The Saturn is one of my most prized possessions. I seriously lucked out finding a gently used one for $80 (CAD) back in 1998. I had it modified and got an Action Replay Plus right away from National Console Support. I'm still buying games for it today including Parodius Deluxe I just got yesterday from Japan. History can bash it all it wants, people who own one and know what it's truly capable of know much better.
I won my Sega Saturn on a Nickelodeon Saturday morning TV show in the UK. Came with Sonic 3D and was my first home console - all my friends had consoles but I guess my parents couldn’t afford one. I appreciated my Saturn more than most kids would have and to this day it has pride of place among my various consoles. I appreciate the lengths you went to in order to get your Saturn and enjoyed this video 👍
if it was a bit stronger GPU wise... if you play MK Trilogy and look at those shadows and name plates... it's not as it should... and 3D games were a bit too much as well.. sure it had potention, but psx had on 3D part a bit better. I beter if they all knew how it would work out they would've spend out a bit more on the used CPU/GPU to release this hardware with less load times.. on psx playing some games are just horrid. Especially in some RPG.. it takes ages before you can fight and you have to level up/grind some...
I still remember going to funcoland back in april 1996 and trading my snes, gameboy and all games for them along with a few genesis games I didn't want any more for the sega saturn, an extra controller and street fighter alpha. I always loved playing on the genesis more than the snes but the sega saturn really hit that special gaming spot for me when I started getting more and more games for the system and saw what the system could do with both home and arcade games. I never cared about what any of those idiots working at funcoland said about playstation being better and always stuck with sega saturn and don't regret doing it. playstation didn't have Cotton 2, Panzer Dragoon, AMOK or those higher quality arcade ports from capcom and SNK. for me it always came down to quality and sega always hit that mark no matter how much fame playstation got and that's why I'll always be glad I went with Genesis Sega Saturn and Sega Dreamcast and will always be happy I played on those system during those active years no matter what console war idiots said about them.
True story. When the Super NES was fading from the market, I found a old video rental store that had all their old Super NES games for sale. Really cheap. Like $10 no matter what game it was. Many of them were quite rare even then, and I knew Funcoland paid well for many of them, so I scooped up all the Super NES games I could afford, dozens of them, some with boxes and manuals, and took them straight to Funcoland and traded them in. I parlayed like $350 into well over $1000 in trade in credit. Of course I wish I had kept those Super NES games in the long run because they are a fortune now, but it was still a major score. Used all that credit on Saturn games. It was Xmas in July.
@referral madness Since I'm older I actually went from master system to genesis to saturn and then to dreamcast. 😁 But I first started gaming on the atari 2600 and then to atari 5200 and colecovision and then nes and master system. 😀
@referral madness Yeah, really sad a lot of people born after my generation never got to see sega truly active back in the day. Sega really were ahead of their time when it came to making both home and arcade systems and games for them and the company really deserves more respect than it was getting since if it wasn't for them making all of the graphical advances they did starting back in the 80's I doubt gaming would have boomed like it did even with nintendo on the market. If you haven't seen them yet check out SLX's older videos about sega's arcade boards from back then. Seeing a lot of those games really brought back memories for me since my friend and I used to play a number of those games in arcades back then.
As a huge Capcom fan I just had to have the Saturn when I saw how well its conversions of Capcom arcade fighting games was. Plus it was the only way you could play Fighters Megamix, a very underrated Sega fighting game packed full of extras. I got a used Saturn for $50 in 1998 shortly after Sega announced production was discontinued in North America. I picked up domestic titles like Street Fighter Collection, Nightwarriors, Virtua Fighter 2, Guardian Heroes, and Fighters Megamix. I imported Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter, Street Fighter Zero 3, and Vampire Savior along with an Action Replay 4 in 1 cartridge to play them with. My Saturn still works to this day and is one of my all time favorite systems.
From the Holiday 1996 issue of Ultra Game Players: "As of right now the Saturn seems to be an unstable choice because of its low installed base, lack of third party support, and the ever-looming hardware upgrade. However, no other system has as many great games as the Saturn. ... So basically, if you owned all three systems, you would play your Saturn the most, but if you could only purchase one system, the PlayStation is still the better choice." Score 6.0/10. For reference, they scored the PSX an 8.0 and the N64 a 7.0. What a heartbreaking but accurate summary. I love the Saturn with all my heart. :)
My father buyied a Saturn in mid 1998, here in Brazil, it came with 3 games, Daytona, Virtua Fighter Remix and Wordwide Soccer 97 Good times, but the console dind't played the CD games when we get home at night, it was only playing the music, i was 6 years old and i remember crying so much because i want to play the games immediately so the next day we have to go back to the store and get another Saturn with me crying yet while my father was explaining the malfunctioning to the balconist 😅
I was just in 6th grade when Saturn came out in North America... I can still remember the feelings of excitement and anticipation as I waited to play Sega's next gen system. The first thing I played was Daytona and I was like OK cool cool, half hour later we popped in some japanese-looking game called Panzer Dragon or whatever, well I had to pick my jaw up off the floor, the opening cinematic and the MUSIC, my god, the music, and the first levels, the atmosphere, the fantasy world-building with it, I was in love with Saturn from that moment on and I still am
My Japanese saturn has 23 years old, still working ! If I could go back in the past I would tell sega to make a deal with Sony before they started to develop the PlayStation...
I used to have a Japanese psx from 1997 and it worked just fine until it was stolen from me 3 years ago. It's awesome how those consoles were made to last back in the day, i found another psx from 1998 with it's original lens just had to fix the joystick port
My experience is not necessarily representative any any larger trends, but the Saturn has been the system that has given me the most trouble. My first Saturn was from the summer of 1995 and had to go to Sega for warranty repair twice before the end of that year, for disc-read errors. It worked well for years after that, but wasn't reading discs again years ago when I last checked it. My second Saturn I got used several years ago worked well for a while, but seems to have power supply issues now. Again, I'm not saying it means anything as for the system's overall quality and may just be pure bad luck. At least I got a few good controllers with that second one. Oddly enough, I bought a used PS1 in 1998. It was one of the early units known for skipping and my unit never developed that problem.
@@ravagingwolverine You just had bad luck with the saturns you got especially with a used one that was owned by someone that doesn't know how to take care of any of their consoles in general. I've only had one bad saturn and it was clearly bad because whoever had it before me had a lot of dust in it and the disc drive died eventually and the controller ports were also dirty to the point where even cleaning them didn't help make the controllers work properly.
@@HellTantrumbull bad luck is certainly possible. I know of no widespread issues with the system. As I said, my experience may not mean anything(just like my PS1 experience). The one I got used was in pretty decent shape. That one seemed to develop issues with the power supply, which is more due to age than condition. The good thing is that machine worked fine when I got it and I played a good bit of Dragon Force and Virtua On with it. The controllers I got with it were worth the entire price I paid, and I use them on PC as well, so it was a good buy. I'm glad to hear other people's Saturns are working well. It's a great system.
@@ravagingwolverine Yeah, even though the saturn is a strong system age is starting to catch up with it (mostly with the cd drive) even with people that take care of them. in the early years the saturn unlike the ps1 very rarely had hardware problems and if it did sega fixed them as soon as possible while the ps1 suffered from over heating and disc drive problems with each revision and even problems with the psone model which pissed me off since I spent $150 for that model. >_>
I remember the Official Saturn Magazine that we had in the U.K, The last year it was on sale was pretty much just them covering all the import games from Japan and slowly moving over to Dreamcast previews, It was quite a sad thing as a young Saturn fan back then.
Amazing retrospective on a system I sadly never got to experience. I love the personal touches and anecdotes that bring your videos to life. Keep up the awesome work!
It's so emotional to see all the good Sega channels recognizing the Saturn this week. Seriously love your work. Featuring you on my Eddy's Retro Games FB page (not plugging myself, I love posting your stuff there).
Sorry you went through a rough patch... glad to see and experience you doing better!!! Your passion for video games shows through your videos. I watch them all and you rock! Thank you for all the content!
I really appreciate videos like this because I like hearing about peoples personal experiences with games and consoles as well as the consoles themselves.
Another awesome video 👍 I loved my Saturn and no regrets over buying it. It was, and still is a fantastic machine, with some truly epic games. Keep em coming 👍
I picked up my Saturn at launch in the US, and despite all the ups and downs it is one of my all time favorites and played the shit out of it when I had and even years later! The amount of unique and fantastic game experiences is hard to top, even today!
I had the same experience you did when it came out in the u.s, till this day I love my Saturn, I have the cart to play Japanese games but one day I would love to get my hands on a Japanese Saturn, the Saturn is one of my favorite systems.
The Saturn was an amazing console. It was a 2D beast. But it was difficult to program for due to its complicated chip set. But I still have fond memories of the Saturn.
I too had a recent rough patch in life (family member passed away) and wanting something to help me get over it, decided, on account of Sega Lord's videos, to realize one of my dreams to play Panzer Dragoon 2 Zwei on actual Saturn hardware. I've made the plunge, and boy, I do not regret it one bit. I now have 4 other games besides PD2Z and from experience so far, the best Saturn games have a certain simple pick up and play quality different from the best of PlayStation games, something which is much appreciated at a time when I couldn't dedicate hours of time for gaming. This is the longest comment I made on any YT videos so far but it is my own personal testimonial on how fun gaming on the Saturn is and a thank you to Sega Lord X for your informative Sega videos.
I also imported the Saturn and had zero regrets. I remember the turning point was watching the intro and first level of Panzer Dragoon at a friends house. I had tears in my eyes because it was so beautiful. I ordered the Japanese Saturn the very next day. Later on I got a region switch installed so I could play US games but I mostly bought imports. Love the Saturn so much.
The best version of Virtua Fighter 1: Virtua Fighter Remix. The best version of Daytona USA: Daytona USA: Championship Circuit Edition/Daytona USA: Circuit Edition. And the best version of Mortal Kombat 3: Mortal Kombat Trilogy.
Goddamn RU-vid is making me feel old with this recommendation. I bought my Saturn at or near release here in the UK, I got the console and the VirtuaGun with VirtuaCop. I'm still using my Saturn too. Not so much for gaming these days but I love the Saturn's audioCD interface and love playing music on it.
Excellent video. It goes without saying that the Saturn deserves much more praise than people gave it back then, and nowadays, looking back at how it works, how actually good it was for its time and its quality library, people seem to be much more appreciative of it. European here, btw. My brother bought us a Saturn in late 1996, Bundled with Tomb Raider at the time. The event that led to his decision was the fact that one of his friends bought one overseas during a trip to Japan, earlier that year. We were astonished at how awesome most of his games were, but Dragon Force was *that* game. We had to get it, and we did, once it made its way to Europe in 1997. We wanted to import one, but sadly we were never in a position to be able to support the costs; so much so that we paid our console by instalments. Both me and my brother doing chores for relatives and neighbours and saving as much as we could to pay up each month. My console is still up and running; I probably cared for it more than I cared for many people. And that's because the console helped me, as well, growing up through several different personal problems. Both the console and my games' collection are my most esteemed treasures, and no matter what happens, those will be kept with me forever.
haha, your description of the adventure how to get your console and games in these days were so funny. 5-8 hours of driving to a shop...great stuff. And today...click her, click there, done :)
Wow! 25 years, it doesn't seem possible. I still play so many 2D fighters and Sh'mups on the system that still look amazing. Hell, 8 player Bomberman is still a regular game played with friends during game gatherings. The best Bomberman in history. I love the Saturn for the different experiences it brought to the gaming world during its (too) short of life span. Long live the Saturn...in my house it will live forever.
I didn't really discover the Saturn until around 1999. I was immediately drawn into importing, and I was rewarded with all of the awesome fighting games! What an awesome system!
The Japanese Saturn is my clear cut third favorite home console behind The Neo Geo AVS and The Japanese Super Famicom. All three were very distinct and Iconic 2D beauties. The Japanese market library of the Saturn just may be my favorite overall collection of games to play. Those games still bring the arcade home like very few systems ever have. Thanks for this video.
Sega Saturn is still my all time favor console, follow by Dreamcast and PS2. It got the best controller, best 2D fighting games library, best Sega acrades game its period, best 2D shooters library (1945, Raiden etc). Those are the type of games I play the most now day.
Had my Jap Saturn since May 1995 , HST0001 . Still love it and play it when i have time . The Saturn was illfated ever since the Playstation came out but now it's one of the most collectable consoles around !!!!!
A lot of nostalgia in that video, we had a Die Hard Game Fan import store down here in Miami. They had all of the Japanese systems; the Neo Geo CD, the PC-FX, the Saturn and the Playstation, each one of those were at least $700-800. The owner would charge kids by the half hour to play the import consoles. I sampled the Playstation and Saturn, but waited for the US versions of each...I eventually did get a couple import Saturn titles (along with 4 meg converter cart); Xmen vs Streetfighter and Vampire Savior (Darkstalkers 3 Jedah's Damnation).
I loved when some of my favorite 3DO games were ported over to Saturn, because they looked and ran so much better. GEX being one of the standout titles that ran so much better on Saturn, Even better than the playstation version.
Bought the PS on 9/9/95 and loved it, but couldn’t get SEGA out of my blood; I bought the Saturn from Montgomery Ward around Christmas of the same year. Can’t necessarily explain it, but the Saturn became my favorite system and STILL is. I have a PS4 pro, XB1X, Switch, DreamCast, and many others, but none have dethroned the Saturn. Sega Lord X, I truly get it. Great video👍😎
Another great video SLX! I too love the Saturn and have very fond memories. Picked up close to launch at Circuit City. I too loved Virtua Fighter and Daytona despite all the bad reviews. They played great! And then the Panzer Dragoon series was amazing, not to mention Virtua Fighter 2 looking drop dead gorgeous. It was great having these awesome arcade conversions at home. Also loved Sega Rally and Virtua Cop. I loved Virtua Cop in the arcades, and the experience was great at home on the Saturn w/Stunner. You make a great point that it's not all about the sales numbers, etc, but your actual personal experiences with the console. Lot's of great games that I enjoyed with friends and family, creating memories I'll never forget.
I got the package that came with the 3 arcade ports. I was so impressed with the unit as it was my first 32 bit console, but I was quickly disappointed when I went to Blockbuster and realized they had two shelves of Saturn games, while there were numerous rows of PlayStation titles. I was 10 years old at the time and wasn’t in the position to purchase many games, and knew nothing of importing. With that being said I still have fond memories of my Saturn.
I was a bit too young to know what was happening in the console market during the Saturn launch. But I was definitely old enough to know my brother trading in our Sega Genesis and ALL our games for a PS1 was a big mistake. I never got to experience the Saturn during its time but I did see it occasionally in magazines. I ended up enjoying the PS1 alongside my older brother during the era (as it was his anyway), playing Crash, Spyro, Tekken, etc but I now own a Saturn and look forward to collecting repros to it, the backlog is a pain man, a joyful one I tell ya that.
Surprisingly the first next gen console experience of mine, and one of the first consoles I truly remember playing in my early years. Was about 4 at the time and remember playing genesis and siblings playing SNES, but the Saturn made the biggest impression on me at the time. Virtual Fighter Kids was my shit for years.
I had a PlayStation as a kid. I picked up my Saturn, gray Japanese model 1, at a retro game store in Japan in 2006 for 400 yen (about $4 US). Common games were selling for about 100 Yen ($1) which is what I paid for Virtua Fighter 2, Fighters Mega Mix, Panzer Dragoon, and Knights into Dreams. I splurged and spent another $4 on a copy of Saturn Bomberman, the most expensive Saturn game I bought at the time. For about $20, I went back to my dorm room in Kyoto with a Saturn, 2 controllers, and about 5 games.
I'm glad that I'm not the only one who feels this way. The Sega Saturn was a new feeling from the Megadrice and mega-cd. The Dreamcast came across as trying to get the same feeling and Sonyise it. Now I really love the Dreamcast, but there is a kind of 'what if?' feeling about the Saturn
Great video. I was not an early adopter of the Saturn. I came across it as I was working at a used game store and decided to pick one up, and I have never regretted it. I quickly began to grab any and every title that came thru the store at test it. I remember going to my local EB games because I heard they had a Saturn game on clearance, and that was the day I got Magic Knight Rayearth for $5.00!
I live in Mexico CIty and the company who helped me to import Saturn games (in 1996) was TOMMO inc. I´m proud that I started buying from E-bay in 1997 using the Saturn Netlink.. (I started importing from Japon in 1999 with the Dreamcast). Till today, SATURN is my No.1 console.. It has the only game in my entire life that made me play 3000+ hours (the 3 Shining Force III games), even so I do not understood scenario 2 and 3.
Glad you really enjoyed the Saturn ride bro. I don't know if anyone else feels this way or not, but when I bought my first PS1, I was really excited, but got bored with it soon after. I was the opposite of you, SLX. I soon traded my PS1 for a car stereo. I eventually bought another PS1, which I mainly used for NFL Game day. Spent a lot of time playing that. Actually had friends back then and we played at all hours of the day! I've said this before as well...had Sega debuted an original Saturn Sonic, Ida' been on board! Oh well. Maybe someone will come out with one via homebrew (A 2d Sonic, for this 2d monster console that is.) Again, really glad you enjoyed the ride that owning Saturn brought. One thing I can tell you is how much I enjoy learning how developers such as travellers tales and team Andromeda for example, used the hardware to it's fullest potential. Is so interesting to me.
TBH i'm kinda shocked, that you uploaded this 25th anniversary video 3 days too early... Anyway, the SEGA Saturn is my favorite gaming system by far! ♥
I didn't want it lost in the sea content that will likely drop the 22nd. Especially since it was short and more a personal story than a historical retrospective.
Would be nice but i experienced in the past, that most channels ignore the original JP anniversaries but celebrate the US/EU anniversary. I wouldn't be surprised if we see tomorrow only a handful of videos but an avalanche on May/July 2020. 😅
Favourite game system and my best memory is importing Bio Hazard months before the UK release and managed to complete the game without understanding single word of Japanese by clicking around everything....it took me solid 1 month of play to finish the game. Other highlights include being amazed by Panzer Dragoon 2 and using the console as my Hi Fi system and you could connect the system through VCR onto the TV and record the gameplay!
I loved my Saturn. Dragon force. V.F 2. Daytona USA. Sega rally. Nights.Super robot wars. Shining force 3. House of the dead and more..... it was such a good time.
True story...I didn't ask to get a Sega Saturn during my teens until my father's friend gave his Sega Saturn as a gift as he did not have time to play with it. It come with Mobile Suit Gundam and Nights into Dreams. I was totally blown away by Mobile Suit Gundam with it's anime cut scenes and fast paced action. Soon I was getting Sega Saturn games including Sakura Wars which I bought every installment until the Dreamcast. (I am getting the Shin Sakura Wars also too!) Furthermore, I really enjoyed the Japaneses Saturn games more with so many anime related games and all the Rated 18 games that you can't really find in PS and Nintendo. It has become one of my favorite console together with Super Famicom as the go to for Japanese anime related games!
The launch of the 32/64 bit machines is fascinating. I think that if I was in my late teens during this (and the launch of ps2, GameCube and Dreamcast) I would've seriously considered importing each respective system as here in the UK we always got consoles amongst the last. We got the N64 in March 1997 (8 months after it's Japanese launch) and the GameCube in May 2002 (9 months after launch!). But given that I was just a kid it didn't make much difference anyway cos I'd always have to wait until Christmas haha
VF Remix, Daytona, Panzer Dragoon, Worldwide Soccer, Astal, Clockwork Knight - those are all really great Saturn games to play in '94 and '95. And the software library over time only became better and better. It's still the best console for arcade-style videogames and captures the turbulent era of Generation 5 perfectly. I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Great video as always! Brought back loads of memories for Me.. Oh what could've been if only SOA & SOJ had actually been on the same page! Least there were tons of imports to play though!
Out of all my games consoles i own. I still play on my Sega Saturn to this very day and still buy games for it. I got it for my birthday back in 1997 and at the time I bought it because of sonic jam and I thought it would be the last chance of owning any of the original sonic games on a Consul.
That Batman theme song never gets old I loved that soundtrack , It's a classic among Batman Games. Batman Returns for SNES was also great I had alot of fun with both.
I recently purchased a Japanese Sega Saturn with eighteen great games to boot. I missed out on the craze as a child, but I’m happy to admit that I absolutely love this console.
Of all the systems I've owned my Sega Genesis and Sega Saturn were my favorites. The reality of this system's power was demonstrated when I play Dragon Force. I don't remember any other system being able to render 200 characters on the screen in the detail and fluidity of the Saturn. I also spent many hours on Virtua Fighter and Virtua Cop.
That's nice I like that end bit where you go it's not about did the y outsell the competitor or did they outsell your gaming console it's about did you genuinely enjoy the experience of the gaming console . That's how I sorta look at it with gaming consoles.
It was an expensive endeavor to be sure. I don't think most people could get their parents to pony up that kind of dough. You needed to be a bit older and/or not averse to working regularly.
very nice video. how much nostalgia i completely forgot the difficulty to import, discovering games etc. internet now make things so much easy from 98. in my region middleeast and east africa the system were always multiregion.
Great video again....in my case...i regret when i was a kid and sell my saturn to buy a playstation ( the most of my Friends have one) Saturn bring so many sweet memories...so now...its almost 2 weeks...i have one Saturm again. Love your Channel Lordx
It's great to find some people that remember the good things about Sega. They are dismissed far too much these days. I have many hours of satisfaction from the Sega console I've owned.
I was playing sonic 3 in 1995, OMG I never wanted a system so bad. The Saturn totally intrigued me☝🏾 I JUST HAD TO HAVE VIRTUA FIGHTER 2 IN MY LIVING ROOM IN 1995🙌🏾
Just the title makes me feel old, man. I remember a stack of CDs on a workbench in 10th grade physics class being used for some project. One of them was Virtua Fighter Remix, and my teacher just let me have it!
The real problem with the Saturn wasn't that it was difficult to program for. The PS2 and PS3 were difficult to program for, and still sold way more numbers of consoles. Heck, even the N64 was considered kind of difficult to program for, but still managed to do fairly well. It had everything to do with how Sega botched their management of the console.
