Saturn definitely faced an unfair uphill battle in the states. Most of the best games stayed in Japan, and most of the US releases were crap like what you covered.
I don't know, look at the list of US and European releases here; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sega_Saturn_games Plenty of great titles, I'd say it's at least 50% good, which is similar to most every console in existence.
Damn if just lobotomy software had the chance to handle the port of Doom, im sure we would have a great version of Doom I dare to say even better than the PS1 version, just take a look at Duke Nukem with the dymanic lighting and great framerate!
The game was running fine, the bad luck was not because of lazy programmers, it was because Romero was not available at the time to approve the game, and carmack did the test and practically ask the programmer to cripple the port, it was ask to Romero on Instagram or Tweeter, don't remember, he explained that and said he would of course approve the build sent with the smooth frame rate
To be fair, these weren't Sega developed/published games, they just happened to be released on a Sega platform. Platform owners generally don't oversee the development of every game released on their platform.
And I'm pretty sure I remember Doom on PS1 being pretty good. Why in the world would the Saturn not be able to look and play just as good? Doom wasn't a true 3D game so it seems like the Saturn should have done Doom proper justice.
There was a cancelled build of the game that apparently ran really smoothly, but caused texture warping. At the insistence of John Carmack they switched to software renderer that used only one cpu and doesn't even look that great in the end.
Romero was not available at the time to approve the game to be released, it was a smooth Doom experience, carmack was the next for the task to approve the game, he told the programmer to use the CPU and not the graphics chips to render the game, Romero said that what carmack did was unfair for saturn owners, he of course would approve the first build sent of the game. So now you know why Saturn Doom sucks, blame carmack for it
@@Juanknes - Did you watch the video? The person who ported the game wanted to make more extensive use of the Saturn 3D hardware, but John Carmack wouldn't allow it as it would have caused some texture quality issues, so they were basically forced to trade a whole heap of performance for better texture integrity etc.
Ok when I got to dragonheart and I see what reminds me of "sword of sodan" , a game I had the pleasure of buying full price back in the day :-/ . I thank the gods I never played it. Before, and after that, I see some games I knew of, or would have expected, remembering the era. Then I get hit over the head with time commando.... I'm an old fuck and generally recognize or have played most games up to around 2k, but damn that is such a fuckin piece of shit looking game. I'm glad I never played it and I cant imagine what would motivate someone to create it. To end this shit show, I'm no fan of fmv but I will admit (pause) I had a hell of a good time with with Sewer Shark. The gameplay was simplistic, but add the cut scenes and you got a simple twitch shooter with some funny story. Cheers for another 100% accurate video brother. You know how to call em.
@@Clay3613 most of the Saturn 3rd party used the codes from the ps1 versions. Shameful to see the Saturn push out horrible ports. I blame Sega for the surprise launch and it's lousy dev kits and tools.
I've played Creature Shock on my 3DO and it looked and played great at the time. Especially after years spent on Megadrive. You can actually defend yourself from enemys' attacks. You just need to press a button that turn screen blue. It depletes the gun power rather quickly (it constantly regenerates back at a slower pace) so you need to preserve it and not to shoot aimelesly and mindlesly. It actually adds some depth to the shooting mechanic. But the game aged rather bad and looked dated when Saturn and PlayStation came up.
As any Sega Saturn fan knows, our favorite console often gets an unfair rap for its ugly games. That said, games like these provide a lot of ammunition for detractors--Both in its 90's heyday and the casual observer today. There's no ugly games quite like early 5th generation ugly games, and the Saturn sports plenty of them given its byzantine design and lack of comprehensive development tools early on.
The 5th gen was for me the worst. I never played a saturn, as it pretty much was overlook here in ireland. Most places sold the playstation. I always wanted a saturn though. Trying to play the playstation now is a real struggle.
@@Klynch111 I'd say the Saturn wasn't particularly popular in most places--Japan and some random spots (Portugal?) being the exception. That said, 5th generation 2D games have by and large aged incredibly well, and the Saturn benefits by being the premier system for them.
I think some of these games get a bad rap for digitized graphics and FMV. They were made for standard definition consumer televisions in the 90's, so of course the low resolution content doesn't look good on modern screens.
@@ThatPunkYT If I had to pick any of these stinkers, it probably would be Battle Monsters, not that I would but just if this list of games were the only options.
I actually liked hardcore 4x4.... yeah i know.... i was young. Also i hope some fan or indie dev redoes doom how it was going to be coded using the gpu instead of the cpu (hence it's choppy mess) - because i bet it looked awesome....stupid ID software ego power trippin....
Being a bad fighting game on the Saturn is like being a bad platformer on the N64 or being a bad RPG on PlayStation... You're so outclassed, you may as well have not shown up. That said, FIST has some really cool character art... and that's the extent of my interest in the game xD
My eyes are bleeding from the awful graphics in these games. The only redeeming quality "Rise 2: Resurrection" had was the song "Cyborg" by Brian May from Queen. Everything else was - in the words of Ole Anderson - the shits.
I played through Doom on Saturn quiete a lot. As a kid I did not struggled at all to do so. One level for sure was way too slow, but besides that, I loved it. And still do. YES its weak compared to the original, but it is FAR away from being unplayable or not enjoyable. Played through it a few years ago with a friend and did not changed up my mind.
It's technically playable, but very few people would look at that low framerate and call it enjoyable. Unless it was absolutely your only option for playing the game, there are better options. Even a min spec PC using the "low detail" mode would have offered a better experience from a playability perspective. Whatever floats your boat, but it's still an objectively bad port (through no fault of the developer, Carmack wouldn't let him use the system fully) of a great game.
@@yellowblanka6058 Yeah true story, but it did not hurt the game hard it enough to make it bad. Doom is good enough to take this. Back than of course it was my only option to play it.
I love your channel man. As a fellow Sega person growing up, (I got a Genesis instead of an SNES during the Holiday season of 91' mostly due to my family's lack of funds and have loved it ever since), but I have a question for you. Did you ever have a friend you could swap systems with? My poor friends and I used to get by swapping systems when certain games came out. While I loved my Genesis, games like Super Metroid, Super Castlevania IV, Super Metroid, and the Final Fantasy series could pry it from me from time to time. Did you ever participate in the lost tradition of console swapping when a game you heard about was just too good to ignore or cover up with console bias? If so, it might make an interesting episode. Either way, I love your channel X. Happy gaming.
I kinda enjoy playing Chaos Control :) Yes, the ennemies don't disappear because they are part of the FMV, not just like some 2D sprites added over it. So the developers used this trick of blurring them with smoke when they are defeated because they couldn't make them disappear. I think this game has its own atmosphere and I don't consider it to be an awful game.
I still hope that one day someone finds a running beta/alpha/video that shows Doom on Saturn running in an alternate form. I'd love to see it. I image something with Doom's level design but textures that look more akin to Powerslave.
Agreed, the frame rate on the Japanese version shown here does look much better to me though? I'm only judging it by eye but as it switches from one to the other I absolutely detect a smoother picture?? Anyone else?
@@mattpowell8369Sadly, as far as I know, the Japanese version doesn’t have a smoother framerate either. I played the game, and it’s pretty much the same as the American/European versions.
Carmack didn't want someone else doing something with Doom that he couldn't take credit for. The Saturn version being bad was a pure ego thing on Carmack's part. The guy was a master programmer but he was also an ass.
Another great video, man! Keep up with the outstanding work! Despite the relative problems with 3d, how about a video about the Best 3d graphics seen on the console?
Okay I'm gonna defend Blackfire here- you say there's no crosshairs but the game had a really great targeting system that everybody on RUclips doesn't seem to ever use. It's a totally different game when you're blind-firing! Still looks like shit though, can't argue there.
I had time commando for PC the game has its issue but it is a lot more playable on pc than its other convertions. I knew saturn had bad game but these one look like the worse of the list nice video
Weeooo, what a stinky episode ;) On a slightly more serious note; I was thinking about the Saturn the other day. Honestly trying to figure out what SEGA was thinking when they released it. My conclusion was that SEGA waited too long to introduce a proper heir to what was objectively the best system they ever released, the Genesis/MegaDrive. Almost like they lacked the foresight to see what was coming. Or maybe they believed that no one would consider buying a $3-500 gaming system? Once they finally did come to terms with what the public was willing to throw money at, the Saturn dogma was already a generation old if you count the NEO-GEO as it's closest contender graphics wise. Naturally, the winds brought the rumors that SONY was throwing its hat into the home gaming ring, forgoing the (already tired?) 2D gaming path. This aparrently led SEGA to slap another CPU on the board and hope like hell developers could make heads or tails of its architecture. Sadly, this was not the case. Sure, some games did manage to come close to matching, sometimes even surpassing what the PlayStation was doing. Unfortunately, SEGA didn't have the faith and shit all over the Saturn by releasing the Dreamcast in a way that just rubbed people the wrong way. On a positive note, 2D fighters had the best luck on the system and I'm sure fans of the genre were dutifully satisfied they had made the 'right' choice.
I love how impassioned you get talking about the saturn. I appreciate your perspective. Always wish I could take a peak into an alternate reality where saturn was successful as well as turbografx and ngpc Oh well
@@SegaLordX I should also add if you run out of lives in congo it deletes your congo save file. not only that, if you have only one congo save and it gets erased from a game over, it deletes everything on the internal memory, i lost my saves for Powerslave, Princess crown, Three Dirty Dwarves, Quake, Duke Nukem, everything.
Black Fire was here in the U.S. too. That terrible helicopter game. A friend gave it to me absolutely free and I tried to enjoy it numerous times. Eventually pawned it.. thanks for the memory lol
When I was a kid my first two Sega Saturn games were nhl 98 and black fire. Both were on the list lol. At the time though those games were my childhood. I also had Virtua cop one and two Virtua fighter Daytona USA galactic attack and bust a move.
The 3rd one actually looked good and it looked like it aged well. I mean are you blind? It probably plays like shit so yeah its shite but it does look like an early dark souls if purely relying on the visual aspect of it.
I always find voxel based games fascinating. Too bad Novalogic failed so hard on Black Fire. It could have looked so much better if they didn't colour the voxels so randomly - Like they did before in Comanche on PC...
I've always seen Black Fire for sale at video game conventions and retro stores and wondered why there were so many copies of it everywhere. Now I know why. Those textures made me nauseous lol
So I actually liked the first half of doom on Saturn even with the shitty frame rate. But when you get in to like the later levels of ultimate doom it’s almost unplayable. The frame rate is less than one frame a second
Judging by the ports of Doom, I guess Sam Tramiel was right when he said Jaguar was more powerful than Saturn. /sarc Seriously, I doubt Jaguar - or even Jaguar CD - could handle Daytona USA or Virtua Fighter. (Fight For Life looks like shit compared to the original Virtua Fighter for Saturn.)
@@SegaLordX interesting, the visuals of D put me into laughing fits. As where Creature Shock things seemed horrifying. I love Warp though, great company.
@Hicknopunk That is pretty funny. I found D to be more cerebral horror because of its setting. I was turned off by the silliness of Creature Shocks giant bugs.
@@SegaLordX Part of the problem with the Saturn CS is it sounds like they used the midi soundtrack, on a low end sound card. The PC game has CD tracks too and I played CS with an AWE32 with 2.5 megs of ram. This gives the game lots of atmospheric bass it seemed the Saturn soundtrack is lacking. All the sound in the world though might not hook you if you are laughing at the bugs.
You know what is interesting about my time with the Saturn? I have never played a bad game for the machine. I had them both in 1995 and bought most games for my PSX. It also has a lot to do with me buying my own games by then. Yes, my parents bought me a few games but they would ask me what I wanted for Christmas. I was working for the family business and they paid me very well.
That helicopter game would give me headache for sure. And mate, Mr. Carmack only learned about the texture/visuals not being the 1st priority after the first Rage with his idea of MegaTexture technology.. The guys who made the new Is Tech 6 ( Doom 2016 ) were CryEngine tech guys that believed that Framerates are king... By the way, CryTek let them go because they were focused on framerate.
I remember Time Commando came out, had it on PC (Still have it) I remember it as having clunky controls, but I did play it. On Computer though, it may have been better there. I think it did look pretty good for the time, and was a pretty succsesful game. The same company made Little Big Adventure, I remember that as very good and very succsesful, it also had clunky strange controls, but was easier to control than Time Commando....
Oof! I owned Congo on the Saturn back when I was in high school, and you were being waaay to nice in your review, lol! The scaling was horrible, which made it impossible to navigate the levels without constantly looking at the automap. Also, if the mosquitos bite you, they can give you malaria, which makes the entire screen warp at random for a few seconds. Oh - and there were platforming sections. Makes you wonder just who gave the go ahead for this game to be released.
A game like Blackfyre would've been an amazing technical thing if it were on the Genesis using an advanced SVP Chip inside the cartridge. But for the Saturn, one would expect something way, waaaaaay better than that!
Time Commando was a bit tighten up on the PSX while it was better on the PC, where it has better graphics, precision,, and physics than the PSX and Sega Saturn versions. I played the PSX version, thinking it'd be better than I'd expect, but it turned to be a whip in my arse. I was just skimming into the first level, kicking anything killing me in a quick rush of survival.
Toshinden and virtual hydlide our my top 2 Saturn games that sucked.there's probably more crappy saturn games that I played,but those 2 always stood out to me...
Don't mind Battle Monsters as something a little different than the norm for Saturn. Would definitely swap it out for Pretty Fighter X... easily the worst 2D fighter I played (read: owned!) for Saturn. There's more than enough material for a Pt.3 imo!
Final fight: revenge has to be the worst game, I ever bought. Paid 50 dollars for it long time ago. It's not worth the 500 dollars it is worth now. Awful game, even before I found out how much it's worth. Thanks.
op'ed characters in fighting games are a lot more common nowadays than you think, example: both MKX and MK11 have characters that simply can't be beat unless you either mirror match or fight them with equally op'ed characters, Cassy Cage for example is op'ed so much on both MKX and MK11 that unless you pick another op'ed character like Jax it doesn't matter how skilled you are you will lose, don't believe me? i challenge anyone reading this to find and post one link to a ranked match of MKX or MK11 where someone lost with Cassy Cage against any character other than Jax or herself, you won't find one because it literally can't be done. no bro, op'ed characters in fighting games are very much a reality that continues today.
Okay, what is the worst Saturn game. I mean, a game so bad that it's designers should be horsewhipped and sent off to the acid mines to work off the atrocities they have committed by releasing such a repugnant piece of software. There can be only one and I'm curious as to which game earns the title of worst Sega Saturn game ever made.
Admittedly, Congo is sort of a guilty pleasure of mine. It's terrible but at least it controls more or less "ok". I can't believe I'm going to say this but I'd rather play Congo over Saturn Doom.
Black fire was the most infuriating, difficult, impossible pain in the ass ever made. It wore me out when I tried to play it as a child... so I tried again as an adult - yup - the game is still awful.
Fist looks like one of those all female fanservice fighters, but forgot to add the fanservice. I never liked the first Dead or Alive, but Fist looks waaayyy worse.
you should do a "The Worst Excuses Ive Given to Cancel Dates so I Could Play Saturn" video
Saturn definitely faced an unfair uphill battle in the states. Most of the best games stayed in Japan, and most of the US releases were crap like what you covered.
Mockery and embarrassing ports as well.
I don't know, look at the list of US and European releases here; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sega_Saturn_games
Plenty of great titles, I'd say it's at least 50% good, which is similar to most every console in existence.
Thanks to bernie stolar
@@AJDOLDCHANNELARCHIVE But when your library is much smaller than the competition's the ratio isn't doing you any favors.
Oh god Time Commando looks like a disgusting fusion between an old Atari console and a Sega Cd
I like this intro much better. Stick with it!
@Bulgarian Daniel I know. I prefer it.
The Nostalgia Factor the song sounds sooo familiar to me. But I can’t remember where it’s from
@@sonicjboom6967 It's the SEGA logo screen for Astal:
ruclips.net/video/uXfLy6qaPZQ/видео.html
Damn if just lobotomy software had the chance to handle the port of Doom, im sure we would have a great version of Doom I dare to say even better than the PS1 version, just take a look at Duke Nukem with the dymanic lighting and great framerate!
The game was running fine, the bad luck was not because of lazy programmers, it was because Romero was not available at the time to approve the game, and carmack did the test and practically ask the programmer to cripple the port, it was ask to Romero on Instagram or Tweeter, don't remember, he explained that and said he would of course approve the build sent with the smooth frame rate
Hate seeing Sega at their worst, hurts my heart, lol
I know how you feel. So sad.
Congo and Black Fire were definitely some of their worst for the Saturn.
To be fair, these weren't Sega developed/published games, they just happened to be released on a Sega platform. Platform owners generally don't oversee the development of every game released on their platform.
Where?
Doom was a bad port on the SEGA Saturn, it is such a shame for one the best games/fps ever.
And I'm pretty sure I remember Doom on PS1 being pretty good. Why in the world would the Saturn not be able to look and play just as good? Doom wasn't a true 3D game so it seems like the Saturn should have done Doom proper justice.
@@robertbarker5802 Very lazy coding i guess. Hexen on Saturn is much smoother, and run on the same Doom engine, but with more complex graphics.
There was a cancelled build of the game that apparently ran really smoothly, but caused texture warping. At the insistence of John Carmack they switched to software renderer that used only one cpu and doesn't even look that great in the end.
Romero was not available at the time to approve the game to be released, it was a smooth Doom experience, carmack was the next for the task to approve the game, he told the programmer to use the CPU and not the graphics chips to render the game, Romero said that what carmack did was unfair for saturn owners, he of course would approve the first build sent of the game. So now you know why Saturn Doom sucks, blame carmack for it
@@Juanknes - Did you watch the video? The person who ported the game wanted to make more extensive use of the Saturn 3D hardware, but John Carmack wouldn't allow it as it would have caused some texture quality issues, so they were basically forced to trade a whole heap of performance for better texture integrity etc.
Ok when I got to dragonheart and I see what reminds me of "sword of sodan" , a game I had the pleasure of buying full price back in the day :-/ . I thank the gods I never played it.
Before, and after that, I see some games I knew of, or would have expected, remembering the era. Then I get hit over the head with time commando....
I'm an old fuck and generally recognize or have played most games up to around 2k, but damn that is such a fuckin piece of shit looking game. I'm glad I never played it and I cant imagine what would motivate someone to create it.
To end this shit show, I'm no fan of fmv but I will admit (pause) I had a hell of a good time with with Sewer Shark. The gameplay was simplistic, but add the cut scenes and you got a simple twitch shooter with some funny story.
Cheers for another 100% accurate video brother. You know how to call em.
TBH i kinda liked Battle Monsters...
You and a bunch of other people. It's actually rather surprising how popular it is to me.
I have to say , this has grown to become one of my favorite YT channels, keep up the good work!
Holy shit it's my boy Nick! What's up my dude, cool to see you here.
I agree
Great channel
Doom on the Saturn just pisses me off, what a way to shit on a good game.
Even made the ps1, 32x and jaguar look/play bettter.
@@maroon9273 Well the PS1 was better anyways, it's not by comparison.
@@Clay3613 most of the Saturn 3rd party used the codes from the ps1 versions. Shameful to see the Saturn push out horrible ports. I blame Sega for the surprise launch and it's lousy dev kits and tools.
Imagine Lobotomy Software worked on Doom Saturn.
@@dl211981 I know right, it would have been the best port out in a console. Also, doom II and final doom as well.
First time I played Congo, I thought my controller was broken. 😂😂😂😂
when I played congo I thought the entire game was broken
2 minutes into playing Congo I asked "WTF did I just buy"? Followed by looking for my receipt.
when I played Congo I wish I was on tour again in Afghanistan
Found your channel a few days ago - now I'm hooked!
Glad you like the content. Thanks for letting me know. :)
I've played Creature Shock on my 3DO and it looked and played great at the time. Especially after years spent on Megadrive. You can actually defend yourself from enemys' attacks. You just need to press a button that turn screen blue. It depletes the gun power rather quickly (it constantly regenerates back at a slower pace) so you need to preserve it and not to shoot aimelesly and mindlesly. It actually adds some depth to the shooting mechanic.
But the game aged rather bad and looked dated when Saturn and PlayStation came up.
creature shock was 1 of my fav games back in the day
As any Sega Saturn fan knows, our favorite console often gets an unfair rap for its ugly games. That said, games like these provide a lot of ammunition for detractors--Both in its 90's heyday and the casual observer today.
There's no ugly games quite like early 5th generation ugly games, and the Saturn sports plenty of them given its byzantine design and lack of comprehensive development tools early on.
The 5th gen was for me the worst. I never played a saturn, as it pretty much was overlook here in ireland. Most places sold the playstation. I always wanted a saturn though. Trying to play the playstation now is a real struggle.
@@Klynch111 I'd say the Saturn wasn't particularly popular in most places--Japan and some random spots (Portugal?) being the exception.
That said, 5th generation 2D games have by and large aged incredibly well, and the Saturn benefits by being the premier system for them.
@@beeaye7944 yeah the 2d games still look pretty good. I just wish the saturn made more of an impact becuase I was a massive Sega fan back in the day.
I think SLX is just feeding the haters. I honestly don't think these games are any worse than what appeared on the PS1.
@Dave Davies I'm also a diehard Sega fan and I honestly don't have an issue with some of these games. Time Commando and Creature Shock were fun. 👍
I have managed to avoid these stinkers for more than 2 decades now. One of my greatest accomplishments.
*lowkey* that battle monsters game looks Lit for 10-15 minutes.
while black fire looks like something to play if you have nothing better to do
I ended up getting Creature Shock. That game is scary AF and I had NO idea what the hell am I supposed to do in that game.
Not a bad game in it's day
I think some of these games get a bad rap for digitized graphics and FMV. They were made for standard definition consumer televisions in the 90's, so of course the low resolution content doesn't look good on modern screens.
Such a shame about Doom, Duke 3D showed exactly how it should have been built for the Saturn
Creature Shock is what I imagine a colonoscopy looking like if the patient has a parasitic infection.
Sounds about right.
I remember seeing an ad for Creature Shock and thought it looked interesting. Glad I never bought it.
@@ViciousAlienKlown It's a good game.
Wow! That Battle Monsters footage. Kasumi Ninja on the Jaguar is looking pretty good right about now.
Haha wow, Battle Monsters is the first review/commentary I posted on my channel and I called it a "hidden gem", I guess I love crappy games lol.
Now that's a serious burn
@@ThatPunkYT If I had to pick any of these stinkers, it probably would be Battle Monsters, not that I would but just if this list of games were the only options.
@@plasmaoctopus1728 I think that's a good choice, Battle Monsters may be a bit of a stinker but it's also a ton of fun. ☝️😸
I've played both and yes, Kasumi Ninja is better, ever so slightly.
Money making idea: port Creature Shock to Steam, rename Colonoscopy Simulator, watch the cash roll in.
While Congo is horrible and makes me sick to play you must admit the intro with Kabalo is amazing and worthy of an Oscar
So basically what you saying is that the 32X does Doom and Virtual Fighter better than the Saturn?
Omg these game were real stinkers ... some even bad enough for avgn
It’d be good to see AVGN do some Saturn games
Nah not really.
I actually liked hardcore 4x4.... yeah i know.... i was young. Also i hope some fan or indie dev redoes doom how it was going to be coded using the gpu instead of the cpu (hence it's choppy mess) - because i bet it looked awesome....stupid ID software ego power trippin....
Being a bad fighting game on the Saturn is like being a bad platformer on the N64 or being a bad RPG on PlayStation... You're so outclassed, you may as well have not shown up.
That said, FIST has some really cool character art... and that's the extent of my interest in the game xD
My eyes are bleeding from the awful graphics in these games.
The only redeeming quality "Rise 2: Resurrection" had was the song "Cyborg" by Brian May from Queen. Everything else was - in the words of Ole Anderson - the shits.
I played through Doom on Saturn quiete a lot. As a kid I did not struggled at all to do so. One level for sure was way too slow, but besides that, I loved it. And still do. YES its weak compared to the original, but it is FAR away from being unplayable or not enjoyable. Played through it a few years ago with a friend and did not changed up my mind.
It's technically playable, but very few people would look at that low framerate and call it enjoyable. Unless it was absolutely your only option for playing the game, there are better options. Even a min spec PC using the "low detail" mode would have offered a better experience from a playability perspective. Whatever floats your boat, but it's still an objectively bad port (through no fault of the developer, Carmack wouldn't let him use the system fully) of a great game.
@@yellowblanka6058 Yeah true story, but it did not hurt the game hard it enough to make it bad. Doom is good enough to take this. Back than of course it was my only option to play it.
@@BcHmF The real shame is it could/should have been on par with the PS1 release, but Carmack forced the dev to do all rendering on the CPU.
Same here. I loved the atmosphere in that game.
Waiting for Part 3 to include Sega Touring Car!
and Virtual Hydlide, possibly the system’s worst game!
Shame the developers did a poor job on Sega touring.
@@adultmoshifan87 congo gives virtual hydelide a run for its money
I love your channel man. As a fellow Sega person growing up, (I got a Genesis instead of an SNES during the Holiday season of 91' mostly due to my family's lack of funds and have loved it ever since), but I have a question for you.
Did you ever have a friend you could swap systems with? My poor friends and I used to get by swapping systems when certain games came out. While I loved my Genesis, games like Super Metroid, Super Castlevania IV, Super Metroid, and the Final Fantasy series could pry it from me from time to time.
Did you ever participate in the lost tradition of console swapping when a game you heard about was just too good to ignore or cover up with console bias? If so, it might make an interesting episode.
Either way, I love your channel X. Happy gaming.
Happy to report. As a day 1 Saturn owner. I haven't played any of these games.
I kinda enjoy playing Chaos Control :) Yes, the ennemies don't disappear because they are part of the FMV, not just like some 2D sprites added over it. So the developers used this trick of blurring them with smoke when they are defeated because they couldn't make them disappear. I think this game has its own atmosphere and I don't consider it to be an awful game.
Who actually asked for a Rise of the Robots sequel??? Why do crap games get green lit for sequels???
It must have sold well enough that the devs figured lets do another!
Then we wouldn't have gotten Street Fighter 2
It sold well and depending on the system got okay reviews.
Sigh. John Carmack definitely gave the Saturn port of Doom the double barrel shotgun.
I still hope that one day someone finds a running beta/alpha/video that shows Doom on Saturn running in an alternate form. I'd love to see it. I image something with Doom's level design but textures that look more akin to Powerslave.
Agreed, the frame rate on the Japanese version shown here does look much better to me though? I'm only judging it by eye but as it switches from one to the other I absolutely detect a smoother picture?? Anyone else?
@@mattpowell8369Sadly, as far as I know, the Japanese version doesn’t have a smoother framerate either. I played the game, and it’s pretty much the same as the American/European versions.
Carmack didn't want someone else doing something with Doom that he couldn't take credit for. The Saturn version being bad was a pure ego thing on Carmack's part. The guy was a master programmer but he was also an ass.
Another great video, man! Keep up with the outstanding work! Despite the relative problems with 3d, how about a video about the Best 3d graphics seen on the console?
I believe he has a video covered on that subject
Battle Monsters is a huge guilty pleasure. I'd love a remake.
The Saturn port of Doom is completely unacceptable. The Sega 32X port did a better job than that!
The 32X version of Doom is still a pretty bad port, but at least the framerate to it is faster.
Okay I'm gonna defend Blackfire here- you say there's no crosshairs but the game had a really great targeting system that everybody on RUclips doesn't seem to ever use. It's a totally different game when you're blind-firing!
Still looks like shit though, can't argue there.
OK, so what do you 'really' think about these games? 😁
That Doom is just pathetic. Powerslave, Hexen, Duke and Quake all prove that effort and know how can lead to fantastic Saturn fps.
Imagine if labotomy did the doom port
@@matthawkins2974 Kinda ridiculous they seemed to be the only ones capable of amazing results. More ridiculous they ended as Lobotomy.
I had time commando for PC the game has its issue but it is a lot more playable on pc than its other convertions. I knew saturn had bad game but these one look like the worse of the list nice video
Weeooo, what a stinky episode ;)
On a slightly more serious note; I was thinking about the Saturn the other day. Honestly trying to figure out what SEGA was thinking when they released it. My conclusion was that SEGA waited too long to introduce a proper heir to what was objectively the best system they ever released, the Genesis/MegaDrive. Almost like they lacked the foresight to see what was coming. Or maybe they believed that no one would consider buying a $3-500 gaming system? Once they finally did come to terms with what the public was willing to throw money at, the Saturn dogma was already a generation old if you count the NEO-GEO as it's closest contender graphics wise. Naturally, the winds brought the rumors that SONY was throwing its hat into the home gaming ring, forgoing the (already tired?) 2D gaming path. This aparrently led SEGA to slap another CPU on the board and hope like hell developers could make heads or tails of its architecture. Sadly, this was not the case. Sure, some games did manage to come close to matching, sometimes even surpassing what the PlayStation was doing. Unfortunately, SEGA didn't have the faith and shit all over the Saturn by releasing the Dreamcast in a way that just rubbed people the wrong way. On a positive note, 2D fighters had the best luck on the system and I'm sure fans of the genre were dutifully satisfied they had made the 'right' choice.
Your colourful descriptions of some of these horrid games has my laughing out loud. Another great vid!!
Played Creature shock on PC back in the Day. I got it for free buying my first CD-rom.
Memories right there.
Baby shit green textures 😂😂😂
I love how impassioned you get talking about the saturn. I appreciate your perspective. Always wish I could take a peak into an alternate reality where saturn was successful as well as turbografx and ngpc
Oh well
I knew you forgot to include congo in the last video about the worst games
Not forgot, just saved for the right time. ;)
@@SegaLordX I should also add if you run out of lives in congo it deletes your congo save file. not only that, if you have only one congo save and it gets erased from a game over, it deletes everything on the internal memory, i lost my saves for Powerslave, Princess crown, Three Dirty Dwarves, Quake, Duke Nukem, everything.
Damn, that's brutal. I bet you hate it more than me.
@@SegaLordX this game drove me mad, and I thought Alundra was a real chore to play
Games as bad as Congo make me curious if they started development for the 32X only to be told last minute they would be Saturn games.
As crappy as doom may look, at least you dont have to sign up for Bethesdanet
this is pretty much why the Saturn failed..the bad games were a plenty...
Blackfire looks like it could have been made on a 16 bit console easily. What an awful looking game.
steel talons on the genesis played better
if u didnt realize u were playin at 7fps f22 was fun back in the day.
Black Fire was here in the U.S. too. That terrible helicopter game. A friend gave it to me absolutely free and I tried to enjoy it numerous times. Eventually pawned it.. thanks for the memory lol
When I was a kid my first two Sega Saturn games were nhl 98 and black fire. Both were on the list lol. At the time though those games were my childhood. I also had Virtua cop one and two Virtua fighter Daytona USA galactic attack and bust a move.
The 3rd one actually looked good and it looked like it aged well. I mean are you blind? It probably plays like shit so yeah its shite but it does look like an early dark souls if purely relying on the visual aspect of it.
Digitized graphics rarely have ever been appealing me, so no, not blind, just my preference.
@@SegaLordX that's fair enough. I didn't mean to sound insulting, do you want me to change my wording above?
It's ok, I didn't take it harshly. ;)
If those game dev’s did get more & better tools, they could,ve make those games so much better, now it’s up to those hackers fan base community.
I always find voxel based games fascinating. Too bad Novalogic failed so hard on Black Fire. It could have looked so much better if they didn't colour the voxels so randomly - Like they did before in Comanche on PC...
I've always seen Black Fire for sale at video game conventions and retro stores and wondered why there were so many copies of it everywhere. Now I know why. Those textures made me nauseous lol
what was the price range of black fire?
Maruko Chan 99 if I remember correctly it was pretty cheap. Like $20-$30 area
So I actually liked the first half of doom on Saturn even with the shitty frame rate. But when you get in to like the later levels of ultimate doom it’s almost unplayable. The frame rate is less than one frame a second
Judging by the ports of Doom, I guess Sam Tramiel was right when he said Jaguar was more powerful than Saturn. /sarc
Seriously, I doubt Jaguar - or even Jaguar CD - could handle Daytona USA or Virtua Fighter. (Fight For Life looks like shit compared to the original Virtua Fighter for Saturn.)
Want to hear something truly frightening? The only copy of Chaos Control I own is on....CDI try playing that with any CDI controller not the game pad.
you must do the worst PS1 games.....
The good old Playstation had its fair share of bad games. I'll get to it.
Thunder Strike was the helicopter game to get for Saturn.
Soviet Strike
Creature Shock is one of the earliest survival horror games. It still gets me heart going today.
Tame visuals??? What mid 90s horror were you playing?
D, which was much better than Creature Shock.
@@SegaLordX interesting, the visuals of D put me into laughing fits. As where Creature Shock things seemed horrifying. I love Warp though, great company.
@Hicknopunk That is pretty funny. I found D to be more cerebral horror because of its setting. I was turned off by the silliness of Creature Shocks giant bugs.
@@SegaLordX Part of the problem with the Saturn CS is it sounds like they used the midi soundtrack, on a low end sound card. The PC game has CD tracks too and I played CS with an AWE32 with 2.5 megs of ram. This gives the game lots of atmospheric bass it seemed the Saturn soundtrack is lacking.
All the sound in the world though might not hook you if you are laughing at the bugs.
@@SegaLordX Oh D... ahahaha!
Nice job pronouncing "Infogrames" correctly.
They are a French company, and like a lot of French words, there are silent letters at the end.
Don't play congo drunk you will puke trust me
That rendering technique for the helicopter game seems quite interesting. It looks like an early voxel system was made to generate those levels.
You know what is interesting about my time with the Saturn? I have never played a bad game for the machine. I had them both in 1995 and bought most games for my PSX. It also has a lot to do with me buying my own games by then. Yes, my parents bought me a few games but they would ask me what I wanted for Christmas. I was working for the family business and they paid me very well.
“The Dreadful Fist” sounds like a cooler game title than just “Fist”
That helicopter game would give me headache for sure.
And mate, Mr. Carmack only learned about the texture/visuals not being the 1st priority after the first Rage with his idea of MegaTexture technology..
The guys who made the new Is Tech 6 ( Doom 2016 ) were CryEngine tech guys that believed that Framerates are king... By the way, CryTek let them go because they were focused on framerate.
I don’t own any of these games. What kind of Saturn collector am I?
you survived the minefield
For shame.
Haha I love hearing you spew out all that anger and frustration 😆 you are such a passionate (Sega) gamer and the disappointment is palpable!
It was hilarious to hear you rip Black Fire a new ass haha
Black fire looks like an Atari Jaguar game! :/
I remember Time Commando came out, had it on PC (Still have it) I remember it as having clunky controls, but I did play it. On Computer though, it may have been better there. I think it did look pretty good for the time, and was a pretty succsesful game. The same company made Little Big Adventure, I remember that as very good and very succsesful, it also had clunky strange controls, but was easier to control than Time Commando....
I feel bad for Battle Monsters. I like the concept, but it does look like a low-budget Darkstalkers.
death crimson was worst legend in japan.
If I had to pick a number 1 for worst Saturn game, it'd be Death Crimson without a second thought.
Doom could have been a stellar experience on Saturn.Such a shame they did not port it well.Also Final Doom could have been ported to Saturn.
Oof! I owned Congo on the Saturn back when I was in high school, and you were being waaay to nice in your review, lol! The scaling was horrible, which made it impossible to navigate the levels without constantly looking at the automap. Also, if the mosquitos bite you, they can give you malaria, which makes the entire screen warp at random for a few seconds. Oh - and there were platforming sections. Makes you wonder just who gave the go ahead for this game to be released.
The ground of Black Fire looks like Cyberpunk before the textures load in. 😂
A game like Blackfyre would've been an amazing technical thing if it were on the Genesis using an advanced SVP Chip inside the cartridge. But for the Saturn, one would expect something way, waaaaaay better than that!
Doom on the Saturn is so damn choppy that it almost resembles bad stop-mo!
Ah come on SLX, Battle Monsters should not be on this list. I loved playing it as a kid and the soundtrack is awesome. 😡
I disliked it a lot even back then. No harm in enjoying a bad game, though. I have my fair share of stinkers that I have had fun with.
No hard feeling. Still love your content 🖒
All good man. Feel free to disagree anytime. ;)
@@SegaLordX But is it a bad game when the design looks decent?
Time Commando was a bit tighten up on the PSX while it was better on the PC, where it has better graphics, precision,, and physics than the PSX and Sega Saturn versions. I played the PSX version, thinking it'd be better than I'd expect, but it turned to be a whip in my arse. I was just skimming into the first level, kicking anything killing me in a quick rush of survival.
Great a new upload.
Toshinden and virtual hydlide our my top 2 Saturn games that sucked.there's probably more crappy saturn games that I played,but those 2 always stood out to me...
Don't mind Battle Monsters as something a little different than the norm for Saturn. Would definitely swap it out for Pretty Fighter X... easily the worst 2D fighter I played (read: owned!) for Saturn. There's more than enough material for a Pt.3 imo!
Final fight: revenge has to be the worst game, I ever bought. Paid 50 dollars for it long time ago. It's not worth the 500 dollars it is worth now. Awful game, even before I found out how much it's worth. Thanks.
To be fair, I love a good 2D Castlevania game on any system, but that Dragonheart game ain't no Symphony of the Night...
So Doom Resurrections 1.5 for the Genesis 32x runs better than Saturn... and John worked on the Saturn version... omg thats total crap.
the helicopter game looks like it uses voxels to render terrain. why have i never heard of it?
op'ed characters in fighting games are a lot more common nowadays than you think, example: both MKX and MK11 have characters that simply can't be beat unless you either mirror match or fight them with equally op'ed characters, Cassy Cage for example is op'ed so much on both MKX and MK11 that unless you pick another op'ed character like Jax it doesn't matter how skilled you are you will lose, don't believe me? i challenge anyone reading this to find and post one link to a ranked match of MKX or MK11 where someone lost with Cassy Cage against any character other than Jax or herself, you won't find one because it literally can't be done. no bro, op'ed characters in fighting games are very much a reality that continues today.
Okay, what is the worst Saturn game. I mean, a game so bad that it's designers should be horsewhipped and sent off to the acid mines to work off the atrocities they have committed by releasing such a repugnant piece of software. There can be only one and I'm curious as to which game earns the title of worst Sega Saturn game ever made.
Admittedly, Congo is sort of a guilty pleasure of mine. It's terrible but at least it controls more or less "ok". I can't believe I'm going to say this but I'd rather play Congo over Saturn Doom.
Black fire was the most infuriating, difficult, impossible pain in the ass ever made. It wore me out when I tried to play it as a child... so I tried again as an adult - yup - the game is still awful.
Doom hurts 😖
Fist looks like one of those all female fanservice fighters, but forgot to add the fanservice. I never liked the first Dead or Alive, but Fist looks waaayyy worse.
"steaming pile of dog shit" - don't beat around the bush, tell us what you really think! :-) Great video as always, keep it up!
It's interesting that Creature Shock is actually one of the most advanced, and one of the best, CD-i games.
Ha, Black Fire looks like a counterpart of Wild Choppers on N64
Some of the Doom footage looks like the levels from Doom 2.
Interesting.