strategically placing bombs to blow them up. As you blow up obstacles, they'll
randomly release power ups which make you stronger,
such as bombs, speed, kick, extending the length of
your explosion, and more. It's a really great idea and that's why the series
has gone on for decades. The single player mode has a story and you must traverse through levels destroying lighted
pillars to open an exit, eventually ending in a boss fight. It's fun, but anybody
who has played Bomber Man knows multiplayer is
where the real fun is. So what makes this game different? It's the port's 10 player
simultaneous battles. All you need is two
multi-taps, 10 controllers, and, of course, nine friends. Having a room big enough for
all these people helps also. This mode is extremely enjoyable. The game map is stretched to wide mode and all the characters are super small. It's really fun and you
should try this mode if you ever have the chance. One of the better games on
the Saturn if you ask me. (exciting music) - Oh man, I wish I had nine
friends I could play that with. - No, you don't. They'd just be mooching off of you and asking you to borrow
all your great games. - (chuckles) Probably true.
- You don't want that. So, like, hey, can I
borrow Radiant Silvergun 'cause, you know, I know
you're talking about it. - Okay, yeah. Let's take a look at Radiant Silvergun and no, you cannot borrow it. (pleasant music) Radiant Silvergun is one
of those pricey games that get a lot of attention. Well, in my opinion,
it definitely deserves the praise it gets. This is a vertical shooter by Treasure and, as you might have
guessed, is pretty unique. For one, there are no weapons to collect or power ups in the game at all. You have seven different weapons and any of them can be used at any time simply by pressing a different
button on the controller. You'll find that they
each have their uses. What's kind of cool is
that in the Saturn Mode your weapons get stronger
the more you use them. Besides that, the game
just feels different than other vertical shooters. It may be a bit off putting
to some, but not to me. In fact, it's probably one of my favorite vertical shooters ever. As with most Treasure games, you fight a ton of bosses. Some of 'em don't even really look like anything other than a
collection of random shapes. Others will even require you to hide to avoid getting shot. The game as a whole is a blast. If you're a score junkie, you can chain your attacks to
get the highest score you can. It probably goes without saying that the graphics here are fantastic. Definitely some of the best on the system. The music is also great, giving the game a very intense and futuristic feel. (exciting music)
(lasers blasting) Unfortunately, they only
released this one on Japan which should come as no surprise as Bernie Stolar is an
idiot and killed the system before this game even had a chance but you can pick it up on the Xbox 360 if you don't want to break the bank. (exciting music)
(bombs blasting) - [Dave] Die Hard Arcade
is a beat 'em up game that's loosely tied to
the Die Hard movie series. It's known as Dynamite
Deka in Japan and Europe. It's a fun beat 'em up with a few aspects that
I kind of find annoying. I've said it before and I say it again. The 32 bit era is not known for good looking 3D games. This game looks pretty bad and everything seems to
be low count polygons. I mean, look at the wheel on this car. Tell me that looks fine. I dare you. Secondly, the game is
made up of tiny areas where you fight a small amount of enemies. After the enemies are dispatched, then the game loads a new area. There's no wandering around
down paths or hallways which kind of makes the game
seem a bit unfulfilling. Between some of the levels you will have a quick time event where you have to push a button. This helps add a bit to the game but not really by much. The controls are pretty good. Well, as good as they get
for a 32 bit polygon game. Punching, kicking, and
jumping are all well done. If you want to turn a different direction, there seems to be a small
lag which can get you killed. - The game will turn around in the end. - [Dave] Shut up, Craig Stadler. Your input is not welcome here. Okay, after all that griping I do admit that I had a good time playing this game. It would be nice to see what
this game would play like today on a current
system if newly developed by the same team. Also included is a game called Deep Scan which seems way out of place on this disc. This is a strange
pre-eight bit looking game where you try and blow up submarines. Nice diversion, but I don't get it. (dramatic music)
(punches thudding) - [Joe] Virtua Cop by Sega is a light gun game included with the bright orange stunner. I like playing light gun
games every once in a while so I really enjoyed this one. Basically, you just need
to shoot down the bad guys and not shoot the civilians. You can choose between three stages and each of them is fairly long. It's a decent port of the arcade but the graphics and textures are all pretty plain. The music is fairly good in spots and overall this is a fun game to play when you're in the mood
for a good light gun game. (intense music)
- Help me! (gun fire booms) (glass shatters) Virtua Cop 2 came out not long after. It's pretty much more of the same but this time the graphics
are much more varied, with higher detailed textures. They definitely figured
out more about the Saturn by the time they made this one. The game lets you choose your route midway into the stage and that helps a little re-playability. The game also seems to
move at a faster pace than the original and the
levels are definitely longer. Unfortunately though,
the music isn't as good as the original. Still, if you liked the first you'll definitely like this one. Of course, you can play with a control pad or the light gun and both games
are two player simultaneous and that's really fun
if you've got two guns. (dramatic music)
(gun fire booming) (grunting)
- Please, don't shoot! - [Joe] The original
House of the Dead came out towards the end of the
Saturn's retail life. Time to blast some zombies. Hmm, apparently this game is a bit too ambitious for the Saturn. I mean, can the texture resolution possibly be any lower? Oh well, it's still House of the Dead so that helps make it cool. And damn is this game hard. The game stops to load
several times per level and your arm and wrist will definitely be glad about that. Still, it's kind of fun to play if you're a House of the Dead fan. - Rogan, it's you! (woman screams) - Nobody leaves here alive! - [Man] Sophie! - [Dave] I often hear
and read on the internets that Guardian Heroes is one of
the best games on the Saturn. It's a beat 'em up type game and to make your
experience more fulfilling, they've added RPG elements. Your character can level
up certain attributes between stages with points
earned during the stage. Also, at certain points of the game you can choose different paths and even moral choices, all of which will bring you to
one of the multiple endings. Obviously this makes for huge replay value in the Story Mode. Another new addition to this style of beat 'em up is fighting planes. There are three different
planes you can fight on in this game. It adds a bit to the
strategy of fighting enemies and especially bosses. When an enemy is throwing magic your way, you can switch planes and
move around the attack which is key to surviving longer. Some people don't really care for this multi-plane fighting but I found it to be interesting and not too difficult to learn. Versus Mode is a crazy
six person battle royale that's quite fun to play. It's completely hectic and your hands will be killing you from all the button
mashing you'll be doing. There have been many times
playing the Story Mode and even the Versus Mode where I've lost my character on screen because there's so much going on. The Saturn does all this
with very minimal slowdown. I'm actually impressed. The music in this game is really good. There's a lot of great tracks in here and some nice mix of synth and guitar that really gets my blood flowing. Graphically the game suffers a tad. While the game is full of color there are lots of really
ugly graphics here. Character sprites have rough edges. There's lots of pixelated backgrounds that have been blown up and put into the foreground which just looks wrong. As we all know, the Saturn can, in fact, deal with transparencies
but this game doesn't. A lot of bushes and other things have a mesh effect because the developers just couldn't be bothered to make this game look
as good as it could have. But this is a minor complaint as the game is super fun to play and if you can find it,
be sure to pick it up. (grunting and shouting) - Sega made some great 3D
fighters for the Saturn like Virtua Fighter. This one was packed in with
the system on launch day. It was fun to play for its time but it's pretty glitchy
and looks kinda bad. Still, though, it's the Virtua
Fighter experience at home and the music's not half bad. But Sega must have felt
embarrassed about this because eventually they sent
all registered US Saturn owners a copy of Virtua Fighter Remix for free. This game played exactly the same but now the polygons were much more stable and the game even had
some texture mapping. It looked so much better as a result but as good as this was, it was nothing compared
to Virtua Fighter 2. Running at the highest
resolution any console was even capable of at the time, this game really improved on the first in every single way possible. It looks great, the music's great, and the controller moves feel much better. The jumps are still a bit floaty, though. (upbeat music)
(grunting and thudding) Sega followed that up
with Fighting Vipers. This game had some quirky characters battling it out inside of a caged ring. The fighters each have armor and it's represented by the green symbols in the upper corners of the screen. If you're good, you
can smash the armor off and that'll make each attack to that area even more effective. It's a good game, just
not quite as memorable as the Virtua Fighter series. Speaking of that, they had to
milk Virtua Fighter once more with Virtua Fighter Kids. (sighs) Nothing like a game
where a bunch of children beat each other up. This game is basically a
kiddie version of part two. The graphics are bright and colorful but the characters' heads are so big that it makes me feel like I have absolutely no reach at all. It plays okay but I really don't see any
reason for it to exist. One game I rarely ever see
anyone mention is Last Bronx. This is a weapons based fighter and it's actually pretty cool. Like all the 3D fighting games
we've talked about so far, it's based on the Virtua
Fighter control layout. Some of the characters kinda
remind me of Soul Caliber but other than that, it's a pretty good original fighting game. I recommend picking this one up because it seems like most
people haven't played it. And, of course, we've got to
talk about Fighters Megamix. Sega took Virtua Fighter
and Fighting Vipers and smashed them into a single game. Most stages from both
series are represented. There's no ring outs here. You've got to fight to the end. You can pick from a bunch
of different characters and unlock even more. Now some of the new and
unlockable characters include Bark as well as Bean from the arcade game Sonic The Fighters. You can play as a couple
of Virtua Fighter kids, a weird bear thing that
doesn't even animate, or as Siba, a reject that was left on the cutting room floor of
the original Virtua Fighter. Perhaps you want to play as Rent-A-Hero, a Genesis RPG woefully left in Japan. You can play as any of these and more, like the car from Daytona. Wait, what? That's right. You can play as the car from Daytona. How badass is that? It's hard as hell to
control, but who cares? That is hilarious. Anyways, Fighters Megamix
is awesome overall. It controls a lot quicker than the two games it's based on and it clearly doesn't
take itself very seriously. Let me tell you, this game is
a must if you own a Saturn. (upbeat music)
(thudding) All right, and there are a
ton of great Saturn games. Way more than we can
cover in a single episode, but, you know what, we're gonna try to get as many in there as possible so let's take a really quick look at a bunch more great Saturn games. These are games from the US or import games even, so. - Yeah, and we're gonna do
it in, what, a montage, Joe? - Yes, a montage.
- I love montages. We haven't had one forever. - Yeah, so let's go. (dreamy music)
(tinkling) (dramatic music)
(whooshing and grunting) (exciting music)
(lasers blasting) (exciting music)
(grunting and thudding) (dramatic music)
(explosions booming) (dramatic music)
(lasers blasting) (exciting music) (dreamy music) (screeching)
(exciting music) (triumphant music) (whooshing) (exciting music)
(lasers blasting) (exciting music) ♪ Anything could happen ♪ ♪ Work it out, work it out ♪ ♪ You've got to make it real ♪ (dramatic music)
(gun fire booming) (gentle music) (exciting music)
(lasers blasting) (exciting music)
(speaking foreign language) (exciting music)
(tires squealing) (spooky music) (exciting music)
(lasers blasting) (exciting music)
(lasers blasting) - [Announcer] Get your position. Great, another time to beat. ♪ Let's go away, let's go away ♪
(engine whirring) - [Announcer] Great, your
time has been extended. (upbeat music)
(tinkling) (dramatic music)
(explosions boom) (dramatic music) (exciting music)
(lasers blasting) (dramatic music)
(lasers blasting) (exciting music)
(shouting and grunting) (exciting music)
(lasers blasting) (exciting music)
(lasers blasting) (dramatic music)
(grunting and thudding) (exciting music)
(lasers blasting) (triumphant music)
(shouting and grunting) (audience cheering) (shouting) - [Announcer] Foul! - What have I done? (singing in foreign language) (exciting music)
(tinkling) (dramatic music)
(lasers blasting) (exciting music)
(lasers blasting) (dramatic music)
(lasers blasting) (dramatic music) - [Announcer] Long medium right. [Announcer] Caution! Hairpin right! Checkpoint. Whoa. (explosions booming)
(gun fire blasting) - [Woman] Where's the crystals? (lasers blasting) (exciting music) (playful music) (dramatic music) - And there you have it, the Sega Saturn. Of course, you know, I
kinda hope we were able to cover some of those games
in a little bit more detail in a future episode depending
on the subject matter but, you know, you never know. - Yeah, exactly. Well, take a look for 'em and I don't know about you but I learned a lot about
the Sega Saturn today thanks to Joe here. - Don't touch me.
- The Sega fan. - Okay, yeah, and thanks for watching. (singing in foreign language) - I can't believe Joe
forgot Solar Eclipse, one of the best exclusive
games for this system. What a dork. (dramatic music) - [Man] Returning fire. (lasers blasting) - The real battle starts right now. - Craig Stadler, what the
hell are you doing in here? Don't you have your own game? Get outta here, jerk. - You played better than I expected. - Well, of course I do. I'm a pro. (lasers blasting) Get out of here! I'm not telling you again, you jerk. (lasers blasting) - A small mistake can
affect your entire game. - Stadler-- - I'll show you. - Show me what? - Is the pressure starting to get to you? (lasers blasting) - Hi Dave, I'm gonna grab some fast food. You wanna come? Can you make it? - Oh my god, I'm starving. Yeah, I can do it. - You can count on me,
'cause I know I can make it. (lasers blasting)
Fantastic video! Its everything you would ever want to know about the system itself and some games. Nice to see Steam Gear Mash in there too. Awesome job with this.
Awesome! Love it, great video man!
Only a few minutes in but the production values are great and you guys look like huge videogame nerds, so you're obviously doing something right. :)
Love it, you guys are my favorite gaming channel! Love the pacing and delivery of your videos, keep it up!