I wish things turned out differently for the Saturn but making a 2D powerhouse in an age where 3D was the next big thing really demonstrated a lack of foresight on Sega's part.
I wonder if Sega were expecting the emerging generation to be a 2D/3D hybrid era? Sony and Nintendo definitely had the vision for 3D and Sega didn't - which is all the more odd when you consider their 3D arcade output.... So many confusing and contradictory aspects to Sega in this era.
Props on the Dark Savior shout out. It's one of my top ten favorite games and barely anyone played it.
I remember seeing it in a magazine back in the day, had a mini guide for it. Absolutely fell in love with it's art style and it made me want a Saturn. Someday I'll buy one. Especially since the emulation for Saturn, or at least this game, never really seemed to work out.
It really is such a a great and unique game. In all my years of gaming, I've never played one like it.
Action adventure + Isometric exploration and platforming + 2D fighting system + enemy capture system + parallel narratives on each replay.
I'm so glad people still remember this absolutely classic.
I was a sega fanboy during the Genesis era, but I got burned twice on the 32X and Sega CD. So I skipped the Saturn. I wasn't going to get burned again and moved to the PlayStation.
I came back for the Dreamcast, but we all know what happened there.
I absolutely don't blame you declining the Saturn after the unimpressive Mega Cd and 32X. What I can say is that the Saturn was much, much better than both of those systems combined. If you liked Sega's Mega Drive/Genesis output - the Saturn is the successor to those game styles. The lineup - especially with regards to 2D - really continues the design approaches of this era. For some, that was amazing.
It's probably omitted from that NPD list because it was only sold in a hardware bundle but technically the best-selling US Saturn game was the Virtua Fighter 1 pack-in at launch, which sold 250,000 units. Madden '97 sold just under that at 240,000.
Saturn hardware in US: 1.4 million units total.
Best-selling games (from an old NPD thread elsewhere on the Internet):
Really interesting to read this sales fact, thanks for sharing it!
Hopefully sega wakes up a bit to its potential, though I'm hoping a quick and dirty Saturn mini is not the answer.
Yeah, I have concerns about Sega creating a Saturn mini.
My expectations would be pretty low, unfortunately. I can see them including all the titles that have been ported to umpteen systems such as Sega Rally, Virtua Fighter, Sonic R, NiGHTS, Panzer Dragoon #1 - and while there is a place for these - it would be such a shame if the opportunity was missed to exhibit all those games that are near-impossible to play.
We prefer the rolling mines in the original. Rather than shooting like a normal shot and rolling when they hit the ground in Zwei, in 1 they just drop from your tank and roll immediately. It makes it a better balanced weapon as you can only use it when you yourself have the high ground or better yet combo it with the jump jets or hover coil. Hover coil + rolling mines is a signature combo of our group and it doesn't work well in Zwei.
The terrain also doesn't flatten itself in 1. I'm not against that, but it just does it too fast for us.
Zwei has a huge advantage though in giving 10 pts per round no matter what, which 1 doesn't do. If you can't get kills in 1 the only way to get pts to buy weapons is a rare supply drop. But if you play enough rounds luck will give even worse players some kills so we ultimately stick with 1.
1 is only 6 player though, so if you have 7 then Zwei it is.
Really interesting! I don't believe the original Death Tank was accessible on PAL, so its really interesting to hear about some of the differences.
That console shall have never existed and was Sega biggest error; Three wrongs do not make a right.
I disagree. Sega made many, many massive errors: The Sega CD. The 32X. The disorganised and disjointed nature of their development teams, with some teams given the power to veto the work of other teams (Sonic X-Treme and Sonic Team). Not capitalising on their IPs, or their arcade division. Not understanding the competition, not recognising the industry moving to 3D, not recruiting partner developers, overpricing their hardware, etc.
The Saturn is a good machine with a stellar software lineup. It did the best it could, and Sega failed it. The Saturn isn't the error in itself, Sega themselves were the error.
That's an interesting point. Could you imagine how things could have turned out if the Saturn was compatible with Sega CD games? This wasn't feasible in 1994 for several reasons, but if it was feasible, then I think the addition of those games (or even just the top 15-20 games in each region ported to the Saturn) could have bolstered the early library and brought the system much more success, relatively speaking.
I never had a Sega CD, myself, but there were a few gems in the library that would have been great to have on the Saturn.
One of my favourite what-ifs? is a world where the Sega never pumped resources into the 32X or Sega CD. I'd like to imagine this would have happened:
-Earlier Saturn launch (to get an audience before the PSX appears)
-Optimised and enhanced Saturn versions of Sonic CD, Doom, Chaotix, Snatcher, Shining Force CD and Ecco CD alongside the Saturn launch titles
-Because Sega never made losses on Sega CD/32X, maybe they could have turned the Saturn cartridge slot into something backwards compatible with the Mega Drive/Genesis? This could have been the first backwards-compatable console?
