Daytona USA on the SEGA Saturn - You’ve Been Lied To.
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- Опубликовано: 1 мар 2024
- In this video, James “The SEGAHolic” tells you why many Saturn fans young and old love the original port of Daytona USA.
James also addresses the now common narrative, that Daytona USA was poorly received and heavily criticised at launch, being put in the shade by Ridge Racer by everyone who reviewed it.
Buckle up, and we’ll see YOU on the SEGA side. 
Игры
My first exposure to the game was when my dad bought me a Saturn strategy guide that included Daytona, Panzer Dragoon and Clockwork Knight, even though we didn't have a Saturn or the games. Of course, I later got all of them, bless his intentions, and I still have it.
In the states there was a Christmas promo in '96 where if you bought a Saturn, you'd get 3 free games: Daytona, VF2 and Virtua Cop. I hadn't played the arcade original at the time, but I played the hell out of Daytona and despite its imperfections, I just loved it for its atmosphere, track design and the soundtrack. Sure, I played the heck out of Circuit Edition and Sega Rally, but those memories racing, exploring the tracks and listening to the music in my portable CD player are things I'll never forget. Glad to know I'm not the only one who loved this port.
You must be talking about that Kan Zen Publishing book - I had it and it was an incredible source of information in a time when the Internet was still getting off the ground. Not only did it have comprehensive strategies for Daytona, but it told us the names of characters in Panzer Dragoon and Clockwork Knight that weren't in the manual. The content was almost certainly translated from Japanese sources.
And it's strange that I could never find anything else from that publisher.
Dayytonnnaaaa……
@@demgreens Yep, that's the one. A long time ago I came across scans of the official Japanese Daytona Saturn guide, and it's pretty much the exact same thing translated into English; the graphics are the same and everything. Except the Japanese guide had a paper cut-out of the Hornet you could make. Still wish I had a mini Hornet car of some sort.
For what it's worth, even though it says "Kan Zen Strategy Guide Series" on the front, the back of the magazine mentions "Futabasha Publishers Ltd." at the top, which still exists today, except they're known for publishing men's magazines and manga in Japan. A brief look online doesn't mention anything about games or strategy guides, curiously enough.
When I got this for the Saturn, I'd never even seen the arcade version, so I didn't have that as a point of comparison. It was the first game i ever played on Saturn and the jump from the Mega Drive experience was massive, noone could tell me otherwise that Daytona was a poor game if they tried. Doing 40-lap 777 Speedway runs were a joy.
Endurance mode FTW for sure, I’ve done it tons of times.
As someone who was too young to remember this, I greatly appreciate the effort you made on making this video James. This was the actual reception that Daytona USA had in respect to that time, and there has been alot of personal bias against the game over the years, which highlight it as a failure. If you go back, how many games on consumer devices were producing 3D at a stable 30fps at that time? I’m certain it was only Ridge Racer. The problem is people compared them for the wrong reasons. Daytona USA is a much harder game to translate. You can have upto 40 cars on track, all with dynamic levels of a.i, you also a have a physics model that can tell apart terrain, a crash model, bounding boxes for all the models/objects and car handling physics that were real time and not in rails. To operate this at a smooth 20fps was impressive and there was nothing else like it on the consumer market. They even made use of functions like render to texture on the certain surfaces (windows) and good optimisations for LOD. It’s crazy to think they had 6 months or less on the project. If they continued on, we probably would have seen a better clipping/discard algorithm and removal of the boarders. In the end, it was a good deal and I can’t thank you enough for clearing this up!
hi I'm just popping' in
Don’t forget endurance mode and reverse tracks, and Saturn mode cars with different handling too. A perfect racer that is only equaled by its pc version.
So true. Still about render to texture. Saturn did not have such a feature. I think you confuse the windows basic UV mapping Feature. Which actually was the same in the arcade. Just a tileable cloud texture that you scroll the UV coordinates for. Works great.
@@litjellyfish I’m certain there’s no notion of UV on the Saturn, everything drawn is an independent sprite (texture). I thought Saturn could be combining a background layer in VDP2 to render 2 textures in a quad. It’s not really a standard render to texture per se 😅 Granted you can opt to do it in software, whether Daytona USA on Saturn is doing that is something I would like to know. Anyways, if I got anything wrong, I always appreciate any information to be corrected 😃
@@ahkmal7153 ah ok. I just used UV as most would understand it. So yes maybe that is what you meant with render to texture. I thought you spoke about render the framebuffer to a texture.
So yeah they most likely made a software scroll of the clouds which then was copied to the texture buffer that the quad is using to render the moving clouds.
I've got got the two Daytona Saturn games and the Dreamcast version too. Seeing games like Daytona as a kid was mind blowing when moving away from the 2D world of the Mega Drive. Tomb Raider 1 on the Saturn really hit me hard though. Out of all the Sega consoles I owned, then and now as an adult, the Saturn will always be my favorite. I personally didn't know a single person who was talking about pop in, or FPS or refresh rate back then. The tech was new in home consoles and we were all moving away from 2D sprite based games in that wonderful period of time.
I bought a Sega Saturn on launch day... nothing prepared me for being able to play Daytona USA and Virtua Fighter at home. Yes, a few months later I also bought a Playstation on launch and it was amazing as well, but the jump from Genesis/SNES/Jaguar to Sega Saturn was so huge, no other launch blew me away the way the Saturn launch did.
You’re right this was the biggest generational jump it was a total shock, today the graphics are refined but all the elements where introduced back then and the stuff that did make it in 2D to the 32 bit consoles was really close to perfect. As a Sega fan I’m still jealous of Japan to this day (the only market that truly got the Saturn experience)
finally someone who understands the impact of seeing daytona on the saturn in 1995 taking into account of what we would normally get ie starfox, virtua racing md.
It’s the best and it has never been equaled, not even by ridge racer.
Why someone hasn't done a USA directors cut in the community yet is beyond me. It would be truly fantastic.
Other than us die hard it’s universally hated. It was an incredible achievement considering the tight schedule before Xmas the team had to make.
@RobsonRoverRepair
This 👆🏼💯.
Like someone did with Doom on the 32X.
I saw the first time on a 33" tv in 1995, was awesome. For me 3d was something like hard drivin', flat polygons, no lighting. And saw this on a console, amazing!. Textures, lighting, full of objects, cd quality music. C'mon, ridge racer was a good racing game. But daytona is another level. Long and incredible courses, with a lot of elements. Like a rollercoaster, with elevations, borderline curves. And on crt tv looks really good, the sound is incredible too. And works with digital pads like no other racing game, reaaally good.
The technological feats that the teams from Sega and Namco were able to do with their arcade ports like Daytona USA, Tekken 3 and Virtua Fighter 2 need to be talked about more in the history of the industry because its absolutely incredible what the programmers and developers were able to accomplish in porting these high end games and making them look almost arcade perfect.
Hey Battle Arena Toshinden 2 was a 1 to 1 arcade port 😂
@@budgiecat9039 I always mention the Toshinden series. I'm like... The playstation launched with it in the big box... ridge racer too. PS5 should have done them again. Hence why this Gen is Meh. Coulda started off with that magic again.
“Almost arcade perfect”? The Saturn port of Daytona has shit graphics, laughable frame rate, it’s nothing like the arcade game at all. I’d go as far to say that it’s borderline unplayable.
It’s also got horrible pop in as well as those things but it has never been equaled and it’s fos of 20 is constant no matter how many cars are on screen and it’s endurance mode is incredibly awesome. It’s as close to the arcade as a home console gets.
@@ironhell813 not really since PS3/360 version exists as well as you can play it on PS4/PS5/Series X through one of the newer Yakuza games
I just found your channel, being a huge sega fan (of their arcades, saturn and Dreamcast in particular) your channel is like finding a hidden gem - i find your content to be far better than the competitions. Please keep it up.
I had a saturn in the day and my go to was the first need for speed. The driving physics was amazing
Definitely, and the you could use any steering wheel you’d like with the sega pc port which was identical!
Need for Speed is odd for me, the Saturn version is similar to the PC and 3DO versions, just with more polish than the 3DO version, but visually, the PlayStation version is quite different. Texture-wise, physics-wise and overall presentation. (Not in a bad way mind you) But Saturn is the one I replay most, it feels different to my PlayStation version and in the best way possible.
Saturn Daytona is simply one of the best racing games of the 32/64bit generation, even though i had purchased Sega Rally before i got my copy of Daytona, it was still very impressive, to have Daytona running in my bedroom, let me tell you, all my friends who hadn't upgraded to 32bit were certainly envious enough, they certainly weren't complaining about pop up and frame rate!
The media propaganda attempted to "condition" everyone to look for any "fault/s" possible within Saturn games.
The media agenda was to get Saturn owners to ignore and/or forget how much fun they were having.
the thing about the first port is it nailed the gameplay of the arcade game, even though the re-releases had better graphics they were made on a different engine and didn't feel the same.
Main reason it’ll never be replaced in my heart. Pc version was exactly the same.
Absolutely loving your output mate, the Segaguys podcast has become a staple for me, and I only recently jumped on the Sega train after a lifetime of somehow missing their consoles and games. Just wanted to say keep up the amazing work. And how on earth are you finding teletext posts from 1995?!
My first Saturn game was Championship Circuit Edition and I loved and still love that game to this day. Mags used to say how much better the original Daytona USA port was, however, so, when I finally found a video store that rented Saturn games, I rented the original port and fell in love with it. The sheer playability and infectious nature of the gameplay and soundtrack kept me coming back time and again to beat my lap and track records.
Thank you for continuing to disprove the lies about the Saturn.
Original beats the new one hands down every time, glad after decades others have appreciated this port.
The Japanese version of Championship Circuit Edition is supposed to be better than the version the West got apparently, I'm not sure how true that is though.
@@ulysses2162 yes, it's a more complete version of the game and the cars handle closer to the coin-op but they still handle differently from the original game.
I remember going into HMV in the UK and they had an import PlayStation and import SEGA Saturn next to each other. PlayStation playing Ridge Racer and Saturn playing Datona USA. I stood and watched both side by side for about 20 mins, I was unable to try either due to the queues ,but I did make a decision that day....... And it was PlayStation seeing the two together Ridge Racer was leaps and bounds superior, I totally understand why the majority went the PS route.
This was similar to my experience. I paid a small fortune for an imported Saturn. Daytona couldn't compete with the visuals of Ridge Racer and, rightly or wrongly, visuals mattered a lot to consumers at this time. It was all about the polygons. Daytona looked so rough that I couldn't get past it. I ended up trading in the Saturn for an imported PlayStation with Ridge Racer.
I played it to death on Saturn when it came out. yes, it didn't look as good as Ridge Racer, but I'd rinsed RR in a few days. I was playing Daytona for months. The handling on Saturn was sublime, somehow they translated the arcade feel on a digital pad. Playing the Saturn version upped my arcade game. Shame about Daytona CCE. Typical Sega, they miss an open goal.
Ridge racer is garbage compared to this I played Daytona first thank god and after years played ridge racer and didn’t understand the RR hype.
Try playing the sega pc version with any wheel you’d like and I believe higher res 🤤
All magazines in Brazil at the time had positive Daytona reviews. It was incredible. I was super lucky to get a saturn in 95, even people who later had the n64 loved daytona and virtua fighter. Negative people towards this are looking back. In 94, 95, this was incredible.
I clearly remember how this went down in Canada.
We saw Virtua Fighter, Panzer Dragoon and Daytona on Saturn. It looked amazing. The launch came out of nowhere though (summer surprise launch) and so at 15 years old I began saving my money.
September comes. I now HAVE the money and head to Electronics Boutique across the border near Detroit, MI. Guess what ? I see Ridge Racer. Video of Destruction Derby. Battle Arena Toshinden. I had no idea what a PlayStation really was until I had walked in there.. I had dismissed it as a Jaguar or 3D0 type console prior to seeing it. I very nearly still bought a Saturn that day but I hesitated as I saw my father's face. He looked like he was genuinely afraid he was about to watch me blow 400 dollars. A week later I opted for PlayStation.
Daytona did look great. For 3 months. We were all not really educated on 3d graphics and how it all worked... I didn't even realize it was harder to render more cars. Ridge Racer had what appeared to be rounded edges on some cars. It looked absolutely incredible. And the particular video I saw of Destruction Derby looked SHARP and had that transparent smoke effect that was incredible at the time.
I definitely don't dispute the game reviewed well... but I remember the talk on the ground in that store that day. Everybody was making the comparisons and everyone felt the PlayStation looked better. Not to say it was in every respect - but that's what happened.
the fact is Ridge Racer looked better in motion and regards to draw distance. This hurt how the game was received. I had a Playstation but I eventually got a Saturn after my N64 about a year and a half after the Saturn released here in UK. I'd played Ridge Racer and it was certainly impressive but in terms of the gameplay itself, Daytona had a depth that didn't exist with Ridge Racer. There's a beautiful knack of learning how to wrestle your car's control in Daytona that is simply lacking with Ridge Racer. Of course I think we can all agree Ridge Racer is fun and I especially love Ridge Racer IV but looking objectively, Daytona's driving model is layered and rewards the more you know of it. At one stage I had a couple of official Sega steering wheels and I was on Daytona very often enough that I had concluded it one of the finest racers ever along side Stunt Car Racer. Something I still think holds true actually.
I imagine a lot of people that declare Ridge Racer a better racing game are coming at the argument from what is the most fun from being the most accessible an experience. And that makes sense because a game too difficult to play from a lack confidence in how you play it isn't fun for a lot of players. Daytona isn't as fun for a lot of players for this reason but it's exactly the reason it probably would be if they understood it's layers more. It's objectively a better game for it, even if it's not subjectively so. A lot of folk wont be understanding to the joy Daytona's driving model has compared to a more accessible and therefore for some a more likely enjoyable Ridge Racer experience, which is fine but Daytona was always on another page regardless frankly. Beautiful game
oh and I miss Teletext
The arcade version was one of my favourites and having it on the Saturn was an absolute joy. I loved it. Everyone that played it when they came over thought it was great. Interesting that you brought up Stunt Car Racer on the Amiga. It was one of my top favourite games to play on my Amiga 500. It's mind blowing to think of how it ran on a 7 MHz system and fit on a single floppy disc.
I didn't remember any negative reviews about Daytona USA on the saturn in those early days, but I also didn't think it was a reach to assume it was incomplete due to the unexpected early release of the Saturn console. The comparisons to Ridge Racer on the PS were something I did remember, when you look at the Japanese releases of both consoles it was like Sony and Sega were trading blow for blow. PS got Ridge Racer, Saturn got Daytona USA. PS got Toshinden, and Saturn got Virtua Fighter. I even remember seeing both Japanese consoles for sale in CA Games in the west end of Glasgow round about December 1994, he was asking for £1000 for each console and had them both up and running and guess what... the PS had Ridge Racer and the Saturn had Daytona USA running... it was only natural to see the comparisons. I too remember the era before frame-rates and HD and all that jazz, and none of that mattered in those days as both RR and Daytona were excellent games to play.... but I did prefer RR if I am honest.... I just thought the soundtrack was better and more suited to the game.
A fellow CA Games customer … nice! Have to say though, the Ridge Racer soundtrack is the audio form of a migraine, especially Rotterdam Nation. 😂
@@SEGAGuys LOL, its not to everyone's taste but on the playstation ridge racer once the race starts you could pause, remove the CD and insert one of your own audio CD`s... have to say though racing the yellow solvalou to the tune of Country House by BLUR didn't quite have the same impact I thought it would :)
I had no idea people thought it was bad... even back then!
It stands great alongside ridge racer, they’re both excellent but very different games really.
Thanks for reminder about this technical marvel that was underappreciated at the time.
This game cost Sega a console sale. I had put down a deposit on a Saturn. Shortly thereafter Gamesmaster showed a clip of Ridge Racer in one of their outros. The next working day i popped into my Game to watch the Saturn's demo pod. This game seemed so poor next to Ridge Racer that i went to the counter and got my deposit back. Gallantly, the chap serving tried to talk me out of it, but to no avail (i later saw him on TV as one of Bad Influence's reviewers).
My redemption arc is that i did buy a Saturn a few years later, with the option of one free game from a choice of two. I chose Virtua Fighter 2 and left Swagman on the shelf (oops). More recently i bought a multi region cart and imported Daytona USA Circuit Edition from Japan, which is supposed to run slightly better than the launch version, and i do mean slightly.
I think i recall it being mentioned that the XBox360 digital version was the closest to the arcade version. Now removed from the XBox store i believe. Yay for the digital future!
Had my Saturn hooked up to a Yamaha 2070 Dolby surround system, and an NHT subwoofer, and used a Sharp 80-inch projector when Daytona Saturn was released. One of my top 3 gaming experiences in my life. Doing 40 laps marathon runs listening to Roling Start. The subwoofer blared. Having perfect concentration for an hour. One or two mistakes and you had to accept not winning or restart. Even today with 4K OLED screens, 4090 graphics, and CPUs with 16+ cores. Still, no other arcade racer can touch Deytona.
Thank you! I still have my 1st issue of Saturn Plus, and that gave Daytona 82%
While it did criticise the pop-in and it having a "pixelated feel", it still reiterated how it was still incredible fun to play nonetheless.
Someone needs to decompile this version and iron it all out. Make it the 30fps, hires, no pop-in monster it was always meant to be.
I first played Daytona USA in Honolulu Hawaii in 1994 at the young age of 20 and my mind was blown!
When I bought the SEGA Saturn in 1995 the first game I bought was Daytona USA and I was sadly not blown away as my expectations were very high and the Saturn was just not powerful enough to emulate the Model 2 hardware.
Either way I was still very happy as I also bought Virtua Fighter 2, Virtua Cop 2 and countless other classics so I never regretted buying the SEGA Saturn.
I remember renting a Saturn and Daytona USA from a local video store not long after launch date. If you'd experienced the arcade version for any amount of time it was a bitter pill to swallow initially because the arcade version was just so visually stunning. It was totally unrealistic to expect the Saturn to compete with the power of the Model 2 board but most people did and were let down particularly with the frame rate. Sega fueled this to a degree with some arcade rom revisions featuring Saturn ads during attract mode which led people to think they were going to be playing a perfect port on the console. Great Review.
Perhaps I'm not in the right circles, but I've never heard of Daytona USA being review bombed or badly reviewed upon its Saturn release. What I had always heard for years was its poorer state visually compared to the likes of Ridge Racer on PlayStation.
I still like, and commend AM2's work on the port. But I will be the first to admit my enjoyment of the game on Saturn does nictitate me to accept some short comings that I don't commonly see on Saturn. The very harsh pop up, and the 20 (16.67 PAL) framerate, and (in the case of racing games) the lack of a Multiplayer mode.
I will still give Daytona this though from a technical viewpoint, it's a heck of a lot more visually pleasing than Destruction Derby, Hardcore 4X4 or Sega Touring Car.
The last time I played this game was with family. We used 4 old computers running the Model 2 Emulator all connected through a switch, and 4 different gaming wheels. Definitely one of the funnest afternoons I ever had.
I know some people hated on it but coming from a Megadrive I was so impressed at the time.
Thanks for making this video!
it's nice to see a youtube video with a more nuanced take on this game. that said, it's been my impression that a lot of peoples' opinions on this port nowadays don't really have anything to do with what reviewers said, and more just what the general public thought. i mean the way graphics don't just pop in but sort of pop in and out and back in again does look like a bit of a glitchy mess. but the saturn was also just an absolutely crazy console from an era where sega were really flying by the seat of their pants on the home console front. when you understand that the saturn is literally not a 3d console and every game doing "3d" on the saturn, including daytona, is just made up of nothing other than 2d quadrilateral sprites with a ton of affine transformations happening simultaneously (think of it as thousands of SNES "mode 7"s happening all at once) it's kind of amazing the console did what it did on any level at all. also while ridge racer was certainly better / cleaner looking on the playstation, the idea that it was arcade perfect is not even remotely true, especially visually, where plenty of the playstation's own texture limitations were on full display. we really didn't get anything that looked "arcade-perfect" in that generation til the N64 showed up. and for me, while i love daytona usa and ridge racer as well, i always liked cruis'n usa the best of that generation of arcade games anyway. 🤷♂ anyway, always love watching your videos and i can definitely see how if this is the game you had when that console generation launched, you've probably got a soft spot for it. things were changing so rapidly on the home console front during the 32/64 bit generation, that some of these games could go from seeming groundbreaking to antiquated in very short time. as it stands, i've always found it odd that the saturn never really did get an arcade accurate version of daytona, though. there was this version that was graphically messy, and then the "improved" versions that were technically superior graphically but changed so many other things for seemingly no good reason. sega makes some odd decisions sometimes.
Yeah, you're pretty much spot on there. I would say this take is perhaps a little prone to its own hyperbole in terms of quite how negatively the original Saturn port is looked at.
I don't think its a particularly common narrative to describe it as "A shitty racing game that's worse than Ridge Racer" especially.
The problems came about in the general publics perception when seeing the two games (and consoles) side by side in stores circa 1995. Not critical reception, not technical analysis and especially not gameplay. Just that initial first impression of seeing the two new consoles side by side which with a situation that specifically drew attention to the SS Daytona USA's flaws and not its strengths. It was much the same when the original Virtua Fighter was lined up alongside Battle Arena Toshinden (Having gone the Saturn route myself, I sure heard plenty about it all from my older cousin who went Playstation. Just how it was with those console wars).
It was the reputation of the Saturn itself that probably suffered most from this, as opposed to the games specific legacy. Even when CCE and the Dreamcast version came along, the critical response still fell along the lines of "More technically impressive, but doesn't come close to nailing the handling or gameplay the way the original Saturn port did".
@@BrySkye i think john from the youtube channel "hard 4 games" summed up the saturn pretty well when he said "the sega saturn: poorly timed, poorly executed, not very good. but otherwise good!" - i definitely have a soft spot and a lot of curiosity about the saturn nowadays in retrospect. it had some really unique games for what it was. but for the generation it released in, the saturn was absolutely a hot mess of a console plagued by internal problems at sega and the company generally having no idea what to do with the home market at the time. as such, it was a far cry from what either the playstation or the N64 had built-in in terms of capabilities. still a cool curiosity in its own right, but at the same time it's not surprising the saturn's "3d" launch titles were janky messes compared to what the playstation was doing, and that can easily be blamed on the saturn's architecture as much as it can be developers rushing to meet release dates. if they were building those games on a console that wasn't trying to force a square peg (square sprite?) into a round (3d) hole, it's plain to see that they would have had an easier and faster development time, and had far less hiccups. the saturn is a truly unique console. this is both what makes it so fascinating for what it did end up doing, and also makes it so apparent why we'll never see anything like it ever again.
Even with emulation and the ps3/360 port, I still love to play the Saturn port. It’s just fun and controls very well. Everyone bitching about pop up either didn’t grow up then or has been brainwashed by modern gamers trashing on it. Made me want a Saturn like nothing else.
Nice video. Having played them again a few years ago as I was trying all games compatible with the racing wheel, I also prefer the original version to CCE. Personally, I had never heard that Daytona USA was poorly reviewed; I remember on the contrary Ridge Racer getting (unfairly) blasted for only having one track (with two variations) compared to the usual three that Sega had made standard in its arcade games.
Well said brother! You can't experience game play in pictures and videos. You must play the game to experience gameplay. I was around when Daytona USA arrived in the arcades. After having my mind blown seeing Virtual Racing in the arcades my mind was blown beyond belief seeing and hearing Daytona USA. As a Sega Saturn owner when the system came out, words could not express how happy I was to be able to play Daytona USA at home and I loved this game because of the gameplay. You are spot on with your words. It is just sad we have so many people ready to spout negative nonsense on things without really knowing what they are talking about.
Spot on, mate. We should be celebrating what these games managed to achieve on the hardware they ran on, rather than pick holes in them and retrospectively tear them down.
@@SEGAGuys Agreed.
Been doing it since the 90s but great to have converts to the faith.
I’ve waited this long to find others they have appreciated Saturn Daytona, now play the greatness that is the pc version!
Thanks for putting this together, it was an interesting look at things. I had not realized Daytona USA on Saturn had an almost E.T. like legacy.
I will admit, the graphical issues really turned me off and I didn't play it much at launch. It was not until CCE came out that I realized just how great the original release played.
One bit of irony is that years later when I saw an original Daytona machine in all its 4,000 quid glory I noticed even it had some pop in!
I’ve owned and tried all the high end upscalers over the last couple of years and even used the scan line options but reverted back to a 14inch crt.
Daytona and other polygonal games look so much better and feel so much better on crts than the pixel look, which is pretty much true of all the old consoles.
I’m turning into a crt purist unashamedly.
I run my Saturn through a RAD2X, which is a fantastic cable. You’re right that CRT’s make these older games sing.
@@SEGAGuysGreat cable. I remember using the smoothing button on the N64 one which looked really good. As much as I love using my crt its only 14 inches big because of space haha so maybe I’ll invest in another for front room use!
@@SEGAGuysgreat videos by the way subscribed!
Thanks! Take a look around the channel, tons of SEGA videos covering all platforms and homebrew, as well as our fortnightly SEGAGuys podcast.
I've been on the lookout for a CRT, here in Scotland they seem a bit more expensive than in other parts of the UK ... but I need to convince my wife to let me bring one into the house first!
After the disappointment of the Sega Mega CD, i was put off Sega consoles for a while at the time, so I didn't get a Saturn until the mid 2000's when I was buying up loads of retro gear from boot fairs, 2nd hand shops etc, and although the graphics on the Saturn version were a bit on the rough and ready side, I do agree that the most important aspect - playability - was there 100%. It had that "just one more go" aspect to it. Very addictive game, and i eventually began to love the rough and ready look to it. It's a must - have game for the Sega Saturn.
I completely agree that the Saturn version of Daytona is amazing, I’ve been saying it for years too. It plays identically to the arcade version IMHO and I own a stand-up version of the Daytona arcade machine so I get plenty of chances to compare them. Graphically they aren’t too far apart I think. It’s like they took the arcade textures and just reduced the resolution so the colours and atmosphere of the game are the same. Championship Circuit not only doesn’t play right, it also doesn’t look anything like the arcade game.
It’s fascinating to hear Edge gave it 8/10, I could have sworn they slated it! 😅 I’m sure I remember them saying the lack of lighting changes when the car goes through the tunnel was poor. It’s funny to see them highlighting the 40 cars on track too, for years I’ve been saying that feat goes completely unremarked when it’s a real achievement. That said, if you count the cars on-screen during the ending it’s actually 38, but it’s still a huge number!
The Saturn port of Daytona reminds me of the DC port of Sega Rally 2, they were both rushed and could have looked much better if Sega hadn’t been in such a rush to be first to market, yet both play identically to their arcade counterparts, which is what really counts.
I bought the sega saturn in summer of 1995 just for this game alone. I remember that summer playing it nonstop and me and my buddy mike, also an auto racing fan, was always coming over to conquer my scoreboards.
I remember going to a friends house who bought a sega Saturn in a vacation trip to USA, when I saw Daytona USA my jaw dropped , I couldn’t believe there was a home console that could do that kind of graphics, I’ll never forget that day , he had virtua fighter, virtua cop and bug too, I remember the disappointment going back home and looking at my snes 😆 it wasn’t the same looking at magazines than looking at the real thing, internet was in diapers back then
The sonic wall, even appearing in two polygonal chunks was glorious. I was genuinely saddened the day my Saturns external memory cartridge “failed”, not because of all the other game saves I was proud of. For a 15.44 second lap time on the 777 speedway was lost forever.
I had the game at the time. I can promise you I wasn't disappointed with what I got. I'd compare it to Virtua Racing Deluxe in a lot of ways. Sure, it's graphically inferior than the original and not the best showcase of what the machine was capable of, but they nailed that gameplay experience. And I'll tell you right now - if the reviews were shite I wouldn't have bought it. That's all I based my purchases on. What else was there?
Thanks much for this video! Daytona USA is one of my go to games for a quick fix even today ❤ I got Daytona USA Saturn on my Polymega, Daytona USA Arcade on my Ayaneo handheld, and the amazing 360 port with widescreen & HDR on my Xbox Series X ❤
RUclips has its own complete alternate universe of videogame history. Where Final Fantasy VIII was a flop because it’s a tiny bit less popular than its predecessor. Games that sold millions of copies are “hidden gems” because we stop talking about them for 5 seconds. And EVERYONE knew in 1995 that they shouldn’t have bought a Saturn. Hell, I still wouldn’t go back and unbuy the Saturn and this game with what I know now. The Saturn arcade ports made the PS1 feel like the bro box in 1995, while the Saturn master race was playing the same games you enjoy at the arcade.
Daytona on the Saturn was the best selling game in North America. People clearly liked it back then.
Yes, I made that clear in the video by talking about my own memories and the reviews of the time. The video takes aim at the modern day narrative the game was universally slated for its poor performance.
I remember playing the game on import on a Japanese Saturn and deciding Playstation would be purchased first. It was THE most important Sega conversion of all time up to that point and it was a disaster compared to the PS1 launch game Ridge Racer. Until the holy trinity of VF2, VC and Sega Rally popped out Xmas 96 (or 95?) when sales of the Saturn console took a rapid upturn.
There's a RUclipsr who covers Sega topics that I am a big fan of, but was perplexed when he kept saying how bad Daytona USA on Saturn was. I shrugged my shoulders and figure he had done his research; nonetheless, when my shiny new Saturn had Daytona in the drive, I had great fun and thought it was a fantastic display of graphics and performance. I agree with you; as a 18 year old or so, it was astounding!
Another know nothing that never e played it back in the day and just repeated what he read.
As someone who was in the industry back then as senior editor of VGA magazine I appreciate an unbiased look at Daytona and the Saturn in general. Revisionist RUclips gamers not even born when the Saturn was available are part of generation fail. They will actively want things they love to fail simply for the memes. Look how they reacted to E3 ending. 🤦♂️
The Saturn unfortunately was a victim of the PlayStation hype and Sony’s Yakuza type tactics. One day I’ll give an interview about it. The Saturn is a wonderful system and now prices are out of the reach of many as collectors have scooped up most of the games. I’m glad I got my collection when they were new.
If you love the Saturn and appreciate the views of folk “who were there”, then you’ll enjoy our channel mate.
And yeah, Saturn prices are crazy now but thankfully ODE’s for every pocket size are available, so the barrier of entry for Saturn is as low as the cost of console & £105 for a Fenrir. Cheers!
Meu maior motivo de compra do Saturn em 95 pra mim o jogo é incrível me diverti e divirto até hoje com essa versão um jogaço
I loved the arcade game and lived through the Saturn rollout, peak and fade out and admit I loved the system. It provided hours of great gaming for me. I never expected an arcade perfect port, I was just hoping for something close enough to the original that was playable and on that front I'd say they succeeded. I think they did the best they could with what they had and I had many good times with it. Never regretted buying the console or this game.
Great video! I love the Sega Saturn! I love Daytona on the Saturn! It played amazing, and it was just amazing to have it on a home console. I got the US Saturn around launch, and absolutely loved it. I remember loving Daytona in the arcade as well. To be able to play it at home was just incredible. Heck, I even loved Virtua Racing on the Genesis. It (Daytona USA on Saturn) sorely needed multiplayer though!
I didn't have a Saturn when it was current, but when I did get one many years later there were two games that I rushed out and bought: Nights and Daytona. I have the Xbox 360 version which I play on the Series X today, which is easily the best version outside of the arcade, but I loved the Saturn version. Great fun!
It's weird. I was a teenager back then and I guess I assumed nobody would totally overwrite my experience, but I didn't know about the internet then...
For ages, I had Daytona and Virtua Fighter as the only games on my Saturn and I was so happy with both. Replay value was in the gameplay, not the number of options. And yeah, it looked great to me even in PAL.
This is part of a wider issue which is the total disregard for the UK's games history. Gamers, even British, of recent generations talk about the 'Genesis' and 'blast processing' and the 'crash of the 80s' as if they were a thing to us. They think Richard Jacques was a respected composer!
It is hard to nail down any one game as the most important racing game even for a particular narrow era. On a technical front I think I'd have to go with Hard Drivin and the sequel Race Drivin (which would have been an expansion pack or downloadable update if that had been a possibility at the time) A 4 position shifter, a force feedback wheel, a clutch, and even an ignition key instead of a start button. Not only was it one of the earliest polygon based games but it was also one of the first if not the first game to try to deal with actual physics for the car including famously the tire pressure. You got a view from the drivers seat including a dashboard with functioning gauges. You even had to start you engine at the start of the race and if you had chosen a manual you had to put the clutch in to do it and if you didn't use that clutch correctly when shifting gears you could stall or over rev the engine and blow it. You couldn't just treat it like another arcade racer, you had to actually drive it like a real car.
The home ports were all one kind of train wreck or another. For starters none of them could replicate that analog wheel or the 3 analog pedals. Not even the computer ports, sim racing gear just wasn't a thing yet. And for another there were no 3D graphics chipsets yet, the arcade had just brute forced it with extra CPUs (yes, plural) so home hardware trying to run the whole 3D game on just a single CPU that was much slower than the combined might of the arcade machine, yeah. That was never going to turn out great.
So really that game (and sequel) lit the way for what the future of racing games and in particular racing sims was going to look like.
I actually got a few motorola 68010 cpus that are a direct upgrade to the stock Genesis 68000 to test if Hard Drivin' improves at all.
I got this game with my Japanese imported Saturn. Got the racing steering wheel also. Fantastic memories due to an absolute cracking game!
Not sure I would take a jab at Ridge Racer for running at half the frame rate of its arcade version when Daytona USA ran at 1/3 of the frame rate of its arcade counter part. That being said Ridge Racer had features and enhancements over its arcade version, more cars, music, challenges and 3rd person camera. Daytona USA CCE shows we could have had these graphics with 30fps and better draw distance. While the game did review well back in the day it is clear SEGA felt the need to release another version.
Pointing out performance isn’t “a jab”, especially when I made the point of explicitly saying “this video isn’t a slight on Ridge Racer”.
I recently purchased the Japanese version of this. I had championship edition but didn't realise the gameplay is far superior in this! Plays alot like the arcade. Great port of an awesome game!
I get that it plays the best of the Saturn ports, and I am a Saturn lover as it's my favourite console of all time, but the pop in drives me insane these days. If I want to play Daytona in 2024, I open RPCS3 and play the PS3 version in 4K with a good analog controller and it's awesome this way.
I remember spending a whole day in hmv playing this. 😂
Whilst i never had it at the time or played the arcade version, im thankful i completely missed any ov the "daytona saturn bad" narrative. Ive always considered it to look cool. Then i got to play it and even being piss poor at it, its incredibly enjoyable - and ive only played the PAL version.
This was a great game at the arcade and on the Saturn. Played it all the time
Hear hear! I completely agree with you, that game nails the gameplay perfectly and i love to play it from time to time. For those who are sensible to 5th gen low polygon graphics, it's a very charming game visually.
This and sega rally are some of my favourite racing games to play even today, they are so rewarding to master. None of the racing masterpieces to ever come out on the PS1 or any other console can replace those two saturn games, they're treasures.
Ironically I remember us kids that had Playstations being jealous of Saturn owners back in the day at school for this and especially Sega Megamix. We conceded that Ridge Racer had the better graphics, but Daytona had the game play. I remember also being excited when I got a PC powerful enough a couple years later to play the Windows port.
Coming off the Genesis version of Virtua Racing and the 32X's Virtua Racing Deluxe, Saturn's Daytona USA was pretty impressive for a first generation home port.
With the Virtua Racing home ports, I was already used to polygon pop in of the track, this just went with the territory of these polygon home ports. Daytona added the texture mapping, the number of cars on screen and in race, and it brought all of the arcade version home including some hidden stuff.
On launch it was a 7 out of 10 game. Problem was it quickly became a generation of pure visuals and it really was destroyed by the Sega Rally port. So it didn't stop being fun, but it quickly became a 5 outta 10. But it still felt purer than CCE which was absolutely painful for handling.
I traded cce the day I got it.
Excellent video. Shoutouts to Digitiser. Not only were they critical of the Saturn, but Sega in general. Remember the Sonic 3 review?
I remember playing a good bit of the game when I would visit my cousin who had a Saturn. I thought the game was fine then, but I wasn't into racers. A year ago I got into Daytona massively with the M2Emualtor and a wheel, and that year I got a Saturn again and I was surprised at how fun the Saturn version held up as far as gameplay to the arcade version. All of the things I learned to do with the wheel in the arcade translated directly to the pad and the tracks felt and played just right.
Of course the graphics and pop in were rough, but even though Circuit edition is far better looking and running, if I had to play Daytona on the Saturn I'm putting in the OG every time.
Interesting video piece. As much as I'll FOREVER Love the Championship Circuit Edition of Daytona for the Saturn, I have new eyes for the OG Saturn Version! It was INDEED a RUSHED, FLAWED Product, but it took a HUGE game from the arcades to a System with CHUNKY, MESSY 3D Graphics and did a decent Job recreating said experience from THE FIRST DAY of the Console's LIFE! Sega knew what they were creating AND made it rather solid FWIW for it's limitations!! Not only that, but this Sugar Baby of a Saturn Title INADVERTANTLY Taught Sega how to evolve a flawed product and change it over the years. Maybe that should be an unspoken lesson in gaming; Games CAN be flawed, but if it works; it STILL can work (patches or no patches). If X problem is in Y Game, just find a Z Path to fix X problem as we currently do so today. Sega FOR THEIR MANY Flub-ups taught developers that it's okay to be flawed, your game CAN STILL Work. If enough pushes for a decent game where features need to happen; be like Nike and "Just Do It"! Daytona USA's initial Saturn port is a flawed game, but still is A MASTERPIECE with enough effort (rushed or not). Ports of GREAT GAMES are hard to do on weaker systems, but Doable nonetheless (and can STILL Work).
- Takeshi "Mr. Jiswa" Kinniku
Proof that a great game is all about the gameplay, your imagination will fill in the blanks. - Shawn D Barclay, Game Designer
Back then I was a kid and had no idea how it was reviewed or received but I remember my feelings toward those arcade ports (or arcade originals itself I had few interactions with) - even then it was a mix bag. Frankly I was not impressed by Daytona games in 90s and it holds up to this day. Probably the reason for this is that I was introduced to it somewhere later (around 97) and by that time this game felt like past gen product compared to more recent racers on PSX.
I'm not on a hate bandwagon regarding the Saturn Daytona USA. We can agree to disagree. I vividly remember my reaction to Sega Saturn's Daytona USA ( I have '95 video reaction from the event I'll later release on my channel ) .
It was the first annual E3 event in Los Angeles, California. I was an attendee of the Sega press conference that evening. Sega America president Tom Kalinski announced the Sega Saturn would go on sale immediately for $399 ! Earlier, I had attended the Sony press conference regarding the U.S. playstation launch. Sony announced their console to be priced at $299. It was truly a bargain considering the superior GPU performance of the original PlayStation !
I would say all these points largely hold true for Sega arcade ports on all their systems, which was a huge part of the appeal of their consoles. Good video mate.
EVERY arcade game takes a hit when ported onto consoles.
Rush San Francisco on the n64 was another one. Everything suddenly was ultra squared off.
The fact that we got crystal clear and smooth graphics in the arcade version speaks of the advancements they were achieving back in the mid 90s.
Bought a Saturn on UK launch day (coming from a Mega Drive and CD) and I do specifically remember avoiding the original Daytona port and never bought it because it was poor but did pick up the second version (Championship Circuit Edition) as soon as it was released.
Absolutely love this game. Played it for hours. Hundreds of hours- easily, lol. I was 13yo, doing 500 lap marathon races as the unlockable _horse_ pausing only to pee or inhale pizza rolls, lmao. It's hard to think of many memories on Saturn that are fonder for me than with Daytona USA.
As you rightly stated in the video, there really wasn't anything coming as close to Daytona USA in the home, back in 1995, besides Ridge Racer on PlayStation ofcourse. Even if it runs choppy, has bad pop-in, and lacks proper multiplayer, I think Daytona USA on Sega Saturn handles comfortably and is very, very playable. The myth surrounding the negativity likely comes from those early RUclips reviewers, you know the ones, they made angry videos about games alot of the time and often got their facts wrong. Sadly, Sega Saturn's failure in the West meant it became the butt of many bad jokes, Daytona included.
I still remember buying my Saturn when I was 13. It's sad that it failed so fast.
Got my Saturn for Christmas 96, when they were including Virtua Cop, Virtua Fighter 2, and Daytona USA. Trust me when I say I had way more fun with this than I ever did Ridge Racer.
I honestly can’t remember seeing review scores back in the day but I did end up buying the game and as much as I tried, I just couldn’t enjoy it. It just didn’t feel enough like the arcade game. I returned it a few days later, and exchanged it for Sega rally, and I guess because it was such an incredible port, it worsened my opinion of Daytona even more.
Great video. Has genuinely piqued my interest. Maybe now that I have a better appreciation of the hardware limitations, I’ll finally be able to enjoy it for what it is and not what I wanted it to be.
Ridge Racer is better to me and objectively I feel, however, I still remember this game from a demo over more than a decade ago. The music, the colors, the gameplay. I don't recall half the modern games I've played leaving that impression. If there was ever a classic, this was one and I don't think it even set out to be one.
I remember first seeing this in arcade and I was blown away with how good it looked
I've always been in both alleys with Saturn Daytona. I lived and breathed this game in the arcades back in the day. I even remember getting my copy of Saturn Daytona from Cash Converters during lunch time in school back in 1996.
But I instantly felt the difference between the arcade version, more in its frame rate than graphics, but still, the graphics also.
Also, playing Sega Rally on the Saturn at the same time as this version, yeah, night and day for me.
Saturn Daytona will always play great, but it's one of the few arcade conversations that I felt was impacted by the greatness of the arcade version and I couldnt help but feel disappointed; Whereas I go the other way with Sega Rally and say that the Saturn port is better than the arcade.
Great video James.
I played the sat version first but seen the arcade version first so I kinda feel you on that. Didn’t have the money back then for the astronomical 1 dollar fee at the time vs other cabs so I learned to love
My sat version. The pc version is even better though and deserves some love.
All arcade racing games of SEGA are awesome!!! I always play Out Run 2, Sega Rally Revo and of course Daytona in my Xbox 360
Crikey, Teletext? Now that's something I haven't heard spoken about in years! Interestingly I had my review of Shining Force III published on this service... and Panzer Dragoon Saga in Sega Saturn Magazine 😁
Great video. Really interesting to see how well it reviewed given how quickly the narrative became ‘Ridge Racer puts Daytona to shame and the Saturn is terrible as a result.’ It still plays great now.
i got my sega saturn recently, and was followed with amazing gameplay, i bought sega rally and virtua fighter 2 and they were both astounding. i decided to look for a copy of Daytona USA as my local arcade still has one of the original cabinets from themid 90s, but decided to not buy one when i heard it was "bad" maybe now ill decide to go back and buy it afterall!! amazing video
Ladies and Gentlemen, Start Your Engines!
Daytona had got the same love from me. What i gave to outrun. Them Hitachi cpu's were working hard on that saturn. It was underrated and sure as hell deserved more love. Sega is a brilliant hardware and software house. Yes, daytona was rushed but hay it was to meet deadlines. I loved it and still do. Own it on the saturn of course, ps3 and mame (even tho my roms are damaged as they was pulled from the arcade pcb) which I was given the pcbs. I've held onto them as its apart of my life on one of sega's greatest ever arcade games ever made in the 3d generation. Thank you for making this video and review 👍🏼
Great vid! In 2024 the graphics don't even look that bad - they look great in fact! It's retro 3D. Not to mention everything else this port has going for it. Makes you wonder what all the fuss was about, especially back then when this was state of the art.
Still got my original copy, though i play the 360/PS3 version mostly (had the 360 version since launch, though recently got the PS3 version which is still available, and which has free multiplayer unlike 360 - thanks to MrThunderwing for the heads up on that!) - though might be time to reconnect the Saturn again for some original magic!
The thing that bothered me the most on this port wasn't so much graphics, personally I felt the controls were kind of clunky but then again I haven't played it for many years so makes me think I should try it again
The controls are virtually identical to the arcade and was one of the thing the devs had to make sure were the same.
Thank you. These retconned narratives are annoying. My best friend and myself both had launch year Saturns and Daytona USA. Everyone thought it was fantastic and it was without question a 3D show piece and one of the go-to games that we got deep into playing and competing with for times for a short period of time. Hell my father who had no interest in games but was a NASCAR fan used to show it off to his buddies as an example of how far technology had come lol.
Some of these modern reviewers talk as if 12 year olds in the 90's had a Model 2 arcade cabinet sitting right beside their Sega Saturn for comparison lol.
I loved playing the arcade. Daytona USA was one of the last Dreamcast games I purchased and it delivered in gameplay, IMO.
The gameplay is the primary reason why I prefer the Saturn version over the later CCE and Dreamcast port. It just doesn't feel quite right in either of those games, unlike the original Saturn version, which pretty much nails the arcade feel despite using the Saturn d-pad. The graphical shortcomings DO make the game feel a little different from the arcade version, but it's not enough that it destroys the overall feel (and more importantly fun) of the game.
Ridge Racer in September of 1995 was the most incredible racing game I had ever seen on a home console. That said, I never cared that much for the arcade version. Daytona USA was THE arcade game for many years, and while Ridge Racer looked great (especially in its deluxe cabinet), the power sliding was too wild and wonky for me to appreciate, and that remains the case to this day (when I play the PSX version, I try to drift as little as possible). It's also a barebones game, both in arcade and console form, even more so than Daytona and every other Sega game I can think of.
All of this is to say that when I finally got a chance to play Daytona USA on a Saturn kiosk at Blockbuster Video, I absolutely loved it. There were graphical issues, sure, but overall I thought it was a great-looking game. I was blown away that we had reached the point where a game like Daytona was now playable on a home console. Additionally, while Ridge Racer is clearly graphically superior in many ways, there's something about the bright color palettes and texture details of Sega's early 3D games that I just love.
I do wish that Sega had delayed the launch of Saturn rather than pushing it forward with the surprise E3 announcement, so that they could have focused on better development tools and a more polished software lineup, but Daytona USA on Saturn is still a good game regardless.
I have always thought that the videogames media manipulation to badly affect some games is not of recent years. Younger I used to let myself be driven by reviewers when deciding to buy a game. Now that I'm older I have realized how many good opportunities in gaming I also lost.
Well said! this type of echo chamber extends to all sorts of things like the why it failed rubbish videos.
This game is so fun still - thanks for making this video! I agree that there was some slander against the Saturn (despite having built in internal memory unlike ps1 and I think a better color spectrum if I remember the specs right ) - however Sega definitely felt there was enough issues w the game to re release it for this platform 2 times in the states and two times in Japan(their CE version was superior ) - as well as the insanely expensive net link version (which I’m still curious about playing myself). The Xbox arcade/ps3 versions were absolutely amazing and so glad we got those. Maybe a the new Sega IP remasters we will see more Daytona !
It game played great, very close to the arcade. The graphics were a little rough around the edges but by no means bad in 1994 when it was released.
any way we might be able to get an English translation for this video?😂 Just kidding man, I think you're the only major scotsman Sega Saturn RUclipsr, great video and I agree having been in my early 20s when Saturn launched. All of this was awesome back then, jumped into Sega with the 32x lol so if anyone should have a bad take you'd think it would be me but this was an awesome time and playing this at home was incredible (and I would read ALL the gaming magazines at the grocery store while my wife got the groceries...but I always PAID for and wore out diehard gamefan) this was reviewed positively everywhere
😂 Cheers Aaron, I do try and enunciate more when speaking on mic for the channel, glad you enjoyed the video! The views and experiences us old timers have from back then are so important to keep alive. We were living history in the making; we just didn’t realise it because we were having that much fun!
You’re generally right about the reviews at the time, even the US reviews. What needs to be emphasized though is that public opinion WAS that Daytona was a disappointment. Yes, everyone agreed that it played like the arcade. The problem was that most people looked at the Saturn and PlayStation as the machines to keep them occupied for the next few years, and since Ridge Racer looked so much better, these two games in visual competition were representing every kid and adult’s gaming future.
Every polygonal launch game on the PS looked significantly better on than Sega’s launch titles. They had higher poly models, that had higher frame rates, and they had lighting effects. Additionally, the PlayStation games came from a variety of devs, yet the Saturn poly games were almost all from Sega. If Sega’s in- house teams couldn’t match the graphical fidelity of 3rd party launch titles on the PlayStation, how was the Saturn going to compete?
As a Sega fan, I understood this. And it had me worried.