On reflection, you do must really feel a bit sorry for the Sega Saturn, regardless of Sega capturing themselves within the foot throughout its lifespan. Whereas the Saturn’s 1994 launch in Japan was deemed a hit, the North American launch the next yr was hampered by inexplicable choices that in the end culminated within the Saturn’s early demise within the area. It’s a disgrace, as there have been some high quality titles that would go up towards what was happening for the PlayStation and Nintendo 64 on the time, even when a few of them had been Japan unique. That additionally included quite a lot of horror titles, a few of that are bona fide classics. So, on the thirtieth anniversary of the Saturn’s launch, right here’s a choice of these titles. Clearly, some are ports from different techniques, however that shouldn’t cease you from looking for them out for those who’re a collector for the Saturn (for those who can afford it).
Resident Evil
Whereas it’d be simple to say that it’s simply Resident Evil, there are a couple of key variations between what PlayStation house owners had in 1996, and what the Saturn obtained a yr later. For starters, the port was dealt with by a third-party developer, Nextech, and due to the Saturn’s structure, Nextech to remodel the graphics. Whereas this resulted in higher color and a bit extra element within the textures, the loading instances throughout the door opening screens had been elevated. Not solely that, however the clear textures had been swapped for dithered textures (a recurring subject with Saturn video games), which didn’t look pretty much as good because the PlayStation model.
Nonetheless, Resident Evil on the Saturn bought a couple of unique goodies. The precursor to The Mercenaries Mode that everyone knows and love began as a “Battle Sport” minigame, which has you taking over swarms of enemies as you progress by way of rooms within the mansion. There are new costumes, in addition to new enemies, together with a brand new gold Tyrant, a zombie model of Wesker, and a alternative to the Hunter within the Tick.
Dracula X: Nocturne within the Moonlight
A port of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night time for the PlayStation, this was sadly a Japan unique. It additionally sadly wasn’t pretty much as good as the unique. Very like what occurred with Resident Evil, transparencies had been once more modified to dithered textures, and cargo instances had been elevated, and there’s extra slowdown. Because the Saturn doesn’t have a choose button, you need to go to the standing menu to entry the sport map. As a result of Saturn’s completely different decision when in comparison with the PlayStation, the graphics had been stretched, leading to apparent distortion.
As for exclusives, two new areas within the fortress had been added with The Cursed Jail and the Underground Backyard, every with new music that remixed “Bloody Tears,” “Starting,” and “Vampire Killer.” Additionally, very like Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, the Saturn model of Symphony allowed you to play as Maria. Her arsenal consists of kicks, however also can unleash magic assaults like in Rondo, in addition to use magic summon spells akin to Alucard’s magic. Lastly, Richter has been redrawn from his unique Rondo look to match the art work by Ayami Kojima.
Deep Concern
Going down deep underneath the Pacific Ocean on the aquatic lab often called Massive Desk, gamers assume the function of John Mayor, a Navy Seal stationed on the lab for safety functions. An incident involving a nuclear submarine leads to an alien virus being unleashed, inflicting the inhabitants of the lab to mutate into horrific creatures. John should now battle for survival to flee.
Sega tried their hand at Survival Horror, and the outcomes had been fairly good with Deep Concern. Launched in 1998 to capitalize on a sure different Survival Horror title’s success, Deep Concern shares similarities with Capcom’s child, together with the downright terrible voice performing. Regardless of this, Deep Concern leans extra in direction of the motion facet of Survival Horror, and doesn’t use all the typical methods that Capcom employed. The cinematic digital camera angles and the setting of the Massive Desk, for instance, lack selection, leading to issues wanting fairly same-y as you play. The music additionally doesn’t fairly have the identical dramatic impact as in Resident Evil.
Nonetheless, Deep Concern shines within the graphics, with character fashions getting much more consideration than its inspiration. Additionally, seeing as you’re underwater, the air provide mechanic is used fairly effectively to get the stress going. Daniel went into element on Deep Concern in his article a couple of years in the past, so verify that out for those who’re eager to be taught extra.
Corpse Killer: Graveyard Version
Very like Digital Photos’ different FMV title Night time Lure, Corpse Killer is dumb cheese that you would be able to swap your mind off to get pleasure from, even when the gameplay remains to be suspect. Nonetheless, it’s a bit puzzling for Sega to deliver this one to its new console. The story for this one has you taking part in as an unnamed marine who’s been airdropped onto a tropical island on a high secret mission to cease the evil Dr. Hellman, who plans on releasing his military of zombies on the world. On high of that, you’ve been bitten and have to discover a remedy whereas additionally rescuing your fellow captured marines.
Being that that is the Saturn, Sega upgraded this model of Corpse Killer to the “Graveyard Version”, which options a couple of exclusives equivalent to full-screen FMVs versus the compressed FMVs within the different variations, issue choice, new gadgets and power-ups, and new zombie assaults the place enemies pop up in entrance of you and assault. Oddly, the Saturn model lacks gentle gun help, although that is probably because of the programmers being unable to place in a operate to pick from the brand new a number of ammo varieties.
Crypt Killer
Already an unremarkable sport within the arcade when it comes to its graphics, story and gameplay, Konami ported their lightgun shooter Crypt Killer to the Saturn, with the anticipated outcomes. Granted, the Saturn does have sooner load instances when in comparison with the PlayStation port, however the graphics are someway worse on the Saturn. Textures are a pixelated mess on the 3D belongings, whereas the 2D sprites for the enemies are made all of the extra horrendous after they determine to pop up proper in entrance of you as a soar scare.
It’s all on high the truth that that is nonetheless the boring, uninspired sport that was within the arcades. Moreover, until you’re a hardcore lightgun followers, when you might have the likes of Sega’s personal The Home of the Lifeless on the Saturn, it actually begs the query of why you’d wish to hassle with this one.
Digital Pinball: Necronomicon
If you consider horror pinball video games, likelihood is you instantly go to Satan’s Crush or Alien Crush on the TurboGrafx-16. In the meantime in Japan, developer Kaze had Digital Pinball: Necronomicon, a pinball sport impressed by the works of H. P. Lovecraft. Surprisingly, Necronomicon does have a narrative, the place a monk has found the textual content of the eponymous Necronomicon, and is slowly being pushed mad as he reads the e book, together with his visions being the pinball tables you play. After all, you may forego the story and play the tables individually.
That includes some glorious ball physics with silky clean 60 fps gameplay and crisp graphics, your complete expertise is complemented by an superior soundtrack by John Petrucci of Dream Theater. Better of all, for these seeking to import the sport (seeing because it was solely launched in Japan), every part from the menus to the choices to spoken dialogue is all in English.
Enemy Zero
The second entry in Kenji Eno’s “D Trilogy” (the primary sport can also be on the Saturn), Enemy Zero follows Laura Lewis, who awakens from cryosleep aboard the organic analysis spaceship AKI on its return to Earth. Plainly aliens which might be invisible to human eyes have boarded the ship and are killing off the crew. Laura should now navigate the ship and cease the alien menace.
Aside from blatantly ripping of the plot to Alien and Eno’s animosity in direction of Sony, Enemy Zero‘s different noteworthy facet was its gameplay. Whereas navigation is just like what gamers had been doing in D, Enemy Zero utilized the distinctive mechanic of sound when it got here to its invisible enemies. Getting their location and distance from the participant is just doable by listening for audio cues. Coupled with the delayed time to cost your weapon, the worry generated right here is apparent. It’s undoubtedly not for everybody, since this mechanic can simply as simply give option to frustration in a short time, nevertheless it’s this uniqueness that additionally makes Enemy Zero one to strive no less than as soon as.
The Home of the Lifeless
You knew this was coming. The story for The Home of the Lifeless (very like the sport itself) is over-the-top hilarity: Dr. Roy Curien, obsessive about discovering the secrets and techniques of life and dying, unleashes his military of the undead on an unsuspecting populace. It’s as much as AMS brokers Thomas Rogan and his associate “G” to cease the scientist.
The Saturn is understood for its glorious arcade ports of preventing video games, however The Home of the Lifeless nonetheless landed pretty effectively. The sport wasn’t an ideal port from the arcade, with the graphics and sound taking successful, and the slowdown and mid-level load instances being an annoyance (notably with the latter if there have been enemies proper across the nook). It’s nonetheless a whole lot of enjoyable despite these niggles. And as soon as once more, Sega tried to offset these points with console-exclusive extras. The Saturn Mode permits gamers to select from completely different characters, every with their very own stats like clip dimension, reload velocity and life bar. There’s additionally a boss rush mode the place you battle the sport’s bosses in succession.
Darkish Seed
Darkish Seed tells the story of Mike Dawson, an writer who has simply purchased a spacious mansion in Woodland Hills. On the primary evening in the home, Mike has a nightmare the place a machine shoots an alien embryo into his brow. Upon waking up, Mike discovers that inside the mansion are portals to what’s referred to as the Darkish World. The Darkish World is being taken over by aliens calling themselves the Ancients. The Ancients at the moment are seeking to get into our world, and Mike (with the embryo in his head) is the important thing. Consequently, Mike should now discover a option to cease the Ancients.
One other title we’ve talked about earlier than a number of instances, this was oddly given a Saturn port that was unique to Japan. Even weirder was the truth that regardless of the improve in each division when in comparison with its unique PC model, the Saturn port doesn’t enhance the visuals in any respect. This meant that the 16-colour VGA palette used on the PC model has Darkish Seed wanting extraordinarily misplaced when in comparison with what was additionally out there on the Saturn on the time. The textual content was additionally translated to Japanese, however the voice performing remains to be in English.
Lunacy
One other FMV sport, Lunacy was developed by System Sacom, who additionally made Mansion of Hidden Souls on the Sega CD. The sport centres round a person named Fred, who finds himself imprisoned in Misty City jail, with no recollection of who he’s, or simply how wound up in jail. The participant quickly learns that Fred got here to the village searching for solutions. As soon as Fred is launched, he learns that the city ruler, Lord Gordon, has taken fairly an curiosity in Fred, because of the unusual mark on Fred’s brow. The mark, it seems, is just given to those that have been to the fabled Metropolis of Moons, of which Lord Gordon is sort of obsessive about discovering.
Being that that is an FMV sport, your complete playthrough of Lunacy is crammed with characters that you simply’ll be interacting with to tease out data in your journey, in addition to including color to the sport. System Sacom properly added a time-saving mechanic for gamers, permit you to replay vital conversations from Fred’s reminiscence so as to “recall” particular items of knowledge. One other time-saver is the truth that strolling sequences are fairly fast, avoiding the dreaded molasses motion of some FMV video games. The entire environment of Lunacy has an eerie feeling to it, with the sport happening in perpetual evening, and the surreal music solely accentuating that feeling. Not an outright scary title, however a undoubtedly creepy one.
Mr. Bones
It’s onerous to categorise what kind of sport you’re getting with Mr. Bones. From the thoughts of Ed Annunziata, creator of the Ecco the Dolphin collection, Mr. Bones combines platforming mechanics, together with rhythm sport mechanics and different minigames. Mr. Bones tells the story of the mad scientist DaGoulian, who units out to purify the world with evil by utilizing alchemy and a set of drums to summon a military of the useless from their graves as his skeletal troopers. Nonetheless, one among these resurrected skeletons is so “pure of coronary heart” that he can’t be turned. DaGoulian rapidly turns into conscious of Mr. Bones, and sends the skeletal military after him.
Whereas Mr. Bones employs platforming for a great deal of its gameplay, it’s not the one mechanic you’ll encounter. The opening degree is a 2D platformer, whereas the subsequent employs rhythm mechanics as you keep away from skeletons making an attempt to seize you. You’ll even have sequences of Mr. Bones jamming on his guitar or drums to show components of the skeleton military away from DaGoulian, otherwise you’ll be operating down a hill avoiding logs chasing after you. Together with the distinctive gameplay, Mr. Bones sports activities stunning animation, in addition to a soundtrack by Ronnie Montrose that mixes blues and onerous rock. A particular spotlight of the Saturn library.
PowerSlave
PowerSlave (or Exhumed because it’s identified in Europe) sadly bought caught up within the Doom clone craze, and was sadly ignored by many FPS followers. That is particularly irritating, provided that the builders, Lobotomy Software program, had been capable of produce some spectacular graphical results and gameplay on the Saturn. PowerSlave centres on the Egyptian metropolis of Karnak, which has been taken over by alien forces within the late twentieth century. You together with a crew of troopers are to uncover what occurred. Nonetheless, your helicopter is shot down, and also you’re left alone to battle the aliens, who’re looking for to resurrect the traditional Egyptian pharaoh King Ramses and use his powers to regulate the world.
Whereas the primary gameplay for PowerSlave is typical FPS motion of the day, there are some platforming components. Additionally, PowerSlave isn’t linear, as you might have a number of areas to go to throughout the map, which you’ll be revisiting as a way to seize particular artifacts that grant you particular skills, equivalent to having the ability to soar larger, breathe underwater, and so forth. The degrees themselves additionally sported complicated layouts when in comparison with one thing like Doom or Quake. In reality, the builders made it in order that for those who had been up for a problem, you can discover “Group Dolls”, dolls with faces of the members of the event crew on them, scattered all through the degrees. Discovering all 23 would unlock a minigame referred to as Demise Tank.
